'Dum sic fluctuant omnia, statui apud me in tuto (id est, apud vos spero) MS. quædam, temporum priorum monumenta, deponere. Pauca sunt, sed prioribus similia, si non æqualia, et talia quæ, non obstantibus temporum difficultatibus, in usum vestrum parare non destiti. Sunt vero inter hæc Hebraica sex, Græca undecim, Arabica tringinta quatuor, Latina viginti et unum, Italica duo, Anglicana totidem, Persica quinque, quorum unum, folio digestum ampliori, historiam continet ab orbe condito ad finem imperii Saracenici, et est proculdubio magni valoris. Hæc per vos in Bibliothecam Bodleianam (nomen veneror, nec superstitiose) reponenda, et cæteris olim meis apponenda, cupio, et sub eisdem legibus quibus priora dedi. Non opus est multis donum hoc nostrum nimis exile ornare, nec id in votis meis unquam fuit. Hoc obnixe et quotidie a DEO Opt. Max. summis votis peto, ut Academia semper floreat, in ea Religio et Pietas et quicquid doctrinam decorare potest in altum crescat, ut tempestatibus quæ nunc omnia perflant sedatis, tuto possitis et vobis et studiis et, præ omnibus, DEO frui. Quæ vota semper erunt 'fidelissimi et amantissimi Cancellarii vestri, 'W. CANT.[99] 'Dat. ex ædibus meis 'Lambethanis, 6^to Nov. 1640.' The collection, which contains in the whole nearly 1300 MSS., comprises works in very many languages: Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Ethiopic, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and English are all represented. It is impossible, in the limits of this survey, to point out many of the treasures with which the collection abounds; but that which is pre-eminently styled 'Codex Laudianus' (numbered Laud, Gr. 35) must not, of course, be omitted. It is a MS. of the Acts of the Apostles, in quarto, consisting of 227 leaves, and containing the text in both Greek and Latin, in parallel columns. Its date has been variously fixed by critics, from the sixth to the eighth century; Mr. Coxe places it towards the end of the seventh century, with whom Dr. Tischendorf, who examined it in 1865, and for whom some photographs of portions were executed, is believed to coincide. Some leaves are wanting at the end, commencing at chap. xxvi. 29. It is the only MS. known to be extant which contains the peculiar readings (in number 74) cited by Bede in his Commentary as existing in the copy which he used; it has consequently been conjectured, with much reason, that this was the very MS. which he possessed. It was published by Thomas Hearne in 1715, printed in capitals corresponding line for line with the MS., but not with entire correctness; only 120 copies were printed, and it is therefore one of the rarest in the series of his works. A very fairly engraved facsimile of one verse (vii. 2) is to be found in Horne's _Introduction_.