758, vol. ii. of Rev. H. Anstey's _Documents Illustrative of Social and Academic Life at Oxford_, published in the series of Chronicles issued by the Master of the Rolls. The extent of these gifts rendered the room at St. Mary's quite insufficient for the purpose to which it was assigned, and the University therefore, in a letter to the Duke, dated July 14, 1444, informed him of their intention to erect a more suitable building, of which (as a delicate way, probably, of bespeaking his aid towards the cost, as well as of testifying their gratitude for past benefactions) they formally offered him the title of Founder. In the subjoined note is given an extract from this letter (copied from the Register of Convocation), which is interesting from its description of the inconveniences of the old room, and the advantages of the new site[7]. And this new building, first contemplated in A.D. 1444 and finished about 1480, forms now the central portion of the great Reading-Room, still retaining its old advantages of convenience and of seclusion 'a strepitu sæculari.' The Duke's MSS. were, as became the object of his gift, very varied in character. With works in Divinity are mingled in the catalogue a large number in Medicine and Science, together with some in lighter literature, amongst which latter are found no less than seven MSS. of Petrarch and three of Boccaccio. Some additional MSS., being 'all the Latyn bokes that he had,' together with £100 towards the completion of the 'Divyne Scoles,' which the Duke had intended to bequeath, but the formal bequest of which was prevented by his dying intestate in 1447, were subsequently procured, although with considerable difficulty[8]. But only three out of the whole number of his MSS. are now known to exist in the present Library. One of these is a fine copy of books iv.-ix. of Valerius Maximus, with the commentary by D. de Burgo, and with an index by John de Whethamstede, Abbot of St. Alban's (now marked, Auctarium, F. infra, i. 1[9]); the second is a translation by L. Aretine of the Politics of Aristotle (marked, Auct. F. v. 27); and the third, the Epistles of Pliny (Auct. F. ii. 23). The first bears the Duke's arms; the second has an original dedication to him by the translator; the last (which was restored to the University by Dr. Robert Master, Oct. 30, 1620) contains his own autograph. Six MSS. now in the British Museum, which formerly belonged to the Duke, are described in Sir H. Ellis' _Letters of Eminent Literary Men_, (printed by the Camden Society,) pp. 357-8. Two of these appear in the List of Humphrey's benefaction to Oxford; for Harl. 1705, which is a translation of Plato's Politics by Peter Candidus, or White, who gave it to the Duke, is doubtless the book entered at the end of the List as 'Item, novam traductionem totius Politeiæ Platonicæ;' while Cotton, Nero. D. v., the Acts of the Council of Constance, appears at fol. 67. Another of these six MSS., Harl.