ANNALS
OF THE
BODLEIAN LIBRARY,
OXFORD,
A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867;

With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded
in the Fourteenth Century.

BY THE REV. WILLIAM DUNN MACRAY, M.A.
CHAPLAIN OF ST. MARY MAGDALENE AND ST. MARY WINTON COLLEGES;
EDITOR OF "CHRONICON ABBATIÆ EVESHAMENSIS," &c.

RIVINGTONS
London, Oxford, and Cambridge
1868

PREFACE.

This volume is an attempt to tell a tale which has not been told with any particularity and fulness since the days of Anthony à Wood, and yet a tale which, since those days, has been continually growing in interest, and engaging in fresh scenes the attention and admiration of successive generations. Fragments of the tale, it is true, have been told at times; latest of all, an abstract, brief but accurate, has been given in Mr. Edwards' valuable Memoirs of Libraries. But the present narrative, while it embraces a wider range, is, at the same time, independent throughout of all that have preceded it, being largely compiled from sources available only to those who are familiar with the stores of the Library and habituated to their use, as well as from private accounts and papers, for access to which, as for other kind assistance, the writer is indebted to the Librarian. Yet it is only as an attempt that the volume asks to be received and judged; for a work of this kind cannot at once attain completeness. Its very size will show to those who are acquainted with its subject, that minuteness in detail cannot be expected. The difficulty has been, out of the abundance

of materials, to compile an epitome which should at once be concise and yet not, through conciseness, be deprived of interest. To point out all the special treasures in each branch in which the Library is rich, as it would occupy the extent of several volumes, so it would require the combined knowledge of several students, each in his several sphere. While, therefore, no portion of the Library has been unnoticed, it will, the writer trusts, be readily pardoned, should those portions with which he is specially acquainted, and in the direction of which his own line of work specially leads, seem to any to occupy more prominence than others of equal importance. It is worthy of notice that, in tracing the growth and history of the Library, the fact of its older divisions having undergone comparatively little change in arrangement, greatly facilitates examination, and, at the same time, often imparts an interest of its own to well-nigh each successive shelf of books; for each tier has thus its own record of successive benefactions and successive purchases to display, and leads us on step by step from one year to another.

'Bowers of Paradise!' Thus it was that an enthusiastic Hebrew student, writing of the Bodleian but a few years ago, apostrophized the little cells and curtained cages wherein readers sit, while hedged in and canopied with all the wisdom and learning of bygone generations, which here bloom their blossoms and yield up their fruits. And, as if answering in actual living type to the parable which the Eastern metaphor suggests, these cells from year to year have been and (though of late more infrequently) still are, the resort of grand and grave old bees, majestic in size and deportment, of

sonorous sound, and covered with the dust, as it were, of ages. Just as a solemn rookery befits an ancestral mansion, so these Bees of the Bodleian form a fitting accompaniment to the place of their choice. And while the Metaphor well describes the character of that place whither men resort for refreshment amidst the work of the world and for the recruiting of mental strength for the doing of such work, so the Type well describes those who from the bowers gather sweetness and wealth, first for their own enriching and next for the enriching of others. Long then in these bowers may there be found busy hives of men; above all, those that gather thence, abundantly, such Wisdom as is præ melle ori.

Bodleian Library,
May 30, 1868.

CONTENTS.