It is from this date that our notes on the history of the Library can
begin to assume an annalistic form. A gift of £20 from Herbert
Westphaling, Bishop of Hereford, was expended in the purchase of books
with great success; no fewer than thirty were obtained, and amongst them
were, 'Evangelia quatuor Saxonica, lingua et charactere vetustiss.,'
being the MS. from which John Foxe had taken the text of the Saxon
Gospels in the edition published at the expense of Archbishop Parker in
1571, and which was subsequently re-edited by Junius. It is now
numbered, Bodl. MS. 441. An early edition (qu. _editio princeps?_) of
the Gospels in the Russian language (now placed among the Bodley MSS.
213) appears among some books given by Sir Henry Savile[27], whose
brother-historian and antiquary, William Camden, is also registered as
the donor of a few MSS. and printed books. Thomas Allen, M.A., of
Gloucester Hall, the astrologer, gave twenty MSS[28]; the rest of his
collection came subsequently to the Library, included in that of Sir
Kenelm Digby, to whom Allen had bequeathed it. One of the twenty now
given was an extremely curious volume, chiefly written in the ninth
century (marked Auctarium F. iv. 32), including in its contents an
original drawing (engraved in Hickes' _Thesaurus_, p. 144) by St.
Dunstan of himself as prostrate at the feet of the throned Christ[29], a
grammatical tract by Eutychius (or Eutex, as the scribe calls him, while
professing doubt as to the right form), with Welsh glosses (noticed by
Lhuyd in his _Archæol. Brit._ p. 226); the first book of Ovid _De Arte
amandi_, with similar glosses[30]; and lections in Greek and Latin from
the Prophets and Pentateuch, amongst which is one from Hosea containing,
in the Latin version, a line or two unlike any known early version,
(although faithful to the Hebrew), but found also in a quotation in
Gildas[31]. Capt. Josias Bodley[32] gave an astronomical sphere and
other instruments in brass, which now stand in the south window
adjoining the entrance to the Library. But the great benefactor of the
year was the newly-appointed Librarian, Thomas James, who gave various
MSS., chiefly patristic (which, however, Wood says, 'he had taken out of
several College libraries'), and sixty printed volumes. From the first
preparation of the new foundation Bodley had fixed upon James, then a
Fellow of New College, as his Library-Keeper. The volume of letters
published by Hearne (from Bodl. MS. 699) in 1703, under the title of
_Reliquiæ Bodleianæ_, consists chiefly of those which the Founder
addressed to James while his collection of books was in process of
formation, but unfortunately they have no dates of years, and Hearne
printed them simply as they came into his hands, without any attempt to
determine their order of sequence. We learn from these that James'
salary at the outset was £5 13_s._ 4_d._ quarterly; but almost at once
he threatened to 'strike' unless it were raised to an annual stipend of
£30 or £40, while at the same time he demanded permission to marry. This
latter requisition appeared particularly grievous to Bodley, who had
made celibacy a stringent condition in his Statutes, and he forthwith
expostulated strongly with his Librarian on these his 'unseasonable and
unreasonable motions' (p. 52). The upshot, however, was that Bodley,
very unwillingly, consented to become the 'first breaker' of his own
institution, (which 'hereafter,' he says, 'I purpose to become
inviolable,') and, for the love he bore to James, allowed him to
marry[33]. But it was not until the year 1813 that the Statute was
altered and the Librarian released from his obligation of perpetual
celibacy, and even then, by a singular and unmeaning compromise, it was
ordered that he, as well as the Under-Librarians, should be unmarried
_at the time of election_. The whole restriction was, however, finally
removed on the revision of the Statutes in 1856. But its infringement
appears to have been again tolerated, in one instance, at least, during
the last century, viz. in the case of Dr. Hudson. Hearne[34] enters the
following 'memorandum' of uncharitable hearsay gossip respecting his
quondam chief and friend: 'Dr. Hudson was married when he was elected
Librarian. His first wife was one Biesley. That he hath now is his
second. It is said that he was married to this Biesley when he was
Taberder of Queen's. The Dr. hath been of a loose, profligate, and
irreligious life, as I have often heard. The family of the Harrisons he
is married into now is good for just nothing, being as stingy (if it can
be) as himself.'
[27] Savile's benefactions were continued in the years 1609 and 1614,
and in 1620 he sent a large number of Greek and Latin MSS.
[28] In the year 1604 he appears again as the donor of some printed
books. A notice of one of his MSS. (now Bodl. 198), which once belonged
to Bishop Grosteste, was by him given to the Friars Minor at Oxford, and
by them, about 1433, to Gascoigne, who presented it to Durham College,
is to be found in Warton's _Life of Sir T. Pope_, 1772, pp. 392-3. The
volume contains MS. notes by both Grosteste and Gascoigne.
[29] Another relic of Dunstan is preserved among the Hatton MSS. No. 30
of that collection. 'Expositio Augustini in Apocalypsin,' written in
Anglo-Saxon characters, has the following inscription in large letters
on the last leaf: 'Dunstan abbas hunc libellum scribere jussit.'
[30] These glosses, together with an 'Alphabetum Nemnivi' in Runic
characters, (of which a facsimile is given in Hickes' _Thesaurus_, p.
168), and some Welsh and Latin notes on weights and measures, are
printed, with copious notes, by Zeuss in his _Grammatica Celtica_, 8vo.
Leipz. 1853, vol. ii. pp. 1076-96. The MS. is described also in Wanley's
Catalogue, p. 63, and the latest account of it, together with a
facsimile from the tract by Eutychius, is to be found in Villemarqué's
_Notice des principaux MSS. des anciens Bretons_, 8vo. Par. 1856. And
the Alphabet of Nemnivus, together with another, and somewhat later,
Runic Alphabet (of the 'winged' form), found in Bodl. MS. 572, is
printed at pp. 10-12 of the _Ancient Welsh Grammar of Edeyrn_, edited
for the Welsh MSS. Soc. in 1856 by Rev. John Williams, ab Ithel.
[31] This reading was pointed out to the author by Rev. A. W. Haddan,
B.D.
[32] Afterwards Sir Josias, a younger brother of Sir Thomas, and
Governor of Duncannon in Ireland, author of a humorous Latin tour in
Lecale (a barony in the county of Down), which, although not
unfrequently met with in MS, has never yet been printed.
[33] _Reliquiæ Bodl._ p. 162. See also p. 183.
[34] _Diary_, vol. lviii. p. 157.