Francis Junius, born at Heidelberg in 1589, who had passed a large part
of his life in England as librarian to that Howard Earl of Arundel who
collected the marbles which go under his name at Oxford, as well as the
MSS. similarly entitled, which are preserved in the British Museum and
at Heralds' College, bequeathed to the Library, on his decease at
Windsor in this year, all his Anglo-Saxon MSS. and his own life-long
collections bearing on the philology of the Northern nations. Amongst
these are some English relics of the greatest value and importance. The
book of metrical Homilies on the Dominical Gospels, compiled by an
Augustinian monk named Ormin, who thence called his book _Ormulum_ ([OE:
'þiss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum, Forrþi þatt Orrm itt wrohte']) is one
of the chief of these. Its date is conjectured to be the 13th century.
It is written on parchment, on folio leaves, very long and very narrow
(averaging 20 inches by 8) in a very broad and rude hand, with many
additions inserted on extra parchment scraps. Twenty-seven leaves appear
to be wanting. The whole work was first published in 2 vols., at the
University Press in 1852, under the editorship of R. M. White, D.D.,
formerly Professor of Anglo-Saxon. Cædmon's metrical paraphrase of
Genesis and other parts of Holy Scripture, illustrated with numerous
curious drawings, is another of the gems of this collection. The MS. is
of the end of the tenth century, but the work itself is now generally
believed to be, in the main, the production of the earliest English
poet, the Cædmon noticed by Bede (iii. 24), who died towards the close
of the seventh century, and not, as Hickes conjectured, of some later
writer of the same name. The MS. first came to light in the hands of
Archbp. Usher, by whom it was given to Junius. The latter published it
at Amsterdam in 1655, and it was re-edited by Mr. Benj. Thorpe in 1832;
several English and German translations have also appeared. Many of the
drawings were engraved and published in 1754, as illustrations of the
manners and buildings of the Anglo-Saxons; and the whole of them have
been engraved in vol. xxiv. of the _Archæologia_, with some remarks by
Sir H. Ellis. MS. 121 is an extremely valuable collection of the Canons
of the Anglo-Saxon Church, written in the tenth century, which belonged
to Worcester Cathedral; and there are four valuable volumes of Homilies,
which appear, however, to have been part of Lord Hatton's gift to the
Library. (See under 1675[138].) Besides books, Junius left to the
University six founts of Gothic, Saxon, and other types, together with
the moulds and matrices.
Fifty-five MSS. and printed books, chiefly Oriental, were purchased in
this year from the library of Dr. Thomas Greaves, Deputy-professor of
Arabic, who died May 22, 1676. It appears from the list in Bernard's
Catalogue that sixty-five volumes were purchased, but that ten of these
were never sent. With Greaves' own books were obtained also the MSS. of
Richard James, of Corpus Christi College, nephew of Thomas James, the
first Librarian, which had come into the possession of his friend
Greaves upon his death in Dec. 1638. These amount to forty-three
volumes, entirely written by James himself, in a large bold hand; they
consist chiefly of _Collectanea_ bearing on the history of England from
various MSS. Chronicles, Registers, and early writers, particularly with
reference to the corruption of the Church and clergy before the
Reformation, and in opposition to Becket. A full list of their contents,
drawn up by Tanner, is given at pp. 248-253 of Bernard's Catalogue. The
price paid for the books bought out of Greaves' library was £55.
Fifteen shillings were paid, as appears from the accounts for the year,
for the carriage of a whale from Lechlade, which, strange to say, had
been caught in the Severn, and was presented by William Jordan, an
apothecary at Gloucester[139]. Ten shillings were also paid for a 'sea
elephant.'
[138] Parts of MSS. 4 and 5, which had been stolen from the Library,
were recovered, in 1720, in the manner recorded in the following entry
in the Benefaction Book: 'Vir doctissimus Joannes Georgius Eckardus,
bibliothecæ Brunsvicensis præfectus, pro singulari sua humanitate, folia
quammulta MSS. Dictionarii Fr. Junii, continentia sc. litteras F. et S.,
a nequissimo quodam Dano jam olim surrepta, propriis sumptibus redemit
et Bibl. Bodl. ultro restituit.' Some further portions of Junius' papers
(including some which had formerly been in the Library) are recorded to
have been given in 1753 by the Provost and Fellows of Queen's College.
[139] In the Benefaction Book this gift is assigned to the year 1672.