Fell, Bishop of Oxford, who died July 10, bequeathed a few MSS. They
consist of an early and curious collection of _Vitæ Sanctorum_ in four
folio volumes, of a transcript (in nine folio volumes) of a _Glossarium
Septentrionale_ by Francis Junius, Dionysius Syrus in Latin by Dudley
Loftus, and two Greek MSS., Damascius and Euthymius Zigabenus, described
at the end (col. 907) of Mr. Coxe's Catalogue of the Greek MSS. One
other MS. has somehow been incorporated in this collection (now numbered
21-23) which does not belong to it. It is a _Clavis Linguæ Sanctæ_, or
explanation of all the Hebrew, and some Chaldee, roots, found in the Old
Testament, by Nicholas Trott, in three folio volumes, written with great
care and neatness. This, of which the first part had been printed at
Oxford in 1719, was sent to the Library in 1746, as appears from the
following letter, preserved (without address) in a parcel of papers
relating to the Library, now in the Librarian's study:--
'MY LORD,
'My wife's grandfather Judge Trott, cheif justice of South Carolina,
desired on his death bed that his forty years' labour relating to the
Hebrew root might be sent as a present to the Publick Library at Oxford.
I proposed to have carried it, but my time has allways been taken up at
a disagreable series of Court Martials, and now I am again going to the
West Indies. That I must beg your Lordship will order or give it a
conveyance to the University, and I am, with great respect, my Lord,
'Your Lordship's most humble servant,
'_23 Nov., 1746._ 'THOS. FRANKLAND.'
It appears, however, from the accounts, &c., that the MS. was not
actually delivered until 1748 or 1749, when it was received through Dr.
Hunt.
A few of Bishop Fell's MSS. came subsequently to the Library among those
of Rev. Henry Jones[144], who succeeded Fell in his rectory of
Sunningwell, Berks, in the church of which parish the Bishop's wife was
buried.
At the Visitation on Nov. 8, it was ordered that notice be given that
'Nullus in posterum quemlibet librum aut volumen extra Bibliothecam
asportet,' and that monition be sent to every College and Hall for the
return of any books taken out within three days. Several books appear to
have been reported in previous years as missing; hence, doubtless, the
issue of this order.
[144] Hearne's pref. to John Ross, p. 1.