On Oct. 8, died Dr. Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, who, retaining his
attachment for the place over which he had presided from 1652 to 1660,
bequeathed to it seventy-eight MSS. (now bound in fifty-four volumes),
and all the printed books in his collection which the Library did not
possess, the remainder going to Queen's College. They appear to have
been received in the years 1693-4, as large payments for the carriage
are found in the accounts then. His MSS. are described in the old
Catalogue of 1697. The printed books, which are particularly rich in
tracts of the time of Charles I and the Usurpation, are still kept
distinct, being called _Linc._; ending, in the 8^o series, at about the
middle of the shelves marked with the letter C in that division. They
are placed in the gallery on the left hand of the great central
room[147]. His legacy included a copy of the famous _Exposicio Sancti
Jeronimi in Simbolo Apostolorum_, which was printed at Oxford in 1468,
and completed, as the colophon states, on Dec. 17. This volume was given
to Barlow, as he notes at the beginning, by Bishop Juxon, July 31, 1657.
It is exhibited in the glass case near the entrance. The Library
possesses also seven other productions of the early Oxford press. They
are as follow:--
1. _Ægidius Romanus de Peccato Originali_, dated March 14, 1479.
This was one of Rob. Burton's books. Qu. unique?
2. _Textus Ethicorum Aristotelis, per Leonardum Arretinum
translatus_, 1479. One of Selden's books.
3. _Expositio Alexandri [de Ales] super tertium librum [Arist.] De
Anima_. 'Impressum per me Theodericum rood de Colonia in alma
universitate Oxon.' Oct. 11, 1481.
4. _Joh. Latteburii Exposicio Trenorum Jheremie_, July 31, 1482. No
place, but printed with the same type as the last.
5. _Liber Festivalis_, in English, printed by Rood and Hunt, 1486.
Two copies, but both very imperfect. The more imperfect one of the
two formerly belonged to Herbert, and was bought for £6 6_s._ in
1832; two additional leaves have been inserted by Mr. Coxe, which
were found among Hearne's scraps, having been given to him as
fragments of a Caxton by Bagford. The other copy was bought in 1852,
at Utterson's sale, for £6 10_s._
6. _Opus Wilhelmi Lyndewoode super Constitutiones Provinciales_. No
place or date, but identified by the type.
7. _Vulgaria quedam abs Terentio in Anglicam linguam traducta_.
Without place or date, but also identified by the type. The
following note, which corroborates the identification, is written in
red ink on a fly-leaf in the volume (which includes several other
tracts): '1483. Frater Johannes Grene emit hunc librum Oxon. de
elemosinis amicorum suorum[148].'
A list of sixty-six books, which Hunt, the Oxford printer and
bookseller, had in his hands for sale in 1483, is preserved in his own
writing on a fly-leaf in a copy of a French translation of Livy, Paris,
1486, which was bought for the Library from Mr. C. J. Stewart, in Dec.
1860, for £12. The list is headed thus: 'Inventorium librorum quos ego
Thomas Hunt, stacionarius universitatis Oxoniensis, recepi de Magistro
Petro Actore et Johannis (_sic_) de Aquisgrano ad vendendum, cum precio
cujuslibet libri, et promito (_sic_) fideliter restituere libros aut
pecunias secundum precium inferius scriptum, prout patebit in
sequentibus, Anno Domini M^o. CCCC^o. octuagesimo tercio.'
[147] In most of them is inscribed the motto, αιεν αριστευειν.
[148] This last book is described by Dr. Cotton in the second series of
his _Typographical Gazetteer_, published in 1866, from a copy in the
University Library at Cambridge. Besides the other Oxford books
enumerated by that learned bibliographer, several fragments of another,
a _Compendium totius Grammaticæ_ (conjectured to have been written by
John Anwykyll, Waynflete's first Grammar Master at Magdalene College)
have been discovered. They have been identified by Mr. H. Bradshaw, the
Librarian of the University of Cambridge, whose extensive acquaintance
with early typography is well known. That gentleman found, at Cambridge,
two leaves in the University Library in 1859, two more in Corpus Christi
in 1861, and two in St. John's in 1866. Four other leaves were
discovered by the present writer in 1867, bound up as fly-leaves in a
volume in the library of Viscount Dillon, at Ditchley, Oxfordshire. Mr.
Bradshaw supposes the book to have been printed about 1483-6.