The Oriental MSS., in number 420, of the famous Edward Pococke, Regius
Professor of Hebrew (who had deceased Sept. 10, 1691), were purchased by
the University for £600. They are chiefly in Armenian, Hebrew, and
Arabic, with three volumes in Æthiopic, a Samaritan Pentateuch, and a
Persian Evangeliary. A list is given at pp. 274-278 of Bernard's
Catalogue. In 1822 the Library became possessed of a portion of
Pococke's Collection of printed miscellaneous books, by the bequest of
Rev. C. Francis, M.A., of Brasenose College. They are chiefly small
volumes in Latin, on historical subjects; and are, for the most part,
placed in the shelves marked 8^o Z. Jur. [Arabic version of Isaiah, see
p. 81.]
Another large Oriental collection was added in this year by the
purchase, from Dr. Robert Huntington, for the sum of £700, of about 600
MSS. These he had procured while holding the post of chaplain to the
English merchants at Aleppo[149]. The collection is one of very great
value and rarity. No. 1 is a fine and ponderous Syriac volume,
containing the works of Gregory Abulpharage. No. 2 is a very fine folio
Arabic MS., written in the year of the Hegira 777 (= A.D. 1375), and
dedicated to the Sultan Almalek Alashraf Shalian ben Hosain; in it, as
Uri says in his Catalogue, 'variæ Ægypti regiones recensentur, agrorum
cujusque regionis mensura definitur, et annui redditus exponuntur.'
Dibdin[150] describes it in his own exaggerated style, as follows:--'One
of the grandest books-- ... a sort of Domesday compilation--which can
possibly be seen.... The scription is in double columns, with the
margins emblazoned only in stars. The title, on the reverse of the first
leaf, is highly illuminated, in a fine style; not crowded with
ornaments, but grand from its simplicity. At the end, we observe that it
is (rightly) called _Munus Pretiosum_, and that the author was
Sherfiddin Iahia ben Almocar ben Algiaian. The inspection of such a
volume, on the coldest possible morning, even when the thermometer
stands at _zero_, is sufficient to warm the most torpid system.' No. 80
is a copy of Maimonides' _Yad Hachazaka_, revised by the author, with
his autograph signature at the bottom of fol. 165, and a MS. note by him
on fol. 1. Of these an engraved facsimile is given in _Treasures of
Oxford, containing Poetical Compositions by the ancient Jewish Authors
in Spain, and compiled from MSS. in the Bodl. Libr. by H. Edelman and
Leop. Dukes; edited and rendered into English by M. H. Bresslau_: part
i. 8^o. Lond. 1851. A second part of this work was to have contained
prose selections from MSS. in the Huntington, Pococke, Michael, and
Oppenheim collections, but no more was published. Among Huntington's
books there are also three, of no great antiquity, in the Mendean
character, of which Dr. T. Smith narrates in his life of Bernard (1704,
p. 21) that two were said to have been given by God to Adam, and the
third to the angels, 330,000 years before Adam. And one volume (No. 598)
is in the Ouigour language, a Tartar dialect, of which very few
specimens are known to exist. A gentleman (M. Vaḿbery M.
Vaḿbery), the traveller in Tartary, who is engaged in forming a
Chrestomathy of this dialect, came in the last year to England for the
purpose of examining this volume, as one of the few on which his work
could be based. Three MSS. exist at Paris; but that in the Bodleian is
said to be the most beautiful of all as a specimen of writing, as well
as the most ancient. It is a version of the _Bakhtiar Nameh_. A
description of it, with an engraved facsimile, is given in Davids'
_Turkish Grammar_, 4^o. Lond. 1832, pref. p. xxxi.
An exchange of some duplicates was made with the Library of Queen's
College, and in 1695 the duplicates of Bishop Barlow's Collection were
transferred, in accordance with his will, to the same Library.
[149] He had previously given thirty-five MSS. in the years 1678, 1680,
and 1683. He died on Sept. 2, 1701, only twelve days after his
consecration as Bishop of Raphoe.
[150] _Bibliogr. Decam._ iii. 472.