The Library was enriched with the collections of the well-known
antiquary, Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph, who died on Dec. 14, in
the preceding year. By his will, dated Nov. 22, 1733, he bequeathed his
MSS. to the Library together with such printed books, not already there,
as the Curators and Library-keeper should think fit to accept. But he
directed his executor to burn all his sermon-notes, 'and other little
pieces and attempts in divinity,' as well as all his own private papers
and letters. The largest portion of his MSS. (nearly 300 volumes out of
467) consists of the papers which he himself says he 'bought of
Archbishop Sancroft's executors,' but which it is said in the _Gent.
Mag._ for 1782 (cited by Gough in his _British Topography_, i. 126) he
bought for eighty guineas of the bookseller Bateman, to whom Sancroft's
executors had sold them[200]. Together with these, and perhaps not now
to be distinguished, are some of the collections of Dr. Nalson between
1640 and 1660. To the latter a claim was made through Archdeacon Knight,
in 1737, by Dr. Williams of St. John's College, as grandson of Nalson;
but the Bishop's brother replied (as we learn from a copy of his answer
and of another letter written by him in 1753) that the Bishop had
bought them at Ely, where they had lain neglected for many years, and he
thought possibly from some one living in the house which Nalson
inhabited when Prebendary of Ely. The matter ended by Dr. Williams
waiving any claim which he had, in consideration of the place of deposit
being the Bodleian[201]. Sancroft's and Nalson's papers together
comprise a large series of letters of the time of the Civil War, of the
highest interest and value, from most of the leading personages on both
sides, including Charles I, Rupert, the Protector Oliver, and Hampden.
There are also collections relating to various dioceses, with very much
that illustrates both the ecclesiastical and literary history of the
seventeenth century[202]. A selection from the Civil War letters was
published, in 2 vols. in 1842, by Rev. Henry Cary, M.A. (a son of the
translator of Dante, and at that time an assistant in the Library),
under the title of _Memorials of the Civil War_; but the transcripts
were very carelessly made, and scarcely a single letter can be trusted
as faithfully and _verbatim_ representing the original. Another volume
of selections from Sancroft's papers was published, with much better
care, by Will. Nelson Clarke, D.C.L., 8^o, Edinb. 1848, entitled, _A
Collection of Letters addressed by Prelates and Individuals of high rank
in Scotland, and by two Bishops of Sodor and Man, to Archbishop
Sancroft, in the reigns of Charles II and James VII_[203]. A catalogue
of the MSS., compiled by the Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A. (now
Sub-librarian) was published in 1860, in a thick quarto volume, forming
vol. iv. of the general Catalogue of MSS. The several volumes are
described in brief in the body of the work; but a very full Index is
subjoined, in which the contents of all the letters and papers are
entered in detail. The printed books (upwards of 900) contain many, by
the Reformers and their opponents, which are of the utmost rarity in
early English black-letter divinity. One of these is an unique copy (as
it is believed) of an edition, printed without place or date, of the
_Pore Helpe_, of which there is also an unique copy of another edition,
equally without place or date, among the Douce books. It has not
hitherto been remarked that two copies, or two editions, exist of this
metrical satire. Another volume, which contains several tracts printed
by W. de Worde and Gerard Leeu, has also two by Caxton, hitherto
unnoticed as exhibiting his type, and described in the Catalogue simply
as being books without place or date. The merit of their discovery as
Caxton's is due to the recent research of Mr. Bradshaw, the Librarian of
the Cambridge Library. The one is a clean and perfect copy of the
_Governayle of Helthe_, with the verses called _Medicina Stomachi_, of
which the only copy known to Mr. Blades is in the library of the Earl of
Dysart at Ham House; the other a wholly unknown quarto edition, in the
same type, of the _Ars Moriendi_.
Unfortunately, when Tanner was removing his books from Norwich to
Oxford, in Dec. 1731, by some accident in their transit (which was made
by river) they fell into the water, and were submerged for twenty
hours[204]. The effects of this soaking are only too evident upon very
many of them[205]. The whole of the printed books were uniformly bound
in dark green calf, apparently about fifty years ago; the binder's work
was well done, but unhappily all the fly-leaves, many of which would
doubtless have afforded something of interest, with regard to the books
and their former possessors, were removed. Many of Tanner's own letters
are to be found amongst the Ballard and Hearne MSS., as well as
scattered here and there in other collections; and one volume of them
was purchased in 1859. Some coins were given by him in 1733. We learn
from the Accounts that Thomas Toynbee, an undergraduate of Balliol
College (B.A. 1743, M.A. 1745), received £12 12_s._, in 1741, for making
a list of Tanner's MSS., and that E. Rowe Mores, the subsequently
well-known antiquary, arranged some of his deeds in 1753-4.
[200] Eighteen other volumes of Sancroft's MSS. are to be found in the
Harleian Collection, Brit. Mus., and a few among Wharton's books at
Lambeth.
[201] Thirty-one other volumes of Nalson's papers were offered for sale
to Dr. Rawlinson in 1751 (Letter to H. Owen, Rawl. MS. C. 989. fol.
121). Four volumes which belonged to Bp. Moore's library were restored
to Cambridge out of Tanner's collection in 1741; two of them were
registers of the Abbeys of St. Edmund's-bury and Langley.
[202] Some collections for Wiltshire made by Tanner did not come to
Oxford with his library, but were forwarded by his son in 1751.
[203] Dr. Clarke appears not to have been aware of the existence of an
interesting volume of letters from Scottish Bishops to Bishop Compton of
London, among Rawlinson's MSS. (C. 985), which was rescued by Rawlinson,
with the rest of Compton's papers, from being destroyed as waste paper.
Other letters, including a large number from Archbishop Burnett of
Glasgow, addressed to Archbishop Sheldon, are in a volume of the Sheldon
papers.
[204] _Gent. Magaz._ 1732, p. 583.
[205] None of them, however, are now in the state described in a note in
_Letters by Eminent Persons_, ii. 89, where it is said that many 'have
received so much injury as to be altogether useless, crumbling into
pieces on the slightest touch.' Perhaps the unique copy of _The Children
of the Chapel Stript and Whipt_ which Warton says was amongst Tanner's
books, but which has never appeared in any Bodleian Catalogue, may have
perished from this cause. For a notice of the disappearance of two of
Churchyard's tracts, see under the year 1659, p. 81.