The Anatomy School, on the Library staircase, was fitted up in this year
as a room for receiving the Greek and Biblical MSS., and
fifteenth-century editions of classics. In 1794 it was ordered that it
should be distinguished by the name of the _Auctarium_, a name which it
still retains. Mr. John Thomas, of Wadham College, (B.A. 1790, M.A.
1793) was employed in 1790 in arranging the room and making a list of
its contents.
Many early editions of the classics were purchased at the sale of the
library of Mapheo Pinelli, at Venice. To enable these purchases to be
made, the Curators made a public application for loans, to which a
liberal response was returned, as noted under the following year.
The increased attention which began to be paid to the Library about this
time is thus mentioned in a letter from Mr. Dan. Prince, the Oxford
bookseller:--
'Our Bodleian Library is putting into good order. It has been
already one year in hand. Some one, two or three of the Curators
work at it daily, and several assistants. The revenue from the tax
on the Members of the University is about £460 per annum, which has
existed 12 years. This has increased the Library so much that it
must be attended to, and a new Catalogue put in hand. They have
lately bought all the expensive foreign publications. A young man of
this place is about making a Catalogue of all the singular books in
this place, in the College libraries as well as the Bodleian.... We
have a young man in this place, his name is Curtis, who was an
apprentice to me, who has hitherto only dealt in books of
curiosities, in which he is greatly skilled, superior in many
respects to De Bure, Ames, or his continuator. He has been employed
five or six years in the Bodleian Library, and since at Wadham,
Queen's and Balliol. He purposes to publish a Catalogue of little or
not known books in Oxford, particularly in Merton, Balliol and
Oriel[268].'
[268] Nichols, _Lit. Anecd._ iii. 699, 701.