The death of the eminent topographer and antiquary, Richard Gough, on
Feb. 20, 1809[275], brought into operation the bequest made to the
Library in his will, dated ten years previously. This consisted of all
his topographical collections, together with all his books relating to
Saxon and Northern literature, 'for the use of the Saxon Professor,' his
maps and engravings, and all the copper-plates used in the illustration
of the various works published by himself. The transmission of this vast
collection was accomplished by Mr. J. Nichols, the executor, in the
course of the year; and some of his correspondence on the subject is
printed in his _Illustrations of Literary History_, vol. v. pp. 556-561.
The collection (which numbers upwards of 3700 volumes) was placed in the
room formerly the Civil Law School, that room having been assigned to
the Library a few years previously, and fitted up (at a cost of about
£675) for the reception of various historical collections. In the same
room are now the Carte, Dodsworth, Tanner, Willis, Junius, and portion
of the Rawlinson, manuscripts, with other smaller collections; the name
proposed to be given to it, and by which it was designated in Gough's
will, was 'The Antiquaries' Closet.' Gough's library consists, firstly,
of a large series of maps[276] and topographical prints and drawings, in
elephant-folio volumes; of this a very brief outline-list is given in
the printed catalogue, but a full list in detail exists in MS[277].
Secondly, of printed books and MSS., arranged under the heads of General
Topography, Ecclesiastical Topography[278], Natural History, the several
Counties (with London, Westminster, and Southwark) in order[279], Wales,
Islands, Scotland, and Ireland. Thirdly, of 227 works connected with
Anglo-Saxon literature and that of the Scandinavian races generally.
Fourthly, of an extremely large and valuable series of printed
Service-books of the English Church before the Reformation, together
with a few MSS., chiefly _Horæ_. The value of this series may be
gathered from the following statement of the Missals, Breviaries,
Manuals, Processionals, and Hours, which it comprises, besides which
there are Graduals, Psalters, Hymns, Primers, &c.
_Missals_, Salisbury use, 30
" York " 4
" Rouen " 1
" Roman " 3
" 'pro sacerdotibus in Anglia, &c. itinerantibus.' 1
_Breviaries_ and _Portiforia_, Salisbury use, 18
" " York " 2
" " Hereford " 1[280]
_Manuals_, Salisbury use, 10
" York (MS.) " 1
_Processionals_, Salisbury use, 10
" York " 1
_Hours_, Salisbury use, 24
" Roman " (besides several MSS.) 1
Of several of these books there are more than single copies.
A fifth division of Gough's library consists of sixteen large folio
volumes of coloured drawings of monuments in churches of France, chiefly
at Paris, in Normandy, Valois, Champagne, Burgundy and Brie, and at
Beauvais, Chartres, Vendosme and Noyon. They form part of a large
collection extending through the whole of France, which was made by M.
Gagnières, tutor to the sons of the Grand Dauphin, and given by him to
Louis XIV in 1711. Of this collection, now preserved in the Imperial
Library, twenty-five volumes were lost amid the troubles of the French
Revolution, between 1785 and 1801; but in what way, out of the
twenty-five, these sixteen came into Gough's hands, has not been clearly
ascertained. The collection is of great value, as most of the monuments
were defaced or destroyed by the revolutionary mobs. Gough's volumes
contain about 2000 drawings, of the whole of which facsimiles were made
in 1860 by M. Jules Frappaz, by direction of the French Minister of
Public Instruction, (who made application for the purpose, through Mr.
J. H. Parker, in 1859) for the purpose of so far supplying the
deficiency in the series at Paris[281].
The copy of the _British Topography_, which Gough had prepared for a
third edition (of which a considerable part of vol. i. had been printed,
but was burned in the disastrous fire at Mr. Nichols' printing-office in
Feb., 1808,) was bought by the Curators of Mr. Nichols in 1812 for
£150[282]. It has been recently bound in four very thick volumes. A
fifth volume contains the proof-sheets of that portion of vol. i. which
had been printed, extending to _Cheshire_, p. 446. The collections for
the first edition make three volumes.
By Gough's bequest the Library became also possessed (as mentioned
above) of the very valuable copper-plates which illustrated his
_Sepulchral Monuments_, and other works. In 1811, one hundred guineas
were paid to Basire, the engraver, for cleaning and arranging 380 of
these plates. Amongst these was the actual brass effigy of one of the
Wingfield family in the fifteenth century, from Letheringham Church,
Suffolk, of which an engraving is found in the _Monuments_. The brass is
now exhibited in the glass case of miscellaneous objects of curiosity in
the Picture Gallery.
The Catalogue of the collection was issued from the University Press, in
a quarto volume, in 1814. It was chiefly compiled by Dr. Bandinel, to
whom fifty guineas were paid for it, in 1813; but Dr. Bliss has
noted[283] that the first 136 pages were prepared by himself. In the
_Bibliographical Decameron_ (vol. i. p. xcv.) Dibdin has made honourable
mention of the 'perseverance, energy, and exactness' with which he found
Dr. Bandinel working on a very hot day in the year 1812, in the
arrangement of the collection, 'in an oaken-floored room, light,
spacious, and dry.'
Some account and survey-books, belonging to University and Magdalen
Colleges, which came to the Library among Gough's MSS., were restored by
vote of Convocation on March 9, 1814.
* * * * *
The MSS. which the well-known traveller, Rev. Edw. Dan. Clarke, LL.D.,
had collected during his journeys through a large part of Europe and
Asia, were purchased from him in this year for £1000. A first portion of
a Catalogue, comprising descriptions of fifty volumes, of which fifteen
are in Latin, two in French (Alain Chartier, one being the printed edit.
of 1526), and the rest in Greek, was published in 1812, in quarto, by
Dr. Gaisford, who printed in full some inedited Scholia on Plato and on
the Poems of Gregory Nazianzen. A second part of the Catalogue,
containing a description of forty-five volumes in Arabic, Persian, and
Æthiopic, was issued by Dr. Nicoll, in 1814. The special feature in the
collection is a MS. of Plato's Dialogues, from which the Scholia are
printed in the Catalogue, written (on 418 vellum quarto leaves) by a
scribe named John (who styles himself _Calligraphus_) in the year 896,
for Arethas, a deacon of Patras, for the sum of thirteen Byzantine
_nummi_. The D'Orville MS. of Euclid was also written for this Arethas
(see p. 208).
[275] A very full memoir of him is to be found in the _Lit. Anecd._ vol.
vi. pp. 262-343, and 613-626. His miscellaneous library was sold by
auction in 1810. Two drawings in sepia, by F. Lewis, of his house at
Enfield, were bought in 1861.
[276] One of these is a very curious manuscript map of England and
Scotland, executed in the fourteenth century, which now hangs, framed
and glazed, in the eastern wing of the Library. It was bought by Gough
at the sale of the MSS. of Mr. Thomas Martin, of Palgrave, Suffolk, in
1774. A facsimile (engraved by Basire) and a description are given in
the _British Topography_, 1780, vol. i. pp. 76-85. Another object of
interest among the maps is a piece of tapestry, in three fragments,
containing portions of the counties of Hereford, Salop, Staffordshire,
Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Middlesex, &c. They are
said by Gough, in a MS. note in his collections for a third edition of
his _Topography_, to be parts of the three great maps of the Midland
Counties, formerly at Mr. Sheldon's house at Weston, Long Compton,
Warwickshire, which are the earliest specimens of tapestry weaving in
England, the art having been introduced by William Sheldon, who died in
1570. They are described in vol. ii. of the _Topography_, pp. 309-310.
They were bought by Lord Orford at a sale at Weston for £30, and
presented by him to Earl Harcourt, whose successor, Archbishop Harcourt,
gave them to the Museum at York (where they now are) in 1827. In
Murray's _Handbook for Yorkshire_, they are said to have been made in
1579. One guinea was given by Gough for his fragments.
[277] This list was drawn up about 1844-6 by Mr. Fred. Oct. Garlick,
then an assistant in the Library (afterwards of Ch. Ch., B.A., deceased
1851).
[278] Mr. A. Chalmers gave, in 1813, the second volume of a copy of
Wharton's _Anglia Sacra_, with MSS. notes by White Kennett, of which the
first volume was in this division of Gough's library. But both volumes
had been bought by Gough for £1 1_s._ at the sale of J. West's library
in 1773, at which sale he procured, besides, several other books with
Kennett's notes. There are also volumes with MSS. notes by Baker (the
'socius ejectus') Cole, Rowe Mores, and other well-known antiquaries.
[279] The County Histories are in many instances enriched with various
notes and papers in print and MS. The Berkshire MSS. have been increased
in the present year (1868) by the addition of the collections of the
late Will. Nelson Clarke, D.C.L., of Ch. Ch., author of the _History of
the Hundred of Wanting_ (4^o. 1824), which have been presented to the
Library by Mr. Coxe, to whom they were given by his cousin, the
collector, when the latter relinquished the idea of writing a history of
Berks. They consist of a Parochial History of the county, transcripts of
Heralds' Visitations and of early records, and miscellaneous note-books
and papers.
[280] The splendid and, as it is believed, unique vellum copy of the
_Hereford Missal_ ('ad usum eccl. Helfordensis,' fol. Rouen, 1502) which
the Library possesses, came to it from Rawlinson among the books of T.
Hearne, to whom it had been given by Charles Eyston, Esq., of East
Hendred, Berks. (Hearne's pref. to Camden's _Annales Eliz._ 1. xxvii.)
This Hereford volume is described, together with many of Gough's books,
in a book by Ed. Frère, entitled _Des Livres de Liturgie des Eglises
d'Angleterre imprimés à Rouen dans les_ xv. _et_ xvi. _Siècles_, 8^o
Rouen, 1867.
[281] See _Gent. Magaz._ for 1860, p. 406.
[282] So in the Library Register of accounts. Nichols (_Lit. Hist._ vol.
v. p. 559) says £100.
[283] In his MS. _Collectanea_, in the possession of Rev. H. O. Coxe.