The nomination of the Rev. Henry Cotton, M.A., then Student of Ch. Ch.,
now the venerable Archdeacon of Cashel, as Sub-librarian, was approved
in Convocation on March 9. Of the interest which he took in his work, of
his qualifications for it, and of the advantages which the
bibliographical world has derived from it, his _Typographical Gazetteer_
and _List of Editions of the English Bible_, afford abundant
testimony[286]. He remained in the Library eight years, quitting it when
his friend Dr. Laurence, on his appointment to the Archbishopric of
Cashel, carried him with himself to Ireland.
During his continuance in the Library, a descriptive Catalogue of the
_Editiones principes_ and _Incunabula_ was projected by him and Dr.
Bandinel; but only one specimen page in octavo was printed, of which a
copy has been preserved by Dr. Bliss, with his set of the annual
catalogues.
Alex. Nicoll, M.A., of Balliol College (a native of Aberdeen), was
appointed Sub-librarian at the early age of twenty-one; the nomination
was approved in Convocation on April 27. He at once devoted himself to
the study of Oriental languages, and became a proficient in Hebrew,
Arabic, Persian, Syriac, Æthiopic, and Sanscrit. His facility in
acquiring languages must have been truly marvellous, for, in addition
to these Eastern tongues, and although his death occurred at the early
age of thirty-six, it is said that 'he spoke and wrote with ease and
accuracy, French, Italian, German, Danish, Swedish, and Romaic.' In 1822
he was, much to his own surprise, appointed, at the age of twenty-nine,
to the Regius Professorship of Hebrew, by Lord Liverpool, on the
recommendation of Dr. Laurence, who vacated that post in consequence of
his appointment to the see of Cashel. Nicoll held the Professorship for
only seven years, dying on Sept. 24, 1828. The records of his labours in
the Bodleian are found in the Catalogue of Clarke's Oriental MSS.
noticed under the year 1809, and in his second part of the General
Catalogue of Oriental MSS., published in 1821, _q. v._
The total receipts and expenditure of the Library were for the first
time fully stated in the annual accounts. Hitherto the practice had been
to omit the Bodley endowment and the Crewe benefaction, &c., which were
devoted to salaries, repairs and other ordinary expenses (including also
the occasional purchase of MSS.), and only to report the amount received
from University fees and expended on printed books and incidental
charges.
[286] In a clever and amusing little squib of four pages, which he
printed anonymously in 1819, and which is preserved in the
Library-collection of University papers, professing to be a 'Syllabus'
of treatises on academic matters, to be printed at the University Press
in not more than thirty vols., elephant quarto, Mr. Cotton satirized
himself and his colleagues, doubtless with the more readiness because
with no reason. '21. De Bibliothecario et ejus adjutoribus. _Captain._
What are you about, Dick? _Dick._ Nothing, sir. _Captain._ Tom, what are
you doing? _Tom._ Helping Dick, sir.' Treatise 24 has for its title the
few but emphatic words, '_De Dodd_.' Lest some future delver in Oxford
antiquities should be lost in a maze of conjectures as to the
personality and history of this worthy, so evidently then well known,
let it here be told that Dodd was the _Clerk of the Schools_.