The valuable collection of Oriental MSS. formed by the celebrated
traveller, James Bruce, of Kinnaird, was purchased for £1000. It
consists of ninety-six volumes, of which twenty-six are in Ethiopic, and
seventy in Arabic; there is also one Coptic MS. on papyrus. Included in
vol. iv. of an Ethiopic copy of the Old Testament is one of the three
copies of the Book of Enoch, which were brought by Bruce from Abyssinia,
and which were then (if they be not even still) the only manuscripts of
the book to be found in Europe. One of the three had been given by Bruce
himself to the University, in 1788, through the hands of Dr. Douglas,
Bishop of Salisbury; it is written on forty leaves of vellum, in triple
columns, and is now exhibited in the glass case near the entrance of the
Library. It was from this MS. that Dr. Laurence, afterwards Archbishop
of Cashel, first made the translation which he published in 1821, and
then subsequently, in 1838, published the original text. The second copy
('elegantissimum et celeberrimum') was given by Bruce to Louis XVI, and
is now in the Imperial Library at Paris. By the purchase of the third,
the Bodleian is, therefore, the possessor of two out of the three.
Two unsuccessful attempts had previously been made to dispose of the
collection by auction. It was first announced for sale by Mr. Christie,
for May 17, 1827, to be disposed of in one lot; and a list was issued,
abridged from the catalogue made by Dr. Alex. Murray, the editor of
Bruce's _Travels_. The issue of this proposed sale is recorded by Douce
in the following MS. note on his copy of the auction catalogue: 'These
MSS. were put in by the owner at £5500, and after an elaborate eulogium
on them by Mr. Christie, no bidding or advance took place, and they were
of course withdrawn. Had the owner offered them for £500, I should think
the same result would have happened.' The second attempt was made in
1842, when the MSS. were offered for sale by Mr. George Robins, on May
30, but it appears that even all the eloquence of that most moving of
auctioneers failed to elicit a bid corresponding to the expectation of
the seller; and so the collection fortunately remained intact, to be
disposed of to our Library in the year following.
A catalogue of the Ethiopic MSS. of the collection was issued in a small
quarto volume (eighty-seven pages), in 1848, as part vii. of the General
Catalogue of MSS. It was compiled by a German scholar, well acquainted
with this branch of Oriental literature, Dr. A. Dillmann, and contains,
besides Bruce's books, three of Pococke's MSS., one of Laud's, one of
Clarke's, and three others; in all thirty-five.
Valuable materials for the history of Devon were secured by the purchase
(for £90) of the collections made for that purpose by Jeremiah Milles,
D.D., Dean of Exeter, and Pres. of the Soc. of Antiquaries. The library
of Dean Milles (who died Feb. 13, 1784) was sold by auction by Mr. Leigh
Sotheby, in April; and these collections, comprised in eighteen volumes
in folio, one in quarto, and one in octavo, formed a principal feature
in the sale.
In this year the new Catalogue of the general Library of printed books,
exclusive of the Gough and Douce libraries, and the collections of
Hebrew books and Dissertations, of which already special catalogues were
in print, was completed and published in three folio volumes. It had
been commenced in the year 1837, and was prepared by the Rev. Arthur
Browne, M.A., Chaplain of Ch. Ch. (now a retired Chaplain of the Royal
Navy), whose share comprises the letters P-R, and the commencement of S;
the Rev. Henry Cary, M.A. (son of the Translator of _Dante_, then
Incumbent of St. Paul's, Oxford, but now, by returning to his previous
profession of the Law, a barrister in Australia), who is responsible for
the letters F-K, and part of L; and Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A., Chaplain
and Precentor of Ch. Ch., and now Sub-librarian, who completed the
greater part of it, viz. the letters A-E, L (from _London_)-O, S (from
_Shakespeare_)-Z. The whole charges of the printing of the Catalogue
amounted to £2990 12_s._[343]; the previous cost of compilation was
about £2000.
_Bowyer._ _Italian Municipal Statutes._ See 1838.
_Sutherland._ _Illustrated Books._ See 1839.
[343] MS. note by Dr. Bliss.