A large glass case containing a series of MSS. executed by English
scribes, arranged chronologically, so as to exhibit the progress and
development of the arts of caligraphy and illuminating in England. This
case was added by the present Librarian three or four years ago. The
following are its contents:--
1. King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of the treatise _De cura pastorali_
of Pope Gregory the Great, being the copy sent by the King to Werfrith,
Bishop of Worcester.
Given by Lord Hatton; see p. 100.
2. A beautiful Latin _Psalter_ of the tenth century, written in
Anglo-Saxon characters, with an interlinear translation, and decorated
with grotesque initial letters.
Junius MS. 37. The volume is frequently called _Codex Vossianus_,
from its having been in the possession of Isaac Voss, who gave it to
Junius. Facsimiles are given by Professor Westwood, in his
_Palæographia Sacra_, and in his new and splendid book of
_Fac-similes of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and
Irish MSS_[381].
3. The _Four Gospels_, in Latin, written in Anglo-Saxon characters,
about the beginning of the eleventh century.
Noticed in Westwood's _Miniatures_, &c. (_ut supra_), p. 123.
It appears to have belonged to the abbey at Barking, a gift of
tithes at Laleseie, by Adam, son of Leomar de Cochefeld, being
entered on a leaf at the end by order of the abbess Ælfgiva. Now
numbered Bodl. 155.
4. The famous _Anglo-Saxon metrical paraphrase_ of parts of Genesis,
Exodus, Daniel, &c. by Cædmon[382]; illustrated, as far as Abraham's
journey into Egypt, with a very curious series of drawings.
The MS. is considered to have been written about A.D. 1000. The
latest description of the volume is in Westwood's magnificent book
of _Fac-similes_. See p. 102.
5. The _Psalter_, _Canticles_, &c., in Latin, with a Calendar; written in
the first half of the eleventh century.
Noticed in Westwood's _Miniatures and Ornaments_, &c., p. 122. Douce,
296.
6. A twelfth-century volume containing, besides various historical
works, a _Bestiary_, or Natural History of Beasts, illustrated with very
curious drawings.
Given by Archbp. Laud.
7. A _Bestiary_ of the beginning of the thirteenth century, enriched
with many very curious paintings upon a ground of brilliant gold.
Ashmole, 1511.
8. Another _Bestiary_, of slightly later date, illuminated in the same
manner.
Bodl. 764.
9. The _Apocalypse_, illustrated in a series of very curious drawings,
lightly coloured. Executed about 1250.
These illuminations have been pronounced by Mr. Coxe, to be, with
little or no doubt, executed by the same hand as those of MS. Ee.
III. 59. in the University Library, Cambridge, a volume which
contains a Life of Edward the Confessor, in French verse, and which
was printed in 1858, under the editorship of H. R. Luard, M.A., in
the series of Chronicles published under the authority of the Master
of the Rolls. In this Life is found a particular description of
Westminster Abbey, which is not elsewhere met with, and it is
consequently inferred that the writer was a monk of that church. And
in the course of the restorations which are now being carried on in
the Chapter House (which was built about 1250), a series of mural
paintings, illustrating the history of St. John, has been brought to
light, one of which is a representation similar to that in the
Bodley MS. of St. John 'ante portam Latinam,' and in both cases the
cauldron bears the same inscription of '_Dolium_ ferventis olei.'