The Old Catalogue of MSS.
The first century of the Library was worthily concluded with a useful and laborious Catalogue of all the known and accessible collections of MSS. in Great Britain, which is known as Bernard’s or the Old Catalogue, and is due to the labours of Dr. Edward Bernard, Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. It was published in 1697, and shows that Oxford (in the Bodleian and the Colleges) possessed more than half of the whole number. The printed books at this time may be estimated at about twenty-five thousand and the MSS. at about seven thousand. The century itself is cut deeply into two parts by the Civil War. Before it the Library prospered through its Founder and those who knew and remembered him. After it a considerable number of small collections found their way by donation or bequest, chiefly (as has been noted above) from a feeling of the insecurity of private ownership; and some large purchases were made. On the whole the Library easily maintained its reputation as the largest and most valuable in the kingdom.
In 1696-7 the income was £341, and the expenditure £125, the chief items being £51 only to the three officers (Librarian, Under-Librarian, Janitor), £19 for establishment, £17 for the Curators’ dinner, £8 for binding and—six shillings for books! The last detail was a consequence of the money required in the next year for the purchase of the Bernard printed books. The average expenditure on books was about £30 a year.
The Eighteenth Century.
The eighteenth century in the Universities, and indeed in the country at large, is usually described as one of general torpor, with a low standard of taste, but brightened by many examples of conspicuous individual merit. This may be true, and the annals of the Oxford Press seem to bear it out. But it is true also that literature has much to say for itself during this period, and that one study at least was strongly developing itself—the study of English antiquities. The Bodleian itself may be said to have languished, in a sense, until about 1750, and then to have waked up, under the astonishing series of large gifts of which it was the recipient. In fact the hundred years from 1735 to 1835 may be called the Century of Great Donations.
When Dr. John Hudson[13] succeeded Hyde, and Hearne entered the Library as (Janitor and) Assistant, both in 1701, a good deal of activity was exhibited. In 1704 Dr. Charlett testified that “Our Public Library, which for some years had stood still, is now in a thriving condition by the active diligence and curiosity of Dr. Hudson, who spares no author, no bookseller, but solicits all to augment that vast treasure.” But in 1716, after bickerings on other grounds, Hearne was turned out of his place, as a Nonjuror, and Hudson became careless before his death, in 1719. Joseph Bowles[14], who succeeded Hudson, and died at the age of thirty-four in 1729, seems to have been unequal to the position he obtained, though our chief testimony comes from Hearne who cordially hated him. Robert Fysher,[15] the next Librarian, was not a man of mark, and appears to have been disabled by ill-health from fully performing his duties.
The Printed Books.
The growth of the printed books had up to this point been much more normal than the acquisition of MSS. The only printed collections of any notable size since Robert Burton’s, in 1640, had been those of Selden (see p. 000), Marshall (1685) and Barlow (1693). The right to every published book no doubt gave an impression that little help was needed, especially when such was the lack of bibliographical principle that, for instance, the original first two editions of Shakespeare’s Plays (the First and Second Folios) were cleared out and sold as duplicates or “doubles,” when the Third Folio came out with seven additional plays. The First Folio thus turned out was bought back for £3000 in 1905 (see page 46). The tide began to turn towards the middle of the eighteenth century, partly perhaps from the example of the munificent gift of Bishop Moore’s books to the University Library, at Cambridge, made by George I in 1715, whereby besides 1790 MSS. nearly twenty-nine thousand printed books were acquired by it.
The Fourth Catalogue.
Dr. Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph, formerly Archdeacon of Norfolk, died in 1735 and left to the Bodleian his collection, consisting of a large number of Civil War papers, Norwich collections and ecclesiastical, literary, and historical MSS., including the papers of Archbishop Sancroft. The printed books were also of value and extent. These all arrived in 1736, and the Library seems to have responded to this stimulus by issuing its fourth Catalogue in 1738, a careful edition in two folio volumes based on actual inspection of the books and not on former catalogues. Much of the work shows Hearne’s accurate hand.