Nine blockbooks.
The only copy of the first edition of Shakespeare’s first publication, 1593 (see p. [32]).
Two collections of early sixteenth century English romances, all rare, some unique (S. Selden, d. 45 and 4ᵒ L. 71 Art.)
The original Bodleian First Folio of Shakespeare, 1623 (see p. [46]).
The only copy of the Bay Psalm-book (1640) outside the United States, which possess nine copies only.
Lord Kingsborough’s Antiquities of Mexico, on vellum, 1831-48, 7 atlas folio volumes.
Pictures and Coins
During the seventeenth century the Bodleian became, very naturally, the depository of other things than books. It was an eminently safe place for the deposit of both artistic and numismatical collections, as well as for curiosities of every kind. The Ashmolean Museum, opened in 1683, was the first public museum in Great Britain, and was full of similar objects intended to promote the study of natural history, anthropology (as we now call it) and science; and from about 1750 it diverted to itself the streams of donation in those kinds. But throughout the eighteenth century pictures and coins flowed into the Bodleian, where the ample Picture Gallery, provided by the forethought of the Founder, was able to house them all. The coin collection began with a large gift from Archbishop Laud in 1636, and Freke, Rawlinson, Brown Willis, Ingram and many others augmented it, till it has now reached about 60,000 pieces, and is ready for transference to its proper place, the New Ashmolean. The pictures also which were primarily of artistic value have been within the last thirty years for the most part transferred to the New Ashmolean, and the ceremonial ones (Chancellors in their robes, royal personages and the like) are in the New Examination Schools, leaving still a large number which are of historical, literary or Bodleian interest to adorn the Picture Gallery. All are described fully in Mrs. Poole’s Catalogue of Portraits in Oxford, vol. i (1912).