In the venerable building at the north-east corner of St. Mary’s Church at Oxford—the old House of Congregation, which, though once the cradle of the University,
Nunc situs informis premit et deserta vetustas—
there is still a single tenant, feebly holding his ground and refusing to be evicted. He wears the form of King Alfred and bears a legend beneath, telling us boldly that he founded the University[[12]]. The clamour of disputation never reaches that silent room, the changes of centuries have disregarded it, and it remains the one place where a belief which cast a lustre of royalty over early Oxford, and to this day gives primacy to one of the oldest colleges, is still maintained without contradiction. The figure neither utters nor listens to argument: it asserts and chooses to assert. But the spirit of the age is at the door: St. Mary’s is swathed in scaffolding: the sounds of trowel and saw penetrate through the dim glass and the cobwebs and all things become new. It is probable that the opening years of the twentieth century will see the age-worn bust of Alfred and the copy of the Oxford Jerome in the University archives consigned to a common flame as Impostors in an age of light.
Copies known.
1. British Museum. Perfect. Given by the Earl of Oxford on 10 Mar. 1729
30 to James West, at whose sale in 1773 it probably passed to M. C. Tutet: then in the King’s Library, which passed in 1829 to the British Museum, where it bore the mark 8. D. 5; now 167. b. 26.
2. Bodleian. Wanting e 10, a blank leaf. One page (b 7r) is printed askew, in this copy only. Owned in 1582 by William Wright: then Bp. Juxon’s, who gave it on 31 July 1657 to Bp. Barlow, among whose books it passed to the Bodleian in 1693: where it has been successively marked A. 19. 6 Linc., Auct. Q. 1. 5. 18, Auct. Q. 1. 6. 12 and Auct. R. supra 13.
3. All Souls College, Oxford. Wanting a 4, a 5. Given by Benj. Buckler in 1756: bound in the 18th cent. with the Aretinus (see p. [253]). Marked NN. 10. 1, now LL. 10. 17.
4. Oriel College, Oxford. Perfect. Originally this was bound 4th in a volume containing Augustinus de dignitate sacerdotum: Meditationes Bernardi: Exempla Scripturae, Paris, 1478: the Jerome: Comm. Petri de Osoma in symbolum Quicunque vult, Paris: the Aegidius, Oxf. 1479: Ars bene moriendi: and Hugonis Speculum ecclesiae. Owned by Edmund Lyster in the 16th cent. The present binding is of the 18th century: but there are old manuscript signatures throughout the volume.
5. Oxford University Archives. Perfect. Owned by John Rhodes in 1664: given by Moses Pit, a London bookseller, 31 Jan. 1679
80. Bound with the Casus breves of Johannes Andreas (n. d.).
6. Cambridge University Library. Wanting e 10, a blank leaf. This copy has a painting of St. Jerome, a coloured capital and border, &c., and a coat of arms. It bears a George I bookplate dated 1713. Marked C. 5. 1, and now AB. 5. 18.