[274] There is an amusing account of a visit to the University Press in 1682 in Mrs. D’Anvers’ Academia: or the Humours of the University of Oxford, in Burlesque verse (1691), pp. 25–27.
[275] Harl. MS. 5901, fo. 4. The Specimen is given in 5929.
[276] Oratio Dominica, πολύγλωττος πολύμορφος, nimirum, plus centum Linguis, Versionibus, aut Characteribus reddita et expressa. Londini, 1700, 4to. 76 pp. The editor was B. M(otte). Typogr. Lond.
[277] This circumstance is thus frankly noted in the preface: “Porrò, ne Characterum alienorum copiâ me jactitare videar, scias velim, schedas duas, Linguas Hebraicam, et cæteras usque ad Slavonicam complexas, in Typographéo instructissimo inclytæ Academiæ Oxoniensis excusas esse, cui faustissima quæque comprecator quisquis est qui patriam amat, et bonam mentem colit.”
[278] These include the Malabaric, Brahman, Chinese, Georgian, Sclavonic (Hieronymian), Syriac (Estrangelo), and Armenian. The Anglo-Saxon versions are from type, as is also the Irish, which is Moxon’s fount cut for Boyle.
[279] A second edition appeared in 1713. In 1715 a similar work was published by Chamberlayne in Amsterdam, entitled Oratio Dominica in diversas omnium fere gentium linguas versa et propriis cujusque linguæ characteribus expressa. Amstelodami 1715. 4to, with dissertations by Dr. Wilkins and others. This production is superior in general appearance to the English book, but the Oriental and other foreign characters being almost entirely copperplate, its typographical value is decidedly inferior.
[280] The Bible-side height is slightly above the ordinary English height. The Learned-side height is about the same as the French height. Ancient jealousies between the two rival “Sides” have much to answer for in the growth of this anomaly. Happily, the difference of “height” is now the only difference between the Bible and the Learned Presses.
[281] Writing in 1714, Bagford boasted that the Sheldonian Theatre, Plantin’s Office at Antwerp, the King’s Office in Paris, the King of Spain’s Printing House, (Plantin’s Office at Leyden—since Elzevir’s—is a sorry shed), Janson’s in Amsterdam, and that of the Jews in the same city, were not to compare with the Oxford House (Harl. MS. 5901). The imprint, E Theatro Sheldoniano, was continued on Oxford books till 1743.
[282] Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus Grammatico-Criticus et Archæologicus. Oxon. 1703–5. Fol., 3 vols.
[283] This learned lady, mistress of eight languages besides her own, was the daughter of Ralph Elstob, a Newcastle merchant, and was born in 1683. Besides making the English translation which accompanies her brother’s Latin version of the Homily on St. Gregory’s Day, she transcribed and translated many Saxon works at an early age. “Miss Elstob,” says Rowe Mores, “was a northern lady of ancient family and a genteel fortune. But she pursued too much the drug called learning, and in that pursuit failed of being careful of an one thing necessary. In her latter years she was tutoress in the family of the Duke of Portland, where we have visited her in her sleeping-room at Bulstrode, surrounded with books and dirtiness, the usual appendages of folk of learning. But if any one desires to see her as she was when she was the favourite of Dr. Hudson and the Oxonians, they may view her pourtraiture in the initial G of the English-Saxon Homily on the Birthday of St. Gregory” (Dissertation, p. 29). Miss Elstob died in 1756, and was buried at St. Margaret’s, Westminster.