commencement of the annual printed purchase-catalogues dates in consequence from this year.
In a letter from Thos. Burgess, afterwards the Bishop of St. David's and Salisbury, to Mr. Tyrwhitt, the editor of Chaucer, dated Corp. Chr. Coll., Nov. 16, 1779, the plan for increasing the funds of the Library, established by this Statute, is mentioned as a scheme 'much talked of,' the defects of the Library being such as 'we are now astonished should have been of so long continuance[261].' A paper in behalf of the proposal was circulated among Members of Convocation, upon a copy of which, preserved by Dr. Bliss with his set of the annual Catalogues, the latter has noted that it was written by Sir William Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell.
The exquisite portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby, supposed to be by Vandyke, was given by Edw. Stanley, Esq. It is now in the Picture Gallery; and, having recently been cleaned and covered with plate-glass, appears once more in all the freshness of its original perfection[262].
The Sub-librarian at this time was John Walters, an undergraduate Scholar of Jesus College. He published in this year a small volume of Poems ('written before the age of nineteen'), the chief portion of which consists of a description of the Library, written with a warm admiration of his subject, and by no means destitute of poetic feeling. It numbers 1188 lines, and is illustrated with some well-selected notes. In 1782, when B.A. and still Scholar of his College, he published Specimens of Welsh Poetry in English verse, with some Original Pieces and Notes. He took
the degree of M.A. in 1784, and died in 1791[263]. We learn from a MS. note in a copy of his Poems, presented to the Library by the present Principal of Jesus College, that he was the son of John Walters, Rector of Llandough (author of a Welsh Dictionary, 1794), by Hannah his wife, and that he was baptized there, July 9, 1760.
[260] By the Statute passed in 1813, and by that on Fees passed in 1855, an annual payment of eight shillings was ordered to be made to the Library out of the total sum (now £1 6s.) paid by each graduate whose name is on the University Books. But these individual fees, varying with the numbers on the Books, were consolidated, in 1861 in one fixed annual sum, from the University Chest, of £2800.
[261] Note by Dr. Bliss, in his MS. Collectanea, bequeathed by him to Rev. H. O. Coxe.
[262] Another portrait of Sir Kenelm, which hangs in the Library, was given, in 1692, by Mr. William Pate, a woollen-draper of London. To this Mr. Pate, Thos. Brown dedicated, in 1710, as 'his honest friend,' his translation from the French of Memoirs of the Present State of the Court and Councils of Spain.
[263] Nichols' Lit. Anecd. viii. 122.