Mr. Sim. J. Etty, New College (B.A. 1829, M.A. 1832, now Vicar of Wanborough, Wilts), was appointed assistant in the room of Mr. Eden. Mr. Etty remained in the Library until the year 1834. The Catalogue of Dissertationes Academicæ, which appeared in 1832, was in a great measure his work.
Two MSS. intended of old for the Library by Sir K. Digby, were bought in this year. To the account of them given at p. 58 supra, it should be added that the library left in France by Digby on his death (from which, no doubt, these volumes came) was bought back by George, Earl of Bristol, and finally sold by auction at London, in April and May, 1680. Sixty-nine MSS. were included in this dispersion. It should further be added to the previous notice that it was at Laud's instance, and through him as Chancellor of the University, that Digby presented his collection to the Library. A letter from the Archbishop, which accompanied the gift, is printed in Wharton's collection of his Remains, vol. ii. p. 73.
A.D. 1826.
There is not much to notice in the acquisitions of this year. A few Persian and other Oriental MSS. were purchased, and more in the two following years; and some Burmese MSS. were given by Sir C. Grey, Chief Justice of Calcutta. A curious volume of manuscript and printed papers relative to the siege of Oxford, 1643-46, was presented by Mr. W. Hamper, of Birmingham. In January, the Rev. Chas. Hen. Cox, M.A., Student of Ch. Ch., was appointed Sub-librarian in the room of Mr. Laurence.
A.D. 1827.
A very large collection of Academic Dissertations published in Germany, amounting to about 43,400, was bought at Altona for £332 16s. Of these a folio catalogue was published in 1834, which, by a singular error, bears on its title the date 1832, as the year in which this accession came to the Library. In 1828, 160 volumes of the same character were added, and other large
additions were made in 1836 and 1837, but particularly in 1846, when no fewer than 7000 were purchased[312].
Mr. Henry Forster, New College (B.A. 1832, M.A. 1834; Esquire Bedel of Divinity; deceased 1857), succeeded Mr. Bailey, in March, as Assistant.
[312] There is scarcely an imaginable subject in law, theology, or history, on which something may not be found in this vast collection. The something may often be meagre and superficial, but it is still oftener curious, and even in the former case it may be useful as pointing to sources of further information. In days of Ritual controversy, one party or another may be glad to know that in 1725, George Henry Goetz, D.D., wrote on the interesting question whether a clergyman might do duty in his dressing-gown,—Num Verbi ministro toga cubicularia (Schlaffpeltze) induto officio sacro defungi liceat? Those who know what curses were invoked of old upon the heads of stealers of books, may be interested in hearing what one Pipping had to say on the subject in 1721, in his Diss. de Imprecationibus libris ascriptis; while the title of Sam. Schelging's discourse in 1729, De Apparitionibus mortuorum vivis ex pacto factis, will have attraction for not a few. Sometimes the dryest subjects were lightened up at the close with ponderous jokes, or unexpected turns were given to the matter in hand; e.g. those worthy Germans who had gone to sleep at Jena, in 1660, during the reading of a dissertation De Jure et Potestate Parlamenti Britannici, by one J. A. Gerhard, (who must have taken unusual interest in the history of the English Rebellion,) were wakened up at the end by the discussion of the following novel questions in law:—'Casus ex jure privato.