'I. Titius ducit uxorem Caiam. Caia, elapso uno vel altero anno, transmutatur in virum. Q. an Caia hæc, soluto per hanc metamorphosin matrimonio, possit repetere dotem? Dist.
'II. Sempronia, defuncto marito Mævio, nubit Titio. Mævius divinâ potentiâ in vitam resuscitatur mortalem. Q. an Mævius hic, secundum vivus, uxorem Semproniam et bona sua repetere possit? Aff.'
It was usual for the friends of the candidate who defended the thesis of the Dissertation (generally written for him by the Præses) to attach some complimentary letters or verses. In the case of those published at Upsal, the zeal of the encomiasts frequently breaks out into wild compositions in Hebrew, Greek, French, German and English, affording in the latter instance (and it may be in others) very curious specimens of the language. A laborious trifler, named P. Wettersten, compliments a friend, who had read at Upsal, in 1742, a dissertation by Prof. Peter Ekerman on the antiquities of a small town called Norkoping, with a kind of acrostic in twenty-five lines on the verse, 'Nunc erit et seclis Norcopia clara futuris,' which, starting from the centre of the page, may be read upwards, downwards, and in every form of mazy irregularity; every way, in short, except the right.
A.D. 1828.
A collection of 153 Northern MSS., chiefly in the Icelandic and Danish languages, formed by Finn Magnusen, was purchased from him for £350[313]. A catalogue (56 pp. quarto) was published in the year 1832. Amongst them are many early and curious volumes in poetry and history. Other collections of MSS. were sold by the same collector to the British Museum and to the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh.
A large number of Aldines were obtained at the sale of the collection of M. Renouard, the Aldine bibliographer, which took place in London, June 26-30. And the rare first edition of John Knox's Historie of the Church of Scotland was purchased for sixteen guineas.
Some additional rooms on the second story of the Schools' quadrangle, on the north and east sides, which went by the names of the Schools of Geometry and Medicine, were permanently attached to the Library, by vote of Convocation, on June 5.
On June 26, the nomination of the Rev. Stephen Reay, M.A., of St. Alban's Hall (afterwards B.D., and Laudian Professor of Arabic in 1840), as Sub-librarian in the room of Mr. C. H. Cox, was approved in Convocation. Mr. Reay was appointed to the charge of the Oriental department, his knowledge of Hebrew specially qualifying him for the care of the yearly increasing mass of Rabbinical lore. To this branch he added, and retained to the close of his life, the care of the 'Progress' Room, or room containing the publications, foreign and English, which appeared in parts. And on Dec. 20, the Rev. John Besly, M.A., Fellow of Balliol (afterwards D.C.L., and Vicar of Long Benton, Northumberland, deceased April 17, 1868, aged sixty-eight), was confirmed as Mr. Reay's colleague, in the place of Dr. Bliss.