A.D. 1830.
A copy of the rare edition of Luther's translation of the Bible, printed at Wittemberg in 1541, was bought, through Messrs. Payne and Foss, for fifty guineas, at the sale, in London, of the library of the Archdeacon de la Tour, of Hildesheim, which was said to have been formerly the property of the English Benedictine Monastery of Landspring, and which was then, it appears, in the possession of Mr. — Solly. It contains some texts on the fly-leaves in the autograph, and with the signatures, of both Luther and Melanchthon, which seem to have been unnoticed at the time of the sale. A facsimile of a part of Luther's inscription is given
in plate xxxi. in Mr. Leigh Sotheby's Illustrations of the Handwriting of Melanchthon[317]. The book is now exhibited in a glass case, in one of the windows of the Library.
[317] A copy of this edition, with MS. notes by Luther, Melanchthon, Bugenhagen and Major, was sold to the British Museum, at Hibbert's sale in 1829, for £267 15s.!
A.D. 1831.
In December of this year, Viscount Kingsborough[318] presented a magnificent copy (being one of four which were printed on vellum) of his Antiquities of Mexico, or coloured facsimiles, executed at his expense, in seven folio volumes, of Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics preserved in the libraries of Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Rome, Bologna, and Oxford (in Laud's and Selden's collections), together with preliminary dissertations. This sumptuous book is exhibited near the entrance of the library, in a case made expressly for its reception.
On June 30, the nomination, as Sub-librarian, of Rev. Ernest Hawkins, M.A., of Balliol, afterwards Fellow of Exeter, (of late well-known for his labours in the cause of Missions, as Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel), was approved by Convocation. He succeeded Dr. Besly, who had taken the Balliol College living of Long Benton, in Northumberland.
[318] This learned and spirited nobleman died, in 1837, in a debtors' prison in Dublin, where he was confined for liabilities incurred on behalf of his father, the Earl of Kingston.
A.D. 1832.
A twelfth-century MS. of Scholia on the Odyssey was purchased for £100. The collection of Bibles, which had during some time past made some slow progress, was increased by copies of various