'Dum sic fluctuant omnia, statui apud me in tuto (id est, apud vos spero) MS. quædam, temporum priorum monumenta, deponere. Pauca sunt, sed prioribus similia, si non æqualia, et talia quæ, non obstantibus temporum difficultatibus, in usum vestrum parare non destiti. Sunt vero inter hæc Hebraica sex, Græca undecim, Arabica tringinta quatuor, Latina viginti et unum, Italica duo, Anglicana totidem, Persica quinque, quorum unum, folio digestum ampliori, historiam continet ab orbe condito ad finem imperii Saracenici, et est proculdubio magni valoris. Hæc per vos in Bibliothecam Bodleianam (nomen veneror, nec superstitiose) reponenda, et cæteris olim meis apponenda, cupio, et sub eisdem legibus quibus priora dedi. Non opus est multis donum hoc nostrum nimis exile ornare, nec id in votis meis unquam fuit. Hoc obnixe et quotidie a DEO Opt. Max. summis votis peto, ut Academia semper floreat, in ea Religio et Pietas et quicquid doctrinam decorare potest in altum crescat, ut tempestatibus quæ nunc omnia perflant sedatis, tuto possitis et vobis et studiis et, præ omnibus, Deo frui. Quæ vota semper erunt
'fidelissimi et amantissimi Cancellarii vestri,
'W. CANT.[99]
'Dat. ex ædibus meis
'Lambethanis, 6to Nov. 1640.'
The collection, which contains in the whole nearly 1300 MSS., comprises works in very many languages: Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Ethiopic, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, Irish, Anglo-Saxon, and English are all represented. It is impossible, in the limits of this survey, to point out many of the treasures with
which the collection abounds; but that which is pre-eminently styled 'Codex Laudianus' (numbered Laud, Gr. 35) must not, of course, be omitted. It is a MS. of the Acts of the Apostles, in quarto, consisting of 227 leaves, and containing the text in both Greek and Latin, in parallel columns. Its date has been variously fixed by critics, from the sixth to the eighth century; Mr. Coxe places it towards the end of the seventh century, with whom Dr. Tischendorf, who examined it in 1865, and for whom some photographs of portions were executed, is believed to coincide. Some leaves are wanting at the end, commencing at chap. xxvi. 29. It is the only MS. known to be extant which contains the peculiar readings (in number 74) cited by Bede in his Commentary as existing in the copy which he used; it has consequently been conjectured, with much reason, that this was the very MS. which he possessed. It was published by Thomas Hearne in 1715, printed in capitals corresponding line for line with the MS., but not with entire correctness; only 120 copies were printed, and it is therefore one of the rarest in the series of his works. A very fairly engraved facsimile of one verse (vii. 2) is to be found in Horne's Introduction.
Another famous MS. (No. 636) is a copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which ends at the year 1154, and appears to have been written in, and to have belonged to, the abbey of Peterborough, from its containing many additions relating thereto. And a third treasure calling for special mention is an Irish vellum MS. (No. 610), which contains the Psalter of Cashel, Cormac's Glossary, Poems attributed to SS. Columb-kill and Patrick, &c.[100] The Greek MSS. of the collection are fully described in vol. i. of the
Catal. Codd. Bibl. Bodl., by Mr. H. O. Coxe, published in 1853; the Latin, Biblical, and Classical, with the Miscellaneous, in Part I of the second volume, published by the same gentleman in 1858; the Oriental, in the various Catalogues of Uri, Nicoll, Pusey, Dillmann, and Payne Smith.
One of the Würtzburg books rescued from the Swedish soldiery is a magnificent Missal printed on vellum by Jeorius Ryser in 1481, with illuminated initials. On a fly-leaf is the following note: '1481, Johannes Kewsch, vicarius in ecclesia Herb[ipolensi] hunc librum comparavit propriis expensis, et pro omnibus, scil. pergameno, impressura, rubricatione, illinatura, et ligatione, xviii. flor.' Then follows a bequest, in his own hand, in 1486, of the book to the successive vicars of St. Bartholomew, which is repeated at the end of the 'Canon Missæ.' In the latter place four subsequent possessors, from 1565 to 1580, have written their names, the last of them adding, 'Omnis arbor qui non facit fructum bonum excidetur et in ignem mittetur.' The Library reference is now Auct. i. Q. i. 7.
[95] Reg. Conv. R. 24. f. 109b. MS. note by Dr. P. Bliss.
[96] Entry at the end of the Register of Readers, 1638-9.
[97] This was given to Laud by Selden, 'vir omni eruditionis genere instructissimus,' as Laud styles him in his letter of gift on June 16. Reg. Conv. R. 24. f. 128.