Two instances, however, in which 'consciences' have been sufficiently awakened to make restitution of stolen goods, have occurred within the last twenty years. In 185- (exact year forgotten), on a day on which a Convocation had been held on some exciting subject, which had consequently brought up country voters from all parts, the present writer happened to notice that a small book had been laid in a shelf of folios near the Library door. Taking it up, he found it to be a rare volume of tracts by J. Preston and T. Goodwin, printed at Amsterdam, and bearing a Library reference. On proceeding to restore it to its place, that place was found to be occupied by another book; this, of course, led to further examination, and it was then discovered that the former volume had been missing for so many years, that at last, all hope of its recovery being abandoned, its place had been filled up. The old register-books of readers were then ransacked, and at length an entry was found of the delivery of this book to a reader, who was still living at the time of this Convocation, on Feb. 14, 1807. A quarto volume was also found about the same time thrust in amongst other quartos in a shelf near the door, but the particulars of this case have been forgotten.
A third case of recovery, but of a different kind, occurred in 1851. In the year 1789 the Library was visited by Hen. E. G. Paulus, of Jena, afterwards the too-well-known author of the Leben Jesu, who copied from Pococke MS. 32 (a small octavo volume) an Arabic translation of Isaiah made, in Hebrew characters, by R. Saadiah, which he published in the following year, transposed into Arabic characters. Thenceforward the MS. was lost from the Library, although no direct evidence of the manner of its disappearance appears to have been obtained. But after the death of Paulus in the year 1850, a bookseller at Breslau, to whom the volume had in some way been offered, entered into communication with the Librarian, Dr. Bandinel, and the result was that the missing MS. was at length restored, clothed in an entirely different German binding, and with all trace of its original ownership removed, to its right place. The abstraction of this MS. 'by an Oriental professor,' and its recovery, are mentioned, without further particulars, by Dr. Pusey, in his Evidence printed in the University Report upon the Recommendations of the University Commissioners, 1853. p. 171.
[115] Bodley frequently in his letters expresses his positive determination not to allow books to be removed from the Library by any means. He mentions the having connived at first at Sir H. Savile's having a book for a very short space of time, because he was like to become a very great benefactor; but declares that after the making the Statutes neither he nor any one else shall be allowed the same liberty upon any occasion whatsoever. (Reliquiæ Bodl. pp. 176, 264.) And in another letter he says, in reference to a particular application, 'The sending of any book out of the Library may be assented to by no means, neither is it a matter that the University or Vice-Chancellor are to deal in. It cannot stand with my publick resolution with the University, and my denial made to the Bishop of Glocester and the rest of the Interpreters [i.e. the Translators of the Authorized Version of the Bible] in their assembly in Christ Church, who requested the like at my hands for one or two books.' (Ibid. p. 207.) In 1636 the University refused leave to Archbishop Laud to borrow Rob. Hare's MS. Liber Privilegiorum Universitatis (compiled in 1592), when the Archbishop was prosecuting his claim to visit the two Universities as Metropolitan. But the refusal was doubtless rather from jealousy respecting their immunities (as Wood says) than from regard to the rules of the Library (Huber's English Universities, by F. Newman, vol. ii. p. 45.) However, the book was at last produced before the Council. (Wood's Hist. and Antiq., by Gutch, vol. ii. p. 403.)
[116] 'Μυριοβιβλος, num. 131' [Barocci].
[117] These were gold coins, of the value of fifteen shillings, which derived their name from bearing a star on the reverse which resembled the rowel of a spur.
[118] A few of these coins are still preserved in an ancient chest in the same room where they were of old deposited. Here is also carefully preserved a very large and valuable collection of early charters, including all which belonged to the Hospital of St. John Bapt. upon the site of which the College was built, and to several suppressed priories which were annexed to the College, reaching back to the twelfth century. Of these the author of this volume is engaged in preparing a MS. catalogue, for the use of the College.
[119] The conditions imposed by the executors (which are printed in Gutch's Wood, ii. 943, and elsewhere) expressly stipulated that the books should be chained. As late as the year 1751 notices occur in the Librarian's account-books of the procuring additional chains for the Library. But the removal of them appears to have commenced as shortly afterwards as 1757, and in 1761 there was a payment for unchaining 1448 books at one halfpenny each. Several of the chains are still preserved loose, as relics.
[120] Ayliffe's Ancient and Present State of the Univ. of Oxford, 1714, vol. i. p. 462. Pointer, in his Oxoniensis Academia, 1749, p. 136, quotes the account of the Bodleian given by Ayliffe as having been written by Dr. Hudson, under whose name it is also found in Macky's Journey through England vol. ii. The fire here mentioned was probably that which occurred about 1679 or 1680, in which the chambers called the Paper-Buildings were destroyed, where Selden's rooms were situated. At Lincoln's Inn some MSS. are now amongst Sir M. Hale's.
[121] This was never recovered, but a later edition, in 1609, was procured instead.