Francis Junius, born at Heidelberg in 1589, who had passed a large part of his life in England as librarian to that Howard Earl of Arundel who collected the marbles which go under his name at Oxford, as well as the MSS. similarly entitled, which are preserved in the British Museum and at Heralds' College, bequeathed to the Library, on his decease at Windsor in this year, all his Anglo-Saxon MSS. and his own life-long collections bearing on the philology of the Northern nations. Amongst these are some English relics of the greatest value and importance. The book of metrical Homilies on the Dominical Gospels, compiled by an Augustinian monk named Ormin, who thence called his book Ormulum ('þiss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum, Forrþi þatt Orrm itt wrohte') is one of the chief of these. Its date is conjectured to be the 13th century. It is written on parchment, on folio leaves, very long and very narrow (averaging 20 inches by 8) in a very broad and rude hand, with many additions inserted on extra parchment scraps. Twenty-seven leaves appear to be wanting. The whole work was first published in 2 vols., at the University Press in 1852, under the editorship of R. M. White, D.D., formerly Professor of Anglo-Saxon. Cædmon's metrical paraphrase of Genesis and other parts of Holy Scripture, illustrated with numerous curious drawings, is another of the gems of this collection. The MS. is of the end of the tenth century, but the work itself is now generally believed to be, in the main, the production of the earliest English poet, the Cædmon noticed by Bede (iii. 24), who died towards the close of the seventh century, and not, as Hickes conjectured, of some later writer of the same name. The MS. first came to light in the hands of Archbp. Usher, by whom it was given to Junius. The latter published it at Amsterdam in 1655, and it was re-edited by Mr. Benj. Thorpe in 1832; several English
and German translations have also appeared. Many of the drawings were engraved and published in 1754, as illustrations of the manners and buildings of the Anglo-Saxons; and the whole of them have been engraved in vol. xxiv. of the Archæologia, with some remarks by Sir H. Ellis. MS. 121 is an extremely valuable collection of the Canons of the Anglo-Saxon Church, written in the tenth century, which belonged to Worcester Cathedral; and there are four valuable volumes of Homilies, which appear, however, to have been part of Lord Hatton's gift to the Library. (See under [1675][138].) Besides books, Junius left to the University six founts of Gothic, Saxon, and other types, together with the moulds and matrices.
Fifty-five MSS. and printed books, chiefly Oriental, were purchased in this year from the library of Dr. Thomas Greaves, Deputy-professor of Arabic, who died May 22, 1676. It appears from the list in Bernard's Catalogue that sixty-five volumes were purchased, but that ten of these were never sent. With Greaves' own books were obtained also the MSS. of Richard James, of Corpus Christi College, nephew of Thomas James, the first Librarian, which had come into the possession of his friend Greaves upon his death in Dec. 1638. These amount to forty-three volumes, entirely written by James himself, in a large bold hand; they consist chiefly of Collectanea bearing on the history of England from various MSS. Chronicles, Registers, and early writers, particularly with reference to the corruption of the Church and
clergy before the Reformation, and in opposition to Becket. A full list of their contents, drawn up by Tanner, is given at pp. 248-253 of Bernard's Catalogue. The price paid for the books bought out of Greaves' library was £55.
Fifteen shillings were paid, as appears from the accounts for the year, for the carriage of a whale from Lechlade, which, strange to say, had been caught in the Severn, and was presented by William Jordan, an apothecary at Gloucester[139]. Ten shillings were also paid for a 'sea elephant.'
[138] Parts of MSS. 4 and 5, which had been stolen from the Library, were recovered, in 1720, in the manner recorded in the following entry in the Benefaction Book: 'Vir doctissimus Joannes Georgius Eckardus, bibliothecæ Brunsvicensis præfectus, pro singulari sua humanitate, folia quammulta MSS. Dictionarii Fr. Junii, continentia sc. litteras F. et S., a nequissimo quodam Dano jam olim surrepta, propriis sumptibus redemit et Bibl. Bodl. ultro restituit.' Some further portions of Junius' papers (including some which had formerly been in the Library) are recorded to have been given in 1753 by the Provost and Fellows of Queen's College.
[139] In the Benefaction Book this gift is assigned to the year 1672.
A.D. 1680. [See [A.D. 1665].]
Sir W. Dugdale gave copies of his own works. Two hundred coins were given by Dr. George Hickes.