A.D. 1685.
Thomas Marshall, or Mareschall, D.D., Rector of Lincoln College, and Dean of Gloucester, who died April 18, bequeathed his MSS., and all such among his printed books as were not already in the Library. The MSS. amounted to 159, chiefly Oriental, including some valuable Coptic copies of the Gospels,
&c., which were procured for him by Huntington, with a few in Dutch, and others miscellaneous in language and subject. They are entered in Bernard's Catalogue, pp. 272-3, and 373-4. The printed books are still kept together under his name.
A.D. 1686.
Fell, Bishop of Oxford, who died July 10, bequeathed a few MSS. They consist of an early and curious collection of Vitæ Sanctorum in four folio volumes, of a transcript (in nine folio volumes) of a Glossarium Septentrionale by Francis Junius, Dionysius Syrus in Latin by Dudley Loftus, and two Greek MSS., Damascius and Euthymius Zigabenus, described at the end (col. 907) of Mr. Coxe's Catalogue of the Greek MSS. One other MS. has somehow been incorporated in this collection (now numbered 21-23) which does not belong to it. It is a Clavis Linguæ Sanctæ, or explanation of all the Hebrew, and some Chaldee, roots, found in the Old Testament, by Nicholas Trott, in three folio volumes, written with great care and neatness. This, of which the first part had been printed at Oxford in 1719, was sent to the Library in 1746, as appears from the following letter, preserved (without address) in a parcel of papers relating to the Library, now in the Librarian's study:—
'My Lord,
'My wife's grandfather Judge Trott, cheif justice of South Carolina, desired on his death bed that his forty years' labour relating to the Hebrew root might be sent as a present to the Publick Library at Oxford. I proposed to have carried it, but my time has allways been taken up at a disagreable series of Court Martials, and now I am again going to the West Indies. That I must beg your Lordship will order or give it a conveyance to the University, and I am, with great respect, my Lord,
'Your Lordship's most humble servant,
'THOS. FRANKLAND.
'23 Nov., 1746.
It appears, however, from the accounts, &c., that the MS. was not actually delivered until 1748 or 1749, when it was received through Dr. Hunt.