Thirty pounds were paid in this year to Antony à Wood for twenty-five MSS. out of his library[146]. These are volumes of great value, including Chartularies of the Abbeys of Glastonbury and Malmesbury, and of the Preceptory of Sandford, Oxon, copies of Papal bulls relating to England, a register of lands in Leicestershire temp. Hen. VI, &c.
The rest of Wood's MSS., and printed books, came to the Library, together with the other collections preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, in 1860.
It is said that Wood in this year estimated the number of MSS.
in the Library at 10,141. This must have been the number of separate books, not volumes, as in 1697 the latter appear from Bernard's Catalogue to have been about 6700.
[146] In Bernard's Catalogue the purchase is said to have been made in 1692, but this is an error, as it is entered in the accounts of 1690.
A.D. 1691.
On Oct. 8, died Dr. Thomas Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, who, retaining his attachment for the place over which he had presided from 1652 to 1660, bequeathed to it seventy-eight MSS. (now bound in fifty-four volumes), and all the printed books in his collection which the Library did not possess, the remainder going to Queen's College. They appear to have been received in the years 1693-4, as large payments for the carriage are found in the accounts then. His MSS. are described in the old Catalogue of 1697. The printed books, which are particularly rich in tracts of the time of Charles I and the Usurpation, are still kept distinct, being called Linc.; ending, in the 8o series, at about the middle of the shelves marked with the letter C in that division. They are placed in the gallery on the left hand of the great central room[147]. His legacy included a copy of the famous Exposicio Sancti Jeronimi in Simbolo Apostolorum, which was printed at Oxford in 1468, and completed, as the colophon states, on Dec. 17. This volume was given to Barlow, as he notes at the beginning, by Bishop Juxon, July 31, 1657. It is exhibited in the glass case near the entrance. The Library possesses also seven other productions of the early Oxford press. They are as follow:—
1. Ægidius Romanus de Peccato Originali, dated March 14, 1479. This was one of Rob. Burton's books. Qu. unique?
2. Textus Ethicorum Aristotelis, per Leonardum Arretinum translatus, 1479. One of Selden's books.
3. Expositio Alexandri [de Ales] super tertium librum [Arist.] De