A.D. 1836
Aubrey’s collection of notes and drawings concerning Druidical and Roman antiquities in Britain, together with some miscellaneous historical notes, entitled by him Monumenta Britannica, in four parts (now bound in two folio volumes), was purchased, for £50, of Col. Charles Greville. Accounts of Avebury and Stonehenge, which are important from their early date (the former being the earliest known), are to be found in these curious and interesting volumes328. The remainder of Aubrey’s MSS. came to the Library in 1860, upon the transfer of the books from the Ashmolean Museum. See sub anno 1858.
A collection of about 300 tracts, relating to American affairs and the War of Independence, in forty-one vols., formed by Rev. Jonathan Boucher329, was bought for £8 18s. 6d. These are now included in the series of tracts called Godwyn Pamphlets, in continuation of those which came, in 1770, from the donor so named. Another large gathering of American tracts, collected by Mr. George Chalmers, when engaged in writing his History of the Revolt, was bought in 1841 for £24 13s.; at the same time, the first and only volume of his History, which itself was never actually published, was bought for £2 7s.
Sale Catalogues. See 1834.
When the new Copyright Act was introduced into Parliament in this year, it was proposed to allow £500 per annum to the Bodleian, in the manner adopted with regard to six other libraries, in lieu of the old privilege of receiving a copy of every book entered at Stationers’ Hall. The Curators, however, on May 27, resolved that it would be highly desirable to retain the privilege, but that, should an alteration be made, it would be inexpedient to receive an annual grant by way of compensation; and in consequence of this opinion, the proposed abolition of the privilege was abandoned.
Notes
328 A short description of them will be found in Gough’s Brit. Topogr. vol. ii. pp. 369-70, and a fuller account in Britton’s Memoir of Aubrey, 1845, pp. 87-91. Mr. Britton, however, strange to say, was not aware that the volumes had been for nine years in safe custody in the Bodleian, and consequently deplores their unfortunate disappearance! He describes their contents from an abstract in the Gough collection.
329 An account of Mr. Boucher, who quitted America on account of his royalist principles, and afterwards was Head-Master of a well-known school at Cheam, will be found in Notes and Queries for 1866, vol. ix. pp. 75, 282.