A.D. 1856
A volume containing two autograph letters of Luther was bought for £20, together with a large collection of printed books (formed by — Schneider, of Berlin,) relating to him and the German Reformation, with various editions of his works, for £300. Another volume, with some small additional papers in the Reformer’s hand, was subsequently obtained.
The ever-increasing Bible collection received the addition of the very rare ed. princ. of the Bohemian Bible, printed at Prague in 1488, which was obtained for £17 10s., and a still more rare edition of the Pentateuch, with New Test., &c. printed at Wittemberg in 1529, obtained for eighteen guineas. A Roman Missal, printed ’ad longum, absque ulla requisitione,’ (i. e. in a kind of ‘Prayer-book-as-read’ form,) Lyons, 1550, was obtained for £20. It was arranged by Nicholas Roillet, Chanter of the Church of S. Nicetius at Lyons, with the view of avoiding difficulties and delays, ‘sacerdotesque expectantibus molestos reddentes, ipsosque erga dictos circumstantes scandalum generantes, qui existimant illos non solum ignaros sed nescientes quid agendum vel faciendam habeant;’ and was issued with the papal imprimatur of Paul III. But as Pius V and Clem. VIII subsequently forbade any variation whatsoever from the authorized Roman form, this Missal, like the Breviary of Card. Quignones, was, with others, suppressed. And hence its rarity.
Fifty guineas were given for a very large collection of Chinese works, numbering altogether about 1100, which had been gathered by Rev. F. Evans, for some time a missionary in China. Some of the Chinese books in the Library have been subsequently examined and catalogued by Professor Summers, of King’s College, London.
On May 22, a new body of Library Statutes was confirmed by Convocation, after a complete revision of the previous regulations. The principal changes, besides the omission of various obsolete requirements, were the adding five elected Curators, holding office for ten years, to the old ex officio body of eight; the providing for the removal of books to the extra-mural ‘Camera,’ or reading-room, about to be added; the fixing the stipend of the Librarian (including all the former fees and small separate payments) at £700, and that of the Sub-librarians at £300, and the assigning to the former a retiring pension after twenty years’ service of £200, and after thirty years’, of £300, and to the latter, after thirty years’, of £150; and the making a few alterations with regard to the times at which the Library should be closed, these times being lessened by about one week in the course of the year.
A report from the eminent architect, Mr. G. G. Scott, on the means which might be adopted for the enlargement of the Library, and for rendering it fire-proof, dated in Dec. 1855, was printed in this year, together with one from Mr. Braidwood on the warming apparatus (see under 1821). Mr. Scott’s report contained suggestions for the extension of the Library throughout the whole of the quadrangle and adjoining buildings, including the Ashmolean Museum, and proposed that the Divinity School should be assigned as a reading room, for which the great degree of light afforded by its large windows appeared peculiarly to fit it. The subsequent assignment, however, of the Radcliffe Library as a reading-room for the Library, removed the immediate necessity for any other extension. In 1858 a paper on the subject, illustrated with a plan of the Library, was printed by the late Dr. Wellesley, who, after considering the various modes then suggested for the enlargement of the Library, recommended the adoption (from the British Museum) of presses running up direct from the ground through all the floors, by which the dangers attendant upon the increase of weight of the wall-pressure would be obviated.