A.D. 1673
Thomas, Lord Fairfax, to whose care the Library had been indebted for preservation in 1646, bequeathed to it on his decease, in November, 1671, twenty-eight very valuable MSS., including several early English books (Chaucer, Gower, Wickliffe’s Bible, &c.) and works relating to the history of England, Scotland (Elphinston129), and Ireland (Keating). But besides these, he gave that invaluable collection of genealogical MSS. known to all pedigree-hunters by the name of their indefatigable compiler, Roger Dodsworth, to whom he had allowed an annuity of £40 during his life, in order to enable him the better to prosecute his researches. This collection numbers 161 volumes (bound in 86) in folio and quarto130, and consists of extracts bearing chiefly on the family and ecclesiastical history of Yorkshire and the North of England, with an innumerable mass of pedigrees, from all the authentic records within Dodsworth’s reach, including many which were destroyed when the Tower of St. Mary, at York, was blown up during the siege of that city in June, 1644. He appears to have commenced this wonderful series of notes about the year 1618, and not to have ceased before 1652, dying, in the seventieth year of his age, in August, 1654. Besides the very full catalogue of his MSS. which is given by Bernard (pp. 187-233), an extremely useful and original synopsis of their contents, prefaced with an account of Dodsworth’s life and labours, and drawn up by Mr. Joseph Hunter, is to be found in the Report of the Record Commission for 1837; which was reprinted by Mr. Hunter, in an octavo volume, in 1838, together with a list of the contents of the Red Book of the Exchequer, and a Catalogue of the MSS. in Lincoln’s Inn. After the MSS. were brought to the Library, they became in some way exposed to the damp, ‘and were in danger of being spoiled by a wet season.’ Fortunately the danger was perceived by Ant. à Wood, who obtained leave of the Vice-Chancellor to dry them, which he accomplished by spreading them out in the sun upon the leads of the Schools’ quadrangle. This cost him a month’s labour, which, he says, he underwent with pleasure out of respect to the memory of Dodsworth, and care to preserve whatever might advantage the commonwealth of learning. The MSS. to this day give abundant proof, by their stains and tender condition, that, had it not been for Wood’s unselfish labour, they would probably soon have perished. Some part of the collection appears to have been sent to the Library as late as 1684, for in the accounts of that year there is an entry of 4s. 10d. as having been paid for the ‘carriage of Dodsworth’s MSS.’
An interesting volume, written by the donor of these MSS., Fairfax, and entitled by him ‘The Employment of my Solitude,’ being metrical versions of the Psalms, with other poems, was bought, in 1858, for £36 10s., at the sale of the library of Dr. Bliss, who had purchased it at the Duke of Sussex’s sale. It is described in Archdeacon Cotton’s List of Bibles.
Notes
129 A transcript of Elphinston’s Chronicle is to be found among the Jones MSS.
130 No. 20 is a volume of Camden’s Collections, formerly in the Cotton Library, Julius B. x., from whence Dodsworth must have borrowed it, and whither, with an obliviousness too common in book-borrowers, he must have forgotten to return it. And No. 161 was given to the Library by Mr. Fras. Drake, the historian of York, in 1736.