A.D. 1724
The MSS. Adversaria of Dr. J. E. Grabe came to the Library in this year after the death of Bishop Smalridge (Sept. 27, 1719), in accordance with the will of their writer, who at his death (Nov. 12, 1712) bequeathed them first to Hickes and next to Smalridge, with the final reversion to the Bodleian. They form forty-three volumes. Some account of them is given in Hickes’ Discourse prefixed to Grabe’s Defects and Omissions in Whiston’s Collection of Testimonies, &c. (8o. Lond. 1712), and they are fully catalogued by Mr. Coxe in vol. i. of the general Catalogue of MSS., cols. 851-876. In a written list of them, preserved in the Library, Dr. Bandinel has noted that several volumes of the series were purloined before they came to Oxford, while remaining in the possession of a friend after Grabe’s death.
A Zend MS. very well and clearly written (dated in the year 1005 of the era of Yezdegird, i.e. A.D. 1635), of the Leges Sacræ, Ritus, &c. Zoroastris, was received from G. Bowcher, a merchant in the East Indies. It was given in 1718, but not forwarded until 1723, when it was brought from India by Rev. Rich. Cobbe, M.A. It is now numbered Bodl. Or. 321. And a Coptic Lexicon, compiled and prepared for the press by Rev. Thos. Edward, M.A., a former Chaplain of Ch. Ch., was bought for the sum of ten guineas, which was specially granted from the University Chest. It is now numbered Bodl. Orient. 344. The author was originally of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and tells us in his preface that Bishop Fell, who was also Dean of Ch. Ch., meeting him there in the house of Dr. Edmund Castell, with whom he was living, brought him to Oxford by appointing him a Chaplain of the Cathedral, with the view of carrying on the study of the Coptic language, which had fallen to the ground upon the death of Dr. Marshal of Lincoln College. But just when Edward was prepared to begin printing the results of his labours, his patron, the Bishop, died; and, as he found no one else cared for the subject, he took the College living of Badby in Northamptonshire, and quitted Oxford. He finally became Rector of Aldwinkle in the same county, and died there in the year 1721. His book is dated 1711. It is cited by Archdeacon Tattam in his Lexicon Ægyptiaco-Latinum. Another MS. Coptic Lexicon, in two volumes, was purchased in 1857.