dates from the year 1598; and here we have an admirable guide in the "Annals of the Bodleian Library," by Rev. W.D. Macray, whose annalistic order we will follow.
1601.--The Library bought the copy of the Anglo-Saxon Gospels, from which John Foxe had printed the edition of 1571.[17] It is marked Bod. 441.
1603.--Some manuscripts were given by Sir Robert Cotton, and one of them (Auct. D., ii. 14:--Bod. 857) is an ancient volume of Latin Gospels, written probably in the sixth century, which shares with the illuminated Benet Gospels described above, the traditional reputation of being one of the books that were sent by Gregory to Augustine. It has no miniatures, but it has rubrication, and it is in a similar style of writing with that splendid volume. Thomas Elmham, who was a monk of St. Augustine's at Canterbury, and wrote a history of his monastery, about A.D. 1414, gives a list of the books of his house; and there are two entries of "Textus Evangeliorum," each being particularly described. Humphrey Wanley (p. 172) identified our two books as those known to Elmham; and Westwood pronounces them to be two of the oldest Latin manuscripts written in pure Roman uncials that exist in this country.
1635-1640.--In these years Archbishop Laud gave nearly 1,300 manuscripts, among which there is one (E. 2) that enjoys pre-eminently the title of "Codex Laudianus." This is a famous manuscript of the Acts of the Apostles, which has been variously dated from the sixth to the eighth century. It is the only known manuscript that exhibits certain irregular readings, seventy-four in number, which Bede, in his "Retractations on the Acts," quoted from his copy. Wetstein surmised that this was the very book before Bede when he wrote his "Retractations."[18] At the end is a Latin Creed, written in the same uncial character, though not by the same hand, and Dr. Heurtley says it is one of the earliest, if not the very earliest, of what he calls the "Manuscript Creeds." He has given a facsimile of it.[19]
Another of these was the Peterborough chronicle (No. 636), a celebrated manuscript, containing the most extensive of all the Saxon chronicles.
1675.--Christopher, Lord Hatton, gave four volumes of Saxon Homilies, written shortly after the Conquest. These are now among the Junian MSS. (Nos. 22, 23, 24, 99), simply because Junius had them on loan. Being among his books at the time of his death, they came back to the Bodleian, as if part of the Junian bequest. This explains why Hatton manuscripts, which contain sermons of Ælfric and of Wulfstan, bear the signatures Jun. 22 and Jun. 99.