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PAGE.

ANNALS 1

" B. VELLUM-PRINTED BOOKS, ADDED SINCE 1830 310

" C. LIST OF MSS. FROM MONASTIC AND OTHER LIBRARIES 313

" D. MSS. AND MISCELLANEOUS CURIOSITIES EXHIBITED IN THE LIBRARY AND PICTURE GALLERY 319

" E. NUMISMATIC COLLECTION 339

" F. PAST AND PRESENT OFFICERS OF THE LIBRARY 341

" G. RULES OF THE LIBRARY 344

ANNALS OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY.

The large increase of treasures which these benefactions brought to the University probably caused the first institution of a formal Visitation. On Nov. 29, 1449, we find that Visitors were appointed by Congregation for the purpose of receiving from the Chaplain an account of the books contained in the Library.

Among the first and largest benefactors in the year 1600 occur Lord Buckhurst , the Earl of Essex, Lords Hunsdon, Montacute, , Lisle , Lumley, and William Gent, who gave a large collection of books, chiefly medical.

Many volumes were given about this time by Bodley, which had been collected in Italy by Bill, the London bookseller, who was employed by Sir Thomas to travel on the Continent as his agent for this purpose.

For three days and nights I lay in my berth, dressed as I have said, parched by thirst, and tantalized by waking dreams of every cooling and delicious draught. Meanwhile, the Leucothea had reached the Gulf-stream, and in that region of storms, encountered one of the most terrific. Huge waves came foaming in over the bows, sending their crests even to my door, and pouring down the forehatch into the steerage, drowned out the frightened passengers in the very dead of night. The alarm was so sudden that some had time only to snatch their clothes; and, with them in their hands, they came running aft as to a place of comparative safety. When reproached for their pusillanimity, they offered the paltry excuse, that the water came down the hatch as big as a hogshead, and that it was already deep enough in the steerage for a man to swim in. This might have touched my healthy sympathies, but it now gave me no concern. I believe I may say without vanity, that at that moment I felt perfectly reconciled to the idea, thus suggested, of thirty or forty of our fellow-passengers being drowned like so many rats; though, for my own part, so great was my thirst, I doubted whether there was water enough in the ocean to drown me. Through the open door of my stateroom I could see the white tops of the waves, as the ship leaned over to embrace them; and I thought it no great thing to make my throat a passage for the whole Atlantic.

But I had still no relentings of purpose; through storm, and thirst, and burning fever, I was sustained by dreams of golden joy. At the period of our departure, what is commonly called the sober and prudent part of the community, regarded California as a mischievous humbug. None of my friends favoured my going; and one, still more sober and prudent than the rest, had emphatically declared his conviction, adding considerately that he did not wish to discourage me, that I should not find gold enough to lay on my thumb-nail. Few, however, who had set their hearts on going, were ever dissuaded, I apprehend, by such arguments; even the last pleasant and ingenious comparison failed to convince me: having once made up my mind, I fixed my eyes on the mark and overlooked all intervening objects. Yet my calculations, so I thought, were by no means extravagant; the simple brevity of argument with which I silenced all opposition was ,000 certain--,000 probable--0,000 possible. I now saw these numbers printed in glaring ciphers, with all the lifelike, seductive reality of a lottery placard, all over the walls of my stateroom. Who would not, for such reward, endure the discomforts of a four months' voyage, even though every week should be like the first?

The idea of a life in the mines was rather agreeable. It had about it a smack of Robinson Crusoe; and then, it would be so exciting to bring our gains home at night, and, every two or three days, to light upon a whole nestful of ingots--hunting birds' nests would be nothing to it. If the first discoverers, I said to myself again and again, have met with such astonishing success, with their pans and wash-bowls, what may I not expect, with my improved machines, and the experience I have gained by reading of their adventures? As I said this, I glanced, with a look of complacency, upon the ingenious fabric of our invention which was stowed piecemeal just above my head, and was destined, in spite of its humble pretensions, to work out such astounding results.

It consisted simply of a roll of wire-webbing, with meshes about one-sixth of an inch in diameter, and several rough boards six or seven feet long, with which we proposed to construct three huge sieves, one for each of our company. If these implements failed of their intended purpose, or indeed were never constructed, it was not owing to any fault in them, but entirely to the unexpected, and, if I may be allowed to coin a word, unexpectable nature of that perverse country whither we were going. I saw, in my mind's eye, an immense sandy plain, intersected by rivers, and sentinelled about by lofty mountains. The auriferous sands were to be sifted through our wire-webbing, while the bit of gold would be caught in the meshes. When some meddling adviser suggested that these were too large, and that we should thus lose the finer particles, I, magnanimously, and rather disdainfully, replied, that I intended to leave something for those who should come after me, and that, for my part, I cared for nothing smaller than peas.

Thus, three days and nights I lay; while day dreams, as bright as those of Alnaschar, and oh, too like in sad event! alternated in my sea-sick brain with visions of a darkened chamber--of a spacious bed covered with soft white sheets--of women's voices soft and low--of cool sherbet and fragrant lemonade--and all the "monarchal prerogatives" attendant on a sick man's state at home. Here there was nothing but the casual attendance of the cabin-boy bringing me an occasional cup of gruel, and the querulous sympathy of others as helpless as myself. In a week, however, most were sufficiently recovered to take their meals in the cabin, though in a few instances, the sickness was much more prolonged. A German from Hamburg was the greatest sufferer, the experience he had gained in once crossing the Atlantic seeming not to assist him on the present occasion. For weeks after the rest of us had almost forgotten our trials, he still lay hoaning and moaning to himself in his berth.

"Well, John," asked one, with as much sympathy as could be expected to remain in his oblivious stomach, "how do you feel this morning?"

"Oh!" he replied, with a dolorous shake of the head, "if I live two week, I shall die!"

The ladies on board were almost equally unfortunate--and here I beg their pardon and that of the reader for not having sooner introduced them to each other. It was not every ship in those days that was blessed with female society; and the owners of the Leucothea had taken care to make the most of this important distinction. In setting forth the advantages of the "good ship Leucothea, of superior accommodations," this had been the brightest star in the glorified galaxy that was to dazzle the eyes of the genteel adventurer. The library, the piano, and the ladies,--learning, song and beauty were to shed their benign and humanizing influence over our rude and savage natures, and prevent us from sinking back into worse than heathen darkness and barbarism. It must be confessed that the piano was sadly out of tune, and that the library consisted mainly of such books as everybody had read, or else nobody ever does read; and, furthermore, the proportion of ladies was small, only three or four to a hundred; but then it is well known that a drop of certain substances can be detected in a whole hogshead of water, and I have no doubt that the sight of a bonnet or lady's slipper hung in some conspicuous position about the ship, nailed to the mainmast, for example, would exert a most salutary influence; in the same way as a horseshoe nailed to a barndoor is a most effectual scarecrow to all predatory ghosts and witches.

Be that as it may, the presence of the ladies, considered simply as as an abstract idea, was highly edifying and satisfactory to all on board; and it was no fault of theirs, if we failed to derive from their society all the benefits we had expected.

Mr. Tape, our supercargo, was a man of infinite good nature; he smiled easily, and made promises with equal facility. "Do you think we had better lay in any private stores, Mr. Tape?" we inquired, after settling more important matters with that smiling functionary.

"Oh, no sir, no sir; there's no need of anything of the sort. You'll find everything you want aboard the ship."

"No; save your money. You'll want it more when you get to San Francisco. You'll eat at the same table with Mrs. Tape and the other ladies, and I suppose you don't want to live any better than they do."

"Oh dear! no, sir! not we! no indeed!"

"Well, then, it's all right," and away bustled little Mr. Tape to go through the same form with another applicant.

To be sure, we were still allowed to behold them at long intervals, sitting on deck in chairs lashed to the mizenmast, or to hear their dulcet voices, rising like a steam of rich distilled perfumes, through the skylight of the after-cabin; but our former state and dignity were departed forever. We no longer basked in the sunshine of royal favour, but resembled rather a capital city from which the seat of empire has been removed, and which is left to languish in obscurity and neglect. The steerage passengers regarded us with commiseration, or made odious comparisons in our hearing. The delicacies in which we should have shared, were borne past our door into the after-cabin, and their place supplied with lobscouse and dunderfunk--the first, a detestable hash or ragout of everything edible in the ship--the second, a johnnycake constructed on the same principle, except that the beef and pork were commonly excluded. I always looked with suspicion upon the man who professed a fondness for lobscouse; and if, in our expressive phrase, he was able "to go" dunderfunk, I avoided him as if he had the leprosy. It was impossible to reconcile such tastes with the least twinkle of high or generous feeling; one might as well associate with a cannibal or a ghoule.

In order to add the pleasures of anticipation to those of actual fruition, or to cheat our imaginations with the semblance of more terrene banquets, a bill of fare was duly provided, calculated, apparently, with the far-reaching accuracy of an almanac, for the whole duration of our voyage, and for any meridian. Here, each dish had its own peculiar day, to which it returned, from its hebdomedal revolution, with all the punctuality of Encke's comet. Two days--I remember them well--Monday and Thursday, were allotted to baked beans--three to salt beef, pork, and potatoes--one each to salt fish and ham. The names of Tuesday and Wednesday were lost in the more alluring and alliterative appellation of Dough-days; the first syllable being made, by a double analogy, to rhyme with tough. Some do even spell it Duff, but this is a manifest cacography, and of the most pernicious description, since it loses sight of the etymology of the word, which would otherwise at once explain its meaning to the most cursory reader.

For breakfast and supper, there were tea and coffee, most "pitiful hearted butter," pilot bread, lobscouse, and dunderfunk. Two or three times a week we had hot bread; once a week we had gingerbread; and, on one occasion, a nondescript article about which there was a good deal of curious speculation, till at length one, more ingenious than the rest, suggested that it was intended for an apple-pie. This solution was hailed with shouts of applause, and it was at once voted to present the article, with the thanks of the company, to the lucky discoverer, who happened to be the identical Charley so often mentioned; who being naturally of a philosophic and inquisitive temper, wished to add this unique specimen of naval architecture to a list of curiosities he was then engaged in collecting; and which already consisted of a shark's left eye "kep in spirits in a bottle," and a set of very ingenious checkers made out of his back bone.

The third week of our voyage a terrible feud arose among the passengers, something like that recorded by Gulliver as having existed between the Lilliputians and Blefuscians as to the proper method of eating eggs. The cause of quarrel in our case, however, was even more mighty and important, since it involved the nicest casuistry, and furnished the most unfailing test of character. The question at issue concerned the lobscouse, and the warcries of the contending parties were "onions" and "no onions." The two factions were almost equally divided; and, though the onionists had the captain on their side as well as most of the old fogies, the revolutionists, or liberals, as they styled themselves, by help of the doctor and supercargo, still upheld the war. As this dissension finally threatened the most serious consequences, a compromise was effected, and it was agreed to settle the difficulty by a division; when the parties being drawn up on either side of a seam in the deck, the disonionists were found to have a majority of one, and thus the matter was brought to a peaceful termination.

In a few weeks we had run through every variety of climate, and at the end of February, while our friends at home were still shivering in great-coats and cloaks, or rubbing their hands over coal fires, we were basking beneath the sky of June. I had thrown off, one by one, my outer garments, within which I had shrunk like a silkworm in its cocoon; and now, like the same insect, I came out light and airy, in a summer suit of bright calico and nankeen.

There is something very pleasant in thus anticipating summer, in forestalling the all too-punctual sun returning leisurely from the south, and in bartering a certain quantity of snow and ice for the unadulterated sunshine of the tropics. Yet I could not help thinking that we were intruders, interlopers, in thus presuming to thrust ourselves where we had no right, and to snatch her bounty from the liberal hand of nature, instead of waiting patiently, like good children, till it was our turn to be served. The baffling winds that opposed our progress into those golden gardens of the Hesperides, seemed to favour this idea,--for many days we were unable to head our course, and were compelled to sail in an easterly direction, and even north of east. It was little consolation to a landsman, naturally credulous as he is in all matters pertaining to "sea-ography," to be told that we were thus making the necessary Easting, and that at sea it is especially true that the longest way round is the nearest way home; nor could I bring myself to believe, when the ship's head was turned towards Europe, that we were actually taking the shortest cut to Cape Horn. Under the most favourable conditions, the Leucothea was a dull sailor, a broken down, superannuated cart-horse, jogging along "the right butter-woman's rank to market," which, in this case, was so distant, that we sometimes doubted whether we should ever get there at all.

This was rendered more tolerable, however, by the delicious breeze, that flowing from the coast of Africa, was tempered by the wide extent of water that lay between.

"With such delay Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league Cheer'd with the grateful smell old ocean smiles."

The last expression is peculiarly significant. Here was indeed the many-millioned smile of ocean. It seemed impossible that this amiable monster should be the same we had so lately seen swelling with rage, and threatening our instant destruction. But the naked ocean, even when in good humour, is after all a tiresome companion. I had formed my ideas of a sea-voyage almost entirely from Irving's description of his voyage to Europe. I remembered reading, in my younger days, of the many hours of delightful revery in which he had indulged, and of the amusements he derived from watching the unwieldly monsters of the deep in their uncouth gambols. It seemed to my boyish fancy as if the shark, the whale, the porpoise and the dolphin, and perhaps, even the veritable sea-serpent himself, had come at his bidding, as the beasts came to Adam in Paradise. But either these noble personages are less accommodating since his time, or are unwilling to pay their respects to any less distinguished visitors. Their privacy has been so often invaded by troops of cockney tourists, that it has now become almost impossible to obtain an introduction.

But if these dwellers beneath the surface, these aborigines of the ocean, indigenous, if we may so say, to the soil, failed to gratify our curiosity, or to answer our extravagant expectations, this was far from being the case with the comparatively alien but dominant race of man's introduction. A ship at sea is as different from the same ship lying at a wharf, as the lion of the desert from the cringing brute of a menagerie; I no longer wondered that such should seem to the ignorant savage, beholding them for the first time, living and intelligent creatures, tamed and subjected to the service of a superior race of beings, nor did the ancient fable of their transformation into sea-nymphs seem altogether incredible.

We spoke several ships at this time, bound in different directions. Such an event never failed to produce the most intense excitement, and a feverish anxiety to know the name of the vessel, where she was from, and whither she was bound. To compare great things with small, it was as if two worlds should cross each other's path in the heavens, and should "heave to" a moment in their breathless career to hold brief converse on their state and destiny. It would be an interesting question what matters should be introduced at so august a meeting; though it were much to be feared, that in their anxiety to touch upon none but the most important, the precious, irrecoverable moment would be altogether lost.

In the present instance, however, the question and answer are both ready beforehand; and even the order of precedence is determined by some freemasonary of the high seas, the mystery of which I did not unravel. A few moments are commonly sufficient for the purpose; the captain, who has the first words, pours through his trumpet a hoarse bellow that would be quite unintelligible if its purport were not already known,--the other courteously replies,--the flags are run up and down, to take the place of that head and hand shaking that attends the meeting of two magnates on land, and away go the obedient vessels, to meet, perhaps, no more during their whole career.

When three weeks out, we spoke an English ship from Madras, which thus became exalted, in our imaginations, to a place of vast importance. She sent her boat to obtain a supply of fuel; and we regarded the crew with almost as much interest as if they had belonged to a different planet. Charley Bainbridge, who was always on the look-out for such opportunities, slid down into the boat, and presently returned with some article he had found in her bottom, mysteriously guarded in his breeches pocket. On being pressed to exhibit his treasure, he steadily refused till after the boat had gone; when he drew forth a pebble, which he said came from Madras, and being obtained in that odd way, would make a very handsome addition to his cabinet.

A yet more lively interest was awakened by our meeting, soon after, a ship bound from Calcutta to Boston. She had been in sight all the afternoon, and, in compliance with our invitation to speak, altered her course sufficiently to come up with us just after dusk. A lantern was suspended at our poop, and guided by its light, which seemed quite absorbed by the immense darkness, she came cautiously feeling her way along, till, suddenly shooting into our little illuminated horizon, she hove to and waited to know our pleasure. All the while our ship was silent as the grave, but more than a hundred pair of eyes were peeping through the blanket of the night, as if, though the frailest and softest things, they would really tear it into shreds. We had no sooner, however, learned the destination of the stranger than our decks swarmed with sudden life. As a delay of even a few minutes is regarded as a serious inconvenience, especially by your fast-sailing Indiaman, there was little time to prepare our letters, but most on board, in expectation of such an opportunity, had everything in readiness; and the boat was hardly lowered before the mail-bag was thrown into it. When our visitor had filled her sails, and her tall shadow had merged in the surrounding blackness, a feeling of loneliness settled down upon us, that we had not known since leaving home. In a few weeks she would be in Boston; while, at the same time, we should be off the stormy Cape. It seemed like severing the last tie that bound us to home; as if we had now really begun to slide down the backside of the world, without any possibility of ever climbing up again.

We had now become somewhat accustomed to the dull routine of a long voyage. Sunrise, commonly flat and insipid, even on land, had here the superadded monotony of life at sea. The sun came bouncing out of bed, without a rag of a cloud about him, as if in a great hurry to find out whether we were just where he left us the night before. Soon after we began, one by one, to drop down from our berths; and having drawn on our pantaloons, we shuffled along, towel and wash-bowl in hand, to the waist of the ship, where we were used to perform our ablutions. A fireman's bucket attached to a stout rope had been considerately provided for the use of one hundred passengers; or, to speak more accurately, for the use of the cooks, the passengers having the benefit of it only by sufferance of those sooty dignities.

In warm weather, and quiet seas, drawing water was no great hardship; but when the seas and the latitudes both ran high, and the ship was rolling and pitching at such a rate that it was no easy matter to stand upright,--I could not help thinking that the old nursery ballad

What! cry to be washed? Not love to be clean?

was not after all quite so orthodox in its irony as I had supposed.

Leaning over the bulwarks, with feet well braced against the slippery deck, his hair in his eyes, and the crook of his elbow nervously hooking the rigging, the unlucky ablutor picks up the "superior accommodation," and throws it over the gunwale into the sea. This is a simple and facile operation; there is no need of plumping the bucket up and down in order to fill it, the swift current has already done that for you, and has at once drawn out the whole length of the rope, while the bucket, with open mouth, seems ready to burst, like the frog in the fable, in the vain attempt to swallow the whole ocean. But to regain possession, or as Dan Carpenter, one of our Vermonters, had it, "revocare bucketum, hoc labor, hoc opus est."

This important duty being at length accomplished, we proceeded, in fine weather, to promenade the deck till breakfast. The forenoon was occupied in a great variety of ways. Some disinterested and inquiring individuals kept a constant look-out for sails, sharks, and whales, in order to gratify the universal craving for novelty and excitement. These were the newsmongers and express agents of our little community. A shark could not show his dorsal fin within a cable's length of the ship,--a whale could not wag his tail or blow his nose within five miles,--and a sail could not steal into the wide horizon of the masthead, without being at once detected by half a dozen curious eyes, and straightway reported to all below. Various groups on deck were occupied in reading, talking, and smoking, or in games of chance or skill. A few bolder spirits had even the hardihood to attempt "Spanish without a Master," but they got no farther than the story of the three travellers, and the ominous moral, "Desgraciado el que aspira a riquezas,"--miserable is he who aspires after riches.

The party to which I belonged consisted originally of but three members. Captain Bill was a short, broad-faced, blue-eyed Saxon, who no sooner felt his sea-legs, as the sailors said, well under him, than he began to discover an aptitude for naval tactics that might almost be called genius. Instead of spending his time in those light and trifling pursuits that engrossed the attention of those about him, he applied himself with unwearied assiduity to the acquisition of that knowledge that is usually so distasteful to a landsman; and had constantly in his mouth some such horrid and uncouth phrases as, "How's she head?" "Keep her off half a point," "Haul in your jib-sheets," and others equally portentous. He at length acquired such a facility in this sort of exercise that he came to be regarded as a very high authority in such matters, and hence received from his companions the honorary title of Captain, which his subsequent fortune strangely confirmed. One of the sailors whom I met by chance in the maintop, assured me that he, Captain Bill, knew almost as much as the Captain himself; and that it was a great pity he had not been sent to sea when he was a boy, as there was no knowing what might have happened. I assented to all he said, but took care to say nothing about it to my companion, for fear of inflaming his malady; as his conversation, even then, was almost wholly made up of the phrases above mentioned, and it was well nigh impossible to obtain from him an answer such as a landsman could understand. As Captain Bill, in spite of this little infirmity, was a very clever fellow, and was reputed to have a great deal of what is commonly called luck, I felicitated myself, not a little, on having him for a partner, as I thought I must surely share in his good fortune.

A younger brother of the author, who having like Captain Bill lost his proper title, was distinguished by the name of Tertium Quid, or simply Tertium, and a big bull-dog called Zachary Taylor, completed our little party.

The most conspicuous person in the ship was Charley Bainbridge; who, without being acknowledged as such, was generally regarded as the representative head of the Vermonters. He was the spoilt child of his parents, just beginning, curiously, to dabble in the great mudpuddle of the world. Laughing blue eyes, hair brown and curling, a frank, good-humoured expression, and a fine manly figure, had stamped him plainly as one of that happy or unhappy class who never do anything for themselves, but are always sure to find others ready to do for them. He, as well as his companions, were declared decidedly green, at the outset of our voyage, by some who had seen a little more of the world; but, as the same uncomfortable wisdom had pronounced a similar judgment upon the author, the reader will readily perceive how much it was worth. Our hero left home with an abundant allowance, but this being exhausted by the time we arrived at San Francisco, he was obliged to borrow money in order to reach the mines. The air of the Yuba, whither he first directed his steps, did not agree with his health, and we next heard of him in the southern mines, where, being still unsuccessful, he borrowed money for the fourth time, and returning to Sacramento went into the business of cleaning tripe on a very enlarged scale, that plainly declared him intended only for grand and arduous undertakings. He would undoubtedly have succeeded in this new enterprise but for one of those unlucky accidents that sometimes befall the wisest, and would certainly never have entered into the calculations of Napoleon himself. He was one day backing his cart, filled with the precious commodity, too near the bank of the river, which here falls some thirty feet at a very dangerous angle, when the wheels suddenly passing beyond the brink, the tripe, the cart, and the horse went rolling over each other down the declivity into the river. He stood awhile in amaze, such an illustration of the laws of gravity having probably never been heard of in the halls of old Harvard; but, finding that there was no hope of an immediate resurrection, he cast one longing, lingering look behind, and going at once on board the boat bid a final farewell to the country that had used him so ungratefully. I was the more interested in the adventures of this hero, as I thought they discovered a temper, like my own, too noble for what weaker and more grovelling minds call success.

Dan Carpenter belonged to the same party. He was oftener called "Old Herculaneum," from an admirable misapprehension of the sense of that word, which he was wont to use, in connection with grasp, as synonomous with Herculean. He had studied a little law, and was the best man at checkers in the ship. His conversation was rather homely than brilliant, but he sometimes blundered into what were considered at sea very tolerable jests.

His most amusing idiosyncrasy, however, was his contempt for college learning; it amounted to a positive mania. "When any one," said he, "applied for a situation at our store, I always asked him if he had been to college; and, if he had, that was enough--I had nothing more to do with him." In spite however of this antipathy, he had once studied a little Latin, and adroitly contrived to be vain of this distinction, and, at the same time, of having forgotten all he had learned.

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