spot where he finished his education, offered it to Oxford in 1815. The tender met respectful acceptance from the Vice-Chancellor and other assembled officials; and in 1821, when the younger Boswell had finished the edition of Shakspeare intrusted to him by Malone, the remainder of the books still in his possession were transferred to the Bodleian Library. The collector himself terms it “The most curious, valuable, and extensive collection ever assembled of ancient English plays and poetry.” This is quite true. We have nothing like it or approaching to it elsewhere; nor could a second such collection probably be formed. He told Caldwell, who repeats the remarkable fact, that he had procured every dramatic piece mentioned by Langbaine, excepting four or five—the advantage, observes that gentleman, of living in London.
The number of printed volumes and tracts in a folio catalogue of forty-six pages printed by the University, amounts to about two thousand seven hundred.[1] The majority poetical and dramatic. He did not however turn aside from other pieces of ancient date bearing upon manners, opinions, or events of the time; and the hunter after such literary curiosities may here make some gratifying discoveries.
The manuscript list, which embraces several copies from his own pen, comprises chiefly miscellaneous poetry—songs, epistles, addresses, ballads, love verses, epigrams (very numerous), elegies, and epitaphs. The
- ↑ Estimated, however, in a note to me by the Rev. H. O. Coxe, of the Bodleian, by whom my inquiries were assisted, at three thousand two hundred. I am likewise indebted to the attentions of Dr. Bandinell.
