Charles II's Hebrew Books Backwards from the Date They Were Given by Da Costa to the British Museum in 1759

CHARLES ITS HEBREW BOOKS

DAVID GOLDSTEIN

THE collection of Hebrew books in the British Library (formerly the Library of the British Museum) is acknowledged to be one of the greatest in the world, and I do not have to expand on its importance, or on the wealth and variety of its manuscripts and printed books. I should like here to examine a small, but vital, part of the collection.^ I refer to the i8o Hebrew books that once belonged to Charles II, and that were given to the Museum by Solomon da Costa Athias in 1759.1 intend to make my way back through a century of history from 1759 to 1659, to analyse the collection and to pursue its fortunes, and even to try to ascertain its origins before it reached the library of Charles II - although this, I am afraid, will be tentative and hypothetical. Solomon da Costa's gift to the Museum in 1759 is well documented.^ He accompanied his gift with a letter to the Trustees, dated 31 May. The letter is both in Hebrew and in Da Costa's own English translation. The English version was published as a broadside, and has been reprinted many times since. Da Costa's original manuscript copy differs extensively in style, and was clearly revised before publication.^ In this letter Da Costa itemized his gift as follows: 'a parchment roll, written in a beautiful character, containing the law of Moses... as it is used in our synagogues;... a very ancient parchment manuscript book, containing the posterior and the twelve minor prophets;... another parchment manuscript book, containing the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses, the Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and the after-lessons of the whole year. '^ The last was copied by the famous scribe Abraham Farissol of Avignon, who completed it in Mantua in 1481. This manuscript bears Da Costa's name on the binding, with the place and date, London 1719. The gift of these three Bible manuscripts alone would have ensured Da Costa an honourable place in the annals of the British Museum, and he obviously considered them to be his major contribution, because the letter goes on: 'and I have added to them 180 volumes of printed books, old editions, which were collected, and richly bound, by order of Charles the Second ... and are marked with his cypher, all in the Hebrew language; which I purchased in the days of my youth.' Appended to his letter is a list of these 180 volumes. Actually there are two lists of the books in Hebrew, and one in Latin and English translation. There is also another list of the books in Latin only. The letter

23 Fig. I. Title-page of liturgical poems by Isaac ben Reuben of Barcelona, Azharot (Leghorn, 1655), displaying the arms of Grand Duke Ferdinand de' Medici, with the autograph 'Solomon da Costa, London, 1759'. I962.b.24

24 appears in Hebrew in two copies, and one in English translation. All of these, it appears to me, are in Da Costa's own hand.^ The list of books is in alphabetical order of title. After each title Da Costa puts in brackets a brief summary of the contents of the book, usually but not always taken from the title-page; the place of printing; and the size. He puts the date of printing against all titles that were printed on or before 1540. He therefore follows the usual practice of that time of segregating, as being of special importance, all Hebrew books printed before the beginning of the century tav-shin [i.e. 1540]. In other words, he notes all the reshin [i.e. pre-1540 imprints]. He also gives the lettering on the spine of those volumes which contain more than one work. For example, against the title Leshon Ha-zahav (no. 95) he writes 'letter'd Maasse Hachamim' [Ma'ase Hakhamim], this being the first title in the volume which also contains Leshon Ha-zahav. In addition Da Costa numbered each title on the list, and wrote the corresponding number on the fly-leaf of the book itself. Where there is more than one work in a volume he writes all the numbers on the same fly-leaf. In one case there are no fewer than seven titles bound together in one volume. Da Costa also signed the title-page of each volume, in Hebrew 'Solomon da Costa, London 1759' (cf. fig. i). In composite volumes he signed only the first title-page. I have gone into so much detail because I want to show how careful and meticulous Da Costa was. We can understand this the more readily when we bear in mind that he was himself a scribe of some note in his younger days, and examples of his work still survive.^ Not that his list is free from error: occasionally he lists the same title more than once, and where, as happens rarely, the title-page of a book is missing he lists the running-title and the two titles are not always one and the same. But these are minor imperfections. His list is generally reliable, and from it and from an examination of all the books, we can say that Da Costa's gift consisted of 214 separate titles.^ Among these 214 are ten duplicates. From all that we know of Da Costa he was an honourable and honest member of the Anglo-Jewish community. Cecil Roth dates his birth to 1690. He came to London in about 1705 from Amsterdam, and he made his fortune here in the city. He died in 1770. Nothing we know of him would lead us to think that he did not donate to the British Museum all the books that he had acquired and that were once the property of Charles II. One assumes that he kept nothing back. Certainly no other Hebrew books, I think, are known outside the Museum with a Charles II binding, although, of course, rebinding is always a possibility. In any event, I am supposing that the collection as donated was intact. This is important when we come to consider the original source of the collection. An additional factor in arriving at this view is that Da Costa must have been prompted to make this handsome donation by the presentation to the British Museum of the complete Royal Library by George II, just two years earlier, in 1757. Da Costa no doubt wanted to complete that transfer by adding the Hebrew books that originally belonged to it.^ Da Costa says in his letter to the Trustees that he purchased them in the days of his youth. An account of this purchase and the circumstances that led up to it is given by 25 Thomas Hollis (d. 1774), a friend of Da Costa, who - as will be seen - was not a great admirer of Charles II, and whose words therefore must be taken critically. He writes as follows in his Memoirs: You will wonder, it is like, how such a number of books, and Hebrew books, should have been bound by that man-hating riot King Charles the Second. It is my own opinion that they were collected during the Commonwealth, when men of different spirit bore sway... to be bestowed, like other similar donations, on one of the universities,... but which fell, before bestowed, with the nation, to Charles the Second, at the Restoration. But neither did that King give them to any learned body, or person, nor take them into his own library, though they were magnificently bound in morocco, with his cypher and the crown by his own order, and there they lay unnoticed further, and unpaid for at the bookseller's his whole reign; with three thousand other volumes in various languages, alike curious, bound with like elegance, and alike neglected and unclaimed. The same being the case during the reigns of James the Second, King William and Queen Anne, they were sold at length by the bookseller to other booksellers at loss, towards indemnifying himself for the binding and interest-money; and the Hebrew books preserved intire, and bought some time in the reign of George the First by the excellent Solomon da Costa, then a young man, greedy of knowledge... for fourscore pounds, though now invaluable.^ If we are to believe this, then Da Costa acquired these books some time after 1714, and since he himself says that he made the purchase in the days of his youth, we may be safe in attributing it to the early years of George's reign, perhaps 1719 (?), when we know he acquired the Farissol manuscript. Thomas Hearne says that he saw in 1708 'a considerable parcel of Printed Rabbinical Books' in the custody of Mr Sisson, a druggist, together with other books with royal bindings.^*' At all events the books were clearly withheld from the Royal Library for many years, seemingly decades, because the binder and his heirs remained unpaid. Further evidence about this state of affairs is afforded by John Evelyn, and this takes us back into the seventeenth century itself On 12 August 1689 he writes to Samuel Pepys about the Royal Library at St James's: There are in it a great many noble manuscripts ... and more would be, did some royal or generous hand cause those to be brought back to it, which still are lying in mercenary hands for want of two or three hundred pounds to pay for their binding; many of which being of the oriental tongues, will soon else find Jews and Chapmen, that will purchase and transport them, from whence we shall never retrieve them again." When John Evelyn penned this letter it was the bookbinder's widow who was demanding this 'two or three hundred pounds'. The binder himself had died six years earlier in 1683. He was Samuel Mearne, bookseller and bookbinder, who had received a licence to bind volumes for the Royal Library in 1660. There are countless examples of his work in the British Library, apart from the Hebrew items acquired and donated by Da Costa. The Charles II binding is very distinctive. The 'cypher' is gold and consists of two letters 'C intertwined back to back, surmounted by a crown, and placed within a pair of wings. The device is stamped on each of the four corners of a gold bordered panel as 26 on the covers of the book itself, back and front, and also several times on the spine. Each book is bound in full leather, with all edges in gold. Most of the volumes still have the original titles on the spine, in Latin characters. The binder was obviously advised by someone knowledgeable in Hebrew, probably a Jew. A few of the volumes are bound in a handsome red turkey, but most of them are in brown. This last point proved to be of interest to the late Howard Nixon, who was certainly the greatest authority on Samuel Mearne and on royal bindings. When I discussed this matter with him, he gave it as his opinion that the brown bindings must have been the last that Mearne did. All his work was in red, and indeed this is what one would have expected. We can presume that he was paid for his early work, otherwise he would not have gone on accepting new orders. It was only payment for his later work that remained outstanding. We have evidence that he stopped binding for Charles about the year 1667. In the library at Longleat there are bills among the Thynne papers^^ - Henry and James Thynne were Charles IPs librarians - relating to this very collection. There is an account for binding 180 Hebrew books, the amount demanded being £126. This bill is undated, but it is coupled with another of £60 for warehousing these books for the period 1665-85. The accounts were submitted by Mearne's widow, and incidentally they corroborate our view concerning the intact nature of the collection. The 180 volumes are exactly those enumerated in Da Costa's letter. We may therefore conclude that they were bound at the latest in 1665. Charles II therefore received them before that date. This leads us on to the question of how the collection was formed, and how it found its way into the Royal Library. The assumption has been that they were collected during the Commonwealth and that they came into the King's possession at the Restoration in 1660. This view goes back to Hollis whom we have already quoted. He writes:' they were collected during the Commonwealth... to be bestowed ...on one of the universities... but... fell, before bestowed ... to Charles the Second at the Restoration. '^^ This version has the advantage of being paralleled by the collection of Hebrew books purchased by Parliament in 1648 for Cambridge University, which has been well documented.^^ Solomon Schechter, in his history of the Hebrew collections in the British Museum, gives quite a different version of events. He writes: 'These books were intended as a present from the London Jewish community to Charles for certain privileges which he had bestowed on them. The sudden death of the King seems to have frustrated the intention of the first donors. The books were scattered and Da Costa had to collect them again. '^^ We now know that Schechter's final words were mistaken, because Charles had received the books by 1665. But were they a gift from the Jewish community, and if so, when.'' To try to answer the question we need to look at the books themselves. And this I have done. I am happy to report in my capacity as a Curator of the Hebrew collection that all the books donated by Da Costa are still there! - which is no mean achievement, considering that the whole collection has been moved physically at least six times and that individual items have been sent to the bindery for repair, and issued to readers, and 27 been subject to the usual wear and tear of use and age. I must admit, however, that one item eluded me for several years (I started the examination in 1978), and turned up only a few weeks ago. It was Mordecai Jaffe's Pinat Yikrat, part iii of his Levushe Or Yekarot, printed in Lublin in 1584. The book had actually been standing in its proper place on the shelf all the time, and the reason why I could not find it is remarkable. The fact is that it was not recorded in our catalogues. The Library possesses three copies of this work, but Joseph Zedner in his masterly catalogue, published in 1867, records only two; he missed Da Costa's copy. As you know, Zedner was one of the greatest and most reliable Hebrew bibliographers of all time, and when I realized that he had made a mistake I was filled with a great surge of confidence, because I knew at last that he and I had something in common! So the 180 volumes are all there. Let the books now speak for themselves. Firstly, where were they printed and when? Remember we are dealing with 214 separate items, all in Hebrew (except for one in Judaeo-Spanish, Moses Almosnino's Hanhagat ha-hayim [Regimiento dela vida], Salonica 1564). Of these, seventy-seven were printed in Venice and forty-two in Constantinople; eighteen in Salonica, and ten each in Mantua and Ferrara. Other places are represented by single figures only, and there are no books at all from Antwerp or Amsterdam. The earliest dated items are the Mivhar Ha-peninim ascribed to Ibn Gabirol (Soncino, 1484), Albo's Sefer Ha-'ikarim (Soncino, 1485), and Landau's Agur (Naples, about 1490). The latest dated book, and this is crucial to our enquiry, is the collection of responsa by Baruch ben Solomon Kalai, entitled Mekor Barukh, and printed in Smyrna in 1659. Indeed we can be more precise about this. The printer states that it was completed on Sunday, i Tammuz 5419, which is equivalent to Sunday, 23 June 1659. There is another item of the same year also printed in Smyrna, the volume of homilies entitled Shema Shelomoh by Solomon Algazi. So we may conclude already that the collection did not reach its final form until the middle of 1659, at the very earliest, and more likely, of course, until the end of 1659 or even 1660. Secondly, what are the subjects covered by these books? Fifty of them deal with Jewish law, most of these being responsa, codes, or commentaries. Forty-nine are Bible commentaries, those on the Hagiographa, Esther, Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Psalms being the most prominent. Then follow thirty-eight philosophical items, nineteen volumes of sermons, fifteen dealing with Kabbalah, thirteen with Hebrew grammar, and a few on other subjects. There are no Bibles as such. There is no copy of the Tanakh [Hebrew Bible] or of the Humash [Pentateuch]. In Zedner's catalogue under the heading BIBLE, i.e. complete Bibles, or under BIBLE - PENTATEUCH, one will not find a single item that originated from Charles IPs collection. There are no volumes of Mishnah (except Aboth) or Talmud. Prayer-books are very poorly represented. There are three [Passover] Hagadot and only one copy of the Mahzor (Lublin, 1567, volume i only). There are no Sidurim, no Selihot, no Tikunim, or works of this nature. (It seems to me unlikely that such gaps in Bible, Talmud and Liturgy are accidental, as we shall see.) There are no items of Christian Hebraica. None of the books bears the signature of a censor. There is one book which in fact does have some lines obliterated, probably by a censor, but this 28 also is unsigned, and could have escaped the attention of someone trying to exclude such works. Lastly, we must look at signs of previous ownership before the books reached Charles II. Fifty-two books bear names of owners that remain decipherable. There are others where names have been intentionally obliterated. There are no names of Christian owners. Occasional Latin inscriptions are to be found, but these are invariably translations of the Hebrew title, or a record of the contents, and could have been added at any time in the seventeenth or even the eighteenth century. Nearly all the names of previous owners, as one would expect, are Sefardi. One - Isaac ben Gershon Ashkenazi - is written in a Sefardi hand, and so is a Sefardi. There are just four Ashkenazi signatures in Ashkenazi hand: Ben Meir ben David, Zelig Judah Zalman (both on the same book), Avigdor ben Jehiel Ashkenazi, and Meir ben Joseph Meir Ashkenazi. We find the same signature on more than one item: Judah Zarko owned three; Teshuvah ben Moses Roman, otherwise Teshuvah ibn Paquda, owned two. Among names of interest are Solomon Colpo; Solomon, Eleazar and David Gallichi; Avtalion ben Mordecai (who is probably Avtalion ben Mordecai Modena, an acquaintance of Azariah de Rossi). Avtalion's signature is on the Mantua edition of the Zohar. I would add to this list Samson Nieto, but the last name is difficult to decipher, and I could be mistaken. None of the names corresponds with those of Jews known to have been in London just after the Resettlement. One book has an inscription which allows us to place the owner in a certain period of time. The responsa by Benjamin Motal, Tumat Yesharim (Venice, 1622), bears the message on the reverse of the title-page: 'On Tuesday, 12 Tevet 5401 [30 December 1640] the current coinage became invalid, and new coinage was minted by Sultan Ibrahim.' The Ottoman Ibrahim reigned from 1640 to 1648. The book was owned by someone resident in the Ottoman Empire, or by a merchant who had dealings in that part of the world. What can we deduce from this evidence.? It would appear that a definite process of selection has taken place, unlike the books bought for Cambridge in 1648, which were a 'job lot'. The lack of a Bible, a Talmud tractate (or Mishnah), and the presence of only one substantial prayer-book, points to that fact. This alone, I think, would indicate Jewish selectors, and this hypothesis is strengthened by the lack of any Christian Hebraica, and the absence of previous Christian owners or, to be more accurate, the absence of Christian signatures. The exclusion of copies signed by censors also points that way. So we have a collection of Hebrew books formed by Jews not earlier than late 1659. It is reasonable to assume that they were a presentation by the Jewish community to Charles, not as Schechter maintained 'for certain privileges which he had bestowed on them*, but as a token of their loyalty to him at his restoration. The most reasonable date for this presentation would be 1660, particularly near the end of that year, because it was at this time that anti-Jewish agitation was being aroused by the City and by certain individuals, and influence brought to bear upon the King to reverse the train of events that had led to the readmission of the Jews during the Commonwealth. The small Jewish 29 community in London, numbering not more than forty families at that time, petitioned the King not to heed these hostile outbursts. This was at the beginning of December

Charles already had good grounds for being friendly towards the Jewish community. During his exile the Jews of Amsterdam had helped him, at his request, with money, supplies and arms for his forces, and they specifically distanced themselves from Manasseh ben Israel's dealings with Cromwell. They wanted to show that their loyalty lay with the Royalists and not with Parliament. This may explain why among our books there are no works by or connected with Manasseh ben Israel, nor indeed anything printed in Amsterdam, at all. We must also not exclude the possibility that the gift had religious or even messianic overtones. In seventeenth-century England religion and politics were never far apart. But I must leave others more learned in these matters to ponder that question. We have traced the history of Charles II's Hebrew books backwards from the date they were given by Da Costa to the British Museum in 1759. Let us now summarize by going the other way. 180 Hebrew volumes, containing 214 titles, were given by the London Jewish community to Charles II in 1660. They were consigned to Samuel Mearne for binding, and he did the work before 1667. He was unpaid. The books were seen by Evelyn in 1689 and by Thomas Hearne in 1708. They were purchased by Da Costa after 1714, kept intact, and found their way to their present home in 1759, where they have remained ever since. Finally, let us return to Solomon Schechter, whose opinion was that the books were a gift from the Jewish community in London to Charles. We think that he was right, although he got the date wrong. The question is, what led Schechter to this conclusion? I think the answer lies quite simply in his understanding of Solomon da Costa's letter to the Trustees of the British Museum. He says of the books nitkabtsu ve-nikhrekhu la- melekh Karolo lia-sheni. Da Costa's original translation was 'books which had been gathered and bound for King Charles the Second'. This is only slightly ambiguous. The books were gathered for him, and bound for him. The printed translation, however, reads differently: 'which were collected, and richly bound, by Order of Charles the Second'. This can easily be taken to mean that only the binding had royal connections, not the original assembling of the books. Schechter relied on the original Hebrew, and this may indeed have been Da Costa's own view: the books had not been collected during the Commonwealth, but specifically for Charles after the Restoration, and as I hope I have shown, at the beginning of his reign. I doubt whether Charles opened a single volume. But I must thank him for allowing me the privilege of opening every one of them.

I This paper was originally presented as a lecture script, found among the late Dr Goldstein's at a meeting of the Jewish Historical Society of papers in the Hebrew Section of the British England, London, in 1985. The text has been Library. Various notes and communications revised for publication from the unedited type- from individuals in connection with Dr Gold- 30 stein's research on the subject were included in and Portuguese Jews ... in Bevis Marks (London, his 'Da Costa' file, and acknowledgement may 1901), pp. 109-10; E. N. Adler, Catalogue of be given to them here: N. Barker, M. Foot, L. Hebrew Manuscripts in the Collection of Elkan Fuks (Amsterdam), L. Hellinga, David Katz, Nathan Adler (Cambridge, 1921), pp. 81-2, and Golda Kaufman (San Francisco), the late H. M. plates 25A and 98 (concerning manuscripts in Nixon, the late J. C. T. Oates, A. K. Offenberg, Da Costa's hand); C. Roth, Anglo-Jewish Letters, S. Reif, M. L. Robertson (San Marino, Cali- 7/55-/9/7 (London, 1938), pp. 123-5, 144-7; J. fornia). Leveen, 'Introduction', in his vol. iv of G. 2 EDITOR'S NOTE: On Da Costa and the history of Margoliouth, Catalogue of the Hebrew and the Da Costa collection there are a number of Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, published sources, some of which are cited in pp. v-vi; idem, 'Joseph Zedner, 1804-1871', this paper, or within the cited literature. The Studies in Bibliography and Booklore, i (Cincin- most important monographs are those by I. and nati, 1954), p. 159; H. M. Rabinowicz, The A. da Costa, 'De Hebreeuwsche Boekwerken in Jewish Literary Treasures of England and America het Britische Museum, en de Boekdrukker da (New York and London, 1962), pp. 18 and 24; Costa', Konst en Letterbode (i860), Nos. 16 and idem. Treasures of Judaica (New York and 17, reprinted in I. da Costa, Israel en de volken: London, 1971), pp. 18-20, 32-3; and H. M. Overzicht van de Geschiedenis der Joden tot op Nixon, English Restoration Bookbindings: Samuel ouzen tijd, 2nd edn. (Utrecht, 1876), pp. 546-50; Mearne and his contemporaries (London, 1974), A. M. Hyamson, 'Solomon da Costa and the pp. 12-13, and plate 2 (photograph of the British Museum', in Bruno Schindler and A. binding of Pirke Avot, Venice, 1566). Marmorstein (eds.), Occident and Orient, being There are also entries by G. Lipkind, 'Costa, studies in Semitic Philology and Literature, Jewish Solomon da', in The Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. iv History and Philosophy and Folklore ...in Honour (New York and London, 1905), p. 292; C. Roth, ofHaham Dr. M. Gaster's 80th Birthday: Gaster ' Costa Athias, Salomo da', Encyclopaedia Anniversary Volume (London, 1936), pp. 260—6 Judaica, vol. v (Berlin, 1930), cols. 675-6; and [most copies of this Gaster Festschrift were idem, 'Costa Athias, Solomon da\ Encyclopaedia destroyed during the bombing of London in Judaica, vol. v (Jerusalem, 1972), coL 989. Five 1941]; E. R. Samuel, 'Anglo-Jewish Notaries volumes from the Da Costa collection, described and Scriveners', Transactions of the Jewish as such, and 'in the original binding as ordered Historical Society of England, xvii (1953), pp. for Charles II', were displayed in the Anglo- 119-23; A. M. Habermann, 'Shelomoh de- Jewish Historical Exhibition in 1887; see J. Kostah, meyased ha-mahlakah ha-'ivrit be- Jacobs and L. Wolf, Catalogue of the Anglo- Muzey'on ha-Briti [Solomon Da-Costa, Founder Jewish Historical Exhibition, Royal Albert Hall, of the Hebrew Section of the British Museum]', London, 188/ (London, 1888), pp. 204—6, nos. in Ve-^im bi-gevurot [Ve^Im bigvuroth. Fourscore 216, 241, 242, 244, and 253. years: A Tribute to Rubin and Hannah Mass^ (Jerusalem, 1974), pp. 173-8. There is an Shorter discussions also appear in E. Edwards, account by Golda Kaufman of 'The Gift of Memoirs of Libraries (London, 1859), vol. i, pp. Solomon da Costa' in the Jewish children's 453-4; A. Esdaile, The British Museum Library: magazine World Over, xxiii, no. 5 (New York, 8 a short history and a survey (London, 1946), p. Dec. 1961), pp. 6-7. 297; E. Miller, That Noble Cabinet: A History of the British Museum (London, 1973), pp. 73-4; See also 7"^!? Gentleman^s Magazine, xxx, Feb. N. Barker et al.. Treasures of the British Library and May 1760; [T. Hollis], Appendix to the (London, 1988), pp. 64, 142, 147, 210; and M. Memoirs of Thomas Hollis (London, 1780), pp. Caygill, The Story of the British Museum 613-15; M. Margoliouth, History of the Jews in (London, 1992), pp. 14-15. Great Britain (London, 1851), vol. ii, pp. 101-2; 3 One version of the letter appears in The The Jewish Chronicle (London), 25 Nov. and 2 Gentleman's Magazine (London, Feb. 1760), and Dec. 1859; S. Schechter, 'The Hebrew Col- in the Appendix to the Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, lection of the British Museum', in his Studies in p. 614, and reprinted in Margoliouth's History of Judaism (London, 1896), p. 321; M. Gaster, the Jews m Great Britain, vol. ii, p. ioi. It is most History of the Ancient Synagogue of the Spanish accessible now in Cecil Roth's Anglo-Jewish Letters, 1158-igij, pp. 123-5; and in Hyam- opened to the public, the editio princeps of the son's article (where the version is based on the Talmud was the only Hebrew work it contained, printed broadside). The Hebrew version was and this was included in the royal library printed for the first time by A. M. Habermann, presented to the Museum by King George II'), pp. 173-8, but Habermann did not publish the see the corrective by T. A. Birrell, in 'The letter in its entirety. Reconstruction of the library of Isaac Casaubon', 4 The three manuscripts are to be identified, in Hellinga Festschrift / Feesthundel/ Melanges respectively, as Add. MSS. 4707 (Margoliouth (Amsterdam, 1980), pp. 63 and 68, n. 41, with no. 3, 'Sefardi hand probably of the fifteenth reference also to other Hebrew volumes from century'), 4708 (Margoliouth no. 135, 'Sefardi Casaubon's library which formed the nucleus of hand of the twelfth to thirteenth century'), and the oriental collection of the Museum upon its 4709 (Margoliouth no. 95). [EDITOR'S NOTE: inception. (To these one should add a further These three manuscripts were described by volume, David Kimhi's Mikhlol, Venice, 1545, Kennicott in his Dissertatio Generalis in Vetus with Casaubon's own copious ms. notes, re- Testamentum Hebraicum (Oxford, 1780; Bruns- corded in Zedner, p. 199.) Birrell notes that the wick, 1783), nos. 124-6; cf. B. Richler, Guide to twelve volumes of the Talmud, although re- Hebrew Manuscript Gollections (Jerusalem, 1994), bound in the nineteenth century as Henry VIII pp. 42-3, under Xosta Athias'. One might also books, were assigned in the Old Royal Library mention here another manuscript once belonging Catalogue to Casaubon, and do not figure in the to Da Costa which passed to the Royal Society, catalogue of Henry VIH's library in the Public and is now on permanent loan to the British Record Office. On another Talmud with flawed Library. This is the 'Royal Society Hebrew royal pretensions, see D. Goldstein, 'Hebrew Bible' on vellum (Kennicott no. 128), a fine Books in the Library of Westminster Abbey', example of Spanish calligraphy of the fifteenth Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of century, which was exhibited in the King's England, xxvii (1982), pp. 151-4; E. Samuel, Library in 1992; see Richler, p. 312, and [B. S. 'The Provenance of the Westminster Talmud', Hill], Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts from Iberia ibid., pp. 148-50; and B. S. Hill, Hebraica [saec. [British Library exhibition notes] (London, X ad saec XVI): Manuscripts and Early Printed 1992), no. 18.] Books from the Library of the Valmadonna Trust 5 Hyamson, pp. 260-6, says that the Hebrew (London, 1989), pp. 12 and 26 (n. 38), and entry original of the letter * cannot now be found'. One no. 24.] can only presume that he was unlucky when he 10 H. M. Nixon, English Restoration Bookbindings., visited the Museum - perhaps the manuscript P- 13- was at the bindery - because it is certainly there 11 John Forster (ed.). Diary and GorrespoiBence of now, in two copies! The lists are in Add. MSS. John Evelyn (London, 1859) [ = Bohn's His- 4710, 4711, and Or. MS. 11268. torical Library, vols. ix-xii], vol. iii, p. 305. 6 There is a photograph of the title-page of one 12 See Nixon, English Restoration Bookbindings, p. manuscript he copied in 1717 in the Encyclo- 12:' Catalogue of Bookes belonging to the King's paedia Judaica, vol. V (Berlin, 1930), col. 675; see Library at St James's in the hands of Mr Meme also Adler, Gatahgue of Hebrew Manuscripts, pp. his Ma^^: Stationer. Besides 180 volumes of 81-2, and plates 25A and 98. Hebrew Bookes in his possession', not dated, 7 Hyamson, p. 260, gives the figure as 220; cf. also and a bill 'Due to Anne Mearne the Widow of Habermann, p. 173, n. 16. Samuel Mearne his Ma'^" Bookbinder deceased 8 Of the Hebrew books in the Museum before Da for binding severall Books to his Ma"^' Library Costa's donation, there was a Talmud, as well as Royale', demanding j{]24i for English and Latin Joseph Colon's Responsa (Venice, 1519), the books (99 folio, 64 quarto, and 361 octavo and latter not a royal volume, [EDITOR'S NOTE: On the duodecimo), and ;(ii26 for 180 Hebrew books. British Library's 'royal' Talmud, referred to by r3 This opinion was repeated by Hyamson. J. Winter Jones in his introduction to Zedner's 14 EDITOR'S NOTE: The collection of Hebrew books Gatahgue of the Hebrew Books tn the Library of at Cambridge was acquired from the London the British Museum (London, 1867; repnnted bookseller George Thomason, who had them 1964), p. V ('In 1759, when the Museum first from an Italian Jew, one Isaac Faraji (later cited. corruptly, as Pragi); they were listed in Thom- idem, Gambridge University Library: a history ason's Gatalogus Librorum diversis Italiae locis from the beginnings to the Gopyright Act of Queen Emptorum Anno Dom. 164J (London, 1647), pp. Anne (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 231-40; and David 47-56 ('Libri Hebraici'). On their purchase for S. Katz, Philo-semitism and the Readmission of Cambridge, see I. Abrahams and C. E. Sayle, the Jews to England, 1603-1655 (Oxford, 1982), 'The Purchase of Hebrew Books by the English PP- 175-7- Parliament in 1647', Transactions of the Jewish 15 Solomon Schechter, 'The Hebrew Collection of Historical Society of England, viii (1918), pp. the British Museum', p. 321. 63-77; J-C. T. Oates, 'Abraham Whelock 16 See the excellent articles on this subject by (1593-1653): Orientalist, Anglo-Saxonist, & Uni- Lucien Wolf, in vols. iv and v of the Transactions versity Librarian', The Sandars Lectures in of the Jewish Historical Society of England. Bibliography (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 55-67;