sent some books to the latter in 1487, some seven years after the new room had been finally completed and opened for use. But Antony Wood (in whose pages records of other benefactors may be found) tells us that very few years passed before the Library began to lose some of its newly-acquired treasures; for Scholars borrowed books upon petty and insufficient pledges, and so chose to forfeit the latter rather than return the former[12], while tradition reported that Polydore Virgil, the

historian, being at length refused any further opportunities of abstraction, obtained a special licence from Henry VIII for the taking out any MS. for his use! From this traditionary report Sir H. Ellis, in his introduction to a translation of Virgil's history, printed for the Camden Society in 1844, endeavours to vindicate his author's reputation, but more by conjecture than evidence. In 1513 a Chaplain and Librarian was elected, named Adam Kirkebote[13]. The new Librarian, soon after, supplicated Congregation that on Festival Days he should not be bound to open the Library before twelve o'clock; a practice which, commencing at that day, does still unto this (the Library on Holy Days during Term being now not opened until the conclusion of the University sermon, at eleven o'clock) witness to the religious spirit which pervades all the old institutions of Oxford. In 1527, when one Flecher was Chaplain, it is recorded[14] that 'Magister' Claymond (doubtless the President of Corpus Christi College, of that name) was permitted by vote of Congregation to take Pliny's Natural History out of the Library. In 1543 Humphrey Burnford was elected Chaplain on Oct. 31, in the room of — Whytt, deceased[15]. It was probably during his tenure of office that the Library was destroyed. For in 1550 the Commissioners deputed by Edward VI for reformation of the University visited the Libraries in the spirit of John Knox, destroying, without examination, all MSS. ornamented by illuminations or rubricated initials as being eminently Popish, and leaving the rest exposed to any chance of injury and robbery. The traditions which Wood has

recorded as having been learned at the mouths of aged men who had in their turn received them from those who were contemporaneous with the Visitation, are abundantly confirmed by the well-known descriptions of Leland and Bale of what went on in other places, and therefore, although no direct documentary evidence of the proceedings of the spoilers is known to exist, we may believe that Wood's account of pillage and waste, of MSS. burned, and sold to tailors for their measures, to bookbinders for covers, and the like, until not one remained in situ, is not a whit exaggerated. One solitary entry there is, however, in the University Register (I. fol. 157^a), which, while it records the completion of the catastrophe, sufficiently thereby corroborates the story of all that preceded, viz. the entry which tells that in Convocation on Jan. 25, 1555-6, 'electi sunt hii venerabiles viri, Vice-cancellarius et Procuratores, Magister Morwent, præses Corporis Christi, et Magister Wright, ad vendenda subsellia librorum in publica Academiæ bibliotheca, ipsius Universitatis nomine.' The books of the 'public' library had all disappeared; what need then to retain the shelves and stalls, when no one thought of replacing their contents, and when the University could turn an honest penny by their sale? and so the venerabiles viri made a timber-yard of Duke Humphrey's treasure-house.

But four years after the final despoiling of the Library there was an undergraduate entered at Magdalen College, who, by the good Providence which always out of evil brings somewhat to counterpoise and correct, was to be moved by the sight of the ruin and desolation to restore what his seniors had destroyed, and to reconstruct the old Plantagenet's Li

brary on such a basis, and with such means for carrying on its re-edification, that the glory of the latter house should soon eclipse that of the former. All around him he doubtless found traces of the recent destruction; his stationer may have sold him books bound in fragments of those MSS. for which the University but a century before had consecrated the memory of the donors in her solemn prayers; the tailor who measured him for his sad-coloured doublet, may have done it with a strip of parchment brilliant with gold, that had consequently been condemned as Popish, or covered with strange symbols of an old heathen Greek's devising, that probably passed for magical and unlawful incantations. And the soul of the young student must have burned with shame and indignation at the apathy which had not merely tolerated this destruction by strangers, but had contentedly assisted in carrying it out to its thorough completion. Himself a successful student, he became eager to help others to whom thus the advantages of a library were denied; and, for a while without fee or reward, undertook a public Greek lecture in the Hall of Merton College, to which college he had been elected in 1563[16]. And when, after years thus spent in academic pursuits, Thomas Bodley betook himself to diplomatic service abroad, he still, amidst all the distractions of foreign and domestic politics, preserved his affection for the scenes and the studies of his early familiarity. So, when the days came

wherein statecraft began to weary him and Courts ceased to charm, his thoughts reverted to the place where, free from these, he might still, although in a more private capacity, labour for the good of the commonwealth; he remembered the room once precious to students, 'scientiarum sedes,' as the University had called it of old, but now destitute alike both of science and of seats. 'And thus,' says he himself, 'I concluded at the last to set up my staff at the Library-door in Oxon; being thoroughly persuaded that, in my solitude and surcease from the commonwealth-affairs, I could not busy myself to better purpose than by reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the publick use of students[17].' So therefore, on Feb. 23, 1597-8, he wrote a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, offering that whereas 'there hath bin heretofore a publike library in Oxford, which, you know, is apparant by the roome itself remayning, and by your statute records, I will take the charge and cost upon me, to reduce it again to his former use,' first by fitting it up with shelves and seats, next by procuring benefactions of books, and lastly by endowing it with an annual rent