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ower books were still chained, and could only be used at the desks attached; such was the case, for instance, with the First Folio of Shakespeare, marked S. 2.17 Art. . The Gallery books were quartos and octavos, not chained, and given out to readers below by one of the officers of the Library. This arrangement was imitated in the Selden End, which was completed in 1640.

So far an attempt has been made to sketch briefly the evolution of a library in ancient and mediaeval times. The plan of the present chapter of generalities now requires that we should consider the kinds of modern library, and the position which the Bodleian holds among them.

There are libraries and libraries. There are libraries of Reference or, as they are sometimes termed, Deposit; and there are libraries of the second rank, adapted for local and popular use. These two kinds are typical, and fall apart, as will be seen, by the application of a simple test.

Of this highest class it may be said that a really great library should have Universal scope, Independence, Size, Permanence, Wealth, and multiform Utility. Its Catalogue is not a mere book-finder, but a scientific work. Open access and lending are given up, but the Reference library is large. The aim of the British Museum to possess the largest French library outside France, and so with other foreign departments, and to store all local newspapers, is beyond praise.

Within the second class of libraries the manifold and various needs of modern students have resulted in a large number of kinds, which have been so seldom and so incompletely methodized that the following first attempt at their classification may be allowed, though cross-divisions cannot be entirely avoided.

LIBRARIES

The value of the MSS. in the Vatican Library at Rome raises it to the first rank, though its printed volumes are only reckoned to be 400,000 . The size of the great libraries in the United States is undoubted, but, as has been remarked, the absence of large and valuable collections of MSS. reduces their importance. In the Library of Congress at Washington, where the printed volumes are estimated in the Annual Report for 1915 at 2,364,000, the mileage of occupied shelves is believed to be eighty or more, which is not far from double that of the British Museum. The New York Public Library is estimated to contain about 1,920,000 volumes or 2,090,000 . The Boston Public Library is believed to possess 1,050,000 volumes .

A statistical survey of the Bodleian Library was made in 1915, with the following results:--

Printed volumes 1,050,000 Of which folios 175,000 quartos 350,000 octavos 525,000 Separate pieces 2,060,000 Separate items 3,000,000 Manuscript volumes 40,000 20,000

The Bodleian may fairly claim to rank in size about ninth, and in size and importance about eighth. It is the largest and most important University library in the world, and the largest which is not aided out of State funds. It claims also to be one of the earliest public libraries of Europe, in the sense that it has always been open to those who bring a sufficient recommendation, practically without distinction of class or nationality. In early days a small charge was made on first admission.

SIR THOMAS BODLEY AND HIS FOUNDATION, 1598-1613

The cradle of the University is in the vaulted chamber at the north-east corner of St. Mary's Church, still called the Old Congregation House. The present building was begun in 1320 on behalf of Thomas de Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, and consisted of a lower chamber for University meetings and an upper chamber for a library. The shell was finished by his death in 1327; but not till a dispute with Oriel College about the possession of Cobham's books was settled in 1410, was there a library in full establishment. The books were taken from the two chests in which they had lain since 1337 in the lower room, and were chained in the upper room to desks with seats fixed beside them. In 1412 a statute settled the regulations, and ensured that the librarian should also be a chaplain of the University.

In 1345 Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, author of the first book on the love of books , bequeathed his library to Durham College , but it is hardly doubtful that the books never reached Oxford, and that his intended library "free to all scholars" never came into being.

The second University library was built over the Divinity School, chiefly because the gifts of MSS. by Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, far exceeded the capacity of the little solar at St. Mary's to receive them. The School was begun about 1420, and by 1480 both it and the book-room were complete. The latter is now the "Old Reading Room" of Bodley's foundation. But between 1550 and 1556 the Commissioners appointed by Edward VI for the reformation of the University wantonly destroyed almost the whole of the contents of the library, so much so that on January 25, 1556, the University gave orders that the very fitting of the library should be sold. There were no books left to attract a reader. Of the six hundred or more MSS. in the old room, not more than eleven can be still identified and only four are still in their old home .

From 1550 till 1598 a dead silence falls on the University library: the bare walls are there, and perhaps the roof also, but no books and "no voice, nor any that answered." So too the University library at Cambridge was used as a Theological School from 1547 to 1586 , but the books were on the shelves all the while, to the number of about 180.

Sir Thomas Bodley, a "worthy of Devon" and a diplomat high in the esteem of Queen Elizabeth, came of an old Devonshire stock which probably originated in Budleigh. When the founder of it left Budleigh at some unrecorded time, he would be at once known as Thomas de Budleigh or Bodley. A family of that name was settled for many generations at Dunscombe, a hamlet of Crediton, and John Bodley, the father of Sir Thomas, had left Dunscombe and settled in Exeter, when his son was born there on March 2, 1545. His wife was Joan of Ottery St. Mary. The whole family was worried out of England in Queen Mary's reign, and the young Thomas was brought up at Geneva till the accession of Queen Elizabeth, when the whole family returned to England, and settled in London. In 1559 the son was entered at Magdalen College, Oxford, his tutor, Laurence Humphrey , having shared the exile of John Bodley. After Bodley's degree in 1563 he became a Fellow of Merton, and successively Greek lecturer, Natural Philosophy lecturer, Proctor , and deputy Public Orator. There is evidence also that he studied Hebrew at Oxford as well as in his younger days at Geneva. Lastly, he travelled for nearly four years in Italy, France and Germany.

Bodley was therefore well-equipped for a career of public life, and worthy to ascend that admirable ladder which the Queen set up through the Chancellors of the two Universities, to attract the best men of the time to the service of the state. After two years' preliminary employment in London his diplomatic career opened in 1585. It continued till 1598, when his activity and statesmanship had shewn itself in missions to Denmark, Germany, France and the Low Countries. In 1597 he married a rich widow, Mrs. Anne Ball , of Totnes, but had no family by her.

At last, at the age of fifty-two, being tired of statecraft and the Court, and "for the loue" he bore to his "reuerend Mother the Vniversitie of Oxon," and in order to "do the true part of a profitable member in the State" he decided to offer to restore the old University library, or in his own memorable words "examining exactlye for the rest of my life, what course I might take, and haueing sowght all the wayes to the wood, to select the most proper, I concluded at the last, to set vp my Staffe at the Librarie dore in Oxon; being throwghly perswaded, that in my solitude, and surcease from the Commonwealth affayers, I coulde not busie my selfe to better purpose, then by redusing that place to the publique vse of Studients. For the effecting whereof, I found my selfe furnished in a competent proportion, of such fower kindes of ayds, as vnles I had them all, there was no hope of good successe: for without some kinde of knowledg, as well in the learned and moderne tongues, as in sundry other sorts of Scholasticall literature, without some purse habilitie to goe throwgh with the charge, without very great store of honorable friends, to further the designe, and without speciall good leasure to follow such a worke, it could but have proued a vayne attempt and inconsiderate." To have knowledge what to do, money to do it, friends to help it, and leisure to see it done--on those four qualifications the Founder based his offer to the University, dated February 23, 1598. The old dismantled room with its bare fifteenth century walls was there, making its mute appeal, and at last the Hour and the Man came. The "spacious times of great Elizabeth" provided, not a youthful enthusiast, but a man of world-wide experience, with all the learning which Oxford could impart, with ample means, with friends at Court, and with a fixed purpose for his years of retirement.

The offer was of course accepted with gratitude, and the work began at once. In four and a half years, on Monday, November 8, 1602, the new public library of the University was solemnly opened, with about two thousand volumes. The appearance of the room can be gathered from Bodley's own letters and the existing fittings. On the frontispiece of the present volume it is marked OLD READING ROOM, an oblong chamber standing by itself, with ten alcoves on either side, each with its own window, and a bookcase at right angles to the wall, which separates each study from its neighbours. The entrance was by a staircase at the West or Selden end, in a porch of the Divinity School below. At the farthest end of the room the two last alcoves were the Librarian's and Underkeeper's studies, and there was an East window to light the central passage, facing which window were two closed cupboards or "Archives" on each side of the gangway. The present room is so little altered from its first condition that all these features can be still recognised or understood. In 1602 the two thousand volumes would occupy about one quarter of the accommodation, and no doubt the folios were soon chained in their places, while the quartos and octavos were relegated to the cupboards and to a gallery over the door at the West end. These latter, having no chains, were given out as required. The windows, painted ceiling, bookcases and cupboards remain as in 1602, but the central passage was several inches lower than the floor of the alcoves. There is even a register of the names of the readers and whether they came in the morning or afternoon , for the whole of the first year. Moreover there is a catalogue of the entire contents of the shelves in the order in which the books stood on the opening day.

But, as may be well imagined, Bodley was in these early days a host in himself. All the details of management were referred to him, and as the Library had as yet no endowment, all the accessions by purchase were paid for by him. Fortunately a long series of letters from Bodley to James between 1601 and 1612 is preserved, and displays to us every stage of the evolution of the Bodleian, and also the humorous conflicts between the Founder, pursuing an ideal and controlling at every point the management of his institution, and his Librarian, a student intent on his own literary aims, obstinate, and not over desirous of spending the six hours a day at the Library which Bodley considered reasonable, in addition to the four he needed for his own work. Bodley wished his Librarians to be "some one that is noted and knowen for a diligent Student, and in all his conuersation to be trustie, actiue, and discreete, a graduat also and a Linguist, not encombred with mariage, nor with a benefice of Cure," and James greatly irritated him by extorting a most reluctant leave both to marry and to hold the Rectory of St. Aldate's. The Founder's style is racy and pertinent: when James desires an increase of his stipend of ?22: 13: 4 a year, Bodley writes "I do not doubt but to give you very good satisfaction: but till your Travels and Troubles are seen to every Student, it will be best in my Opinion, not to charge the Spit with too much Roast-meat." When benefactors are about, Bodley is specially alert in converting promise into performance: in a case of promise they "should be called on, with all the good speed that Conveniency, fit Time and good Manners will afford. For many Men's Minds do alter so soon, as it will be requisite always to open the Poak, when the Pig is presented." The relations of the two were on the whole cordial, and James worked hard for the Library. The worth of the nascent foundation was recognized in 1604 by the conferment of knighthood on Bodley, and its permanent endowment began in 1609 by the gift by him of lands at Cookham and in Distaff Lane, London.

Bodley had seen the first extension of his Library when the "Arts End" was built in 1610-12. All the Arts books were there placed, allowing the older part to retain the books of the three superior Faculties of Theology, Medicine and Jurisprudence. But shortly before his death the University had formed a plan of building the "Schools Quadrangle," or rather three sides, which together with the Arts End would form a quadrangle, and Bodley in his Will wrote "for as much as the perpetuall preseruation, support & maintenance of the Publique Librarie ... dothe greatly surpasse all my other worldly cares, and because I doe foresee that in proces of time there must of necessitie be very great want of ... stowage for Bookes," he provides for a second-floor room to over-top the two stories needed for the Lecture Rooms or Schools of the University, and to form a reserve of space for an overflow of books. This was completed in 1618. The accounts for August 1613, to July 1614, the first complete year since Bodley's death, show an income of ?137 from property, and expenditure of ?110 .

THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY, 1613-1860

There was an ebb-tide in the Library affairs for some years after Bodley's death on January 28, 1613--a kind of reaction. James was getting old , and a set-back was experienced from the defalcations of Sir John Bennet, one of Bodley's executors, who defrauded the nascent institution of at least ?450. It must have been to some extent a doubtful time. The good ship had been well built, launched and equipped, but would it stand the open sea, when its designer and builder was no longer at hand and its capacity of enduring stress was as yet untried? Looking back on the development of the Bodleian, we can now see that the memory of Bodley's personality, and the results of his practical wisdom as displayed in the Statutes, did carry on the Library tradition until the gathering clouds of the Civil War; that then it secured its position by being perhaps the only safe repository for literary collections during the Civil War and Commonwealth troubles; that throughout the ensuing century and a half it attracted immense donations; so that in fact until about 1850 it remained the premier library in the kingdom, though the British Museum had been founded in 1753. Since 1850 the great National Library has assumed clear pre-eminence, having the support of public funds and being acknowledged by all to be the chief library of the Empire.

In 1620 a new catalogue of the Library was published by Bodley's Librarian, Dr. Thomas James, which is in the form to which we are all accustomed--that is to say it is an Author-catalogue, arranged by authors' names in alphabetical order. English literature is still quite a subordinate feature in it, owing to the Founder's principles; and under Shakespeare's name no single entry is to be found. Another curious feature is that no English translations of Latin or Greek or even French or Italian books are allowed to appear. Those who knew no Greek or Latin, and needed "cribs" were not welcomed. James resigned his office in this year and was succeeded by John Rouse, the friend of Milton. His puritanical tendencies undoubtedly helped him to save the Library from damage during the sieges of Oxford in the great war.

"Conscendo orbis illud Decus Bodleio fundatore, Sed intus erat nullum pecus Excepto Janitore.

Neglectos vidi libros multos, Quod minime mirandum, Nam Bardos inter tot et stultos, There's few could understand 'em."

Rouse was tactful enough to entertain Fairfax and Cromwell with a complimentary speech when the University gave them a banquet in the Library on May 19, 1649, and on the whole the Cromwellian visitation left the place alone, even when the learned Dr. Thomas Barlow succeeded to Rouse's place in April, 1652.

In 1681 a historic incident took place in what is now three of the Oriental Rooms of the Bodleian, but was then the Geometry School. The Parliament was held in Oxford on March 21-28 in that year, and King Charles II, having a secret promise of pecuniary aid from the French King, felt strong enough to do without consulting Parliament on a matter of the Protestant succession, and determined to put a sudden and dramatic end to the Session. The House of Lords was in the Geometry School, which stretches North from the great Tower, on the first floor. It had a broad staircase to itself. The House of Commons was summoned to the same School on Monday, March 28, to hear the King's speech, about the subject of which nothing was known. To avoid confusion, the Commons were not allowed to use the broad staircase, but were hustled up a narrow winding stone staircase in the Tower itself, and when at the level of the first floor were precipitated into a room, and at last down five steps into the House of Lords. They arrived in a panting and dishevelled condition, only to hear a sudden and curt Royal Message, read by the King himself, announcing an immediate Dissolution of Parliament! The comedy then took a new turn, in which the King was protagonist. He bolted in great haste, scuttled across the quadrangle as fast as dignity and robes would allow, bundled into his coach, and was at Shotover, on the way to London, before the city in general became aware that the Parliament, which thought it had the King in its power from his want of supplies, was dissolved. The scene would have been broadly humorous, but for its sinister political significance.

The first century of the Library was worthily concluded with a useful and laborious Catalogue of all the known and accessible collections of MSS. in Great Britain, which is known as Bernard's or the Old Catalogue, and is due to the labours of Dr. Edward Bernard, Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. It was published in 1697, and shows that Oxford possessed more than half of the whole number. The printed books at this time may be estimated at about twenty-five thousand and the MSS. at about seven thousand. The century itself is cut deeply into two parts by the Civil War. Before it the Library prospered through its Founder and those who knew and remembered him. After it a considerable number of small collections found their way by donation or bequest, chiefly from a feeling of the insecurity of private ownership; and some large purchases were made. On the whole the Library easily maintained its reputation as the largest and most valuable in the kingdom.

In 1696-7 the income was ?341, and the expenditure ?125, the chief items being ?51 only to the three officers , ?19 for establishment, ?17 for the Curators' dinner, ?8 for binding and--six shillings for books! The last detail was a consequence of the money required in the next year for the purchase of the Bernard printed books. The average expenditure on books was about ?30 a year.

The eighteenth century in the Universities, and indeed in the country at large, is usually described as one of general torpor, with a low standard of taste, but brightened by many examples of conspicuous individual merit. This may be true, and the annals of the Oxford Press seem to bear it out. But it is true also that literature has much to say for itself during this period, and that one study at least was strongly developing itself--the study of English antiquities. The Bodleian itself may be said to have languished, in a sense, until about 1750, and then to have waked up, under the astonishing series of large gifts of which it was the recipient. In fact the hundred years from 1735 to 1835 may be called the Century of Great Donations.

When Dr. John Hudson succeeded Hyde, and Hearne entered the Library as Assistant, both in 1701, a good deal of activity was exhibited. In 1704 Dr. Charlett testified that "Our Public Library, which for some years had stood still, is now in a thriving condition by the active diligence and curiosity of Dr. Hudson, who spares no author, no bookseller, but solicits all to augment that vast treasure." But in 1716, after bickerings on other grounds, Hearne was turned out of his place, as a Nonjuror, and Hudson became careless before his death, in 1719. Joseph Bowles, who succeeded Hudson, and died at the age of thirty-four in 1729, seems to have been unequal to the position he obtained, though our chief testimony comes from Hearne who cordially hated him. Robert Fysher, the next Librarian, was not a man of mark, and appears to have been disabled by ill-health from fully performing his duties.

The growth of the printed books had up to this point been much more normal than the acquisition of MSS. The only printed collections of any notable size since Robert Burton's, in 1640, had been those of Selden , Marshall and Barlow . The right to every published book no doubt gave an impression that little help was needed, especially when such was the lack of bibliographical principle that, for instance, the original first two editions of Shakespeare's Plays were cleared out and sold as duplicates or "doubles," when the Third Folio came out with seven additional plays. The First Folio thus turned out was bought back for ?3000 in 1905 . The tide began to turn towards the middle of the eighteenth century, partly perhaps from the example of the munificent gift of Bishop Moore's books to the University Library, at Cambridge, made by George I in 1715, whereby besides 1790 MSS. nearly twenty-nine thousand printed books were acquired by it.

Dr. Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph, formerly Archdeacon of Norfolk, died in 1735 and left to the Bodleian his collection, consisting of a large number of Civil War papers, Norwich collections and ecclesiastical, literary, and historical MSS., including the papers of Archbishop Sancroft. The printed books were also of value and extent. These all arrived in 1736, and the Library seems to have responded to this stimulus by issuing its fourth Catalogue in 1738, a careful edition in two folio volumes based on actual inspection of the books and not on former catalogues. Much of the work shows Hearne's accurate hand.

In this year arrived 5206 volumes of MSS., with a large printed collection, by the bequest of Dr. Richard Rawlinson, Bishop among the Nonjurors, who died in 1755. The extent of the gift entirely overwhelmed the Library staff, and it remained almost undescribed till 1862. Rawlinson picked up everything from everywhere, like Sir Thomas Phillipps, but while the ghost of the latter sees all that he lived for in process of dispersal, the Rawlinson collection is absolutely intact and worthily honoured. History and topography are the chief subjects, but Classics, English poetry, Service books, Oxford authors since Wood's death, and the whole of Thomas Hearne, the Oxford antiquary's papers, are among the rest. The Thurloe State Papers in sixty-seven volumes, Samuel Pepys's Admiralty and other papers in twenty-eight volumes are here, and some most valuable ancient Irish MSS. worthy of a place by the side of Laud's, with numerous volumes of literary correspondence, which in conjunction with the Ballard collection received in the same year contain perhaps one-half of the literary letters of 1660-1750.

The minor acquisitions of the rest of the eighteenth century MSS. in 1760, and the Bridge's Northamptonshire papers in 1795) were all by gift and bequest, and of the nineteen large collections received between 1700 and 1800 not one was purchased. When Dr. Owen died in 1768, Dr. John Price succeeded. He had been Janitor from some time before 1757, and Sub-Librarian from 1761. His long reign ended in 1813, and his successor, Dr. Bulkeley Bandinel, held the office still longer, dying in 1860 .

A great effort was made from 1766 to 1787 to accomplish a catalogue of the Oriental MSS. which were a notable feature of the Library, thanks to the Laud, Marshall, Pococke, Huntington, Marsh and Hunt collections. The Catalogue of 1787, containing the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Coptic MSS., was the work of Johann Uri, a Hungarian, who resided at Oxford for this purpose, and died there in 1796. The Arabic catalogue was continued by a second part undertaken by Alexander Nicoll and E. B. Pusey, and issued in 1835. Other parts have been continued by volumes in the Quarto series.

In 1789 the first, modern extension of the Library began. How it managed to contain the accessions of the eighteenth century within the compass of the Old Reading Room, Arts End and Selden End, which it possessed in 1640, it is difficult to imagine; but no doubt much uncatalogued matter was stacked in the Picture Gallery and adjacent rooms. At last the pressure became so great that the books simply burst into the Anatomy School, thenceforward known as the Auctarium, on the first floor of the Schools Quadrangle. The gradual annexation of the whole of the Quadrangle, 1789-1882, is too much a matter of detail to be narrated here. The whole of the first floor was annexed by 1835, and the loan of the Radcliffe Camera, in 1860, greatly eased the situation. The first ground floor-room acquired was the Logic School in 1845. The progress of bibliography can be traced in the large purchases made in 1789 at the Pinelli sale and in 1780 at the Crevenna sale, in Florence and Amsterdam respectively. The books bought were chiefly Editiones Principes and other early printed books, and ?1550 was borrowed from the Colleges for the purpose, all faithfully repaid by 1795. The Mazarine Bible, a copy of which fetched ?5800 in 1911, was bought for ?100 in 1793.

The Wight Musical MSS., bequeathed in 1801, were the foundation of the musical collection, and were rich in English music between the Restoration and 1800. Not till 1885 was the old University collection, founded by Dr. William Heather in 1626, and kept in the Music School, transferred to the Bodleian. Four considerable classical collections of MSS. were purchased at this period, the D'Orville , E. D. Clarke , Canonici and Meerman . The Canonici MSS. were amassed by a Venetian Jesuit and abound in liturgical and Italian MSS. as well as in classics. They number 2047, and were purchased for ?5444. These were accompanied by two very large mixed collections of MSS. and printed books, both bequeathed--the Gough British Topographical collection in 1809, and the Douce collection, in 1834. About 3700 volumes came in the former, including a vast series of topographical prints and maps. Among the latter are some large fragments of tapestry maps of England from the first English loom, established by Sheldon in Elizabeth's reign. Richard Gough had been for many years Director of the Society of Antiquaries, and possessed almost every book on British Topography. Francis Douce's interests lay in illuminated and other MSS. and in English literature, and he bequeathed about five hundred of the former class and seventeen thousand printed books, with charters and coins. These two great gifts greatly enhanced the value of the Bodleian in their different kinds.

An incident on Saturday, April 19, 1806, occasioned a singularly apt quotation, and shows that modern smartness had not at that time penetrated the Bodleian. A would-be reader came that morning soon after 8 a.m., the hour of opening , and found no one there, and the door still locked. Before departing he affixed a paper bearing the Greek of the following passage , "Woe unto you, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves and them that were entering in ye hindered."

Not till about 1818 was it recognized that a temperature of 25?-30? Fahrenheit was inimical to the comfort of readers, and not till 1821 were two pipes for introducing hot air inserted, and it is recorded that even this was "wholly ineffectual." In 1845 steam warming was attempted, but that too "did not give satisfaction." In 1861 the hot-water system was introduced, which with various improvements is still in use.

The period closes with the last of the printed Catalogues of the Printed Books. This was a great undertaking, but had its reward in being the largest presentation of printed literature which had ever been issued. It is contained in four folio volumes, issued between 1843 and 1851, the last recording the accessions of 1835-47. At the same time the Quarto Series of detailed Catalogues of Manuscripts was started , which has now extended to some twenty volumes. The gaps left in this monumental series are filled up by the shorter but not inadequate descriptions of the Summary Catalogue in octavo form, which was instituted in 1890, and fulfils a useful purpose.

THE BODLEIAN IN MODERN TIMES

Dr. Bulkeley Bandinel was the last of the old type of librarian, the gentlemanly old-fashioned scholar, to whom the Library was a pleasant preserve to which like-minded students were moderately welcome, if they knew what they wanted and did not give too much trouble to the officers. He assiduously bought the best books, used his personal influence to induce the University to make purchases of entire libraries, and cultivated the probable, and even the possible, benefactor with success. But administration in the modern sense, and the organization of a staff to provide for the wants of the general reader who needed to be allured to literature, were secondary aims.

The Reverend Henry Octavius Coxe, who became Bodley's Librarian in 1860, had had experience in the British Museum and had been sent by the Government in 1857 to report on, and if possible acquire, valuable MSS. in the monasteries of the Levant. He was a trained librarian, with just the right addition, that is to say special excellence in some one line, in this case palaeography. His work was to develop the Library in modern ways, not by a cataclysm but with delicate appreciation of what the past had done in its own way.

Several events make the date 1860 a notable one, besides Mr. Coxe's election. In that year the Radcliffe Trustees made the splendid offer of the loan of the Radcliffe Camera, the great domed building in the centre of Radcliffe Square, as a modern Reading Room and general augmentation of the Bodleian. It solved many difficulties in a most excellent way. It provided new storage room, it made it possible to have a properly fitted second Reading Room instead of inopportune alteration of "Duke Humphrey," and it solved the problem of lengthening the hours during which students could use the library. Artificial lights were then impossible in the Old Reading Room. In 1860 also came the valuable collections which formed the literary part of the Ashmolean Museum, including the extensive collections of Anthony Wood, the Oxford antiquary, the historical and heraldic MSS. of Ashmole himself, with the Lister, Dugdale and Aubrey papers, all relating to English history and biography. And in 1860 also was definitely begun a new general Catalogue of Printed Books on a modern system, the Catalogue in fact which is still in use. This took nineteen years to form, at a cost of ?14,500, occupying about 720 large folio volumes, now expanded to 1200. These great changes engaged the chief attention of the staff, and the next considerable event is the transfer of all the older records of the Archdeaconry of Oxford in 1878. This acquisition has resulted eventually in the Bodleian becoming the great repository of material for the local history of the three "home counties" of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, which form the Oxford diocese. In this year also was issued a Calendar of the Charters, Deeds and Rolls in the Library, chiefly the work of a self-educated student named William Henry Turner, formerly a chemist in the city. On July 8, 1881, Coxe died, having had twenty-one years to carry out his works of reform, and to introduce new principles of librarianship. In 1878 he was President of the first annual meeting of the new Library Association, held at Oxford, the transactions of which were published in the ensuing year and contain an interesting account of the Library.

To Mr. Coxe succeeded in 1882 a librarian of a very different type, brought up in the newest school and one of the founders of the Library Association. Into every department of the Bodleian Mr. E. W. B. Nicholson threw great energy and a super-active mind. Of the large ground-floor rooms of the Quadrangle no fewer than four were handed over in 1882 and afforded a great opportunity for a comprehensive scheme of rearrangement. The staff, which in 1882 were twenty-four, were gradually raised to more than seventy, partly by the introduction of boys for the fetching, distribution and replacement of books and for the simpler processes in dealing with new accessions. A fresh code of Cataloguing Rules was drawn up, and improved from time to time. A large Select library was instituted at the Camera. The number of closed week-days--which used to be twenty-six in the year--was much reduced. Accession lists were introduced. The Library was divided into ten sections, for each of which a Senior Assistant was made responsible. Photography, for the reproduction of MSS., was introduced in 1890. The Sheldonian Basement , the Ashmolean Basement and the New Examination Schools Basement were obtained for the use of the Library. The number of readers increased, in response to all these arrangements for their convenience, and a large Upper Reading Room was obtained by annexing, in accordance with Sir Thomas Bodley's original plan , part of the Picture Gallery . The expenses of preparing and fitting up the room, and of shelving a large collection of periodicals in it for reference, were borne by the present Earl Brassey, who also provided funds for a Catalogue Revision Staff. But the greatest work undertaken in Mr. Nicholson's term of office was the Underground Bookstore, a subterraneous cavern between the Bodleian Quadrangle and the Camera, beneath the grass, capable of holding a million books : the funds were provided by the Oxford University Endowment Trustees. A notable feature of his time was the willingness of some Colleges and Institutions to deposit their MSS. on revocable loan in the Bodleian, to the great convenience of scholars. In this way the MSS. of University College, the Savile and Music School Libraries, the MSS. of Jesus College and those of the Clarendon Press came in 1882-86, followed by the Brasenose, Hertford, Lincoln and New College Collections. Among the greater accessions were the Shelley Collection , and the 6330 Sanskrit MSS. presented by Sir Chandra Shum Shere, of Nepal .

In June, 1919, Dr. Cowley succeeded to the chair of office, and may be expected to carry on the Library through a successful era of change and progress which the arrival of peace has made possible.

THE BODLEIAN AT THE PRESENT TIME

The position of the Bodleian Library among the great libraries of the world has been stated on p. 13. A general description may now be given of its buildings, organization and facilities accorded to students, at the present time.

A. BUILDINGS AND READING ROOMS

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