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The Bodleian and Its Founder

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The Bodleian and Its Founder By H. H. E. CRASTER The Bodleian and Its Founder In this brief paper Bodley's present librarian constant warfare between the Spaniards brings to date the account of the storied and the Dutch-he was a principal mem­ Oxford institution over which he has pre­ ber of the Council of State of the Dutch side~ for many years. Republic, taking part in all its deliberations. On two subsequent occasions he was ~ent OUR HUNDRED YEARS AGo-on March back to The . Hague ~n special missions. F 2, I 545, according . to the . Greg~lf. ian His political capacity was such that he calendar-Thomas Bodley 'was borri-in the was twice pressed to . accept the office of city of Exeter, England. Like Raleigh and Secretary of State in the. English govern­ Drake and other great figures of Eliza­ ment. Nevertheless he- had no liking for bethan England he was a Qev~~ ·.man. .. His party politics. His tastes were those of a father was a zealous Prote-stant who found scholar, and so, at the age of fifty-three, .I refuge from religious persecution at Geneva, as he tells us in his autobiography, "I re­ and he.re he received his early education. solved to possess my soul in peace all the But the accession of Queen Elizabeth al­ residue of my days, to take ·.my farewell lowed his return to England and his en~ry of state employments, and to retire from as a student into the University of O~ford, the court." His decision to direct his the place with which his name will be for­ talents to another sphere was destined to ever associated. win for . his name an undying renown. After taking h.is degree, he 'Yas elected a · From the · beginning of the fourteenth fellow of Merton College, gave lec:.tvres century the University of Oxford had both in .Greek and in natural philoso­ housed its library in a room adjoining the phy (the sixteenth-century ~q~{valent of university church. Large gifts from an science), and acted as deputy for the public English prince, Humfrey, Duke of Glouces­ orator of the university. When he was ter, brought about the erection of a new past thirty years he decided to . enter the library building in the second half of the diplomatic service and, with this in view, fifteenth century. It formed an upper story traveled for some years in Italy, France, tq the divinity school. It remains today the and Germany in order to acquire .a knowl­ main. Bodleian. reading room and is still edge of modern languages. known as Duke I-Iumfrey's Library. At the age of forty he . ~egan to be em­ But its contents had been dispersed at ployed on missions to foreign courts, and the Engli~h Reformation, and all that was in I 588-the year of the Spanish Armada:­ left was a great desolate room, stripped of he was sent to The Hague ~s English Min­ both books and bookcases. Surveying it, ister Plenipotentiary to the Netherlands, Bodley came to the conclusion that "I could which had recently revolted from Spain. no~ busy rpyself to better purpose than by During the five years of his continuo,us redu<;iQg that place, which then lay ruined residence at The Hague-a period of and was.t~, to th~ . public u~e . of the students." . : . ... ' · ·. .... 206 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES Consequently, in I 59"8 he ?lade an offer to The Bodleian Library, as it is called in the university that he would restore the memory of its founder, is the largest of room at his own cost to its former use, re­ British university libraries. All members furnish it, procure books for it, and provide of the University of Oxford have the privi­ an endo~ment. He had means of his own lege of reading in it. Down to the middle to carry out the work and what he called a of the nineteenth century its readers were "great store of honorable friends" to assist in practice limited to university graduates_ him in the undertaking. and other learned men. U ndergradu;:t.te. His offer was a~cepted with the gratitude st~dents did their reading in the libra~i\~s which its munificence ·deserved. For four attached to their respective colleges. years the work proceeded. The still­ But in I86I a neighboring library build­ existing bookcases were installed, the beau­ ing, the Radcliffe Camera, was taken over tiful painted roo£" which still adorns the and converted into a reading room for room was erected, and some two thousand undergraduates. The camera is a circular printed books and manus~~ipts w~re col­ building in Palladian style, completed . in lected to form the nucleus o'f the library. I 747 by the architeet James Gibbs. Its It was formally opened_on Nov. 8, I602. lofty dome forms one of the most con­ spicuous features of the center of Oxford. Library~s Early Years · The ·accommodation which it gives has been Sir Thomas Bodley survi~ed the opening more than doubled in recent years, partly ·as of his library by ten years. · His co~re­ the result of fitting up its lower story as an spondence with his first libr~rian is ~till additional reading room. extant and reveals the interest and zeal with which he attended to every detail of library Science Library management. The greatest service ~hich _Further library provision was made in he rendered to the library was the ~~king I 92 7, when a library of scientific books, of an agreement with the Stationers' Com­ na~ed the Radcliffe Science Libra_r)r, was pany (the trade union of English pub­ handed over to the .university. This build­ lishers) whereby the company u~dertook to. ing, to w~i - ch a _large new wing was added present a copy ~f every book which it seven years later, lies within the area occu­ printed. This privilege has. been confi~m~d ~ied by the university's science .departments, by successive copyright acts ·and is rio:W and its use is supplemented by the specialist shared by the British Museum,· the Na­ libraries .belonging to those departments. tiona! Library of Scotland, and the li­ ._The Bodleian is more, however, than a brari~s of Cambridge and Trinity College, university library. Ever since its founda­ Dublin. tion _by_sir Tho~as Bodley it has been a Bodley also extended the library building p~blic library, and in consequence it ranks by the addition of an eastern wing_and-left as one of the oldest public libraries existing money for the erection of a top story to in Europe. _Scholars frqm · all parts of the the university schools which were built, world are 'admit_ted to read within its walls, shortly after his death, round a quadningl~ on production of evidence t~at they are adjoining the original library. Dying on engaged in the pursuit of learning. Jan. 28, I6I3, he was buried in the chapel U ritil the British Museum was estab­ of his college of Merton, where a monu­ lished in the middle of the eighteenth cen­ ment by a well-known English sculpt~r, tury,__'the Bodleian . filled .the role of a Nicholas Stone, records his memory. national library, for no other library in JUNEJ 1945 207 Britain was so rich in collections of manu­ Foundation most generously offered to con­ scripts and of early printed books. The tribute three-fifths. The remainder of the bulk of its collections are naturally of Eng­ sum needed was found .by the university lish origin. Nowhere else will one find so from its· own resources and from the sub­ many manuscripts intact in their medieval scriptions of its members and other. bene­ English bindings. The most important factors. manuscript material for the history of Eng­ The New Library la~d in the seventeenth century is here. · The Malone collection is the finest of its The main feature in the program of ex­ kind for Shakespeare and early English tension wa~ the erection of a large annex, drama. named the New Library, the core of which But equally important collections have is a vast bookstack capable of containing come to Bodley from abroad. Among them four million books. This new building is are the Greek manuscripts of the Genoese the work of the foremost of living English collector Barocci; a large library of manu­ architects, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, and is in scripts, mainly of I tal ian origin, formed by neoclassical style. It was commenced in the V ~net ian Jesuit Canonici ; the libraries 1937 and completed in · 1940. All library of classical literature formed by the Dutch books, other than those kept on the open scholars Meerman and Dorville ; and be­ shelves of the reading rooms, have been sides these one may mention a collection of transferred to it. Icelandic literature and a series of Polish After the present war is ended qualified books-some of which are of extreme rarity readers will have limited access to its -purchased in 1850. shelves-a radical departure from the cur­ rent practice of English libraries, which doe? Oriental Collections not allow readers access to the stack but The Bodleian is equally famous for its requires them to order books for use in 0 rien tal collections. It is particular1 y rich reading rooms. The stack is heated by the in Arabic manuscripts; possesses a remark-· method of thermal storage-that is to say, ably fine series of Persian illuminated manu­ by water circulated from cylinders heated scripts; owns the unrivaled library of by electric power-and is air conditioned.
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