Falconer Madan

“ 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. ”

“ Classical students are at no loss for guides, [28] and it is open to all others simply to take a book or edition of repute, and study its methods, the enumeration of MSS., the grouping of them, and the principles of text-construction and criticism. But at every step they need a large library, and the Bodleian combines the advantages usually only found in a great city with the amenity and surroundings of a country town. ”

“ But wherever literature has taken a long and firm hold there is a desire for a public library of another kind. By this time private libraries abound, and every serious student surrounds himself with the ordinary books on his special subject. And the public library shares in this general elevation of the personal standard; it [11] becomes a necessary complement to individual effort. ”

“ Yet in the Arts section, which includes Literature and History, there are only thirty-six books in the English language. The Library was intended for scholars and students, and it is to be feared that Bodley included nearly all English books among the “Baggage Books” and “Riff Raff” which were excluded. So keen, however, was Bodley that nothing should escape him which was worth having, that he wrote in 1607, “You shall never see that any good Books shall be lost for want of buying, though I find no Contributors: albeit you need not doubt, but I shall always find sufficient money.” ”

“ The Library was open on all weekdays from 8 to 11 a.m., except when there was a University Sermon or other service, and in the afternoons from 2-5 from Easter to Michaelmas, or 1-4 from Michaelmas to Easter. All Doctors, Masters and Bachelors could claim the right of reading, except that Bachelors of Arts must be of two years standing. All others had to take an oath at entry, and if not benefactors or highborn, and especially if foreigners, had to obtain a decree in their favour in Congregation. Lending out books was absolutely forbidden. ”

“ Readers who have followed the history outlined in preceding chapters will understand that the very cradle of the whole Library lies in the part marked on the plan “Old Reading Room.” That is Sir Thomas Bodley’s own first room, which had been superposed on the Divinity School in the latter part of the fifteenth century, finished in 1480, and taken over in a derelict condition by the Founder. No one can enter the room without a feeling of veneration for its antiquity and associations. ”

“ The Bodleian may fairly claim to rank in size about ninth, and in size and importance (together) about eighth. It is the largest and most important University library in the world, and the largest (at any rate in the Old World) 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. ”

“ The Civil War was an anxious time for the Library, from the difficulty of safeguarding it from irruption and violence. The care with which the Library has always guarded its contents from the risk of loss by lending out is well exemplified by Rouse’s action when the King, on December 30, 1645, demanded the Histoire Universelle of Aubignè. Rouse went to him and read out the Statute against lending, and the King with a very good grace gave way. ”

“ The reader stood or sat, and the open book lay before him at a convenient angle, as in church lecterns. The system was obviously very wasteful of space, and was evolved from the time when one or two books only were brought out of the cupboard (armarium) for a reader’s use on a desk resembling a lectern, near a window. In the fifteenth century the normal type of library was a narrow room of considerable length, lighted by narrow windows at short intervals. ”

“ As soon as Writing occurs in a portable form, whether as cylinders of baked clay in Assyria, or as tablets of bark, wood or wax, or as sheets of parchment or paper, there is a volume, and there is the possibility of a collection of books which forms a Library. ”

“ The Extra Staff is apparently a class peculiar to the Bodleian, instituted by Nicholson. They are to a large extent former Junior Assistants, retained for a time on the Staff under conditions which allow them to carry on their own studies (as, for instance, for a University Degree) . It is found that their experience of the Library in the past makes their services of special value, while on the other hand they are allowed to choose a normal scheme of hours and take what holidays they please, being paid by the hour (from 6d. to 2s.) ”

“ In four and a half years, on Monday, November 8, 1602, the new public library of the University [3] was solemnly opened, [17] 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. ”

“ Poole’s Catalogue of Portraits in Oxford, vol. i (1912) .
[57]
CHAPTER VI
METHODS AND MATERIALS OF MODERN STUDY
Man lives in the present, for the future, but emphatically by the past. He cannot possibly understand what he sees (whether in politics, theology, literature or science) , without realizing how it came to be. If he attempts to avoid this necessary study of the past, or affects to despise it, he is beaten in the race of life by those who are wiser than himself. ”

“ Ordinary books can be reserved at the seat: manuscripts and valuable printed books are given up each day, and kept for re-issue. Free access to the shelves is not possible in so large a library, but arrangements are made to suit reasonable requirements: the Reference books are numerous, and the Subject Catalogue and lists of Accessions are provided. A Manual for Readers, giving further detail, can be obtained on application, without payment, as well as the Rules for Cataloguing and lists of the numerous collections, both manuscript and printed. ”

“ But every foreign book and periodical has to be purchased, and though much has been done, the foreign literature is not fully adequate. All that can be accomplished is to provide, in this department, a large and useful working library. It is in English Literature, in Theology and in Classics that the Bodleian can be justly called firstrate. ”

“ The field of Oxford history is so plentiful and so untilled that it can be found by any one without trouble, and it is therefore here [63] passed over. Any one inspired to cultivate it will find a wealth of material, both antiquarian, topical and literary. The following jottings are divided under a few general headings, but are otherwise in no order and could be indefinitely extended. The Bodleian statute requires that the leave of the Librarian or Curators be obtained before any manuscript is copied with a view to publication. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ They were like the Egyptians in the Red Sea. As none escaped, the whole train must have been on the sands; the ghastly scene of turmoil and death in the quicksands and swiftly rising waters must be left to the imagination ”

“ On three occasions an alarm of air-raids brought many of the staff to the quadrangle between midnight and 3 a.m. The readers diminished by about one-third. On the other hand, no department was closed down, nor any change made in the public service, the gaps were filled by the capable assistance of ladies of the Catalogue Revision Staff and men in some way disabled from military work, and in 1916 it was found possible to hold a Shakespeare Tercentenary Exhibition with success. The British Museum was unable to undertake this at the time, and the Bodleian with every right stepped into the gap. ”

“ But when in his last days he erected an additional room (the Arts End) his choice fell on the newer idea that a wide space should be left in the middle of the room, and the books be all placed against the walls (1613) . The lower books (folios) 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. (see p. 46) . The Gallery books were quartos and octavos, not chained, and given out to readers below by one of the officers of the Library. ”

“ The Curators meet at least twice a term, and hold an Annual Visitation of the Library on November 8, the anniversary of the opening of the Bodleian in 1602. The income and expenditure and even the regulations of the Library are under their control.
Officers.
The three officers are the responsible officials, and any one of them can take complete charge of the Library. They are the Librarian and the two Sub-Librarians; by custom one of the latter is an Oriental scholar. At the age of sixty-five they retire, unless specially retained for a few additional years. ”

“ In 1828 the Hebrew MSS., which had hitherto been inferior in value and number to the Arabic, received a great augmentation by the purchase en bloc of the Oppenheimer Collection of both manuscript and printed Hebrew literature. It is noticeable how large donations tend to produce further accessions in the same line. The Uri Catalogue of Oriental MSS. with its Second Part, noticed above, and the purchase of the Oppenheimer library seem to have called attention to this department, and from 1837 on a stream of minor donations and purchases set in. ”

“ Two large and valuable donations were received in that year and in 1914, namely, 17,000 volumes of Chinese literature from Sir Edmund Backhouse, of Pekin, and Professor Ingram Bywater’s very choice library of about four thousand volumes on Aristotle and his commentators, [37] and of Humanist scholars up to about 1650. Then the War came, and checked many of the activities of the Bodleian. Forty-one members of the Staff were called away on military service of one kind or another, including all of the Regular Staff who were of military age, [24] for the Library made no claim for exemption. ”

“ There are several departments of study in which the Library [58] is able to furnish ample manuscript materials for original research. Among them may be mentioned especially Theology, Classics, English history and English literature, the local history of the British Isles (especially of Oxford and its neighbourhood) , and Oriental literature (especially Hebrew, Sanskrit, Arabic and Chinese) . To these may be added Music, old Irish literature and Liturgies without exhausting the list of specialities. ”

“ It remains to indicate the place among libraries which the Bodleian Library, the Library of the University of Oxford, appears to occupy among the libraries of the world. In the absence of all proper standardization of statistics, size (as estimated by the reputed number of volumes, not works) must be first regarded, and next importance, such as that due to manuscripts, incunabula and the like. Mere size may not connote importance, for the million volumes claimed by Messrs. ”

“ The Bodleian, it is submitted, satisfies these conditions of contentment, and is, and always will be, both for British and foreign students of theology, history, literature or science, a potent element in post-graduate education at Oxford. That it is not fully used, is true; and that it needs much more help before it can exercise its proper functions, is also true. ”