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Scarcity of Books: Oxford

About 1225, Roger de Insula, dean of York, gave several Latin Bibles to the university of Oxford, on the condition, that the students who perused them should deposit a cautionary pledge. The library of that university, before A. D. 1300, consisted only of a few tracts, chained or kept in chests in the choir of St. Mary's church. In 1327, the scholars and citizens of Oxford pillaged the opulent Benedictine abbey of the neighbouring town of Abingdon. Among the books they found there, were one hundred psalters, as many grayles, forty missals, which undoubtedly belonged to the choir of the church, and twenty-two codices, on common subjects. And although the invention of paper, at the close of the eleventh century, contributed to multiply manuscripts, and consequently to facilitate knowledge, yet, even so late as the reign of Henry VI. the following remarkable instance occurred of the inconveniences and impediments to study, which must have been produced by a scarcity of books. It is in the statutes of St. Mary's college at Oxford, founded as a seminary to Oseney abbey, in 1446: "Let no scholar occupy a book in the library above one hour, or two hours at most; so that others shall not be hindered from the use of the same!" The famous library established in the university of Oxford, by that mamficent patron of literature, Humphrey duke of Gloucester, contamed only six hundred volumes. About the commence ment of the fourteenth century, there were only four classics In the royal library at Paris. There was one copy of Cicero, Ovid, Lucan, and Boetius. The rest were chiefly books of devotion, which included but few of the Fathers: many treatises of astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, and medicine, originally written in Arabic, and translated into Latin or French: pandects, chronicles, and romances. This collection was principally made by Charles V. who began his reign in 1365. This monarch was passionately fond of reading; and it was the fashion to send him presents of books from every part of the kingdom of France. These he ordered to be elegantly transcribed, and richly illuminated; and he placed them in a tower of the Louvre, from thence called La Toure de la Libraire. The whole consisted of nine hundred volumes. They were deposited in three chambers, wainscoted with Irish oak, and ceiled with cypress curiously carved. The windows were of painted glass, fenced with iron bars and copper wire. The English became masters of Paris in the year 1425; on which event the Duke of Bedford, regent of France, sent the whole library, then consisting of only eight hundred and fifty-three volumes, and valued at 2223 livres, into England; where perhaps they became the groundwork of Duke Humphrey's library. Even so late as the year 1471, when Louis XI. of France borrowed the works of the Arabian physician, Rhasis, from the faculty of medicine at Paris, he not only deposited by way of pledge a quantity of valuable plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as a surety in a deed, by which he bound himself to return it, under a considerable forfeiture. The excessive prices of books in the middle ages afford numerous and curious proofs of the caution with which literary property was secured in those times of general ignorance.

In 1174, Walter, prior of St. Swithin's at Winchester, a writer in Latin of the lives of the bishops who were his patrons, purchased of the monks of Dorchester, in Oxford shire, Bede's Homilies and St. Austin's Psalter, for twelve measures of barley, and a pall, on which was richly embroidered in silver the history of St. Birinus converting a Saxon king. Among the royal manuscripts in the British Museum, there is Comestor's Scholastic History in French; which, as it is recorded in a blank page at the beginning, was taken from the king of France at the battle of Poictiers; and being purchased by William Montague, Earl of Salisbury, for 100 marcs, was ordered to be sold by the last will of his countess, Elizabeth, for 40 livres. About A. D. 1400, a copy of Johr. of Meun's Romance de la Rose, was sold before the palace gate at Paris for a sum equal to £33. 6s. 6d. CELEBRATED LIBRARIES.-The first who erected a library at Athens was the tyrant Pisistratus. This was transported by Xerxes into Persia, and afterwards brought back by Seleucus Nicanor to Athens. Plutarch says, that under Eumenes there was a library at Pergamus which contained two hundred thousand books. That of Ptolemy Philadelphus, according to A. Gellius, contained forty thousand, which were all burnt by Cæsar's soldiers. The celebrated library of Alexandria, begun by Ptolemy Soter, and enlarged by his successors, consisting of seven hundred thousand volumes, contained nearly all the literary treasures of the world. This was burnt by order of the Caliph Omar, in the seventh century, and the loss must for ever remain irreparable. On this calamity, literature can never reflect without a sigh. Constantine and his successor erected a magnificent one at Constantinople, which in the eighth century contained three hundred thousand volumes, and among the rest, one in which the Iliad and Odyssey were written in letters of gold, on the entrails of a serpent; but this library was burnt, by order of Leo Isaurus. The most celebrated libraries of ancient Rome, were the Ulpian and the Palatine; and in modern Rome, that of the Vatican, the foundation of which was laid by Pope Nicholas in the year 1450. It was afterwards diminished in the sacking of Rome by the constable of Bourbon, and restored by Pope Sixtus V. and has been considerably enriched with the ruins of that of Heidelberg, plundered by count Tilly in 1682. One of the most complete libraries in Europe, was that erected by Cosmo de Medicis; though it was afterwards exceeded by that of the French king, which was begun by Francis I. augmented by cardinal Richelieu, and completed by M. Colbert. The emperor's library at Vienna, according to Lambecius, consists of eighty thousand volumes, and fifteen thousand nine hundred and forty curious medals. The Bodleian library at Oxford exceeds that of any university in Europe, and even those of any of the sovereigns, except those of the emperors of France and Germany, which are each of them older by a hundred years. It was first opened in 1602, and has since been increased by a great number of benefactors: indeed the Medicean library, that of Bessarion at Venice, and those just mentioned, exceed it in Greek manuscripts, but it outdoes them all in Oriental manuscripts; and as to printed books, the Ambrosian at Milan, and that of Wolfenbuttle, are two of the most famous libraries on the continent, and yet both are considerably inferior to the Bodleian. The Cottonian library consists wholly of manuscripts, particularly of such as relate to the history and antiquities of England; which, as they are now bound, make about one thousand volumes.