A GREAT LIBRARIAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15263, 29 March 1913, Page 4 (Supplement)

A GREAT LIBRARIAN.

The tercentenary of Sir Thomas Bodley's. death was celebrated last month. 1 Few people know anything of the ' personality of a man whoso position in relation to our literature is so remarkable. He was born in the West of England, but spent his boyhood abroad, at Frankfort and Geneva. He became later a scholar of Magdalen, Fellow of Merton, Qreek lecturer, and ultimately Public Orator. His extensive European travel preceded an entry into Parliament. He was, soon launched into the deeper currents of international politics, and as trusty envoy to Denmark, France, and to the Dutch United he , fulfilled difficult missions, .to which Elizabeth and her Ministers attached great importance. Political jealousies and contentions at home tended to make Bodley's post unusually difficult and undesirable, and the Minister begged to be recalled. Hardly had he returned to England than Bodfey sought h6w he might "'still do the true part of a profitable member of the State. To . quote his own memorable v words: "I concluded at the last to set up my staff at the library door in - Oxon, very thoroughly . persuaded 'that in* my solitude andvSUTCewe. from the Comv- ■ ||j|v . .

monwealth affairs-. I,could . not busy, myself to better purpose " than v by;reducing that place (which then in every part lay ruined and waste) to the publick use of students." "That place" was the library originally established two centuries earlier over, the Congregation House. There- was but ■ a very , miscellaneous collection. .By ,the autumn of 1602' the library; was ready for opening, with 2GOO volumes on its shelves. In 1604 Thomas Bcdley was knighted, and in . the following year "King , James 1.. was a visitor to' the Bodleian, whose founder he , complimented in ; the," manner > of ■ his shallow , humour by dubbing, him . Sir, Thomas " Godly." "The zeal which ' had brought together an already choice selection in so short a .time moved King James to an unusual burst of liberality. , His Majesty offered to' the ' library "any rare and precious books , Wfiich Sir Thomas migjjt select from the bookshelves of the Royal palaces. This promise, however, appears never to have materialised. > In 1611 Bodley assured the' permanence of his benefaction to the University by endowing the library with a Thames-side .manor and a number of London tenements; and on January *28, 1613, he died of dropsy. The Bodleian is a ' monument that; needs no gilding. • Successive generations,, of wise rind vwealthy patrons of . learning have,' through these three centuries, enriched the library with' new treasures, till it now has upwards of 700,000 volumes, printed or in manuscript, and a fame for Biblical and historical rarities that is only rivalled by the Vatican Library. v