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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks on the practice and policy of
+lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts, by Henry W. Chandler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Remarks on the practice and policy of lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts
+
+Author: Henry W. Chandler
+
+Release Date: October 26, 2011 [EBook #37850]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMARKS ON LENDING BODLEIAN BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Matthew Wheaton and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
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+
+
+
+    REMARKS
+
+    ON THE
+
+    PRACTICE AND POLICY OF LENDING
+
+    BODLEIAN
+
+    PRINTED BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS.
+
+    BY
+
+    HENRY W. CHANDLER, M.A.
+
+
+    FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD;
+    WAYNFLETE PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY,
+    AND A CURATOR OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY.
+
+    Oxford:
+    B. H. BLACKWELL,
+    50 AND 51, BROAD STREET.
+    1887.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The present 'Remarks' are a reprint, with many omissions and additions,
+of two privately printed papers which were communicated to the Curators
+last year. From November, 1884, for about twelve months, I did very
+little more than watch attentively the way in which Bodleian business is
+transacted, to me at once a novelty and a surprise. For some purposes
+writing is preferable to talking, and accordingly in November, 1885, I
+printed a memorandum containing many gentle hints--+phônanta
+sunetoisin+--which I faintly hoped might eventually prove beneficial to
+the Library. Next came a Memorandum 'on the Classed Catalogue,' a thing
+which some Curators look on as a most valuable work, and others as an
+interminable and wasteful absurdity. This was followed by a paper 'on
+the Bodleian Coins and Medals', with some observations on the proposal
+to transfer the collection to the Ashmolean Museum. As far as could be
+seen, all this expenditure of ink and money did no harm, and no good. In
+May, 1886, a committee was appointed to draw up regulations for loans of
+books; and in June the Curators received a paper 'on the lending of
+Bodleian Books and Manuscripts,' as also Bishop Barlow's Argument
+against lending them, then for the first time printed as a whole; and
+in both the illegality of the borrowers' list was pointed out, and very
+broad hints given, not only that the present loan statute is defective,
+but why, and in what manner it is so. If these hints, facts, and
+arguments had been addressed to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, they
+could not have produced less visible effect; and it was wonderfully
+amusing to find, that more than half my brethren could not for the life
+of them see what to everybody else was plain as a pikestaff; so on we
+went in the well-beaten path, steady as old Time himself, looking
+neither to the right hand nor to the left, and, what is more remarkable,
+never for one moment looking ahead. Finally, at the beginning of
+October, came a paper on 'Book-lending as practised at the Bodleian';
+and this proved to be the last straw; for on October 30th, partly by
+words and partly by that silence which gives consent, it was plainly
+intimated that these papers were unwelcome. One friend, and only one,
+had a good word to say for them; so far as they contained collection of
+facts he approved of them, but no further. As my little experiment
+failed so lamentably, I am hardly likely to repeat it, or to put so
+severe a strain on the good nature and patience of my colleagues as ever
+again to trouble them with a scrap of printed paper. This puts me into a
+sort of quandary. I abhor pen and ink, and should like to hold my tongue
+and spare my pocket; but that is impossible as things are. I cannot
+stand by and see men who know no better trying (with the best possible
+intentions) to get the Bodleian on to an inclined plane, down which it
+must rapidly slide to perdition, without loudly protesting against their
+acts. What then is to be done? Private feelings must be respected, yet
+not so as to impede the performance of a duty to the Library and to the
+University. The atmosphere of a meeting is not conducive to calm and
+rational discussion; I cannot make speeches; the board does not relish
+either facts or arguments in print. Only one course remains then;
+whenever there is anything to be said about the Bodleian or its
+management (and there is much that ought to be, and must be said sooner
+or later), it shall no longer be privately printed and given away to
+unwilling recipients, but published and sold. In this way all parties
+will be satisfied: those who are interested in the Library can buy;
+those who are not, can protect themselves against annoyance. So much by
+way of explanation.
+
+When at length the board determined to apply for a new statute, and did
+in November what anybody but ourselves would have done in June, the hope
+was expressed that the statute would be introduced at once, and then
+pushed through Congregation and Convocation as rapidly as possible in
+the present term; whereupon somebody observed, that it would be just as
+well not to hurry the business; and this seems to have been the view
+adopted by Council.
+
+If Convocation could only seize the full significance and incalculable
+value to present and future generations of a library of reference, a
+library, that is, where, at all lawful times, every book deposited in it
+should always be forthcoming in a moment, it would at once see that from
+such a library no lending whatever ought to be permitted, simply because
+lending and deposit are practical contradictories; and if Convocation
+could plainly see this, it would make very short work of any statute
+which legalized loans. There is no denying, however, that in the present
+day the public mind, as it is playfully called, and the University mind
+as well, is in a wonderfully flabby condition. Nobody seems to be
+thoroughly convinced of the unquestionable truth, that every possible
+plan in this world is open to objections more or less serious, and so
+they go hunting about for a scheme that shall embrace all good and
+exclude all evil; such people are emphatically limp and unpractical. All
+that is offered to our choice here below is a lesser evil, and
+experience has proved over and over again, that it is a lesser evil
+never to lend a book out of such a library as the Bodleian, than it is
+to lend one. But if the University in its inscrutable wisdom should
+choose to do the wrong thing, there are more ways than one of doing
+it,--
+
++esthloi men gar haplôs, pantodapôs de kakoi.+
+
+It might, for instance, confine the actual granting of a loan to
+Convocation. If an application for a book were made, the University
+might impose on the Curators the duty of stating in writing their
+reasons for advocating the loan, and Convocation might determine to
+lend, if it judged those reasons to be sound. This would be an
+approximation to what was the law (though not by any means the practice)
+prior to 1873; nor could it be described as a retrograde step, unless
+the reformation of a bad habit is necessarily a step backwards.
+
+If, however, the University resolves to copy the practice of foreign
+libraries, it might be wise, first, to appoint a small committee to
+discover and report what that practice really is. If, like a mob of
+monkeys, we are determined to imitate, it is just as well that our
+imitation should be a good one, and not a caricature.
+
+In either, or indeed in any, case some effectual provision should be
+made for enforcing the statute; it ought no longer to be possible for
+the Curators to act with impunity as they have been in the habit of
+acting for almost a quarter of a century.
+
+A good many of my friends are strong party men of a more or less rabid
+type, and I hope that they are well informed when they tell me that this
+purely literary question about the Bodleian is not going to be turned
+into one of those faction fights, which occasionally disturb and
+disgrace this place; but that each man will judge for himself, and vote
+accordingly, without divesting himself of what little reason he may
+happen to possess, and blindly following a leader, who may know and care
+less about the matter than he does himself. I hope that it will be so,
+yet I have my doubts; for this vile spirit of faction clings like the
+robe of Nessus to all who have ever been weak enough, or wicked enough,
+to yield to its temptations; and one side is just as bad as the other.
+Whether Convocation can be got to see the real question in these
+unlearned and vulgar times may be questionable; at any rate, I should
+have felt myself a traitor to Bodley, to Oxford, and to learning itself,
+if I had not done what little I could to prevent an act, which, if
+perpetrated, must end, sooner or later, in the irreparable damage, or
+the complete destruction of a library intended by its founder to be a
+perpetual help to all true scholars, an inexhaustible treasure-house of
+learning to last as long as England itself.
+
+                                                              H. W. C.
+
+    _Oxford,
+    Jan. 15th, 1887._
+
+
+
+
+_Remarks on the Practice and Policy of lending Bodleian Printed Books
+and Manuscripts._
+
+
+Before offering any remarks on the policy of lending books out of the
+Bodleian Library it may be well to give a brief account of the practice
+of lending, so far as it has been sanctioned there. From the foundation
+of the Library down to 1873, though practised, it cannot be said to have
+been sanctioned at all, except as regards certain books given on the
+condition that they should be lent.
+
+On the 20th of June, 1610, a complete Bodleian Statute was promulgated
+and confirmed in Convocation (Appendix Statutorum, p. 5 sqq. ed. 1763).
+This statute was drawn up by Sir Thomas Bodley himself, and the eighth
+section of it--'de Libris extra Bibliothecam non ferendis, aut ullo modo
+commodandis'--fully expresses his firm and rooted detestation of
+book-lending. Bodley's own words, of which the Latin statute is a
+literal translation, run thus:--
+
+"And sith the sundry Examples of former Ages, as well in this
+University, as in other Places of the Realm, have taught us over-often,
+that the frequent Loan of Books, hath bin a principal occasion of the
+Ruin and Destruction of many famous Libraries; It is therefore ordered
+and decreed to be observed as a Statute of irrevocable Force, that for
+no Regard, Pretence, or Cause, there shall at any time, any Volume,
+either of these that are chained, or of others unchained, be given or
+lent, to any Person or Persons, of whatsoever State or Calling, upon any
+kind of Caution, or offer of Security, for his faithful Restitution; and
+that no such Book or Volume shall at any time, by any whatsoever, be
+carried forth of the Library, for any longer space, or other uses, and
+Purposes, than if need so require, to be sold away for altogether, as
+being superfluous or unprofitable; or changed for some other of a better
+Edition; or being over-worn to be new bound again, and immediately
+returned, from whence it was removed. For the Execution whereof in every
+Particular, there shall no Man intermeddle, but the Keeper himself
+alone, who is also to proceed with the Knowledge, Liking, and Direction
+of those Publick Overseers, whose Authority we will notify in other
+Statutes ensuing[1]."
+
+[1] Reliquiĉ Bodleianĉ, p. 27.
+
+This statute has the great merit of being so plain and clear, that no
+one could mistake its meaning. It was further fenced about by the
+statute 'de materia indispensabili,' Tit. X.§11.5, as explained in
+'Barlow's Argument,' p. 6. It was not totally and absolutely impossible
+to borrow a book from the Bodleian, but it was only Convocation, moved
+to the act in a solemn and specified way, that could by any legal means
+lend it. From 1610 to 1856, then, such was the law which everybody in
+the University was bound to obey, and, as far as I can discover,
+everybody did obey it, with the few exceptions that will presently be
+mentioned.
+
+In 1624 William, Bishop of Lincoln, wished to borrow a book, but was
+denied[2]. In 1628 Sir Thomas Roe gave twenty-nine manuscripts, and
+"proposed that his books should be permitted to be lent out for purposes
+of printing, on proper security being given; a proposition which was
+accepted by Convocation[3]." In 1629 the Earl of Pembroke presented the
+Barocci Collection, and "he was willing that the MSS. should, if
+necessary, be allowed to be borrowed." Borrowed accordingly they were,
+and one at least suffered irreparable injury in very early days[4]. In
+1634 we were presented with Sir Kenelm Digby's splendid manuscripts:
+"the donor stipulated that they should not be strictly confined to use
+within the walls of the Library;" but afterwards left the University to
+treat them as it pleased[5]; so that they fell under the general
+Bodleian Statute.
+
+[2] Barlow's Argument, p. 9.
+
+[3] Macray, Annals, p. 51.
+
+[4] Barlow, p. 10; Macray, Annals, p. 55.
+
+[5] Macray, Annals, p. 59.
+
+Between 1635 and 1640 came Laud's magnificent donations. He "directs in
+his letter of gift, that none of the books shall on any account be taken
+out of the Library 'nisi solum ut typis mandentur, et sic publici et
+juris et utilitatis fiant,' upon sufficient security, to be approved by
+the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors; the MS. in such cases being
+immediately after printing restored to its place in the Library[6]."
+This stipulation of Laud should be carefully borne in mind, because it
+will be found that of late years the Curators have not observed the
+terms of the gift. Doubtless they did not know what Laud's directions
+were; yet men who undertake the office of trustees are bound to know
+their duties. In 1636 the University refused leave to Laud himself, who
+wished to borrow Rob. Hare's MS. _Liber Privilegiorum Universitatis_[7].
+In 1645 Charles I, in ignorance of our statutes, applied for a book and
+was refused; in 1654 Cromwell wanted a book for the Portuguese
+Ambassador, and was likewise refused[8]; and it is much to the credit of
+both, that they not only acquiesced, but expressed their approval of the
+Bodleian rule.
+
+[6] Macray, Annals, p. 61.
+
+[7] Macray, Annals, p. 82.
+
+[8] Barlow's Argument, p. 9.
+
+On August 29, 1654, a grace was passed in Convocation, which permitted
+Selden to borrow MSS. from the collections of Barocci, Roe, and Digby,
+provided he did not have more than three at a time, and that he gave
+bond in £100 (not £1000 as Hearne states[9]) for the return of each of
+them within a year[10]. Barlow[11] declares that this was illegal and
+null; and it may be observed in passing that the whole history of the
+Selden bequest needs fresh investigation. This same year that grand
+scholar's books began to arrive in Oxford, and his executors stipulated,
+as a condition of the gift, that no book from his collection should
+hereafter be lent to any person upon any condition whatsoever. This also
+must by no means be forgotten, because we shall by and by see the
+Curators again and again strangely oblivious of the conditions on which
+the University received these invaluable books.
+
+[9] Barlow's Argument, p. 3.
+
+[10] Macray, Annals, p. 79.
+
+[11] Argument, p. 8.
+
+At the Visitation on Nov. 8, 1686, it was ordered that notice be given
+that 'nullus in posterum quemlibet librum aut volumen extra Bibliothecam
+asportet,' and that monition be sent to every College and Hall for the
+return of any books taken out within three days[12].
+
+[12] Macray, Annals, p. 109.
+
+In 1789 a lazy and incompetent Librarian, John Price, is said to have
+lent the Rector of Lincoln a copy of Cook's Voyages, presented to the
+Library by George III, telling him that the longer he kept it the
+better, 'for if it was known to be in the Library, he (Price) should be
+perpetually plagued with enquiries after it[13].' What the Curators were
+about to permit such irregularities it is difficult to imagine; at any
+rate here you had eight picked men--Dr. Joseph Chapman, President of
+Trinity, Vice-Chancellor; the two Proctors; Dr. Randolph, Professor of
+Divinity, and afterwards successively Bishop of Oxford and of Bangor;
+Dr. Vansittart, Professor of Civil Law; Dr. Vivian, Professor of
+Medicine; Dr. Blayney, Professor of Hebrew; William Jackson, Professor
+of Greek and afterwards Bishop of Oxford:--they are men, citizens,
+members of a learned corporation, trustees; they have solemnly sworn by
+everything which they profess to hold sacred, that they will faithfully
+observe the statutes; and what was required of them? As much sense of
+duty as you expect and commonly find in a watcher or a gamekeeper; yet,
+till they were roused by the public protest of Dr. Beddowes, they seem
+to have shewed no trace or feeling of responsibility at all.
+
+[13] Macray, Annals, p. 198.
+
+Down to the year 1856 the Bodleian Curators were eight in number,
+namely, the Vice-Chancellor, the two Proctors, and the Regius
+Professors of Divinity, Hebrew, Greek, Medicine, and Civil Law. Eight is
+rather a large number, and the larger any board is the weaker becomes
+the sense of personal responsibility. No man feels that he is answerable
+for anything, because he is sunk and extinguished in a majority or a
+minority; and yet, without a keen sense of personal responsibility, all
+business is laxly and badly done, even when it is done at all. The
+artificial privacy of our proceedings is also an evil. In theory all our
+meetings are public, so far at least as Convocation is concerned; in
+fact, they are private; yet, if the University always knew not only what
+is done, but who it is that does it; if our acts were duly published, as
+they ought to be, in the University Gazette, probably both board and
+University would be the better for it, and it is certain that the
+affairs of the Library would be none the worse.
+
+If Bodley argued that men who teach a subject are necessarily acquainted
+with its literature, and are consequently the fittest guardians and
+directors of a library, he argued very badly, and in ignorance of facts.
+Ability to teach a subject is one thing; knowledge of the literature of
+that subject--such knowledge as is required in the superintendents of a
+library--is a totally different thing. The two may be indeed united, but
+very rarely are so. A man, for instance, may be a finished Latin scholar
+without ever having heard of Coster's Donatus, and without being able to
+offer an opinion on that or on any of the other editions in which Dutch
+libraries glory. Probably not one man in fifty who reads the sentence
+which I have just written will have the very remotest idea of its true
+meaning; and if he has not, it will not follow that he is a dunce, or
+that he is a poor Latinist; all that follows is that he has much to
+learn before he is fit to take any part in the management of a large
+library. What is wanted, what in fact is necessary, is that sort of
+knowledge which the Italian government proposes to give to all employed
+in the libraries under its control. In Rome and in Florence a course of
+bibliographical instruction and examination has lately been instituted.
+The syllabus of the course, which is a very good one, lies before me,
+and in it the subject is divided into six parts: 1. Paleografia, 2.
+Bibliologia, 3. Bibliografia, 4. Biblioteconomia, 5. Amministrazione, 6.
+Lingue. The knowledge required is neither recondite nor profound, yet I
+shudder to think what the result would be were we Curators to submit
+ourselves to the tender mercies of this Italian board. To speak for
+myself, I should have faced such an examination without the least
+trepidation some twenty years ago; but now, though I have been trying to
+brush up faded knowledge, I would not stake a single sixpence on a
+favorable issue; and to judge from all I have seen and heard during the
+last two years, I suspect that, though a few might perhaps scramble
+through, the great majority of us would emerge from the ordeal more
+completely plucked than was the unhappy bird, which Diogenes introduced
+to the astonished disciples with the words 'Here is Plato's man!'
+
+In 1856 the University, probably suspecting that the board as originally
+constituted was not the best that could be devised, yet timidly
+shrinking from a radical and salutary reform, endeavoured to improve
+matters by a measure which, if it remedied one defect, unquestionably
+increased another. It made a board already too large, still larger by
+the addition of five members elected by Congregation. In the course of
+thirty years fourteen different men have been so elected. That all were
+properly qualified to discharge the duties of their office no one will
+assert who knows what those qualifications are. Why they were chosen the
+University best knows. If Congregation would but remember what a unique
+and priceless treasure it possesses in this noble library, if it only
+knew how easy it is for rashness and ignorance to damage and to ruin it,
+how difficult it is even for knowledge to preserve it, ability and
+willingness to serve it would be the indispensable and the only
+qualifications demanded, and neither age nor rank, dignity, nor above
+all party, would be for one moment taken into account. It may be
+remarked that all the thirteen Curators very rarely attend a meeting: in
+the course of the last two years such a thing has happened once only;
+but a board, the members of which attend intermittently, is apt to show
+signs of discontinuity in its proceedings; and a firm, consistent policy
+is as necessary in the management of a library as it is in any other
+affair of life. What is wanted in Curators is common sense, business
+capacity, and a special knowledge of books. No one would dream of
+appointing any man an inspector of locomotives on a railway, unless he
+were thoroughly acquainted with the structure and working of a
+locomotive, and capable, at a push, of driving it himself: a large
+library is as complex as a locomotive, and quite as difficult to manage
+effectively. Experts, who are not so numerous as might be supposed, will
+back me in this assertion; but Convocation must not be astonished if it
+is hotly and contemptuously denied.
+
+The minutes of the Curators' Meetings begin on March 20, 1793, and, with
+a break of some four years when there are none (from Nov. 26, 1849, to
+May 27, 1854), they continue to the present time.
+
+On Dec. 7, 1803, four printed books were allowed to go out of the
+Library 'for the use of the Clarendon Press, to be returned when done
+with,' contrary to statute so far as appears; and there was a somewhat
+similar transaction on June 2, 1815.
+
+On Nov. 27, 1841, the sum of £500 was paid for the Sanscrit MSS. of
+Prof. H. H. Wilson, who 'stipulated that the Boden Professor of Sanscrit
+for the time being should be allowed the privilege of borrowing MSS.
+(not more than two volumes at one time), giving for them a receipt, and
+engagement for their safe return.'
+
+In 1850 came the Government Commission. The Commissioners have a good
+deal to say about the Bodleian, which will be found in their Report made
+in 1852, p. 115 sqq. I do not quote their remarks for a reason which
+appears to me valid. There were seven Commissioners all told, and
+although they were very eminent persons, there was not one amongst them,
+so far as I can discover, who had any special knowledge of libraries, or
+of the best way of managing them. Moreover, I myself heard one of those
+seven Commissioners say, more than once in the course of conversation,
+that he should think it no particular misfortune if the Bodleian and its
+contents were totally destroyed. Nor do I feel called upon to incur the
+expense of reproducing _in extenso_ the evidence on which the
+Commissioners based their recommendations. It may be sufficient to say
+that the following witnesses were in favour of the lending system, some
+with restrictions and some with hardly any:--the Rev. R. W. Browne; the
+Rev. R. Walker; the Rev. B. Jowett; the Rev. W. H. Cox; E. A. Freeman,
+Esq.; the Rev. H. Wall; the Rev. R. Congreve; Sir E. Head; N. S.
+Maskelyne, Esq.; and the Rev. J. Griffiths. It is not very easy to say
+whether Prof. H. H. Wilson and Dr. Greenhill did or did not belong to
+the lending party; but if they did, they proposed such restrictions as
+would materially lessen the evil. Prof. H. H. Vaughan (a most wordy
+person) wished to confine the right of borrowing to the Professors.
+Against lending were H. E. Strickland, Esq.; Prof. W. F. Donkin; the
+Rev. R. Scott; Travers Twiss, Esq.; Dr. Macbride; the Rev. E. S.
+Ffoulkes; and Dr. Phillimore: and I hope nobody will be offended if I
+say that knowledge of books and the way to use them is, as might be
+expected, very much more conspicuous in those who oppose lending than in
+those who advocate it. The Rev. R. W. Browne observes, that 'probably
+manuscripts and such books as are unable to be replaced should not be
+lent, because it would be quite worth the while of those who wished to
+consult them to visit the Library for that purpose.' It is not often
+that one meets with so cogent a piece of reasoning, and Mr. Browne's
+'because' proves that he had studied Logic with considerable benefit; he
+also thinks that the system in the Public Library at Cambridge 'works
+well.' Another witness tells us that 'the experience of the Cambridge
+University Library, and of many foreign libraries, shews that this
+[i.e. lending under certain restrictions] can be done without danger, and
+with small loss compared to the immense benefit obtained by it.' Sir
+Edmund Head also admires the Göttingen and Cambridge plan, and avers
+that experience has proved that the risk of loss and damage is
+groundless. How different are these airy speculations from the hard
+facts of Mr. Bradshaw the Cambridge Librarian, of the Librarian of the
+Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, and of Mr. Panizzi (see below, p. 50
+sqq.); but then these gentlemen had the immense and perhaps unfair
+advantage of knowing what they were talking about.
+
+In 1853 a Report and Evidence upon the recommendations of H. M.'s
+Commissioners was presented to the Heads of Houses. "The Committee think
+that the opportunity at present allowed for lending books in _special
+cases_, by permission of Convocation, is sufficient to meet extreme
+cases; and that it is unnecessary to give power to the Curators to lend
+books from the Library."
+
+Dr. Pusey's evidence (p. 172) is that of a man who knows something of
+books, and he points out how very fallacious is Sir E. Head's reference
+to the Göttingen Library, which is altogether of a different character
+from the Bodleian. "In 1825 it consisted almost entirely of modern
+books, and whatever accessions it may since have had, it cannot, like
+the Bodleian, have any large proportion of books, which, if lost, could
+not be replaced." Dr. Pusey is strongly against lending Bodleian books;
+but how little of principle there was in his objection will be seen
+further on, where we shall find him more than once advocating loans. The
+Rev. C. Marriott is also, on very sensible grounds, against lending; yet
+it should in common fairness be known that he borrowed a most valuable
+manuscript out of Oriel College Library, and died with it in his
+possession. It was nearly sent to Africa by his executors, and was at
+last, together with other books, actually _given_ (in all innocence of
+course) to Bradfield College, from which establishment Oriel at last
+retrieved it; so that in his case, as in that of Dr. Pusey, excellent
+principles were joined to very loose practice.
+
+Dr. Bandinel, Bodley's Librarian, gives evidence which is short and
+sweet. "However weighty some reasons may appear, the evidence materially
+preponderates against lending books out of the Library. I need only
+quote one great authority, that of Niebuhr," which he does; the passage
+is given below, p. 49. Dr. Bandinel also adds, "I have had a long
+conversation with the Librarian of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh,
+who stated, that upon comparing the books in that Library with their
+different Catalogues previous to the formation of a new Catalogue, it
+was found that owing to the practice of lending books from the Library
+they had lost upwards of 6000, indeed very near 7000 works." Evidence,
+p. 325; an instructive comment on the lending system.
+
+About this time, however, 'University Reform,' the true meaning of which
+most of us here know, was in the air, and on May 22, 1856, the old
+Library Statutes were abolished and an entirely new one enacted.
+Bodley's own statute against letting books go out of the Library was of
+course abrogated. That Convocation still retained the right to lend is
+beyond question; but did anybody else, Curators or Librarian, acquire
+the right to do so? That the University did not intend to convey any
+such right seems perfectly clear; for the 11th clause of the new statute
+(which is identical with the present statute, Tit. XX. iii. § 11,
+paragraphs 1 to 6) is headed "De libris extra Bibliothecam ad tempus
+detinendis, _aut etiam_ efferendis." Now whoever says '_or even_ to have
+them taken out,' and then proceeds to order whither they shall be taken,
+namely to the Camera, forbids by implication their removal from the
+Library on any other terms, or to any other place than those expressly
+mentioned. That the University, whatever its intentions may have been,
+did not as a matter of fact convey the right to any one is obvious from
+the statute itself; and as the Curators never at any time possessed the
+right of lending books, it is equally plain that they could not acquire
+it without an express commission from the University. That the Curators
+themselves were of this opinion is clear from a resolution of theirs
+arrived at on Oct. 29, 1859, more than three years after the statute was
+passed. I should say that in the interval no loan was sanctioned by
+Convocation, or, so far as appears, even applied for. On Oct. 29, 1859,
+nine Curators being present, 'The Vice-Chancellor mentioned the desire
+of the Rev. Mr. ---- to be allowed to have books out of the Bodleian
+Library for the purposes of study by Grace of Convocation. The Curators
+resolved:--That it was not expedient that such a proposition should be
+made to Convocation.' The Curators, or a majority of them, did not dream
+of arrogating to themselves the power of lending, and they, as well as
+the applicant, assume as self-evident that books could not be borrowed.
+Books could be sent to the Camera; they could not go elsewhere without
+the sanction of Convocation. The new statute then did not make lending
+(except by Convocation) lawful, nor was there any intention to make it
+lawful.
+
+That same year, on Nov. 8, a Curator gave notice that he would
+move:--'That Books and MSS. be taken out of the Bodleian Library under
+special conditions with consent of the Curators;' that is, according to
+my view of the case, he gave notice of a motion to take by force and
+illegally a power which the University had not given; but it does not
+appear by the minutes that any such motion was actually made.
+
+On Oct. 25, 1860, 'leave was granted by Convocation for the lending two
+Laud Manuscripts, 561 and 563, being copies of the _Historia
+Hierosoylmitana_, by Albert of Aix, to the French Government[14].' Of
+this loan there is, I believe, no trace in the minutes, but it is one
+more proof that the Curators, or a majority of them, did not believe
+either in their right or in their power to lend books. Whether
+Convocation lent these two Laudian manuscripts under bond duly approved,
+and for the purposes of publication, Mr. Macray does not state; but it
+looks very much as if the University was just as ignorant of its
+obligations as the Curators of a later date were of theirs.
+
+[14] Macray, Annals, p. 295.
+
+On Feb. 4, 1862, a man applied for a printed book, which he wanted for a
+law case in which he was engaged; the result was this:--"Resolved--That,
+there being nothing in the present statutes to forbid the exercise of
+the discretion of the Curators in such a case, the book in question be
+lent, under such securities and with such precautions as the Librarian
+may deem necessary." Let any man read the eleventh and twelfth sections
+of the present Bodleian Statute (identical, so far as the present
+question is concerned, with that of 1856), and he will see that no
+discretion is left to the Curators at all; there is no hint, however
+faint, of "such a case." In 1862, Feb. 4, the Curators assume that they
+have a power to lend books; on Nov. 7 of the same year they go a step
+further, for they leave it 'to the discretion of the Librarian to lend,
+if he shall deem fit, a certain MS. to the Belgian Government.' Having
+themselves no power to lend, they authorise the Librarian to lend if he
+chooses.
+
+In 1863, Feb. 17, notice was given of the following motion:--'That on
+application from the Professors teaching at the Museum the Bodley
+Librarian be empowered to lend, for a limited time, any books bearing on
+the subjects there taught that are wanted by the Students at the Museum;
+the books to be returned at the end of each term:' and on March 17 of
+the same year this motion was carried with certain alterations, 'and it
+was resolved that it should be referred to the Council with a view on
+their approval of obtaining the sanction of Convocation'; in other
+words, the Curators acknowledged that Convocation could lend, and that
+they themselves could not lawfully do so.
+
+In 1859 the Curators, or a majority of them, are clear that they have no
+power to lend: in 1862 they assume that they have the power, moreover
+they exercise it, and they authorise the Librarian to lend a MS. to the
+Belgian Government; yet on Feb. 16, 1864, they appear to disclaim this
+power, for they resolve, 'That it be proposed to Convocation to lend
+three Icelandic MSS.--to the Icelandic Society in Copenhagen at the
+request of the Danish Minister.' They either had the power to lend, or
+they had not: if they had, this application to Convocation was
+unnecessary; if they had not, they had been occupied for some time in
+the not very dignified employment of ignoring a statute which it was
+their peculiar duty to observe.
+
+On April 20, 1864, Dr. Pusey most inconsistently moves that a Syriac MS.
+be lent; and on May 11 lent it was.
+
+In 1865, March 11, a foreigner has leave 'to borrow Arabian MSS.,
+provided the application for the use thereof be made through the Saxon
+Minister, and a bond for £50 entered into for the safe return.'
+
+On June 3, 'the use of Manuscripts 169--187 was granted on the
+application of Lord John Russell to the French Government for the use of
+the Imprimerie of Paris [_sic_] for two months.'
+
+In 1866 the Curators lent manuscripts to the University Library of
+Göttingen; and in 1868, Jan. 31, 'it was resolved to lend MS. Selden B.
+31 to the Prussian Government.' Ye Gods and Goddesses! We only got
+Selden's books at all by consenting to the condition that they never
+should be lent under any circumstances whatever; and here we have five
+Curators, 'all honorable men,' quietly sending off one of Selden's
+manuscripts to Germany. On March 21st of the same year, three Curators
+send off another of Selden's MSS. to London. In 1868 an application for
+the loan of four Hebrew manuscripts was granted, and apparently they
+went to a private house. On Feb. 9, 1869, two Curators, one being Dr.
+Pusey, 'were requested to act in the matter of the loan of Hebrew MSS.
+to Mr. ---- of ---- College, Cambridge.' On April 17 of the same year a
+Laudian MS. was lent to Mr. ----; there is not a syllable in the minutes
+about a bond, though that was absolutely necessary, nor any statement
+that the book was required for the purpose of publication; Laud's
+stipulations are quietly, and no doubt ignorantly broken under the
+presidency of the Vice-Chancellor. From this time loans are perpetually
+being made; and at least six manuscripts other than those mentioned
+above were lent this year. At one meeting (May 22) the whole business
+was the granting of loans. In 1870 fifteen MSS. at least were lent,
+including one of Douce's--poor fellow! he little dreamt of the fate in
+store for his lovely books. One MS. out of the archives was sent to
+Philadelphia! In 1871 some thirty manuscripts were lent; many to private
+hands; others to Berlin, Cambridge, and Philadelphia. Not content with
+these exploits, the Curators positively sent the 39th volume of the
+Camden Society's publications to Rouen! In 1872 nearly thirty
+manuscripts were lent: one 'subject to the approval of the Librarian,'
+thus granting to him concurrent authority with themselves. These books
+went some to private persons; others to Cambridge, London, Leyden,
+Berlin, Munster, Leipzic, Kiel, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. The
+manuscript sent to Munster was an old English book of Laud's; there was
+no bond, nor is there any hint that it was lent for publication. Besides
+manuscripts they lent printed books, amongst the rest Tyndale's New
+Testament of 1534! This portentous act was perpetrated on May 25th,
+1872; and the same day there appears this entry on the minutes: 'In
+reference to applications for loans during the Long Vacation, it was
+agreed, on the suggestion of the Librarian, that he be empowered in
+urgent cases, with the assent of two Curators, to grant loans during the
+Long Vacation'; an utterly illegal resolution not rescinded till 1886.
+
+For ten years, ever since 1862, the Curators had been lending, on their
+own authority, and without a shadow of statutable right, manuscripts and
+printed books to persons in Oxford and other parts of England, as well
+as to foreign countries: will it be believed that on Feb. 8, 1873, the
+Librarian was asked to state his opinion as to 'the lending of books out
+of the Library under proper restrictions;' and that on Feb. 28 of the
+same year, 'it was agreed that the Curators should proceed by statute to
+take power to order the lending out of books under certain
+restrictions'? Why this was the very thing they had been doing for years
+past; and now by agreeing 'to proceed by statute' they plainly declare
+their opinion that for all those years they had been doing something for
+which they had no statutable warrant. However, they drew up a draft
+statute which was laid before Council, and Council promptly 'struck out
+the proposal to lend books out of the Library;' whereupon on March 8th,
+1873, one of the Curators moved 'that Council be requested to insert a
+provision that books be lent out from evening to morning. This was
+agreed to'. On which resolution I shall make no remark, for fear my pen
+might run away with me; but most people will be able to supply that
+comment which I refrain from making.
+
+This very year 1873 they lent the York Missal, unless in the judgment of
+the Librarian 'too valuable to be lent out of the Library': there is a
+touch of modesty in this which disarms me, otherwise I could say
+something very true, but very unpleasant. The same year an application
+was made for one of the Douce MSS., but 'by reason of regulations as to
+Douce MSS. this was refused.' What regulations these were it would be
+interesting to know, for I cannot discover that there are at present any
+regulations, at all events in writing.
+
+At length the Curators obtained their desire. On March 25, 1873, a form
+of statute was proposed by one Head of a House and seconded by another,
+and on May 2, 1873, it was carried without a division in the following
+shape: (Tit. XX. iii. § 11. 10.) Liceat Curatoribus, sicut mos fuit,
+libros impressos et manuscriptos, scientiĉ causa, viris doctis sive
+Academicis sive externis mutuari: that is to say, _Let it be lawful for
+the Curators, as the custom has been, to borrow books printed and
+manuscript in the interest of knowledge for learned men, whether Members
+of the University or not_. A board of grave and learned men--_viri
+variis doctrinis et literis imbuti_, as the statute says--wish to do
+openly, what they had been in the habit of doing, as it would appear,
+unknown to Council, and against its wishes (for it 'struck out the
+proposal to lend books out of the Library'): there is something droll in
+that, but it is nothing to what came of it. They petition for leave to
+_lend_, walk off perfectly contented with a permission to _borrow_, and
+nobody sees the joke! 'Reform' seems not only to have impaired our
+knowledge of Latin, but to have diminished our sense of the
+ridiculous--a most dolorous result. That Convocation intended by this
+strangely worded statute to convey to the Curators the power to _lend_
+books is beyond question; it is equally beyond question that it conveyed
+the power to _borrow_ them, for in good Latin and in our statute Latin
+alike, _mutuari_ means not to lend, but to borrow, as every Latin
+Dictionary from the Hortus Vocabulorum down to Lewis and Short
+testifies; and as to our statute Latin we find: quantum magister ...
+potest de cista de Guildeforde mutuari (Anstey, p. 99); quod magister
+regens mutuari possit quadraginta solidos (_ibid._ p. 132); de eadem
+mutuari poterit ad usum suum proprium.... quinque marcas (_ibid._ p.
+338). As _mutuari_ is correctly used in the barbarous language of our
+old statutes, so is it in the more polished Latinity of the Laudian
+code, in which the word occurs once, and I think only once, and as the
+devil of mischief will have it, in the Bodleian Statute itself, where 'e
+cista D. Thomĉ Bodley mutuari' means 'to borrow from Sir Thomas Bodley's
+chest'. The meaning of the word then is clear beyond dispute, and what
+it means in one part of the statutes it must mean in another. There is
+plenty of barbarous Latin in our statute book, but in every case it is
+justified or excused by long usage, or by the fact that other learned
+bodies have constantly used the same or similar language; but the
+statute of 1873 is probably the only one either in ancient or modern
+times, where without necessity, without precedent, and without warning,
+a word which means and always has meant one thing is used under the
+erroneous impression that it means another, and that not by schoolboys,
+but by their elders. A statute, however, means what it plainly says:
+with the intentions of a legislative body we have no concern except in
+so far as they are clearly expressed, and every prudent judge knows what
+grave evils spring from neglect of this principle of interpretation.
+(See Dwarris On Statutes, p. 580 sqq.)
+
+Whether this statute really gives the power to lend may be disputed. On
+the one hand it may be said, that those who borrow a book _for_ learned
+men may do what they like with it, and may therefore lend it. At first
+sight this seems probable and reasonable, but the more it is thought of
+the less probable does it appear. On the other hand it may be said, that
+since the statute does not plainly and expressly give the Curators the
+power to lend, they have no power to do so at all. Be that as it may, no
+such scruples troubled the minds of the Curators; every one seems to
+have been completely mesmerised, and this singular statute was
+straightway put in practice after a fashion; for on June 23, 1873, 'an
+application from Professor ---- was considered, asking for loan of such
+books or MSS. as he might require, at the discretion of the Librarian,
+under the provisions of §11, ch. 10 of the Bodleian amended statute,
+during the present vacation. Mr. ---- and Mr. ---- made similar
+applications. It was agreed to accede to the request in the case of the
+three applicants respectively'; that is to say, within a few days of the
+passing of the statute it is broken. The Curators do not agree to borrow
+books for the applicants, the only thing the statute allowed them to do;
+the statute says not one word about the discretion of the Librarian,
+nor does it allow the Curators in this case to leave anything to it: in
+the buying of books (Stat. XX. iii. § 4, 4) they may leave much to his
+discretion, but nowhere else is any such permission given: so the
+Curators took it. They did not do what the statute says they may do, and
+they did do what no statute permits them to do; and as they began that
+day, so have they continued to this moment. No change is made in the
+minutes. Before as well as after the passing of this statute the form
+always is 'applications for loans,' or some equivalent phrase. In 1873 a
+dozen MSS. or more, besides printed books, including the Hereford
+Missal! were lent exactly as before, some to private persons, some to
+libraries, and they went to Leeds, Cambridge, Utrecht, Kiel, Berlin, &c.
+
+In 1874 more than twenty MSS. were lent to Jena, Cambridge, Marburg,
+Vienna (two of the Junius collection were sent there), and to private
+hands. In 1875 MSS. were sent to St. Petersburg, Bonn, Vienna, Paris,
+Cambridge, Edinburgh, Konigsberg, Heidelberg, and some to private
+houses; three printed books also were lent, without a shadow of reason
+so far as can be seen, to a gentleman residing in the Temple.
+
+On Oct. 30 two of the sub-librarians applied 'for the privilege of
+taking books out of the Library. Their application was agreed to upon
+the terms stated in the minutes of June 23, 1873, in the case of a
+similar application from others.'
+
+And here it should be noticed that all the loans do not by any means
+necessarily appear in the minutes. Owing to the illegal resolution of
+the Curators of May 25, 1872, (see above, p. 16,) no loans during the
+Long Vacation are there entered. Moreover, at some time unknown to me
+the Librarian was quietly permitted to let certain persons borrow books
+at his discretion, and there at last grew up, it is to be presumed, with
+the knowledge of the Curators, what the Library officials call the
+Borrowers' List, and what after a time appears in the minutes as 'the
+privileged list.' As every one can see, there is nothing whatever in
+the statute to justify all this.
+
+I do not for one moment mean to charge the Curators with doing anything
+which they thought to be improper or beyond their discretion; but I do
+most distinctly charge them with having in fact exceeded their
+statutable powers, and with taking the law into their own hands, all, I
+doubt not, with the best and most innocent intentions. Unfortunately
+some of the most mischievous acts in the world have been done with the
+best and purest intentions. Like all other members of the University the
+Curators have promised to observe the statutes, and the Vice-Chancellor
+and Proctors have not only done that, but have solemnly pledged
+themselves to see that the statutes are observed, and are moreover armed
+with power to enforce them. If statutes are absurd, it is clearly the
+duty of those who control legislation in this place to get them
+abolished or amended without delay; if they are not absurd, all are
+bound to obey them. As regards the Bodleian there is a special order
+(XX. iii. § 12. 3) directing the Curators what to do with an imperfect
+statute, and how to do it; but it is one thing to make a statute; it is
+a very different thing to get people to obey it. No one who sees the
+ease with which statutes are made and unmade, can doubt, that if those
+of the Bodleian are defective in any respect, it needs but a word from
+one or two members of Council to have all defects remedied. If the
+Curators want fresh powers, or more discretion, and greater latitude of
+action than they are at present allowed, they have but to ask and
+obtain; but I protest most vehemently against the usurpation of powers
+not granted by the University as a thing _pessimi exempli_. If the
+Bodleian Curators are to do exactly as they like, the University might
+just as well spare itself the trouble of legislation. If the University
+deliberately chooses to have its statutes nullified, there is, I
+suppose, no help for it; yet I cannot but suspect that the University
+has no knowledge--at all events no clear and distinct knowledge--of the
+way in which we have dealt with the statutes which were intended to mark
+out our duties. The secret growth of 'the borrowers' list' is as
+singular a thing as is to be found in the history of the Bodleian. The
+Curators and the Curators alone have, by a statute of their own
+devising, a right to borrow; yet the late Librarian assumed to himself
+the right of naming persons who are to have the privilege of borrowing,
+and the Curators quietly allowed it, without, as I believe, the faintest
+suspicion that they were doing what was wrong.
+
+In 1876 eleven MSS. went some to private persons, others to Augsburg,
+Paris, Göttingen, Heidelberg, Cambridge: the book sent to Augsburg
+without bond, and without guarantee for publication, was one of Laud's
+Greek MSS. On June 24 an application 'from Mr. ---- for use of books at
+home during Vacation' was 'assented to.' In 1877 some fourteen or
+fifteen MSS. were sent to Heidelberg, Paris, Cambridge, London, Rome,
+Copenhagen, Munich, Marburg, besides printed books: the book sent to
+Munich was one of Laud's, again in total defiance of all his
+stipulations.
+
+In 1878 a dozen MSS., or more, went to different people, to Bonn, to
+Pesth, Leyden, and Rostock, besides printed books: one book with
+illuminations was refused, 'as being one of a class not lent out.' I
+have before observed that I know of no written rules at all. On Oct. 26
+of this year the Curators surpassed themselves, for there was an
+application 'from the Rev. ----, Fellow of ---- College, for permission
+to borrow works from the Library to be taken to his rooms. In this
+matter it was agreed that power to act on the clause 10, § 11 of the
+Bodleian Statute _be delegated_ by the Curators to the Librarian.' There
+were ten Curators present on this memorable occasion. The Curators are
+themselves delegates, and if they had the right to delegate to the
+Librarian the power which the University delegated to them, then what is
+sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: if the Curators _mero
+motu_ may delegate their powers, the Librarian may with equal right and
+equal reason delegate his, and so on _in infinitum_, to the utter ruin
+of all sense of responsibility.
+
+It would be tedious to enumerate all the loans; suffice it to say that
+they have gone on year after year; and from this point I shall only
+mention a few notable cases.
+
+On May 31, 1879, 'the request of Professor ---- to borrow printed books
+from the Library was granted.' Considering that only seven months
+before, the Curators had resolved 'to delegate' their lending powers to
+the Librarian, it is strange that they did not refer the applicant
+straight to that official.
+
+In 1880, June 11, a Selden MS. was ordered to Paris; ten Curators were
+present, and it is to be presumed that not one of them knew, what he was
+bound to know, namely, the special stipulation made with respect to all
+Selden's books.
+
+On Oct. 29, 1880, the Junior Proctor gave notice of the following
+motion:--'That in the case of MSS. sent out on loan to persons resident
+within the United Kingdom, a pecuniary bond shall be executed by the
+person to whom such MS. is lent, of such value as shall be determined
+from time to time by the Curators, unless the MS. is sent for use only
+within the precincts of the British Museum, or some other approved
+Public Library.' On Nov. 27 this motion was made and lost.
+
+In 1881, June 4, 'an application from ---- for the use of books dealing
+with the subject of Biblical Chronology at his own house appeared to the
+Curators to fall under the provisions of the Statute XX. iii. § 11, 10;
+the Librarian exercising discretion as to the number of volumes issued.'
+On Oct. 26, 1878, not three years before, the Curators formally
+'delegated' their powers to the Librarian; on May 31, 1879, they assume
+that they possess what they have 'delegated'; and here they do the same
+thing, and all this without any formal and solemn resumption by them of
+their 'delegated' powers. On Oct. 29, 1881, it was reported that
+Professor ---- of Cambridge had not returned a manuscript borrowed _four
+years_ before, and the Vice-Chancellor was requested to communicate with
+the Professor in the matter. The manuscript never has been, and in all
+probability never will be restored, and our only consolation must be the
+fact that it was a transcript of another manuscript in the Bodleian, not
+on that account necessarily of little value, for a transcript may, and
+sometimes does, become of inestimable value; why it does so, all
+acquainted with books know.
+
+In 1882, Feb. 11, a Laudian MS. was ordered to Heidelberg, and a Selden
+MS. to St. Petersburg. On Dec. 2, 1882, 'it was agreed that Mr.----,
+Fellow of ---- be one of the persons privileged to take out books. It was
+agreed that the Librarians be allowed to take out books and MSS. for
+their own use.'
+
+In 1883, Jan. 27, the Librarian suggested 'that all Fellows and
+ex-Fellows of Colleges should be entitled to have books out of the
+Library'; the suggestion was not adopted. On the same day, 'Mr. ----
+(---- College) and Dr. ---- were placed on the list of persons specially
+entitled.' On March 3 of the same year, 'Dr. Frankfurter's application
+to be placed on the privileged list of borrowers was assented to.' There
+we have it at last, in black and white--_the privileged list of
+borrowers_, as unstatutable and as illegal a thing as could well be
+permitted. The words '_let it be lawful for the Curators to borrow books
+for learned men_,' (always supposing the Latin not to be downright
+nonsense,) cannot convey to the Curators the power to let other people
+borrow books; for if they could, then any words may have any meaning,
+which comes to the same thing as saying that they have no meaning at
+all. Yet it is on these words, and on these words alone, that the
+'borrowers' list' has been made to depend; though how educated men can
+have extracted from this statute any meaning whatever which would
+justify, or even seem, in the most distant way, to justify the act of
+conveying to others the power to borrow books from the library is one
+of the most astonishing things that I ever met with in the whole course
+of my life. But it will be said that the Bodleian Curators for thirteen
+years understood _mutuari_ to mean 'lend', and therefore they might
+institute a 'borrowers' list'. It is an astonishing, not to say
+staggering, fact that they did so understand it, yet the borrowers' list
+is none the less illegal. Nay, I have heard a Curator in his place
+maintain, that as there could be no doubt what the University intended
+when it passed this statute, _mutuari_ in this place must mean 'lend'.
+Much as I admired the boldness of the assertion, I was unable to commend
+either the law or the logic of it; the consequences which would at once
+follow from the position, that if the intentions of a legislative body
+are clear it matters not how it expresses them, are too palpably absurd
+to find acceptance with ordinary minds. However, let it be supposed,
+that instead of _mutuari_ the word actually used were _commodare_. You
+are still no better off. The University on this hypothesis gives to the
+Curators as a board the power of lending a specific book to a specific
+person, and that is all. It does not give the Curators the power to
+invest any person or persons with the right or privilege of borrowing
+books, still less does it convey the power of creating a class of
+persons who have such a right or privilege. This is not only clear to
+plain common sense, but, as I am advised, is plain as a matter of law;
+and I am further assured that, if any book is damaged or lost in
+consequence of the Curators persisting in such a course, they become
+themselves personally liable to the University.
+
+This illegal borrowers' list comprises at this moment (subtracting one
+dead man and double entries) one hundred and eleven persons, besides the
+Clarendon Press. Among these persons are two ladies, who can have no
+conceivable right to be where they are, for even those whose tolerant
+Latinity suffers them to take _mutuari_ for _commodare_ will hardly
+maintain that '_viris doctis_' covers learned women. It includes too
+non-residents and foreigners; and I am informed that manuscripts have
+been sent for the use of one of these persons more than a hundred miles
+as the crow flies. Books are sent by post, and Bodleian money is spent
+to pay for carriage. The finances of the Library, however, deserve a
+paper all to themselves, and some day they shall have one.
+
+On May 26, 1883, 'an application from Dr. Leumann to be placed on the
+privileged list was agreed to.' On Oct. 20, of the same year, two
+persons were 'placed on the privileged list of readers;' and on Nov. 24,
+another 'was placed on the privileged list;' and from that moment to the
+present no other formula is employed in the minutes.
+
+In 1885, Oct. 31, the Librarian applied 'for authority to decline
+requests for loans of Selden MSS. and books, and of Laud's MSS. (except
+for purposes of publication), without referring the application to the
+Curators, as being contrary to the terms of the respective donations.
+This was agreed to.' It was, and to my great astonishment it passed
+without any remark whatever.
+
+In 1886, March 13, 'Liceat Curatoribus' was ruled to mean 'the consent
+of a majority of Curators;' that is to say, the illegal resolution of
+May 25, 1872, was silently rescinded. On May 15 of the same year a
+committee of four was appointed to consider the practice of loans. At a
+meeting on June 19, another name was added to the borrowers' list. Every
+Curator knew that the legality of their practice with respect to loans,
+and especially with respect to the borrowers' list, had been openly
+challenged; notwithstanding this, and in spite of protest then and there
+made, the chairman put the name to the vote, and a majority actually
+voted for it. This proceeding was, in my opinion (and not in mine only),
+irregular and improper to say the least of it, but it was highly
+characteristic. After waiting to see whether the Vice-Chancellor or any
+other Curator would call attention to the charge brought against the
+board, and finding, as I was sure would be the case, that no one shewed
+any disposition to do so, I gave notice of a motion for the next
+statutable meeting:--_That the borrowers' list be abolished as illegal;
+that all books in the hands of borrowers be at once recalled as having
+been illegally lent; and that for the future the Statute XX. iii. § 11.
+10 be faithfully observed._
+
+On June 28 it was agreed (I being silent for an obvious reason) that
+during the Vacation all the Curators in Oxford should meet every
+fortnight in the Library at 2 p.m. solely to consider applications for
+loans. During the Vacation six such meetings were summoned. On July 10,
+three Curators met and refused an application; on Aug. 21, and on Sept.
+11, only two were present, and of course declined to act; on Sept. 25,
+and Oct. 9, I, who attended all the meetings, found myself alone; on
+Oct. 23, there were six of us, and business was adjourned on the ground
+that the whole question of loans would be debated on Oct. 30.
+Accordingly, on Oct. 30, _all_ the Curators made their appearance, a
+thing I never saw before, though they were not all present during the
+whole of the proceedings. The motion to abolish the borrowers' list was
+duly made and seconded; then, after some confused talk, which could not
+be dignified by the name of a debate, an amendment was moved, 'That the
+consideration of the regulations under which books _be lent_ be referred
+to a committee'; and this was carried, all the Curators being present.
+An instruction to the committee was also moved, 'To consider what
+alteration is required in the statute with regard to the borrowing of
+books'; which was also carried. Next we considered the report of the
+committee on loans, and returned it in a somewhat mangled condition to
+the reconsideration of those who drew it up. After that, applications
+for loans numbered 1 to 16 were discussed, and _all_ were refused. This
+exhausted the agenda paper, and should, I apprehend, have finished the
+business of the day. However, an application for the loan of manuscripts
+_not_ on the agenda paper was considered, and the board, which up to
+that moment had refused all applications, including one from Sir
+Richard Burton, granted the loan of _seventeen_ manuscripts to _one_
+man. In self-defence, let me say that I always vote against all loans
+when there is a division.
+
+On Nov. 8 the loan committee recommended that Council be asked to
+propose amendments in Stat. Tit. XX. sect. iii. § 11, and thought that
+'the farther consideration of the rules framed by them and amended at
+the Curators' meeting on Oct. 30 should for the present be postponed.'
+On Nov. 25, ten Curators being present, this recommendation was
+considered. One of the Curators thought that while there was 'no harm'
+in applying for a new statute, yet that it was 'a waste of time' and 'a
+little ridiculous': another wished to move an amendment and have the new
+statute in _English_, but some of us saw (though no one said so) that
+such an amendment would be a highly comic confession on the part of the
+_viri variis doctrinis et literis imbuti_; and accordingly it was not
+pressed. Then the same Curator proposed that _commodare_ should be
+substituted for _mutuari_, and that _sicut mos fuit_ should be struck
+out. Four voted for this amendment, which was lost. Even had it been
+carried, it would still have been unlawful to lend books to women, for,
+as was pointed out at the time, _vir_ means _a man_; but the minority
+was in no mood to be affected by philological facts. The original
+recommendation was then passed.
+
+The board having thus expressed its opinion that a new statute was
+necessary to enable it to lend books had, it might be thought, asserted
+that the existing statute does not enable it to do so; accordingly we at
+once turned our attention to applications for loans. The first article
+applied for was not a book at all, but an inscribed bronze vessel; and
+it was observed that we have no statutable right, in other words no
+power whatever, to lend such a thing; whereupon some one remarked that
+it might be done, _because it is not forbidden_, an argument, which (if
+valid) would lead to some startling conclusions.
+
+However, that a decree of Convocation to authorise the loan of this
+vessel should be asked for was duly moved and seconded; then the
+Curator, who wished to patch the Bodleian Latin statute with a bit of
+English, moved as an amendment 'that the Curators lend it', quite
+ignoring the fact that they had no statutable power to do so. For this
+amendment three Curators voted, one abstained, and the rest voted
+against it: finally the original motion was carried. After that, two
+loans of books were refused and three were granted.
+
+In applying for a decree to enable them to lend this vessel the Curators
+turned over a new leaf. The whole Bodleian statute consists of ten
+octavo pages, eleven lines and four words: it can be read out aloud in
+thirty minutes, and by eye alone in half that time: there is, therefore,
+no excuse whatever for not knowing its contents, and still less for not
+obeying it. It is not my purpose at the present moment to point out how
+often, and in how many ways, we drive a coach and four through statutes
+intended to control our actions; but to complete the subject of loans,
+and dismissing the practice of book-lending from further consideration,
+it may be noted that the Stat. XX. iii. § 11. 9 allows the Curators
+under specified conditions to place certain prints and drawings either
+in the Radcliffe or in the Taylor Building; but with this exception, if
+exception it be, no power is anywhere given to them to lend any picture,
+coin, antiquity, or other object belonging to the library. Nevertheless
+I find the following entries in the minutes:--
+
+On April 26, 1865, 'it was agreed to lend "Miniatures" to the Lords of
+the Committee of Council on Education to be exhibited in the South
+Kensington Museum.'
+
+On Oct. 28, 1865, 'the Curators sanction the loan of such Pictures as
+may be desired for the National Exhibition of Portraits at Kensington in
+1866.'
+
+On Dec. 12, 1865, 'that the loan of the Pictures according to the list
+sent, save that of Sir Thomas Bodley, be granted to South Kensington
+Museum Exhibition of National Portraits.'
+
+On March 8, 1867, 'a letter from the Secretary of the Earl of Derby was
+read asking for the loan of eighteen Pictures for exhibition at
+Kensington. This was acceded to.'
+
+On Jan. 31, 1868, 'it was resolved ... to lend to the Leeds Exhibition
+the Portraits they wish of Yorkshire Worthies.'
+
+On Feb. 5, 1870, 'an application from Mr. Cosmo Innis, of the General
+Register house, Edinburgh, for the loan of the old map of Britain of the
+14th century, which hangs on the wall of the Library, to be traced in
+facsimile, under the care of Sir Henry James, for the 2nd volume of the
+National MSS. of Scotland, was granted.'
+
+On Feb. 14, 1874, 'an application from the South Kensington Museum was
+read, asking for the loan of remarkable specimens of Book-binding for
+next year's International Exhibition. In this matter it was agreed that
+the Museum should be invited to send a person to Oxford to inspect, and
+that it should be left to the discretion of the Librarian to decide upon
+lending any specimen required.'
+
+On April 28, 1877, 'an application from Mr. Blades [_sic_] on behalf of
+Caxton memorial committee for the loan of certain early printed books to
+a Public Exhibition at South Kensington was considered and granted.'
+
+On May 26, 1877, application 'for Bibles to be sent to the Caxton
+Exhibition. This was granted, and the Librarian was directed to take
+such measures as might be necessary to ensure secure transmission.'
+
+On May 11, 1878, permission was given to lend the Selden Portrait to the
+Nottingham Art Exhibition; and an application from the Bath and West of
+England Agricultural Society for works of art, &c. for their approaching
+meeting at Oxford, was considered. This was left to the Librarian's
+discretion.
+
+On Nov. 13, 1880, Wyngarde's Plan of London 'to be granted under a bond'
+to Mr. Wheatley.
+
+On April 29, 1882, the Portrait of Sam. Butler was lent to the
+Worcestershire Exhibition of Fine Arts.
+
+On Feb. 2, 1884, Drake's Chair was lent to the Mayor of Plymouth.
+
+On May 2, 1885, 'the Librarian presented applications from the
+Exhibition of Inventions now being held for the loan of certain MSS.;
+certain early printed books; certain works on music. It was agreed that
+the Librarian be empowered to lend out of the above as required, as he
+may think well, to the Exhibition.'
+
+At this last meeting I was present, and the following is a verbatim copy
+of my note written the same day:--
+
+'An Exhibition of Inventions (I have not got the name correctly) applied
+for the loan of certain MSS. and books from Bodleian: 5 MSS. Liturgies:
+3 Bodley MSS. 515, 775, 842: Gough, Missal 336: an Ashmole book, and 2
+English.--I objected, but the loan was carried, except as to 775
+Bodley.' I have lately been informed that one of the books sent up to be
+stared at by the mob of sightseers was a Selden book: this I neither
+knew nor could have known at the time, or it should have been stopped,
+if protesting could have stopped it.
+
+In every one of these cases the Curators, with the most perfect
+innocence, took upon themselves to do what they had not a shadow of
+right to do. If the University is content to have its property so dealt
+with that in case of damage or loss its only remedy would be to mulct
+the Curators, there is nothing more to be said; but it is just as well
+that the University should know what has been done in the past, and what
+would have been done in the future, had not a protest been made against
+the practice; and even now, though the board as a board has seemingly
+condemned its former doings, it still contains a stubborn and impenitent
+minority. If the University wishes its statutes to be obeyed, it should
+ordain substantial pecuniary fines for breaches of them; if it does not
+care whether they are obeyed or not, it is a pity that it wastes its
+time in enacting them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now as to the policy of lending the printed books and manuscripts of
+the Bodleian. The question is not whether it is a good or a bad thing to
+lend books, nor whether it is a good thing for this or that library to
+do so; it is simply whether it is right to lend Bodleian books. It may
+be argued that it is right to do so--
+
+1. Because books are made to be used, and they will be very much more
+used if they are lent than if they are not; moreover it is generally
+more convenient to read in one's own room than it is in a public place.
+Some men cannot read, certainly cannot read and think in a library, or
+in the midst of company; I cannot myself, and all that I have ever been
+able to do in such places is to make extracts, verify references and the
+like; but to read a book as I should in my own room is to me, and
+probably to many people, impossible. If you go to a public institution
+you must go when it is open; you must sit still; you must not whistle or
+make a noise; you must not smoke; you cannot lie down and read on your
+back; you cannot throw the book aside, go for a walk, and resume your
+perusal; you cannot read quietly over the fire of an evening; you cannot
+read in the small hours of the night, and so on _ad infinitum_. Yet all
+this you can do if you are allowed to borrow the books. You can then
+treat them exactly as if they were your own. It is clear that this
+argument may be expanded in a multitude of ways, and no one is so
+destitute of imagination as not to be able to fill up the details to
+suit his own particular case and fancy.
+
+The answer to it is very simple. You cannot by any device or contrivance
+combine the advantages of private and of public property. He who wishes
+to use the books of a public library must submit to many personal
+inconveniences; and the man who is unwilling to deny himself for the
+general good is the very last person in the community to whom any favour
+ought to be shown, and of all people he least deserves the favour of
+borrowing. He who has ever been foolish enough to lend his own books
+freely, learns by almost unvaried experience that hardly one man in
+twenty can be trusted: your book comes back (when it comes back at all)
+more damaged by a month's outing than the owner would occasion in fifty
+years. The book of a public library is even less regarded, as a rule,
+than that belonging to a friend; for the friend may have a sharp tongue,
+and a knack of using it, whereas a librarian is an official; even if he
+ever has time to look through the books when they are returned, his
+censure is disregarded, and after all accidents will happen, and the
+book might possibly have been equally damaged had it never left the
+library walls. It is really astonishing how few men there are in the
+present day who know how to use a book without doing it real and often
+serious damage. Over and over again have I seen men who would be very
+angry to be called boors deliberately break the back of a book. Over and
+over again, both in libraries and in private rooms, have I seen the
+headband broken, simply because people did not know how to take a book
+off a shelf. Again and again I have seen men of education (but grossly
+ignorant for all that of the ways of books) play such pranks with my own
+volumes as made me shudder. The horrid trick of turning a leaf by
+wetting a finger I have seen practised in this seat of learning over and
+over again by Graduates, by Professors, by Heads of Houses; and years
+ago I saw that same nasty trick played _pro pudor!_ in the sacred
+precincts of the Bodleian itself _on a manuscript_, which will bear to
+its last moment the impression of the dirty thumb (and it _was_ dirty)
+that perpetrated the uncleanly act. Often and often you see a man
+sitting close over the fire with a well-bound volume; a few such
+experiments will ruin the binding of any book; if it is his own, well
+and good, though even so the act is that of a barbarian: but suppose it
+a Bodleian book, what then? Why in that case the binding bills will be
+higher than ever, to say nothing about the ruin of the book itself. A
+man who knows how to handle a book will use a volume habitually for
+years and leave no trace of wear and tear behind him; but the average
+man, even though he may be a Master of Arts, is, not unfrequently,
+totally unfit to have the use of any books in good condition, even in a
+library, much less out of one.
+
+The scholars and readers of former days seem to have been far more
+careful in their habits than men are now. Look at the books of the great
+collectors--Grolier, the Maioli, Selden, De Thou, the Colberts, and the
+like. These men read their books; and Grolier and Thomas Maioli
+certainly lent them: yet even after all these years, though time and
+neglect may have ruined the magnificent bindings--bindings such as few,
+if any, modern collectors ever indulge in--the books themselves are
+internally spotless. I have myself scores of volumes, many of them three
+or four hundred years old, clean and pure as the day they were issued
+from the press; they have most certainly been used and read, but used by
+men of clean hands and decent habits. In the present day books are so
+common and so cheap, and modern readers too frequently so unrefined,
+that they get into a vile habit of misusing them, and to such
+persons--that is, to the great majority--the books of a public library
+cannot be safely trusted except under the very strictest supervision.
+The slovenly practice of placing one open book on another, a practice
+sternly forbidden in many foreign libraries, may be seen in full swing
+both at the Camera and in the Bodleian; and no one seems to be aware how
+ruinous it is, or to have the least suspicion that he who knows how to
+handle books never treats them so. Treated in a cleanly and decent
+manner, there is not the least reason why a book printed on good paper
+should not last for twenty centuries or more; treated as they are too
+often treated here in Oxford, they will hardly last as many months.
+
+By lending the books as we illegally do, we are perceptibly hastening
+the destruction of a library intended by its founder and benefactors to
+be a blessing for generations of scholars yet unborn.
+
+2. Books are to be lent, and what is more ought to be sent out of
+Oxford, because it is an immense convenience to students at a distance
+to have Bodleian treasures close at hand. Not a doubt about it; vastly
+convenient. Suppose I am studying Greek sculpture, it would be very
+convenient to get all the master-pieces sent from the various galleries
+of Europe to London or Oxford. It would not only be a convenience, but a
+joy and a delight, to have over the Venus of Melos. Instead of sitting
+for hours together, as I used to do, in the Louvre, it would be much
+more convenient to go down to the New Schools and gaze on that glorious
+and divine being. Does any one suddenly scent an absurdity in the
+supposition? Why so do I, but the absurdity is in the whole argument,
+not in the particular application of it. Some people who have not a gift
+for seeing the point of things will ride off by saying that the Venus is
+a majestic beauty, and that the expense of her carriage and insurance
+would be enormous. Such an objection is pointless, because it evades the
+question of convenience; but let us take a case where weight will not
+oppress us. Say you study Greek gems; would it not be very convenient to
+have some of the best from Naples, from Paris, from Rome, and from
+Vienna, sent here to the Bodleian, where you could study them at your
+leisure? They are more portable than books, far less liable to damage,
+and hardly more valuable. Do you think that any guardian of such
+treasures would be so foolish as to listen to your request? Would any
+nation, city, or even University, permit it?
+
+The cases, it will be said, are not parallel. Gems, coins, medals,
+statuettes, are too valuable to be lent; the books and manuscripts which
+the Bodleian Curators lend are comparatively valueless. I am by no means
+sure of that fact. I have before now tapped at a friend's door, and
+receiving no answer entered his room to leave a message or what not, and
+have more than once seen lying on his table an eleventh-century Bodleian
+manuscript of a certain classic author, a book of inestimable value, the
+_codex archetypus_ of every other copy now in existence. Any stranger
+could have entered that room, and any enterprising literary thief--a not
+uncommon and particularly detestable animal--might have slipped this
+priceless book into his pocket. I am by no means sure that very valuable
+manuscripts have not been, in spite of remonstrance, lent out within the
+last two years; but it is beyond all dispute that not so very long ago
+the thing was done, and any man or any body of men who will allow one
+such thing to be done are quite capable of allowing a dozen to be done.
+
+Let it, however, be granted, for the purposes of the present argument,
+that we now, having a clearer perception of our responsibilities, only
+allow comparatively worthless manuscripts to be sent to France, to
+Germany, Russia, or India; for our manuscripts, be it observed, travel
+as far afield as Bombay. Now what makes a book or manuscript
+comparatively worthless? It is so, either because it is one of many
+copies, or because it is a poor and faulty copy. If it is one of many,
+why in the name of all that is absurd should we be asked to send our
+goods away (at our expense and risk let it be remembered) when _ex
+hypothesi_ there are many other copies in existence? why cannot the
+foreign student go to some one of those copies? why should we be called
+on to gratify his laziness or consult his convenience? If the copy be a
+poor one, he who asks for the loan of it must be a noodle, for who cares
+for the readings of a confessedly inferior book? Is it not clear as day
+that the man who at Rome, or Heidelberg, or Bombay, asks for the loan of
+a manuscript, believes it to be a good and valuable copy? moreover, if
+he believes so, is it not in the highest degree probable that his
+judgment is correct, seeing that his attention is in a special manner
+concentrated on the matter? And if it be a good and valuable copy, what
+becomes of the plea that we only lend comparatively worthless books?
+Have we any common sense amongst us? I really confess that there are
+times when I come to the conclusion that we have none; for if we had,
+how could we be deceived by pretexts so flimsy and fallacious? All the
+manuscripts which we now lend are most certainly valuable, and their
+loss or damage would be irreparable; all talk of comparative worth or
+worthlessness is futile, and is merely used as so much dust thrown in
+the eyes of those who (I am sorry to say it, but it must be said) ought
+to have a higher conception of their duties.
+
+3. Some maintain that MSS. and books should be lent out because 'more
+work' will be done by that device. It is difficult to see why. It is
+inferred, in fact, that 'more work' will be done, because it is more
+convenient to work at home than it is in a library. A partial answer to
+this fallacious plea has been already given, but I cannot pass over the
+particular form of it without a protest. The cant that is talked
+now-a-days about 'work' is enough to make one sick. As far as my
+experience extends, the very notion of work, as opposed to fidgetty
+pottering, is not possessed by fifty men in the place; the very
+conception of thoroughness and comprehension is gone; and as to
+learning, why the thing has almost vanished; of 'science' we have enough
+and to spare, but what in the world has become of all our knowledge?
+Briefly, at the present moment and in this place, all this wretched
+pretence of 'work' is arrant imposture. A few, and only a few, know what
+it means, and they would never dream of talking about it.
+
+But I have heard this argument about 'more work' put in another form,
+and it obviously is a theme on which endless variations may be composed.
+Suppose, it is said, a very poor scholar, anxious to give the world a
+critical edition of some book, and further suppose that there is a
+valuable manuscript at St. Petersburg, another at Stockholm, another in
+Paris, another in Oxford, and so on; let the poor scholar live where you
+like, say in Giessen, and suppose him to be totally unable to defray the
+expense of a journey to these several places, and to have no means of
+paying for collations made by others, and no confidence in their
+correctness, even if he could pay for them; would it not be an advantage
+to literature that all these manuscripts should be sent to Giessen for
+the use of the poor scholar aforesaid; and would it not be a dead loss
+to the world of letters, if, by refusing so to lend them, you prevented
+the poor scholar from constructing a critical and admirable text of the
+author in whom he is interested? This purely hypothetical case I have
+heard put in all seriousness, and used as a knock-me-down sort of
+argument; yet it must occur to any one with a grain of common sense that
+it is only too easy to 'suppose' anything; that it would not require the
+imaginative powers of a baby to go one step further, and suppose the
+poor, the ardent and the ripe scholar to have just money enough or pluck
+enough to carry him to the places which he wishes to visit, (I note
+parenthetically that a real student, a man to read of whose exploits
+warms one's heart, Cosma de Körös, started on his extraordinary
+expedition to the East with 100 florins and a walking-stick, for being
+what he was, he dispensed with luggage,) or you might suppose brains
+enough in his neighbourhood to perceive that so deserving a creature of
+the pure imagination might fairly enough be helped or--but it is
+needless and foolish to dream with one's eyes open, and practical men
+generally object to discuss purely hypothetical cases. Yes, my excellent
+but fanciful friend will say, this is all very well, but _if_ there were
+such a case, what would you do? Well, to speak for myself, I should
+prefer to wait till the poor scholar's exchequer was in a more
+flourishing condition, or why should I not take a turn at 'supposing'
+myself? and perform the very easy trick of imagining a more ripe
+scholar, a more enthusiastic student, endowed not only with brains, but
+blessed with means to gratify his whims, and then, without the least
+violence, I might suppose the result to be a much more correct, a much
+more critical edition than my friend's phantom scholar could ever by any
+possibility concoct. But to return to the region of reality; I answer
+that not even in the case supposed, or in any case would I lend out
+manuscripts, and this for more reasons than I have patience to write
+down. One remark may, however, be made. We are constantly requested to
+send manuscripts abroad 'for collation,' and we not unfrequently send
+them. Will any one be good enough to mention to me a single collation of
+a Greek or Latin classic made by any scholar by profession of any
+manuscript of fair length--say, if you like, 300 pages of octavo
+print--which is faithful, or which can be depended on? Even if it were a
+defensible practice to send manuscripts abroad for collation, it can
+never be a defensible practice to expose them to all the risks they
+necessarily run, and after all reap as a net result collations not worth
+the paper they are written on.
+
+I hope that these considerations may satisfy my imaginative friend that
+there is not that force in his argument which he supposes; but if he is
+still unconvinced, let us agree to consider the case of the poor scholar
+when it actually occurs on its merits, and let it be conceded as a thing
+not impossible, that should all the supposed conditions exist, we might
+for once in a way move Convocation to lend a manuscript for the use of
+so singular and so deserving a character; how does that justify us in
+sending manuscripts abroad when no such conditions exist? The most I
+have ever yet heard pleaded on behalf of these foreign students was, not
+that they could not afford to come to Oxford, but merely that it was
+much more convenient to have a book sent out to Hungary or Russia, than
+it was for the Hungarian or Russian to visit us. I dare say it was more
+convenient to him, but it has already been observed that he who wishes
+to use public property must and ought to submit to not a few personal
+inconveniences. It would, too, be interesting to know whether, supposing
+any of us possessed a very valuable book of our own, we should be ready
+and willing to lend it as freely as we lend these books which are not
+ours. I will answer for myself that I certainly should not, and that it
+would be grossly inconsistent in me to lend University property when I
+decline under precisely similar circumstances to lend my own.
+
+4. Again, it is argued that since foreign libraries are willing to lend
+to us we ought to reciprocate their liberality: we ought, it is said, to
+be as liberal as France or Germany are. To the end of time men will be
+the dupes of phrases and the slaves of words, yet it is a little strange
+that we, who fancy ourselves in some respects raised above the mob,
+should see any force in this singular perversion of language. Who does
+not detect the hollow and worthless nature of that 'liberality' which
+lends, not what is its own, but what is another's? In what possible
+sense, except an illusory and fallacious one, can the Bodleian Curators
+credit themselves with the virtue of 'liberality' when they hand over,
+not their own property, not anything which they collectively set great
+store on, not anything which it would grieve them deeply to lose, but
+something not their own? Such liberality seems to me to be as cheap as
+it is worthless; as easy as it is unreal. But, it will be objected, that
+the University empowers them so to lend, and that it would be
+'illiberal' in them to accept loans from others and refuse themselves to
+lend. As to the powers given by the University, I have already said
+something; the rest of the plea may be sufficiently answered by a single
+line from Hamlet--
+
+    "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
+
+Sound, wholesome advice to all, whether taken as Polonius intended it,
+or as I now use it. It would be mean and shabby to borrow if you refuse
+to lend, for it would be conniving at a vice which you decline to
+commit. Would it not be more rational to argue that all lending out of
+Bodleian books being bad, we therefore decline to benefit (if benefit it
+be) by a practice which we disapprove of in principle? To argue simply,
+as I have heard some do, that because foreign libraries are willing to
+lend us books, _therefore_ we ought to be willing to lend them books,
+is, as an argument, about as valid as it would be to say, 'My friend X
+has signified his willingness to lend me his banjo, and therefore I am
+bound to lend him my Erard's piano, if he asks for it': not every one
+would see the force of such reasoning. If the lending of books from such
+a library as the Bodleian be, as I maintain it is, bad in principle, it
+can never become right because other libraries are willing to be loose
+in their practice.
+
+But suppose we look a little more closely into this alleged 'liberality'
+of foreign countries, where lending in some form or other is the rule
+rather than the exception. And here let it be observed that 'library'
+though one word covers things as different as chalk is from cheese.
+Libraries differ not merely in quantity, in the number of volumes which
+they contain: they also differ enormously in quality and value. The
+University Library of Göttingen some forty years ago was estimated to
+contain 350,000 volumes. The Grenville Library (now part of the British
+Museum) consists in round numbers of 20,000 volumes, each of which cost
+on an average _two pounds, fourteen shillings_; and this small but most
+choice collection would in the present day probably sell for a sum
+almost sufficient to purchase the whole of the Göttingen 350,000
+volumes. The Bodleian is equalled and even far surpassed in point of
+numbers by other libraries, but for quality and real value there are not
+in all the world a dozen that could, or by any competent person would,
+be compared with it, and this fact makes all the difference when lending
+is in question. You might lend and lose half the books at Göttingen, and
+still be able without very much trouble or expense to replace them to
+the satisfaction of that University. By losing a single half-dozen of
+some of our Bodleian books, you might seriously maim and cripple a large
+department; and as to replacing the half-dozen, you might just as well
+try to replace the coal in our coal pits. I have seen it stated that all
+the great libraries of Europe lend, except the Vatican and the British
+Museum: even Mr. Panizzi, forgetting for the moment what he well knew,
+says, 'In all libraries on the Continent they lend books, but here
+[i.e. at the British Museum] I hope they will never lend them: it is
+quite right not to lend them' (Report on British Museum, 1850, p. 230).
+And even if all do lend (and all do not), it would no more follow that
+they ought to do so, than it follows that no man should do right,
+because all men are sinners. Why are we to follow a foreign fashion? Why
+are we to follow a multitude to do evil? We are quite strong enough to
+act properly, if we only had the infinitesimal amount of courage
+needful. Even if it were true that every great library in Europe does a
+foolish thing, why should we, with the true spirit of slavish imitation,
+be equally foolish?
+
+Amongst the libraries, which may be with more or less justice compared
+with the Bodleian, are the National Library of Paris; the British
+Museum; the Vatican; the Royal Library of Munich; the Imperial Library
+of St. Petersburg; the Imperial Library at Vienna; the Ambrosian at
+Milan. Thirty odd years ago only _two_ of these ever lent a book, and
+then hardly in the sense in which any one in Oxford would understand
+that phrase. At this very moment, the British Museum, the second or
+third largest and finest library in the world, does not lend; the
+Vatican does not lend; the Ambrosian library, great in printed books,
+greater in manuscripts, does not lend; the Escurial, famed for its
+Arabic manuscripts, never lends, not even within the limits of Spain;
+the Municipal Library of Ravenna, a name well known to all students of
+Aristophanes for its famous codex, never lends; nor does the Angelica at
+Rome: and there are more libraries of which this is true. Few, however,
+would believe till they have tried the experiment, how difficult it is
+for a private person to get really trustworthy information as to the
+practices of foreign libraries.
+
+Again, all foreign libraries that practise lending lend under
+restrictions unknown to us in Oxford. At the Bodleian there are no
+written rules at all, and, as far as I know, there never have been any.
+The present Librarian rightly felt that such a state of things ought
+not to be allowed; he accordingly drew up a draft set of regulations; it
+was at his request that the committee mentioned above, p. 26, was
+appointed, and but for his sense of duty the board would possibly never
+have perceived that rules were requisite. The Italian government
+controls some 33 libraries, and the rules for loans fill 83 paragraphs
+and 18 pages quarto. Without the special leave of the Minister of
+Instruction, no government librarian in Italy can lend manuscripts,
+printed books of the 15th century, very rare editions, books with
+autographs of celebrated men or with important notes, books printed on
+vellum, books with plates of much value, or the chief value of which
+consists in the engravings, expensive works, works in many volumes,
+coast surveys, maps, atlases, books finely bound or otherwise valuable,
+old music. In other words, _no librarian can lend any manuscript
+whatever, or any valuable printed book, without special leave_. The
+restrictions on loans to foreign countries are also numerous.
+
+The National Library of Paris, the largest in the whole world, also
+lends, but never in the wild fashion sanctioned in this place. Here are
+the very words of the 'Règlement,' Art. 115: 'Peuvent seuls être prêtés
+dans le département des imprimés, les doubles qui ne font pas partie de
+la réserve, pourvu, en outre, qu'il ne s'agisse ni de livres
+particulièrement précieux, ni de dictionnaires, ni de journaux, ni de
+morceaux ou partitions de musique, ni de volumes appartenant à de
+grandes collections ou contenant des figures hors texte.
+
+'Ne peuvent pas non plus être prêtés les romans, ni les pièces du
+théâtre moderne, ni les ouvrages de littérature frivole. Le conservateur
+apprécie en premier ressort les circonstances qui permettent ou non de
+prêter un livre.'
+
+Art. 116: 'Peuvent seuls être prêtés dans le département des manuscrits,
+les volumes qui ne sont pas particulièrement précieux par leur rareté,
+leur antiquité, les autographes ou les miniatures qu'ils contiennent, ou
+par toute autre circonstance dont le conservateur est juge en premier
+ressort.'
+
+This library then _never lends anything but duplicates_, and only such
+duplicates as are _not_ part of the reserve, i.e. part of the more
+valuable section of the library, and not even such duplicates if they
+are specially valuable.
+
+The libraries of Germany and Switzerland have rules substantially the
+same as those adopted in France and Italy; and it is the same with
+Belgium when they lend at all. In the Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique,
+Art. 41 of the 'Règlement' runs thus: 'Dans la section des imprimés, les
+ouvrages d'un usage journalier, les livres rares, de luxe ou à figures,
+les éditions du XV^e siècle, les livres sur vélin ou sur grand papier,
+ceux dont les reliures sont précieuses ou remarquables, les collections
+ou parties de collection considérable _ne sont jamais prêtés au
+dehors_.'
+
+As to the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, the Director writes under
+date Dec. 11, 1886: 'la Bibliothèque Impèriale n'a pas le droit, d'après
+la loi, de prêter ses manuscrits aux personnes particulières, que sur la
+demande des autorités compètents, et pour les personnes hors des limites
+de la Russie, que par l'entremise du ministère des affaires étrangères
+avec l'autorisation de Sa Majesté. En même temps je crois devoir
+ajouter, que les manuscrits les plus précieux ne sortent jamais de la
+Bibliothèque, dans aucun cas, de même que les codes dont s'occupent les
+savants du pays.'
+
+It would be impossible to do in any of these foreign countries what is
+done in Oxford. Expensive illustrated works are, as I have heard, had
+out of the library, and are then used to illustrate lectures--a short
+and easy method of bringing books to ruin.
+
+To trust to discretion alone, whether it be the discretion of a
+librarian or of a board, is to lean on a broken reed; and in most
+foreign libraries that discovery has long since been made: it is high
+time that we made it too, if we are foolish enough to sanction the
+practice of lending.
+
+When it is said then that _all_ great foreign libraries lend, let it
+always be remembered, in the first place, that strictly speaking all do
+not lend; and, in the second place, that those which lend restrict the
+practice in a way never dreamt of here.
+
+Such then are the arguments for lending: they may be stated in other
+terms, and they may be indefinitely varied in shape, but when reduced to
+their ultimate forms they simply come to this--that by lending books out
+the utility of the library is increased, the convenience of readers is
+consulted, the progress of learning is facilitated, and international
+courtesy is promoted--all very good things in themselves and much to be
+desired, but, as always in this world, we have to balance good with
+evil, and to take that course which involves the least inconvenience on
+the whole.
+
+I confess that it rather depresses me to have to argue the question at
+all, and if the _genius loci_ affected all minds as it affects mine, the
+very faintest suspicion of degrading and vulgarising such an institution
+as the Bodleian would be enough, and more than enough, to settle the
+matter; and surely it is a degradation of that noble library to look on
+it, as some seem to do, as a sort of enlarged and diversified Mudie's.
+Our books may be all over Oxford, nay, all over Europe; they may be in
+Germany, in France, in India, in Russia, in London, at Cambridge, and
+heaven only knows where. What is all this but the first step towards
+turning the Bodleian into a vast and vulgar circulating library? I must
+say again, as I have said elsewhere, that the Bodleian Library is
+absolutely unlike any other library in the world; it is in its way
+peerless and unique; it was founded and augmented by learned men for
+learned men; it was never meant for the motley crew which in the present
+day crams the Camera and the Library itself. It is sad to one who can
+remember what the Bodleian was even thirty years ago to see such rapid
+decline, such manifest tokens of disregard for all that once rendered
+the place a sacred spot. But this is to wander from my immediate
+business, and what I conceive to be the abuse, I might even say the
+gross abuse of the Bodleian, for which the Curators are directly
+responsible, must be matter for some other paper.
+
+It seems to be the notion of some people in this University that the
+Bodleian Library is a fit place for readers of any and of every kind.
+They have not knowledge enough of books or of libraries to see that a
+library suitable only to scholars of a high class is not a library
+adapted to learners and schoolboys.
+
+Any one beginning microscopic work will find all, and more than all, his
+wants satisfied for a long time to come by a five guinea instrument, and
+he is not unlikely to damage even that. Suppose that, instead of such an
+instrument, you gave him at once a two hundred pound microscope by Smith
+and Beck, or Ross, what would happen? He would be utterly bewildered by
+the complexity of it, utterly unable to use it as it should be used, and
+he would most certainly before long so damage it as to render it useless
+to all who could make a proper use of it. Between a first-rate
+microscope by Ross and a three or five guinea instrument the difference
+is much less than is the difference between the Bodleian and a library
+fit for undergraduates, or generally for the unlearned. By introducing
+undergraduates, schoolboys, and girls into such a library as the
+Bodleian, you in fact degrade the library to base uses, and render it
+_pro tanto_ inconvenient, to use a very mild term, to all who are fit to
+benefit by it, and who were intended by the founder to have the
+advantage of it.
+
+'What my experience has taught me,' says a most learned bibliographer
+(1. R. 121)[15], 'is, that it ought never to be attempted to use, as a
+popular library, the large libraries intended in the first instance for
+a superior class of readers;' and he adds further, that 'on every
+occasion, when it has been tried, the greatest part of the riches
+accumulated in the old library have been rendered useless.'
+
+[15] Report from the Select Committee on Public Libraries, ordered by
+the House of Commons to be printed 23 July, 1849, quoted by pages as 1.
+R. A second volume ordered to be printed 1 August, 1850, is quoted also
+by pages as 2. R. These Blue books contain an immense amount of
+information on all the libraries of Europe, and although the information
+is some forty years old, it is still indispensable to all who wish to
+acquaint themselves with the subject. The evidence also given is of the
+most varied kind, and very instructive.
+
+If it is in any sense useful to lend books out of the library, it is far
+more useful, all things considered, not to lend them.
+
+Every man of the least intelligence can see the difference between a
+library of reference and one from which books are lent. A library of
+reference, or a library of deposit, is one where books are to be
+perpetually preserved as carefully as may be for the convenience of
+scholars and students, and for the promotion of sound and solid
+learning; and lending any book from such a library is obviously
+inconsistent with the very purpose for which it is founded. 'I think,'
+says the Solicitor-General for Scotland, speaking of the Advocates'
+Library, 'that (lending books out) is quite inconsistent with the proper
+preservation of a great library' (1. R. 95).[16] And another very able
+witness, Mr. Colles, one of the library committee of the Royal Dublin
+Society, gives it as the result of his experience that no lending should
+be allowed in such a library. 'I speak,' he says, 'against the interest
+of my own family when I say this: but I think that the public use of the
+library would be increased by not lending.' And again, 'The two (i. e.
+libraries of reference and of circulation) ought to be separated, just
+as banks of issue should be separated from banks of deposit. I wish to
+be understood on this point: an individual painter or sculptor might be
+greatly benefited by borrowing out a capital picture from the National
+Gallery, or the Torso, Venus, or Portland Vase from the British Museum;
+but such a loan would by no means benefit artists in general, or advance
+the ultimate interests of painting or sculpture. This holds good equally
+with regard to valuable books.' (1. R. 185.)
+
+[16] See note [15].
+
+This question as to the expediency of lending books out of such
+libraries as the British Museum or the Bodleian has been hotly debated
+both at home and abroad for the last eighty years or more, and I wish I
+had space to detail the arguments that have been used, not by men
+ignorant of books and eager only to consult their own convenience, or to
+obtain credit for a spurious liberality; but by those who really and
+truly knew all the ins and outs of the matter they were talking about,
+and who were quite as anxious to promote learning as we are ourselves.
+Take, for instance, the late Mr. Thomas Watts, keeper of printed books
+in the British Museum, one of the very rarest of men, a librarian who
+thoroughly knew his business, at all events so far as printed books were
+concerned, and quite unequalled as regards all questions of organisation
+and administration. He carries impartiality almost to excess, for he
+says, speaking of lending, 'It would, perhaps, be expedient to examine
+the subject more closely before a final determination was come to on
+either side; for while the Bodleian Library is strictly non-circulating,
+the books are freely lent out to the members of the University from the
+University Library of Cambridge, and yet any material difference in the
+condition of the two libraries to the disadvantage of that of Cambridge,
+is certainly not a matter of public notoriety.' This statement appeared
+in 1867, and Mr. Watts evidently did not know that lending had been
+practised by the Bodleian Curators ever since 1862 (see above, p. 14);
+nor was he seemingly aware of the facts detailed by Mr. Bradshaw, or of
+such gross abuses as that which Mr. Bradshaw told a friend of my own. He
+said that on a certain occasion a graduate had a dinner party, and that
+he borrowed from the University Library certain expensive illustrated
+works to be laid on the table to amuse his guests; Bradshaw was
+powerless, though indignant at an act so disgraceful. Carefully however
+as Mr. Watts holds the balance, it seems unquestionable that he himself
+condemned the practice of lending from such libraries as the British
+Museum or the Bodleian; for after writing a column or more, in which he
+shows every disposition to lend books where it is possible to do so
+without causing more harm than good, he considers Mr. Spedding's
+proposal to lend a book wanted by a reader in London to the British
+Museum library--the very thing in fact which we now are in the habit of
+doing, he then says; "By this ingenious arrangement some of the
+advantages proposed by the lending system would certainly be afforded,
+under safeguards not now obtainable; but there would still remain the
+strong objection that a reader wishing to examine a particular book
+known to be in a particular library might be subjected to a
+disappointment which he is now in no hazard of. This objection is
+tersely stated in a passage from a letter by Niebuhr, which was quoted
+by the Commissioners for examining into the University of Oxford. 'It is
+lamentable,' writes Niebuhr from the University of Bonn, 'that I am here
+much worse off for books than I was at Rome, where I was sure to find
+whatever was in the library, because no books were lent out; here I find
+that just the book which I most want is always lent out.' There are few
+libraries from which books are lent of which stories are not current
+respecting the abuse of the privilege, of volumes kept for years by
+persons too high or too venerable to be questioned. The rules of such
+institutions are often laxly observed by those from whom we should least
+expect such disregard. In Walter Scott's correspondence with Southey
+there is a passage in which he recommends him not to show publicly a
+book which he had sent him, because it belongs to the Advocate's
+Library, and it is forbidden for those books to be sent out of
+Scotland."
+
+The opinion then of one of the most accomplished librarians that ever
+lived is, on the whole, adverse to the system of lending. I believe it
+to be quite impossible for a man of his enormous knowledge of the
+subject to come to any other conclusion than that at which he arrived:
+the less a man knows about books and libraries, the more inclined he is
+to the pernicious system of lending; the more he knows about them, the
+less inclined he is to countenance anything of the kind; such at least
+has been my experience.
+
+The late Mr. Henry Bradshaw of Cambridge was a most learned librarian
+and an accomplished bibliographer. He has not, so far as I am aware,
+expressed in print his plain opinion of the lending system; but no one
+can read his paper on the Cambridge University Library, (The University
+Library, ... by Henry Bradshaw, Librarian of the University, Camb. 1881.
+8vo.,) without seeing that he bitterly regretted the practice which
+prevails and has long prevailed in that place. The Bodleian has a
+history, a noble and honourable history: the Cambridge University
+Library has none, at all events none that is not disgraceful. 'One
+reason,' he says (p. 6), 'for the dearth of materials in the Library for
+its own history is to be found in the circumstance that the Library is
+really scattered over the whole country.' And again, 'We have often
+heard of the principal benefactors to the Bodleian Library having been
+induced to bequeath their own libraries to the University of Oxford from
+seeing the careful way in which the bequests of their predecessors have
+been housed and kept together. The coincidence at Cambridge is too
+striking to be accidental, where we find that only two such bequests are
+on record': this statement he subsequently corrects into 'three' instead
+of two: and again, 'It is probable that by drawing attention to the fact
+that none of the great collectors of the last two hundred years have
+thought fit to leave their books to our University Library, we may be
+pointing to a lesson which our successors may profit by, even though we
+are too indifferent to pay any attention to it ourselves.'
+
+The inference plainly to be drawn from these and other passages is that
+the writer strongly disapproved of the practice which he was obliged
+officially to countenance. From 1600 down to the last ten or fifteen
+years the history of the Bodleian Library has been on the whole a
+history of which every true scholar, and every genuine lover of books
+may be proud; the history of the Cambridge Library for the
+corresponding period has been an almost unbroken record of disgraceful
+carelessness, and the root of all the evil has been the practice of
+lending, as will be clear to any one who will take the trouble to read
+Mr. Bradshaw's paper. There has been, as there always must be, where
+such a practice is allowed, wholesale robbery. In 1772 the library was
+inspected and 'a large number of rare books were reported to be
+missing.' (p. 28.) The latest previous inspection had been in 1748, when
+902 volumes were reported as missing from the old library alone ... the
+loss was the result of that wholesale pillage spoken of before. It is
+very singular that the very same year that the inspection shewed such
+serious losses to have happened from unrestricted access, the University
+should have made fresh orders (the basis of those now in use),
+permitting more fully this same freedom of access. The _Cicero de
+Officiis_ printed in 1465 on vellum, a Salisbury Breviary printed in
+1483 on vellum (the only known copy of the first edition), the Salisbury
+_Directorium Sacerdotum_ printed by Caxton (the only known copy), are
+three instances out of many scores of such books which might be
+mentioned as purloined during the latter half of the eighteenth century,
+simply from this total disregard of all care for the preservation of the
+books. Even manuscripts were lent out on ordinary tickets; and it was
+seemingly only owing to the strong remonstrances of Mr. Kerrich, the
+principal Librarian of the day, that a grace was passed in 1809,
+requiring that no manuscript whatever should be borrowed, except with
+the permission of the Senate, and on a bond given for the same to the
+Librarian. "We have the ticket, but we cannot get the book back," Mr.
+Kerrich says: "and to this day the book in question has never been
+returned." (p. 28.) Such are the disgraceful acts of men bred at an
+English University, compared with whom the common pickpocket appears
+positively respectable.
+
+Mr. Panizzi, principal Librarian of the British Museum, a man whose
+knowledge of libraries and of books has rarely been equalled, was
+asked, 'Are you of opinion that there should be in all countries
+libraries of two sorts, namely, libraries of deposit, and libraries
+devoted to general reading and the circulation of books?' answered,
+'That is another question. I think the question of lending books is a
+very difficult question to answer. I have enquired in all countries,
+and, as far as experience goes, I find that, in spite of all the
+precautions taken, of the regulations, and of everything which is done,
+books disappear; they are stolen or spoiled.' (2. R. 62.) And again: 'I
+do not think that lending can well be adopted without great risk of
+losing books; the question is whether there might not be remedies; I
+think from all experience I never found that librarians had succeeded in
+preventing stealing.' He also tells a very instructive story of some
+rare books stolen from the library at Wolfenbüttel, and be it noted that
+Panizzi and Watts knew more of their profession than a whole army of
+ordinary librarians. Let no one fancy for one moment that a congress of
+librarians is necessarily a congress of men really acquainted with
+either bibliography or with books; it may, perhaps, on some occasions
+include one or more who answer to that description, but in general it
+does not do so. 'La bibliographie,' says Richou, 'est une science exacte
+qui demande une préparation assez longue et que la pratique développe.
+Les bibliothécaires improvisés en ignorent jusqu'à l'existence et se
+préoccupent peu de l'acquérir. Il ne faut pas chercher ailleurs la cause
+de la mauvaise administration d'un grand nombre de bibliothèques
+publiques, car le mal est commun.' (_Traité de l'Administration des
+Bibliothèques publiques_, p. 82.)
+
+The opinion expressed by Mr. Watts and Mr. Panizzi, and implied by Mr.
+Bradshaw, is, I am convinced, the opinion of all men who are acquainted
+with this question in its length, breadth, and depth.
+
+How comes it then, some one may ask, that foreign librarians do not
+speak out against the practice? Because it is not in general the habit
+of foreign officials to have opinions of their own, and still less to
+express them, if they have them, when such opinions are not fashionable,
+or not likely to advance those who utter them: and this goes a long way
+towards explaining the answers given to questions put by the English
+Government nearly forty years ago to the custodians of libraries where
+(though under many restrictions) lending was, and is practised. The
+general tenor of the answers is that books do not suffer more than might
+be expected, that losses are comparatively rare, that when loss is
+suffered the books can generally be replaced, and that when they cannot
+their value can almost always be recovered from the borrower. Such, I
+say, is the general tenor of the answers, but few who know anything
+about circulating libraries will accept such answers as satisfactory.
+Before the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War the Germans printed
+splendid books, and not unfrequently bound them grandly; but for the
+last two hundred years few German librarians, unless trained in France
+or England, have known what a really fine book is, or whether it is in
+what a Frenchman would call good condition. In other words, when they
+say that books lent are not much damaged, it must be always remembered
+that notions of damage are relative, and most German librarians are in
+all probability like an old friend of my own, who holds that no book is
+in really ill condition, provided the readable part of it is still
+legible: the title may be torn or gone; 'I don't want to read the
+title,' says he: the covers may be broken or destroyed; 'Cannot you read
+an unbound book?' he asks; and so on. There is this difference, however;
+my friend does know when a book really is in good condition. Moreover,
+there are, or at least there were, some foreign librarians who have
+dared to tell the truth. Thus (see 2. R. 161-171), from the returns made
+by eighteen libraries in Belgium, we learn that the library of Antwerp
+(19,148 vols.) never lent; that no manuscripts were ever lent from that
+of Bruges; that manuscripts and rare books were never lent from the
+library of Malines; that valuable books were never lent from the
+library of Louvain; that no manuscripts or valuable books were ever lent
+from the library of Mons; and that such books and manuscripts were never
+lent from any of the University libraries. Nevertheless, some lending
+there was from some libraries; and it was asserted that little damage
+was done the books. Very different is the answer of the Librarian of
+Tournay (2. R. 163): 'Cette coutume a des inconvénients assez graves:
+impossibilité pour certains lecteurs de consulter les ouvrages dont ils
+ont besoin: rentré tardive des livres prêtés; perte ou détérioration des
+volumes.' The Librarian of Nassau (2. R. 299), very unlike most of his
+brethren, says, 'das Verleihen der Bücher asserhalb der Anstalt hat
+allerdings die nachtheilige Folge dass dieselben in kurzer Zeit, im
+Aussern wie im Innern stark mitgenommen werden. Die Einbände werden
+verstossen und schäbig und der Druck durch Schnupfer und Raucher oft
+aufs Unangenehmste beschmutzt,' with more to the same effect. Even at
+the Royal Library of Berlin it is admitted that 'die Bücher und Einbände
+werden dadurch mehr beschädight und verdorben' (2. R. 304); and at the
+University Library, 'die Abnutzung durch die Studirenden ist sehr stark'
+(2. R. 305). The answer from the University Library at Bonn is,
+'Nachtheilige Folge beim Verleihen der Bücher waren troz der
+sorgfältigsten Ueberwachung nicht immer zu vermeiden. Manche Bände kamen
+beschmutzt auch verstümmelt zurück.' There are very similar answers from
+a few other libraries both of Germany and Italy. Common sense and a
+little experience will tell any one to which class of testimony credence
+should be given.
+
+As to replacing a lost or damaged book, the thing is by no means so easy
+as it looks. What is common to-day may be rare a year hence, and quite
+unprocurable on any terms in two years time. 'Then,' says Ignoramus, 'it
+will be reprinted, and you may buy that'; but the man who talks so
+wildly cannot be argued with, because he does not know the elements of
+the subject of which he is speaking. Suppose you lose the 19th edition
+of the _Christian Year_, you do not replace the book by purchasing the
+100th edition, as all experts know. 'Buy another copy of the 19th then',
+says Ignoramus; but it may be that you have to pay a very high price for
+it, and it sometimes happens that you cannot get it at all. 'If you do
+not get the book, you can recover its value.' Even supposing that you
+can--and here in Oxford we have no machinery by which we can recover a
+farthing--how is a man who wants to see a particular book benefited by
+being told that he cannot see the book because it has been lent and
+lost, but that the Library has received compensation? Well might Panizzi
+say that the question of lending is a very difficult question; it is so
+difficult that a volume would hardly contain an enumeration of all its
+complexities.
+
+Consider the case of books, printed and manuscript, lent out to those on
+the borrowers' list, a list, be it observed, which, according to the
+lawyers, has not the least statutable warrant. In the first place, you
+have not the least assurance or guarantee that any one of them knows how
+to use a book without damaging it, and, as I have already said, it is an
+almost uniform and invariable experience, that borrowers of books do
+damage them. All book-lovers know this so well, that they make very sure
+of their man before they intrust a valuable or well-bound book to him,
+but we at the Bodleian do not. Pixerécourt, a great collector, was so
+convinced of this fact that he inscribed over his library door these
+sadly true lines--
+
+    Tel est le triste sort de tout livre prêté
+    Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est gâté.
+
+How unfit some at least on the borrowers' list are to be intrusted with
+books, how little notion they have of taking care of them, is clear from
+many facts which might be mentioned. In the library itself you may see
+almost any day abundant proof of the unfitness of those admitted to
+enjoy the privileges which are allowed them. On May 19th, 1885, a
+Curator came into my room and said, 'I was walking through the Bodleian
+looking for ---- when I saw a sight which made me sick.' 'You may see
+many such sights there,' said I; 'what was it?' 'I saw a bevy of women
+with an illuminated MS., and they were turning over the leaves, all
+looking at it.' On Friday, August 21st, 1885, I myself counted at one
+desk at the Selden end _sixty-four_ volumes, all had out by one reader;
+on the table was a MS. open, and on it two or three books; another was
+open on the floor, and so on. On April 22nd, 1886, I saw on a desk also
+at the Selden end three (I believe four) Sanscrit MSS. They were open
+and kept so by books placed on them, sundry printed books also open one
+on the other, and in my note written the same day I find the observation
+that it was 'a miserable spectacle of untidiness and reckless disregard
+for precious volumes.' It would be easy to add more, for from the first
+I have kept notes of all that I see in the library, and of much that I
+hear about it--this, however, is enough to show what may be expected
+when people carry off books home. There no prying eye will see them, no
+one is likely to come suddenly round a corner and observe their
+proceedings. Things are really bad enough _in_ the library as it is; and
+they are as bad or worse in the Camera, where books are most shamefully
+ill-used. I have notes of some things which I have observed there, and
+of a conversation which I had with a person of sharp eyes and wits. One
+Curator alone can do very little; if all would, even it were only
+occasionally, do what I do habitually (Tit. XX. iii. § 12, 2), it would
+be far easier than it now is to put a stop to some rather serious
+abuses. Let it be distinctly understood that in saying all this I do not
+blame any person or persons whatever, except the readers. In the British
+Museum Reading-room a man placed where the officials sit could, with a
+machine-gun, comfortably pick off every reader in less than a minute,
+because he could rake every desk; the Bodleian is so picturesque and so
+peculiar in its construction, that Argus himself would be completely
+non-plussed, if ordered to keep his eyes on the readers, for even this
+highly-endowed being had not the dragon-fly power of seeing round
+corners; and from the Librarian's seat you might discharge a Gatling gun
+straight up 'Duke Humphrey,' with no other result than the downfall of a
+little dust, and the smashing of the west window; as to hitting a
+reader, you might as well try to shoot the Invisible Girl. At the Camera
+there is just the same difficulty, which will hardly be overcome till
+the laws of nature are reformed, and light condescends to travel in
+convenient curves. The regular officials have quite enough to do, if
+they attend only to their necessary work, which pins them down to one
+spot, and totally precludes them from exercising (even if they possessed
+it) the saintly privilege of bilocation. To come back to the point:
+books are badly used in the library itself. Now I ask any man of common
+sense, whether it is possible that books treated so vilely in the
+library itself will be better treated in a private house?
+
+I am not going to tell any tales, but this I may say, that before I
+became a Curator I have seen Bodleian books (once a very rare book) in
+strange places, and under circumstances by no means conducive to their
+preservation. The thing must be so: it is as much as the most vigilant
+officer can do to prevent damage being done under his very eyes, and it
+stands to reason that no mercy will be shown a book as soon as it is
+fairly out of the building.
+
+Again, when a man borrows a book from the Bodleian, you have not the
+least assurance that he will not in his turn lend it. This I know has
+happened with one book at least belonging to another library in Oxford.
+Sir Walter Scott had, perhaps, as much conscience as it is possible for
+a literary man to have, yet he lends Southey a book borrowed from the
+Advocates' Library (see above, p. 49) contrary to rule; and what Scott
+would do, Scott's inferior in character and morals would most certainly
+not scruple to do.
+
+When a book is lent out to any one on the borrowers' list no contract
+is entered into, either verbally or in writing, that the book shall be
+returned at any specified time, nor in fact that it shall ever be
+returned at all. Are the Curators quite sure that they have any legal
+power to compel a return under such circumstances?
+
+Unless a book is carefully collated when it is returned, it will always
+be impossible to say with truth that it has been returned intact; and if
+every book is to be collated on its restoration to the library, we shall
+have no small increase of work, and increase of work always means, as we
+well know, increased expense.
+
+The lending of books to private houses then involves the very probable,
+and in many cases the absolutely certain, damage of the book, and its
+possible total loss without the least remedy, and without the slightest
+recompense or penalty. A manuscript was lent to the late Professor ----,
+and it is hardly necessary to say that it has never been returned, and
+this is, I fancy, at least the second instance within a very few years
+of total loss, for which neither the public nor the University ever
+received one atom of benefit.
+
+Even if the Bodleian were not one of the two great reference libraries
+of this country, if it were merely a large and fine library of no very
+great national importance, there would still be no excuse for borrowing
+from it; for there is no town of its size that contains so many books as
+Oxford. In every College there is a library, which is not unfrequently
+full of fine books--Christ Church, All Souls', St. John's, Worcester,
+Merton, Corpus, Oriel, Magdalen and Queen's are all remarkable; and if
+we count in manuscripts there is hardly a single College without its
+gems and rarities. Nor is there the slightest difficulty in making a
+proper use of all these treasures. Any one really fit to use a College
+book is always permitted to do so, nor is there in general any objection
+to lending if the borrower is known to be trustworthy: the fault, if
+any, is rather the other way. 'But,' says some borrower, 'the book that
+I want is in no College library, and it is in the Bodleian.' Is it not
+plain to every man of sense, that the book which is in no College
+library, and is in the Bodleian, is just the book which ought not to be
+lent, under any conceivable circumstances? Lending even from College
+libraries has been the cause of innumerable losses--in fact, nothing in
+Euclid is more true than the proposition, that sooner or later A BOOK
+LENT IS A BOOK LOST.
+
+Of the losses which the library at Cambridge has sustained, something
+has been said above (p. 51). All libraries, however carefully kept, are
+exposed to occasional and exceptional depredations. Paulus, the
+celebrated German professor, stole one manuscript at least from the
+Bodleian; the thefts in German, Russian, Italian, and French libraries
+are only too notorious. Are we to give additional facilities by lending
+books out? Even when lent to the greatest scholars, and presumably to
+careful men, books are by no means safe. Every one knows how, not so
+long ago, two or more of the most ancient manuscripts of Jornandes were
+destroyed while in the hands of Mommsen. Fire invaded his rooms; the
+professor escaped unharmed (of course he did), but the manuscripts were
+destroyed. Literature and scholarship gained nothing by this loan,
+though all future generations have lost much. Had common sense been the
+ruling principle of the libraries from which Mommsen obtained these
+manuscripts, they would have been safe at this moment. The convenience,
+perhaps the laziness, of an individual was consulted, and the world has
+lost what can never be replaced.
+
+Mr. Watts, whom I have already quoted, says in speaking of lending, 'The
+testimony of Molbech, the librarian of the Royal Library of Copenhagen,
+where lending is permitted, is to the effect, not only that the risk is
+greater, as must of course be the case where books are removed from
+supervision and control, but that in practice great damage is found to
+ensue.' If we are told, as very likely we shall be told, that no such
+damage occurs here, I am somewhat at a loss to answer; perhaps it will
+be enough to observe that different men unavoidably have different ideas
+of what constitutes damage, and that what is not always immediately
+discovered may hereafter be detected when it is too late to assign the
+blame to the real offender.
+
+Under the present system of administration, for which the Curators are
+responsible, the actual, and, it may be, the unavoidable wear and tear
+of books in the library itself, even in the choicer portions of it, is
+great enough to deter any man in the future from acting as Douce did in
+the past. The way in which very precious volumes are knocked about is
+plain enough to any one who visits the interior of the library as
+constantly as I do, and as all Curators are by statute empowered and
+even ordered to do. Readers are impatient, sometimes unreasonable;
+immense numbers of books can only be reached by means of ladders; the
+whole establishment is undermanned, and though the small staff does its
+best to protect the books, they are notwithstanding much bumped about.
+One consequence of this rough usage is that the standard of carefulness,
+as it may be called, is very naturally lowered, and as a further
+consequence the estimate of what constitutes damage is lowered in
+proportion.
+
+There are many readers, or there certainly have been readers in the
+library, who have not hesitated to make marks in printed books and
+manuscripts. The man who will do such a thing as this in the library,
+will not hesitate to do it when he gets the book into his own
+possession. Now all avoidable wear and tear is so much real loss to the
+library, and detracts in that proportion from its utility. It may be
+useful to A or B to borrow books from the Bodleian, but it cannot be
+useful to the University or to future generations that the life of any
+book should be carelessly or needlessly abridged.
+
+It will be admitted that no book can be in two places at the same time;
+if a volume is in the rooms of Mr. X or Mr. Y, it cannot at that moment
+be produced in the Bodleian should a reader happen to want it. One of
+the great advantages of such a library as the Bodleian, if it were
+properly administered, is that a visitor is sure to find the book which
+he comes to consult. This is perfectly well understood by such men as
+Mr. Watts (see above, p. 49); it was brought home to the mind of
+Niebuhr, and it has been one of the reasons why all lending has up to
+the present moment been most rigidly forbidden at the British Museum. In
+a library like the Bodleian, where the practice of lending prevails as
+it now does, a man may put himself to great inconvenience in order to
+visit it; he may even travel from Berlin, and when he arrives he may
+find that all his trouble has been in vain; the very book he wants is
+out: at the British Museum, where up to the present time knowledge and
+common sense have prevailed, every man is sure that he can at once get
+any book whatever that he finds in the catalogue. It is a thousand
+pities to destroy this confidence; one of the great uses of a library
+like ours disappears when things are so ill managed, and I believe that
+there are in the Bodleian men who could tell of some grievous
+disappointments caused by our modern laxity. I know very well that we
+shall be told that such cases are few and trivial: be it so. Who does
+not see that as the present practice extends, as extend it must, one of
+the great advantages of a grand library will at last vanish? Nothing can
+be more strictly useful to all real students than the absolute certainty
+of obtaining at once any book that can be found in the catalogue.
+
+No limit seems to be placed on the borrower's powers; he may, for
+anything that appears to the contrary, have any number of books or
+manuscripts out. Now when we see the practice of more than one reader
+_in_ the library, we may form a pretty shrewd guess of what men will do
+in the way of borrowing. I am well within the mark when I say that at
+least _one hundred_ volumes have been ere now allowed out to one reader
+at a time.
+
+The present Librarian has been trying, I believe, to check this morbid
+appetite for superfluous volumes; but it is not always an easy thing to
+root out a bad habit.
+
+Any one who examines the slips in the various parts of the Bodleian, as
+I habitually do, will be struck by two things; the immense number of
+volumes had out by the same reader or readers, and the length of time
+that volumes are allowed to remain off the shelves; and this is in great
+measure the fault of a system for which we are answerable. What takes
+place in the library will undoubtedly sooner or later take place out of
+it. A borrower is not, so far as I know, limited as to the number of
+volumes he may have out; neither is he limited as to the time he may
+keep them out. The present Librarian informed me that when he came into
+office he found that one book had been out of the library for _nine_
+years, and that others had been off the shelves for very long periods of
+time. And such things must happen, if you sanction this wretched system
+of lending. It is perfectly easy to do what constant experience has
+shown to entail on the whole the minimum of evil; it is easy to keep
+your books within the library as they do at the British Museum; but if
+you once lend, there is no drawing of lines possible. Altogether there
+are about one hundred and eleven persons on the borrowers' list already.
+It is said that the Curators can refuse any application if they choose;
+of course they can, but as a matter of fact no application ever has been
+refused, and every name added will make it more and more difficult, more
+and more invidious to refuse any one. Every Oxford resident is
+potentially on the list, and he may be actually on it whenever he likes.
+What is this but the beginning, and something more than the beginning,
+of that wretched system which Mr. Bradshaw speaks of above? (p. 50.) The
+dissolution of our magnificent library is already insidiously begun; and
+why is all this gratuitous and irreparable mischief to be done? why is
+that vast storehouse intended for the use and benefit of generation
+after generation of scholars to be scattered and at last destroyed?
+Simply to gratify the vulgar, selfish convenience of this or that
+individual regardless of the general good. The whole is to be
+sacrificed for a part, and for what a part! The present Librarian has
+been trying to do something to check this disastrous and ruinous
+practice, but the Curators are responsible for it, not the Librarian.
+
+Manuscripts and printed books when lent out of Oxford are as a rule not
+lent to private houses but deposited in some library. What happens
+abroad I do not know, though I confess to having my suspicions. If a
+manuscript were lent to some one in a Cathedral town, it would be
+deposited in the Cathedral library; and we comfort ourselves with the
+belief that in such a place it would be secure, and that it would not on
+any account be removed from that library elsewhere. An acquaintance of
+my own, a very safe man, has had a Bodleian manuscript of great value
+out for some years, and it is lent not to him directly, but to a library
+where alone he is to use it. It may be that this arrangement is actually
+carried out, and I do not know that it is not, yet I would bet five
+pounds to a penny that if I went to his house I should find the Bodleian
+book kicking about in his study, where, in fact, though exposed to a
+thousand risks of damage and even destruction, it is really safer than
+in the library where we suppose it to be. For one Cathedral library I
+can answer: a book would hardly be safer there than it would be on a
+public and unwatched book-stall, and such I have no doubt whatever is
+the case with more than half the places to which we send books for safe
+custody. There is as little conscience about books in this stupid and
+wicked world as there is about umbrellas, and one of the most important
+and most useful functions of a body like the Curators of the Bodleian is
+to set up a high standard in such matters. It is our duty as trustees to
+take lofty ground, and to be sensitive where the world is listless and
+careless; and even if we do not really feel exactly as we ought, we are
+bound, like Gertrude, to 'assume a virtue though we have it not'; it is
+very laudable hypocrisy if the real article cannot be had. Yet I hope
+that it can, and that upon consideration we may all see that the
+convenience of a few is not for a moment to be compared with the
+convenience of many, and that we shall awake to the fact that we, of all
+people, ought not to countenance in any way whatever any practice which
+may tend in the remotest degree to damage the only institution in Oxford
+of which any rational being can in the present day be justly proud.
+
+Lending of books has many more evil consequences, proximate and remote,
+than I have enumerated; but there is one which at the risk of being
+tedious must be mentioned. The glorious part of the Bodleian, the part
+contributed by Bodley himself, by Laud, by Selden, Pembroke, Digby, Roe,
+Rawlinson, &c., consists largely of gifts. Every man who knows anything
+at all about books, every one who loves them, is perfectly well aware
+that very few men will bequeath their libraries to an institution which
+emulates the American or the English circulating and commercial
+establishment. Barlow knew this, Bradshaw knew it (see above, p. 50);
+every one knows it, who has the least acquaintance with the habits and
+peculiarities of collectors. The Bodleian has to my certain knowledge
+already lost very rare books indeed which it might have had, but for
+this penny-wise and pound-foolish policy. Neither Rawlinson nor Douce
+would ever have been such fools as to leave us what they did, could they
+have foreseen how little sense of our duties and of our interests we
+have shown. Bodley over and over again, and in the strongest terms,
+forbad the lending of his books; Selden's executors only delivered his
+books to us on the express condition that they never should under any
+circumstances be lent; Laud stipulated that his books should not be
+lent, except for one particular purpose and in one particular way. The
+Bodleian is what it is, because till quite recent times we adhered to
+the rule of common sense, not to say to that of common honesty, and it
+is ever to be regretted that we departed from a course which was at once
+safe and honourable. There will be no more Douces, no more Rawlinsons,
+until we have returned to better ways and proved the sincerity of our
+repentance. I have heard it maintained that the days of great
+benefactors are over, that in some way not explained men's characters
+and habits have changed. I cannot admit this; men are now what they
+always were, and collectors in all ages are singularly alike. Only let
+us be as prudent, as worldly wise, and, I will add, as honest as our
+predecessors were, and there is no reason why the munificent benefactors
+of the past should not be rivalled by equally munificent benefactors in
+the future. Mr. Bradshaw (above, p. 50) is decidedly of opinion that
+carelessness with regard to books prevents benefactions, and that care
+attracts them. Barlow is of the same mind, and indeed the thing is too
+obvious to be insisted on. It is only those who know little or nothing
+of the feelings which actuate the real lovers of books who doubt about
+such very simple facts as these.
+
+To conclude this part of the subject; the arguments against the lending
+of books out of such a library as the Bodleian may be briefly summed up
+thus: lending is bad, because books are necessarily exposed to needless
+and certain risks of damage and of downright loss; because one of the
+great ends served by a large library is defeated, in that no man can be
+certain of obtaining a book known to be in it; because lending leads
+sooner or later to the destruction of a library; because it dries up the
+great sources from which large numbers of the most valuable books are
+derived; because it is disapproved of by all those who have the largest
+and widest experience of books and their management; because, finally,
+it is in violation of the express directions of Bodley, of Selden, of
+Laud and others, and almost certainly contrary to the wishes of all our
+great benefactors, even though they may not have said as much. Reason
+and authority are equally against it; and the cause of learning and of
+literature can never be permanently served by a practice which tends to
+destroy that without which learning and literature alike are impossible:
+whatever advantages may seem to attend it, are more than counterbalanced
+by disadvantages so great, that none but those who recklessly sacrifice
+the future to the present, the interests of generations yet to come, to
+the selfishness of the generation that now is, can regard it with any
+favour or even with common patience. We have by the sturdy honesty of
+our predecessors received a vast treasure which they carefully preserved
+intact; we are its guardians and trustees, and we are bound in honour
+and honesty to hand on to our successors, undiminished and unimpaired,
+what we have received only as a trust, not as a something which we may
+spend or destroy at our pleasure. Any wilful act of ours which tends,
+however remotely, to damage the Bodleian Library is not only a
+scandalous breach of duty, but a crime against learning itself, in which
+I for one will have no part or share.
+
+    BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+
+The plus character (+) is used to enclose transliterated Greek.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks on the practice and policy of
+lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts, by Henry W. Chandler
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+    The Project Gutenberg eBook of
+    Remarks On The Practice And Policy Of Lending Bodleian Printed Books And Manuscripts,
+    by Henry W. Chandler, M.A..
+  </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks on the practice and policy of
+lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts, by Henry W. Chandler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Remarks on the practice and policy of lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts
+
+Author: Henry W. Chandler
+
+Release Date: October 26, 2011 [EBook #37850]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMARKS ON LENDING BODLEIAN BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Matthew Wheaton and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div>
+
+<h1 class="booktitle">REMARKS ON THE PRACTICE AND POLICY OF LENDING BODLEIAN PRINTED BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS.</h1>
+
+<p class="h3">BY</p>
+
+<p class="h2">HENRY W. CHANDLER, M.A.</p>
+
+<p class="h4">FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD;<br />
+WAYNFLETE PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY,<br />
+AND A CURATOR OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY.</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="h4">Oxford:<br />
+B. H. BLACKWELL,<br />
+50 <span class="smcap">AND</span> 51, BROAD STREET.<br />
+1887</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<span class="pagenum">[iii]</span>
+
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p>The present 'Remarks' are a reprint, with many
+omissions and additions, of two privately printed
+papers which were communicated to the Curators
+last year. From November, 1884, for about twelve
+months, I did very little more than watch attentively
+the way in which Bodleian business is
+transacted, to me at once a novelty and a surprise.
+For some purposes writing is preferable
+to talking, and accordingly in November, 1885,
+I printed a memorandum containing many gentle
+hints&mdash;<span title="ph&ocirc;nanta sunetoisin">&#966;&#969;&#957;&#8118;&#957;&#964;&#945; &#963;&#965;&#957;&#949;&#964;&#959;&#8150;&#963;&#953;&#957;</span>&mdash;which I faintly hoped
+might eventually prove beneficial to the Library.
+Next came a Memorandum 'on the Classed Catalogue,'
+a thing which some Curators look on as a
+most valuable work, and others as an interminable
+and wasteful absurdity. This was followed by a
+paper 'on the Bodleian Coins and Medals', with
+some observations on the proposal to transfer the
+collection to the Ashmolean Museum. As far as
+could be seen, all this expenditure of ink and
+money did no harm, and no good. In May, 1886,
+a committee was appointed to draw up regulations
+for loans of books; and in June the Curators received
+a paper 'on the lending of Bodleian Books
+and Manuscripts,' as also Bishop Barlow's Argument
+against lending them, then for the first time<span class="pagenum">[iv]</span>
+printed as a whole; and in both the illegality of
+the borrowers' list was pointed out, and very
+broad hints given, not only that the present loan
+statute is defective, but why, and in what manner
+it is so. If these hints, facts, and arguments had
+been addressed to the twelve signs of the Zodiac,
+they could not have produced less visible effect;
+and it was wonderfully amusing to find, that more
+than half my brethren could not for the life of
+them see what to everybody else was plain as a
+pikestaff; so on we went in the well-beaten path,
+steady as old Time himself, looking neither to
+the right hand nor to the left, and, what is more
+remarkable, never for one moment looking ahead.
+Finally, at the beginning of October, came a paper
+on 'Book-lending as practised at the Bodleian';
+and this proved to be the last straw; for on
+October 30th, partly by words and partly by that
+silence which gives consent, it was plainly intimated
+that these papers were unwelcome. One
+friend, and only one, had a good word to say for
+them; so far as they contained collection of facts
+he approved of them, but no further. As my little
+experiment failed so lamentably, I am hardly likely
+to repeat it, or to put so severe a strain on the good
+nature and patience of my colleagues as ever again
+to trouble them with a scrap of printed paper.
+This puts me into a sort of quandary. I abhor
+pen and ink, and should like to hold my tongue
+and spare my pocket; but that is impossible as
+things are. I cannot stand by and see men who<span class="pagenum">[v]</span>
+know no better trying (with the best possible intentions)
+to get the Bodleian on to an inclined
+plane, down which it must rapidly slide to perdition,
+without loudly protesting against their acts.
+What then is to be done? Private feelings must
+be respected, yet not so as to impede the performance
+of a duty to the Library and to the
+University. The atmosphere of a meeting is not
+conducive to calm and rational discussion; I cannot
+make speeches; the board does not relish
+either facts or arguments in print. Only one
+course remains then; whenever there is anything
+to be said about the Bodleian or its management
+(and there is much that ought to be, and must
+be said sooner or later), it shall no longer be
+privately printed and given away to unwilling
+recipients, but published and sold. In this way
+all parties will be satisfied: those who are interested
+in the Library can buy; those who are not, can
+protect themselves against annoyance. So much
+by way of explanation.</p>
+
+<p>When at length the board determined to apply
+for a new statute, and did in November what anybody
+but ourselves would have done in June, the
+hope was expressed that the statute would be
+introduced at once, and then pushed through
+Congregation and Convocation as rapidly as possible
+in the present term; whereupon somebody
+observed, that it would be just as well not to
+hurry the business; and this seems to have been
+the view adopted by Council.<span class="pagenum">[vi]</span></p>
+
+<p>If Convocation could only seize the full significance
+and incalculable value to present and future
+generations of a library of reference, a library, that
+is, where, at all lawful times, every book deposited
+in it should always be forthcoming in a moment,
+it would at once see that from such a library no
+lending whatever ought to be permitted, simply
+because lending and deposit are practical contradictories;
+and if Convocation could plainly see
+this, it would make very short work of any statute
+which legalized loans. There is no denying, however,
+that in the present day the public mind, as
+it is playfully called, and the University mind as
+well, is in a wonderfully flabby condition. Nobody
+seems to be thoroughly convinced of the unquestionable
+truth, that every possible plan in this
+world is open to objections more or less serious,
+and so they go hunting about for a scheme that
+shall embrace all good and exclude all evil; such
+people are emphatically limp and unpractical. All
+that is offered to our choice here below is a
+lesser evil, and experience has proved over and
+over again, that it is a lesser evil never to lend
+a book out of such a library as the Bodleian, than
+it is to lend one. But if the University in its
+inscrutable wisdom should choose to do the wrong
+thing, there are more ways than one of doing it,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><span title="esthloi men gar hapl&ocirc;s, pantodap&ocirc;s de kakoi.">
+&#7952;&#963;&#952;&#955;&#959;&#8054;
+&#956;&#8050;&#957;
+&#947;&#8048;&#961;
+&#7937;&#960;&#955;&#8182;&#962;,
+&#960;&#945;&#957;&#964;&#959;&#948;&#945;&#960;&#8182;&#962;
+&#948;&#8050;
+&#954;&#945;&#954;&#959;&#8055;.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p>It might, for instance, confine the actual granting
+of a loan to Convocation. If an application for
+a book were made, the University might impose<span class="pagenum">[vii]</span>
+on the Curators the duty of stating in writing their
+reasons for advocating the loan, and Convocation
+might determine to lend, if it judged those reasons
+to be sound. This would be an approximation to
+what was the law (though not by any means the
+practice) prior to 1873; nor could it be described
+as a retrograde step, unless the reformation of a
+bad habit is necessarily a step backwards.</p>
+
+<p>If, however, the University resolves to copy the
+practice of foreign libraries, it might be wise, first,
+to appoint a small committee to discover and report
+what that practice really is. If, like a mob of
+monkeys, we are determined to imitate, it is just as
+well that our imitation should be a good one, and
+not a caricature.</p>
+
+<p>In either, or indeed in any, case some effectual
+provision should be made for enforcing the statute;
+it ought no longer to be possible for the Curators
+to act with impunity as they have been in the habit
+of acting for almost a quarter of a century.</p>
+
+<p>A good many of my friends are strong party
+men of a more or less rabid type, and I hope
+that they are well informed when they tell me that
+this purely literary question about the Bodleian is
+not going to be turned into one of those faction
+fights, which occasionally disturb and disgrace this
+place; but that each man will judge for himself, and
+vote accordingly, without divesting himself of what
+little reason he may happen to possess, and blindly
+following a leader, who may know and care less about
+the matter than he does himself. I hope that it<span class="pagenum">[viii]</span>
+will be so, yet I have my doubts; for this vile spirit
+of faction clings like the robe of Nessus to all who
+have ever been weak enough, or wicked enough,
+to yield to its temptations; and one side is just
+as bad as the other. Whether Convocation can be
+got to see the real question in these unlearned and
+vulgar times may be questionable; at any rate, I
+should have felt myself a traitor to Bodley, to
+Oxford, and to learning itself, if I had not done
+what little I could to prevent an act, which, if perpetrated,
+must end, sooner or later, in the irreparable
+damage, or the complete destruction of a library
+intended by its founder to be a perpetual help to
+all true scholars, an inexhaustible treasure-house of
+learning to last as long as England itself.</p>
+
+<p class="author">
+H. W. C.</p>
+<br />
+<p><i>Oxford,<br />
+Jan. 15th, 1887.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<span class="pagenum">[3]</span>
+
+<h2><i>Remarks on the Practice and Policy of lending
+Bodleian Printed Books and Manuscripts.</i></h2>
+
+<p>Before offering any remarks on the policy of lending
+books out of the Bodleian Library it may be well to give
+a brief account of the practice of lending, so far as it
+has been sanctioned there. From the foundation of the
+Library down to 1873, though practised, it cannot be said
+to have been sanctioned at all, except as regards certain
+books given on the condition that they should be lent.</p>
+
+<p>On the 20th of June, 1610, a complete Bodleian Statute
+was promulgated and confirmed in Convocation (Appendix
+Statutorum, p. 5 sqq. ed. 1763). This statute was drawn
+up by Sir Thomas Bodley himself, and the eighth section
+of it&mdash;'de Libris extra Bibliothecam non ferendis, aut
+ullo modo commodandis'&mdash;fully expresses his firm and
+rooted detestation of book-lending. Bodley's own words,
+of which the Latin statute is a literal translation, run
+thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And sith the sundry Examples of former Ages, as
+well in this University, as in other Places of the Realm,
+have taught us over-often, that the frequent Loan of
+Books, hath bin a principal occasion of the Ruin and
+Destruction of many famous Libraries; It is therefore
+ordered and decreed to be observed as a Statute of irrevocable
+Force, that for no Regard, Pretence, or Cause,
+there shall at any time, any Volume, either of these
+that are chained, or of others unchained, be given or lent,
+to any Person or Persons, of whatsoever State or Calling,
+upon any kind of Caution, or offer of Security, for his
+faithful Restitution; and that no such Book or Volume
+shall at any time, by any whatsoever, be carried forth
+of the Library, for any longer space, or other uses, and<span class="pagenum">[4]</span>
+Purposes, than if need so require, to be sold away for
+altogether, as being superfluous or unprofitable; or changed
+for some other of a better Edition; or being over-worn
+to be new bound again, and immediately returned, from
+whence it was removed. For the Execution whereof
+in every Particular, there shall no Man intermeddle, but
+the Keeper himself alone, who is also to proceed with
+the Knowledge, Liking, and Direction of those Publick
+Overseers, whose Authority we will notify in other Statutes
+ensuing<a id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Reliqui&aelig; Bodleian&aelig;, p. 27.</p></div>
+
+<p>This statute has the great merit of being so plain and
+clear, that no one could mistake its meaning. It was
+further fenced about by the statute 'de materia indispensabili,'
+Tit. X.&sect;11.5, as explained in 'Barlow's Argument,'
+p. 6. It was not totally and absolutely impossible
+to borrow a book from the Bodleian, but it was only
+Convocation, moved to the act in a solemn and specified
+way, that could by any legal means lend it. From 1610
+to 1856, then, such was the law which everybody in the
+University was bound to obey, and, as far as I can discover,
+everybody did obey it, with the few exceptions that will
+presently be mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>In 1624 William, Bishop of Lincoln, wished to borrow
+a book, but was denied<a id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>. In 1628 Sir Thomas Roe gave
+twenty-nine manuscripts, and "proposed that his books
+should be permitted to be lent out for purposes of printing,
+on proper security being given; a proposition which was
+accepted by Convocation<a id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>." In 1629 the Earl of Pembroke
+presented the Barocci Collection, and "he was willing
+that the MSS. should, if necessary, be allowed to be
+borrowed." Borrowed accordingly they were, and one
+at least suffered irreparable injury in very early days<a id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>.
+In 1634 we were presented with Sir Kenelm Digby's
+splendid manuscripts: "the donor stipulated that they
+should not be strictly confined to use within the walls
+<span class="pagenum">[5]</span>of the Library;" but afterwards left the University to
+treat them as it pleased<a id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>; so that they fell under the
+general Bodleian Statute.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Barlow's Argument, p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Macray, Annals, p. 51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Barlow, p. 10; Macray, Annals, p. 55.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Macray, Annals, p. 59.</p></div>
+
+<p>Between 1635 and 1640 came Laud's magnificent donations.
+He "directs in his letter of gift, that none
+of the books shall on any account be taken out of the
+Library 'nisi solum ut typis mandentur, et sic publici
+et juris et utilitatis fiant,' upon sufficient security, to
+be approved by the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors; the
+MS. in such cases being immediately after printing restored
+to its place in the Library<a id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>." This stipulation of Laud
+should be carefully borne in mind, because it will be
+found that of late years the Curators have not observed
+the terms of the gift. Doubtless they did not know
+what Laud's directions were; yet men who undertake
+the office of trustees are bound to know their duties.
+In 1636 the University refused leave to Laud himself,
+who wished to borrow Rob. Hare's MS. <i>Liber Privilegiorum
+Universitatis</i><a id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>. In 1645 Charles I, in ignorance of our
+statutes, applied for a book and was refused; in 1654
+Cromwell wanted a book for the Portuguese Ambassador,
+and was likewise refused<a id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>; and it is much to the credit
+of both, that they not only acquiesced, but expressed
+their approval of the Bodleian rule.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Macray, Annals, p. 61.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Macray, Annals, p. 82.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Barlow's Argument, p. 9.</p></div>
+
+<p>On August 29, 1654, a grace was passed in Convocation,
+which permitted Selden to borrow MSS. from the collections
+of Barocci, Roe, and Digby, provided he did not
+have more than three at a time, and that he gave bond
+in &pound;100 (not &pound;1000 as Hearne states<a id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>) for the return
+of each of them within a year<a id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>. Barlow<a id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> declares that
+this was illegal and null; and it may be observed in passing
+that the whole history of the Selden bequest needs fresh
+investigation. This same year that grand scholar's books
+began to arrive in Oxford, and his executors stipulated,
+<span class="pagenum">[6]</span>as a condition of the gift, that no book from his collection
+should hereafter be lent to any person upon any condition
+whatsoever. This also must by no means be forgotten,
+because we shall by and by see the Curators again and
+again strangely oblivious of the conditions on which the
+University received these invaluable books.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Barlow's Argument, p. 3.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Macray, Annals, p. 79.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Argument, p. 8.</p></div>
+
+<p>At the Visitation on Nov. 8, 1686, it was ordered that
+notice be given that 'nullus in posterum quemlibet librum
+aut volumen extra Bibliothecam asportet,' and that monition
+be sent to every College and Hall for the return of
+any books taken out within three days<a id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Macray, Annals, p. 109.</p></div>
+
+<p>In 1789 a lazy and incompetent Librarian, John Price,
+is said to have lent the Rector of Lincoln a copy of Cook's
+Voyages, presented to the Library by George III, telling
+him that the longer he kept it the better, 'for if it
+was known to be in the Library, he (Price) should be
+perpetually plagued with enquiries after it<a id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>.' What the
+Curators were about to permit such irregularities it is
+difficult to imagine; at any rate here you had eight picked
+men&mdash;Dr. Joseph Chapman, President of Trinity, Vice-Chancellor;
+the two Proctors; Dr. Randolph, Professor of
+Divinity, and afterwards successively Bishop of Oxford and
+of Bangor; Dr. Vansittart, Professor of Civil Law; Dr.
+Vivian, Professor of Medicine; Dr. Blayney, Professor
+of Hebrew; William Jackson, Professor of Greek and
+afterwards Bishop of Oxford:&mdash;they are men, citizens,
+members of a learned corporation, trustees; they have
+solemnly sworn by everything which they profess to hold
+sacred, that they will faithfully observe the statutes; and
+what was required of them? As much sense of duty as
+you expect and commonly find in a watcher or a gamekeeper;
+yet, till they were roused by the public protest
+of Dr. Beddowes, they seem to have shewed no trace or
+feeling of responsibility at all.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Macray, Annals, p. 198.</p></div>
+
+<p>Down to the year 1856 the Bodleian Curators were
+eight in number, namely, the Vice-Chancellor, the two
+<span class="pagenum">[7]</span>Proctors, and the Regius Professors of Divinity, Hebrew,
+Greek, Medicine, and Civil Law. Eight is rather a large
+number, and the larger any board is the weaker becomes
+the sense of personal responsibility. No man feels that
+he is answerable for anything, because he is sunk and
+extinguished in a majority or a minority; and yet, without
+a keen sense of personal responsibility, all business is
+laxly and badly done, even when it is done at all. The
+artificial privacy of our proceedings is also an evil. In
+theory all our meetings are public, so far at least as
+Convocation is concerned; in fact, they are private; yet,
+if the University always knew not only what is done,
+but who it is that does it; if our acts were duly published,
+as they ought to be, in the University Gazette, probably
+both board and University would be the better for it,
+and it is certain that the affairs of the Library would be
+none the worse.</p>
+
+<p>If Bodley argued that men who teach a subject are
+necessarily acquainted with its literature, and are consequently
+the fittest guardians and directors of a library,
+he argued very badly, and in ignorance of facts. Ability
+to teach a subject is one thing; knowledge of the literature
+of that subject&mdash;such knowledge as is required in the
+superintendents of a library&mdash;is a totally different thing.
+The two may be indeed united, but very rarely are so.
+A man, for instance, may be a finished Latin scholar
+without ever having heard of Coster's Donatus, and without
+being able to offer an opinion on that or on any of
+the other editions in which Dutch libraries glory. Probably
+not one man in fifty who reads the sentence which
+I have just written will have the very remotest idea of
+its true meaning; and if he has not, it will not follow
+that he is a dunce, or that he is a poor Latinist; all
+that follows is that he has much to learn before he is
+fit to take any part in the management of a large library.
+What is wanted, what in fact is necessary, is that sort
+of knowledge which the Italian government proposes to
+give to all employed in the libraries under its control.<span class="pagenum">[8]</span>
+In Rome and in Florence a course of bibliographical
+instruction and examination has lately been instituted.
+The syllabus of the course, which is a very good one,
+lies before me, and in it the subject is divided into six
+parts: 1. Paleografia, 2. Bibliologia, 3. Bibliografia, 4. Biblioteconomia,
+5. Amministrazione, 6. Lingue. The knowledge
+required is neither recondite nor profound, yet I shudder
+to think what the result would be were we Curators to
+submit ourselves to the tender mercies of this Italian
+board. To speak for myself, I should have faced such
+an examination without the least trepidation some twenty
+years ago; but now, though I have been trying to brush
+up faded knowledge, I would not stake a single sixpence
+on a favorable issue; and to judge from all I have seen
+and heard during the last two years, I suspect that, though
+a few might perhaps scramble through, the great majority
+of us would emerge from the ordeal more completely
+plucked than was the unhappy bird, which Diogenes introduced
+to the astonished disciples with the words 'Here
+is Plato's man!'</p>
+
+<p>In 1856 the University, probably suspecting that the
+board as originally constituted was not the best that
+could be devised, yet timidly shrinking from a radical
+and salutary reform, endeavoured to improve matters by
+a measure which, if it remedied one defect, unquestionably
+increased another. It made a board already too large,
+still larger by the addition of five members elected by
+Congregation. In the course of thirty years fourteen
+different men have been so elected. That all were properly
+qualified to discharge the duties of their office no one
+will assert who knows what those qualifications are. Why
+they were chosen the University best knows. If Congregation
+would but remember what a unique and priceless
+treasure it possesses in this noble library, if it only knew
+how easy it is for rashness and ignorance to damage and
+to ruin it, how difficult it is even for knowledge to preserve
+it, ability and willingness to serve it would be the
+indispensable and the only qualifications demanded, and<span class="pagenum">[9]</span>
+neither age nor rank, dignity, nor above all party, would
+be for one moment taken into account. It may be remarked
+that all the thirteen Curators very rarely attend
+a meeting: in the course of the last two years such a
+thing has happened once only; but a board, the members
+of which attend intermittently, is apt to show signs of
+discontinuity in its proceedings; and a firm, consistent
+policy is as necessary in the management of a library as
+it is in any other affair of life. What is wanted in
+Curators is common sense, business capacity, and a special
+knowledge of books. No one would dream of appointing
+any man an inspector of locomotives on a railway,
+unless he were thoroughly acquainted with the structure
+and working of a locomotive, and capable, at a push, of
+driving it himself: a large library is as complex as a
+locomotive, and quite as difficult to manage effectively.
+Experts, who are not so numerous as might be supposed,
+will back me in this assertion; but Convocation must not
+be astonished if it is hotly and contemptuously denied.</p>
+
+<p>The minutes of the Curators' Meetings begin on March
+20, 1793, and, with a break of some four years when there
+are none (from Nov. 26, 1849, to May 27, 1854), they
+continue to the present time.</p>
+
+<p>On Dec. 7, 1803, four printed books were allowed to go
+out of the Library 'for the use of the Clarendon Press,
+to be returned when done with,' contrary to statute so
+far as appears; and there was a somewhat similar transaction
+on June 2, 1815.</p>
+
+<p>On Nov. 27, 1841, the sum of &pound;500 was paid for the
+Sanscrit MSS. of Prof. H. H. Wilson, who 'stipulated that
+the Boden Professor of Sanscrit for the time being should
+be allowed the privilege of borrowing MSS. (not more
+than two volumes at one time), giving for them a receipt,
+and engagement for their safe return.'</p>
+
+<p>In 1850 came the Government Commission. The Commissioners
+have a good deal to say about the Bodleian,
+which will be found in their Report made in 1852, p. 115
+sqq. I do not quote their remarks for a reason which<span class="pagenum">[10]</span>
+appears to me valid. There were seven Commissioners
+all told, and although they were very eminent persons,
+there was not one amongst them, so far as I can discover,
+who had any special knowledge of libraries, or of the
+best way of managing them. Moreover, I myself heard
+one of those seven Commissioners say, more than once
+in the course of conversation, that he should think it
+no particular misfortune if the Bodleian and its contents
+were totally destroyed. Nor do I feel called upon to
+incur the expense of reproducing <i>in extenso</i> the evidence
+on which the Commissioners based their recommendations.
+It may be sufficient to say that the following witnesses
+were in favour of the lending system, some with restrictions
+and some with hardly any:&mdash;the Rev. R. W. Browne; the
+Rev. R. Walker; the Rev. B. Jowett; the Rev. W. H.
+Cox; E. A. Freeman, Esq.; the Rev. H. Wall; the Rev.
+R. Congreve; Sir E. Head; N. S. Maskelyne, Esq.; and
+the Rev. J. Griffiths. It is not very easy to say whether
+Prof. H. H. Wilson and Dr. Greenhill did or did not
+belong to the lending party; but if they did, they proposed
+such restrictions as would materially lessen the evil. Prof.
+H. H. Vaughan (a most wordy person) wished to confine
+the right of borrowing to the Professors. Against lending
+were H. E. Strickland, Esq.; Prof. W. F. Donkin; the
+Rev. R. Scott; Travers Twiss, Esq.; Dr. Macbride; the
+Rev. E. S. Ffoulkes; and Dr. Phillimore: and I hope
+nobody will be offended if I say that knowledge of books
+and the way to use them is, as might be expected, very
+much more conspicuous in those who oppose lending than
+in those who advocate it. The Rev. R. W. Browne observes,
+that 'probably manuscripts and such books as are unable
+to be replaced should not be lent, because it would be
+quite worth the while of those who wished to consult
+them to visit the Library for that purpose.' It is not
+often that one meets with so cogent a piece of reasoning,
+and Mr. Browne's 'because' proves that he had studied
+Logic with considerable benefit; he also thinks that the
+system in the Public Library at Cambridge 'works well.'<span class="pagenum">[11]</span>
+Another witness tells us that 'the experience of the Cambridge
+University Library, and of many foreign libraries,
+shews that this [i. e. lending under certain restrictions]
+can be done without danger, and with small loss compared
+to the immense benefit obtained by it.' Sir Edmund
+Head also admires the G&ouml;ttingen and Cambridge plan,
+and avers that experience has proved that the risk of loss
+and damage is groundless. How different are these airy
+speculations from the hard facts of Mr. Bradshaw the
+Cambridge Librarian, of the Librarian of the Advocates'
+Library at Edinburgh, and of Mr. Panizzi (see below,
+p. 50 sqq.); but then these gentlemen had the immense
+and perhaps unfair advantage of knowing what they were
+talking about.</p>
+
+<p>In 1853 a Report and Evidence upon the recommendations
+of H. M.'s Commissioners was presented to the Heads of
+Houses. "The Committee think that the opportunity
+at present allowed for lending books in <i>special cases</i>, by
+permission of Convocation, is sufficient to meet extreme
+cases; and that it is unnecessary to give power to the
+Curators to lend books from the Library."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Pusey's evidence (p. 172) is that of a man who
+knows something of books, and he points out how very
+fallacious is Sir E. Head's reference to the G&ouml;ttingen
+Library, which is altogether of a different character from
+the Bodleian. "In 1825 it consisted almost entirely of
+modern books, and whatever accessions it may since have
+had, it cannot, like the Bodleian, have any large proportion
+of books, which, if lost, could not be replaced." Dr. Pusey
+is strongly against lending Bodleian books; but how little
+of principle there was in his objection will be seen further
+on, where we shall find him more than once advocating
+loans. The Rev. C. Marriott is also, on very sensible
+grounds, against lending; yet it should in common fairness
+be known that he borrowed a most valuable manuscript
+out of Oriel College Library, and died with it in his
+possession. It was nearly sent to Africa by his executors,
+and was at last, together with other books, actually <i>given</i><span class="pagenum">[12]</span>
+(in all innocence of course) to Bradfield College, from
+which establishment Oriel at last retrieved it; so that
+in his case, as in that of Dr. Pusey, excellent principles
+were joined to very loose practice.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Bandinel, Bodley's Librarian, gives evidence which
+is short and sweet. "However weighty some reasons may
+appear, the evidence materially preponderates against
+lending books out of the Library. I need only quote
+one great authority, that of Niebuhr," which he does;
+the passage is given below, p. 49. Dr. Bandinel also
+adds, "I have had a long conversation with the Librarian
+of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, who stated, that
+upon comparing the books in that Library with their
+different Catalogues previous to the formation of a new
+Catalogue, it was found that owing to the practice of
+lending books from the Library they had lost upwards
+of 6000, indeed very near 7000 works." Evidence, p. 325;
+an instructive comment on the lending system.</p>
+
+<p>About this time, however, 'University Reform,' the
+true meaning of which most of us here know, was in
+the air, and on May 22, 1856, the old Library Statutes
+were abolished and an entirely new one enacted. Bodley's
+own statute against letting books go out of the Library
+was of course abrogated. That Convocation still retained
+the right to lend is beyond question; but did anybody
+else, Curators or Librarian, acquire the right to
+do so? That the University did not intend to convey
+any such right seems perfectly clear; for the 11th clause
+of the new statute (which is identical with the present
+statute, Tit. XX. iii. &sect; 11, paragraphs 1 to 6) is headed
+"De libris extra Bibliothecam ad tempus detinendis, <i>aut
+etiam</i> efferendis." Now whoever says '<i>or even</i> to have them
+taken out,' and then proceeds to order whither they shall be
+taken, namely to the Camera, forbids by implication their
+removal from the Library on any other terms, or to any
+other place than those expressly mentioned. That the
+University, whatever its intentions may have been, did
+not as a matter of fact convey the right to any one is<span class="pagenum">[13]</span>
+obvious from the statute itself; and as the Curators never
+at any time possessed the right of lending books, it is
+equally plain that they could not acquire it without an
+express commission from the University. That the Curators
+themselves were of this opinion is clear from a resolution
+of theirs arrived at on Oct. 29, 1859, more than three
+years after the statute was passed. I should say that
+in the interval no loan was sanctioned by Convocation,
+or, so far as appears, even applied for. On Oct. 29, 1859,
+nine Curators being present, 'The Vice-Chancellor mentioned
+the desire of the Rev. Mr. &mdash;&mdash; to be allowed
+to have books out of the Bodleian Library for the purposes
+of study by Grace of Convocation. The Curators resolved:&mdash;That
+it was not expedient that such a proposition
+should be made to Convocation.' The Curators, or a
+majority of them, did not dream of arrogating to themselves
+the power of lending, and they, as well as the
+applicant, assume as self-evident that books could not be
+borrowed. Books could be sent to the Camera; they
+could not go elsewhere without the sanction of Convocation.
+The new statute then did not make lending
+(except by Convocation) lawful, nor was there any intention
+to make it lawful.</p>
+
+<p>That same year, on Nov. 8, a Curator gave notice
+that he would move:&mdash;'That Books and MSS. be taken
+out of the Bodleian Library under special conditions with
+consent of the Curators;' that is, according to my view
+of the case, he gave notice of a motion to take by force
+and illegally a power which the University had not
+given; but it does not appear by the minutes that any
+such motion was actually made.</p>
+
+<p>On Oct. 25, 1860, 'leave was granted by Convocation for
+the lending two Laud Manuscripts, 561 and 563, being
+copies of the <i>Historia Hierosoylmitana</i>, by Albert of
+Aix, to the French Government<a id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a>.' Of this loan there is,
+I believe, no trace in the minutes, but it is one more
+<span class="pagenum">[14]</span>proof that the Curators, or a majority of them, did not
+believe either in their right or in their power to lend
+books. Whether Convocation lent these two Laudian
+manuscripts under bond duly approved, and for the purposes
+of publication, Mr. Macray does not state; but it
+looks very much as if the University was just as ignorant
+of its obligations as the Curators of a later date were of
+theirs.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Macray, Annals, p. 295.</p></div>
+
+<p>On Feb. 4, 1862, a man applied for a printed book,
+which he wanted for a law case in which he was engaged;
+the result was this:&mdash;"Resolved&mdash;That, there being nothing
+in the present statutes to forbid the exercise of the discretion
+of the Curators in such a case, the book in question
+be lent, under such securities and with such precautions as
+the Librarian may deem necessary." Let any man read the
+eleventh and twelfth sections of the present Bodleian
+Statute (identical, so far as the present question is concerned,
+with that of 1856), and he will see that no discretion
+is left to the Curators at all; there is no hint, however
+faint, of "such a case." In 1862, Feb. 4, the Curators
+assume that they have a power to lend books; on Nov. 7
+of the same year they go a step further, for they leave it
+'to the discretion of the Librarian to lend, if he shall deem
+fit, a certain MS. to the Belgian Government.' Having
+themselves no power to lend, they authorise the Librarian
+to lend if he chooses.</p>
+
+<p>In 1863, Feb. 17, notice was given of the following
+motion:&mdash;'That on application from the Professors teaching
+at the Museum the Bodley Librarian be empowered to lend,
+for a limited time, any books bearing on the subjects there
+taught that are wanted by the Students at the Museum;
+the books to be returned at the end of each term:' and
+on March 17 of the same year this motion was carried
+with certain alterations, 'and it was resolved that it should
+be referred to the Council with a view on their approval
+of obtaining the sanction of Convocation'; in other words,
+the Curators acknowledged that Convocation could lend,
+and that they themselves could not lawfully do so.<span class="pagenum">[15]</span></p>
+
+<p>In 1859 the Curators, or a majority of them, are clear
+that they have no power to lend: in 1862 they assume
+that they have the power, moreover they exercise it, and
+they authorise the Librarian to lend a MS. to the Belgian
+Government; yet on Feb. 16, 1864, they appear to disclaim
+this power, for they resolve, 'That it be proposed to Convocation
+to lend three Icelandic MSS.&mdash;to the Icelandic
+Society in Copenhagen at the request of the Danish
+Minister.' They either had the power to lend, or they
+had not: if they had, this application to Convocation was
+unnecessary; if they had not, they had been occupied for
+some time in the not very dignified employment of ignoring
+a statute which it was their peculiar duty to observe.</p>
+
+<p>On April 20, 1864, Dr. Pusey most inconsistently moves
+that a Syriac MS. be lent; and on May 11 lent it was.</p>
+
+<p>In 1865, March 11, a foreigner has leave 'to borrow
+Arabian MSS., provided the application for the use thereof
+be made through the Saxon Minister, and a bond for &pound;50
+entered into for the safe return.'</p>
+
+<p>On June 3, 'the use of Manuscripts 169&mdash;187 was
+granted on the application of Lord John Russell to the
+French Government for the use of the Imprimerie of Paris
+[<i>sic</i>] for two months.'</p>
+
+<p>In 1866 the Curators lent manuscripts to the University
+Library of G&ouml;ttingen; and in 1868, Jan. 31, 'it was
+resolved to lend MS. Selden B. 31 to the Prussian
+Government.' Ye Gods and Goddesses! We only got
+Selden's books at all by consenting to the condition that
+they never should be lent under any circumstances whatever;
+and here we have five Curators, 'all honorable
+men,' quietly sending off one of Selden's manuscripts to
+Germany. On March 21st of the same year, three Curators
+send off another of Selden's MSS. to London. In 1868 an
+application for the loan of four Hebrew manuscripts was
+granted, and apparently they went to a private house.
+On Feb. 9, 1869, two Curators, one being Dr. Pusey, 'were
+requested to act in the matter of the loan of Hebrew MSS.
+<span class="pagenum">[16]</span>to Mr. &mdash;&mdash; of &mdash;&mdash; College, Cambridge.' On April 17 of
+the same year a Laudian MS. was lent to Mr. &mdash;&mdash;;
+there is not a syllable in the minutes about a bond,
+though that was absolutely necessary, nor any statement
+that the book was required for the purpose of publication;
+Laud's stipulations are quietly, and no doubt
+ignorantly broken under the presidency of the Vice-Chancellor.
+From this time loans are perpetually being made;
+and at least six manuscripts other than those mentioned
+above were lent this year. At one meeting (May
+22) the whole business was the granting of loans. In
+1870 fifteen MSS. at least were lent, including one of
+Douce's&mdash;poor fellow! he little dreamt of the fate in
+store for his lovely books. One MS. out of the archives
+was sent to Philadelphia! In 1871 some thirty manuscripts
+were lent; many to private hands; others to Berlin,
+Cambridge, and Philadelphia. Not content with these
+exploits, the Curators positively sent the 39th volume
+of the Camden Society's publications to Rouen! In
+1872 nearly thirty manuscripts were lent: one 'subject
+to the approval of the Librarian,' thus granting to him
+concurrent authority with themselves. These books went
+some to private persons; others to Cambridge, London,
+Leyden, Berlin, Munster, Leipzic, Kiel, Philadelphia, and
+elsewhere. The manuscript sent to Munster was an old
+English book of Laud's; there was no bond, nor is there
+any hint that it was lent for publication. Besides manuscripts
+they lent printed books, amongst the rest Tyndale's
+New Testament of 1534! This portentous act was perpetrated
+on May 25th, 1872; and the same day there appears
+this entry on the minutes: 'In reference to applications
+for loans during the Long Vacation, it was agreed, on
+the suggestion of the Librarian, that he be empowered
+in urgent cases, with the assent of two Curators, to grant
+loans during the Long Vacation'; an utterly illegal resolution
+not rescinded till 1886.</p>
+
+<p>For ten years, ever since 1862, the Curators had been
+lending, on their own authority, and without a shadow
+of statutable right, manuscripts and printed books to<span class="pagenum">[17]</span>
+persons in Oxford and other parts of England, as well
+as to foreign countries: will it be believed that on
+Feb. 8, 1873, the Librarian was asked to state his opinion
+as to 'the lending of books out of the Library under
+proper restrictions;' and that on Feb. 28 of the same
+year, 'it was agreed that the Curators should proceed
+by statute to take power to order the lending out of
+books under certain restrictions'? Why this was the
+very thing they had been doing for years past; and
+now by agreeing 'to proceed by statute' they plainly
+declare their opinion that for all those years they had
+been doing something for which they had no statutable
+warrant. However, they drew up a draft statute which
+was laid before Council, and Council promptly 'struck
+out the proposal to lend books out of the Library;'
+whereupon on March 8th, 1873, one of the Curators moved
+'that Council be requested to insert a provision that books
+be lent out from evening to morning. This was agreed
+to'. On which resolution I shall make no remark, for
+fear my pen might run away with me; but most people
+will be able to supply that comment which I refrain
+from making.</p>
+
+<p>This very year 1873 they lent the York Missal, unless
+in the judgment of the Librarian 'too valuable to be
+lent out of the Library': there is a touch of modesty
+in this which disarms me, otherwise I could say something
+very true, but very unpleasant. The same year
+an application was made for one of the Douce MSS.,
+but 'by reason of regulations as to Douce MSS. this
+was refused.' What regulations these were it would be
+interesting to know, for I cannot discover that there are
+at present any regulations, at all events in writing.</p>
+
+<p>At length the Curators obtained their desire. On
+March 25, 1873, a form of statute was proposed by one
+Head of a House and seconded by another, and on
+May 2, 1873, it was carried without a division in the
+following shape: (Tit. XX. iii. &sect; 11. 10.) Liceat Curatoribus,
+sicut mos fuit, libros impressos et manuscriptos,<span class="pagenum">[18]</span>
+scienti&aelig; causa, viris doctis sive Academicis sive externis
+mutuari: that is to say, <i>Let it be lawful for the Curators,
+as the custom has been, to borrow books printed and manuscript
+in the interest of knowledge for learned men, whether
+Members of the University or not</i>. A board of grave
+and learned men&mdash;<i>viri variis doctrinis et literis imbuti</i>,
+as the statute says&mdash;wish to do openly, what they had
+been in the habit of doing, as it would appear, unknown
+to Council, and against its wishes (for it 'struck out
+the proposal to lend books out of the Library'): there
+is something droll in that, but it is nothing to what
+came of it. They petition for leave to <i>lend</i>, walk off
+perfectly contented with a permission to <i>borrow</i>, and nobody
+sees the joke! 'Reform' seems not only to have
+impaired our knowledge of Latin, but to have diminished
+our sense of the ridiculous&mdash;a most dolorous result. That
+Convocation intended by this strangely worded statute to
+convey to the Curators the power to <i>lend</i> books is beyond
+question; it is equally beyond question that it conveyed
+the power to <i>borrow</i> them, for in good Latin and in
+our statute Latin alike, <i>mutuari</i> means not to lend, but
+to borrow, as every Latin Dictionary from the Hortus
+Vocabulorum down to Lewis and Short testifies; and
+as to our statute Latin we find: quantum magister ...
+potest de cista de Guildeforde mutuari (Anstey, p. 99);
+quod magister regens mutuari possit quadraginta solidos
+(<i>ibid.</i> p. 132); de eadem mutuari poterit ad usum suum
+proprium.... quinque marcas (<i>ibid.</i> p. 338). As <i>mutuari</i>
+is correctly used in the barbarous language of our old
+statutes, so is it in the more polished Latinity of the
+Laudian code, in which the word occurs once, and I
+think only once, and as the devil of mischief will have
+it, in the Bodleian Statute itself, where 'e cista D. Thom&aelig;
+Bodley mutuari' means 'to borrow from Sir Thomas
+Bodley's chest'. The meaning of the word then is clear
+beyond dispute, and what it means in one part of the
+statutes it must mean in another. There is plenty of
+barbarous Latin in our statute book, but in every case<span class="pagenum">[19]</span>
+it is justified or excused by long usage, or by the fact
+that other learned bodies have constantly used the same
+or similar language; but the statute of 1873 is probably
+the only one either in ancient or modern times, where
+without necessity, without precedent, and without warning,
+a word which means and always has meant one thing
+is used under the erroneous impression that it means
+another, and that not by schoolboys, but by their elders.
+A statute, however, means what it plainly says: with
+the intentions of a legislative body we have no concern
+except in so far as they are clearly expressed, and every
+prudent judge knows what grave evils spring from neglect
+of this principle of interpretation. (See Dwarris On
+Statutes, p. 580 sqq.)</p>
+
+<p>Whether this statute really gives the power to lend
+may be disputed. On the one hand it may be said,
+that those who borrow a book <i>for</i> learned men may do
+what they like with it, and may therefore lend it. At
+first sight this seems probable and reasonable, but the
+more it is thought of the less probable does it appear.
+On the other hand it may be said, that since the statute
+does not plainly and expressly give the Curators the
+power to lend, they have no power to do so at all. Be
+that as it may, no such scruples troubled the minds of
+the Curators; every one seems to have been completely
+mesmerised, and this singular statute was straightway put
+in practice after a fashion; for on June 23, 1873, 'an
+application from Professor &mdash;&mdash; was considered, asking
+for loan of such books or MSS. as he might require,
+at the discretion of the Librarian, under the provisions of
+&sect;11, ch. 10 of the Bodleian amended statute, during the
+present vacation. Mr. &mdash;&mdash; and Mr. &mdash;&mdash; made similar
+applications. It was agreed to accede to the request in the
+case of the three applicants respectively'; that is to say,
+within a few days of the passing of the statute it is broken.
+The Curators do not agree to borrow books for the applicants,
+the only thing the statute allowed them to
+do; the statute says not one word about the discretion<span class="pagenum">[20]</span>
+of the Librarian, nor does it allow the Curators in this
+case to leave anything to it: in the buying of books
+(Stat. XX. iii. &sect; 4, 4) they may leave much to his
+discretion, but nowhere else is any such permission given:
+so the Curators took it. They did not do what the statute
+says they may do, and they did do what no statute permits
+them to do; and as they began that day, so have they
+continued to this moment. No change is made in the
+minutes. Before as well as after the passing of this statute
+the form always is 'applications for loans,' or some equivalent
+phrase. In 1873 a dozen MSS. or more, besides
+printed books, including the Hereford Missal! were lent
+exactly as before, some to private persons, some to libraries,
+and they went to Leeds, Cambridge, Utrecht, Kiel,
+Berlin, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>In 1874 more than twenty MSS. were lent to Jena,
+Cambridge, Marburg, Vienna (two of the Junius collection
+were sent there), and to private hands. In 1875 MSS.
+were sent to St. Petersburg, Bonn, Vienna, Paris, Cambridge,
+Edinburgh, Konigsberg, Heidelberg, and some to
+private houses; three printed books also were lent, without
+a shadow of reason so far as can be seen, to a gentleman
+residing in the Temple.</p>
+
+<p>On Oct. 30 two of the sub-librarians applied 'for the
+privilege of taking books out of the Library. Their application
+was agreed to upon the terms stated in the minutes
+of June 23, 1873, in the case of a similar application
+from others.'</p>
+
+<p>And here it should be noticed that all the loans do
+not by any means necessarily appear in the minutes. Owing
+to the illegal resolution of the Curators of May 25, 1872,
+(see above, p. 16,) no loans during the Long Vacation are
+there entered. Moreover, at some time unknown to me
+the Librarian was quietly permitted to let certain persons
+borrow books at his discretion, and there at last grew up,
+it is to be presumed, with the knowledge of the Curators,
+what the Library officials call the Borrowers' List, and what
+after a time appears in the minutes as 'the privileged<span class="pagenum">[21]</span>
+list.' As every one can see, there is nothing whatever in
+the statute to justify all this.</p>
+
+<p>I do not for one moment mean to charge the Curators
+with doing anything which they thought to be improper
+or beyond their discretion; but I do most distinctly charge
+them with having in fact exceeded their statutable powers,
+and with taking the law into their own hands, all, I doubt
+not, with the best and most innocent intentions. Unfortunately
+some of the most mischievous acts in the world
+have been done with the best and purest intentions. Like
+all other members of the University the Curators have
+promised to observe the statutes, and the Vice-Chancellor
+and Proctors have not only done that, but have solemnly
+pledged themselves to see that the statutes are observed,
+and are moreover armed with power to enforce them.
+If statutes are absurd, it is clearly the duty of those
+who control legislation in this place to get them abolished
+or amended without delay; if they are not absurd, all
+are bound to obey them. As regards the Bodleian
+there is a special order (XX. iii. &sect; 12. 3) directing the
+Curators what to do with an imperfect statute, and how
+to do it; but it is one thing to make a statute; it
+is a very different thing to get people to obey it. No
+one who sees the ease with which statutes are made
+and unmade, can doubt, that if those of the Bodleian
+are defective in any respect, it needs but a word from
+one or two members of Council to have all defects
+remedied. If the Curators want fresh powers, or more
+discretion, and greater latitude of action than they are
+at present allowed, they have but to ask and obtain;
+but I protest most vehemently against the usurpation
+of powers not granted by the University as a thing
+<i>pessimi exempli</i>. If the Bodleian Curators are to do
+exactly as they like, the University might just as well
+spare itself the trouble of legislation. If the University
+deliberately chooses to have its statutes nullified, there
+is, I suppose, no help for it; yet I cannot but suspect
+that the University has no knowledge&mdash;at all events no<span class="pagenum">[22]</span>
+clear and distinct knowledge&mdash;of the way in which we
+have dealt with the statutes which were intended to
+mark out our duties. The secret growth of 'the borrowers'
+list' is as singular a thing as is to be found
+in the history of the Bodleian. The Curators and the
+Curators alone have, by a statute of their own devising,
+a right to borrow; yet the late Librarian assumed to
+himself the right of naming persons who are to have the
+privilege of borrowing, and the Curators quietly allowed
+it, without, as I believe, the faintest suspicion that they
+were doing what was wrong.</p>
+
+<p>In 1876 eleven MSS. went some to private persons, others
+to Augsburg, Paris, G&ouml;ttingen, Heidelberg, Cambridge:
+the book sent to Augsburg without bond, and without
+guarantee for publication, was one of Laud's Greek MSS.
+On June 24 an application 'from Mr. &mdash;&mdash; for use of
+books at home during Vacation' was 'assented to.' In
+1877 some fourteen or fifteen MSS. were sent to
+Heidelberg, Paris, Cambridge, London, Rome, Copenhagen,
+Munich, Marburg, besides printed books: the
+book sent to Munich was one of Laud's, again in total
+defiance of all his stipulations.</p>
+
+<p>In 1878 a dozen MSS., or more, went to different people,
+to Bonn, to Pesth, Leyden, and Rostock, besides printed
+books: one book with illuminations was refused, 'as being
+one of a class not lent out.' I have before observed that
+I know of no written rules at all. On Oct. 26 of this
+year the Curators surpassed themselves, for there was an
+application 'from the Rev. &mdash;&mdash;, Fellow of &mdash;&mdash; College,
+for permission to borrow works from the Library to be
+taken to his rooms. In this matter it was agreed that
+power to act on the clause 10, &sect; 11 of the Bodleian
+Statute <i>be delegated</i> by the Curators to the Librarian.'
+There were ten Curators present on this memorable occasion.
+The Curators are themselves delegates, and if they had the
+right to delegate to the Librarian the power which the
+University delegated to them, then what is sauce for the
+goose is sauce for the gander: if the Curators <i>mero motu</i><span class="pagenum">[23]</span>
+may delegate their powers, the Librarian may with equal
+right and equal reason delegate his, and so on <i>in infinitum</i>,
+to the utter ruin of all sense of responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>It would be tedious to enumerate all the loans; suffice
+it to say that they have gone on year after year; and
+from this point I shall only mention a few notable cases.</p>
+
+<p>On May 31, 1879, 'the request of Professor &mdash;&mdash; to
+borrow printed books from the Library was granted.' Considering
+that only seven months before, the Curators had
+resolved 'to delegate' their lending powers to the Librarian,
+it is strange that they did not refer the applicant straight
+to that official.</p>
+
+<p>In 1880, June 11, a Selden MS. was ordered to Paris;
+ten Curators were present, and it is to be presumed that
+not one of them knew, what he was bound to know,
+namely, the special stipulation made with respect to all
+Selden's books.</p>
+
+<p>On Oct. 29, 1880, the Junior Proctor gave notice of
+the following motion:&mdash;'That in the case of MSS. sent
+out on loan to persons resident within the United Kingdom,
+a pecuniary bond shall be executed by the person
+to whom such MS. is lent, of such value as shall be
+determined from time to time by the Curators, unless
+the MS. is sent for use only within the precincts of the
+British Museum, or some other approved Public Library.'
+On Nov. 27 this motion was made and lost.</p>
+
+<p>In 1881, June 4, 'an application from &mdash;&mdash; for the
+use of books dealing with the subject of Biblical Chronology
+at his own house appeared to the Curators to
+fall under the provisions of the Statute XX. iii. &sect; 11,
+10; the Librarian exercising discretion as to the number
+of volumes issued.' On Oct. 26, 1878, not three years
+before, the Curators formally 'delegated' their powers
+to the Librarian; on May 31, 1879, they assume that
+they possess what they have 'delegated'; and here they
+do the same thing, and all this without any formal and
+solemn resumption by them of their 'delegated' powers.
+<span class="pagenum">[24]</span>On Oct. 29, 1881, it was reported that Professor &mdash;&mdash; of
+Cambridge had not returned a manuscript borrowed <i>four
+years</i> before, and the Vice-Chancellor was requested to
+communicate with the Professor in the matter. The
+manuscript never has been, and in all probability never
+will be restored, and our only consolation must be the
+fact that it was a transcript of another manuscript in
+the Bodleian, not on that account necessarily of little
+value, for a transcript may, and sometimes does, become
+of inestimable value; why it does so, all acquainted with
+books know.</p>
+
+<p>In 1882, Feb. 11, a Laudian MS. was ordered to Heidelberg,
+and a Selden MS. to St. Petersburg. On Dec. 2,
+1882, 'it was agreed that Mr. &mdash;&mdash;, Fellow of &mdash;&mdash;
+be one of the persons privileged to take out books.
+It was agreed that the Librarians be allowed to take
+out books and MSS. for their own use.'</p>
+
+<p>In 1883, Jan. 27, the Librarian suggested 'that all
+Fellows and ex-Fellows of Colleges should be entitled
+to have books out of the Library'; the suggestion was
+not adopted. On the same day, 'Mr. &mdash;&mdash; (&mdash;&mdash;
+College) and Dr. &mdash;&mdash; were placed on the list of
+persons specially entitled.' On March 3 of the same
+year, 'Dr. Frankfurter's application to be placed on the
+privileged list of borrowers was assented to.' There we
+have it at last, in black and white&mdash;<i>the privileged list
+of borrowers</i>, as unstatutable and as illegal a thing as
+could well be permitted. The words '<i>let it be lawful for
+the Curators to borrow books for learned men</i>,' (always
+supposing the Latin not to be downright nonsense,) cannot
+convey to the Curators the power to let other people
+borrow books; for if they could, then any words may
+have any meaning, which comes to the same thing as
+saying that they have no meaning at all. Yet it is on
+these words, and on these words alone, that the 'borrowers'
+list' has been made to depend; though how educated
+men can have extracted from this statute any meaning
+whatever which would justify, or even seem, in the most
+distant way, to justify the act of conveying to others<span class="pagenum">[25]</span>
+the power to borrow books from the library is one of the
+most astonishing things that I ever met with in the whole
+course of my life. But it will be said that the Bodleian
+Curators for thirteen years understood <i>mutuari</i> to mean
+'lend', and therefore they might institute a 'borrowers'
+list'. It is an astonishing, not to say staggering, fact
+that they did so understand it, yet the borrowers' list is
+none the less illegal. Nay, I have heard a Curator in
+his place maintain, that as there could be no doubt what
+the University intended when it passed this statute, <i>mutuari</i>
+in this place must mean 'lend'. Much as I admired
+the boldness of the assertion, I was unable to commend
+either the law or the logic of it; the consequences which
+would at once follow from the position, that if the intentions
+of a legislative body are clear it matters not how
+it expresses them, are too palpably absurd to find acceptance
+with ordinary minds. However, let it be supposed,
+that instead of <i>mutuari</i> the word actually used were
+<i>commodare</i>. You are still no better off. The University
+on this hypothesis gives to the Curators as a board the
+power of lending a specific book to a specific person,
+and that is all. It does not give the Curators the power
+to invest any person or persons with the right or privilege
+of borrowing books, still less does it convey the power
+of creating a class of persons who have such a right or
+privilege. This is not only clear to plain common sense,
+but, as I am advised, is plain as a matter of law; and
+I am further assured that, if any book is damaged or
+lost in consequence of the Curators persisting in such
+a course, they become themselves personally liable to the
+University.</p>
+
+<p>This illegal borrowers' list comprises at this moment
+(subtracting one dead man and double entries) one hundred
+and eleven persons, besides the Clarendon Press. Among
+these persons are two ladies, who can have no conceivable
+right to be where they are, for even those whose tolerant
+Latinity suffers them to take <i>mutuari</i> for <i>commodare</i> will
+hardly maintain that '<i>viris doctis</i>' covers learned women.<span class="pagenum">[26]</span>
+It includes too non-residents and foreigners; and I am
+informed that manuscripts have been sent for the use of
+one of these persons more than a hundred miles as the crow
+flies. Books are sent by post, and Bodleian money is
+spent to pay for carriage. The finances of the Library,
+however, deserve a paper all to themselves, and some day
+they shall have one.</p>
+
+<p>On May 26, 1883, 'an application from Dr. Leumann
+to be placed on the privileged list was agreed to.' On
+Oct. 20, of the same year, two persons were 'placed on
+the privileged list of readers;' and on Nov. 24, another
+'was placed on the privileged list;' and from that moment
+to the present no other formula is employed in the minutes.</p>
+
+<p>In 1885, Oct. 31, the Librarian applied 'for authority
+to decline requests for loans of Selden MSS. and books,
+and of Laud's MSS. (except for purposes of publication),
+without referring the application to the Curators, as being
+contrary to the terms of the respective donations. This
+was agreed to.' It was, and to my great astonishment it
+passed without any remark whatever.</p>
+
+<p>In 1886, March 13, 'Liceat Curatoribus' was ruled
+to mean 'the consent of a majority of Curators;' that
+is to say, the illegal resolution of May 25, 1872, was
+silently rescinded. On May 15 of the same year a committee
+of four was appointed to consider the practice of
+loans. At a meeting on June 19, another name was
+added to the borrowers' list. Every Curator knew that
+the legality of their practice with respect to loans, and
+especially with respect to the borrowers' list, had been
+openly challenged; notwithstanding this, and in spite of
+protest then and there made, the chairman put the name
+to the vote, and a majority actually voted for it. This
+proceeding was, in my opinion (and not in mine only),
+irregular and improper to say the least of it, but it was
+highly characteristic. After waiting to see whether the
+Vice-Chancellor or any other Curator would call attention
+to the charge brought against the board, and finding, as
+I was sure would be the case, that no one shewed any<span class="pagenum">[27]</span>
+disposition to do so, I gave notice of a motion for the
+next statutable meeting:&mdash;<i>That the borrowers' list be
+abolished as illegal; that all books in the hands of borrowers
+be at once recalled as having been illegally lent;
+and that for the future the Statute XX. iii. &sect; 11. 10 be
+faithfully observed.</i></p>
+
+<p>On June 28 it was agreed (I being silent for an obvious
+reason) that during the Vacation all the Curators in Oxford
+should meet every fortnight in the Library at 2 p.m.
+solely to consider applications for loans. During the
+Vacation six such meetings were summoned. On July 10,
+three Curators met and refused an application; on Aug. 21,
+and on Sept. 11, only two were present, and of course
+declined to act; on Sept. 25, and Oct. 9, I, who attended
+all the meetings, found myself alone; on Oct. 23, there
+were six of us, and business was adjourned on the ground
+that the whole question of loans would be debated on
+Oct. 30. Accordingly, on Oct. 30, <i>all</i> the Curators made
+their appearance, a thing I never saw before, though they
+were not all present during the whole of the proceedings.
+The motion to abolish the borrowers' list was duly made
+and seconded; then, after some confused talk, which could
+not be dignified by the name of a debate, an amendment
+was moved, 'That the consideration of the regulations
+under which books <i>be lent</i> be referred to a committee';
+and this was carried, all the Curators being present. An
+instruction to the committee was also moved, 'To consider
+what alteration is required in the statute with regard to
+the borrowing of books'; which was also carried. Next
+we considered the report of the committee on loans, and
+returned it in a somewhat mangled condition to the reconsideration
+of those who drew it up. After that, applications
+for loans numbered 1 to 16 were discussed,
+and <i>all</i> were refused. This exhausted the agenda paper,
+and should, I apprehend, have finished the business of the
+day. However, an application for the loan of manuscripts
+<i>not</i> on the agenda paper was considered, and the board,
+which up to that moment had refused all applications,<span class="pagenum">[28]</span>
+including one from Sir Richard Burton, granted the loan
+of <i>seventeen</i> manuscripts to <i>one</i> man. In self-defence,
+let me say that I always vote against all loans when
+there is a division.</p>
+
+<p>On Nov. 8 the loan committee recommended that Council
+be asked to propose amendments in Stat. Tit. XX. sect. iii.
+&sect; 11, and thought that 'the farther consideration of the rules
+framed by them and amended at the Curators' meeting on
+Oct. 30 should for the present be postponed.' On Nov. 25,
+ten Curators being present, this recommendation was considered.
+One of the Curators thought that while there was
+'no harm' in applying for a new statute, yet that it was
+'a waste of time' and 'a little ridiculous': another wished
+to move an amendment and have the new statute in <i>English</i>,
+but some of us saw (though no one said so) that such an
+amendment would be a highly comic confession on the
+part of the <i>viri variis doctrinis et literis imbuti</i>; and
+accordingly it was not pressed. Then the same Curator
+proposed that <i>commodare</i> should be substituted for <i>mutuari</i>,
+and that <i>sicut mos fuit</i> should be struck out. Four voted
+for this amendment, which was lost. Even had it been
+carried, it would still have been unlawful to lend books
+to women, for, as was pointed out at the time, <i>vir</i> means
+<i>a man</i>; but the minority was in no mood to be affected
+by philological facts. The original recommendation was
+then passed.</p>
+
+<p>The board having thus expressed its opinion that a
+new statute was necessary to enable it to lend books had,
+it might be thought, asserted that the existing statute
+does not enable it to do so; accordingly we at once turned
+our attention to applications for loans. The first article
+applied for was not a book at all, but an inscribed bronze
+vessel; and it was observed that we have no statutable right,
+in other words no power whatever, to lend such a thing;
+whereupon some one remarked that it might be done, <i>because
+it is not forbidden</i>, an argument, which (if valid)
+would lead to some startling conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>However, that a decree of Convocation to authorise the<span class="pagenum">[29]</span>
+loan of this vessel should be asked for was duly moved
+and seconded; then the Curator, who wished to patch
+the Bodleian Latin statute with a bit of English, moved
+as an amendment 'that the Curators lend it', quite ignoring
+the fact that they had no statutable power to do so.
+For this amendment three Curators voted, one abstained,
+and the rest voted against it: finally the original motion
+was carried. After that, two loans of books were refused
+and three were granted.</p>
+
+<p>In applying for a decree to enable them to lend this
+vessel the Curators turned over a new leaf. The whole
+Bodleian statute consists of ten octavo pages, eleven lines
+and four words: it can be read out aloud in thirty
+minutes, and by eye alone in half that time: there is,
+therefore, no excuse whatever for not knowing its contents,
+and still less for not obeying it. It is not my purpose
+at the present moment to point out how often, and in
+how many ways, we drive a coach and four through statutes
+intended to control our actions; but to complete the
+subject of loans, and dismissing the practice of book-lending
+from further consideration, it may be noted that the
+Stat. XX. iii. &sect; 11. 9 allows the Curators under specified
+conditions to place certain prints and drawings either in
+the Radcliffe or in the Taylor Building; but with this
+exception, if exception it be, no power is anywhere given
+to them to lend any picture, coin, antiquity, or other
+object belonging to the library. Nevertheless I find the
+following entries in the minutes:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>On April 26, 1865, 'it was agreed to lend "Miniatures"
+to the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education
+to be exhibited in the South Kensington Museum.'</p>
+
+<p>On Oct. 28, 1865, 'the Curators sanction the loan of
+such Pictures as may be desired for the National Exhibition
+of Portraits at Kensington in 1866.'</p>
+
+<p>On Dec. 12, 1865, 'that the loan of the Pictures according
+to the list sent, save that of Sir Thomas Bodley, be granted
+to South Kensington Museum Exhibition of National
+Portraits.'<span class="pagenum">[30]</span></p>
+
+<p>On March 8, 1867, 'a letter from the Secretary of the
+Earl of Derby was read asking for the loan of eighteen
+Pictures for exhibition at Kensington. This was acceded
+to.'</p>
+
+<p>On Jan. 31, 1868, 'it was resolved ... to lend to the
+Leeds Exhibition the Portraits they wish of Yorkshire
+Worthies.'</p>
+
+<p>On Feb. 5, 1870, 'an application from Mr. Cosmo Innis,
+of the General Register house, Edinburgh, for the loan
+of the old map of Britain of the 14th century, which
+hangs on the wall of the Library, to be traced in facsimile,
+under the care of Sir Henry James, for the 2nd volume
+of the National MSS. of Scotland, was granted.'</p>
+
+<p>On Feb. 14, 1874, 'an application from the South
+Kensington Museum was read, asking for the loan of
+remarkable specimens of Book-binding for next year's
+International Exhibition. In this matter it was agreed
+that the Museum should be invited to send a person
+to Oxford to inspect, and that it should be left to the
+discretion of the Librarian to decide upon lending any
+specimen required.'</p>
+
+<p>On April 28, 1877, 'an application from Mr. Blades
+[<i>sic</i>] on behalf of Caxton memorial committee for the
+loan of certain early printed books to a Public Exhibition
+at South Kensington was considered and granted.'</p>
+
+<p>On May 26, 1877, application 'for Bibles to be sent
+to the Caxton Exhibition. This was granted, and the
+Librarian was directed to take such measures as might
+be necessary to ensure secure transmission.'</p>
+
+<p>On May 11, 1878, permission was given to lend the
+Selden Portrait to the Nottingham Art Exhibition; and
+an application from the Bath and West of England Agricultural
+Society for works of art, &amp;c. for their approaching
+meeting at Oxford, was considered. This was left to
+the Librarian's discretion.</p>
+
+<p>On Nov. 13, 1880, Wyngarde's Plan of London 'to be
+granted under a bond' to Mr. Wheatley.</p>
+
+<p>On April 29, 1882, the Portrait of Sam. Butler was lent
+to the Worcestershire Exhibition of Fine Arts.<span class="pagenum">[31]</span></p>
+
+<p>On Feb. 2, 1884, Drake's Chair was lent to the Mayor of
+Plymouth.</p>
+
+<p>On May 2, 1885, 'the Librarian presented applications
+from the Exhibition of Inventions now being held for
+the loan of certain MSS.; certain early printed books;
+certain works on music. It was agreed that the Librarian
+be empowered to lend out of the above as required, as
+he may think well, to the Exhibition.'</p>
+
+<p>At this last meeting I was present, and the following is
+a verbatim copy of my note written the same day:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'An Exhibition of Inventions (I have not got the name
+correctly) applied for the loan of certain MSS. and books
+from Bodleian: 5 MSS. Liturgies: 3 Bodley MSS. 515,
+775, 842: Gough, Missal 336: an Ashmole book, and
+2 English.&mdash;I objected, but the loan was carried, except
+as to 775 Bodley.' I have lately been informed that one
+of the books sent up to be stared at by the mob of sightseers
+was a Selden book: this I neither knew nor could
+have known at the time, or it should have been stopped,
+if protesting could have stopped it.</p>
+
+<p>In every one of these cases the Curators, with the most
+perfect innocence, took upon themselves to do what they
+had not a shadow of right to do. If the University is
+content to have its property so dealt with that in case
+of damage or loss its only remedy would be to mulct
+the Curators, there is nothing more to be said; but it
+is just as well that the University should know what has
+been done in the past, and what would have been done
+in the future, had not a protest been made against the
+practice; and even now, though the board as a board has
+seemingly condemned its former doings, it still contains
+a stubborn and impenitent minority. If the University
+wishes its statutes to be obeyed, it should ordain substantial
+pecuniary fines for breaches of them; if it does not care
+whether they are obeyed or not, it is a pity that it wastes
+its time in enacting them.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[32]</span></p>
+
+<p>And now as to the policy of lending the printed books
+and manuscripts of the Bodleian. The question is not
+whether it is a good or a bad thing to lend books, nor
+whether it is a good thing for this or that library to do
+so; it is simply whether it is right to lend Bodleian books.
+It may be argued that it is right to do so&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. Because books are made to be used, and they will
+be very much more used if they are lent than if they
+are not; moreover it is generally more convenient to
+read in one's own room than it is in a public place.
+Some men cannot read, certainly cannot read and think
+in a library, or in the midst of company; I cannot myself,
+and all that I have ever been able to do in such places
+is to make extracts, verify references and the like;
+but to read a book as I should in my own room is to
+me, and probably to many people, impossible. If you
+go to a public institution you must go when it is open;
+you must sit still; you must not whistle or make a noise;
+you must not smoke; you cannot lie down and read on
+your back; you cannot throw the book aside, go for a
+walk, and resume your perusal; you cannot read quietly
+over the fire of an evening; you cannot read in the small
+hours of the night, and so on <i>ad infinitum</i>. Yet all this
+you can do if you are allowed to borrow the books.
+You can then treat them exactly as if they were your
+own. It is clear that this argument may be expanded
+in a multitude of ways, and no one is so destitute of
+imagination as not to be able to fill up the details to
+suit his own particular case and fancy.</p>
+
+<p>The answer to it is very simple. You cannot by any
+device or contrivance combine the advantages of private
+and of public property. He who wishes to use the books
+of a public library must submit to many personal inconveniences;
+and the man who is unwilling to deny
+himself for the general good is the very last person in
+the community to whom any favour ought to be shown,
+and of all people he least deserves the favour of borrowing.
+He who has ever been foolish enough to lend his own books<span class="pagenum">[33]</span>
+freely, learns by almost unvaried experience that hardly
+one man in twenty can be trusted: your book comes
+back (when it comes back at all) more damaged by a
+month's outing than the owner would occasion in fifty
+years. The book of a public library is even less regarded,
+as a rule, than that belonging to a friend; for
+the friend may have a sharp tongue, and a knack of using
+it, whereas a librarian is an official; even if he ever has
+time to look through the books when they are returned,
+his censure is disregarded, and after all accidents will
+happen, and the book might possibly have been equally
+damaged had it never left the library walls. It is really
+astonishing how few men there are in the present day
+who know how to use a book without doing it real and
+often serious damage. Over and over again have I seen
+men who would be very angry to be called boors deliberately
+break the back of a book. Over and over again,
+both in libraries and in private rooms, have I seen the
+headband broken, simply because people did not know
+how to take a book off a shelf. Again and again I have
+seen men of education (but grossly ignorant for all that
+of the ways of books) play such pranks with my own
+volumes as made me shudder. The horrid trick of turning
+a leaf by wetting a finger I have seen practised in this
+seat of learning over and over again by Graduates, by
+Professors, by Heads of Houses; and years ago I saw
+that same nasty trick played <i>pro pudor!</i> in the sacred
+precincts of the Bodleian itself <i>on a manuscript</i>, which
+will bear to its last moment the impression of the dirty
+thumb (and it <i>was</i> dirty) that perpetrated the uncleanly
+act. Often and often you see a man sitting close over
+the fire with a well-bound volume; a few such experiments
+will ruin the binding of any book; if it is his
+own, well and good, though even so the act is that of a
+barbarian: but suppose it a Bodleian book, what then?
+Why in that case the binding bills will be higher than
+ever, to say nothing about the ruin of the book itself.
+A man who knows how to handle a book will use a<span class="pagenum">[34]</span>
+volume habitually for years and leave no trace of wear
+and tear behind him; but the average man, even though
+he may be a Master of Arts, is, not unfrequently, totally
+unfit to have the use of any books in good condition,
+even in a library, much less out of one.</p>
+
+<p>The scholars and readers of former days seem to have
+been far more careful in their habits than men are now.
+Look at the books of the great collectors&mdash;Grolier, the
+Maioli, Selden, De Thou, the Colberts, and the like. These
+men read their books; and Grolier and Thomas Maioli
+certainly lent them: yet even after all these years, though
+time and neglect may have ruined the magnificent bindings&mdash;bindings
+such as few, if any, modern collectors ever
+indulge in&mdash;the books themselves are internally spotless.
+I have myself scores of volumes, many of them three
+or four hundred years old, clean and pure as the day
+they were issued from the press; they have most certainly
+been used and read, but used by men of clean
+hands and decent habits. In the present day books
+are so common and so cheap, and modern readers too
+frequently so unrefined, that they get into a vile habit
+of misusing them, and to such persons&mdash;that is, to the
+great majority&mdash;the books of a public library cannot
+be safely trusted except under the very strictest supervision.
+The slovenly practice of placing one open book
+on another, a practice sternly forbidden in many foreign
+libraries, may be seen in full swing both at the Camera
+and in the Bodleian; and no one seems to be aware how
+ruinous it is, or to have the least suspicion that he who
+knows how to handle books never treats them so. Treated
+in a cleanly and decent manner, there is not the least
+reason why a book printed on good paper should not
+last for twenty centuries or more; treated as they are too
+often treated here in Oxford, they will hardly last as
+many months.</p>
+
+<p>By lending the books as we illegally do, we are perceptibly
+hastening the destruction of a library intended
+by its founder and benefactors to be a blessing for generations
+of scholars yet unborn.<span class="pagenum">[35]</span></p>
+
+<p>2. Books are to be lent, and what is more ought to
+be sent out of Oxford, because it is an immense convenience
+to students at a distance to have Bodleian treasures
+close at hand. Not a doubt about it; vastly convenient.
+Suppose I am studying Greek sculpture, it would be very
+convenient to get all the master-pieces sent from the
+various galleries of Europe to London or Oxford. It
+would not only be a convenience, but a joy and a delight,
+to have over the Venus of Melos. Instead of sitting for
+hours together, as I used to do, in the Louvre, it would
+be much more convenient to go down to the New Schools
+and gaze on that glorious and divine being. Does any one
+suddenly scent an absurdity in the supposition? Why so
+do I, but the absurdity is in the whole argument, not in
+the particular application of it. Some people who have
+not a gift for seeing the point of things will ride off by
+saying that the Venus is a majestic beauty, and that the
+expense of her carriage and insurance would be enormous.
+Such an objection is pointless, because it evades the question
+of convenience; but let us take a case where weight
+will not oppress us. Say you study Greek gems; would
+it not be very convenient to have some of the best from
+Naples, from Paris, from Rome, and from Vienna, sent
+here to the Bodleian, where you could study them at
+your leisure? They are more portable than books, far
+less liable to damage, and hardly more valuable. Do
+you think that any guardian of such treasures would be
+so foolish as to listen to your request? Would any
+nation, city, or even University, permit it?</p>
+
+<p>The cases, it will be said, are not parallel. Gems,
+coins, medals, statuettes, are too valuable to be lent; the
+books and manuscripts which the Bodleian Curators lend
+are comparatively valueless. I am by no means sure of
+that fact. I have before now tapped at a friend's door,
+and receiving no answer entered his room to leave a message
+or what not, and have more than once seen lying on his
+table an eleventh-century Bodleian manuscript of a certain
+classic author, a book of inestimable value, the <i>codex<span class="pagenum">[36]</span>
+archetypus</i> of every other copy now in existence. Any
+stranger could have entered that room, and any enterprising
+literary thief&mdash;a not uncommon and particularly detestable
+animal&mdash;might have slipped this priceless book into his
+pocket. I am by no means sure that very valuable manuscripts
+have not been, in spite of remonstrance, lent out
+within the last two years; but it is beyond all dispute
+that not so very long ago the thing was done, and any
+man or any body of men who will allow one such thing
+to be done are quite capable of allowing a dozen to be
+done.</p>
+
+<p>Let it, however, be granted, for the purposes of the
+present argument, that we now, having a clearer perception
+of our responsibilities, only allow comparatively worthless
+manuscripts to be sent to France, to Germany, Russia,
+or India; for our manuscripts, be it observed, travel as
+far afield as Bombay. Now what makes a book or manuscript
+comparatively worthless? It is so, either because
+it is one of many copies, or because it is a poor and
+faulty copy. If it is one of many, why in the name of
+all that is absurd should we be asked to send our goods
+away (at our expense and risk let it be remembered) when
+<i>ex hypothesi</i> there are many other copies in existence?
+why cannot the foreign student go to some one of those
+copies? why should we be called on to gratify his laziness
+or consult his convenience? If the copy be a poor one,
+he who asks for the loan of it must be a noodle, for
+who cares for the readings of a confessedly inferior book?
+Is it not clear as day that the man who at Rome, or Heidelberg,
+or Bombay, asks for the loan of a manuscript,
+believes it to be a good and valuable copy? moreover,
+if he believes so, is it not in the highest degree probable
+that his judgment is correct, seeing that his attention
+is in a special manner concentrated on the matter? And
+if it be a good and valuable copy, what becomes of the
+plea that we only lend comparatively worthless books?
+Have we any common sense amongst us? I really confess
+that there are times when I come to the conclusion that<span class="pagenum">[37]</span>
+we have none; for if we had, how could we be deceived
+by pretexts so flimsy and fallacious? All the manuscripts
+which we now lend are most certainly valuable, and their
+loss or damage would be irreparable; all talk of comparative
+worth or worthlessness is futile, and is merely
+used as so much dust thrown in the eyes of those who
+(I am sorry to say it, but it must be said) ought to have
+a higher conception of their duties.</p>
+
+<p>3. Some maintain that MSS. and books should be
+lent out because 'more work' will be done by that device.
+It is difficult to see why. It is inferred, in fact, that
+'more work' will be done, because it is more convenient
+to work at home than it is in a library. A partial answer
+to this fallacious plea has been already given, but I cannot
+pass over the particular form of it without a protest.
+The cant that is talked now-a-days about 'work' is
+enough to make one sick. As far as my experience extends,
+the very notion of work, as opposed to fidgetty pottering,
+is not possessed by fifty men in the place; the very
+conception of thoroughness and comprehension is gone;
+and as to learning, why the thing has almost vanished;
+of 'science' we have enough and to spare, but what in
+the world has become of all our knowledge? Briefly,
+at the present moment and in this place, all this wretched
+pretence of 'work' is arrant imposture. A few, and only
+a few, know what it means, and they would never dream
+of talking about it.</p>
+
+<p>But I have heard this argument about 'more work'
+put in another form, and it obviously is a theme on which
+endless variations may be composed. Suppose, it is said,
+a very poor scholar, anxious to give the world a critical
+edition of some book, and further suppose that there is
+a valuable manuscript at St. Petersburg, another at Stockholm,
+another in Paris, another in Oxford, and so on;
+let the poor scholar live where you like, say in Giessen,
+and suppose him to be totally unable to defray the expense
+of a journey to these several places, and to have no means
+of paying for collations made by others, and no confidence<span class="pagenum">[38]</span>
+in their correctness, even if he could pay for them; would
+it not be an advantage to literature that all these manuscripts
+should be sent to Giessen for the use of the
+poor scholar aforesaid; and would it not be a dead loss
+to the world of letters, if, by refusing so to lend them,
+you prevented the poor scholar from constructing a critical
+and admirable text of the author in whom he is interested?
+This purely hypothetical case I have heard put in all
+seriousness, and used as a knock-me-down sort of argument;
+yet it must occur to any one with a grain of common
+sense that it is only too easy to 'suppose' anything;
+that it would not require the imaginative powers of a baby
+to go one step further, and suppose the poor, the ardent
+and the ripe scholar to have just money enough or pluck
+enough to carry him to the places which he wishes to
+visit, (I note parenthetically that a real student, a man
+to read of whose exploits warms one's heart, Cosma de
+K&ouml;r&ouml;s, started on his extraordinary expedition to the
+East with 100 florins and a walking-stick, for being what
+he was, he dispensed with luggage,) or you might suppose
+brains enough in his neighbourhood to perceive that so
+deserving a creature of the pure imagination might fairly
+enough be helped or&mdash;but it is needless and foolish to
+dream with one's eyes open, and practical men generally
+object to discuss purely hypothetical cases. Yes, my
+excellent but fanciful friend will say, this is all very
+well, but <i>if</i> there were such a case, what would you do?
+Well, to speak for myself, I should prefer to wait till the
+poor scholar's exchequer was in a more flourishing condition,
+or why should I not take a turn at 'supposing'
+myself? and perform the very easy trick of imagining
+a more ripe scholar, a more enthusiastic student, endowed
+not only with brains, but blessed with means to gratify
+his whims, and then, without the least violence, I might
+suppose the result to be a much more correct, a much
+more critical edition than my friend's phantom scholar
+could ever by any possibility concoct. But to return
+to the region of reality; I answer that not even in<span class="pagenum">[39]</span>
+the case supposed, or in any case would I lend out
+manuscripts, and this for more reasons than I have
+patience to write down. One remark may, however, be
+made. We are constantly requested to send manuscripts
+abroad 'for collation,' and we not unfrequently send
+them. Will any one be good enough to mention to
+me a single collation of a Greek or Latin classic made
+by any scholar by profession of any manuscript of fair
+length&mdash;say, if you like, 300 pages of octavo print&mdash;which
+is faithful, or which can be depended on? Even if it
+were a defensible practice to send manuscripts abroad for
+collation, it can never be a defensible practice to expose
+them to all the risks they necessarily run, and after all
+reap as a net result collations not worth the paper they
+are written on.</p>
+
+<p>I hope that these considerations may satisfy my imaginative
+friend that there is not that force in his argument
+which he supposes; but if he is still unconvinced, let
+us agree to consider the case of the poor scholar when
+it actually occurs on its merits, and let it be conceded
+as a thing not impossible, that should all the supposed
+conditions exist, we might for once in a way move Convocation
+to lend a manuscript for the use of so singular
+and so deserving a character; how does that justify us
+in sending manuscripts abroad when no such conditions
+exist? The most I have ever yet heard pleaded on behalf
+of these foreign students was, not that they could not
+afford to come to Oxford, but merely that it was much
+more convenient to have a book sent out to Hungary or
+Russia, than it was for the Hungarian or Russian to visit
+us. I dare say it was more convenient to him, but it
+has already been observed that he who wishes to use
+public property must and ought to submit to not a few
+personal inconveniences. It would, too, be interesting to
+know whether, supposing any of us possessed a very
+valuable book of our own, we should be ready and willing
+to lend it as freely as we lend these books which are not
+ours. I will answer for myself that I certainly should<span class="pagenum">[40]</span>
+not, and that it would be grossly inconsistent in me to
+lend University property when I decline under precisely
+similar circumstances to lend my own.</p>
+
+<p>4. Again, it is argued that since foreign libraries are
+willing to lend to us we ought to reciprocate their liberality:
+we ought, it is said, to be as liberal as France or Germany
+are. To the end of time men will be the dupes of
+phrases and the slaves of words, yet it is a little strange
+that we, who fancy ourselves in some respects raised
+above the mob, should see any force in this singular perversion
+of language. Who does not detect the hollow
+and worthless nature of that 'liberality' which lends,
+not what is its own, but what is another's? In what
+possible sense, except an illusory and fallacious one, can
+the Bodleian Curators credit themselves with the virtue of
+'liberality' when they hand over, not their own property,
+not anything which they collectively set great store on,
+not anything which it would grieve them deeply to lose,
+but something not their own? Such liberality seems to
+me to be as cheap as it is worthless; as easy as it is
+unreal. But, it will be objected, that the University empowers
+them so to lend, and that it would be 'illiberal' in
+them to accept loans from others and refuse themselves to
+lend. As to the powers given by the University, I have
+already said something; the rest of the plea may be
+sufficiently answered by a single line from Hamlet&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+"Neither a borrower nor a lender be."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Sound, wholesome advice to all, whether taken as Polonius
+intended it, or as I now use it. It would be mean and
+shabby to borrow if you refuse to lend, for it would be
+conniving at a vice which you decline to commit. Would
+it not be more rational to argue that all lending out of
+Bodleian books being bad, we therefore decline to benefit
+(if benefit it be) by a practice which we disapprove of
+in principle? To argue simply, as I have heard some do,
+that because foreign libraries are willing to lend us books,
+<i>therefore</i> we ought to be willing to lend them books, is,
+as an argument, about as valid as it would be to say,<span class="pagenum">[41]</span>
+'My friend X has signified his willingness to lend me
+his banjo, and therefore I am bound to lend him my
+Erard's piano, if he asks for it': not every one would see
+the force of such reasoning. If the lending of books from
+such a library as the Bodleian be, as I maintain it is,
+bad in principle, it can never become right because other
+libraries are willing to be loose in their practice.</p>
+
+<p>But suppose we look a little more closely into this
+alleged 'liberality' of foreign countries, where lending
+in some form or other is the rule rather than the exception.
+And here let it be observed that 'library' though
+one word covers things as different as chalk is from cheese.
+Libraries differ not merely in quantity, in the number
+of volumes which they contain: they also differ enormously
+in quality and value. The University Library of G&ouml;ttingen
+some forty years ago was estimated to contain
+350,000 volumes. The Grenville Library (now part of
+the British Museum) consists in round numbers of 20,000
+volumes, each of which cost on an average <i>two pounds,
+fourteen shillings</i>; and this small but most choice collection
+would in the present day probably sell for a sum
+almost sufficient to purchase the whole of the G&ouml;ttingen
+350,000 volumes. The Bodleian is equalled and even
+far surpassed in point of numbers by other libraries, but
+for quality and real value there are not in all the world
+a dozen that could, or by any competent person would,
+be compared with it, and this fact makes all the difference
+when lending is in question. You might lend and lose
+half the books at G&ouml;ttingen, and still be able without
+very much trouble or expense to replace them to the
+satisfaction of that University. By losing a single half-dozen
+of some of our Bodleian books, you might seriously
+maim and cripple a large department; and as to replacing
+the half-dozen, you might just as well try to replace the
+coal in our coal pits. I have seen it stated that all the
+great libraries of Europe lend, except the Vatican and
+the British Museum: even Mr. Panizzi, forgetting for
+the moment what he well knew, says, 'In all libraries on<span class="pagenum">[42]</span>
+the Continent they lend books, but here [i.e. at the
+British Museum] I hope they will never lend them: it
+is quite right not to lend them' (Report on British
+Museum, 1850, p. 230). And even if all do lend (and
+all do not), it would no more follow that they ought to
+do so, than it follows that no man should do right,
+because all men are sinners. Why are we to follow a
+foreign fashion? Why are we to follow a multitude to
+do evil? We are quite strong enough to act properly,
+if we only had the infinitesimal amount of courage needful.
+Even if it were true that every great library in Europe
+does a foolish thing, why should we, with the true spirit
+of slavish imitation, be equally foolish?</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the libraries, which may be with more or less
+justice compared with the Bodleian, are the National
+Library of Paris; the British Museum; the Vatican;
+the Royal Library of Munich; the Imperial Library of
+St. Petersburg; the Imperial Library at Vienna; the
+Ambrosian at Milan. Thirty odd years ago only <i>two</i>
+of these ever lent a book, and then hardly in the sense
+in which any one in Oxford would understand that phrase.
+At this very moment, the British Museum, the second or
+third largest and finest library in the world, does not
+lend; the Vatican does not lend; the Ambrosian library,
+great in printed books, greater in manuscripts, does not
+lend; the Escurial, famed for its Arabic manuscripts, never
+lends, not even within the limits of Spain; the Municipal
+Library of Ravenna, a name well known to all students
+of Aristophanes for its famous codex, never lends; nor
+does the Angelica at Rome: and there are more libraries
+of which this is true. Few, however, would believe till
+they have tried the experiment, how difficult it is for
+a private person to get really trustworthy information
+as to the practices of foreign libraries.</p>
+
+<p>Again, all foreign libraries that practise lending lend under
+restrictions unknown to us in Oxford. At the Bodleian
+there are no written rules at all, and, as far as I know,
+there never have been any. The present Librarian rightly<span class="pagenum">[43]</span>
+felt that such a state of things ought not to be allowed;
+he accordingly drew up a draft set of regulations; it
+was at his request that the committee mentioned above,
+p. 26, was appointed, and but for his sense of duty the
+board would possibly never have perceived that rules were
+requisite. The Italian government controls some 33 libraries,
+and the rules for loans fill 83 paragraphs and 18 pages
+quarto. Without the special leave of the Minister of
+Instruction, no government librarian in Italy can lend manuscripts,
+printed books of the 15th century, very rare
+editions, books with autographs of celebrated men or with
+important notes, books printed on vellum, books with
+plates of much value, or the chief value of which consists
+in the engravings, expensive works, works in many volumes,
+coast surveys, maps, atlases, books finely bound or otherwise
+valuable, old music. In other words, <i>no librarian
+can lend any manuscript whatever, or any valuable printed
+book, without special leave</i>. The restrictions on loans to
+foreign countries are also numerous.</p>
+
+<p>The National Library of Paris, the largest in the whole
+world, also lends, but never in the wild fashion sanctioned
+in this place. Here are the very words of the 'R&egrave;glement,'
+Art. 115: 'Peuvent seuls &ecirc;tre pr&ecirc;t&eacute;s dans le d&eacute;partement
+des imprim&eacute;s, les doubles qui ne font pas partie de la
+r&eacute;serve, pourvu, en outre, qu'il ne s'agisse ni de livres
+particuli&egrave;rement pr&eacute;cieux, ni de dictionnaires, ni de journaux,
+ni de morceaux ou partitions de musique, ni de
+volumes appartenant &agrave; de grandes collections ou contenant
+des figures hors texte.</p>
+
+<p>'Ne peuvent pas non plus &ecirc;tre pr&ecirc;t&eacute;s les romans, ni les
+pi&egrave;ces du th&eacute;&acirc;tre moderne, ni les ouvrages de litt&eacute;rature
+frivole. Le conservateur appr&eacute;cie en premier ressort les
+circonstances qui permettent ou non de pr&ecirc;ter un livre.'</p>
+
+<p>Art. 116: 'Peuvent seuls &ecirc;tre pr&ecirc;t&eacute;s dans le d&eacute;partement
+des manuscrits, les volumes qui ne sont pas particuli&egrave;rement
+pr&eacute;cieux par leur raret&eacute;, leur antiquit&eacute;, les autographes
+ou les miniatures qu'ils contiennent, ou par toute autre circonstance
+dont le conservateur est juge en premier ressort.'<span class="pagenum">[44]</span></p>
+
+<p>This library then <i>never lends anything but duplicates</i>,
+and only such duplicates as are <i>not</i> part of the reserve,
+i.e. part of the more valuable section of the library, and
+not even such duplicates if they are specially valuable.</p>
+
+<p>The libraries of Germany and Switzerland have rules
+substantially the same as those adopted in France and
+Italy; and it is the same with Belgium when they lend
+at all. In the Biblioth&egrave;que Royale de Belgique, Art. 41
+of the 'R&egrave;glement' runs thus: 'Dans la section des imprim&eacute;s,
+les ouvrages d'un usage journalier, les livres rares,
+de luxe ou &agrave; figures, les &eacute;ditions du XV^e si&egrave;cle, les livres
+sur v&eacute;lin ou sur grand papier, ceux dont les reliures sont
+pr&eacute;cieuses ou remarquables, les collections ou parties de
+collection consid&eacute;rable <i>ne sont jamais pr&ecirc;t&eacute;s au dehors</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>As to the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, the
+Director writes under date Dec. 11, 1886: 'la Biblioth&egrave;que
+Imp&egrave;riale n'a pas le droit, d'apr&egrave;s la loi, de pr&ecirc;ter ses
+manuscrits aux personnes particuli&egrave;res, que sur la demande
+des autorit&eacute;s comp&egrave;tents, et pour les personnes hors des
+limites de la Russie, que par l'entremise du minist&egrave;re
+des affaires &eacute;trang&egrave;res avec l'autorisation de Sa Majest&eacute;.
+En m&ecirc;me temps je crois devoir ajouter, que les manuscrits
+les plus pr&eacute;cieux ne sortent jamais de la Biblioth&egrave;que, dans
+aucun cas, de m&ecirc;me que les codes dont s'occupent les
+savants du pays.'</p>
+
+<p>It would be impossible to do in any of these foreign
+countries what is done in Oxford. Expensive illustrated
+works are, as I have heard, had out of the library, and
+are then used to illustrate lectures&mdash;a short and easy
+method of bringing books to ruin.</p>
+
+<p>To trust to discretion alone, whether it be the discretion
+of a librarian or of a board, is to lean on a broken reed;
+and in most foreign libraries that discovery has long since
+been made: it is high time that we made it too, if we
+are foolish enough to sanction the practice of lending.</p>
+
+<p>When it is said then that <i>all</i> great foreign libraries
+lend, let it always be remembered, in the first place,
+that strictly speaking all do not lend; and, in the second<span class="pagenum">[45]</span>
+place, that those which lend restrict the practice in
+a way never dreamt of here.</p>
+
+<p>Such then are the arguments for lending: they may be
+stated in other terms, and they may be indefinitely varied
+in shape, but when reduced to their ultimate forms they
+simply come to this&mdash;that by lending books out the utility
+of the library is increased, the convenience of readers is
+consulted, the progress of learning is facilitated, and international
+courtesy is promoted&mdash;all very good things in
+themselves and much to be desired, but, as always in
+this world, we have to balance good with evil, and to
+take that course which involves the least inconvenience
+on the whole.</p>
+
+<p>I confess that it rather depresses me to have to argue
+the question at all, and if the <i>genius loci</i> affected all minds
+as it affects mine, the very faintest suspicion of degrading
+and vulgarising such an institution as the Bodleian would
+be enough, and more than enough, to settle the matter;
+and surely it is a degradation of that noble library to
+look on it, as some seem to do, as a sort of enlarged
+and diversified Mudie's. Our books may be all over
+Oxford, nay, all over Europe; they may be in Germany,
+in France, in India, in Russia, in London, at Cambridge,
+and heaven only knows where. What is all this but the
+first step towards turning the Bodleian into a vast and
+vulgar circulating library? I must say again, as I have
+said elsewhere, that the Bodleian Library is absolutely
+unlike any other library in the world; it is in its way
+peerless and unique; it was founded and augmented by
+learned men for learned men; it was never meant for
+the motley crew which in the present day crams the Camera
+and the Library itself. It is sad to one who can remember
+what the Bodleian was even thirty years ago to see such
+rapid decline, such manifest tokens of disregard for all
+that once rendered the place a sacred spot. But this is
+to wander from my immediate business, and what I conceive
+to be the abuse, I might even say the gross abuse of
+the Bodleian, for which the Curators are directly responsible,
+must be matter for some other paper.<span class="pagenum">[46]</span></p>
+
+<p>It seems to be the notion of some people in this University
+that the Bodleian Library is a fit place for readers
+of any and of every kind. They have not knowledge enough
+of books or of libraries to see that a library suitable only
+to scholars of a high class is not a library adapted to
+learners and schoolboys.</p>
+
+<p>Any one beginning microscopic work will find all, and
+more than all, his wants satisfied for a long time to come
+by a five guinea instrument, and he is not unlikely to
+damage even that. Suppose that, instead of such an instrument,
+you gave him at once a two hundred pound
+microscope by Smith and Beck, or Ross, what would
+happen? He would be utterly bewildered by the complexity
+of it, utterly unable to use it as it should be
+used, and he would most certainly before long so damage
+it as to render it useless to all who could make a proper
+use of it. Between a first-rate microscope by Ross and
+a three or five guinea instrument the difference is much less
+than is the difference between the Bodleian and a library
+fit for undergraduates, or generally for the unlearned. By
+introducing undergraduates, schoolboys, and girls into such
+a library as the Bodleian, you in fact degrade the library
+to base uses, and render it <i>pro tanto</i> inconvenient, to use
+a very mild term, to all who are fit to benefit by it,
+and who were intended by the founder to have the advantage
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>'What my experience has taught me,' says a most learned
+bibliographer (1. R. 121)<a id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a>, 'is, that it ought never to be
+attempted to use, as a popular library, the large libraries
+intended in the first instance for a superior class of readers;'
+and he adds further, that 'on every occasion, when it has
+been tried, the greatest part of the riches accumulated
+in the old library have been rendered useless.'</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Report from the Select Committee on Public Libraries, ordered by the
+House of Commons to be printed 23 July, 1849, quoted by pages as 1. R.
+A second volume ordered to be printed 1 August, 1850, is quoted also by
+pages as 2. R. These Blue books contain an immense amount of information
+on all the libraries of Europe, and although the information
+is some forty years old, it is still indispensable to all who wish to acquaint
+themselves with the subject. The evidence also given is of the most
+varied kind, and very instructive.<span class="pagenum">[47]</span></p></div>
+
+<p>If it is in any sense useful to lend books out of the
+library, it is far more useful, all things considered, not
+to lend them.</p>
+
+<p>Every man of the least intelligence can see the difference
+between a library of reference and one from which books
+are lent. A library of reference, or a library of deposit,
+is one where books are to be perpetually preserved as
+carefully as may be for the convenience of scholars and
+students, and for the promotion of sound and solid
+learning; and lending any book from such a library is
+obviously inconsistent with the very purpose for which
+it is founded. 'I think,' says the Solicitor-General for
+Scotland, speaking of the Advocates' Library, 'that (lending
+books out) is quite inconsistent with the proper preservation
+of a great library' (1. R. 95).<a id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> And another very able
+witness, Mr. Colles, one of the library committee of the
+Royal Dublin Society, gives it as the result of his experience
+that no lending should be allowed in such a
+library. 'I speak,' he says, 'against the interest of my
+own family when I say this: but I think that the public
+use of the library would be increased by not lending.'
+And again, 'The two (i. e. libraries of reference and of
+circulation) ought to be separated, just as banks of issue
+should be separated from banks of deposit. I wish to
+be understood on this point: an individual painter or
+sculptor might be greatly benefited by borrowing out a
+capital picture from the National Gallery, or the Torso,
+Venus, or Portland Vase from the British Museum; but
+such a loan would by no means benefit artists in general,
+or advance the ultimate interests of painting or sculpture.
+This holds good equally with regard to valuable books.'
+(1. R. 185.)</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> See note 15, p. 46.</p></div>
+
+<p>This question as to the expediency of lending books
+out of such libraries as the British Museum or the
+<span class="pagenum">[48]</span>Bodleian has been hotly debated both at home and abroad
+for the last eighty years or more, and I wish I had
+space to detail the arguments that have been used, not by
+men ignorant of books and eager only to consult their own
+convenience, or to obtain credit for a spurious liberality;
+but by those who really and truly knew all the ins and
+outs of the matter they were talking about, and who were
+quite as anxious to promote learning as we are ourselves.
+Take, for instance, the late Mr. Thomas Watts, keeper of
+printed books in the British Museum, one of the very rarest
+of men, a librarian who thoroughly knew his business, at
+all events so far as printed books were concerned, and
+quite unequalled as regards all questions of organisation
+and administration. He carries impartiality almost to
+excess, for he says, speaking of lending, 'It would, perhaps,
+be expedient to examine the subject more closely before
+a final determination was come to on either side; for
+while the Bodleian Library is strictly non-circulating,
+the books are freely lent out to the members of the
+University from the University Library of Cambridge,
+and yet any material difference in the condition of the
+two libraries to the disadvantage of that of Cambridge,
+is certainly not a matter of public notoriety.' This
+statement appeared in 1867, and Mr. Watts evidently
+did not know that lending had been practised by the
+Bodleian Curators ever since 1862 (see above, p. 14);
+nor was he seemingly aware of the facts detailed by
+Mr. Bradshaw, or of such gross abuses as that which Mr.
+Bradshaw told a friend of my own. He said that on a
+certain occasion a graduate had a dinner party, and that
+he borrowed from the University Library certain expensive
+illustrated works to be laid on the table to amuse his
+guests; Bradshaw was powerless, though indignant at an
+act so disgraceful. Carefully however as Mr. Watts holds
+the balance, it seems unquestionable that he himself
+condemned the practice of lending from such libraries as
+the British Museum or the Bodleian; for after writing a
+column or more, in which he shows every disposition to<span class="pagenum">[49]</span>
+lend books where it is possible to do so without causing
+more harm than good, he considers Mr. Spedding's proposal
+to lend a book wanted by a reader in London to the British
+Museum library&mdash;the very thing in fact which we now
+are in the habit of doing, he then says; "By this ingenious
+arrangement some of the advantages proposed by
+the lending system would certainly be afforded, under
+safeguards not now obtainable; but there would still remain
+the strong objection that a reader wishing to examine
+a particular book known to be in a particular library
+might be subjected to a disappointment which he is now
+in no hazard of. This objection is tersely stated in a
+passage from a letter by Niebuhr, which was quoted by
+the Commissioners for examining into the University of
+Oxford. 'It is lamentable,' writes Niebuhr from the
+University of Bonn, 'that I am here much worse off
+for books than I was at Rome, where I was sure to find
+whatever was in the library, because no books were lent
+out; here I find that just the book which I most want
+is always lent out.' There are few libraries from which
+books are lent of which stories are not current respecting
+the abuse of the privilege, of volumes kept for years by
+persons too high or too venerable to be questioned. The
+rules of such institutions are often laxly observed by
+those from whom we should least expect such disregard.
+In Walter Scott's correspondence with Southey there is a
+passage in which he recommends him not to show publicly
+a book which he had sent him, because it belongs to
+the Advocate's Library, and it is forbidden for those books
+to be sent out of Scotland."</p>
+
+<p>The opinion then of one of the most accomplished
+librarians that ever lived is, on the whole, adverse to the
+system of lending. I believe it to be quite impossible
+for a man of his enormous knowledge of the subject
+to come to any other conclusion than that at which he
+arrived: the less a man knows about books and libraries,
+the more inclined he is to the pernicious system of lending;
+the more he knows about them, the less inclined<span class="pagenum">[50]</span>
+he is to countenance anything of the kind; such at least
+has been my experience.</p>
+
+<p>The late Mr. Henry Bradshaw of Cambridge was a
+most learned librarian and an accomplished bibliographer.
+He has not, so far as I am aware, expressed in print his
+plain opinion of the lending system; but no one can read
+his paper on the Cambridge University Library, (The
+University Library, ... by Henry Bradshaw, Librarian of
+the University, Camb. 1881. 8vo.,) without seeing that he
+bitterly regretted the practice which prevails and has long
+prevailed in that place. The Bodleian has a history, a
+noble and honourable history: the Cambridge University
+Library has none, at all events none that is not disgraceful.
+'One reason,' he says (p. 6), 'for the dearth of materials in
+the Library for its own history is to be found in the circumstance
+that the Library is really scattered over the
+whole country.' And again, 'We have often heard of the
+principal benefactors to the Bodleian Library having been
+induced to bequeath their own libraries to the University
+of Oxford from seeing the careful way in which the
+bequests of their predecessors have been housed and kept
+together. The coincidence at Cambridge is too striking to
+be accidental, where we find that only two such bequests
+are on record': this statement he subsequently corrects
+into 'three' instead of two: and again, 'It is probable that
+by drawing attention to the fact that none of the great
+collectors of the last two hundred years have thought fit
+to leave their books to our University Library, we may be
+pointing to a lesson which our successors may profit by,
+even though we are too indifferent to pay any attention to
+it ourselves.'</p>
+
+<p>The inference plainly to be drawn from these and
+other passages is that the writer strongly disapproved
+of the practice which he was obliged officially to countenance.
+From 1600 down to the last ten or fifteen
+years the history of the Bodleian Library has been on
+the whole a history of which every true scholar, and
+every genuine lover of books may be proud; the history<span class="pagenum">[51]</span>
+of the Cambridge Library for the corresponding period has
+been an almost unbroken record of disgraceful carelessness,
+and the root of all the evil has been the practice of
+lending, as will be clear to any one who will take the
+trouble to read Mr. Bradshaw's paper. There has been,
+as there always must be, where such a practice is allowed,
+wholesale robbery. In 1772 the library was inspected
+and 'a large number of rare books were reported to be
+missing.' (p. 28.) The latest previous inspection had
+been in 1748, when 902 volumes were reported as missing
+from the old library alone ... the loss was the result
+of that wholesale pillage spoken of before. It is very
+singular that the very same year that the inspection shewed
+such serious losses to have happened from unrestricted
+access, the University should have made fresh orders
+(the basis of those now in use), permitting more fully this
+same freedom of access. The <i>Cicero de Officiis</i> printed
+in 1465 on vellum, a Salisbury Breviary printed in 1483
+on vellum (the only known copy of the first edition),
+the Salisbury <i>Directorium Sacerdotum</i> printed by Caxton
+(the only known copy), are three instances out of many
+scores of such books which might be mentioned as purloined
+during the latter half of the eighteenth century,
+simply from this total disregard of all care for the preservation
+of the books. Even manuscripts were lent out
+on ordinary tickets; and it was seemingly only owing to
+the strong remonstrances of Mr. Kerrich, the principal
+Librarian of the day, that a grace was passed in 1809,
+requiring that no manuscript whatever should be borrowed,
+except with the permission of the Senate, and on
+a bond given for the same to the Librarian. "We have
+the ticket, but we cannot get the book back," Mr. Kerrich
+says: "and to this day the book in question has never
+been returned." (p. 28.) Such are the disgraceful acts
+of men bred at an English University, compared with whom
+the common pickpocket appears positively respectable.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Panizzi, principal Librarian of the British Museum,
+a man whose knowledge of libraries and of books has<span class="pagenum">[52]</span>
+rarely been equalled, was asked, 'Are you of opinion
+that there should be in all countries libraries of two sorts,
+namely, libraries of deposit, and libraries devoted to general
+reading and the circulation of books?' answered, 'That
+is another question. I think the question of lending books
+is a very difficult question to answer. I have enquired
+in all countries, and, as far as experience goes, I find that,
+in spite of all the precautions taken, of the regulations,
+and of everything which is done, books disappear; they
+are stolen or spoiled.' (2. R. 62.) And again: 'I do
+not think that lending can well be adopted without
+great risk of losing books; the question is whether there
+might not be remedies; I think from all experience
+I never found that librarians had succeeded in preventing
+stealing.' He also tells a very instructive story of some
+rare books stolen from the library at Wolfenb&uuml;ttel, and
+be it noted that Panizzi and Watts knew more of their
+profession than a whole army of ordinary librarians. Let
+no one fancy for one moment that a congress of librarians
+is necessarily a congress of men really acquainted with
+either bibliography or with books; it may, perhaps, on
+some occasions include one or more who answer to that
+description, but in general it does not do so. 'La bibliographie,'
+says Richou, 'est une science exacte qui demande
+une pr&eacute;paration assez longue et que la pratique d&eacute;veloppe.
+Les biblioth&eacute;caires improvis&eacute;s en ignorent jusqu'&agrave; l'existence
+et se pr&eacute;occupent peu de l'acqu&eacute;rir. Il ne faut
+pas chercher ailleurs la cause de la mauvaise administration
+d'un grand nombre de biblioth&egrave;ques publiques, car le
+mal est commun.' (<i>Trait&eacute; de l'Administration des Biblioth&egrave;ques
+publiques</i>, p. 82.)</p>
+
+<p>The opinion expressed by Mr. Watts and Mr. Panizzi,
+and implied by Mr. Bradshaw, is, I am convinced, the
+opinion of all men who are acquainted with this question
+in its length, breadth, and depth.</p>
+
+<p>How comes it then, some one may ask, that foreign
+librarians do not speak out against the practice? Because
+it is not in general the habit of foreign officials to have<span class="pagenum">[53]</span>
+opinions of their own, and still less to express them, if
+they have them, when such opinions are not fashionable,
+or not likely to advance those who utter them: and this
+goes a long way towards explaining the answers given to
+questions put by the English Government nearly forty
+years ago to the custodians of libraries where (though
+under many restrictions) lending was, and is practised.
+The general tenor of the answers is that books do not
+suffer more than might be expected, that losses are comparatively
+rare, that when loss is suffered the books can
+generally be replaced, and that when they cannot their
+value can almost always be recovered from the borrower.
+Such, I say, is the general tenor of the answers, but few
+who know anything about circulating libraries will accept
+such answers as satisfactory. Before the outbreak of the
+Thirty Years' War the Germans printed splendid books,
+and not unfrequently bound them grandly; but for the
+last two hundred years few German librarians, unless
+trained in France or England, have known what a really
+fine book is, or whether it is in what a Frenchman would
+call good condition. In other words, when they say that
+books lent are not much damaged, it must be always
+remembered that notions of damage are relative, and
+most German librarians are in all probability like an
+old friend of my own, who holds that no book is in
+really ill condition, provided the readable part of it is
+still legible: the title may be torn or gone; 'I don't
+want to read the title,' says he: the covers may be broken
+or destroyed; 'Cannot you read an unbound book?' he
+asks; and so on. There is this difference, however; my
+friend does know when a book really is in good condition.
+Moreover, there are, or at least there were, some foreign
+librarians who have dared to tell the truth. Thus (see
+2. R. 161-171), from the returns made by eighteen
+libraries in Belgium, we learn that the library of Antwerp
+(19,148 vols.) never lent; that no manuscripts were ever
+lent from that of Bruges; that manuscripts and rare books
+were never lent from the library of Malines; that valuable<span class="pagenum">[54]</span>
+books were never lent from the library of Louvain; that
+no manuscripts or valuable books were ever lent from
+the library of Mons; and that such books and manuscripts
+were never lent from any of the University libraries.
+Nevertheless, some lending there was from some libraries;
+and it was asserted that little damage was done the books.
+Very different is the answer of the Librarian of Tournay
+(2. R. 163): 'Cette coutume a des inconv&eacute;nients assez
+graves: impossibilit&eacute; pour certains lecteurs de consulter
+les ouvrages dont ils ont besoin: rentr&eacute; tardive des livres
+pr&ecirc;t&eacute;s; perte ou d&eacute;t&eacute;rioration des volumes.' The Librarian
+of Nassau (2. R. 299), very unlike most of his brethren, says,
+'das Verleihen der B&uuml;cher asserhalb der Anstalt hat
+allerdings die nachtheilige Folge dass dieselben in kurzer
+Zeit, im Aussern wie im Innern stark mitgenommen
+werden. Die Einb&auml;nde werden verstossen und sch&auml;big
+und der Druck durch Schnupfer und Raucher oft aufs
+Unangenehmste beschmutzt,' with more to the same effect.
+Even at the Royal Library of Berlin it is admitted that
+'die B&uuml;cher und Einb&auml;nde werden dadurch mehr besch&auml;dight
+und verdorben' (2. R. 304); and at the University
+Library, 'die Abnutzung durch die Studirenden ist sehr
+stark' (2. R. 305). The answer from the University
+Library at Bonn is, 'Nachtheilige Folge beim Verleihen
+der B&uuml;cher waren troz der sorgf&auml;ltigsten Ueberwachung
+nicht immer zu vermeiden. Manche B&auml;nde kamen beschmutzt
+auch verst&uuml;mmelt zur&uuml;ck.' There are very similar
+answers from a few other libraries both of Germany and
+Italy. Common sense and a little experience will tell any
+one to which class of testimony credence should be given.</p>
+
+<p>As to replacing a lost or damaged book, the thing is
+by no means so easy as it looks. What is common to-day
+may be rare a year hence, and quite unprocurable on any
+terms in two years time. 'Then,' says Ignoramus, 'it will
+be reprinted, and you may buy that'; but the man who
+talks so wildly cannot be argued with, because he does
+not know the elements of the subject of which he is
+speaking. Suppose you lose the 19th edition of the<span class="pagenum">[55]</span>
+<i>Christian Year</i>, you do not replace the book by purchasing
+the 100th edition, as all experts know. 'Buy another
+copy of the 19th then', says Ignoramus; but it may be
+that you have to pay a very high price for it, and it
+sometimes happens that you cannot get it at all. 'If you
+do not get the book, you can recover its value.' Even
+supposing that you can&mdash;and here in Oxford we have no
+machinery by which we can recover a farthing&mdash;how is
+a man who wants to see a particular book benefited by
+being told that he cannot see the book because it has
+been lent and lost, but that the Library has received
+compensation? Well might Panizzi say that the question
+of lending is a very difficult question; it is so difficult
+that a volume would hardly contain an enumeration of
+all its complexities.</p>
+
+<p>Consider the case of books, printed and manuscript, lent
+out to those on the borrowers' list, a list, be it observed,
+which, according to the lawyers, has not the least statutable
+warrant. In the first place, you have not the least assurance
+or guarantee that any one of them knows how to use a
+book without damaging it, and, as I have already said,
+it is an almost uniform and invariable experience, that
+borrowers of books do damage them. All book-lovers
+know this so well, that they make very sure of their
+man before they intrust a valuable or well-bound book
+to him, but we at the Bodleian do not. Pixer&eacute;court, a
+great collector, was so convinced of this fact that he
+inscribed over his library door these sadly true lines&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>
+Tel est le triste sort de tout livre pr&ecirc;t&eacute;<br />
+Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est g&acirc;t&eacute;.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>How unfit some at least on the borrowers' list are to
+be intrusted with books, how little notion they have of
+taking care of them, is clear from many facts which might
+be mentioned. In the library itself you may see almost
+any day abundant proof of the unfitness of those admitted
+to enjoy the privileges which are allowed them. On
+May 19th, 1885, a Curator came into my room and said,
+<span class="pagenum">[56]</span>'I was walking through the Bodleian looking for &mdash;&mdash;
+when I saw a sight which made me sick.' 'You may see
+many such sights there,' said I; 'what was it?' 'I saw
+a bevy of women with an illuminated MS., and they
+were turning over the leaves, all looking at it.' On
+Friday, August 21st, 1885, I myself counted at one desk
+at the Selden end <i>sixty-four</i> volumes, all had out by one
+reader; on the table was a MS. open, and on it two or
+three books; another was open on the floor, and so on.
+On April 22nd, 1886, I saw on a desk also at the Selden
+end three (I believe four) Sanscrit MSS. They were
+open and kept so by books placed on them, sundry
+printed books also open one on the other, and in my
+note written the same day I find the observation that it
+was 'a miserable spectacle of untidiness and reckless disregard
+for precious volumes.' It would be easy to add
+more, for from the first I have kept notes of all that
+I see in the library, and of much that I hear about it&mdash;this,
+however, is enough to show what may be expected
+when people carry off books home. There no prying eye
+will see them, no one is likely to come suddenly round
+a corner and observe their proceedings. Things are really
+bad enough <i>in</i> the library as it is; and they are as bad
+or worse in the Camera, where books are most shamefully
+ill-used. I have notes of some things which I have
+observed there, and of a conversation which I had with a
+person of sharp eyes and wits. One Curator alone can do
+very little; if all would, even it were only occasionally, do
+what I do habitually (Tit. XX. iii. &sect; 12, 2), it would be
+far easier than it now is to put a stop to some rather
+serious abuses. Let it be distinctly understood that in
+saying all this I do not blame any person or persons
+whatever, except the readers. In the British Museum
+Reading-room a man placed where the officials sit could,
+with a machine-gun, comfortably pick off every reader
+in less than a minute, because he could rake every desk;
+the Bodleian is so picturesque and so peculiar in its
+construction, that Argus himself would be completely
+non-plussed, if ordered to keep his eyes on the readers,<span class="pagenum">[57]</span>
+for even this highly-endowed being had not the dragon-fly
+power of seeing round corners; and from the Librarian's
+seat you might discharge a Gatling gun straight up 'Duke
+Humphrey,' with no other result than the downfall of
+a little dust, and the smashing of the west window; as
+to hitting a reader, you might as well try to shoot the
+Invisible Girl. At the Camera there is just the same
+difficulty, which will hardly be overcome till the laws
+of nature are reformed, and light condescends to travel
+in convenient curves. The regular officials have quite
+enough to do, if they attend only to their necessary work,
+which pins them down to one spot, and totally precludes
+them from exercising (even if they possessed it) the saintly
+privilege of bilocation. To come back to the point:
+books are badly used in the library itself. Now I ask
+any man of common sense, whether it is possible that
+books treated so vilely in the library itself will be better
+treated in a private house?</p>
+
+<p>I am not going to tell any tales, but this I may say,
+that before I became a Curator I have seen Bodleian
+books (once a very rare book) in strange places, and
+under circumstances by no means conducive to their preservation.
+The thing must be so: it is as much as
+the most vigilant officer can do to prevent damage being
+done under his very eyes, and it stands to reason that no
+mercy will be shown a book as soon as it is fairly out of
+the building.</p>
+
+<p>Again, when a man borrows a book from the Bodleian,
+you have not the least assurance that he will not in his
+turn lend it. This I know has happened with one book
+at least belonging to another library in Oxford. Sir
+Walter Scott had, perhaps, as much conscience as it is
+possible for a literary man to have, yet he lends Southey
+a book borrowed from the Advocates' Library (see above,
+p. 49) contrary to rule; and what Scott would do, Scott's
+inferior in character and morals would most certainly not
+scruple to do.</p>
+
+<p>When a book is lent out to any one on the borrowers'<span class="pagenum">[58]</span>
+list no contract is entered into, either verbally or in writing,
+that the book shall be returned at any specified time,
+nor in fact that it shall ever be returned at all. Are
+the Curators quite sure that they have any legal power
+to compel a return under such circumstances?</p>
+
+<p>Unless a book is carefully collated when it is returned,
+it will always be impossible to say with truth that it
+has been returned intact; and if every book is to be
+collated on its restoration to the library, we shall have
+no small increase of work, and increase of work always
+means, as we well know, increased expense.</p>
+
+<p>The lending of books to private houses then involves
+the very probable, and in many cases the absolutely certain,
+damage of the book, and its possible total loss without
+the least remedy, and without the slightest recompense or
+penalty. A manuscript was lent to the late Professor
+----, and it is hardly necessary to say that it has never
+been returned, and this is, I fancy, at least the second
+instance within a very few years of total loss, for which
+neither the public nor the University ever received one
+atom of benefit.</p>
+
+<p>Even if the Bodleian were not one of the two great
+reference libraries of this country, if it were merely a
+large and fine library of no very great national importance,
+there would still be no excuse for borrowing from it; for
+there is no town of its size that contains so many books
+as Oxford. In every College there is a library, which is
+not unfrequently full of fine books&mdash;Christ Church, All
+Souls', St. John's, Worcester, Merton, Corpus, Oriel,
+Magdalen and Queen's are all remarkable; and if we count
+in manuscripts there is hardly a single College without
+its gems and rarities. Nor is there the slightest difficulty
+in making a proper use of all these treasures. Any one
+really fit to use a College book is always permitted to
+do so, nor is there in general any objection to lending
+if the borrower is known to be trustworthy: the fault,
+if any, is rather the other way. 'But,' says some borrower,
+'the book that I want is in no College library, and it is<span class="pagenum">[59]</span>
+in the Bodleian.' Is it not plain to every man of sense,
+that the book which is in no College library, and is in
+the Bodleian, is just the book which ought not to be
+lent, under any conceivable circumstances? Lending even
+from College libraries has been the cause of innumerable
+losses&mdash;in fact, nothing in Euclid is more true than the
+proposition, that sooner or later <span class="smcap">A BOOK LENT IS A BOOK
+LOST</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Of the losses which the library at Cambridge has
+sustained, something has been said above (p. 51). All
+libraries, however carefully kept, are exposed to occasional
+and exceptional depredations. Paulus, the celebrated
+German professor, stole one manuscript at least from the
+Bodleian; the thefts in German, Russian, Italian, and
+French libraries are only too notorious. Are we to give
+additional facilities by lending books out? Even when
+lent to the greatest scholars, and presumably to careful
+men, books are by no means safe. Every one knows
+how, not so long ago, two or more of the most ancient
+manuscripts of Jornandes were destroyed while in the
+hands of Mommsen. Fire invaded his rooms; the professor
+escaped unharmed (of course he did), but the manuscripts
+were destroyed. Literature and scholarship gained nothing
+by this loan, though all future generations have lost
+much. Had common sense been the ruling principle of
+the libraries from which Mommsen obtained these manuscripts,
+they would have been safe at this moment. The
+convenience, perhaps the laziness, of an individual was
+consulted, and the world has lost what can never be
+replaced.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Watts, whom I have already quoted, says in speaking
+of lending, 'The testimony of Molbech, the librarian of
+the Royal Library of Copenhagen, where lending is permitted,
+is to the effect, not only that the risk is greater,
+as must of course be the case where books are removed
+from supervision and control, but that in practice great
+damage is found to ensue.' If we are told, as very likely
+we shall be told, that no such damage occurs here, I am<span class="pagenum">[60]</span>
+somewhat at a loss to answer; perhaps it will be enough
+to observe that different men unavoidably have different
+ideas of what constitutes damage, and that what is not
+always immediately discovered may hereafter be detected
+when it is too late to assign the blame to the real offender.</p>
+
+<p>Under the present system of administration, for which
+the Curators are responsible, the actual, and, it may be,
+the unavoidable wear and tear of books in the library
+itself, even in the choicer portions of it, is great enough
+to deter any man in the future from acting as Douce
+did in the past. The way in which very precious volumes
+are knocked about is plain enough to any one who visits
+the interior of the library as constantly as I do, and as
+all Curators are by statute empowered and even ordered
+to do. Readers are impatient, sometimes unreasonable;
+immense numbers of books can only be reached by means
+of ladders; the whole establishment is undermanned, and
+though the small staff does its best to protect the books,
+they are notwithstanding much bumped about. One consequence
+of this rough usage is that the standard of carefulness,
+as it may be called, is very naturally lowered, and
+as a further consequence the estimate of what constitutes
+damage is lowered in proportion.</p>
+
+<p>There are many readers, or there certainly have been
+readers in the library, who have not hesitated to make marks
+in printed books and manuscripts. The man who will do
+such a thing as this in the library, will not hesitate to
+do it when he gets the book into his own possession.
+Now all avoidable wear and tear is so much real loss to
+the library, and detracts in that proportion from its utility.
+It may be useful to A or B to borrow books from the
+Bodleian, but it cannot be useful to the University or to
+future generations that the life of any book should be
+carelessly or needlessly abridged.</p>
+
+<p>It will be admitted that no book can be in two places
+at the same time; if a volume is in the rooms of Mr. X
+or Mr. Y, it cannot at that moment be produced in the
+Bodleian should a reader happen to want it. One of<span class="pagenum">[61]</span>
+the great advantages of such a library as the Bodleian,
+if it were properly administered, is that a visitor is sure to
+find the book which he comes to consult. This is perfectly
+well understood by such men as Mr. Watts (see above,
+p. 49); it was brought home to the mind of Niebuhr,
+and it has been one of the reasons why all lending has
+up to the present moment been most rigidly forbidden at
+the British Museum. In a library like the Bodleian,
+where the practice of lending prevails as it now does, a
+man may put himself to great inconvenience in order to
+visit it; he may even travel from Berlin, and when he
+arrives he may find that all his trouble has been in vain;
+the very book he wants is out: at the British Museum,
+where up to the present time knowledge and common
+sense have prevailed, every man is sure that he can at
+once get any book whatever that he finds in the catalogue.
+It is a thousand pities to destroy this confidence; one of
+the great uses of a library like ours disappears when
+things are so ill managed, and I believe that there are
+in the Bodleian men who could tell of some grievous disappointments
+caused by our modern laxity. I know very
+well that we shall be told that such cases are few and
+trivial: be it so. Who does not see that as the present
+practice extends, as extend it must, one of the great
+advantages of a grand library will at last vanish? Nothing
+can be more strictly useful to all real students than the
+absolute certainty of obtaining at once any book that
+can be found in the catalogue.</p>
+
+<p>No limit seems to be placed on the borrower's powers;
+he may, for anything that appears to the contrary, have
+any number of books or manuscripts out. Now when
+we see the practice of more than one reader <i>in</i> the library,
+we may form a pretty shrewd guess of what men will
+do in the way of borrowing. I am well within the mark
+when I say that at least <i>one hundred</i> volumes have been
+ere now allowed out to one reader at a time.</p>
+
+<p>The present Librarian has been trying, I believe, to
+check this morbid appetite for superfluous volumes; but
+it is not always an easy thing to root out a bad habit.<span class="pagenum">[62]</span></p>
+
+<p>Any one who examines the slips in the various parts
+of the Bodleian, as I habitually do, will be struck by two
+things; the immense number of volumes had out by the
+same reader or readers, and the length of time that volumes
+are allowed to remain off the shelves; and this is in
+great measure the fault of a system for which we are
+answerable. What takes place in the library will undoubtedly
+sooner or later take place out of it. A borrower
+is not, so far as I know, limited as to the number of
+volumes he may have out; neither is he limited as to
+the time he may keep them out. The present Librarian
+informed me that when he came into office he found
+that one book had been out of the library for <i>nine</i> years,
+and that others had been off the shelves for very long
+periods of time. And such things must happen, if you
+sanction this wretched system of lending. It is perfectly
+easy to do what constant experience has shown to entail
+on the whole the minimum of evil; it is easy to keep
+your books within the library as they do at the British
+Museum; but if you once lend, there is no drawing of
+lines possible. Altogether there are about one hundred
+and eleven persons on the borrowers' list already. It is
+said that the Curators can refuse any application if they
+choose; of course they can, but as a matter of fact no
+application ever has been refused, and every name
+added will make it more and more difficult, more and
+more invidious to refuse any one. Every Oxford resident
+is potentially on the list, and he may be actually on it
+whenever he likes. What is this but the beginning, and
+something more than the beginning, of that wretched
+system which Mr. Bradshaw speaks of above? (p. 50.)
+The dissolution of our magnificent library is already insidiously
+begun; and why is all this gratuitous and
+irreparable mischief to be done? why is that vast storehouse
+intended for the use and benefit of generation after
+generation of scholars to be scattered and at last destroyed?
+Simply to gratify the vulgar, selfish convenience of this
+or that individual regardless of the general good. The<span class="pagenum">[63]</span>
+whole is to be sacrificed for a part, and for what a part!
+The present Librarian has been trying to do something
+to check this disastrous and ruinous practice, but the
+Curators are responsible for it, not the Librarian.</p>
+
+<p>Manuscripts and printed books when lent out of Oxford
+are as a rule not lent to private houses but deposited in
+some library. What happens abroad I do not know, though
+I confess to having my suspicions. If a manuscript were
+lent to some one in a Cathedral town, it would be deposited
+in the Cathedral library; and we comfort ourselves with
+the belief that in such a place it would be secure, and that
+it would not on any account be removed from that library
+elsewhere. An acquaintance of my own, a very safe man,
+has had a Bodleian manuscript of great value out for some
+years, and it is lent not to him directly, but to a library
+where alone he is to use it. It may be that this arrangement
+is actually carried out, and I do not know that it is not,
+yet I would bet five pounds to a penny that if I went
+to his house I should find the Bodleian book kicking about
+in his study, where, in fact, though exposed to a thousand
+risks of damage and even destruction, it is really safer than
+in the library where we suppose it to be. For one Cathedral
+library I can answer: a book would hardly be safer there
+than it would be on a public and unwatched book-stall,
+and such I have no doubt whatever is the case with more
+than half the places to which we send books for safe custody.
+There is as little conscience about books in this stupid
+and wicked world as there is about umbrellas, and one of
+the most important and most useful functions of a body
+like the Curators of the Bodleian is to set up a high
+standard in such matters. It is our duty as trustees to
+take lofty ground, and to be sensitive where the world is
+listless and careless; and even if we do not really feel
+exactly as we ought, we are bound, like Gertrude, to
+'assume a virtue though we have it not'; it is very
+laudable hypocrisy if the real article cannot be had. Yet
+I hope that it can, and that upon consideration we may
+all see that the convenience of a few is not for a moment<span class="pagenum">[64]</span>
+to be compared with the convenience of many, and that
+we shall awake to the fact that we, of all people, ought
+not to countenance in any way whatever any practice
+which may tend in the remotest degree to damage the
+only institution in Oxford of which any rational being
+can in the present day be justly proud.</p>
+
+<p>Lending of books has many more evil consequences,
+proximate and remote, than I have enumerated; but there
+is one which at the risk of being tedious must be mentioned.
+The glorious part of the Bodleian, the part contributed
+by Bodley himself, by Laud, by Selden, Pembroke,
+Digby, Roe, Rawlinson, &amp;c., consists largely of gifts. Every
+man who knows anything at all about books, every one
+who loves them, is perfectly well aware that very few
+men will bequeath their libraries to an institution which
+emulates the American or the English circulating and
+commercial establishment. Barlow knew this, Bradshaw
+knew it (see above, p. 50); every one knows it, who has
+the least acquaintance with the habits and peculiarities
+of collectors. The Bodleian has to my certain knowledge
+already lost very rare books indeed which it might have
+had, but for this penny-wise and pound-foolish policy.
+Neither Rawlinson nor Douce would ever have been such
+fools as to leave us what they did, could they have foreseen
+how little sense of our duties and of our interests
+we have shown. Bodley over and over again, and in the
+strongest terms, forbad the lending of his books; Selden's
+executors only delivered his books to us on the express
+condition that they never should under any circumstances
+be lent; Laud stipulated that his books should not be
+lent, except for one particular purpose and in one particular
+way. The Bodleian is what it is, because till
+quite recent times we adhered to the rule of common
+sense, not to say to that of common honesty, and it is
+ever to be regretted that we departed from a course
+which was at once safe and honourable. There will
+be no more Douces, no more Rawlinsons, until we have
+returned to better ways and proved the sincerity of our<span class="pagenum">[65]</span>
+repentance. I have heard it maintained that the days
+of great benefactors are over, that in some way not
+explained men's characters and habits have changed. I
+cannot admit this; men are now what they always were,
+and collectors in all ages are singularly alike. Only let
+us be as prudent, as worldly wise, and, I will add, as
+honest as our predecessors were, and there is no reason
+why the munificent benefactors of the past should not
+be rivalled by equally munificent benefactors in the future.
+Mr. Bradshaw (above, p. 50) is decidedly of opinion that
+carelessness with regard to books prevents benefactions,
+and that care attracts them. Barlow is of the same mind,
+and indeed the thing is too obvious to be insisted on.
+It is only those who know little or nothing of the feelings
+which actuate the real lovers of books who doubt about
+such very simple facts as these.</p>
+
+<p>To conclude this part of the subject; the arguments
+against the lending of books out of such a library as
+the Bodleian may be briefly summed up thus: lending
+is bad, because books are necessarily exposed to needless
+and certain risks of damage and of downright loss; because
+one of the great ends served by a large library is defeated,
+in that no man can be certain of obtaining a book known
+to be in it; because lending leads sooner or later to the
+destruction of a library; because it dries up the great
+sources from which large numbers of the most valuable
+books are derived; because it is disapproved of by all
+those who have the largest and widest experience of books
+and their management; because, finally, it is in violation
+of the express directions of Bodley, of Selden, of Laud
+and others, and almost certainly contrary to the wishes
+of all our great benefactors, even though they may not
+have said as much. Reason and authority are equally
+against it; and the cause of learning and of literature
+can never be permanently served by a practice which tends
+to destroy that without which learning and literature alike
+are impossible: whatever advantages may seem to attend
+it, are more than counterbalanced by disadvantages so<span class="pagenum">[66]</span>
+great, that none but those who recklessly sacrifice the
+future to the present, the interests of generations yet to
+come, to the selfishness of the generation that now is,
+can regard it with any favour or even with common
+patience. We have by the sturdy honesty of our predecessors
+received a vast treasure which they carefully
+preserved intact; we are its guardians and trustees, and
+we are bound in honour and honesty to hand on to our
+successors, undiminished and unimpaired, what we have
+received only as a trust, not as a something which we
+may spend or destroy at our pleasure. Any wilful act
+of ours which tends, however remotely, to damage the
+Bodleian Library is not only a scandalous breach of duty,
+but a crime against learning itself, in which I for one will
+have no part or share.</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="h5">
+BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.<br />
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks on the practice and policy of
+lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts, by Henry W. Chandler
+
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+</body>
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diff --git a/37850.txt b/37850.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks on the practice and policy of
+lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts, by Henry W. Chandler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Remarks on the practice and policy of lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts
+
+Author: Henry W. Chandler
+
+Release Date: October 26, 2011 [EBook #37850]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REMARKS ON LENDING BODLEIAN BOOKS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Matthew Wheaton and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+(This file was produced from images generously made
+available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    REMARKS
+
+    ON THE
+
+    PRACTICE AND POLICY OF LENDING
+
+    BODLEIAN
+
+    PRINTED BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS.
+
+    BY
+
+    HENRY W. CHANDLER, M.A.
+
+
+    FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD;
+    WAYNFLETE PROFESSOR OF MORAL AND METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY,
+    AND A CURATOR OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY.
+
+    Oxford:
+    B. H. BLACKWELL,
+    50 AND 51, BROAD STREET.
+    1887.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The present 'Remarks' are a reprint, with many omissions and additions,
+of two privately printed papers which were communicated to the Curators
+last year. From November, 1884, for about twelve months, I did very
+little more than watch attentively the way in which Bodleian business is
+transacted, to me at once a novelty and a surprise. For some purposes
+writing is preferable to talking, and accordingly in November, 1885, I
+printed a memorandum containing many gentle hints--+phonanta
+sunetoisin+--which I faintly hoped might eventually prove beneficial to
+the Library. Next came a Memorandum 'on the Classed Catalogue,' a thing
+which some Curators look on as a most valuable work, and others as an
+interminable and wasteful absurdity. This was followed by a paper 'on
+the Bodleian Coins and Medals', with some observations on the proposal
+to transfer the collection to the Ashmolean Museum. As far as could be
+seen, all this expenditure of ink and money did no harm, and no good. In
+May, 1886, a committee was appointed to draw up regulations for loans of
+books; and in June the Curators received a paper 'on the lending of
+Bodleian Books and Manuscripts,' as also Bishop Barlow's Argument
+against lending them, then for the first time printed as a whole; and
+in both the illegality of the borrowers' list was pointed out, and very
+broad hints given, not only that the present loan statute is defective,
+but why, and in what manner it is so. If these hints, facts, and
+arguments had been addressed to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, they
+could not have produced less visible effect; and it was wonderfully
+amusing to find, that more than half my brethren could not for the life
+of them see what to everybody else was plain as a pikestaff; so on we
+went in the well-beaten path, steady as old Time himself, looking
+neither to the right hand nor to the left, and, what is more remarkable,
+never for one moment looking ahead. Finally, at the beginning of
+October, came a paper on 'Book-lending as practised at the Bodleian';
+and this proved to be the last straw; for on October 30th, partly by
+words and partly by that silence which gives consent, it was plainly
+intimated that these papers were unwelcome. One friend, and only one,
+had a good word to say for them; so far as they contained collection of
+facts he approved of them, but no further. As my little experiment
+failed so lamentably, I am hardly likely to repeat it, or to put so
+severe a strain on the good nature and patience of my colleagues as ever
+again to trouble them with a scrap of printed paper. This puts me into a
+sort of quandary. I abhor pen and ink, and should like to hold my tongue
+and spare my pocket; but that is impossible as things are. I cannot
+stand by and see men who know no better trying (with the best possible
+intentions) to get the Bodleian on to an inclined plane, down which it
+must rapidly slide to perdition, without loudly protesting against their
+acts. What then is to be done? Private feelings must be respected, yet
+not so as to impede the performance of a duty to the Library and to the
+University. The atmosphere of a meeting is not conducive to calm and
+rational discussion; I cannot make speeches; the board does not relish
+either facts or arguments in print. Only one course remains then;
+whenever there is anything to be said about the Bodleian or its
+management (and there is much that ought to be, and must be said sooner
+or later), it shall no longer be privately printed and given away to
+unwilling recipients, but published and sold. In this way all parties
+will be satisfied: those who are interested in the Library can buy;
+those who are not, can protect themselves against annoyance. So much by
+way of explanation.
+
+When at length the board determined to apply for a new statute, and did
+in November what anybody but ourselves would have done in June, the hope
+was expressed that the statute would be introduced at once, and then
+pushed through Congregation and Convocation as rapidly as possible in
+the present term; whereupon somebody observed, that it would be just as
+well not to hurry the business; and this seems to have been the view
+adopted by Council.
+
+If Convocation could only seize the full significance and incalculable
+value to present and future generations of a library of reference, a
+library, that is, where, at all lawful times, every book deposited in it
+should always be forthcoming in a moment, it would at once see that from
+such a library no lending whatever ought to be permitted, simply because
+lending and deposit are practical contradictories; and if Convocation
+could plainly see this, it would make very short work of any statute
+which legalized loans. There is no denying, however, that in the present
+day the public mind, as it is playfully called, and the University mind
+as well, is in a wonderfully flabby condition. Nobody seems to be
+thoroughly convinced of the unquestionable truth, that every possible
+plan in this world is open to objections more or less serious, and so
+they go hunting about for a scheme that shall embrace all good and
+exclude all evil; such people are emphatically limp and unpractical. All
+that is offered to our choice here below is a lesser evil, and
+experience has proved over and over again, that it is a lesser evil
+never to lend a book out of such a library as the Bodleian, than it is
+to lend one. But if the University in its inscrutable wisdom should
+choose to do the wrong thing, there are more ways than one of doing
+it,--
+
++esthloi men gar haplos, pantodapos de kakoi.+
+
+It might, for instance, confine the actual granting of a loan to
+Convocation. If an application for a book were made, the University
+might impose on the Curators the duty of stating in writing their
+reasons for advocating the loan, and Convocation might determine to
+lend, if it judged those reasons to be sound. This would be an
+approximation to what was the law (though not by any means the practice)
+prior to 1873; nor could it be described as a retrograde step, unless
+the reformation of a bad habit is necessarily a step backwards.
+
+If, however, the University resolves to copy the practice of foreign
+libraries, it might be wise, first, to appoint a small committee to
+discover and report what that practice really is. If, like a mob of
+monkeys, we are determined to imitate, it is just as well that our
+imitation should be a good one, and not a caricature.
+
+In either, or indeed in any, case some effectual provision should be
+made for enforcing the statute; it ought no longer to be possible for
+the Curators to act with impunity as they have been in the habit of
+acting for almost a quarter of a century.
+
+A good many of my friends are strong party men of a more or less rabid
+type, and I hope that they are well informed when they tell me that this
+purely literary question about the Bodleian is not going to be turned
+into one of those faction fights, which occasionally disturb and
+disgrace this place; but that each man will judge for himself, and vote
+accordingly, without divesting himself of what little reason he may
+happen to possess, and blindly following a leader, who may know and care
+less about the matter than he does himself. I hope that it will be so,
+yet I have my doubts; for this vile spirit of faction clings like the
+robe of Nessus to all who have ever been weak enough, or wicked enough,
+to yield to its temptations; and one side is just as bad as the other.
+Whether Convocation can be got to see the real question in these
+unlearned and vulgar times may be questionable; at any rate, I should
+have felt myself a traitor to Bodley, to Oxford, and to learning itself,
+if I had not done what little I could to prevent an act, which, if
+perpetrated, must end, sooner or later, in the irreparable damage, or
+the complete destruction of a library intended by its founder to be a
+perpetual help to all true scholars, an inexhaustible treasure-house of
+learning to last as long as England itself.
+
+                                                              H. W. C.
+
+    _Oxford,
+    Jan. 15th, 1887._
+
+
+
+
+_Remarks on the Practice and Policy of lending Bodleian Printed Books
+and Manuscripts._
+
+
+Before offering any remarks on the policy of lending books out of the
+Bodleian Library it may be well to give a brief account of the practice
+of lending, so far as it has been sanctioned there. From the foundation
+of the Library down to 1873, though practised, it cannot be said to have
+been sanctioned at all, except as regards certain books given on the
+condition that they should be lent.
+
+On the 20th of June, 1610, a complete Bodleian Statute was promulgated
+and confirmed in Convocation (Appendix Statutorum, p. 5 sqq. ed. 1763).
+This statute was drawn up by Sir Thomas Bodley himself, and the eighth
+section of it--'de Libris extra Bibliothecam non ferendis, aut ullo modo
+commodandis'--fully expresses his firm and rooted detestation of
+book-lending. Bodley's own words, of which the Latin statute is a
+literal translation, run thus:--
+
+"And sith the sundry Examples of former Ages, as well in this
+University, as in other Places of the Realm, have taught us over-often,
+that the frequent Loan of Books, hath bin a principal occasion of the
+Ruin and Destruction of many famous Libraries; It is therefore ordered
+and decreed to be observed as a Statute of irrevocable Force, that for
+no Regard, Pretence, or Cause, there shall at any time, any Volume,
+either of these that are chained, or of others unchained, be given or
+lent, to any Person or Persons, of whatsoever State or Calling, upon any
+kind of Caution, or offer of Security, for his faithful Restitution; and
+that no such Book or Volume shall at any time, by any whatsoever, be
+carried forth of the Library, for any longer space, or other uses, and
+Purposes, than if need so require, to be sold away for altogether, as
+being superfluous or unprofitable; or changed for some other of a better
+Edition; or being over-worn to be new bound again, and immediately
+returned, from whence it was removed. For the Execution whereof in every
+Particular, there shall no Man intermeddle, but the Keeper himself
+alone, who is also to proceed with the Knowledge, Liking, and Direction
+of those Publick Overseers, whose Authority we will notify in other
+Statutes ensuing[1]."
+
+[1] Reliquiae Bodleianae, p. 27.
+
+This statute has the great merit of being so plain and clear, that no
+one could mistake its meaning. It was further fenced about by the
+statute 'de materia indispensabili,' Tit. X.Sec.11.5, as explained in
+'Barlow's Argument,' p. 6. It was not totally and absolutely impossible
+to borrow a book from the Bodleian, but it was only Convocation, moved
+to the act in a solemn and specified way, that could by any legal means
+lend it. From 1610 to 1856, then, such was the law which everybody in
+the University was bound to obey, and, as far as I can discover,
+everybody did obey it, with the few exceptions that will presently be
+mentioned.
+
+In 1624 William, Bishop of Lincoln, wished to borrow a book, but was
+denied[2]. In 1628 Sir Thomas Roe gave twenty-nine manuscripts, and
+"proposed that his books should be permitted to be lent out for purposes
+of printing, on proper security being given; a proposition which was
+accepted by Convocation[3]." In 1629 the Earl of Pembroke presented the
+Barocci Collection, and "he was willing that the MSS. should, if
+necessary, be allowed to be borrowed." Borrowed accordingly they were,
+and one at least suffered irreparable injury in very early days[4]. In
+1634 we were presented with Sir Kenelm Digby's splendid manuscripts:
+"the donor stipulated that they should not be strictly confined to use
+within the walls of the Library;" but afterwards left the University to
+treat them as it pleased[5]; so that they fell under the general
+Bodleian Statute.
+
+[2] Barlow's Argument, p. 9.
+
+[3] Macray, Annals, p. 51.
+
+[4] Barlow, p. 10; Macray, Annals, p. 55.
+
+[5] Macray, Annals, p. 59.
+
+Between 1635 and 1640 came Laud's magnificent donations. He "directs in
+his letter of gift, that none of the books shall on any account be taken
+out of the Library 'nisi solum ut typis mandentur, et sic publici et
+juris et utilitatis fiant,' upon sufficient security, to be approved by
+the Vice-Chancellor and Proctors; the MS. in such cases being
+immediately after printing restored to its place in the Library[6]."
+This stipulation of Laud should be carefully borne in mind, because it
+will be found that of late years the Curators have not observed the
+terms of the gift. Doubtless they did not know what Laud's directions
+were; yet men who undertake the office of trustees are bound to know
+their duties. In 1636 the University refused leave to Laud himself, who
+wished to borrow Rob. Hare's MS. _Liber Privilegiorum Universitatis_[7].
+In 1645 Charles I, in ignorance of our statutes, applied for a book and
+was refused; in 1654 Cromwell wanted a book for the Portuguese
+Ambassador, and was likewise refused[8]; and it is much to the credit of
+both, that they not only acquiesced, but expressed their approval of the
+Bodleian rule.
+
+[6] Macray, Annals, p. 61.
+
+[7] Macray, Annals, p. 82.
+
+[8] Barlow's Argument, p. 9.
+
+On August 29, 1654, a grace was passed in Convocation, which permitted
+Selden to borrow MSS. from the collections of Barocci, Roe, and Digby,
+provided he did not have more than three at a time, and that he gave
+bond in L100 (not L1000 as Hearne states[9]) for the return of each of
+them within a year[10]. Barlow[11] declares that this was illegal and
+null; and it may be observed in passing that the whole history of the
+Selden bequest needs fresh investigation. This same year that grand
+scholar's books began to arrive in Oxford, and his executors stipulated,
+as a condition of the gift, that no book from his collection should
+hereafter be lent to any person upon any condition whatsoever. This also
+must by no means be forgotten, because we shall by and by see the
+Curators again and again strangely oblivious of the conditions on which
+the University received these invaluable books.
+
+[9] Barlow's Argument, p. 3.
+
+[10] Macray, Annals, p. 79.
+
+[11] Argument, p. 8.
+
+At the Visitation on Nov. 8, 1686, it was ordered that notice be given
+that 'nullus in posterum quemlibet librum aut volumen extra Bibliothecam
+asportet,' and that monition be sent to every College and Hall for the
+return of any books taken out within three days[12].
+
+[12] Macray, Annals, p. 109.
+
+In 1789 a lazy and incompetent Librarian, John Price, is said to have
+lent the Rector of Lincoln a copy of Cook's Voyages, presented to the
+Library by George III, telling him that the longer he kept it the
+better, 'for if it was known to be in the Library, he (Price) should be
+perpetually plagued with enquiries after it[13].' What the Curators were
+about to permit such irregularities it is difficult to imagine; at any
+rate here you had eight picked men--Dr. Joseph Chapman, President of
+Trinity, Vice-Chancellor; the two Proctors; Dr. Randolph, Professor of
+Divinity, and afterwards successively Bishop of Oxford and of Bangor;
+Dr. Vansittart, Professor of Civil Law; Dr. Vivian, Professor of
+Medicine; Dr. Blayney, Professor of Hebrew; William Jackson, Professor
+of Greek and afterwards Bishop of Oxford:--they are men, citizens,
+members of a learned corporation, trustees; they have solemnly sworn by
+everything which they profess to hold sacred, that they will faithfully
+observe the statutes; and what was required of them? As much sense of
+duty as you expect and commonly find in a watcher or a gamekeeper; yet,
+till they were roused by the public protest of Dr. Beddowes, they seem
+to have shewed no trace or feeling of responsibility at all.
+
+[13] Macray, Annals, p. 198.
+
+Down to the year 1856 the Bodleian Curators were eight in number,
+namely, the Vice-Chancellor, the two Proctors, and the Regius
+Professors of Divinity, Hebrew, Greek, Medicine, and Civil Law. Eight is
+rather a large number, and the larger any board is the weaker becomes
+the sense of personal responsibility. No man feels that he is answerable
+for anything, because he is sunk and extinguished in a majority or a
+minority; and yet, without a keen sense of personal responsibility, all
+business is laxly and badly done, even when it is done at all. The
+artificial privacy of our proceedings is also an evil. In theory all our
+meetings are public, so far at least as Convocation is concerned; in
+fact, they are private; yet, if the University always knew not only what
+is done, but who it is that does it; if our acts were duly published, as
+they ought to be, in the University Gazette, probably both board and
+University would be the better for it, and it is certain that the
+affairs of the Library would be none the worse.
+
+If Bodley argued that men who teach a subject are necessarily acquainted
+with its literature, and are consequently the fittest guardians and
+directors of a library, he argued very badly, and in ignorance of facts.
+Ability to teach a subject is one thing; knowledge of the literature of
+that subject--such knowledge as is required in the superintendents of a
+library--is a totally different thing. The two may be indeed united, but
+very rarely are so. A man, for instance, may be a finished Latin scholar
+without ever having heard of Coster's Donatus, and without being able to
+offer an opinion on that or on any of the other editions in which Dutch
+libraries glory. Probably not one man in fifty who reads the sentence
+which I have just written will have the very remotest idea of its true
+meaning; and if he has not, it will not follow that he is a dunce, or
+that he is a poor Latinist; all that follows is that he has much to
+learn before he is fit to take any part in the management of a large
+library. What is wanted, what in fact is necessary, is that sort of
+knowledge which the Italian government proposes to give to all employed
+in the libraries under its control. In Rome and in Florence a course of
+bibliographical instruction and examination has lately been instituted.
+The syllabus of the course, which is a very good one, lies before me,
+and in it the subject is divided into six parts: 1. Paleografia, 2.
+Bibliologia, 3. Bibliografia, 4. Biblioteconomia, 5. Amministrazione, 6.
+Lingue. The knowledge required is neither recondite nor profound, yet I
+shudder to think what the result would be were we Curators to submit
+ourselves to the tender mercies of this Italian board. To speak for
+myself, I should have faced such an examination without the least
+trepidation some twenty years ago; but now, though I have been trying to
+brush up faded knowledge, I would not stake a single sixpence on a
+favorable issue; and to judge from all I have seen and heard during the
+last two years, I suspect that, though a few might perhaps scramble
+through, the great majority of us would emerge from the ordeal more
+completely plucked than was the unhappy bird, which Diogenes introduced
+to the astonished disciples with the words 'Here is Plato's man!'
+
+In 1856 the University, probably suspecting that the board as originally
+constituted was not the best that could be devised, yet timidly
+shrinking from a radical and salutary reform, endeavoured to improve
+matters by a measure which, if it remedied one defect, unquestionably
+increased another. It made a board already too large, still larger by
+the addition of five members elected by Congregation. In the course of
+thirty years fourteen different men have been so elected. That all were
+properly qualified to discharge the duties of their office no one will
+assert who knows what those qualifications are. Why they were chosen the
+University best knows. If Congregation would but remember what a unique
+and priceless treasure it possesses in this noble library, if it only
+knew how easy it is for rashness and ignorance to damage and to ruin it,
+how difficult it is even for knowledge to preserve it, ability and
+willingness to serve it would be the indispensable and the only
+qualifications demanded, and neither age nor rank, dignity, nor above
+all party, would be for one moment taken into account. It may be
+remarked that all the thirteen Curators very rarely attend a meeting: in
+the course of the last two years such a thing has happened once only;
+but a board, the members of which attend intermittently, is apt to show
+signs of discontinuity in its proceedings; and a firm, consistent policy
+is as necessary in the management of a library as it is in any other
+affair of life. What is wanted in Curators is common sense, business
+capacity, and a special knowledge of books. No one would dream of
+appointing any man an inspector of locomotives on a railway, unless he
+were thoroughly acquainted with the structure and working of a
+locomotive, and capable, at a push, of driving it himself: a large
+library is as complex as a locomotive, and quite as difficult to manage
+effectively. Experts, who are not so numerous as might be supposed, will
+back me in this assertion; but Convocation must not be astonished if it
+is hotly and contemptuously denied.
+
+The minutes of the Curators' Meetings begin on March 20, 1793, and, with
+a break of some four years when there are none (from Nov. 26, 1849, to
+May 27, 1854), they continue to the present time.
+
+On Dec. 7, 1803, four printed books were allowed to go out of the
+Library 'for the use of the Clarendon Press, to be returned when done
+with,' contrary to statute so far as appears; and there was a somewhat
+similar transaction on June 2, 1815.
+
+On Nov. 27, 1841, the sum of L500 was paid for the Sanscrit MSS. of
+Prof. H. H. Wilson, who 'stipulated that the Boden Professor of Sanscrit
+for the time being should be allowed the privilege of borrowing MSS.
+(not more than two volumes at one time), giving for them a receipt, and
+engagement for their safe return.'
+
+In 1850 came the Government Commission. The Commissioners have a good
+deal to say about the Bodleian, which will be found in their Report made
+in 1852, p. 115 sqq. I do not quote their remarks for a reason which
+appears to me valid. There were seven Commissioners all told, and
+although they were very eminent persons, there was not one amongst them,
+so far as I can discover, who had any special knowledge of libraries, or
+of the best way of managing them. Moreover, I myself heard one of those
+seven Commissioners say, more than once in the course of conversation,
+that he should think it no particular misfortune if the Bodleian and its
+contents were totally destroyed. Nor do I feel called upon to incur the
+expense of reproducing _in extenso_ the evidence on which the
+Commissioners based their recommendations. It may be sufficient to say
+that the following witnesses were in favour of the lending system, some
+with restrictions and some with hardly any:--the Rev. R. W. Browne; the
+Rev. R. Walker; the Rev. B. Jowett; the Rev. W. H. Cox; E. A. Freeman,
+Esq.; the Rev. H. Wall; the Rev. R. Congreve; Sir E. Head; N. S.
+Maskelyne, Esq.; and the Rev. J. Griffiths. It is not very easy to say
+whether Prof. H. H. Wilson and Dr. Greenhill did or did not belong to
+the lending party; but if they did, they proposed such restrictions as
+would materially lessen the evil. Prof. H. H. Vaughan (a most wordy
+person) wished to confine the right of borrowing to the Professors.
+Against lending were H. E. Strickland, Esq.; Prof. W. F. Donkin; the
+Rev. R. Scott; Travers Twiss, Esq.; Dr. Macbride; the Rev. E. S.
+Ffoulkes; and Dr. Phillimore: and I hope nobody will be offended if I
+say that knowledge of books and the way to use them is, as might be
+expected, very much more conspicuous in those who oppose lending than in
+those who advocate it. The Rev. R. W. Browne observes, that 'probably
+manuscripts and such books as are unable to be replaced should not be
+lent, because it would be quite worth the while of those who wished to
+consult them to visit the Library for that purpose.' It is not often
+that one meets with so cogent a piece of reasoning, and Mr. Browne's
+'because' proves that he had studied Logic with considerable benefit; he
+also thinks that the system in the Public Library at Cambridge 'works
+well.' Another witness tells us that 'the experience of the Cambridge
+University Library, and of many foreign libraries, shews that this
+[i.e. lending under certain restrictions] can be done without danger, and
+with small loss compared to the immense benefit obtained by it.' Sir
+Edmund Head also admires the Goettingen and Cambridge plan, and avers
+that experience has proved that the risk of loss and damage is
+groundless. How different are these airy speculations from the hard
+facts of Mr. Bradshaw the Cambridge Librarian, of the Librarian of the
+Advocates' Library at Edinburgh, and of Mr. Panizzi (see below, p. 50
+sqq.); but then these gentlemen had the immense and perhaps unfair
+advantage of knowing what they were talking about.
+
+In 1853 a Report and Evidence upon the recommendations of H. M.'s
+Commissioners was presented to the Heads of Houses. "The Committee think
+that the opportunity at present allowed for lending books in _special
+cases_, by permission of Convocation, is sufficient to meet extreme
+cases; and that it is unnecessary to give power to the Curators to lend
+books from the Library."
+
+Dr. Pusey's evidence (p. 172) is that of a man who knows something of
+books, and he points out how very fallacious is Sir E. Head's reference
+to the Goettingen Library, which is altogether of a different character
+from the Bodleian. "In 1825 it consisted almost entirely of modern
+books, and whatever accessions it may since have had, it cannot, like
+the Bodleian, have any large proportion of books, which, if lost, could
+not be replaced." Dr. Pusey is strongly against lending Bodleian books;
+but how little of principle there was in his objection will be seen
+further on, where we shall find him more than once advocating loans. The
+Rev. C. Marriott is also, on very sensible grounds, against lending; yet
+it should in common fairness be known that he borrowed a most valuable
+manuscript out of Oriel College Library, and died with it in his
+possession. It was nearly sent to Africa by his executors, and was at
+last, together with other books, actually _given_ (in all innocence of
+course) to Bradfield College, from which establishment Oriel at last
+retrieved it; so that in his case, as in that of Dr. Pusey, excellent
+principles were joined to very loose practice.
+
+Dr. Bandinel, Bodley's Librarian, gives evidence which is short and
+sweet. "However weighty some reasons may appear, the evidence materially
+preponderates against lending books out of the Library. I need only
+quote one great authority, that of Niebuhr," which he does; the passage
+is given below, p. 49. Dr. Bandinel also adds, "I have had a long
+conversation with the Librarian of the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh,
+who stated, that upon comparing the books in that Library with their
+different Catalogues previous to the formation of a new Catalogue, it
+was found that owing to the practice of lending books from the Library
+they had lost upwards of 6000, indeed very near 7000 works." Evidence,
+p. 325; an instructive comment on the lending system.
+
+About this time, however, 'University Reform,' the true meaning of which
+most of us here know, was in the air, and on May 22, 1856, the old
+Library Statutes were abolished and an entirely new one enacted.
+Bodley's own statute against letting books go out of the Library was of
+course abrogated. That Convocation still retained the right to lend is
+beyond question; but did anybody else, Curators or Librarian, acquire
+the right to do so? That the University did not intend to convey any
+such right seems perfectly clear; for the 11th clause of the new statute
+(which is identical with the present statute, Tit. XX. iii. Sec. 11,
+paragraphs 1 to 6) is headed "De libris extra Bibliothecam ad tempus
+detinendis, _aut etiam_ efferendis." Now whoever says '_or even_ to have
+them taken out,' and then proceeds to order whither they shall be taken,
+namely to the Camera, forbids by implication their removal from the
+Library on any other terms, or to any other place than those expressly
+mentioned. That the University, whatever its intentions may have been,
+did not as a matter of fact convey the right to any one is obvious from
+the statute itself; and as the Curators never at any time possessed the
+right of lending books, it is equally plain that they could not acquire
+it without an express commission from the University. That the Curators
+themselves were of this opinion is clear from a resolution of theirs
+arrived at on Oct. 29, 1859, more than three years after the statute was
+passed. I should say that in the interval no loan was sanctioned by
+Convocation, or, so far as appears, even applied for. On Oct. 29, 1859,
+nine Curators being present, 'The Vice-Chancellor mentioned the desire
+of the Rev. Mr. ---- to be allowed to have books out of the Bodleian
+Library for the purposes of study by Grace of Convocation. The Curators
+resolved:--That it was not expedient that such a proposition should be
+made to Convocation.' The Curators, or a majority of them, did not dream
+of arrogating to themselves the power of lending, and they, as well as
+the applicant, assume as self-evident that books could not be borrowed.
+Books could be sent to the Camera; they could not go elsewhere without
+the sanction of Convocation. The new statute then did not make lending
+(except by Convocation) lawful, nor was there any intention to make it
+lawful.
+
+That same year, on Nov. 8, a Curator gave notice that he would
+move:--'That Books and MSS. be taken out of the Bodleian Library under
+special conditions with consent of the Curators;' that is, according to
+my view of the case, he gave notice of a motion to take by force and
+illegally a power which the University had not given; but it does not
+appear by the minutes that any such motion was actually made.
+
+On Oct. 25, 1860, 'leave was granted by Convocation for the lending two
+Laud Manuscripts, 561 and 563, being copies of the _Historia
+Hierosoylmitana_, by Albert of Aix, to the French Government[14].' Of
+this loan there is, I believe, no trace in the minutes, but it is one
+more proof that the Curators, or a majority of them, did not believe
+either in their right or in their power to lend books. Whether
+Convocation lent these two Laudian manuscripts under bond duly approved,
+and for the purposes of publication, Mr. Macray does not state; but it
+looks very much as if the University was just as ignorant of its
+obligations as the Curators of a later date were of theirs.
+
+[14] Macray, Annals, p. 295.
+
+On Feb. 4, 1862, a man applied for a printed book, which he wanted for a
+law case in which he was engaged; the result was this:--"Resolved--That,
+there being nothing in the present statutes to forbid the exercise of
+the discretion of the Curators in such a case, the book in question be
+lent, under such securities and with such precautions as the Librarian
+may deem necessary." Let any man read the eleventh and twelfth sections
+of the present Bodleian Statute (identical, so far as the present
+question is concerned, with that of 1856), and he will see that no
+discretion is left to the Curators at all; there is no hint, however
+faint, of "such a case." In 1862, Feb. 4, the Curators assume that they
+have a power to lend books; on Nov. 7 of the same year they go a step
+further, for they leave it 'to the discretion of the Librarian to lend,
+if he shall deem fit, a certain MS. to the Belgian Government.' Having
+themselves no power to lend, they authorise the Librarian to lend if he
+chooses.
+
+In 1863, Feb. 17, notice was given of the following motion:--'That on
+application from the Professors teaching at the Museum the Bodley
+Librarian be empowered to lend, for a limited time, any books bearing on
+the subjects there taught that are wanted by the Students at the Museum;
+the books to be returned at the end of each term:' and on March 17 of
+the same year this motion was carried with certain alterations, 'and it
+was resolved that it should be referred to the Council with a view on
+their approval of obtaining the sanction of Convocation'; in other
+words, the Curators acknowledged that Convocation could lend, and that
+they themselves could not lawfully do so.
+
+In 1859 the Curators, or a majority of them, are clear that they have no
+power to lend: in 1862 they assume that they have the power, moreover
+they exercise it, and they authorise the Librarian to lend a MS. to the
+Belgian Government; yet on Feb. 16, 1864, they appear to disclaim this
+power, for they resolve, 'That it be proposed to Convocation to lend
+three Icelandic MSS.--to the Icelandic Society in Copenhagen at the
+request of the Danish Minister.' They either had the power to lend, or
+they had not: if they had, this application to Convocation was
+unnecessary; if they had not, they had been occupied for some time in
+the not very dignified employment of ignoring a statute which it was
+their peculiar duty to observe.
+
+On April 20, 1864, Dr. Pusey most inconsistently moves that a Syriac MS.
+be lent; and on May 11 lent it was.
+
+In 1865, March 11, a foreigner has leave 'to borrow Arabian MSS.,
+provided the application for the use thereof be made through the Saxon
+Minister, and a bond for L50 entered into for the safe return.'
+
+On June 3, 'the use of Manuscripts 169--187 was granted on the
+application of Lord John Russell to the French Government for the use of
+the Imprimerie of Paris [_sic_] for two months.'
+
+In 1866 the Curators lent manuscripts to the University Library of
+Goettingen; and in 1868, Jan. 31, 'it was resolved to lend MS. Selden B.
+31 to the Prussian Government.' Ye Gods and Goddesses! We only got
+Selden's books at all by consenting to the condition that they never
+should be lent under any circumstances whatever; and here we have five
+Curators, 'all honorable men,' quietly sending off one of Selden's
+manuscripts to Germany. On March 21st of the same year, three Curators
+send off another of Selden's MSS. to London. In 1868 an application for
+the loan of four Hebrew manuscripts was granted, and apparently they
+went to a private house. On Feb. 9, 1869, two Curators, one being Dr.
+Pusey, 'were requested to act in the matter of the loan of Hebrew MSS.
+to Mr. ---- of ---- College, Cambridge.' On April 17 of the same year a
+Laudian MS. was lent to Mr. ----; there is not a syllable in the minutes
+about a bond, though that was absolutely necessary, nor any statement
+that the book was required for the purpose of publication; Laud's
+stipulations are quietly, and no doubt ignorantly broken under the
+presidency of the Vice-Chancellor. From this time loans are perpetually
+being made; and at least six manuscripts other than those mentioned
+above were lent this year. At one meeting (May 22) the whole business
+was the granting of loans. In 1870 fifteen MSS. at least were lent,
+including one of Douce's--poor fellow! he little dreamt of the fate in
+store for his lovely books. One MS. out of the archives was sent to
+Philadelphia! In 1871 some thirty manuscripts were lent; many to private
+hands; others to Berlin, Cambridge, and Philadelphia. Not content with
+these exploits, the Curators positively sent the 39th volume of the
+Camden Society's publications to Rouen! In 1872 nearly thirty
+manuscripts were lent: one 'subject to the approval of the Librarian,'
+thus granting to him concurrent authority with themselves. These books
+went some to private persons; others to Cambridge, London, Leyden,
+Berlin, Munster, Leipzic, Kiel, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. The
+manuscript sent to Munster was an old English book of Laud's; there was
+no bond, nor is there any hint that it was lent for publication. Besides
+manuscripts they lent printed books, amongst the rest Tyndale's New
+Testament of 1534! This portentous act was perpetrated on May 25th,
+1872; and the same day there appears this entry on the minutes: 'In
+reference to applications for loans during the Long Vacation, it was
+agreed, on the suggestion of the Librarian, that he be empowered in
+urgent cases, with the assent of two Curators, to grant loans during the
+Long Vacation'; an utterly illegal resolution not rescinded till 1886.
+
+For ten years, ever since 1862, the Curators had been lending, on their
+own authority, and without a shadow of statutable right, manuscripts and
+printed books to persons in Oxford and other parts of England, as well
+as to foreign countries: will it be believed that on Feb. 8, 1873, the
+Librarian was asked to state his opinion as to 'the lending of books out
+of the Library under proper restrictions;' and that on Feb. 28 of the
+same year, 'it was agreed that the Curators should proceed by statute to
+take power to order the lending out of books under certain
+restrictions'? Why this was the very thing they had been doing for years
+past; and now by agreeing 'to proceed by statute' they plainly declare
+their opinion that for all those years they had been doing something for
+which they had no statutable warrant. However, they drew up a draft
+statute which was laid before Council, and Council promptly 'struck out
+the proposal to lend books out of the Library;' whereupon on March 8th,
+1873, one of the Curators moved 'that Council be requested to insert a
+provision that books be lent out from evening to morning. This was
+agreed to'. On which resolution I shall make no remark, for fear my pen
+might run away with me; but most people will be able to supply that
+comment which I refrain from making.
+
+This very year 1873 they lent the York Missal, unless in the judgment of
+the Librarian 'too valuable to be lent out of the Library': there is a
+touch of modesty in this which disarms me, otherwise I could say
+something very true, but very unpleasant. The same year an application
+was made for one of the Douce MSS., but 'by reason of regulations as to
+Douce MSS. this was refused.' What regulations these were it would be
+interesting to know, for I cannot discover that there are at present any
+regulations, at all events in writing.
+
+At length the Curators obtained their desire. On March 25, 1873, a form
+of statute was proposed by one Head of a House and seconded by another,
+and on May 2, 1873, it was carried without a division in the following
+shape: (Tit. XX. iii. Sec. 11. 10.) Liceat Curatoribus, sicut mos fuit,
+libros impressos et manuscriptos, scientiae causa, viris doctis sive
+Academicis sive externis mutuari: that is to say, _Let it be lawful for
+the Curators, as the custom has been, to borrow books printed and
+manuscript in the interest of knowledge for learned men, whether Members
+of the University or not_. A board of grave and learned men--_viri
+variis doctrinis et literis imbuti_, as the statute says--wish to do
+openly, what they had been in the habit of doing, as it would appear,
+unknown to Council, and against its wishes (for it 'struck out the
+proposal to lend books out of the Library'): there is something droll in
+that, but it is nothing to what came of it. They petition for leave to
+_lend_, walk off perfectly contented with a permission to _borrow_, and
+nobody sees the joke! 'Reform' seems not only to have impaired our
+knowledge of Latin, but to have diminished our sense of the
+ridiculous--a most dolorous result. That Convocation intended by this
+strangely worded statute to convey to the Curators the power to _lend_
+books is beyond question; it is equally beyond question that it conveyed
+the power to _borrow_ them, for in good Latin and in our statute Latin
+alike, _mutuari_ means not to lend, but to borrow, as every Latin
+Dictionary from the Hortus Vocabulorum down to Lewis and Short
+testifies; and as to our statute Latin we find: quantum magister ...
+potest de cista de Guildeforde mutuari (Anstey, p. 99); quod magister
+regens mutuari possit quadraginta solidos (_ibid._ p. 132); de eadem
+mutuari poterit ad usum suum proprium.... quinque marcas (_ibid._ p.
+338). As _mutuari_ is correctly used in the barbarous language of our
+old statutes, so is it in the more polished Latinity of the Laudian
+code, in which the word occurs once, and I think only once, and as the
+devil of mischief will have it, in the Bodleian Statute itself, where 'e
+cista D. Thomae Bodley mutuari' means 'to borrow from Sir Thomas Bodley's
+chest'. The meaning of the word then is clear beyond dispute, and what
+it means in one part of the statutes it must mean in another. There is
+plenty of barbarous Latin in our statute book, but in every case it is
+justified or excused by long usage, or by the fact that other learned
+bodies have constantly used the same or similar language; but the
+statute of 1873 is probably the only one either in ancient or modern
+times, where without necessity, without precedent, and without warning,
+a word which means and always has meant one thing is used under the
+erroneous impression that it means another, and that not by schoolboys,
+but by their elders. A statute, however, means what it plainly says:
+with the intentions of a legislative body we have no concern except in
+so far as they are clearly expressed, and every prudent judge knows what
+grave evils spring from neglect of this principle of interpretation.
+(See Dwarris On Statutes, p. 580 sqq.)
+
+Whether this statute really gives the power to lend may be disputed. On
+the one hand it may be said, that those who borrow a book _for_ learned
+men may do what they like with it, and may therefore lend it. At first
+sight this seems probable and reasonable, but the more it is thought of
+the less probable does it appear. On the other hand it may be said, that
+since the statute does not plainly and expressly give the Curators the
+power to lend, they have no power to do so at all. Be that as it may, no
+such scruples troubled the minds of the Curators; every one seems to
+have been completely mesmerised, and this singular statute was
+straightway put in practice after a fashion; for on June 23, 1873, 'an
+application from Professor ---- was considered, asking for loan of such
+books or MSS. as he might require, at the discretion of the Librarian,
+under the provisions of Sec.11, ch. 10 of the Bodleian amended statute,
+during the present vacation. Mr. ---- and Mr. ---- made similar
+applications. It was agreed to accede to the request in the case of the
+three applicants respectively'; that is to say, within a few days of the
+passing of the statute it is broken. The Curators do not agree to borrow
+books for the applicants, the only thing the statute allowed them to do;
+the statute says not one word about the discretion of the Librarian,
+nor does it allow the Curators in this case to leave anything to it: in
+the buying of books (Stat. XX. iii. Sec. 4, 4) they may leave much to his
+discretion, but nowhere else is any such permission given: so the
+Curators took it. They did not do what the statute says they may do, and
+they did do what no statute permits them to do; and as they began that
+day, so have they continued to this moment. No change is made in the
+minutes. Before as well as after the passing of this statute the form
+always is 'applications for loans,' or some equivalent phrase. In 1873 a
+dozen MSS. or more, besides printed books, including the Hereford
+Missal! were lent exactly as before, some to private persons, some to
+libraries, and they went to Leeds, Cambridge, Utrecht, Kiel, Berlin, &c.
+
+In 1874 more than twenty MSS. were lent to Jena, Cambridge, Marburg,
+Vienna (two of the Junius collection were sent there), and to private
+hands. In 1875 MSS. were sent to St. Petersburg, Bonn, Vienna, Paris,
+Cambridge, Edinburgh, Konigsberg, Heidelberg, and some to private
+houses; three printed books also were lent, without a shadow of reason
+so far as can be seen, to a gentleman residing in the Temple.
+
+On Oct. 30 two of the sub-librarians applied 'for the privilege of
+taking books out of the Library. Their application was agreed to upon
+the terms stated in the minutes of June 23, 1873, in the case of a
+similar application from others.'
+
+And here it should be noticed that all the loans do not by any means
+necessarily appear in the minutes. Owing to the illegal resolution of
+the Curators of May 25, 1872, (see above, p. 16,) no loans during the
+Long Vacation are there entered. Moreover, at some time unknown to me
+the Librarian was quietly permitted to let certain persons borrow books
+at his discretion, and there at last grew up, it is to be presumed, with
+the knowledge of the Curators, what the Library officials call the
+Borrowers' List, and what after a time appears in the minutes as 'the
+privileged list.' As every one can see, there is nothing whatever in
+the statute to justify all this.
+
+I do not for one moment mean to charge the Curators with doing anything
+which they thought to be improper or beyond their discretion; but I do
+most distinctly charge them with having in fact exceeded their
+statutable powers, and with taking the law into their own hands, all, I
+doubt not, with the best and most innocent intentions. Unfortunately
+some of the most mischievous acts in the world have been done with the
+best and purest intentions. Like all other members of the University the
+Curators have promised to observe the statutes, and the Vice-Chancellor
+and Proctors have not only done that, but have solemnly pledged
+themselves to see that the statutes are observed, and are moreover armed
+with power to enforce them. If statutes are absurd, it is clearly the
+duty of those who control legislation in this place to get them
+abolished or amended without delay; if they are not absurd, all are
+bound to obey them. As regards the Bodleian there is a special order
+(XX. iii. Sec. 12. 3) directing the Curators what to do with an imperfect
+statute, and how to do it; but it is one thing to make a statute; it is
+a very different thing to get people to obey it. No one who sees the
+ease with which statutes are made and unmade, can doubt, that if those
+of the Bodleian are defective in any respect, it needs but a word from
+one or two members of Council to have all defects remedied. If the
+Curators want fresh powers, or more discretion, and greater latitude of
+action than they are at present allowed, they have but to ask and
+obtain; but I protest most vehemently against the usurpation of powers
+not granted by the University as a thing _pessimi exempli_. If the
+Bodleian Curators are to do exactly as they like, the University might
+just as well spare itself the trouble of legislation. If the University
+deliberately chooses to have its statutes nullified, there is, I
+suppose, no help for it; yet I cannot but suspect that the University
+has no knowledge--at all events no clear and distinct knowledge--of the
+way in which we have dealt with the statutes which were intended to mark
+out our duties. The secret growth of 'the borrowers' list' is as
+singular a thing as is to be found in the history of the Bodleian. The
+Curators and the Curators alone have, by a statute of their own
+devising, a right to borrow; yet the late Librarian assumed to himself
+the right of naming persons who are to have the privilege of borrowing,
+and the Curators quietly allowed it, without, as I believe, the faintest
+suspicion that they were doing what was wrong.
+
+In 1876 eleven MSS. went some to private persons, others to Augsburg,
+Paris, Goettingen, Heidelberg, Cambridge: the book sent to Augsburg
+without bond, and without guarantee for publication, was one of Laud's
+Greek MSS. On June 24 an application 'from Mr. ---- for use of books at
+home during Vacation' was 'assented to.' In 1877 some fourteen or
+fifteen MSS. were sent to Heidelberg, Paris, Cambridge, London, Rome,
+Copenhagen, Munich, Marburg, besides printed books: the book sent to
+Munich was one of Laud's, again in total defiance of all his
+stipulations.
+
+In 1878 a dozen MSS., or more, went to different people, to Bonn, to
+Pesth, Leyden, and Rostock, besides printed books: one book with
+illuminations was refused, 'as being one of a class not lent out.' I
+have before observed that I know of no written rules at all. On Oct. 26
+of this year the Curators surpassed themselves, for there was an
+application 'from the Rev. ----, Fellow of ---- College, for permission
+to borrow works from the Library to be taken to his rooms. In this
+matter it was agreed that power to act on the clause 10, Sec. 11 of the
+Bodleian Statute _be delegated_ by the Curators to the Librarian.' There
+were ten Curators present on this memorable occasion. The Curators are
+themselves delegates, and if they had the right to delegate to the
+Librarian the power which the University delegated to them, then what is
+sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: if the Curators _mero
+motu_ may delegate their powers, the Librarian may with equal right and
+equal reason delegate his, and so on _in infinitum_, to the utter ruin
+of all sense of responsibility.
+
+It would be tedious to enumerate all the loans; suffice it to say that
+they have gone on year after year; and from this point I shall only
+mention a few notable cases.
+
+On May 31, 1879, 'the request of Professor ---- to borrow printed books
+from the Library was granted.' Considering that only seven months
+before, the Curators had resolved 'to delegate' their lending powers to
+the Librarian, it is strange that they did not refer the applicant
+straight to that official.
+
+In 1880, June 11, a Selden MS. was ordered to Paris; ten Curators were
+present, and it is to be presumed that not one of them knew, what he was
+bound to know, namely, the special stipulation made with respect to all
+Selden's books.
+
+On Oct. 29, 1880, the Junior Proctor gave notice of the following
+motion:--'That in the case of MSS. sent out on loan to persons resident
+within the United Kingdom, a pecuniary bond shall be executed by the
+person to whom such MS. is lent, of such value as shall be determined
+from time to time by the Curators, unless the MS. is sent for use only
+within the precincts of the British Museum, or some other approved
+Public Library.' On Nov. 27 this motion was made and lost.
+
+In 1881, June 4, 'an application from ---- for the use of books dealing
+with the subject of Biblical Chronology at his own house appeared to the
+Curators to fall under the provisions of the Statute XX. iii. Sec. 11, 10;
+the Librarian exercising discretion as to the number of volumes issued.'
+On Oct. 26, 1878, not three years before, the Curators formally
+'delegated' their powers to the Librarian; on May 31, 1879, they assume
+that they possess what they have 'delegated'; and here they do the same
+thing, and all this without any formal and solemn resumption by them of
+their 'delegated' powers. On Oct. 29, 1881, it was reported that
+Professor ---- of Cambridge had not returned a manuscript borrowed _four
+years_ before, and the Vice-Chancellor was requested to communicate with
+the Professor in the matter. The manuscript never has been, and in all
+probability never will be restored, and our only consolation must be the
+fact that it was a transcript of another manuscript in the Bodleian, not
+on that account necessarily of little value, for a transcript may, and
+sometimes does, become of inestimable value; why it does so, all
+acquainted with books know.
+
+In 1882, Feb. 11, a Laudian MS. was ordered to Heidelberg, and a Selden
+MS. to St. Petersburg. On Dec. 2, 1882, 'it was agreed that Mr.----,
+Fellow of ---- be one of the persons privileged to take out books. It was
+agreed that the Librarians be allowed to take out books and MSS. for
+their own use.'
+
+In 1883, Jan. 27, the Librarian suggested 'that all Fellows and
+ex-Fellows of Colleges should be entitled to have books out of the
+Library'; the suggestion was not adopted. On the same day, 'Mr. ----
+(---- College) and Dr. ---- were placed on the list of persons specially
+entitled.' On March 3 of the same year, 'Dr. Frankfurter's application
+to be placed on the privileged list of borrowers was assented to.' There
+we have it at last, in black and white--_the privileged list of
+borrowers_, as unstatutable and as illegal a thing as could well be
+permitted. The words '_let it be lawful for the Curators to borrow books
+for learned men_,' (always supposing the Latin not to be downright
+nonsense,) cannot convey to the Curators the power to let other people
+borrow books; for if they could, then any words may have any meaning,
+which comes to the same thing as saying that they have no meaning at
+all. Yet it is on these words, and on these words alone, that the
+'borrowers' list' has been made to depend; though how educated men can
+have extracted from this statute any meaning whatever which would
+justify, or even seem, in the most distant way, to justify the act of
+conveying to others the power to borrow books from the library is one
+of the most astonishing things that I ever met with in the whole course
+of my life. But it will be said that the Bodleian Curators for thirteen
+years understood _mutuari_ to mean 'lend', and therefore they might
+institute a 'borrowers' list'. It is an astonishing, not to say
+staggering, fact that they did so understand it, yet the borrowers' list
+is none the less illegal. Nay, I have heard a Curator in his place
+maintain, that as there could be no doubt what the University intended
+when it passed this statute, _mutuari_ in this place must mean 'lend'.
+Much as I admired the boldness of the assertion, I was unable to commend
+either the law or the logic of it; the consequences which would at once
+follow from the position, that if the intentions of a legislative body
+are clear it matters not how it expresses them, are too palpably absurd
+to find acceptance with ordinary minds. However, let it be supposed,
+that instead of _mutuari_ the word actually used were _commodare_. You
+are still no better off. The University on this hypothesis gives to the
+Curators as a board the power of lending a specific book to a specific
+person, and that is all. It does not give the Curators the power to
+invest any person or persons with the right or privilege of borrowing
+books, still less does it convey the power of creating a class of
+persons who have such a right or privilege. This is not only clear to
+plain common sense, but, as I am advised, is plain as a matter of law;
+and I am further assured that, if any book is damaged or lost in
+consequence of the Curators persisting in such a course, they become
+themselves personally liable to the University.
+
+This illegal borrowers' list comprises at this moment (subtracting one
+dead man and double entries) one hundred and eleven persons, besides the
+Clarendon Press. Among these persons are two ladies, who can have no
+conceivable right to be where they are, for even those whose tolerant
+Latinity suffers them to take _mutuari_ for _commodare_ will hardly
+maintain that '_viris doctis_' covers learned women. It includes too
+non-residents and foreigners; and I am informed that manuscripts have
+been sent for the use of one of these persons more than a hundred miles
+as the crow flies. Books are sent by post, and Bodleian money is spent
+to pay for carriage. The finances of the Library, however, deserve a
+paper all to themselves, and some day they shall have one.
+
+On May 26, 1883, 'an application from Dr. Leumann to be placed on the
+privileged list was agreed to.' On Oct. 20, of the same year, two
+persons were 'placed on the privileged list of readers;' and on Nov. 24,
+another 'was placed on the privileged list;' and from that moment to the
+present no other formula is employed in the minutes.
+
+In 1885, Oct. 31, the Librarian applied 'for authority to decline
+requests for loans of Selden MSS. and books, and of Laud's MSS. (except
+for purposes of publication), without referring the application to the
+Curators, as being contrary to the terms of the respective donations.
+This was agreed to.' It was, and to my great astonishment it passed
+without any remark whatever.
+
+In 1886, March 13, 'Liceat Curatoribus' was ruled to mean 'the consent
+of a majority of Curators;' that is to say, the illegal resolution of
+May 25, 1872, was silently rescinded. On May 15 of the same year a
+committee of four was appointed to consider the practice of loans. At a
+meeting on June 19, another name was added to the borrowers' list. Every
+Curator knew that the legality of their practice with respect to loans,
+and especially with respect to the borrowers' list, had been openly
+challenged; notwithstanding this, and in spite of protest then and there
+made, the chairman put the name to the vote, and a majority actually
+voted for it. This proceeding was, in my opinion (and not in mine only),
+irregular and improper to say the least of it, but it was highly
+characteristic. After waiting to see whether the Vice-Chancellor or any
+other Curator would call attention to the charge brought against the
+board, and finding, as I was sure would be the case, that no one shewed
+any disposition to do so, I gave notice of a motion for the next
+statutable meeting:--_That the borrowers' list be abolished as illegal;
+that all books in the hands of borrowers be at once recalled as having
+been illegally lent; and that for the future the Statute XX. iii. Sec. 11.
+10 be faithfully observed._
+
+On June 28 it was agreed (I being silent for an obvious reason) that
+during the Vacation all the Curators in Oxford should meet every
+fortnight in the Library at 2 p.m. solely to consider applications for
+loans. During the Vacation six such meetings were summoned. On July 10,
+three Curators met and refused an application; on Aug. 21, and on Sept.
+11, only two were present, and of course declined to act; on Sept. 25,
+and Oct. 9, I, who attended all the meetings, found myself alone; on
+Oct. 23, there were six of us, and business was adjourned on the ground
+that the whole question of loans would be debated on Oct. 30.
+Accordingly, on Oct. 30, _all_ the Curators made their appearance, a
+thing I never saw before, though they were not all present during the
+whole of the proceedings. The motion to abolish the borrowers' list was
+duly made and seconded; then, after some confused talk, which could not
+be dignified by the name of a debate, an amendment was moved, 'That the
+consideration of the regulations under which books _be lent_ be referred
+to a committee'; and this was carried, all the Curators being present.
+An instruction to the committee was also moved, 'To consider what
+alteration is required in the statute with regard to the borrowing of
+books'; which was also carried. Next we considered the report of the
+committee on loans, and returned it in a somewhat mangled condition to
+the reconsideration of those who drew it up. After that, applications
+for loans numbered 1 to 16 were discussed, and _all_ were refused. This
+exhausted the agenda paper, and should, I apprehend, have finished the
+business of the day. However, an application for the loan of manuscripts
+_not_ on the agenda paper was considered, and the board, which up to
+that moment had refused all applications, including one from Sir
+Richard Burton, granted the loan of _seventeen_ manuscripts to _one_
+man. In self-defence, let me say that I always vote against all loans
+when there is a division.
+
+On Nov. 8 the loan committee recommended that Council be asked to
+propose amendments in Stat. Tit. XX. sect. iii. Sec. 11, and thought that
+'the farther consideration of the rules framed by them and amended at
+the Curators' meeting on Oct. 30 should for the present be postponed.'
+On Nov. 25, ten Curators being present, this recommendation was
+considered. One of the Curators thought that while there was 'no harm'
+in applying for a new statute, yet that it was 'a waste of time' and 'a
+little ridiculous': another wished to move an amendment and have the new
+statute in _English_, but some of us saw (though no one said so) that
+such an amendment would be a highly comic confession on the part of the
+_viri variis doctrinis et literis imbuti_; and accordingly it was not
+pressed. Then the same Curator proposed that _commodare_ should be
+substituted for _mutuari_, and that _sicut mos fuit_ should be struck
+out. Four voted for this amendment, which was lost. Even had it been
+carried, it would still have been unlawful to lend books to women, for,
+as was pointed out at the time, _vir_ means _a man_; but the minority
+was in no mood to be affected by philological facts. The original
+recommendation was then passed.
+
+The board having thus expressed its opinion that a new statute was
+necessary to enable it to lend books had, it might be thought, asserted
+that the existing statute does not enable it to do so; accordingly we at
+once turned our attention to applications for loans. The first article
+applied for was not a book at all, but an inscribed bronze vessel; and
+it was observed that we have no statutable right, in other words no
+power whatever, to lend such a thing; whereupon some one remarked that
+it might be done, _because it is not forbidden_, an argument, which (if
+valid) would lead to some startling conclusions.
+
+However, that a decree of Convocation to authorise the loan of this
+vessel should be asked for was duly moved and seconded; then the
+Curator, who wished to patch the Bodleian Latin statute with a bit of
+English, moved as an amendment 'that the Curators lend it', quite
+ignoring the fact that they had no statutable power to do so. For this
+amendment three Curators voted, one abstained, and the rest voted
+against it: finally the original motion was carried. After that, two
+loans of books were refused and three were granted.
+
+In applying for a decree to enable them to lend this vessel the Curators
+turned over a new leaf. The whole Bodleian statute consists of ten
+octavo pages, eleven lines and four words: it can be read out aloud in
+thirty minutes, and by eye alone in half that time: there is, therefore,
+no excuse whatever for not knowing its contents, and still less for not
+obeying it. It is not my purpose at the present moment to point out how
+often, and in how many ways, we drive a coach and four through statutes
+intended to control our actions; but to complete the subject of loans,
+and dismissing the practice of book-lending from further consideration,
+it may be noted that the Stat. XX. iii. Sec. 11. 9 allows the Curators
+under specified conditions to place certain prints and drawings either
+in the Radcliffe or in the Taylor Building; but with this exception, if
+exception it be, no power is anywhere given to them to lend any picture,
+coin, antiquity, or other object belonging to the library. Nevertheless
+I find the following entries in the minutes:--
+
+On April 26, 1865, 'it was agreed to lend "Miniatures" to the Lords of
+the Committee of Council on Education to be exhibited in the South
+Kensington Museum.'
+
+On Oct. 28, 1865, 'the Curators sanction the loan of such Pictures as
+may be desired for the National Exhibition of Portraits at Kensington in
+1866.'
+
+On Dec. 12, 1865, 'that the loan of the Pictures according to the list
+sent, save that of Sir Thomas Bodley, be granted to South Kensington
+Museum Exhibition of National Portraits.'
+
+On March 8, 1867, 'a letter from the Secretary of the Earl of Derby was
+read asking for the loan of eighteen Pictures for exhibition at
+Kensington. This was acceded to.'
+
+On Jan. 31, 1868, 'it was resolved ... to lend to the Leeds Exhibition
+the Portraits they wish of Yorkshire Worthies.'
+
+On Feb. 5, 1870, 'an application from Mr. Cosmo Innis, of the General
+Register house, Edinburgh, for the loan of the old map of Britain of the
+14th century, which hangs on the wall of the Library, to be traced in
+facsimile, under the care of Sir Henry James, for the 2nd volume of the
+National MSS. of Scotland, was granted.'
+
+On Feb. 14, 1874, 'an application from the South Kensington Museum was
+read, asking for the loan of remarkable specimens of Book-binding for
+next year's International Exhibition. In this matter it was agreed that
+the Museum should be invited to send a person to Oxford to inspect, and
+that it should be left to the discretion of the Librarian to decide upon
+lending any specimen required.'
+
+On April 28, 1877, 'an application from Mr. Blades [_sic_] on behalf of
+Caxton memorial committee for the loan of certain early printed books to
+a Public Exhibition at South Kensington was considered and granted.'
+
+On May 26, 1877, application 'for Bibles to be sent to the Caxton
+Exhibition. This was granted, and the Librarian was directed to take
+such measures as might be necessary to ensure secure transmission.'
+
+On May 11, 1878, permission was given to lend the Selden Portrait to the
+Nottingham Art Exhibition; and an application from the Bath and West of
+England Agricultural Society for works of art, &c. for their approaching
+meeting at Oxford, was considered. This was left to the Librarian's
+discretion.
+
+On Nov. 13, 1880, Wyngarde's Plan of London 'to be granted under a bond'
+to Mr. Wheatley.
+
+On April 29, 1882, the Portrait of Sam. Butler was lent to the
+Worcestershire Exhibition of Fine Arts.
+
+On Feb. 2, 1884, Drake's Chair was lent to the Mayor of Plymouth.
+
+On May 2, 1885, 'the Librarian presented applications from the
+Exhibition of Inventions now being held for the loan of certain MSS.;
+certain early printed books; certain works on music. It was agreed that
+the Librarian be empowered to lend out of the above as required, as he
+may think well, to the Exhibition.'
+
+At this last meeting I was present, and the following is a verbatim copy
+of my note written the same day:--
+
+'An Exhibition of Inventions (I have not got the name correctly) applied
+for the loan of certain MSS. and books from Bodleian: 5 MSS. Liturgies:
+3 Bodley MSS. 515, 775, 842: Gough, Missal 336: an Ashmole book, and 2
+English.--I objected, but the loan was carried, except as to 775
+Bodley.' I have lately been informed that one of the books sent up to be
+stared at by the mob of sightseers was a Selden book: this I neither
+knew nor could have known at the time, or it should have been stopped,
+if protesting could have stopped it.
+
+In every one of these cases the Curators, with the most perfect
+innocence, took upon themselves to do what they had not a shadow of
+right to do. If the University is content to have its property so dealt
+with that in case of damage or loss its only remedy would be to mulct
+the Curators, there is nothing more to be said; but it is just as well
+that the University should know what has been done in the past, and what
+would have been done in the future, had not a protest been made against
+the practice; and even now, though the board as a board has seemingly
+condemned its former doings, it still contains a stubborn and impenitent
+minority. If the University wishes its statutes to be obeyed, it should
+ordain substantial pecuniary fines for breaches of them; if it does not
+care whether they are obeyed or not, it is a pity that it wastes its
+time in enacting them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now as to the policy of lending the printed books and manuscripts of
+the Bodleian. The question is not whether it is a good or a bad thing to
+lend books, nor whether it is a good thing for this or that library to
+do so; it is simply whether it is right to lend Bodleian books. It may
+be argued that it is right to do so--
+
+1. Because books are made to be used, and they will be very much more
+used if they are lent than if they are not; moreover it is generally
+more convenient to read in one's own room than it is in a public place.
+Some men cannot read, certainly cannot read and think in a library, or
+in the midst of company; I cannot myself, and all that I have ever been
+able to do in such places is to make extracts, verify references and the
+like; but to read a book as I should in my own room is to me, and
+probably to many people, impossible. If you go to a public institution
+you must go when it is open; you must sit still; you must not whistle or
+make a noise; you must not smoke; you cannot lie down and read on your
+back; you cannot throw the book aside, go for a walk, and resume your
+perusal; you cannot read quietly over the fire of an evening; you cannot
+read in the small hours of the night, and so on _ad infinitum_. Yet all
+this you can do if you are allowed to borrow the books. You can then
+treat them exactly as if they were your own. It is clear that this
+argument may be expanded in a multitude of ways, and no one is so
+destitute of imagination as not to be able to fill up the details to
+suit his own particular case and fancy.
+
+The answer to it is very simple. You cannot by any device or contrivance
+combine the advantages of private and of public property. He who wishes
+to use the books of a public library must submit to many personal
+inconveniences; and the man who is unwilling to deny himself for the
+general good is the very last person in the community to whom any favour
+ought to be shown, and of all people he least deserves the favour of
+borrowing. He who has ever been foolish enough to lend his own books
+freely, learns by almost unvaried experience that hardly one man in
+twenty can be trusted: your book comes back (when it comes back at all)
+more damaged by a month's outing than the owner would occasion in fifty
+years. The book of a public library is even less regarded, as a rule,
+than that belonging to a friend; for the friend may have a sharp tongue,
+and a knack of using it, whereas a librarian is an official; even if he
+ever has time to look through the books when they are returned, his
+censure is disregarded, and after all accidents will happen, and the
+book might possibly have been equally damaged had it never left the
+library walls. It is really astonishing how few men there are in the
+present day who know how to use a book without doing it real and often
+serious damage. Over and over again have I seen men who would be very
+angry to be called boors deliberately break the back of a book. Over and
+over again, both in libraries and in private rooms, have I seen the
+headband broken, simply because people did not know how to take a book
+off a shelf. Again and again I have seen men of education (but grossly
+ignorant for all that of the ways of books) play such pranks with my own
+volumes as made me shudder. The horrid trick of turning a leaf by
+wetting a finger I have seen practised in this seat of learning over and
+over again by Graduates, by Professors, by Heads of Houses; and years
+ago I saw that same nasty trick played _pro pudor!_ in the sacred
+precincts of the Bodleian itself _on a manuscript_, which will bear to
+its last moment the impression of the dirty thumb (and it _was_ dirty)
+that perpetrated the uncleanly act. Often and often you see a man
+sitting close over the fire with a well-bound volume; a few such
+experiments will ruin the binding of any book; if it is his own, well
+and good, though even so the act is that of a barbarian: but suppose it
+a Bodleian book, what then? Why in that case the binding bills will be
+higher than ever, to say nothing about the ruin of the book itself. A
+man who knows how to handle a book will use a volume habitually for
+years and leave no trace of wear and tear behind him; but the average
+man, even though he may be a Master of Arts, is, not unfrequently,
+totally unfit to have the use of any books in good condition, even in a
+library, much less out of one.
+
+The scholars and readers of former days seem to have been far more
+careful in their habits than men are now. Look at the books of the great
+collectors--Grolier, the Maioli, Selden, De Thou, the Colberts, and the
+like. These men read their books; and Grolier and Thomas Maioli
+certainly lent them: yet even after all these years, though time and
+neglect may have ruined the magnificent bindings--bindings such as few,
+if any, modern collectors ever indulge in--the books themselves are
+internally spotless. I have myself scores of volumes, many of them three
+or four hundred years old, clean and pure as the day they were issued
+from the press; they have most certainly been used and read, but used by
+men of clean hands and decent habits. In the present day books are so
+common and so cheap, and modern readers too frequently so unrefined,
+that they get into a vile habit of misusing them, and to such
+persons--that is, to the great majority--the books of a public library
+cannot be safely trusted except under the very strictest supervision.
+The slovenly practice of placing one open book on another, a practice
+sternly forbidden in many foreign libraries, may be seen in full swing
+both at the Camera and in the Bodleian; and no one seems to be aware how
+ruinous it is, or to have the least suspicion that he who knows how to
+handle books never treats them so. Treated in a cleanly and decent
+manner, there is not the least reason why a book printed on good paper
+should not last for twenty centuries or more; treated as they are too
+often treated here in Oxford, they will hardly last as many months.
+
+By lending the books as we illegally do, we are perceptibly hastening
+the destruction of a library intended by its founder and benefactors to
+be a blessing for generations of scholars yet unborn.
+
+2. Books are to be lent, and what is more ought to be sent out of
+Oxford, because it is an immense convenience to students at a distance
+to have Bodleian treasures close at hand. Not a doubt about it; vastly
+convenient. Suppose I am studying Greek sculpture, it would be very
+convenient to get all the master-pieces sent from the various galleries
+of Europe to London or Oxford. It would not only be a convenience, but a
+joy and a delight, to have over the Venus of Melos. Instead of sitting
+for hours together, as I used to do, in the Louvre, it would be much
+more convenient to go down to the New Schools and gaze on that glorious
+and divine being. Does any one suddenly scent an absurdity in the
+supposition? Why so do I, but the absurdity is in the whole argument,
+not in the particular application of it. Some people who have not a gift
+for seeing the point of things will ride off by saying that the Venus is
+a majestic beauty, and that the expense of her carriage and insurance
+would be enormous. Such an objection is pointless, because it evades the
+question of convenience; but let us take a case where weight will not
+oppress us. Say you study Greek gems; would it not be very convenient to
+have some of the best from Naples, from Paris, from Rome, and from
+Vienna, sent here to the Bodleian, where you could study them at your
+leisure? They are more portable than books, far less liable to damage,
+and hardly more valuable. Do you think that any guardian of such
+treasures would be so foolish as to listen to your request? Would any
+nation, city, or even University, permit it?
+
+The cases, it will be said, are not parallel. Gems, coins, medals,
+statuettes, are too valuable to be lent; the books and manuscripts which
+the Bodleian Curators lend are comparatively valueless. I am by no means
+sure of that fact. I have before now tapped at a friend's door, and
+receiving no answer entered his room to leave a message or what not, and
+have more than once seen lying on his table an eleventh-century Bodleian
+manuscript of a certain classic author, a book of inestimable value, the
+_codex archetypus_ of every other copy now in existence. Any stranger
+could have entered that room, and any enterprising literary thief--a not
+uncommon and particularly detestable animal--might have slipped this
+priceless book into his pocket. I am by no means sure that very valuable
+manuscripts have not been, in spite of remonstrance, lent out within the
+last two years; but it is beyond all dispute that not so very long ago
+the thing was done, and any man or any body of men who will allow one
+such thing to be done are quite capable of allowing a dozen to be done.
+
+Let it, however, be granted, for the purposes of the present argument,
+that we now, having a clearer perception of our responsibilities, only
+allow comparatively worthless manuscripts to be sent to France, to
+Germany, Russia, or India; for our manuscripts, be it observed, travel
+as far afield as Bombay. Now what makes a book or manuscript
+comparatively worthless? It is so, either because it is one of many
+copies, or because it is a poor and faulty copy. If it is one of many,
+why in the name of all that is absurd should we be asked to send our
+goods away (at our expense and risk let it be remembered) when _ex
+hypothesi_ there are many other copies in existence? why cannot the
+foreign student go to some one of those copies? why should we be called
+on to gratify his laziness or consult his convenience? If the copy be a
+poor one, he who asks for the loan of it must be a noodle, for who cares
+for the readings of a confessedly inferior book? Is it not clear as day
+that the man who at Rome, or Heidelberg, or Bombay, asks for the loan of
+a manuscript, believes it to be a good and valuable copy? moreover, if
+he believes so, is it not in the highest degree probable that his
+judgment is correct, seeing that his attention is in a special manner
+concentrated on the matter? And if it be a good and valuable copy, what
+becomes of the plea that we only lend comparatively worthless books?
+Have we any common sense amongst us? I really confess that there are
+times when I come to the conclusion that we have none; for if we had,
+how could we be deceived by pretexts so flimsy and fallacious? All the
+manuscripts which we now lend are most certainly valuable, and their
+loss or damage would be irreparable; all talk of comparative worth or
+worthlessness is futile, and is merely used as so much dust thrown in
+the eyes of those who (I am sorry to say it, but it must be said) ought
+to have a higher conception of their duties.
+
+3. Some maintain that MSS. and books should be lent out because 'more
+work' will be done by that device. It is difficult to see why. It is
+inferred, in fact, that 'more work' will be done, because it is more
+convenient to work at home than it is in a library. A partial answer to
+this fallacious plea has been already given, but I cannot pass over the
+particular form of it without a protest. The cant that is talked
+now-a-days about 'work' is enough to make one sick. As far as my
+experience extends, the very notion of work, as opposed to fidgetty
+pottering, is not possessed by fifty men in the place; the very
+conception of thoroughness and comprehension is gone; and as to
+learning, why the thing has almost vanished; of 'science' we have enough
+and to spare, but what in the world has become of all our knowledge?
+Briefly, at the present moment and in this place, all this wretched
+pretence of 'work' is arrant imposture. A few, and only a few, know what
+it means, and they would never dream of talking about it.
+
+But I have heard this argument about 'more work' put in another form,
+and it obviously is a theme on which endless variations may be composed.
+Suppose, it is said, a very poor scholar, anxious to give the world a
+critical edition of some book, and further suppose that there is a
+valuable manuscript at St. Petersburg, another at Stockholm, another in
+Paris, another in Oxford, and so on; let the poor scholar live where you
+like, say in Giessen, and suppose him to be totally unable to defray the
+expense of a journey to these several places, and to have no means of
+paying for collations made by others, and no confidence in their
+correctness, even if he could pay for them; would it not be an advantage
+to literature that all these manuscripts should be sent to Giessen for
+the use of the poor scholar aforesaid; and would it not be a dead loss
+to the world of letters, if, by refusing so to lend them, you prevented
+the poor scholar from constructing a critical and admirable text of the
+author in whom he is interested? This purely hypothetical case I have
+heard put in all seriousness, and used as a knock-me-down sort of
+argument; yet it must occur to any one with a grain of common sense that
+it is only too easy to 'suppose' anything; that it would not require the
+imaginative powers of a baby to go one step further, and suppose the
+poor, the ardent and the ripe scholar to have just money enough or pluck
+enough to carry him to the places which he wishes to visit, (I note
+parenthetically that a real student, a man to read of whose exploits
+warms one's heart, Cosma de Koeroes, started on his extraordinary
+expedition to the East with 100 florins and a walking-stick, for being
+what he was, he dispensed with luggage,) or you might suppose brains
+enough in his neighbourhood to perceive that so deserving a creature of
+the pure imagination might fairly enough be helped or--but it is
+needless and foolish to dream with one's eyes open, and practical men
+generally object to discuss purely hypothetical cases. Yes, my excellent
+but fanciful friend will say, this is all very well, but _if_ there were
+such a case, what would you do? Well, to speak for myself, I should
+prefer to wait till the poor scholar's exchequer was in a more
+flourishing condition, or why should I not take a turn at 'supposing'
+myself? and perform the very easy trick of imagining a more ripe
+scholar, a more enthusiastic student, endowed not only with brains, but
+blessed with means to gratify his whims, and then, without the least
+violence, I might suppose the result to be a much more correct, a much
+more critical edition than my friend's phantom scholar could ever by any
+possibility concoct. But to return to the region of reality; I answer
+that not even in the case supposed, or in any case would I lend out
+manuscripts, and this for more reasons than I have patience to write
+down. One remark may, however, be made. We are constantly requested to
+send manuscripts abroad 'for collation,' and we not unfrequently send
+them. Will any one be good enough to mention to me a single collation of
+a Greek or Latin classic made by any scholar by profession of any
+manuscript of fair length--say, if you like, 300 pages of octavo
+print--which is faithful, or which can be depended on? Even if it were a
+defensible practice to send manuscripts abroad for collation, it can
+never be a defensible practice to expose them to all the risks they
+necessarily run, and after all reap as a net result collations not worth
+the paper they are written on.
+
+I hope that these considerations may satisfy my imaginative friend that
+there is not that force in his argument which he supposes; but if he is
+still unconvinced, let us agree to consider the case of the poor scholar
+when it actually occurs on its merits, and let it be conceded as a thing
+not impossible, that should all the supposed conditions exist, we might
+for once in a way move Convocation to lend a manuscript for the use of
+so singular and so deserving a character; how does that justify us in
+sending manuscripts abroad when no such conditions exist? The most I
+have ever yet heard pleaded on behalf of these foreign students was, not
+that they could not afford to come to Oxford, but merely that it was
+much more convenient to have a book sent out to Hungary or Russia, than
+it was for the Hungarian or Russian to visit us. I dare say it was more
+convenient to him, but it has already been observed that he who wishes
+to use public property must and ought to submit to not a few personal
+inconveniences. It would, too, be interesting to know whether, supposing
+any of us possessed a very valuable book of our own, we should be ready
+and willing to lend it as freely as we lend these books which are not
+ours. I will answer for myself that I certainly should not, and that it
+would be grossly inconsistent in me to lend University property when I
+decline under precisely similar circumstances to lend my own.
+
+4. Again, it is argued that since foreign libraries are willing to lend
+to us we ought to reciprocate their liberality: we ought, it is said, to
+be as liberal as France or Germany are. To the end of time men will be
+the dupes of phrases and the slaves of words, yet it is a little strange
+that we, who fancy ourselves in some respects raised above the mob,
+should see any force in this singular perversion of language. Who does
+not detect the hollow and worthless nature of that 'liberality' which
+lends, not what is its own, but what is another's? In what possible
+sense, except an illusory and fallacious one, can the Bodleian Curators
+credit themselves with the virtue of 'liberality' when they hand over,
+not their own property, not anything which they collectively set great
+store on, not anything which it would grieve them deeply to lose, but
+something not their own? Such liberality seems to me to be as cheap as
+it is worthless; as easy as it is unreal. But, it will be objected, that
+the University empowers them so to lend, and that it would be
+'illiberal' in them to accept loans from others and refuse themselves to
+lend. As to the powers given by the University, I have already said
+something; the rest of the plea may be sufficiently answered by a single
+line from Hamlet--
+
+    "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."
+
+Sound, wholesome advice to all, whether taken as Polonius intended it,
+or as I now use it. It would be mean and shabby to borrow if you refuse
+to lend, for it would be conniving at a vice which you decline to
+commit. Would it not be more rational to argue that all lending out of
+Bodleian books being bad, we therefore decline to benefit (if benefit it
+be) by a practice which we disapprove of in principle? To argue simply,
+as I have heard some do, that because foreign libraries are willing to
+lend us books, _therefore_ we ought to be willing to lend them books,
+is, as an argument, about as valid as it would be to say, 'My friend X
+has signified his willingness to lend me his banjo, and therefore I am
+bound to lend him my Erard's piano, if he asks for it': not every one
+would see the force of such reasoning. If the lending of books from such
+a library as the Bodleian be, as I maintain it is, bad in principle, it
+can never become right because other libraries are willing to be loose
+in their practice.
+
+But suppose we look a little more closely into this alleged 'liberality'
+of foreign countries, where lending in some form or other is the rule
+rather than the exception. And here let it be observed that 'library'
+though one word covers things as different as chalk is from cheese.
+Libraries differ not merely in quantity, in the number of volumes which
+they contain: they also differ enormously in quality and value. The
+University Library of Goettingen some forty years ago was estimated to
+contain 350,000 volumes. The Grenville Library (now part of the British
+Museum) consists in round numbers of 20,000 volumes, each of which cost
+on an average _two pounds, fourteen shillings_; and this small but most
+choice collection would in the present day probably sell for a sum
+almost sufficient to purchase the whole of the Goettingen 350,000
+volumes. The Bodleian is equalled and even far surpassed in point of
+numbers by other libraries, but for quality and real value there are not
+in all the world a dozen that could, or by any competent person would,
+be compared with it, and this fact makes all the difference when lending
+is in question. You might lend and lose half the books at Goettingen, and
+still be able without very much trouble or expense to replace them to
+the satisfaction of that University. By losing a single half-dozen of
+some of our Bodleian books, you might seriously maim and cripple a large
+department; and as to replacing the half-dozen, you might just as well
+try to replace the coal in our coal pits. I have seen it stated that all
+the great libraries of Europe lend, except the Vatican and the British
+Museum: even Mr. Panizzi, forgetting for the moment what he well knew,
+says, 'In all libraries on the Continent they lend books, but here
+[i.e. at the British Museum] I hope they will never lend them: it is
+quite right not to lend them' (Report on British Museum, 1850, p. 230).
+And even if all do lend (and all do not), it would no more follow that
+they ought to do so, than it follows that no man should do right,
+because all men are sinners. Why are we to follow a foreign fashion? Why
+are we to follow a multitude to do evil? We are quite strong enough to
+act properly, if we only had the infinitesimal amount of courage
+needful. Even if it were true that every great library in Europe does a
+foolish thing, why should we, with the true spirit of slavish imitation,
+be equally foolish?
+
+Amongst the libraries, which may be with more or less justice compared
+with the Bodleian, are the National Library of Paris; the British
+Museum; the Vatican; the Royal Library of Munich; the Imperial Library
+of St. Petersburg; the Imperial Library at Vienna; the Ambrosian at
+Milan. Thirty odd years ago only _two_ of these ever lent a book, and
+then hardly in the sense in which any one in Oxford would understand
+that phrase. At this very moment, the British Museum, the second or
+third largest and finest library in the world, does not lend; the
+Vatican does not lend; the Ambrosian library, great in printed books,
+greater in manuscripts, does not lend; the Escurial, famed for its
+Arabic manuscripts, never lends, not even within the limits of Spain;
+the Municipal Library of Ravenna, a name well known to all students of
+Aristophanes for its famous codex, never lends; nor does the Angelica at
+Rome: and there are more libraries of which this is true. Few, however,
+would believe till they have tried the experiment, how difficult it is
+for a private person to get really trustworthy information as to the
+practices of foreign libraries.
+
+Again, all foreign libraries that practise lending lend under
+restrictions unknown to us in Oxford. At the Bodleian there are no
+written rules at all, and, as far as I know, there never have been any.
+The present Librarian rightly felt that such a state of things ought
+not to be allowed; he accordingly drew up a draft set of regulations; it
+was at his request that the committee mentioned above, p. 26, was
+appointed, and but for his sense of duty the board would possibly never
+have perceived that rules were requisite. The Italian government
+controls some 33 libraries, and the rules for loans fill 83 paragraphs
+and 18 pages quarto. Without the special leave of the Minister of
+Instruction, no government librarian in Italy can lend manuscripts,
+printed books of the 15th century, very rare editions, books with
+autographs of celebrated men or with important notes, books printed on
+vellum, books with plates of much value, or the chief value of which
+consists in the engravings, expensive works, works in many volumes,
+coast surveys, maps, atlases, books finely bound or otherwise valuable,
+old music. In other words, _no librarian can lend any manuscript
+whatever, or any valuable printed book, without special leave_. The
+restrictions on loans to foreign countries are also numerous.
+
+The National Library of Paris, the largest in the whole world, also
+lends, but never in the wild fashion sanctioned in this place. Here are
+the very words of the 'Reglement,' Art. 115: 'Peuvent seuls etre pretes
+dans le departement des imprimes, les doubles qui ne font pas partie de
+la reserve, pourvu, en outre, qu'il ne s'agisse ni de livres
+particulierement precieux, ni de dictionnaires, ni de journaux, ni de
+morceaux ou partitions de musique, ni de volumes appartenant a de
+grandes collections ou contenant des figures hors texte.
+
+'Ne peuvent pas non plus etre pretes les romans, ni les pieces du
+theatre moderne, ni les ouvrages de litterature frivole. Le conservateur
+apprecie en premier ressort les circonstances qui permettent ou non de
+preter un livre.'
+
+Art. 116: 'Peuvent seuls etre pretes dans le departement des manuscrits,
+les volumes qui ne sont pas particulierement precieux par leur rarete,
+leur antiquite, les autographes ou les miniatures qu'ils contiennent, ou
+par toute autre circonstance dont le conservateur est juge en premier
+ressort.'
+
+This library then _never lends anything but duplicates_, and only such
+duplicates as are _not_ part of the reserve, i.e. part of the more
+valuable section of the library, and not even such duplicates if they
+are specially valuable.
+
+The libraries of Germany and Switzerland have rules substantially the
+same as those adopted in France and Italy; and it is the same with
+Belgium when they lend at all. In the Bibliotheque Royale de Belgique,
+Art. 41 of the 'Reglement' runs thus: 'Dans la section des imprimes, les
+ouvrages d'un usage journalier, les livres rares, de luxe ou a figures,
+les editions du XV^e siecle, les livres sur velin ou sur grand papier,
+ceux dont les reliures sont precieuses ou remarquables, les collections
+ou parties de collection considerable _ne sont jamais pretes au
+dehors_.'
+
+As to the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg, the Director writes under
+date Dec. 11, 1886: 'la Bibliotheque Imperiale n'a pas le droit, d'apres
+la loi, de preter ses manuscrits aux personnes particulieres, que sur la
+demande des autorites competents, et pour les personnes hors des limites
+de la Russie, que par l'entremise du ministere des affaires etrangeres
+avec l'autorisation de Sa Majeste. En meme temps je crois devoir
+ajouter, que les manuscrits les plus precieux ne sortent jamais de la
+Bibliotheque, dans aucun cas, de meme que les codes dont s'occupent les
+savants du pays.'
+
+It would be impossible to do in any of these foreign countries what is
+done in Oxford. Expensive illustrated works are, as I have heard, had
+out of the library, and are then used to illustrate lectures--a short
+and easy method of bringing books to ruin.
+
+To trust to discretion alone, whether it be the discretion of a
+librarian or of a board, is to lean on a broken reed; and in most
+foreign libraries that discovery has long since been made: it is high
+time that we made it too, if we are foolish enough to sanction the
+practice of lending.
+
+When it is said then that _all_ great foreign libraries lend, let it
+always be remembered, in the first place, that strictly speaking all do
+not lend; and, in the second place, that those which lend restrict the
+practice in a way never dreamt of here.
+
+Such then are the arguments for lending: they may be stated in other
+terms, and they may be indefinitely varied in shape, but when reduced to
+their ultimate forms they simply come to this--that by lending books out
+the utility of the library is increased, the convenience of readers is
+consulted, the progress of learning is facilitated, and international
+courtesy is promoted--all very good things in themselves and much to be
+desired, but, as always in this world, we have to balance good with
+evil, and to take that course which involves the least inconvenience on
+the whole.
+
+I confess that it rather depresses me to have to argue the question at
+all, and if the _genius loci_ affected all minds as it affects mine, the
+very faintest suspicion of degrading and vulgarising such an institution
+as the Bodleian would be enough, and more than enough, to settle the
+matter; and surely it is a degradation of that noble library to look on
+it, as some seem to do, as a sort of enlarged and diversified Mudie's.
+Our books may be all over Oxford, nay, all over Europe; they may be in
+Germany, in France, in India, in Russia, in London, at Cambridge, and
+heaven only knows where. What is all this but the first step towards
+turning the Bodleian into a vast and vulgar circulating library? I must
+say again, as I have said elsewhere, that the Bodleian Library is
+absolutely unlike any other library in the world; it is in its way
+peerless and unique; it was founded and augmented by learned men for
+learned men; it was never meant for the motley crew which in the present
+day crams the Camera and the Library itself. It is sad to one who can
+remember what the Bodleian was even thirty years ago to see such rapid
+decline, such manifest tokens of disregard for all that once rendered
+the place a sacred spot. But this is to wander from my immediate
+business, and what I conceive to be the abuse, I might even say the
+gross abuse of the Bodleian, for which the Curators are directly
+responsible, must be matter for some other paper.
+
+It seems to be the notion of some people in this University that the
+Bodleian Library is a fit place for readers of any and of every kind.
+They have not knowledge enough of books or of libraries to see that a
+library suitable only to scholars of a high class is not a library
+adapted to learners and schoolboys.
+
+Any one beginning microscopic work will find all, and more than all, his
+wants satisfied for a long time to come by a five guinea instrument, and
+he is not unlikely to damage even that. Suppose that, instead of such an
+instrument, you gave him at once a two hundred pound microscope by Smith
+and Beck, or Ross, what would happen? He would be utterly bewildered by
+the complexity of it, utterly unable to use it as it should be used, and
+he would most certainly before long so damage it as to render it useless
+to all who could make a proper use of it. Between a first-rate
+microscope by Ross and a three or five guinea instrument the difference
+is much less than is the difference between the Bodleian and a library
+fit for undergraduates, or generally for the unlearned. By introducing
+undergraduates, schoolboys, and girls into such a library as the
+Bodleian, you in fact degrade the library to base uses, and render it
+_pro tanto_ inconvenient, to use a very mild term, to all who are fit to
+benefit by it, and who were intended by the founder to have the
+advantage of it.
+
+'What my experience has taught me,' says a most learned bibliographer
+(1. R. 121)[15], 'is, that it ought never to be attempted to use, as a
+popular library, the large libraries intended in the first instance for
+a superior class of readers;' and he adds further, that 'on every
+occasion, when it has been tried, the greatest part of the riches
+accumulated in the old library have been rendered useless.'
+
+[15] Report from the Select Committee on Public Libraries, ordered by
+the House of Commons to be printed 23 July, 1849, quoted by pages as 1.
+R. A second volume ordered to be printed 1 August, 1850, is quoted also
+by pages as 2. R. These Blue books contain an immense amount of
+information on all the libraries of Europe, and although the information
+is some forty years old, it is still indispensable to all who wish to
+acquaint themselves with the subject. The evidence also given is of the
+most varied kind, and very instructive.
+
+If it is in any sense useful to lend books out of the library, it is far
+more useful, all things considered, not to lend them.
+
+Every man of the least intelligence can see the difference between a
+library of reference and one from which books are lent. A library of
+reference, or a library of deposit, is one where books are to be
+perpetually preserved as carefully as may be for the convenience of
+scholars and students, and for the promotion of sound and solid
+learning; and lending any book from such a library is obviously
+inconsistent with the very purpose for which it is founded. 'I think,'
+says the Solicitor-General for Scotland, speaking of the Advocates'
+Library, 'that (lending books out) is quite inconsistent with the proper
+preservation of a great library' (1. R. 95).[16] And another very able
+witness, Mr. Colles, one of the library committee of the Royal Dublin
+Society, gives it as the result of his experience that no lending should
+be allowed in such a library. 'I speak,' he says, 'against the interest
+of my own family when I say this: but I think that the public use of the
+library would be increased by not lending.' And again, 'The two (i. e.
+libraries of reference and of circulation) ought to be separated, just
+as banks of issue should be separated from banks of deposit. I wish to
+be understood on this point: an individual painter or sculptor might be
+greatly benefited by borrowing out a capital picture from the National
+Gallery, or the Torso, Venus, or Portland Vase from the British Museum;
+but such a loan would by no means benefit artists in general, or advance
+the ultimate interests of painting or sculpture. This holds good equally
+with regard to valuable books.' (1. R. 185.)
+
+[16] See note [15].
+
+This question as to the expediency of lending books out of such
+libraries as the British Museum or the Bodleian has been hotly debated
+both at home and abroad for the last eighty years or more, and I wish I
+had space to detail the arguments that have been used, not by men
+ignorant of books and eager only to consult their own convenience, or to
+obtain credit for a spurious liberality; but by those who really and
+truly knew all the ins and outs of the matter they were talking about,
+and who were quite as anxious to promote learning as we are ourselves.
+Take, for instance, the late Mr. Thomas Watts, keeper of printed books
+in the British Museum, one of the very rarest of men, a librarian who
+thoroughly knew his business, at all events so far as printed books were
+concerned, and quite unequalled as regards all questions of organisation
+and administration. He carries impartiality almost to excess, for he
+says, speaking of lending, 'It would, perhaps, be expedient to examine
+the subject more closely before a final determination was come to on
+either side; for while the Bodleian Library is strictly non-circulating,
+the books are freely lent out to the members of the University from the
+University Library of Cambridge, and yet any material difference in the
+condition of the two libraries to the disadvantage of that of Cambridge,
+is certainly not a matter of public notoriety.' This statement appeared
+in 1867, and Mr. Watts evidently did not know that lending had been
+practised by the Bodleian Curators ever since 1862 (see above, p. 14);
+nor was he seemingly aware of the facts detailed by Mr. Bradshaw, or of
+such gross abuses as that which Mr. Bradshaw told a friend of my own. He
+said that on a certain occasion a graduate had a dinner party, and that
+he borrowed from the University Library certain expensive illustrated
+works to be laid on the table to amuse his guests; Bradshaw was
+powerless, though indignant at an act so disgraceful. Carefully however
+as Mr. Watts holds the balance, it seems unquestionable that he himself
+condemned the practice of lending from such libraries as the British
+Museum or the Bodleian; for after writing a column or more, in which he
+shows every disposition to lend books where it is possible to do so
+without causing more harm than good, he considers Mr. Spedding's
+proposal to lend a book wanted by a reader in London to the British
+Museum library--the very thing in fact which we now are in the habit of
+doing, he then says; "By this ingenious arrangement some of the
+advantages proposed by the lending system would certainly be afforded,
+under safeguards not now obtainable; but there would still remain the
+strong objection that a reader wishing to examine a particular book
+known to be in a particular library might be subjected to a
+disappointment which he is now in no hazard of. This objection is
+tersely stated in a passage from a letter by Niebuhr, which was quoted
+by the Commissioners for examining into the University of Oxford. 'It is
+lamentable,' writes Niebuhr from the University of Bonn, 'that I am here
+much worse off for books than I was at Rome, where I was sure to find
+whatever was in the library, because no books were lent out; here I find
+that just the book which I most want is always lent out.' There are few
+libraries from which books are lent of which stories are not current
+respecting the abuse of the privilege, of volumes kept for years by
+persons too high or too venerable to be questioned. The rules of such
+institutions are often laxly observed by those from whom we should least
+expect such disregard. In Walter Scott's correspondence with Southey
+there is a passage in which he recommends him not to show publicly a
+book which he had sent him, because it belongs to the Advocate's
+Library, and it is forbidden for those books to be sent out of
+Scotland."
+
+The opinion then of one of the most accomplished librarians that ever
+lived is, on the whole, adverse to the system of lending. I believe it
+to be quite impossible for a man of his enormous knowledge of the
+subject to come to any other conclusion than that at which he arrived:
+the less a man knows about books and libraries, the more inclined he is
+to the pernicious system of lending; the more he knows about them, the
+less inclined he is to countenance anything of the kind; such at least
+has been my experience.
+
+The late Mr. Henry Bradshaw of Cambridge was a most learned librarian
+and an accomplished bibliographer. He has not, so far as I am aware,
+expressed in print his plain opinion of the lending system; but no one
+can read his paper on the Cambridge University Library, (The University
+Library, ... by Henry Bradshaw, Librarian of the University, Camb. 1881.
+8vo.,) without seeing that he bitterly regretted the practice which
+prevails and has long prevailed in that place. The Bodleian has a
+history, a noble and honourable history: the Cambridge University
+Library has none, at all events none that is not disgraceful. 'One
+reason,' he says (p. 6), 'for the dearth of materials in the Library for
+its own history is to be found in the circumstance that the Library is
+really scattered over the whole country.' And again, 'We have often
+heard of the principal benefactors to the Bodleian Library having been
+induced to bequeath their own libraries to the University of Oxford from
+seeing the careful way in which the bequests of their predecessors have
+been housed and kept together. The coincidence at Cambridge is too
+striking to be accidental, where we find that only two such bequests are
+on record': this statement he subsequently corrects into 'three' instead
+of two: and again, 'It is probable that by drawing attention to the fact
+that none of the great collectors of the last two hundred years have
+thought fit to leave their books to our University Library, we may be
+pointing to a lesson which our successors may profit by, even though we
+are too indifferent to pay any attention to it ourselves.'
+
+The inference plainly to be drawn from these and other passages is that
+the writer strongly disapproved of the practice which he was obliged
+officially to countenance. From 1600 down to the last ten or fifteen
+years the history of the Bodleian Library has been on the whole a
+history of which every true scholar, and every genuine lover of books
+may be proud; the history of the Cambridge Library for the
+corresponding period has been an almost unbroken record of disgraceful
+carelessness, and the root of all the evil has been the practice of
+lending, as will be clear to any one who will take the trouble to read
+Mr. Bradshaw's paper. There has been, as there always must be, where
+such a practice is allowed, wholesale robbery. In 1772 the library was
+inspected and 'a large number of rare books were reported to be
+missing.' (p. 28.) The latest previous inspection had been in 1748, when
+902 volumes were reported as missing from the old library alone ... the
+loss was the result of that wholesale pillage spoken of before. It is
+very singular that the very same year that the inspection shewed such
+serious losses to have happened from unrestricted access, the University
+should have made fresh orders (the basis of those now in use),
+permitting more fully this same freedom of access. The _Cicero de
+Officiis_ printed in 1465 on vellum, a Salisbury Breviary printed in
+1483 on vellum (the only known copy of the first edition), the Salisbury
+_Directorium Sacerdotum_ printed by Caxton (the only known copy), are
+three instances out of many scores of such books which might be
+mentioned as purloined during the latter half of the eighteenth century,
+simply from this total disregard of all care for the preservation of the
+books. Even manuscripts were lent out on ordinary tickets; and it was
+seemingly only owing to the strong remonstrances of Mr. Kerrich, the
+principal Librarian of the day, that a grace was passed in 1809,
+requiring that no manuscript whatever should be borrowed, except with
+the permission of the Senate, and on a bond given for the same to the
+Librarian. "We have the ticket, but we cannot get the book back," Mr.
+Kerrich says: "and to this day the book in question has never been
+returned." (p. 28.) Such are the disgraceful acts of men bred at an
+English University, compared with whom the common pickpocket appears
+positively respectable.
+
+Mr. Panizzi, principal Librarian of the British Museum, a man whose
+knowledge of libraries and of books has rarely been equalled, was
+asked, 'Are you of opinion that there should be in all countries
+libraries of two sorts, namely, libraries of deposit, and libraries
+devoted to general reading and the circulation of books?' answered,
+'That is another question. I think the question of lending books is a
+very difficult question to answer. I have enquired in all countries,
+and, as far as experience goes, I find that, in spite of all the
+precautions taken, of the regulations, and of everything which is done,
+books disappear; they are stolen or spoiled.' (2. R. 62.) And again: 'I
+do not think that lending can well be adopted without great risk of
+losing books; the question is whether there might not be remedies; I
+think from all experience I never found that librarians had succeeded in
+preventing stealing.' He also tells a very instructive story of some
+rare books stolen from the library at Wolfenbuettel, and be it noted that
+Panizzi and Watts knew more of their profession than a whole army of
+ordinary librarians. Let no one fancy for one moment that a congress of
+librarians is necessarily a congress of men really acquainted with
+either bibliography or with books; it may, perhaps, on some occasions
+include one or more who answer to that description, but in general it
+does not do so. 'La bibliographie,' says Richou, 'est une science exacte
+qui demande une preparation assez longue et que la pratique developpe.
+Les bibliothecaires improvises en ignorent jusqu'a l'existence et se
+preoccupent peu de l'acquerir. Il ne faut pas chercher ailleurs la cause
+de la mauvaise administration d'un grand nombre de bibliotheques
+publiques, car le mal est commun.' (_Traite de l'Administration des
+Bibliotheques publiques_, p. 82.)
+
+The opinion expressed by Mr. Watts and Mr. Panizzi, and implied by Mr.
+Bradshaw, is, I am convinced, the opinion of all men who are acquainted
+with this question in its length, breadth, and depth.
+
+How comes it then, some one may ask, that foreign librarians do not
+speak out against the practice? Because it is not in general the habit
+of foreign officials to have opinions of their own, and still less to
+express them, if they have them, when such opinions are not fashionable,
+or not likely to advance those who utter them: and this goes a long way
+towards explaining the answers given to questions put by the English
+Government nearly forty years ago to the custodians of libraries where
+(though under many restrictions) lending was, and is practised. The
+general tenor of the answers is that books do not suffer more than might
+be expected, that losses are comparatively rare, that when loss is
+suffered the books can generally be replaced, and that when they cannot
+their value can almost always be recovered from the borrower. Such, I
+say, is the general tenor of the answers, but few who know anything
+about circulating libraries will accept such answers as satisfactory.
+Before the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War the Germans printed
+splendid books, and not unfrequently bound them grandly; but for the
+last two hundred years few German librarians, unless trained in France
+or England, have known what a really fine book is, or whether it is in
+what a Frenchman would call good condition. In other words, when they
+say that books lent are not much damaged, it must be always remembered
+that notions of damage are relative, and most German librarians are in
+all probability like an old friend of my own, who holds that no book is
+in really ill condition, provided the readable part of it is still
+legible: the title may be torn or gone; 'I don't want to read the
+title,' says he: the covers may be broken or destroyed; 'Cannot you read
+an unbound book?' he asks; and so on. There is this difference, however;
+my friend does know when a book really is in good condition. Moreover,
+there are, or at least there were, some foreign librarians who have
+dared to tell the truth. Thus (see 2. R. 161-171), from the returns made
+by eighteen libraries in Belgium, we learn that the library of Antwerp
+(19,148 vols.) never lent; that no manuscripts were ever lent from that
+of Bruges; that manuscripts and rare books were never lent from the
+library of Malines; that valuable books were never lent from the
+library of Louvain; that no manuscripts or valuable books were ever lent
+from the library of Mons; and that such books and manuscripts were never
+lent from any of the University libraries. Nevertheless, some lending
+there was from some libraries; and it was asserted that little damage
+was done the books. Very different is the answer of the Librarian of
+Tournay (2. R. 163): 'Cette coutume a des inconvenients assez graves:
+impossibilite pour certains lecteurs de consulter les ouvrages dont ils
+ont besoin: rentre tardive des livres pretes; perte ou deterioration des
+volumes.' The Librarian of Nassau (2. R. 299), very unlike most of his
+brethren, says, 'das Verleihen der Buecher asserhalb der Anstalt hat
+allerdings die nachtheilige Folge dass dieselben in kurzer Zeit, im
+Aussern wie im Innern stark mitgenommen werden. Die Einbaende werden
+verstossen und schaebig und der Druck durch Schnupfer und Raucher oft
+aufs Unangenehmste beschmutzt,' with more to the same effect. Even at
+the Royal Library of Berlin it is admitted that 'die Buecher und Einbaende
+werden dadurch mehr beschaedight und verdorben' (2. R. 304); and at the
+University Library, 'die Abnutzung durch die Studirenden ist sehr stark'
+(2. R. 305). The answer from the University Library at Bonn is,
+'Nachtheilige Folge beim Verleihen der Buecher waren troz der
+sorgfaeltigsten Ueberwachung nicht immer zu vermeiden. Manche Baende kamen
+beschmutzt auch verstuemmelt zurueck.' There are very similar answers from
+a few other libraries both of Germany and Italy. Common sense and a
+little experience will tell any one to which class of testimony credence
+should be given.
+
+As to replacing a lost or damaged book, the thing is by no means so easy
+as it looks. What is common to-day may be rare a year hence, and quite
+unprocurable on any terms in two years time. 'Then,' says Ignoramus, 'it
+will be reprinted, and you may buy that'; but the man who talks so
+wildly cannot be argued with, because he does not know the elements of
+the subject of which he is speaking. Suppose you lose the 19th edition
+of the _Christian Year_, you do not replace the book by purchasing the
+100th edition, as all experts know. 'Buy another copy of the 19th then',
+says Ignoramus; but it may be that you have to pay a very high price for
+it, and it sometimes happens that you cannot get it at all. 'If you do
+not get the book, you can recover its value.' Even supposing that you
+can--and here in Oxford we have no machinery by which we can recover a
+farthing--how is a man who wants to see a particular book benefited by
+being told that he cannot see the book because it has been lent and
+lost, but that the Library has received compensation? Well might Panizzi
+say that the question of lending is a very difficult question; it is so
+difficult that a volume would hardly contain an enumeration of all its
+complexities.
+
+Consider the case of books, printed and manuscript, lent out to those on
+the borrowers' list, a list, be it observed, which, according to the
+lawyers, has not the least statutable warrant. In the first place, you
+have not the least assurance or guarantee that any one of them knows how
+to use a book without damaging it, and, as I have already said, it is an
+almost uniform and invariable experience, that borrowers of books do
+damage them. All book-lovers know this so well, that they make very sure
+of their man before they intrust a valuable or well-bound book to him,
+but we at the Bodleian do not. Pixerecourt, a great collector, was so
+convinced of this fact that he inscribed over his library door these
+sadly true lines--
+
+    Tel est le triste sort de tout livre prete
+    Souvent il est perdu, toujours il est gate.
+
+How unfit some at least on the borrowers' list are to be intrusted with
+books, how little notion they have of taking care of them, is clear from
+many facts which might be mentioned. In the library itself you may see
+almost any day abundant proof of the unfitness of those admitted to
+enjoy the privileges which are allowed them. On May 19th, 1885, a
+Curator came into my room and said, 'I was walking through the Bodleian
+looking for ---- when I saw a sight which made me sick.' 'You may see
+many such sights there,' said I; 'what was it?' 'I saw a bevy of women
+with an illuminated MS., and they were turning over the leaves, all
+looking at it.' On Friday, August 21st, 1885, I myself counted at one
+desk at the Selden end _sixty-four_ volumes, all had out by one reader;
+on the table was a MS. open, and on it two or three books; another was
+open on the floor, and so on. On April 22nd, 1886, I saw on a desk also
+at the Selden end three (I believe four) Sanscrit MSS. They were open
+and kept so by books placed on them, sundry printed books also open one
+on the other, and in my note written the same day I find the observation
+that it was 'a miserable spectacle of untidiness and reckless disregard
+for precious volumes.' It would be easy to add more, for from the first
+I have kept notes of all that I see in the library, and of much that I
+hear about it--this, however, is enough to show what may be expected
+when people carry off books home. There no prying eye will see them, no
+one is likely to come suddenly round a corner and observe their
+proceedings. Things are really bad enough _in_ the library as it is; and
+they are as bad or worse in the Camera, where books are most shamefully
+ill-used. I have notes of some things which I have observed there, and
+of a conversation which I had with a person of sharp eyes and wits. One
+Curator alone can do very little; if all would, even it were only
+occasionally, do what I do habitually (Tit. XX. iii. Sec. 12, 2), it would
+be far easier than it now is to put a stop to some rather serious
+abuses. Let it be distinctly understood that in saying all this I do not
+blame any person or persons whatever, except the readers. In the British
+Museum Reading-room a man placed where the officials sit could, with a
+machine-gun, comfortably pick off every reader in less than a minute,
+because he could rake every desk; the Bodleian is so picturesque and so
+peculiar in its construction, that Argus himself would be completely
+non-plussed, if ordered to keep his eyes on the readers, for even this
+highly-endowed being had not the dragon-fly power of seeing round
+corners; and from the Librarian's seat you might discharge a Gatling gun
+straight up 'Duke Humphrey,' with no other result than the downfall of a
+little dust, and the smashing of the west window; as to hitting a
+reader, you might as well try to shoot the Invisible Girl. At the Camera
+there is just the same difficulty, which will hardly be overcome till
+the laws of nature are reformed, and light condescends to travel in
+convenient curves. The regular officials have quite enough to do, if
+they attend only to their necessary work, which pins them down to one
+spot, and totally precludes them from exercising (even if they possessed
+it) the saintly privilege of bilocation. To come back to the point:
+books are badly used in the library itself. Now I ask any man of common
+sense, whether it is possible that books treated so vilely in the
+library itself will be better treated in a private house?
+
+I am not going to tell any tales, but this I may say, that before I
+became a Curator I have seen Bodleian books (once a very rare book) in
+strange places, and under circumstances by no means conducive to their
+preservation. The thing must be so: it is as much as the most vigilant
+officer can do to prevent damage being done under his very eyes, and it
+stands to reason that no mercy will be shown a book as soon as it is
+fairly out of the building.
+
+Again, when a man borrows a book from the Bodleian, you have not the
+least assurance that he will not in his turn lend it. This I know has
+happened with one book at least belonging to another library in Oxford.
+Sir Walter Scott had, perhaps, as much conscience as it is possible for
+a literary man to have, yet he lends Southey a book borrowed from the
+Advocates' Library (see above, p. 49) contrary to rule; and what Scott
+would do, Scott's inferior in character and morals would most certainly
+not scruple to do.
+
+When a book is lent out to any one on the borrowers' list no contract
+is entered into, either verbally or in writing, that the book shall be
+returned at any specified time, nor in fact that it shall ever be
+returned at all. Are the Curators quite sure that they have any legal
+power to compel a return under such circumstances?
+
+Unless a book is carefully collated when it is returned, it will always
+be impossible to say with truth that it has been returned intact; and if
+every book is to be collated on its restoration to the library, we shall
+have no small increase of work, and increase of work always means, as we
+well know, increased expense.
+
+The lending of books to private houses then involves the very probable,
+and in many cases the absolutely certain, damage of the book, and its
+possible total loss without the least remedy, and without the slightest
+recompense or penalty. A manuscript was lent to the late Professor ----,
+and it is hardly necessary to say that it has never been returned, and
+this is, I fancy, at least the second instance within a very few years
+of total loss, for which neither the public nor the University ever
+received one atom of benefit.
+
+Even if the Bodleian were not one of the two great reference libraries
+of this country, if it were merely a large and fine library of no very
+great national importance, there would still be no excuse for borrowing
+from it; for there is no town of its size that contains so many books as
+Oxford. In every College there is a library, which is not unfrequently
+full of fine books--Christ Church, All Souls', St. John's, Worcester,
+Merton, Corpus, Oriel, Magdalen and Queen's are all remarkable; and if
+we count in manuscripts there is hardly a single College without its
+gems and rarities. Nor is there the slightest difficulty in making a
+proper use of all these treasures. Any one really fit to use a College
+book is always permitted to do so, nor is there in general any objection
+to lending if the borrower is known to be trustworthy: the fault, if
+any, is rather the other way. 'But,' says some borrower, 'the book that
+I want is in no College library, and it is in the Bodleian.' Is it not
+plain to every man of sense, that the book which is in no College
+library, and is in the Bodleian, is just the book which ought not to be
+lent, under any conceivable circumstances? Lending even from College
+libraries has been the cause of innumerable losses--in fact, nothing in
+Euclid is more true than the proposition, that sooner or later A BOOK
+LENT IS A BOOK LOST.
+
+Of the losses which the library at Cambridge has sustained, something
+has been said above (p. 51). All libraries, however carefully kept, are
+exposed to occasional and exceptional depredations. Paulus, the
+celebrated German professor, stole one manuscript at least from the
+Bodleian; the thefts in German, Russian, Italian, and French libraries
+are only too notorious. Are we to give additional facilities by lending
+books out? Even when lent to the greatest scholars, and presumably to
+careful men, books are by no means safe. Every one knows how, not so
+long ago, two or more of the most ancient manuscripts of Jornandes were
+destroyed while in the hands of Mommsen. Fire invaded his rooms; the
+professor escaped unharmed (of course he did), but the manuscripts were
+destroyed. Literature and scholarship gained nothing by this loan,
+though all future generations have lost much. Had common sense been the
+ruling principle of the libraries from which Mommsen obtained these
+manuscripts, they would have been safe at this moment. The convenience,
+perhaps the laziness, of an individual was consulted, and the world has
+lost what can never be replaced.
+
+Mr. Watts, whom I have already quoted, says in speaking of lending, 'The
+testimony of Molbech, the librarian of the Royal Library of Copenhagen,
+where lending is permitted, is to the effect, not only that the risk is
+greater, as must of course be the case where books are removed from
+supervision and control, but that in practice great damage is found to
+ensue.' If we are told, as very likely we shall be told, that no such
+damage occurs here, I am somewhat at a loss to answer; perhaps it will
+be enough to observe that different men unavoidably have different ideas
+of what constitutes damage, and that what is not always immediately
+discovered may hereafter be detected when it is too late to assign the
+blame to the real offender.
+
+Under the present system of administration, for which the Curators are
+responsible, the actual, and, it may be, the unavoidable wear and tear
+of books in the library itself, even in the choicer portions of it, is
+great enough to deter any man in the future from acting as Douce did in
+the past. The way in which very precious volumes are knocked about is
+plain enough to any one who visits the interior of the library as
+constantly as I do, and as all Curators are by statute empowered and
+even ordered to do. Readers are impatient, sometimes unreasonable;
+immense numbers of books can only be reached by means of ladders; the
+whole establishment is undermanned, and though the small staff does its
+best to protect the books, they are notwithstanding much bumped about.
+One consequence of this rough usage is that the standard of carefulness,
+as it may be called, is very naturally lowered, and as a further
+consequence the estimate of what constitutes damage is lowered in
+proportion.
+
+There are many readers, or there certainly have been readers in the
+library, who have not hesitated to make marks in printed books and
+manuscripts. The man who will do such a thing as this in the library,
+will not hesitate to do it when he gets the book into his own
+possession. Now all avoidable wear and tear is so much real loss to the
+library, and detracts in that proportion from its utility. It may be
+useful to A or B to borrow books from the Bodleian, but it cannot be
+useful to the University or to future generations that the life of any
+book should be carelessly or needlessly abridged.
+
+It will be admitted that no book can be in two places at the same time;
+if a volume is in the rooms of Mr. X or Mr. Y, it cannot at that moment
+be produced in the Bodleian should a reader happen to want it. One of
+the great advantages of such a library as the Bodleian, if it were
+properly administered, is that a visitor is sure to find the book which
+he comes to consult. This is perfectly well understood by such men as
+Mr. Watts (see above, p. 49); it was brought home to the mind of
+Niebuhr, and it has been one of the reasons why all lending has up to
+the present moment been most rigidly forbidden at the British Museum. In
+a library like the Bodleian, where the practice of lending prevails as
+it now does, a man may put himself to great inconvenience in order to
+visit it; he may even travel from Berlin, and when he arrives he may
+find that all his trouble has been in vain; the very book he wants is
+out: at the British Museum, where up to the present time knowledge and
+common sense have prevailed, every man is sure that he can at once get
+any book whatever that he finds in the catalogue. It is a thousand
+pities to destroy this confidence; one of the great uses of a library
+like ours disappears when things are so ill managed, and I believe that
+there are in the Bodleian men who could tell of some grievous
+disappointments caused by our modern laxity. I know very well that we
+shall be told that such cases are few and trivial: be it so. Who does
+not see that as the present practice extends, as extend it must, one of
+the great advantages of a grand library will at last vanish? Nothing can
+be more strictly useful to all real students than the absolute certainty
+of obtaining at once any book that can be found in the catalogue.
+
+No limit seems to be placed on the borrower's powers; he may, for
+anything that appears to the contrary, have any number of books or
+manuscripts out. Now when we see the practice of more than one reader
+_in_ the library, we may form a pretty shrewd guess of what men will do
+in the way of borrowing. I am well within the mark when I say that at
+least _one hundred_ volumes have been ere now allowed out to one reader
+at a time.
+
+The present Librarian has been trying, I believe, to check this morbid
+appetite for superfluous volumes; but it is not always an easy thing to
+root out a bad habit.
+
+Any one who examines the slips in the various parts of the Bodleian, as
+I habitually do, will be struck by two things; the immense number of
+volumes had out by the same reader or readers, and the length of time
+that volumes are allowed to remain off the shelves; and this is in great
+measure the fault of a system for which we are answerable. What takes
+place in the library will undoubtedly sooner or later take place out of
+it. A borrower is not, so far as I know, limited as to the number of
+volumes he may have out; neither is he limited as to the time he may
+keep them out. The present Librarian informed me that when he came into
+office he found that one book had been out of the library for _nine_
+years, and that others had been off the shelves for very long periods of
+time. And such things must happen, if you sanction this wretched system
+of lending. It is perfectly easy to do what constant experience has
+shown to entail on the whole the minimum of evil; it is easy to keep
+your books within the library as they do at the British Museum; but if
+you once lend, there is no drawing of lines possible. Altogether there
+are about one hundred and eleven persons on the borrowers' list already.
+It is said that the Curators can refuse any application if they choose;
+of course they can, but as a matter of fact no application ever has been
+refused, and every name added will make it more and more difficult, more
+and more invidious to refuse any one. Every Oxford resident is
+potentially on the list, and he may be actually on it whenever he likes.
+What is this but the beginning, and something more than the beginning,
+of that wretched system which Mr. Bradshaw speaks of above? (p. 50.) The
+dissolution of our magnificent library is already insidiously begun; and
+why is all this gratuitous and irreparable mischief to be done? why is
+that vast storehouse intended for the use and benefit of generation
+after generation of scholars to be scattered and at last destroyed?
+Simply to gratify the vulgar, selfish convenience of this or that
+individual regardless of the general good. The whole is to be
+sacrificed for a part, and for what a part! The present Librarian has
+been trying to do something to check this disastrous and ruinous
+practice, but the Curators are responsible for it, not the Librarian.
+
+Manuscripts and printed books when lent out of Oxford are as a rule not
+lent to private houses but deposited in some library. What happens
+abroad I do not know, though I confess to having my suspicions. If a
+manuscript were lent to some one in a Cathedral town, it would be
+deposited in the Cathedral library; and we comfort ourselves with the
+belief that in such a place it would be secure, and that it would not on
+any account be removed from that library elsewhere. An acquaintance of
+my own, a very safe man, has had a Bodleian manuscript of great value
+out for some years, and it is lent not to him directly, but to a library
+where alone he is to use it. It may be that this arrangement is actually
+carried out, and I do not know that it is not, yet I would bet five
+pounds to a penny that if I went to his house I should find the Bodleian
+book kicking about in his study, where, in fact, though exposed to a
+thousand risks of damage and even destruction, it is really safer than
+in the library where we suppose it to be. For one Cathedral library I
+can answer: a book would hardly be safer there than it would be on a
+public and unwatched book-stall, and such I have no doubt whatever is
+the case with more than half the places to which we send books for safe
+custody. There is as little conscience about books in this stupid and
+wicked world as there is about umbrellas, and one of the most important
+and most useful functions of a body like the Curators of the Bodleian is
+to set up a high standard in such matters. It is our duty as trustees to
+take lofty ground, and to be sensitive where the world is listless and
+careless; and even if we do not really feel exactly as we ought, we are
+bound, like Gertrude, to 'assume a virtue though we have it not'; it is
+very laudable hypocrisy if the real article cannot be had. Yet I hope
+that it can, and that upon consideration we may all see that the
+convenience of a few is not for a moment to be compared with the
+convenience of many, and that we shall awake to the fact that we, of all
+people, ought not to countenance in any way whatever any practice which
+may tend in the remotest degree to damage the only institution in Oxford
+of which any rational being can in the present day be justly proud.
+
+Lending of books has many more evil consequences, proximate and remote,
+than I have enumerated; but there is one which at the risk of being
+tedious must be mentioned. The glorious part of the Bodleian, the part
+contributed by Bodley himself, by Laud, by Selden, Pembroke, Digby, Roe,
+Rawlinson, &c., consists largely of gifts. Every man who knows anything
+at all about books, every one who loves them, is perfectly well aware
+that very few men will bequeath their libraries to an institution which
+emulates the American or the English circulating and commercial
+establishment. Barlow knew this, Bradshaw knew it (see above, p. 50);
+every one knows it, who has the least acquaintance with the habits and
+peculiarities of collectors. The Bodleian has to my certain knowledge
+already lost very rare books indeed which it might have had, but for
+this penny-wise and pound-foolish policy. Neither Rawlinson nor Douce
+would ever have been such fools as to leave us what they did, could they
+have foreseen how little sense of our duties and of our interests we
+have shown. Bodley over and over again, and in the strongest terms,
+forbad the lending of his books; Selden's executors only delivered his
+books to us on the express condition that they never should under any
+circumstances be lent; Laud stipulated that his books should not be
+lent, except for one particular purpose and in one particular way. The
+Bodleian is what it is, because till quite recent times we adhered to
+the rule of common sense, not to say to that of common honesty, and it
+is ever to be regretted that we departed from a course which was at once
+safe and honourable. There will be no more Douces, no more Rawlinsons,
+until we have returned to better ways and proved the sincerity of our
+repentance. I have heard it maintained that the days of great
+benefactors are over, that in some way not explained men's characters
+and habits have changed. I cannot admit this; men are now what they
+always were, and collectors in all ages are singularly alike. Only let
+us be as prudent, as worldly wise, and, I will add, as honest as our
+predecessors were, and there is no reason why the munificent benefactors
+of the past should not be rivalled by equally munificent benefactors in
+the future. Mr. Bradshaw (above, p. 50) is decidedly of opinion that
+carelessness with regard to books prevents benefactions, and that care
+attracts them. Barlow is of the same mind, and indeed the thing is too
+obvious to be insisted on. It is only those who know little or nothing
+of the feelings which actuate the real lovers of books who doubt about
+such very simple facts as these.
+
+To conclude this part of the subject; the arguments against the lending
+of books out of such a library as the Bodleian may be briefly summed up
+thus: lending is bad, because books are necessarily exposed to needless
+and certain risks of damage and of downright loss; because one of the
+great ends served by a large library is defeated, in that no man can be
+certain of obtaining a book known to be in it; because lending leads
+sooner or later to the destruction of a library; because it dries up the
+great sources from which large numbers of the most valuable books are
+derived; because it is disapproved of by all those who have the largest
+and widest experience of books and their management; because, finally,
+it is in violation of the express directions of Bodley, of Selden, of
+Laud and others, and almost certainly contrary to the wishes of all our
+great benefactors, even though they may not have said as much. Reason
+and authority are equally against it; and the cause of learning and of
+literature can never be permanently served by a practice which tends to
+destroy that without which learning and literature alike are impossible:
+whatever advantages may seem to attend it, are more than counterbalanced
+by disadvantages so great, that none but those who recklessly sacrifice
+the future to the present, the interests of generations yet to come, to
+the selfishness of the generation that now is, can regard it with any
+favour or even with common patience. We have by the sturdy honesty of
+our predecessors received a vast treasure which they carefully preserved
+intact; we are its guardians and trustees, and we are bound in honour
+and honesty to hand on to our successors, undiminished and unimpaired,
+what we have received only as a trust, not as a something which we may
+spend or destroy at our pleasure. Any wilful act of ours which tends,
+however remotely, to damage the Bodleian Library is not only a
+scandalous breach of duty, but a crime against learning itself, in which
+I for one will have no part or share.
+
+    BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+
+The plus character (+) is used to enclose transliterated Greek.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Remarks on the practice and policy of
+lending Bodleian printed books and manuscripts, by Henry W. Chandler
+
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