In May an order was made by the Curators that no strangers should have the use of any MSS. without finding sureties for the safety of the same, in consequence of a suspicion that whole pages had been in some cases abstracted. Hereupon a very earnest, and, in sooth, indignant, remonstrance was presented to the 'Curatores vigilantissimi' by the strangers then residing in Oxford 'studiorum causa.' The original document is preserved in Wood MS. F. 27, and is signed by eleven persons from Prussia and other parts of Germany, six Danes, and one Englishman (John Wyberd), a medical student. Some of these visitors are found, by reference to the Register of Readers, to have been students for a considerable time; the Baron ab Eulenberg, for instance, having been admitted on Jan. 18, 1638-9, and one Ven, a Dane, in 1633. The memorialists say that there is not even the very slightest ground for attributing such an offence to any of them, and that the Librarian himself candidly confesses that it has never been proved to him that strangers have ever done anything of the kind; they urge the difficulty of their finding sponsors for their honesty when they themselves are strangers and foreigners; they appeal to Bodley's own statutes as providing sufficiently for the contingency by ordering the Librarian to number the pages of a MS. before giving it out, and to examine it when returned; they fortify their arguments by abundant references to the civil law; they upbraid those who,--'internecino exterorum atque advenarum odio æstuantes (O celebratam Britanniæ hospitalitatem!),'--have originated the calumny; and, finally, warn the Curators against giving occasion for suspicion to the learned men of the whole world that 'doctos Angliæ viros, priscæ hospitalitatis immemores, majori exterorum quam Athenienses Megarensium odio flagrare.' The memorial is endorsed: 'De hac re amplius deliberandum censebant Præfecti ult. Maii, 1641;' and no doubt the obnoxious order was soon repealed. Half a century later, on Nov. 8, 1693, the order was in a certain degree renewed: it was then enjoined 'that no one be permitted to _transcribe_ any manuscript, but such as have a right to study in the Library.' The revival, however, was not due to any revived fear of foreigners; the following reason is given in a letter of information on Library matters from Dr. Hyde to Hudson, his successor, written on the latter's appointment in 1701:--'Some in the University have been very troublesome in pressing that their Servitors may transcribe manuscripts for them, though not sworn to the Library, nor yet capable of being sworn; wherefore the Curators made an order (as you will find in the Book of Orders in the Archives) "that none were capable of transcribing, except those who had the right of studying in the Library," viz. Batchelors[103].' But no doubt this order also soon became dormant, even if it were not definitely repealed. [102] Neal's _History of the Puritans_, i. 688.