[103] Walker's _Letters of Eminent Men_, 1813, vol. i. p. 175. A.D. 1642. 'The Kinge, Jul. 11, 1642, had £500 out of Sir Th. Bodlyes Chest, as appeares by Dr. Chaworthes acquittance in the same box.' (Barlow's Library Accounts for 1657. _MS._) This loan was, of course, never repaid. It is regularly carried on in the Annual Accounts up to the year 1782. Nov. 30. 'At night the Library doore was allmost broken open. Suspitio de incendio, &c.' (Brian Twyne's _Musterings of the Univ._, in Hearne's _Chron. Dunst._ p. 757.) It must have been about the close of this year or beginning of the next, while the king was in winter quarters at Oxford, that the visit was paid to the Library, which is the subject of the following well-known anecdote. It is here quoted from the earliest authority in which it is found, viz. Welwood's _Memoirs_, Lond. 1700. pp. 105-107:-- 'The King being at Oxford during the Civil Wars, went one day to see the Publick Library, where he was show'd among other Books, a Virgil nobly printed and exquisitely bound. The Lord Falkland, to divert the King, would have his Majesty make a trial of his fortune by the _Sortes Virgilianæ_, which everybody knows was an usual kind of augury some ages past. Whereupon the King opening the book, the period which happen'd to come up was that part of Dido's imprecation against Æneas, which Mr. Dryden translates thus:-- "Yet let a race untam'd, and haughty foes, His peaceful entrance with dire arts oppose, Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field, His men discourag'd, and himself expell'd, Let him for succour sue from place to place, Torn from his subjects, and his son's embrace. First let him see his friends in battel slain, And their untimely fate lament in vain: And when at length the cruel war shall cease, On hard conditions may he buy his peace. Nor let him then enjoy supreme command, But fall untimely by some hostile hand, And lye unburi'd in the common sand." (Æneid, iv. 88.) It is said K. Charles seem'd concerned at this accident, and that the Lord Falkland observing it, would likewise try his own fortune in the same manner; hoping he might fall upon some passage that could have no relation to his case, and thereby divert the King's thoughts from any impression the other might have upon him. But the place that Falkland stumbled upon was yet more suited to his destiny than the other had been to the King's, being the following expressions of Evander upon the untimely death of his son Pallas, as they are translated by the same hand:-- "O Pallas, thou hast fail'd thy plighted word, To fight with reason, not to tempt the sword. I warned thee, but in vain, for well I knew What perils youthful ardor would pursue; That boiling blood would carry thee too far, Young as thou wert in dangers, raw to war. Oh! curst essay of arms, disastrous doom, Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come."