Neglectos vidi libros multos, Quod mimime mirandum: Nam inter bardos tot et stultos There's few could understand 'em.' A.D. 1649. 'The Jews proffer £600,000 for Paul's, and Oxford Library, and may have them for £200,000 more[106].' They wished to obtain the first for a synagogue, and to do a little commercial business with the second. It is said in Monteith's _History of the Troubles_ (translated by Ogilvie, 1735, p. 473) that the sum they offered was £500,000, but that the Council of War refused to take less than £800,000: probably they afterwards increased this their original bid to £600,000. Philip, Earl of Pembroke, the Puritan Chancellor of the University, gave a splendidly bound copy of the Paris Polyglott, printed in 1645 in 10 vols. [106] London News-letter of April 2; printed in Carte's _Collection of Letters_, vol. i. p. 275. A.D. 1652. John Rous, the Librarian, died in the beginning of April, probably on April 3, as, the Statutes requiring the election of Librarian to take place within three days of a vacancy, it was on the 6th of that month that Thomas Barlow, M.A., Fellow of Queen's College, was unanimously elected to be Rous's successor. At the same time certain orders were read in Convocation which the Curators had made, for the formation by the Librarian of a Catalogue of the coins and other rarities, providing also that they should be regularly visited and verified by the Curators every November[107]. A legacy of £20 from Rous to the Library is entered in the Benefaction Register, under the year 1661, probably because it may not have been actually received until that year. [107] Reg. 'T. 158-9.' MS. Note by Dr. P. Bliss. A.D. 1653. Fifteen MSS., by Spanish authors, were given by Peter Pett, LL.B., Fellow of All Souls' College; and a sacred Turkish vestment of linen (e Mus. 45) on which the whole of the Koran is written in Arabic, by Richard Davydge, an East Indian merchant. A.D. 1654. 'April last, 1654, my Lord Protector sent his letter to Mr. Vice-Chancellor to borrow a MS. (Joh. de Muris) for the Portugal Ambassador. A copy of the Statute was sent (but not the book), which when his Highness had read, he was satisfy'd, and commended the prudence of the Founder, who had made the place so sacred[108].' Cromwell's gift of MSS. See under 1629. [108] Barlow's Argument against Lending Books out. A.D. 1654-1659.