But it is to be hoped that the University will follow the excellent example of the British Museum. The Oriental Congress have been moving heaven and earth to get the Trustees to sanction the loan of Oriental Manuscripts ‘under proper guarantees,’ and they have brought considerable pressure to bear; but the Trustees, as well as the responsible officers in the Museum, have given the Oriental Congress its answer. The authorities in Great Russell Street know their business, and they utterly decline to lend on any terms. Let us be as wise as they are. If the present Statute is passed, no one can be so foolish as to suppose that it will be long obeyed, or that it will not be soon relaxed. The question really is between lending and not lending. The lending, if sanctioned in any form, will at first be limited, it will rapidly become unlimited. A rat-hole in a dyke lets the water in at first in a dribble, then in a stream, finally away goes the dyke and irreparable mischief is done. So will it be with lending, only that the dyke which defends the Bodleian will be bored in an indefinite number of places. Every borrower will act the part of a rat. The borrowers’ list which this Statute legalizes for the first time will soon embrace the name of every graduate in Oxford. It is so convenient to have the exact book you want in your own room. Yes, unquestionably most convenient; but what is the price you pay for this convenience? A ruinous one; you destroy the Bodleian as a library of reference. ‘Once or twice a year,’ says Mr. Warren (see _Academy_, March 12, 1887), ‘graduates like myself go up to Oxford on a short visit with pages of references to verify, anxious to see new or back numbers of the _Revue Celtique_, Palæographical Society publications, &c. It is both inconvenient and disappointing to be told, as I have been told more than once, that such-and-such a book is out on loan, and cannot be had. The inconvenience will become greater as the circle of privileged borrowers becomes larger’; this is the language of a student, and the language of common sense. The benefit of a reference library cannot be exaggerated, and it must be clear to the meanest capacity that lending and deposit cannot possibly be combined. It is not difficult to damage or destroy the usefulness of the Bodleian, and the Statute on which we are now to vote is the first step downwards. To lend books out of such a library as ours is an act opposed to the teachings of experience, nor can it be said that the course which we are invited to take is one sanctioned by those who are eminent authorities on such a question. The men who for years past have been persistently trying to force this fatal policy upon the University may be remarkable on more accounts than one; yet they are assuredly not remarkable either for their acquaintance with books and libraries, or for their knowledge of the Bodleian. To them it is merely a large