of learning for its own sake, though I admit that this last effort cost me almost all the faith I possess. But I trust that I have completely misunderstood the way in which my good-tempered critic would connect my under-estimate of the work done on MSS. with the argument against lending. All this, be it observed, is on the supposition that I actually have under-estimated that work; this I do not admit to be the fact, but whether I have or have not it in no way affects the argument against lending. Mr. Sanday’s next point is, that if we do not lend our books to foreigners, foreigners will not lend their books to us, which will greatly inconvenience English scholars; and, lastly, that it is a great inconvenience not to be permitted to have Bodleian printed books in our rooms. ‘The purpose,’ he says, ‘with which one borrows books is mainly to _complete a collection_: one has, perhaps, ten or twelve of the books one wants, but just some two or three are needed which no other library but the Bodleian can supply’. What does all this amount to? Why, that it is a great convenience to have books and MSS. out of the Bodleian. _Quis negavit?_ Everybody admits it; but the point--and it is really astonishing how few people there seem to be now-a-days who can see the point of any thing--the point is this: which on the whole is the greater convenience to the greatest number of serious students, letting books go out of the library or keeping them in it? Never to lend entails inconveniences; lending also entails inconveniences; on which side does the balance of inconvenience lie? People feel, as Mr. Sanday confesses that he feels, how convenient it is ‘_to complete a collection_’; they never for one moment consider that their convenience is another man’s inconvenience. Provided they can get what they want, they really seem to care not one farthing for anybody else in the universe. It is almost needless to add that this remark does not apply to Mr. Sanday.