[Footnote 10: The speediest possible destruction of such buildings was the only way of dealing with fires before effective engines came in, which was not until the nineteenth century. Rings to facilitate the use of fire-hooks are to be found under the eaves of many old houses hereabout. The hooks had 30 foot handles, mounted on a pair of wheels.] Out-taken the Old Court, Corpus has nothing in the way of buildings that has either beauty or interest, the College having been remorselessly remodelled about 1825. But the contents of its Library surpass all else of the kind in Cambridge, containing, as it does, what is probably the identical Gospel Book used by St. Augustine in his conversion of the English, and what is probably the identical copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written for King Alfred, if not by his own hand. These priceless treasures once formed part of the library of Canterbury Abbey, which was sold by Henry the Eighth, at its suppression, as waste paper. Such relics as survived twenty years of this profanation were rescued by Archbishop Parker (the first Protestant Archbishop), in Elizabeth's reign, and were presented by him to the College, of which he had been Master.[11] To guard, so far as possible, against their again coming "to such base uses," he accompanied his gift with the condition that if a certain number of the MSS. were ever missing, the whole should pass to Caius College, and thence to Trinity Hall in case of a like loss. The authorities of these Colleges have (and exercise) the right of annual inspection: so far quite fruitlessly, as no single MS. has disappeared during the last three centuries. But the result has been to render this Library harder of access to visitors than any other, and it can only be seen by special arrangement with the Librarian, who has to be present in person, along with some other Fellow or Scholar of the College, before strangers can be introduced. [Footnote 11: Bishop Latimer, the Protestant martyr, also belonged to Corpus.] Corpus has the reputation of being haunted by a ghost, the existence of which has been taken quite seriously even within the present century. But the tale of its origin has a most suspicious number of variants. Some hold it to be the spirit of a poor motherless girl of seventeen, the daughter of Dr. Spenser (Master from 1667 to 1693), who died of fright at being discovered by her father while enjoying a clandestine interview with her undergraduate lover. (This tragedy is fairly historical.) Others declare that it is the lover; who was locked, or locked himself, into a cupboard, where he died of suffocation! Others again have a tale of a student from King's, who (in order not to haunt his own College) came hither to kill himself! That strange noises, not yet accounted for, are heard in some of the rooms, is, apparently, an established fact.