Oxford (England) -- Description and travel; University of Oxford
Those six hundred manuscripts of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, which he
bestowed on the University, had a sad history. They were dispersed by
Edward vi.'s Commissioners, who judged them to be popish in
tendency, and only four of them were ever restored to their old home.
Nevertheless, Duke Humphreys gift was the origin of the Bodleian
Library. One does not like to think what the Library was like in the
days which followed, when its manuscripts were scattered abroad and its
shelves sold; but in the last years of the sixteenth century there arose
a man who took pity upon its desolation. This was Sir Thomas Bodley,
Fellow of Merton, a man of travel and affairs, who devoted the last
years of his life to the creation of what is now one of the most famous
libraries in existence. It has ever been the delight of scholars since
the days of James I., who wished he might be chained to the Library, as
some of the books were.
[Illustration: 0032]
The original chamber did not long suffice to contain the volumes; an
east and then a west wing were added, the latter over Archbishop Laud's
Convocation House (1640) which superseded Cobham's Chapel. From these
the books overflowed into various rooms in the Old Schools Quadrangle,
which had been rebuilt in James I.'s reign. Further space was gained in
1860, when the Radcliffe, set free by the removal of its collection of
scientific works to the New Museum, was lent to the Bodleian; and again
in 1882, on the opening of the New Examination Schools (sketched by Mr.
Matthison), when the Old Schools were rendered available for the uses of
the Library.
[Illustration: 0035]
[Illustration: 0036]
The various public buildings belonging to the University erected during
the nineteenth century, such as the Taylor Institution, the University
Art Galleries, the New Museum, and the Indian Institute, can hardly
escape attracting the attention of visitors to Oxford. It remains to
say a word of two older structures, which appear side by side in Mr.
Matthison's next drawing--the Clarendon Building and the Sheldonian
Theatre.
[Illustration: 0039]
The Clarendon Building was designed by Vanbrugh, and completed in 1713.
It is named after the author of the _History of the Rebellion_, and was
partially built out of the profits of the copyright of that work, which
Clarendon's son presented to the University. It was the home of the
University Press until 1830, and is now occupied by the offices of
various University Boards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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