Oxford (England) -- History; University of Oxford -- History
To this library Bacon sent his new book, "The Advancement of Learning,"
and here Milton, leaving the allegro of Horton or Forest Hill for the
penseroso of Oxford's cloisters, made friends with the librarian, and
added his own poems to those treasures which were soon to be defended by
the "unshaken virtue" of his friend, Fairfax, and increased by the
Chancellor, Oliver Cromwell. This is not the place to catalogue the list
of those treasures, the wealth of European literature and the MSS. of
the nearer and the farther East; the great collections which immortalise
the names of the donors, like Laud and Selden, Rawlinson, Gough, Douce
and Sutherland; the books which belonged to Queen Elizabeth and Queen
Margaret, to Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Addison and Shelley; the curios
and _objets-d'art_, princely gifts, like the Arundel and Selden marbles,
coins and portraits, minor curiosities, like stuffed alligators and
dried negro boys, or the lantern of Guy Fawkes, which have all found a
resting-place in
"this goodly Magazine of witte,
This Storehouse of the choicest furniture
The world doth yeelde, heere in this exquisite
And most rare monument, that doth immure
The glorious reliques of the best of men."[36]
In such a place, with such a history, it would be strange indeed if we
did not feel something of the charm that breathes from the very stones
of Bodley.
From the hot and noisy street you pass into the peaceful Schools'
quadrangle, lying beneath the shade of that curious tower, which, as it
were an academic conceit in stone, blends the five orders of classic
architecture with Gothic turret and pinnacle. Architecturally the
"Schools" are plain and poor, but you remember that Bodley conceived the
idea of rebuilding them, and that it was the day after his body had been
put to rest in Merton Chapel (29th March 1613) that the first stone was
laid. The Bodleian forms the west side of this quadrangle. The east wing
of the great library, built (1610-1613) by Bodley when already there was
"more need of a library for the books than of books for the library," is
panelled like the Divinity School, and stretches over the entrance to
it, the Proscholium or "Pig Market," where candidates for degrees were
obliged to wait. The west wing extends over Laud's late Gothic
Convocation House (1634-1640); the books have usurped the third story of
the Schools and the Clarendon building; they are filling the mighty
camera beyond and overflowing into the Ashmolean. But the entrance to
the heart of this grand collection is a modest portal. It opens on a
long winding stair, so long and so wearisome that you seem to have
trodden the very path by which true knowledge is gained ere you pass
through a simple green baize door and see the panorama of all learning,
lit by the glass of the east window, outspread before your eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account