by the Commissioners for examining into the University of Oxford. 'It is lamentable,' writes Niebuhr from the University of Bonn, 'that I am here much worse off for books than I was at Rome, where I was sure to find whatever was in the library, because no books were lent out; here I find that just the book which I most want is always lent out.' There are few libraries from which books are lent of which stories are not current respecting the abuse of the privilege, of volumes kept for years by persons too high or too venerable to be questioned. The rules of such institutions are often laxly observed by those from whom we should least expect such disregard. In Walter Scott's correspondence with Southey there is a passage in which he recommends him not to show publicly a book which he had sent him, because it belongs to the Advocate's Library, and it is forbidden for those books to be sent out of Scotland." The opinion then of one of the most accomplished librarians that ever lived is, on the whole, adverse to the system of lending. I believe it to be quite impossible for a man of his enormous knowledge of the subject to come to any other conclusion than that at which he arrived: the less a man knows about books and libraries, the more inclined he is to the pernicious system of lending; the more he knows about them, the less inclined he is to countenance anything of the kind; such at least has been my experience. The late Mr. Henry Bradshaw of Cambridge was a most learned librarian and an accomplished bibliographer. He has not, so far as I am aware, expressed in print his plain opinion of the lending system; but no one can read his paper on the Cambridge University Library, (The University Library, ... by Henry Bradshaw, Librarian of the University, Camb. 1881. 8vo.,) without seeing that he bitterly regretted the practice which prevails and has long prevailed in that place. The Bodleian has a history, a noble and honourable history: the Cambridge University Library has none, at all events none that is not disgraceful. 'One reason,' he says (p. 6), 'for the dearth of materials in the Library for its own history is to be found in the circumstance that the Library is really scattered over the whole country.' And again, 'We have often heard of the principal benefactors to the Bodleian Library having been induced to bequeath their own libraries to the University of Oxford from seeing the careful way in which the bequests of their predecessors have been housed and kept together. The coincidence at Cambridge is too striking to be accidental, where we find that only two such bequests are on record': this statement he subsequently corrects into 'three' instead of two: and again, 'It is probable that by drawing attention to the fact that none of the great collectors of the last two hundred years have thought fit to leave their books to our University Library, we may be pointing to a lesson which our successors may profit by, even though we