The fate of the libraries founded by De Bury and Duke Humphrey of Gloucester was to perish at the hands of the mob. Bishop Bale has told the sad story of the destruction of the monastic libraries. The books were used for tailors' measures, for scouring candlesticks and cleaning boots; 'some they sold to the grocers and soap-sellers'; some they sent across the seas to the book-binders, 'whole ships-full, to the wondering of foreign nations': he knew a merchant who bought 'two noble libraries' for 40_s._, and got thereby a store of grey paper for his parcels which lasted him for twenty years. The same thing happened at Oxford. The quadrangle of one College was entirely covered 'with a thick bed of torn books and manuscripts.' The rioters in the Protector Somerset's time broke into the 'Aungerville Library,' as De Bury's collection was called, and burnt all the books. Some of De Bury's books had been removed into Duke Humphrey's Library, and met the same fate at the Schools, with almost every other volume that the University possessed. So complete was the destruction that in 1555 an order was made to sell the desks and book-shelves, as if it were finally admitted that Oxford would never have a library again. Some few of the Duke's books escaped the general destruction. Of the half-dozen specimens in the British Museum three are known by the ancient catalogues to have been comprised in his gifts to the University. Two more remain at Oxford in the libraries of Oriel and Corpus Christi. We learn from Mr. Macray that only three out of the whole number of his MSS. are now to be found in the Bodleian. One of them contains the Duke's signature: another is of high interest as being a translation out of _Aristotle_ by Leonardo Aretino, with an original dedication to the Duke. The third is a magnificent volume of _Valerius Maximus_ prepared, as we know from the monastic annals, under the personal supervision of Abbot Whethamstede, the 'passionate bibliomaniac' of St. Alban's. It contains inscriptions, says Mr. Macray, recording its gift for the use of the scholars, with anathemas upon all who should injure it. 'If any one steals this book,' says the Abbot, 'may he come to the gallows or the rope of Judas.' [Illustration: THE DUKE OF BEDFORD PRAYING BEFORE ST. GEORGE. (_From the "Bedford Missal."_)]