No. V.
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_November 6th, 1886_.
“DEAR SIR,
“I will remove from your mind the belief that I treated your former
letter with discourtesy.
“I may say, that it did not appear to me to contain any question or
request which I could answer. You informed me that you had made
formal application in September for a loan of MSS., and your letter
was to complain of the delay in considering this request. You told
me that you had learned from the Librarian the cause of the delay
(the want of a quorum), and that he had intimated that there would
probably be no meeting formed before October 30th.
“You complained of this, and suggested that the statute regulating
the lending of the Bodleian books should be speedily revised.
“As I had no power to make a quorum, nor to engage that your
suggestion should be adopted; and as your letter made no demand for
any further information, I thought it best to reserve it for the
meeting of the 30th, when I communicated it to the Curators.
“I will lay the letter (dated November 3rd), with which you have
favoured me, before the next meeting of the Curators.
I beg to remain,
Yours faithfully,
(Signed) J. BELLAMY.”
“SIR R. F. BURTON.”
To resume this part of the subject.
The following dates show that I was kept waiting six weeks before being
finally favoured with the curtest of refusals:
Application made on September 13th, and sent on.
On Saturday, September 25th, Curators could not form quorum, and
deferred next meeting till Saturday, October 9th.
Saturday, October 9th. Again no quorum; and yet it might easily have
been formed, as three Curators were on or close to the spot.
Saturday, October 23rd. Six Curators met and did nothing.
Saturday, October 30th. Curators met and refused me the loan of MS.
My letter addressed to the Vice-Chancellor was read, and notice was
given for Saturday (December 3rd, 1886,) of a motion, “That the MS.
required by Sir R. F. Burton be lent to him”—and I was not to be
informed of the matter unless the move were successful. Of course it
failed. One of the Curators (who are the delegates and servants of
Convocation) was mortally offended by my letter to “The Academy,” and
showed the normal smallness of the official mind by opposing me simply
because I told the truth concerning the _lâches_ of his “learned body.”
Meanwhile I had addressed the following note to the Most Honourable the
Chancellor of the University.[422]
23, DORSET STREET, PORTMAN SQUARE,
_November 30th, 1886_.
“MY LORD,
“I deeply regret that the peculiar proceedings of the Bodleian
Library, Oxford, necessitate a reference to a higher authority with
the view of eliciting some explanation.
“The correspondence which has passed between the Curators of the
Bodleian Library and myself will be found in the accompanying
printed paper.
“Here it may be noticed that the Committee of the Orientalist
Congress, Vienna, is preparing to memorialise H.M.’s Secretary of
State, praying that Parliament will empower the British Museum to
lend out Oriental MSS. under proper guarantees. The same measure had
been proposed at the Leyden Congress of 1883; and thus an extension,
rather than a contraction of the loan-system has found favour with
European savants.[423]
“I believe, my Lord, that a new statute upon the subject of the
Bodleian loans of books and MSS. is confessedly required, and that
it awaits only the initiative of the Chancellor of the University,
without whose approval it cannot be passed.
I have, &c.,
(Signed) RICHARD F. BURTON.”
“THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE CHANCELLOR.”
My object being only publicity I was not disappointed by the following
reply:—
HATFIELD HOUSE, HATFIELD, HERTS,
_December 1st 1886_.
“DEAR SIR RICHARD,
“I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 30th of November, with
enclosure.
“I have, however, no power over the Bodleian Library, and,
therefore, I am unable to assist you.
Yours, very truly,
(Signed) SALISBURY.”
“SIR RICHARD F. BURTON, K.C.M.G.”
On January 29, 1887, there was another “Bodleian Meeting,” all the
Curators save one being present and showing evident symptoms of
business. The last application on the list of loans entered on the
Agenda paper ran thus:—
V MS. Bodl. Vols. 550–556 to the British Museum (the 7 vols.
successively) for the use of Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot’s Agent.
[The MS. lately refused to Sir R. Burton. Mr. Arbuthnot wishes
to have it copied.]
It was at once moved by the Regius Professor of Divinity (Dr. Ince) and
carried _nem. con._ that, until the whole question of lending Bodleian
books and MSS. then before Council, be definitely settled, no
applications be entertained; and thus Professor Van Helton, Bernard
Kolbach and Mr. Arbuthnot were doomed, like myself, to be disappointed.
On January 31, 1887, a hebdomadal Council was called to deliberate about
a new lending statute for submission to Convocation; and an amendment
was printed in the “Oxford University Gazette.” It proposed that the
Curators by a vote of two-thirds of their body, and at least six forming
a quorum, might lend books or MSS. to students, whether graduates or
not; subject, when the loans were of special value, to the consent of
Convocation. Presently the matter was discussed in “The Times” (January
25th; April 28th; and May 31st), which simply re-echoed the contention
of Mr. Chandler’s vigorous pamphlets.[424] Despite the letters of its
correspondent “F. M. M.” (May 6th, 1887), a “host in himself,” who ought
to have added the authority of his name to the sensible measures which
he propounded, the leading journal took a sentimental view of “Bodley’s
incomparable library” and strongly advocated its being relegated to
comparative inutility.
On May 31, 1887, an amendment practically forbidding all loans came
before the House. In vain Professor Freeman declared that a book is not
an idol but a tool which must wear out sooner or later. To no purpose
Bodley’s Librarian proved that of 460,000 printed volumes in the
collection only 460 had been lent out, and of these only one had been
lost. THE AMENDMENT FORBIDDING THE PRACTICE OF LENDING WAS CARRIED BY
106 VOTES TO 60.
Personally I am not dissatisfied with this proceeding. It is retrograde
legislation befitting the days when books were chained to the desks. It
suffers from a fatal symptom—the weakness of extreme measures. And the
inevitable result in the near future will be a strong reaction:
Convocation will presently be compelled to adopt some palliation for the
evil created by its own folly.
The next move added meanness to inertness. I do not blame Mr. E. B.
Nicholson, Bodley’s Librarian, because he probably had orders to write
the following choice specimen:—
30/3/1887.
“DEAR SIR RICHARD BURTON,
“I have received two vols. of four (read _six_) ‘Supplemental
Nights’ with a subscription form. If a Bodleian MS. is to be copied
for any volume, I must stipulate that that volume be supplied to us
gratis. Either my leave or that of the Curators is required for the
purpose of copying for publication, and I have no doubt that they
would make the same stipulation. I feel sure you would in any case
not propose to charge us for such a volume, but until I hear from
you I am in a difficulty as to how to reply to the subscription form
I have received.
Yours faithfully,
(Signed) E. B. NICHOLSON,
_Librarian_.”
The able and energetic papers, two printed and one published by Mr. H.
W. Chandler, of Pembroke College, Oxford, clearly prove the following
facts:—
1. That on June 20, 1610, a Bodleian Statute peremptorily forbade
any books or manuscripts being taken out of the Library.
2. That, despite the peremptory and categorical forbiddance by
Bodley, Selden, and others, of lending Bodleian books and MSS.,
loans of both have for upwards of two centuries formed a precedent.
3. That Bodley’s Statute (June 20th, An. 1610) was formally and
officially abrogated by Convocation on May 22nd, 1856; Convocation
retaining the right to lend.
4. That a “privileged list” of (113) borrowers presently arose and
is spoken of as a normal practice:—_sicut mos fuit_, says the
Statute (Tit. xx. iii. § 11) of 1873; and, lastly,
5. That loans of MSS. and printed books have for years been
authorised to approved public libraries.
After these premises I proceed to notice other points bearing upon the
subject, which, curious to say, are utterly neglected or rather ignored
by Mr. Chandler and “The Times.” Sir Thomas Bodley never would have
condemned students to study in the Bodleian had he known the _peines
fortes et dures_ to which in these days they are thereby doomed. “So
picturesque and so peculiar is its construction,” says a writer, “that
it ensures the maximum of inefficiency and discomfort.” The whole
building is a model of what a library ought _not_ to be. It is at once
over solid and ricketty: room for the storage of books is wanted, and
its wooden staircases, like touchwood or tinder, give one the shudders
to think of fire. True, matches and naked lights are forbidden in the
building; but all know how these prohibitions are regarded by the
public, and it is dreadful to think of what might result from a lucifer
dropped at dark upon the time-rotten planks. The reading public in the
XIXth century must content itself with boxes or stalls, like those of an
old-fashioned tavern or coffee-house of the humbler sort wherein two
readers can hardly find room for sitting back to back. The atmosphere is
unpleasant and these mean little cribs, often unduly crowded, are so
dark that after the 1st October the reading-room must be closed at 3
p.m. What a contrast are the treasures in the Bodleian with their mean
and miserable surroundings and the way in which the public is allowed to
enjoy them. The whole establishment calls urgently for reform.
Accommodation for the books is wanted; floor and walls will hardly bear
the weight which grows every year at an alarming ratio—witness the
Novel-room. The model Bodleian would be a building detached and
isolated, the better to guard its priceless contents, and containing at
least double the area of the present old and obsolete Bibliotheca. An
establishment of the kind was proposed in 1857; but unfortunately, the
united wisdom of the University preferred new “Examination Schools” for
which the old half-ruinous pile would have been sufficiently well
fitted. The “Schools,” however, were for the benefit of the examiners;
_ergò_ the scandalous sum of £100,000 (some double the amount) was
wasted upon the well-nigh useless Gothic humbug in High Street, and thus
no money was left for the prime want of the city. After some experience
of public libraries and reading-rooms on the Continent of Europe I feel
justified in asserting that the Bodleian in its present condition is a
disgrace to Oxford; indeed a dishonour to letters in England.
The Bodleian has a _succursale_, the Radcliffe, which represents simply
a step from bad to worse. The building was intended for an especial
purpose, the storage of books, not for a _salle de lecture_. Hence the
so-called “Camera” is a most odious institution, a Purgatory to readers.
It is damp in the wet season from October to May; stuffy during the
summer heats and a cave of Eolus in windy weather: few students except
the youngest and strongest, can support its changeable and
nerve-depressing atmosphere. Consequently the Camera is frequented
mainly by the townsfolk, a motley crew who there study their novels and
almanacs and shamefully misuse the books.[425] In this building lights,
forbidden by the Bodleian, are allowed; it opens at 10 a.m. and closes
at 10 p.m., and the sooner it reverts to its original office of a
book-depôt the better.
But the Bodleian-Radcliffe concern is typical of the town; and, if that
call for reform, so emphatically does
“Oxford, that scarce deserves the name of land.”
From my childhood I had heard endless tirades and much of what is now
called “blowing” about this ancient city, and my youth (1840–42)
suffered not a little disappointment. The old place, still mostly
resembling an overgrown monastery-village, lies in the valley of the
Upper Thames, a meadowland drained by two ditches; the bigger or Ise,
classically called the Isis, and the lesser the Charwell. This bottom is
surrounded by high and healthy uplands, not as the guide-books say “low
scarce-swelling hills that softly gird the old town;” and these keep off
the winds and make the riverine valley, with its swamped meads and
water-meadows, more fenny and feverish even than Cambridge. The heights
and woods bring on a mild deluge between October 1st and May 1st; the
climate is rainy as that of Shap in Westmoreland (our old home) and, as
at Fernando Po and Singapore, the rain it raineth more or less every day
during one half of the year. The place was chosen by the ancient Britons
for facility of water transport, but men no longer travel by the Thames
and they have naturally neglected the older road. Throughout England,
indeed a great national work remains to be done. Not a river, not a
rivulet, but what requires cleaning out and systematic excavation by
_élévateurs_ and other appliances of the Suez Canal. The channels filled
up by alluvium and choked by the American weed, are now raised so high
that the beds can no longer act as drains: at Oxford for instance the
beautiful meadows of Christ Church are little better than swamps and
marshes, the fittest homes for Tertiana, Quartana and all the fell
sisterhood: a blue fog broods over the pleasant site almost every
evening, and a thrust with the umbrella opens up water. This is the more
inexcusable as the remedy would be easy and by no means costly: the
river-mud, if the ignorant peasants only knew the fact, forms the best
of manures; and this, instead of being deposited in spoil-heaps on the
banks for the rain to wash back at the first opportunity, should be
carried by tram-rails temporarily laid down and be spread over the
distant fields, thus almost paying for the dredge works. Of course
difficulties will arise: the management of the Thames is under various
local “Boards,” and each wooden head is able and aye ready to show its
independence and ill temper at the sacrifice of public interests to
private fads.
Hence the climate of Oxford is detestable. Strong undergraduates cannot
withstand its nervous depression and the sleeplessness arising from damp
air charged with marsh gases and bacteria. All students take time to
become acclimatized here, and some are never acclimatized at all. And no
wonder, when the place is drained by a fetid sewer of greenish yellow
hue containing per 10,000, 245 parts of sewage. The only tolerable
portion of the year is the Long Vacation, when the youths in
mortar-boards all vanish from the view, while many of the oldsters
congregate in the reformed convents called Colleges.
Climate and the resolute neglect of sanitation are probably the chief
causes why Oxford never yet produced a world-famous and epoch-making
man, while Cambridge can boast of Newton and Darwin. The harlequin city
of domes and spires, cribs and slums shows that curious concurrence of
opposites so common in England. The boasted High Street is emblematical
of the place, where moral as well as material extremes meet and are fain
to dwell side by side. It is a fine thoroughfare branching off into mere
lanes, neither these nor that apparently ever cleaned. The huge
buildings of scaling, mouldering stone are venerable-looking piles which
contrast sadly with the gabled cottages of crepi, hurlin, or wattle and
dab; and the brand-new store with its plate-glass windows hustles the
old-fashioned lollipop-shop. As regards minor matters there are new
market passages but no Public Baths; and on Sundays, the stands are
destitute of cabs, although with that queer concession to democracy
which essentially belongs to the meaner spirited sort of Conservatism,
“’busses” are allowed to ply after 2 p.m., when the thunder of bells
somewhat abates.
Old “Alma Mater,” who to me has ever been a “durissima noverca,” dubs
herself “University;” and not a few of her hopefuls _entre faiblesse et
folie_, still entitle themselves “University men.” The title once
belonged to Oxford but now appertains to it no more. Compare with it the
model universities of Berlin, Paris and Vienna, where the lists of
lecturers bear the weightiest names in the land. Oxford is but a
congeries of twenty-one colleges and five halls or hostels, each
educating its pupils (more or less) with an especial eye to tutors’ fees
and other benefices, the vested rights of the “Dons.” Thus all do their
best to prevent the scholars availing themselves of University, as
opposed to Collegiate, lectures; and thus they can stultify a list of
some sixty-six professors. This boarding-school system is simply a
dishonest obstacle to students learning anything which may be of use to
them in after-life, such as modern and Oriental languages, chemistry,
anthropology and the other -ologies. Here in fact men rarely progress
beyond the Trivium and the Quadrivium of the Dark Ages, and tuition is a
fine study of the Res scibilis as understood by the Admirable Crichton
and other worthies, circa A.D. 1500. The students of Queen Elizabeth’s
day would here—and here only—find themselves in congenial company. Worse
still, Oxford is no longer a “Seat of learning” or a “House of the
Muses,” nor can learned men be produced under the present system. The
place has become a collection of finishing schools, in fact little
better than a huge board for the examination of big boys and girls.
Oxford and her education are thoroughly disappointing; but the sorest
point therein is that this sham University satisfies the hapless Public,
which knows nothing about its _fainéance_. It is a mere stumbling-block
in the way of Progress especially barring the road to one of the main
wants of English Education, a great London University which should not
be ashamed to stand by Berlin, Paris and Vienna.
Had the good knight and “Pious Founder,” Sir Thomas Bodley, who
established his library upon the ruins of the University Bibliotheca
wrecked by the “Reformation,” been able to foresee the condition of
Oxford and her libraries—Bodleian and Radcliffean—in this latter section
of the XIXth century, he would hardly, I should hope, have condemned
English students and Continental scholars to compulsory residence and
labour in places so akin to the purgatorial.
Appendix B.
THE THREE UNTRANSLATED TALES IN MR. E. J. W. GIBB’S “FORTY VEZIRS.”
_THE THIRTY-EIGHTH VEZIR’S STORY._
(_Page 353 of Mr. Gibb’s translation._)
There was in the city of Cairo a merchant, and one day he bought a
slave-girl, and took her to his house. There was in his house an ape;
this the merchant fetched and dragged up to the slave-girl. He said,
“Yield thyself over to this, and I will set thee free.” The slave-girl
did so of necessity, and she conceived by him. When her time was come
she bare a son all of whose members were shaped like those of a man,
save that he had a tail like an ape. The merchant and the slave-girl
occupied themselves bringing up this son. One day, when the son was five
or six months old, the merchant filled a large cauldron with milk, and
lighted a great fire under it. When it was boiling, he seized the son
and cast him into the cauldron; and the girl began to lament. The
merchant said, “Be silent, make no lamentation; go and be free;” and he
gave her some sequins. Then he turned, and the cauldron had boiled so
that not even any bones were left. The merchant took down the cauldron,
and placed seven strainers, one above the other; and he took the scum
that had gathered on the liquid in the cauldron and filtered it through
the seven strainers, and he took that which was in the last and put it
into a bottle. And the slave-girl bare in her heart bitter hatred
against the merchant, and she said in herself, “Even as thou hast burned
my liver will I burn thee;” and she began to watch her opportunity. (One
day) the merchant said to her, “Make ready some food,” and went out. So
the girl cooked the food, and she mixed some of that poison in the dish.
When the merchant returned she brought the tray and laid it down, and
then withdrew into a corner. The merchant took a spoonful of that food,
and as soon as he put it into his mouth, he knew it to be the poison,
and he cast the spoon that was in his hand at the girl. A piece, of the
bigness of a pea, of that poisoned food fell from the spoon on the
girl’s hand, and it made the place where it fell black. As for the
merchant, he turned all black, and swelled till he became like a
blown-out skin, and he died. But the slave-girl medicined herself and
became well; and she kept what remained of the poison and sold it to
those who asked for it.
_THE FORTIETH VEZIR’S STORY._
(_Page 366 in Mr. Gibb’s translation._)
There was of old time a tailor, and he had a fair wife. One day this
woman sent her slave-girl to the carder’s to get some cotton teased. The
slave-girl went to the carder’s shop and gave him cotton for a gown to
get teased. The carder while teasing the cotton displayed his yard to
the slave-girl. She blushed and passed to his other side. As she thus
turned round the carder displayed his yard on that side also. Thus the
slave-girl saw it on that side too. And she went and said to her
mistress, “Yon carder, to whom I went has two yards.” The lady said to
her, “Go and say to yon carder, ‘My mistress wishes thee; come at
night.’” So the slave-girl went and said this to the carder. As soon as
it was night the carder went to that place and waited. The woman went
out and met the carder and said, “Come and have to do with me while I am
lying by my husband.” When it was midnight the carder came and waked the
woman. The woman lay conveniently and the carder fell to work. She felt
that the yard which entered her was but one, and said, “Ah my soul,
carder, at it with both of them.” While she was softly speaking her
husband awaked and asked, “What means thy saying, ‘At it with both of
them?’” He stretched out his hand to his wife’s kaze and the carder’s
yard came into it. The carder drew himself back and his yard slipped out
of the fellow’s hand, and he made shift to get away. The fellow said,
“Out on thee, wife, what meant that saying of thine, ‘At it with both of
them?’” The woman said, “O husband, I saw in my dream that thou wast
fallen into the sea and wast swimming with one hand and crying out,
‘Help! I am drowning!’ I shouted to thee from the shore, ‘At it with
both of them,’ and thou begannest to swim with both thy hands.” Then the
husband said, “Wife, I too know that I was in the sea, from this that a
wet fish came into my hand and then slipped out and escaped; thou
speakest truly.” And he loved his wife more than before.
_THE LADY’S THIRTY-FOURTH STORY._
(_From the India Office MS._)
(_Page 399 in Mr. Gibb’s translation._)
They tell that there was a Khoja and he had an exceeding fair son, who
was so beautiful that he who looked upon him was confounded. This Khoja
watched over his son right carefully; he let not him come forth from a
certain private chamber, and he left not the ribbon of his trousers
unsealed. When the call to prayer was chanted from the minaret, the boy
would ask his father saying, “Why do they cry out thus?” and the Khoja
would answer, “Someone has been undone and has died, and they are
calling out to bury him.” And the boy believed these words. The beauty
of this boy was spoken of in Persia; and a Khoja came from Persia to
Baghdad with his goods and chattels for the love of this boy. And he
struck up a friendship with the boy’s father, and ever gave to him his
merchandise at an easy price, and he sought to find out where his son
abode. When the Khoja had discovered that the boy was kept safe in that
private chamber, he one day said to his father, “I am about to go to a
certain place; and I have a chest whereinto I have put whatsoever I
possess of valuables; this I shall send to thee, and do thou take it and
shut it up in that chamber where thy son is.” And the father answered,
“Right gladly.” So the Khoja let build a chest so large that he himself
might lie in it, and he put therein wine and all things needful for a
carouse. Then he said to his servant, “Go, fetch a porter and take this
chest to the house of Khoja Such-an-one, and say, ‘My master has sent
this to remain in your charge,’ and leave it and come away. And again on
the morrow go and fetch it, saying, ‘My master wishes the chest.’” So
the servant went for a porter, and the Khoja hid himself in the chest.
Then the boy laded the porter with the chest and took it to the other
Khoja’s house, where he left it and went away. When it was night the
Khoja came forth from the chest, and he saw a moon-face sleeping in the
bed-clothes, and a candle was burning in a candlestick at his head; and
when the Khoja beheld this he was confounded and exclaimed, “And blessed
be God, the fairest of Creators!”[426] Then the Khoja laid out the wine
and so forth; and he went up softly and waked the boy. And the boy arose
from his place and addressed himself to speak, saying, “Wherefore hast
thou come here?” Straightway the Khoja filled a cup and gave it to him,
saying, “Drink this, and then I shall tell thee what manner of man I
am.” And he besought the boy and spread out sequins before him. So the
boy took the cup and drank what was in it. When the Khoja had given him
to drink three or four cups the face of the boy grew tulip-hued, and he
became heated with the wine and began to sport with the Khoja. So all
that night till morning did the Khoja make merry with the boy; and
whatsoever his desire was, he attained thereto. When it was morning the
Khoja again went into the chest; and the servant came and laded the
porter with the same and took it back to his house. And on the morrow,
when the boy and his father were sitting together, the mu’ezzin chanted
the call to prayer, whereupon the boy exclaimed, “Out on thee, father;
and the boy who is undone dies, and so this fellow goes up there and
bawls out; last night they undid me; how is it that I am not dead?” Then
the father smote the boy on the mouth and said, “Speak not such words;
they are a shame.” And then he knew why the chest had come.