This volume is an attempt to tell a tale which has not been told with
any particularity and fulness since the days of Anthony à Wood, and yet
a tale which, since those days, has been continually growing in
interest, and engaging in fresh scenes the attention and admiration of
successive generations. Fragments of the tale, it is true, have been
told at times; latest of all, an abstract, brief but accurate, has been
given in Mr. Edwards' valuable _Memoirs of Libraries_. But the present
narrative, while it embraces a wider range, is, at the same time,
independent throughout of all that have preceded it, being largely
compiled from sources available only to those who are familiar with the
stores of the Library and habituated to their use, as well as from
private accounts and papers, for access to which, as for other kind
assistance, the writer is indebted to the Librarian. Yet it is only as
an _attempt_ that the volume asks to be received and judged; for a work
of this kind cannot at once attain completeness. Its very size will show
to those who are acquainted with its subject, that minuteness in detail
cannot be expected. The difficulty has been, out of the abundance of
materials, to compile an epitome which should at once be concise and
yet not, through conciseness, be deprived of interest. To point out all
the special treasures in each branch in which the Library is rich, as it
would occupy the extent of several volumes, so it would require the
combined knowledge of several students, each in his several sphere.
While, therefore, no portion of the Library has been unnoticed, it will,
the writer trusts, be readily pardoned, should those portions with which
he is specially acquainted, and in the direction of which his own line
of work specially leads, seem to any to occupy more prominence than
others of equal importance. It is worthy of notice that, in tracing the
growth and history of the Library, the fact of its older divisions
having undergone comparatively little change in arrangement, greatly
facilitates examination, and, at the same time, often imparts an
interest of its own to well-nigh each successive shelf of books; for
each tier has thus its own record of successive benefactions and
successive purchases to display, and leads us on step by step from one
year to another.
'_Bowers of Paradise!_' Thus it was that an enthusiastic Hebrew student,
writing of the Bodleian but a few years ago, apostrophized the little
cells and curtained cages wherein readers sit, while hedged in and
canopied with all the wisdom and learning of bygone generations, which
here bloom their blossoms and yield up their fruits. And, as if
answering in actual living type to the parable which the Eastern
metaphor suggests, these cells from year to year have been and (though
of late more infrequently) still are, the resort of grand and grave old
bees, majestic in size and deportment, of sonorous sound, and covered
with the dust, as it were, of ages. Just as a solemn rookery befits an
ancestral mansion, so these Bees of the Bodleian form a fitting
accompaniment to the place of their choice. And while the Metaphor well
describes the character of that place whither men resort for refreshment
amidst the work of the world and for the recruiting of mental strength
for the doing of such work, so the Type well describes those who from
the bowers gather sweetness and wealth, first for their own enriching
and next for the enriching of others. Long then in these bowers may
there be found busy hives of men; above all, those that gather thence,
abundantly, such Wisdom as is _præ melle ori_.
BODLEIAN LIBRARY,
_May_ 30, 1868.