'The Jews proffer £600,000 for Paul's, and Oxford Library, and may have
them for £200,000 more[106].' They wished to obtain the first for a
synagogue, and to do a little commercial business with the second. It is
said in Monteith's _History of the Troubles_ (translated by Ogilvie,
1735, p. 473) that the sum they offered was £500,000, but that the
Council of War refused to take less than £800,000: probably they
afterwards increased this their original bid to £600,000.
Philip, Earl of Pembroke, the Puritan Chancellor of the University, gave
a splendidly bound copy of the Paris Polyglott, printed in 1645 in 10
vols.
[106] London News-letter of April 2; printed in Carte's _Collection of
Letters_, vol. i. p. 275.