An evidence of the increased intercourse which sprang up between Denmark
and England, in consequence of the marriage of Queen Anne, is probably
to be found in the number of Danish readers who frequented the Library
in the interval between her marriage and her death. Between the years
1683 and 1714, forty-nine Danes are entered in the _Liber Admissorum_,
besides many from Sweden, Norway, and the North of Germany. The total
number of foreigners admitted within the same period was no less than
244.
'In the year 1714 were in the Bodleian Library:--
30169 pr. vols.
05916 MSS. vols.
-----
In all 36085.'
(Hearne's _MS. Diary_, vol. xci. p. 256.)
It is strange that, notwithstanding Selden's and Laud's large additions,
the Library had therefore very little more than doubled since 1620.
It is recorded in vol. li. of the same Diary (p. 187) that the old
series of portraits which were painted on the wall of the Picture
Gallery was renewed in November of this year. These portraits, amounting
in number to about 222, ran round the gallery, immediately under the
roof; many of them were fancy-heads of ancient philosophers and writers,
but besides these there were some real portraits of English writers and
divines, up to the time of James I. A list of the whole series, as well
as of the oil paintings in the Gallery, was printed by Hearne together
with his _Letter containing an Account of some Antiquities between
Windsor and Oxford_. Of the renovation of the wall-paintings he thus
speaks in his preface to _Rossi Historia Regum Angliæ_ (1716): 'Non
possim quin bibliothecæ Bodleianæ Curatores laudem, qui pictori
Academico [_i.e._ Wildgoose] in mandatis dederunt, ut veteres effigies
renovet nitorique pristino restituat: quippe quas eo pluris æstimendas
esse censeo, quod eas in galeria depingendas jusserit ipse Bodleius,
Loci Genius.' When the Gallery was re-roofed in 1831, all these
paintings were, however, removed [_see_ p. 15].
About the end of this year the Arundel Marbles, which, strange to say,
had been exposed to the open air within the quadrangle of the Schools
ever since they were given to the University, were removed into one of
the rooms on the ground-floor, where they still remain. It was said that
they had suffered more 'since they were exposed to our air, than they
did in many hundred years before they came into it[185].' But the
influence of the air was not all they had to contend against, for Hearne
tells us that the defacing of the Marble Chronicle (of which there are
portions that were read by Selden, which now can no longer be read at
all) and some others, was owing not merely to exposure to the weather,
but 'to the abuses of children who are continually playing in the area,
and of other ignorant persons[186].'
[185] _Letters by Eminent Persons_, 1813, vol. i. p. 297.
[186] _Letters by Eminent Persons_, 1813, vol. i. p. 204.