But the great name of Archbishop Laud overshadows all the rest of this period. By great good-fortune the Western extension of the Old Reading Room (now called the Selden End, which balances the Eastern extension or Arts End, see [frontispiece]) was begun in 1634 and finished in 1640, and into the new room there poured the manuscript treasures acquired by the Archbishop to the number of 1242 volumes. It is a miscellaneous collection in at least twenty languages, Western and Oriental, partly acquired from Germany, especially Würzburg. The two outstanding volumes are Codex E of the Acts, an uncial Greek-Latin text of the seventh century, once owned by the Venerable Bede (S.C. 1119), and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written at Peterborough and continued to 1154, three-quarters of a century later than any other copy of the famous Chronicle (S.C. 1003); others are mentioned in [Chapter V].
The bequest of Robert Burton’s books in 1640 was especially valuable, because the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy read so discursively, and collected not only the graver works which Bodley loved, but especially the lighter literature of the day: it is satisfactory to note that all these were accepted by Rouse, as indeed they would have been by James.
The Civil War.
The Civil War was an anxious time for the Library, from the difficulty of safeguarding it from irruption and violence. The care with which the Library has always guarded its contents from the risk of loss by lending out is well exemplified by Rouse’s action when the King, on December 30, 1645, demanded the Histoire Universelle of Aubignè. Rouse went to him and read out the Statute against lending, and the King with a very good grace gave way.[9] The original order, countersigned by the Vice-Chancellor (“His Majestyes use is in command to us. S. Fell, Vice Can.”) is still preserved in the Library. The second siege of the city was followed by its capitulation on June 20, 1646, and “the first thing Generall Fairfax did was to set a good guard of soldiers to preserve the Bodleian Library.... Had he not taken this special care, that noble library had been utterly destroyed.” The register of books given out to readers shows a fair number of students, but Dr. John Allibond (Rustica Academiæ descriptio, 1648) records a different condition:
“Conscendo orbis illud Decus
Bodleio fundatore,
Sed intus erat nullum pecus
Excepto Janitore.
Neglectos vidi libros multos,
Quod minime mirandum,