Attractions of the Bodleian.
The antiquity, the historical associations, and the treasures of the Library combine to give it a peculiar fascination. Founded in the “spacious times of great Elizabeth,” and even then carrying on the traditions of the University library first mentioned in 1320; exhibiting a normal evolution in fabric and contents, without great catastrophes or change of place; and as the receptacle of so many and such great collections that it might be called the National Library for the first century and a half of its development, its very walls are vocal with multitudinous memories, much more its shelves and volumes and accessories. Who can walk down the Old Reading Room, with its quiet alcoves, each with its own window looking out on the Sheldonian Theatre or, if so be, the quiet lawn of Exeter College Garden; or note the old-fashioned fittings, adapted for the mediæval system of chaining books, and still comfortable, though not too luxurious; or enjoy the spaciousness of the Selden End, with its outlook on St. Mary’s and its restful gloom, without feeling that he has found an earthly paradise, a true home of study, a Temple of the Religio Grammatici? And when the volumes are found to match the surroundings, and to be such as rank high in the esteem of the whole world, whether as historical monuments, or for beauty of illustration, or as affording ample ground for study and research, great is the content of mind which they engender.
The present chapter is designed partly to illustrate these points, and also to be a guide to some of the most prominent treasures of this great repository. It will, in the first place, describe a few of the curiosities of association which cluster round certain volumes, and then settle down to what is by comparison a mere list of valuable books, whether written or printed. Neither part should be taken as in any way exhaustive.
Examples of Association.
Sayings of our Lord.
The Excavations at Oxyrhynchus (120 miles south of Cairo) produced in 1897 large quantities of Greek papyri, but perhaps the most interesting of all was a dirty, tattered and torn piece about 6 × 4 inches, such as one would throw into the waste paper basket. Yet it contains the ΛΟΓΙΑ ΙΗΣΟΥ, Sayings of Our Lord, as transmitted by oral tradition till they were written down, possibly within the first century. The fragment is quite independent of our Four Gospels, and here alone are found such sayings as “Wherever there is one alone, I say, I am with him,” “Raise the stone, and thou shalt find Me; cleave the wood, and there am I.” Perhaps there never was a greater contrast between external appearance and intrinsic worth, for the genuineness of the sayings is contested by few. A second leaf from another MS. of the same kind was subsequently discovered and is now in the British Museum.
A Schoolboy’s Letter.
At Oxyrhynchus was found also a school-boy’s letter to his father, an example of the immutability of basal human nature. It is in Greek, on papyrus, written in the second or third century of our era. This is part of it: “Theon to his father Theon greeting. It was a fine thing of you not to take me with you to town.... Mother said to Archelaüs ‘He upsets me: take him away.’ So send for me, I implore you. If you won’t send, I won’t eat, I won’t drink: there now.” The appeal to what his mother said about him to a house-friend, was a master stroke, the boy thought, but the effect may have been diminished in his father’s eyes by the undoubted fact that the grammar and spelling of the letter leave a good deal to be desired. That completes the picture. But we may be pretty sure that no tragedy followed the missive. Having done his best to bring his father into the right path the youthful Theon undoubtedly sat down to a good dinner and calmly awaited the course of events. A chilling interval no doubt followed, and a prosaic reply that Theon had better keep his temper and not upset his mother. Little did Theon think that his boyish letter would, after seventeen hundred years, become an interesting treasure in a great library.
Cædmon.
The earliest personal name in the long range of English Literature is Cædmon, the herdman of Whitby, in the seventh century. The only ancient MS. of Cædmon’s metrical paraphrase of parts of the Old Testament is the Junius MS. in the Bodleian, written in England about the year 1000, and illustrated by a native pre-Conquest artist. The question of how much of the MS. is Cædmon’s own composition cannot be here dealt with, but part corresponds closely with a prose version written in the eighth century and contained in a Cambridge MS. of Bede, and the Genesis part of the present MS. is known to be of Northumbrian origin. Much of the interest lies in the pen-and-ink drawings which illustrate the Genesis. For instance, the ark is represented by a set of boxes erected on the deck of the largest vessel which the artist had ever seen, namely a Scandinavian war-galley with its turned up fore- and sternposts and its side steering. Out of the boxes peer the animals and birds, while the steersman has an aspect of lofty detachment which should do credit to an artist of the present day. There is no pseudo-archaism in the illustrations, but an invaluable record of buildings, costumes and life in England, half a century before the Conquest.