The able and energetic papers, two printed and one published by Mr. H. W. Chandler, of Pembroke College, Oxford, clearly prove the following facts:?
1. That on June 20, 1610, a Bodleian Statute peremptorily forbade any books or manuscripts being taken out of the Library.
2. That, despite the peremptory and categorical forbiddance by Bodley, Selden, and others, of lending Bodleian books and MSS., loans of both have for upwards of two centuries formed a precedent.
3. That Bodley's Statute (June 20th, An. 1610) was formally and officially abrogated by Convocation on May 22nd, 1856; Convocation retaining the right to lend.
4. That a "privileged list" of (113) borrowers presently arose and is spoken of as a normal practice:?sicut mos fuit, says the Statute (Tit. xx. iii. § 11) of 1873; and, lastly,
5. That loans of MSS. and printed books have for years been authorised to approved public libraries.
After these premises I proceed to notice other points bearing upon the subject which, curious to say, are utterly neglected or rather ignored by Mr. Chandler and "The Times." Sir Thomas Bodley never would have condemned students to study in the Bodleian had he known the peines fortes et dures to which in these days they are thereby doomed. "So picturesque and so peculiar is its construction," says a writer, "that it ensures the maximum of inefficiency and discomfort." The whole building is a model of what a library ought not to be. It is at once over solid and ricketty: room for the storage of books is wanted, and its wooden staircases, like touchwood or tinder, give one the shudders to think of fire. True, matches and naked lights are forbidden in the building; but all know how these prohibitions are regarded by the public, and it is dreadful to think of what might result from a lucifer dropped at dark upon the time-rotten planks. The reading public in the XIXth century must content itself with boxes or stalls, like those of an old-fashioned tavern or coffee-house of the humbler sort wherein two readers can hardly find room for sitting back to back. The atmosphere is unpleasant and these mean little cribs, often unduly crowded, are so dark that after the 1st October the reading-room must be closed at 3 p.m. What a contrast are the treasures in the Bodleian with their mean and miserable surroundings and the way in which the public is allowed to enjoy them. The whole establishment calls urgently for reform. Accommodation for the books is wanted; floor and walls will hardly bear the weight which grows every year at an alarming ratio?witness the Novel-room. The model Bodleian would be a building detached and isolated, the better to guard its priceless contents, and containing at least double the area of the present old and obsolete Bibliotheca. An establishment of the kind was proposed in 1857; but unfortunately, the united wisdom of the University preferred new "Examination Schools" for which the old half-ruinous pile would have been sufficiently well fitted. The "Schools," however, were for the benefit of the examiners; ergò the scandalous sum of £100,000 (some double the amount) was wasted upon the well-nigh useless Gothic humbug in High Street, and thus no money was left for the prime want of the city. After some experience of public libraries and reading-rooms on the Continent of Europe I feel justified in asserting that the Bodleian in its present condition is a disgrace to Oxford; indeed a dishonour to letters in England.
The Bodleian has a succursale, the Radcliffe, which represents simply a step from bad to worse. The building was intended for an especial purpose, the storage of books, not for a salle de lecture. Hence the so-called "Camera" is a most odious institution, a Purgatory to readers. It is damp in the wet season from October to May; stuffy during the summer heats and a cave of Eolus in windy weather: few students except the youngest and strongest, can support its changeable and nerve-depressing atmosphere. Consequently the Camera is frequented mainly by the townsfolk, a motley crew who there study their novels and almanacs and shamefully misuse the books.[425] In this building lights, forbidden by the Bodleian, are allowed; it opens at 10 a.m. and closes at 10 p.m.. and the sooner it reverts to its original office of a book-depôt the better.
But the Bodleian-Radcliffe concern is typical of the town; and, if that call for reform, so emphatically does
"Oxford, that scarce deserves the name of land."