I am not the man to decide the limits of civil and ecclesiastical authorityI am plain Eliano Selden, nor Archbishop Usherthough at present in the thick of their books, here in the heart of learning, under the shadow of the mighty Bodley.

[n]Through all his veins the fever of renown Spreads from the strong contagion of the gown; O'er Bodley's dome his future labours spread, And [o]Bacon's mansion trembles o'er his head.

LANE (JOHN) THE BODLEY HEAD, LTD., LONDON Ariel.

R88019, 2Jan52, John Lane, The Bodley Head, ltd. (PWH) MAUROIS, ANDRÉ.

R88019, 2Jan52, John Lane, The Bodley Head, ltd. (PWH) MAUROIS, ANDRÉ.

Here the Bodleys remained 'until such time as our Nation was advertised of the death of Queen Mary and the succession of Elizabeth, with the change of religion which caused my father to hasten into England.' In Geneva young Bodley and his brothers enjoyed what now would be called great educational advantages.

In 1588 Bodley married a wealthy widow, a Mrs. Ball, the daughter of a Bristol man named Carew.

As Bodley survived his wife and had no children, a good bit of her money remains in the Bodleian to this day.

On being finally recalled from The Hague, Bodley had to make up his mind whether to pursue a public life.

Bodley proceeds to state the four qualifications he felt himself to possess to do this great bit of work: first, the necessary knowledge of ancient and modern tongues and of 'sundry other sorts of scholastical literature'; second, purse ability; third, a great store of honourable friends; and fourth, leisure.

Bodley's description of the state of the old library as lying in every part ruined and in waste was but too true.

Bodley's real predecessor, the first begetter of a University library, was Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, who in 1320 prepared a chamber above a vaulted room in the north-east corner of St. Mary's Church for the reception of the books he intended to bestow upon his University.

The librarian of the old Cobham Library had an advantage over Mr. Nicholson, the Bodley librarian of to-day.

Though Bodley, in one of his letters, modestly calls himself a mere 'smatterer,' he was, as indeed he had the sense to recognise, excellently well fitted to be a collector of books, being both a good linguist and personally well acquainted with the chief cities of the Continent and with their booksellers.

Bodley was always on the look-out for gifts and bequests from his store of honourable friends; and in the case of Sir Henry Savile he even relaxed the rule against lending books from the library, because, as he frankly admits to Dr. James, he had hopes (which proved well founded) that Sir Henry would not forget his obligations to the Bodleian.

There it was that the royal pun was made that the founder's name should have been Godly and not Bodley.

Indeed, he was so carried away by the atmosphere of the place as to offer to present to the Bodleian whatever books Sir Thomas Bodley might think fit to lay hands upon in any of the royal libraries, and he kept this royal word so far as to confirm the gift under the Privy Seal.

Authors seem at once to have recognised the importance of the library, and to have made presentation copies of their works, and in 1605 we find Bacon sending a copy of his Advancement of Learning to Bodley, with a letter in which he said: 'You, having built an ark to save learning from deluge, deserve propriety

' Bodley was rather put out in his last illness by the refusal of a Cambridge doctor, Batter, to come to see him, the doctor saying: 'Words cannot cure him, and I can do nothing else for him.'

Bodley's will gave great dissatisfaction to some of his friends, including this aforesaid John Chamberlain, and yet, on reading it through, it is not easy to see any cause for just complaint.

What annoyed Chamberlain seems to be that, whilst he had (so he says, though I take leave to doubt it) put down Bodley for some trifle in his will, Bodley forgot to mention Chamberlain in his.

What annoyed Chamberlain seems to be that, whilst he had (so he says, though I take leave to doubt it) put down Bodley for some trifle in his will, Bodley forgot to mention Chamberlain in his.

Oliver Cromwell, while Lord Protector, presented to the library twenty-two Greek manuscripts he had purchased, and, what is more, when Bodley's librarian refused the Lord Protector's request to allow the Portugal Ambassador to borrow a manuscript, sending instead of the manuscript a copy of the statutes forbidding loans, Oliver commended the prudence of the founder, and subsequently made the donation just mentioned.

The foundation of Sir Thomas Bodley, though of no antiquity, shines with unrivalled splendour in the galaxy of Oxford 'Amidst the stars that own another birth.

Bodley drafted with his own hand the first statutes or rules to be observed in his library.