Convocation, we are told, embraced the offer with wonderful alacrity,
and lost no time in accepting it in good Latin.

From February, 1598, to January, 1613 (when he died), Bodley was happy
with as glorious a hobby-horse as ever man rode astride upon. 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. He was thus able to employ
well-selected agents in different parts of Europe to buy books on his
account, which it was his pleasure to receive, his rapture to unpack,
his pride to despatch in what he calls 'dry-fats'--that is,
weather-tight chests--to Dr. James, the first Bodley librarian.
Despite growing and painful infirmities (stone, ague, dropsy), Bodley
never even for a day dismounted his hobby, but rode it manfully to the
last. Nor had he any mean taint of nature that might have grudged
other men a hand in the great work. The more benefactors there were,
the better pleased was Bodley. He could not, indeed--for had he not
been educated at Geneva and attended the Divinity Lectures of Calvin
and Beza?--direct Dr. James to say masses for the souls of such donors
of money or books as should die, but he did all a poor Protestant can
do to tempt generosity: he opened and kept in a very public place in
the library a great register-book, containing the names and titles of
all benefactors. 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.