century editions, and no new books had been added to the collection
for a long time.

We passed down a few steps into an inner library where
piles of early folios were wasting away on the ground.
Beneath an old ebony table were two long carved oak chests.
I lifted the lid of one, and at the top was a once-white
surplice covered with dust, and beneath was a mass of tracts--
Commonwealth quartos, unbound--a prey to worms and decay.
All was neglect. The outer door of this room, which was open, was nearly
on a level with the Quadrangle; some coats, and trousers, and boots were
upon the ebony table, and a "gyp" was brushing away at them just within
the door--in wet weather he performed these functions entirely within
the library--as innocent of the incongruity of his position as my guide
himself. Oh! Richard of Bury, I sighed, for a sharp stone from your
sling to pierce with indignant sarcasm the mental armour of these College
dullards.

Happily, things are altered now, and the disgrace of such neglect no longer
hangs on the College. Let us hope, in these days of revived respect
for antiquity, no other College library is in a similar plight.

Not Englishmen alone are guilty, however, of such unloving treatment
of their bibliographical treasures. The following is translated
from an interesting work just published in Paris,[1] and shows how,
even at this very time, and in the centre of the literary activity
of France, books meet their fate.


[1] Le luxe des Livres par L. Derome. 8vo, Paris, 1879.