In 1644 he edited the Anglo-Saxon Laws. His successor was William Somner
(b. 1606--d. 1669), who produced the first Anglo-Saxon dictionary. So
this foundation was not unfruitful. But the chair fell into abeyance,
until it was restored by Dr. Bosworth, and filled by Professor Skeat.

This, the first movement of reconstruction, had its seat in Cambridge,
under the shadow of Archbishop Parker's library. The next advance,
dating from the middle of the seventeenth century, grew in Oxford, and
was connected with the sojourn of Junius in this place. He was much at
the Bodleian, and he is said to have lodged opposite Lincoln College. He
was a fellow-labourer with Dr. Marshall, the rector of that college, in
the Mæso-Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels which they printed at Dordrecht,
1665. This Oxford period may be said to have culminated in the work of
George Hickes, Nonjuror and Saxonist (b. 1642--d. 1715), the author of
the massive "Thesaurus Linguarum Septentrionalium," Oxford, 1705, a
monument of diligence and insight, to which was appended a work of the
greatest utility and necessity,--the idea was Hickes's, as was also much
of the sustaining energy,--Humphrey Wanley's catalogue of Anglo-Saxon
manuscripts. We must not omit Edmund Gibson (b. 1669--d. 1748), who in
early life produced his admirable "Chronicon Saxonicum," amplifying the
work of Wheloc, and embodying for the first time the Peterborough
manuscript. He was afterwards bishop of London. In 1750 Richard
Rawlinson gave rents of the yearly value of £87. 16s. 8d. to the
University of Oxford, for the maintenance and support of an Anglo-Saxon
lecture or professorship for ever.

Up to this time it might still be said of the collections that they were
just stored in bulk as goods are stored in great magazines; there was
much to explore and to learn. Important discoveries still remained to be
made by explorers in these and other collections. Wanley's catalogue had