Note 286 — ANNALS OF THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY. (continued 4)

In a clever and amusing little squib of four pages, which he printed anonymously in 1819, and which is preserved in the Library-collection of University papers, professing to be a 'Syllabus' of treatises on academic matters, to be printed at the University Press in not more than thirty vols., elephant quarto, Mr. Cotton satirized himself and his colleagues, doubtless with the more readiness because with no reason. '21. De Bibliothecario et ejus adjutoribus. Captain. What are you about, Dick? Dick. Nothing, sir. Captain. Tom, what are you doing? Tom. Helping Dick, sir.' Treatise 24 has for its title the few but emphatic words, 'De Dodd.' Lest some future delver in Oxford antiquities should be lost in a maze of conjectures as to the personality and history of this worthy, so evidently then well known, let it here be told that Dodd was the Clerk of the Schools.