Note 271 — The Library.

We will first notice Cobham, Bishop of Worcester: who "having had a great desire to show some love to his mother the university of Oxford, began, about the year 1320, to build, or at least to make some reparations for a Library, over the old congregation house in the north church-yard of St. Mary's; but he dying soon after, before any considerable matter was done therein, left certain moneys for the carrying on of the work, and all his books, with others that had been lately procured, to be, with those belonging to the university (as yet kept in chests) reposed therein." Some controversy afterwards arising between the University and Oriel College, to which latter Cobham belonged, the books lay in dreary and neglected state till 1367; when a room having been built for their reception, it was settled that they "should be reposed and chained in the said room or solar; that the scholars of the University should have free ingress and regress, at certain times, to make proficiency in them; that certain of the said books, of greater price, should be sold, till the sum of l. 40 was obtained for them (unless other remedy could be found) with which should be bought an yearly rent of l. 3, for the maintenance of a chaplain, that should pray for the soul of the said bishop, and other benefactors of the University both living and dead, and have the custody or oversight of the said books, and of those in the ancient chest of books, and chest of rolls." Wood's Hist. of the University of Oxford, vol. ii., pt. ii., 911. Gutch's edit. William Rede, or Read, bishop of Chichester, "sometimes Fellow (of Merton College) gave a chest with l. 100 in gold in it, to be borrowed by the Fellows for their relief; bond being first given in by them to repay it at their departure from the college; or, in case they should die, to be paid by their executors: A.D. 1376. He also built, about the same time, a Library in the college; being the first that the society enjoyed, and gave books thereunto." Wood's History of the Colleges and Halls, p. 15, Gutch's edit. In Mr. Nicholl's Appendix to the History of Leicester, p. 105, note 20, I find some account of this distinguished literary character, taken from Tanner's Bibl. Britan., p. 618. He is described, in both authorities, as being a very learned Fellow of Merton College, where he built and furnished a noble library; on the wall of which was painted his portrait, with this inscription: "Gulielmus Redæus, episcopus Cicestrensis, Magister in theologia, profundus astronomus, quondam socius istius collegii, qui hanc librariam fieri fecit." Many of Read's mathematical instruments, as well as his portrait, were preserved in the library when Harrison wrote his description of England, prefix'd to Holinshed's Chronicles; some of the former of which came into the possession of the historian. For thus writes Harrison: "William Read, sometime fellow of Merteine college in Oxford, doctor of divinitie, and the most profound astronomer that liued in his time, as appeareth by his collection, which some time I did possesse; his image is yet in the librarie there; and manie instruments of astronomie reserued in that house," &c. Chronicles (1587), edit. 1807, vol. i., p. 237. In the year 1808, when I visited the ancient and interesting brick-floored library of Merton College, for the purpose of examining early printed books, I looked around in vain for the traces, however faded, of Read's portrait: nor could I discover a single vestige of the Bibliotheca Readiana! The memory of this once celebrated bishop lives therefore only in what books have recorded of him; and this brief and verbal picture of Read is here drawn—as was the more finished resemblance of Chaucer by the pencil, which Occleve has left behind—