Note 715 — PART IV. From the Reformation to the present time. (continued 2)

Each of our Convents is supposed to have been furnished with a library. But what became of those libraries after the dissolution does not appear. They were probably destroyed: for we learn that although Leland was employed to survey the libraries throughout the kingdom, and preserve the choicest books, yet Bale says that those who got possession of the religious houses at the dissolution of them, generally took possession also of the libraries, reserving the books, some to serve their jakes, some to scour their candlesticks, and some to rub their boots with: some they sold to the grocers and soap boilers, and some they sent over sea to the bookbinders, not in small quantities, but at times whole shipfulls, to the great wondering of foreign nations.—“A merchant (he says) bought the contents of two noble libraries for 40s. a-piece. This stuff he used for more than ten years instead of grey paper to wrap up his goods with, and yet he hath enough remaining for many years to come.” (See Seward’s An. vol. 1. 49.) All this discovers some strange mismanagement on the part of the government.