Parker tried to induce her to
establish a national library; but the Queen seems to have cared little
about the plan. She allowed the Archbishop on his own behalf to seek out
the books remaining from the suppressed monasteries: at another time he
obtained leave to recover as many as he could find of Cranmer's books. He
tracked some of them to the house of one Dr. Nevinson, who was forced to
disgorge his treasures. Parker kept a staff of scribes and painters in
miniature, and had his own press and fount of type. He published many
scarce tracts to save them from oblivion. Others he ordered to be copied
in manuscript, and these and all his ancient books he caused to be
'trimly covered'; so that we may say with Dibdin, 'a more determined
book-fancier existed not in Great Britain.' He gave some of his books to
'his nurse Corpus Christi' at Cambridge, and some to the public library;
and his gift to the College was compared to 'the sun of our English
antiquity,' eclipsed only by the shadow of Cotton's palace of learning.

One would like to fancy a symposium of the great men talking over their
books, in the room where Ben Jonson was king, and where

'Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill
Commanded mirth and passion, was but Will.'

Jonson's books, as was said of himself, were like the great Spanish
galleons, bulky folios with '_Sum Ben Jonson_' boldly inscribed. We know
little about Shakespeare's books, except that they probably went to the
New Place and passed among the chattels to Susanna Hall and her husband.
His Florio's version of Montaigne is in the British Museum, if the
authenticity of his signature can be trusted. His neat Aldine Ovid is at
the Bodleian, inscribed with his initials, and a note: 'this little booke
of Ovid was given to me by W. Hall, who sayd it was once Will
Shakspere's.'

We would call to our meeting Gabriel Harvey with his new Italian books
and pamphlets; and Spenser, if possible, should be there; Dr. Dee would
tell the piteous story of his four thousand volumes, printed and
unprinted, Greek, in French, and High-Dutch MSS., etc., and of forty
years spent in gathering the books that were all on their way to the
pawnshop. He might have told the fortunes of all the books with the help
of his magical mirrors and crystals. Francis Bacon's store was to
increase and multiply, to adorn the library at Cambridge and fill the
shelves at Gray's Inn; Lord Leicester's books, with their livery of