tive soil, but of those dispersed over the
kingdoms of France, Germany, and Italy, by the prevailing power of
money; no distance whatever impeded, no fury of the sea deterred them;
nor was cash wanting for their expenses, when they sent or brought us
the wished-for books; for they knew to a certainty that their hopes
reposed in our bosoms could not be disappointed, but ample redemption,
with interest, was secure with us. Lastly, our common captivatrix of the
love of all men (money), did not neglect the rectors of country schools,
nor the pedagogues of clownish boys, but rather, when we had leisure to
enter their little gardens and paddocks, we culled redolent flowers upon
the surface, and dug up neglected roots (not, however, useless to the
studious), and such coarse digests of barbarism, as with the gift of
eloquence might be made sanative to the pectoral arteries. Amongst
productions of this kind, we found many most worthy of renovation,
which, when the foul rust was skilfully polished off, and the mask of
old age removed, deserved to be once more remodelled into comely
countenances, and which we, having applied a sufficiency of the needful
means, resuscitated for an exemplar of future resurrection, having in
some measure restored them to renewed soundness. Moreover, there was
always about us in our halls no small assemblage of antiquaries,
scribes, bookbinders, correctors, illuminators, and, generally, of all
such persons as were qualified to labour advantageously in the service
of books.

"To conclude. All of either sex, of every degree, estate, or dignity,
whose pursuits were in any way connected with books, could, with a
knock, most easily open the door of our heart, and find a convenient
reposing place in our bosom. We so admitted all who brought books, that
neither the multitude of first-comers could produce a fastidiousness of
the last, nor the benefit conferred yesterday be prejudicial to that of
to-day. Wherefore, as we were continually resorted to by all the
aforesaid persons, as to a sort of adamant attractive of books, the
desired accession of the vessels of science, and a multifarious flight
of the best volumes were made to us. And this is what we undertook to
relate at large in the present chapter."]

The manner in which Richard of Bury dedicated his stores to the
intellectual nurture of the poor scholar, was by converting them into a
library for Durham College, which merged into Trinity of Oxford. It