both a good
linguist and personally well acquainted with the chief cities of the
Continent and with their booksellers. He was thus able to employ
well-selected agents in different parts of Europe to buy books on his
account, which it was his pleasure to receive, his rapture to unpack,
his pride to despatch in what he calls 'dry-fats'--that is,
weather-tight chests--to Dr. James, the first Bodley librarian.
Despite growing and painful infirmities (stone, ague, dropsy), Bodley
never even for a day dismounted his hobby, but rode it manfully to the
last. Nor had he any mean taint of nature that might have grudged
other men a hand in the great work. The more benefactors there were,
the better pleased was Bodley. He could not, indeed--for had he not
been educated at Geneva and attended the Divinity Lectures of Calvin
and Beza?--direct Dr. James to say masses for the souls of such donors
of money or books as should die, but he did all a poor Protestant can
do to tempt generosity: he opened and kept in a very public place in
the library a great register-book, containing the names and titles of
all benefactors. Bodley was always on the look-out for gifts and
bequests from his store of honourable friends; and in the case of Sir
Henry Savile he even relaxed the rule against lending books from the
library, because, as he frankly admits to Dr. James, he had hopes
(which proved well founded) that Sir Henry would not forget his
obligations to the Bodleian.

The library was formally opened on November 8, 1602, and then
contained some 2,000 volumes. Two years later its founder was knighted
by King James, who on the following June directed letters patent to be
issued styling the library by the founder's name and licensing the
University to hold land in mortmain for its maintenance. The most
learned and by no means the most foolish of our Kings, this same James
I., visited the Bodleian in May, 1605. Sir Thomas was not present.
There it was that the royal pun was made that the founder's name
should have been Godly and not Bodley. King James handled certain old
manuscripts with the familiarity of a scholar, and is reported to have
said, I doubt not with perfect sincerity, that were he not King James
he would be an University man, and that were it his fate at any time
to be a captive, he would wish to be shut up in the Bodleian and to be
bound with its chains, consuming his days amongst its books as his
fellows in captivity. Indeed, he was