p and the work going chearfully forward,
was in four years space finished." _Annals of the University
of Oxford_; vol. ii., pt. ii., p. 939. Gutch's edition. We
will take leave of SIR THOMAS BODLEY, and of his noble
institution, with the subjoined representation of the
University's Arms--as painted upon the ceiling of the
library, in innumerable compartments; hoping that the period
is not very remote when a _History of the Bodleian Library_,
more ample and complete than any thing which has preceded
it, will appear prefixed to a _Catalogue of the Books_, like
unto that which is hinted at p. 74, ante, as "an urgent
desideratum."

[Illustration: DOMINVS ILLVMINATIO MEA]]

LIS. Alas, you bring to my mind those precious hours that are gone by,
never to be recalled, which I wasted within this glorious palace of
Bodley's erection! How I sauntered, and gazed, and sauntered again.--

PHIL. Your case is by no means singular. But you promise, when you
revisit the library, not to behave so naughtily again?

LIS. I was not then a convert to the BIBLIOMANIA! Now, I will
certainly devote the leisure of six autumnal weeks to examine
minutely some of the precious tomes which are contained in it.

LYSAND. Very good. And pray favour us with the result of your profound
researches: as one would like to have the most minute account of the
treasures contained within those hitherto unnumbered volumes.

PHIL. As every sweet in this world is balanced by its bitter, I wonder
that these worthy characters were not lampooned by some sharp-set
scribbler--whose only chance of getting perusers for his work, and
thereby bread for his larder, was by the novelty and impudence of his
attacks. Any thing new and preposterous is sure of drawing attention.
Affirm that you see a man standing upon one leg, on the pinnacle of
Saint Paul's[336]--or that the ghost of Inigo Jones had appeared to
you, to give you the extraordinary information that Sir Christopher
Wren had stolen the whole of the plan of that cathedral from a design
of his own--and do you not think that you would have spectators and
auditors enough around you?

[Footnote 336: This is now oftentimes practised by some wag,
in his "_Walke in Powles_." Whether the same anecdote is
recorded in the little slim pamphlet published in 1604,
4to., under the same title--not having the work--(and indeed
how should I? vid