erser that Henry is entitled to notice in this place. The
dissolution of the monasteries is the genesis of book-collecting in
London. The first move in this respect is entitled 'An Act that all
religious houses under the yearly revenue of L200 shall be dissolved and
given to the King and his heirs,' and is dated 1535 (27 Henry VIII.,
cap. 28, ii. 134). The second is dated 1539. Whatever advantages in a
general way the dissolution of the monasteries may have had, its
consequences, so far as regards the libraries, which the monks
considered as among their most cherished possessions, were disastrous
beyond measure. Indeed, we have no conception of our losses. Addressing
himself to Edward VI. in 1549, John Bale, afterwards Bishop of Ossory,
who had but little love for Popery of any description, writes in this
strain: 'Avarice was the other dispatcher which hath made an end both of
our libraries and books . . . to the no small decay of the commonwealth.
A great number of them who purchased those superstitious mansions
[monasteries], reserved of these Library-books, some . . . to scour
their candlesticks, and some to rub their boots; some they sold to the
grocers and soap-sellers, and some they sent over sea to the
bookbinders, not in small numbers, but at times whole shipsfull, to the
wondering of the foreign nations. Yea, the universities of this realm
are not all clear in this detestable fact. But cursed is that belly
which seeketh to be fed with so ungodly gains, and so deeply shameth his
natural country. I know a merchantman, which shall at this time be
nameless, that bought the contents of two noble Libraries for forty
shillings price: a shame it is to be spoken. This stuff hath he occupied
in the stead of gray paper by the space of more than these ten years;
and yet he hath store enough for as many years to come. . . . Our
posterity may well curse this wicked fact of our age, this unreasonable
spoil of England's most noble antiquities, unless they be stayed in
time.' Fuller, in his 'Church History of Britain,' quotes Bale's
lamentation, and adds his own testimony on the same subject: 'As brokers
in Long Lane, when they buy an old suit buy the linings together with
the outside, so it was considered meet that such as purchased the
buildings of monasteries should in the same grant have the Libraries
(the stuffing thereof) conveyed unto them. And now these ignorant
owners, so long as they might keep a ledger-book or terrier