niversity
Library, as witnessed by his initials; but it had taken them many
generations to make the last stage of their journey from his book-shelf
to their acknowledged home at Oxford.

It was chiefly through the generosity of Laud that the Bodleian obtained
its wealth of Oriental learning. But it was not only in the East that the
Archbishop devoted himself to book-collecting. Like Dr. Dee, he saw the
value of Ireland as a hunting-ground, and employed his emissaries to
procure painted service-books, the records of native princes, and the
archives of the Anglo-Norman nobility. Among his most precious
acquisitions was an Irish MS. containing the _Psalter of Cashel_,
Cormac's still unpublished _Glossary_, and some of the poems ascribed to
St. Patrick and St. Columba. On the Continent the armies of Gustavus
Adolphus were ravaging the cities of Germany; and Laud's agents were
always at hand to rescue the fair books and vellums from the Swedish
pikemen. In this way he obtained the printed Missal of 1481 and a number
of Latin MSS. from the College of Wuerzburg, and other valuable books from
monasteries near Mainz and Eberbach in the Duchy of Baden. It appears by
Mr. Macray's Annals that his gifts to the University between 1635 and
1640 amounted to about thirteen hundred volumes, in more than twenty
languages. To our minds the most attractive will always be the very copy
of the 'Acts' perused by the Venerable Bede, and the 'Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle' compiled in the Abbey of Peterborough. The men of Laud's age
would perhaps have attached greater importance to the Eastern MSS.
acquired by the Archbishop through Robert Huntingdon, the consul at
Aleppo, or the Greek library of Francesco Barocci, which he persuaded
William Earl of Pembroke to present to the University. In describing the
Persian MSS. of his last gift, Laud specially mentioned one as containing
a history of the world from the Creation to the end of the Saracen
Empire, and as being of a very great value. He shows the greatest anxiety
for the safety of the volumes: 'I would to God the place for them were
ready, that they might be set up safe, and chained as the other books
are.' He gave many books to St. John's College; and he retained a large
collection in his Palace at Lambeth, which was bestowed on Hugh Peters
after his death; it is satisfactory, however, to remember that 'the study
of books' was recovered at the Restoration, and that Mr. Ashmole was
appointed to exami