disturb your understanding. Read it then, and ponder
upon it. This book, which would enflame a heart of ice, must set your
ardent soul on fire.'

On a summer night of the year 1374, Petrarch died peacefully at Arqua,
alone in his library. His few remaining books were sold, and some of them
may still be seen in Rome and Paris. Those which he had given to Venice
suffered a strange reverse of fortune. How long the gift remained in the
Palazzo Molina we cannot tell. We conjecture that it was discarded in the
next century, before Bessarion presented his Greek books to the senate,
and became the actual founder of the library of St. Mark. The antiquary
Tomasini found Petrarch's books cast aside in a dark room behind the
Horses of Lysippus. Some had crumbled into powder, and others had been
glued into shapeless masses by the damp. The survivors were placed in the
Libraria Vecchia, and are now in the Ducal Palace; but it was long before
they were permitted to enter the building that sheltered the gift of
Bessarion.

CHAPTER V.

OXFORD--DUKE HUMPHREY'S BOOKS--THE LIBRARY OF THE VALOIS.

The University Library at Oxford was a development of Richard de Bury's
foundation. The monks of Durham had founded a hall, now represented by
Trinity College, in which Richard had always taken a fatherly interest.
He provided the ordinary texts and commentaries for the students, and was
extremely anxious that they should be instructed in Greek and in the
languages of the East. A knowledge of Arabic, he thought, was as
necessary for the study of astronomy as a familiarity with Hebrew was
requisite for the understanding of the Scriptures. The Friars had bought
a good supply of Hebrew books when the Jews were expelled from England;
Richard not only increased the available store, but supplied the means of
using it. 'We have provided,' he said, 'a grammar in Greek and Hebrew for
the scholars, with all the proper aids to instruct them in reading and
writing those languages.' He formed the ambitious design of providing
assistance to the whole University out of the books presented to the
hall. The rules which he drew up were not unlike those already in use at
the Sorbonne. Five students were chosen as wardens, of whom any three
might be a quorum for lending the manuscripts. Any book, of which they
possessed a duplicate, might be lent out on proper security: but copying
was not allowed, and no volume was on any account to be carried beyond
the