'Captain Cox came
marching on, clean trussed and gartered above the knee, all fresh in a
velvet cap: an odd man, I promise you: by profession a mason, and that
right skilful and very cunning in fence.... As for King Arthur and Huon
of Bourdeaux, ... the Fryar and the Boy, Elynor Rumming, and the
Nut-brown Maid, with many more than I can rehearse, I believe he has them
all at his fingers' ends.'
James I., as became a 'Solomon,' was the master of many books; but not
being a 'fancier' he gave them shabby coverings and scribbled idle notes
on their margins. He is forgiven for being a pedant, since Buchanan said
it was the best that could be made of him; it is difficult to be patient
about his hint to the Dutch that it would be well to burn the old scholar
Vorstius instead of making him a professor at Leyden. He seems to have
done more harm than good to the libraries in his own possession. We know
how he broke into a 'noble speech' when he visited Bodley at Oxford, with
the librarian trembling lest the King should see a book by Buchanan, who
had often whipped his royal pupil in days gone by: 'If I were not a King
I would be an University-man, and if it was so that I must be a prisoner
I would desire no other durance than to be chained in that library with
so many noble authors.'
The King gave Sir Thomas Bodley a warrant under the Privy Seal to take
what books he pleased from any of the royal palaces and libraries;
'howbeit,' said Bodley, 'for that the place at Whitehall is over the
Queen's chamber, I must needs attend her departure from thence, whereof
at present there is no certainty known: how I shall proceed for other
places I have not yet resolved.
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