' Among the most
important of the earlier benefactions was the gift of the Dodsworth
Papers by Thomas Lord Fairfax. The archives of the Northern monasteries
had been kept for a time in eight chests in St. Mary's Tower at York.
Roger Dodsworth, Sir William Dugdale's colleague in the preparation of
the Monasticon, made copies of many of these documents; and when the
tower was blown up in the siege of 1644 he was one of the zealous
antiquarians who saved the mouldering fragments on the breach. His whole
store of archaeological records became the property of Fairfax at his
death. They are of great historical importance, but at one time they were
strangely neglected. Wood says that all the papers were nearly spoiled in
a damp season, when he obtained leave to dry them on the leads near the
schools; but though it cost him a month's labour he undertook it with
pleasure 'out of respect to the memory of Mr. Dodsworth.'
The Ashmolean books were some years ago transferred to the Bodleian, but
for several generations there was a strange assortment of antiquarian
libraries gathered together in the Museum which Ashmole developed out of
Madam Tradescant's 'closet of curiosities.' Here were the books of the
shiftless John Aubrey, described by Wood as 'sometimes little better than
crazed': and here, according to Wood's dying wish, lay his own books,
'and papers and notes about two bushels full,' side by side with
Dugdale's manuscripts. Dibdin quotes several extracts from Elias
Ashmole's diary, to show the old book-hunter's prowess in the chase.
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