586-587.
John Leland was one of those who saved books.
Already he had been commissioned to examine the libraries
of cathedrals, abbeys, priories, colleges, and other places
wherein the records of antiquity were kept, when, observing
with dismay the threatened loss of monastic treasures, he
asked Cromwell to extend the commission to collecting
books for the king's library. The Germans, he says, perceiving
our "desidiousness" and negligence, were daily
sending young scholars hither, who spoiled the books, and
cut them out of libraries, and returned home and put them
abroad as monuments of their own country.[1]
[1] Ath. Ox. (1721), i. 82, 83.
His request was granted in part, and he tells us he sent
to London for the royal library the choicest volumes in
St. Augustine's Abbey; but very few of these books now
remain.[1] He had, he said, "conservid many good autors,
the which otherwise had beene like to have perischid to no
smaul incommodite of good letters, of the whiche parse
remayne yn the moste magnificent libraries of yowr royal
Palacis. Parte also remayne yn my custodye. Wherby I
truste right shortely so to describe your most noble reaulme,
and to publische the Majeste and the excellent actes of
yowr progenitors.
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