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Preface
17
by the traces of recent destruction; for the thought of them followed him through the years spent away from Oxford, and was destined finally to bear rich fruit.
Having first counted the cost, and made sure that he was "furnished in a competent proportion" with the four aids necessary to success in his enterprise,—knowledge, "purse-ability," "great store of honourable friends," and abundant leisure,—Thomas Bodley wrote, on the twenty-third of February, 1597-8, to the vice-chancellor of the university, offering to "reduce again to its former use" the room which, with the statute re-
