Now we have long cherished in our heart of hearts the fixed
resolve, when Providence should grant a favourable opportunity,
to found in perpetual charity a Hall in the reverend university
of Oxford, the chief nursing mother of all liberal arts, and to
endow it with the necessary revenues, for the maintenance of a
number of scholars; and moreover to enrich the Hall with the
treasures of our books, that all and every of them should be in
common as regards their use and study, not only to the scholars
of the said Hall, but by their means to all the students of the
before-named university for ever, in the form and manner which
the following chapter shall declare. Wherefore the sincere love
of study and zeal for the strengthening of the orthodox faith to
the edifying of the Church, have begotten in us that solicitude
so marvellous to the lovers of pelf, of collecting books wherever
they were to be purchased, regardless of expense, and of having
those that could not he bought fairly transcribed.
For as the favourite occupations of men are variously
distinguished according to the disposition of the heavenly
bodies, which frequently control our natural composition, so that
some men choose to devote themselves to architecture, others to
agriculture, others to hunting, others to navigation, others to
war, others to games, we have under the aspect of Mercury
entertained a blameless pleasure in books, which under the rule
of right reason, over which no stars are dominant, we have
ordered to the glory of the Supreme Being, that where our minds
found tranquillity and peace, thence also might spring a most
devout service of God.
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