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Oxford treasures

Harry Mount

Wednesday, 25th June 2008

Beyond the Work of One — Oxford College Libraries and their Benefactors
The Bodleian Library, Oxford, until 1 November, admission free

Bibliophiles will be excited by all this; but so will those interested in art. There’s a bewitching little picture of an angel healing St Cuthbert’s knee — a rather minor

miracle, I’d say, right up there with the saint that sorts out hangnails — in the 12th-century manuscript of Bede’s Life of St Cuthbert, written in the 7th century.

It isn’t just books that are on show. Brasenose has given Edward Lear’s hyper-realist lithograph of a Javan squirrel. And Somerville College has the sad letter Lear wrote in 1885 when his publisher refused his Nile Diaries.

Early on in their 700-year existence, college libraries realised that they were stores for clever people’s bric-à-brac, as well as for their books. There’s Dr Johnson’s gruel mug — kept for him whenever he returned to his old college, Pembroke. It’s the size of a biggish jug, decorated with charming little blue flowers and butterflies.

William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England (1324–1404) — who founded New College and paid for the first purpose-built college library there — left his mitre, with its seed pearls, semi-precious stones and silver gilt to the college. And here it is, alongside the boots of William Wayneflete (1395–1486), who founded Magdalen College — huge red things, made out of Italian velvet and silver-gilt bellflowers, lined with felt.

And for those who are feeling left a bit one down by all these geniuses, there’s some consolation in remembering quite how stupid clever people can be. Nuffield College has lent a 1942 letter to Churchill from Lord Cherwell, the government’s chief scientific adviser during the war, on the benefits of carpet-bombing German cities. ‘Investigation seems to show that having one’s house demolished is most damaging to morale,’ concluded one of the great minds of the 20th century.