Having sauntered round and round, and returned almost to the very spot whence I had set out, I at last found the residence of the librarian.—­On being admitted, I was introduced to a tall, sharp-visaged, and melancholy-complexioned gentleman, who seemed to rise six feet from the ground on receiving me.  He read the Professor’s note:  but alas! could not speak one word of French.  “Placetne tibi, Domine, sermone latino uti?” I answered in the affirmative; but confessed that I was totally out of the habit of speaking it in England:  and besides, that our mode of pronunciation was very different from that of other countries.  The man of dark vestments and sombre countenance relaxed into a gentle smile, as I added the latter part of this remark:  and I accompanied him quickly, but silently, to the library in question.  Its situation is surely among the most whimsical in existence.  It is placed up one pair of stairs, to the left of the choir; and you ascend up to it through a gloomy and narrow stone staircase.  If I remember rightly, the outward door, connecting with the stairs, is in the cathedral yard.  The library itself is very small; and a print, being a portrait of its Donor, hangs up against the shelves—­facing as you enter.  I had never seen this print before.  It was an interesting portrait; and had, I think, a date of somewhere about 1584.  The collection was chiefly theological; yet there were a few old classics, but of very secondary value.  The only book that I absolutely coveted, was a folio, somewhat charged with writing in the margins, of which the title and colophon are as follow:—­for I obtained permission to make a memorandum of them.  “Gutheri Ligurini Poetae clarissimi diui Frid. pri Dece libri foeliciter editi:  impssi per industriu & ingeniosu Magistru Erhardu Oeglin ciuem augustesem Ano Sesquimillesimo & septimo mese Apprilio” This edition contains M vj, in sixes.  The preceding article is followed by six leaves, containing supplemental matter.

I asked my sable attendant, if this book could be parted with—­either for money, or in exchange for other books? he replied, “that that point must be submitted to the consideration of a chapter:  that the library was rarely or never visited; but that he considered it would not be proper to disturb its order, or to destroy its identity, since it was a sacred legacy.”  I told him that he reasoned well; but that, should the chapter change such a resolution, my address would be found at Vienna, poste restante, till the 20th of the following month.  We parted in terms of formal politeness; being now and then a little checked in my discourse, by the reply, on his part, of “Non prorsus intelligo.”  I am glad, however, to have seen this secluded cabinet of books; which would have been the very place for the study of Anthony Wood or Thomas Hearne.  It had quite an air of monastic seclusion, and it seemed as if scarcely six persons had trod the floor, or six volumes had been taken down from the shelves, since the day when the key was first turned upon the door which encloses the collection.  After a few “salves,” and one “vale,” I returned to the White Stag.