them: and this is all.

I have been informed, that in Oxford (where the most famous Librarie now
exstant amongst Protestant-Christians is kept,) the setled maintenance
of the Librarie-keeper is not above fiftie or sixtie pound _per annum_;
but that it is accidentally, _viis & modis_ somtimes worth an hundred
pound: what the accidents are, and the waies by which they com, I have
not been curious to search after; but I have thought, that if the proper
emploiments of Librarie-keepers were taken into consideration as they
are, or may bee made useful to the advancement of Learning; and were
ordered and mainteined proportionally to the ends, which ought to bee
intended thereby; they would bee of exceeding great use to all sorts of
Scholars, and have an universal influence upon all the parts of
Learning, to produce and propagate the same unto perfection. For if
Librarie-keepers did understand themselvs in the nature of their work,
and would make themselvs, as they ought to bee, useful in their places
in a publick waie; they ought to becom Agents for the advancement of
universal Learning: and to this effect I could wish, that their places
might not bee made, as everie where they are, Mercenarie, but rather
Honorarie; and that with the competent allowance of two hundred pounds a
year; som emploiments should bee put upon them further then a bare
keeping of the Books. It is true that a fair Librarie, is not onely an
ornament and credit to the place where it is; but an useful commoditie
by it self to the publick; yet in effect it is no more then a dead Bodie
as now it is constituted, in comparison of what it might bee, if it were
animated with a publick Spirit to keep and use it, and ordered as it
might bee for publick service. For if such an allowance were setled upon
the emploiment as might maintain a man of parts and generous thoughts,
then a condition might bee annexed to the bestowing of the Place; that
none should bee called thereunto but such as had approved themselvs