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2
Closing the Sea
The only thing we know for sure about the Selden map is that it was deposited in
the Bodleian Library in September 1659. Actually, we don't even know that. We
have to infer its delivery from the fact that this is when the bulk of John Selden's
librarywasdeliveredtoOxford.ThedeliveryisrecordedbyAnthonyWood,afan-
atically bookish young man whose 'natural genie', he once observed, obliged him
to spend his life reading old manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. Wood doesn't
single out the map for particular treatment. Its long, narrow box was simply one
amongthehundredsthatarrivedattheBodleianandthathevolunteeredtohelpthe
Keeper, Thomas Barlow, unpack and sort after they had been carted up from the
Thames. Selden had lined up all his topics and manuscripts in a reasonably orderly
fashion in his house at Whitefriars, London, on what were then the novel install-
ation we know as built-in bookshelves. The packers had tried to preserve the or-
der they were in, as that was how the collection had been catalogued after Selden
died, but the odds are good that it was all in a bit of a jumble when the boxes were
unpacked in Oxford. Each volume had to be identified and then carried up to the
galleries that ran around the reading-room at the west end of the library - subse-
quently known as the Selden End - where they were arranged by subject. Chains
were then attached to the more valuable items to prevent more from disappearing
than had already vanished out of Whitefriars after his death.
ThiswasthebiggestsingledonationofbooksandmanuscriptsthattheBodleian
would ever receive. By the standards of the day it was an expensive transaction:
the chains cost over £25, and the shipping charges ran to £34. The burden of deal-
ing with the enormous task, it was said, drove Barlow to resign his post. In the
course of unpacking the manuscripts, Wood discovered the great man's absent-
mindedhabitofnotlosinghisplacewhenhisreadingwasinterrupted,forhefound
pairs of spectacles stuck in here and there among the pages. He dutifully handed in
these forgotten bookmarks to Barlow, who reciprocated his thanks by giving him
onepairtokeep.WoodregardedSeldenasthegreatestscholaroftheageandinhis
honour preserved this relic of his brush with greatness for the rest of his life.
Selden made his will on 11 June 1654. To it he attached a codicil dealing with
the disposition of his scholarly assets (Fig. 2). In this document he singles out his
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