White — Elias BouMreau of La Roclietlc. 127 



becoming reconstituted and reclaiming tlie papers, tliey should be given up." 

 The next notice of the documents is in 1760, when the Library -keeper, the 

 Eev. John "Wynne, is " apprehensive that the Papists might have access to 

 make bad use of or destroy them." Eventually, in 1862, they were returned 

 to the Consistory of La Eochelle ; and, according to Smiles (1. c), 

 " Pastor Delmas, the President, has since published, with their assistance, a 

 history of the Protestant Church of La Eochelle." 



It may be questioned if there is any other instance on record of the 

 restoration of valuable manuscripts by a library after the lapse of nearly 

 150 years. There was at least one person who was pained by this extra- 

 ordinary instance of library honesty ; and that was Eobert Travers, m.d., who 

 held the post of assistant librarian from 1841 to 1887. (Died 28th March, 

 1888.) Dr. Travers was also Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in the 

 University of Dublin from 1864. The preservation of the books in Marsh's 

 Library was a passion with him. He used to spend much time in searching 

 the Dublin second-hand bookstalls for stolen volumes which he would pur- 

 chase and restore. In 1828 he had been specially thanked by the Governors 

 for his "laudable exertions" in the discovery of an "infamous villain" who 

 had " secretly conveyed away several of the books and sold the same." The 

 traces he has left on the Catalogue and Minute Book point to an accurate 

 and scholarly man with a rare power of exquisite penmanship. 



In addition to the La Eochelle Church papers, the strong box mentioned 

 above contained the private correspondence of Dr. Bouhereau — letters 

 addressed to him between 1661 and 1685. Prom a memorandum in my 

 hands it appears that, in 1853, Dr. Travers went methodically over the 

 contents of the box, noting precisely the contents of each bundle of papers, 

 including the letters, and adding notes ; and before the public documents 

 returned to La Eochelle he drew up, in 1862, an elaborate inventory of them, 

 which is, in fact, the formal receipt, signed at the foot of each page by 

 H. C. Mecredy, as agent for the Prench Church. But besides this precis, 

 Travers, as we know now, actually copied out the documents in eo:tenso, and 

 began to make notes of the addresses of the private letters. 



However, until December, 1903, the only representative of the contents 

 of Bouhereau's strong box remaining in Marsh's Library was the inventory 

 of Church archives just mentioned. There were other MSS., of which I shall 

 give an account further on ; but I knew nothing of the existence of the 

 private correspondence. 



On the 5th December, 1903, I received a letter from Mr. T. P. Le Fanu, 

 in which he said: 



"In going through some papers which belonged to the late Dr. La Touche, 



[20^:=] 



