Introduction

The “estate” left by Barrow, wrote Abraham Hill, Barrow's first biographer, “was books.” Hill's statement, however, should not be interpreted solely as a monetary assessment. Most educated men (and not just scholars) in the early modern period regarded their libraries as among their most cherished possessions. For such people books were a chief pleasure, a solace in times of difficulty. And they pursued good books with an eagerness that has little counterpart today, even among the most unreformed book lovers.

Certainly, Barrow is an excellent specimen of a seventeenth-century bibliophile. He apparently garnered few, if any, books from either his father or his uncle the bishop, whose deaths succeeded his own, and consequently his collection represents a labor of love. To John Collins, Barrow articulated this passion for books, which extended even to those with debatable merit, and his willingness to countenance virtually any extravagance or expense in its name:

At the time of his death, Barrow possessed a private library consisting of 990 titles in some 1,100 volumes. This total can be supplemented by the 71 books (in 69 volumes) Barrow had donated during the previous few years to Trinity College Library.