A poem by Robert Burhill, of Corpus Christi college, Oxford, entitled 'Britannia Scholastica, siue de Britanniæ rebus scholasticis, libri decem. 1. Heroicus [i.e. aetas heroica], 2. Provincia [Romana], 3. Heptarchia, 4. Alfredus, 5. Neotus, 6. Elfleda, 7. Parallelismus [inter academias Oxon. & Cantab.], 8. Itinerarium [memorabilia plurimorum Angliæ locorum unde fit concursus studentium], 9. Benemeriti, 10. Foxus [Collegii Corporis Christi fundator]. Ad præstantissimum atque optimè de Oxoniensi Academia meritum, Thomam Bodlæum ...': with epistle dedicatory to Thomas Bodley, preface to the reader, and list of contents: the poem beg. 'Prima meæ carmen, Schola, ni piget, Angla iuventæ'.

This is a curious poem on the history of education in England from the earliest times, in 1,252 hexameters, with marginal notes. This may be an autograph of the author, whose name is at the end of the dedication. A fragmentary earlier version is MS. Lat. misc. f. 30.

As an appendix to this work there is added at fol. 173 'Antiquitates Insulæ Britannicæ, ad varia huius Britanniæ Scholasticæ loca meliùs intelligenda', a prose piece with the divisions Nominum rationes, Britannica, Saxonica. At fol. 205 are indexes of personal matters connected with the author and his book, of speeches, of subjects (two), of historical events and persons since the Conquest, and of 'Sententiosa' (philosophical adages, etc.).

This poem may perhaps be regarded as connected with the opening of the Bodleian, as it is dedicated to Bodley and often refers to him and his new library, though only in rhetorical terms (see fol. 214).