BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Henrij W. Sage 1891 Jt.JXJi.SX3. Mli/ffi.T. Z792.B86 C E26 "*""* Ubrary LiVe fliimiii»»i?i!i l Mite,., of the Brit 'sh Mus olin 3 1924 029 534 850 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029534850 LIVES OE THE FOUNDERS, AND NOTICES OE SOME CHIEE BENEFACTORS AND ORGANIZERS, OE THE BRITISH MUSEUM. COTTON— AR UNDJEL—HARLEY—CO URTEN— SLOANE— HAMILTON— CHARLES TOWNELEY —PAYNE-KNIGHT — LANSDOWNE — BRIDGE- WATER — KING GEORGE III — BANKS — CRACHERODE — GRENVILLE — FELLOWS — LAYARD—CURET0N—8fo. fyc. 8fc. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. MEMOIRS OF LIBRARIES : including a Handbook op Libbaby Economy. 2 vols. 8vo. [With 8 steel plates; 36 woodcuts; 16 lithographic plates; and 4 illustrations in chromo-litbography.] 48s. LIBRARIES, AND FOUNDERS OF LIBRARIES. 8vo. 18s. COMPARATIVE TABLES of Schemes which have BEEN PBOPOSED EOB THE CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN KNOW- LEDGE. Fol. 5s. SYNOPTICAL TABLES OF THE RECORDS OF THE REALM. With an Historical Preface. Pol. 9s. CHAPTERS OF THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY, &c 8vo. 6s. LIBER MONASTERII DE HYDA ; comprising a Chro- nicle of the Affairs of England from the Settlement of the Saxons to Cnut ; and a Chartulary ; a.T). 455 — 1023. Edited by the Authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the Direction of the Master of the Polls. 8vo. 10s. 6d. THE LIFE OF SIR WALTER RALEGH; based on contemporary documents preserved in the rolls House, the Pbity Council Office, Hatfield House, the British Museum, and othee Manuscript Kepositoeies, British and Pobeign. Together with his Letters, now first Collected. 2 vols. 8vo. 32s. EXMOUTH AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD, ANCIENT AND MODERN; being Notices, Historical, Biographi- cal, and Descriptive, oe a Corner op South Devon. Crown 8vo. 5s. FREE TOWN LIBRARIES, theie Fobmation Management, and History; in Beitain, Feance, Gee- many, and America. Together with brief Notices of' Book- Collectors, and of the Respective Places of Deposit of their Surviving Collections. 8vo. 21s. -gam 1H rS § ' ' • f ff|i Ik ,.E5Ep! I SSL, i ill Mkj Wti Til imi' ii WE 3 -" i^Tfll-irl T ! ' "'"" mmmm' WSm 1 1 SWffi I I TO ^g^df'. I in "- ,i M j i si i i " , u IP all 1 »' 1 i III a III s Hi 1 1 | i ill I 1 Ittiffli I F J j@mM? 'iWiBi^MHi e a b i -^ " F^HH jfl Ii ' I HuHH ! i be o CD 3 Q CD L1YES OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE BEITISH MUSEUM; WITH NOTICES OF ITS CHIEF AUGMENTORS AND OTHER BENEFACTORS. 1570—1870. By EDWARD EDWARDS. :-._._; ^r;-^'^ Jg The old "Townley Gallery." LONDON : TRUBNER AND CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1870. (All rights reserved). PREFATORY NOTE. For the materials of the earlier of the ' Lives ' contained in this volume I have been chiefly indebted to the Collec- tion of State Papers at the Rolls House ; to the Privy- Council Registers at the Council Office ; , and to many manuscripts in the Cottonian, Harleian, Sloane, and Lans- downe Collections at the British Museum. Highgatb ; 6th May, 1870. The liberal deviseth liberal things ; and by liberal things shall he stand. Isaiah, xxxii, 8. Man's only relics are his benefits ; These, be there ages, be there worlds, between, Retain him in communion with his hind. Landoe (Count Julian). CONTENTS. BOOK THE FIRST. EARLY COLLECTORS.— THE GATHERERS OF THE FOUND ATLON COLLECTIONS. CHAPTER I. INTBOD UCTION. PAGE Chronological Epochs in the Formation of the British Museum . 5 CHAPTER II. THE FOUNDER OF THE COTTONIAN LIBBABY. The Personal and Public Life of Sir Robert Cotton. — Bis Political Writings and Political Persecutions. — Sources and Growth of the Cottonian Library . — The Successors of Sir Robert Cotton. — History of the Cottonian Library, until its union with the Manuscript Library of Harley, and with the Museum and Miscellaneous Collections of Sloane. — Review of some recent Aspersions on the Character of the Founder . . . ,48 CHAPTER III. THE CHIEF COLLECTOR AND THE AUGMENTORS OF THE OLD ROYAL AND PUBLIC LIBBABY AT ST. JAMES'. Life of Henry, Prince of Wales, son of James I, and virtual Founder of the ' Boyal Library.' — Its Augmentors and its Librarians. — Acquisition of the Library of the Theyers. — Incorporation with the Collections of Cotton and of Sloane . . .153 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. THE COLLECTOR OF THE ARUNDELIAN MSS. PAGE Political Exile and Foreign Travel under Elizabeth and under James. —Life of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel.— The Consolations of Connoissewrship. — Vicissitudes of the Arwndel Museum. — The gifts of Henry Howard to the Royal Society . . ■ 1'2 CHAPTER Y. TEE COLLECTOR OF THE HARLEIAN MSS. The Earley Family.— Parliamentary and Official Career of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. — The Party Conflicts under Queen Anne. —Robert Harley and Jonathan Swift. — Harley and the Court of the Stuarts.— Bid Harley conspire to restore the Pretender? — History of the Harleian Library. — The Life and Correspondence of Humphrey Wanley . ... 203 CHAPTER VI. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. Flemish Exiles in England.— The Adventures, Mercantile and Colonial Enterprises, and Vicissitudes of the Courtens. — William Courten and his Collections. — The Life and Travels of Sir Hans Sloane. — His acquisition of Courten's Museum. — Its Growth under the new Possessor. — History of the Sloane Museum and Library, and of their purchase by Parliament .... 247 BOOK THE SECOND. THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Househunting. — The Removal of the Sloane Museum from Chelsea. Montagu House, and its History. — The Early Trustees and Officers. CONTENTS. vii PAGE — The Museum Regulations. — Early Helpers in the Foundation and Increase of the British Museum. — Epochs in the Growth of the Natural History Collections. — Experiences of Inquiring Visitors in the years 1765-1784 . . . . .317 CHAPTER II. A GROUP OF CLASSICAL ARCH^OLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. Sir William Hamilton and his Pursuits and Employments in Italy. — The Acquisitions of the French Institute of Egypt, and the capture of part of them at Alexandria. — Charles Towneley and his Collec- tion of Antiquities. — The Researches of the Earl of Elgin in Greece. ■ — The Collections and Writings of Richard Payne Knight . 346 CHAPTER III. A GROUP OF BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. Notices of some early Donors of Books. — The Life and Collections of Clayton Mor daunt Cracherode. — William Petty, first Marquess of Lansdowne, and his Library of Manuscripts. — The Literary Life and Collections of Dr. Charles Burney. — Francis Hargrave and his Manuscripts. — The Life and Testamentary Foundations of Francis Henry Egerton, Ninth Earl of Bridgewater . . 413 CHAPTER IV- THE KING'S OR ' GEORGIAN' LIBRARY;— ITS COLLECTOR, AND ITS DONOR. Notices of the Literary Tastes and Acquirements of King George the Third. — His Conversations with Men of Letters.'— History of his Library and of its Transfer to the British Nation by George the Fourth . . . . , .464 vm CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. THE FOUNDER OF THE BANK8IAN MUSEUM AND LIBRARY. PAGE The Life, Travels, and Social Influence, of Sir Joseph Banks. — The Royal Society under his Presidency. — His Collections and their acquisition by the Trustees of the British Museum. — Notices of some other contemporaneous accessions . . ■ 487 BOOK THE THIRD. LATHE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. 1829—1870. CHAPTER I. GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION, AS PRINCIPAL- LIBRARIAN, OF JOSEPH PLANTA. Notices of the Life of Joseph Planta, third Principal-Librarian. — Improvements in the Internal Economy of the Museum introduced or recommended by Mr. Planta. — His labours for the enlargement of the Collections — and on the Museum, Publications and Cata- logues. — The Museum Gardens and the Duke of Bedford . 515 CHAPTER II. INTRODUCTION TO BOOK III (continued) .— GROWTH, PRO- GRESS, AND INTERNAL ECONOMY, OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, DURING THE PRINCIPAL-LIBRARIANSHIP OF SIR HENRY ELLIS. Internal Economy of the Museum at the time of the death of Joseph Planta. — The Literary Life and Public Services of Sir Henry Ellis. — The Candidature of Henry Fynes Clinton. — Progress of Improvement in certain Departments. — Introduction of Sir Antonio CONTENTS. ix PAGE Panizzi into the Service of the Trustees. — The House of Commons' Committee of 1835-36. — Panizzi and Henry Francis Cary. — Memoir of Cary. — Panizzi's Report on the proper Character of a National Library for Britain, made in October, 1837. — His suc- cessive labours for Internal Reform. — And his Helpers in the work. — The Literary Life and Public Services of Thomas Watts. — Sir A. Panizzi's Special Report to the Trustees of 1845, and what grew thereout. — Progress, during Sir H. Ellis's term of office, of the several Departments of Natural History and of Antiquities . 527 CHAPTER III. INTRODUCTION TO BOOK III {continued) .— GROWTH, PRO- GRESS, AND INTERNAL ECONOMY, OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM DURING THE PR1NCIPAL-LIBRARIANSHIP OF SIR ANTONIO PANIZZI. The Museum Buildings. — The New Reading-Room and its History. — The House of Commons' Committee of 1860. — Further Reorganiza- tion of the Departments. — Summary of the Growth of the Collec- tions in the years 1856-1866, and of their increased Use and Enjoyment by the Public ..... 583 OHAPTEE IY. -ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHMOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS.— THE SPOILS OF XANTHUS, OF BABYLON, OF NINEVEH, OF HALICARNASSUS, AND OF CARTHAGE. The Libraries of the East. — The Monasteries of the Nitrian Desert, and their Explorers. — William Cureton and his Labours on the MSS. of Nitria, and in other Departments of Oriental Literature. — The Researches in the Levant of Sir Charles Fellows, of Mr. Layard, and of Mr. Charles Newton. — Other conspicuous Augmentors of the Collection of Antiquities .... 608 CHAPTER V. THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENVILLE LIBRARY. The Grenvilles and their Influence on the Political Aspect of the Georgian Reigns. — The Public and Literary Life of the Right Honourable Thomas Grenville. — History of the Grenville Library 670 x CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. PA0E Recent Contributors to the Natural History Collections. — The Duke of Blacas and his Museum of Greek and Roman Anti- quities. — Hugh Cuming and his Travels and Collections in South America. — John Rutter Chorley, and his Collection of Spanish Plays and Spanish Poetry. — George Witt and his Collections illustrative of the History of Obscure Superstitions. — The Ethno- graphical Museum of Henry Christy, and its History. — Colonial Archaeologists and British Consuls : The History of the Wood- house Collection, and of its transmittal to the British Museum. — Lord Napier and the Acquisition of the Abyssinian MSS. — The Art Collections and Bequests of Felix Slade. — The Travels and the Japanese Library of Von Siebold .... 686 CHAPTER VII. RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. The Plans and Projects for the Severance and Partial Dispersion of the Collections which at present form ' The British Museum,' and for their re-combmation and re-arrangement . . . 721 Index ....... 763 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PA SB I. View of the Garden-Front of Old Montagu House, the first ' British Museum ;' as it appeared at the opening of the Institution to the Public in 1759 Frontispiece. II. VlEW OF THE OLD TOWNELEY GALLERY (built for the reception of the Towneleian Marbles in 1805, and pulled down on the erection of the existing Museum) Vignette on Title-page. III. Ground - Plan of the Principal Floor of the original British Museum of 1759 . . . 325 IV. Ground-Plan of the Secondary Floor of the same 327 Y. Suggestions made in 1847 for the Enlargement of the Library of the British Museum ; being the fac- simile of a Plan inserted in a Pamphlet (written in 1846) entitled 'Public Libraries in London and Paris' To face p. 556 YI. Reduced copy of Benjamin Delessert's 'Peojetvune B.IBLIOTEEQUE ClRCULAIBE,' 1835 .... 587 VII. General Block-Plan of the British Museum, as it was in 1857 . . . . . . .589 VIII. Ground-Plan of the New or 'Panizzi' Reading- Room, and of the adjacent Galleries, 1857 . . . 590 IX. Interior View of the New Reading-Room, 1857 . 591 X. Coloured Plan of the Ground-Floor of the British Museum, as it was in 1862. Copied from the Parliamentary Return, No. 97 of Session 1862 . . To face p. 750 XI. Coloured Plan of the Ground-Floor, &c. (as above); together with the Alterations proposed to the Lords of the Treasury by the Trustees of the British Museum ; in their Minutes of December, 1861, and January 21st, 1862, and in their Letter to the Treasury of 11th February, 1862. Copied from the same Return ..... To face p. 752 XII. Coloured Plan of the Upper Floor of the British Museum, as it was in 1862. Copied from the same Return To face p. 754 XIII. Coloured Plan of the Upper Floor, &c. (as above); together with the Alterations proposed to the Treasury by the Trustees; in their Minutes of December, 1861, and January, 1862, and in their Letter of 11th February, 1862. Copied from the same Return To face p. 756 BOOK THE FIRST. EARLY COLLECTORS:— THE GATHERERS OF THE FOUNBATTON COLLECTLONS. CONTENTS OF BOOK I. Chapter I. Introduction. II. The Founder op the Cottonian Library. III. The Collectors and Augment'ors of the Old Royal and Public Library at St. James'. IY. The Collector of the Arundelian MSS. V. The Collector of the Harleian Manuscripts. VI. The Pounders of the Sloane Museum. " The reverence and respect your Petitioners bear to the memory of the most learned Sir Robert Cotton are too great not to mention, in particular, that from the liberal use of his Library sprang (chiefly) most of the learned works of his time, for ever highly to be valued. The great men of that age constantly resorted to and consulted it to shew the errors and mistakes in govern- ment about that period. And, as this inestimable Library hath since been generously given and dedicated to the Public use for ever, to be a National Benefit, your Peti- tioners presume that no expression of gratitude can be too great for so valuable a treasure, or for doing honour to the Memory and Pamily of Sir Robert Cotton." — ' Petition to the Honourable House of Commons from the Cottonian Trustees' (drawn up antecedently to the Founda- tion Act of the British Museum) ; 1752. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. Chronological Epochs in the Formation of the British Museum. In two particulars, more especially, our great National Museum stands distinguished among institutions of its kind. The collections which compose it extend over a wider range than that covered by any other public esta- blishment having a like purpose. And, if we take them as a whole, those collections are also far more conspicuously indebted to the liberality of individual benefactors. In a the public degree of which there is elsewhere no example, the British p™^™ Museum has been gradually built up by the munificence Coi < MCTOES - of open-handed Collectors, rather than by the public means of the Nation, as administered by Parliament, or by the Governments of the day. The real founders of our British Museum have been neither our British monarchs nor our British legislators, as such. They have been, commonly, individual and private British subjects ; men loyal both to the Crown and to the People. Often, they have been men standing in direct lineal descent from the great Barons who dictated the Charter of our liberties, in the meadow near Windsor, and from those who led English knights and English bowmen to victory, on the wooded slopes near Poitiers. Sometimes, they have been men of very lowly birth j such as could point to no TION 6 EAELY COLLECTOKS. cha°p K i! ancestral names appended to Magna Charta, or to the omano. f amous letter wr i t t en from Lincoln to Boniface the Eighth ; such as may, indeed, very well have had ancestors who gave their lives, or their limbs, for England at Poitiers or at Cressy, but who certainly could point to no heraldic memorials of feats of arms done on those bloody fields of France. Not a few of them, perhaps, would have been vainly asked to tell the names of their grandfathers. One boast, however, is common to both of these groups of our public benefactors. They were men who had alike a strong sense of gratitude to those who had gone before them, and a strong sense of duty to those who were to come after them. To nearly all of the men whose lives will be told in this volume are applicable, in a special sense, some words of Julius Hare : — ' They wrought in a magnanimous spirit of rivalry with Nature, or in kindly fellowship with her. . . . When they planted, they chose out the trees of longest life — the Oak, the Chestnut, the j. & a. Hare Yew, the Elm, — trees which it does us good to behold, Quma tt while we muse on the many generations of our Eorefathers, Truth, vol. ii, * ° ' p. is. whose eyes have reposed within the same leafy bays.' They were men whose large impulses and deep insight led them to work, less for themselves than for their successors. It is by dint of what men of that stamp did — and did, not under the leading of the Gospel according to Adam Smith, but of a Gospel very much older than it — that upon us, whose day is now passing, Posterity, so to speak, ' has cast her shadow before; and we are, at this moment, reposing beneath it.' Of Public Benefactions, such as those which this volume very inadequately commemorates, it is true, with more than ordinary truth, that we owe them mainly, to a generous conviction in the hearts of certain worthies of old days that they owed suit and service to INTRODUCTION. Book I, Posterity. This may, indeed, be said of public foresight, c ( when evidenced in material works and in provisions to ij>™duc- * TION. smooth some of the asperities of common life and of manual toil. But it may be said, more appropriately still, of another and a higher kind of public foresight ; — of that evidenced in educational institutions, and in the various appliances for raising and vivifying the common intellect ; for enlarging its faculties ; diffusing its enjoyments ; and broadening its public domain. As it has been said (by the same acute thinker who has just been quoted) in better words than any of mine : — ' The great works that were wrought by men of former times ; the great fabrics that were raised by them ; their mounds and embankments against the powers of evil ; their drains to carry off mischief ; the wide fields they redeemed from the overflowings of barbarism ; the countless fields they enclosed and husbanded for good to grow and thrive in ; ... all this they [mainly] achieved for Posterity .... Except for Posterity; except for the vital magnetic consciousness that while men perish, Man j. & a. Hare, survives, the only principle of prudent conduct must ^"thZi ;i have been, "-Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we p13 - die." ' The pages which follow have been written in the belief that they afford — whatever the defects of their Writer — useful illustrations of this great and pregnant truth. To him it has not been given to work 'for Posterity,' otherwise than as a Chronicler of some of the workings of other men. But he owns to a special delight in that humble function. Its charm, — to his mind, — is enhanced, on the present occa- sion, by the very fact that so much of the work now about to be narrated is the work of men who only rarely have been labouring with other means, or with other imple- Book T, Chap. I. TION. 8 EAELY COLLECTORS. ments, than those which were personal to themselves, as intboduc- individuals. In the chief countries of the Continent of Europe — on the other hand — great national Museums have, commonly, had their origin in the liberality and wise foresight either of some sovereign or other, or of some powerful minister whose mind was large enough to combine with the cares of State a care for Learning. In Britain, our chief public collection of literature and of science originated simply in the public spirit of private persons. The British Museum was founded precisely at that period of our history when the distinctively national, or governmental, care for the interests of literature and of science was at its. lowest, or almost its lowest, point. As regards the monarchs, it would be hard to fix on any, since the dawn of the Revival of Learning, who evinced less concern for the progress and diffusion of learning than did the first and second princes of the House of Hanover. As regards Parliament, the tardy and languid acceptance of the boon proffered, posthumously, by Sir Hans Sloane, constitutes just the one exceptional act of encouragement that serves to give saliency to the utter indifference which formed the ordinary rule. Long before Sloane's time (as we shall see hereafter), there had been zealous and repeated efforts to arouse the attention of the Government as well to the political im- portance as to the educational value of public museums. Many thinkers had already perceived that such collections were a positive increase of public wealth and of national greatness, as well as a powerful instrument of popular education. It had been shewn, over and over again, that for lack of public care precious monuments and treasures INTRODUCTION. 9 Book I, Chap. I. The real Founders or THE British of learning had been lost ; sometimes by their removal to far-off countries: sometimes by their utter destruction, introduo " TION. Until the appeal made to Parliament by the Executors of Sir Hans Sloane, in the middle of the eighteenth century, all those efforts had uniformly failed. But Sir Hans Sloane cannot claim to be regarded, in- dividually or very specially, as the Founder of the British Museum. His last Will, indeed, gave an opportunity for the foundation. Strictly speaking, he was not even the museum. Founder of his own Collection, as it stood in his lifetime. The Founder of the Sloane Museum was William Courten, the last of a line of wealthy Flemish refugees, whose history, in their adopted country, is a series of romantic adventures. Parliament had previously accepted the gift of the Cottonian Library, at the hands of Sir John Cotton, third in descent from its Founder, and its acceptance of that gift had been followed by almost unbroken neglect, although cotton J . ° ' . ° LrBRABI. the gift was a noble one. Sir John, when conversing, on one occasion, with Thomas Carte, told the historian that (T-Carteto Sir Thomas he had been offered £60,000 of English money, together Hanmer, with a carte blanche for some honorary mark of royal the House of favour, on the part of Lewis the Fourteenth, for the sZZTc'or- Library which he afterwards settled upon the British "*■• p ' 226 ° nation. It has been estimated that Sloane expended (from first to last) upon his various collections about £50,000 ; so that, even from the mercantile point of view, the Cotton family may be said to have been larger volun- tary contributors towards our eventual National Museum than was Sir Hans Sloane himself. That point of view, however, would be a very false, because very narrow, one. Whether estimated by mere money value, or by a truer standard, the third, in order of time, of the Foundation- The acqui- sition, BY the Nation, OE THE 10 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book 1. Chap. I. Collections, — that of the ' Harleian Manuscripts,' — was a intboduc- muc h less important acquisition for the Nation than was TIOK. L x the Museum of Sloane, or the Library of Cotton ; but its literary value, as all students of our history and litera- ture know, is, nevertheless, considerable. Its first Collector, Robert Harley, the Minister of Queen Anne and the first of the Harleian Earls of Oxford, is fairly entitled to rank, after Cotton, Courten, and Sloane, among the virtual or eventual co-founders of the British Museum. Chronologically, then, Sir Robert Cotton, William Courten, Hans Sloane, and Robert Harley, rank first as Pounders ; so long as we estimate their relative position in accordance with the successive steps by which the British Museum was eventually organized. But there is another synchronism by which greater accuracy is attain- able. Although four years had elapsed between the passing — in 1753 — of 'An Act for the purchase of the Museum or Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, and for providing one general repository for the better reception and more con- venient use of the said Collections, and of the Cottonian Library and of the additions thereto? and the gift — in 1757 — to the Trustees of those already united Collections by the old King George the Second, of the Old Royal Library of li°!^ry, the Kings his predecessors, yet that royal collection itself PErac" 7 na d been (in a restricted sense of the words) a Public and HE K EY(son National possession soon after the days of the first real and at st. jamea'. central Founder of the present Museum, Sir Robert Cotton. But, despite its title, that Royal Library, also, was in the main — the creation of subjects, not of Sovereigns or Governments. Its virtual founder was Henry, Prince of Wales. It was acquired, out of his privy purse, as a INTRODUCTION. 11 subject, not as a Prince. He. therefore, has a title to be bo<«i, placed among the individual Collectors whose united efforts inteoduc- resulted — after long intervals of time — in the creation, eventually, of a public institution second to none, of its kind, in the world. Prince Henry's story is not the least curious of the many life-stories which these pages have to tell. That small span of barely eighteen years was eventful, as well as full of promise. And it may very fitly be told next, in order, after that of Cotton, who was not only his con- temporary but his friend. As the Royal Library Was, in a certain degree, a Public themss. Collection before the foundation of the Museum, so also Lml was the Arundelian Library of Manuscripts. It did not become part of the British Museum until nearly eighty years after the amalgamation of the Cottonian, Harleian, Sloanian, and Royal Collections into one integral body. But the munificent Earl who formed it had often made it public, for the use of scholars, in his own lifetime. One or two of his descendants allowed it to fall into neglect. Before it left old Arundel House, in the Strand, it was exposed, more than once, to loss by petty thefts. But when, by another descendant, the injury was repaired, and the still choice collection given — at the earnest entreaty of another of our English worthies, John Evelyn — to the Royal Society, the Arundelian MSS., like the Library at Saint James' Palace, became (so far as a circle of literary men and of the cultivators of scientific inquiry were con- cerned) a public possession. Many of the Arundelian marbles had also become — by other acts of munificence worthy of the time-honoured name of Howard — to the Public at large, and without restriction, ' things of beauty,' and 'joys for ever.' Others of them, indeed, are — even in 12 EARLY COLLECTORS. c°°p. i. these days — shut up at Wilton with somewhat of a narrow iioh. odi: jealousy of the undistinguished multitude. But, by the liberality of the Dukes of Marlborough, the choice gems gathered by the Earl of Arundel during his long travels on the Continent, and his widespread researches through- out the world, have long been made available to public enjoyment, in more ways than one. The varied narrative of that famous Collector's life may, perhaps, not unfitly be placed next after that of the best of the Stuart princes. Arundel, like Henry, was the friend of Sir Robert Cotton, and was proud of that distinction. Undoubtedly, there is more than one point of view from which we may regard the preponderating share borne by private collectors in the ultimate creation of our national repository as matter of satisfaction, rather than matter of shame. It testifies to the strength amongst us — even at times deeply tinged with civil discord — of public and patriotic feeling. Nor is this all. It testifies, negatively, but not less strongly, to a conscientious sense of responsibility, on the part of those who have administered British rule in conquered countries, and in remote dependencies of the Crown. Few readers of such a book as this are likely to be altogether unacquainted with national museums and national libraries which have been largely enriched by the strong hand of the spoiler. Into some such collections it is impossible for portions of the people at whose aggregate expense they are maintained to enter, without occasional feelings of disgust and humiliation. There are, it is true a few trophies of successful war in our own Museum. But there is nothing in its vast stores which, to any visitor of any nationality whatever, can bring back memories of ruthless and insolent spoliation. INTRODUCTION. 13 That narrowness of conception, however, which has made ^°*J; some publicists to regard the slenderness of the contributions 1"™°™°- x ° # TION. , of the Nation at large, when contrasted with the extent of . those of individuals, as if it were a cause for boasting, is visibly, and very happily, on the decline. It is coming to be recognised, more implicitly with every year that passes, that whatever can be done by the action of Parliament, or of the Government, for the real promotion of public civilisation, — in the amplest and deepest meaning of that word, — is but the doing of the People themselves, by the use of the most effective machinery they have at hand ; rather than the acceptance of a boon conferred upon them, extraneously and from above. If that salient characteristic in the past history of our British Museum is very far from affording any legitimate cause of boasting to the publicist, it affords an undeniable advantage to the narrator of the history itself. It not only broadens the range of his subject, by placing at its thresh- old the narrative of several careers which will be found to combine, at times, romantic adventure and political intrigue with public service of a high order; but it binds up, inseparably, the story of the quiet growth of an insti- tution in London with occasional glimpses at the progress, from age to age, of geographical and scientific discovery, of archaeological exploration, and of the most varied labours for the growth of human learning, throughout the world. As an organized establishment, the British Museum is but little more than a century old. The history of its component parts extends over three centuries. That history embraces a series of systematic researches, — scien- tific, literary, and archaeological,- — the account of which (whatsoever the needful brevity of its treatment in these 14 EARLY COLLECTORS. cta*i' P a g es ) must be told clumsily, indeed, if it be found to intkoduo- lack a very wide and general interest for all classes of readers — one class only excepted. TION. COLLEC TIONS. Even the least thoughtful among those visitors who can thediveb. be said to frequent the Museum — as distinguished from museum the mere holiday guests, who come only in crowds, little favourable to vision ; to say nothing of thought — will occasionally have had some faint impression or other of the great diversity and wonderful combination of effort which must have been employed in bringing together the Col- lections they look upon. Every part and almost every age of the world has contributed something ; and that some- thing includes the most characteristic productions and choicest possessions of every part. Almost every man of British birth who, — during many centuries, — has won conspicuous fame as a traveller,, as an archaeologist, or as a discoverer, has helped, in one way or other, to enrich those collections. They bear their own peculiar testimony to nearly every step which has been taken either in the maritime and colonial enterprise, or in the political growth, of the British empire. Nor is their testimony a whit less cogent to the power of that feeling of international brother- hood, in matters of learning and science, which grows with their growth, and waxes stronger with their strength. To the remarkable career of the first of those four primary Collectors, whose lifelong pursuits converged, eventually, in the foundation of an institution, of the full scope of which only one of the four had even a mental glimpse — and Sloane's glimpse was obviously but a very dim one — the attention of the reader has now to be turned. Sir Robert Cotton's employments in political INTRODUCTION. 15 life (unofficial as they were), and the powerful influence J£° K J; which he exerted upon statesmen much abler than himself, i»™>dtjc- TION. will be found, it is hoped, to give not a little of historical interest to his biography, quite additional to that which belongs to his pursuits as a studious Collector, and as the most famous of all the literary antiquaries who occur through- out our English story. To the conspicuous merits which belong to Sir Robert Cotton as a politician of no mean acumen, and as, — in the event, — the real Founder of the British Museum, are added the still higher distinctions of an eminently generous spirit and a faithful heart. His openhandedness in giving was constant and princely. His firmness in friendship is testified by the fact that although (in a certain point of view) he was the courtier both of James the First and of Charles the First, he nevertheless stood persistently and unflinch- ingly by the side of Eliot, and of the men who worked with Eliot, in the period of their deepest court disgrace. By the best of the Parliamentarian leaders he was both reverenced and loved. And he reciprocated their feeling. My personal pleasure in the task of writing the life of EKCI . NT such a man as he was is much enhanced by a strong ™ i ™ sos " ° Sir Eobekt conviction that certain recent attacks upon his memory cotton's are based upon fallacious evidence, shallow presumptions, and hasty judgments. It is my hope to be able to shew to the Reader, conclusively, that Cotton was worthy of the cordial regard and the high esteem in which he was uniformly held by men who stood free of all bias from political and party connexion — such, for example, as William Camden, who spoke of him, almost with dying lips, as ' the dearest of all my friends,' — as well as by those great Parliamentarian leaders whose estimate of him may, perhaps, be thought — by hasty readers — to rest partly, if 16 EAELY COLLEOTOES. H°*l> not mainly, on the eminent political service which he was intsoduc- able to render them. TION. When these pages shall come from the Press just three hundred years will have elapsed since Sir Robert Cotton's birth. Our English proto- collector was born in the year 1 570. The year 1870 will, in all probability, witness the definite solution of a knotty problem as to the future of the great institution of which he was the primary and central founder. Cotton may be regarded as the English 'proto-col- lector,' in a point of view other than that which concerns the British Museum. No Library in the United Kingdom can, I think, shew an integral ' Collection/ still extant, the formation of which — as a Collection — can be traced to an earlier date than that of the collection of the Cottonian Manuscripts. Whether the British Museum shall continue to be the great national repository for Science, as well as for Literature and Antiquities, is a question which is fast ripening for decision ; and it is one which ought to be interesting to all Britons. It is also, and very eminently, one of those ques- tions of which it is literally — and not sarcastically — to be affirmed that 'there is much to be said on both sides.' Personally I have a very strong conviction on that subject. But in treating of it — in the ' Postscript' which closes the present volume — it has been my single and earnest aim to state, with the utmost impartiality I am able to attain, the leading arguments for maintaining the Museum in its full integrity ; and also the leading argu- ments for severing the great Natural History Collections TION. INTKODUCTION. 17 from the rapidly growing Libraries and from the vast Gal- booki, leries of marbles, bronzes, pottery, medals, and prints. It ihteoduc- is the business of writers to state and marshal the evidence. It is the business of Parliament to pronounce the judg- ment. The main epochs in the History of the British Museum afford what may be looked upon almost as a ' table of con- tents' to the present volume. And they may be brought under the Reader's eye in a way which will much facilitate the correct apprehension of the author's plan. I exhibit them thus : — Book I, Chap. I. lNTEODUC- TION. Epochs op Beit. Museum geowth amu inceease. Chronological List of the Dates, Founders, and of which the BRITISH MUSEUM Class L— Foundation Collections, I. Cottonian Manuscripts, Coins, Medals, Collectedbj Sir Robert Cotton, Baronet (born in the year Nation by Sir John Cotton in 1700. Augmented during Arthur Agarde (1615), William Camden (1623), Lambarde (1601), and others; and, after his death, by the Sir John Cotton, his descendants; and also by the Printed Library given in 1738. II. Old ' Royal Li- Re-founded, or restored, by Henry, Prince of Wales 1612). [See Class II, § 1.] III. Arundelian Collected by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel England ; K.G. (Born in 1586 ; succeeded as XXIII rd Earl of 1646.) [See Class II, $ 33.J IV. Thomason Tracts (Printed and Manuscript). V. Harleian Collected by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford (bom mented by incorporation, at various times, of the Collections, of the Collections of Sir Humphrey Gilbert (died Rogers (1590), John Stowe (1605), Sir Henry nard (1633), Sir Henry Spelman (1641), Sir James Ware (1666), William Sancroft, Archbishop guier, Chancellor of France (1696), John Bagford (1716) ; VI. ' Sloane Museum ' of Natural History and of of Manuscripts and Printed Collected by William Courten [known during part of his 1642; died 26 March, 1702); continued by Sir Hans died 11 January, 1752); bequeathed, by the Continuator, to the payment to his executors, by authority of Parliament, of the his Collections — to use the words of his last Will, being things ' tion of the Glory of God, the Confutation of Atheism and its ' ment of the Arts and Sciences, and benefit of Mankind, may ' and that chiefly in or about the City of London, where they ' be of most use.' .... [See Book I, c. 6.] Character, of the Component Collections, out has been formed or enlarged : L570— 1762. and other Antiquities. 1570; died 6 May, 1631). Given to the the Collector's lifetime by the gifts of John Dee (1608), William acquisitions of Sir Thomas Cotton and of Major Arthur Edwards, BRARY.' (born in 1594; died 6 November, Manuscripts. and Of Norfolk ; Earl Marshal of Arundel in 1603; died 4 October, [See Class II, § 3.J Manuscripts. in 1661 ; died 21 May, 1724). Aug- severally, or of considerable portions 1584), John Foxe (l58l),Daniel Savile (1622), Sampson Len- Symonds D'Ewes (1650), Sir of Canterbury (1693), Peter Se- and others. [See Book I, c. 5.] Antiquities ; and Library Books. life as ' William Charleton'] (born in Sloane, Baronet (born in 1660; British Nation, — conditionally on the sum of £20,000, — in order that those ' tending many ways to the Manifest a- consequences, the Use and Improve- remain together and not be separated, [may by the great confluence of people Incorporated by the Act (a.d. 1753) 26 Geo. II, c. 22, en- titled, ' An Act for the Purchase of the Mu- seum or Collection of Sir Hans Sloane and of the Harleian Collection of MSS. ; and for pro- v viding one General Re- pository . . for the said Collections and for the Cottonian Library and additions thereto / Opened, for Public Use, on Monday the 15th January, 1759; and subsequently aug- mented, from time to time, by numerous ad- ditional Collections ; and, more particu- larly, by the follow- ing- Prim arv 20 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. 1. Ikteoduc- Class II —Primary Accession Collections. 1757-1831 :— (i) 1757. Old * Royal Library. ' epochs Restored, by Henry, Prince of Wales, in the of bmt. y ear 1 609, by the purchase — and incorporation with the retn- gbowth ahd nants of an ancient collection — of.the Library of John de Lumley, Lord Lumley (Born circa 1530 ; Restored in blood, as Vlth Baron Lumley, in 1547 : Died 1609) ; Continued by Charles I and Charles II, Kings of England, &C, from 1627 to 1683; Given to the Nation by King George the Second in 1757. This Old Royal Library, although, as above mentioned, it still contains fragments of the more ancient Collection of the Kings of England — and among them books which undoubtedly belonged to King Henry the Sixth, if not to earlier Plantagenet kings — may fairly be regarded as of Prince Henry's foundation in the main. Lord Ltjmley's Library (which the Prince bought in bulk) contained that of his father-in-law, Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, into which had passed a part of Archbishop Cran- mer's Library. But this conjoined Collection has not wholly passed to the British Museum. It suffered some losses after Prince Henry's death. On the other hand, it had acquired the collection of MSS. formed by the Theyers (John and Charles), in which was included another part of the Library of Cranmer • as I shall shew hereafter. [See Book I, Chapter 3. J INTEODUCTION. 21 ( ll ) Book I, 1759. Hebrew Library (Printed and Manuscript) of iktkoduo- Da Costa. Collected by Solomon Da Costa, formerly of Amsterdam, and chiefly between the years 1720 and 1727 ; Given by the Collector, in 1759, to the Trustees of the British Museum 'for inspection and service of the Public, as a small token of my esteem, reverence, love, and gratitude to this magnanimous Nation, and as a thanks- giving offering . . . .for numberless blessings which I have enjoyed under it.' (From Da Costa's Letter to the Trustees.) A collection, small in extent, but of great intrinsic worth ; and very memorable, both as the generous gift of a good man ; and as instancing the co-opera- tion (at the very outset) of the love of learning in a foreigner — and a Jew — with a like love in Britons, for a common object; national, indeed, but also much more than national. (in) 1762. The Thomason Collection of English Books and Tracts, Printed and Manuscript. Collected by George Thomason (Died 1666) ; Purchased by King George the Third, in 1762, for presentation to the British Museum. This Collection — the interest of which is specially but by no means exclusively political and historical — was formed between the years 1641 and 1663 in- clusive, and it contains everything printed in England during the whole of that period which a man of great TIOW, 22 EAELY COLLECTORS. book i, enterprise and energy could bring together by daily ihtmd'uc- watchfulness and large outlay. It also contains many publications, and many private impressions, from printing-presses in Scotland, Ireland, and the Con- tinent of Europe, relating to or illustrating the affairs of the United Kingdom and of the Commonwealth. In his lifetime, the Collector refused £4000 for his library^ as insufficient to reimburse bis costs, charges, and labour. His heirs and their assigns kept it for a century and then sold it to King George III for £300. It includes many political MSS., which no printer dared to put to press. (IV) 1766. The Solander Fossils. Collected by Daniel Charles Solander (Died 16 May, 1782); Purchased by Gustavus Brander and by him presented to the Museum (of which he was one of the first Trustees) in 1766. The ' Solander Fossils ' — so called from the name of the eminent naturalist who found and described them — formed the primary Collection on which by gradual accessions the present magnificent collection of fossils has been built up. (v) 1766. The Birch Library of Printed Books and Manuscripts. Collected by Thomas Birch, D.D., a Trustee of the British Museum (Died 1766), and bequeathed by the Collector. Book I, INTRODUCTION. 23 (VI) 1772. The Hamilton Vases, Antiquities, and inthoduc- Drawings. Collected by Sir William Hamilton (Died 6 April, 1803) ; Purchased by Parliament from the Collector in 1772 for £8400. [See Book II, Chapter 2.] (VII) 1790-1799. The Musgrave Library. Collected by Sir William Musgrave, a Trustee (Died 1799); Acquired, partly by gift in 1790; partly by bequest in 1799. [See Book II, Chapter l.J (VIII) 1799. The Cracherode Library and Museum. Collected by the Reverend Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode, a Trustee of the British Museum (Died 1799), and bequeathed 'by the Collector. [See Book II, Chapter 3. J (IX) 1799. The Hatchett Minerals. Collected by Charles Hatchett, and purchased for £700. (x) 1802. The Alexandrian Collection of Egyptian Antiquities. Collected by the French Institute of Egypt in 1800; Transferred to the Crown of England by the Chap. I. Intboduc TIOH. 24 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, terms of the Capitulation of Alexandria in 1801 ; Given to the Museum in 1802 by King George the Third. [See Book II, Chapter 2.] (XI) 1802. The Tyssen Anglo-Saxon Coins. Collected by Samuel Tyssen ; Purchased by the Trustees (for £620). (XII) 1805-1814. The Townley Marbles, Coins, and Drawings. Collected by the Townley Family, and chiefly by Charles Townley, of Townley in Lancashire ; and acquired by Parliament, by successive purchases, in the years 1805 and 1814, for the aggregate sum of £28,200. [See Book II, Chapter 2.] (XIII) 1807. The Lansdowne Manuscripts. Collected by William Petty Fitzmaurice, Marquess of Lansdowne (Died 180B), who incorporated in it from time to time parts of the Libraries and Manuscript Collections of William Cecil, Lord Burghley (Died 1598) ; of Sir Julius Csesar (Died 1636) ; of White Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough (Died 1728) ; of John Strype (Died 1737) ; of Philip Carteret Webb (Died 1770); and of James West (Died 1772). Purchased by Parliament for the sum of £4925. [See Book II, Chapter 3.J INTKODUCTTON. 25 (XIV) 1810. The Greville Minerals. Collected by Charles Greville. Purchased by Parliament for the sum of £13,727. [See Book II, Chapter 2.] (xv) 1810. The Roberts English Coins. Collected by Edward Roberts, of the Exchequer ; Purchased by Parliament for the sum of £4200. This Collection extended from the Norman Con- quest to the reign of George the Third. It was pur- chased for the. Collector's heir. Book I, Chap. I. Inteodtjc- TION. (XVI) 1811. The De Bosset Greek Coins. Collected by Colonel De Bosset. the Trustees for the sum of £800. Purchased by (xvii) 1813. The Hargrave Library. Collected by Francis Hargrave. Purchased by Parliament for the sum of £8000. [See Book II, Chapter 3. J (xvm) 1815. The Phigaleian Marbles. Discovered, in 1812, amongst the ruins of Ictinus' Temple of Apollo.' the Deliverer' at Phigaleia, in Arcadia, built about b.c. 430. Purchased in 1815, for the sum of £15,000. [See Book II, Chapter 2.J Book I, 26 EARLY COLLECTORS. (XIX) inteoduc- 1815. The Von Moll Library and Museum. TION. Collected by the Baron Von Moll (Died . . . ). Purchased (at Munich) for the sum of £4768 (including the contingent expenses), out of the Fund bequeathed by Major Edwards. The Library of Baron Von Moll comprised nearly 20,000 volumes, and a considerable Collection of Portraits and other Prints. His Museum consisted of an extensive Herbarium and a Collection of Minerals. The purchase was completed in 1816. (xx) 1816. The Beroldingen Fossils. Acquired by purchase ; and the only considerable acquisition, made in this department, between Brander's gift of Fossils (gathered from the London Clay) in 1766, and the purchase of Hawkins' fine Collection, in 1835. (xxi) 1816. The Elgin Marbles. Collected, under firman of the Ottoman Porte, between the years 1801 and 1810 — and chiefly in the years 1802 and 1803— by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin (Died 14 October, 1841). Purchased by Parliament in 1816 for the sum of £35,000. [See Book II, Chapter 2.] (xxn) 1816. The Montagu Zoological Collections. Collected by Colonel George Montagu (Died INTRODUCTION. 27 20 June, 1815), and arranged, as a Museum of British booki, Zoology — and especially of Ornithology — at Knowle, in inteoduc- Devonshire. Purchased at a cost of £1100. (xxin) 1818. The Burnet Library. Collected by Dr. Charles Burney (Died 28 De- cember, 1817). Purchased by a Parliamentary vote for the sum of £13,500. [See Book II, Chapter 3.] (xxiv) 1818. Mrs. Banks' Archaeological Collections. Collected by Mrs. S. S. Banks, and by Lady Banks ; comprising a valuable series of coins, medals, prints, &c, and presented to the Museum by the Survivor. (xxv) 1823—1825. The King's Library. Collected by King George the Third (Died 1820) ; inherited by King George the Fourth, and by him transferred, on terms, to the British Museum. ; [See Book II, Chapter 4.J (xxvi) 1824. The Payne-Knight Cabinets, Library, and Museum. Collected by Richard Payne Knight (Died 24 April, 1824), a Trustee ; comprising Marbles, Bronzes, Vases, Prints, Drawings, Coins, Medals, and Books. Bequeathed by the Collector. [See Book II, Chapter 3. J 28 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book. I, / \ Chap. I. (XXVII) Introduc- tion. 1825. The Persepolitan Marbles. [See Book II, Chapter 2.J (xxvm) 1825. The Oriental Collections of Claudius James Rich. Claudius Rich was British Consul at Bagdad (Died 5 Oct., 1821). He made an extensive gathering of Persian, Turkish, Syriac, and Arabic MSS., and of Coins, &c. These were purchased by a Parliamentary vote. (xxix) 1825. Sir Richard Colt Hoare's Italian Library. Given, by the Collector, in 1825, and subsequently in- creased, by another gift. [See Book II, Chapter 3.j (xxx) 1827. The Banksian Library, Herbaria, and Museum. Collected by Sir Joseph Banks, P.R.S. (Died 19 June, 1820), and a Trustee. Bequeathed by the Collector, with a prior life interest, to Robert Brown (Died 1858) ; and by him transferred to the British Museum in 1827. Sir Joseph's botanical Collections included the Herbaria, severally, of Cliffbrt; of Clayton (the basis of the ' Flora Virginica ') ; of John Baptist Fusee d'Aublet (Died 6 May, 1728) ; of Nicholas Joseph Jacquin, author of the ' Flora Austriacte ' (Died 24 October, 1817); and of Philip Miller, author of ' The Gardeners Die- INTEODUCTION. 29 tionary (Died 18 December, 1771) ; with portions of booki, the Collection Loureiro. the Collections of Tournefort, Hermann, and T^™™. (xxxi) 1829. The Hartz-Mountains Minerals. Collected at various periods and by several mineralogists. This fine Cabinet was for a considerable period preserved at Richmond. Presented by King George the Fourth. (xxxn) 1829. The Egerton Manuscripts. Collected by Francis Henry Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater (Died 11 February, 1829). Bequeathed by the Collector; together with a sum of £12,000, to be invested, and the yearly income to be applied for further purchases of MSS. from time to time ; and with other provision towards the salary of an ' Egerton Librarian.' [See Book II, Chapter 5. J (xxxm) 1831. The Arundelian Manuscripts. Collected, between the years 1606 and 1646, by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, &c. (Died 4 Oct., 1646) ; Given in 1681 by his eventual heir, Henry Howard, Esquire (afterwards Xllth Duke of Norfolk — Died in 1701), and at the request of John Evelyn, to the Royal Society ; Transferred by the Council of that Society, in 1831, — partly by purchase, and partly by exchange— to the Trustees of the British Museum. The Collection includes the bulk of the Library of Billbald Pirckheimer, purchased at Nuremberg, by Lord Arundel, in 1636. [See Book I, Chapter 4.] Book I, Cimp. I. Introduc- tion. 30 EARLY COLLECTOES. COLLECTIONS OF PICTURES BELONGING TO THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, BUT DEPOSITED IN THE NATIONAL GAL- LERY. (xxxiv) 1823. The Beaumont Gallery. Collected by Sir George Howland Beaumont (Died 7 February, 1827) ; Given by the Collector in 1823 to the British Museum, on condition of its usufructuary retention, during his lifetime. Deposited in the National Gallery, under terms of arrangement, after the Collector's death. (xxxv) 1830. The Holwell-Caee, Gallery. Collected by the Reverend William Holwell Carr (Died 24 December, 1830), and by the Collector bequeathed to the British Museum. Deposited under arrangements similar to those adopted for the Beaumont Pictures in the National Gallery. These are the primary Accession-Collections that came to the British Museum, during the first seventy years which elapsed after its public opening (January, 1759). They form a noble monument alike of the liberality and public spirit of individual Englishmen, and of the fidelity of the Trustees to the charge committed to them as a body. And the reader will hardly have failed to notice how remarkable a proportion of the most munificent of the T10N. INTKODUCTION. 31 Benefactors of the institution were, previously to their gifts, book-x numbered amongst its Trustees. inthoduc- If the liberality of Parliament failed to be elicited in due correspondency — in respect either to the amount or the frequency of its grants — to that of individuals, the failure is rarely, if ever, ascribable to oversight or somnolency on the part of the Trustees. If, during the lapse of those seventy years, they obtained grants of public money which amounted, in the aggregate, to but £151,762 — little more, on an average, than two thousand pounds a year — they made not a few applications to which the Treasury, or the House of Commons, refused to respond. Meanwhile, the gifts of Benefactors probably much more than trebled the public grants. At the outset, the Museum was divided into three ' Departments ' only : (1) Manuscripts ; (2) Printed Books ; (3) Natural History. The acquisition, in 1801, of the Alexandrian monuments, was the first accession which gave prominence to the ' Antiquities ' — theretofore regarded as little more than a curious appendage to the Natural History Collections. Four years later came the Townley Marbles. It was then obvious that a new Department ought to be made. This change was effected in 1807. The Marbles and minor Antiquities, together with the Prints, Drawings, Coins, and Medals (formerly appended to the Departments of Printed Books and of MSS.) were formed into a separate depart- ment. Twenty years afterwards the ' Botanical Department' was created, on the reception of the Banksian herbaria and their appendant Collections. The division into five departments continued down to the date of the Parlia- mentary inquiry of 1835-36 [Book III, Chapter 1]. Soon afterwards (1837), the immediate custody of the 'Prints and TIOM". 32 EAELY COLLECTORS. book i, Drawings ' was severed from that of the 'Antiquities' and iNTRODuo- made a special charge. In like manner, the Department of 'Natural History' was also (1837) subdivided; but in this instance the one department became, eventually, three : (1) Zoology ; (2) Palaeontology ; (3) Mineralogy. The two last-named divisions were first separated in 1857. How the eight departments of 1860 have become twelve in 1869 will be seen hereafter. It will also, I think, become apparent that this subdivision of Departments has contributed, in an important measure, to the enlargement ofthe several Collections ; as well as to their better arrangement, and to other exigencies of the public service. We have now to enumerate the more salient and important among the many successive acquisitions of the last forty years. Taken collectively, they have so enlarged the pro- portions of the national repository as to make the ' British Museum ' of 1831 seem, in the retrospect, as if, at that time, it had been yet in its infancy. In 1831 there were still living— here and there — a few ancient Londoners whose personal recollections extended over the whole period during which the Museum had existed. One or two of them could, perhaps, still call to mind something of the aspect which the gaily painted and de- corated rooms of old Montagu House presented when as children — they had been permitted to accompany some fortunate possessor of a ticket of admission to ' see the curiosities ;' and were hurried by the Cerberus in charge for the day from room to room ; the Cerberus aforesaid (unless his memory has been libelled) seeming to count the minutes, if a visitor, chanced to show the least desire for a closer inspection of anything which caught his eye. And INTRODUCTION. 33 in some points — although certainly not in that point — the booki. Museum of 1831 was not very greatly altered, much as it ihtmd'uc had been enlarged, from the Museum of 175$. Cerberus TI0K - had long quitted his post; but many portions of the Collections he had had in charge retained their wonted aspect, much as he had left them. Such octogenarian survivors — if endowed with a good memory — would see, in their latest visits to Great Russell Street much more to remind them of what they had seen in the first, than a new visitor of 1831 could now see, — in 1869, — were he, in his turn, striving to recall the impres- sions of his earliest visit. The period now to be briefly outlined — in order to a fair preliminary view of our subject — is marked,, like that of 1759-1831, by continued munificence on the part of private donors ; but it is also marked — unlike that — by some approach towards proportionate liberality from the keepers of the public purse ; as 1 well as by energetic and persistent efforts for internal improvement,, on the part both of Trustees and of Officers. It forms a quite new epoch. It may be said, un exaggeratedly, to have witnessed a re-foundation of the Museum, in almost everything that bears on its direct utility to the public. In regard to this last period, however — no less than in regard to the foregoing one — only the more salient Col- lections can here be enumerated. Many minor ones have been passed over already, notwithstanding their intrinsic value. Many others — equally meriting notice, were space for it available — will have, in like manner, to be passed over now. 34 INTRODUCTION. book i, Class ill. — Recent Accession-Collections. Imteoduc- loOO loUt/i TION. (xxxvi) 1833. The Borell Cabinet of Greek and Eoman Coins. Collected by the late H. P. Borell, of Smyrna. Pur- chased 'by the Trustees for £1000. (xxxvn) 1834. Sams' Collection of Egyptian Antiquities. Collected by Joseph. Sams. Purchased, by a Parlia- mentary grant, for £2500. [See Book III, Chapter 3. J (xxxvm) 1834 (and subsequent years). The Hawkins Fossils. Collected by Thomas Hawkins, of Glastonbury. Purchased, by successive grants of Parliament, in the years 1834 and 1840. [See Book III, Chapter 3.] (xxxix) 1835. The Hardwicke Ornithological Museum. Collected by Major-General Hardwicke. Be- queathed by the Collector. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] (XL) 1835. The Salt Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. Collected by Henry Salt, British Consul at Alex- INTRODUCTION. 35 andria (Died 30 October, 1827). Purchased (at various booki, times) by Parliamentary grants. ihtboduo iion. Of Mr. Salt's successive Collections of Egyptian antiquities the most valuable portions have come to the Museum ; chiefly in the years 1823 and 1835. [See Book III, Chapter 3.] (XLI) 1836. The Marsden Cabinet of Oriental Coins. Collected by William Marsden (Died 6 October, 1836). Bequeathed by the Collector. [See Book 111, Chapter 3. J (XLIl) 1836. The Sheepshanks Collection of Etchings, Prints, &c. Collected by John Sheepshanks (Died October, 1863) ; and Given by the Collector. (xliii) 1837-43. The Canino Vases. A selection from the superb Museum of the Prince of Canino (Died 29 June, 1840) ; acquired by successive purchases before and after the Collector's death. (XLIV) 1839. The Mantell Eossils. Collected by Gideon Algernon Mantell (Died November 10, 1850). Purchased by a Parliamentary grant. [See Book III, Chapter 4.J Book I, Chap. I. Introduc- tion. 36 INTRODUCTION. (xlv) 1841-1847. Steiac Manuscripts from the Nitrian Monasteries. Collected by the Reverend Henry Tattam and by M. Pachot. Purchased by the Trustees, by three suc- cessive bargains, in the years 1841-1847. [See Book III, Chapter 3.] (XLVl) 1842. The Harding Prints and Drawings. Purchased, for the Trustees, by selection at the Col- lector's sale. The selection comprised 321 very choice specimens of early German and Italian masters ; and was acquired for the sum of £2390. (xlvii) 1843. The Raphael Morghens Prints. Purchased by the Trustees, by a like selection, at a public sale in 1843. (xlviii) 1845. The Lycian or Xanthian Marbles. Discovered by Sir Charles Fellowes (Died 1860) in the years 1842 — 1844. Transferred to the Museum at the cost of the Trustees in 1845. [See Book III, Chapter 3.J (XLIX) 1847. The Grenville Library. Collected by the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville (Died 17 December, 1846). Bequeathed by the Collector. [See Book III, Chapter 2.J INTRODUCTION. 37 1847. The Michael Hebrew Library. Collected by H. J. Michael, of Hamburgh. Pur- chased by the Trustees from his Executors. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] (LI) 184-7. John Robert Morrison's Chinese Library. Collected by J. R. Morrison (son of the eminent Christian Missionary and Lexicographer — Died 1843). Purchased from his Executors by a Parliamentary grant. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] (in) 1848. The Croizet Fossil-Mammals. Collected by "M.. Croizet in Auvergne. Purchased by the Trustees. (liii) 1851-1860- The Assyrian Antiquities. Partly discovered by Austen Henry Layard. Excavated at the public charge, and under the joint direction of the Trustees of the British Museum and of the Secretary of State for Eoreign Affairs, in 1851 and subsequent years by the Discoverer, and by H. Rassam, and W. K. Loftus. [See Book III, Chapter 3.] Book I, Chap. I. Introduc- tion. 38 INTRODUCTION. Book I, Chap. I. (LIV) Inteoduc- iron. 1853. The Gell Drawings. Drawn and Collected by Sir William Gell (Died 4 February, 1836). Bequeathed by the Honorable Keppel Craven (Died 1853). LSee Book III, Chapter 3. J (LV) 1853. The Stephens Cabinet of British Ento- mology. Collected by James Francis Stephens (Died 22 December, 1852). Purchased 'by the Trustees. Although this Collection contained about 88,000 specimens, it cost the Trustees only £400. (lvi) 1854. The Des-Hayes Tertiaby Fossils. Collected, in France, by M. Des Hayes. Purchased by the Trustees. (lvii) 1855-1860. The Halicarnassian and Cnidian Marbles. Discovered and excavated by C. T. Newton (then Vice-Consul at Mitylene) and other Explorers (earlier and later). In part Presented by Lord Canning of Redcliffe (then Ambassador at Constantinople) ; and in part excavated and transported by the Trustees, with the aid of Parliamentary grants made in 1855 and subsequent years. [See Book III, Chapter 3.J INTEODUCTIOK 39 (lviii) Book I, Chap. I. 1856. The Temple Museum of Italo-Greek and lNIK0DD °- TION. Roman Antiquities. Collected by Sir William Temple (Died 1856) during his Embassy at Naples. Bequeathed by the Col- lector. [See Book III, Chapter 3.] (lix) 1857. The Cautley Fossils from the Himalayas. Collected by Major Cautley, during his service in India. Purchased by the Trustees. (LX) 1858. The Bruchmann Fossil Plants. Collected by Bruchmann at and near CEningen. Purchased by the Trustees. (lxi) 1859. The Carthaginian Antiquities. Discovered, — and excavated (partly at the cost of the Trustees), — by Nathan Davis and others, during the year 1856 and subsequent years. The Davis Collection includes a series of Phoenician Inscriptions, some of which are of great antiquity. Purchased from the Collector. [See Book III, Chapter 3.J 40 INTRODUCTION". Book I, (LXIl) Chap. I. HON IN™!,™- I860. The Allan-Greg Cabinet of Minerals. Collected, mainly, by R. H. Greg, of Manchester. Purchased- by the Trustees. [See Book III, Chapter 4.J (lxiii) 1860. The Gardner Herbarium of Brazil. [See Book III, Chapter 4.J (lxiv) 1860. The Cyrene Marbles. Discovered, and excavated by Lieutenants R. !M. Smith, and Porclier, under firmans from Constanti- nople, and at the charge of the Trustees, in 1860 and subsequent years. [See also No. lxvi under the year '1863,' and Book III, Chapter 3. J (lxv) 1862. The Haeberlein Fossils. Collected by Haeberlein. Brought from Solenhofen ; and Purchased by the Trustees. (lxvi) 1863. The Sicilian Antiquities. Discovered and excavated by George Dennis (Her Majesty's Consul at Benghazi), under direction from the Foreign Office, in 1862 and subsequent years. Presented, by Earl Russell. INTEODUCTION. 41 (lxvii) BookI - v ' Chap. I. 1863. The Bowring Collection of Foreign In- ^™ c - SECTS. Collected by John Bowring. Presented by the Collector. The Collector obtained a large portion of this fine Cabinet of Entomology during his own travels in India, Java, and China. It consists chiefly of Coleopterous insects. (lxviii) 1864. The Wigan Cabinet of Coins. Collected and Presented by Edward. Wigan. [See Book III, Chapter 3.] (lxix) 1864. The Rhodian Marbles. Excavated, at the charge of the Trustees, by EOff. Salzmann and Biliotti, in 1863 and subsequent years. (lxx) 1864. The Cureton Oriental Manuscripts. Collected by the late William Cureton, D.D. (Died 17 June, 1864). Purchasedhy the Trustees from his Executors. [See Book III, Chapter 3.] (LXXl) 1864. The Wright Herbarium of Cuba and New Mexico. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] 42 INTRODUCTION. Book I, . . Chap. I. (LXXTI) Introduc- tion. 1864. The Tristram Cabinet of the Zoology of the Holy Land. Collected by the Reverend H. B. Tristram, M.A. Presented by the Collector. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] (i.xxiii) 1865. The Hebrew Library of Almanzi. This valuable series of Hebrew Manuscripts, &c. was collected by the late Joseph Almanzi, of Padua ; and was purchased by the Trustees of his Executors. [See Book III, Chapter 4.J (lxxiv) 1865. The Erskine Oriental Manuscripts. Collected by William Erskine, during his residence in India. Purchased by the Trustees. [See Book III, Chapter 4.J (lxxv) 1865. The Malcolm Persian Manuscripts. Collected by Sir John Malcolm (Died 31 May, ] 833) during his Embassy to Persia. Purchased by the Trustees. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] (lxxvi) 1865. The Kokscharow Minerals. Collected by Colonel de KokscharOW. Pur- chased by the Trustees. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] INTRODUCTION. 43 (LXXVIl) book I, 1865. The Ephesian Marbles, inteodcc- Excavated, at the charge of the Trustees, by Vice- Consul Wood. [See Book III, Chapter 3.] (lxxviii) 1865. The Christy Pre-Historic and Ethnological Museum. Collected and Bequeathed by Henry Christy (Died 4 May, 1865). [See Book III, Chapter 4. J (lxxix) 1865. The Bank of England Cabinet of Coins and Medals. [See Book III, Chapter 1.] (lxxx) 1865. Witt's Ethnic Museum. Collected and Presented by Henry Witt. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] (lxxxi) 1866. The Blacas Museum. Collected by the Dukes Of Blacas (The elder Col- lector died in 1839; the younger, in 1865). Purchased, by the Trustees, of the heirs of the Survivor. [See Book III, Chapter 4. J TION. 44 INTRODUCTION. Book I, , . Chap. I. (LXXXIl) INTRODUC- TION. 1866. The Woodhouse Museum. Collected by James WoodhOUSe, Her Majesty's Treasurer at Corfu (Died February, 1866). Bequeathed by the Collector. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] (lxxxiii) 1866. The Cuming Conchological Collection. Collected by Hugh Cuming (Died 1866). Acquired by the Trustees in 1866, partly by gift, and partly by purchase, under the directions of the Collector's Will. [See Book III, Chapter 4.] (lxxxiv) 1867. The Hawkins Collection of English Poli- tical and Historical Prints. Collected by Edward Hawkins (Died 1867). Purchased by the Trustees. [See Book III, Chapter l.J (lxxxv) 1868. The Abyss [nian Antiquities and Manuscripts., Acquired by the Trustees during and after the Abyssinian War ; partly by gift from the British Government, and partly by the researches of the Representative of the Trustees in the British Camp. Another and a very valuable portion of the Abyssinian Manuscripts came to the India Office, by the gift of Lord Napier of Magdala ; and by the Secretary of State for India was given to the British Museum. [See Book III, Chapter 4.J TION. INTRODUCTION. 45 (LXXXVl) B00Kl> 1868. The Slade Arch^iological Collection. SoLc- Collected by Felix Slade (Died 1868). Bequeathed by the Collector. [See Book III, Chapter 4. J (lxxxvii) 1869. The Hats Collection of Egyptian Anti- quities. [See Book III, Chapter 4.J As I have had. occasion to observe in a former paragraph, the preceding list is, of necessity, an abridged list. - It is by no means a complete or exhaustive one. The prescribed bounds — those of a single volume for a very wide and multifarious subject — compel the writer to treat his subject by way of selection. The reader is solicited to keep that fact in mind ; as well for its bearing on the chapters which' follow, as on the introductory chapter now under his eye. And in regard both to this brief enumeration of the suc- cessive component parts of the Museum, and to the biogra- phical notices of which it is the preliminary, the cautionary remark here repeated applies to every Department of the national repository. It holds good of the Natural History Collections, and of the Collections of Antiquities, no less than of the Collections of Printed Books and of Manu- scripts. Among; the many minor, but intrinsically important, Collections thus — compulsorily — passed over, in the present volume, are some of which brief notices have been given (by the same hand) in a preceding work, published in 1869. Those 'Notices/ however, relate exclusively to 46 INTK0DUCT10N. book i, collectors and collections of Printed Books, of Engravings, StLduo- of Drawings, and of Manuscripts. Thus,— to give but a few T,0N - examples, — important collections, now forming part of the British Museum, and gathered originally by Thomas Rymer (1713); Thomas Madox (1733); Brown- low Cecil, Earl of Exeter (1739); David Garrick (1779); Peter Lewis Ginguene (1816) ; the Abate Oanonici [circa, 1818) ; John Fowler Hull (1825) ; Frederick North, sixth Earl of Guildford (1826) ; Count Joseph de Puisaye (1827); the Marquess Wellesley (1842); D. E. Davy (circa 1850), — are all noticed in an Appendix headed ' Historical Notices of Collectors' to the volume entitled 'Free Town Libraries published in 1869. Of that Appendix the notices above referred to form, re- spectively, Nos. ' 848 ' (Rymer) ; ' 570 ' (Madox) ; ' 186 ' (Cecil); '351' (Garrick); '372' (Ginguene); '165' (Canonici) ; ' 462' (Hull) ; ' 683 ' (North) ; ' 781' (Puisaye) ; ' 1049 ' (Wellesley) ; and ' 249' (Davy). The existing constitution of the Board of Trustees of the British Museum has been on many occasions, and by several writers, somewhat freely impugned. More than once it has been the subject of criticism in the House of Commons. With little alteration that Board remains, in 1869, what Parliament made it in 1753. Obviously, it might be quite possible to frame a new governing Cor- poration, in a fashion more accordant with what are some- times called the * progressive tendencies' of the period. But I venture to think that the bare enumeration of the facts which have now been briefly tabulated, in this introductory chapter, gives a proof of faithful and zealous administration of a great trust, such as cannot be gainsaid TNTEODTJCTION. 47 by any the most ardent lover of innovation. Both the booki, Collections given, and the Collections purchased, afford i^duc- conclusive and splendid proofs that the Trustees and the TI0N - Officers have alike won the confidence and merited the gratitude of those whose acquirements and pursuits in life have best qualified them to give a verdict on the implied issue. If, of late years, the public purse has been opened with somewhat more of an approach to harmony with the open- handedness of private Englishmen, that result is wholly due to unremitting effort on the part both of the Trustees who govern, and of the Officers who administer, or have ad- ministered, the British Museum. And, to attain their end, both Trustees and Officers have, very often, had to fight hard, as the later chapters of this volume will more than sufficiently show. CHAPTER II. THE FOUNDER OF THE COTTONIAN LIBRARY. * Est in hac url>e nobilis Eques, homo pereruditus rerum vetustarum et omnia Iiiatorise, sive priscae, sive recentis, studiossisimus, qui ex ipsis monumentis publicis et epistolis duarum reginarum Anglise et Scotiee veram eorum quie gesta sunt, historiam d idicit, et jam regis jussu eandem componit, digeritque in ordinem.' CasaubW to De Thou (London, 5 Kal. Mart, 1611). Efiitolx, 373. The Personal and Public Life of Sir Robert Cotton. — His Political Writings and Political Persecutions. — Sources and Growth of the Cottonian Library. — The Successors of Sir Robert Cotton. — History of the Cottonian Library, until its union with the Manuscript Library of Harley, and with the Museum and Miscel- laneous Collections of Sloane. — Review of some recent Aspersions on the Character of the Founder. book i, Sir Robert Cotton was the eldest son of Thomas Cotton life or of Conington and of Elizabeth Shirley, daughter of Erancis co K T?o°r ET Shirley of Staunton-Harold in Leicestershire. He was born on the 22nd of January, 1570, at Denton, in the county of Huntingdon. Denton was a sort of jointure- house attached to that ancient family seat of Conington, which had come into the possession of the Cottons, about the middle of the preceding century, by the marriage of LIFE OP SIR ROBERT COTTON. 49 William Cotton with Mary Wesenham, daughter and booki, heir of Robert Wesenham, who had acquired Couington SfToV by his marriage with Agnes Bruce.* j^T"™ The Cottons of Conington were an offshoot of the old Cheshire stock. They held a good local position in right J™w of their manorial possessions both in Huntingdonshire and s™ kobiet" in Cambridgeshire, but they had not, as yet, won distinc- CoTION - tion by any very- conspicuous public service. Genealogi- cally, their descent, through Mary Wesenham, from Robert Bruce, was their chief boast. Sir Robert was to become, as he grew to manhood, especially proud of it. He rarely missed an opportunity of commemorating the fact, and sometimes seized occasions for recording it, heraldically, after a fashion which has put stumbling-blocks in the way of later antiquaries. But the weakness has about it nothing of meanness, It is not an unpardonable failing. And with the specially antiquarian virtues it is not less closely allied than with love of country. In days of court favour, James the First was wont to please Sir Robert Cotton by calling him cousin. Sir Robert's descendants became, in their turn, proud of his personal celebrity, but they too were, at all times, as careful to celebrate, upon the family monuments, their Bruce descent, as to claim a share in the literary glories of the ' Cottonian Library.' This cousinship with King James — and also a matter which to Sir Robert was much more important, the descent to the Cottons of the rich Lordship of Conington with its appendant manors and members — will be seen, at a glance, by the following * Sir Robert's father was the fourth ' Thomas Cotton of Conington,' and fifth Lord of that manor of the Cotton family. The marriage of William Cotton with the eventual heiress of the Huntingdonshire Bruces was contracted about the year 1450. 4 PEDIGREE OF COTTON, EDMUND, called Ironside,— . Edward = Agatha, Daughter of the Emperor Henry III. Malcolm == Margaret (Saint) Cean-mohr, King of Scotland Dayid, King of Scotland == Maud, daughter, and heir of Waltheof, Earl of Huntingdon. Henry, = Ada, daughter of the Prince of Scotland. I Earl of Warren. David, = Margaret, daughter Earl of Huntingdon and Angus, and heir of Kalph, Lord of Conington. Earl of Chester. [' By this woman the Earldom of Huntingdon and the Lordship of Conington came to the Crown of Scotland.' — MS. Note by Sir E. Cotton, in 'Harl. 807.'] William de Cotton (of Cotton, in Cheshire). Rohert Bbuce, : Lord of Conington {jure uxoris). • Isabel, heiress of Conington. Kobert Bbuce, Earl of Carrick, Competitor for the Crown of Scotland. ROBEBT : King of Scotland. Sir Bernard de Beuce, Lord of Conington [' by the gift of his Mother, 37 Henry III,*— Sir B. Cotton's Note in MS. Harl.] I William de Cotton (of Hampstall-Ridware in Staffordshire). David, King of Scotland. Marjory Bbuce = Walter Sttjabt. Robebt (Stuart) II, King of Scotland. James I, King of Scotland. William de of Richard stall Rid- Battle of [From the Cotton Koi.lXIV, 6 [by Skuab, Camden, and St. Geopqe] ; compared with MS. Harl. 807, fol. 95, and with MS. Lansu., 863, containing the Heraldic Col- lections of JR. St. G-jso&gjs, Noiroy, Vol. in, fol. 83 verso.] James VI, of Scotland, and I, of Britain. OF CONINGTON. King of England. Sir Bernard de BBtJCE, Lord of Conington. Sir John de Bbttce, = Margaret Beauchamp. Lord of Conington. Agnes Bruce, = Sir Hugh de Wesenham. eldest daughter and co-heir. Joan Bettce = Sir Nicholas Greene. 2nd daughter and co-heir. Thomas Wesenham (d. 39 Hen. VI, without issue). Robert Wesenham (died 17 Edw. IV). Cotton (2nd son = Mary Wesenham V a quo Cnlpeper and Harington. de Cotton, of Hamp- ware), slain at the St. Albans, 33 H. VI. (heir of Conington). Eleanor Knightley. Thomas Cotton = Jane Paris. Thomas Cotton (Lord of Conine-ton). Thomas Cotton —= Lucy Harney. Thomas Cotton = Elizabeth Shirley. Sir ROBERT (BRUCE) COTTON, Knight and Bart., Lord of Conington, &c, and .Founder of the Cottonian Libeaet (Born 1570; Died 6 May, 1631). [Tor the continuation of the Cotton Pedighee, showing (1) the descent from. Sir Robert of the subsequent possessors of the Cottonian ■ Library, up to the date of the gift to the Nation made by Sir John Cotton', and (2) the relationship of the Cottonian Trustees of the British Museum, see the concluding pages of the present Chapter.] 52 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. II. Life of Sib. Robket Cotton. Cotton's Eab.lt Friend- ships. Robert Cotton was educated at Trinity College in Cam- bridge, where he took the degree of B.A. towards the close of 1585.* Of his collegiate career very little is discover- able, save that it was an eminently studious one. Long before he left Trinity, he had given unmistakeable proofs of his love for archaeology. Some among the many conspicu- ous and lifelong friendships which he formed with men likeminded took their beginnings at Cambridge, but most of them were formed during his periodical and frequent sojourns in London. John Josceline, William Dethick, Lawrence Nowell, William Lambarde, and William Camden were amongst his earliest and closest friends. Most of them were much his seniors. Whilst still in the heyday of youth he married Elizabeth Brocas, daughter and eventually coheir of William Brocas of Thedingworth in Leicestershire. Soon after his marriage he took a leading part in the establishment of the first Society of Antiquaries. * Here, if we accepted Cotton's authorship of the Twenty-four Argu- ments, whether it be more expedient to suppress Popish Practices, &e., pub- lished in the Cottoni Posthuma, by James Howell, we should have to add . that ' he travelled on the Continent and passed many months in Italy.' But that tract is not Cotton's — though ascribed to him by so able and careful an historian as Mr. S. R. Gardiner (Archceologia, vol. xli. Comp. Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage, &c, vol. i, p. 32). That its real author was in Italy is plain, from his own statement ' I remember that in Italy it was often told me,' &c. ; and, again : ' In Rome itself I have heard the English fugitive taxed,' Sua., Posthuma, pp. 126, seqq. Dr. Thomas Smith put a question as to this implied visit of Sir Robert to Italy to his grandson, Sir John Cotton, who assured him that no such visit was known to any of the family; by all of whom it was believed that their eminent antiquary never set foot out of Britain. Smith's words are these : — ' B. Joannes Cottonus hac de re a me Uteris consultus, se de isthoc avi sui itinere Italico ne verbum quidem a Patre suo edoctum fuisse respondit Cottonum usum et cognitionem linguee Italicse a Joanne Plorio .... anno 1610 addidicisse ex ejusdem Uteris ad Cottonum scriptis, mihi certo constat.' Vita, p. xvii. Sia Robert Cotton. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 53 Some of Cotton's fellow-workers in the Society are known booki, to all of us by their surviving writings. Others of them life' are now almost forgotten, though not less deserving, perhaps, of honourable memory ; for amongst these latter was — ' that good Earl, once President Of England's Council and her Treasury ; Who liv'd in both unstain'd with gold or fee,' at a time when such praise could seldom be given truthfully. It was as a contributor towards the common labours of that Society that Cotton made his earliest appearance as an author. The subjects chosen for his dis- courses at the periodical meetings of the Elizabethan anti- quarians indicate the prevalent bias of his mind. Nearly all of them may be said to belong to our political archaeology. Before the close of the sixteenth century, his collections gk°wth f THE COT- of Manuscripts and of Antiquities had already become so tonian large and important as to win for him a wide reputation a^gII- in foreign countries, as well as at home. His corre- LKHT ' spondence indicates, even at that early period, a generous recognition of the brotherhood of literature, the world over, and proves the ready courtesy with which he had learned to bear somewhat more than his fair share of the obligations thence arising. In later days he was wont to say to his intimates : ' I, myself, have the smallest share in myself/ From youth, onwards, there is abundant evidence that the saying expressed, unboastingly, the simple facts of his daily life. Camden was amongst the earliest of those intimates, feiendshu and to the dying day of the author of the Britannia the ™™ Cam " close friendship which united him with Cotton was both unbroken and undiminished. The former was still in the 54 EAELT COLLECTOES. book i, full vigour of life when Cotton had given proof of his lub'ot' worthiness to be a fellow-labourer in the field of English Co™ ™ antiquities. In 1599 they went, in company, over the northern counties ; explored together many an old abbey and many a famous battle-field. When that tour was made, the evidences of the ruthless barbarism with which the mandates of Henry the Eighth had been carried out by his agents lay still thick upon the ground, and may well have had their influence in modifying some of the religious views and feelings of such tourists. Not a few chapters of the Britannia embody the researches of Cotton as well as those of Camden ; and the elder author was ever ready to acknowledge his deep sense of obligation to his younger colleague. Eor both of them, at this time, and in subse- quent years, the storied past was more full of interest than the politics, howsoever momentous or exciting, of the day. But, occasionally, they corresponded on questions of policy as well as of history. There is evidence that on one stirring subject, about which men's views were much wont to run to extremes, they agreed in advocating mode- rate courses. In the closing years of the Queen, Cotton, as well as Camden, recognised the necessity that the Government should hold a firm hand over the emissaries of the Church and Court of Rome, whilst refusing to admit that a due repression of hostile intrigues was inconsistent with the honourable treatment of conscientious and peace- ful Romanists. It was, in all probability, almost immediately after Cotton's return from the Archaeological tour to the North which he had made with his early friend, that he received a message from the Queen. Elizabeth had been told of his growing fame for possessing an acquaintance with the mustiest of records, and an ability ' to vouch precedents ' LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 55 such as few students, even of much riper years, had booki, attained to. He was now to be acquainted with a dispute lcte'of about national precedency which had arisen at Calais cot^oiT 111 between Sir Henry Neville and the Ambassador of Spain. It was Her Majesty's wish that he should search The Tkac " A *1 J TATE ON the records which bore upon the question, and send her English 1 • 1 1 -1VT • PRECEDENCE such a report as might strengthen Neville s hands in his overspain. contest for the honour of England. Such a task could not fail to be a welcome one; and Cotton found no lack of pertinent evidence. The bent and habit of his mind were always methodical. He begins his abstract of the records by tabulating his argument. Precedency, he says, must have respect either to the nation or to the ruler of the nation. A kingdom must rank either (1) according to its antiquity, or (2) according to 'the eminency of the throne royal,' by which phrase he means the complete unity of the dominion under one supreme ruler. On the first title to precedency he observes that it may be based either upon the date of national independence, or upon that of the national recognition of Christianity. He claims for England that it was a monarchy at least four hundred and sixty years before Castile became one ; that Christianity had then been established in it, without break or interruption, for a thousand years ; whereas in Spain C ottom Christianity was 'defaced with Moorish Mahumetisme,' ^° st ^ a 7 ' until the expulsion of the Moors by Ferdinand, little more than a century before the time at which he was writing. His assertion of the greater ' eminency of the throne royal ' in England than in Spain is mainly founded on the union in the English sovereignty alone of supreme eccle- siastical with supreme civil power ; and on the lineal descent of the then sovereign 'from Christian princes for 800 years,' whereas the descent of the Kings of Spain 'is 56 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, chiefly from the Earls of Castilia, about 500 years since,' ldTof' and the then King of Spain was 'yet in the infancy of his co**r T kingdom.' Two minor and ancillary arguments in this tract are also notable : The Spanish throne, says Cotton, hath not, as hath the English and French, ' that virtue to endow the king therein invested with the power to heal the king's evil j for into France do yearly come multitudes of Spaniards to be healed thereof.' And he further alleges that ' ab- solute power of the King of England, which in other king- doms is much restrained.' The time was to come when the close friend and fellow-combatant of Eliot and the other framers of the great ' Petition of Right ' would rank himself with the foremost in ' much restraining ' the kingly power in England, and would discover ample warrant in ancient precedents for every step of the process. But, as yet, that time was afar off. Immediately on the accession of King James, Sir Robert ms.cou. Cotton greeted the new monarch with two other and far ff. 158; i6o, more remarkable tractates on a subject bearing closely on our relations with Spain. Their political interest, as con- tributions to the history of public opinion, is great. Their biographical interest is still greater. But I postpone the consideration of them until we reach a momentous crisis in Sir Robert's life on which they have a vital bearing. He also wrote,— almost simultaneously, — a much more courtier- like ' Discourse of his Majesty's descent from the Saxon auk, James i, Kings,' which was graciously welcomed. In the following ™s'i ho. September he received the honour of knighthood. In retuened j ames > fi rs t Parliament he sat for the County of Huntine- TO Parlia- .... ° mebt. don, in fellowship with Sir Oliver Cromwell, uncle of the future Protector. There is no evidence that at this period seqq. (B.M.) Domestic Correspond- LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 57 he took any active part in debate. Nor did he, at any booki, time, win distinction as a debater. But in the labours of J'',,,' Committees he was soon both zealous and prominent. c^o "™ Two classes of questions, in particular, appear to have engaged his attention : — questions of Church discipline, m cm. and questions of administrative reform. He also assisted ™i.xix, ' Bacon in the difficult attempt to frame acceptable measures ^l^'' for a union with Scotland. ZtT^' (it. M.J ; The fame of his library and of his museum of antiquities J^'S *': continued to spread farther and wider. He had many p-io. . . . (B. M.) agents on the Continent who sought diligently to augment his collections. His correspondence with men who were busied in like pursuits both at home and abroad increased. Much of it has survived. On that interesting point at which a glance has been cast already, its witness is uniform. He was always as ready to impart as he was eager to collect. Few, if any, important works of historical research were carried on in his day to which he did not, in some way or other, give generous furtherance. At a time when he was most busy in forming his own library, he helped Bodley to lay the foundation of the noble library at Oxford. Readers who can call to mind even mere fragments of fuhthek ° Geowth that superabundant evidence which tells of the neglect akdsoueces throughout much of the Tudor period of the public archives of the realm, can feel little surprise that Sir Robert Cotton should have been able to collect a multitude of documents which had once been the property of the nation, or of the sovereign. Those who are most familiar with that evidence ought to be the first to remember that, under the known circumstances of the time, the presumption of honest acquisition is stronger than that of dishonest, whenever conclusive proof of either is absent. English State Papers TONIAN LlBaAEY. 58 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. II. Life of Sir Robert Cotton. Attempt or Cotton and Camden to Establish a National Library. Petition, #-c. (undated) in Cotton MS. Faustina, E. V, ff. 67, 68. had passed into the possession not only of English antiqua- rians, but of English booksellers — and not a few of them into that of foreigners — before Cotton was born. Other considerations bearing on this matter, and tending as it seems in a like direction, belong to a later period of Sir Robert's life. There is. however, a very weighty one which stands at the threshold of his career as a collector. Almost the earliest incident which is recorded of Cot- ton's youthful days, is his concurrence in a petition in which Queen Elizabeth was entreated to establish a Public and National Library, and to honour it with her own name. Its especial and prime object was to be the collection and preservation, as public property, of the monuments of our English history. The proposal was not altogether new. It was a much improved revival of a project which Dr. John Dee had once submitted, in an immature form, to Queen Mart. It was the reiteration of an earnest request which had been made to Queen Elizabeth by Archbishop Parker, at a time when Cotton was still in his cradle. The joint petition of Cotton and Camden met with as little success as had attended the entreaties of those who had taken the same path before them. The petitioners were willing to bind themselves, and others like-minded, to incur ' costs, and charges,' for the effectual attainment of their patriotic object, on the condition of royal patronage and royal fellow- working with them in its pursuit. When Cotton, upon bare presumptions, is charged to be an embezzler of records, this Petition comes to have a very obvious relevancy to the matter in question. The relevancy is enhanced by the fact that two, at least, of those who had (at various times) concurred in promoting its object, gave to the Library of their fellow-labourer in the field of antiquity, manuscripts and records which, had the issue of their project been OF -OBI Cotton. Cotton and the Citt LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 59 otherwise, they would have given to the 'Public Library of booki, Queen Elizabeth,' in express trust for their fellow-country- J^j' men at large. si K r 0B eet Indirectly, this same petition has also its bearing on a curious passage relating to Sir Robert Cotton which occurs among the Minute-books of the Corporation of London, and which has recently been printed by Mr. Riley, in his preface to Liber Custumarum. On the 10th of November, 1607, the Court of Alder- men of London recorded the following minute : ' It is this day ordered, that Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Town Clerk, Mr. Edmonds, and Mr. Robert Smith, or any three of them, shall repair to Sir Robert Cotton, from this Court, Ej!C0K:DS x _ London. and require him to deliver to the City's use three of the City's books which have been long time missing— the first book called Liber Custumarum ; the second, called Liber Legum Antiquorum ; and the thirde, called Fletewode, which are affirmed to be in his custody." Of the results of the interview of Master Chamberlain and his fellow-ambassa- dors with Cotton no precise account has been preserved. It is plain, however, from the sequel, that they found the matter to be one for which such extremely curt 'requisition ' was scarcely the appropriate mode of setting to work. The Corporation appealed in vain to the Lord Privy Seal Northampton ; and they had ' afterwards to solicit the mediation with Cotton of two of their own members — Sir John Jolles and another — who were personally known to him. Their interposition was alike ineffectual. Of the interview we have no report ; but Sir Robert, it is clear, asserted his right to retain the City books (or rather por- tions of books) which were then in his hands, and he did retain them. They now form part of the well-known and very valuable Cottonian MS., ' Claudius D. XL' 60 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, That these London records had once belonged to the im'oi' citizens is now unquestioned. That Cotton — both in 1607 cotton. EET an d again in the following year — asserted a title, of some sort, to those of them which were then in his hands, seems also to be established. Is the fair inference this : 'Their then holder, in 1607, had obtained them wrong- fully, and he persisted, despite all remonstrance, in his wrongful possession' ? Is it not rather to be inferred that; the dis- whosoever may have been the original wrongdoer, Sir PUTE ABOUT J ° ° city Robert Cotton had acquired them by a lawful purchase ? Kfcosds If that should have been the fact, he may possibly have had a valid reason for declining to give what he had, ineffectu- ally and rudely, been commanded to restore. On the other hand, it is impossible to defend Sir Robert's occasional mode of dealing with MSS., — some of which, it is plain, were but lent to him, — when, by mis- placement of leaves, or by insertions, and sometimes by both together, he confused their true sequence and aspect. Of this unjustifiable manipulation I shall have to speak hereafter. The years which followed close upon this little civic interlude were amongst the busiest years of Cotton's public life. He testified the sincerity of his desire to serve his country faithfully, by the choice of the subjects to the study cottoh-s of which he voluntarily bent his powers. Abuses in the management of the navy and of naval establishments have been at most periods of our history fruitful topics for reformers, competent or other. In the early years of James there was a special tendency to the increase of such abuses in the growing unfitness for exer- tion of the Lord High Admiral. Nottingham had yet many years to live, — near as he had been to the threescore and ten when the new reign began. But even his large Memorial ox Abuses in the Navy. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 61 appetencies were now almost sated with wealth, employ- BooKl - ments, and honours ; and ever since his return from his lipe of splendid embassy to Spain, he seemed bent on compensat- C otto°n. EET ing himself for his hard labour tinder Elizabeth by his indolent luxury under James. The repose of their chief had so favoured the illegitimate activities of his subordi- nates, that when Cotton addressed himself to the task of investigating the state of the naval administration he soon found that it would be much easier to prove the existence and the gravity of the abuses than to point to an effectual remedy. The abuses were manifold. Some of them were, at that moment, scarcely assailable. To Cotton, in particular, the approach to the subject was beset with many diffi- culties. He was, however, much in earnest. When he found that some of the obstacles must, for the present, TheIh « uim 3 £ ' INSTITUTED be rather turned by evasion than be encountered — with by cotton . /. i . IKT0 Abuses any fair chance of success — by an open attack m front, he inthe betook himself to the weaker side of the enemy. He N °^" obtained careful information as to naval account-keeping ; discovered serious frauds ; and opened the assault by a conflict with officials not too powerful for immediate encounter, — though far indeed from being unprotected. Of Sir Robert's Memorial to the King, I can give but one brief extract, by way of sample : * Upon a dangerous Cotton > • i • m i Memorial on advantage, he writes, 'which the Treasurer of the Navy jtum^ihe taketh by the strict letter of his Patent, to be discharged of dZHuc all his accounts by the only vouchee and allowance of two Corre '^ «/ •/ James X, chief officers, it falls out, strangely, at this time — by the vol. xii, P . 21. weakness of the Controller and cunning of the Surveyor — that these two offices are, in effect, but one, which is the Sur- veyor himself, who — joining with the Treasurer as a Purveyor of all provisions — becomes a paymaster to himself .... at such rates as he thinks good/ It is a suggestive statement. 62 EARLY, COLLECTOES. book i, Cotton's most intimate political friendships were at this life op time with the Howards. Henry Howard (now Earl of coitoi. BEET Northampton) , — whatever the intrinsic baseness and perfidy of his nature, was a man of large capacity. He was not unfriendly to reform, — when abuses put no pelf in his own pocket. To naval reforms, his nearness of blood to Not- tingham, the Lord High Admiral, tended rather to pre- dispose him ; for when near relatives dislike one another, the intensity of their dislike is sometimes wonderful to all bystanders. Interest made these two sometimes allies, but it never made them friends. Northampton gave his whole influence in favour of Sir Robert's plan. He began the inquiries into this wide subject by persuading the King to appoint a Commission. On the 30th of April, 1608, Letters Patent were issued, in the preamble of which the pith of the Memorial is thus recited : ' We are informed that very great and considerable abuses, deceits, frauds, corruptions, negligences, misdemeanours and offences have been and daily are perpetrated .... against the con- tinual admonitions and directions of you, our Lord High Admiral, by other the officers of and concerning our Navy Royal, and by the Clerks of the Prick and Check, and divers other inferior officers, ministers, mariners, soldiers, and others working or labouring in or about our said commission Navy ;' and thereupon full powers are given to the Com- on the missioners so appointed to make full inquiry into the ihenIv™ allegations ; and to certify their proceedings and opinions. Cotton was made a member of the Commission, and at the head of it were placed the Earls of Northampton and of Nottingham. It was directed that the inquiry should be carried at least as far back as the year 1598. The Admiral's share was little more than nominal. The pro- ceedings were opened on the 7th of May, 1608, when, as LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 63 Cotton himself reports, an ' elegant speech was made booki, by Lord Northampton, of His Majesty's provident and So/ princely purposes for reformation of the abuses.' North- co™™™ 1 ampton, he adds, ' took especial pains and care for a full and faithful discharge of that trust.' At his instance Sir Robert was made Chairman of a sort of sub-committee, to which the preliminary inquiries and general array of the 1 . . Proceedings business were entrusted ; ' Sir Robert Cotton, during all »» «« am. ,. £»!• • • * i • • l ■ mission/or the time ot this service, entertaining his assistants at his them n house at the Blackfriars as often as occasion served.' cotx'juum The inquiry lasted from May, 1608, to June, 1609. j^" 11 ' Cotton was then requested by his fellow-commissioners to make an abstract of the depositions to be reported to the King. It abundantly justified the Memorial of 1608. James, when he had read it, ordered a final meeting of the Commissioners to be held in his presence, at which all the inculpated officers were to attend that they might adduce whatever answers or pleas of defence might be in their power. 'In the end,' says Sir Robert, 'they were advised rather to cast themselves at the feet of his grace and goodness for pardon, than to rely upon their weak replies ; which they readily did.' The most important outcome of the inquiry was the preparation of a ' Book of Ordinances for the Navy Boyal,' in the framing of which Sir Robert Cotton had the largest share. It led to many improvements. But, in subsequent years, measures of a still more stringent character were found needful. In the next year after the presentation of this Report on the Navy, Sir Robert addressed to the King another Report t=* *"- . . QUIKY INTO on the Revenues of the Crown. The question is treated cuownre- historically rather than politically, but the long induction VEKDES ' of fiscal records is frequently enlivened by keen glances both at underlying principles and at practical results. 64 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. II, Life of Sir Robert Cotton. Proceedings in the Com- mission for the Navy Royal, &c. ; as above. Once or twice, at least, these side glances are such as, when we now regard them, in the light of the subsequent history of James's own reign and of that of his next successor, seem to have in them more of irony than of earnest. The style of the treatise is clear, terse, and pointed. On no branch of the subject does the author go into more minute detail than on that delicate one of the historical precedents for ' abating and reforming excesses of the Royal Household, Retinue, and Favourites.' He points the moral by express reference to existing circumstances. Thus, for example, in treating of the arrangements of the royal household, he says, ' There is never a back-door at Court that costs not the king £2000 yearly •' and again, when treating of gifts to royal favourites : ' It is one of the greatest accusations against the Duke of Somerset for suffering the King [Edward VI] to give away the possessions and profits of the Crown in manner of a spoil.' Not less plainspoken are Cotton's words about a ques- tion that was destined, in a short time, to excite the whole kingdom. Tonnage and poundage, he says, were granted simply for defence of the State, ' so they may be employed in the wars ; and particular Treasurers account in Parlia- ment' for that employment. ' They are so granted,' he adds, 'in express words; and that they proceed of goodwill, not of duty. Precedents of this nature are plentiful in all the Rolls.' A final example of this sort may be found in the pithy warning grounded upon Richard the Second's grant to a minion of the power of compounding with delinquents. It was fatal, he says, both to the kino- and to his instrument. ' It grew the death of the one and the deposition of the other/ Cotton's Report on the Crown Revenues has also an LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 65 incidental interest. Out of it grew the creation of the booki, new dignity of baronets. Were His Majesty, says the writer, life of ' now to make a degree of honour hereditary as Baronets, cotto™.™ 1 next under Barons, and grant them in tail, taking of every . & . ° J Cotton's one £1000, in fine it would raise with ease £100,000; pbopohhok and, by a judicious election, be a means to content those chbahokop worthy persons in the Commonwealth that by the confused f 6 og ONET9 ' admission of [so] many Knights of the Bath held them- selves all this time disgraced.' When this passage was written that which had been, under Elizabeth, so real and eminent an honour as to be eagerly coveted by patriotic men, had been lavished by James with a profusion which entailed their contempt and disgust. I have before me the fine old MS. from a passage in which Cotton borrowed the title of the new dignity. The word occurs thus : — ' Ceux ° J _ 9 X. II. sontles estatutz, or defiances de nre tres excellent souv *>urh. seigneur le Hoy Richard, et Johan, Due de Lancastre, . . . cotton ms., et des autres Contes, Barons, et Barormetz, et sages Chivalers.' vi e ™ 16 '' Sir Robert was himself amongst the earliest receivers (BM ° (June, 1611) of the new order. Its creation led to many jealousies and discords. It gave both to the King and to his councillors not a little trouble in settling the precise privileges and precedencies of its holders. In those contro- versies the author of the suggestion took no very active part. King James was much more anxious for the speedy receipt of the hundred thousand pounds, than about the * judicious election ' of those by whom the money was to be provided. Cotton's satisfaction with the ultimate working out of his plan must have had its large alloy.* * The story which has been told — on the authority of one of John Chamberlain's letters to Carleton (April, 1612) that ' Sir Robert Cotton was sent out of the way ' at a time when certain claims of the Baronets were to be definitiyely heard at the Council Board, ' in order that he 5 66 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. II. Life of Sie Robert Cotton. Cotton to Somerset (undated) MS. Had., 7002, f. 380. (B. M.) This is the more apparent, inasmuch as, at the first acceptance of his project, Sir Robert had obtained the King's distinct promise that no future creation of a baron should be made, until the new peer had first received the degree of baronet ; unless he belonged to a family already ennobled. Hearing of a probability that the royal promise in this respect was likely to be broken, he wrote to Somer- set : — ' If His Highness mil do it, I rather humbly beg a relinquishing in the design of the baronets, as desponding of good success.' But to James all projects for the opening of gold mines — whether at home or abroad — were much too attractive to be staved off by any puritanic scruples about pledge or promise. For him, from youth to dotage, the one. thing needful was gold. The Polt- ticalIntee- couese op SieB. Cotton with Lord Somerset. 1613-1615. The question of the baronetcies is one of the earliest which brings us in presence of the eventful political con- nection which subsisted between Cotton and the Earl of Somerset. Of its first beginnings no precise testimony seems to have survived. But there is a strong presumption that when Somerset was led, by his fata] love for Lady Essex, to change his early position of antagonism to the Howards for one of alliance and friendship, he came fre- quently into contact with Sir Robert, who had long been familiarly acquainted with the Earl of Suffolk — and also with his too well-known Countess — as well as with the Earl of Northampton. The one ineffaceable stigma on Somerset's memory might not produce records in their favour,' rests on mere rumour. Charles, Lancaster Herald, wrote to Cotton immediately before the hearing in these terms : ' On Saturday next the final determination is expected, if some troublesome spirit do not hinder ; which end I wish were well made, and am glad that you are not seen in it at this time.'— • Cotton MS., Julius, C. iii, f. 86. or -OBJ Cotton. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 67 which was brought upon him by his disgraceful marriage booki, has barred the way to an impartial estimate of his standing Lira or as a politician. A man who was branded by his peers Sl (though upon garbled depositions) as a murderer can scarcely, by possibility, have his pretensions to statesman- ship fairly weighed in a just balance. Such testimony, it is true, as that on which Somerset was found guilty of the poisoning of Overbury would not now suffice to con- vict a vagrant of petty larceny. It would not indeed at this day be treated as evidence at all ; it would be looked upon as a mere decoction of surmises. But the foul scandal of the marriage itself has so tainted Somerset's very name that historians (almost with one consent) have condoned the baseness of his prosecutors. With some of this man's contemporaries it was quite otherwise. Some English statesmen whose names we have all learnt to venerate, looked upon the murder of Overbury as a revengeful deed instigated by Lady Somerset, wholly without her husband's complicity; and they looked at Somerset's conviction of complicity in the crime as simply the issue of a skilfully-managed court intrigue, for a court object. They knew that Somerset's enemies had been wont to say amongst themselves, ' A nail is best driven out by driving in another nail/ and had, very effectually, put the proverb into action. They knew, too, that to the rising favourite the King had committed — most characteristi- cally — the pleasing task of communicating, on his behalf, with the Crown lawyers, as their own task of compiling'the depositions against the falling favourite went on from stage to stage. Sir Robert Cotton believed not only that Somerset was guiltless of the murder of Overbury, and that the Earl's political extinction was resolved upon, as the readiest means 68 EARLY COLLECTOES. book i, of making room for a new favourite, but he also believed life of that Somerset's loss of power involved the loss by England co™™.™ 1 — f° r a l° n g ti me to come — °f some use f u l domestic reforms, as well as its subjection to several new abuses. This belief was a favourite subject of conversation with him to his dying day. He was in the habit of imparting it to the famous men who, in the early years of the next reign, joined with him in fighting the battles of parliamentary freedom against royal prerogative. There may well have been an element of truth in Cotton's view of the matter, though, in these days, it seems but a barren pursuit to have discussed the preferability to England of the rule of a Robert Carr rather than that of a George Villiers. What is now chiefly important in the close political con- cotton and nection which was formed between Cotton and Somerset THE PRO- # . Ill n ' T-» jected is the fact that it eventually thrust Sir Robert's fortune and match. entire future into great peril, even if it did not actually hazard his life itself, as well as his fair fame with posterity. The life that was preserved to him was also to be redeemed by future and brilliant public service. His fortune sus- tained no great damage, and much of it was afterwards spent upon public objects. His reputation as a statesman, however, suffered, and must suffer, some degree of loss. Somerset led him to become an agent in urging on the treaty for the marriage of Prince Charles with the Infanta of Spain. As it seems, his agency was — for a very brief period — even active and zealous. Neither Somerset nor Cotton, however, set that intercourse with Gondomar afoot which presently brought Sir Robert within the* toils. It was pleasantly originated by the wily Spaniard himself, in the character of a lover of antiquities, deeply anxious to study Sir Robert's Museum, in its owner's company. It is unfortunate for a truthful estimate of the degree of LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 69 discredit attachable to Cotton for this agency in promoting booki, a scheme pregnant with dishonour to England, that little lih? ox- evidence of the share he took in it is now to be derived c I R no ™ F '' l! from any English source. His own extant correspondence yields very little, though it suffices to establish the fact of the agency, apart from that testimony of Gondomar, which will be cited presently. Under Cotton's own hand we have the fact that in a conversation with himself the Ambassador of Spain on one occasion held out (by way, it seems, more imme- diately, of inducement to the English Government to shape certain pending negotiations on other matters into greater conformity with Spanish counsels) the threat that, if such cotton to a course were not taken, ' turbulent spirits — of which Spain (uTdtteV * wanteth not — might add some hurt to the ill affairs of f^Mm. ' Ireland, or hindrance to the near affecting of the great < B - M -> ' work now in hand ;' a threat which Cotton transmits to Somerset without rebuke or comment. Early in 1615, Cotton had an interview with Gondomar in relation to the progress of the marriage negotiation in Spain. Of what passed at this interview we have no detailed account other than that which was sent to the King of Spain by his Ambassador. The way in which Cotton's name is introduced, and the singular misstatement that he had the custody of ' all the King's archives/ seem to imply that Gondomar had still but little knowledge of the messenger now employed by James and by Somerset to confer with him. Throughout, the reader will have to bear in mind that the narrative is Gondomar's, and that all the material points of it rest upon his sole authority. ' The King and the Earl of Somerset,' writes the wis. Ambassador, 'have sent in great secrecy by Sir Robert p11 Cotton-t— who is a gentleman greatly esteemed here, and 70 EAKLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. II. Life or Sia Robert Cottom. Gardiner Transcripts of Simaocas MSS. See also S. E. Gardiner, in Letters of Gondomar, giving an Ac- count of the affair of the Sari of Somerset ; (Archieologia, vol. xli.) with whom the King has deposited all his archives — to tell me what Sir John Digby has written about the marriage of the Infanta with this Prince. Cotton informed me that he was greatly pleased that the negotiation had been so well received in Spain, because he desired its conclusion and success. He enlarged upon the conveniencies of the marriage, but said that the King considered Digby not to be a good negotiator, because he was a great friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and of the Earl of Pem- broke, who were of the Puritan faction, and was in correspondence with them.' . . . . ' In order to make a beginning,' continued Cotton, as Gondomar reports his conversation, ' the King must beg your Majesty to answer three questions : (1.) " Does your Majesty believe that with a safe conscience you can negotiate this marriage ?" (2.) " Is your Majesty sincerely desirous to conclude it, upon condi- tions suitable to both parties ?" (3.) " Will your Majesty abstain from asking anything, in matters of Religion, which would compel him to do that which he cannot do without risking his life and his kingdom ; contenting your- self with trusting that he will be able to settle matters quietly ?" When an answer is given to these questions he will consider the matter as settled, and will immediately give a commission to the Earl of Somerset to arrange the points with me. This Sir Robert Cotton is held here, by many, to be a Puritan, but he told me that he was a Catholic, and gave me many reasons why no man of sense could be anything else.' He afterwards adds : ' Sir Robert Cotton, who has treated with me in this business, tells me that after the marriage is agreed upon, [and] before the Infanta arrives in England, matters of Religion will be in a much improved condition.' The writer of this remark- able despatch, it may be well to mention, had asserted wL LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 71 Sib Robebt equal roundness, but a few months before, that James bookl himself had said, at the dinner-table : ' I have no doubl that the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church.' Nor is it unimportant, as bearing on the degree of credi- bility to be assigned to Gondomar's despatches, when they ms™259o, chance to be uncorroborated, — to remark that a despatch i, ( Gardi ° er - ■*• Transcripts). addressed by him to the Duke of Lerma, in November, contains an express contradiction of an assertion addressed to Philip, in the preceding April. To the King, as we have just seen, he narrates Cotton's communication of despatches written by Digby. To the Minister he writes, six months later, that ' a traitor had given information ' against Cotton, for communicating Papers of State to the Spanish Ambassador, and that the charge is ' false/ Dis- crepancies like this (howsoever easily explained, or explain- simancas ii no /-. • i MS. 2534, 61 able) suffice to show that Gondomar's testimony, when (Gardiner unsupported, needs to be read with caution ; and of such discrepancies there are many. Consummate as he was in diplomatic ability of several kinds, this able statesman was nevertheless loose (and sometimes reckless) in assertion. He was very credulous when he listened to welcome news. It is impossible to study his correspondence without per- ceiving that to him, as to so many other men, the wish was often father of the thought. On the 22nd of June, Sir d Robert paid another visit to Gondomar. He told me, says the Ambassador, that the King's hesitations had been overcome; that James was now willing to negotiate on the basis of the Spanish articles, with some slight modifications ; that Somerset had taken his stand upon the match with Spain, had won the co-ope- ration of the Duke of Lennox, and was now willing to stake his fortunes on the issue. Sir Robert Cotton, adds Gon- domar, 'assured me of his own satisfaction at the turn 72 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, which things had taken, as he had no more ardent wish li™ op' than to live and die an avowed Catholic, like his fathers and ancestors* Whereupon I embraced him, and said that God would guide.' SlE B.OBEET COTTOH. Thus far, I have, advisedly, followed a Spanish account of English conversations. Although believing that there exists, already ample, evidence (both in our own archives and elsewhere) for bringing home to the Count of Gondo- mar wilful misstatements of fact — in the despatches which cmt™^ ET h e was wont to wr i te fr° m London — as well as very pardon- accotot op abig misapprehensions of the talk which he reports, I have TUT! TfTTtKT -*■ ^- i THE FIEST inteetow preferred to put before the reader the Ambassador's own gon'domak. story in its Spanish integrity. The mere fact, indeed, that an English historianf, deser- vedly esteemed for his acute and painstaking research, as well as for his eminent abilities, has honoured Gondomar's story by endorsing it, is warrant enough for citing these * ' Tambien me dijo que el Conde de Somerset havia puesto todo su resto en este negocio, y ganado el Duque de Lenox, .... aventurandose el Conde . . a ganarse y asegurarse si se hazia, o a perderse si no se haeia ; concluyendo esta platica el Coton con decirme que el estava loco de contento de ver esto en este estado, porque no pretendia ni desseava otra cosa mas que vivir y morir publicamente Catolico, oomo sus padres y abuelos lo havian sido.' — Gardiner Transcripts of MSS. at Simancas, vol. i, p. 102 (MS.). f Mr. S. R. Gardiner. His account is contained in the able paper entitled On Certain Letters of the Count of Gondomar giving an Account of the Affair of the Earl of Somerset, read to the Society of Antiquaries in 1867. Comp. the same historian's Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage (Vol. I, «. 1, and especially the passage beginning ' Sarmiento was sur- prised by a visit from Sir Robert Cotton' and so on). In these pages I use Sarmiento's subsequent title of ' Gondomar,' simply because English readers are more familiar with it than with the Spaniard's family name. Mr. Gardiner needlessly deepens the stain on Cotton's memory, arising — all allowance duly made — out of this intercourse with Gondomar, by the remark that ' twenty months before' the interview occurred, Sir LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 73 despatches as they stand. But they have now to be com- booki, pared with another account of the same transaction given by life op authority of Sir Robert Cotton himself. It was given upon a memorable occasion. The place was the Painted Chamber in the Palace of Westminster. The hearers were the assembled Lords and Commons of the Realm.* The Spaniard, it seems, was far, indeed, from holding — as he says that he held — his first conference with Cotton Robert had ' argued his case' [i. e. a tract on the question of the right treatment, by the State, of Romanist priests and recusants] ' from a decidedly Protestant point of view, and had taken care to put himself forward as a thorough, if not an extreme, Protestant.' But, unfor- tunately for Mr. Gardiner's trenchant conclusion on that point, the pamphlet he refers to — by whomsoever written — was certainly not ■written by Sir Robert Cotton. * ' [Then the Duke] came to the Relation of Sir Robert Cotton [of the intercourse] that he had with the Spanish Ambassador in 1614 [O.S.]. The Spanish Ambassador came to his house pretending [a desire] to see his rarities. On the 10th of February he acquainted His Majesty with it. Somerset [had] warrant then to sound the life of the intention. [Gondomai - ] told him he doubted he had no warrant to set any such thing on foot. [On the] 16th of March the Spanish Ambassador dealt with him and endeavoured to make Somerset Spanish, and to further this match. [He] answered him that there were divers rubs and diffi- culties in it. [On the] 9th of April he gave [Gondomar] a pill in a paper — viz. three reasons : If the King of Spain would not urge unrea- sonable things in Religion, then,' &c. [as in Gondomar's letter, which I have already quoted]. ' Afterwards Sir Robert Cotton was questioned [for shewing] to the Ambassador of Spain a packet [received] from Spain [In the year] 1616, His Majesty told Sir Robert Cotton that Gondomar had counterfeited those letters, and that he was a "juggling jack.' " Here Sir Edward Coke interposed. He was one of the Managers of the Conference for the Commons. He spoke thus : ' This matter has a little relation to me. I committed Sir Robert Cotton, when I was Chief Justice. For I understood he had intelligence with the Spanish Ambassador, and questioned him for it. For no sub- ject ought to converse with Ambassadors without the King's leave. For the offence [for which] I committed him [Sir Robert had] afterwards his general pardon from the King.' Journals of the House of Commons, 4 March, 1624. Yol. I, pp. 727, 728. Sik Robert Cotton. 74 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, either in his own ambassadorial lodging, or upon creden- lipe'oi/ tials given in the name and by the command of King co^to™. 5 "" James. That Cotton sought him he suggests, by implica- tion. That the visit, in which the ground was broken, was made at the King's instance, he states circumstantially. Both the suggestion and the assertion are false. As the reader has seen, Sir Robert's openness in exhibit- ing his library and his antiquities was matter of public notoriety. Profiting by that well-known facility of access, Miliary, the Spanish Ambassador presented himself at Cotton House in the guise of a virtuoso. ' Do me the favour — with your wonted benevolence to strangers — to let me see your Museum.' With some such words as these, Gondomar volunteered his first visit ; led the conversation, by and bye, to politics; found that Cotton was not amongst the fanatical and undiscriminating enemies of Spain at all price — outspoken, as he had been, from the first, in his assertion both of the wisdom and of the duty of England to protect the Netherlander ; showed him certain letters or papers (not now to be identified, it anpears), and in that way produced an impression on Cotton's mind which led him to confer with Somerset, and eventually with the King. So much is certain. Unfortunately, the speeches at the famous ' Conference ' on the Spanish Treaty, in 1624, are reported in the most fragmentary way imaginable. The reporter gives mere hints, where the reader anxiously looks for details. Their present value lies in the conclusive reasons which notwithstanding the lacunae — they supply for weighing, with many grains of caution, the accusations of an enemy of England against an English statesman — whensoever it chances that those accusations are uncorrobo- rated. King James himself (it may here be added), when looking back at this mysterious transaction some years later, LIFE OP SIR ROBERT COTTON. 75 and in one of his Anti-Spanish moods — said to Sir Robert: booki, 'The Spaniard is a juggling jack. I believe he forged Lira'o*' those letters ;' alluding, as the context suggests, to the C otoo°m. eet papers — whatever they were — which Gondomar showed to Cotton at the outset of their intercourse, in order to induce him to act as an intermediary between himself and the Earl of Somerset. At this time, the ground was already trembling beneath Somerset's feet, though he little suspected the source of his real danger. He knew, ere long, that an attempt would be made to charge him with embezzling jewels of the Crown. In connection with this charge there was a State secret, in which Sir Robert Cotton was a participant with Somerset, and with the King himself. And a secret it has remained. Such jewels, it is plain, were in Somerset's hands, and by him were transferred to those of Cotton. Few persons who have had occasion to look closely into the surviving documents and correspondence which bear upon the subse- quent and famous trials for the murder of Overbury, will be likely to doubt that the secret was one among those * alien matters' of which Somerset was so urgently and so repeat- edly adjured and warned, by James's emissaries, to avoid all mention, should he still persist (despite the royal, repeated, and almost passionate, entreaties with which he was beset) in putting himself upon his trial ; instead of pleading guilty, after his wife's example, and trusting implicitly to the royal mercy. For the purpose of warding off the lesser, but foreseen, danger, Cotton advised the Earl to take a step of which the Crown lawyers made subsequent and very effective use, in order to preclude all chance of his escape from the un- "i- 5 - foreseen and greater danger. By Sir Robert's recommenda- 76 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. 1L Like of Sir Robert Cotton . The scene in THE Council Chamber, respecting the Pardon DRAW.N BY SirR. Cotton t or Somerset. 1615. August. tion he obtained from the King permission to have a pardon drawn, in which, amongst other provisions, it was granted that no account whatever should be exacted from Somerset at the royal exchequer; and to that pardon the King directed the Chancellor to affix the Great Seal. The Seal, however, was withheld, and a remarkable scene ensued in the Council Chamber. There are extant two or three narratives of the occurrence, which agree pretty well in substance. Of these Gondomar's is the most graphic. The incident took place on the 20th of August. The despatch in which it is minutely described was written on the 20th of October. There is reason to believe that the Ambassador drew his information from an eye-witness of what passed. ' As the King was about to leave the Council Board/ writes Gondomar, ' Somerset made to him a speech which, as I was told, had been preconcerted between them. He said that the malice of his enemies had forced him to ask for a pardon ; adduced arguments of his innocency ; and then besought the King to command the Chancellor to declare at once what he had to allege against him, or else to put the seal to the pardon. The King, without permitting anything to be spoken, said a great deal in Somerset's praise ; asserted that the Earl had acted rightly in asking for a pardon, which it was a pleasure to himself to grant — although the Earl would certainly stand in no need of it in his days — on the Prince's account, who was then present.' Here, writes Gondomar, the King placed his hand on the Prince's shoulder, and added — ' That he may not undo what I have done.' Then, turning to the Chancellor, the King ended with the words : ' And so, my Lord Chancellor, put the seal to it ; for such is my will.' The Chancellor, instead of obeying, threw himself on his LIFE OF SIE KOBEE.T COTTON. 77 knees, told the King that the pardon was so widely drawn booki, that it made Somerset (as Lord Chamberlain) absolute life of master of ' jewels, hangings, tapestry, and of all that ^ TI ^ m '' the palace contained; seeing that no account was to be demanded of him for anything. 5 And then, the Chancellor added : ' If your Majesty insists upon it, I entreat you to grant me a pardon also for passing it ; otherwise I can- not do it.' On this the King grew angry, and with the words, ' I order you to pass it, and you must pass it," left the Council Chamber. His departure in a rage, before the pardon was sealed, gave Somerset's enemies another opportunity by which they did not fail to profit. They had the Queen on their side. On that very day, too, the King set out on a progress, long before arranged. For the time the matter dropped. Before the Ambassador of Spain took up his pen to tell the story to his Court, Villiers, ' the new favourite,' had begun to supplant his rival ; so that the same despatch which narrates the beginnings of the fall of Somerset, tells also of the first stage in the rapid rise of Buckingham. About a month after this wrangling at the Council Board, Somerset again advised with Sir Robert Cotton pamok on the same subject. Cotton recommended him to have £*^ * BY the Pardon renewed ; saying to the Earl, ' In respect you 1615 > Sept have received some disgrace in the opinion of the world, in having passed ' [*'. e. missed] ' that pardon which in the ^fj^f" summer vou desired, and seeing there be many precedents *«•* °/ J ° pit Somerset. of larger pardons, I would have you get one alter the largest (ms.e ho precedent ; that so, by that addition, you may recover your honour.' Strangely as these closing words now sound, in relation to such a matter, they seem to embody both the feeling and the practice of the times. In another version of the proceedings at the trial of May, 78 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. H. Life of Str Robket Cotton* MS. Report of Trial (E. H.). 1616, Somerset is represented as using in the course of his defence these words : ' To Sir Robert Cotton I referred the whole drawing and despatch of the Pardon.' And again : ' I first sought the Pardon by the motion and per- suasion of Sir Robert Cotton, who told me in what dangers great persons honoured with so many royal favours had stood, in former times.' Sir Robert's own account of this and of many correlative matters of a still graver sort has come down to us only in garbled fragments and extracts from his examinations, such as it suited the pur- poses of the law-officers of the Crown to make use of, after their fashion. The original documents were as care- fully suppressed, as Cotton's appearance in person at the subsequent trial was effectually hindered. At that day it was held to be an unanswerable reason for the non-appear- ance of a witness, — whatever the weight of his testimony, — to allege that he was regarded by the Crown as ' a delin- quent,' and could not, therefore, be publicly questioned upon ' matters of State.' There is little cause to marvel that a scrutinising reader of the State Trials (in their published form) is continually in doubt whether what he reads ought to be regarded as sober history, or as wild and, it may be, venomous romance. One other incident of 1615 needs to be noticed before we proceed to the catastrophe of the Gondomar story. In May of this year Sir Robert wrote a letter to Prince Charles, which is notable for the contrasted advice, in respect to warlike pursuits, which it proffers to the new Prince, from that more famous advice which had but ...to certain recently been offered to his late brother. He had Jl.'cAprii, ' lately found, he tells Prince Charles, a very ancient volume 1609) - containing the, principal passages of affairs between the 1615. May 24. Comp. MS. Cott. Cleop. F. Ti, § 1. LIFE OP SIR ROBERT COTTON. 79 two kingdoms of England and France under the reigns of book i, King Henry the Third and King Henry the Fij?th, and S' had caused a friend of his to abstract from it the main ^ eKoei;et COTTON. grounds of the claim of the Kings of England to the Crown of Erance ; translating the original Latin into English. This he now dedicates to the Prince, ' as a piece of evidence concerning that title which, at the time when God hath appointed, shall come unto you.' He ends his letter in a strain more than usually rhetorical : — ' This title hath heretofore been pleaded in France, as well by ordinary arguments of civil and common law, as also by more sharp syllogisms of cannons in the field. There have your noble ancestors, Kings of this realm, often argued in arms ; there have been their large chases ; there, their pleasant walks ; there have they hewed honour out of the sides of their enemies; there — in default of peace- SiiRC °tt<> n 1 to Prince able justice — they have carried the cause by sentence of charies. the sword. God grant that your Highness may, both in zm.'fXt) virtues and victories, not only imitate, but far excel them.' j^') The royal commission for the first examination of Cotton The ^"e to Archbishop was issued on the 26th of October, 1615. Two months ofcanter- afterwards he was committed to the custody of one of the ^ s & Aldermen of London. His library and papers were also Coms P- v i- l. James I, searched. ™i.taxvi, § 16. Cotton's accusation was that of having communicated cr.ho papers and secrets of State to the Spanish Ambassador.' He was subjected to repeated examinations, which (as we have seen) are extant only in part. He maintained his innocence of all intentional offence. ' The King,' he said, * gave me instruction to speak as I did. If I misunderstood His Majesty my fault was involuntary. I followed the Jan.-A P rii. King's instruction to the best of my belief and recollection.' Cotton's EXAMINA- TIONS BY Commission Life ov Sir Robert Cotton. 80 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, The examiners, however, were more intent by far on extracting something from Cotton that would tell against Somerset, than on the punishment of the fallen favourite's ally and agent. Coke, in particular, was indefatigable in the task. It was as congenial to him as was the study of Bracton or of Littleton. What then must have been his delight when, — whilst at- tending a sermon at Paul's Cross, — word was brought to him which gave hope of a discovery of Somerset's most secret correspondence ? The pending proceedings had stirred men's minds in city and suburb, as well as at Court. A London merchant had been asked, a little while before, to take into his charge a box of papers. The depositor was a woman of the middle class, with whom his acquaintance was but slight. At that time there was nothing in the incident to excite suspicion. But, at a moment when strange rumours were afloat, the depositor suddenly requested the return of the deposit. The merchant bethought himself that the circumstances now looked mysterious. If the papers should chance to bear on matters of State, to have had any concern with them, howsoever innocent, might be dangerous. He carried the box to Sir Edward Coke's chambers. Not a moment was lost in apprising the absent lawyer of the incident. Such news was of more interest than the sermon. Probably, the preacher had not finished his exordium, before all the faculties of Coke and of a fellow -commissioner were bent on the letters which had passed between Somerset and Northampton. If Gondomar is to be believed, some secret papers belonging to King James himself were part of the precious spoil.* * ' Por diferentes vias le confirmado que contra el Conde [Somerset] no se averigua cosa de sustancia en lo de la muerte del Ovarberi ; y de la del Principe [Henry, Prince of Wales,] no ha permetido SET'S COBBE- SPON DEUCE. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 81 As usual, there are two accounts of the original secretor booki, of the papers so opportunely discovered. According to one lui'o"' of them, the box was delivered by Somerset's own order sibRobeet * Cotton. to the woman by whom it was carried to the London merchant. According to another, Somerset entrusted the cotton's _. Ill ■ • • 1 l DEALINGS papers to Cotton ; and the latter, anticipating the search withsome* and sealing up of his library, gave them to a female acquaintance with whom he thought they would remain in i6is. safety, but whose own fears led her to shift their custody, in her turn. That the letters which Northampton had received from Somerset — containing, amongst many other things, numerous references to the imprisonment of Overbury in the Tower — had been in Sir Robert Cotton's hands is unquestioned. After Northampton's death, Cotton, to use his own words, had been ' permitted to peruse and oversee all the writings, books, &c. in the Earl's study.' In the course of this examination he proceeds to say, ' I had collected thirty several letters of my Lord of Somerset to the Earl of Northampton, which, upon request, I delivered to my Lord Treasurer [the Earl of Suffolk,] who sent them to the Earl of Somerset.' Suffolk, it is to be remembered, was Northampton's heir. Thus far, no charge rests upon Cotton in relation to this correspondence. What he did in disposing of Somerset's el Rey que se liable en ella ; y todo lo demas probado hasta agora viene a parar en que dio un deereto antes que le prendiesen, para recojer unos papeles, diziendo que era orden del Key, sin haverla tenido para ello. Fue lo que causo su prision, y el aver entregado despues todos los papeles que tenia de importancia, con algunas joyas, a un amigo suyo [Sir Robert Cotton], para que lo guardase que se eoxieron. Y el Bey ha sentido mjmito que se ay an visto algunos papeles que havia suyospara el Conde, . . . y assicarga agora toda la yra sobre el Conde,' &c. Gondomar to Philip III, — Simaneas MS. 2595, f . 23 ; and in Ardhaologia (by Gardi- ner), vol. xli, p. 29. 6 82 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. II. Life of Sib Robert Cotton. Extracts of Examina- tions, &c. (E. H.). letters was done by order of the representatives of their deceased owner. It is far otherwise with respect to their treatment after they had repassed, by Suffolk's gift, into the hands of Somerset, their writer. The letters were undated. That they should be so was in accordance with the practice of a majority of the letter- writers of the time — as students of history know to their sorrow. When suspicion was aroused and inquiry com- menced about the real cause of Overbury's death, Cotton's advice was sought by Somerset. He told me, says Somerset himself : ' These letters of your's may be dated, so as may clear you of all imputation.' Did he mean that the dates might be forged, and so be made to bear false witness ? Or did he mean that, by putting their true dates to the letters, their contents would exculpate an innocent man ? To these questions there is absolutely no answer, save the presumptive answer of character.* * On this point, it is my wish, to leave the reader to form his own estimate of probabilities. Probabilities, only, are attainable ; and I have no side to take, in any attempt to weigh them. But it may be well to ask the reader's attention to a passage in the Diary of a contemporary of Sir R. Cotton, a man of high character, and one who sat by Cotton's side in Parliament, fighting with him for the liberties of England, during many years ; one who is also remarkable for speaking about the faults of his friends with abundant candour. ' Sir Robert Cotton, being highly esteemed by the Earl of Somerset, . . . was acquainted with this murder [of Overbury] by him, a little before it now came to light, and had advised him what he took to be the best course for his safety.' This passage occurs in the private diary of Sir Symonds D'Ewes — ' a man,' says a great writer, ' of somewhat Grandisonian ways, a man of ' scrupulous Puritan integrity, of high flown conscientiousness, . . . ambitious to be the pink of Christian country gentlemen, (Carlyle's Essays, iv, 297.) This ' scrupulous Puritan' knew all that was current about the terrible ' Great Oyer of Poisoning,' as Sir Edward Coke called it. He lived in familiar intercourse with Cotton, and regarded their long acquaintance as an honour to himself ; whilst speaking freely about certain social habits and limitations — neither Grandisonian or Puritanic— on Cotton's part, LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 83 Whatever may be our estimate of the difficulty attending book i, on the admission of such exculpation as that, in respect of a imoi charge which amounts (in substance) to participation, after cottom! est the fact, in the crime of murder, there is really now no alternative. That Sir Robert Cotton put dates to Somer- set's undated letters is certain. It was found to be abso- lutely impossible, after desperate effort, to prove that the dates were false. It is alike impossible to prove that they are true. These dates are in Cotton's own hand, without any attempt to disguise it. Upon the hypothesis of Somerset's guilt, the question is beset with as much difficulty, as upon the hypothesis of his innocence. By procuring Overburt's imprisonment — with whatever motive, or beneath whatever influence — Somerset had brought himself under inevitable suspicion of complicity in the ultimate result of that imprisonment. He was already within the web. His struggles made it only the more tangled. Sir Robert Cotton remained in custody until the mid- dle of the year 1616. He was effectually prevented from appearing in May of that year as a witness at his friend's £»»««« trial. He was himself put to no form of trial whatever. But James i, he had to purchase his pardon at the price of five hundred twoTa). pounds. It received the Great Seal on the 16th July. Remembering Bacon's share in each stage of the proceed- Bacon to iii-i pi Villiers, ings against Somerset, and the lavishness of his pro- iw>.i;aini April 18; 1616. as precluding their intercourse from ripening into that close friendship which such a man as D'Ewes could form only with men likeminded with himself on the highest interests of humanity. Is it not easy to infer — and is not the inference also inevitable — that by the fact of Somerset 'acquainting Cotton with the murder of Overbury a little before' it became public, and advising him as to ' the course for his safety,' D'Ewes understood such a communication and such advice as are entirely compatible with Somerset's innocence of his wife's crime P 84 EARLY COLLECTOES. Book I, Chap. II. LlJPE OF SlU IlOEEIlT Cottom. E. Bolton to Sir E.Cotton j Cott. MS. Julius C, iii, fol. 32. (B. M.) fessions to Villiers of the extreme delight he felt in following the lead of the new favourite throughout every step of the prosecution of the old one, it is suggestive to note that the framers, five years afterwards, of a pardon for the Lord Chancellor Bacon were directed to follow the precedent of the pardon granted in July 1616 to Sir Robert Cotton. Nor is it of less interest to observe that, to some of Sir Robert Cotton's closest friends, it seemed — at the moment when every part of the matter was fresh in men's minds — that it was much more needful for him to exonerate himself from a suspicion of having stood beside Somerset too luke- warmly, than to clear himself from the charge of com- mitting a forgery in order to cloke a murder. Very significant, for example, are the words of one of those friends which I find in a letter addressed to Cotton on the very day on which his pardon passed the Great Seal : — ' If I say I rejoice and gratulate to you your return to your own house, as I did lament your captivity, . . it will easily be credited. . . . The unsureness of this collusive world, and the danger of great friendships, you have already felt ; and may truly say, with holy David, Nolite fdere in principibus As I hear, you have begun to make good use of it, by receiving to you your Lady which God himself had knit unto you. It is a piety for which you are commended. And, were it not for one thing I should think my comfort in you were complete. . . . It is said you were not sufficiently sincere to your most trusting friend, the pitied Earl. Though I hold this a slander, yet being not able to make particular defences, I opposed my general protestation against it as an injury to my friend. Yet wanting apt countermines to meet with those close works by which some seek to blow up a breach into your honour, I was not a little afflicted. . . . fol.l. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 85 I leave the arming of me in this cause to your own booki, , , ° ' Chap. n. pleasure. to 0T The caution as to the danger of the friendships of c^ro™™ grandees and great favourites was one which Cotton took to heart. In the years to come he had occasionally to give critical advice, in critical junctures. But, in the true sense of the words, he learnt, at last, not to put his trust in Princes. Long before his acquaintance with Somerset and his private conferences with James, a very true and dear friend had noted a dangerous proclivity in Sir Robert's character. It prompted, 'by way of counsel, the words : 'Be yourself; and no man's creature; but [only] God's. ^ r ^ toSir And so He will prosper all your designs, both to his glory »• cotton: - , , Cott. MS. and your good. Mi™ a, in. That ply had been taken too deeply, however, to be very easily smoothed out. In the years to come Sir Robert Cotton approached — more than once, perhaps — the brink of the old peril. As Buckingham clomb higher and higher, and busied himself with many transactions of the nature of which he had but a very insecure mental grasp, he felt his need of the counsels of experienced men. He made occa- sional advances to Cotton, amongst others. They were met ; and not always so warily, as might now have been expected. But against the danger which over-confiding intercourse with too-powerful courtiers was sure to bring in its train, Cotton found a better safeguard in wounded self-esteem, than even in dearbought experience. He soon saw that in Buckingham's character there was at least as much of vacillation as of versatility. The famous lines which describe the son as A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome, 86 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, would have a spice of truth if applied to the father. But Lira oi their applicability is only partial ; whereas the lines which c ™ BEET follow are almost as true — a single word excepted — of the first Duke of Buckingham as they were of the second — Stiff in opinions ; often in the wrong ; He's everything by starts, and nothing long. When Sir Robert Cotton perceived that James's new favourite would listen, in the morning, to grave advice on a grave subject, and affirm his resolution to act upon it ; and yet, in the afternoon suffer himself to be carried from his pur- pose by the silly jests or malicious suggestions of youngsters and sycophants, unacquainted with affairs and often reck- less of consequences, he saw the wisdom of standing some- what aloof. He rarely, however, refused his advice, when it was asked. In regard to matters of naval adminis- tration, — the authoritative value of his opinion on which was now everywhere recognised, save in the dockyards and their dependencies, — he gave it with especial willingness. But henceforward, to use Agarde's words, he was 'no man's creature.' Five years passed on, marked by events which stirred England to its core, but to Sir Robert Cotton they were years of comparative quiet. He was, indeed, very far from being a careless bystander. He observed much, and learnt much. Had it not been for the lessons which those pub- licly eventful years impressed on his receptive mind, he might have gone to his grave with no other reputation than that of a profound antiquary, and the Founder of the Gkowth or — , , . t i- >i cotton's Cottonian Library. a™pdbIic Meanwhile, his pen worked as hard in the service of cobkk- scholars, both at home and abroad, as though he had been a SPOMOKNCE Sir Robeet Cotton. LIFE OF SIR EOBERT COTTON. 87 busy proof-reader in a leading printing-office. He supplied, booki, at the same time, on the right hand and on the left, precedents l^c and formulae, with a diligence and readiness which would have won both fame and fortune for a long-accustomed conveyancer. Camden consults him, continually, for help in his historical labours. Ben Jonson puts questions to him about intricate points of Roman geography. William Lisle seeks Cotton's aid in the prosecution of his studies ms. cott., of the language and literature of the Anglo-Saxons, foi.239.' Peiresc consults him on questions in Numismatics. If k,M.288, great officers of State chance to quarrel amongst themselves MM- about their respective claims to carry before the King the sword Curtana, at some special ceremony, they agree to Domestic refer the dispute to Sir Robert Cotton and to abide — with- j^jfvoi. out fighting a duel — by his momentous decision. If a ^If? 15 ' courtier obtains for a friend the royal promise of an Irish viscounty he writes to Cotton, asking him to choose an appropriate and well-sounding title. Roger Mayn waring begs him to determine the legal amount of burial-fees. ms. cott., Dr. Lambe asks him to settle conflicting pretensions to the foi.378. ' m ' advowson of a living which, in old time, belonged to an «.,foi.252. abbey. Augustine Vincent implores his help in a tough question about patents of peerage. The Lord Keeper u.,foi.379. Williams seeks advice on questions of parliamentary form and privilege. Ralegh writes to him, from that ' Bloody Tower' which he was about to turn into a literary shrine ?J Tard ?V ^ . Life and Let- for all generations of Englishmen to come, by composing in S e |( YoL it a noble 'History of the World'— beseeching him to U,P ' 33L supply a desolate prisoner with historical materials. The Earl of Arundel writes to him from Padua, begging that £f fSl c ' he would compile ' the story of my ancestors/ The Earl of Dorset entreats him to make out a list of the gifts which some early Sackville had piously bestowed upon the /}.,f i.s2o. 88 EAELT COLLECTORS. book i, Church — not, however, with the smallest intention of himself life of increasing them. And, anon, there comes to Sir Robert, £££T from a third great peer, the second of the Cecil Earls of Salisbury, an entreaty — expressed in terms so urgent that one might call it a supplication — ' Permit me, I pray you, cM^L ta to see m y Lord of Northampton's letters .... I will ms. cott., return them unread, and unseen, by anybody/ save himself. Julius C, iii. . . And then the Secretary of State writes to him in an im- petuous hurry which made his letter scarcely legible : — ' If you be not here' [i. e. at the Council Chamber] ' with those ms. cott., precedents for which there is present use, we are all Julius C, iii, foi.57. undone. For His Majesty doth so chide, that I dare not come in his sight.' Along with this busy correspondence — of which, in these brief sentences I have given the reader but a very inade- quate and scanty sample — the surviving records of these years of comparative retirement supply us with abundant notices of the growth and of the sources, from time to time, of the Cottonian Library. It would be no unwelcome task to tell that story at length. It would, indeed, be but the paying, in very humble coin, of a debt of gratitude to a liberal benefactor. But within the compass of these pages so many careers have to be narrated that the due propor- tions of some of them — and even of one so interesting as Cotton's — must needs be closely shorn. On this point it must, for the present, suffice to say that the acquisition of many Cottonian State Papers, and of such as carry on their face the most irrefragable marks of former official ownership, can be distinctly traced. The assertion is no hasty or inconsiderate one. It is founded on an acquaint- ance with the Cottonian MSS., which is now, I fear, thirty years old, and on the strength of which (when reading some recent assaults on the fair fame of their Collector;, I LIFE OF SIR EOBEET COTTON. 89 have been tempted to put certain well-known lines into Sir booki, Robert's mouth : — wTo* Sib Robert If I am ColTON - Traduced by o'er hasty tongues — which neither know My faculties nor person, yet will be The chroniclers of my doing — let me say "lis but the fate of place, and the rough brake That virtue must go through. Were it not, however, for one pregnant circumstance in Sir Robert Cotton's subsequent life, all this would have but a very meager attractiveness for nineteenth-century readers. The story of the growth of a great library has its charm, but the sphere of potency is of small dimension. Few but those who are themselves imbued with a spice of literary antiquarianism ever enter within the narrow circle. Just in like manner, that active literary and political corre- spondence—spreading from Exeter to Durham, and from Venice to Copenhagen — would nowadays have but a slender interest for anybody (not belonging to the scorned fraternity of Oldbuck and Dryasdust), were it not for that great war between King and Parliament, Cavalier and Roundhead, of which, in one sense, Cotton lived only long enough to see the gathering of forces, and the early skirmishes, but in which, nevertheless, he played a part second only to that played by Eliot and by Pym. His close connection with the Parliamentarian leaders of 1625- 1629 lifts the whole story of the man out of the petty circuit of mere ' curiosities of literature/ into the broad arena of the hard-won liberties of England. All students of the deeds done in that arena now know cottons — and their knowledge is in no slight degree due to the ti™™ persistent labours of a living writer — that the battle of the v**"****- F O TABIAN ' Petition of Right ' was even a greater battle than Naseby chiefs. 90 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, or Marston Moor. They know that the marshalling of the lipe op forces which, at a period antecedent to that famous Petition, cotto™ e11t succeeded in winning a safe place on ' the fleshy tables ' of the hearts of Englishmen for those political immunities it embodied — after the first written record had been vainly torn from the Council Book — was a feat of arms not less bril- liant, in its way, than was that arraying of Ironsides, on much later days of the long strife, which resulted in 'Darwen stream with blood of Scots imbued/ and placed Worcester's laureat wreath on the brow of Cromwell. There are many senses in which we have all of us (or nearly all) learnt to see the truth of the familiar words, ' Peace hath her victo- ries, not less renown'd than War/ but in no sense have those words a deeper truth than when we simply invert Milton's own application of them. By him they were pointed at something yet to be done, and which, as he hoped, might be done by Cromwell. Nowadays, the his- torian has good ground to point them at an earlier victory, won when the great soldier was but looking on at the parliamentary contest, which he could not much advance, and might very possibly have seriously impeded. The one thing which has transmuted Robert Cotton from the status of a dead antiquary into that of a living English worthy, is his close fellowship with Eliot, Rtjdyard, and Ptm. His rights to a place amongst our national worthies is due — more than all else — to the fact that the services which he rendered in that strife of heroes were services which one man, and only one, throughout broad England had made himself capable of rendering. Cotton could no more have led the parliamentary phalanx, than he could have led the Ironsides. To stir men's minds as Eliot or Pym could stir them was about as much in his power as it was to have invented logarithms, or to have written 'Lear' LIFE OF SIR EOBERT COTTON. 91 But if he could not command the army, he could furnish the booki, arsenal. At that day and under the then circumstances L mop' that service was priceless. co™™™ 1 Sir Robert Cotton's best and most memorable parlia- mentary service was rendered under Charles ; not under James. But there is one incident in his public career which occurred just before the change in the wearers of the Crown that has a claim to mention, even in so brief a memoir as this. Among the revenges wrought by the ' whirligigs of time' before James went to his grave, was the necessity laid upon him to direct a search for precedents how best to put a mark of disgrace on a Spanish Ambassador for misconduct in his office. The man selected by the Duke of Bucking- ham to make the search, and to report upon it, was Sir Robert Cotton. Some weeks before he had been chosen to draw up, in the name of both Houses of Parliament, a formal address to the King for the rupture of the Spanish match. When Buckingham made that famous speech at the theseabch TOEPBECE- Conference of Lords and Commons on the relations be- dents tween England and Spain, to which Cotton's well-known ^^ Eemonstrance of the treaties of Amity and Marriage of the SAB0HS - Houses of Austria and Spain with the Kings of England,* was to serve as a preface, he spoke with considerable force and incisiveness. His arguments were not hampered im - . by many anxieties about consistency with his own antece- * Such is the title in Cottoni Posthuma. In MS. Harl. 180 — appa- rently given by Cotton himself to Sir S. D'Ewes — the title is ' A Decla- ration against the Matche,' &c. In that copy, this note occurs at the end, in Sir Symonds' hand : — ' Thus far only, as Sir Robert Cotton himself told me, he proceeded ; leaving the rest to be added . . . according to the relation . . declared before the greater part of both Houses by . . . the Dufce of Buckingham.'— MS. Harl. 180, fol. 169. 92 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, dents. His words were chosen with a view to clinch his toiH 1, arguments to English minds rather than to spare Spanish c™™T m susceptibilities. The ambassadors — there were then, I think, two of them — were furious at a degree of plain- speaking to which they had been little accustomed. They appealed to the King. They knew that the versatile favourite, once loved, was now dreaded. They tried to work on the King's cowardice. The Duke, they told His Majesty, had plotted the calling of Parliament expressly to have a sure tool with which to keep him in control, should he prove refractory to the joint schemes of the Duke and Prince Charles. ' They will confine your Majesty's sacred person,' said they, ' to some place of pleasure, and transfer the regal power upon the Prince.' The framing of such an accusation, writes Sir Robert, in the Report which he addressed to Bdckingham on ' Pro- ceedings against Ambassadors who have miscarried them- selves,' would, by the laws of the realm, amount to High Treason, had it been made by a subject. He then adduces a long string of precedents for the treatment of offending envoys ; advises that the Spaniards should first be imme- diately confined to their own abode ; and should then, by Beiatwn of the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament, in person, be «K; ms. ' exhorted and required to ' make a fair discovery of the s-Tss^m 1 ' ground that led them so to inform the King.' If, says Sir Robert, they refuse — ' as I believe they will ' — then are they authors of the scandal, and His Majesty should be addressed to send a ' letter of complaint to the King of Spain, requiring justice to be done according to the law of nations, which claim should the King of Spain re- fuse, the refusal would amount to a declaration of war.' This advice was given by Cotton to the Duke on the 27th of April, 1624. Its author's momentary favour with the LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 93 favourite of the now fast-rising sun was destined (as we shall booki, see presently) to be of extremely brief duration. life or Pen-service of this sort was eminently congenial with co™™™ 1 Sir Robert Cotton's powers. To his vast knowledge of precedents he added much acumen and just insight in their application. Though never admitted to the Privy Council as a sworn councillor of the Crown, his service as an adviser on several great emergencies was conspicuous. And it did not stand alone. Small as were his natural gifts for oratory, Cotton's earnestness in the strife of politics prompted him, more than once, to put aside his own sense of his disadvantages, and to endeavour him- self to strike a good blow, with the weapons which he knew Cotton ' s Speech in so well how to choose for others. On one of these occa- thepablia- sions he prepared a speech which proved very effective. oxfom>. Curiously enough, whilst the best contemporary reports of that speech agree amongst themselves in substance: 1625 - r ° D 10 August. they differ as to the name of the speaker by whom it was actually uttered within the walls of the House of Commons. Internal evidence and external authority are also agreed that the speech, if not spoken, was at all events prepared by Sir Robert Cotton. On that point, all parties coincide. But according to one account, he both wrote and uttered it. According to another, he wrote it ; but was prevented from the intended delivery, — either by an accidental absence from the House, or by some inward and un- waivable misgiving which led him at the eleventh hour to hand over the task to the able and well-accustomed tongue of his comrade Eliot. If we turn, for help — in our strait — to the admirable cottoh's? .ok Eliot's ? biography of Eliot, by Mr. Eorster, we shall find that its author rather accepts the doubt, than solves it. Inclining 94 EAELT COLLECTOES. book i, to the opinion that Sir John Eliot was the actual utterer, life or he thinks nevertheless that the best course is to ' let the co™™™ 1 speech stand double and inseparable ; a memorial of a fast friendship.' It was the friendship, I may add, of two states- men who fought a good fight, side by side ; until one of them was violently torn out of the arena, and thrust into a dungeon, in the hope that slow disease might unstring the eloquent tongue which honours could not bribe, and terrors could not silence. In Sir Robert's posthumous tracts (as they were pub- lished by James Howell) this speech has been printed as unquestionably spoken by him who wrote it. But that publication — as I have had occasion to show already, in relation to the ' Twenty-four Arguments ' — carries no grain of authority. Spoken or simply composed by its author, the speech is alike memorable in English history, and in the personal life of the man himself. The existence of the plague in London had led to the adjournment of the first Parliament of King Charles to Oxford. It was there, and on the 10th of August, 1625, that the speech which — whether it came from the lips of John Eliot or of Robert Cotton — made a deep impression on the House, was spoken. It gave the key-note to not a few speeches of a subsequent date, and it contains passages which, in the event, came to have on their face something of the stamp of prophecy. Retrenchment in expenditure, — Parliamentary curb on Royal favourites, — No trust of a transcendent power to any one Minister, — Less lavishness in the bestowal of honours and dignities won by suit, or purchase, rather than by public meed, — Wary distrust of Spain, — Abolition of unjust monopolies and oppressive imposts ; — these are amongst the earnest counsels which (whether it were as LIFE OP SIE EOBERT COTTON. 95 writer, or as speaker) Sir Robert Cotton impressed on his booki, fellow -members in that memorable sitting at Oxford. Both SI' the pith and the sting of the Speech may be found in its c^"™ concluding words : ' His Majesty hath . . . wise, religious, and worthy servants. ... In loyal duty, we offer our humble desires that he would be pleased to advise with them together ; . . . riot with young and single counsel' Well would it have been for Charles, had he taken those simple words to heart, in good time. To us, and now, there is a special interest in an inci- dental passage of this speech which relates to Somerset. The reader has seen how Count Gondomar's secret testi- mony — just disinterred from Simancas — against Somerset, as well as against Cotton, has recently been dealt with by an eminent historian. It is worth our while to remember (See, also, heretofore, some other words on that subject spoken publicly in the ^ ef ^ ote Parliament at Oxford almost two centuries and a half agone. They were spoken in the ears of men whose eyes had looked with keen scrutiny into the Spanish envoy as well as into the English minister. Somerset was still living. Men who then sat in the Parliament Chamber knew every incident in his official life, and not a few incidents in his private life, as well as every charge by which — publicly or privately — he had been infamed. They knew, exactly, Sir Robert Cotton's position towards the fallen minister. If we choose to suppose that Eliot was now speaking what Cotton wrote, the inference is unchanged. To those listeners Sir John and Sir Robert were known to be poli- tically ' double and inseparable.' The facts being so, what is the course taken by the cotton's speaker when he finds occasion to remind the House of lord things that happened when 'My Lord of Somerset stood ° in state of grace, and had the trust of the Signet Seal ?' Somebset's POLICY (August, 1625). 96 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, Does he take a line of apology and use words of extenu- lhe of' ation ? Not a whit. In the presence of some of the wisest co™°iT ET an( * a blest of English statesmen, he eulogises Somerset as an honest and unselfish minister of the Crown. He asserts, that the Earl had discovered ' the double dealings' of Spanish emissaries, and the dangers of the Spanish alliance ; and had made some progress in dissuading even King James from putting faith in Spaniards. Then, wind- ing up this episode, in order to pass to the topic of the hour, Cotton says : ' Thus stood the effect of Somerset's power with His Majesty, when the clouds of his misfortune fell upon him. What future advisers led to we may well remember. The marriage with Spain was renewed ; Gondomar declared an honest man ; Popery heartened ; His Majesty's forces in the Palatinate withdrawn ; His Highness's children stripped of their patrimony ; our old and fast allies disheartened ; and the King our now master msxabsd.* exposed to so great a peril as no wise and faithful counsel 49i,foi.i95. wou i(j ever have advised.' At Court, speech such as this was deeply resented, instead of being turned to profit. A curious little incident which occurred at the Coronation of Charles in the next winter testifies, characteristically, to the effect which it produced on the minds both of the new King and of his favourite. At the date of that ceremony, Sir Robert's close political connection with the future Parliamentary chiefs was but in its infancy. His views of public policy were fast ripening, and had borne fruit. His private friendships were more and more shaping themselves into accordance with his tendencies * There is another MS. of this speech, in Sir John Eliot's hand, in the library at Port Eliot. See Eorster's Life of Eliot, Yol. T, p. 413. LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 97 in politics. Amongst those whose intimacy he cultivated — boo^i, besides that of Eliot and others who have been mentioned idem' already — were Symonds D'Ewes, and John Selden. It c'omoT^ was at Cotton's hospitable table, in Old Palace Yard, that fmends the two men last named first made acquaintance with each plum's. other. Both were scholars ; both were strongly imbued with the true antiquarian tinge ; both had an extensive acquaintance with the black-letter lore of jurisprudence, as well as with the more elegant branches of archaeology; and both, up to a certain point, had common aims in public life ; yet they did not draw very near together. Selden 's more robust mind, and his wider sympathies, shocked some of the puritanic nicenesses of D'Ewes. Precisely the same remark would hold good of the relations between Cotton and D'Ewes. But a certain geniality of manners in Sir Robert, combined with his grandee-like openness of hand and mind, attracted his fellow-baronet in a degree which went some way towards vanquishing D'Ewes' most ingrained scruples. ' I had much more familiarity with Sir Robert Cotton, than with Master Selden,' jots down Sir Symonds in his Autobiographic Diary, and then he HarlMS -- adds : ' Selden being a man exceedingly puffed up with the apprehension of his own abilities.' That last sentence, — as the reader, perhaps, will agree with me in thinking, — may possibly tell a more veracious tale of the writer, than of the man whom it reproves. Be that as it may, the dining-room in Old Palace Yard witnessed frequent meetings of many groups of visitors of whose tabletalk it would be delightful could we find as good a record as we have of the tabletalk in Bolt Court, or at Streatham Park; or even as we have of almost con- temporary talk around the board at Hawthornden. Glorious old Ben himself was a frequent guest at Sir Robert Cotton's 7 98 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, table. Until late in James' reign, Camden, when his lim'ot' growing infirmities permitted him to journey up from cmtoT™ Chislehurst, would still be seen there, now and again. During the rare sessions of Parliament, many a famous member, as he left the House of Commons, would join the circle. And the high discourse about Greeks and Romans, about poetry and archaeology, would be pleasantly varied, by the newest themes of politics, by occasional threnodies on the exorbitant power of court minions, but also by occasional and glowing anticipations of a better time to come. At one of these festive meetings, occurring not long before the Coronation of Charles the First, the talk seems to have turned, on the coming solemnity. The plague coiton and a t this time was still in London, though it was fast abating. THE COBO- . „ D nation or That circumstance was to abridge the ceremonies, in order to permit the Court to leave Westminster more quickly; but it was known that great attention had been given by the King, personally, when framing the programme, to the strict observance of ancient forms. D'Ewes was one of Sir Robert's guests. Like his host, he had a great love for sight-seeing on public occasions. And they would both anticipate a special pleasure in witnessing the revival of certain coronation observances which had been preter- mitted during two centuries. In regard to the coronation oath Cotton had been consulted, and he expected to be present, carrying in his hand his own famous copy of the Gospels known as the ' Boangeliary of King Mhelstan.' It was also expected that the Watergate of Cotton House would be the King's landing-place, and that he would cross the garden in order that he might enter the Palace more conveniently than he could from its usual stairs, then under repair, or in need of it. Sir Robert invited D'Ewes, with LIFE OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 99 other of his guests — not privileged to claim places in West- Booni, minster Abbey on the great occasion — that at least they lifeo*' • l . i.i" • l i ± j_ 1 i ■ Sir Robert might see their new sovereign, as he passed to take his C oiton. crown. When the morning came D'Ewes was early in his visit, but he found Cotton House already filled with ladies. The Earl Marshal had decorated the stairs to the river and the Watergate very handsomely. Sir Robert had done his part by decorating his windows, and his garden, more hand- somely still. But to the chagrin alike of the fair spectators and of their host, as they were standing, in all their bravery, from Watergate to housedoor, to do respectful obeisance, the royal barge, by the King's own command- ment — given at the moment, but pre-arranged by Buck- ingham — was urged onward. To our amazement, writes Sir Symonds, ' we saw the King's barge pass to the ordinary stairs, belonging to the backyard of the Palace, where the landing was dirty . . and the incommodity was increased by the royal barge dashing into the ground and D , Ewes . sticking fast, before it touched the causeway.' His Ma- ™ Harl - MS - ° ••ill 6«,asbefore. jesty, followed by the Eavourite, had to leap across the mud, — certainly an unusual incident in a coronation show. When Cotton — 'Swallowing the mortification which he must have felt, on behalf of his bevy of fair visitors, if not on his own — presently showed himself in the Abbey, bear- ing the Evangeliary, he and it were contemptuously thrust aside. As a straw tells the turn of the wind, this trivial inci- dent points to a policy. The insults both within the Abbey and without, had been planned, by the King and Duke, in order to mark the royal indignation at the close fellowship of Cotton with Eliot and the other Parlia- mentary leaders. That the insults might be the more 100 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, keenly felt, the Earl Marshal was left in ignorance of the imop' plan. It is a help to the truthful portraiture of Charles, co™n BEET as w&u as to tnat °f Buckingham, to note that to insult a group of English ladies was no drawback to the pleasure of putting a marked affront upon a political opponent. Per- haps, it increased the zest, from the probable near relation- ship of some among them to the offender. But it is more important to note that another and graver intention in respect to Sir Robert Cotton had been already formed. It was in contemplation to do, in 1626, what was Medeto not really done until 1629- Buckingham had advised the Ms.Hari.| King to put the royal seals on the Cottonian Library. i626 18Ap ' U ' ^at done, he thought, there would surely be an end to the communication of formidable precedents for parliamentary warfare. More wary counsellors however interposed with wiser advice. A fitting pretext was lacking. Slenderness in the pretext would be no serious obstacle to action. But some excuse there must be. The project, though aban- doned for the time, will be seen to have its value when considering, presently, the strange story which is told, in the Privy Council Book, of the 'Proposition to bridle the impertinence of Parliaments? and when narrating the sequel of that high-handed act of power, which brought Cotton's head — as yet scarcely gray — with sorrow to the grave. Although, tnus early in the reign of Charles, a court advice to insult was inflicted upon Sir Robert Cotton, after a fashion cowoilok the extreme silliness of which rather serves to set off the coinage 01 intended malignity than to cloke it, only a few months passed before his advice was called for in presence of the Council Board, on an important question of home policy. The question raised was that of an alteration of the coinage. Chap. II. Life op Sib Robert Cotton. LIFE OF SIE EOBEET COTTON. 101 The Privy Council was divided in opinion. There was a booki, desire for the advice of statesmen who were not at the Board, but who were known to have studied a subject beset with many difficulties. Among these, Sir Robert Cotton was consulted. He appeared at the Council Table on the 2nd of September, 1626, and we have a report of his speech to the Lords, which from several points of view is notable. But a preliminary word or two needs to be MS - Lamsd - •J 1 .1 ■ i • i , • «■ Ml-152. said on what may seem the singularity that a man who, m ' sir t. Puck- Majesty commanded me to say that, as he loved your father, erm K , as so he will continue his love to yourself.' The comfort of the promise could not have been great. Sir Thomas' experi- ences of the rubs of life were, however, to come chiefly from the King's opponents ; not from the King. His life was a quiet one, up to the time of the outbreak of Civil War. Until then, its most notable incidents grew out of the circumstance that it fell to his lot to serve as Sheriff of Huntingdonshire, during the busy year of ' Shipmoney.' Sir Thomas Cotton was in no danger of being tempted to follow the example of Hampden. The readiness with which he discharged the troublesome task of collecting the impost throughout his county probably laid the first founda- tion of a strong feeling of personal ill-will towards him, on the part of the lower class of the adherents of the Parlia- ment, during subsequent years. He never ranged himself with the King's party. Neither would he take any promi- 126 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. II. Life of Sie Robert Cotton. Domestic Corresp., Charles I, vol. cccxliii, §67; cccxlvi, § 115: CCCxlv, § 17 ; cccxlviii, cccl, § 40; cccttv, § 58 ; ccclxi, §104; CCClxvi, § 13 ; ccclxxi, § 58. (B, H.) The Com- mittee OF Sequestra- tions for Hunting- donshire. nent part on the side of the Parliament. He had little taste for public life ; and regarded the quarrel with the aloofness of spirit natural to a man with no dominant political con- victions, and with a decided love for country sports and for the pleasures of domesticity. He had sat in Parliament (for Marlow) during his father's lifetime, and in his father's company. His corre- spondence shows considerable talent. The extensive por- tion of that correspondence — in the years 1636 and 1637 — which was imposed on him by the Shipmoney business, shews also considerable power of dealing with official details, little as he could have liked them. It exhibits an anxiety to acquit himself conscientiously of a difficult duty, and not to shirk any of the incidents of duty merely on account of their distastefulness. In the ' Short Parliament' of 1640 he sat as member for his own county. He does not seem to have sought for any seat in the memorable Parliament which followed. His troubles began in 1644. Much to his disgust he was appointed to be one of the ' Committee of Sequestra- tions ' for Huntingdonshire. The duty was one which any English gentleman might well have disliked without incur- ring the reproach either of idleness or of undue fastidious- ness. Sir Thomas' repugnance to the work was backed by a repugnance, not less keen, to those who would fain have been his fellows in its performance. ' This County of Huntingdon ' — so he writes not long after his own nomination to an un genial office, which he refused to accept on the ground of an illness, that was far from being feigned for the occasion — 'is in an unhappy condition by Sequestrators. Only four or five men, of mean reputation and estate, are " Committees ;" and they act (all of them) as Judges, Jury, and Executioners.' His cessoks of Sir R.obeet THE SUCCESSOES OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 127 own experience was destined to become a pregnant com- booki, ment on that pithy text. thTsuc. His avoidance of all share in the task of punishing, by fine and imprisonment, those of his old friends and country cottoh. neighbours who thought that the duty of loyalty to the Crown was still a duty, however glaring the faults of the man who, for the time, wore the Crown, was the primary offence given by Sir Thomas Cotton to the busy patriots who would fain have had him work with them as a fellow- sequestrator. His illness (as I have said) was doubtless real enough ; but he also disliked the work, and took no pains to conceal his dislike. Medical advisers told him that Bedfordshire — where he also had property — was a better county than Huntingdonshire for a man who suffered from chronic ague and low fever. But Sir Thomas needed no adviser to tell him that, under the existing circum- stances of the country and the times, Eyworth would be a much more satisfactory abode than Conington for a quiet- loving man who had other duties than those of a soldier, who abhorred civil war with all his soul, and who ardently desired such a solution of the current issues as would neither make the King a mere dependent on his Parlia- ment, nor make the Parliament an absolute ruler over the kingdom. Sir Thomas went into Bedfordshire. Lady Cotton continued to abide at Conington. Very soon after his departure she received a summons, addressed to her husband, and couched exactly in these words : ' You are ims. assessed eight hundred pounds, according to an Ordinance of Parliament. The King and Parliament hath present use of these monies. Therefore, we pray you, send it up to us at . Huntingdon on Saturday next. 5 Before the receipt of this very summary ' assessment/ many of Sir Thomas Cotton's horses, with a good deal of farm produce 128 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, and other property, had been already seized, by measures the sue- more summary still. Meanwhile Sir Thomas had com- sirbobibt m itted no act of delinquency ; he had simply removed cotook. himself into another county. Payment was refused. The Pro- The sequel of the story depicts, in small, what was then theHmtfog- passing at large over much of the length and breadth of aoMhire England. The farmers on the Conington estate were told, Sequestrators ° ° at comugton. in the plainest of words, that if they did not pay their rents 'to us at Huntingdon/ their moveables would be seized and themselves treated as ' delinquents.' Execution, in those days, followed hard on process ; and little difference was made, either in word or deed, at the farms and at the manor-house. On one morning, Lady Cotton was visited in her bedchamber — before she could dress — by five troopers, who, under her own eyes, broke open her drawers and trunks, and carried off what they thought meet. On another, one of Sir Thomas' confidential servants received a similar visit ; had his papers rifled in a like fashion, and his apparel stolen. At the stables and out-offices scarcely any three days passed, during the entire summer of 1643 — from May to August — without some raid or other for plunder. For much of this there was scarcely the sem- blance or the pretext of a legal warrant. During those satur- nalia of ' liberty ' there was, virtually, no judge in England, and not a few men did whatsoever seemed good in their own eyes. Sir Thomas Cotton was old enough to remember the early stages of the long conflict of which — in 1643 — this was seemingly the upshot. In the Parliament at Oxford he had sat beside his father and his father's friends. His correspondence at this time — so far as it appears to have survived — deals merely with the passing events. It con- THE SUCCESSORS OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 129 tains, I think, no disclosure of any reflections which may booki, have crossed his mind on the principles which underlay th^suc them. He was probably shrewd enough to see already -g^™ °* that the grossness of the current abuses of popular power cot™. carried with it no scintilla of valid blame upon the first leaders in that conflict — the real issues of which were still far off. What he, in common with so many of the best gentlemen in England, was now smarting under was the consequence rather of the royal triumphs of Charles' earlier years, than of the royal defeats of his later years. Had the policy of Robert Cotton and of John Eliot pre- vailed a quarter of a century sooner, there would (very probably) have been no county committees of seques- trators ; no political scaffolds at Whitehall ; no ruling of England by brute force under artificers suddenly trans- , formed into generals ; no wholesale massacres in Ireland, fraught with mischief for the whole empire during centuries to come. Be that however as it may, things were not yet at so bad a pass, but that a curb could, now and then, be put on the necks of such busy patriots as those who sat in per- petual Committee at Huntingdon. Redress was im- possible; seeing that the plunder was dissipated almost as fast as it was made. But, in Sir Thomas Cotton's case, it was found practicable to put a check on its progress. He invoked the aid of a powerful friend, Henry, Earl of Manchester, who represented the authority of the Parliament in Huntingdonshire. The Earl sum- moned the Sequestrators to show cause for their raids on Conington. He held a court. The new functionaries were brought — after some ineffectual bluster — to confess that they knew of no act done by Cotton which brought 9 130 EARLY COLLECTOES. j3ooki, him within purview of the Parliamentary Ordinance, nor of the sic- any other legal cause to subject him to sequestration. As cessoeso* ^g wor( j s f confession were on the lips of one active Sie Robert l cotton. Committee-man, another functionary blurted out — most Z'tZ'tiL. felicitously — 'You are wrong. Master Serjeant Wilde tratianofthe wished it should be done.' And, in the sequel, 'Master ■Estate of Sir . , T.cotton; Serjeant proved to be strong enough to protract the 5012, ft 34,' inquiry, and even to procure its adjournment to London ; setiq though his attempt to maintain the sequestration — on a plea the falsehood of which was conclusively proved — came at last to be entirely foiled. When Sir Thomas Cotton came to sum up his losses he found that they amounted to more than four thousand pounds (in the money of that day). ' They have had/ he wrote, '£1500, in money; besides eleven horses, worth £140 ; Billeting at Conington, Eyworth, and other places, which came to £100; spoil made at Sawtrey and at St. Germans which £300 will not make good; and besides the decay of my rents to an amount of at least £600 a-year; n.,B.ii, and now the layers and taxes will take up the whole of Ladyday's rent.' Meanwhile his unlucky tenants, in Huntingdonshire alone, had been deprived of a hundred and ninety horses, and their farms had been stripped both it., 14. of provisions and of forage. By way of pleasant diversity to his troubles in Hunting- donshire and Bedfordshire Sir Thomas received, presently, a letter from John Selden — the old and warmly-attached friend of his family — warning him that the capabilities of the at- Cotton House in London had caught the eye of certain seize on other Committee-men, and had made a deep impression on them. They saw that it would do capitally both as a lodging house for the entertainment of distinguished strangers who might come to Westminster, to wait on the House. THE SUCCESSORS OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 131 Parliament, and as a State prison for very eminent delin- booki, quents. These watchful Committee-men were also mem- thTsuc- bers of the Council of State; and the time had now ™L°e T come when King James' sarcastic and well-remembered Cotton - jest — ' Bring me sax chairs, for I see sax kings approach- ing ' — was turning itself into a very awkward fact. These Committee-men, too, (like their humbler fellows at Hunt- ingdon,) had their Serjeant at hand to give them advice on elastic points of law. ' Serjeant Dendy,' wrote Selden, ' fairly told me that the Committee and Council were informed that, by the Patent under which you claim, it was provided that your interest [in Cotton House] should cease, during the time of the Parliament.' Certainly, an seiaentosir ill, • y i -i i T. Cotton : in awkward clause to appear in a man s lease, in days when a an Append* Parliament, beginning its 'time' in 1641 had not quite MssTmwkea ended it until 1660. This claim of the Council of State '16.i-m.5o proved, in the sequel, to have in it no more of real validity than had that other claim to procure the Conington rents to be paid ' to us at Huntingdon' ; but, like that, it gave Sir Thomas Cotton a good deal of annoyance before he suc- ceeded in getting quit of it. Tt is much to his honour that petty but cumulative mis- fortunes like these did not sour Sir Thomas Cotton's temper. When quieter-times came, he showed himself the worthy son of his eminent father, both by the improvement of his library, at considerable charge, and by the liberality with which he lent his choicest manuscripts, and, in many ways, made them and his other collections serviceable to literature. The still extant acknowledgments of service of this sort from historians and great scholars are very numerous.* * I had noted some of these as worthy, by way of sample, to be printed. Bnt the reduced limits of my book (as compared with 132 EAELY COLLECTOKS. book i, By his first marriage with Margaret Howard, daughter thu'suc- of William Lord Howard of.Naworth, Sir Thomas had one siaRoBraT son ar) d two daughters. By his second marriage with cottom. Alice Constable he had four sons, two of whom died without issue. Alice was the daughter and sole heir of Sir John Constable of Dromondley in Yorkshire, and the relict of Edmund Anderson of Eyworth and of Stratton in Bedfordshire, and she brought with her a considerable dowry. Sir John Cotton, the eldest son of the first marriage, its plan) have compelled the omission of much illustrative matter which had been carefully prepared for insertion, and which, as I hope, would have been found to merit the attention of the reader. I will find room, however, to mention one little fact connected with the famous Evangeliary marked ' Nero D. vi.' The reader probably remembers Sir Robert Cotton's fruitless perambulation of the aisle of "Westminster Abbey, with that splendid MS. in his hands, on the day of the Coronation of Charles the First. It seems likely that the anecdote was told to Charles the Second when, at length, a like cere- mony was to take place for him. Be that as it may, he sent— before he had been many days in England — a confidential servant to borrow the book from Sir Thomas. And the fact of the loan stands recorded on a fly-leaf, by the King's intermediary, in honour ' of the most noble Sir Thomas Cotton, the starre of learning and honestie.' The MS., I may add, is one of those which came to Sir Robert from Dethick (Garter). It bears Dethick's autograph with the date * 1603 ' and Cotton's, ' 1608.' Besides the Four Gospels it contains Processus factus ad Coronationem Hegis PfAeardi Secundi, and Modus ienendi Parliamentum. For some momentary fancy or other Sir Robert took out of another superb MS. of his — the Psalter of King Henry the Sixth — a small but beautiful miniature, and made of it a vignette for this Ethelstan volume. So it continued to remain for two hundred and forty years, when Sir Frederick Madden restored the miniature to its more legitimate place (Domi- tian A. xvii, fol. 96*.) Had this Nero volume chanced to have been scrutinized at the moment when it was Sir Robert's fate to be stigma- tized as ' an embezzler of records,' it is very possible that it might have been called to bear witness for the charge. For it is undeniable that the ' Ro. Cotton Bbt/cetjs ' is written over an eraswe. (The signature occurs on the beautiful dedicatory page — ' Beatissimo Papa Damaso Biercm-yrrms,') But, fortunately, the descent of the book can be traced clearly, THE SUCCESSORS OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 133 sat in Parliament for the borough of Huntingdon in the book i, reign of Charles the Second, and for Huntingdonshire in thz P su» that of James the Second. But he took no prominent part siTrmk°et in public affairs. Like his father he was twice married. And CoTTOM - his first wife became step-daughter as well as daughter-in-law to his father, being Dorothy, daughter and heir of Edmund Anderson of Eyworth above mentioned. His second wife was Elizabeth Honywood. He seems to have resembled his father both in his tastes for a quiet country life, and in the liberality with which he allowed (on reasonable cause and to proper persons) access to his library. Nor did Sir John, any more than Sir Thomas, escape animadversion, when he allowed himself to form his own judgment of the fitness or the timeliness of any particular application. Caustic Symonds D'Ewes writes down Sir Thomas Cotton as ' unworthy to be master of so inestimable a library.' Caustic * u ^ g ' ani Bishop Burnet writes in his turn of Sir John Cotton : f A ™i.ii, P .4o. great Prelate had possessed him with such prejudices against f^zZmL,. me that .... he desired to be excused' [from granting ««». v»l m, Burnet admittance to the Cottonian Library] ' unless the (Edit, of Archbishop of Canterbury or a Secretary of State would recommend me as a person fit to have access.' Against strictures such as these, it were easy, but is not needful, to adduce a score of acknowledgments of deep obligation, from writers more eminent by far than either D'Ewes or Burnet. The eldest son (also John) of Sir John Cotton, by his wife Dorothy, did not live to inherit either the famous library or the ancestral estates. He died in 1681, and his later days seem to have been marked by some stormy inci- dents. In one point, his troubles resembled those which disturbed the last year of his great-grandfather's life;— in so far as that they were caused by a lady. But whereas 134 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. II. The Suc- cessors of SlK B.OBEBT Cotton. Sir Robert had the lady thrust upon him, to suit the pur- poses of other men, the misfortunes of his great-grandson appear to have grown out of an ardent but illicit passion — as ardently, and not less illicitly, returned by its object. Some scraps of their correspondence which have chanced to be preserved read, after two centuries of dusty repose, as if they were still all aflame with that fierce love which an experienced poet describes as ' passion's essence.'* Sir John Cotton survived till nearly the close of the seventeenth century. He was succeeded in the baronetcy and estates by John, the son of the last-mentioned John Cotton, who had married Prances, daughter and heir of Sir George Downing of East Hatley in Cambridgeshire. Sir John, fourth baronet, married Elizabeth Herbert, one of the grand-daughters of Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Mont- gomery. Like his ancestors of many generations, this Sir John Cotton sat in Parliament for Huntingdonshire. His chief claim to honourable memory is that he settled the Cottonian Library on the British nation for ever, and thus made its founder, Sir Robert, the virtual and first Pounder of the British Museum. This was done by Act of Par- liament, in the year 1700. * Take, for example, these few lines: ' Sweete Sainte whome I soley addore, — at whooes siine I offer myself; I reseived your loving lines. , . . . Without them, I could not live at all ; — being deprived of your blessed sight, . . , , I live yet, but most miserably. Use means, if it be possible, that we may come to the speech of one another ; and the Heavens of Hope may be yet auspitious unto us Those deviles have again been writing letters unto my mother.' In 1679, it would seem, the two ardent lovers were kept in a sort of honourable imprisonment. On Cotton's coming to Cotton House, in the spring of that year, an upper servant of the family writes thus to a correspondent : ' I advised him to call for money ; take a coach and go about to take the air, and to visit his friends that are in or about the town ; and not to be mewed up in a room, without money or company.' — John Squires, to n person unnamed ; in Appendix to Cotton M88. ' 16, 1,' (B. M,) THE SUCCESSOES OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 135 This eminent public benefactor died, in 1731, without booki, surviving issue. The baronetcy then reverted to Robert th* soo- the eldest son of the second marriage of the first Sir John g™ s ^°j T Cotton, grandson of the Founder. From Sir Robert, fifth CoTTON - baronet, the dignity came, in 1749, to a fourth 'John Cotton ' who then became sixth baronet and who was the last surviving male heir of his honoured line. Sir John had lost his only son — a fifth John — many years before his accession to the baronetcy, which, on his own death (27 March, 1752), became extinct. Conington had long previously passed to a younger son of Sir Thomas Cotton, second baronet; as shown in the following — Conclusion CONCLUSION OF THE PEDIGREE Showing also the descent op the Cottonian Thomas (died in infancy). . I Sir Robert Cotton . of Hatley St. George, County of Cambridge, Knight. - Gertrude Mobbice, Philip Cotton, eventually of Conington, died without issue, leaving Conington to Thomas Cotton, his nephew, William Cotton, of Cotton Hall, in Cheshire. Alice Robert Tbepusis. Thomas Cotton, of Conington, devisee of Philip. Sir Robert Cotton = of Gedding, in Hunts, succeeded, as 5th Bart., on the death, in 1731, of Sir John Cotton. : Elizabeth- Robert-Cotton TeeeuSIS. Prances = Dingley Asoham. (sole heir).! Sir John Cotton = Succ. as 6th Bart, in 1749. Died, without surviving male issue, 27 March, 1752. : Jane Btjbdett. John, died in infancy. From whom the present Charles Henry Rolle Tbeettsis, 18th Baron Clinton, of Maxtoke. I Jane = Thomas Habt, of Warfield, Berkshire. First Parliamentary Trustee of the Cottonian Libbaby. * By this William Hanbttby, son-in-law of John Cotton (great grandson of tie Robert, Earl of Oxfoed. OF COTTON OP CONINGTON, Trusteeship of the British Museum. Sir Robert (Bruce) Cotton = Elizabeth Brocas. Founder of the CottoniaQ Library. Alice Constable, Sir Thomas Cotton, = Margaret Howard, daughter of William, Lord Howard of Naworth [First Wife]. daughter and sole heir of Sir John Constable, of Dromondley, in York- shire ; Relict of Edmund Anderson, of Eyworth and of Stratton, in Bedfordshire. (2nd Bart) of Conington, Hunts, and of Eyworth, Bedfordshire. Elizabeth Honywood - [Second Wife]. -Sir John Cotton = (3rd Bart.) of Conington, and of Eyworth, succy. M.P. for Borough and County of Huntingdon. Dorothy Anderson, daughter and sole heir of Edmund Anderson, of Eyworth and of Stratton [First Wife]. Lucy. Frances. -Wigston. Elizabeth. Mary. John Cotton Frances Downing; Died in 1681 in his Father's lifetime. daughter of Sir George Downing, of East Hatley, Cambridgeshire. Sir John Cotton = Elizabeth Herbert, (4th Bart.) M.P. for Hunting- don, Donor of Cotton Library to the Nation. grand-daughter of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, &c. Thomas Cotton. Frances = William Hanburt.* Mary, sole heir. Mary Hanburt = Martin Annesley. Revd. Francis Annesley, George Annesley, Present Cottonian Trustees of the British Museum. Founder), many Cotton MSS. were alienated— partly by sale and partly by gift— to See hereafter, Chapter V. 138 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, The reader who glances at this pedigree will notice that the sue- some of the Cottons of 1600-1750 were as fortunate in smKoBEET getting heiress-wives as had been their foregoers of pre- corrow. ceding centuries. But their possessions were scattered almost as rapidly as they had been augmented. Conington, which was the most valued possession of Sir Robert, was less prized by his descendants. The Council Books show that some of its appendant manors and members — notably Glatton and Hulme — gave to the Founder himself a good deal of trouble. The Sequestration Books show the anxieties and losses which the busy Parliamentarians of Huntingdon- shire inflicted on his next successor. Other circumstances tended also to bring the place into disfavour with owners who had a choice of seats. It lay so close to the great northern road, as to be exposed to undue demands alike from the movement of troops and from the tramping of professional vagrants. Nor was it less exposed, from its situation, to injuries by great floods. Long before the ex- desektion tinction of the male line, Conington was deserted, in favour OF THE OLD , . seat oe of more attractive abodes in southern counties. We learn from a passage in Stukeley's Itinerary that the house was fast becoming a ruin, even in the reign of George the First ; although it had been solidly rebuilt by Sir Robert himself. 'I thought it,' writes that antiquary, 'a piety to turn half a mile out of the road, to visit Conington the seat of the noble Sir Robert Cotton, — where he and Camden have often sat in council upon the Antiquities of Britain, and where he had a choice collection of Roman inscriptions picked up from all parts of the kingdom. I was concerned to see a stately old house of hewn stone, large and hand- some, already falling into ruin.'* * Stukeley's Itinerary of Great Britain (2nd edit. 1776). of the old Seat of Conington PUBLIC ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COTTON LIBRAEY.139 By the Statute which established the Cotton Library jbooki, as a national institution, it was enacted as follows : ' The Trasno- Cottonian Library . . . shall be kept and preserved, in the siTroLet name and family of the Cottons, for public use and Cotton - advantage. And therefore, according to the desire of the theestab- . L1SHMENT said Sir John Cotton, and at his request, the said Mansion act or 1700. House, . . . and also all the said Library, . . . together with all the Coins, Medals, and other rarities, . . . shall be vested in Trustees . . . with a perpetual succession.' The first Trustees were the Lord Chancellor Somers, Mr. Speaker Harley (afterwards Earl of Oxford), and the Lord Chief Justice, ex officio ; together with Sir Robert Cotton, of Hatley St. George, Cambridgeshire ; Philip Cotton, of Conington ; Robert Cotton of Gedding, in Cambridge- shire, and William Hanbury, of the Inner Temple. It 12&13 "Will III was provided that on the decease of any one of the four c . 7. family trustees the heir male, for the time being, of Sir Robert Cotton, the founder, should appoint a successor. The furious party-spirit which at this time divided the country into hostile camps, the leaders of which were at any moment ready to fly at each other's throats, was eminently unfavourable both to the guardianship and to the growth of the new institution ; as it was, indeed, to all matters of learning or of mental culture. Hardly seven years had passed before it was found necessary to pass 'An Act for the better securing of Her Majesty's purchase of Cotton House in Westminster.' This Act recites that since the preceding enactment of 1700 'very little had been done in pursuance thereof to make the said Library useful to the Public, except what had been lately done at Her Majesty's charge ;' and that the place wherein the Library then was, being ' a narrow little damp room, was improper for preserving the books 140 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, and papers.' The Act then proceeds to declare that an agree- tmTsuc- ment had been made for the purchase of Cotton House for ImZIZ £4.500, * to the intent that it might be in Her Majesty's cotton. power to make this most valuable collection useful to her own subjects, and to all learned strangers/ Within five years, however, this unfortunate Library had to be removed from Cotton House to Essex House, in the Strand (1712); and thence again, in 1730, to Ashburn- ham House, at Westminster (already containing the Royal collection), where it had not long been lodged, when the thet-ieeat fi re occurred by which it was so seriously injured. The ham house, account which the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry gave to the Public, shortly after the occurrence of this calamity, runs thus : ' On Saturday morning, October 23, 1731, a great smoke was perceived by Dr. Bentlet, and the rest of the family at Ashburnham House, which soon after broke out into a flame. It began from a wooden mantel-tree taking fire which lay across a stove-chimney that was under the room where the MSS. of the Royal and Cottonian Libraries were lodged, and was communicated to that room by the wains- coat and by pieces of timber, that stood perpendicularly upon each end of the mantel-tree.' ' They were in hope, at first,' continues the Committee, 'to put a stop to the fire by throwing water upon the pieces of timber and wainscoat, . . . and therefore did not begin to remove the books so soon as they otherwise would have done. But, the fire prevailing, Mr. Caslet, the Deputy Librarian, took care in the first place to remove the famous Alexandrian MS. and the books under the head of Augustus ' [twelve of the Cottonian presses, it will be remembered, were adorned by the heads of the twelve Csesars, whence the still existing designations or press- HISTORY OF THE COTTONIAN LIBRARY. 141 marks, as for instance, that of the famous Evangeliary of boo*i, King fflhelstan, Nero D. vi, mentioned on page 132] ^TsL 'in the Cottonian Library, as being esteemed the most CESSOESor valuable amongst the collection. Several entire presses, cotioh. with the books in them, were also removed ;- but . . . several of the backs of the presses being already on fire, they were obliged to be broke open, and the books, as many as could be, thrown out of the windows.' All the MSS. that were saved, and the remains of what been burnt, were removed to the .Dormitory of Westminster School. At the time of this disastrous fire, the number of MS. 1731 volumes was 958. Of this number 114 were reported to be ' lost, burnt, or entirely spoiled ; and 98 damaged so as to be defective.' Mr. Speaker Onslow took immediate measures, in conjunction with Dr. Bentley and Mr. Casley, for the examination of the burnt MSS., and for the repair of such as were then deemed alone reparable. Three months afterwards the Record Clerk to whom the task was more particularly committed, thus reports his progress : ' One hundred and upwards,' he says, ' being volumes of Letters and State Papers, have been quite taken to pieces, marked, and bound again/ But he laments that 'there Reportofm having no way hitherto been found out to extend vellum Commiltee ° " appointed to and parchment that has been shrivelled up and contracted vim the CoU in • t e 1 tonian Li- by fire to its former dimensions, part 01 several of the {rorya732), vellum MSS. must remain not legible, unless the desi- anacasiey's deratum can be supplied/ Appendix 1 r thereto. For nearly a century some of the most precious of the injured MSS. remained as the fire had left them. But in 1824, by the care of Mr. Forshall, the then Keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum, a commencement was made towards their restoration, which his successor, Sir F. Madden, zealously and successfully continued. Nearly 142 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, three hundred volumes have been repaired, and more or the sue- less completely restored, (a considerable number of which esS eobekt were previously regarded as beyond all hope of recovery) to CoTT0N - a state of legibility.* The calamity of 1731 brought about what may, in a sense, be termed a partial compensation, by inducing Major Arthur Edwards to make an important bequest, with the view of precluding its recurrence. Owing to the protraction of a life interest in. the legacy — the terms of the be- which will be cited in describing that eventual Act of QUEST OF . ° aethuu Incorporation which created the British Museum — it did not become available until other arrangements had made its application to building purposes needless. It was, conse- quently,and in pursuance of the Testator's contingent instruc- tions, appropriated to the purchase of books in the manner, and with results, which will be spoken of in a subsequent chapter. Major Edwards also bequeathed his own collec- tion of about 2,000 volumes of printed books, by way of addition to the Cottonian Library of MSS. These, how- ever, were not actually incorporated with the Museum collections until the year 1769. Eor several years, Bentley conjoined the Keepership of the Cottonian with that of the Royal Library. His predeces- sors in the office were Dr. Thomas Smith (hitherto the only the keep- biographer of the Eounder,) and William Han bury, who had cott°on™n married a descendant of the Founder. Dr. Smith was less libiiaet. emmen t as a scholar — though his learning was great — but far more estimable as a man, than was his successor in the * Some of tie burnt MSS. regarded, until Mr. Forshall's time, as hope- lessly illegible, have been found very helpful to the preparation of the volume now in the reader's hands. HISTORY OF THE COTTONIAN LIBRARY. 143 Keepership, the imperious and covetous Master of Trinity, booki, Eor conscience sake, Smith had given up both a good liS'" AND fellowship and a good living, at the Revolution. Litera- 0"™ ture profited by the loss of Divinity. He died in May, ^™ 1710. Hanbury — by a very undesirable plurality — was a Trustee as well as Keeper. That he was not, in either capacity, strictly faithful to the spirit of the Trust confided to him seems to be established by incidents which I find recorded in the MS. Diary of Humphrey Wanley. The reader will observe that it is possible to reconcile Wan- let's statement with the supposition that the MSS. alienated had never actually been made part of the Cottonian Library, though it is as plain as sunlight that a really faithful trustee would have made them part of it. As it turned out, the sale of them did no actual and eventual mischief. On December 2nd, 1724, says Wanley, ' I had a conversation with Mr. Hanbury, who owned that he hath still in his possession many original and valuable papers given him by his wife's brother, Sir John Cotton, which now lie in different places. These papers and what- ever else happens to be among them — as books, rolls, &c. — he hath agreed to put into my hands for my Lord's wmuy's [Oxford's] use. I have promised that he shall be very ^^ well paid and considered for the same.' Wanley had already recorded a previous visit in which Hanbury had delivered ' for my Lord Oxford's use, a small but curious parcel of old letters/ adding : ' I be- lieve he expects a gratuity for them.' On the last day of December he received another parcel; and on the 4th January, 1725, he again writes: 'Mr. Hanbury gave me another parcel of letters written to Sir Robert Cotton.' Without endorsing the violent diatribe of Lord Oxford (the second of the Harleian Earls) against Hanbury's 144 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, successor — as the almost wilful destroyer of part of the Li™ a™ Cotton MSS. — it must be admitted that there is con- o"sie ACT '" elusive evidence that neglect of duty 'on Dr. Bentley's co™n P ar * was a movm g agent in the disaster. Under his nominal keepership the practical duties of Cottonian Librarian were discharged by an industrious and other- wise meritorious deputy, David Casley. The Pro- ject or 1707 There were many projects for. making Sir Robert poe uniting Cotton's noble collections, both in literature and antiqui- the Cot- . . * tonian, ties, the foundation of a ' British Museum,' before a feasible aeund'el, and successful project was hit upon. It is curious to note libeaeies. fl^ Qne f ^ ege schemes embraced, as the groundwork of the projected national Museum, the collections of Sir Robert Cotton, of Prince Henry, and of Lord Arundel ; and that some particulars of the plan were narrated — to a siometo country correspondent — by Sir Hans Sloane, almost fifty 7 April, 1707. years before his own conditional bequest gave occasion and Libra™ means for the eventual union of the collections so spoken oxford). Q £ ^^ ^ e vag ^. gatherings f & \\ kinds, in literature and in science, to the procuring of which so large a portion of his own useful and laborious life was to be devoted. When that occasion came, two of the then Cottonian Trustees framed a Petition to Parliament in which they expressed their acknowledgments for * seasonable and ne- cessary care ' of the Cotton Library. They alleged that it had remained ' almost useless ' to the Public, during many years, for want of a fixed and convenient building to receive it; that it had been exposed to many dangers by frequent removals, and had once run the hazard of ' a total destruction by fire.' If, said they, the loss which the Public then sustained proved to be less than had been feared, the Public owed the obligation ' to a great member I, II. AND CHARACTER OF SIR ROBERT COTTON. 145 of this House ' [of Commons] ' who powerfully interposed book . and assisted in its preservation.' The allusion is to the" ™Zll Right Hon. Arthur Onslow, the then Speaker, who after- ^ K ACTEE wards became one of the first Trustees of the Museum Rm ™ T established by the Act of 1753. CoIIOK - The Petitioners proceed to state that their most earnest Petition of wishes are accomplished by seeing a Library, famed "17 throughout Europe, with the generous gifts of Major m^" 1 ' 1 Edwards annexed thereto, placed out of all further cottonian dangers from neglect, and that they rejoice to perceive vuT* that the Museum of their own Pounder is about to be enlarged by other rare and valuable collections. 'We are,' say they, ' fully persuaded that an edifice raised upon such a stately plan will, by degrees, be stored with bene- factions and become a common Cabinet for preserving with safety all curiosities and whatsoever is choice or excellent in its kind. Moreover, being a new institution for the service of the learned world it will be an honour to the Nation, an ornament long wanted in this great city, and a distinguished event in the history of our times.' Then follows the passage which I have prefixed, by way of motto, to this first division of the volume now in the reader's Heretofore, hands. p. 3. When these Petitioners went on to state to Parliament that ' no expression of gratitude can be too great ... for b-ucent doing honour to the memory of Sir Robert Cotton,' their agaihstthe assertion gave rise to no utterance of hostile feeling. They were not even charged with undue laudation of their ancestor. People who at that time troubled themselves to think of such matters at all, were agreed in regarding Sir Robert Cotton as unquestionably one of the worthies of England. Nowadays — as I have had occasion to show 10 CHARACTER AMD FAME or Sir R. Cotton. 146 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book I, Cliap. II. Life and Character op Sir Robert Cotton. A Biscours wether yt be fltt for Ing. lande to make peace with Spaine. MS. Cott. Vespas. C. xiii, ff. 160, seqq. (B. M.). already — there are many gainsayers. A distinguished historian (Mr. Gardiner) asperses Cotton's character both for statesmanship and for truthfulness ; whilst a dis- tinguished archaeologist (Mr. Brewer) charges him with embezzling records. The first charge has been partly met, in these pages, by the simple apposition and collation of contemporary evi- dence. The reader has his choice between the cumulative testimony of several English peers and statesmen ; and the unsupported testimony of one foreign diplomatist, who made it his boast to be the enemy of Englishmen, and whose hostility was graduated in tolerably exact accord- ance with the qualities and the deeds which have made England proud of them. The home witnesses gave their testimony whilst the events were still fresh in men's minds. They gave it in broad daylight, and with open doors. The foreign witness put his evidence into a secret dispatch, to be seen by no human eye, out of the Spanish Cabinet, until our own historian disinterred it, at Simancas, two centuries and a half after date. Nor is this quite all. If Gondomar's account be true, not only was Sir Robert Cotton's life as a statesman a protracted lie, but his duplicity was so superbly cloaked as to deceive the most keen-sighted of his contemporaries. The men who sat habitually at his board in his days of health, and who ministered at his bedside in all the offices of tender friend- ship in his days of sickness and of death, were all wrong about his character. And there is this other little fact to boot : Sir Robert Cotton began his public life by as open a declaration of an ti- Spanish policy in relation to the great question of the Netherlands as ever came from the lips of our Ralegh. He ended his public life with as staunch an adherence to the principles, both in Church and State, Cotton. CHARACTER OP SIR ROBERT COTTON. 147 which the rulers of Spain abhorred as that which had been Boom, shown by Ralegh on the scaffold in Old Palace Yard, or £^, by Eliot in the dungeon of the Tower of London. Mean- ^g*" IBB while, just in the mid-channel of his career, and in the * 0BERT prime of his faculties, Sir Robert Cotton threw himself, gratuitously, at the feet of Gondomar. He humbly asked leave to take Spanish service in the guise of a political slave. The historian's proposition is a bold one. And its evidence needs to be cogent. English readers now know quite enough about Gondomar to judge whether or not his sole testimony is sufficient to damn the fame of such a man as Cotton ; — to degrade him from the rank of an English worthy ; — to brand him as a criminal virtually convicted of apostacy in religion, and of treason to his avowed convic- tions in politics ? * * I have dwelt, somewhat protractedly, on this one interesting point in Cotton's history, — pressing as are the limits prescribed to this volume, — under the belief that many readers will bear in mind that Sir Robert's misfortune beneath the recent disinterment of ambassadorial despatches, written to foreign courts, is not an exceptional misfortune. Sir Walter Ralegh has fared still worse, in Mr. Gardiner's able hands, by being held up to public scorn as- a knavish liar, upon the uncorroborated testimony of certain avowed and bitter enemies of England. See Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage (1869), vol. i, Chaps. 1 and 2, passim. Readers of the admirable History of England by Mr. Proude — and who has not read that history P — will easily call to mind several not dis- similar instances. Nor is it at all surprising that it should be so. The most warily judicial of intellects can never be quite independent of that factitious charm which there will always be — over and above the legiti- mate charm — in telling an old story from an entirely new point of view. If, besides the attraction of mere novelty, there should chance to have been a keen burst of search over a difficult country, before the eager searcher could succeed in running down his quarry, he would be more than human if, in the moment of victory, he could weigh and balance with exact precision the real value of the hard-won spoil. At present, historians are too keenly chasing after new evidence to be able to esti- mate quite fairly its relative importance or net result. The most part both of writers and of readers are far too busy over newly-discovered 148 EARLY COLLECTOES. book i, From the nature of things the second charge cannot be lifkand so directly, so compactly, or so effectively met. Almost of sib° TEE a third of the manuscripts which form the most important eobmt section of the Cotton Library consist of, or contain, Papers Cotton. J ' l of State. Of these a very considerable proportion once belonged to the State. How came they to pass into the hands of Sir Robert Cotton ? Mb ' By Mr. Brewer the question has been answered, un- Bkewek's .. . . _ . AccomraoF hesitatingly and exhaustively. Large portions of the Dip- cottoh's lomatic Correspondence of Henry the Eighth were, he ofTt™ savs > 'carried off in 1614, if not before, by Sir Robert pafees. ( Cotton. . . . The original bundles appear to have been ' broken up under the keepership of Agarde, when the ' Treasury of the Exchequer was rifled of its most precious ' contents to augment the collections of Sir R. Cotton. "'/ ' ... For the early years of Henry, his [Sir Robert's] paiwj; c collections are more numerous, and even more interesting, Henry viii, ■ than the documents in the English, the French, or the k. ''"' ' ' Spanish Archives. They are equally authentic. ... By ' what fraud or negligence they found their way into the ' possession of Sir Robert Cotton it is not for me to ' inquire.' No writer can be better qualified to speak with authority on such a topic as this than is Mr. Brewer. Familiar with State Papers and with records of all kinds for a very long period, he has won the deep respect of all students of our history by the uses to which his knowledge has been applied. But the ablest writer will sometimes write materials to adjust with any approach to impartial fairness the vital question of comparative credibility. But the time for doing that must needs come, by and bye. Meanwhile, the fame of not a few of our old and true worthies will — in all probability — suffer some degree of momentary eclipse ; just as that of Ralegh and Cotton has suffered. CHARACTER OP SIR ROBERT COTTON. 149 hastily. The most impartial inquirer will now and then booki, reach a conclusion by overleaping part of the evidence. l^e and The sweeping passage which I have quoted, like other CHARACTER or Sir Robert Cotton. passages in Mr. Riley's preface to Liber Custumarum, previously noticed, leaves altogether out of view three or four whole classes of testimony — chains not links — having a vital bearing on the issue. For example — I. It disregards the fact that certain bundles of State Jmiig ' s l Domestic Perhaps the most festive days of that brief span were the correspond. sixth of January, 1610, and the sixth of June of the same ™vd.m, year, on both of which Whitehall again witnessed a gay ^fV) 4 ' tournament. On twelfth-day, at the head of a band of thbtodr- knights which included Lennox, Arundel, Southampton, ™ nts of Hay, Sir Thomas Somerset, and Sir Richard Preston, Henry kept his barriers against fifty-six assailants, and before a brilliant court, for whose pleasure the long mimic fight was diversified by the gay devices of Inigo Jones, and the graceful verses of Ben Jonson. Next day the jousting was followed by a banquet not less splendid. At White- chromdeof hall, — as at Stirling sixteen years before, — the banquetting p "m" ' lasted seven hours, but it was enlivened by a comedy in ff P *" < **' which the ladies were not condemned to silence. In the nenrksBar- Hers ; and following June, Henry's creation as Prince of Wales was ourm,* celebrated by tiltings on a more extensive scale, as well as ( j nw»'s by masques and dances, and by an elaborate naval battle Wor £&^m upon the Thames. But the prince himself seems to have lst eA[t •> taken more pleasure in witnessing from time to time, at Woolwich or at Chatham, the launching of real ships fitted for real warfare. Nor are indications wanting that during his ponderings on the many advices which he 164 EARLY COLLECTOES. Hook I, Cliiip. III. Life of Henry, Pp-ince or Wales. The pro- jects for Royal Mar- riages. 1611—1612. received of the course of public event's in Europe, he had occasional presentiments that a crisis was drawing near which would make the adoption of a warlike policy to be alike the duty of the King, and the recognized interest of.the nation. Be that as it may, the broad contrasts of character which existed between the wearer of the crown and its heir appa- rent became increasingly obvious during the long negotia- tions and correspondence about the projects of marriage for the prince himself and for his sister. Something, indeed, of the difference in character between James and Henry was indicated when, in 1611, the prince directed Ralegh to draw up, in his prison, a paper of advice on the scheme of a double marriage with Savoy and on the rela- tions between Savoy and Spain. It came out more forcibly when, on occasion of the proposal from France for his own marriage with Christina (the elder sister of Henrietta Maria), he wrote to his father in these words : ' The cause which first induced your Majesty to proceed in this propo- sition by your Ambassador was the hope which the Duke of Bouillon gave your Majesty of breaking their other match with Spain. If the continuance of this treaty hold only upon that hope, and not upon any desire to effect a match with the second daughter, in my weak opinion I hold that it stands more with your Majesty's honour to stay your Ambassador from moving it any more than to go on with it. Because no great negotiation should be grounded upon a ground that is very unsure and uncertain, and depends upon their wills who were the first causers of the contrary.' For this letter the Prince was rebuked. Two months afterwards, it was found indispensable to desire him to express again his opinion upon a new stage of the negotiation. He did so in words to which the events of LIFE OP HENRY, PEINCE OF WALES. 165 the next few years were destined to give significance. I ^°°^ u quote from the original letter, preserved (with a large mass life or Henry of other letters from the same hand) amongst the Har- peince'of leian MSS * W ^ 'As forthe exercise of the princess' religion/ wrote Henry, on the 5th of October, 1612, ' your Majesty may be pleased to make your Ambassador give a peremptory answer that you will never agree to give her greater liberty in the exercise of it than that which is agreed with the Savoyeard, which is — to use his own word — -privatemente ; or, as Sir Henry Wotton did expound it, " in her most private and secret chamber." ' Then he touches on the delicate question of dowry, and the relative preferability of the alliance proffered by France and that proffered by Savoy ; adding, — with an obvious mental reference, I think, to the advice given him by Ralegh in the preceding year, — these pregnant words : ' If your Majesty will respect rather which of these two will give the greatest contentment to the general body of the Protestants abroad, then I am of opinion that you will sooner incline to France than to Savoy.' The writer then hints a fear that he may, unwittingly, " 13 have incurred a renewal of the paternal displeasure which Henry to some expressions of opinion in his former letter on the same ms. hael. subject had excited. Let his father kindly remember, he entreats, that his own special part in the business, — ' which is to be in love with any of them, is not yet at hand.' Death, not love-making, was at hand. One month after- * In dealing with royal letters it is, of course, necessary to keep in mind how largely the vicarious element is apt to enter into their com- position. Those, however, that are quoted in the text seem to have a plain stamp of individuality upon them. :, f.UO. 166 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, wards, the arm that penned this letter was stretched out,- Cliap.III. . L Lmoi still and rigid. Hkney, PfilNCE OF "Wales. The Prince was seized with sudden illness on the 10th of October, five days after its date. The first appearances death. were such as are wont to follow upon a great chill, after November, excessive exercise — -to which Henry was always prone. In spite of much pain and some alarming symptoms, he per- sisted in removing from Richmond to St. James' on the 16th, in order to receive the Elector Palatine, soon to become the husband of his sister. Within very few days it was apparent that his illness was of the most serious nature. He left his apartment at St. James' on the morning of the 25th, to hear a sermon at the Chapel Royal. The text was from the fourteenth of Job, ' Man, that is born of a woman, is of short continuance.' Afterwards he dined with the King, but was obliged to take his leave, being seized with faintness and shivering fits. These continued to recur, at brief intervals, until his death, on the evening of the sixth of November. Almost the only snatch of quiet sleep which he could obtain followed upon the adminis- tration of a cordial, prepared for him in the Tower by Ralegh, at the Queen's earnest request. It was not given until the morning of the last day. Henry died calmly, but under total exhaustion. For many hours before his death he was unconscious, as well as speechless. The last words to which he re- sponded were those of Archbishop Abbot : — ' In sign of your faith and hope in the blessed Resurrection, give us, for our comfort, a sign by the lifting up of your hands.' Henry raised both hands, clasped together. It was his last conscious act. Here, to human ken, was a life all seed-time. The LIFE OF HENEY, PRINCE OF WALES. 167 harvest belonged to the things unseen. Contemporaries booki, who had treasured up, in memory, many of those small L tk of matters which serve to mark character, were wont some- p™**' 01 , times to draw contrasts between the prince and his brother. Wales - And many have been the speculations — natural though unfruitful — as to the altered course of English history, had Henry lived to ascend the throne. One fact, observable in the correspondence and documentary history of the times, will always retain a certain interest. Some of those who were to rank among the staunchest opponents of Charles were men who thought highly of Henry's abilities to rule, and who held his memory in affectionate reverence. Henry- had died intestate. The library which he had Dl! - p0SAL " OF THE purchased from the Executors of Lord Lumley fell to the pbince's disposal of the King. The greater part of it went to aug- ment the remains of the old royal library of England, portions of which had been scattered during James' reign, as well as before it. By that disposal of a collection, in which the prince had taken not a little delight during his brief possession, he became virtually, and in the event, a co-founder of the British Museum. The library remained at St. James' under the charge, for union of a time, of the prince's librarian, Edward Wright. The jamks'and relics of the royal collection at Whitehall were then in the ^™"^. L keeping of the eminent scholar and theologian, Patrick Young. Eventually they too were brought to St. James', and Young took the entire charge. It was by his exertions that the combined collection was augmented by a valuable part of the library of Isaac Casaubon. It was to his hands that Sir Thomas Roe delivered the 'Alexandrian Manu- ***,*<%<>■ tiatioiis, script' of the Greek Bible, the precious gift to King Charles pp .335 ; m. of Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople. Young survived until 1652, but he was deprived of his 168 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. III. Life or Henby, Prince of Wales, Comp. Order- Book of Council of State, vol. v, p. 454; and vol. xxiv, p. 604 (E.H.) White- locke's Embassy to Sweden, vol. i, p. 273. (Reeve's edit.) Acquisition or THE Theyeb LlBBAKY. office in 1648. In that turbulent time the library narrowly escaped two perils. Some of the soldiers of the triumphant party sought to disperse it, piecemeal, for their individual profit. Some of the leaders of that party formed a scheme to export it to the Continent for a like purpose. It stands to the credit of a somewhat fanatical partisan — Hugh Peters, one of the many men who are doomed to play in history the part of scapegoats, whatever their own sins may have really been — that his hasty assumption of librarianship (1648) saved the library from the first danger. A like act on the part of Bulstrode Whitelocke, in the following year (July, 1649), saved it from the second. Probably, it was at his instance that the Council of State made or designed to make it aPublicLibrary. Four years afterwards, Whitelocke held at Stockholm a curious conversation with Queen Chris- tina about its manuscript treasures, of some of which, he tells us, she was anxious to possess transcripts. Under the Commonwealth, the librarianship had been combined, first with the keepership of the Great Seal, and then with an Embassy to Sweden. Under the Restoration, it was held in plurality with an active commission in the Poyal Navy. Charles II, however, caused some valuable additions to be made to the library. Of these the most important was the manuscript collection which had belonged; successively, to John and Charles Theyer. The sum given was £560. The collection came to St. James' Palace in 1678. It was rich in historical manuscripts and in the curiosities of mediaeval science. It embraced many of the treasured book-possessions of a long line of Abbots andPriors of Llanthony * and the common-place-books of Archbishop Cranmer. * That Llanthony, in Monmouthshire, the purchase of which in thi Heney, Prince of "Wales. LIFE OF HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES. 169 At Charles the Second's death the number of works in booki, the royal collection had increased to more than ten thousand. li« op No doubt, in that reign, the books could have brought against their owner the pithy complaint to which Petrarch gave expression, on behalf of some of their fellows, at an earlier day : ' Thou hast many books tied in chains which, if they could break away and speak, would bring thee to ■ the judgment of a private prison They would weep ™™taw to think that one man — ostentatious of a possession for «'"'«"««* . fortunce. which he hath no use — should own a host of those precious things that many a passionate student doth wholly lack.' No true lover of books, for their own sake, indeed, was ever to possess that rich collection, until it passed into the ownership of the nation. Its entail, so to speak, as a heirloom of the Crown, was cut off, just as it was about to pass into the hands of the one English King who alone, of all the Monarchs since Charles the First, cared about books. That it should pass to the Nation had been pro- posed by Richard Bentley, when himself royal librarian, sixty years before the proposal became a fact. ' 'Tis easy to foresee/ said Bentley, 'how much the glory of our Nation will be advanced by erecting a Free Library of all sorts of books.' In his day, he saw no way to such an establishment, otherwise than by transfer of the royal collection. There is a reasonable, perhaps it might be said a strong, present century gave rise to so singular a chapter in the history of Landor, and whose charms, in retrospect, prompted the lines — ' Llanthony ! an ungenial clime, And the broad wing of restless Time, Have rudely swept thy massy walls, And rockt thy Abbots in their palls. I loved thee, by thy streams of yore ; By distant streams, I love thee more.' WITH THE Collec- tions or Sloake and 170 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, probability that when Bentley gave expression to this LiFEor wish, at the close of the seventeenth century, he was pmboeoi unconsciously reviving one among many projects for the walks. public good which had been temporarily buried in the grave of Prince Henry. For under the Commonwealth, the Library at St. James' had been 'Public' rather in name than in fact. theulti- When the time came, the number of volumes of the MATEINCOU- ' poeatiom op Royal Collection which remained to be incorporated with THK !R,OYAL libeaky the Museum of Sloane and with the Library of Sir Robert Cotton was somewhat more than twelve thousand. The number of separate works — printed and manuscript toge- op cotton, ther — -probably exceeded fifteen thousand. Amongst the acquisitions so gained by the nation the first place of honour belongs to the Codex Alewandrinus. It stands, by the common consent of biblical palaeogra- phers, in a class of manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures into which only two or three other codices in the world can claim to be admitted. Of early English chronicles there is a long series which to their intrinsic interest as primary materials of our history add the ancillary interest of having been transcribed — sometimes of having been composed — expressly for presentation to the reigning Monarch. Here also, among a host of other literary curiosities, is the group of romances which John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, caused to be compiled for Margaret of Anjou ; and the autograph Basilicon, written for Prince Henry. Among the innumerable printed treasures are choice books which accrued as presentation copies to the sovereigns of the House of Tudor, beginning with a superb series of illu- minated books on vellum, from the press of Anthony Verard of Paris, given to Henry the Seventh. For large as had been the losses sustained by the original LIFE OF HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES. 171 royal library, and truly as it may be said that Prince booki, TT > ... i • n • n Chap. III. Henry s acquisitions amounted virtually to its re-founda- imoi tion, many of the finest books of long anterior date had r^cao* survived their varied perils. And some others have Wam8, rejoined, from time to time, their old companions, after long absence. The royal collection has also an adventitious interest — in addition to the main one — from another point of view. It includes results of the strong-handed confisca- tions of our kings, as well as of the purchases they made, and the gifts they received. Both the royal manuscripts and the royal printed books contain many memorials of careers in which our poets no less than our historians have found, and are likely to find, an undying charm. CHAPTER IV. THE COLLECTOR OF THE ARUNDELIAN MSS. ( The English nobles are high-spirited, active, educated men, horn to wealth and power, who have run through every country and have kept, in every country, the best company ; have seen every secret of art and nature ; and — when men of any ability or ambition — have been con- sulted in the conduct of every important action. You cannot wield great agenoies without lending yourself to them. When it happens 1hat the spirit of the Earl meets his rank and his duties, we have the best examples. These are the men who make England that strong-box and Museum it is ; who gather and pro- tect works of art, dragged from amidst burning cities and revolutionary countries, and brought hither, out of all the world "When I saw that, besides deer and pheasants, these men have'preserved Arundel Marbles, Townley Galleries, Howard and Spencer Libra- ries, "Warwick, and Portland Vases, Saxon Manu- scripts, Monastic Architectures, and Millenial Trees, I pardoned their high park-fences.' — R. W. Emerson, (English Traits, § xi). Political Exile and Foreign Travel under Elizabeth, and under James. — Life of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. — The Consolations of Connoisseur ship. — Vicissitudes of the Arundel Museum. — The gifts of Henry Howard to the Boyal Society. booki, The Collector of the Arundel Marbles and Founder the P coI- of the Arundel Library was the great-grandson of that thr T aru°n- twenty-first Earl of Arundel (Henry Fxtzalan) by delianmss. whom had been collected the choicest portion of the chap.iii, library which passed, in 1609, from the possession of John, Lord Lumley, to that of Henry, Prince of Wales. THE COLLECTOR OF THE AEUNDELIAN MSS. 1 73 That Earl had profited by the opportunities which the booki, t i - i Chap. IV. dissolution ol the monasteries presented so abundantly to thecoi.- collectors at home. The new Earl profited, in his turn, by ^j™*™. larger and far more varied opportunities, offered to him de " anMSS ' during a long course of travel abroad. Tor himself, his travels ripened and expanded a somewhat crude and irre- gular education. He attained, at length, and in a much greater degree (as it seems) than any of his contemporaries, to that liberal culture which enabled him to appreciate, and to teach his countrymen to appreciate, the arts from which Greece and Italy had derived so much of their glory ; whilst in England those arts had, as yet, done very little either to enhance the enjoyments and consolations of human life, or to call into action powers and aptitudes which had long lain dormant. It is not claiming too much for the Earl of Arundel to say that of whatever, upon a fair estimate, England may be thought to owe to its successful cultivation of the Arts of Design, he was the first conspi- cuous promoter. Nor is his rank as a pioneer in the encouragement of the systematic study of archaeology — a study so fruitful of far-reaching result — less eminent. He may also be regarded as setting, by the course lie fomigm took with his own children, the fashion ot foreign travel as a necessary complement of the education of men of rank s™°* s s and social position. The example became very influential, and in a sphere far broader than the artistic one. Under Elizabeth, the Englishmen best known on the Continent had been political exiles. Most of them were men self- banished. Many of them passed their lives in defaming and plotting against the country they had left. The jealous restrictions upon the liberty of travel imposed by the Go- vernment rarely kept at home the men of mischief, but were probably much more successful in confining men UNDEH TUDOB-S AKD 174 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, whose free movements would have been fruitful in good th^col- alike to the countries they visited and to their own. The t'^ae™- altered circumstances which ensued upon the accession of dkliahmss. J ames notoriously gave facilities to wider Continental in- tercourse ; and it was by men who followed very much in Lord Arundel's track that some of the best social results of that intercourse were won. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, Surrey, and Norfolk, was twentieth in lineal descent from that William de Albini who, in the year 1139, had acquired the Castle and Earldom of Arundel by virtue of his marriage with the widow of King Henry the First. He was born at Finchingfield, in Essex, in 1585, — a date which nearly marks the period of lowest depression in the strangely varied fortunes of an illustrious family. Philip, Earl of Arundel, the father of Earl Thomas, was already in the Tower, and was experiencing, in great bitterness, the truth of words written to him by his own father, when in like Thomas, circumstances : — ' Look into all Chronicles, and you shall to i° s son" find that, in the end, high degree brings heaps of cares, Ms!'itoL,' toils in the State, and most commonly (in the end) utter 787 overthrow.' Before Thomas Howard had reached his fifth year his mother — co-heiress of the ' Dacres of the North ' — had to write to the. Lord Treasury Burghley : ' Ex- tremytye inforceth me to crave succour/ and to illustrate her assertion by a detail of miseries. The hopes with which the Stuart accession was natu- rally anticipated by all the Howards, were by some of them more than realized, but the heir of Arundel was not of that number. He was, indeed, restored in blood to such honours as his father, Earl Philip, had enjoyed, and also to the baronies forfeited by his grandfather, Thomas, THE COLLECTOR OF THE ARTJNDEL1A.N MSS. 175 Duke of Norfolk, in 1572. But the dignities were booki, restored without the lands. His nearest relations profited TmCoL. by their influence at Court to obtain grants of his chief ™" ancestral estates. The Earls of Nottingham, North- de1tanMSS - ampton,* and Suffolk had each of them a share in the spoil ; — salving their consciences, probably, by the reflection that, despite his poverty, their young kinsman had made a great marriage. For his alliance, in 1606, with Lady Aletheia Talbot, daughter and co-heir of Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury, had already brought to him considerable means in hand, and a vast estate in prospect. The mar- riage, in higher respects, was also a happy one. But a natural and eager desire to recover what his father had for- feited cast much anxiety over years otherwise felicitous. He could not regain even Arundel House in London, until he had paid £4000 for it to the Earl of Nottingham. Lord Arundel made his first appearance at Court in 1605. In May, 1611, he was created a Knight of the Garter. Thirteen years of James' reign had passed before the Earl was admitted to the Privy Council. This honour was conferred upon him in July, 1616. Five years more were to pass before his restoration to his hereditary office * Part of Lord Northampton's large estates came eventually to Lord Arundel by bequest. He also inherited Northampton's house at Greenwich, and occasionally resided there, until its destruction by fire in January, 1616. Chamberlain's account of the incident, given to Sir Dudley Carleton, is worth quotation for the comment with which it ends : ' There fell a great mischance to the Earl of Arundel by the burning of his house ... at Greenwich, where he lost a great deal of household stuff and rich furniture ; the fury of the fire being such that nothing could be saved. No doubt the Papists will ascribe and publish it as a punishment for his deserting or falling from them.' Ten days before the fire, Arundel had testified, publicly, his conformity with the Church of England. But he had shewn long before that his religious views and convictions differed widely from those in which he had been brought up. Arundkl at Court. J 76 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. IV. The Col- lector of THE AKL'N- DELIAN MSS. Domestic Corresp., James I, 1821, 21 July. (B II.) Minutes of Correspond- ence in Sec. Conway's Letter Book; (E. H.) and Council Books (C. 0.). of Earl Marshal of England, although he had been made one of six Commissioners for the discharge of its duties in October, 1616. The baton was at length (29th August, 1621) delivered to him at Theobalds. 'The King, 5 wrote John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, when com- municating the news, ' would have given him £2000 a year pension withal, but — whatsoever the reason was — he would accept but the ordinary fee, which is twenty pounds per annum.' It is plain, however, that this assertion was an error. According to the ancient constitution of the Earl Marshal's office there were certain fees accruing from it which were now, under new regulations, to cease. The question arose, Shall the Earl Marshal be compensated by pension, or (according to a pernicious fashion of the age) by the grant, or lease, of a customs duty upon some largely vended commodity? The 'impost of currants' was eventually fixed upon. But the Earl had subsequent occa- sion to adduce evidence before a Committee of the Privy Council, that the rent paid to the King sometimes exceeded the aggregate duty collected from the merchants.* There is some uncertainty as to the date of the earliest of Lord Arundel's many visits to the Continent. According to Sir Edward Walker, he was in Italy in 1609. But that statement is open to doubt. There is proof that in 1612 he passed some time in Florence and in Siena. With * The question was complicated by opposition offered by the Lord Keeper Williams to the terms in which Lord Arundel's patent was originally drawn. The relations between Arundel and Buckingham were never cordial, and the Lord Keeper seems to have profited by that circumstance to make his opposition to the pension effectual. It is pro- bable that he had good grounds for so much of his objection as related to certain powers proposed to be vested in the Earl Marshal's court. But on that point Arundel's views eventually prevailed — until the time of the Long Parliament. The Lord Keeper's letter is printed in Cabala, p. 285. THE COLLECTOR OF THE AEUNDELIAN MSS. 177 Siena, as a place of residence, he was especially delighted, booki, Of the foundation of his collections — to which his Italian t^coi,-' journeys largely contributed — there are no distinct records the™!™- until the following year. muanmss. The tour of 1613, followed immediately upon the mar- ^ ra "' le " J i. Rochester, riage of the Princess Elizabeth with Frederick, Count ms.cow. Palatine of the Rhine. The royal pair were escorted into f.m. Germany by both Lord and Lady Arundel, who soon left beginnings the Rhine country on a new visit to Italy, and remained abundehan there until nearly the close of 1614. During that long nos™' residence the Earl established a wide intercourse with the most distinguished artists and archaeologists of Italy, and made extensive purchases. The fame of his princely tastes was spread abroad. It soon became notorious that by this open-handed collector marbles, vases, coins, gems, manu- scripts, pictures, were received with equal welcome. And from this time onwards many passages occur in his cor- respondence which indicate the keen and minute interest he took in the researches of the agents who, in various parts of the Continent, were busy on his behalf. The pursuit did not lack the special zest of home rivalry, as will be seen hereafter. - Not the least singular incident in the early part of Lord Arundel's life was his commitment to the Tower, at a moment when his favour with King James was at its height. In one of the many impassioned parliamentary debates which occurred during the session of 1621 an allusion was wn,m y . made by Lord Spencer to the unhappy fate of two famous the ancestors of the Earl of Arundel, and it was made in a between way which induced the Earl to utter an unwise and unjust i retort. The matter immediately under discussion was a g" F D NcrE 12 178 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, very small one, but it had grown out of the exciting ques- the col- tion of monopolies, and it was mixed up with the yet more xhe T auu°n- exciting question of the overweening powers entrusted by dehanmss. the King to Buckingham. In the course of an exa- mination at the bar of the House of Lords about the grant of a patent for licensing inns, Sir Henry Yelverton had made a furious attack upon the Duke. The attack was still more an insult to the House, than to the King's favourite, and it had been repeated. It was proposed, on a subsequent day, to call Yelverton to the bar for the third time, in order to see if he would then offer the apology which before he had refused. Arundel opposed the motion. ' We have his words ; we need hear no more/ he said. Lord Spencer rose to answer : ' I remember that two of the Earl's ancestors — the Earl of Surrey, and the Duke of Norfolk, were unjustly condemned to death, without being heard.' The implied parallel was a silly one, but its weakness and irrelevancy did not restrain Arundel's anger. ' My Lords/ said he, ' I do acknowledge that my ancestors have suffered. It may be for doing the king and the country good service ; and at such time, perhaps, as when the ancestors of the Lord that spake last kept sheep.' The speaker failed to see that by using such words he had committed exactly the same offence as that for which he had, but a moment before, censured the late Attorney-General, and had moved the House to punish him. On all sides, he was advised to apologise. He resisted all entreaty. When committed to the Tower, he still refused submission. Both the King and the Prince of Wales had to inter- cede for him with the House before he could regain his liberty. With rare exception, the public incidents of Lord THE COLLECTOE OF THE ARTJNDELIAN MSS. 179 Arundel's life during the remainder of the reign of James book i, are such as offer little interest, save as illustrations of cha- thbcol- racter. In that respect, many of them testify to the failing ™°™*„ *. which appears so strikingly in the story of the quarrel with muakmss. Lord Spencer. Some noble qualities lost part of their real lustre when pride was so plainly seen in their company. All that was best in Lord Arundel revolted at the grossness of the Stuart court. He often increased his own disgust by contrasting what he saw at Whitehall with the memories of his youth. His office of Earl Marshal precluded him from very long absences. Sometimes, when forced to min- gle with courtiers for whose society he had little liking, he rebuked their want of dignity by exaggerating his own dignity into haughtiness. Against failings of this kind we have to set many merits, and amongst them a merit emi- nently rare in that age. Arundel was free from covetous- ness — save in that special sense in which covetousness, it may be feared, cleaves to all ' collectorship.' In 1622 some anxiety was occasioned to Lord Arundel advem- by a singular adventure which befell his wife during her lady residence in the Venetian territory, whither (in -the course A *™mci!. of a long Italian tour) she had gone to watch over the edu- cation of their sons ; little anticipating, it may well be sup- posed, that her name and that of Lord Arundel, would be made to figure in Venetian records in connection ' with the strange story of the conspirator Antonio Foscarini. After making some stay in Venice, Lady Arundel had taken a villa on the Brenta, about ten miles from the City. In April, 1622, she was on her way from this villa to the Mocenigo Palace, her residence in Venice, when she was met by the Secretary of Sir Henry Wotton, English ambas- sador to the Republic. The secretary said that he was sent by the ambassador to inform her that the Venetian Senate 180 EAELY COLLECTOKS. book i, had resolved to command her ladyship to leave their city Chap. IV. i , ■ ■ , • „ , , t /■ T the coi- and territory within a few days, on the ground ot a discovery ™™abu°n- ^at Foscarini had carried on some of his traitorous bkliammss. intrigues with foreign ministers — and more especially with those of the Pope and Emperor — at her house. To this the messenger added, that it was Sir Henry Wotton's most 1623, April, earnest advice that Lady Arundel should not return to Venice, but should remain at Dolo, until she heard from him again. Having listened to this strange communication in private, she desired the secretary to repeat it in the presence of some of the persons who attended her. Then she hastened to the ambassador's house at Venice. Her interview with Wotton is thus, in substance, narrated by Lord Arundel, when telling the story to his friend the Earl of Carlisle, then ambassador to the Court of France. ' Lady Arundel went immediately to my Lord Ambas- sador [Wotton], telling him she came to hear from his own mouth what she had heard from his servant's.' When . Sir Henry had repeated the statement of his secretary, the Lady asked him how long the accusation and the resolu- tion of the Senate had been known to him. He replied that reports of the alleged intercourse with Foscarini had reached him some fifteen days before, or more ; but that of the resolution of the Senate he had heard only on that morning. ' She asked him why he did never let her under- stand of the report all that time ? He said because she spake not to him of it.' To Lady Arundel's pithy re- joinder that it would, have been hard for her to speak of a matter of which she had never heard the least rumour until that day, and to her further protestation that she had not even seen Foscarini since the time of his visit to England, some years earlier, Sir Henry replied, ' I believe there was no such matter ;' but he refused to disclose the name THE COLLECTOR OF THE ARUNDELIAN MSS. 181 of the person who had first spoken to him of the accusation, booki, To his renewed advice that her ladyship should not stir thbco^ farther in the matter, she declined to accede. It concerned ™°T,!" ' THE AltUN- her honour, and her husband's honour, she said, to have »«^»mss. public conference with the Doge and Council without ^j^us. delay. From carrying out this resolve the ambassador < B - M -> found it impossible to dissuade her. That conference took place on the following day with the remarkable result of a public declaration by the Doge that no mention had ever been made of Lady Arundel's name, or of the name of any person nearly or remotely connected with her, either at any stage of the proceedings against Poscarini, or in any of the discussions which had arisen out of his conspiracy. When the audience given to Lady Arundel by the Doge had been made the subject of a communication to the Senate, that body instructed the Venetian Ambassador in England to confer with Lord Arundel. ' You are,' said they, 'to speak to the Earl Marshal in such strong and earnest language that he may retain no doubt of the in- validity of the report, and may remain perfectly convinced of the esteem and cordial affection entertained towards him neiaerations by the Republic ; augmented as such feelings are by the "f/yJZT open and dignified mode of life led here by the Countess, ^ ed 1 b I f and in which she hastens the education of her sons in the Report™ sciences to make them — as they will become — faithful Archives, imitators of their meritorious father and their ancestors.' q 866) ' Sir Henry Wotton's motive in the strange part taken by him in this incident is nowhere disclosed. He had to listen to several indirect reproofs, both from the Doge and from the Senate, which were none the less incisive on account of the courtly language in which they were couched. LECTOIL or THE AEUN- delianMSS 182 EARLY COLLECTORS, book i, Two years afterwards, the Earl was himself hastily sum- theco^ moned to the Continent to attend the death-bed of his eldest son, James, Lord Maltravers, who is described by a contemporary writer as a ' gentleman of rare wit and extra- a™nde°* 8 ordinary expectation.' The Countess and her two elder eldest son. sovs> James and Henry, were then returning from Italy to TilT" England. They passed through Belgium in order to visit July, io24. the Queen of Bohemia. Whilst at Ghent, upon the jour- ney, Lord Maltravers was seized with the smallpox. He died in that city in July, 1624. The affliction was acutely Domestic felt. ' My sorrow makes me incapable of this world's jameTi, affairs,' wrote the Earl to one of his political correspondents, voicxiix, j n jjjg au t umn f th e y ear- To the outer world, reserved vol. cm, § 55. manners and a stately demeanour often gave a very false impression of the man himself. Throughout his life, Arundel's affectionate nature was so evinced in his deeds, and in his domestic intercourse, as to stand in little need of illustration from his words. Mainly, as it seems, to this characteristic quality he was soon to owe a second imprison- ment in the Tower of London. the stuart The new Lord Maltravers shortly after his return to Marriage _ . _ p ,, . _ ... and its England fell m love with the Lady Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of Esme, Duke of Lennox. Arundel had formed other wishes and plans for the son who was now his heir, and there is evidence that he was reluctant to give his con- sent to the prosecution of the suit. Nor did the kinship of the prospective bride with King Charles appear to him, it seems, at all an inviting circumstance in the matter. So long as Buckingham stood at the helm of affairs Arundel was likely to have a very small share in the new king's affections, so that pride and policy as well as inclination stood in the way of his approval. He knew also that it was Charles' eager wish that his kinswoman should marry THE COLLECTOR OF THE ARUNDELIAN MSS. 183 Lord Lorne, the eldest son of the Earl of Argyle. But booki, the young lover was ardent, and his entreaties uninter- the P coi^ mitting. At length, we are told, he not only wrung from ™ the Earl the words ' You may try your fortune with the deliahMSS - lady that you seem to love so well,' but prevailed upon him to confer paternally on the subject with the lady's aunt and guardian, the Duchess of Richmond. Maltravers, mean- while, had resolved to incur no risk of defeat by waiting for a royal assent to his marriage. He had long before won his cause with the lady, but had kept the secret. Two passionate lovers* went gravely through the ceremony of a formal introduction to each other. Maltravers then induced her to consent to a private marriage. When Lord Arundel was informed of the fact he immediately disclosed his knowledge to the King, and besought pardon for the culprits. But Charles' wrath was unbounded. He placed the new-married pair under restraint in London. He committed Arundel himself to the Tower. He commanded Lady Arundel to remain at Horsley, in Surrey, a seat belonging to the Dowager Countess, her mother-in-law. When Lord Arundel was thus imprisoned Parliament was sitting. The Lords declared his arrest to be an in- fringement of their privileges. The King replied that ' the Earl of Arundel is restrained for a misdemeanour which is personal to the King's Majesty, and has no relation to matters of Parliament.' The Lords still insisted that it was the Earl's unquestionable right ' to be admitted to come, sit, and serve in Parliament.' Charles released Arundel from the Tower, and then confined him to * ' In my deare lorde I long since placed my true affection and love. .... Had I manie lives I would have adventured them all.' Lady Maltravers to the Earl of Arundel, 6 Feb., 1626 (MS. Harl., 1581, f. 390). 184 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. IV. The Col- lector or THE Arun- deliakMSS. Sect e tar if Conway's Letter Booh, pp. 251 seqq. (R. H.) lords' Journals, vol. iii, p. 653, Sec. Domestic Corresp., Charles I, vol. xxxv, p. 16 (R. H.). Horsley. Royal evasion did but provoke increased earnest- ness and firmness from the Peers. At length they resolved that they would suspend public business until the Earl presented himself in his place. Nearly three months had been spent in debate and altercation before Secretary Conway was directed to write to Arundel in these terms : ' It is the King's pleasure that you come to the Parliament, but not to the Court.'' The sequel of the story, as it tells itself in the State Papers, affords an early and eminent illustration of the qualities in Charles the Pirst which, as they ripened, brought about his ruin. The King resolved that his con- Cession should as far as was possible be retracted. Directly the sitting of Parliament was suspended, the King com- manded Conway to apprise the Earl that his restraint to Horsley was renewed, ' as before the Earl's leave to come to Parliament.' Arundel on his part made courtly and even lavish declarations of submission. ' I desire to im- plore the King's grace by the humblest and best ways I can.' This was written in September, 1626. Whenever it was indispensable that he should obtain leave to visit the capital a petition had to be prepared. In March, 1627, he writes : ' The King has limited my stay in London until the 12th of March. I will obey, but I beg you to repre- sent to His Majesty that I have necessary business to transact .... and that I have so carried myself as to shew my desire to give His Majesty no distastes. If now, after a year has passed, the King will dissolve this cloud, and leave me to my own liberty, I will hold myself to be most free when living in such place and manner as may be most to His Majesty's liking.' It was all in vain. Another whole year passes. Arundel has still to write : ' I beseech the King to give life to my just desires, and after two THE COLLECTOR OF THE ATITJNDELIAN MSS. 185 years of heavy disfavour to grant me the happiness to kiss booki, his hands and to attend him in my place.' To this humble thecjl- representation and entreaty it was replied by Secretary ^j™*™- Conwat : ' His Majesty's answer is that the Earl has not ™a K mss. so far appeased the exceptions which the King has taken mi -> . . . . vol. lvi,p.86 against unkindness conceived, as yet to take off his dis- voi.xcv, PP . favour. As for the Earl's proffered duty and carriage in Co ' B „4'/ the King's service, the King will judge of that as he shall ^ e '%f ^' find occasion.' ' RH -> He found occasion ere long; but not until after Buck- ingham's death. Arundel rendered useful service, on some conspicuous occasions, both at home and abroad. If his successive diplomatic missions to Holland in 1632, and to Ratisbon in 1638, on the affairs of the Palatinate, failed of their main object, it was from no miscarriage of the ambassador. In the unostentatious labours of the Council Board he took during a long series of years a very honour- able share. And it is much to his honour that by the men to whom the chief scandals of a disastrous reign are mainly ascribable, Arundel was, almost uniformly, both disliked and feared. As Lord High Steward of England, Arundel had to abundel preside at the trial of the Earl of Strafford. He acquitted strayed. himself of an arduous task with eminent ability, and with ie«- 1 ■ l vi i March and an impartiality which won respect, alike from the managers Apvii. of the impeachment and from the friends of the doomed statesman. The only person who expressed dissatisfaction with Arundel's conduct on that critical occasion was the King. The historians who have most deeply and acutely scanned the details of that most memorable of all our State Trials are agreed that in order to' have satisfied Charles, the Earl of Arundel must have betrayed the duty of his high office. 186 EAELY COLLECTOES. Book I, Chap. IV. The Col- lector op THE ARUN- delianMSS. Latest Employ- ments. Rusliworth, vol. iv, pp. 317, 318. 1642. February. Sir E.Walker, in MS. Harl.j as before. Colonizing Efforts op Lord Arundel. Shortly after the trial of Strafford, it became Arundel's duty as Earl Marshal to attend the mother of the queen (Mary of Medicis), on her return to Holland; and he received the King's license to remain beyond the seas during his pleasure. He returned however to England in October of the same year. In the following "February, a similar ceremonial mission was his last official employment. He then conducted Queen Henrietta Maria on her journey into France, and took his own last farewell of England. It was an unconscious farewell. Nor does his departure appear to have been dictated by any desire to shrink from sacrifices on behalf of the cause with which — whether rightly or wrongly — all his personal sympathies, as well as the political views of his whole life, were bound up. At the hands of the first Stuart he had met with capricious favour, and with enduring injustice. By the second, during several years, he was treated with marked and causeless indignity ; and then, during several other years, rewarded grudgingly for zealous service. In exile, his con- tributions in support of the royal cause were upon a scale which impoverished both himself and his family.* Such a fact is a conclusive proof of magnanimity of spirit, whatever may be thought of its bearings in regard to political insight. Opinion is less likely to differ with re- spect to exertions of quite another order which occa- sionally occupied Lord Arundel's mind and energies during sit least twenty years of his political life. One of the best known incidents in his varied career is * It has been estimated, on competent evidence, that for every one thousand pounds which the Earl's estates in England contributed towards his personal and household expenditure, in exile, twenty-seven thousand pounds were so contributed towards the maintenance, in one form or other, of the royalist cause. Such an estimate can, of course, only be approximative. But it has obvious significance and value. LECTOK 01' THE A.RUN- DELIANMSS. THE COLLECTOE OF THE ARTJNDELIAN MSS. 187 also one of its most honourable incidents. His friendship booki, for Ralegh grew out of a deep interest in colonization, the'col- And the calamitous issue of that famous voyage to Guiana in 1617 which Arundel had promoted was very far from inducing him to abandon the earnest advocacy of a re- sumption, in subsequent years, of the enterprise which Ralegh had had so much at heart. His efforts were more than once repeated, but the same influences which ruined Ralegh foiled the exertions of Arundel and of those who worked with him. He then turned his attention towards the wide field of GrmtBoot, James I, colonial enterprise which presented itself in New England. pp.307,se qq . Prom the autumn of 1620 until the summer of 1 635 he, from JmZp., time to time, actively supported the endeavours of the J*™^ ' Council for the Planting of New England.' The Minute § BS - in which that Council summed up the causes which induced F ™ c ! a ™ ati °^ r Book, May 15, it, at the date last-named, to resign its charter is an in- leso. (b.ho structive one. It expresses, in few words, the views of Lord Arundel and of his ablest fellows at the board : — ' We have found,' say the Councillors, in their final Minute, ' that our endeavours to advance the plantation of New sueeendek or the New England have been attended with frequent troubles and England great disappointments. We have been deprived of near friends and faithful servants employed in that work. We have been assaulted with sharp litigious questions before the Privy Council by the Virginia Company, who had com- plained to Parliament that our Plantation was a grievance.' They proceed to say that a promising settlement which had been established, under the governorship of Captain Gorges in Massachusetts Bay, had been violently broken up by a body of speculative intruders who, without the knowledge of the Council of New England, had found means to obtain a royal ' grant of some three thousand 188 EARLY COLLECTOES. book i, miles of the sea-coast. J Finding it by far too great a task, thTcol- for their means, to restore what had thus been brought to laoioaoir ra j n Arundel and his fellow-councillors were constrained THE AE.UN- ' delian mss. to resign their charter. coid other scholastic learning, for mathematical, philosophi- bulianmss. ca]^ an( j sxxc \ l ther books as may prove most useful to the Ho™a? design and institution of the Society." But at that time, 14 March, a ft er muc h conference, it was otherwise determined. The heraldical and genealogical books belonging to the original Arundel Library were given, at the date of the first transfer of the bulk of the collection to the Royal Society, to the Heralds' College. They still form an important part of the College Library, and they in- clude valuable materials for the history of the family of Howard. 1669, CHAPTER V. THE COLLECTOR OF THE HARLEIAN MSS. ' A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, Above all pain, all passion, and all pride, The rage .of power, the blast of public breath, The lust of lucre, and the dread of death. — Pope, Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford, in the Tower. ' Whether this m an ever had any determined view besides that of raising his family is, I believe, a problematical question in the world. My opinion is that he never had any other Oxford fled from Court covered with shame, the object of the derision of the Whigs and of the indig- nation of the Tories.' — Bolingbboke, Letter to Sir W. Wyndham. The Harley Family. — Parliamentary and Official Career of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford. — The Party Conflicts under Queen Anne. — Robert Harley and Jonathan Swift. — Harley and the Court of the Stuarts. — Bid Harley conspire to restore the Pretender? — History of the Harleian Library. — The Life and Correspondence of Humphrey Wanley. RobertHarley was the eldest son of Sir Edward Harley, book i, of Brampton Bryan, in Herefordshire, by his second wife, Tmfcoi, Abigail, daughter of Nathaniel Stephens, of Essington, in ^""ia* Gloucestershire. He was born at his father's town-house l euj John _ Tor the next two years and a half, Harley's principal the in. occupation was to prepare the way for a return, in kind, of against the the defeat thus inflicted upon him. Some of the steps by ministet. which he achieved his end are among the most familiar portions of our political history. But from the necessities of the case it has been, and probably it must continue to be, one of those portions in which the basis of truth can scarcely, by any researches that are now possible, be sepa- rated from the large admixture of falsehood built thereon by party animosities. His own correspondence shows that strong hopes of success in the effort were entertained within eight months of his dismissal. It shows also that the channel employed, unsuccessfully, in 1708, was that which became an effectual one in 1710. * In the interval between June, 1707 (after the Union with Scotland), and February, 1708, the following entries occur in the Council Books : — ' 1 July, 1707. The Rt. Hon. Robert Harley, one of Her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, delivered up the old signet of office — which was thereupon broken before Her Majesty — and received a new one by the Queen's command.' The entry is followed by the note : — ' This order was thus drawn by Mr. Harley's particular direction.' (Register of Privy Council, Anne, vol. iii, p. 39S.) 1 8 January, 170£. The Rt. Hon. R. Harley, . . . having this day presented to Her Majesty in her Privy Council a new signet with sup- porters, Her Majesty was pleased to deliver it back to him, whereupon he returned to Her Majesty the old signet, which was immediately defaced,' &c. (lb., p. 485.) THE COLLECTOR OP THE HARLE1AN MSS. 213 Early in October, Harley received from the Court an booki, uusigned letter in which these passages occur : — ' The Queen thTcol- stands her ground and refuses to enter into any capitula- ^Xe* tion with the [Whig Lords] . She has not hitherto con- 1EI1N MSS - sented to offer or hear of any terms. The Lord T[reasure]r desired she might allow him to treat with 'em, and the Duke of S[omerse]t was employed to persuade her, but she was inflexible. The Lord Treasurer offered to resign the Staff, but she would neither take the Staff nor advice from him, and he went to Newmarket without getting any powers or leave to treat. . . . Your friend cannot answer Harley w # Corresp. m for the event. ... I will add no more but that your friend Ms.nari. 7o26 f 237 thinks your being here is very necessary, and that Her Majesty .... would be the better of assistance and good advice.' It was not, however, until the 8th of August, 1710, that the Godolphin Ministry was dismissed. Two days after- wards, Harlejt was made Chancellor of the Exchequer; the Treasury being put into commission. He entered upon that office amidst enormous obstacles. TheChan - L # CELLORSHIP His enemies were unable to deny that his exertions to over- or the come the difficulties in his path were marked by financial 1710, ability, and by a large measure of temporary success. But Ausus as little can it be denied that the immediate triumph laid the groundwork of public troubles to come. His own account of the situation of affairs, and of the methods taken to improve it, must, of course, be read with the due allowance. The pith of it lies in these sentences : — ' The army was in the field. There was no money in the Treasury. None of the remitters would contract again. The Bank had recently refused to lend the Lord Treasurer Godolphin a hundred thousand pounds. The Army and Navy Services were in debt nearly eleven millions. The 214 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, Civil List owed £600,000. The annual deficit was, at Tim: col. least, a hundred and twenty-four thousand pounds. The thehj^.* new Commissioners of the Treasury, nevertheless, made leian mss. provision, within a few days of their appointment, for pay- ing the Army by the greatest remittance that was ever known. When Parliament met, on the 27th of November, L q,TJ° m f un ds had been prepared for the service of the year, and a June 9, 1714. plan was submitted for easing the nation of nine millions of (Part. Hist., ' ° vui. vii, App.) debt. 5 Harley was scarcely warm in his new office before he made the acquaintance of Swift, then full of ambitious though vague schemes for the future, and very angry with the leaders of the Whig party for the coolness with which his proffers, both of counsel and of service, had lately been received. eae.lt in- At the time of his introduction to Harley, Swift's TEB.COUESE with swim, immediate business in London consisted in soliciting from the Government a remission of first-fruits to the clergy of Ireland. His nominal colleagues in that trust were the Bishops of Ossory and Killaloe, but the whole weight of the negotiations rested upon Swift's shoulders. His treat- ment of it soon displayed his parts. The Minister saw that he was both able and willing to render efficient political service. To the intercourse so begun we owe a life-like portraiture of Harley, under all his aspects, and in every mood of mind. Nor is the depicter himself anywhere seen under stronger light than in those passages of his journal which narrate, from day to day, the rise and fall of the Government founded on the unstable alliance between Harley and St. John. Of their first interview Swift notes : — ' I was brought privately to Mr. Harley, who received me with the greatest respect and kindness imaginable.' Of the second : — ' We THE COLLECTOE OF THE HAELEIAN MSS. 215 were two hours alone. ... He read a memorial I had drawn book i, up, and put it into his pocket to show the Queen ; told me ^cIl- the measures he would take, .... told me he must bring '™™™ Mr. St. John and me acquainted ; and spoke so many things lEIAN Mss - of personal kindness and esteem for me, that I am inclined half to believe what some friends have told me, that he would do everything to bring me over.' When the promised 5°™*/° interview with Secretary St. John comes to be diarized in ^f 8 ;^ its turn : — ' He told me,' says Swift, ' among other things, pp- 33 ; &-, that Mr. Harley complained he could keep nothing from me, I had the way so much of getting into him.' I knew that was a refinement It is hard to see these great men using me like one who was their betters, and the puppies with you in Ireland hardly regarding me.' Not many weeks had passed before Swift's pen was at work in defence of the measures of the Government with an energy, a practical and versatile ability, of which, up to that date, there had been scarcely an example, brilliant as was the roll of contemporary writers who had taken sides in the political strife. Swift's defects, as well as his merits, armed him for his task. Nor had he been long engaged upon it before he marked, very distinctly, the character both of the rewards to which he aspired, and of the personal independence which he was determined to maintain, in his own fashion. One day, as he took his leave of Harley, after dining with him, the Minister placed in his hand a fifty pound note. He returned it angrily. And he met Harley's next invitation by a refusal. Then comes this entry in his diary : — ' I was this morning early with Mr. Lewis, of the Secretary's office, and saw a letter Mr. Harley had sent to him desiring to be reconciled ; but I was deaf to all entreaties, and have desired Lewis to go to him and let 216 EAELY COLLECTORS. book i, him know I expect further satisfaction. If we let these Cliap.V. . r the col- great Ministers pretend too much there will be no govern- thehIe-* i n g them. He promises to make me easy if I will but ieiahmss. come an( j see ^^ g u ^. j w -jj no ^ anc j ^ e shall (j it by journal to message, or I will cast him off.' The desired concession Stella, p. 169. . was made, and in a day or two we find our journalist re- cording, characteristically enough, that he ' sent Mr. Har- let into the House to call the Secretary [St. John], to let him know I would not dine with him if he dined late.' And then : — ' I have taken Mr. Harley into favour again. ... I will cease to visit him after dinner, for he dines too late for my head They call me nothing but " Jonathan," and I said I believed they would leave me Jonathan as they found me, and that I never knew a Ministry do anything for those whom they make com- lb., pp. 178; . . , 182. panions of their pleasures. Swift was one of the first bystanders who took note of the seeds of dissension which were already growing up between Harlet and St. John, and who foresaw the coming parallel between the fate of the new Government and that of its predecessor. On the 4th of March, 1711, he wrote: — ' We must have a Peace, let it be a bad or a good one ; though nobody dares talk of it. The nearer I look upon things the worse I like them. I believe the Confederacy will soon break to pieces, and our factions at home increase. The Ministry is upon a very narrow bottom, and stands like an isthmus between the Whigs on one side, and the violent Tories on the other. They are able seamen, but the tempest is too great, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them Your Duchess of Somerset, who now has the key, is a most insinuating woman, and I be- lieve they [the Whigs] will endeavour to play the same n> p . i9 S . game that has been played against them.' THE COLLECTOK OF THE HAELEIAN MSS. 217 The game was suddenly interrupted, though only for a booii, while. An attempt to assassinate Harley gave him a thTcoi.- renewed hold upon power and popularity. But its unex- ^hah* pected consequences embittered the jealousies which already 1EIAKMsq - menaced his administration with ruin. Antoine de Guiscard was a French adventurer, whose pri- gutscaed's ,.„ 111 111 n- XT Til ATTEMPT ON vate lire had been marked by great profligacy. He had taken ™ K UK <>» an obscure part in the insurrection of the Cevennes — rather 1 ^ &x ' as a recruiting agent than as a combatant. In that charac- Mareh - ter he had met with encouragement to raise a refugee regiment in England. Hopes had also been held out to him that a British auxiliary contingent would be landed on the southern coast of France. In the course, however, of some preliminary inquiries into the position of the insur- rectionists, it was found that such an invasion would have little chance of any useful result, and the project was abandoned. Meanwhile, a pension of £400 a year had been bestowed on the emissary. But ere long it was discovered that Guiscard had profited by opportunities, afforded him in the course of the discussions about the proposed expedition, to make himself conversant with many particulars of military and naval affairs, and that it was his habit to send advices into France. Some of his letters were seized. Their writer was arrested on the 8th of March, 1711, and was taken, immediately, before a Committee of the Privy Council. When examined as to his illicit intercourse with France he persisted in mere denials. At length, one of his letters was shown to him by Harley, and he was closely pressed as to his motives in writing it. He then addressed himself to Secretary St. John, and begged permission to speak with him apart. The Secretary answered, ' You are here before the Council as a criminal. Whatever you may have to say 218 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, must be said to all of us.' The man persisted in refusing Chap.V. r ° tbecoi,- to reply to any further questions, unless his request was tu^hLT granted. Seeing that nothing more could then be obtained LEIAN M3S - from him, the Lord President rose to ring the bell for a messenger, that the prisoner might be removed in custody. At that moment the prisoner pulled a penknife from his pocket, turned towards Harley, near to whom he stood, and stabbed him in the breast. He repeated the stroke, and then rushed towards St. John. But between the prisoner and the Secretary there stood a small table, over which he stumbled. St. John drew his sword, and, with the words ' The villain has killed Mr. Harley,' struck at him, as did also the Duke of Ormond and the Duke of Newcastle. Lord Powlett cried out 'Do not kill him.' Presently the assassin was in the hands of several messen- gers, with whom, notwithstanding his wounds, he struggled so desperately that more than one of them received severe injuries. When at length overpowered, he said to Ormond, ' My Lord, why do you not despatch me ?' ' That,' replied the Duke, ' is not the work of gentlemen. 'Tis another man's business.' Harlet's wound was so severe that for several days there was a belief that it would prove mortal. It entailed a lin- gering illness.* Before his recovery, his assailant died in * Swift's account of their first interview after Haiiey's partial re- covery merits quotation : — ' I went in the evening,' he notes on the 5th of April, 'to see Mr. Harley. Mr. Secretary was just going out of the door, but I made him come back ; and there was the old Saturday club, Lord Keeper [Harcourt], Lord Rivers, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Harley, and I ; the first time since his stabbing. Mr. Secretary went away, but I stayed till nine, and made Mr. Harley show me his breast and tell all his story I measured and found that the penknife would have killed him, if it had gone but half the breadth of my thumb-nail lower ; so near was he to death. I was so curious as to ask him what THE COLLECTOE OF THE HAELEIAN MSS. 219 prison. The coroner's inquest ascribed Guiscard's death booki, to bruises received from one of the messengers who strove tuk'col- to bind him, but Swift tells us that he died of the sword- l™£^ wounds. LK1AS MSS - That keen observer had seen, long before this attempted f t "™ alt0 assassination, the latent personal jealousies between Harlet pp- 202-311. and St. John. He had recognised in those jealousies the Hakley ° J BECOMES gravest peril of Ha rley's government. Guiscard's crime lom>hioh 1 1 1 TT 1 n , Teeasuilee. had now made Harley the most popular man m the country, and it had doubled his favour with the Queen. On his recovery, he received the congratulations of the House of Commons, expressed with more than usual ^"/com- emphasis. By the Queen he was raised to the peerage T"' 1 " 1 - (24 May, 1711) as Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer. Five days afterwards (29 May) he was made Lord High ^ZmI, Treasurer. His elevation intensified the jealousy of St. A ™ e ^™ lv ' John into something which already closely resembled hatred, although years were to elapse before the mask could be quite thrown aside. It is amusing to read the philosophical reflection with which the Secretary sent the news to Lord Ossory : — ' Our friend Mr. Harley is now Earl of Oxford and High Treasurer. This great advancement is what the labour he has gone through, the danger he has run, and the services he has performed, seem to deserve. But he stands on slippery ground, and envy is always near the great st - John t0 to fling up their heels on the least trip which they 1711,1a June , {Corresp. i, make. us). The Earl of Oxford had not long obtained the Trea- surer's staff before he received some characteristic exhorta- tions from the Jacobite section of his Tory supporters of the were his thoughts while they were carrying him home in the chair. He said he concluded himself a dead man.' — Jowrnal to Stella, as before, .pp. 255, 256. 220 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book I, Clwp. V. The COL- LECTOR OP THE HAR- LEIAN MSS. Oxford AND THE October dun. De Foe, Secret His- tory of the Wlute Staff. use which he ought to make of it. Atterbury came to him, on the part of some of the Treasurer's ' particular friends/ to acquaint him how uneasy they were that he had neither dissolved the Parliament, nor removed from office nearly so many Whigs as those particular friends wished to see removed. ' I know very well/ replied the Earl, ' the men from whom that message comes, and I am also very sensible of the difficulties I have to struggle with. If, in addition, 1 must communicate all my measures, it will be necessary for me to assure Her Majesty that I can no longer do her any service/ These hot-headed politicians had already formed their famous ' October Club.' They were about a hundred and fifty in number, and for a few months their proceedings made a great noise. The Treasurer found means to deal with them in a more effectual fashion than that in which they had endeavoured to deal with the administration. ' By silent, quiet steps, in a little time,' says a writer who watched the process and aided it, ' he so effectually sepa- rated these gentlemen, that in less than six months the name of " October Club " was forgotten in the world. . . . With so much address was this attempt overthrown, that he lost not the men, though he put them by their design.' Those brief sentences indicate, I think, the fatality of the position in which Oxford now placed himself. He had ardently desired to gain the control of affairs, at a period of exceptional difficulty. And, at the best, his capacity and energies would have been barely equal to the task in times of exceptional ease. Some of the very qualities, both of mind and heart, which made him beloved by those who lived with him, weakened him as a statesman. He was surrounded by adepts in political intrigue, some of whom THE COLLECTOE OF THE HAELEIAN MSS. 221 combined with an experience not less than his own, far booki, greater powers of mind, an unbending will, and an utter the P col- unscrupulousness as to the use of means. He vainly flat- JJ^'™ tered himself that he could beat these men at their own LKIAIiMSS - weapons. His temporary success laid a foundation for his eventual ruin. To gain the aid of the Jacobite Tories in Parliament he 0xpo * D AHD held out hopes which it was never his intention to realise. ™™x . . "Tin Stuarts. He carried on an indirect correspondence with the Stuart Court in a way sufficiently adroit to induce that Court to instruct its adherents to support the negotiations for the Peace with France. He would commit himself to nothing until Peace was made. The conclusion of a Peace was the one measure on which he was firmly bent. He had con- tended that the true interests of Britain demanded the end- ing of an exhausting war many years before. And whatever the demerits and shortcomings of the Treaty of Utrecht, it had at least the merit of making the quiet succession of the House of Hanover possible. In March, 1713, the French agent in England, the Abbe Gautier, wrote to the Marquis de Torcy an account of an interview he had obtained with the Lord Treasurer : — ' M. Vanderberg ' [i. e. Lord Oxford], he says, ' sent for me, seven or eight days ago, to tell me something of importance. Indeed, he opened his mind to me, making me acquainted with his feelings towards Montgourlin [i. e. the Pretender], and the desire he had to do him service, as soon as the Peace shall be concluded It will not be difficult, because the Queen is of his opinion. But, in the mean time, itns essential that Montgourlin should make up his mind ; that he should declare that it is not his intention to continue to reside where he now is. He must say, pub- licly, and especially before his family, that when the Peace 222 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. V. The COL- LECTOR OF THE HAR- LEIAN MSS. Gautier to De Torcy; 1713, March. [Printed in Edin. Review, from notes of Mackintosh.] Menwives du Marechal Due de Berwick (in Petitot's Collection, torn. Wvi, pp. 219 seqq.) 7*,pp. 22 1, 235. Original in Nairne MSS., vol. 4. (Macpherson, Original Papers, vol. ii, p. 269.) is made he means to travel in Italy, in Switzerland, in Bavaria, even in Spain. This is to be done, that it may be believed in England that his choice of a residence is not dictated by a mere desire to be near his relatives, and to be close at hand should measures have to be taken on an emergency.' After the communication of this statement to the Pre- tender he made, repeated attempts to enter into corre- spondence with Queen Anne. By Oxford these attempts were uniformly and effectually foiled. To the insincerity of Oxford's advances — such as they were — to the Jacobite emissaries, there can be no witness more competent, none more unexceptionable, than the Duke of Berwick. His testimony runs thus : — ' We wrote/ he says, ' to all the Jacobites to support the government ; a step which had no small share in giving to the Court party so large a majority in the House of Commons that it carried everything its own way. . . . After the Peace, the Treasurer spoke with not a whit more of clearness or precision than before it. . . . He was merely keeping us in play ; and it was very difficult to find a remedy. To have broken with him would have spoiled all ; for he had the reins in his hand. He governed the Queen at his will.' In all his advances, adds the Duke, in another passage, ' Oxford's only motive had been to win over Jacobites to side with the Tories, and to get a sanction for the Peace.' Whilst these intrigues were still in action, one, at least, of the Jacobite agents was clear-sighted enough to detect the secret of the Treasurer's scheme. A confidential agent of the Earl of Middleton, Secretary to the Pretender, wrote in February, 1712 — ' [The Enrl of Oxford] is entirely a friend to [the Elector of Hanover], notwith- standing the disobliging measures that spark has taken. THE COLLECTOE OF THE HAELE1AN MSS. 223 . . . [Oxford's! head is set on shewing that he is above booki, Chap V resentment, and that he [the Elector] has been put into a thecol- LECTOB, Olf Haki.et's conduct on I'ORMTTY 1 Aj I.I. J I ) 11 111 wrong way.' theHak . In matters of Church policy at home the Earl followed LmAS MSS like indirect courses, and with the like result — a momentary success which prepared the way for final defeat. No measure could possibly be more repugnant to Ox ford's declared convictions than the famous ' Bill against ™ c ™ Occasional Conformity,' brought into the House of Lords bill. by the Earl of Nottingham, at the close of the year 1711. It was part of a policy to which his very nature was antago- nistic. But he was in vain entreated, by men who had been his life-long adherents, to oppose it. The passage of that Bill was the price, and, as it seems, the only price for which Nottingham and his band of followers would give their support to the foreign policy of the Government. The growth of the internal dissensions in the administra- tion kept pace with the growth of its external perils. Personal objects of the pettiest kind were made occasions of quarrel. In the summer of 1712, St. John, who had set his heart on the restoration in himself of that family Earldom of Bolingbeoke which in the previous year had become ex- tinct on the death of a distant relative, was made a Viscount. On the announcement of his creation he burst into open menaces of vengeance against the Treasurer, and renewed them with greater violence towards the close of the year, when he found himself excluded from another coveted dignity. An election of Knights of the Garter made, to use Lord Oxford's own words about it, ' a new disturbance which is too well remembered.' Just as the breach with Bolingbroke had become plainly irreconcilable, the Trea- surer found a new and equally bitter enemy in another old friend. He defeated a rapacious attempt made by Lady 224 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap, V. The Col- lectoe op THE HAK- LEIAN MSS. Oxford's corrk- spondence WITH THE COUET OP Hanover. 171+, April. Masham on the Treasury. The first offence in that kind would never have been forgiven. But ere long it was repeated. In both Houses of Parliament, Oxford's veiled and vacillating policy was fast alienating men who had long supported him, and who to the last retained more con- fidence in him than in his brilliant rival. The crisis, how- ever, was brought about, not by the increased strength of Parliamentary opposition, but by bed-chamber intrigues, such as those which he had himself stooped to employ six years before against Godolphin and Marlborough. Meanwhile the Minister played into the hands of his opponents by exhibiting great irresolution. He dallied and procrastinated with urgent business. He relaxed in his attention to the Queen. At an unwary moment he even gave her personal offence, the results of which were none the less bitter for the absence of design. He showed more concern about comparatively distant perils than about those which were close at hand. At the beginning of 1714 the best informed of the Jacobites had become fully convinced that Oxford was their enemy. They saw, to repeat the words of the Duke of Berwick, that he had been only keeping them in play. But at the Court of Hanover he was far from being regarded as an assured friend. Over-subtlety had been rewarded with almost universal distrust. When in April of that year he sent to Hanover renewed protestations of fidelity, expressed in terms of unusual energy, they were looked upon by some of the Elector's advisers as mere professions.* If now read side by side * The original letters of the Elector to Harley are in Lansdowne MS. 1236, ff. 272-294. They range, in date, from 15 December, 1710, to 15 June, 1714. There also are several letters (in autograph) of the THE COLLECTOR OP THE HAELEIAN MSS. 225 with contemporary documents, drawn up by secret emis- booki, saries of the Pretender, they acquire a stamp of sincerity the P col- which it is hard to doubt. " ™ °J To Baron Wassenaer Dtjyvenworde Lord Oxford li! ' anMSS - wrote thus : — ' I do in the most solemn manner assure you that, next to the Queen, I am entirely and unalterably devoted to the interests of His Electoral Highness of Hanover I am ready to give him all the proofs of my attachment to his interest, and to set in a true light the state of this country ; for it will be very unfortunate for so great a Prince to be only Prince over a party, which can never last long in England.' He then goes on to add that the one thing which would, under existing circum- stances, imperil the Hanover succession is the sending into England of any member of that family without the Queen's consent. Such an act would, in his judgment, ' change the dispute to the^ Crown and the Successor, whereas now it is between the House of Hanover and the Popish Pretender.' He repeated the advice in another and not less urgent 0xfordto 1 ° Wassenaer; letter, after the occurrence of the visit made to the Lord ms. sioane, 4107. (B.M.) Chancellor Harcourt by the Hanoverian Resident, to ask for a writ of summons for the Duke of Cambridge. But he also advised Queen Anne to consent to the issue of such a writ. He was opposed by a majority of his colleagues, under the leadership of Bolingbroke, as well as by the persistent unwillingness of the Queen herself. It is instructive to read the comments on the political situation in England at this moment, of a German diplo- Electress Sophia. The earliest of these bears date 26 May, 1707. The latest is undated, but was written in May, 1714, very few days before the writer's death. 15 226 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book T, Chap.V. The Col- lector ot THE Hae- LEIAN MSS. Yon Steing- henga to Count von der Scliulen- berg, May^j, 1714 (in Kemble's State Papers, p. 493). Same to same, June 14 (Kemblc, p. 507). matist resident in London (as Minister from the Elector Palatine) who was devotedly attached to the Hanoverian succession. ' Some people,' wrote Baron von Stein ghengs to Count von der Schulenberg, on the 12th of May, ' have been at work'for a whole year to deprive the Lord Treasurer of the conduct of public affairs. I have been aware, almost from the beginning, of the different channels which have been made use of to carry this point. But I should never have expected that they would fire the mine before the end of this session, and I am much mistaken if the authors have not reason one day to regret their over-haste. For I do not know my man, if he does not cut out a good deal of work for them, particularly if a certain intrigue which is on the tapis succeeds. As for the rest, you may rely upon his sentiments ; and he never succeeded in persuading those who doubted them more than by his declaration made in a full House on the 16th of last month on the question of danger to the Protestant succession, having in it given much greater hold upon himself than there was any need for, if he was not acting in good faith. . . . The party of the Hanoverian Tories has visibly been strengthened by it.' And to this the writer adds, in a postscript, ' It is of extreme importance both for the Whigs and for the House of Hanover to take steps to keep him there, and to engage him by some sort of political confidence to be assured of his fortunes under that House.' In another letter to the same correspondent, Baron von Steinghens notes a fact which by many of our historians has been too much neglected. ' To make the English Ministry,' he wrote, ' alone responsible .... for the exorbitant power which the Peace of Utrecht has given to France is .... to ignore entirely the incredible obstacles which the enemies THE COLLECTOR OP THE HARLEIAN MSS. 227 of that Ministry threw, both at home and abroad, booki, in the way -of making the Peace such as it might have SecL been ' lectoe or THE HaE- But although ' the mine was fired ' before the end of LEIAN Mss - May, July had nearly ended before the effectual explosion came. Bolingbroke's triumph lasted exactly four days. ° XF0BX) ' S L J v Dismissal 'The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday. The and the Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this ! And oil™* how does Fortune banter us ! . . . . I have lost all by the ^ death of the Queen, but my spirit.' Such were the words Au s u3tl - in which Bolingbroke announced to Swift his victory, — and its futility. In a few more days the spirit vanished, like the triumph. The victor was a fugitive. Bolingbroke's hatred to Oxford lasted to the close of his life. He survived his old comrade twenty-seven years. The final year of that long period brought no relenting thought, no spark of charitable feeling. Did Oxford conspire to To the question ' Did Lord Oxford, during his tenure of office, conspire to enthrone the Pretender?' it ought always ™'" 5MCI 1 ° J THE Pre- to have been a sufficient answer that there was, as yet, not a tender? tittle of evidence of any such conspiracy on his part. That accusation had never any support beyond surmise and conjecture. Men who were in possession of every imagi- nable resource and appliance to back their search failed to adduce even a shadow of evidence in proof of the charge they would fain have fastened upon him. And in 1869 the matter still stands, in the main, where it stood in 1717. After many examinations of the most secret correspond- ence of the Stuarts and their adherents, and after the publishing of extensive selections from it — made at intervals which spread over eighty years, — not a scrap of direct and 228 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, valid testim ony has been found to sustain the charge. Every the col- passage, save one, which bears at all on Oxford's intercourse mZm.™ w ^h Jacobite emissaries, up to the year 1715, tends to show lhak mss. that what they asserted about his intentions on the Preten- der's behalf was built on wishes, hopes, and guesses — on anything rather than knowledge. Every passage, save one, tends to show that he was using the Jacobites for his own purposes, without the least idea of aiding theirs. Every passage, save one, is in entire harmony with the terms of that incompatible charge by means of which Bolingbroke justified to himself his life-long hostility, when writing the Letter to Sir William Wyndham. The significance of that charge, coming from such a source, can scarcely be exag- gerated. 'Oxford would not,' wrote Bolingbroke, ' or he could not, act with us, and he resolved that we should not act without him, as long as he could hinder it At the Queen's death, he hoped .... to deliver us up, bound as it were, hand and foot, to our adversaries. On the foundation of this merit he nattered himself that he had gained some of the Whigs, and softened, at least, the rest of the party to him. By his secret negotiations at Hanover, he took it for granted that he was not only reconciled to that Court, but that he should, under his present Majesty's Boimsbroke, re iom have as much credit as he had enjoyed under that of Letter to Sir ° J J w.wyndkam. the Queen.' The solitary~passage in the correspondence of the Jacobite Gmtier to agents which goes directly to the issue is the assertion made u December, by Gautier, in a letter to De Torct, that Oxford said to [Printed in him, in December, 1713, 'As long as I live, England shall Edinb.Be- no t be governed by a German.' In that notable statement" view, from ° *l the Notes of lies the pith of a mass of letters which report the hopes, SirJamea . . .. Mackintosh, beliefs, conjectures, and imaginings, ot their respective ]')° v °8, ae'qqj writers, as to what Lord Oxford would do for the Pre- THE COLLECTOE OF THE HAELEIAN MSS. 229 tender, — whenever that prince could be brought to change, Boor i, or, at least, to disguise his religion. the P col- LKCTOE OP THE HAK- LEIAN MSS. Oxfoed was present, as a Privy Councillor, at the procla ination of King George the First. It was noted by some oxfoed's l» <1 1 111-1 1 i DECEPTION oi the bystanders that his demeanour was buoyant and btgeoegei. joyous. When the King reached Greenwich, the Earl went thither with more than usual pomp and retinue. He was received with marked coldness, if not with open contempt. There is little need, in a sketch of this kind, to tell, at length, the story of an impeachment which was stretched over two years, and had no result save that of breaking down, by two years of imprisonment, the health of the defeated statesman. Few and brief words on that head will suffice. Out of twenty-two articles of impeachment, fourteen HlslM - ^ L PEACHMENT. accuse the Earl of Oxford of betrayal of duty, either in 1715-1717. the conduct of the negotiations for Peace, or in instructions given for handling the British Army — pending those nego- tiations — in such a way as to injure the common cause of the Allies, by promoting the conclusion of a treaty 'on terms fatal to the interests of the Kingdom.' The fifteenth article charges him with inserting false statements in the Queen's Speeches and Messages to Parliament; the six- X J^' U teenth with improperly advising the Queen to make a creation of Peers. Other articles allege misconduct in the management of an expedition to Canada : the appropria- ~ . ,, J State Trials, tion of sums of ' Secret Service Money to corrupt purposes ; ™i. **, and treasonable intercourse with ' Irish Papists.^ Be qq . Whilst these charges were still in preparation the Venetian Resident in London wrote a despatch to his LECTOE OF THE Hae- LEIAH MSS. Querini ; from extracts pp. 98, 230 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, Senate in which we have an interesting glimpse, behind the cot- the curtain, at the process : — ' The Whigs/ he says, ' seek to annihilate the Tories utterly, and to place them under the yoke. They want to imp'each even the Duke of Shrews- bury.' .... After enlarging on nascent dissensions amongst the Whigs themselves, as to the lengths to which, they might safely carry their party resentments, he proceeds to assert that the more cautious men among them ' have comspon- now, when it is well nigh too late, become aware that the dence of m i i • • Tory party, recently dominant, was a mixed party. Some were in favour of the Pretender ; some for the House of hJj\ Hanover. Had His Majesty made this distinction on Keportm hj s accession to the Crown he would have excluded the Archives of Venice, former, but not the latter. By favouring the Whigs alone, he lost all the others at once.' In brief, George the First had made himself exactly what Oxford had warned him against becoming, the ' King of a party.' When the Earl at length appeared before his peers to answer to his impeachment, he began by denying ' that at any time or place in the course of those negotiations/ now incriminated, 'he conferred unlawfully or without due authority with any emissaries of France.' He affirmed that he neither promoted nor advised any private, separate, or unjustifiable negotiation, and that he himself had no knowledge ' that any negotiation relating to Peace was carried on without communication to the Allies.' On the specific charge that he had traitorously given up Tournay to France, his defence is twofold : — ' I used my best offices,' he asserts, ' to preserve that town and fortress to the States General. I believe that at this time they are continued to the States General as part of their barrier.' And then he adds : — ' But I deny that for a Privy Councillor and Minister of State to advise the yielding of any town, THE COLLECTOR OF THE HARLEIAN MSS. 231 fort, or territory, upon the conclusion of a Peace, is, or booki, can be, High Treason by any law of this realm.' l^cL On the whole matter of the Peace, he asserts that 'its w ™*°* 3 THE HAP- terms and preliminaries were communicated to Parliament, miahmss. They were agreed on with the concurrence of Parliament. The Definitive Treaty was afterwards approved of by both Houses. Solemn thanks were rendered to God for it in all our churches and also in the churches of the United Provinces. Her Majesty received upon its conclusion the hearty and unfeigned thanks of her people from all parts of her dominions.' It might well have been thought that even in those evil state Trias, days it would be difficult to induce a Committee of parti- ™u37seq Journals, the charge of treason, and to take the issue upon that. ™ lxx » On the first of July,, 1717, the Earl was brought to the commons' bar to hear from the Lord High Steward a declaration that V oLx™'. ' Robert, Earl of Oxford, is, by the unanimous vote of all the Lords present, acquitted of the articles of impeachment exhibited against him, by the House of Commons, for High f " l 'J^i, Treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours, and that ""»• the said impeachment shall be and is hereby dismissed.' Then the Steward said, ' Lieutenant of the Tower, You are now to discharge your prisoner.' On the third of July, the Earl resumed his seat as a peer 0xF0ED ' s v L BETUE.N TO of Parliament. On the fourth, the Commons resolved to the house address the King, beseeching him ' to except Robert, 1717, Earl of Oxford, out of the Act of Grace which Your July ' Majesty has been graciously pleased to promise from the throne, to the end the Commons may be at liberty to pro ceed against the said Earl in a parliamentary way.' No p- 61 ? such proceeding, of course, was taken or intended. For several years to come Lord Oxford took part, from time to time, in the business of Parliament. He served often on Committees in these final years of his public life, just as he had done during his early years of apprenticeship in the Lower House. In the Lords, as in the Commons, he was listened to with especial deference on points of par- liamentary law and privilege. Erom time to time, also, the Jacobite agitators, both at home and abroad, made repeated appeals to him, direct or Journals, vol. xviii, 234 EAELY COLLECTOES. Book I, Chap.V. The Col- lector of THE HAR- leian mss. Alleged renewal of Corre- spondence WITH THE Stuart Agents. indirect, for countenance and help in their schemes. They had, it seems, a confident hope that the sufferings and the humiliation inflicted on him in the years 1715-1717 must have so entirely alienated him from the reigning House, as now, at all events, to have prepared him to be really their fellow-conspirator, on the first occurrence of a promising opportunity. How far the Earl listened to such suggestions and persuasions is still, it will be seen, matter of great and curious uncertainty.* Domestic Life OF Lord Oxford. Lord Oxford's private life was not less chequered by rapid alternations of sunshine and of gloom than was his political career. In August, 1713, he gratified a cherished desire by the marriage of his son Edward, Lord Harley, with the Lady Henrietta Cavkndish Holles, daughter and heiress of John, Duke of Newcastle (who died in 1711). With what Lord Harley had already derived under the Duke's will, this marriage brought him an estate then worth sixteen thousand pounds a year, and destined to increase enormously in value. Three months afterwards the Earl lost a dearly loved daughter, the Marchioness of Caermarthen, who died at the age of twenty-eight. It was of her that Swift wrote to him — ' I have sat down to think of every amiable quality that could enter into the composition of a lady, aud could not single out one which she did not possess in as high a perfection as human nature is capable of. But as to your Lordship's own particular, as it is an unconceivable misfortune to have lost such a daughter, so it is a possession which few can boast of to * The chief passages in the Stuart Correspondence upon which a confident assertion has been based of his ultimate complicity in the Jacobite conspiracies are given, textually, in a note at the end of this chapter. THE COLLECTOE OF THE HAELEIAN MSS. 235 have had such a daughter. I have often said to your Lord- booki, ship that " I never knew any one by many degrees,so happy the col- , in their domestics as you ;" and I affirm that you are so ™™" still, though not by so many degrees You ^ianmss. began to be too happy for a mortal ; much more happy ^* d to than is usual with the dispensations of Providence long to 2iNov.,i7is. r ° (Works, continue/ vol. m, Under the sorrows both of public and of private life it pp was his wont to find a part of his habitual consolations in the H LEIAN LlBEABY. THE HAU' use, as well as in the increase, of his splendid library. He began the work of collection in youth, and to add to his treasures was one of the matters which, at intervals, occu- pied his latest thoughts. Among the famous Englishmen whose manuscripts passed, either wholly or partially, into the Harleian Library are to be counted Sir Thomas Smith ; John Fox, the mar- tyrologist ; John Stowe, the historian ; Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury; and Archbishop Bancroft. Among famous foreigners, Augustus Lomenie de Brienne ; Peter Seguier, Chancellor of Prance; and Gerard John Vossius. Perhaps the most extensive of the prior 'collec- tions which it had absorbed, in mass, was the assemblage of manuscripts that had been gathered by Sir Symonds D'Ewes, whose acquisitions included a rich series of the materials of English history. The inquiries which led to the purchase of the D'Ewes' Collection were the occasion of making fully known to Robert Harley a model librarian in the person of Hum- 5™ PHEZT 1 p WAHLEr; phrey Wanley. The latter portion of Wanley's life was hisLiee, wholly devoted to the service of the Harleian Library, and a™ his employment there was a felicity, both for him and for it. His journal of the incidents which occurred during the growth of the collection given to his care is the most curious 236 EARLY COLLECTOES. book i, document in its kind which is known to exist. That the P col- journal illustrates the literary history and the manners of the T hae- F ^he time, not less amusingly than it exhibits the personal ieianmss. character of its writer, and the fidelity with which he worked at his task in life. Wanley was the son of a country parson, little known to fame, but possessing some tincture of learning, and was born at Coventry, on the 21st of March, 1673. In his youth he attracted the favourable notice of his father's diocesan, William Lloyd, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (and afterwards of Worcester), by whom he was sent to Edmund Hall at Oxford. That hall he soon exchanged for University College, on the persuasion of Dr. Arthur Charlett, by whose influence he was afterwards made an Underkeeper of the Bodleian Library. He took no degree, but won some distinction, whilst at Oxford, by the ser- vices which he rendered to Dr. Mill in collating the text of the New Testament. On leaving the University, Wanley went to London, where he became Secretary to the Society for the Propaga- tion of Christian Knowledge. He translated Ostervald's Grounds and Principles of the Christian Religion; and compiled a valuable Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon Manu- scripts preserved in the chief libraries of Great Britain. The last-named labour gave proof of much ability. It was a sample of the work for which its writer was best fitted. As Speaker of the House of Commons, Harley took a considerable part in organizing the Cottonian Library, when it became a public institution under the Act of Parliament. Wanley proffered to the Speaker, on this occasion, some advice about the necessary arrangements ; became well acquainted with Harley's bookishness, and saw how eagerly he would welcome opportunities for the improve- THE COLLECTOR OP THE HAELE1AN MSS. 287 ment of his own library, as well as of that newly acquired booki, by the Public. thTgol- The Sir Symonds D'Ewes of that generation was the ™ A °* grandson of the diligent antiquary and politician who has leianMSS - been heretofore mentioned in this volume as the close "^l^f™ friend of Sir Robert Cotton, and to whose labours, in a TIONS AND THEIK HlS- twofold capacity, students of our history owe a far better tor*. acquaintance with parliamentary debates, in the times both of Elizabeth and of Cromwell, than, but for him, would have been possible. The grandson of the first Sir Symonds had inherited from his ancestor a valuable library ; but its possession had no great charm for him. He was willing to part with it, for due consideration, yet aware that he was under an obligation, moral if not legal, not so to part with his books as to lead to their dispersion. On that head, the original collector had thus expressed himself in his last Will : — " I bequeath to Adrian D'Ewes, my young son yet lying in the cradle, or to any other of my sons, hereafter to be born, who shall prove my heir (if God shall vouchsafe unto me a masculine heir by whom my surname and male line may be continued in the ages to come), my precious library, in which I have stored up, for divers years past, with great care, cost, and industry, divers originals and autographs, . . . and such [books] as are unprinted; and it is my inviolable injunction and behest that he keep it entire, and not sell, divide, or dissi- pate it.« Neither would I have it locked up from furthering the public good, the advancing of which I have always endeavoured ; but that all lovers of learning, of known virtue and integrity, might have access to it at reasonable times, so that they did give sufficient security to restore safely any original or autograph . . borrowed out of the same, . . without blotting, erasing, or defraying it. But 238 EAELY COLLECTOKS. book i, if God hath decreed now at last to add an end to my family the P col- in the male line, His most holy and just will be done ! ' the™" I n th a t case > the testator proceeds to declare, it is his leiah mss. desire that the library should pass to his daughter and her heirs, on like conditions as to its perpetual preservation, so ' that not only all lovers of learning .... may have access to it at seasonable times, but also that all collections which concern mine own family, or my wife's, may freely be lent .... to members thereof,' &c. Then the testator adds — in relation to the last-named clause — an averment that he D'Ewes, had ' only sought after the very truth, as well in these /4?taMBL things as in all other my elucubrations, whilst I searched Hari. (b.m.) amori g S t the King's records or public offices.' wanlet-s It having come to Wanley's knowledge or belief, in the ACCOUNT OF theacqui- year 1703, that possibly arrangements might be made to thTd'Ewes obtain this library, for the Public, from the then possessor, libbaet. ne wro t e to Harley in these terms : — ' Sir Symonds D'Ewes being pleased to honour me with a peculiar kind- ness of esteem, I have taken the liberty of inquiring of him whether he will part with his library, and I find that he is not unwilling to do so. And that at a much easier rate than I could think for. I dare say that it would be a noble addition to the Cotton Library ; perhaps the best that could be had anywhere at present. ... If your Honour should judge it impracticable to persuade Her Majesty to buy them for the Cotton Library — in whose coffers such a sum as will buy them is scarcely conceivable — then, Sir, if you shall have a mind of them yourself I will take care that you shall have them cheaper than any other person whatsoever. I know that many have their eyes upon this wanicyto collection.' ' I am desirous,' he goes on to say, ' to have Msjunsci. tms collection in town for the public good, and rather in a (TmI' 63 ' P u ^ uc pl ace than m private hands ; but, of all private THE HAB- LEIAN LlBXLAAT, CONTINUED. THE COLLECTOR OF THE HARLEIAN MSS. 239 gentlemen's studies, first in yours. I have not spoken to booki, anybody as yet, nor will not till I have your answer, that the P coi- you may not be forestalled. 1 ™ B OT Harley welcomed the overture thus made to him, and LEIAI * MSS Wanley, on his behalf, entered upon a negotiation which ended in the eventual acquisition of the whole of the D'Ewes Manuscripts for the Hai'leian Collection. Soon afterwards, Wanley became its librarian. In the course of this employment he watched diligently for other opportunities of a like sort ; established an active correspondence with booksellers, both at home and abroad ; and induced Lord Oxford to send agents to the Continent histobi « to search for manuscripts. But the Earl had soon to meet an eager rival in the book-market, in the person of Lord Sunderland, who in former years had been, by turns, his colleague and his opponent in the keener strife of politics. In their new rivalry, Lord Sunderland had one consider- able advantage. He cared little about money. If he suc- ceeded in obtaining what he sought for, he rarely scrutinised the more or less of its cost. Wanley was by nature a bargainer. He felt uneasy under the least suspicion that any bookseller or vendor was getting the better hand of him in a transaction. And he seems, in time, to have inoculated Lord Oxford with a good deal of the same feeling. Some of the entries in his diary put this love of striking a good bargain in an amusing light. Thus, for example, in telling of the acquisition of a valu- able monastic chartulary which had belonged to the ' Bedford Library ' at Cranfield, he writes thus : — ' The said Chartulary is to be my Lord's, and he is to present to that library St. Chrysostoni s Works, in Greek and Latin, printed at Paris, for which my Lord shall be registered a benefactor to the said library. Moreover, Mr. P'rank will 240 EAELY COLLECTORS. Book. I, Chap.V. The Coi- lectok of THE Hab- LEIAH MSS. "Wanley's Diary, vol. i, pp. 13, 21. 1720, February. lb., vol. ii, f. 24. Wanley's Diary, vol. i, f. 73, verso. MS. Lansd., 771. (B. M.) send up a list of his out-of-course books, out of which my Lord may pick and choose any twenty of them gratis. . . I am also to advise that he is heartily willing and ready to serve his Lordship in any library matters ; . . particularly with [Sir John] Osborne of Chicksand Abbey, where most part of the old monastical library is said yet to remain.' And again, on another occasion : — ' My Lord was pleased to tell me that Mr. Gibson's last parcel of printed books were all his own as being gained into [the bargain with] the two last parcels of manuscripts bought of him.' Gibson's protest that he was entitled to an additional thirty pounds was quite in vain. Of the innumerable skirmishes between librarian and bookseller which Wanley's pages record with loving detail, two passages may serve as sufficient samples : — 'Van Hokck, a Dutchman,' he writes in 1722, 'brought to my Lord a small parcel of modern manuscripts, and their lowest prices, — which proved so abominably wicked that he was sent away with them immediately.' And, in Feb- ruary, 1723: — ' Bowyer, the bookseller, came in treating me to instruct him touching the prices of old editions, and of other rare and valuable books, pretending that thereby he should be the better able to bid for them ; but, as I rather suppose, to be better able to exact of gentlemen. I pleaded utter inexperience in the matter, and, without a quarrel, in my mind rejected this ridiculous attempt with the scorn it deserved. This may be a fresh instance of the truth of Tullie's paradox, " that all fools are mad." ' In the year 1720, large additions were made, more especially to the historical treasures of the Harleian Library, by the purchase of manuscripts from the several collections of John Warburton (Somerset Herald), of Archdeacon Battely, and of Peter Seguier (Chancellor of France). Another important accession came, in the same THE COLLECTOR OF THE HAKLEIAN MSS. 241 year, by the bequest of Hugh Thomas. In 1721 purchases *°° K ** were made from the several libraries of Thomas Grey, t h«col- LECTOE OF second Earl of Stamford ; of Robert Paynell, of Belaugh, thdhar. in Norfolk ; and of John Robartes, first Earl of Radnor. Ibid., pp. 35, 42, 48. Lord Oxford died on the 21st May, 1 724, at the age of sixty-three. Wanley records the event in these words : 'It pleased God to call to His mercy Robert, Earl of £™ 0F Oxford, the founder of this Library, who long had been to oxiobd. me a munificent patron.' When condoling with the new Earl upon his father's death, Swift wrote to him : — ' You no longer wanted his corresp., care and tenderness, . . . but his friendship and conver- T oi.xV sation you will ever want, because they are qualities so rare p ' 438, in the world, and in which he so much excelled all others. It has pleased me, in the midst of my grief, to hear that he preserved the greatness, the calmness, and intrepidity, of his mind to his last minutes ; for it was fit that such a life should terminate with equal lustre to the whole progress of it.' It is honourable alike to the man who was thus generously spoken of, and to the friend who mourned his loss, that the testimony so borne was a consistent testimony. The failings of Harley were well known to Swift. In the days of prosperity they had been freely blamed ; and face to face. When those days were gone, the good quali- ties only came to be dwelt upon. To the unforgiving enemy, as to the bereaved son, Swift wrote about the merits of the friend he had lost. ' I pass over that para- graph of your letter,' said Bolingbroke, in reply, ' which is a kind of an elegy on a departed minister.' When the Harleian Library was inherited by the second Earl of Oxford (of this family) it included more than six 16 242 EAELY COLLECTOES. Book I, Chap. V. The Col- lector of THE HAE- lkian mss. Increase of the Har- leian Li- brary by Edward, Earl op Oxford. 1724-1741. See MS. Addit., 53S8. (B.M.) thousand volumes of Manuscripts, in addition to about fourteen thousand five hundred charters and rolls. By him it was largely augmented in every department. He made his library most liberally accessible to scholars ; and when, by a purchase made in Holland, he had acquired some leaves of one of the most precious biblical manu- scripts in the world — leaves which had long before been stolen from the Royal Library at Paris — he sent them back to their proper repository in a manner so obliging as made it apparent that his sense of the duties of collectorship was as keen as was his sense of its delights. At his death, on the 16th of June, 1741, the volumes of manuscripts had increased to nearly eight thousand. The printed books were estimated at about fifty thousand volumes, exclusive of an unexampled series of pamphlets, amounting to nearly 400,000, and comprising, like the manuscripts, materials for our national history of inestimable value. The only daughter and heiress of the second Earl, Mar- garet, by her marriage with William, Duke of Portland, carried her share in a remnant of the fortunes of the several families of Cavendish, HoLLES,and Harley, into the family of Bentinck. The magnificent printed library which formed part of her inheritance was sold and dispersed. It was Johnson, A L Account of of that collection that Johnson said, 'It excels any library library . that was ever yet offered to sale in the value as well as p^m.'™ 1 '*' m the number of the volumes which it contains.' The Manuscripts were eventually purchased by Parlia- ment for the sum of ten thousand pounds. With reference to this purchase the Duchess of Portland wrote as follows, in April, 1753, to the Speaker of the House of chTse™ Commons : — ' As soon as I was acquainted with the pro- leianmss. posal you had made in the House of Commons, in relation tor the to my Father's Collection of Manuscripts I informed my Natiok. " I J THE COLLECTOE OF THE HARLEIAJST MSS. 243 Mother [the then Dowager Countess of Oxford] of it, who book i, has given the Duke of Portland and me full power to do S^cIl- therein as we shall think fit. MCT ° a OT THE HAll- ' Though I am told the expense of collecting them was ™*mss. immense, and that, if they were to be dispersed, they would probably sell for a great deal of money, yet, as a sum has been named, and as I know it was my Father's and is my Mother's intention that they should be kept together, I will not bargain with the Publick. I give you this trouble therefore to acquaint you that I am ready to accept of your proposal upon condition that this great and valuable Col- lection shall be kept together in a proper repository, as an addition to the Cotton Library, and be called by the name of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts. ' I hope you do me the justice to believe that I do not consider this as a sale for an adequate price. But your ported to idea is so right, and so agreeable to what I know was my ^™. Father's intention, that I have a particular satisfaction in MS - Addit - .,. . 17521, f. 30. contributing all I can to facilitate the success of it.' amestic King's subiects have as yet no trade,' and his petition was cimriesi, „ T1 ' , , . ii • vol.xiy, §33. granted. What ensued thereupon is thus told m an authoritative manuscript account preserved in the Sloane collection : : — ' Sir William Courten being informed, by his correspond- ents in Zealand, that some Dutch men-of-war sent out upon private commission against the Spaniards had put into the island of Barbados, and found it uninhabited, and very fit for a plantation, did thereupon, at his own charge, set forth two ships provided with men, ammunition, and arms, and all kinds of necessaries for planting and fortifying the country, who landed and entered into possession of the same in the month of February, 1 626 [1627, N.S]. . After- wards, in the same year, he sent Captain Powell thither, with a further supply of- servants and provisions, who, in 1627, fetched several Indians from the mainland, with divers sorts of seeds and roots, and agreed with them to instruct the English in planting cotton, tobacco, indigo, &c. Sir William Courten having, by his partners and ser- vants, maintained the actual possession for the space of two years, and peopled the island with English, Indians, and others, to the number of eighteen hundred and fifty men, women, and children, thought fit to make use of the FOUNDEKS or THE Sloane Museum 252 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, jj^rl of Pembrokb's name in obtaining a patent particu- Chap. vi. or r the larly for Barbadoes, although he had before a general grant from the king to possess any land within a certain latitude, wherein this island was comprehended. His Majesty having thus granted, by his Letters Patent, dated 25 Feb- ruary, 1 627 [1628, N.S.] the government of this island unto the Earl of Pembroke, in trust for Sir William Courten, with power to settle a colony according to the laws of England, Captain Powell had a commission to continue there as Governor, in their behalf. The Earl of Carl[sle,' continues the MS. narrative, 'having, before this Patent to the Earl of Pembroke, procured a grant, dated 2nd July 1627, of all those islands lying within 10 and 20 degrees of lati- tude by the name of Carliola, or Carlisle Province, with all royalties, and jurisdictions, as amply as they were enjoyed by any Bishop of Durham, within his bishopric or county palatine, and having also got another patent, for the greater security of his title, dated 7th April 1628, sent one Henry Hawley with two ships, who, arriving there in 1629, in- vited the Governor on board, kept him prisoner, seized the jKiComp. forts, and carried away the factors and servants of Sir D cZT s ™ William Courten and the Earl of Pembroke. The autho- comspond- r j^y f ^g ft ar \ f Carlisle being thus established was ence, vol. v, ^ ° §§i,9,i3, maintained.' But it was only maintained after a long contest at the Council Board at home, which contest seems to have been largely influenced by the fluctuations of Court favour from time to time. A despatch in February, written in behalf of Carlisle, is followed in April by another despatch written in behalf of Pembroke and Courten. The one fact that becomes consistently evident throughout the pro- ceedings is that grants of this kind were made in the loosest fashion, and often in entire ignorance even of the geographical OP THE Sloane MUSKUM. THE FOUNDERS OP THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 253 positions of the countries given by them.* Indeed, the booki, common coarse of procedure under the Stuarts, when a the courtier had the happy thought of begging a territory in ¥ America, reminds one of those earlier days of the Tudors, when a favoured suppliant sometimes obtained the grant of a monastery, or the lease of a broad episcopal estate, with hardly more trouble than it cost him to win a royal smile. To Courten and his colonists the issue of this quarrel about Barbadoes was very disastrous. To some of the latter it brought ruin. But to the founder himself a check to enterprise in one direction seems to have brought in- creased stimulus to new enterprise in another direction. He now embarked largely in adventures to the East Indies and to China. As usual, they were planned on a magnifi- cent scale ; excited great jealousy in the breasts of com- petitors ; and were attended, in the long run, with very mixed results of good and ill. Meanwhile, Sir William's growing wealth — greatly ex- aggerated by popular renown — and the conspicuous posi- tion into which his varied pursuits had brought him, led to plans of enterprise by others, and of quite another kind, at home! He had lost his first wife, and also his eldest son. He had married a second wife, — Hester Trton, daughter of Peter Thyon. Only one son survived, but Sir William had three daughters, whose prospective charms attracted * Thus, for example, at one stage of the proceedings before the Privy Council about Barbadoes, we find the Lord Keeper Coventry reporting to the Board upon an order of reference : ' I am of opinion that Barbadoes is not one of the Caribbee Islands But ... I am also of opinion that the proof on Lord Carlisle's part that Barbadoes was intended to be passed in his Patent is very strong.' — Colonial Papers, April 18, 1629, vol. v, § 11. See also The King to Wolverton, lb., § 13. 254 EARLY COLLECTOES. Book I, Chap. VI. The Foundees OP THE Sloane Museum. Alliances BETWEEN the City AND THE Couet. James I to Sir "Willm. Courten ; Dom. Corr., vol. clxxii, §71. Commercial Complica- tions in Holland. many suitors. In September, 1624, King James wrote a characteristic letter in which he assured Courten that the son of Sir Robert Fleetwood, Lord of the Scottish barony of Newton, would make a fit match for one of the three daughters, and that the conclusion of such a match would be very acceptable to the King himself. The pretendant would gladly, and impartially, wed any one of the three ladies, but the King himself, continues the royal letter, ' will regard, as a favour, any increase of portion given to the daughter whom Fleetwood may marry, over and above the portion given to, or intended for, the other daughters.' But despite so powerful a recommendation the young Baron of Newton failed in his suit. Among the aspirants with whom he stood in competition were men much higher in social position. Eventually, the eldest daughter married Sir Edward Lyttelton of Staffordshire. The second daughter married Henry Grey, eighth Earl of Kent, of that family. And the third married Sir Richard Knight- ley of Fawsley. Royal commendations of suitors were sure, in that age, not to be the only sample of royal letters — direct and indi- rect — with which a man in Sir William Courten's position became familiar. He was favoured with not a few solici- tations for advances of money on privy-seals, and in other forms of ' loan.' Sometimes he complies. Sometimes he remonstrates by specifying the large sums he contributes to the revenue in the way of custom's duties, and the entire incapability thence arising of the desired response to privy-seals and the like documents. His loans, however, to James, and to Charles, amounted to no less a sum than £27,000. The death in 1625 of his brother, Sir Peter Cocrten, THE FOUNDEBS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 255 deprived the firm of its efficient representative in Holland, booki, and laid a foundation for great misfortunes by putting in t he p ' his place an unworthy successor. The partner resident at ^ OF THE Middleburgh had the trust both of a large portion of the Sloane ° . . Museum. capital of the Company, and of the chief share of its account keeping. Peter Boudaen was a nephew of the Couetens, and had been to some extent admitted as a partner. His uncle Peter made him also his executor. He thus acquired a great control over the continental affairs of the house, just at the time when its transactions were expanding in all directions. He proved unfaithful to his trust, applied his large local influence to his personal advantage and to the prejudice of his partners ; and at length failed altogether to render due accounts to the two partners in England. Motjncey, the junior of these, went to Holland in order to ibsi. enforce an adjustment. He had hardly entered on his task when he died, after a very brief illness, in Bou- daen's house at Middleburgh. Boudaen made a Will for him; asserted that the testator had executed it, in due form of law, immediately before his death; and found means to get the document sanctioned by the Dutch Courts, in the face of strong opposition and of strong presumptive evidence of fraud. Sir William Courten, meanwhile, prosecuted with his ^J"™^ characteristic vigour his vast enterprises already established ; WCo ™ra» made new and large ventures in the reclaiming of waste bmush lands in England ; and established the ' Fishery Asso- associa- ciation of Great Britain and Ireland/ with a view to the Bomest. rescue from the Dutch of that productive herring fishery c«r ?v , on our own coasts, which the growing supineness of TO i. cdxma, English governments during at least two generations had lZl,l% ; permitted to become almost a monopoly in their hands. ™™Mi6 ; 1 i */ cccxvn, § 75. 256 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. VI. The JFoundkes or THE Sloane Museum. The Tbade "with India. Domestic Corresp., Charles I, vol. cccxxiii, p. 68 ; vol. cccxliii, § 19. Domestic Corresp., Charles I, vol. cccxv, % 16 ; vol. ccclxviii, § 82. Of this Association Courten, during the closing years of his life, was the mainspring. The Dutch, as was natural, strove vigorously to retain the advantage they had acquired, and were little scrupulous about the means of opposition. English herring busses were occasionally captured. And the captors had the great incidental advantage in the strife of dealing with a Govern- ment already weak at home, and yearly losing ground. The East Indian adventures were, at length, attended by circumstances still more complex than those pertaining to the fishery business at home, or to the trading in Holland. For, in the former, English rivalry had to be encountered, as well as Dutch rivalry. And the rivalry took such a shape as to make the carrying on of trade extremely like the carrying on of war. But, as if the care of these varied interests, in addition to all the toils and anxieties of ordi- nary commerce on an extraordinary scale, were all too little to occupy the mind of a man who had now reached his sixty-sixth year, we find- Sir William Courten taking, just at the close of life, a new and leading part in the business of redeeming captives who had been taken by the pirates of Morocco and Algiers. Nor was this merely an affair of the provision of money and the conduct of correspond- ence. It involved an intimate acquaintance with the cir- cumstances and the needs of the Barbary States, being carried on, in part, on the principle of barter. But all these far-spread activities were now fast ap- proaching their natural close. Courten's career had been, as a whole, wonderfully prosperous, until very near its -close. Already it contained, indeed, the germ of a series of reverses, hardly less remarkable ; but the growth of that germ was to depend on the as yet unseen course of public OP THE Sloane Museum. Courten THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 257 events. His ambition to ' found a family ' had also been booki, gratified by the marriage of his only surviving son* — the William Courten, third of his name— with the Lady f Katherine Egerton, daughter of John Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater. On. that son and his heirs, Sir William Courten settled landed estates amounting to nearly *«?«■». ° J MS. Sloane, seven thousand pounds a year. 3515. Sir William Courten died in June, 1636. The com- mercial enterprises of all kinds which were in full activity at the time of his death were continued by his son, who inherited large claims, large responsibilities, and large perils. And it was of the perils that — after his succession — he had earliest experience. Just before the father's death, a complaint had been The ™ ikd made to the Privy Council that certain ships which he had courten. sent to Surat and other places had committed acts of ' piracy near the mouth of the Red Sea.' It appeared ^ omestic 1 J 11 Corresp., afterwards that the ships which had given cause, or chariesi, . , . i vo1 - cccxliii, pretext, of complaint were not Courten's ships, but the 5 19. accusation entailed trouble, and was, to the heir, the beginning of troubles to come. The opposition of the East India Company to the Indian trading of ' inter- lopers ' (as they were called already) was unremitting and bitter. In June, 1637, William Courten, with a view to arm himself for the encounter, obtained from the Crown letters patent which empowered himself and his associates to trade with all parts of the East, ' wheresoever the East Cmrtm ' India Company had not settled factories or trade before **?««. 'a r J .MS. Sloane, ' the twelfth day of December, 1635.' One of his chief 3515, P .3s. * His eldest son, Peter Courten, had married a daughter of Lord Stanhope of Harrington, and died without issue. Sir "William Courten hought the widow's jointure of £1200 a year by the present payment of £10,000, according to a statement in MS. Sloane, 3515. 17 258 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. VI. The Foundees or THE Sloake Museum. Seizube bt the Dutch of the Bona EsPEEANZA and Henet; bonadven- tuee in the Indian Seas. associates under the new grant was Endymion Porter, and it appears that it was partly by Porter's influence at Court that the grant had been procured. Renewed activity was now shown in prosecuting the Eastern trade ; new and large ventures were made in it. On some occasions as many as seven well-appointed ships were sent out by Courten and his associates at one time. Instructions are still extant which were given to the chief agents, supercargoes, and factors, for the settlement of English factories at many important places where none had heretofore existed. They are marked by great sagacity and breadth of view, and, in several points, contrast advantageously with contemporary documents of a like kind. The enterprise was pursued, as it seems, with satisfac- tory results until the year 1643, when, in the Straits of Malacca, two richly -laden vessels of the Courten fleet were seized by the Dutch. Subsequent proceedings show that the value of the ships and their cargoes, with the contingent losses, exceeded £150,000. Along with this severe blow came the interruptions and injuries to trade at home, which were the inevitable accompaniment of the Civil War. Soon after it, there came indications that the loss to Sir William Courten's representatives by the misconduct of Peter Botjdaen at Middieburgh would but too probably prove to be a loss without present remedy. It appears to have been established by the evidence adduced in the course of the almost interminable litigation which ensued that there was due from Boudaen to his partners a sum of £122,000; none of which, it may be added, seems ever to have been recovered. And the debt which had been con- tracted by James the First and his successor, though less grievous in amount, was at this time even more hopeless. THE FOUNDEKS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 259 Under the pressure of such a combination of misfortunes, booki, William Courten found himself practically and suddenly T he P insolvent. He met some of the most pressing claims upon J°™ HS him by the sale of available portions of his landed property. Sloane ■* . A iii/ Museum. He assigned other portions of his estates to trustees, and became himself an exile. He survived the ruin of the bril- liant hopes and expectations to which he had been born about ten years ; dying at Florence in the year 1655. He left, by his marriage with Lady Katherine Egerton, one son and one daughter. The fourth William Courten was born in London on wim,ia» the 28th March, 1642. He was baptized at St. Gabriel fomdek Fenchureh, on the 31st of that month. The downfall of g*,,™ his family was therefore very nearly contemporaneous with Musl!U8r - his own birth, and makes it explicable that no record can now be found of the places of his education, or of the course of his early years. But the first trace which does occur of him is in exact harmony with the one fact which makes his existence memorable to his countrymen. He appears, at the age of fourteen, in the list of benefactors to M the Tradescant Museum, at Lambeth, a collection which Tmdaam- afterwards became the basis of the Ashendean Museum at (1656? Oxford. The Tradescants — father and son — hold a conspicuous place in the history of Botanical Science in England, and they are especially notable as the founders of the first ' Museum,' worthy of the name, which was established in this country. The next collection of note, after theirs, was that formed by Robert Hubert, in his house near St. Paul's Cathedral. Other collectors — as for example, John Con- yers and Dr. John Woodward — soon followed the ex- ample. But in this path all of them were far outstripped 260 EARLY COLLECTORS. BootcI, Chap. VI. The FoUNDEES OF THE Sloan e Museum. The suits amd claims instituted by George Caeew, on p.ehale of CoUItTEN AND or TnE Ceeditoes. Courlen Tapers, in MSS. Sloaue, 3516; 3961.; and 3963. by Courten, who had marked his early bias, and also his characteristic liberality, by his gift to the Tradescants in 1656. Part of Courten 's youth was passed at Montpelier, where he formed the acquaintance of several men then, or after- wards, famous for their scientific acquirements. Amongst them, and with the local advantages for the study of the natural sciences, in particular, for the possession of which Montpelier was already noted, his tastes for observation and study were developed, and his character took the ply which soon became indelible. If he ever possessed any share at all of the qualities and predispositions for mercantile adventure, which had marked so many generations of his ancestors on the father's side, that share was far too weak an element in his composi- tion to resist the discouragements of adverse circumstances. But as he attained manhood, he found himself immersed — unwittingly in part — in a sea of litigation which boded ill to his prospective enjoyment of leisure for scientific studies, whatever might prove to be its ultimate results upon his worldly fortunes. Some of the later enterprises of Sir William Courten had been carried on in conjunction with another famous merchant, Sir Paul Pindar, who like himself was a large creditor of the Crown. The administration of Pindar's estate had fallen into the hands of a certain George Carew, who seems to have imagined that the restoration of royal authority in England would bring with it opportunities, to an energetic man, of winning a new fortune out of the remnants of the old fortunes which the fall of royalty had helped to ruin. Just before Charles the Second came back, this man busied himself in buying up claims against Cotjrten's estate as well as claims against Pindar's. He THE FOUNDERS OP THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 261 had a stock of energy. He had also the prospect of ac- book i, quiring a good standpoint at Court, in addition to his TmT present possession of a good training in the mysteries of o°°™ BUS English law. He was ready to devote all his energies to s loane ° . J ° Museum. the business, and to encounter at once with the Dutch East India Company, the Dutch Republic, the Government of Barbadoes, and a host of adversaries at home. There had, however, been no Commission of Bankruptcy. It was necessary that the battle should be fought as well in the name of the heir and representative of the family, as in the name of the collective body of creditors. Carew used Courten's name and used it, as it appears, for some years without authority from the legal guardian. Courten himself did not become of age until 1663. The Restoration was hardly effected before Carew be- sieged the King and the Courts with Petitions, Memorials, Claims, and Bills of Plaint. He would lose nothing for lack of asking. And he was undeterred by difficulties or rebuffs. The case of Barbadoes was thus put before the Committee Tke b „ abba ' 1 does Claim. of the Privy Council for America : — ' Courten claims the whole island of Barbadoes ; and, more particularly, the Corn Plantation, the Indian Bridge Plantation, the Port Plantation, the Indian Plantation east- wards, and Powell's plantation. Sir William Courten's ships discovered the island in the year 1626, and left fifty people there. Captain Henry Powell landed there in February, 1627, built [houses] for Courten's colony, and left more than forty inhabitants there. John Powell erected Planta- tion Port, and remained until he was surprised in 1628 by a force under Charles Wolverton, by which the fort was •> . Colonial captured. In 1629, Sir William Courten sent eighty corrapmd- men with arms, in the ( Peter and John,' and they retook Hw'sb «.' 262 EARLY COLLECTORS. Book I, Chap. VI. The Pounders of THE Sloanb Museum. Domestic Corresf., Charles II, vol. xx, § 77 and xlyiii, §48. , Thk Case of inn East India Ships. the fort in the name of the Earl of Pembroke, Trustee for Cotjrten, according to the royal grant.' And then the Petition recites the recapture, under the conflicting Patent of the Earl of Carlisle, as I have described it already. There is, of course, no foundation for the statement that Barbadoes was ' discovered ' by the ships of Cotjrten. In other respects, the details here set forth appear to be sus- tained by the evidence. In order to the recovery of the debt from the Crown, Carew suggested, in another petition, and quite in the fashion of the day, that the Petitioners should have ' leave to raise the money' due to the Cotjrten Estate from the estates of John Lisle, Thomas Scott, Thomas Andrews, and others, concerned in the murder of the late King. In a third petition, he prayed that ' a blank warrant for the dignity of a baronet' might be granted, in order to sell it to the best bidder, and to apply the proceeds in partial satisfaction of the debt. But it was to the prosecution of the claim upon the Dutch Republic for the unwarranted seizure, in 1643, of the rich ships of the East India Fleet that Carew devoted his best energies. The damages were put at £163,400. The main facts of the case were fully substantiated. And a royal letter was addressed to the States General on the 21st of March, 1662, claiming full satisfaction. A Memorial was delivered at the Hague in the April following, by the English Ambassador, Sir George Down- ing, in which, after a general statement of the case at issue he went on to say : ' Whereas it may seem strange that this matter may be set on foot at this time, whereas in the year 1654 Commissioners were sent to England who did end several matters relating to the East Indies, and whereas in the year 1659 several matters of a fresher date were also THE FOUNDERS OP THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 263 ended, and thereby a period put to all other matters of dif- booki, fereuce which had happened about the same time, and were tuT known in Europe before the 20th of January in the same ^™ year, it is to be considered that the persons interested in Sl0AK1! , . . Museum. these ships were such as, for their singular and extraordi- nary activity to His Majesty, . . father to the King my master, were rendered incapable of obtaining or pursuing their just rights, at home or abroad. And upon that *%?££ account it is that the business of the two ships remains yet the states in dispute, though several matters of a much fresher date theiia^ue, have been ended.' 19 Apri1 ' 1662 ' When these proceedings were initiated by Sir George Downing at the Hague, Courten himself was still in his minority. But it is probable that he had already returned to England. Courten's first personal appearance upon the scene was also made in the way of presenting a petition to the King. In July 1663, he thus alleged that the steps which had been taken were without his concurrence or knowledge, 'and, as is feared, with intention to deprive him of his ^j sloane ' claims.' The King referred the petition to Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who pronounced in Courten 's favour. His position was one of great embarrassment. Some of his family connexions had already suffered much annoyance from litigation about the Courten Estates at home, and were little inclined to incur further risk or trouble on behalf of a relative whose inheritance was certain to yield abun- dance of immediate vexation and anxiety, and very un- certain in respect to its prospects of any better harvest in Thi: . . Agreement the end. He was advised to sell the remnant of his entailed betwekw estates, to put the product of the sale out of danger from j^cl^w. any adverse issue of pending claims, and to come to terms 1663. 264 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, with Carew for the prosecution of the latter — or of some the' of them — on a joint account. In accordance with this ofthe"* 3 advice, an agreement was made, in the course of 1663, by sloane which Carew was empowered to pursue the claims against the Netherlands, as well on Courten's behalf as on his own and that of other creditors. The remaining landed estates in Worcestershire and other counties — or nearly all that remained of them — were sold, and a life income was secured. For the next half dozen years Courten's life was almost that of a recluse, save that such activities as it admitted of were devoted almost exclusively to the study of antiquities and of the natural sciences. A great part of those years was passed at Fawsley with his aunt, Lady Knighteey, one of the few relatives whose affection stood the proof of adversity. There are several reasons for thinking that the rudimen- tary foundation of Courten's Museum had been laid as early as in the time of his grandfather, Sir William, whose mercantile and colonial enterprises presented so many op- portunities for bringing into England the more curious productions of remote countries, as well as their merchan- dise. Be that as it may, the collection of a museum which should eclipse everything of its kind theretofore known in England became, from his attainment of manhood, the leading aim and object of William Courten's career. It was to him both an ambition and a solace. The other of the two men . who thus came into brief contact in 1663 lived a life as different from Courten's as can well be conceived. Carew seems to have been a prttmtim glutton in his appetite for contention. And the Dutchmen, as udZheCom- far as they were concerned, put no stint upon its indulgence. (rm!) &c ' There was also ample time for it. Treaty followed by war, THE FOUNDEKS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 265 and war leading to renewed treaty, kept the affair of the book i. Bona Esperanza and the Henry Bon-Adventure both in T he P active historical memory, and in full legal vigour. Towards ^ ou ™ the close of 1662 it had been covenanted by the English S , L0ANE •> ° Museum. government, as a necessary condition of a good under- standing between the two Powers, that there should be a prompt satisfaction of damages. The Treaty of Commerce of that year was tossed to and fro on that one point of the Courten ships with more obstinate pertinacity than on any other. To the intrinsic merits of the claim, in the main, there was really no answer. To the legal technicalities by which its settlement, if left to Dutch courts of judicature, could be indefinitely protracted, there was no end. When ™h c l ^™d. letters of dismissal had been already drawn at Whitehall for the Dutch envoys of 1662, because they insisted on a clause extinguishing all outstanding claims on both sides ; they skilfully contrived to substitute leave to litigate* for a proviso to satisfy. And the event justified their fore- cast. During the year 1665, Letters of Marque and Reprisal cZ^etl were granted to Carew and his associates, and a special c fc arle9lI > O ' L VOL CX111, clause of continuance until the full recovery of debt and $ 143 - damages,f notwithstanding the conclusion of any subse- quent Treaty of Peace was inserted. This was done after an elaborate argument before the Lord Chancellor Claren- don. Several ships were taken by Carew's cruisers, but they were nearly all claimed by Hamburghers, Swedes, and * 'Hoc excepto quod scilicet qui se jacturam passos dicunt in duabus navibus . . . poterunt litem inceptam prosequi.' — Treaty of Commerce of 1662. f After elaborate inquiries in the Admiralty Court the losses were certified as amounting to £151,612 ; and that assessment was adopted in a subsequent Commission under the Great Seal. !FoUNDEE3 or THE Sloane Museum. 266 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, others. And at length the cost of the reprisals exceeded Chap. VI. . . ° r twe their yield. In this case, and throughout it, as in so many other and graver cases, the policy of Charles the Second's ministers was a policy of the passing exigence. Principle had always to vail to expediency. The Dutch were permitted, after all, to insert their favorite extinction clause in the Treaty of Breda (21 July, 1667). Five years later, the Privy Council advised the King that ' it is just and reasonable for your Majesty to insist upon reparation for the debt and damages' sustained by the seizure, in 1643, of the Bona Esperanza and her consort. New Letters of Marque led to the capture of more vessels, duly provided with a diver- sity of flag ; and to the imprisonment, in England, of the captors, before trial or inquiry. Meanwhile, Carew him- self was seized abroad, and put into a Dutch prison. And, at length, in 1676, the States of Holland sent express orders to their courts of judicature, directing that 'no further progress shall be made in the pending suits,' grounding the order upon the proviso in the treaty of 1667, as ex- tinctive of all claims and pretensions, whatsoever, advanced by Englishmen against Dutch citizens, be the foundation and history of such claims what they might. This decree, therefore, operated in bar, as well of the claims of the re- presentatives of Sir William Courten, for the debt of Peter Boudaen, as of those arising out of the seizure of the ships of the East India Eleet. It was estimated that the Courten claims then pending in the Courts of Holland amounted, in the aggregate, to £380,000 sterling.* In May, 1683, a petition was presented to the English government, in which humble prayer was made that that * This, of course, is the statement, ex parte, of the claimants. MS. Sloane, 3515. THE FOUNDEES OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 267 government would be graciously pleased 'to perpetuate the booki, memory of Sir William Courten and of Sir Paul Pindar, the by setting up their statues in marble under the piazzas of ,7„™ the Royal Exchange — Sir William Courten's at the end ^vs™* of the " Barbadoes walk " at the one side, and Sir Paul Pindar's at the end of the " Turkey walk " of the . other side — -for encouragement to all merchants, in future ages, to take examples by them for loyalty and fidelity to their voxrmtatu. King and country.' Courten's Skcokd Visit to i'HANCB, Cotjrtkn did his best to avoid any personal share in those unceasing turmoils, and to keep in the quiet paths of a studious retirement. But he presently found that, in akdhis order to secure his end, he must needs do as his father had done before him. He must leave England, either for Italy or for Erance. When his mind was made up to exile, it was also made up to the relinquishment of his name. William Courten became, even to his nearest relatives, ' William Charleton.' The friendships he had already formed at Montpelier, in his youth, and the local charms of that city for a studious man, incited him to revisit his old retreat. But he made no permanent abode there. He took long tours, in France, in Germany, and in Italy ; adding everywhere both to the stores of his knowledge and to the presses and cabinets of his library and museum. It was during his second stay at Montpelier that he formed his life-long friendships with a famous Erenchman, Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, and with a more famous Englishman, John Locke. Here also began his acquaintance with Dr. (afterwards Sir) Hans Sloane. It was at Sloane's instance that he made his solitary 268 EAELY COLLECTOES. Book I, Chap. VI. The Founders oe THE Sloane Museum. Fhilosoph. Transact., vol. xxvii, pp.485, seqq. Return to England. Salwey to " Charlton ;' MS. Sloane, 3962, f. 191. appearance as an author, in the shape of a communication to the Royal Society, which was laid before them in 1679, and afterwards printed in the Philosophical Transactions, under the title : Experiments and Observations of the Effects of several sorts of Poisons upon Animals, made at Mont- pelier. Thirteen or fourteen years were thus passed. And then, to the natural yearning of an exile, there came the strong reinforcement of the call of large collections for a settled abode. There are few claims to fixity of tenure better grounded than are those of a Museum or a Library. The return was not easy, but the difficulties were faced. It is probable that he came back to England in the summer of 1684. He did not then own one acre of that land of which his father had inherited so respectable a breadth in half a dozen counties. He had not long arrived before one of his nearest friends wrote him a letter, which seemed to bode ill for his prospects of a peaceable life. ' The number of creditors/ wrote Richard Salwey to him, on the 18th August, 1684, 'is incredible, for the debts are standing, and multiplied to children and grandchildren, who, so long as the parchment and the wax can be preserved, will not forego their hopes nor attempts. And 1 fear your late so public station* will daily expose you, and that you will at every backstairs and turning be pulled by the sleeve and provoked. Nor yet do I know of any danger consequent in any suit that can be commenced, except putting you to great trouble and like expenses ; — and I fear you have not a superfluous bank to defray the charge.' * This allusion I am unable to explain. It is quite an exceptional phrase in the Oourten correspondence. But, possibly, ' station' may be understood as meaning merely place of residence. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 269 Courten, however, was not seriously molested. He booki, established himself in London as the occupant of a large ^' TI ' suite of chambers in Essex Court, Middle Temple. Here roUHDEM J- 01' THE his collections were conveniently arranged, and they had Sloane J ° ' J Museum. space to expand. Ere long we find mention of his Museum EsTASLISH . as filling ten rooms. ™ totthe . . Courten Of the cost at which it had been gathered, there are now museum. no adequate and authenticated materials for forming an estimate. But in those days the man who himself travelled on such a quest had a vast advantage over the man — how- soever better provided with what in the sixteenth century was called purse-ability — who sent other men to travel in his stead. In Courten's days no dealers explored the Continent as an ordinary incident of their calling. The wreck, too, of such a fortune as that of the Courtens was not contemptible. When living in France (1677-79) our collector appears to have had an income of about fifteen amrtm hundred pounds a year, accruing from money invested in M Tstae, mortgages and in annuities. 3963i 303 - Although his chief collections were of his own gathering, he had many helpers. Among them was the future in- heritor of his Museum, Hans Sloane. In the year 1687, when about to set out on his voyage to the West Indies, SiiOANE wrote to him : ' I design to send you what is curious from the several islands we land at, — which will be most of sioaneto ' Charlton ;' our plantations. The writer was then a young man. i*.,308. Probably his acquaintance with Courten was at that time of not greater standing than eight or nine years, but he writes of the obligations Courten had then already con- ferred upon Irim : ' I am extremely obliged to you, beyond any in the world.' Mi - The use this Collector made of his treasures was as liberal as the zeal with which he had amassed them was indefati- 270 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, gable. The friend whose correspondence has just been the quoted said, after Courten's death, that he was wont to show °™™ his Museum very freely, and to make his stores contribute, MusmiM * n var i° us wavs > ' t0 the advancement of the glory of God, the honour and renown of the country, and the no small promotion of knowledge and the useful arts.' Many notices are extant — scattered here and there in the Diaries and among the correspondence of the day — of visits made to Courten's Museum bv men who were able to judge of what they saw. Those notices confirm the general statement made by Sloane, and show the comprehensive- ness of the collector's tastes as well as the geniality of his character. Two such notices have an especial interest, which is not lessened by the fact that both of them are to be found in diaries that are well known. They record the visits to Essex Court of John Evelyn, and of John Thoresby. Even's Evelyn paid his first visit in charming company. It V 'SIT TO coueten's was made in December, 1686. He thus tells of it in his museum. j ourna i . ' j carried the Countess of Sunderland to see the rarities of one Mr. Charlton, in the Middle Temple, who showed us such a collection as I had never seen in all my travels abroad — either of private gentlemen, or of princes. It consisted of miniatures, drawings, shells, insects, medals, . . . minerals ; all being very perfect and rare of their kind ; especially his books of birds, fishes, flowers, and shells, drawn and miniatured to the life. He told us that one book stood him in three hundred pounds. It was painted vol's! P . aeo. by that excellent workman whom the late Gaston, Duke of Orleans, employed.* This gentleman's whole collection, gathered by himself [while] travelling over most parts of * This volume undoubtedly passed into the Sloane Collection, but is not so described as to be identified q\iite satisfactorily. (Edit, of 18S4.) THE FOUNDEES OP THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 271 Europe, is estimated at eight thousand pounds. He ap- booki, peared to be a modest and obliging person.' ?I^ P - Evelyn records two other visits, which he made at sub- FouNDI!ES 7 OF THE sequent times. It is obvious that during almost the whole Sloane L t m ° Museum. period which elapsed between Courten's return to England and his death, his museum was a place of frequent and fashionable resort ; notwithstanding the warning which its owner had received as to the perils of a ' public station,' under his peculiar circumstances. To the celebrated diarist himself, his visits seem to have suggested a very natural thought of the public value of such an institution, to be maintained by and for the country at large. And he was very far from keeping the idea to himself. Evelyn lived to a more than ordinary term of years, but not long enough to see his idea carried into act. He had, however, helped to prepare the way. His incidental statement about the estimated money value of the Courten Museum does not invalidate a foregoing remark in this chapter. The estimate can hardly have been founded upon better ground than mere conjecture. But it is curious to note the near approach of the guess of 1686 to another guess, on the same small point, made nine years later. Thoeesby's visit occurred in May, 1695. He records it thus : ' Walked to Mr. Charlton's chambers at the Temple, who very courteously showed me his Museum, which is per- haps the most noble collection of natural and artificial curiosities,, of ancient and modern coins and medals, that any private person in the world enioys. It is said to have , . -ii ii v Thoreshy, cost him seven or eight thousand pounds sterling mmy, wqb, I spent the greatest part of my time amongst the coins; p.299. '" for though the British and Saxon be not very extraordinary, yet his [collection of] the silver coins of the Emperors and Founders of THE Sloan e Museum. 272 EAELY COLLECTORS. book i, Consuls is very noble. He has also a costly collection of Chap, n ii,. „ the medals of eminent persons in Church and State, and of domestic and foreign Reformers. But, before I was half satisfied, an unfortunate visit from the Countess of Pem- broke and other ladies from Court prevented further queries/ The visits of the 'ladies from Court' may not have seemed quite so unfortunate to the host who had to enter- tain them, as to the zealous antiquary whose recondite questions they broke off. At all events, such visits must have been to Courten like renewed glimpses of the gayer life of which he had known something in his early days. In learned leisure, and in quiet pleasures such as these, his life passed gently to its end. He kept up his cor- respondence as well with some of the surviving friends of his youth, as with two or three of the eminent scholars and naturalists with whom he had made acquaintance during the travel-years of middle life. Failing to raise his fortunes to the height of his early hopes, he yet won contentment by bringing down his desires to the level of his means. He ceased to trouble himself with claims on the Dutch Republic, or with pretensions to a proprietorship in the Island of Barbadoes, or even about his interest in debts contracted by the Crown of England. He had been able, in spite of all losses, to open to his contemporaries means of culture and of mental recreation which, on any like scale, had been before unknown to them. Only in the most famous cities of Italy had the like then been seen. And he had the final satisfaction of making the secured continuance of hisMuseum the means of further securing, at the same time, the comfort and prosperity of some humble friends and dependants whose faithful attention had helped to solace his own closing years. Nor had he neglected those consolations which are supreme. or THE Sloane Museum. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 273 William Courten's Will was made on Iris death-bed, in booki, March, 1702. Having bequeathed certain pecuniary Iega- t he cies — increased two days afterwards by codicil — and having provided for the payment of his debts, he made Dr. Hans Sloane his residuary legatee and sole executor. He forbade all display at his funeral. He died, at Kensington, on the 26th of March, 1702, wanting two days of the completion of his sixtieth year.* He was buried in Kensington church- yard, near the south-east door of the church. By his friend and executor an altar-tomb, carved by Grinling Gibbons, was placed above his remains, with this inscrip- tion -. — Juxta hie sub marmoreo tumulo jacet Gulielmus Coubten, cui Gulielmus pater, Gulielmus avus, mater, Catharina, Joannis Comitis de Bridgwater filia, Paternum vel ad Indos prseclarum Nomen ; qui tantis haudquaquam degener parentibus, Siimma cum laude vitse decurrit tramitem ; Gazarum per Europam indagator sedulus, quas hinc illinc sibi partas negavit nemini, sed cupientibus exposuit humanissime, Non avarse mentis pabulum, sed ingenii si quid naturae, si quid artis nobile Opus, id quovis pretio suum esse voluit ut musis lucidum conderet sacraxium ; ast mortis haac non sunt curaa ! Hie Musarum cultor tarn eximius, Hie tarn insignis viator, Obiit, Quievit, 7 Oal. Apr. a.d. 1702. Vixit annos 62, menses xi, dies 28. Pompa, quam virus fugit, ne mortuo fieret, testamento cavit, sed hoc qualeeumque monumentum, et quam potuit ^immortalitatein, bene merenti moerens dedit Hans Sloane, M.D. * The fact is unquestionably so, although upon his tomb it is said that his age was sixty-two years, eleven months, and twenty-eight days. 18 274 EARLY COLLECTOES. book i, Sir Hans Sloane was the seventh and youngest son of Tun Alexander Sloane, a Scotchman who had married one of o™™ the daughters of Dr. George Hickes, Prebendary of Win- m°seTm. Chester, and who had settled in Ireland on receiving the life of appointment of receiver-general of the estates of the Lord slom" 8 Claneboy, afterwards Earl of Clanricarde. He was born at Killileagh, in the county Down, on the 16th of April, 1660. We learn that almost from earliest youth, Hans Sloane evinced his possession of quick parts and of keen powers of observation. And he gave early indications of that happy constitution of mind and will which now and then permits the union of intellectual ambition and aspiration, with not a little of prudential shrewdness. A special bias towards the study of the natural sciences was — as it has often been in like cases — one of the things that were soonest taken note of by those about him. Faculties such as these natu- rally pointed to medicine as a fitting profession for their early possessor. His home studies, however, were checked by a severe illness which threatened his life, and from some of the effects of which he never quite recovered. But that illness helped to qualify him for his future profession. If it took away, for life, the likelihood that the bright promises of the dawn would be altogether realized in his maturity, it seems to have strengthened, in an unusual degree, both the prudential element which already marked his character, and his predisposition to rely mainly, for the success of his plans, upon plodding industry. From youth to old age an The same inaccurate statement occurs also — and more than once — in papers written by Sir Hans Sloane. Courten was born on the 28th March, 1642. There is an entry of his baptism in the Register of St. Gabriel, Fenchurch, on the 31st of the same month ; and a copy of it in MS. Sloane, 3515, fol. 53. THE FOUNDEES OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 275 unweariable power of taking pains was his leading cha- BooKl - racteristic. the In his eighteenth year he came to London with the im- FOUNDEKS OF THE mediate object of studying chemistry and botany, before s ' Museum. Anti tn Fkanck. he entered on other studies more distinctively medical. EAmLY He learned chemistry under Staphorst,* and of ^0™™'" botany he acquired a good deal of knowledge by fre- 1677 _ 1683 quenting, with much assiduity, the recently founded Botanical Garden at Chelsea. In the latter pursuit he met with assistance from the intelligent keeper of the garden, Mr. Watts. And ere long he acquired the friendship of xs.conap. John Rat, and of Robert Boyle. After six years of steady educational labours, both scien- tific and medical, he went to Paris, which possessed in 1683 — and long afterwards — facilities for medical educa- tion far superior to any that could then be found in London. His companions in the journey were Dr. Tancred Robinson and Dr. Wakeley. im-t. Sloane had scarcely got farther into France than the town of Dieppe, before it was his good fortune to make the acquaintance of Nicholas Lemeky, and to find himself able to communicate to that eminent chemist the results of some novel experiments. They journeyed together from euge, in Dieppe to Paris, and the acquaintance thus casually formed v ^a' it , was productive of good to both of them. The studies ^g"' aild begun in Ireland, and assiduously continued in London, vs.com- " spondencr, were now matured in Paris under men. of European fame, (b.m.) And the young botanist who heretofore could profit only by the infant garden established by the London apothe- caries at Chelsea, and by an occasional botanizing ramble * Staphorst was, by birth, a German. He is known in English litera- ture as the translator of Rauwolf's Travels in Asia. This task he under- took upon Sloane's recommendation. 276 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, into the country, could now expatiate at will in the mag- the ' nificent Jardin des Mantes of the King of France. In o°the EBS that botanical university Sloane, too, had Tournefort — mu» N um f° ur y ears ms senior — for his frequent companion and fellow-student. In July, 1683, he took his degree as Doctor of Medicine in the University of Orange. Thence he went to Mont- pelier, where he resided until nearly the end of May, 1684. After visiting Bordeaux, and some other parts of Prance, he returned to Paris. There were few towns, in which lie made any stay, that had not given him some friend or other, in addition to a valuable accession of knowledge. And the friendships he had once formed were but rarely lost. Towards the close of 1684 Dr. Sloane returned to England, whither the reputation of his increased acquire- ments had preceded him. In January, 1685, he was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society, and exactly one year after- wards he was proposed for election as Assistant-Secretary. Among the other candidates were Denis Papin and Edmund Halley. On the first scrutiny, Sloane had ten votes ; Halley sixteen. The majority was not enough, but on a second ballot Halley was chosen. Early in 1687 he became a Fellow of the College of Physicians. He had thus early laid some foundation for a London practice that would lead him to social eminence, as well as to fortune. And for the good gifts of fortune he had a very keen relish. Loving wealth well, he loved science still better. But he had already good reason to hope that both might be won, in company. He had become known to Christopher Monk, second Duke of Albemarle, and when that noble- man received, in 1687, the office of Governor- General of the West India Colonies, Sloane received an invitation THE FOUNDEKS OP THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 277 to sail with him, as the Duke's physician and as Chief booki. Physician to the fleet ; and he was desired to name his t^' own conditions, if disposed to accept the appointment. ^"™ He did not take any long time to think over the offer. Sl0AMB J ° Museum. If it presented no very brilliant prospect of monetary profit, it opened a large field for scientific research. And, I^IuawT in the main, the field was new. No Englishman had i 887 . ever yet been tempted to take so long a journey in the interests of science. He knew that he had excellent per- sonal qualifications for turning to good account the large opportunities of discovery that such a voyage was sure to bring. Nor was it less certain that it would bring innu- merable occasions for enlarging his strictly professional knowledge. And he had on his side the vigour of youth, as well as its curiosity and its enthusiasm. In annexing to his reply the conditions of his acceptance he wrote thus : ' If it be thought fit that Dr. Sloane go physician to the West Indian Fleet, the surgeons of all the ships must be ordered to observe his directions. He proposes that six hundred pounds, per annum, shall be paid to him quarterly, with a previous pay- ment of three hundred pounds, in order to his preparation for this service ; and also that if the Fleet shall be called home he shall have leave to stay in the West Indies if he pleases. 5 The proposed terms were approved. The Doctor „ r r l n Corresp. m embarked at Portsmouth, in the Duke's frigate Assistance, MS - sloane . ' ° ' 4069, ff. MS, on the 12th of September. 87. His work as a scientific collector began at Madeira. To botanize in that pleasant island was an enjoyment all the nu., more welcome after an unusual share of suffering from sea- 396 ^ S f s"Jo, sickness, in the midst of professional toil. For it was honourably characteristic of Sloane that, under all circum- stances and forms of temptation, medical duties had the 278 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, first place with him. What he achieved for science, the throughout his life, was achieved in the intervals of more *™ 3 immediate duty. mus™. ^ e reac hed Barbadoes in November. Thence he wrote to Courten : ' This is indeed a new world in all things. You may be sure the task I have is already delightful to si™™ to me .' Then he continues : 'lam heartily sorry that I, being n., 1687, new landed here, cannot now send [what I have collected for you] with this letter. What I had at Madeira cannot be come at. What is here I have not, as yet, gathered. But you may assure yourself that what these parts of the West Indies afford is all your own, the best way I can send them.' The collections begun thus favourably were continued at the beginning of December in the islands of Nevis, St. Christopher, and Hispaniola. The fleet reached Port Royal on the 19th of that month. Jamaica was explored with ardent enthusiasm and with minutest care. Its animals and minerals, as well as its plants ; its history, as well as its meteorology, were thoroughly studied. And the medical Medkaicases skill of the new-comer was put as heartily at the service of ft^,'(, ° the toil-worn negro as at that of the wealthiest planter, or of the highest officer of the Crown. But presently Sloane himself needed the care and skill he so willingly bestowed. 'I had a great fever,' he says, ' though those about me called it a little seasoning.' He had scarcely recovered before his knowledge of the natural history of Jamaica was suddenly and unpleasantly in- creased. 'Ever since the beginning of February/ I find him writing to the Lord Chief Justice Herbert (who seems to have been one of the earliest of the many patients who became also friends) : ' I dread earthquakes more than heat. Jamaica ; vol, i (1708). THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 279 For then we had a very great one. Finding the house to booki, dance and the cabinets to reel, I looked out of window thT to see whether people removed the house (a wooden struc- 1°™™™ ture) or no. Casting my eyes towards an aviary, I saw the Sloane . ° J •> •> # Museum. birds in as great concern as myself. Then, another terrible shake coming, I apprehended what it was, and betook me to my heels to get clear of the house ; but before I got down stairs it was over. If it had come the day after, it had frighted us ten times more. For the day it happened there LoTcwef arrived a Spanish sloop from Porto Bello, giving an account ^ e s r " c e e rt . of the destruction of great part of the kingdom of Ms.sioane, -r, , or O 4069, ff. 277, reru. 278. Long before this letter was written the exploring studies and expedition had been resumed with all the activity of renewed health, and they were carried on — at every avail- able interval, as I have said, of pressing medical duty — throughout the year 1688. That eventful year, during which the thoughts and anxieties of the mass of his country- men were so differently engrossed, was to Sloane the especial seedtime of his study of Nature. All that he was enabled to effect in that attractive path may now seem very small and dim, when viewed in the light of subsequent achievements. But it was great for that day, when, in England, the path was so newly opened that the possession of a taste for collecting insects was thought, by able men of the world, to be a strong presumption of lunacy. And it soon fired the ambition of a multitude of inquirers who rapidly carried the good work of investigation onward, in all directions. Towards the close of the year, the Duke of Albemarle suddenly died. The contingency for which Sloane had had the foresight to make provision had arisen, but in a quite unexpected way ; so that his forecast failed to secure Sloane Museum. 28 EARLY COLLECTORS. jjooKi him that time for continued research which he had coveted Chap. VI. T BE and contracted for. The Duchess of Albemarle had oft™ accompanied her husband in his voyage, and, after the first shock of his death had been borne, was naturally desirous to leave the colony. Sloane could not allow her to take the return voyage without his attendance. He hastened to gather up his collections and prepared to come home. The fleet set sail from Port Royal on the 16th of March, 1689. voy^ T "r ^ e v °y a g e was full of anxiety. Such news from 1689. England as had yet reached the West Indies was very fragmentary. And the lack of authentic intelligence about the outbreak of the Revolution and its results, had been eked-out by all sorts of wild rumours. The voyagers looked daily with intense eagerness for outward-bound ships that might bring them news, and were especially anxious to know if war had broken out between England and France. When they caught sight of a sail so wist- fully watched for, they commonly observed in the other vessel as great a desire to avoid a meeting, as there was amongst themselves to ensure one. The Duchess of Albemarle had with her a large amount of wealth in plate and jewels, as well as a large retinue. Her anxieties were not lessened when the captain of the frigate said to her Grace, two or three weeks after the departure from Port Royal: 'I cannot fight any ship having King James' commission, from whom I received mine.' On hearing this assurance — which seemed to open to her the prospect, or at least the possible contingency, of being carried into Erance — the Duchess resolved to change her ship. With Sloane and with her suite she left the Assist- ance, and re-embarked, first in the late Duke's yacht, and then in one of the larger ships of the fleet. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 281 After this separation. ' our Admiral/ says Sloane, 'pre- booki, iii ,i i iii,.!' Ch,i i>- VI - tended he wanted water and must make the best or his the way for England, without staying to convoy us home, 0?™^* which accordingly he did.' The voyage, nevertheless, was ^°^ M made in safety. Voyageto They learned very little of what had happened at home, ^'f™'^ until they had arrived within a few leagues of Plymouth. Then Sloane himself went out, in an armed boat, with the intention of picking up such news as could be gathered from any fishermen who might be met with near the coast. The first fishing vessel they hailed did her best to run away, but was caught in the pursuit. To the question, ' How is the King ? ' the master's reply was, ' What King do you mean ? King William is well at Whitehall. King James . . _ f Hid., p. 347. is in France. Sloane landed at Plymouth on the 29th of May, with ?*™ large collections in all branches of natural history, and with ekgiakd. improved prospects of fortune.' The Duchess of Albemarle behaved to him with great liberality, and for some years to come he continued to be her domestic physician, and lived, for the most part, in one or other of her houses as his usual place of residence. In 1690 much of his correspondence bears date from the Duchess' seat at New Hall, in Essex. In 1692 we find him frequently at Albemarle House, in Clerkenwell. He had also made, whilst in the West Indies, a lucky investment in the shape of a large purchase of Peruvian Bark. It was already a lucrative article of commerce, and the provident importer had excellent professional opportuni- S J°"™ ties of adding to its commercial value by making its in- in MSS - trinsic merits more widely known in England. The botanists, more especially, were delighted with the large accessions to previous knowledge which Sloane had brought back with him. ' When I first saw,' said John Sloane. 282 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, Ray, ' his stock of dried plants collected in Jamaica, and th E in some of the Caribbee Islands, I was much astonished *™™ at the number of the capillary kind, not thinking there had sloaud i3 een so man y to be found in both the Indies.' Museum. ^ The collector, himself, had presently his surprise in the matter, but it was of a less agreeable kind. ' My collec- tion,' he says, ' of dried samples of some very strange plants excited the curiosity of people who loved things of that nature to see them, and who were welcome,, until I observed some so very curious as to desire to carry part of them privately home, and injure what they left. This made me upon my guard.' loos. On the 30th of November, 1693, Sloane was elected to the Secretaryship of the Royal Society. A year afterwards he was made Physician to Christ Hospital. It is eminently to his honour that from his first entrance into this office — which he held for thirty-six years — he applied the whole of its emoluments for the advantage and advancement of de- serving boys who were receiving their education there. For that particular appointment he was himself none the richer, save in contentment and good works. theCata- In 1696 he made his first appearance as an author by west the publication of his Catalogus Plantarum qua in insula Jamaica sponte jproveniunt, vel vulgo coluntur, cum earundem synonimis et locis hatalibus : Adjectis aliis quibusdam qua in plukenet. insulis Madeira, Barbadoes, Nevis, et Saudi Christophori nascuntur. He had already seen far too much of the world io96. to marvel that his book soon brought him censure as well as praise. By Leonard Plukenet, a botanist of great acquirements and ability, many portions of the Jamaica Catalogue were attacked, sometimes on well-grounded ob- jections ; more often upon exceptions rather captious than just, and with that bitterness of expression which is the Indian Plants, and the Conteo- veksy with THE FOUNDEBS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 283 unfailing finger-post of envy. Plukenet's strictures were booxi, published in his Almagesti Botanici Mantissa* Sloane the made no rash haste to answer his critic. Where the o™"° EES censure bore correction of real error or oversight, he care- ^ 0AME <~> ' Museum. fully profited by it. Where it was the mere cloak of malice, he awaited without complaint the appropriate time for dealing, both with censure and censor, which would be sure to come when he should give to the world the ripened results of the voyage of 1687. A passage in Dr. Sloane's correspondence with Dr. Charlett, of Cambridge, written in the same year with the publication of the Jamaica Catalogue, shows that even whilst he was still almost at the threshold of his London life, he was able steadily to enlarge his museum. At that early date, Chaklett, who had seen it during a visit to ciiariettto London, calls it already ' a noble collection of all natural Ms"coms P , curiosities.'! The collector, when he landed its first fruits 4043 - f193 - at Plymouth, had yet before him — such was to be his un- * As, for example, under the words 'Lwpathum;' Poonnacai Mala- barorwm; ' Riciwus ;' 'Salix;' and several others. See Almagesti Bota- nici Mantissa, pp. 113 ; 143 ; 161 ; 165, &c. f Dr. Arthur Charlett's long and intimate correspondence with Sir Hans Sloane began in this year (1696), and continued without inter- ruption until 1720. It has much interest, and fills MS. Sloane 4040, from f. 193 to f . 285. That with John Chamherlayne was of nearly equal duration, and is preserved in the same volume (ff. 100-167). The corre- spondence with James Bobart contains much valuable material for the history of botanical study in England, and is preserved in MS. Sloane, 4037 (ff. 158-185). It began in 1685, and was continued until Bobart's death, in 1716. Still more curious is the correspondence with John Burnet (1722-1738), who was originally a surgeon in the service of the East India Company, and afterwards Surgeon to the King of Spain. Burnet's letters to Sloane, written from Madrid, contain valuable illus- trations of Spanish society and manners as they were in the first half of the Eighteenth Century. This correspondence is in MS. Sloane, 4039. Sloane Museum. 281 EARLY COLLECTORS. booki, usual length of days — almost sixty-four years of life. Not the one of them, probably, passed without some valuable acces- op the EBS s ™ n to hi s museum. And those sixty-four years were the adolescent and formative years of the study of the Physical Sciences in Britain. They were years, too, in the course of which there was to be a great development of British energy, both in foreign travel and in colonial enterprise. Very many were to run to and fro in the earth, so that knowledge might be largely increased. As a traveller, Sloane had already done his spell of work. But just as that was achieved, he was placed, by his election to the secretaryship to the Royal Society, precisely in the position where he could most extensively profit by a wide correspondence with men of like scientific pur- suits all over the world, and could exercise a watchful observation over the doings and the opportunities of explorers. resumption But the most immediate result of his secretaryship was °pi™oso- the resumption of the suspended Philosophical Transactions. The interruption of a work which had already rendered yeoman service to Science, abroad as well as at home, had been caused by a combination of unfavourable circum- stances. The death of its first and energetic editor, Henry Oldenburg; some diminution in the Society's income; and some personal disagreements at its Council board, seem all, in their measure, to have concurred to impede a publi- cation, the continuance of which the best men in the Royal Society knew to be inseparable from the achievement of its true purposes. Sloane bestirred himself with the steady vigour which had been born with him; impressed his friends into the service ; profited by the foreign connec- tions he had formed ten years earlier at Paris, Bordeaux, and Montpelier, and so found new channels by which to PHICAL TflANSAC T10MS. J The foundees or the Sloane Museum. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 285 enrich the pages of the Transactions, as well as to extend booki, their circulation. T i« He did it, of course, in his own way, and under the necessary influence of his habits and predispositions. One natural result of his labours, as secretary and as editor, was a frequent prominence of medical subjects, both at the meetings and in the subsequent selections for permanent record. If such a prominence might now and then give, or seem to give, fair ground of complaint to men whose thoughts were absorbed in the calculus of fluxions, or whose eyes were wont to search the heavens that they might learn the courses of the stars, it had at least the ex- cuse that it tended to the elevation — in all senses of the word — of a profession in the thorough education and the dignified status of which all the world have a deep interest. If Sloane, in his day, occasionally made scientific men somewhat more familiar with medical themes than they cared to be, he did very much to make medical men aware of the peculiar duty under which their profession laid them of becoming also men of true science. And in this way he exerted an influence upon medical knowledge, which was none the less pregnant with good and enduring results because it was in great measure an indirect influence. It was one of \h& minor, but memorable, results of the estab- lishment of the Royal Society that it tended powerfully to lift medical practice out of the slough of quackery. This frequent reading of medical papers during the Doctor's secretaryship could not fail to give- an opening, now and again, for the wit of the scorner. A physician, in his daily practice, is constantly seeing the power of small things. He may well, at times, over estimate trifles. In the year 1700, Dr. Sloane was made the subject of a satirical pamphlet which appeared under the title of ' The 286 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, Transactioneer, with some of his Philosophical Fancies. .' t H e P The author of the satire was Dr. William King, but, for a opthe EIIS considerable time, the authorship was unknown. There Sloans was great anxiety to discover it, not only on Sloane's Museum. o ■/ > •/ part individually, but on the part of the Council at large. The whole affair was trivial, and would be unworthy of memory but that it led to some dissensions within the Society itself, which for a long time left marks of their influence. sloanh and Sloane conceived that The Transactioneer was the pro- duction of Dr. John Woodward — the author of Natural History of the Earth — who was himself a member of the Royal Society's Council. Woodward, in denying the imputation, endorsed the satire. ' Whether there was not some occasion given, 5 he said to the Council, ' may be worth your consideration. This I am sure of: The world has been now, for some time past, very loud upon that Newton subject. And there were those who laid the charges so °n"eani ' much wrong, that I have but too often had occasion to vin- C Brewstf dicate tne Society itself, and that in public company.' The in Memoin, \\\ feeling thus excited lasted along time. It seemed at &e. (2nd ° 7 ... Edit.),voi.ii, length, that the Society must lose either the services of its laborious Secretary or those of his active-tongued opponent. The petty dissension came to a height when Sloane chanced to make some passing medical comment on the words 'the bezoar is a gall-stone,' occurring in a paper which he was reading to the Society, from the Memoirs of the Parisian Academy of Sciences. Sloane's casual re- mark drew from Woodward the offensive words, ' No man who understands anatomy would make such an assertion.' On another occasion he interrupted some observation or other made by Sloane, by exclaiming — ' Speak sense, or English, and we shall understand you.' A friend or two FOUNDERS OF THE LOANE Museum. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 287 of Woodward tried hard to back him by enlisting the booki, illustrious President on their side. They reminded New:- tm ' ton that he had been often himself impatient under the medical dissertations, and they praised Dr. Woodward's s acquirements in philosophy. ' For a seat in the Council/ replied Sir Isaac, * a man should be a moral philosopher, as well as a natural one.' Eventually, it was resolved : Records of ' That Dr. Woodward be removed from the Council, for LdetT creating a disturbance by the said reflecting words upon Dr. Sloane.' The latter was of a very forgiving temper, and he soon sought to be reconciled with his adversary. His professional course, meanwhile, was steadily upward. A friendship which he had contracted in 1705 with Dr. Sydenham greatly aided his progress. Sydenham was retiring from practice, and gave to Sloane his cordial recommendations. In 1712* he was made Physician Extraordinary to the Queen, whom he attended, two years afterwards, on her death bed. He filled the office of Physician-in-Chief to George the First, by whom, on the 3rd April, 1716, he was created a Baronet. He was, I believe, the first physician who received that dignity. In 1719 he became President of the College of Physicians. In 1727 he received the crowning honour of a life which, to an unusual degree, had already been replete with honour- able distinctions of almost every'kind. He was placed in the chair of the Royal Society, as the next successor of Newton. Eighteen years before, he had been welcomed into the illustrious Academy of Sciences, the establishment of which at Paris had followed so quickly upon the foundation of the Royal Society. Both academies had worked with con- * History of Ewrope [the precursor of the Annual Register], for 1712. 288 EARLY COLLECTOES. Book I, Chap. VI. The Founders or THE Sloane Museum. spicuous success. Both had been adorned by a long line of eminent members. They had frequently, and in many ways, interchanged friendly communion. To Sloane him- self, the reception at Paris had been the prelude of many like invitations from other learned societies in various parts of Europe. No man of his time had a worthier estimate of the dignity involved in the freemasonry of science, nor had any a more conscientious sense of the duties and responsi- bilities which it entails. As President of the Royal Society, one of his earliest pro- posals to the Council was that, for the future, no pecuniary contribution should be received from foreign members whose fellowship it invited as an honour. He urged this step, notwithstanding that the Society was at the time in debt from an unusual arrear of subscriptions, — an arrear so great that he felt it to be right that the Council should be recommended to sue their offending brethren in the law courts. His third proposal, like both the others, had for its object the incontestible advantage and honour of the Society. He checked some nascent abuses in elections by making it necessary that there should be an express appro- val of every new candidate by the Council, on the recom- mendation of not less than three fellows, before proceeding to a ballot in the Society at large. The .Natural History of Jamaica. The work by which Sloane holds his chief place in the literature of science, the Natural History of Jamaica, was the work of no less than thirty-eight years. Its materials, as we have seen, were collected in the years 1687 and 1688. The first volume was not published until 1708. Seventeen additional years elapsed before the completion of the second. The fact indicates how crowded with avo- cations its author's life was, as well as the marked con- THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 289 scientiousness and thoroughness which from youth to age booki, characterized his doings. TH a E p The Jamaica book cannot be opened without some appre- 0°™"™" ciation, even at first sight, of this faculty of thoroughness. Sloahe . . ° J - ° MUSEUM. For it is shown not more by the elaboration and beauty of the illustrations, than by the copious citation of authori- ties, on all points in relation to which authority is valuable. That all previous labourers in his field should have their full meed of acknowledgment is with Sloane a prime anxiety. The West Indian Voyage of 1687-89 had had, it may sloa^s ^ ° . v SERVICES TO here be remarked, other results besides that of exciting new aibomcul- emulation — at home and abroad — in the study of natural history, and in the amassing in cabinets and presses of the dried and preserved objects of that study. It gave a marked impulse to arboriculture, both in England and in Ireland. What Sloanb had to show, and to tell of, led to the sending oversea of vessels expressly prepared for the transport of living trees ; and several noble ornaments of our parks and pleasure grounds date their introduction to English and Irish soil from the expeditions so set on foot. The Natural History of Jamaica excited considerable interest abroad, as well as at home. Bernard de Jussieu offered to undertake the editorship of a French translation, and Briasson, a Parisian bookseller of some eminence, comspof Sloane and wrote to Sloane that he was willing to incur the charges Briasson; m and risk of publication, on condition that the author would 4039,*r°i36- send the copper plates of the original work to Paris, for 14 °- use in the new edition. Sir Hans, however, objected to incur the risk of this transmission across the channel, but was willing to have the needful impression worked off in London ; an arrangement to which the Parisian, in his 19 Founders ov THE Sloan e Museum. 290 EAKLY COLLECTOKS. booki, turn, was disinclined to assent, being of opinion — perhaps the not unjustly — that, in 1743, the art of copperplate print- ing was better understood in Paris than in London. On these grounds the negotiation was broken off. growth or Amidst these varied avocations, the growth of the library museum"" 1 an( ^ museum wen t on unceasingly. Friends and foes con- tributed, in turn, to its enrichment. The year 1702 saw the incorporation with the original gatherings of the West India voyage of the splendid collections of Coubten, the friend of Sloane's youth. In 1710, Sir Hans acquired the valuable herbaria of his old assailant, Leonard Plukenet. In 1718 he purchased the extensive collections, in all de- partments of natural history, of another friend of early years, James Petiver. The herbarium of Adam Buddle, a botanist little remembered now but of note in his genera- tion, came to Sloane, as a token of friendship, from the 4069^m. death-bed of its collector. The scientific possessions of Dr. Christopher Merret were purchased from his son, and from time to time, when valuable collections were known to be on sale upon the Continent, agents went across to buy. Of these numerous sources of augmentation the museum of Petiver was next in importance to that of Courten — but with a considerable interval. It is said (in the con- temporary correspondence, as I think) that its cost to Sloane was four thousand pounds. But remembering what four thousand pounds was a hundred and fifty years ago, there is reason to suspect some exaggeration in the statement. the James Petiver, when Sir Hans first became acquainted histom with him, was serving, as an apprentice, the then apothe- tiotTo"* cary of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He afterwards be- petivek. came apothecary to the Charter House. He had, in one way THE FOUNDEBS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 291 or other, made for himself a singularly extensive acquaintance ^"^ amongst seafaring men ; and by their help had established the an almost world-wide correspondence with people interested ofthe in natural history, or possessed of special opportunities for MuaeuL gathering its rarities. Of such rarities, Sloane somewhere says, ' He had procured, I believe, a greater quantity than any man before him.' But in course of time his collections overpowered his means, or his industry, for the work of preservation and arrangement. When, at the collector's death, they passed into the possession of his friend, choice specimens were found, not in order, but in heaps. The due classification and ordering occupied many hands during many months. The charities of human life were not, in the breast of Sir sloane CORHE- Hans Sloane, choked either by the various allurements sfokdence, and preoccupations of science, or by the ceaseless toils of a chajutms. busy and anxious profession. He was a very liberal giver, and also a discriminating and conscientious giver. I have rarely seen a correspondence which mirrors more strikingly than does that of Sloane, a just and equable attention to multifarious and often conflicting claims. The multiplicity of the claims was, indeed, as notable as was the patience with which they were listened to. Not to dwell upon the innumerable gropings after money of which, in one form or other, every man who attains any sort of eminence is sure to have his share (but of which Sir Hans Sloane seems to have had a Benjamin's portion) or upon interminable requests for the use of influence, at Court, at the Treasury, at the London Hospitals, at the Council- Boards of the Royal Society or of the College of Physicians, and elsewhere ; his fame brought upon him a mass of appeals and solicitations from utter strangers, busied with 292 EARLY COLLECTORS. .Book I, Chap. VI. The foundees OF THE SLOANE Mt/sjsum. Sloanc to Gabriel Nisbett, May, 1737, MS. Sloane, 4069, f. 38. Sloane to St. Pierre, MS. Sloane, 4009, f. 44. less worldly aims and pursuits. Enthusiastic students of the deep things of theology sought his opinion on abstruse and mystical doctrines. Advocates of perpetual peace, and of the transformation, at a breath, of the Europe of the eighteenth century into a new Garden of Eden, implored him to endorse their theories, or to interpret their dreams. His replies are sometimes both characteristic and amus- ing ; none the less so for the fact that his power of writing was, at all times, far beneath his other mental powers and attainments. Now and then, though rarely, a touch of humour lights up the homeliness of phrase. To one of the enthusiasts in mystic divinity, who had sent for his perusal an enormous manuscript, he replied : ' I am very much obliged for the esteem you have of my knowledge, which, I am very sure, comes far short of your opinion. As to the particular controversies on foot in re- lation to Natural and Revealed Religion, and to Predesti- nation, I am no ways farther concerned than to act as my own conscience directs me in those matters ; and am no judge for other people I have not time to peruse the book you sent.' To the worthy and once famous Abbe de Saint Pierre, who would fain have established with Sloane a steady correspondence on the universal amelioration of mankind, by means of a vast series of measures, juridical, political, and politico-economical, which started from the total aboli- tion of vice and of war, and descended to the improvement of road-making by some happy anticipation — a hundred years in advance — of our own Macadam, he wrote thus : ' I should be very glad to see a general Peace established, for ever. Rumours of war are often, indeed, found to be baseless, and the fears of it, even when well grounded, are often dissipated by an unlooked-for Providence. But poor THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 293 mortals are often so weak as to suffer, in their health, from book i, the fear of danger, where there is none ! ' th* p " Letters on high themes like these had their frequent o° u T ™ EES variety, in the shape of proffers of contributions, to be made ® L0AI ™ upon terms, for the enlargement of the Museum, the fame of which had now spread into very humble ranks of society. A single specimen in this kind will suffice : ' I understand,' wrote a correspondent of a speculative turn, ' you are a great virtuoso, and gives a valuable consideration for novel- ties of antiquity,' — on getting thus far in the perusal, one can imagine Sir Hans murmuring ' not willingly, I assure you,' — ' a pin has been many hundred years in our family, and was, I am told, the pin of the first Saxon king of the West Angles,' and so on. Until the year 1741, a few months after his resignation AcqDISIII0N of the chair of the Royal Society on the score of old age, OT ™ E Sir Hans Sloane continued to live chiefly in London; or Chelsea. though often removing, for part of the summer months, to his Manor House in the then charming suburb of Chelsea. He had purchased that valuable manor, from the family of Cheyne, in 1714. The fine old House abounded in historical recollections and amongst them, as most readers will remember, in associations connected with the memory of Sir Thomas More. It had the additional attraction of a large and beautiful garden, close to that other garden in which the now Lord of the Manor had pursued, with all the energies of youth, the study of botany. One of his earliest acts of lordship had been a graceful gift to the Company of Apothecaries, of the freehold in the land of which till then they had been tenants. In 1741 he trans- ferred his Museum and Library from Bloomsbury to Chel- sea. His former house — situated in Great Russell Street, 294 EAELY COLLECTOES. book i, near the corner of what is now Bloomsbury Square — had the been capacious, but the new one admitted of a greatly FOUNDERS OF THE Sloane Museum. improved arrangement and display of the collections. The state and character of the Sloane Museum, in the fullness to which the collector had brought it during these asoyal latest years of his life, can scarcely be exemplified better the sloane than in a contemporary account of a visit which was paid cZZ XT to the Manor House at Chelsea by the Prince and Princess of Wales, in the year 1748. I quote it, almost verbally, from the Gentleman's Magazine of that year, but with some unimportant omissions. GM > At that date, the Manor House formed a square of above vol. xviii, i -i 1 f» i pp. 301, 302. a hundred feet on each side, enclosing a court. Three of the principal rooms were, on the occasion of this royal visit, filled successively — as the visitors passed from one" room into another — with the finest portions of the collections in its most portable departments. The minerals were first shown. The tables were spread with drawers filled with all sorts of precious stones in their natural beds, as they are found in the earth, except the first table, which contained stones found in animals, such as pearls, bezoars, and the like. Emeralds, topazes, amethysts, sapphires, garnets, rubies, diamonds, .... with magnificent vessels of cor- nelian, onyx, sardonyx and jasper, delighted the eye, says the attendant describer, and raised the mind to praise the great Creator of all things. When their Royal Highnesses, continues our narrator, had viewed one room, and went into another, the scene was shifted. When they returned, the same tables were covered, for a second course, with all sorts of jewels, polished and set after the modern fashion, and with gems carved and engraved. For the third course, the tables were FOUNDEES OF THE Sloane Museum. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 295 spread with gold and silver ores, and with the most pre- booki. cious and remarkable ores used in the dresses of men from the Siberia to the Cape of Good Hope, from Japan to Peru ; and with both ancient and modern coins in gold and silver. The gallery, a hundred and ten feet in length, presented a ' surprising prospect. 5 The most beautiful corals, crys- tals, and figured stones ; the most brilliant insects ; shells, painted with as great variety as the precious stones ; and birds vying with the gems ; diversified with remains of the antediluvian world. Then a noble vista presented itself through several rooms filled with books ; among these were many hundred volumes of dried plants ; a room, full of choice and valuable manu- scripts ; and the rich present sent by the French King to Sir Hans of the engravings of his collections of paintings, medals, and statues, and of his Palaces, in twenty-five large atlas volumes. Below stairs, some rooms were then shown, filled with the antiquities of Egypt, Greece, Etruria, Rome, Britain, and even America; other rooms and the Great Saloon were filled with preserved animals. The halls were deco- rated with the horns of divers creatures. 'Eifty volumes in folio,' concludes the enthusiastic bystander who chro- nicled, for Mr. Sylvan us Urban, the royal visit of 1748, ' would scarce suffice to contain a detail of this immense ™i. win, Museum, consisting of above 200,000 articles.' (juiy.iW) The Prince of Wales, on taking leave of his host, gave expression to a wish which he did not live long enough to see realised. ' It is a great pleasure to me,' he said, ' to see so magnificent a collection in England. It is an ornament to the Nation. Great honour would redound from the establishing of it for public use, to the latest posterity.' G. M., 296 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, Plans, more or less definite, of perpetuating those collec- Chap. VI. * * ° the tions tor public use had occasionally engaged their owner's °™i™ thoughts almost from the date of his acquisition of the mu»™. Museum of William Courten, in 1702. In 1707, he had the will watched with interest a scheme that had been set on foot c,7 8 o™ 1 ' ^ or the formation of a Public Library in London by com- 1749-61. bining the old Royal Collection with the collections of Sir Robert Cotton and of the Royal Society.* But that scheme failed of execution, until, almost half a century later, it was, in the main, revived and carried out as the indirect but very natural consequence of his own testamentary dis- positions. His Will, in its first form, was made at Chelsea in 1748, . but was replaced on the 10th July, 1749, by the following codicil :— the testa- 'Whereas I have in and by my said Will given some directions about the sale and disposition of my Museum, or MENTAHY DISPOSAL collection of rarities herein more particularly mentioned, CoUBTEN AND SlOA] Museum. and sloane now i (j h ere bv revoke my said Will, as far as relates thereto, and I do direct and appoint concerning the same in the following manner : Having had from my youth a strong inclination to the study of plants and all other productions of nature, and having through the course of many years, with great labour and expense, gathered together whatever could be procured either in our own or foreign countries that was rare and curious ; and being fully convinced that nothing tends more to raise our ideas of the power, wisdom, goodness, providence, and other perfections of the Deity, or more to the comfort and well being of his creatures, * ' Here are great designs on foot for uniting the Queen's Library, the Cotton, and the Royal Society's, together. How soon they may be put in practice time must discover.' — Sloane to Dr. L'harlett, Master of University College, April, 1707 . Foundkus OF THE A.N1S Museum. THE FOUNDERS OP THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 297 than the enlargement of our knowledge of the works of booki, nature, I do will and desire that for the promoting of these thT noble ends, the glory of God, and the good of man, my collection in all its branches may be, if possible, kept and Sl ° preserved together whole and entire, in my Manor House in the Parish of Chelsea, situate near the Physic Garden given by me to the Company of Apothecaries for the same purposes ; and having great reliance that the right honour- able, honourable, and other persons hereafter named, will be influenced by the same principles and [will] faithfully and conscientiously discharge the trust hereby reposed in them, I do give, devise, and bequeath, unto the Rt. Hon. Charles Sloane Cadogan [and to forty-nine other persons whose names folloio,] all that my Collection or Museum at, in, or about, my Manor House at Chelsea aforesaid, which consists of too great a variety to be parti- cularly described, but which are more particularly described, mentioned, and numbered, with short histories or accounts of them, with proper references, in certain catalogues by me made, containing thirty-eight volumes in folio, and eight volumes in quarto, — except such framed pictures as are not marked with the word " Collection" — to have and to hold to them and their successors and assigns for ever, upon the trusts, and for the uses and purposes, . . . hereafter particularly specified concerning the same. ' A.nd for rendering this my intention more effectual that the said Collection may be preserved and continued entire in its utmost perfection and regularity, and being assured that nothing will conduce more to this than placing the same under the direction and care of learned, experienced, and judicious persons who are above all low and mean views, I do earnestly desire that the King, H.R.H. the 298 EAELY COLLECTORS. book i, Prince of Wales, H.R.H. William, Duke of Cumberland, the the Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being Founders of THE [and twenty-eight others, being chiefly great Officers of sloanb Statel will condescend so far as to act and be Visitors of MCSEUM. my said Museum and Collection ; and I do hereby, with their leave, nominate and appoint them Visitors thereof, with full power and authority for any five or more of them to enter my said Collection or Museum, at any time or times, to peruse, supervise, and examine, the same, and the management thereof, and to visit, correct, and reform, from time to time, as there may be occasion, either jointly with the said Trustees or separately — upon application to them for that purpose, or otherwise — all abuses, defects, neglects or mismanagements, that may happen to arise Authentic therein, or touching and concerning the person or persons, of m') &C ' °ffi cer or officers, that are or shall be appointed to attend 17, p. 12. the same. ' And my will is and I do hereby request and desire that the said Trustees, or any seven or more of them, do make their humble application to His Majesty, or to Parliament at the next session after my decease, — as shall be thought most proper, — in order to pay the full and clear sum of twenty thousand pounds unto my executors or to the survivors of them, in consideration of the said Collection or Museum ; it not being, as I apprehend or believe, a fourth of their real and intrinsic value ; and also to obtain such effectual powers and authorities for vesting in the said Trustees all and every part of my said Collection, .... and also my said capital Manor-House, with such gardens and outhouses as shall thereunto belong and be used by me at the time of my decease, in which it is my desire that the same shall be kept and preserved ; and also the water of or belonging to my Manor of Chelsea coming from Ken- THE FOUNDEES OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 299 sington, . . . and also that the advowson, presentation, booxi, or right of patronage of the Church of Chelsea ; to the end *"' the same premises may be absolutely vested in the said *™™ Trustees for the preserving and continuing my said Museum Sloa " e , Museum. m such manner as they shall think most likely to answer the public benefit by me intended, and also obtain, as aforesaid, a sufficient fund and provision for maintaining and supporting my said Manor House, .... to be vested in the said Trustees for ever And it is also my will and desire that all such other powers . . may be added or vested as well in the said intended Trustees as in the Visitors hereby appointed, as shall by the Legislature be thought Authentic most proper and convenient for the better management, ^.m)*"' order, and care, of my said Collection and premises.' 17, p. 12. Provision is then made, in subsequent clauses of this codicil, for the replacement, by the Trustees surviving, from time to time, of vacancies occasioned by death in the ranks of the Trustees first appointed ; and by surviving Visitors of vacancies so occasioned in those of the original Visitors. In September, 1750, another codicil added to the list of LiTEK . . , . . Codicils. Visitors — in order to supply vacancies which death had already wrought — the Earls of Macclesfield and Shel- burne, and the then Master of the Rolls, Sir John Strange, with proviso of succession for the Master of the Rolls of the time being. Sir John Bernard, Sir William Calvert, and Mr. Slingsby Bethel were, in like manner, added to the roll of Trustees. The same codicil excepted the ad- vowson of the Rectory of Chelsea from the bequest of 1749, and annexed it to the lordship of the Manor. By his marriage with the daughter and heiress of Mr. Langlet, an Alderman of London, Sir Hans Sloane had issue two daughters, but no son. The elder of the 300 EARLY COLLECTORS. booki daughters, Sarah Sloans, married George Stanley, of Chap. VI. xi l ■ the Foultons, in Hampshire ; the younger, Elizabeth, married or the Lord Cadogan. By the representatives of those co-heiresses muZL tne lar g e inheritance was eventually enjoyed. A subsequent codicil of 1751, added nine other Trustees, five of whom were distinguished foreigners. Among the four English names are those of John Hampden ('twenty- fourth hereditary lord of Great Hampden,' and last lineal male descendant of that famous stock) and William Sotheby. TheClosihg The declining years of a man to whom had been given, not only unusual length of days, but an unusual span both of bodily and of mental vigour, so that he remained in the rank of busy men until he had passed his eightieth year, were necessarily days of seclusion. He had enjoyed not only the honours* and the comforts, but the troop of friends which should accompany old age. Yet a man who reaches the age of ninety-two must needs lose the friends of his maturity, as well as the friends of his youth. Sir Hans Sloane, in the old Manor House of Chelsea, had something of the experience which made a famous states- man of our own day, who was loth to leave the stir of London life, say — with a sigh — ' I see all the world passing my windows, but few come in.' His chief recreations, in those latest years, lay in the continued examination of the stores of nature and of art which never palled upon his capacity of enjoyment, and in the regular weekly visit of a much younger man, who was * Besides those distinctions which I have noted already, he had been requested, in 1730, by the University of Oxford, to allow his portrait to be placed in the University Gallery. In 1733 his statue, by Rysbraeck, was placed in the Botanic Garden at Chelsea. THE FOUNDERS OP THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 301 very conversant in the busy world without ; who could talk, booki, and talk well, alike upon public events, upon the novelties thiT of science, and upon the gossip of the coffee-houses and the ^°™ clubs. This friend of old age was George Edwards, a Sl0Aira ° ° Museum. naturalist of considerable acquirements, and the author of some Essays on Natural History which are still worth reading. Sloan k's mental vigour long outlived his power of bodily locomotion. For years he could move from room to room, or on very bright days from room to garden, only by the aid of an invalid chair. In other respects, his health gave a weighty sanction to the counsel which he had been wont to give, not infrequently, in lieu of an invited but super- fluous prescription. ' I advise you/ he would say, ' to what. I practice myself. I never take physic when I am well. When T am ill, I take little, and only such as has been very well tried.' The end of a bright, abundant, and most useful life, came at the beginning of the year 1753. On the tenth of January, George Edwards found him rapidly sinking, and suffering greatly. On the eleventh he found him at the point of death. ' I continued with him,' he wrote, ' later than any one of his relatives. But I was obliged to retire — his last agonies being beyond what I could bear ; although, under his pain and weakness of body, he seemed to retain a great firmness of mind and resignation to the will of God.' He was buried at Chelsea, in the same vault in which, twenty-eight years before, he had buried his wife. This indefatigable collector had continued to enrich his sraomcAi. Museum with new accessions as long as he lived. We have thesmake the means of estimating its growth — as regards mere num- bers, of course — by comparing a synoptical table drawn up 302 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, in 1725 — for the purpose of showing to certain grumblers the ' "what had been the nature and aim of those avocations which o*the™ S na d delayed the completion of the Natural History of muse™ Jamaica — with another table drawn up by his Trustees im- - mediately after his death. The comparison of numbers shows that the twenty thou- sand two hundred and twenty-eight coins and medals of 1725 had grown, in 1752, to thirty-two thousand. Other antiquities had increased from eight hundred and twenty- four to two thousand six hundred and thirty-five. The minerals and fossils had increased from about three thou- sand to five thousand eight hundred and twenty-two speci- mens. The botanical collection which, in 1725, had numbered eight thousand two hundred and twenty-six specimens, together with a Hortus Siccus of two hundred volumes, had become in 1752 twelve thousand five hundred specimens, with a Hortus Siccus of three hundred and thirty- four volumes. The other natural history collections had increased on the average by more than one half. The details are as follows : — THE FOUNDERS OP THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 303 Volumes Volumes in 1725. in 1753. 2,686 1. Manuscripts .... 3,516 136 2. Drawings .... 347 3. Printed Books . . . about 40,000 200 4. Hortus Siccus .... 334 Specimens Specimens in 1725. in 1753. 20,228 5. Medals and Coins . 32,000 302 6. Antiquities .... 1,125 C 81 1 441* 7. Seals, &c. .... 268 8. Cameos and Intaglios . about 700 1,394 9. Precious Stones 2,256 [*See under No.8.] 10. Vessels op Agate, Jasper, &c 542 1,025 11. Crystals, Spars, &c. 1,864 730 12. Fossils, &c. .... 1,275 1,394 13. Metals and Mineral Ores 2,725 536 14. Earths, Sands, Salts, &c. 1,035 249 15. Bitumens, Sulphurs, &c. 399 169 16. Talcs, Mic^, &c. . . . 388 3,753 17. Shells 5,843 804 18. Corals, Sponges, &c. 1,421 486 19. Echini, Echinites, &c. 659 183 20. Asteri^, Trochi, &c. 241 263 21. Crustacea .... 363 22. Stella Marine 173 1,007 23. Pishes, and their parts 1,555 753 24. Birds, and their parts 1,172 345 25. Vipers, &c. .... 521 1,194 26. Quadrupeds .... 1,886 3,824 27. Insects 5;439 507 28. Anatomical Preparations, &c. 756 8,226 29. Vegetables .... 12,506 1,169 30. Miscellaneous things . 2,098 319 31. Pictures and Drawings, framed 310 54 32. Mathematical Instruments . 55 Book T, Cliap.VI. The Foundebs or THE Sloane Museum. On the 27th January — sixteen days after Sir Hans' death — about forty of the Trustees named in the Will met at 304 EARLY COLLECTORS. Hook I, Chap. VI. The Founders OF THE Sloane Museum. The Act fok Estab- lishing the British Museum. Chelsea, to confer with the Executors. Lord Cadogan pro- duced the Will and its Codicils. By these, should the bequest and its additions be accepted, the manor house and land, together with the collection in its existing state and arrangement, would be given to the Public. This, said Lord Cadogan, will save the hazard and expense of re- moval. Mr. William Sloane then informed the Trustees that the Executors had thought it prudent temporarily to remove the medals of gold and silver, the precious stones, gems, and vases, to the Bank of England, in order to ensure their present safety. The Earl of Macclesfield was then placed in the chair. A synopsis of the contents of the Museum was read by Mr. James Empson, who had acted as its curator for many years. Mr. Empson was appointed to act as Secretary to the Trustees, and a form of Memorial to be addressed to the King, in order to the carrying out of the trusts of the Will, was agreed upon. The Memorial had — eventually — the desired effect. It led, in the course of the year 1 753, to the passing of an Act of Parliament — 26 George II, chapter 22 — which is entitled An Act for the purchase of the Museum or Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, and for providing one General Repository for the better reception and mere convenient use of the said Collections, and of the Cottonian Library, and of the additions thereto. The Act recites the tenour of the testamentary dispositions made by Sir Hans Sloane. It also recites that a provisional assent had been given by his Trustees to the removal of his Museum from the Manor House of Chelsea ' to any proper place within the Cities of London and Westminster,- or the suburbs thereof, if such removal shall be judged most ad- vantageous to the Public' THE FOUNDERS OP THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 305 The Act then proceeds to declare that, ' Whereas, all arts book i, and sciences have a connexion with each other, and disco- the veries in natural philosophy and other branches of specula- ^°°™ tive knowledge,' for the advancement whereof the Museum SL0AME ° MUSEUM. was intended, may, in many instances, give help to useful experiments and inventions, ' therefore, to the end that the said Museum may be preserved and maintained, not only for the inspection and entertainment of the learned and the curious, but for the general use and benefit of the Public,' it is enacted by Parliament that the sum of twenty thousand pounds shall be paid to the Executors of Sir Hans Sloane, in full satisfaction for his said Museum. In this Statute, also, the preceding original Act for the public establishment of the Cottonian Library (12th and 13th of William III, c. 7), together with the subsequent Act on that subject (5th Anne, c. 30), are severally recited, and it is declared as follows : — First, 'Although the public faith hath been thus engaged i^thee to provide for the better reception and more convenient use or the act of the Cottonian Library, a proper repository for that pur- pose hath not yet been prepared, for the want of which the said Library did . . . suffer by a fire ;' And secondly, Arthur Edwards, late of Saint George's, Hanover Square, in the county of Middlesex, Esquire, being desirous to preserve for the public use the said Cottonian Library, and to prevent the like accident for the future, bequeathed the sum of seven thousand pounds ' — after the occurrence of a certain contingent event — for the pur- pose either of erecting, ' in a proper situation, such a house as might be most likely to preserve that Library from all accidents, or — in the event of the performance by the Public, before the falling out of the contingency above mentioned, of that duty to which it already stood pledged by Act of 20 OP Incoe- POEATION. 306 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, Parliament, then — for the purpose of purchasing such ma- th'e nuscripts, books of antiquities, ancient coins, medals, and o°™™ KS other curiosities, as might be worthy to increase the Cotto- sloam n j an Library aforesaid:' to which end the same public Museum. j 1 benefactor further bequeathed his own library. In order therefore to give due effect, at length, both to the primary donation of Sir John Cotton, and to the addi- tional benefaction made thereto by Major Arthur Edwards, Parliament now enacted that a general repository should be provided for the several collections of Cotton, Edwards, and Sloane, and that Major Edwards' legacy of money should be paid to the Trustees created by the new Act, in accordance with the provisions heretofore recited in Sir Hans Sloane's codicil of 1749. the see- It is to the exertions, at this time, of Arthur Onslow, VICES OF mbSi-eakee the then Speaker of the House of Commons, that histo- thetoeka- rical students owe their debt of gratitude for the preserva- bkitish™ E ti° n of the Harleian Manuscripts from that dispersion, — museum. abroad as well as at home, — which befel the Harleian printed books. When the Memorial of Sloane's Trustees was first pre- sented to George the Second, he received it with the stolid indifference to all matters bearing upon science and mental culture, which was as saliently characteristic of that king as were his grosser vices. ' I don't think there are twenty thousand pounds in the Treasury,' was the remark with which he dismissed the proposal. Money could be found, indeed, for very foolish purposes, and for very base ones. And the bareness of the Treasury was, very often, the natural result of the profligacy of the Court. But, in 1753, it was a fact. Save for Speaker Onslow's exertions, the Memorial would have fared little better in Parliament than at Court. The March 19, seqq, THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 307 then Premier, Henry Pelham, was not unfriendly to the booki, scheme, nor was he, like his royal master, a man of sordid the P nature; but a Minister who was every now and then obliged °™e™ s to write to his ambassadors abroad, even in the crisis of Sl0ANE Museum. important negotiations, ' I have ordered you a part of your last year's appointments, but we are so poor that I can do no more,' could hardly be eager to provide forty or fifty thousand pounds for the purchase of a new Museum and the safety of an old Library. Onslow proposed — eventually — as a means of over- 1753. coming these difficulties, that a sum of money should be imrmu, raised by a public lottery, and that it should be large enough to effect not only the immediate objects contem- plated by the Will of Sir Hans Sloane, and by the prior public establishment of Sir Robert Cotton's Library, but to purchase for a like purpose the noble series of Manu- scripts which had passed (just eleven years before Sloane's death) to the executors of the last Earl of Oxford, in trust for his widow, the Dowager Countess, and for his daughter, the Duchess of Portland. Edward, Earl of Oxford, had stood at one period of his life, in the rank of the wealthiest of Englishmen. He was the owner of estates worth some four or five hundred thou- sand pounds. He was, too, a man of highly intellectual and studious tastes ; but, in his case, a magnificent style of living, great generosity, and excessive trust in dependants, did what is more usually the work of huge folly or of gross sins ; they brought him into circumstances which, for his position in life, might almost be called those of poverty. But for this comparative impoverishment, his own act — it is more than probable — would have secured to posterity the enjoyment, in its entirety, of the splendid library he had inherited and increased. 308 EAELY COLLECTORS. book i, To the proposal of a lottery there was much solid objec- thf P tion. What were then called ' parliamentary lotteries' had 0° "ire™ 8 keen introduced expressly to put down those private lotte- sloane r i eg common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Museum. which had been fraught with mischief. It was hoped, or pretended, that a * regulated ' evil would be reduced within • tolerable limits, whilst bringing grist to the national mill. But the forty years that had passed since the first par- liamentary lottery of 1709 had shown that the system was essentially and incurably mischievous. Pelham was averse to its continuance. As First Lord of the Treasury, it was his poverty, not his will, that consented to the adoption of so questionable an expedient for the purchase of the Sloane Collections. He had not, individually, any such love of learning as might have induced an appeal to Parliament to set, for once, an example of liberal and far-sighted legisla- tion. -He merely stipulated that some stringent provisos should be put into the Act, directed against the nefarious practices of the lottery -jobbers. the lot- Eventually, it was enacted that there should be a hundred ™™ E 1753 thousand shares, at three pounds a share; that two hundred puichase thousand pounds should be allotted as prizes, and that the OF TDE X * sloane and remaining hundred thousand — less the expenses of the coi H le''c IAN lottery itself — should be applied to the threefold purposes of the Act, namely, the purchase of the Sloane and Harleian Collections ; the providing of a Repository ; and the creation of an annual income for future main- tenance. By the precautionary clauses of the Bill, provision was made for the prolonged sale of shares ; for the prevention of the purchase by any one adventurer of more than twenty shares, or ' tickets,' and for other impediments, as it was TION-, THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 309 thought, to a fraudulent traffic in the combined covetous- booki, ° Chap. VI. ness and ignorance of the unwary. the All these precautions proved to be vain. Mr. Pelham's 1™™™ S opposition was abundantly justified by the result. Fraud f'* 0ANE 1 A t/ J J Museum. proved to be, in that age, just as inseparable an element in a Lottery scheme, however good its purpose, as fraud has proved to be, in this age, an inseparable element (at one stage or other of the business) in a Railway scheme,— how- ever useful the line proposed to be made. It thus came to pass that the foundation of the British Museum gave rise to a great public scandal. When evi- dence was produced that many families had been brought to misery, as the first incident in the annals of a benefi- cent and noble foundation, a somewhat dull Session of Parliament was suddenly enlivened by an animated and angry debate. The provident clauses in the Lottery Act of 1753 were THEPli0SE - 1 «> CUTION 01' made of no effect, mainly by entrusting the chief share in l™euf*or workmg the Act to an accomplished jobber. One Peter ingswith Leheup was made a Commissioner of the Lottery. This loLeey E ™ man had held some employment or other at Hanover, from which he had been recalled with circumstances of disgrace. It is to be inferred, from the way in which his name points an epigrammatic phrase in one of the letters of Boling- 1753. broke,* and in more than one of those of Horace Walpole, that it had come, long before this appointment took place, to have a sort of proverbial currency, like the names of ' Curll ' or of ' Chartres.' But, be that as it may, Mr. Commissioner Leheup set on foot as thriving and as flagitious a traffic in Sloane lottery tickets, as was ever * ' Walpole is your tyrant to-day ; and any man His Majesty pleases to name — Horace or Leheup — may be so to-morrow.' — Bolingbroke to Mwchmont, 22 July, 1739. Founders of THE Sloane Museum. 310 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, set on foot in railway shares by a clever promoter of our Chap. VI. . J J l the own day. He wrote circular letters instructing his corres- pondents how most effectually to evade the Act. He sold nearly three hundred tickets to a single dealer by furnishing him with a list of ' Roes ' and ' Does/ ' Gileses ' and ' Stileses,' at discretion. He supplied himself, with equal liberality ; and contrived to close the subscription, after an actual publicity of exactly six hours — for the issue of one hundred thousand tickets. In a few days, of course, tickets in abundance were to be had, at sixteen shillings premium upon each, and in what looked to be a still rising market. The trap proved to be brilliantly ' successful.' The subsequent explosion of parliamentary anger was rather increased than lessened by an attempt of Henry Fox (afterwards the first Lord Holland) to extenuate Leheup's offence by some arguments of the ' Tu quoque ' sort. By a great majority, the House of Commons sent up an address praying the King to direct his Attorney General to prose- cute the chief offender, who was accordingly convicted and fined a thousand pounds. It is not uninstructive to note that Horace Walpole — himself one of the Sloane Trustees — treats the matter in one of his letters exactly in the off- hand man -of- the- world style in which Henry Fox had treated it in the House of Commons.* By this unfortunate episode, the name'of one of the best of Englishmen was brought into a sort of momentary con- nection with the name of one of the worst. But the chief discredit of the story does not really rest upon Leheup. A private citizen, of moderate means, had been willing to ex- pend seventy or eighty thousand pounds — besides an in- * ' Our House of Commons — mere poachers — are piddling with the torture of Leheup, who extracted so much money out of the Lottery.' — Horace Walpole to Richard Bentley, 19 December, 1753. I'OLJNUhRS OJ? THE Sloan 11 Muskuii. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM. 311 estimable amount of labour and research — upon au object """* i. essentially and largely public. Yet a British Parliament t hk could not summon up enough of public spirit to tax its own members, in common with their tax-paying fellow subjects throughout the realm, to the extent of a hundred thousand pounds, in order to meet an obvious public want, to redeem an actual parliamentary pledge, and to secure a conspicuous national honour for all time to come. That want of public spirit did not exhaust its results with the ruin of the poor families, scattered here and there, whose scanty means had been hazarded and lost by gambling, under a parliamentary temptation. It impressed itself, so to speak, on the subse- quent history of the institution for more than forty years. The Museum had been founded grudgingly. It was kept up parsimoniously. Had that fact been otherwise, the story of the knavery of Peter LEHErp would have little merited recital a century after it, and he, had passed into oblivion. The value of so small an incident in the crowded story of our National Museum lies simply in the fact that it forms a just and salient illustration of the narrowness of spirit with which the then representatives of the people received the liberal gift of public benefactors. It serves to show why it was that, from the year 1753 down to some years after 1800, the History of the British Museum casts very little honour on Britain as a nation, whereas the precedent history of its integral parts, as separate and infant collec- tions, casts, and will long continue to cast, great honour on the memory of the Cottons, the Harleys, and the Sloanes, by whom they were painfully gathered and most liberally dispensed. Happily, as the course of this narrative — whatever its 312 EARLY COLLECTORS. book i, shortcomings — cannot fail to show, the literary and scientific the treasures which men of that stamp had collected, came, in o°™r is a subsequent generation (and, in a chief measure, by dint MoaniM °f ^ e exer tions of the Trustees and Officers to whom they had been, in course of time, confided) to be more adequately estimated by Ministers and by Parliament in their public capacity, as well as by the more cultivated portion of the people generally. For more than a half-century past the History of the British Museum has been one that any Briton may take delight and pride in telling. And such it promises to be, preeminently, in the time yet to come. In a conspicuous sense, the men by whom it was first founded, and the men by whom, for what is now a long time past, it has been administered and governed, have alike been true workers for Posterity. BOOK THE SECOND. THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. CONTENTS OF BOOK II.— ' Ohaptee I. Inteoductoby — Eaelt Histoby of the Beitish Museum. II. A Geotjp of Abch^ologists and Classical Ex- ploeees. III. The Oollectoes op the Ceacheeode, Lansdowne, BUENEY, AND EgEETON LlBRAEIES, AND OP THE appendant Collections. IV. The King's Libeaey— its Collectoe and its Donoe. V. The Eoundee op the Banksian Museum and Libeaey. " The King made this Ordinance : — That there should be a mission of three of the brethren of Solomon's House, whose errand was only to give us knowledge of the affairs and state of those countries to which they were designed, and especially of the Sciences . . . and Inventions of all the World ; and withal to bring us books, instruments, and patterns in every kind " We have also precious stones, of all kinds ; many of them of great beauty Also, store of fossils But we do hate all impostures and lies, insomuch as we have severally forbidden it to all our fellows, under pain of ignominy or fines, that they do not show any natural work or thing adorned or swelling, but only pure as it is, without affectation of showing marvels. . . . " We have also those who take care to consider of the former labours and Collections, and out of them to direct new explorations . . . more penetrating into Nature than the former Upon every invention of value we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honour- able reward. " W"e have hymns and services, which we say daily, of laud and thanks to God for His marvellous works, and forms of prayer imploring His blessing for the illumination of our labours." — Bacon, ' New Atlantis, a Worh un- finished! CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. * A Museum of Nature does not aim, like one of Art, merely to charm the eye and gratify the sense of heauty and of grace. c As the purpose of a Museum of Natural History is to . . . impart and diffuse that knowledge which begets the right spirit in which all Nature should he viewed, there ought to be no partiality for any particular class, merely on account of the quality which catches and pleases the passing gaze. Such a Museum should subserve the instruction of a People ; and should also afford objects of study and comparison to professed Naturalists, so as to serve as an instrument in the progress of Science.' — Richard Owen, On a National Museum of Natural History, pp. 10; 11; 115. Househunting. — The Removal of the Shane Museum from Chelsea. — Montagu House, and its History. — The' Early Trustees and Officers. — The Museum 'Regulations. — Early Helpers in the Foundation and Increase of the British Museum. — Epochs in the Growth of the Natural History Collections.— Experiences of Inquiring Visitors in the years 1765 — 1784. The practical good sense which had always been a bookii, marked characteristic in the life of Sir Hans Sloane is early' seen just as plainly in those clauses of his Will by which he leaves much latitude, in respect of means and agencies, to the discretion of his Executors and Trustees. It is seen, for example, when, after reciting some views of his own as to the methods by which his Museum should be maintained History of the British Museum. 318 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, for public use, he adds the proviso — ' in such manner as eaely they (the Trustees) shall think most likely to answer the M ™ma public benefit by me intended.' He had a love for the mdseum. qJ^ M ai]0r House at Chelsea, and contemplated, as it seems, with some special complacency, the maintenance there of the Collections which had added so largely to the pleasures of his own fruitful life. But he was careful not to tie down his Trustees to the continuance of the Museum at Chelsea, as a condition of his bounty. They were at liberty to assent to its removal, should the balance of public advantage seem to them to point towards removal. Chelsea was in that day a quiet suburban village, distant from the heart of London. As the site of a Museum it had many advantages, but it was, comparatively and to the mass of visitors and students, a long way off. The Trustees assented to a generally expressed opinion that whilst the new institution ought not to be placed in any of the highways of traffic, it ought to be nearer to them than it would be, if continued in its then abode. One of the first places offered for their choice was the old Buckingham House (now the royal palace). It was already a large and handsome structure. The charm of its posi- tion, at that time, was not unduly boasted of in the golden letters of the inscription conspicuous upon its enta- blature — ■ ' Sic siti listantur lares.' Edmund, Its prospects, as described not very long before by the Buckingham, late ducal owner, ' presented to view at once a vast town, shrcrtmvy. a palace, and a cathedral, on one side ; and, on the other sides, two parks, and a great part of Surrey.' Its fine gardens ended in ' a little wilderness, full of blackbirds and nightingales.' Yet it was close to the Court end of the town. But the price was thirty thousand pounds. EARLY HISTORY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 319 Another offer was that of Montagu House at Blooms- bookii, bury. Less charmingly placed, and architecturally less eaeV striking in appearance than was its rival, both its situation T nTB»msH and its plan were better fitted for the purposes of a public MDSI5UM - Museum. It stood, it is true, on the extreme verge of the m ™ tagb . House and London of that day. Northward, there was nothing m history. between it and the distant village of Highgate, save an expanse of fields and hedgerows. And for a long distance, both to the east and the west, no part of London had yet spread beyond it, except an outlying hospital or two. But there Were already indications that the town would extend in that northerly direction, more quickly than in almost any other. The bouse had seven and-a-half acres of garden and shrubberies; and its price was but ten thousand, two hundred and fifty pounds. Montagu House had been built about sixty years before for Ralph Montagu, first Duke of Montagu. A spacious court separated the house from Great Russell Street, towards which it presented to view only a screen of pan- nelled brickwork, having a massive gateway and cupola in the centre, and turreted wings, masking the domestic offices, at either end. The house itself was rather stately than beautiful, but its chief rooms and its grand staircase were elaborately painted by the best French artists of the day. And the appendant offices were more than usually extensive. It stood on the site of a structure of much greater archi- tectural pretensions, erected for the same owner, only twelve years before, from the designs of Robert Hooke That first Montagu House had been burned to the ground. The offer of Montagu House was accepted by the Trus- tees and approved by the Government. It was found HlSTOHY OF THE BEITISH MUSKUM. 320 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, needful to make considerable alterations in order to adapt eauly the building to its new uses. This outlay increased the eventual cost of the mansion, and of its appliances and fittings, to somewhat more than twenty-three thousand pounds. The adaptation, with the removal and re-arrange- ment of the Collections, occupied nearly five years. It was not until the beginning of the year 1759 that the Museum was opened for public inspection. When removed to Bloomsbury, it was but brought back to within a few hundred yards of its first abode. consthu- We have seen that according to the plan for the govern- MuL™™ 15 men t of the institution which Sloane had sketched in his tbust. Codicil of July, 1749, there would have been a Board of Visitors as well as a Board of Trustees. But, by the foundation Statute, enacted in 1753, both of these Boards were incorporated into one. Forty-one Trustees were con- stituted, with full powers of management and control. Six of these were representatives of the several families of Cotton, Harley, and Sloane, the head, or nearest in lineal succession, of each family having the nomination, from time to time, of such representatives or 'Family Trustees,' when, by death or otherwise, vacancies should occur. Twenty were ' Official' Trustees, in accordance, so far, with Sloane's scheme for the constitution of his Board of Visitors ; and by these two classes, conjointly, the other fifteen Trustees were to be elected. The Official Trustees were to be the holders for the time being of the following offices : — (1) The Archbishop of Canterbury, (2) the Lord Chancellor, (3) the Speaker of the House of Commons, (4) the Lord President of the Council, (5) the First Lord of the Treasury, (6) the Lord Privy Seal, (7) the First Lord of the Admiralty, (8 and 9) EARLY HISTORY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 321 the Secretaries of State, (10) the Lord Steward, (11) the bookii, Lord Chamberlain, (12) the Bishop of London, (13) the eaely 1 Chancellor of the Exchequer, (14) the Lord Chief Justice ?™ of England, (15) the Master of the Rolls, (16) the Lord Um ™- Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, (17) the Attorney- General, (18) the Solicitor-General, (19) the President of the Royal Society, (20) the President of the College of Physicians. To the first three of these Official Trustees Parliament Actof 26 Geo. II, entrusted the appointment, from time to time, of all the <=. 22, clauses Officers of the Museum, except the Principal Librarian, who is to be appointed by the Crown, on the nomination of the * Principal Trustees/ as the first three Trustees — the Archbishop, Chancellor, and Speaker — have always been called. The following fifteen persons were the first elected Trustees, under the Act of 1753 : — The Duke of Argyle, the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Willoughby of Parham, Lord Charles Cavendish, the Honourable Philip Yorke, Sir George Lyttelton, Sir John Evelyn, James West, Nicholas Hardinge, William Sloane, William Sotheby, Charles Grey, the Re- verend Dr. Thomas Birch, James Ward, and William Wat- son. The first meeting of the Trustees under the Act was Records of held at the Cockpit, Whitehall, on the 17th of December, Museum, in iwpn MS. Addit., It 06. 6179 The first 'Principal Librarian' * was Dr. Gowin Knight, a member of the College of Physicians, and eminent, in his * The term ' Librarian,' as used at the British Museum, has never implied any special connection with the Books, printed or manuscript. All the Keepers of Departments were, originally, called ' Under Libra- rian.' The General Superintendent or Warden has always been called ' Principal Librarian.' 21 322 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, day, as a cultivator of experimental science. Some mag- early netic apparatus of his construction and gift was placed in ^BEm™ the Museum soon after its opening, and attracted, in its muse™. ^ a y j muc h attention. He received the appointment after a keen competition with the more widely-known physician and botanist, Sir John Hill. The first three ' Keepers of Departments' were Dr. Matthew Matt, Dr. Charles Morton, and Mr. James Empson. Dr. Knight retained his post until 1772. Maty and Morton succeeded in turn to the office of Principal Librarian, and their respective services will have a claim to notice hereafter. Empson had been the valued servant and friend of Sir Hans Sloane. He is the only officer whose name appears in Sloane's Will. He had served him as Keeper of the Museum at Chelsea for many years. There is, in one of the letters of Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, an amusing account of an initiatory meeting of the original Trustees, held prior to their formal constitution by Parliament. It is marked by the writer's usual superciliousness towards all hobbies, except the dilet- tante hobby which he himself was wont to ride so herd. ' I employ my time chiefly, at present,' he wrote to Mann, in February, 1753, 'in the guardianship of embryos and cockle shells. Sir Hans Sloane valued his Museum at eighty thousand pounds, and so would anybody who loves hippopotamuses, sharks with one ear, and spiders as big as geese. . . . We are a charming wise set — all Philosophers, Botanists, Antiquarians, and Mathematicians — and ad- journed our first meeting because Lord Macclesfield, our Chairman, was engaged in a party for finding out the Longitude.' EARLY HISTORY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 323 ' One of our number/ continues Walpole, 'is a Mora- Boom, yian, who signs himself "Henry XXVIII, Count de eabL 1 ' Retjss." The Moravians have settled a colony at Chelsea, f™BEms H in Sir Hans' neighbourhood, and I believe he intended to MDSI5DM beg Count Henry the Twenty-Eighth's skeleton for his Museum. 5 This distinguished foreigner does not appear in the parliamentary list. The Chairman of the preliminary meeting so airily described by Walpole, continued, under the definitive con- stitution of the Trust, to take a leading part in its admi- nistration. It appears to have been by Lord Macclesfield that the original ' Statutes and Bye-laws' of the Museum, or many of them, were drafted.' In the form in which they were first issued, in 1759, thermu- these statutes directed that the Museum should ( be kept adm°s N S ioh° r open every day in the week, except Saturday and Sunday.' AND St ™ t For the greater part of the year the public hours were from 1769 ' 180s nine o'clock in the morning until three o'clock in the after- noon. On certain days, in the summer months, the open hours were from four o'clock in the afternoon until eight — so as to meet the requirements of persons actively engaged in business during the early part of the day. But the pub- licity was hampered by a system of admission-tickets which had to be applied for on a day precedent to that of every intended visit. The application had first to be made, then registered ; a second application had to follow, in order to receive the ticket ; and the ticket could rarely be used at the time of receiving it. So that, in practice, each visit to the Museum had commonly to be preceded by two visits to ms. audit., the Porter's Lodge.' ssqq . The visitors were admitted in parties, at the prescribed hours, and were conducted through the Museum by its officers according to a routine which, practically and usually, 324 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, allowed to each group of visitors only one hour for the in- imi' spection of the whole. Special arrangements, however, raTBEmL were ma de for those who resorted to the Museum for pur- museum. p 0ses f s t U( jy. To such, say the statutes, ' a particular statutes and room is allotted, in which they may read or write without Regulations, . J *l part ii, § s. interruption during the time the Museum is kept open. The aggregate number of persons admitted as visitors — 617/™"' exc l us i ve °f students — was, for some years, restricted to above. sixty persons, as a maximum, in any one day. In order to give the reader a definite and clear idea of what was seen, in 1759, by the earliest visitors to the British Museum, in its rudimentary state, some sort of ground plan is essential, but the merest outline will suffice for the purpose. There were at Montagu House two floors or stories of state apartments. The upper floor was that which was first shown, after the formation of the Museum. The visitor, having ascended the superb staircase painted by La Posse, passed through a vestibule and grand saloon {A B) furnished with various antiquities, into the ' Cotto- nian Library' (C), and thence into the 'Harleian Library,' which occupied three rooms (D, E, and F). He then entered the 'Medal Room 1 — containing the coins and medals of the Sloane and Cotton collections (G) ; the ' Sloane Manuscript Room ' (H); and the room containing the chief part of the antiquities (i) — EAELY HISTORY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 325 Bough Diagram, showing Principal Moor of the original ^ British Museum o/1759. Book II, I. Eablt History of theBsitish Museum. Then the visitor, passing again through the vestibule {J) and great saloon (B), entered the rooms K, L, and 326 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, M. iTcontained the minerals and fossils of Sir Hans Sloane's ea^ly' collection; L, the shells; M, the plants and insects. ™BBms r H Thence he passed into N, which was devoted to the bulk of museum. \fo e s L0ANE Zoological Collection, and into 0, containing artificial and miscellaneous curiosities. Descending to the floor beneath, by the secondary stair- case between iV" and 0, the visitor then entered the small room P, which contained the magnetic apparatus given by Dr. Gowin Knight, and the rooms, Q and B, devoted to the reception of the greater part of the Royal Library, restored by Henry, Prince of Wales, and augmented — but with extreme parsimony — by several of the Stuart monarchs, whose additions to the shelves were, indeed, much oftener made of books given, than of books bought. He then passed into Sloane's Printed Library, which occupied the whole of the spacious and handsome suite of rooms 8, T, V, W, X, and T, and (passing through the Trustees' Room Z,) entered the room A A, containing the Edwards Library; ending his tour of inspection in the room B B, in which was arranged the remainder of the old Royal Library, the main portion whereof had been seen already in Q and B. EARLY HISTORY OP THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 327 Bough Diagram, showing Ground Plan of the original British Museum of 1759. w 1 " a -a s to a O 03 ,=3 r fe C3 R Old Royal Library. 2 The Trustees' Room. Staiicase. Staircase. Book II, Chap. I. Early History the British Muskum. Officers' Apartments. A A Major Edwards' Library. B B Old Royal Library. -g O be P o O o Q Old Royal Library. Secondary ■ Staircase. I r, ~~ P Philo- sophical Apparatus. Officers' Apartments. When the combined Museum and Libraries, thus arranged, were first opened to the inspection of the curious Public 3.28 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. I. Early History of the British Museum. Early Helpers in theFounda- tion and Growth o* the British Museum. 1755-57. 1759. Da Costa's Hebrew Collection. —History OF THE Collector. Correspond- ence of Tkow.a8 Mollis. in 1759, the collections enumerated in the Foundation Act of 1753 had, it is seen, already received some notable increase by gifts. The first donor was the House of Lords, by whose order the historical collections of Thomas Rymer, royal historiographer, and editor of the Fcedera, were given to the Trustees, immediately after their incorporation. Then followed, in 1757, the gift of the' Royal Library and that of the Lethieullier Antiquities from Egypt. [See Chapter II.] The next donor, in order of time, was a Jewish mer- chant, and stock-broker, of humble origin, but of princely disposition. Solomon da Costa was one of the many men who have done honour to commerce not merely by its suc- cessful prosecution, but by the conspicuous union of mer- cantile astuteness with noble tastes and true beneficence. His talents for business enabled him to make a hundred thousand pounds — which in his day was more, perhaps, than the equivalent of four hundred thousand in ours. He had made it, says a keen observer, who knew the man well, ' without scandal or meanness.' When wealth made him independent, he spent his new leisure, not in luxury but in hard labour for the poor. Da Costa had come, from Amsterdam, into England, in the year 1704. His struggling Hebrew compatriots were among the earliest sharers in his bounty. But his heart was too large to suffer that bounty to be limited by con- siderations either of race or of local neighbourhood. To him, as to the Samaritan of old, distress made kinship. He was wont to journey, from time to time, through thirty or forty parishes of Surrey and of Kent, with the punctual diligence of a commercial traveller, simply to succour the distressed by that best of all succour, the provision of means through which, in time, self-help would be developed and ensured. Provident loans, clothing-funds, the educa- EAELY HISTOEY OF THE BEITISH MUSEUM. 329 tion and apprenticeship of necessitous children, were the book.ii, forms in which Da Costa's benevolence delighted to in- eahly vest not only his money, but his personal exertion and his ih Tb^ cordial sympathy. He devoted more than a thousand MusEUM - pounds a year to the benefit of Christian Englishmen, besides all that he gave to the poor of his own faith and race. And to both he "gave, without noise or ostentation. He had, too, the breadth of view which enabled him to put, on their true foot of equality, the claims of the neces- . sitous mind, as well as those of the necessitous body. Unlike many other men of genuine beneficence, popular estimates of giving did not mislead him into one-sidedness of aim. Within a few years of Da Costa's arrival in England, probably about the year 1720, and when, with youthful ardour, he was seeking to acquire knowledge as well as to make money, he met, at a bookseller's, with a remarkable collection of Hebrew books, of choice editions and in rich and uniform bindings. The collection had that sumptu- ousness of aspect which invited inquiry into its origin. All that he could learn on that score was the probability that some statesman or other of the Commonwealth period, had colleoted them for a public but unfulfilled purpose, and that they had fallen — with so much other spoil — into the hands of Chaeles the Second. By that King's order they had received, if not their rich binding, at least his crown and cypher as marks of the royal appropriation, and then (in a truly Carolinian fashion) were left in the hands of the King's stationer for lack of payment of the charge of what — whether binding or mere decoration — had been done to the books by the royal command. Da Costa prized them as among his chief treasures, but directly he heard of the foundation of a great repository of learning, 330 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. book ii, the emotions of the Jewish broker were such as might eaklV have been felt by 'broad-browed Verulam/ could he ^™m'i nave bVed to see that day ; save only that Bacon would museum. fi rs |; jj ave scanne d the evidence about the origin of the institution, and would have discriminated the praise. Da Costa wrote a letter to the Trustees. The generous heart is facile in ascribing generosity. ' A most stately monument/ said Da Costa, ' hath been lately erected and endowed, by the wisdom and munificence of the British Legislature,' and he accompanied his eulogy with a prayer that the Almighty would * render unto them a recompense, according to the work of their hands.' He brought his mite of contribution, he added, not only as proof of sym- ra costa to pathy with the work in progress, 'but as a thanksgiving r tie XTU3ICC3 of the Brit, offering, in part, for the generous protection and number- '5th e rfsivan, less blessings which I have enjoyed under the British 5519. [17 59 ] . Government> . The gift embraced several Biblical Manuscripts of value, and a still choicer series of early printed books, one hun- dred and eighty in number. The giver has a merited place in the roll of our public benefactors ; and his devout prayer for the new Museum, ' May it increase and multiply . . . to the benefit of the people of these nations and of the whole earth,' has had a more conspicuous fulfilment than could, in 1759, have been imagined by the most sanguine of bystanders. Gift op the Thomason Three years afterwards, and soon after his accession to collection the throne, King George the Third gave to the Nation op English . ° books of that most curious assemblage of nearly the whole English gbobgeijx literature of two and twenty eventful years of Civil War, — open or furtive, — which is known to the Public as the ' Thomason Collection,' though its technical name within EARLY HISTORY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 331 the Museum walls continues, as of old, to be 'the King's bochii, Tracts.' eaelt' That name is the less appropriate from its tendency to ,nBmB H give an inaccurate idea of the contents of the King's gift, MuSE ™' ■ as well as from its disregard of the origin of the Collection. The ' tracts' include the most ponderous theological quartos that ever came from an English press as well as the tiniest handbill, or the fugitive circular which called together a ' Committee of Sequestrators' at Wallingford House. George Thomason, its collector, was an eminent London gbokqe bookseller, of royalist sympathies, who watched intensely mdhk the progress of the great struggle between King and Par- liament, Cavalier and Roundhead, and who had noted with professional keenness how strikingly the printing press was made to mirror, almost from day to day, the strife of senators in council, as well as that of soldiers in the field. He had seized, in 1641, the idea of helping posterity the better to realize every phase of the great conflict, the oncoming of which many men had long foreseen, by gathering everything which came out in print— as far as vigilant industry could do so — whether belonging to literature, and to the obvious materials of history, or merely subserving the most trivial need of the passing moment. He failed, of course, to secure every- thing ; but his endeavour was wonderfully successful, on the whole. He also gathered many manuscripts which no printer in England dared to put into type. And he obtained a large number of political and historical pieces, bearing on English affairs, which had issued from foreign presses; their authors being sometimes foreign observers of the struggle, but more frequently British refugees. Charles the First congratulated Thomason on the utility of his idea. More than once the King was able to 332 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, gratify his curiosity by borrowing some tract or other which Kami' only our collector was known to possess. The Parliament, the T bmtim meanwhile, was far from exhibiting any literary sympathies jidsedm. - n tne un( j er taking. Some of its leaders loved freedom of the press when it was seen to be a channel for urging for- ward their peculiar doctrines and aims, but had the gravest doubts about its policy when it manifestly helped their opponents and gave back blow for blow. The ' Thomason Collection' came to be viewed, at length, much in the light in which soldiers view an enemy's battery. If it could be captured and carried off, some of the pieces might be turned against the enemy. If the attempt at complete capture should miscarry, a sudden sally might at least enable the assailants to destroy what they had failed to secure. Hence it was that the poor Collector came to be in such alarm about the possible fate of his treasures that he had them repeatedly packed into cases, and, as the successes of the war veered to and fro, sent them, at one time, far to the south of London ; at another time, as far to the east; now, smuggled them, concealed between the real and false tops of tables, into a city warehouse ; and anon made a colourable sale of them to the University of Oxford. When the King enjoyed his own again, the Collection was offered, as fit to be made a royal one. It contained more than thirty-three thousand separate publications — bound in about 2,200 volumes — issued between 1640 and 1662 inclusive. But Charles the Second was busied with pursuits having little to do with any kind of learning, and was ill inclined, as we have seen already, to burden his Treasury for the enrichment of his Library Sir Thomas Bodlet's Trustees at Oxford refused the offer, in their turn, under a very different but scarcely less obstructive EARLY HISTORY OF THE BEITISH MUSEUM. 333 pressure. Their excellent founder had formed peculiar bookii, and stringent views about the literature worthy of a great e A P lV University. He had warned them against stuffing his ^^msn library with 'mere baggage books.' And so future MlJSEDM - Bodleian curators had, in another age, to buy with large bank notes many things which their predecessors could have bought with small silver coins ; — just as in the ancient story. The unfortunate Collection went a-begging. The books passed from hand to hand, somewhat, it would seem, by way of pledge or mortgage. They had cost a large sum of money, and a larger amount of toil. When his expecta- tions were at their best the first owner, it is said, refused several thousands of pounds for them. His ultimate suc- cessors in the possession were glad, in 1762, to accept, at TheAo - r D ' ■*■ QUIEEMEKT the hands of King George the Third, three hundred °*™ E pounds. The purchase was recommended to him by Thomas collection Hollis, and also by Lord Bute, as a serviceable addition ** Geoege to the newly founded Museum. As all readers now know, 1763. it has largely subserved our history already. It is not less certain that the ' Thomason Collection ' embodies a store of information yet unused. The next augmentor of, the Museum was one of its The Beander Trustees, Gustavus Brandee, distinguished as a promoter fossils. of natural science, and more especially of mineralogy and palaeontology in the early stages of their study in England, w 6 - A remarkable collection of fossils found in Hampshire, in the London Clay, was given by Mr. Brander to the Public, after having been, at his cost, carefully examined and described by Dr. Solander. It was the first notable con- tribution to the grand series of specimens in palaeontology which, in their combination, have made the British Museum 334 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. book ii, the most important of all repositories in that department of eaely science. Se T beL°sh To the Zoological Collections, the additions made, museum, whether by gift or by purchase — save as the result, more or less direct, of ' Voyages of Discovery/ which will be noticed presently — were for many years very unimportant. The first purchase worthy of record was a collection of stuffed birds, formed in Holland, and acquired, in 1769, for four hundred and sixty pounds. This purchase was made by the Trust. The reign of George the Third is marked by very few characteristics which are more honourable, both to King and people, than is its long series of expeditions to remote countries made expressly, or mainly, for purposes of geo- graphical and scientific discovery, and extending over almost the whole of the reign. accessions Scarcely one voyage of the long series failed to bring, jtbomVoy- directly or indirectly, some valuable accession or other to the Collection of Natural History. Sometimes such acces- sions came to the Museum as the gifts of the navigators and explorers themselves. In this class of donors the name of Captain James Cook,* and that of Archibald Menzies, occur both early and frequently. Sometimes they came as the gifts of the Board of Admiralty. Sometimes, again, — and not infrequently — as those of the King, who, in his best days, took a keen interest in enterprise of this kind, and delighted in talking with the captains of the discovery ships about their adventures, and about the marvels of the far-off lands they had been among the first to see. Nor did the King stand alone in his active encouragement of remote ex- * One of Cook's many individual gifts was the first Kangaroo ever brought into- Europe. AGES OP Discovery. 1760-1830. HlSTOSY OP the British EAELY HISTOKY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 335 plorations. Many of the great and wealthy nobles gave bookii generous furtherance to them, and were equally ready to eably 1 ' make available for scientific study the new specimens which the ships brought home. In this way, for example, the Musj5uM - Marquess of Rockingham gave to the Museum a curious collection of reptiles gathered in Surinam. In the same manner was furnished that minor, but very popular and instructive, collection illustrating the rude arts and modes of life of the newly explored countries, which some yet among us can remember as occupying the ' South Sea Room ' of the old house. In the course of years it came to be eclipsed by much better collections of the same kind elsewhere, and so to wear a meagre and somewhat obsolete aspect. But it had rendered good service in its day, and was the germ of what will become, it may be hoped, in due time, an ethnological collection worthy of a seafaring people. As regards the Natural History Collections, the growth epochs m of the Museum may be said to have been mainly dependent ™ ™e° w on the Voyages of Discovery for more than forty years, nt™*? That source of improvement seems to mark, distinctively, c °™ c - the first epoch in the history of those collections. Then came a second epoch, marked by some approach to syste- matic improvement, in all branches, by means of the pur- chase of entire private collections as opportunity offered. A third period may be dated from the acquisition of the botanical and other gatherings of Sir Joseph Banks in 1827. Sir Joseph's splendid gift was soon followed by so many other gifts — sometimes as donations, more frequently as bequests^-that for many years the liberality of benefactors quite eclipsed the liberality of Parliament. Only of late years can it be said that the public support of the Natural History Collections has been worthy, either of the Nation or of their TIONS. 336 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, own intrinsic importance to it. By degrees, statesmen have eault become convinced that such collections are much more than the T bwti°sh the implements of a knot of professed naturalists, and the museum. t0 y S f ^ e public at large. Slowly, but. surely, the econo- mic and commercial value of a great museum of natural history, as well as its educational value, have come saliently into view. And a wise enlargement of the contributions from national funds has had the excellent result of stimu- lating, instead of checking, the benefactions of indivi- duals. Some of the particular steps by which so conspicuous an improvement has been gradually brought about will claim our notice hereafter, in their due order. If, for a long series of years, the degree of liberality with which these varied collections were shown to the Public at large scarcely accorded, either with their origin, or with the purpose for which they had been avowedly combined, it should be borne in mind that 'the Public of 1759 was a very different body from the Public of a century later. It is only by degrees that indiscriminate admission to museums has come to be either very useful or quite feasible. There was a good deal of warrant in 1759 for the opinion recorded by one of the Trustees when the Rules were first under Ms.Addit, discussion. ' A general liberty,' said Dr. John Ward, the eminent Gresham Professor, ' to ordinary people of all ranks and denominations, is not to be kept within bounds. Many irregularities will be committed that cannot be pre- vented by a few librarians who will soon be insulted by such people [as commit abuses], if they offer to control or contradict them.' But, after all, the inadequate strength of the staff was the main cause of such of the restrictions as were chiefly complained of. 6179, f. 61. the Museum im 1765. EAELY HISTOKY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 337 The original regulations, with but small change, re- bookii, mained in force for about forty-five years. How they eahlt' worked will be best and most briefly shown by citing the thTbmtbh experiences of two or three notable visitors, at various MosEDM - periods, during the last century. In 1765, Peter John Grosley, an accomplished and keen- accountof eyed Frenchman, familiar with the Museums of Italy as well as with those of his own country, visited the new Museum, and recorded his impressions of it. With the building he was charmed. He had already seen many parts of Eng- land, but nowhere any house that he thought worthy to be compared with Montagu House. He calls it ' the largest, the most stately, the best arranged, and most richly deco- rated ' structure of its kind in all England. He made re- peated visits. What chiefly arrested his attention in the Natural History rooms were the beauty of the papillonacea — comprising, he thought, ' all that either the old world or the new can supply in this kind ' — and the strangeness of some mineral specimens brought from the Giant's Cause- way in Ireland. The Printed Books he thought to be ' the weakest part of this vast collection.' In one of the prin- cipal rooms, ' I saw,' he continues, ' not without astonish- ment, a very fine bust of Oliver Cromwell, occupying a distinguished place !' He praises the courtesy with which Drs. Maty and Morton discharged, by turns, the duty of exhibition. 'They show,' he says, 'the most obliging readiness to explain things to the visitor, but,' he adds, with obvious truth, ' their very courtesy is wont to make a stranger content himself with hasty and unsatisfactory glances, that he may not trespass on their politeness.' And then he makes a wise practical suggestion, which was carried into effect, almost half a century afterwards. ' In order really to carry out the intentions of Parlia- 22 338 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY ATJGMENTORS. book ii, ment,' writes Grosley, in 1765, ' it is to be wished that the eaelV Public should be admitted more liberally, and more easily, ™rBMTT°sH by placing a warder in every room, to be continually muskum. p resen t during the public hours.' Ten years afterwards, the difficulty on this score had so increased that a notification to the following effect was circulated : ' British Museum, 9th August, 1776. The Applicants of the middle of April are not yet satisfied. ms Addit Persons applying are requested to send weekly to the 10,555, foi.u. porter to know how near they are upon the List.' c'p^mouitz ^ n 1782, the plan had so far improved that instead of in 1782. waiting from April until August, a visitor could usually get admission within a fortnight or so after applying for a ticket. We have an intelligent and amusing account of a visit then made. This time the narrator is a German, — Charles Moritz, of Berlin. ' In general,' writes Moritz, ' you must give in your name a fortnight before you can be admitted. But, by the kindness- of Mr. Woide ' — a coun- tryman of the traveller, and, at that time, an Assistant- Librarian in the Museum, — ' I got admission earlier. . . . Yet, after all, I am sorry to say that it was the room, the glass-cases, the shelves, .... which I saw ; not the Museum itself, so rapidly were we hurried on through the departments. The company who saw it when I did, and in like manner, was variously composed. They were of all sorts, and some, as I believe, of the very lowest classes of the people of both sexes, for, as it is, the property of the Nation, every one has the same 'right' — I use the term of ttjmdk. the country — to see it that another has. I had Mr. Wen- rohn's account deborn's book in my pocket, and it, at least, enabled me mu™um. t° take more particular notice of some of the principal 1780-90. things.' The book thus referred to by Moritz is the German EARLY HISTORY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 339 original of that account of English society and institutions bookii, which Wendeborn himself translated, a few years after- Ea m*' wards, into English, and published at London, under the ^beLT* title of A View of England. musubm. Its author had settled in London as the Minister of a German Congregation. He was himself a studious fre- quenter of the Museum, and says of it : ' The whole is costly, worth seeing, and honourable to the Nation ; when taken altogether it has not its equal. When considered in its separate branches, almost each of them singly may be surpassed by some other collection even in England itself.' - But the only collection which he specifies as, in this sense, superior, are the Hunterian Museum, and that which had been formed by Sir Ashton Lever, and which, when the View of England was written, belonged to Mr. Parkinson. Of the Museum Library, Wendeborn says, 'though a numerous and valuable collection, it is yet, in many re- wenaebo™, . A View of spects, very deficient, and as to its use, much cir- swjuni, ■■, -. , vol. i, 323- cumscribed. 335 When the German visitor of 1782 pulled Mr. Wen- deborn's book from his pocket, as he was hurried through the Museum, the action attracted the atten- tion of the other visitors. The more intelligent of them pressed round him to see if the book could be made to yield any information for their behoof also. And the stranger gratified their curiosity by translating a passage or two in explanation of the objects they were passing. Then came an exquisite bit of sub-officialism. ' The gentleman who conducted as,' observes Moritz, ' took little pains to conceal the contempt which he felt for my communications when he found it was only a German description of the British Museum which I had.' ' So rapid a passage,' he continues, ' through a vast suite of rooms, 1784. 340 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY ATJGMENTORS. book ii, in little more than one hour of time, with opportunity to ea'ui.y cast but one poor longing look of astonishment on thTbmtish a ^ the vast treasures of nature, antiquity, and litera- mosbum. t nrej i n the examination of which one might pro- fitably spend years, confuses, stuns, and overpowers the visitor.' Two years later, we have a similar account of the expe- riences of an inquisitive Englishman, and of one who is William much more outspoken in his complaint. William Hutton, IIuttom's ... visit in the historian of Birmingham, came to London in December, 1784. 'I was unwilling to quit it,' he writes, 'without seeing what I had, many years, wished to see. But how to accomplish it was the question. I had not one relative in that vast metropolis to direct me By good fortune, I stumbled upon a person possessing a ticket for the next day, which he valued less than two shillings. We struck a bargain in a moment and were both pleased. . . . I was not likely to forget Tuesday, December 7th, at eleven.' Hutton, shrewd as he was, did not suspect the real nature of his ' bargain.' He had met with a professional dealer in Museum tickets; one of several who, on a humbler scale, followed in the steps of Peter Leheup, but were lucky enough not to excite the anger of the House of Commons. He was taken through the rooms in company with about ten other persons, at a very rapid rate. He asked their conductor for some information about the curiosities. The reply, he says, so humbled him that he could not utter another word. ' The company seemed influenced. They made haste and were silent. No voice was heard but in whispers. If a man spends two minutes in a room, in which a thousand things demand his attention, he cannot bestow on them a glance apiece It grieved me to EAELY HISTOEY OF THE BEITISH MUSEUM. 341 think how much I lost for want of a little information. In book i, about thirty minutes we finished our silent journey through eably the princely mansion, which would well have taken thirty ^btoI days I had laid more stress on the British Mu- MusE ™ seum, than on anything else which I should see in London. It was the only sight which disgusted me Govern- ment purchased this rare collection at a vast expense, and Button, exhibits it as a national honour. . . . How far it answers AJm " MVl0 London, the end proposed this account will testify.' pp- 18 7-i 96 - Better days were at hand. But it was not until 1805 that the rules of admission were even so far effectively revised as to abolish the traffic in tickets. Nor was any ' Synopsis' of the contents of the Museum provided until 1808. In that year admission tickets were abolished wholly. Straitened means of maintenance have, at all times, had far more to do with any inadequate provision for public usefulness of which (in days long past) there may have been well-grounded cause of complaint, than had neglect or oversight on the part of any officer. The officers, too, were, for a very long period after the establishment of the Museum, engaged, and re- munerated, only for an attendance, in rotation, for two hours daily, on alternate days. A largely- increased provision by Parliament was the essential condition of any large increase in the accessibility of the insti- tution. As early as in 1776 the necessary expenditure in salaries and wages alone (at a very low scale of payment), exceeded the annual income (£900) accruing from the original endow- ment fund. After Parliament had made an additional provision — first introduced in a clause of what was then 342 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, called a 'hotch-potch Act' — averaging £1000 yearly, the eaely' total annual income was still but £2448, including the ™7b™ y ear 'y tlj ree hundred pounds accruing from the ' Edwards Moss™. Fund,' and the £248, paid, under the grant of Geok,ge the Second, as the net yearly salary of the ' King's Librarian.' For a considerable period, the sums ex- pended in purchases — for all the departments collectively — had not amounted, in any one year, to one hundred pounds. The of Dk. On the decease of the first Principal Librarian, Dr. camuib Qowin Knight, in 1772, Dr. Matthew Matt was appointed Matthew to that office. Be was born at; or in the neighbourhood of Utrecht, in 1718,. and was educated in the University of Leyden, where he took his degrees in 1740, the subject of his inaugural dissertation, for that of M.A. and Doctor of Philosophy, being ' custom/ and its wide results and in- fluence social and political. His essay was published (under the title Dissertatio philosophica inauguralis de Usu,) in 1740. For the degree of Doctor in Medicine, he treated of the effects of habit and custom upon the human frame {De Consuetudinis efflcacia in corpus humanum). This medical dissertation was also published at Leyden, in the usual form, in the same year. Both essays showed much ability, along with many faults and crudities. Some of these became matters of conversation and correspondence between the author and his friends. The subject was less hacknied than that of the majority of academical essays, and Maty was induced to reconsider it. He republished the result of his thoughts, in a greatly improved form, in the following year at Utrecht, and, to gain a wider audience, wrote in French. The Essai sur V Usage attracted much attention, and served to pave the way for the establishment by its EARLY HISTORY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 343 author, eight years afterwards, of the periodical entitled, bookii, Journal Britannique, as editor of which he is now best ^ P LY L remembered. He came to England in 1741, practised as HlST ° M0F ° ' *■ the British a physician, attained considerable reputation, and distin- muskum. guished himself more especially by following in the path of Sir Hans Sloane, and others, as an earnest supporter of the practice of inoculation. In this field he was able to render good service, both by his professional influence and by his pen. In the sharp controversies which soon, and for a time, impeded the new practice, he took a large share, and his publications on the subject are distinguished from many others by their union of moderation of tone with vigour of advocacy. Matt's predilections, however, pointed to a literary rather than to a medical career. He had early taken that ply, and it was not easily effaced, Within six years (1750 — 1756) he published eighteen volumes of the Journal Bri- tannique — edited in London but printed at the Hague — in the toils of which he was, according to Gibbon, almost unaided. Gibbon,- too, bears testimony to the amiability of the man, as well as to the industry of the writer. His own first and youthful achievement in literature had Matt's encouragement and active aid. When the JEssai sur V Etude de la Litterature was, after much filing and polishing, given to the Public, a preliminary letter from Matt's pen accompanied it, and by him the essay was carried through ^'^" u/ the press. p- w- When he succeeded Dr. Gowin Knight, as Principal Librarian in 1772, his health was already failing. He occupied the post during less than four years. To the last, his pen was busily employed. He was a contributor to several foreign journals, as well as to the Philosophical Transactions, some volumes of which he edited, or assisted Thikd Pbihci LlBBABIAH. 344 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, to edit, in his capacity as one of the Secretaries of the eaeit' Royal Society, to which office he had been appointed in ™e T bmtisb 1765. Among his minor literary publications are a life of museum. Boerhaave, in French, and one of Dr. Richard Mead, in English. At the time of his death he was working on the Life of Lord Chesterfield,aiterwards prefixed to the collective edition of the Earl's Miscellaneous Works. Dr. Maty died in 1776, and was succeeded in his Librarianship by his colleague, Dr. Charles Morton, who had had, from the beginning, the charge of the department of Manuscripts, and had also acted as Secretary to the Trustees. notice or jj n Morton was a native of Westmoreland, and was Dr. Chables ? mobton, born in 1716. Until the year 1750 he had practised as a Thxrd pbihcipal physician at Kendal. In 1751 he became a Licentiate of the College of Physicians, and in the following year a Fellow of the Royal Society. His service in the British Museum lasted from 1756 to 1799. There are several tes- timonies to the courtesy with which he treated such visitors and students as came under his personal notice, but his long term of superior office was certainly not marked by any striking improvement in the public economy of the Museum. And how much room for improvement existed there the reader has seen. Dr. Morton, like his prede- cessor, was one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society. He filled that office from the year 1760 to 1774. He contributed several papers to the Philosophical Trans- actions, as well on antiquarian subjects as on topics of physical science, and he was the first editor of Bulstrode Whitelocke's remarkable narrative of his embassy to Sweden during the Protectorate. Morton's writings are not remarkable either for vigour or for originality, but, on more topics than one, they had the useful result of setting abler men awork. He was three times married: (1) to EARLY HISTOEY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 345 Mary Berkeley, the niece of Swift's frequent corre- bookii, spondent Lady Elizabeth Germaine ; (2) to Lady Savile ; eakm (3) to Mrs. Elizabeth Pratt. He died on the 10th Peb- ^"XmsH ruary, 1799. MusEUM - Of his successors in the office of Principal Librarian some account will be found in the Introductory Chapter of Book III. CHAPTER II. A GROUP OF CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. ' The Archaeologist cannot, like the Scholar, carry on his researches in his own Library, independent of outward circumstances. Eor his work of reference and collation he must travel, excavate, collect, arrange, delineate, transcribe, before he can place his whole subject before his mind, ' A Museum of Antiquities is to the Archaeologist what a Botanic Garden is to the Botanist. It presents his sub- ject compendiously, synoptically, suggestively, not in the desultory and accidental order in which he would otherwise be brought into contact with its details.' — C. T. Newton, On the Study of Archaology, p. 26. Sir William Hamilton and his Pursuits and Employments in Italy. — The Acquisitions of the French Institute of Egypt, and the capture of part of them at Alexandria. — Charles Towneley and his Collection of Antiqui- ties. — The Researches of the Earl of Elgin in Greece. — The Collections and Writings of Richard Payne Knight. Book II, Chap. II. Classical Aechjeolo- gists akd ExPLOEKES. To the comparatively small assemblage of antiquities which originally formed part of the Museum of Courten and of Sloane, several additions had been made — besides the coins, medals, and bronzes of Sir Robert Cotton — prior to the opening of the British Museum to the Public in 1759. Some of those additions were the gift, severally, of three members of the Lethieulliek, family. Others were CLASSICAL AKCHjEOLOGISTS AND EXPLOEEES. 347 the gift of Thomas Hollis, who became a constant bene- bookii, factor to the Museum almost from the day of Sir Hans classical Sloane's death to that of his own. auohsolo- GISTS AND The Lethieullier antiquities had been chiefly gathered ExM <™ 9 - in Egypt. The first gift was made by the Will of Colonel THE , 7 T ° . . , •, , Egyptian William Lethieullier, dated 23rd July, 1755. And antiquities the first catalogue of any kind which was prepared for the lethiotl- British Museum, after its acquisition by Parliament, was a 11EKS list of these antiquities drawn up by Dr. John Ward, one ^79^29'' of the Trustees. And here it may deserve remark that for many years after the foundation not a few of the Trustees took a large share in the actual work of preparing the Museum for public use, as well as in the ordinary duties of control and administration. To the gift of Colonel William Lethieullier, his cousin, Smart Lethieullier, and his nephew, Pitt Lethieullier, made several additions between the years 1756 and 1770. The last-named of these gentlemen, when receiving, as ex- ecutor of his uncle, the personal thanks of a Committee of the Trustees (February, 1756), for the bequest so made, took the opportunity of augmenting it by the gift of some antiquities Which he had himself collected during his residence at Grand Cairo. But the first large and comprehensive addition in the archaeological department was that made in 1772 by the purchase, by means of a Parliamentary, grant, of the Museum of Antiquities, which had been formed during seven years' researches in Italy by Sir William Hamilton, our Ambas- sador at Naples. Sir William Hamilton was among the earliest of British siewilliam Hamilton diplomatists who, by a voluntary choice, turned to good akdhis account, in the interests of learning and of the public, the Naples. Book II, Chap. II. Classical Auchjeoio- gists amd Explorers. 348 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. opportunities which diplomatic life so frequently offers for amassing treasures of literature and science, and (in many cases) for saving them from peril of destruction. In that path Frenchmen had showed the way many generations earlier. As far, indeed, as regards a public and national care for matters of the intellect, Prance is far better entitled to claim a priority in the proud distinction of ' teaching the nations how to live," than is any other country in the world. It is to her immortal honour that from a very early period, and even in times of sore trouble, her sovereigns and her states- men have known how to turn public resources to the promotion of public culture, as well as of national power. A man may read in French diplomatic letters of instruction of the sixteenth century orders to collect manuscripts and antiquities, as implements of public education, such as he would look for in vain in parallel British documents of any century at all, — inclusive of the present ; — although it is certain that the omission has by no means arisen from the engrossment of our diplomatists in weightier con- cerns. In Sir William Hamilton's case the liberal tastes and the mental energy of the individual supplied the defect of his instructions. He set an example which not a few of our ambassadors have voluntarily followed with like public spirit, and with results not less conspicuous. William Hamilton was the fourth son of Lord Archibald Hamilton, youngest son of James, third Duke of Hamil- ton, K.G. His mother, Lady Jane Hamilton, was of that illustrious family by birth, as well as by marriage, being the daughter of James, sixth Earl of Abercorn. He was born in the year 1730. CLASSICAL AECILEOLOGISTS AND EXPLOEEES. 349 Towards the close of his career, Sir William would some- bookii, times say to his intimates, when conversation turned upon classical the battle of life : < I had to begin the world with a great £™Z°~ name, and one thousand pounds for all my fortune.' But ExpL0M!KS - the world never used him very roughly. Whilst still a young man (1755) he married Miss Barlow, the wealthy heiress of Hugh Barlow, of Laurenny Hall, in Pembroke- shire. She brought him an estate, in the neighbourhood of Swansea, worth nearly five thousand pounds a year ; but it was his happy lot to have married a true wife, not a bag of money. Duclos, who saw much of the Hamiltons in their family circle at Naples in after years, was wont to say, ' They are the happiest couple I ever saw.' Mr. Hamilton was sent to the Court of Naples in 1764. 1764-isoo. The post, in that day, was not overburdened with business. And for some years to come the new Ambassador found the Neapolitan society little to his taste. He was intel- lectual, and, in the truest sense, an English gentleman. The tone of society at that time in Naples was both frivo- lous and dissolute. He had to form, by slow degrees, a circle in which a man of cultivated tastes might enjoy social life. The public duties of the embassy could employ but a small portion of his time, and the temper of the man made employment to him a necessary of life. He threw his energies into hard study. And he possessed that hap- piest of mental characteristics, an equal love of the natural sciences, and of the world of art and of books. He could pore, with like enjoyment, on the deep things of Nature, and on the secrets of ' the antiquary times.' And in both paths, he knew how to make his personal enjoyments teem with public good. His first labours were given to the exhaustive research of volcanic phenomena. He amazed the fine gentlemen of 350 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. book ii, Naples by setting to work as though he had to win his classical bread by the sweat of his brow. He laboured harder on gTsts ahd°' ^ ne s ^°P es °f Vesuvius than an exceptionally diligent crafts- explokees. man would labour in a factory — had Naples possessed any. Within four years he ascended the famous mountain twenty-two times. More than one of these ascents was made at the risk of his life. He made, and caused to be made, innumerable drawings of all the phenomena that he observed, showing the volcanic eruption in all its stages, and under every kind of meteorological condition. He formed too a complete collection of volcanic products, and of the earths and minerals of the volcanic district. "When he had studied Vesuvius under every possible aspect, he went to Etna. The results of these elaborate investigations were sent, from time to time, to the Royal Society (of which Mr. Hamilton was made a Fellow, after the reading of the first of his papers in 1766), and they were published in the Philosophical Transactions, between the years 1766 and 1780. They were afterwards collected, and improved, in the two beautiful volumes entitled Campi Thlegrai, and were lavishly illustrated from the drawings of F. A. Fabris, who had been trained by Hamilton to the work.* The collection of volcanic geology and products was given to the British Museum in 1767. These geological labours had been diversified, at in- the tervals, by the collection of a rich archaeological museum, mtoetoop and by the establishment of a systematic correspondence on antiqui- antiquarian subjects with men of learning in various parts * In a copy of this work now before me, the original drawings are bound up with the engravings, and later drawings are added. They serve to show that Sir William's scientific interest in the subject lasted as long as his life. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 351 of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. This correspondence bookii, • i • -i c i • Chap. II. had for its object, not merely the enrichment oi his own classical Museum, but the awakening of local attention throughout B ™* *° r D °" the country to its antiquities and history ; matters which ExpL0EEKS had theretofore been but too much neglected — in the Nea- politan fashion. One of the earliest and choicest acquisitions made by Hamilton in the early years of his residence at Naples was a collection of vases belonging to the senatorial family of Porcinari, many of which had been gathered from sepul- chres and excavations in Magna Grsecia. This purchase, made in 1766 and afterwards largely increased, may be regarded as the substantial beginning of the noble series of vases now so prominent a part of our National Museum. Thus had been formed, by degrees, at Naples, a museum which, at the beginning of the year 1772, included seven hundred and thirty fictile vases; a hundred and seventy-five terra-cottas ; about three hundred specimens of ancient glass (including three of the most perfect cinerary urns known, at that time, to have been discovered) ; six hundred and twenty-seven bronzes, of which nearly one-half illus- trated the arms and armour of the ancients ; more than two hundred specimens of sacrificial, domestic, and architectonic, instruments and implements ; fourteen bassi-relievi, busts, masques, and inscribed tablets ; about a hundred and fifty miscellaneous pieces of ancient ivory, including a curious series of tessarse ; a hundred and forty -nine gems, chiefly scarabsei ; a hundred and forty-three personal ornaments, of various kinds, in gold ; a hundred and fifty-two fibulse in various materials ; and more than six thousand coins and medals, comprising a considerable series from the towns of Magna Grsecia. 352 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, The first fruits of this noble collection was the publi- classic'al cation, commenced in the year 1766, of the work entitled gists akd°" dntiquites Etrusques, &c, with admirable illustrations, and Explores. w [^ a descriptive text, written in French by D'Han- TiraT^raB cakvillb. The first edition of this costly book was issued ■ANTicjuiTis at N a pi es- it naturally attracted great attention. No Etrusques. l •* ° such collection of fictile vases — in their combination of number and beauty — had been theretofore known. The two volumes published at Sir William's cost in 1766, were followed by two other volumes in 1767. All of them were executed with great care and with lavish expen- diture. But the later edition, printed at Florence — long afterwards — is in many points superior:* Whilst the volumes were still incomplete, Mr. Hamilton circulated proof plates of the work with great liberality. Some of these proofs were lent to our famous English potter, Josiah Wedgwood, and gave a strong impulse to Meteyard, his taste and artistic zeal. But they excited an eager L wXiood," h longing for access to the vases themselves, as the only satis- voi. ii, p. 72. f ac tory models. When Wedgwood wrote to his friend and partner, Wedgwood to Bentley; — 'Mr. Hambleton, you know, has flattered the ioMay,'wo, old pot-painters very much,' one feels that for the moment that excellent man's prepossessions had been rubbed a little, against the grain. But he shows directly that there is no real intent to impeach the Editor's honesty in the matter. He has, no doubt,' adds Wedgwood, ' taken his designs from the very best vases extant,' which was precisely what it was his dnty to do, since selection was the task in hand, not the publication of seven hundred specimens. * That superiority, however, is only partial. The original Naples edition, along with many errors, contains much valuable matter omitted in the reprint. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLOEEES. 353 This Collection — far more remarkable than any, of its booilii, kind, which had yet come to England — was brought over classical in 1772, and offered to the Trustees of the British Museum. tZTZ°' An appeal was made to Parliament, and the first grant of ex* 10 ^ 1 " public money, worthy of mention, was now made in order to its acquisition. The sum given to Mr. Hamilton was eight thousand four hundred pounds. How soon one of the incidental results of the acquisition returned to the Public much more than its cost — leaving out of account altogether .the best returns which accrue from such Collections — is among the familiar annals of our commerce. Josiah Wedgwood told a Committee of the House of Commons that, within two years, he had himself brought into England, by his imitations of the Hamilton vases in his manufactory at Etruria, about three times the sum which the Collection had cost to the country. At the beginning of the year 1772 Mr. Hamilton was thee*- O O 1/ FLOTATIONS made a Knight of the Bath. He returned to Naples soon at pompeh after the transfer of his antiquities to the Museum, and ere lane™. long he was busily engaged in new explorations at Pompeii and at Herculaneum. He sent to the Society of Anti- quaries, in 1777, an interesting account of the discoveries at Pompeii, which is printed in the fourth volume of the Archaologia. At Herculaneum he employed, during many years, Father Antonio Piaggi to superintend excavations and make drawings, and gave him an annual salary equal to a hundred pounds sterling, after vainly endeavouring — at that time — to urge on the Neapolitan Government its own duty to carry on the task in an adequate manner for the honour of the nation, and to publish the results of the explorations for the general benefit Of learning. Sir William's services as an ambassador were rendered with zeal and with credit, as opportunity offered. But the 23 354 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY ATJGMENTORS. book ii, opportunity, in his earlier period, was comparatively rare. cilssrcAL It was, perhaps, despite the proverb, not altogether a happy abchjsolo- thins; for Naples that its annals were tiresome. The rust GISTS AND C F exploit, of inactivity showed itself there, as so often elsewhere, to be much more fatal than the exhaustion of strife. Cer- tainly, to the ambassador, it was a personal misfortune that, when the affairs of Naples became really momentous to Englishmen, the vigour and the will of earlier days were then departing from the man whose energies were at length to be put to the test in the proper sphere of his profession. Meanwhile, and in his prime, he had but — from time to time — to make routine memorials as to matters of indivi- dual wrong ; to heal breaches between one Bourbon and another; and to secure the neutrality of the Kingdom of the Two Sieilies during the war which grew out of the struggle in America. Such matters made no great inroad upon the pursuits of the naturalist and the anti- quarian. Labour on the mountains, in the excavations, and in the study, had been, now for many years, relieved by congenial friendships. There had been an improvement in the tone of Neapolitan Society since Hamilton's first appearance. And all that was best in Naples had gathered round him. To English travellers his hospitalities were splen- did and unremitting. But in 1782 the circle lost its mistress. Seven years before, Sir William and Lady Hamilton had been bereaved of a daughter — their only child. In 1783 occurred the dreadful earthquake in Calabria, the greatest calamity of the century save that at Lisbon. Among the scientific correspondents in England with whom Sir William Hamilton kept up an intercourse was Sir Joseph Banks, then the President of the Royal Society. CLASSICAL AECIMOLOGISTS AND EXPLOEEES. 355 To him was sent the fullest account that was attainable of bookii, the sad event of 1783. clIL^ai, It had chanced that just before the news reached Naples, e*™*"',; ' Sir Joseph had written to Hamilton about some experi- Exploeeks ments and discoveries on the composition and transmutation of water. He had said, jestingly : ' In future we philo- sophers shall rejoice when an eruption, which may swallow up a few towns, affords subsistence for as many nations of animals and vegetables.' This letter Hamilton was about to answer when he received the intelligence from Calabria: ' We have had here,' he writes, ' some shocks of an earth- quake which, in Calabria Ultra, has swallowed up or destroyed almost every town, together with some towns in Sicily Every hour brings in accounts of fresh disasters. Some thousands of people will perish with hunger before the provisions sent from hence can reach them. This, ?<*>■ is. I believe, will prove to have been the greatest calamity that has happened in this century. An end is put to the Carnival. The theatres are shut. I suppose Saint Janu- Banks, ms. arius will be brought out.' There had been no exaggeration ^m'^' in these first reports. It was found that at Terranova, not only were all the buildings destroyed, but the very ground on which they stood sunk to such a depth as to form a sort of gulf. In that district alone 3043 people lost their lives. At Seminara 1328 persons were buried beneath the ruins. In other and adjacent districts more than 3300 persons perished. In 1784 the ambassador visited England. His stay was brief. But an incident which occurred during this visit gave its colour to the rest of his life. In 1791 Sir William Hamilton was made a Privy Councillor, and in the same year (nine years after the death 356 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book n, of his first wife.) he married Emma Haute, whom he had classioai, first met in the house of his nephew, Colonel Greville, in o™™' 1784. In September, 1793, his eventful acquaintance with explokeks. Nelson was formed. fiZ™"'* In that month, Nelson had been sent to Naples with quaintance despatches from Admiral Lord Hood, in which Sir William WITH *• nelson. Hamilton was pressed to procure the sending of some Neapolitan troops to Toulon. After his first interview with Lord Hood's messenger, he is said to have remarked to his wife : ' I have a little man to introduce to you who will become one of the greatest men England has ever had.' The favourable impression was reciprocal, it seems. The ambassador gave such good furtherance to the object of Nelson's mission, that the messenger, we are told, said to him, ' You are a man after my heart. I'm only a captain, but, if I live, I shall get to the top of the tree ;' while, of McArth™! * ne too-fascinating lady into whose social circle he was nfe, sK, of p rese ntly brought, Nelson wrote to his wife, ' She is a young p. 133; ^a woman of amiable manners, who does honour to the station P . 326. ' ' to which she is raised.' Several years, however, were yet to intervene before the events of the naval war and the political circumstances of Naples itself brought about a close connexion in public transactions between the great seaman and the British ambassador, whose long diplomatic career was drawing to its close. Hamilton, after the manner of Collectors, had scarcely parted with the fine Museum, which he had sold to the Public in 1772, before he began to form another. The explorations of the buried cities gave some favourable oppor- tunities near home, and his researches were spread far and wide. In amassing vases he was especially fortunate. And, in that particular, his second Collection came to surpass the GISTS AND ExPLOREHS. The SecoiND Hamilton Collection or Vases. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 357 first. He became anxious to ensure its preservation in booxii, integrity. With that view he offered it to the King of classical Prussia. ' I think,' he wrote to the Countess of Lichtenau, in May, 1796, ' my object will be attained by placing my Collection, with my name attached to it, at Berlin. And I am persuaded that, in a very few years, the profit which the arts will derive from such models will greatly exceed the price of the Collection. The King's [porcelain] manufac- tory would do well to profit by it. . . . For a long time past I have had an unlimited commission from the Grand Duke of Russia [afterwards Paul the First], but, between ourselves, I should think my Collection lost in Russia ; whilst, at Berlin, it would be in the midst of men of learning and of literary academies. 'There are more/ he continues, ' than a thousand vases, and one half of them figured. If the King listens to your proposal, he may be assured of having the whole Collection, and I would further undertake to go, at the end of the war, to Berlin to arrange them. On reckoning up my accounts, — I must speak frankly (il fautqueje dise la verite), — I SirW - find that I shall needs be a loser, unless I receive seven the countess thousand pounds sterling for this Collection. That is 3 May, 179™' exactly the sum I received from the English Parliament for my first Collection.* ... As respects Vases, the second is far more beautiful and complete than the series in London, but the latter included also bronzes, gems, and medals.' But the negotiation thus opened led to no result. And some of the choicest contents of this second Museum were eventually lost by shipwreck. * I find that in this statement — made twenty-four years after the date of the transaction referred to — Sir William's memory misled him. The amount of the Parliamentary vote was (as I have stated it, on a previous page) eight thousand four hundred pounds. 358 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. book ii, When the correspondence with Berlin occurred, the classical Collector's health was rapidly failing him. The political AKcniEoi.0. horizon was getting darker and darker. Victorious France GISTS AND O O explokeks. W as putting its pressure upon the Neapolitan Government to accept terms of peace which should exact the exclusion of British ships from the Neapolitan ports. The ambassador needed now all the energies for which, but a few years before, there had been no worthy political employment. They were fast vanishing; but, to the last, Sir William exerted himself to the best of his ability. It was his mis- fortune that he had now to work, too often, by deputy. the latee Lady Hamilton's ambitious nature, and her appetite for MrUTR AT " '11 EVENTS AT Naples, political intrigue, when combined with some real ability and a good deal of reckless un scrupulousness as to the path by which the object in view might be reached, were dan- gerous qualities in such a Court as that of Naples. If, more than once, they contributed to the attainment of ends which were eagerly sought by the Government at home, and were of advantage to the movements of the British fleet, they cost — as is but too well known — an excessive price at last. The blame fairly attachable to Sir William Hamilton is that of suffering himself to be kept at a post for which the infirmities of age were rapidly unfitting him. But there he was to remain during yet four eventful years ; quitting his embassy only when, to all appearance, he was at the door of death. Between the September of 1793 and that of 1798 Nelson and Sir William Hamilton met more than once ; but their chief communication was, of course, by letter. When, in October, 1796, after two victories in quick succession, Nelson lost his hard-won prizes, and narrowly escaped being taken into a Spanish port, it was to Hamilton that he wrote for a certificate of his conduct. And one of the ambassa- CLASSICAL ARCHvEOLOGISTS AND EXPLOEERS. 359 dor's latest diplomatic achievements was his procuring access book ii, for British ships to Neapolitan ports before the Battle of S'siml the Nile was won. lmu ™* GISTS AND On the very night of that famous first of August, 1798, E ™ 10MBS ' Sir William — whilst the distant battle was yet raging — told Nelson of the disappointment which had followed the rumours, current during many days at Naples, of a defeat given to the French fleet in the Bay of Alexandretta, and assured him of his own confidence that the rumours, though then unfounded, would come true at last. Five weeks afterwards, he had the satisfaction of sending to London the first official account of the great victory which he had seen before with the eye of faith. At Naples the authentic news was received with a joy which worked like frenzy. When the ambassador first saw the Queen, after its arrival, she was rushing up and down the room of audience, and embracing every person who entered it — man, woman, or child. He sent to Nelson sk w. an account of the universal joy. ' You have now, indeed, ^S^. made yourself immortal,' was his own greeting. On the ^j* 8 - 22nd they again met, on board the Vanguard, in the Bay. On the 21st of the following December Sir William Hamilton accompanied the King and Court of Naples in their flight to Palermo. The events of 1799 belong rather to history than to biography. Sir William Hamilton's chief share in them lay in his exertions to obtain for Nelson the large powers which the King of Naples vested in the English Admiral — with results so mingled. On the 21st of June he em- barked with Nelson on board the Foudroyant, and sailed with the squadron to Naples. In the stormy interview between Nelson and Cardinal Ruffo, Sir William acted as interpreter. In all that followed, he seems to have been rather a spectator than an actor. At the close of the year 360 THE ORGANIZEBS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. book ii, he joined with Nelson in the vain endeavour to induce the cilssicAL King to return to Naples, while that course was yet open Abch^olo- tohim. GISTS AHD explores. On the 10th of June, 1800, Sir William took his final tepaktub]! leave of Naples, which had been his home for thirty- naples. six years, and where he had mingled in a departed world. In company with the Queen and three princesses, the Hamiltons sailed in the Foudroyant for Leghorn, on their way to Vienna. A few days after the embarkation, a fellow-passenger writes thus : * Sir William Hamilton Miss Kni g M appears broken, distressed, and harassed. He says that he Berry, My 3, shall die by the way, and he looks so ill that I should not 1800. Sie William Hamilton's be surprised if he did.' When the Admiral struck his flag (13th July) at Leghorn, the party set out for Vienna. Between Leghorn and Florence, Sir William's carriage met with an overturn, which increased his malady. At Trieste the physicians were inclined to despair of his life. But he rallied sufficiently to reach England at last, and the change from turmoil to rest prolonged his life for two years to come. During the long interval between the acquisition of last days, ^g first Hamilton Museum and the return of its Col- lector to his country, he had marked his interest in the national Collection by repeated and valuable gifts. To make yet one gift more — trivial, but possessing an historical in- terest — was one of his last acts. On the 12th of February, 1803, he sent to the British Museum a Commission given by the famous fisherman of Amalfi to one of his insurrec- tionary captains. On the 6th of April Sir William Hamilton died, in London. He was buried at Milford Haven. The kindly heart had left many memorials of its quality at Naples. The ambassador had lost a part of his fortune. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 361 But many poor dependants, in his old home, enjoyed pen- bookii, sions from his liberality. classical Nelson, when writing to the Queen of the Two Sicilies G J£ and°" upon the death of their common friend, made this remark ExpL0KEES - on his testamentary arrangements : — ' The good Sir Wil- liam did not leave Lady Hamilton in such comfortable circumstances as his fortune would have allowed. He has given it amongst his relations. But she will do honour q^,, 4 , * 1 * to his memory, although every one else of his friends calls Jjj? 1 ^ loudly against him on that account.' This comment, how- ™i. i T , p. mo. ever, expresses rather a temporary feeling than a wise judg- ment. Sir William had settled a jointure of seven hundred pounds a year upon his widow. During the few months of life that yet remained to the great seaman himself, the highest encomium known to his vocabulary was to say, ' So-and-so was a great friend of Sir William Hamilton.' As the British Museum owes one choice portion of its the'Ihsh- tute or archaeological treasures to the man who was Nelson's eoipt ; 'and type of friendship, so also it owes — indirectly — another ™ A m™ portion of them to the man who was Nelson's favourite AHD AC< * 111 " r SITIONS. aversion, and whose very name, in the Admiral's mind, served to sum up all that was most detestable. The Battle of the Nile, and the military operations which followed it in the after years, would have counted no antiquarian riches amongst their trophies, but for that ardent love of science in Napoleon which prompted him to plan the ' Institute of Egypt ' as an essential part of the Campaign of Egypt. The intention with which the Institute of Egypt was founded embraced every kind of study and research. The scholars of whom it was composed included within their number men of the most varied powers. What they effected 362 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. book ii, was fragmentary, and yet their researches, directly or indi- classical rectly, bore much fruit. gmts ahd°" I n the end, the harvest was to France herself none the exploeees. j egs aDun( j an (; f rom the f ac t that Nelson's achievement, and what grew thereout, set Englishmen and Germans to work with increased vigour in the same field, and divided some of the tools. Scarcely had General Bonaparte established the military power of the French Republic in Egypt, before he was 1798-1801. employed in organizing the Institute at Cairo. Its declared object was twofold: (1) the increase and diffusion of learning in Egypt itself; (2) the examination, study, and publication, of the monuments of its history and of its natural phenomena, together with the elucidation and improvement of the natural and industrial capabilities of M&noircssur the country. The Institute was composed of thirty -six pfS' members, and was divided into four sections. The section with which alone we are here concerned — that of Lite- rature, Arts, and History — was headed by Denon, and amongst its other members were Dutertre, Parseval, and RipAtjlt. Its labours began in 1798, and were continued, with almost unparalleled activity, until the summer of 1801, when the defeat of Beeliard near Cairo, and the capi- tulation of Menou at Alexandria, placed that part of the collections of the Institute which had not been already sent to France at the disposal of Lord Hutchinson. Denon, on his return from Upper Egypt to Cairo, said, with French vivacity, that if the active movements of the Manielukes now and then forced an antiquary to become, in self-defence, a soldier, the antiquary was enabled, by way of balance and through the good nature and docility of the French troops, to turn a good many soldiers into anti- quaries. Had it not been for this general sympathy and CLASSICAL AECHjEOLOGISTS AND EXPLOEEES. 363 readiness, one can hardly conceive that so much could have book ii, been accomplished, even under the eye of Napoleon, classical amidst perils so incessant. The Description de VEgypte is GI K S i"i°D° for Prance at large, no less than for Napoleon and the men Exflobisk8 - whom he set to work, a monument which might well obliterate the momentary mortification attendant on the transfer to London of a part of the treasures of the Insti- tute. History, ancient or modern, scarcely offers a parallel instance in which war was made to contribute results so splendid, both for the progress of science and for the eventual improvement of the invaded country. To the labours initiated by Napoleon, and partially carried out by the ' Institute of Egypt,' the ablest of the recent rulers of that land owe some of their best and latest inspirations. Nor is it a whit less true that the most successful of our English Egyptologists have followed the track in which Frenchmen led the way. Such results, indeed, can never suffice to justify an unprovoked invasion. But they illus- trate, in a marvellous way, how temporary evil is wrought into enduring good. By the sixteenth article of the Capitulation of Alexandria, it was provided that the Members of the Institute of Egypt might carry back with them all instruments of science and art which they had brought from France, but that all col- lections of marbles, manuscripts, and other antiquities, together with the specimens of natural history and the draw- ings, then in the possession of the French, should be re- garded as public property, and become subject to the dis- posal of the generals of the allied army. The Convention was made between General Menou and THE Coi >- _t1TT , . VENTION OP General Hope, on the 31st of August, 1801. Against alexan- this sixteenth article Menou made the strongest remon- DKIA ' strances, but General Hope declined to modify it, other- lu^st. 364 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. booeii, wise than by agreeing to make a reference, as to the precise clas'sioai extent to which it should be carried into actual effect, to t?™C°' Lord Hutchinson, as Commander-in-Chief. explokees. Between Menou and Hutchinson there was a long correspondence. The French General declared that the Collections, both scientific and archaeological, were private, not public property. The since famous ' Rosetta stone,' for example, belonged, he said, to himself. Various mem- bers of the Institute claimed other precious objects ; some alleged, with obvious force of argument, that the care bestowed on specimens of natural history made them the property of the collectors and preservers ; others threatened to prefer the destruction or defacement of their collections, by their own hands, to the giving of them up to the English army. thbNbgo- The correspondence was followed by several personal ahd see- conferences between Menou and Colonel (afterwards Gene- ral) Turner, in order to a compromise. Turner, who was himself a man of distinguished knowledge and accomplish- ments, advised Lord Hutchinson to insist on the transfer of the Marbles and Manuscripts, and to yield the natural history specimens, with some minor objects, to the pos- sessors. The astute Capitan Pasha had contrived to place himself in ' possession' of one of the most precious of the marbles— -the famous sarcophagus which Dr. Clarke so strenuously contended to be nothing less than ■ the tomb of Alexander — by seizing the ship on board of which the French had placed it, and he gave Colonel Turner almost as much trouble as Menou himself had given. The French soldiers were, as was natural, deeply mortified when they heard that the captors of Alexandria were to have the antiquities. Every man of them who had had to do with their excavation or transport had vindicated VICES OF Colonel Turheb. CLASSICAL AKCH.EOLOGISTS AND EXPLOEEES. 365 Denon's eulogy by his pains to protect the sculptures from bookii, harm. Now, their excessive zeal and their national pride classical led to an unworthy result. The Rosetta stone was stripped & * cBM0L °- ^ A i GISTS AND of the soft cotton cloth and the thick matting in which it exploits. had been sedulously wrapped, and was thrown upon its face. Other choice antiquities were deprived of their wooden cases. When Turner, with a detachment of artillerymen capture op J tueIIosetta and a strong tumbril, went to the French head-quarters to stone ; receive the Rosetta stone, he had to pass through a lane of angry Frenchmen who crowded the narrow streets of Alexandria, and were not sparing in their epithets and sar- casms. Those artillerymen, too, were the first English soldiers who entered the city. When Colonel Turner had gotten safely into his hands the stone destined to mark an era in philology, he returned good for evil. He permitted some members of the Institute of Egypt to take a cast of it, which they sent to Paris in lieu of the original. The Rosetta inscription had been found, by the French explorers, among the ruins of a fortification near the mouth of the Rosetta branch of the Nile. When they discovered it the stone was already broken, both at the top and at the right side. Of its triple inscription, commemorative of the beginning of the actual and personal reign of Ptolemy Epiphanes — and therefore cut nearly two hundred years before the Christian era — that in the hieroglyphic or sacred character had suffered most. The second or enchorial in- scription was also mutilated in its upper portion. The Greek version was almost entire. The scarcely less famous Alexandrian sarcophagus was found by the French in the court-yard of a mosque called f D OT THE J J A Sarcopha- the ' Mosque of St. Athanasius.' Of its discovery and state avs soME - ... TIMES when found, the following account is given in the Descrip- called tion de VEgypte: — A small octagonal building, covered a lk ™n°dir.' 366 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. book ii, with a cupola, had been constructed by the Moslems for classical their ablutions, and in this they had placed the sarcophagus tfs™ a°d°" *° ^ e used as a bath ; piercing it for that purpose with large explobers. holes, but not otherwise injuring it. The sarcophagus is a monolith of dark-coloured breccia — such as the Italians call breccia verde d'Egitto — and is completely covered with hieroglyphics. Their number, according to the French fTwiP/' °* artist by whom impressions in sulphur were taken of the voi.T, P p.s7s, whole, exceeds 21,700. Dr. Clarke's identification of this seqq. ; Plates ana Append, monument as the tomb of Alexander has not been supported ism. 6 ' °' by later Egyptologists. This sarcophagus, with most of the other antiquities, was list op the sent on board the flagship Madras. The Rosetta inscription, Egyptian Colonel Turner embarked, with himself, in the frigate Antiquities ' ' D embakked Egyptienne . His own list of the antiquities thus brought, dma. in safety, to England runs thus : — (1) An Egyptian sarco- phagus, of green breccia ; (2) another, of black granite, from Cairo; (3) another, of basalt, from Menouf ; (4) the hand of a colossal statue — supposed to be Vulcan — found in the ruins of Memphis ; (5) five fragments of lion-headed statues, of black granite, from Thebes; (6) a mutilated kneeling statue, of black granite ; (7) two statues, of white marble, from Alex- andria — Septimus Sever us and Marcus Aurelius ; (8) the Rosetta stone ; (9) a lion-headed statue, from Upper Egypt ; (10) two fragments of lions' heads, of black granite ; (11) a small kneeling figure, of black granite ; (1 2) five fragments of lion-headed statues, of black granite ; (13) a fragment of a sar- cophagus, of black granite, from Upper Egypt; (14) two small obelisks, of basalt, with hieroglyphics; (15) a colossal ram's head. Nos. 10 to 15 inclusive were all brought from Upper Egypt. (16) A statue of a woman, sitting, with a model of the capital of a column of the Temple of Isis at Dendera, between her feet ; (17) a fragment of a lion-headed statue, of black CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 367 granite, from Upper Egypt; (18) a chest of Oriental Marm- bookii, scripts — sixty -two in number — in Coptic, Arabic, andTurkish. classical Akch^olo- gists and I have given the more careful detail to this notice of the ExpL0HEES - archaeological results of the capitulation of Alexandria, inas- much as a very inaccurate statement of the matter has found its way into an able and deservedly accredited book. Sir Archibald Alison, in his History of Europe (probably from seethe some misconception of the compromise effected between 2^°{i.v General Turner, and the French Commander-in-Chief), ^ n ( , Ia8t writes thus : — ' General Hutchinson, with a generous regard for the interests of science and the feelings of these distin- guished persons [the Members of the Institute of Egypt], agreed to depart from the stipulation and allow these treasures of art to be forwarded to France. The sarcophagus of Alexander, now in the British Museum, was, however, retained by the British, and formed the glorious trophy of their memorable triumph.' General Turner's conspicuous service on this occasion did not end with the transport into England of the Alexan- drian Collections. Before the Rosetta inscription was, by the King's command, placed, together with its companions, in the British Museum, as their permanent abode, General Turner obtained Lord Buckinghamshire's assent to the temporary deposit of the stone from Rosetta in the custody of the Society of Antiquaries, by whose care copies of the inscrip- tions were sent to the chief scholars and academies of the Con- tinent,^ order that combined study might be brought to bear, immediately, upon the contents. This circumstance makes it all the more honourable to our countryman, Dr. Thomas Young, that by his labours upon the stone a strong impulse was first given to the progress of hieroglyphical discovery. The accessions from Alexandria served, also, to initiate 368 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. book ii, another improvement. When, in 1802, they reached the classical Museum, its contents had so increased that the old house oiots and°' afforded no adequate space for their reception. They had, exploeebs. 2ik e some f amoug sculptures of much later acquisition, to be placed in sheds which scarcely preserved them from bad weather, and were even less adapted to facilitate their 1804, study. The Trustees made their first application to Par- liament for the enlargement of the Museum Building, 'in order to provide suitable room for the preservation of Pariiamm- invaluable monuments of antiquity which had been acquired tonf col"' ^ the valour, intrepidity, and skill of our troops in an 9oi,seqq. expedition seldom equalled in the annals of the country.' And before presenting their petition they determined that increased facilities should be given for the admission of the Public, as soon as they should be enabled to make an ade- quate increase in the staff of the establishment. When the extension of the British Museum came first to be discussed in the House of Commons (somewhat grudg- ingly and captiously it must, in truth, be acknowledged), upon the application of the Trustees, some of their number were already aware that an accession was likely soon to accrue through the munificence of a fellow- trustee, which would make a new and extensive building indispensable. Charles Towneley had already made a Will in virtue of which — as it stood in 1804 — the Towneley Marbles were devised in trust for the British Museum, on condition that the Trustees thereof should, ' within two years from the time of the testator's decease, set apart a room or rooms sufficiently spacious and elegant to exhibit these antiquities most advantageously to the Public, — such rooms to be exclusively set apart for the reception and future exhibition of the antiquities aforesaid/ Circumstances not foreseen in 1802, when Colonel Towneley's Will had been first CLASSICAL AECH^OLOGISTS AND EXPLOEERS. 369 made, led afterwards to a change in the mode in which his bookii, noble Collection was to be received by the Public. But its cJIssical preservation and public accessibility, in one way or other, ^|™' had long been resolved upon. ejplomes, The Towneleys, of Towneley, rank among the most ancient and distinguished commoners of Lancashire. They can trace an honourable descent to a period antecedent to the Conquest. They have been seated at Towneley from the twelfth century. Several of them have given good service to England, in various ways, in spite of the obstacles and discouragements which, for many generations, clave to almost every man whose convictions obliged him to adhere to the Roman Catholic Church, and so to incur the pains and disabilities of recusancy. Of these they had their full share. One Towneley had been mulcted in fines amount- ing to more than five thousand pounds, simply for remain- ing true to his belief, and had been, for that cause, sent (with an ingenuity of torment one is almost tempted to call diabolic) from prison to prison across the breadth of Eng- land, and back again.* Another Towneley was driven into an exile which lasted so long that when he returned into Lancashire everybody had forgotten his features and his voice, except his dog. But neither fine, imprisonment, nor banishment, had converted them to Protestantism. Hence it was that Charles Towneley, the Collector of the Marbles, received his education at Douay, and contracted * This John Towneley was sent first to Chester Castle, then to the Marshalsea in Southwark, then to York Castle, and to a block-house in Hull. From Yorkshire he was sent to the Gatehouse at Westminster, and thence to a jail in Manchester. From his Lancashire prison he was presently hustled into Oxfordshire, and sent thence to another prison at Ely. The gallant old recusant survived it all, to die at Towneley at last. 24 370 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. II. Classical ARCH-ffiOLO- gists and explorers. Life of Charles Towneley. all the strong formative impressions of early life and habit on the Continent. He was born, in the old seat of the family at Towneley Hall, on the 1st of October, 1737. His father, William Towneley, had married Cecilia, sole daughter and heir of Richard Standish, by his wife Lady Philippa Howard, daughter of Henry, Duke of Norfolk. The hall — which has not yet lost all its venerable aspect — was built in part by a Sir John Towneley in the reign of Henry VIII, and its older portions (turrets, gateway, chapel, and library) suit well the fine position of the building, and the noble woods which back it. Of the founder two things still remain in local tradition and memory. He took the changes made under the rule of Henry — or rather of Thomas Cromwell — so much in dudgeon, that when Lancaster Herald came to Towneley, upon his Visitation, he refused to admit him, saying, 'Do not trouble thyself. There are no more gentlemen left in Lancashire now than my Lord of Derby, and my Lord Monteagle.' The other tradition of this same Sir John is, that he enclosed a common pasture called Horelaw, and so made the peasantry as angry with his innovations as he was with Cromwell's. Some of their descendants may yet chance to assure the inquisitive stranger, that his ghost still haunts the park, crying aloud in the dead of night — ' Lay out ! lay out !* Horelaw and Hollingley Clough ! ' At Douay Charles Towneley received a careful edu- cation, moulded, of course, under the conditions and the memories of that celebrated College. When he left its good priests he was already the owner of the family estates — his * Lancastrian for ' throw open.' GISTS AND EXPLORERS. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 371 father having died prematurely in 1742 — and he was bookii, plunged, at once, into the gaieties and temptations of Paris, classical All the Mentorship he had was that of a great uncle who had A become sufficiently naturalised to win the friendship of Voltaire, and to be able to turn Hudibras into excellent French. The dissipations of the Capital overpowered, for a time, the real love of classical studies which had been ex- cited in the provincial college. But the seed had been sown in a good soil. The study of art and of classical archaeology, in particular, presently reasserted its claims and renewed its attractions. It was a fortunate circumstance, too, that family affairs required the presence of Mr. Townelet in England on the attainment of his majority. He had left Towneley very young. He came back to it with more of the foreigner than of the Englishman in his ways of life and manners. But he was able to win the genuine regard of his neighbours, and to take his fair share in their pursuits and sports, although he could never — at least in his own estimation — succeed in expressing his thoughts with as much ease and readiness in English as in French. Late in life, he would speak of this conscious inability with regret. Whether needfully or not, the feeling, no doubt, prevented Mr. Towneley from turning to literary account his large acquirements. What he had seen of the Continent had given him a desire to see more of it, and the bias of his youthful studies pointed in the same direction. In 1765, after a short stay in France, he went into Italy, and there he passed almost eight years. They were passed in a very different way from that in which he had passed the interval between Douay and Towneley. That long residence abroad enabled him to become a very conspicuous benefactor to his country. He visited Naples, Florence, and Rome, and from time 372 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AITGMENTORS. Book ir, Chap. II. Classical Archjeolo- gtsts and explorers. Towneley's Artistic Researches IN iTALi. 1765-1778. 1'okmation ov THE towneley Gallery. to time made many excursions into various parts of Magna Grsecia and of Sicily. At Naples he formed the acquaint- ance of Sir William Hamilton and of D'Hancarvclle. At Rome he became acquainted with three Englishmen, James Byres, Gavin Hamilton, and Thomas Jenkins, all of whom had first gone thither as artists, and step by step had come to be almost exclusively engrossed in the search after works of ancient art. The success and fame of Sir William Hamilton's researches in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and of those, still earlier, of Thomas Coke of Holkham (afterwards Earl of Leicester), had given a strong impulse to like researches in other parts of Italy. Towneley caught the contagion, and was backed by large resources to aid him in the pursuit. His first important purchase was made in 1768. It was that of a work already famous, and which for more than a century had been one of the ornaments of the Barberini Palace at Rome. This statue of a boy playing at the game of tali, or ' osselets' (figured in Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, part ii, plate 31), was found among the ruins of the Baths of Titus, during the Pontificate of Urban the Eighth. During the same year, 1768, Mr, Towneley acquired, from the Collection of Victor Amadei, at Rome, the circular urn with figures in high relief — which is figured in the first volume of Piranesi's Raccolta di Vasi Antichi — and also the statue of a Nymph of Diana, seated on the ground. This statue was found in 1766 at the Villa Verospi in Rome. Two years afterwards, several important acquisitions were made of marbles which were discovered in the course of the excavations undertaken by Byres, Gavin Hamilton, and Jenkins, amidst the ruins of Hadrian's Villa near Tivoli. The joint-stock system, by means of which the CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 373 diggings were effected, no less than the conditions which bookii, accompanied the papal concessions that authorised them, classical necessitated a wide diffusion of the spoil. But whenever B ^ M ° S '^ the making of a desirable acquisition rested merely upon ExpLora;iiS - liberality of purse or a just discrimination of merit, Mr. Towneley was not easily outstripped in the quest. Amongst these additions of 1769-71 were the noble Head of Hercules, the Head said, conjecturally, to be that of Menelaus, and the ' Castor' in low relief (all of which are figured in the second part of Ancient Marbles). Two terminal heads of the bearded Bacchus — both of them of remarkable beauty — were obtained in 1771 from the site of Baise. These were found by labourers who were digging a deep trench for the renewal of a vineyard, and were seen by Mr. Adair, who was then making an excursion from Naples. In the same year the statue of Ceres and that of a Faun {A. M., ii, 24) were purchased from the Collection in the Macarani Palace at Rome. In 1772 the Diana Venatrix and the Bacchus and Ampelus were found near La Storta. It was by no fault of Towne- let's that the Diana was in part 'restored,' and that blunderingly. He thought restoration to be, in some cases, permissible ; but never deceptively ; never when doubt existed about the missing part. In art, as in life, he clave to his heraldic motto ' Tenez le vrai.' In 1771, also, the famous ' Clytie' — doubtfully so called — was purchased from the Laurenzano Collection at Naples, The curious scenic figure on a plinth {A.M., part x), together with many minor pieces of sculpture, were found in the Fonseca Villa on the Caelian Hill in 1773. In the same year many purchases were made from the Mattei Collection at Rome. Amongst these are the heads of 374 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, Marcus Aurelius and of Lucius Verus. And it was at this ciIssioIl period that Gavin Hamilton began his productive re- ™^n " searches amidst the ruins of the villa of Antoninus Pius (jrlol±j Arils exploeeks. a t Monte Cagnolo, near the ancient Lanuvium. This is a spot both memorable and beautiful. The hill lies on the road between Genzano and Civita Lavinia. It com- mands a wide view over Velletri and the sea. To Hamilton and his associates it proved one of the richest mines of ancient art which they had the good fortune to light upon. Mr. Towneley's share in the spoil of Monte Cagnolo com- prised the group of Victory sacrificing a Bull ; the Acteeon ; a Faun ; a Bacchanalian vase illustrative of the Dionysia ; and several other works of great beauty. The undraped Venus was found — also by Gavin Hamilton — at Ostia, in 1775. theacijtji- In the next year, 1776, Mr. Towneley acquired one of mT'Towne- the chiefest glories of his gallery, the Venus with drapery. m!iVehu8.' rpj^g a ] so was f 01in ,i a t Ostia, in the ruins of the Baths of Claudius. But that superb statue would not have left Rome had not its happy purchaser made, for once, a venial deflection from the honourable motto just adverted to. The figure was found in two severed portions, and care was taken to show them, quite separately, to the authorities concerned in granting facilities for their removal. The same excavation yielded to the Towneley Collection the statue of Thalia. From the Villa Casali on the Esqui- line were obtained the terminal head of Epicurus, and the bust thought to be that of Domitia. The bust of Sopho- cles was found near Genzano ; that of Trajan, in the Cam- pagna ; that of Septimius Severus, on the Palatine, and that of Caracalla on the Esquiline. A curious cylindrical fountain (figured in A. M., \, § 10) was found between Tivoli and Prseneste, and the fine representation in low CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 375 relief of a Bacchanalian procession {lb., part ii) at Civita bookii, Vecchia. All these accessions to the Towneley Gallery classical accrued in 1775 or 1776. oktsa™' Of the date of the Collector's first return to England *»»»"*■■ with his treasures I have found no record. But it would t™ nkl „ seem that nearly all the marbles hitherto enumerated were Galleey in J England. brought to England in or before the year 1777. The house, in London, in which they were first placed was found to be inadequate to their proper arrangement. Mr. Towneley either built or adapted another house, in Park street, West- minster, expressly for their reception. Here they were seen under favourable circumstances as to light and due order- ing. They were made accessible to students with genuine liberality. And few things gave their owner more pleasure than to put his store of knowledge, as well as his store of antiquities, at the service of those who wished to profit by them. He did so genially, unostentatiously, and with the discriminating tact which marked the high-bred gentle- man, as well as the enthusiastic Collector. A contemporary critic, very competent to give an opinion on such a matter, said, of Mr. Towneley : ' His learning and sagacity in explaining works of ancient art was equal to his taste and judgment in selecting them.'* If, in any point, that eulogy is now open to some modification, the exception arises from the circumstance that early in life, or, at least, early in his collectorship, he had imbibed from his intercourse with D'Hancarville somewhat of that writer's love for mystical and supersubtle expositions of the symbo- lism of the Grecian and Egyptian artists. To D'Hancab,- ville, the least obvious of any two possible expositions of a subject was always the preferable one. Now and then * Specimens of Ancient Sculptwe. Published by the Society of Dilet- tanti, Preface, § 61. 376 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. book ii, Towneley would fall into the same vein of recondite elabora- classical tion ; as, for example, when he described his figure of an ti K s™ and°' Egyptian ' tumbler ' raising himself, upon his arms, from the Explores, baclc of a tame crocodile, as the ' Genius of Production.' During the riots of 1780, the Towneley Gallery (like the National Museum of which it was afterwards to become a part) was, for some time, in imminent peril. The Collector himself could have no enemies but those who were infuriated against his religious faith. Fanaticism and ignorance are meet allies, little likely to discriminate between a Towneley Venus and the tawdriest of Madonnas. Threats to destroy the house in Park Street were heard and reported. Mr. Towneley put his gems and medals in a place of safety, together with a few other portable works of art. Then, taking ' Clytie ' in his arms — with the words ' I must take care of my wife ' — he left his house, casting one last, long- ing, look at the marbles which, as he feared, would never charm his eyes again. But, happily, both the Towneley house and the British Museum escaped injury, amid the destruction of buildings, and of works of art and literature, in the close neighbourhood of both of them. The Sculptubes montalto at Home Liberal commissions and constant correspondence with acquieed Italy continued to enrich the Towneley Gallery, from time villa™ 1 to time, after the Collector had made England his own usual place of abode. In 1786, Mr. Jenkins — who had long established himself as the banker of the English in Rome, and who continued to make considerable invest- ments in works of ancient art, with no small amount of mercantile profit — purchased all the marbles of the Villa Montalto. From this source Mr. Towneley obtained his Bacchus visiting Icarus (engraved by Bartoli almost a century before) ; his Bacchus and Silenus ; the bust of Chap. II. lassical Archaeolo- gists and CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLOEBRS. 377 Hadrian ; the sarcophagus decorated with a Bacchanalian book h, procession {A. M., part x), and also that with a representa- c tion of the Nine Muses. By means of the same keen agent and explorer he heard, in or about the year 1790, that leave emloems had been given to make a new excavation under circum- ASD rii0M D NEW EXCA- stances of peculiar promise. ™io»s. Our Collector was at Towneley when the letter of Mr. Jenkins came to hand. He knew his correspondent, and the tenour of the letter induced him to resolve upon an immediate journey to Rome. The grass did not grow under his feet. He travelled as rapidly as though he had been still a youngster, escaping from Douay, with all the allurements of Paris in his view. When he reached Rome, he learnt that the promising ^ HE excavation was but just begun upon. Without any preli- to some minary visits, or announcement, he quietly presented him- self beside the diggers, and ere long had the satisfaction of seeing a fine statue of Hercules displayed. Other fine works afterwards came to light. But on visiting Mr. Jenkins, in order to enjoy a more deliberate examination of ' the find/ and to settle the preliminaries of purchase, his enjoyment was much diminished by the absence of Hercules. Jenkins did not know that his friend had seen it exhumed, and he carefully concealed it from his view. Eager remonstrance, however, compelled him to produce the hidden treasure. Towneley, at length, left the banker's house with the con- viction that the statue was his own, but it never charmed his sight again until he saw it in the Collection of Lord Lansdowne. He had, however, really secured the Disco- bolus or Quoit-thrower, — perhaps, notwithstanding its restored head, the finest of the known repetitions of Myro's famous statue, — as well as some minor pieces of sculpture. akc biolo- gists and exploeehs. Acquisi- tions madk in England AND IN 378 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. book ii, Other and very valuable acquisitions were made, occa- classical sionally, at the dispersion of the Collections of several lovers of ancient art, some of these Collections having been formed before his time, and others contemporaneously with his own. In this way he acquired whilst in England (1) the bronze statue of Hercules found, early in the feakce. eighteenth century, at Jebel or Gebail (the ancient Byblos), carried by an Armenian merchant to Constantinople, there sold to Dr. Swinney, a chaplain to the English factory ; by him brought into England, and purchased by Mr. James Matthews ; (2) the Head of Arminius, also from the Matthews Collection ; (3) the Libera found by Gavin Hamilton, on the road to Frascati, in 1776, and then purchased by Mr. Greville ; (4) Heads of a Muse, an Amazon, and some other works, from the Collection of Mr. Lyde Browne, of Wimbledon ; (5) the Monument of Xanthvpjpus, from the Askew Collection ; (6) the bust of a female unknown (called by Towneley 'Atbys') found near Genzano, in the grounds of the family of Cesarini, and obtained from the Collection of the Duke of St. Albans ; (7) many urns, vases, and other antiquities, partly from the Collection of that Duke and partly from Sir Charles Frederick's Collection at Esher. The bronze Apollo was bought in Paris, at the sale, in 1774, of the Museum formed by M. LAllemand de Choiseul. Some other accessions came to Mr. Towneley by gift. The Tumbler and Crocodile, and the small statue of Pan (A. M., pt. x, § 24), were the gift of Lord Cawdor. The Oracle of Apollo was a present from the Duke of Bedfobd. This accession — in 1804 — was the last work which Mr. Towneley had the pleasure of seeing placed in his gallery. He died in London, on the 3rd of January, 1805. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 379 He had been made, in 1791, a Trustee of the British bookii, Museum, in the progress of which he took a great interest, classical Family circumstances, as it seems, occurred which at last 6*™*°™" dictated a change in the original disposition which he had explomsm. made of his Collection. By a Codicil, executed only twelve mb.towke- • , " J lei's Will. days before his death, he bequeathed the Collection to his only brother Edward Towneley-Standish, on condition that a sum of at least four thousand five hundred pounds should be expended for the erection of a suitable repository ?"|i cilo f in which the Collection should be arranged and exhibited. Failing such expenditure by the brother, the Collection was to go to John Towneley, uncle of the Testator. Should he decline to fulfil the conditions, then the Collection should go, according to the Testator's first intent, to the British Museum. Eventually, it appeared, on an application from the Museum Trustees, that the heirs were willing to transfer the Collection to the Public, but that Mr. Towneley had left his estate subject to a mortgage debt of £36,500. The Trustees, therefore, resolved to apply to Parliament for a grant, and this noble Collection was acquired for the Nation on the payment of the sum of £20,000, very inadequate, Act °f it need scarcely be added, to its intrinsic worth. Charles Towneley possessed considerable skill, both as a draughtsman and as an engraver. In authorship, his only public appearance was as the writer of a dissertation on a relic of antiquity (the ' Ribchester Helmet '), printed in the Vetusta Monumenta. He was a learned, genial, and benevolent man. His in- tense love of ancient art did not blind his eyes to things beyond art, and above it. The impulses of the collector did not obstruct the duties of the citizen. He was a good landlord ; a generous friend. It may be said of him, with Book II, Chap. II. Classical ABCH.fflOLO- GISTS AND EXPLOEESS. 380 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. literal truth, that he restricted his personal indulgences in order that he might the more abundantly minister to the wants of others. Charles Towneley was buried at Burnley. The fol- lowing inscription was placed upon his monument : M. S. Caeoli Towneleii, viri ornati, modesti, nobilitate stirpis, amssnitate ingenii, suavitate morum, insignis ; qui omnium bonarum artium, prBBsertim Grsecarum, spectator elegantissimus, sestimator acerrimus, judex peritissimus, earum reliquias, ex urbium veterum ruderibus effossas, summo studio conquisivit, sua pecunia redemit, in usum patriae reposuit, ea liberalitate animi, qua, juvenis adhuc, hsereditatem alteram, vix patrimonio minorem, fratri sponte cesserat, dono dederat. Vixit annos Ixvii. menses iii. dies iii. Mortem obiit Jan. iii. A.S. 1805. Whilst the Trustees of the British Museum were pre- paring — in a way that will be hereafter noticed — for the reception of this noble addition to the public wealth of the Nation, another liberal-minded scholar and patriot was considering in what way his collections in the wide field of classical archaeology might be made most contributive to the progress of learning, of art, and of public education. Lobd Elgin AND HIS Pursuits in Gbkeck. Thomas Bruce, eleventh Earl of Kincardine, and seventh Earl of Elgin, was born on the 20th of July, 1766. He was a younger sou, but succeeded to his earldoms on the death, without issue, in 1771, of his elder brother, William Robert, sixth Earl of Elgin, and tenth of Kincardine. He was educated at Harrow, at St. Andrew's, and at Paris; entered the army in 1785 ; and in 1790 began his diplo- matic career by a mission to the Emperor Leopold. In CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 381 subsequent years he was sent as Commissioner to the bookti, • » t, . . ., Chap. II. armies 01 Prussia and Austria, successively, and was present classical during active military operations, both in Germany and in GI K S ™ ahu° Flanders. In 1795 he went as envoy to Berlin. n™.™ Lord Elgtn was appointed to the, embassy to the Ottoman Porte, with which his name is now inseparably connected, in July, 1799. One of his earliest reflections after receiving his appointment was that the mission to Constantinople might possibly afford opportunities of pro- moting the study and thorough examination of the remains of Grecian art in the Turkish dominions. He consulted an early friend, Mr. Harrison — distinguished as an archi- tect, who had spent many years of study on the Continent with much profit — as to the methods by which any such opportunities might be turned to fullest account. Harri- son's advice to his lordship was that he should seek per- mission to employ artists to make casts, as well as drawings and careful admeasurements, of the best remain- ing examples of Greek achitecture and sculpture, and more especially of those at Athens. Before leaving England, Lord Elgin brought this subject before the Government. He suggested the public value of the object sought for, and how worthy of the Nation it would be to give encouragement from public sources for the employment of a staff of skilful and eminent artists. But the suggestion was received with no favour or wel- come. He was still unwilling to relinquish his hopes, and endeavoured to engage, at his own cost, some competent draughtsmen and modellers. But the terms of remunera- tion proposed to him were beyond his available means. He feared that he must give up his plans. On reaching Palermo, however, Lord Elgin opened the 382 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, subject to Sir William Hamilton, who strongly recom- classical mended him to persevere, and told him that if he could gkts and°' n °t afford to meet the terms of English artists, he would ExrLoaEEs. fj n( j i ess difficulty J n coming to an agreement with Italians^ confers whose time commonly bore a smaller commercial value. with Sib ^ whliam With Sir William's assistance he engaged, in Sicily, a dis- HAMII.TON. ...... Ill- T 1 -r. • T tmguished painter and archaeologist, John Baptist Lusieri (better known at Naples as ' Don Tita'), and he obtained several skilful modellers and draughtsmen from Rome. The removal of the marbles themselves formed no part of Lord Elgin's original design. That step was induced by causes which at this time were unforeseen. On his arrival at Constantinople Lord Elgin applied to the Turkish Ministers for leave to establish six artists at Athens to make drawings and casts. He met with many sends difficulties and delays, but at length succeeded. Mr. Artists to ^ ° Athens; Hamilton, his Secretary, accompanied the Italians into Greece, to superintend the commencement of their labours. The difficulties at Constantinople proved to be almost trivial in comparison with those which ensued at Athens. Every step was met, both by the official persons and the people generally, with jealousy and obstruction. If a scaffold was put up, the Turks were sure that it was with a view to look into the harem of some neighbouring house. If a fragment of sculpture was examined with any visible delight or eagerness, they were equally sure that it must contain hidden gold. When the artist left the specimen he had been drawing, or modelling, he would find, not in- frequently, that some Turk or other had laid hands upon it and broken it to pieces. But the artists persevered, and habit in some degree reconciled, at length, the people to their presence. When Lord Elgin went himself to Athens the state in CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 383 which he found some of the temples suggested to him the hook ii, desirableness of excavations in the adjacent mounds. He classics purchased some houses, expressly to pull them down and gi K ™am>° to dig beneath and around them. Sometimes the explora- eyplokebs. tion brought to light valuable sculpture. Sometimes, ^.o^T TIONS BS DIGGING. in situations of greatest promise, nothing was found. On one occasion, when the indication of buried sculpture seemed conclusive, and yet the search for it fruitless, Lord Elgin was induced to ask the former owner of the ground if he remembered to have seen any figures there. ' If you had asked me that before, 5 replied the man, 'I could have saved you all your trouble. I found the figures, and pounded them to make mortar with, because they were of excellent marble. A great part of the Citadel has been built with mortar made in the same way. That marble makes capital lime/ The conversation was not lost upon Lord Elgin. And the assertion made in it was amply corroborated by facts which presently came under his own eyes. He became convinced that when fine sculpture was found it would be a duty to remove it, if possible, rather than expose it to certain destruction — a little sooner or a little later — from Turkish barbarity. At intervals the artists, whose head-quarters were at the ex. Athens, made exploring trips to other parts of Greece. They visited Delphi, Corinth, Epidaurus, Argos, Mycene, Cape Sigaeum, Olympia, iEginse, Salamis, and Ma- gbhsce. rathon. But it was only by means of renewed efforts at Constan- tinople, and after a long delay, that the artists and their assistant labourers were enabled to act with freedom and to make thorough explorations. So long as the Erench remained masters of Egypt Lord Elgin had to win every FLOE. ATI ON S EXTENDED TO OTHEB. PATLTS OE 384 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. II. Classical ARCH-ffiOLO- gists and Explorers. Influence or THE British Victories in Egypt. Instances op Turkish Devasta- tion. 1674. little concession piecemeal, and obtained it grudgingly. As soon as it became apparent that the British Expedition would be finally successful, the tone of the Turkish govern- ment was entirely altered. They were now eager to satisfy the Ambassador, and to lay him under obligation. Firmauns were given, which empowered him, not only to make models, but ' to take away any pieces of stone from the temples of the idols with old inscriptions or figures thereon/ at his pleasure. Instructions were sent to Athens which had the effect of making the Acropolis itself a scene of busy and well-rewarded labour. Theretofore a heavy admission fee had been exacted at each visit of the draughtsmen or modellers. Before the close of 1802, more than three hundred labourers were at work under the direction of Lusieri — with results which are familiar to the world. It is less widely known that, had Napoleon's plans in Egypt been carried to a prosperous issue, the ' Elgin Mar- bles' would, beyond all doubt, have become French marbles. When Lord Elgin's operations began, French agents were actually resident in Athens, awaiting the turn of events and prepared to profit by it, in the way of resuming the operations which M. de Choiseul Goufhek, had long pre- viously begun* The efforts of the British Ambassador became the more timely and imperative from the fact that no amount of experience or warning was sufficient to deter the Turks from * One of tie metopes from the south side of the Parthenon, removed by the Count de Choiseul, during his embassy at the eve of the Revolution, was captured by an English ship when on its way to Prance, and had been purchased by Lord Elgin at a Custom House sale in London. By him it was returned to Choiseul, with a liberality too rare in such matters. When this metope came, after Choiseul's death, to be sold at Paris, by auction, the Trustees of the British Museum sent a commission for its purchase. The commissioner went so far as to offer a thousand pounds, but was overbidden by the French Government. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 385 their favourite practice of converting the finest of the Greek BooKl1 - m 1 « - i Chap. II. lempies into powder magazines. Twenty of the metopes classical of the northern side of the Parthenon had been, in conse- o^ 1 " quence of this practice, destroyed by an explosion during ExP10EEES - the Venetian siege of Athens in the seventeenth century. The Temple of Neptune was found by Lord Elgin devoted to the same use, at the beginning of the nine- isoo. teenth. No methods of extending his researches, so as to make them as nearly exhaustive as the circumstances would admit, were overlooked by the ambassador. Through the friend- ship of the Capitan Pasha, Lord Elgin had already, whilst yet at the Dardanelles, obtained the famous Boustrophedon inscription from CapeSigseum. Through the friendship of the Archbishop of Athens, he now procured leave to search the churches and convents of Attica, and the search led to his possession of many of the minor but very interesting works of sculpture and architecture which came even- tually to England along with the marbles of the Par- thenon. Of the curious range and variety of the dangers to which the remains of ancient art were exposed under Turkish rule, the Boustrophedon inscription just mentioned affords an uemm-miium instance worth noting. Lord Elgin found it in use as a Z^^ 1 seat, or couch, at the door of a Greek chapel, to which per- Furs " its in sons afflicted with ague or rheumatism were in the habit of p- »s. resorting, in order to recline on this marble, which, in their eyes, possessed a mysterious and curative virtue. The seat was so placed as to. lift the patient into a much purer air than that which he had been wont to breathe below, and it commanded a most cheerful sea-view ; but it was the ill fate of the inscription to have-a magical fame, instead of the atmosphere. Constant rubbing had already half obliterated 25 386 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, it s contents. But for Lord Elgin, the whole would soon Chap, II. ' classical have disappeared. At Athens itself, the loftier of the sculp- qistsand°" tures in the Acropolis enjoyed equal favour in the eyes of jExiLojums. Turkish marksmen, as affording excellent targets. In the course of various excavations made, not only at Athens, but at iEginse, Argos, and Corinth, a large col- lection of vases was also formed. • It was the first collection which sufficed, incontestibly, to vindicate the claim of the Greeks to the invention of that beautiful ware, to which the name of ' Etruscan' was so long and so inaccurately given. One of the most interesting of the many minor disco- veries made in the course of Lord Elgin's researches comprised a large marble vase, five feet in circumference, nid.ii. which enclosed a bronze vase of thirteen inches diameter. In this were found a lachrymatory of alabaster and a deposit of burnt bones, with a myrtle-wreath finely wrought in gold. This discovery was made in a tumulus on the road leading from Port Piraeus to the Salaminian Eerry and Eleusis. Early in 1803, all the sculptured marbles from the Parthenon which it was found practicable to remove were prepared for embarkation. Both of those so prepared and of the few that were left, casts had been made, together with a complete series of drawings to scale. That great monument of art had been exhaustively studied, with the aid of all the information that could be gathered from the drawings made by the Erench artist, Carrey, in 1674, and those of the English architect, Stuart, in 1752. A general monumental survey of Athens and Attica was also compiled and illustrated. The original frieze, in low relief, of the cella of the Par- CLASSICAL ARCHJ30L0GISTS AND EXPLORERS. 387 thenon — representing the chief festive solemnity of Athens, bookii, the Panathenaic procession — had extended, in the whole, to classical about five hundred and twenty feet in length. That por- ^3™!™° tion which eventually reached England amounted to two Exploeeks - hundred and fifty feet. And of this a considerable part was obtained by excavations. Of a small portion of the re- mainder casts were brought. But the bulk of it had been long before destroyed. Of the statues which adorned the pediments a large portion had also perished, yet enough survived to indicate the design and character of the whole. Of statues and fragments of statues, seventeen were brought to England. Of metopes in high relief, from the frieze of the entablature, fourteen were brought. Thus far, an almost incredible amount of effort and toil TBimm - 11 i ion CULTIES 0F had been rewarded by a result large enough to dwarf all teanspokt previous researches of a like kind. But the difficulties and ^™ K dangers of the task were very far from being ended. The atC ™ 00 - ponderous marbles had to be carried from Athens to the Piraeus. There was neither machinery for lifting, nor ap- pliances for haulage. There were no roads. The energy, however, which had wrestled with so many previous ob- stacles triumphed over these. But only to encounter new peril in the shape of a fierce storm at sea. Part of the Elgin Marbles had been at length embarked in the ship, purchased at Lord Elgin's own cost, in which Mr. Hamilton sailed for England, carrying with him also his drawings and journals. The vessel was wrecked near Cerigo. Seven cases of sculpture sunk with the ship. Only four, out of the eleven embarked in the Mentor, were saved, along with the papers and drawings. Meanwhile, Lord Elgin himself, on his homeward journey, was, upon the rupture of the Peace of Amiens, arrested and ' detained' in France. 388 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. II. Classical Archaeolo- gists and explorers. Lord Elgin branded, in England,as a "Robber. If the reader will now recall to mind, for an instant, the mortifications and discouragements, as well as the incessant toils, which had attended this attempt to give to the whole body of English artists, archaeologists, and students, ad- vantages which theretofore only a very small and excep- tionally fortunate knot of them could enjoy, or hope to enjoy, he will, perhaps, incline to think that enough had been clone for honour. The casts and drawings had been saved. The removal of marbles had formed no part of Lord Elgin's first design. It was only when proof had come — plain as the noonday sun — that to remove was to preserve, and to preserve, not for England alone, but for the civilised world, that leave to carry away was sought from the Turkish authorities, and removal resolved upon. Entreaty to the British Government that the thorough exploration of the Peloponnesus, by the draughtsman and the modeller, should be made a national object, had been but so much breath spent in vain. Private resources had then been lavished, beyond the bounds of prudence, to confer a public boon. Personal hardships and popular animosities had been alike met by steady courage and quiet endurance. All kinds of local obstacle had been con- quered. And now some of the most precious results of so much toil and outlay lay at the bottom of the sea. The chief toiler was a prisoner in France. But Lord Elgin was not yet beaten. He came of a tough race. He was — - ' One of the few, the letter'd and the brave, Bound to no clime, and victors o'er the grave.' The buried marbles were raised, at the cost of two more years of labour, and after an expenditure, .in the long effort, of nearly five thousand pounds, in addition to the original loss of the ship. Then a storm of another sort had to be AECUiEOLO- GISTS AND EXPLOEERS. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 389 faced in its turn. A burst of anger, classical and poetical, bookii, declared the ambassador to be, not a benefactor, but a thief, classical The gale blew upon him from many points. The author of the Classical Tour through Italy declared that Lord Elgin's • rapacity is a crime against all ages and all gene- rations ; depriving the Past of the trophies of their genius and the title-deeds of their fame, the Present of the strongest Eusta <»=, ^ Classical inducements to exertion.' The author of Childe Harold's jw, p . sea. Pilgrimage declared that, for all time, the spoiler's name (the glorious name of Bruce) — ' Link'd with the fool's who fired th' Ephesian dome — Vengeance shall follow far beyond the tomb. Eeosteatus and Elgin e'er shall shine In many a branding page and burning lino ! Alike condemn'd for aye to stand accurs'd — ■ Perchance the second viler than the first. So let him stand, through ages yet unborn, Curse ^ Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn ! ' linei-va, That the abuse might have variety, as well as vigour, a very learned Theban broke in with the remark that there was no need, after all, to make such a stir about the matter. The much- bruited marbles were of little value, whether in England or in Greece. If Lord Elgin was, indeed, a spoiler, he was also an ignoramus. His bepraised sculp- tures, instead of belonging to the age of Pericles, be- longed, at earliest, to that of Hadrian ; far from bearing traces of the hand of Phidias, they were, at best, mere 'architectonic sculptures, the work of many different persons, some of whom would not have been entitled to the rank of artists, even in a much less cultivated and fastidious age. .... Phidias did not work in marble at all.' These oracular sentences, and many more of a like cast, were given to the world under the sanction of the ' Society of Dilettanti.' 390 THE OEGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUG-MENTORS. Book II Chap. II. Aech^eolo gists and ExPlOEEES Lord Elgin 1 The equanimity which had stood so many severer tests classical did not desert its possessor under a tempest of angry words. When set at liberty, after a long detention in France, he resumed his journey. On his eventual arrival in England, in 1806, he brought with him a valuable collection of gems and medals, gathered at Constantinople. He also brought some valuable counsels as to the mode in which he might best make the Athenian Marbles useful to the progress of art, obtained in Rome. For, at Rome, he had been enabled to show a sample of conkmnce his acquisitions to a man who was something more than a canova. dilettante. ' These,' said Canova, ' are the works of the ablest artists the world has seen.' When consulted on the point whether restoration should, in any instance, be attempted, the reply of the great Italian sculptor was in these words : ' The Parthenon Marbles have never been retouched. It would be sacrilege in me — sacri- lege in any man — to put a chisel on them.' Lord Elgin came to England with the intention of offer- ing his whole Collection to the British Government, uncondi- tionally. He was ready to forget the short-sightedness with which his proposal of 1799 had been met. He was pre- pared to trust to the liberality of Parliament, and to the force of public opinion, for the reimbursement of his outlay, and the fair reward of his toil. The ambassador was not in a position to sacrifice the large sums of money he had spent. He could not afford the proud joy of giving to Britain, entirely at his own cost, a boon such as no man, before him, had had the power of giving. There were con- flicting duties lying upon him, such as are not to be put aside. That British artists — in one way or another — should profit by the grand exemplars of art which he had saved from Turkish musquetry and the Turkish CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 391 lime-kilns, was the one thine towards which his face was bookii, ° Chap. II. Set. Classical When first imprisoned in France, Lord Elgin did actu- ^"^0° ally send a direction to England that his Collection should ExPL0KEKS - be made over, unconditionally, to the British Government. This order was sent, to guard against the possible effect of any casualty that might happen during his detention, the duration of which was then very problematical. He reached England, however, before the instruction had been carried into effect. In the mean time, the controversy about the real value of the Marbles, as well as that which impugned the Collector's right to remove them from Athens, had arisen, and had excited public attention. It became im- portant to elicit an enlightened opinion on those points, before raising the question how the sculpture should be finally disposed of. The ignorance of essential facts — which alone made such reproaches* as those I have just quoted possible from a man *c«™ <,/ devoid of malice, and gifted with genius — was a far less pa8Biin . ' stubborn obstacle in Lord Elgin's intended path than was the one-sided learning (one sided as far as true art and its appreciation are concerned) which dictated the sneering utterances of some among the ' Dilettanti.' A Byron, by his nature, is open to conviction, sooner or later, in his own despite. A connoisseur, when narrow and scornful, is above reason. And he is eminently reproductive. But for this stumbling-block in the path, the time the action * OV THE of Lord Elgin's return to England would have been teustebsoe eminently favourable for realising his plans in their museum fulness 0N T,1E The two important accessions of antiquities to the British ^™oc Museum which had just accrued from the success of our EXPLORERS. ORGAHIZA' TTON OF THE 392 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. cha° K ii' arms * n ^gyP*' an< * from tne almost life-long researches of classical Mr. Townelet and his associates in Italy, had led the way gists and° to an important enlargement of the Museum building, and also to a great improvement in its internal organization. The true importance, to the Public, of a series of the best works of ancient art as a national possession was beginning to be felt. In June, 1805, the Trustees obtained from Parliament the purchase of the Towneley Marbles. They had already (in the previous year) obtained power to begin an additional building, the plan and design of which were now enlarged, and made specially appropriate to the reception and display of the Towneley Collection. Hitherto, the Antiquities in the Museum had been re- dotaot- garded as a mere appendix of the Natural History Collec- AMTiqm- tions. They were now made a separate department, in accordance with their intrinsic value. Mr. Taylor Combe, who had entered the service of the Trustees, in 1803, as an assistant librarian, was made first Keeper of the new department. He filled that office, with much efficiency, until his death in 1826. The new building or ' Towneley Gallery ' was opened by a royal visit on the third of June, 1808. The Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge, came to the Museum with a considerable retinue, and were received, with much ceremony, by a Committee of the Trustees. The Queen had not visited the Museum for twenty years past. The Towneley Gallery was erected from the designs of Mr. Saunders, and was admirably adapted to its purpose. Some of the sculptures have not been seen to quite equal advantage since its replacement by the existing building. The addition has now disappeared as entirely as has old TIES CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 393 Montagu House itself, but the reader may see its form and book ii. style by glancing at the small vignette on the title-page of classical il • 1 AnCHiEOLO- this volume. gists and EXPLOEERS. So favourable an opportunity, however, was for the 0pening J. J. «/ * ' OP THE present lost. The self-conceit of the cognoscenti strength- Elgin mae- ened the too obvious parsimony of Parliament. Lord bulling. Elgin made no direct overture to the Government, but appealed to the great body of a»tists, of students, and of art lovers, for their verdict on his labours in Greece and their product. He arranged his marbles first in his own house in Park Lane, and afterwards — for the sake of better exhi- bition — at Burlington House, in Piccadilly, and threw them open to public view. The voice of the artists was as the voice of one man. Some, who were at the top of the tree, acknowledged a wish that it were possible to begin their studies over again. Others, who had but begun to climb, felt their ardour redoubled and their ambition directed to nobler aims in art than had before been thought of. Not a few careers, arduous and honourable, took their life-long colour from what was then seen at Burlington House. Some of the men most strongly influenced were not what the world calls successful, but not one of them ended his career without making England the richer by his work. The eagerness of foreign artists to study the Elgin Marbles was equal to that of Englishmen. Canova, when on his visit to London in 1815, wrote: 'I think that I can never see them often enough. Although my stay must be extremely short, I dedicate every moment I can spare to their contemplation. I admire in them the truth of nature, united to the choice of the finest forms I should feel perfectly satisfied, if I had come to London only to see them/ Book II, Chap. II. Classical AeCH-EOLO- gists and Explorers. 394 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. The most accomplished of foreign archaeologists were not less decisive in their testimony. Visconti, after seeing and studying repeatedly a small portion only of the Parthenon frieze > said of it : ' This has always seemed to me to be the most perfect production of the sculptor's art in its kind.' When he saw the whole, his delight was unbounded. The Collector was not able to carry out his plan of exhi- bition, in any part of it, to the full extent which he had contemplated. He was anxious that casts of the whole of the extant sculptures of the Parthenon should be exhibited, in the same relative situation to the eye of the viewer which they had originally occupied in the Temple at Athens. He was also desirous that a public competition of sculptors should be provided for, in order to a series of comparative restorations of the perfect work, based upon other casts of its surviving portions, and wrought in presence of the remains of the authentic sculpture itself. Continu- ance oe THE LABOTJHS OF LUSIEBt AT Athens, until 1816. Meanwhile, the chief of the artists employed in the work of drawing and modelling continued his labours at Athens, and in its vicinity, for more than twelve years after Lord Elgin's departure from Constantinople. Between the years 1811 and 1816, inclusive, eighty cases containing sculpture, casts, drawings, and other works of art, were added to the Elgin Collection in London. In the year last named, when the question of artistic value had already been very effectively determined by the cumulative force of enlightened opinion, a Select Committee of the House of Commons was at length appointed, to inquire whether it were expedient that Lord Elgin's Collec- tion ' should be purchased on behalf of the Public, and, if so, what price it may be reasonable to allow for the same.' CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 395 By this Committee it was reported to the House that boojcii, ' several of the most eminent artists in this kingdom rate classical these marbles in the very first class of ancient art ; abch;eolo- «/ ? GISTS AND speak of them with admiration and enthusiasm ; and, not- ex^oeeks. withstanding their manifold iniuries, . , . and mutilations, Norton . . J > 'Earl of . . . consider them as among the finest models and most mgmycoi- exquisite monuments of antiquity.' It was also reported ™% m{ that their removal to England had been explicitly authorised by the Turkish Government. The Committee further /4-j p 16 . recommended their purchase for the Public at the sum of thirty-five thousand pounds ; and that the Earl of Elgin and his heirs (being Earls of Elgin) should be perpetual Trustees of the British Museum. And the Committee ex- a., v . 27. pressed, in conclusion, its hope that the Elgin Marbles might long serve as models and examples to those who, by know- ing how to revere and appreciate them, may first learn to imitate, and ultimately to rival them. On the 1st of July, 1816, the Act for effecting the purchase was passed by the Legislature. I do not know that any one member of the Society of Dilettanti really regretted the fact. But it is certain that by a very eminent connoisseur on the Continent it was much regretted. The King of Bavaria had already lodged a sum of thirty thousand pounds in an English banking house, by way of securing a pre-emption, should the controversy amongst the connoisseurs on this side of the Channel, of which so much had been heard, lead the British Parliament eventually to decline the purchase. The nearest estimate that could be formed in 1816 of Lord Elgin's outlay, from first to last, amounted to up- wards of fifty thousand pounds. And the interest on that outlay, at subsisting rates, amounted to about twenty-four thousand pounds. Upon merely commercial principles, therefore, the mark of honour affixed by Parliament to the 396 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. II. Classical Archaeolo- gists and exploeees. Earldom of Elgin was abundantly earned. By every other estimate, Lord Elgin had done more than enough to keep his name, for ever, in the roll of British worthies. And, as all men know, he had a worthy successor in that honoured title. The name of Elgin, instead of ranking, according to Byron's prophecy, with that of Erostratus, has already become a name not less revered in the Indies, and in America, than in Britain itself. For nearly half a century, Lord Elgin was one of the Representative Peers of Scotland. After his great achieve- ment was completed, he took but little part in public life. The most curious incident of his later years was his election as a Member of the Society of Dilettanti, twenty-five years after his return from the Levant. The election was made without his knowledge. When the fact was intimated to him, he wrote to the Secretary to decline the honour. After a brief and dignified allusion to his efforts in Greece, he went on to say : — ' Had it been thought — twenty-five years ago, or at any reasonable time afterwards — that the same energy would be considered useful to the Dilettanti Society, most happy should I have been to contribute every aid in my power ; but such expectation has long since past. I do not apprehend that I shall be thought fastidious, if I decline the honour now proposed to me at this my eleventh hour.' The Collector of the Elgin Marbles died in England on the fourteenth of October, 1841. The Mab- bles or Fhigaleia. During the long period which had thus intervened between the first exhibition to the Public of the sculptures from the Temple of Minerva and their final acquisition for the national Museum, an inferior but valuable series of Greek marbles was obtained from Phigaleia, in Arcadia. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 397 They were the fruit of the joint researches, in 1812, of the bookii, late eminent architect, Mr. Charles Robert Cockerell, classical Mr. John Foster, Mr. Lee, Mr. Charles Haller von Abo ^ 010 - ' ' GISTS AND Hallerstein, and Mr. James Linkh, who, in that year, E * P10I "™ S - had become fellow-travellers in Greece, and partners in the work of exploration for antiquities. The temple to which these marbles had belonged, and beneath the ruins of which they were found, stands on a ridge clothed with oak trees on one of the slopes of Mount Cotylium. The scenery which surrounds it is of great beauty. The temple itself has long been a ruin. It was the work of Ictinus, the builder of the Parthenon. One portion of the frieze of its cella represents the battles of the Centaurs and the Lapithse — the subject of the metopes of the Parthenon entablature. The remaining portion illus- trates another series of mythic contests — that of the Athe- nians and the Amazons. The extent of this frieze, in its integrity, was about a hundred and eight feet in length, by two feet one and a quarter inches in height. About ninety-six lineal feet were found, broken into innumerable fragments, but susceptible, as it proved — by dint of skill and of marvellous patience — of almost entire reunion, so that no restoration was needed to bring the subject of the sculpture into perfect intelligibility. Mr. Cockerell, one of the most active of the explorers theExca- TATIONS ON of 1812, had to proceed to Sicily whilst his fellows in the mount enterprise carried on the toils of digging and removal. But CoTi1,1 ™- it is from his pen that we have a charming little notice of the progress of the work, and of the amusements which enlivened it. ' I regret,' wrote Mr. Cockerell, ' that 1 was not of that delightful party at Phigaleia, which amounted to above fifteen persons. They established themselves, for 398 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. II. Classical Archaeolo- gists and Explorers. Cockerell to printed by Hughes, Travels in Greece, vol. i, p. 194. three months, on the top of Mount Cotylium — where there is a grand prospect over nearly all Arcadia — building, round the Temple, huts covered with boughs of trees, until they had almost formed a village, which they called Prancopolis. They had frequently fifty or eighty men at work in the Temple, and a band of Arcadian music was constantly playing to entertain this numerous assemblage. When evening put an end to work, dances and songs commenced ; lambs were roasted whole on a long wooden spit ; and the whole scene in such a situation, at such an interesting time, when, every day, some new and beautiful sculpture was brought to light, is hardly to be imagined. Apollo must have wondered at the carousals which disturbed his long repose, and have thought that his glorious days of old were returned.' ' The success of our enterprise,' continues Mr. Cocke- rell, ' astonished every one, and in all circumstances con- nected with it good fortune attended us.' One of these circumstances, however — that of the mixed nationality of the discoverers — put, it must be added, some difficulty in the way towards accomplishing an earnest wish, on the part of the English sharers in the adventure, that England should be made the final home of the Phigaleian sculptures. Two Germans, as we have seen, were active partners in the exploration. A third, Mr. Gropius, had likewise some inte- rest in it. And there was also a more formidable sleeping partner in the rich digging. Vely Pasha had stipulated that he was to have one half of the marbles discovered, as the price of his licence to explore. But, very fortunately, one of the ordinary changes in Turkish policy at Constantinople removed Vely from his government, just at the critical moment ; and so made him anxious to sell his share, and to facilitate the removal of the spoil. The new Pasha had Classical Aech-eolo- GIST3 AND AND TO England, CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 399 heard of the discoveries, and was hastening to lay hands bookii upon the whole. But he was too late. classic. The marbles were removed to Zante. The German pro prietors insisted on a public sale by auction. There was Expi -™ EES - not time to bring the matter before Parliament. But the The Teans " ° FEE OF THE Prince Regent took an active interest in it. With his mami-hso* 1 "11 1 • PUT TIT I~» PrtlGAT.EIA sanction, and mainly by the exertions ot Mr. W. K. tozan.k ; Hamilton (afterwards a zealous Trustee of the British Museum), some members of the Government authorised the despatch of Mr. Taylor Combe to Zante. By him the marbles were purchased, at the price of sixty thousand dollars ; but that sum was enhanced by an unfavourable exchange, so that the actual payment amounted to nineteen thousand pounds. It was paid out of the Droits of the Admiralty, — a fund of questionable origin, and one which had been many times grossly abused, but which, on this occasion, subserved a great national advantage. The marbles thus obtained are confessedly inferior to those of the Parthenon ; but they possess great beauty, as well as great archaeological value. Both acquisitions, in their place, have contributed to increase historic knowledge, not less conspicuously than to develop artistic power, or to enlighten critical judgment, both in art and in literature. It would not be an easy task to estimate to what degree a mastery of the learning which is to be acquired only from the marbles of Attica and of Arcadia, and their like, has tended to make the study of Greek books a living and life- giving study: To the sculptures brought from Phagaleia into England in 1815, several missing fragments have been added sub- sequently. A peasant living near Paulizza had carried off a piece of the frieze to decorate, or to hallow, his hut. This frag- ment was procured by Mr. Spencer Stanhope in 1816. 400 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, The Chevalier Brondsted added other fragments in 1824. classical Only one entire slab of the original sculpture is wanting. Ahchjeolo- gists and ExPLOEEES. PUBCHASE OF THE Almost contemporaneously with the accessions which came to the Museum as the result of the explorations in second 1814 of Mr. Cookeiiell and his fellow-travellers in ToWNELKT collection, Arcadia, a considerable addition was made to the Towneley Gallery by the purchase of a large series of bronzes, gems, and drawings, and of a cabinet of coins and medals, both Greek and Roman, all of which had been formed by the Collector of the Marbles. These were purchased from Mr. Towneley's representatives for the sum of eight thousand two hundred pounds. Among other conspicuous additions, made from time to time, a few claim special mention. Among these are the Cupid, acquired from the representatives of Edmund Burke ; the Jupiter and Leda, in low relief, bought of Colonel de Bosset ; and the Apollo, bought in Paris, at the sale of the Choiseul Collection. minok Among the minor Greek antiquities which came to the British Museum in 1816, along with the sculptures of the Parthenon, are the fine Caryatid figure, and the very beau- tiful Ionic capitals, bases, and fragments of shafts, from the double temple of the Erectheium and Pandrosos at Athens, —part of which, like the Temple of Neptune, was used by the Turks, in Lord Elgin's time, as a powder-magazine. Acquisitions still more valuable than these were the grand fragment of the colossal Bacchus in feminine attire, which Lord Elgin brought from the Choragic monument of Thrasyllus ; the statue of Icarus (identified by comparison with a well-known low-relief in rosso antico formerly pre- served in the Albani Collection) ; and the noble series of casts from the frieze of the Theseium and from that of the OF the Elgin Col lection. CLASSICAL AECHjEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 401 Choragic monument of Lysicrates. The Collection also bookh, included many statues' heads and fragments of great classics archaeological interest, but of which the original localities ^™*™ ' are for the most part unknown, and a considerable series of explores., sepulchral urns. After the Elgin Marbles, the next important acquisition in the Department of Antiquities was that made by the pur- chase, in 1819, of the famous 'Apotheosis of Homer.' This marble had been found, almost two centuries before, at Erattocchi (the ancient ' Bovillse'), about ten miles from Rome on the Appian- road; and had long been counted among the choicest ornaments of the Colonna Palace. It cost the Trustees one thousand pounds. Then, in 1825, came the noble bequest of Mr. Richard Payne Knight. When the treasures of Mr. Payne Knight came to be added to the several Collections made, during the preceding fifty years, by Hamilton, Towneley, and Elgin, as well as to those which the British army had won in Egypt, or which were due, in the main, to the research and energy of our travelling fellow-countrymen, the national storehouse may fairly be said to have passed from its nonage into maturity. The Elgin Collection had, of itself, sufficed to lift the British Museum into the first rank among its peers. But the antiquarian treasures of the Museum showed many gaps. Some important additions, indeed, had been made, from time to time, to the class of Egyptian antiquities. And a small foundation had been laid of what is now the superb Assyrian Gallery. Rich in certain classes of archaeology, it remained, nevertheless, poor in certain others. In 1825, it came to the front in all. Richard Payne Knight is one of the many men who, in wTmlfet all probability, would have attained more eminent and *™ I c o N r s " OT enduring distinction had he been less impetuous and more K PA ™ E D L Knight. 26 402 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, concentrated in its pursuit. He went in for all the honours. Chap. II. T , . l . i i ■ ' i classical He aimed to be conspicuous, at once, as archaeologist and GisrslTs' philosopher, critic and poet, politician and dictator-general exploeers. i n matters of art and of taste. He was ready to give judg- ment, at any moment, and without appeal, whether the question at issue concerned the decoration of a landscape, the summing-up of the achievement of a Homer or a Phidias, or the system of the universe. Mr. Knight was born in 1749, and was the son of a landed man, of good property, whose estates were chiefly in Wiltshire, and who possessed a borough ' interest ' in Lud- low. His constitution was so weakly, and his chance of attaining manhood see-med so doubtful, that his father would not allow him to go to any school, or to be put to much study at home. It was 'only after his father's death, and when he had entered his fourteenth year, that his education can be said to have begun. Within three years of his first appearance in any sort of school, he went into Italy ; sub- stituting for the university the grand tour. Only when he was approaching eighteen years of age did he fairly set to work to learn Greek. But he studied it with a will, and to good purpose. After remaining on the Continent about six or seven years, Mr. Payne Knight removed to England, and went to live at Dowqton Castle. He took delight in the manage- ment of his land, proved himself to be a kind landlord as well as a skilful one, and convinced his neighbours that a man might love Greek and yet ride well to hounds. When returned to Parliament for the neighbouring borough, he attached himself to the Whigs, and more particularly to that section of them who supported Burke in his demands for economical reform. When in London, he gave con- stant attention to his parliamentary duty, and when in the CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 403 country, foxhunting, hospitality, and the improvement of bookii, his estate, had their fair share of his time. But, at all classical periods of life, his love of reading was insatiable. When gists and there was no hunting and no urgent business, he could, read for ten hours at a stretch. He had reached his thirty-sixth year before he made the first beginning of his museum of antiquities. The primi- tive acquisition was a head, unknown — probably of Diomede — which was discovered at Rome in 1785. It is in brass, of early Greek work, and was bought of Jenkins. Despite the doubt which exists as to the personage, there are many known copies of this fine head, upon ancient pastes and gems. In the following year, Mr. Knight made his first appearance as an author. The Inquiry into the remains of the Worship of Priapus, EAaiY 2 " ... " Writings or as existing at Isernia, in the Kingdom of Naples, treated of m*. Payne a subject which scarcely any one will now think to have been well chosen, as the firstfruits or earnest of a scholarly career. When a French critic said of it ' a maiden-work, but little virgin-like {peu virginal) ' he expressed, pithily, the usual opinion of the very small circle of readers at home to whom the book became known. The author eventually called in the impression, so far as lay in his power, and the book is now one of the many ' rarities ' which might well be still more rare than they are. In 1791, he gave to the world another work on a classical subject which possessed real value, and, amongst scholars, attracted much attention. The Analytical Essay on the Greek Alphabet is a treatise which, in its day, rendered good service to grammatical learning, and led to more. It- was followed, in 1794, by The Landscape, a Poem. ' The Landscape ' is an elaborate protest against the then fashionable modes of gardening, which sought to ' improve' Archaeolo- gists and Explorers. 404 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. book ii, nature, almost as much by replacement as by selection. On classical many points the poem is marked by good sense and just thought, as well as by vigour of expression, but its reasoning is far superior to its poetry. What is said of the choice and growth of trees shows thorough knowledge of the subject and true taste. But it needs no poet to convict ' Capability Brown ' of ignorance in his own pursuit when he insisted on ' the careful removal of every token of decay ' as a cardinal maxim in landscape-gardening. Such topics may well be left to plain prose. The one notable feature in the poem which has still an interest is its curious indication of that peculiarity in Mr. Knight's creed which asserted — in relation both to the works of nature and to those of art — that beauty is abso- lutely inconsistent with vastness. The excessive love of the minute and delicate led Mr. Knight into the greatest practical error of his public life, as will be seen presently. At this time it merely led him to the bold assertion that no mountain ought to dare to lift its head so high as to — 1 Shame the high-spreading oak, or lofty tower.' The lines which follow are, it will be seen, curiously pro- phetic of that controversy about the Marbles of the Parthenon in which Mr. Payne Knight took so large a share : — ' But as vain painters, destitute of skill, Large sheets of canvas with large figures fill, And think with shapes gigantic to supply Grandeur of form, and grace of symmetry, So the rude gazer ever thinks to find The view sublime, when vast and undefined. 'Tis foi-m, not magnitude, adorns the scene. A hillock may be grand, and the vast Andes mean. Oft have I heard the silly traveller boast The grandeur of Ontario's endless coast ; CLASSICAL AECILEOLOGISTS AND EXPLOEEES. 405 Where, far as tie could dart his wandering eye, Book ii, He nought but boundless water could descry. Chap. II With equal reason, Keswick's favoured pool Is made the theme of every wondering fool.' Classical Arch-tcolo- gists and Explorers. Within a few months, this poem — little as it is now remem- bered — went through two editions. It was soon followed by a more ambitious flight. In 1796, its author published ' The Progress of Civil Society ; a didactic poem.' The impression which had been made, in that day of feeble verse (as far as the southern part of the realm is concerned), by The Landscape, gained for The Progress of Civil Society an amount of attention of which it was in- trinsically unworthy. The work deals with social progress, and it treats the convictions dearest to Christian men as being simply the conjectures of ' presumptuous ignorance.' It is the work of a man who writes after nine generations of his ancestors and countrymen have had a free and open Bible in their hands, and who none the less puts the wor- ship of Nature, and of her copyists, in the place of the worship of Nature's God. This ' didactic poem ' is written in the land of Bacon, Milton, and Shakespeare, and it bases itself on the ' fifth book of Lucretius.' Not the least curious thing about the matter is the effect which was wrought by Mr. Knight's poetic flight upon the mind of a brother antiquarian. The work absolutely inspired Horace Walpole with a serious and deep regret that he was consciously too near the grave to undertake the defence of Christian philosophy against its new assailant. Such a labour, from such a pen, would indeed have been a curiosity of literature. " HORACE Peeling that for a man who was almost an octogenarian walpole ^"^ ^"^ ON THE the tasks of controversy would be too much, Walpole 'progress writes to Mason. He entreats him to expose the daring 5^, 796. 406 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, poetaster. His earnestness in the matter approaches passion. classical ' I could not, without using too many words,' he says, ' ex- GKTstnD " press to you how much I am offended and disgusted by Exploits. M ri Knight's new, insolent, and self-conceited poem. Considering to what height he dares to carry his insolent attack, it might be sufficient to lump [together] all the rest of his impertinent sallies . . as trifling peccadillos. . . . The vanity of supposing that his authority — the authority of a trumpery prosaic poetaster — was sufficient to re-establish the superannuated atheism of Lucretius ! I cannot engage in an open war with him Weak and broken as I am, tottering to the grave at some months past seventy - eight,Ihave not spirits or courage enough to tap a paper war/ Walpoee then adverts to a foregone thought, on Mason's part, to have taken up the foils on the appearance of The Landscape. ' I ardently wish,' he says, ' you had over- turned and expelled out of gardens this new Priapus, who Horace is only fit to be erected in the Palais de l'Egalite.' And wim™ he urges his correspondent not to let the present occasion M^ch'22 slip. Irony and ridicule, he thinks, would be weapons me (iaiers ; quite sufficient to overthrow this 'Knight of the Brazen Coll. Edit., * _, ° T0l.i X ,p.463). Milk-Pot/ The last thrust was unkind indeed. It was hard that our Collector, whatever his other demerits, should be re- proached for his passion to gather small bronzes, by the builder and furnisher of Strawberry-Hill. For, amidst all his devotion to poetry and pantheism, Mr. Knight carried on the pursuits of connoisseurship with insatiable ardour. Among the choicer acquisitions spec, of which speedily followed the Diomede [?] purchased in 1785, ^Tpi. 55 were ^ ne ^caystical Bacchus — a bronze of the Macedonian period — found near Aquila in 1775 ; a colossal head of Minerva, found near Rome by Gavin Hamilton ; and a Ancient Sculp. , and 56. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 407 figure of Mercury of great beauty. The last-named bronze bookii, had been found, in 1732', at Pierre-Luisit, in the Pays de classical Bugey and dioeese of Lyons. A dry rock had sheltered 8 ™™^ the little figure from injury, so that it retained the perfec- ExELOai5SS tion of its form, as if it had but just left the sculptor's n., 33,34. hand. It passed through the hands of three French owners in succession before it was sold to Mr. Knight, by the last of them, at the beginning of the Reign of Terror. The year 1792, in which he acquired this much-prized ' Mercury,' is also the date of a remarkable discovery of no less than nineteen choice bronzes in one hoard, at Paramy- thia, in Epirus. They had, in all probability, been buried during nearly two thousand years. The story of the find is, in itself, curious. It shows too, in relief, the energy and perseverance which Mr. Knight brought to his work of collectorship, and in which he was so much better employed 1™ B ™™° a — both for himself and for his country — than in philo- * 0UKD AT 1 1 n PAaAMY " sophising upon human progress, from the standpoint of thia, ™ T Epieus. Lucretius. Some incident or other of the weather had disclosed appearances which led, fortuitously, to a search of the ground into which these bronzes had been cast — perhaps during the invasion of Epirus, B.C. 167 — and, by the finder, they were looked upon as so much saleable metal. Bought, as old brass, by a coppersmith of Joannina, they presently caught the eye of a Greek merchant, who called to mind that he had seen similar figures shown as treasures in a museum at Moscow. He made the purchase, and sent part of it, on speculation, to St. Petersburg!]. The receiver brought them to the knowledge of the Empress Catherine, who intimated that she would buy, but died before the acquisition was paid for. They were then shared, it seems, between a Polish connoisseur and a Russian dealer. One 408 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II Chap. II EXILOIEES. bronze was brought to London by a Greek dragoman and classical shown to Mr. Knight, who eagerly secured it, heard the Abchjeolo- ej.iv t. gists and story oi the discovery, and sent an agent into Russia, who succeeded in obtaining nine or ten of the -sculptures found at Paramythia. Two others were given to Mr. Knight by Lord Aberdeen, who had met with them in his travels. They were all of early Greek work. Amongst them are figures of Serapis, of Apollo Didymmis, of Jupiter, and of one of the Sons of Leda. All these have been engraved among the Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, published by the Society of Dilettanti. Few sources of acquisition within the limits which he had laid down for himself escaped Mr. Payne Knight's research. He kept up an active correspondence with explorers and dealers. He watched Continental sales, and explored the shops of London brokers, with like assiduity. Coins, medals, and gems, shared with bronzes, and with the original drawings of the great masters of painting, in his affectionate pursuit. In his search for bronzes he welcomed choice and cha- racteristic works from Egypt and from Etruria, as well as the consummate works of Greek genius. His numismatic cabinet was also comprehensive, but its Greek coins were pre-eminent. For works in marble he had so little relish that he actually persuaded himself, by degrees, that the greatest artists of antiquity rarely ' condescended' to touch marble. But he collected a small number of busts in that material. For one volume of drawings by Claude, Mr. Knight gave the sum of sixteen hundred pounds. Among his later acquisitions of sculpture in brass was the very beautiful Mars in Homeric armour. This figure was brought to England by Major Blagrave in 1813. The CLASSICAL AECHiEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 409 Bacchic Mask (No. 35. in the second volume of the Sped- Boom, V ' . . Chap. II. mens) was found, in the year 1674, near Nimeguen, in a classical stone coffin. It was preserved by the Jesuits of Lyons, in gists a»d their Collegiate Museum, until their dissolution. Prom them it passed into the possession of Mr. Roger Wilbraham, from whom Mr. Knight obtained it. On the thorough study of the fine Collection which had lN ™ The NQtJIHY been gathered from so many sources — here indicated by but g"*° ™ E SM a scanty sample — and on that of other choice Collections otGeeek " A Awe and both at home and abroad, Mr. Knight based the most mythology. elaborate — perhaps the most valuable — work of his life, next to his Museum itself. The Inquiry into the Symbolism of Greek Art and Mythology bears, indeed, too many traces of the narrowness of the author's range of thought, whenever he leaves the purely artistic criticism of which he was, despite his limitations, a master, in order to dissertate on the interdependence or on the 'priestcraft' of the religions of the world. But his genuine lore cannot be concealed by his flimsy philosophy. The student will gain from the Inquiry real knowledge about ancient art. He will find, indeed, not a few statements which the author himself would be the first to modify in the light of the new information of the last fifty years. But he will also find much which, in its time, proved to be suggestive and fruitful to other minds, and which prepared the way for wider and deeper studies. It may do so yet. The book is one which the student of archaeology cannot afford to overlook. Whilst he may well afford a passing smile at the philosophic in- sight which prompted our author's eulogies (1) upon the ' liberal and humane spirit which still prevails among those nations whose religion is founded upon the principle of emanations ;' (2) upon the wisdom of the ' Siamese, who SEB.TATION ON Ancien Sculpt u he. 410 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. chT n S ^ un disputes, an ^ believe that almost all religions are good;' classical (3) on the supreme fitness of the idolatries of India 'to call gists and° forth the ideal perfections of art, by expanding and exalting explores. ^e i ma gi na ti on f the artist ;' or (4) upon the exceptional nquiry, . , ... ^^ pre-eminent capacity of the Hindoos to become 'the most virtuous and happy of the human race,' but for that one solitary misfortune which cursed them with a priesthood.* The Inquiry into Symbolism was, at first, printed only for private circulation, in 1818. It was afterwards reprinted in the Classical Journal, with some corrections by the author. It was again reprinted, after his death, as an appendix to the second volume of the Specimens of Ancient Sculpture. the bis- To the first volume of that work Mr. Payne Knight Ihcient had already prefixed his Preliminary Dissertation on the Progress of Ancient Sculpture. After showing that of Phoenician art we have no real knowledge other than that * That my needful abridgment, in the text, of Mr. Payne Knight's words may not misrepresent his meaning, I subjoin the whole of the passage : — ' Had this powerful engine of influence' [namely, loss of caste] ' been employed in favour of pure morality and efficient virtue, the Hindoos might have been the most virtuous and happy of the human race. But the ambition of a hierarchy has, as usual, employed it to serve its own particular interests instead of those of the community in general. .... Should the pious labours of our missionaries succeed in diffusing among them a more pure and more moral, but less uniform and less energetic system of religion, they may improve and exalt the character of individual men, but they will for ever destroy the repose and tran- quillity of the mass The prevalence of European religion will be the fall of European domination The incarnations which form the principal subject of sculpture in all the temples of India, Tibet, Tartary, and China, are, above all others, calculated to call forth the ideal perfections of the art, by expanding and exalting the imagination of the artist, and exciting his ambition to surpass the simple imitation of ordinary forms, in order to produce a model of excellence, worthy to be the corporeal habitation of the Deity. But this no nation of the East nor indeed of the Earth, except the Greeks and those who copied them, ever attempted.'— Analytical Inquiry, &c, p. 80. CLASSICAL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AND EXPLORERS. 411 which is to be derived from the study of coins, and that book ii, thence it may be learnt that the Phoenicians had artisans, classical but not artists, he goes on to survey Greek art in its sue- ^j, 1 "™ " cessive phases. That art, at its best, finds, he thinks, a exm- *bus. typical expression, or summary, in the saying ascribed to Lysippus : ' It is for the sculptor to represent men as they seem to be, not as they really are.' He dates the culmi- nation of Greek sculpture as ranging between the years B.C. 450 and 400, and as due to the national pride and energy which were excited by the defeat of Xerxes and the events which followed. He thinks that what was gained, by the artists of the next half-century, in ideal grace, and in the fluent refinements of workmanship, was obtained only by a loss of energy, of characteristic expression, and of originality — the s0oe of art. In the works of Lysippus and his school {B.C. 350-300), he sees a brief resus- citation of the vigour of the former period, combined with much more than the grace of the latter, to be followed only too swiftly by those desolating wars ' in which the temples were destroyed, their treasures of art pillaged, and artists, for the first time, saw their works perish before themselves.' In the ' Dissertation,' as in the 'Inquiry' there are many statements and many reasonings to which subsequent dis- coveries have brought a tacit correction. The passage in mb.pathk the former about the Elgin Marbles had to be corrected by the elgw the evidence of the author's own eyesight. His examination before the Commons' Committee of 1816 was an amusing scene. The key-note was struck by the witness's first words. To the question 'Have you seen the marbles brought to England by Lord Elgin ?' he replied, ' Yes. I have looked them oyer.' But on this point, enough has been said already in a previous page. Ahch^eolo- gists and ExrLOEEES. 412 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EARLY AUGMENTOES. chaTn Botb to the Edinburgh Review and to the Classical classical Journal Mr. Knight was a frequent and valuable contri- butor. It was in the latter periodical that his Prolegomena to Homer were first given to the world, although he had printed a small edition (limited to fifty copies) for private circulation, as early as in the year 1808* His latest poetical work, the Romance of Alfred, I have never had the oppor- tunity of reading. Richard Payne Knight died on the twenty-fourth of April, 1824, in the 75th year of his age. He bequeathed his whole Collections to the British Museum, of which he had long been a zealous and faithful Trustee. He made no con- ditions, other than that his gift should be commemorated by the addition to the Trust of a perpetual Knight ' Family Trustee.' For this purpose a Bill was introduced into Parliament by Lord Colchester on the eighth of June. It received the royal assent on the seventeenth. The addition of Mr. Knight's Greek Coins made the British Museum superior, in that department, to the Royal Museum of Paris; the addition of his bronzes raised it above the famous Museum of Naples. By the most com- petent judges it has been estimated that, if the Collection had been sold by public auction, Mr. Knight's repre- sentatives would probably have obtained for it the sum of sixty thousand pounds. * Ca/rmma Homerica Ilias et Odyssea a rapsidorum interpolationibus repurgata, et m pristinam formam .... redacta ; cum notis ac prole- gomenis, .... opera et studio Richavdi Payne Knight. 1808, 8vo. CHAPTER III. A GROUP OF BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. ( If we were to take away from the Museum Collection [of Books] the King's Library, and the collection which George the Third gave before that, and then the magnificent collection of Mr. Cracherode, as well as those of Sir William Musgrave, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, and many others, — and also all the books received under the Copyright Act, — if we were to take away all the books so given, I am satisfied^not one half of the books [in 1836], nor one third of the value of the Library, has been procured with money voted by the Nation. The Nation has done almost nothing for the Library ' Considering the British Museum to be a National Library for research, its utility increases in proportion with the very rare and costly books, in preference to modern books I think that scholars have a right to look, for these expensive works, to the Government of the Country e I want a poor student to have the same means of in- dulging his learned curiosity, — of following his rational pursuits, — of consulting the same authorities, — of fathom- ing the most intricate inquiry, — as the richest man in the kingdom, as far as books go. And I contend that Govern- ment is bound to give him the most liberal and unlimited assistance in this respect. I want the Library of the British Museum to have books of both descriptions. . . . ( When you have given, a hundred thousand pounds, — in ten or twelve years,— you will begin to have a library worthy of the British Nation.*— Antonio Pantzzi — Evidence lefore Select Committee on British Museum, 7th June, 1836. (Q. 4785—479,5.) Notices of some early Donors of Books. — The Life and Col- lections of Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode. — William Petty, first Marquess of Lansdowne, and his Library of Manuscripts. — The Literary Life and Collections of Dr. Charles Burney. — Francis Hargrave and his Manuscripts. — The Life and Testarnentary Foundations of Francis Henry Egerton, Ninth Earl of Bridgewater. The Reader has now seen that, within some twelve or bookii, fifteen years, a Collection of Antiquities, comparatively small book- and insignificant, was so enriched as to gain the aspect of a P „™ A National Museum of which all English-speaking men might J!™ FAC " Benefac- tors. 414 THE OEGANIZEKS, AND EARLY ATTGMENTORS. chrlii ^ e P rouc ^ anc * mere fragments of which enlightened Foreign book- Sovereigns were under sore temptation to covet. He has pubhc seen , also, that the praise of so striking a change was due, in the main, to the public spirit and the liberal endeavours of a small group of antiquarians and scholars. They were, most of them, men of high birth, and of generous edu- cation. They were, in fact, precisely such men as, in the jargon of our present day, it is too much the mode to speak of as the antitheses of ' the People,' although in earlier days men of that strain were thought to be part of the very core and kernel of a nation. But if it be undeniably true that the chief and primary merit of so good a piece of public service was due to the Hamiltons, Towneleys, Elgins, and Knights of the last generation, it is also true that the Public, through their representatives, did, at length, join fairly in the work by bearing their part of the cost, though they could share neither the enterprise, the self-denial, nor the wearing toils, which the work had exacted. Now that the story turns to another department of the National Museum, we find that the same primary and salient characteristic — private liberality of individuals, as distin- guished from public support by the Kingdom — still holds good. But we have to wait a very long time indeed, before we perceive public effort at length falling into rank with private, in the shape of parliamentary grants for the purchase of books, calculated even upon a rough approxi- mation towards equality. As Cotton, Sloane, Harley, and Arthur Edwards, were the first founders of the Library, so Birch, Musgrave, Tyrwhitt, Cracherode, Banks, and Hoare, were its chief augmentors, until almost ninety years had elapsed since the Act of Organization. Of the Collections of those BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 415 ten benefactors, eight came by absolute gift v For the other bookii, two, much less than one half of their value was returned to B ook- the representatives of the founders. And that, it has been p°™ AND shown, was provided, not by a parliamentary grant, but out benefac- of the profits of a lottery. The first important addition to the Library, subsequent to those gifts which have been mentioned in a preceding chapter as nearly contemporaneous with the creation of the Museum, was made by the Will of Dr. Thomas Birch, one bluest of of the original Trustees. It comprised a valuable series of jm™' manuscripts, rich in collections on the history, and espe- J 1 ^ y ' cially the biographical history, of the realm, and a con- siderable number of printed books of a like character. Dr. Birch was born in 1705, and died on the ninth of January, 1766. He was one of the many friends of Sir Hans Sloane, in the later years of Sir Hans' life. When the Museum was in course of organization, Birch acted not only as a zealous Trustee, but he occasionally supplied the place of Dr. Morton as Secretary. His literary pro- ductions have real and enduring value, though their value would probably have been greater had their number been less. His activity is sufficiently evidenced by the works which he printed, but can only be measured when the large manuscript collections which he bequeathed are taken into the account. Very few scholars will now be inclined to echo Horace Walpole's inquiry — made when he saw the Catalogue of the Birch MSS. — ' Who cares for the cor- respondence of Dr. Birch ?' Soon after the receipt of the Birch Collection, a choice bluest ot assemblage of English plays was bequeathed to the Museum gabmck, by David Garrick. Its formation had been one of the J™g aiy ' favourite relaxations of the great actor. And the study of 416 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. chilli ^ e P^ s g at ^ered by Gaerick had a large share in raould- book- ing the tastes and the literary career of Charles Lamb. public " Thence he drew the materials of the volume of Specimens to™"" which has made the rich stores of the early drama known to thousands of readers who but for it, and for the Collection which enabled him to compile it, could have formed no fair or adequate idea of an important epoch in our literature. benctac Sir William Musgrave was another early Trustee whose w. mus- gifts to the Public illustrated the wisdom of Sloane's plan geave. f or ^g g 0vernmen t f y s Museum and of its parliamentary adoption. Musgrave shared the predilection of Dr. Birch for the study of British biography and archaeology, and he had larger means for amassing its materials. He was descended from a branch of the Musgraves of Edenhall, and was the second son of Sir Richard Musgrave of Hayton Castle, to whom he eventually succeeded. He made large and very curious manuscript collections for the history of portrait-painting in England (now Additional MS8. 6391- 6393), and also on many points of the administrative and political history of the country. He was a zealous Trustee of the British Museum, and in his lifetime made several additions to its stores. On his death, in 1799, all his manu- scripts were bequeathed to the Museum, together with a Library of printed British Biography — more complete than anything of its kind theretofore collected. This last-named Collection extended (if we include a partial and previous gift made in 1790) to nearly two thousand volumes, and it probably embraced much more than twice that number of separate works. For it was rich in those biographical ephemera which are so precious to the historical inquirer, and often so difficult of obtain- ment, when needed. Nearly at the same period (1786) a BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 417 valuable Collection of classical authors, in about nine hun- bookii. dred volumes, was bequeathed by another worthy Trustee, book- Mr. Thomas Tyrwhitt, distinguished both as a scholar and £°™ c SArrD as the Editor of Chaucer. Benefa °- TOES. But all the early gifts to the Museum, made after its parliamentary organization, were eclipsed, at the close of the century, by the bequest of the Cracherode Collections. That bequest comprised a very choice library of printed l'™^^ books; a cabinet of coins, medals, and gems; and a series or the of original drawings by the great masters, chosen, like the koue col- books and the coins, with exquisite taste, and, as the auctioneers say, quite regardless of expense. It also 1799. included a small but precious cabinet of minerals. The collector of these rarities was wont to speak of them with great modesty. They are, he would say, mere * specimen collections.' But to amass them had been the chief pursuit of a quiet and blameless life. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode was born in London limakd ^ Character about the year 1730. And he was ' a Londoner' in a sense They were willing to make large concessions to regain the loyalty of the Colonists. They were utterly averse to admit of a severance. Under circumstances familiar to all readers, and by the lo M shel personal urgency of the King, Lord Shelburne was dis- missed from his first Secretaryship in October, 1768. His dismissal led to Chatham's resignation. Shelburne became a prominent and powerful leader of the Opposition, an object of special dislike to a large force of political adversa- ries, and of warm attachment to a small number of political friends. His personal friends were, at all times, many. The nickname under which his opponents were wont to satirize him has been kept in memory by one of the many infelicities of speech which did such cruel injustice to the fine parts and the generous heart of Goldsmith. The story has been many times told, but will bear to be told once again. The author of the Vicar of Wakefield was an occasional sup- porter of the Opposition in the newspapers. One day, in the autumn of 1773, he wrote an article in praise of Lord Shelburne's ardent friend in the City, the Lord Mayor Townshend. Sitting, in company with Topham Beau- clerc, at Drury Lane Theatre, just after the appearance of the article, Goldsmith found himself close beside Lord Shelburne. His companion told the statesman that his City friend's eulogy came from Goldsmith's pen. ' I hope,' said his Lordship — addressing the poet — ' you put 1773. nothing in it about Malagrida ?' ' Do you know,' rejoined NoTember - poor Goldsmith, 'I could never conceive the reason why ufeoiuri they call you " Malagrida,"— -for Malagrida was a very good f*u7iw. 426 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. III. Eook- loveils and Public Eeneeac- tors. Geowth or Loed Shel- BUENE'S LlBEAEY. The CaasAE Papees. The Cecil OE EUEGH- LKY PAPEBS. sort of man.' This small misplacement of an emphasis was of course quoted in the clubs against the unlucky speaker. ' Ah !' said Horace Walpole, with his wonted charity, ' that's a picture of the man's whole life.' Lord Shelburne' s library profited by his long release- ment from the cares of office. He bestowed much of his leisure upon its enrichment, and especially upon the acqui- sition of manuscript political literature. In 1770, he was fortunate enough to obtain a considerable portion of the large and curious Collection of State Papers which Sir Julius CLesar had begun to amass almost two centuries before. Two years later, he acquired no inconsiderable portion of that far more important series which had been gathered by Burgh ley. Whilst Lord Shelburne was serving with the army in Germany, the ' Caesar Papers' had been dispersed by auction. There were then — 1757 — a hundred and eighty- seven of them. About sixty volumes were purchased by Philip Cartaret Webb, a lawyer and juridical writer, as well as antiquary, of some distinction. On Mr. Webb's death, in 1770, these were purchased by Shelburne from his executors. On examining his acquisition, the new possessor found that about twenty volumes related to various matters of British history and antiquities ; thirty- one volumes to the business of the British Admiralty and its Courts ; ten volumes to that of the Treasury, Star Chamber, and other public departments ; two volumes con- tained treaties ; and one volume, papers on the affairs of Ireland. The ' Burghley papers,' acquired in 1772, had passed from Sir Michael Hickes, one of that statesman's secre- taries, to a descendant, Sir William Hickes, by whom they were sold to Chiswell, a bookseller, and by him to BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 427 Strype, the historian. These (as has been mentioned booxii, in a former chapter) were looked upon with somewhat book- covetous eyes by Humphrey Wanley. who hoped to have P ^™ AB seen them become part of the treasures of the Harleian ^™ FA0 * Library. On Strype's death they passed inte the hands of James West, and from his executors into the Library at Shelburne House. They comprised a hundred and twenty-one volumes of the collections and correspondence of Lord Burghley, together with his private note-book and journal. Another valuable acquisition, made after Lord Shel- burne's retirement in 1768 from political office, consisted of the vast historical Collections of Bishop White Kennett,' extending to a hundred and seven volumes, of which a large proportion are in the Bishop's own untiring hand. Twenty-two of these volumes contain important materials for English Church History. Eleven volumes contain biographical collections, ranging between the years 1500 and 1717. All that have been enumerated are now national property. Other choice manuscript collections were added from time to time. Among them may be cited the papers of Sir Paul Rycaut — which include information both on Irish and on Continental affairs towards the close of the seventeenth century ; the correspondence of Dr. John Pell, and that of the Jacobite Earl of Meleort. These varied accessions — with many others of minor importance — raised the Shelburne Library into the first rank among private repositories of historical lore. To amass and to study them was to prove to its owner the solace of deep personal affliction, as well as the relief of public toils. At the close of 1770, he lost a beloved wife, 428 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. III. Book- Lovers and Public Benefac- tors. Loud SHEL- burne as a Landscape Gardener. after a union of less than six years. He remained a widower until 1779. Another source of solace was found in labours that have an inexhaustible charm, for those who are so happy as to have means as well as taste for them. Lord Shelburne lived much at Loakes — now called Wycombe Abbey — a delightful seat, just above the little town of High Wycombe. Its striking framework of beech-woods, its fine plane- trees and ash-trees, and its broad piece of water, make up a lovely picture, much of the attraction of which is due to the skill and judgment with which its then owner elicited and heightened the natural beauties of the place.* But those of Bowood exceeded them in Lord Shelburne's eyes. There, too, he did very much to enhance what nature had already done, and he had the able assistance of Mr. Hamilton of Pains-Hill. In consequence of their joint labours, almost every species of oak may be seen at Bowood, with great variety of exotic trees of all sorts. Both wood and water combine to make, from some points of view, a resemblance between Wycombe and Bowood. And both differ from many much bepraised country seats in the wise preference of natural beauty — selected and heightened — to artificial beauty. Lord Shelburne himself was wont to say : ' Mere workmanship should never be introduced where the beauty and variety of the, scenery are, in themselves, sufficient to excite admiration.' But, in their true place, few men better loved the pro- ductions of artistic genius. He collected pictures and sculpture, as well as trees and books. He was the first of * Loakes tad been purchased from the last owner of the Archdall family by Henry, Earl of Shelburne. Earl William (first Marquess of Lansdowne) eventually sold it to the ancestor of the present Lord Oarrington. BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 429 his name who made Lansdowne House in London, as well bookii, as Loakes and Bowood in the country, centres of the best book- society in the intellectual as well as in the fashionable p°™^ AN ° world. benmac- toks. Years passed on. The course of public events — and especially the death of Lord Chatham and the issues of the American war — together with many conspicuous proofs of his powers in debate, tended more and more to bring Lord Shelburne to the front. Between him and Lord Rockingham, as far as regards real personal ability — whether parliamentary or administrative — there could, in truth, be little ground for comparison. But in party con- nection and following, the claims of the inferior man were incontestible. Lord Shelburne, towards the close of 1779, signified his readiness to waive his pretensions to take the lead — in the event of the overthrow of the ex- isting Government — and his willingness to serve under Lord Rockingham ; so little truth was there in the asser- tion, made by Horace Walpole to his correspondent at H ™p° le Florence, that Shelburne ' will stick at nothing to gratify wso. . . March 21. his ambition. But that very charge is, in fact, a tribute. Walpole's indignation had been excited just at that moment by the zealous assistance which Shelburne had given, in the Housje of Lords, to the efforts of Burke in the lower House in favour of economical reforms. He had brought forward a motion on that subject on the same night on which Burke had given notice for the introduction of his famous Bill (December, 1779). He continued his efforts, and presently had to encounter a more active and pertinacious opponent of retrenchment than Horace Wal- pole. In the course of a vigorous speech on reform in the 430 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY ATJGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. III. Book- LoVKBS AND Public Benefac- tors. Lokd Shel- buene's Duel with fullebton. Hrs SECRE- TARYSHIP IN THE BUCKING- HAM Admin- istration. administration of the army, Lord Shelburne had cen- sured a transaction in which Mr. Fullerton, a Member of the House of Commons, was intimately concerned. Fullerton made a violent attack, in his place in the House, upon his censor. But his speech was so disorderly that he was forced to break off. In bis anger he sent Lord Shelbtjrne a minute, not only of what he had actually spoken, but of what be had intended to say, in addition, had the rules of Parliament permitted. And he had the effrontery to wind up his obliging communication with these words : — ' You correspond, as I have heard abroad, with the enemies of your country.' His letter was presented to Lord Shelburne by a messenger. The receiver, when he had read it, said to the bearer : ' The best answer I can give Mr. Fullerton is to desire him to meet me in Hyde Park, at five, to-morrow morning.' They fought, and Shelburne was wounded. On being asked how he felt himself, he looked at the wound, and said : * I do not think that Lady Shelburne will be the worse for this.' But it was severe enough to interrupt, for a while, his political labours. On the formation in March, 1782, of the Rockingham Administration, he accepted the Secretaryship of State, and took with him four of his adherents into the Cabinet. But the most curious feature in the transaction was thatXord Shelburne carried on, personally, all the intercourse in the royal closet that necessarily preceded the formation of the Ministry, although he was not to be its head. George the Third would not admit Lord Rockingham to an audience until his Cabinet was completely formed. The man whose exclusion from the Grafton Ministry the King had so warmly urged a few years before, was now not less warmly urged by him to throw over his party, and to BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 431 head a cabinet of his own. 'He resisted all blandishment, bookii, and virtually told the King that the triumph of the Oppo- book- sition must be its triumph as an unbroken whole ; though p°™c AHD he doubtless felt, within himself, that the cohesion was of B ™ EFAC - ' ' TOES. singularly frail tenacity. On the 24th of March, Shelbtjrne had the satisfaction of conveying to Lord Rockingham the royal concession of his constitutional demands — obtained after a wearisome negotiation, and only by the piling up of argument on argument in successive conversations at the ' Queen's House/ lasting sometimes for three mortal hours. Three Deathot ° # Lord Rock- months afterwards, the new Premier was dead. And with ingham, him departed the cohesion of the Whigs. As Secretary of State, Lord Shelbubne's chief task Fo ™ ATI <"' J ' OF LOKD had been the control of that double and most unwelcome, Shel - negotiation which was carried on at Paris with France and mimstey. with America.* For it had fallen to the lot of the utterer * see,here- after, in life of the ' sunset-speech/t — ' if we let America go, the sun of °{^, Gren " Great Britain is set' — to arrange the terms of American pacification. And the obstructions in that path which were created at home were even more serious stumbling- blocks than were the difficulties abroad. The cardinal points of Lord Shelbuhne's policy, at this time, were to retain, by hook or crook, some amount or other of hold upon America, and at the worst to keep the Court of France from enjoying the prestige, or setting up the pre- tence, of having dictated the terms of peace. That the split in the Whig party was really and alto- f This famous speech was delivered on the 5th of March, 1778. ' Then,'' said Lord Shelburne, after denouncing measures which would sever the Colonies from the Kingdom, ' the sun of Great Britain is set. We shall be no more a powerful or even a respectable people.' — Parliamentary Debates, vol. xix, col. 850. 432 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. 111. Book- Lo"VEES AND Public Bknepac- TOES. Walpole to Mann (from an eye wit- ness), 1782, July 7. Parliamen- tary Debates, vol. xxiii, col. 194. Merits op the Shei.- BTJENE Minister. gether inevitable, now that Rockingham's death had placed Shelburne above reasonable competition for the premier- ship, was made known to him when at Court, in the most abrupt manner. On the 7th of July (six days after the death of the Marquess), Pox took him by the sleeve, with the blunt question : ' Are you to be First Lord of the Treasury?' When Shelburne said 'Yes/ the instant rejoinder was, 'Then, my Lord, I shall resign.' Fox had brought the seals in his pocket, and proceeded immediately to return them to the King. In his first speech as Premier, Lord Shelburne spoke thus : — '-It has been said that I have changed my opinion about the independence of America. . . . My opinion is still the same. When that independence shall have been esta- blished, the sun of England may be said to have set. I have used every effort, public and private — in England, and out of it — to avert so dreadful a disaster. . . . But though this country should have received a fatal blow, there is still a duty incumbent upon its Ministers to use their most vigorous exertions to prevent the Court of France from being in a situation to dictate the terms of Peace. The sun of England may have set. But we will improve the twi- light. We will prepare for the rising of that sun again. And I hope England may yet see many, many happy days.' The best achievements of the brief government of Lord Shelburne were (first) the resolute defence, in its diplomacy at Paris and Versailles, of our territories in Canada, and (secondly) its consistent assertion of the principle that underlay a sentence contained in a former speech of the Premier — a sentence which, at one time, was much upon men's lips : — ' I will never consent,' he had said, ' that the King of England shall be a King of the Mahrattas.' The BOOK-LOVEES AND PUBLIC BENEFACTOES. 433 merits, I venture to think, of that short Ministry, have had bookii, scant acknowledgment in our current histories. And the B ook- reason is, perhaps, not far to seek. . £°™* c 3 and The popular history of George the Third's reign has benotac- been, in a large degree, imbued with Whiggism. The his- torians most in vogue have had a sort of small apostolical succession amongst themselves, which has had the result of giving a strong party tinge to those versions of the course of political events in that reign which have most readily gained the public ear. When the full story shall come to be told, in a later day and from a higher stand -point, Lord Shelburne, not improbably, will be one among several statesmen whose reputation with posterity (in common — in some measure — with that of their royal master himself, it may even be) will be found to have been elevated, rather than lowered, by the process. But, be that as it may, party intrigue, rather than minis- mates, terial incapacity, had to do, confessedly, with the rapid ™L85o! overthrow of the Government of July, 1782. Personally, Lord Shelburne was in a position which, in several points of view, bears a resemblance to that in which another able statesman, who had to fight against a powerful coterie, was to find himself forty years later. But in Shelbtjrne's case, the struggle of the politician did not, as in Canning's, break down the bodily vigour of the man. Lord Shelburne had twenty-two years of retirement yet before him, when he resigned the premiership in 178.3. And they were years of much happiness. Part of that happiness was the result of the. domestic the closing union just adverted to. Another part of it accrued from i^lTns- the rich Library which the research and attention of many £™ NE ' s years had gradually built up, and from the increased leisure that had now been secured, both for study and for the 28 434 THE OKGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTOKS. booh ii, enjoyment of the choice society which gathered habitually Booi- at Lansdowne House and at Bowood. p°Ilio AI " Lord Shelburne's retirement had been followed, in toST ac " 1784, by his creation as Earl Wycombe and Marquess of Lansdowne. In the following year, he sold the Wycombe mansion and its charming park to Lord Carrington. Thenceforward, Bowood had the benefit, exclusively, of his taste and skill in landscape-gardening. Unfortunately, his next successor, far from continuing his father's work, did much to injure and spoil it. But the third Marquess, in whom so many of his father's best qualities were com- bined with some that were especially his own, made ample amends. The exciting debates which grew out of the French Revo- lution and the ensuing events on the Continent, called Lord Lansdowne, now and then, into the old arena. But the domestic employments which have been mentioned, together with that which was entailed by a large and varied correspondence, both at home and abroad, were the things which chiefly filled up his later years. The Marquess died in London on the seventh of May, 1805. He was but sixty-eight years of age, yet he was then the oldest general officer on the army list, having been gazetted as a major- general just forty years before. the pub- j n order to acquire for the nation that precious portion CHASE OP p _- 1T _„ 1-1 • the lans- of Lord Lansdowne's Library which was in manuscript, the mi™. national purse-strings were now, for the first time, opened on behalf of the literary stores of the British Museum. Fifty-three years had passed since its complete foundation as a national institution, and exactly twice that number of years since the first public establishment of the Cottonian Library, yet no grant had been hitherto made by Parr TORS. BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTOES. 435 liament for the improvement of the national collections of book ii, , , Chap. III. DOOKS. Book- Pour thousand nine hundred and twenty- five pounds was p°™ AND the sum given to Lord Lansdowne's executors for his b j™ ac - manuscripts. Besides the successive accumulations of State Papers heretofore mentioned, the Lansdowne Col- lection included other historical documents, extending in date from the reign of Henry the Sixth to that of George the Third ; the varied Collections of William Pettt on parliamentary and juridical lore; those of War- burton on the topography and family history of Yorkshire, and of Holles, containing matter of a like character for the local concerns of the county of Lincoln ; the Heraldic and Genealogical Collections of Segar, Saint George, Dugdale, and Le Neve; and a most curious series of early treatises upon music, which had been collected by John Wylde, who was for many years precentor of Waltham Abbey, in the time of the second of the Tudor monarchs. The Lansdowne Collection did not contain very much th-eacqui- SITION OF of a classical character. Its strength, it has been seen theHab- already, lay in the sections of Modern History and Politics. bub^ey 1 " 15 The next important addition to the Library of the Museum LlEaAMES - — that of the manuscripts and printed books of Prancis Hargrave — was likewise chiefly composed of political and juridical literature. But the third parliamentary acquisition brought to the Museum a store of classical wealth, both in manuscripts and in printed books. Har- grave's Legal Library was bought in 1813. Charles Bur- ney's Classical Library was bought in 1818. In the biogra- phical point of view neither of these men ran a career which offers much of narrative interest. The one career 436 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. book ii, was that of a busy lawyer; the other, that of a laborious, book- scholar. But to Burney's life a few sentences may be £7™ briefly and fitly given. bbhei-ac. The second Charles Bueney was a younger son of the TORS. ^ ° well-known historian of Music, who for more than fifty years was a prominent figure in the literary circles — and especially in the Johnsonian circle — of London ; and in whose well-filled life a very moderate share of literary ability was made to go a long way, and to elicit a very resonant echo. That ' clever dog Burney/ as he was wont to be called by the autocrat of the dinner-table, had the good fortune to be the father of several children even more clever than himself. Their reputation enhanced his own. the lots Charles Burney, junior, was born at Lynn, in Norfolk, AND Li- V " teeam on the 10th of December, 1757. He was educated at the de. chas. Charter House in London, at Caius College, Cambridge, BuENny. an( j a ^ i£j n g' g College, Aberdeen. At Aberdeen, Burney formed a friendship with Dr. Dunbar, a Scottish professor of some distinction, and an incident which grew, in after- years, out of that connection, determined the scene and character of the principal employments of Burney's life. He devoted himself to scholastic labours, in both senses of the term ; their union proved mutually advantageous, and as tuition gave leisure for literary labour, so the suc- cessful issues of that labour spread far and wide his fame as a schoolmaster. He was one of the not very large, group of men who in that employment have won wealth as well as honour. It was finely said, many years ago — . in one of the State Papers written by Guizot, when he was Minister of Public Instruction in France — ' the good schoolmaster must work for man, and be content to await his reward from God.' In Burney's case, the combined toks. BOOK-LOVEES AND PUBLIC BENEFACTOES. 437 assiduity of an energetic man at the author's writing- bookii, table, at the master's desk, and also (it must in truthful Bo ok- candour be added) at his flogging block,* brought him a P °™ AN ' large fortune as well as a wide-spread reputation. This El fortune enabled him to collect what, for a schoolmaster, I imagine to have been a Classical Library hardly ever ri- valled in beauty and value. It was the gathering of a deeply read critic, as well as of an openhanded pur- chaser. The bias of Dr. Burney's learning and tastes in litera- ture led him to a preference of the Greek classics far above the Latin. Naturally, his Library bore this character in counterpart. He aimed at collecting Greek authors — and especially the dramatists — in such a way that the collocation of his copies gave a sort of chronological view of the literary history of the books and of their successive recensions. For the tragedians, more particularly, his researches were brilliantly successful. Of JEschylus he had amassed forty-seven editions ; of Sophocles, one hundred and two ; of Euripides, one hundred and sixty-six. His first publication was a sharp criticism (in the Monthly Review) on Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Huntingford's Collec- tion of Greek poems entitled Monoslrophica. This was followed, in 1789, by the issue of an Appendix to Sca- pula's Lexicon; and in 1807 by a collection of the corre- spondence of Bentlet and other scholars. Two years later, he gave to students of Greek his Tentamen de Metris ab JEschylo in choricis cantibus adhibitis, and to the youthful theologians his meritorious abridgment of Bishop Pearson's * More than one of Burney's scholars was accustomed to speak feel- ingly on the topic of ancient school ' discipline' when any passing inci- dent led the talk in that direction in after life. 438 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EARLY AUGMENTOES. book ii, Exposition of the Creed. In 1 8 1 2, he published the Lexicon Chap. III. n t» Book- 01 rHILEMON. 1°™™ The on]y Cnurch preferments enjoyed by Dr. Burnet benepac- were the rectory of St. Paul, Deptford, near London, and that of Cliffe, also in Kent. His only theological publi- cation — other than the abridgment of Pearson — was a sermon which he had preached in St. Paul's Cathedral in 1812. Late in life he was made a Prebendary of Lincoln. Like his father, and others of his family, Charles Burney was a very sociable man. He lived much with Parr and with Porson, and, like those eminent scholars, he had the good and catholic taste which embraced in its appreciations, and with like geniality, old wine, as well as old books. He was less wise in nourishing a great dislike to cool breezes. ' Shut the door,' was usually his first greeting to any visitant who had to introduce himself to the Doctor's notice ; and it was a joke against him, in his later days, that the same words were his parting salutation to a couple of highwaymen who had taken his purse as he was journeying homewards in his carriage, and who were adding cruelty to robbery by exposing him to the fresh air when they made off. choice Some of Dr. Burnet's choicest books were obtained Books im buhhey's when the Pinelli Library was brought to England from Italy. The prime ornament of his manuscript Collection, a thirteenth century copy of the Iliad, of great beauty and rich in scholia, was bought at the sale of the fine Library of Charles Towneley, Collector of the Marbles. Although classical literature was the strength of the Burney Collection, it was also rich in some other depart- ments. Of English newspapers, for example, he had brought together nearly seven hundred volumes of the LlBKAR^. Benefac- tors. BOOK-LOVEES AND PUBLIC BENEFACTOES. 439 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, reaching from the bookii, reign of James the First to the reign of George the book- Third. No such assemblage had been theretofore formed, P ™c ANI I think, by any Collector. He had also amassed nearly four hundred volumes containing materials for a history of the British Stage, which materials have subsequently been largely used by Mr. Genest, in his work on that subject. For Burney's life-long study of the Greek drama had gra- dually inspired him with a desire to trace what, in a sense, may be termed its modern revival, in the gi*and sequel given to it by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He had also collected about five thousand engraved thea- trical portraits, and two thousand portraits of literary per- sonages. A large number of his printed books contained marginal manuscript notes by Bentley, Casaubon, Burmakn, and other noted scholars. And in a series of one hundred and seventy volumes Burney had himself collected all the extant remains and fragments of Greek dramatic writers — about three hundred in number. These remains he had arranged under the collective title of Fragmenta Scenica Gr<2ca. A splendid vellum manuscript of the Greek orators, in scription of the fourteenth century, had been obtained from Dr. Clarke, by whom it had been acquired during Lord Elgin's Ottoman Embassy, and brought into England. It supplied lacunae which are found wanting in all other known manuscripts. It completed an imperfect oration of Lycurgus, and another of Dinarchus. Another MS. of the Greek orators, of the fifteenth century, is only next in value to that derived from Clarke's researches in the East, of 1800. There is also a very fine manuscript of the Geo- graphy of Ptolemy, with maps compiled in the fifteenth 440 THE ORGANIZEES, AND EARLY AUGMENTOES. book n, century, and two very choice copies of the Greek Gospels, book. one of which is of the tenth, and the other of the twelfth %Zr° centuries. benefac- j n Latin classics, the Burnet Manuscripts include a TOES. x fourteenth century Plautus, containing no fewer than twenty plays — whereas a manuscript containing even twelve plays has long been regarded as a rarity. A fifteenth century copy of the mathematical tracts collected by Pappus Alex- andrinus, a Cattimachus of the same date, and a curious Manuscript of the Asinus Aureus of Apuleius, are also notable. The whole number of Classical Manuscripts which this Collector had brought together was stated, at the time of his death, to be three hundred and eighty-five. Dr. Burney died on the twenty-eighth of December, 1817, having just entered upon his sixty-first year. He was buried at Deptford, amidst the lamentations of his pa- rishioners at his loss. doctor For in Burney, too, the scholar and the Collector had Buhney's cbakacter, not been suffered to dwarf or to engross the whole man. His parishioners assembled, soon after his death, to evince publicly their sense of what Death had robbed them of. The testimony then borne to his character was far better, because more pertinent, laudation, than is usually met with in the literature of tombstones. Those who had known the man intimately then said of him : ' His attainments in learn- ing were united with equal generosity and kindness of heart. His impressive discourses from the pulpit became doubly beneficial from the influence of his own example.' The parishioners agreed to erect a monument to his memory, ' as a record of their affection for their revered pastor, monitor, and friend ; of their gratitude for his services, and of their unspeakable regret for his loss.' BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTOES. 441 Another meeting was called shortly afterwards, with a bookii, .. , „ . j. Chap. III. like object, but ot another sort. Despite his reverence tor book- Eusbeian traditions, Dr. Burney had known how to win p^ic""™ the love of his pupils. A large body of them met, under ^™ AC " the chairmanship of the excellent John Kate, then Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop Annua of Lincoln, and they subscribed for the placing of a monu- andomLry, ruent to their old master in Westminster Abbey. ™i.m, P .235. On the twenty -third of February, 1818, the Trustees of *»="*«- * *> CATIOH OP the British Museum presented to the House of Commons theteus- a petition, praying that Dr. Burney's Library should be bbitkh acquired for the Public. The prayer of the petition was p™, B ™™ T supported by Mr. Bankes and by Mr. Vansittart, and P0E ™ 1 i- 1/ •J PURCHASE a Select Committee was appointed to inquire and report oebubhet's . -, -. . . . LlBEAEY. upon the application. In order to an accurate estimate of the value of the Library, a comparison was instituted, in certain particulars, between its contents and those of the Collection already in the national Museum. In comparing the works of a series of twenty-four Greek authors, it was found that of those authors, taken collectively, the Museum possessed only two hundred and thirty-nine several editions, whereas Dr. Charles Burney had collected no fewer than seven hundred ,°'°™ and twenty-five editions.* His Collection of the Greek ^™ NET •> llBEABY BY dramatists was not only, as I have said, extensive, but it ™e nation. was arrayed after a peculiar and interesting manner. By making a considerable sacrifice of duplicate copies, he had brought his series of editions into an order which exhi- *' This small fact in classical bibliography is remarkable enough to call for some particular exemplifications, beyond those given in the text, on a former page. Of the three greatest Greek dramatists, Burney had 315 editions against 75 in the Library of the British Museum. Of Homer he had 87 against 45 ; of Aristophanes, 74 against 23 ; of Demos- thenes, 50 against 18 ; and of the Anthologia, 30 against 19. 442 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. III. Book- LoVEES AND Public BENEFAC- TORS. Report of Select Com- mittee, 1818 ; passim. bited, at one view, all the diversities of text, recension, and commentary. His Greek grammarians were arrayed in like manner. And his collection of lexicographers gene- rally, and of philologists, was both large and well selected. The total number of printed books was nearly thirteen thousand five hundred volumes, that of manuscripts was five hundred and twenty; and the total sum given for the whole was thirteen thousand five hundred pounds. It was estimated that the Collection had cost Dr. Burney a much larger sum, and that, possibly, if sold by public auction, it might have produced to his representatives more than twenty thousand pounds. Collection op P. L. G-IMGUENi. (DiedllNov., 1816.) In the same year with the acquisition of the Burney Library, the national Collections were augmented by the purchase of the printed books of a distinguished Italian scholar long resident in France, and eminent for his con- tributions to French literature. Pier Luigi Gingtjene' — author of the Histoire Litter aire d'ltalie and a conspicuous contributor to the early volumes of the Biograplde Universelle — had brought together a good Collection of Italian, French, and Classical literature. It comprised, amongst the rest, the materials which had been gathered for the book by which the Collector is now chiefly remembered, and ex- tended, in the whole, to more than four thousand three hundred separate works, of which number nearly one thou- sand seven hundred related to Italian literature, or to its history. This valuable Collection was obtained by the Trustees — owing to the then depressed state of the Continental book-market — for one thousand pounds. And, in point of literary value, it may be described as the first — in point of price, as the cheapest — of a series of purchases which now began to be made on the Continent. BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 443 A more numerous printed Library had been purchased bookii, together with a cabinet of coins and a valuable herbarium, book. at Munich, three years earlier, at the sale of the Collections p^lic" 1 of Baron Von Moll. His Library exceeded fourteen b* 1 ™ - «/ TOES. thousand volumes, nearly eight thousand of which related to the physical sciences and to cognate subjects. The cost ^ 01 ™™ of this purchase, with the attendant expenses, was four vonmoll. thousand seven hundred and seventy pounds. The whole sum was defrayed out of the fund bequeathed by Major Arthur Edwards.* These successive purchases, together with the Hargrave Collection — acquired in 1813 — increased the theretofore much neglected Library by an aggregate addition of nearly thirty-five thousand volumes. And for four successive years (1812-15) Parliament made a special annual grant of one thousand poundsf for the purchase of printed books relating to British History. The peculiar importance of the Hargrave Collection fbancis \ . . -, . i-i Haegeave consisted in its manuscripts and its annotated printed and his books. The former were about five hundred in number, ^aw and were works of great juridical weight and authority, LiwLl ™ Bi - not merely the curiosities of black-letter law. Their Col- lector was the most eminent parliamentary lawyer of his day, but his devotion to the science of law had, to some degree, impeded his enjoyment of its sweets. During some of the best years of his life he had been more intent on increasing his legal lore than on swelling his legal * It was also from the Edwards fund that the whole costs of the Oriental MSS. of Halhed, and of the Minerals of Hatchett, together with those of several other early and important acquisitions, were defrayed. That fund, in truth, was the mainstay of the Museum during the years of parliamentary parsimony. t Of these four thousand pounds, two thousand three hundred and forty-five pounds seem to have been expended in Printed Books ; the remainder, probably, in Manuscripts. TUEE. 444 THE 0RGAN1ZEES, AND EARLY AUGMENTOES. book ii, profits. And thus the same legislative act which enriched book- ' the Museum Library, in both of its departments, helped to public' AHD smooth the declining years of a man who had won an beiotac uncommon distinction in his special pursuit. Francis TORS. 1 A Hargrave died on the sixteenth of August, 1821, at the age of eighty. TORS. The Egehton Leaving now this not very long list of acquisitions made Bequest, by the National Library, in the way of purchase, either at the public cost or from endowments, we have again to turn to a new and conspicuous instance of private liberality. Like Cracherode, and like Burney, Francis Henry Egerton belonged to a profession which at nearly all periods of our history — though in a very different degree in different ages — has done eminent honour and rendered large ser- vices to the nation, and that in an unusual variety of paths. Each of these three clergymen is now chiefly remem- bered as a ' Collector.' Each of them would seem to have been placed quite out of his true element and sphere of labour, when assuming the responsibilities of a priest in the Church of England. Cracherode was scarcely more fitted for the work, at all events, of a preacher — save by the tacit lessons of a most meek and charitable life — than he was fitted to head a cavalry charge on the field of battle. Burney was manifestly cut out by nature for the work of a schoolmaster ; although, as we have seen, he was able — late, comparatively, in life — so to discharge (for a very few years) the duties of a parish priest as to win the love of his flock. Egerton was unsuited to clerical work of almost any and every kind. Yet he, too, with all liis eccen- tricities and his indefensible absenteeism, became a public benefactor. The last act of his life was to make a provision which has been fruitful in good, having a bearing — very BOOK-LOVEKS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTOKS. 445 real though indirect: — upon the special duties of the priestly book ii, function, for which he was himself so little adapted. The book- bequests of Francis Egerton had, among their many P °™ AM useful results, the enabling of Thomas Chalmers to add Bl ™ A0 - ' O TOES. one more to his fruitful labours for the Christian Church and for the world. It may not, I trust, be out of place to notice in this connection, and as one among innumerable debts which our country owes specifically to its Church Establishment, the impressive and varied way in which the English Church has, at every period, inculcated the lesson (by no means, now- adays, a favourite lesson of ' the age') that men owe duties to posterity, as well as duties to their contemporaries. The fact bears directly on the subject of this book. Into every path of life many men must needs enter, from time to time, without possessing any peculiar and real fitness for it. In a path which (in the course of successive ages) has been trodden by some millions of men, there must needs have been a crowd of incomers who had been better on the outside. They were like the square men who get to be thrust violently into round holes. But, even of these misplaced men, not a few have learnt, under the teaching of the Church, that if they could not with efficiency do pulpit work or parish work, there was other work which they could do, and do perpetually. Men, for example, who loved literature could, for all time to come, secure for the poorest student ample access to the best books, and to the inexhaustible treasures they contain. Cracherode did this. Burney helped to do it. Egerton not only did the like, in his degree, in several parts of England, but he en- abled other and abler men to write new books of a sort which are conspicuously adapted to add to the equipment of divines for their special duty and work in the world. 446 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. bo™ ii, Neglecting to learn many lessons which the Church teaches, book. to her clergy as well as to laymen, he had at least learnt IiOVEESAND ■■ p , • 1 1 i 1 public one lesson oi practical and permanent value. benem.0- Hence it is that, in addition to the matchless roll of English worthies which, in her best days, the Church has fur- nished — in that long line of men, from her ranks, who have done honour to her, and to England, under every point of view — she can show a subsidiary list, comprising men whose benefactions are more influential than were, or could have been, the labours of their lives ; men of the sort who, being dead, can yet speak, and to much better purpose than ever they could speak when alive. Among such is the Churchman whose testamentary gifts have now very briefly to be mentioned. life of Francis Henry Egerton was a younger son of John heneT Egerton, Bishop of Durham, by the Lady Anna Sophia eIriot"' Grey, daughter and coheir of Henry Grey, Duke of bbidoe- Kent. He was born on the eleventh of November, 1756. WATEE, AND ' foundee The Bishop of Durham was fifth in descent from the OF THE beidge- famous Chancellor of England, Thomas Egerton, Viscount Brachley, to whom, as he lay upon his death-bed, Bacon came with the news of King James's promise to make him an Earl. Before the patent could be sealed, the ex- chancellor, it will be remembered, was dead, and James, to show his gratitude to the departed statesman, sold for a large sum the Earldom of Bridgewater to the Chancellor's son. Eventually, of that earldom Francis Henry Egerton was, in his old age, the eighth and last inheritor. Mr. Egerton was educated at Eton and at All Souls. He took his M.A. in 1780, and in the following year was presented, by his relative, Francis, Duke of Bridgewater — the father of inland navigation in Britain — to the Rec- waterTeea- TISES Benefac- tors. JBOOK-LOVEES AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 447 tory of Middle, in Shropshire, a living which he held for booxii, eight and forty years. book- He was a toward and good scholar. From his youth p™"™ he was a great reader and a lover of antiquities, as well as a respectable philologist. His foible was an overweening although a pardonable pride in his ancestry. That ancestry embraced what was noblest in the merely antiquarian point of view, along with the grand historical distinctions of state service rendered to Queen Elizabeth, and of a new ele- ment introduced into the mercantile greatness of England under George the Third. A man may be forgiven for being proud of a family which included the servant of Elizabeth and friend of Bacon, as well as the friend of Brindley. But the pride, as years increased, became somewhat wearisome to acquaintances ; though it proved to be a source of no small profit to printers and engravers, both at home and abroad. Mr. Egerton's writings in biography and genealogy are very numerous. They date from 1793 to 1826. Some of them are in French. All of them relate, more or less directly, to the family of Egerton. In the year 1796, he appeared as an author in another department, and with much credit. His edition of the Hippolytus. of Euripides is also noticeable for its modest and candid acknowledgment of the assistance he had derived from other scholars. He afterwards collected and edited some fragments of the odes of Sappho. The later years of his life were chiefly passed in Paris. His mind had been soured by some unhappy family troubles and discords, and as years increased a lamentable spirit of eccentricity increased with them. It had grown with his growth, but did not weaken with his loss of bodily and mental vigour. loveks and Public Behefac- toss. 448 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY ATJGMENTORS. book ii, One of the most noted manifestations of this eccentricity book- was but the distortion of a good quality. He had a fond- ness for dumb animals. He could not bear to see them suffer by any infliction, — other than that necessitated by a love of field sports, which, to an Englishman, is as natural and as necessary as mother's milk. At length, the Parisians were scandalised by the frequent sight of a car- riage, full of dogs, attended with as much state and so- lemnity as if it contained ' milord ' in person. To his servants he was a most liberal master. He provided largely for the parochial service and parochial charities of his two parishes of Middle and Whitchurch (both in Shropshire). He was, occasionally, a liberal benefactor to men of recon- dite learning, such as meet commonly with small reward in this world.* But much of his life was stamped with the ineffaceable discredit of sacred functions voluntarily assumed, yet habitually discharged by proxy. On the death, in 1823, of his elder brother — who had become seventh Earl of Bridgewater, under the creation of 1617, on the decease of Francis third Duke and sixth (Egerton) Earl — Francis Henry Egerton became eighth Earl of Bridgewater. But he continued to live chiefly in Paris, where he died, in April, 1829, at the age of seventy-two years. With the peerage he had inherited a * To give but one example : Samuel Burder — the author of the excel- lent work, so illustrative of Biblical literature, entitled Oriental Customs — states, in his MS. correspondence now before me, that the only effective reward given to him, in the course of his long labours, was given by Lord Bridgewater. The book above mentioned was 'successful;' 'but,' he says, 'the booksellers, as usual, reaped the harvest,' not the author. It is — shall I say ? — an amusing comment on this latter clause, to find that in one of his letters to Lord Bridgewater, Burder states that the person who took the most kindly notice of his literary labours, next after Lord Bridgewater himself, was — the Emperor of Russia (Alexander I). BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 449 very large estate, although the vast ducal property in canals book ii, had passed, as is well known, in 1803, to the Leveson- book- GOWERS. £™ Part of Lord Bridgewater's leisure at Paris was given b ™efac- ° TOES. to the composition of a largely -planned treatise on Natural Theology. But the task was far above the powers of the undertaker. He had made considerable progress, after his fashion, and part of what he had written was put superbly into type, from the press of Didot. Very wisely, he resolved to enable abler men to do the work more effi- ciently. And this was a main object of his remarkable Will. That portion of the document which eventually gave to the world the well-known 'Bridgewater Treatises' of Chal- mers, Buckland, Whewell, Prout, Roget, and their fellows in the task, reads thus : — ' I give and bequeath to the President of the Royal L ° E » Society the sum of eight thousand pounds, to be applied waters according to the order and direction of the said President ^™^ s of the Roval Society, in full and without any diminution PKEPAEA - v J ' J TION OF or abatement whatsoever, in such proportions and at such treatises times, according to his discretion and judgment, and without theology. being subject to any control or responsibility whatsoever, to such person or persons as the said President for the time being of the aforesaid Royal Society shall or may nomi- nate or appoint and employ. And it is my will and parti- cular request that some person or persons be nominated and appointed by him to write, print, publish, and expose to public sale, one thousand copies of a work " On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation," illustrating such work by all reasonable argu- ments ; as, for instance, the variety and formation of God's creatures, in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms ; 29 450 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. III. Book- Lovers and Public Benefac- tors. Bequests of Lord Bridge- water to the British Museum. the effect of digestion, and thereby of conversion ; the con- struction of the hand of man, and an infinite variety of arrangements ; as also by discoveries, ancient and modern, in arts, sciences, and in the whole extent of literature. And I desire that the profits arising from and out of the circula- tion and sale of the aforesaid work shall be paid by the said President of the said Royal Society, as of right, as a farther remuneration .and reward to such persons as the said Pre- sident shall or may so nominate, appoint, and employ as aforesaid. And I hereby fully authorise and empower the said President, in his own discretion, to direct and cause to be paid and advanced to such person or persons during the printing and preparing of the said work the sum of three hundred pounds, and also the sum of five hundred pounds sterling to the same person or persons during the printing and preparing of the said work for the press, out of, and in part of, the same eight thousand pounds sterling. And I will and direct that the remainder of the said sum of eight thousand pounds sterling, or of the stocks or funds wherein the same shall have been invested, together with all interest, dividend, or dividends accrued thereon,, be transferred, assigned, and paid over to such person or per- sons, their or his executors, administrators, or assigns, as shall have been so nominated, appointed, and employed by the said President of the said Royal Society, at the instance and request of the same President, as and when he shall deem the object of this bequest to have been fully com- plied with by such person or persons so nominated, appointed, and employed by him as aforesaid.' What was done by the Trustees under this part of Lord Bridgewates's Will, and with what result, is known to all readers. That other portion of the Will which relates to his bequest to the British Museum reads thus : — ' I give TOES. BOOK-LOVEES AND PUBLIC BENEFACTOES. 451 and bequeath to the Trustees for the time being of the bookii, British Museum at Montagu House, in London, to be there book- deposited . . . for the use of the said Museum, in con- p °b™c akd formity with the rules, orders, and regulations of the said E establishment, absolutely and for ever, all and every my Collection of Manuscripts as hereinafter particularly de- scribed. That is to say, the several volumes of Manu- scripts, and all papers, parchments (written or printed), and all letters, despatches, registers, rolls, documents, evidences, authorities and signatures, and all impressions of seals and marks, of every description and sort, and of what nature or kind, severally and generally belonging to my Collection of Manuscripts, or in my possession, stamped with my arms or otherwise (except such letters, notes, papers, &c, as are hereinafter directed to be burned and destroyed [' two words cancelled, Bridgkwater'], in the discretion of my Trustees and Executors hereinafter appointed; and also save and except all such letters, papers, and writings as are attached to and accompanying the printed books specifically be- queathed by me to the Library at Ashridge, and which said last-mentioned letters, papers, and writings are also, if I mistake not, stamped with my arms. And I also will and require that all and every the aforesaid manuscripts, papers, parchments (written or printed), letters, despatches, regis- ters, rolls, documents, evidences, authorities, signatures, impressions of seals and marks of every description and sort, and every other Manuscript or Manuscripts appertaining to my said Collection whatsoever and wheresoever, or which shall or may hereafter, during my life, be added thereto (but not private letters, notes, or memorandums of any sort or kind, which I direct to be burned or destroyed), shall, within the space of two years from the day of my decease, be col- lected and removed to the British Museum as aforesaid, THUS. 452 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book n, under the particular care, superintendence, and direction book. of Eugene Auguste Barbier, one of my Trustees and p°™o AND Executors hereinafter appointed ; for which particular ser^ benefac. vice I give and bequeath to him, the said Eugene Auguste Barbier, the sum of two thousand pounds sterling. I also give, bequeath, and demise unto the said Trustees of the British Museum all my estate, lands, parcels of land, ground, hereditaments and appurtenances, situate in the parish of Whitchurch- cum- Mar bury, or in any other parish or place in the Counties of Salop or Chester, or in either or both of the said Counties, and also all the trees growing thereon, and all seats, sittings, and pews in the Parish Church of Whitchurch-cum-Marbury aforesaid, all or any of which I shall or may have bought or purchased, and which now belong to me by right of purchase, descent, or otherwise, to have and to hold the same estate, lands, parcels of land, ground, hereditaments and appurtenances, to them the said Trustees of the said British Museum for the time being for ever, upon the trusts nevertheless, and to and for the ends, intents, and purposes hereinafter particularly mentioned, expressed, and declared ; that is to say, that the trees growing on the aforesaid estate, lands, parcels of lands, ground, hereditaments, and appurtenances, shall not be cut or brought down or destroyed, but shall and may be suffered to grow during their natural life, and that the smaller trees only may be thinned here and there, with care and judg- ment, so as to promote the growth of the larger trees ; and that the same estate, lands, parcels of land, ground, heredita- ments and appurtenances, seats, sittings or pews, or any part thereof, shall not be susceptible of being let, underlet or rented, by or to any person or persons who shall hold, have, take, or rent any estate, farm, lands, or property of or from the family of Egerton, or of or from any person or Benefac- tors. BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 453 persons having that name, or of or from the Rector of bookii, Whitchurchcum-Marhury aforesaid for the time being; and book. upon further trust that they the said Trustees of the British V H*™ A ' Museum for the time being do and shall lay out and apply the rents, issues, and profits which shall from time to time arise from and out of the said estate, lands, parcels of land, ground, hereditaments and appurtenances, in the purchase of manuscripts for the continual augmentation of the afore- said Collection of Manuscripts. I further will and direct that my said Trustees hereinafter appointed, within the space of eighteen calendar months after my decease, do lay out and invest in the Three per cent. Consolidated stocks or funds of England, in the names of the Trustees of the British Museum for the time being, or in such names and for such account as the said Trustees shall direct, the sum of seven thousand pounds sterling, the interest and dividends whereof, as the same shall from time to time become due and payable, I desire and direct shall and may be paid over by the said Trustees to such person or persons as shall from time to time be charged with the care and superintendence of the said Collection of Manuscripts. I also give, grant, bequeath, and devise unto my Trustees hereinafter appointed all and singular my house, land, tenements, hereditaments, and appurtenances at or near Little Gaddesden, in the County of Herts, upon trust that they my said Trustees do and shall, during their joint lives and the life of the survivor of them, let and demise the same for such term or time as they shall think fit, for the best rent that can be had and gotten for the same ; but the same premises, under no circumstances, to be let, underlet, or rented by or to any person or persons who shall have, hold, take, or rent any estate, farm, or property of or from the family of Egerton, or any person or persons bearing that name, and do and 454 THE OEGANIZERS, AND EARLY ATJOHENTOES. Book II, Chap. III. Book- loveks and Public Bknet ac- tors. Will of Francis Henry, Earl of Bridge- water. (Official copy.) shall pay over the rents, issues, and profits thereof, as and when received, to the Trustees for the time being of the British Museum aforesaid, to be laid out and applied by such last-mentioned Trustees in the service and for the continued augmentation of the said Collection of Manu- scripts ; and from and after the decease of the survivor of them my said Trustees hereinafter appointed, I give and devise the said house, land, tenements, hereditaments and appurtenances, unto and for the use of the proprietor or proprietors of the Manor and Estate of Ashridge, his heirs and assigns for ever. And as to all the rest, residue and remainder of my real and personal estate and effects, of every nature and kind soever and wheresoever situate, not hereinbefore disposed of, or availably so, for the purposes intended, I give, devise, and bequeath the same to my said Trustees, upon trust that they my said Trustees do pay over and transfer the same to the said Trustees of the British Museum, and do otherwise render the same available for the service of and towards maintaining, preserving, keeping up, improving, augmenting, and extending, as opportunities may offer, my said Collection of Manuscripts so deposited in the British Museum as aforesaid, in the most advantageous manner, according to their judgment and discretion. 5 The eccentricity of which I have spoken showed itself in the successive changes of detail and other modifications which these bequests underwent before the testator's death. What with the Will and its many codicils, the documents, collectively, came to be of a kind which might task the acu- men of a Fearne or a St. Leonards. But the drift of the Will was undisturbed. The restrictions as to the under- letting of the Whitchurch estate, and the like, were now limited by codicils to a prescribed term of years after BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTOBS. 455 the testator's death ; power was given to the Museum book ii, Trustees to sell, also after a certain interval, the landed estate book- 1 "' bequeathed for the purchase of manuscripts, should it be p°™ c SA ™ D deemed conducive to the interest of the Library so to do j ben^ac- and an additional sum of five thousand pounds was given to the Trustees for the further increase of the Collection of Manuscripts, and for the reward of its keeper, in lieu of the residuary interest in the testator's personal estate. On the 10th of March, 1832, the Trustees resolved that »»<«»/ the yearly proceeds of the last-named bequest should be (printea In paid to the Librarians in charge of the MSS., but that their ta" Paper of ordinary salaries, on the establishment, should be diminished 1835 " 6) - by a like amount. The Manuscripts bequeathed by Lord Bridgewatek chakaotub . OF THE comprise a considerable collection of the original letters of egbbton the Kings, Queens, Statesmen, Marshals, and Diplomatists, = ' 5 of France ; another valuable series of original letters and papers of the authors and scientific men of France and of Italy ; many papers of Italian Statesmen ; and a portion of the donor's own private correspondence. The latter series of papers includes, amongst others, letters by Andres, D'Ansse de Villoisin, the Prince of Aremberg, Auger, Barbier, the Duke of Blacas, Bodoni, Boissonade, Bonpland, Canova, Cuvier, Ginguene, Humboldt, Valckenaer, and Visconti. Some of these are merely letters of compliment. Others — and, in an especial degree, those of D'Ansse de Villoisin, of Boissonade, of Ginguene, of Humboldt, and of Visconti — contain much interesting matter on questions of archaeology, art, and history. The earliest additions to the Egerton Collection were and of the made by the Trustees in May, 1832. In the selection of mad™™* MSS. for purchase the Trustees, with great propriety, have ""g^ 833 given a preference — on the whole ; not exclusively — to that 456 THE OKGANIZEKS, AND EAELY AUGMENTOKS. Book II, Chap. III. Book- LoVEES AND Public BeNEFAC- TOES. The Haedi- MAN MSS. ok Irish ABCH-ffiO- LOGY AND English Histoey. ' AUGMENTA- TION OF LOED BBIDGE- watee's GIFT BY THAT OF Loed Faen- BOROUGH, 1838. class of documents of which the donor's own Collection was mainly composed — the materials, namely, of Continental history. Amongst the earliest purchases of 1832 was a curious Venetian Portolano of the fifteenth century. In the same year a large series of Irish Manuscripts, collected by the late John Hardiman, was acquired. This extends from the Egerton number '74' to '214'; and from the same Collector was obtained the valuable Minutes of Debates in the House of Commons, taken by Colonel Cavendish, between the years — so memorable in our history — from 1768 to 1774.* In the year 1835, a large collection of manuscripts illustrative of Spanish history was purchased from Mr. Rich, a literary agent in London, and another large series of miscellaneous manuscripts — historical, political, and literary — from the late bookseller, Thomas Rodd. Prom the same source another like collection was obtained in 1840. An extensive series of French State Papers was acquired (by the agency of Messrs. Barthes and Lowell) in 1843 ; and also, in that year, a collection of Persian MSS. In the following year a curious series of drawings, illustrating the antiquities, manners, and customs of China, was obtained; and, in 1845, another valuable series of Prench historical manuscripts. Meanwhile, the example set by Lord Bridgewater had incited one of those many liberal-minded Trustees of the British Museum who have become its benefactors by aug- mentation, as well as by faithful guardianship, to follow it in exactly the same track. Charles Long, Lord Parn- borough, bequeathed (in 1838) the sum of two thousand eight hundred and seventy-two pounds in Three per cent. Consols, specifically as an augmentation of the Bridgewater * These form the Egerton MSS. 215 to 262 inclusive. BOOK-LOVEKS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTOKS. 457 fund. Lord Earnborough's bequest now produces eighty- bookii, six pounds a year; Lord Bridgewater's, about four book- 111 ' hundred and ninety pounds a year. Together, therefore, £°™* c 3 AND they yield five hundred and seventy pounds, annually, for B <™*™°- the improvement of the National Collection of Manuscripts. In 1850 and 1852, an extensive series of German Albums — many of them belonging to celebrated scholars — was acquired. These are now ' Egerton MSS. 1179 ' to '1499/ inclusive, and ' 1540 ' to '1607.' A curious collection of papers relating to the Spanish Inquisition was also obtained T T , . . . . EgerionMSS. m 1850. In 1857, the important historical collection, 1704-1756. known as 'the Bentinck Papers/ was purchased from Tycho 1772. Mommsen, of Oldenburgh. In the following year, another series of Spanish State Papers, and also the Irish Manu- scripts of Henry Monck Mason ; — -in 1860, a further series of 'Bentinck Papers/ — and in 1861, an extensive collection of the Correspondence of Pope and of Bishop Warburton, were successively acquired. To these large accumulations of the materials of history were added, in the succeeding years, other important col- lections of English correspondence, and of autograph MSS. of famous authors ; and also a choice collection of Spanish and Portuguese Manuscripts brought together by Count da Ponte, and abounding with historical information. To this an addition was made last year (1869) of other like EgcrtonMss. papers, amongst which are notable some Venetian Relazioni; ~ ji7 ' m ' i - papers of Cardinals Carlo Carafea and Flavio Orsini ; and n some letters of Antonio Perez. In 1869, there was also 308i - obtained, by means of the conjoined Egerton and Farn- borough funds, a curious parcel of papers relating to the /&.2087- early affairs of the Corporation and trade of Dover, from the year 1387 to 1678; together with some other papers n.m6-, illustrative of the cradle-years of our Indian empire. ! 458 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, Amongst the latest accessions obtained from the Bridge- book- water fund are some MSS. from the hand of a famous ta AND English poet of the last generation. These have now an toiT IAC additional, and special, interest in English eyes, from a the -bybon recen t lamentable occurrence. The pen of a slanderer has mss.' ih the aimed at gaining a sort of celebrity, more enduring than Egkrton ? • • i collection anything oi its own proper production could hope to secure, by attempting to affix on Byron and on Augusta Leigh — after both the great poet and the affectionate sister have lain many years in their several graves, and can no longer rebut the slander — the stain of an enormous guilt. Some, however, are yet alive, by whom the calumny can, and will, be conclusively exposed. Meanwhile, the slanderer's poor aim will, probably, have been reached — but in an unex- pected and unenviable way. 'The link Thou formest in Ms fortunes, bids us think Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn.' Very happily, the calumniating pen was not held in any English hand. Much more might, and not unfitly, be said in illustration of the historical and literary value of those manuscript accessions to the National Library which, in these later years, have accrued out of the proceeds of Lord Bridgewater's gift. Enough, however, has been stated, to serve by way of sample. othebeene- ]\j or were these the only literary bequests and foundations TACTIONS Or * tt 1 il 1 1 • loed f the last Earlof Bridgewater. He bequeathed, as heir- looms, two considerable Libraries, rich both in theology and in history — to the respective rectors, for ever, of the parishes of Middle and of Whitchurch. These, I learn— from MS. correspondence now before me — are of great BttlDGE- WATJ5B. BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 459 value, and are gladly made available, by their owners for bookii, the time being, to the use of persons able and willing to book- profit by them. He also founded a Library, likewise by p°™ 3A ™ way of heirloom, at Ashridge. be»e*ac- ^ ° TOES. Whilst the National Library was thus being gradually im- proved, both by increased liberality on the part of Parlia- ment and, far more largely, by the munificent gifts of individuals, other departments of the Museum had not been neglected. Charles Greville, the nephew of Sir William Hamilton, the acqui- had collected, in his residence at Paddington Green, a the noble cabinet of minerals. It was the finest assemblage of m ™bam ; its kind which had yet been seen in England. For the purchase of this Collection Parliament made a grant, in the year 1810, of thirteen thousand seven hundred and twenty- seven pounds. In 1816, a valuable accession came to the zoological o »™ eMo »- TAGTJ Mu- department, by the purchase, for the sum of eleven hundred se™ ; pounds, of a Collection of British Zoology, which had been ^ B ^ formed at Knowle, in Devonshire, by Colonel George 1II ' C - I J Montagu. The Montagu Collection was especially rich in birds. Nine years later, the Library was further benefited, in the £"™* THE way of gift, by a choice Italian Collection, gathered and nM5 °' SB given by Sir Richard Colt Hoare, of Stourhead ; and, in the way of Parliamentary grant, by the acquisition of the collection of manuscripts, coins, and other antiquities, which had been made in the East, during his years of Consulship at Baghdad, by Claudius James Rich. Sir Richard Hoare was not less distinguished for the taste and judgment with which he had collected the his- torical literature of Italy, than for the zeal and ability with 460 THE OEGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. Book II, Chap. III. Book- Lovers and Public Beneeac- toks. Collec- tions oe Claudius Bich. [See, hereafter, Book III, c. 3.] Hull's Om- ental 51 SS. which he cultivated, both as author and as patron, the — in Britain — too much neglected department of provincial to- pography. He had spent nearly five years in Italy — partly during the reign of Napoleon — and amassed a very fine collection of books illustrative of all departments of Italian history. In 1825, Sir Richard presented this Collection to the Trustees of the British Museum in these words : — 'Anxious to follow the liberal example of our gracious monarch George the Fourth, of Sir George Beaumont, and of Richard Payne Knight (though in a very humble degree), I do give unto the British Museum my Collection of Topography, made during a residence of five years abroad ; and hoping that the more modern publications may be added to it hereafter.' The Library so given included about seventeen hundred and thirty separate works. Sir Richard did something, himself, to secure the fulfilment of the annexed wish, by adding to his first gift, made in 1825, in subsequent years. The researches of Claudius Rich merit some special notice. He may be regarded as the first explorer of Assyria. Had it not been for his early death, it is very probable that he might have anticipated some of the brilliant discoveries of Mr. Layard. But his quickly intercepted researches will be best described, in connection with the later ex- plorations in the same field. Here it may suffice to say that from Mr. Rich's representatives a Collection of Manu- scripts, extending to eight hundred and two volumes — • Syriac, Arabic, Persian, and Turkish — was obtained, by purchase, in 1825, together with a small Collection of Coins and miscellaneous antiquities. To the Oriental Manuscripts of Rich, an important addition was made in the course of the same year by the bequest of Mr. John Fowler Hull — another distinguished Vase.' BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 461 Orientalist who passed from amongst us at an early age — booxii, who also bequeathed a Collection of Oriental and Chinese book- printed books. Mr. Hull's legacy was the small be- P °™c AN ginning of that Chinese Library which has now become so B ™ ErAO " large. It was also in the year 1825 that Sir Gore Ouseley thrPkssk- d t POLITAN presented a Collection of Marbles obtained from Persepolis. mabblbs. These will be mentioned hereafter in connection with the antiquarian explorations of Claudius Rich and his suc- cessors. The donor of the Persepolitan Marbles died on the eighteenth of November, 1 844. In addition to these many liberal benefactions made hmtom during the earlier years of the present century, a smaller poJund gift (virtually a gift, though in name a ' deposit') of the same period claims brief notice, on account both of its artistic value and of its curious history. I refer to that exquisite monument of ancient art known, for many years, as the ' Barberini Vase,' but now more commonly as the ' Portland Vase,' from the name of its last individual possessor. This vase is one of the innumerable acquisitions which the country owes to the intelligent research and cultivated taste of Sir William Hamilton. It had been found more than a century before his time (probably in the year 1640), beneath the Monte del Grano, about three miles from Rome, on the road to Tusculum. The place of the dis- covery was a sepulchral chamber, within which was found a sarcophagus containing the vase, and bearing an inscription to the memory of the Emperor Alexander Severtjs (J.D. 222-235) and to his mother. About this sarcophagus and its inscription there have been dissertations and rejoinders, essays and commentaries, illustrative and obscurative, in 462 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. III. Book- Lovers and Public Benefac- tors. Correspond- ence of Mrs. Delany, vol. ii (in many places). H. Walpole to Lady Upper- Ossory, 10 August, 1785. (Cunn. Edit., vol. ix, p. 3.) sufficient number to immortalise half a dozen Jonathan Oldbucks and 'Antigonus' Mac-Cribbs. And the contro- versy is still undetermined. After having been long a conspicuous ornament of the Barberini Palace, the 'Barberini Vase' was bought by Hamilton. When, in December, 1784, he paid one of his visits to England, the vase came with him. Its fame had previously excited the desires of many virtuosi. By the Duchess of Portland it was so strongly coveted, that she employed a niece of Sir William to conduct a negotiation with much more solemnity and mystery than the ambassador would have thought needful in conducting a critical Treaty of Peace. The Duchess's precautions foiled the curiosity of not a few of her fellow-collectors in virtu. ' I have heard,' wrote Horace Walpole, ' that Sir W. Hamilton's re- nowned vase, which had disappeared with so much mystery, is again recovered ; not in the tomb, but the treasury, of the Duchess of Portland, in which, I fancy, it had made ample room for itself. Sir William told me it would never go out of England. I do not see how he could warrant that. The Duchess and Lord Edward have both shown how little stability there is in the riches of that family.' As yet, the reader will remember, that ' Portland Estate,' which was so profitably to turn farms into streets, was but in expectancy. And then Walpole adds : ' My family has felt how insecure is the permanency of heir-looms/ — the thought of that grand ' Houghton Gallery,' and its transportation to Russia, coming across his memory, whilst telling Lady Upper-Ossory the story of the coveted vase, just imported from the Barberini Palace at Rome. The Duchess of Portland enjoyed the sight of her beautiful purchase only during a few weeks. It was bought Public Benefac- tors. BOOK-LOVERS AND PUBLIC BENEFACTORS. 463 in by the family (at the nominal price of £1029*) at the bookti, sale of her famous museum of curiosities — a sale extending book- to more than four thousand lots — and twenty-four years L afterwards, it was lent, for exhibition (1810), by the third Duke of Portland, to the Trustees of the British Museum, where it has since remained. When Wedgwood set about imitating the Portland Vase in his manufactory at Etruria — for which purpose the then Duke liberally lent it to him — he discovered that the vase had been broken and skilfully put together again. After it had been publicly exhibited during almost thirty- five years in London, the frenzy of a maniac led — as it seemed at the moment — to its utter destruction. But, mainly by the singular skill and patience of the late John Dotjbleday (a craftsman attached to the Department of Antiquities for many years), it was soon restored to its pris- tine beauty. That one act of violence in 1845 is the only instance of very serious injury arising from open exhibition to all comers which the annals of the Museum record. * Horace Walpole, at this sale, purchased the fine MS., with drawings by Julio Clovio, which was long an ornament of the villa at Strawberry Hill, and also a choice cameo of Jupiter Serapis, for which he gave a hundred and seventy-three pounds. He preferred, he said, either of them to the vase. So, at least, he fancied when he found it unattainable. ' I am glad,' he wrote to Conway (18 June, 1786), ' that Sir Joshua saw no more excellence in the Jwpiter than in the Clovio, or the Duke, I suppose, would have purchased it as he did the Vase — for £1000. I told Sir William and the late Duchess — when I never thought that it would be mine — that I would rather have the head than the vase.' CHAPTER IV. THE KING'S OR 'GEORGIAN' LIBRARY ;- ITS COLLECTOR, AND ITS DONOR. 'A crown, Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns ; Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights, To him who wears the regal diadem. 5 '0 polish'd perturbation! golden care ! That lieep'st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night ! ' — Henry IT, Part 3, iv, 4. Notices of the Literary Tastes and Acquirements of King George the Third. — His Conversations with Men of Letters. — History of his Library and of its Transfer to the British Nation by George the Fourth. Book II, Chap. IV. The King's oe ' Georgian* . Library. The Con- trasts be- tween George III and George IV. The strong antagonisms in mind ; in disposition, and in tastes, which existed between George the Third and George the "Fourth, may be seen in the small and inci- dental acts of their respective lives, almost as distinctly, and as sharply denned, as they are seen in their private lives, or in their characteristic modes of transacting the public business. George the Third regretted the giving away of the old ' Royal Library' of the Kings his ancestors, not because he grudged a liberal use of royal books by private scholars, but because he thought a fine Library was the necessary appendage of a palace. He occasionally stinted himself of some of his personal enjoyments in life, in order THE KING'S OR ' GEORGIAN ' LIBRARY. 465 to have the more means to amass books. He formed, boo*u, during his own lifetime, a Library which is probably both the larger and finer than any like Collection ever made by any .^okgian' one man, even under the advantageous conditions of LlBKAKr ' royalty. When he had collected his books, he made them liberally accessible. To himself, as we all know, Nature had not given any very conspicuous faculty for turning either books or men to good account ; nor had education done much to improve the parts he possessed. George the Fourth, as it seems, regretted the forma- tion of the new Royal Library by the King his father, because, when he inherited it, he found that its decent maintenance and upkeeping would demand every year a sum of money which he could, spend in ways far more to his taste. He had been far better educated than his father had been. And to him Nature had given good abilities ; but study was about the last and least likely use to which, at any time, he was inclined to apply them. If he saw any good at all in having, on his accession, the ownership of a large Library, it lay, not in the power it afforded him of benefiting literature, and the labourers in literature, but in the possibility he saw that so fine a collection of books might be made to produce a round sum of money. One of his first thoughts about the matter was, that it would be a good thing to offer his father's beloved Library for sale — to the Emperor of Russia. By what influences that shrewd scheme of turning a penny was diverted will be seen in the sequel. If George the Third was, in respect to his parts, only slenderly endowed, he had in another respect large gifts. Both his industry and his power of sustained application were uncommon. And his conscientious sense of responsi- 30 466 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. Book II, Chap. IV. The King's oe ' Georgian' Libhahy. The educa- tion of Geoege III, AFTEE THE DEATH OP Frederick, Prince OF "Wales.' bility for the use of such abilities as he had was no less remarkable. Whatever may have been his mistakes in government, no man ever sat on the British throne who was more thoroughly honest in his intentions, or more deeply anxious to show, in the discharge of his duties, his consciousness of being ' Ever in his great taskmaster's eye.' That his public acts did not more adequately correspond with his good desires was due, in large measure, to an infelicitous parentage and a narrow education. As the father of lies sometimes speaks truth, so a mere party manifesto may sometimes give sound advice, though clothed in a discreditable garb. When public attention came first to be attracted to the character of the peculiar influences which began to mould the training of the young Prince of Walks soon after his father's death, a Court Chamberlain received, one morning, by the post, an unsigned document, which he thought it his duty to place in the hands of the Prime Minister, and he, when he had read it, thought the paper important enough to be laid before the King. This anonymous memorial denounced, as early as in the winter of 1752 (when the Prince was but fourteen years old), the sort of education which Geoege the Third was receiving as being likely to initiate an unfortunate reign. The paper (which I have now before me) is headed : ' A Memorial of 'several Noblemen and Gentlemen of the first rank,' and in the course of it there is an assertion — as being already matter of public notoriety — ' that books inculcating the worst maxims of government, and defending the most avowed tyrannies, have been put into the hands of the Prince of Wales,' and such a fact, it is said, ' cannot but affect the memorialists with the most melancholy apprehensions when RANGE OF THK Third's TASTES tfOH BOOKS. THE KING'S OE ' GEORGIAN ' LIBRARY. 467 they find that the men who had the honesty and resolution bookii, to complain of such astonishing methods of instruction are the P driven away from Court, and the men who have dared to , K ^°", teach such doctrines are continued in trust and favour. 5 * Li *saby. Making all allowance for partisan feeling and for that ^ Memorial, tinge of Whig oligarchism which peeps out, as well in the addh. 6271, very title, as in the contents of this ' Memorial,' there was obvious truth in the denunciation, and a modicum of true prophecy in the inference. But such a remonstrance had just as little effect, in the way of checking undue influences, as it had of wisdom in the form given to it, or in the mode of its presentation at Court. The Prince's education was not merely imbued with kabeow ideas and maxims little likely to conduce towards a pros- g EOK ge perous reign. It was intellectually narrow and mean. He grew up, for example, in utter ignorance of many of the great lights of English literature. In respect to all books, save one (that, happily, the greatest of all), he became one of those who, through life, draw from the small cisterns, * Lord Harcourt resigned his office of Governor to the Prince at the beginning of December, 1752. Scott, then the Prince's tutor, was recommended to his office by Bolingbroke. The Bishop of Peter- borough's appointment as Preceptor was made in January, 1753. Among the books complained of, the Histoire de la Grande Bretagne of Father Orleans, and the Introduction a la vie du Boi Henri IV of another Jesuit, Father Perefixe, are said to have been included. Another and more famous book, which was much in Prince George's hands in his early years, was also obnoxious to the Whigs — Bolingbroke's Idea of a Patriot King. But it would scarcely have been prudent in the malcon- tents to have put a work which (whatever its faults) ranks, to some extent, among our English classics, in the same expurgatory, or prohibitory, index with the books of Orleans and of Perefixe. If George the Third got some harm out of Lord Bolingbroke's book, he probably obtained also some good. Pure Whiggism — pure but not simple — has never been noted for any discriminating tolerance of spirit. And, in 1752, it was furious at the prospect that the continuance of its long domination was imperilled. 468 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY ATJGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. IV. The King's or ' Georgian' LlBRAHY. Foundation op the New Royal LI- BRARY. instead of going to the deep wells. He seems to have been trained to think that the literary glories of his country- began with the age of Queen Anne. In after years, George the Third attained to some dim consciousness of his own narrowness of culture. The ply, however, had been too early taken to be got rid of. No training, probably, could have made him a scholar. But his powers of application under wise direction would have opened to him stores of knowledge, from which unwise influences shut him out for life. His faculty of perseverance in study, it must be remembered, was backed by thorough honesty of nature, and by an ability to withstand tempta- tions. When he was entering his nineteenth year, a sub- preceptor, who had watched him sedulously, said of him : ' He is a lad of good principle. He has no heroic strain, and no turn for extravagance. He loves peace, and, as yet, has shown very virtuous principles. He has the greatest temptation to gallant with ladies, who lay them- selves out in the most shameless manner to draw him on, but to no purpose.' Certainly this last characteristic was neither an inherited virtue nor an ancestral tradition. And it stands in curious contrast with the tendencies of all his brothers and of almost all his sons. From youth upwards the Prince read much, though he did not read wisely. No sooner was he King than he began to set about the collection of his noble Library. In the choice of a librarian he was not infelicitous, though the selection was in part dictated by a feeling of brotherly kindness. For he chose a very near relative — Mr. afterwards Sir Frederick Augusta Barnard. Mr. Barnard had many qualities which fitted him for his task. The foundation of the Library was laid by a very fortu- nate purchase on the Continent. Its increase was largely THE KING'S OE ' GEORGIAN ' LIBEAEY. 469 promoted by a political revolution which ensued shortly bookii, « ■• i * i i • i • • Chap. It . afterwards ; and, in order to turn his large opportunities to the most account, the King's Librarian modestly sought and in- < Georgian- stantly obtained the best advice which that generation could LlBE " lY - afford him — the advice of Samuel Johnson. In 1762, the fine Library of Joseph Smith, who had been British Consul at Venice during many years, was bought for the King. It cost about ten thousand pounds. Smith had ransacked Italy for choice books, much as his contemporary, Sir William Hamilton, had ransacked that country for choice vases. And he had been not less suc- cessful in his quest. In amassing early and choice editions of the classics, and also the curiosities and rarities of fifteenth-century printing, he had been especially lucky. From the same source, but at a later date, George the Third also obtained a fine gallery of pictures and a collec- tion of coins and gems. For these he gave twenty thou- sand pounds. For seven or eight years the shops and vactyuothaa warehouses of English booksellers were also sedulously i767 S Lady examined, and large purchases were made from them. In Umi&sai this labour Johnson often assisted, actively, as well as by ^"^'' 8g advice. When the suppression of the Jesuits in many parts of Europe made the literary treasures which that busy Society had collected — often upon a princely scale and with admi- rable taste, so far as their limitations permitted — both the King and his librarian were struck with the idea that another fine opportunity opened itself for book-buying on the Continent. It was resolved that Mr. Barnard should travel for the purpose of profiting by it. Before he set out on his journey, he betook himself to Johnson for counsel as to the best way of setting about the task. Johnson's counsel may be thus abridged : The litera- advice' on thb Collec- tion op the King's 470 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY ATJGMENTORS. cha° K iv ture °^ ever ^ coulltr y ma y be best gathered on its native the soil. And the studies of the learned are everywhere influ- 'geoegian' enced by peculiarities of government and of religion. In Italy you may, therefore, expect to meet with abundance of the works of the Canonists and the Schoolmen ; in Ger- many with store of writers on the Feudal Laws ; in Holland substance you will find the booksellers' shops swarming with the Johnson's works of the Civilians. Of Canonists a, few of the most eminent will suffice. Of the Schoolmen a liberal supply will be a valuable addition to the King's Library. The libkaky. departments of Feudal and Civil Law you can hardly ren- der too complete. In the Feudal Constitutions we see the origin of our property laws. Of the Civil Law it is not too much to say that it is a regal study. In respect to standard books generally, continued John- son, a Royal Library ought to have the earliest or most curious edition, the most sumptuous edition, and also the most useful one, which will commonly be one of the latest impressions of the book. As to the purchase of entire libraries in bulk, the Doctor inclined to think — even a cen- tury ago — that the inconveuience would commonly almost overbalance the advantage, on the score of the excessive accumulation of duplicate copies. And then he added a remark which (long years after- wards) Sir Richard Colt Hoare profited by, and made a source of profit to our National Museum. ' I am told,' said Johnson, ' that scarcely a village of Italy wants its historian. And it will be of great use to collect, in every place, maps of the adjacent country, and plans of towns, buildings, and gardens. By this care you will form a more valuable body of geography than could otherwise be had.' On that point — as, indeed, on all the points about which THE KING'S OE ' GEORGIAN ' LIBEARY. 471 he save advice — Johnson's counsel bore excellent fruit. Book ". ° . Chap. IV. The ' body of geography' contained in the Georgian Library the has never, I think, been surpassed in any one Collection -geobgian' (made by a single Collector) in the world. It laid, sub- LlBEAEY stantially, the foundation of the noble assemblage of charts and maps which now forms a separate Department of the Museum, under the able superintendence of Mr. Richard Henry Major, who has done much for the advancement of geographical knowledge in many paths, but in none more efficiently than in his Museum labours. Like good counsel was given to Barnard by the great lexicographer, in relation to the gathering of illustrated books. He told the King's Librarian that he ought to seek diligently for old books adorned with woodcuts, because the designs were often those of great masters. When to this remark the Doctor added the words : Johnson's mi 11* 1 111 • BEMABK ON ' Those old prints are such as cannot be made by any artist modern n,- now living,' he asserted what was undoubtedly true, if he limited that high praise to the best class of the works of which he was speaking. But his words carry in them also an indirect testimony of honour to George the Third. If, in the century which has passed since Samuel Johnson discussed with Frederick Barnard the wisest means of forming a Royal Library, a great stride has been made by the arts of design in Britain, a share of the merit belongs to the patriotic old King. He was amongst the earliest in his dominions to encourage British art with an open hand. He was not only the founder of the Royal Academy, but a most liberal patron to artists ; and he did not limit his patronage to those men alone who belonged to his own Academy. If for a series of years the Royal Academy did less for Art, and did its work in a more narrow spirit of coterie than it ought to have done, the fault was not in the LUSTKATED BOOKS. 472 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book 11, founder. And, of late years, the Academy itself has, in the many ways, nobly vindicated its foundation and the aid it ■gmegi™' n ^s received from the Public. Towards the foundation lieeary. f fljg Academy, George the Third gave, from his privy purse, more than five thousand pounds. To many of its members he was a genial friend, as well as a liberal patron. Many other institutions of public education shared his liberality. Some generous benefactions which he gave to the British Museum itself, in the earlier years of his reign, have been mentioned already. But there were a crowd of other gifts, both in the earlier and in the later years, of which the limits of this volume at present forbid me to make detailed mention. The Continental tour of Mr. Barnard was very success- ful as to its main object. He obtained such rich accessions for the Library as raised it — especially in the various de- partments of Continental history and literature — much above all other Libraries in Britain. Bibiitihec* Within a few years of his return to England the very amy' M choice Collection which had been formed by Dr. Anthony uterary Askew came into the market. For this Library, in bulk, Anecdotes of *l * ' Eighteenth, the King offered Askew's representatives five thousand Century, vol. iv,p. 513 pounds. They thought they could make more of the Collection by an auction, but, in the event, obtained less than four thousand pounds. The Askew Library extended only to three thousand five hundred and seventy separate printed works, but it contained a large proportion of rare and choice books. The chief buyers at the sale were the Duke of La Valliere and (through the agency of De Bcre) Lewis the Sixteenth. The King of England bought comparatively little, although on this occasion Mr. Barnard could scarcely have withholden his hand on the (183-), THE KING'S OR ' GEORGIAN ' LIBRARY. 473 score of the special injunctions which the King had formerly ^iv laid down for his guidance in such public competitions. THE j For it deserves to be remembered that George the 'Georgian- Third's conscientious thoughtfulness for other people led him, early in his career as a Collector, to give to his librarian a general instruction such as the servants of wealthy Collectors rarely receive. ' I do not wish you,' he said, ' to bid either against a literary man who wants books for study, or against a known Collector of small means.' He was very free to bid, on the other hand, against a Duke of Roxburghe or an Earl Spencer. The King's kindness of nature was also shown in the free access which he at all times afforded to scholars and students in his own Library. To this circumstance we owe some of the most interesting notices we have of his opinions of authors and of books. In the earliest years of the Royal Collectorship part of THi50U > J J A A LOCALITIES the Library was kept in the old palace at Kew, which has °* the . . ... i i • p • Georgian long since disappeared, the site oi it being now a gorgeous library. flower-bed. Afterwards, and on the acquisition for the Queen, of Buckingham House,* the chief part of the Col- lection was removed to Pimlico, and arranged in the hand- some rooms of which a view appears, by way of vignette, on the title-pages of the sumptuously printed catalogue prepared by Barnard. It was at Buckingham House that Johnson's well-known conversation with the King took place, in February, 1767. When Johnson first began to use the Royal Collection it * The mansion for which the Trustees of the British Museum had been asked to give £30,000 was sold, five years afterwards, to the King for £20,000. It was purchased for the Queen as a jointure-house in lieu of her proper mansion, Somerset House, then devoted to public purposes. All the royal princes and princesses were born in Buckingham House, except George IV, and one, perhaps, of the younger children. 474 THE OKGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUaMENTORS. Book II, Chap. IV. The King's or ' G-E0B.GIAN' LlBRAHY. The inter- view AT Bucking- ham House BETWEKN Geokgb III AND De. Johnson. 1767, Febru- ary. Croker's Boswell, pp. 184-186. was still in its infancy. He was surprised both at its extent and at the number of rare and choice books which it already included. He had seen Barnard's assiduity, and had helped him occasionally in his book-researches, long prior to the tour of 1768. But it astonished him to see that the King, within six or seven years, had gathered so fine a Library as that which he saw in 1 767. He became a frequent visitor. The King, hearing of the circumstance, desired his librarian to let him know when the literary autocrat came again. The King's first questions were about the doings at Oxford, whence, he had been told, Johnson had recently returned. The Doctor expressed his inability to bestow much commendation on the diligence then exhibited by the resident scholars of the University in the way of any con- spicuous additions to literature. Presently, the King put to him the question, 'And what are you about yourself? ' ' I think/ was the answer — given in a tone more modest than the strict sense of the words may import — 'that I have already done my part as a writer.' To which the King rejoined, ' I should think so too, had you not written so well/ After this happy retort, the King turned the con- versation on some recent theological controversies. About that between Warburton and Lowth he made another neat though obvious remark — ' When it comes to calling names, argument, truly, is pretty well at an end.' They then passed in review many of the periodical publications of the day, in the course of which His Majesty displayed considerable knowledge of the chief books of that class, both English and French. He showed his characteristic and kingly attention to minutiae by an observation which he made when Johnson had praised an improved arrange- ment of the contents of the Philosophical Transactions — THE KING'S OR ' GEORGIAN ' LIBRARY. 475 oblivious, at the moment; that he had himself suggested the book ii, change. ' They have to thank Dr. Johnson for that/ said t^'™' the King. * ING ' S0 ", o ' Geobgiah' Another remark made by George the Third during this l™**™- conversation deserves to be remembered. ' I wish,' said he, ' that we could have a really well-executed body of British Biography.' This was a desideratum in the seventh year of the old King, and it is a desideratum still in the thirty- fourth year of his granddaughter. The reign of Queen Vic- toria was comparatively young when the late Mr. Murray first announced, not without some flourish of trumpets, a forthcoming attempt at such a labour, but the little that was said as to the precise plan and scope of the work then contemplated, gave small promise of an adequate perform- ance ; and hitherto there has been no performance at all. Six years after the interview with Johnson, another lite- taking's p -, • -i i T 111' CONVEBSA- rary conversation, ot which we have a record, was held in tion with the Royal Library. But on this occasion the scene was bea™; Kew. Dr. Beattie's fame is now a thing of the past. There is still, however, some living interest in the account of the talk between the author of The Minstrel and his 1773. sovereign, held in 1773, about liturgies, about prayers occa- usus ii 7 1 i Forbes, Zi/e sional and prayers eon tempore, and about the methods of ofBeatae, education adopted in the Scottish universities. 354. I,PP ' The King's least favourable — but not least characteristic — appearance, as a talker on literary subjects, is made in that conversation with Miss Burnet, in which he uttered iNu ™« his often-quoted remark on Shakespeare : — ' Was there bubney. ever such stuff as great part of Shakespeare — only one must not say so ?' The sense of the humorous seems in 1786 - " December. George III to have been wholly lacking. And some part of the sadness of his life has probably a vital connexion with that deficiency. 476 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, In the last-mentioned conversation, the King evinced the considerable acquaintance with French literature. He shared, ■'gkoeg^." *° some ex tent, the then very general admiration for Rous- libkaet. seau, on whom he had bestowed more than one act of kind- D'Arbiay, ness during the brief English exile of the author of Emile. Diary, -vol. ii, . pp. 395-398. He shared, also, the common impression as to the absence of gratitude in the brilliant Frenchman's character. When Miss Burnet told him that his own portrait had been seen to occupy the most conspicuous place in Rousseau's living- room after his return to France, the King was both sur- prised and touched. Next after the large and choice acquisitions made for the King's Library on the Continent, some of its most con- spicuous and valuable literary treasures were acquired at the several sales, in London, of the Libraries of James West (1773), of John Ratcliffe (1776), and of Richard Farmer (1798). It was at the first of these sales that George the Third laid the foundation of his unequalled series of the productions of the father of English printing. geoege the The Caxtons bought for the King at West's sale included the dearly prized Becuyell of the Histories of Troye (1472- 1474?), the BooJce of the Chesse (1476 ?), the Canterbury feess. Tales of Chaucer (1478 ?), the Dictes and Sayinges of the Philosophers (1480), the Mirrour of the World (1481), the Godfrey of Boloyne (1482), the Confessio Amantis (1483), the Paris and Vienne (1485), and the Boyal BooJce (1487 ?). Of these, the lowest in price was the Confessio of 1483, which the King acquired for nine guineas, and the highest in price was the Chaucer of 1478, which cost him forty- seven pounds fifteen shillings. At the same sale, he also acquired another Caxton, which has a peculiar interest. The King's copy of the Troylus Third's seejes or books feom Caxton's THE KING'S OE ' GEORGIAN ' LIBRAEY. 477' and Creside (probably printed in the year 1484) formerly bookii, belonged the King's or ' To Her, most gentle, most unfortunate, ' Geomian; Crowned but to die — who in her chamber sate Libeam. Musing with Plato, though the horn was blown, And every ear and every heart was won, And all, in green array, were chasing down the sun ;' and it bears her autograph. Three years after the dispersion of West's Library came that of the extraordinary Collection which had been made by a Bermondsey ship-chandler, John Ratcliffe by name. This worthy and fortunate Collector has been said, com- monly, to have amassed his black-letter curiosities by buying them, at so much a pound, over his counter. * But of such windfalls no man has ever been so lucky as to have more Johnrat- . , CUFFK OF than a few. John Ratcliffe was, like his King, a large bekmond- buyer at West's sale, and at many other sales, upon the cmo™™ ordinary terms. BEAKY ' By pains and perseverance he had collected of books printed by Caxton the extraordinary number of forty- eight. No Collector ever surpassed, or even reached, that number, except Robert Harley, in whose days books that are now worth three hundred pounds could, not infre- quently, be bought for much less than the half of three hundred pence. Ratcliffe's forty-eight Cawtons produced at his sale two hundred and thirty-six pounds. The King bought twenty of them at an aggregate cost of about eighty-five pounds. Amongst them were the Boethius, of 1478 ; the Reynarde the Foase, of 1481 ; the Golden Legende, and the * The story, I observe, has been endorsed in Mr. Blades' excellent Life of Caxton (see part 2, p. 268), but it is undoubtedly a distortion or exaggeration of some chance occurrence. No such series could have been formed otherwise than, in the main, by systematic research. 478 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Boon II, Chap. IV. The King's or ' Georgian 1 Library. Gifts to the King's Library. George III AND THE Biblio- mania. Curial, both of 1484 ; and the Speculum Vita Christi, probably printed in 1488. The Boethius is a fine copy, and was obtained for four pounds six shillings; A few 'years ago an imperfect copy of the same book brought more than sixteen times that sum. Two others of the King's Caxtons were the gift of Jacob Bryant. One of these is Ralph Lefevre's Becueil des Mstoires de Troye, printed, probably, in 1476. The other is the Doctrinal of Sapience, printed in 1489. This last- named volume is on vellum, and is the only copy so printed which is known to exist. A third Caxton volume was bequeathed to George the Third by Mr. Hewett, of Ipswich. This is the JEsop of 1484, and is the only extant copy. It was delivered to the King by Sir John Hewett and Mr. Philip Broke, the legator's executors. George the Third was very sensitive to the special triumphs of collectorship, and would be sure to prize the ^ffisqp all the more for its attribute of uniqueness. A story in illustration of this specific tinge of the biblio- mania in our royal Collector was wont to be told by Sir Walter Scott, and is mentioned in his interesting obituary notice of the King, printed in the Edinburgh Weekly Journal* immediately after the King's death. According to Scott, George the Third was fond of crowing a little over his brother-collector, the Duke of Roxburghe, on the score that the royal copy of the famous Becuyell of the Histories of Troye had a pre-eminence over the Roxburghe copy. The pre-eminence was of a sort, indeed, to which no one but a thorough-paced Collector would be sensible. For it consisted in the ' locking,' or wrong imposing, of certain pages, afterwards corrected at press. The fault, therefore, * Bdmbwrgh Weekly Journal, Feb. 1820. The article is reprinted in Miscellaneous Prose Works, Edition of 1841, vol. ii, p. 184. King's or 1 Georgian ' LIBRARY. THE KING'S OR ' GEORGIAN ' LIBRARY. 479 indicated priority of working off. But I do not find in bookii, the King's Mecuyell — which now lies before me — the C peculiarity spoken of in the poet's story. Such a fault does exist in the Roxburghe copy, which now belongs to the Duke of Devonshire. Other and authenticated anecdotes, however, are abundant, which suffice to show the close knowledge of, and the keen interest in, his books, by which George the Third was characterised. It was a still better trait in him that he found real pleasure in knowing that the treasures and rarities of his Library subserved the inquiries and studies of scholars. Nor did he make narrow limitations. Men like Johnson and Bishop Horsley profited by the Collection. So, too, did men like Gibbon and Priestley. The total number of Caxton prints amassed by George III was thirty-nine. Of these three are in the Royal Library at Windsor — namely, the Becueil (1476 ?), the JEsop (1484), and the Doctrinal (1489). To a keen enjoyment of the pleasures of collectorship, geome the the King added, in 1787, a passing taste of those of au- thorship. As a Collector, the bibliomania did not engross him. He had a delight in amassing fine plants as well as fine books. The Hortus Kewensis (in both applications of the term) was largely indebted to his liberality of expendi- ture and to his far-spread research. He sent botanic mis- sionaries to the remotest parts of Asia, as well as to Africa. He took the most cordial interest in those varied voyages of discovery which — as I have observed in a former chapter — cast so distinctive a lustre on his reign, and in consequence of which such large additions were made to our natural history collections, public and private. And he did much to promote scientific agriculture, both by precept and by APPEARANCE AS AN A.UTHOE. 480 THE OEGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. llTrr exam P^ e - I* was as a practical agriculturist that the the King (under a slight veil of pseudonymity *) made his bow •geoegiTic to the reading public by the publication of seven articles in libeaey. Arthur Young's useful and then well-known periodical, the Annals of Agriculture. Those articles have a threefold aim. They inculcate the wisdom, for certain soils, of an intermediate system of treat- ment and of cropping, midway between the old routine and the drill-husbandry, then of recent introduction ; they describe several new implements, introduced by Ducket of Esher and of Petersham ; and they advocate an almost entire rejection of fallows. They further describe a method, also introduced by Parmer Ducket, and then peculiar, of destroying that farmer's pest, couch-grass {triticum repens), by trench-ploughing it deep into the ground, and contain many other practical suggestions, some of which seem to have been empirical, and others so good that they have become trite. But the best service rendered by George the Third to the agricultural pursuits, of which he was so fond, was his introduction of the Merino flocks, which became conspicuous ornaments to the great and little parks at Windsor. Part of the success which, for a time, attended the importation of those choice Merino breeds was due to the zealous co- operation of Lord Somebville and of Sir Joseph Banks [see the next chapter], but the King himself took a real initiative in the matter ; acquired real knowledge about it ; and deserved, by his personal efforts, the cognomen given him (by some of those worthy farmers who used to attend the annual sales at Windsor) of ' the Royal Shepherd.' * ' Ralph Robinson' is the name signed to the communications to the Annals of Agriculture, but they are dated from Windsor. (See Annals, vol. vii, 1787.) THE KING'S OR ' GEORGIAN ' LIBRARY. 481 The recreative pursuits, alike of the book-collector and bookh, of the agriculturist, as well as the labours of the consci- the' King's or ' Georgian 5 Illness or George 111 ; entious monarch, were at length to be arrested by that great calamity which, after clouding over some months .of LiBEiiiY the years of vigour, was destined to veil in thick gloom all the years of decline — the years when great public triumphs and crushing family afflictions passed equally unnoted by the recluse of Windsor. ' Thy lov'd ones fell around thee. Thoti, meanwhile, Didst walk unconscious through thy royal towers, The one that wept not, in the tearful isle ! But who can tell what visions might he thine ? The stream of thought, though broken, still was pure. Still on that wave the stars of Heaven might shine Where earthly image would no more endure. Nor might the phantoms to thy spirit known, Be dark or wild, — creations of Remorse, — Unstain'd by thee, the blameless Past had thrown No fearful shadows o'er the Future's course.' When George the Third died at Windsor Castle, on Akdhis JJKATH. the 29th of January, 1820, the public mourning was sincere. During its ten years of rule, the Regency had done 182 °- very much to heighten and intensify regret for the calamity of 1810. The errors of the old monarch came, naturally, to be dwarfed to the view, when his private virtues acquired all the sharp saliency of contrast. Since his death, political writers have usually been somewhat harsh to his memory. But the verdict of history has not yet been given in. When the time for its delivery shall at length come, there will be a long roll of good deeds to set off against many mistakes in policy. Nor will the genuine piety, and the earnest conscientiousness of the individual man — up to the measure of the light vouchsafed 31 482 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EARLY AUGMENTOES. book n, to him — be forgotten in the preliminary summing up. the What George the Third did for Britain simply in con- •ZtLiL' ferring upon it the social blessings of a pure Court, and of libeaet. a bright personal example, is best to be estimated by con- templating what, in that respect, existed before it, and also what came immediately after it. Comparisons of such a sort will serve, eventually, to better purpose than that of feathering the witty shafts of reckless satirists, whether in prose or in verse. Meanwhile, it is enough to say that no honester, no more God-fearing man, than was George the Third, ever sat upon the throne of England. During all the time of his long illness, the King's Library had continued, more or less, to grow. When he died, it contained sixty-five thousand two hundred and fifty volumes, besides more than nineteen thousand unbound state of tracts. These have since been bound severally. The total iTbuSy™ number of volumes, therefore, which the Collection com- januaey, prised was about eighty-four thousand. At the time of the King's decease, the annual cost of books in progress, and of periodical works, somewhat exceeded one thousand pounds. The annual salaries of the staff — four officers and two servants — amounted to eleven hundred and seventy-one pounds. The Library occupied a fine and extensive suite of rooms in Buckingham Palace. One of them was large enough to make a noble billiard-room. The Royal Library, therefore, embarrassed King George the Fourth in two ways. It cost two thousand two hun- dred pounds a year, even without making any new additions to its contents. It occupied much space in the royal residence which could be devoted to more agreeable pur- poses. Then came the welcome thought that, instead of being a charge, it might be made a source of income. The 1820, THE KING'S OE ' GEOEGIAN ' LIBEAEY. 483 Emperor of Russia was known to covet, as a truly imperial book h, luxury, what to the new King of Great Britain was but a ^' IV ' costly burden. He broached the idea — but met, instead of * ING ' S 0B * ' Georgian encouragement, with strong remonstrance. libeaey. The news of the royal suggestion soon spread abroad. Amongst those who heard of it with disgust were Lord Farnborough (who is said to have learnt the design in talking, one day, with Princess Lieven) and Richard Heber. Both men bestirred themselves to prevent the King from publicly disgracing the country in that way. Lord Farnborough betook himself to a conference with the Premier, Lord Liverpool. Mr. Heber discussed the matter with Lord Sidmouth. By the ministers, public opinion upon the suggested sale was pretty strongly and emphatically conveyed to His Majesty, whatever may have been the courtliness of tone employed about it. George the Fourth, however, was not less strongly conpm- impressed by the charms of the prospective rubles from 117™*' Russia. He felt that he could find pleasant uses for a f^is^ windfall of a hundred and eighty thousand pounds, or so. miniums And he fought hard to secure his expected prize — or some op the indubitably solid equivalent. ' If I can't have the rubles,' said the King, 'you must find me their value m pounds ^quarterly sterling.' The Ministers were much in earnest to save the m®,^*'' Library, and, in the emergency, laid their hands upon a j X ™.™' p- certain surplus which had accrued from a fund furnished some years before by France, to meet British claims for losses sustained at the date of the first French Revolution. S to0/ But the expedient became the subject of an unpleasant f^*"" a, hint in the House of Commons. And the Government, it a™»»«K»»- is said, then resorted to that useful fund, the 'Droits of xu>. (aisoin Admiralty.' By hook or crook, George the Fourth ^ 0,iPp117 - received his ' equivalent.' He then sat down to his writing- ON DISPOSAL OP THE LlBBAEY. 484 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. cLTiv tatlle ( at Brighton), to assure Lord Liverpool — in his thf. official capacity — of the satisfaction he felt in having ■Georgian- ' this means of advancing the Literature of my Country.' libbah. rpj ien jjg p rocee( j e( j to add :— ' I also feel that I am paying a just tribute to the memory of a Parent, whose life was adorned with every public and private virtue.' The Executors or Trustees of King George the Third knew well what the monarch's feelings about his Library would, in all reasonable probability, have been, had he possessed mental vigour when preparing for his last change. They exacted from the Trustees of the Museum a pledge that the Royal Library should be preserved apart, and entire. the new Parliament, on its side, made a liberal provision for the erection of a building worthy to receive the Georgian Library. The fine edifice raised in pursuance of a par- libkaky. liamentary vote cost a hundred and forty thousand pounds. It provided one of the handsomest rooms in Europe for the main purpose, and it also made much-needed arrangements for the reception and exhibition of natural-history Col- lections, above the books. The removal of the Royal Library from Buckingham House was not completed until August, 1828. All who saw the Collection whilst the building was in its first purity of colour — and who were old enough to form an opinion on such a point — pronounced the receptacle to be eminently worthy of its rich contents. The floor-cases and the heavy tables — very needful, no doubt — have since detracted not a little from the architectural effect and ele- gance of the room itself. Along with the printed books, and the extensive geogra- phical Collections, came a number of manuscripts — on ERECTED eon. THE Georgian 1821-28. THE KING'S OR ' GEORGIAN ' LIBRARY. 485 historical, literary, and geographical subjects.* By some bookii, transient forgetfulness of the pledge given to Lord Farn- the borough, the manuscripts, or part of them, were, in March, ,^™, 1841, sent to the ' Manuscript Department' of the Museum. LlBSAH *- But Mr. Panizzi, then the Keeper of the Printed Books, m«utaof successfully reclaimed them for their due place of deposit, ^ S o\L according to the arrangement of 1823. -Nor was such a allove - claim a mere official punctilio. In every point of view, close regard to the wishes of donors, or of those who virtually represent them, is not more a matter of simple justice than it is a matter of wise and foreseeing policy in the Trustees of Public Museums. The integrity of their Collections is often, and naturally, an anxious desire of those who have formed them. In a sub- sequent chapter (C. ii of Book III) it will be seen that the wish expressed by the representatives of King George the Third was also the wish of a munificent contemporary and old minister of his, who, many years afterwards, gave to the Nation a Library only second in splendour to that which had been gathered by George the Third. Not the least curious little fact connected with the Georgian Library and its gift to the Public, is that the gift was predicted thirty- one years before George the Fourth wrote his letter addressed to Lord Liverpool from the Pavilion at Brighton, and twenty-eight years before the death of George the Third. In 1791, Frederick Wendeborn wrote thus: — 'The King's private Library . . . can boast very valuable and mag- nificent books, which, as it is said, will be one time or another * Curiously enough, three volumes of the Georgian MSS. had belonged to Sir Hans Sloane, and had, in some unexplained way, come to be separated from the bulk of his Collection. They now rejoined their old companions in Great Russell Street. 486 THE OKGANIZEKS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. book it, joined to those of the British Museum.' Wendeborn* T H E ' was a German preacher, resident in London for many mieoboiTm' y ears - He was known to Queen Charlotte, and had libeaet. occasional intercourse with the Court. May it not be inferred that on some occasion or other the King had inti- mated, if not an intention, at least a thought on the matter, which some courtier or other had repeated in the hearing of Dr. Wendeborn? * See, before, p. 339. CHAPTER V. THE FOUNDER OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM AND LIBRARY. ' It may be averred for truth that they be not the highest instances that give the best and surest information. .... It often comes to pass [in the study of Nature] that small and mean things conduce more to the discovery of great matters, than great things to the discovery of small matters.' — Bacon. ' Not every man is fit to travel. Travel makes a wise man better, but a fool worse.' — Owen Felltham. The Life, Travels, and Social Influence, of Sir Joseph, Banks. — The Royal Society under his Presidency. — His Collections and their acquisition by the Trustees of the British Museum.- — Notices of some other con- temporaneous accessions. We have now to glance at the career — personal and bookii, scientific — of an estimable public benefactor, with whom. T ^ P F I DN . King George the Third had much pleasant intercourse. mhotthe a l ' Bamksian both of a public and a private kind. Sir Joseph Banks museum was almost five years younger than his royal friend and libbaby. Correspondent, but he survived the King by little more than three months, so that the Georgian and the Banksian Libraries were very nearly contemporaneous accessions. The former, as we have seen, was given in 1823, and fully received in 1828 ; the latter was bequeathed (conditionally) in 1820, and received in 1827. These two accessions, taken conjointly, raised the Museum collection of books 488 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. bookh. (for the first time in its history) to a respectable rank tue foot- amongst the National Libraries of the day. The Banksian bI^s™ bequest made also an important addition to the natural- "™ history collections, especially to the herbaria. It is as a libbaot. cultivator and promoter of the natural sciences, and pre- eminently of botany, that Sir Joseph won for himself endur- ing fame. But he was also conspicuous for those personal and social qualities which are not less necessary to the man, than are learning and liberality to the philosopher. For the lack of such personal qualities some undoubted public benefactors have been, nevertheless, bad citizens. In this public benefactor both sets of faculties were harmoniously combined. They shone in his form and countenance.- They yet dwell in the memory of a survivor or two, here and there, who were the contemporaries of his closing years. Joseph Banks was born at Reresby Abbey, in Lincoln- shire, on the thirteenth of December, 1743. He was the only son of William Banks-Hodgkenson, of Reresby Abbey, by his wife Sophia Bate. Mr. Banks-Hodgkenson was the descendant of a York- Thb bakkeses shire family, which was wont, of old, to write itself ' Banke,' and was long settled at Banke-Newton, in the wapentake of Staincliffe. The second son of a certain Henry Banke, of Banke-Newton, acquired, by marriage, Beck Hall, in Giggleswick ; and by his great grandson, the first Joseph Bankes, Reresby Abbey was purchased towards the close of the seventeenth century. His son (also Joseph) sat in Parliament for Peterborough, and served as Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1736. The second (and eldest surviving) son of the Member for Peterborough took the name of Hodgkenson, as heir to his mother's ancestral estate of Overton, in Derbyshire, but on the death of his elder brother (and his consequent heirship) resumed the or Rebesby Abbey THE FOUNDER OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 489 paternal name, and resigned the Overton estate to his bookii, next brother, who became Robert Hodgkenson, of Overton, the foun- Mr. Banks-Hodgkenson died in 1761, leaving to his son, b™",™* afterwards Sir Joseph Banks, a plentiful estate. museum The youngster was then little more than beginning his libbaey. career at Oxford, whither he had recently come from Eton, £ABLY * YEAES OF though his schooling had been begun at Harrow. He was sie Joseph ' lord of himself,' and of a fine fortune, at the critical age of eighteen. To many, such an inheritance, under like circumstances, has brought misery. To Joseph Banks, it brought noble means for the prosecution of a noble aim. It was the ambition of this young Etonian — not to eclipse jockies, or to dazzle the eyes of fools, but — to tread in the footsteps of LinNjEUS. Rich, hardy, and handsome in person, sanguine in temperament, and full of talent, he resolved that, for some years to come, after leaving the University, the life that might so easily be brimmed with enjoyments should incur many privations and face many hardships, in order to win both knowledge and the power of benefiting the Public by its communication. That object of early ambition, it will be seen, was abundantly realised in the after-years. There is no reason to think that a resolution, not often formed at such an age as eighteen, was come to in the absence of temptation to a different course. Banks was no ascetic. Nor was it his fortune, at any time, to live much with ascetics. One of his earliest friends was that Lord Sandwich* whose memory now chiefly connects itself with the unsavoury traditions of Medmenham Abbey, and with the peculiar pursuits in literature of John Wilkes. With Sandwich he spent many of the bright days of * John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich (1729-1792). 490 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II, Chap. V. The Foun- dee of the Banksian Museum AND LlBEAET. Banks' youthful adventuke NEAB. Ham- M HE-SMITH. youth in fishing on Whittlesea Mere. Banks had the good fortune — and the skill — to make his early acquaint- anceship with the future First Lord of the Admiralty con- ducive to the interests of science. The connexion with the Navy of another friend of his youth, Henry Phipps, afterwards Earl of Mcjlgrave, was also turned, eventually, to good account in the same way. Part of young Banks' vacations were passed at Reresby and in frequent companionship with Lord Sandwich ; part at his mother's jointure-house at Chelsea, very near to the fine botanic garden which, a few years before, had been so much enriched by the liberality of Sir Hans Sloane. In that Chelsea garden, and in other gardens at Hammer- smith, Banks studied botany with youthful ardour. And he made frequent botanic excursions in the then secluded neighbourhood. In the course of one of these rambles he fell under suspicion of felony. He was botanizing in a ditch, and his person happened to be partially concealed by a thick growth of briars and nettles, at a moment when two or three constables, who were in chase of a burglar, chanced to approach the spot. The botanist's clothes were in a miry condition, and his sus- picious posture excited in the minds of the local Dogber- ries the idea that here they had their man. They were deaf to all expostulations. The future President of the Royal Society was dragged, by ignominious hands, before the nearest justice. The magistrate agreed with the constables that the case looked black, but, before committing either the prisoner or himself, he directed that the culprit's pockets should be searched. They contained little money, and no watches ; but an extraordinary abundance of plants and wild flowers. The explanations which before had been refused were now accepted, and very courteous apologies THE EOUNDEK OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 491 were tendered to the victim of an excess of official zeal, bookii, But the awkwardness of the adventure failed to deter the tmTfouh- sufferer from his eager pursuit, in season and out of it, of bankm™ e his darling science. A botanist he was to be. mose™ ° AND He left Oxford in 1763, and almost instantly set out on libi™. a scientific voyage to Newfoundland and Labrador. Here the mn he laid the first substantial groundwork of his future col- explora- lections in natural history. He sailed with Phipps, who newe"™. was already a captain in the Navy, and had been charged l1 BE adob with the duty of protecting the Newfoundland fisheries. 1763 . The voyage proved to be one of some hardship, but its privations rather sharpened than dulled the youthful natu- ralist's appetite for scientific explorations. He had learned thus early to endure hardness, for a worthy object. His second vovasre was to the South Seas, and it was The seoond v c? ' Voyage made in company with the most famous of the large band to ™k ' of eighteenth-century maritime discoverers — James Cook, and also with a favourite pupil of Linnaeus (the idol of 1768. Banks' youthful fancy), Daniel Charles Solander, who, though he was little above thirty years of age, had already won some distinction in England, and had been made an Assistant-Librarian in the British Museum.* To make the voyage of The Endeavour as largely con- ducive as was possible to the interests of the natural sciences, Mr. Banks incurred considerable personal expense, and he induced the Admiralty to make large efforts, on its * Solander, who was afterwards to be so intimately connected with the Banksian Collections, had been for some years in this country when he was selected by Banks to be one of his companions in the voyage of The Endea/vow. He was born in Sweden, in the year 1736. He came to England in July, 1760. He succeeded Dr. Maty, as Under- Librarian of the British Museum, in 1773, when Maty was made Principal Librarian. At that date he had already served the Trustees for many years as one of their Assistant-Librarians. 492 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY ATJGMENT0RS. Book II, Chap. V. The Foun- der os THE Banksian Museum and LIBRARY. The B Ota- mica l Ex- plorations at Teeea ■ uel-fuego. 1769- January. part, to promote and secure the various objects of the new expedition. One of those objects was the observation at Otaheite of a coming transit of Venus over the Sun ; another was the further progress of geographical discovery in a quarter of the world to which public interest was at that time specially and strongly turned. Banks, indivi- dually, was also bent on collecting specimens in all depart- ments of natural history, and on promoting geographical knowledge by the completest possible collection of drawings, maps, and charts of all that was met with. He engaged Dr. Solander as his companion, and gave him a salary of four hundred pounds a year. With them sailed two draughtsmen and a secretary, besides four servants. The Endeavour set sail from Plymouth on the twenty-sixth of August, 1768, and from Rio-de-Janeiro on the eighth of December. On the fourteenth of January, 1769, the naturalists landed at Terra-del-Fuego, and they gathered more than a hundred plants theretofore unknown to Euro- pean botanists. Proud of their success, they resolved that, after a brief rest, they would explore the higher regions, in hope to reap a rich harvest of Alpine plants. Solander, as a Swede and as a traveller in Norway, knew something of the dangers they would have to face. Banks himself was not without experience. But both were enterprising and resolute men. They set out on their long march in the night of the fifteenth of January, in order to gain as much of daylight as possible for the work of botanizing. They hoped to return to the ship within ten hours. As they ascended, Solander warned his companions against the temptation that he knew awaited them of giving way to sleep when overcome by the toil of walking. ' Whoever sits down,' said he, 'will be sure to sleep, and whoever sleeps will wake no more.' But the fatigue proved to be THE FOUNDER OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 493 excessive. The foreseeing adviser was borne down by it, bookii, and was the first to throw himself upon the snow. Banks T hk jtoun- was the younger man by six or seven years, and had a b^,"^™'' strong constitution. He fought resolutely against tempta- MusECM tion, and, with the help of the draughtsmen, exerted himself l^uaey. with all his might to keep Solander awake. They suc- ceeded in getting him to walk on for a few miles more. Then he lay down again, with the words, ' Sleep I must, for a few minutes.' In those few minutes the fierce cold almost paralysed his limbs. Two servants (a seaman and a negro) imitated the Swede's example, and were really paralysed. With much grief, it was found that the servants must, inevit- ably, be left to their fate. The party had wandered so far that when they set about to return they were — if the return should be by the way they had come — a long day's journey from the ship. And their route had lain through pathless woods. Their only food was a vulture. A third man seemed in peril — momentarily — of death by exhaustion. Happily, a shorter cut was found. Their journey had not been quite fruitless. But they all felt that they had bought their botanical specimens at too dear a rate. Two men were already dead. One of the draughtsmen seems to have suffered so severely that he never recovered from the effects of the journey. Mr. Buchan died, three months after- wards, in Otaheite, just four days after they had landed in the celebrated island, to visit which was among the especial objects of their mission. The transit of Venus over the Sun's disc was satisfactorily the stay™ Otaheitk. observed on the third of June, but the observation had been nearly foiled by the roguery of a native, who had carried off the quadrant. The thief was found amongst several hundred of his fellows, and, but for a characteristic com- bination in Banks of frank good humour and of firm hardi- 1769. 494 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, hood, the spoil would not have been recovered. On this, THEFora- as upon many other occasions, both his fine personal bInksi™" qualities and his genial manners marked him as a natural museum leader of men. On occasions, however, of a more delicate AND ' ' ljeraey. kind they brought him into a peculiar peril. Queen Obekea fell in love with him. She was not herself without attractions. And they were clad in all the graces of un- adorned simplicity. The poetical satirists of his day used Sir Joseph — after his return — with cruel injustice if he was really quite so successful, in resisting feminine charms in Otaheite, as he had formerly been at home. the voyage j} u t however that may have been, his researches, as a Holland, naturalist, at Otaheite were abundantly successful. And to 1769-1770. the island, in return, he was a friend and benefactor. After a stay of three months the explorers left Otaheite for New Holland on the 15th of August, 1 769. In Australia their collections were again very numerous and valuable. But their long stay in explorations exposed them to two great dangers, each of which was very nearly fatal to Mr. Banks and to most of his companions. They struck upon a rock, while coasting New South Wales. Their escape was wonderful. The accident entailed an amount of injury to the ship which brought them presently within a peril more imminent still. Whilst making repairs in the noxious climate of Batavia, a pestilence seized upon nearly all the Europeans. Seven, including the ship's surgeon, died in Batavia. Twenty-three, including the second draughts- man, Mr. Parkinson, died on shipboard afterwards. Banks and Solander were so near death that their recovery seemed, to their companions, almost miraculous. After leaving New South Wales and Batavia they had a prosperous passage to the Cape— prosperous, save for the loss of those whom the pestilence had previously stricken— The Return Home. 1771. June. TheExpkdi- tion to Ice- THE FOUNDER OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 495 and made some additions to their scientific stores. The bookii, ; Endeavour anchored in the Downs on the 12th of June, Tmiw 1771, after an absence of nearly three years. Beyond the 5w^ E immediate and obvious scientific results of the voyage, it MuSEDSI was the means, eventually, of conferring an eminent bene- li»ra*t. faction on our West Indian Colonies. It gave them the Bread- Fruit tree (Artocarpus incisa). The transplantation of God's bounties from clime to clime was a favourite pursuit — and a life-long one — with Sir Joseph Banks, and its agencies cost him much time and thought, as well as no small expenditure of fortune. The hardships and sufferings of Terra-del-Fuego and of Batavia had not yet taken off the edge of his appetite for remote voyages. He expended some thousands of pounds in buying instruments and making preparations for a new "■»» expedition with Cook, but the foolish and obstructive ™- conduct of our Navy Board inspired him with a temporary disgust. He then turned his attention to Northern Europe. He resolved that after visiting the western isles of Scotland he would explore Iceland. Solandek, was again his com- panion, together with two other northern naturalists, Drs. Lind and Von Troil. Banks chartered a vessel at his own cost (amounting, for the ship alone, to about six hundred pounds). Before starting for the cold north, they refreshed their eyes with the soft beauties of the Isle of Wight. There, said one of the delighted party, ' Nature has spared none of her favours ;' and a good many of us have unconsciously repeated his remark, long afterwards. They reached the Western Isles of Scotland before the end of July, and, after a long visit, explored Staffa, the wonders of which were then almost unknown. Scientific attention, indeed, 496 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. bookii, was first called to them by Banks, when he communicated Chap. V. •* the ]?o<™- to Thomas Pennant, of Downing, his minute survey, and b!nksi™ e his drawings of the basaltic columns. AM U D S1 ™ M He thought that the mind can scarcely conceive of any- libram. thing more splendid, in its kind, than the now famous cave. THEV..SITTO When ^g agked ^^ J Qcal name of ^ ^^ gui( J e gaye h j m an 1773 . answer which, to Mr. Banks, seemed to need explanation, Auguatis. tij 0U g n the name has nowadays become but too familiar to our ears. ' The Cave of Fiuhn,' said the islander. ' Who or what is " Fiuhn"?' rejoined Banks. The stone, he says, of which the pillars are formed, is a coarse kind of basalt, much resembling the ' Giants' Causeway' in Ireland, 'though Banks to none of them so neat as the specimens of the latter which AugTwk I have seen at the British Museum. . . . Here, it is dirty brown; in the Irish, a fine black.' But he carried away with him the fullest impression of the amazing grandeur of the whole scene. thktouuin The tourists reached Iceland on the twenty-eighth of Iceland August. They explored the country, and saw everything notable which it contained. On the twenty-first of Sep- tember they visited the most conspicuous of the geysers, or hot-springs, and spent thirteen hours in examining them. On the twenty-fourth, they explored Mount Hecla. The most famous geyser described by Von Teoil (who acted usually as penman for the party) was situate near a farm called Harkaudal, about two days' journey from Hecla. You see, he tells us, a large expanse of fields shut in, upon one side, by lofty snow-covered mountains, far away, with their heads commonly shrouded in clouds, that occasionally sink (under the force of a prevalent wind) so as to conceal the slopes, while displaying the peaks. The peaks, at such moments, seem to spring out of the clouds themselves. On another hand, Hecla is seen, with its three ice-capped sum- THE FOUNDEK OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 497 mits, and its volcanic vapours ; and then, again, a ridge of bookii, stupendous rocks, at the foot of which the boiling springs thefoot- gush forth, with deafening roar, and are backed by a broad bInksiIh" marsh containing forty or fifty other springs, or ' geysers, 5 MusE ™ from which arise immense columns of vapour, subject of lidhabt. course to all the influences and lightings-up of wind and sky. Our tourists carefully watched the ' spoutings ' of the springs — which are always fitful — and, according to their joint observations, some of these rose to the height of sixty 3™^,°^'° feet. Occasionally— it has since been observed by later 7 Sept., 1773. , . , , (Abridged.) explorers — they reach to an elevation of more than three times that number of feet. Nor did Mr. Banks neglect the literature of Iceland, which abounds with interest. He bought the Library of Halfdan Einausson, the literary historian of Iceland, and made other large and choice collections. And he pre- sented the whole to the British Museum — after bestowing, I believe, some personal study on their contents — upon his return to England at the close of the year. For many generations, it has been very conducive to the social possession of social prestige in this country that a man should have acquired the reputation of an adventurous tra- ^ KCI!otSir A A Joseph veller. Even if the traveller shall have seen no anthropo- Bahks - phagi, no men ' whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,' he is likely to attain to some degree of social eminence, merely as one who has explored those ' Antres vast and desarts idle,' of which home-keeping people have no knowledge, save from the tales of voyagers. To prestige of this kind, Mr. Banks added respectable scientific attainments, a large fortune, and a liberal mind. He was also the favoured 32 POSITION AND IMFLU- Museum and LlBRAET 498. THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. cimtv 1, P ossessor of graceful manners and of no mean powers of thefouk- conversation. It was,! therefore,' quite in the ordinary course banks™ °f things that his house in London should become one of the social centres of the metropolis. It became much more than that. From the days of his youth Banks had seen much of foreigners ; he had mixed with men of European distinction. An extensive correspondence with the Conti- nent became to him both a pursuit and an enjoyment, and one of its results, in course of time, was that at his house in Soho Square every eminent foreigner who came to Eng- land was sure to be seen. To another class of persons that house became scarcely less distinguished as the abode, not only of the rich Collections in natural history which their owner had gone so far to seek, and had gathered with so much toil and hardship, but of a noble Library, for the increase of which the book-shops of every great town in Europe had been -explored. , . the royal Th e possessor of such manifold distinctions and of such SOCIETY, i habits of mind seemed, to most men, marked out as the natural head of a great scientific institution. Such a man Would be sure to reflect honour on the Society, as well as to derive honour from his headship. But at this particular epoch the Royal Society (then the one conspicu- ous scientific association in the kingdom) was much em- broiled. Mr. Banks was, in many respects, just the man to' assuage dissensions. But these particular dissensions were of a kind which his special devotion to natural history tended rather to aggravate than to soften. Mathematicians, as all men know, have been illustrious benefactors to the world, but — be the cause what it may— they have never been famous for a large-minded estimate of the pursuits and hobbies of other men, whom Nature had not made mathematical. At the time when Joseph and its h7s- toby under the rule of Sir Joseph Banks. THE FOUNDEB OP THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 499 Banks leaped — as one may say — into eminence, both bookii, scientific and social, in London, Sir John Pringle was T heJ?ou K - President of the Royal Society, and his position there some- g™ °J, ™ what resembled the position in which we have seen Sir museom F AND Hans Sloane to have been placed. Like Sir Hans, liheae?. Pringle was an eminent physician, and a keen student of see before, r J ' '.'■ ■ Book I. physics. He did not give umbrage to his scientific team, c.e. exactly in the way in which Sloane had given it— by an overweening love of reading long medical papers. But natural, not mathematical, philosophy, was his forte ; and the mathematicians were somewhat uneasy in the traces whilst Sir John held the reins. If Pringle should be succeeded by Banks, there would be a change indeed on the box, but the style of coachmanship was likely to be little altered. It is not surprising that there should have been a good deal of jibbing, just as the change was at hand, and also for some time after it had been made. Mr. Banks was elected to the chair of the Royal Society The ele °- d TION TO THE on the 30th of November, 1777. He found it to be a pmsidrnct. very difficult post. But, in the end, the true geniality of v ^- the man, the integrity of his nature, and the suavity of his manners, won over most, if not quite all, of his opponents. The least that can be said of his rule in that chair is that he made the Royal Society more famous throughout Europe, than it had ever been since the day when it was presided over by Newton. Por it was not the least eminent quality of Banks' cha- racter that, to him, a touch of science ' made the whole world kin.' He was a good subject, as well as a good man. He knew the blessings of an aristocratic and time-honoured monarchy. He had that true insight which enables a man to discriminate sharply between the populace and the People. Book II, Chap. V. The Foun- der OF THE Banksian Museum and Ll BRAKY. Cuvier, Eloge de Sf. Banks, passim. Banks' in- tervention WITH RE- SPECT TO SOME OF THE FRUITS or the Ex- pedition or LA PiROUSE. 500 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EAELY AUGMENTORS. But, when the interests of science came into play, he could say — with literal and exactest truth, — ' Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine agetur.' He took a keen and genial delight both in watching and in promoting the progress of science on the other side of the Channel, whether France itself lay under the loose rule of the republican and dissolute Directory, or under the curbing hand of the First Consul, who was already rapidly aspiring towards empire. On ten several occasions, Banks was the means of in- ducing our Government to restore scientific collections, which had been captured by British cruisers, to that mag- nificent Botanic Garden (the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris) for which they had been originally destined. Such conduct could not but win for him the affectionate reverence of Frenchmen. On one eminent occasion his good services went much further. Men yet remember the European interest excited by the adventurous expedition and the sad fate of the gallant seaman, John Francis De La P£rouse. When the long search for La PIsrouse, which had been headed by the French Admiral Bruni d'Eutrecasteaux, came by discords to an untimely end, the collection of specimens of natural history which had been made, in the course of it, by De La Billardiere, was brought into an English port. The commander, it seems, felt much as Sloane's captain * had felt at the time of our own Revolution of 1688. From Lewis the Sixteenth he had received his commission. He was unprepared to yield an account of its performance to anybody else. He brought his cargo to England, and * See Book I, c. 6. THE FOUNDER OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 501 placed it at the absolute disposal of the French emigrant book ii, p . Chap.V. Jrnnces. theFoun- By the eldest Prince, afterwards Lewis the Eighteenth, £™ °*™ E directions were given that an offer should be made to museum . . AND Queen Charlotte to place at Her Majesty's disposal libbaey. whatever she might be pleased to select from the Collections of La Billaruiere, and that all the remainder of them should be given to the British Museum. To the interests of that Museum no man of sense will think that Sir Joseph Banks was, at any time, indifferent. At this particular time, he had been, repeatedly, an eminent benefactor to it. By the French Prince the Collections were put at his orders for the advantage of the Museum, of which he was now a Trustee, as well as a benefactor. But his first thought was for the national honour of Britain, not for the mere aggrandizement of its Museum. * I have never heard,' said Banks, ' of any declaration of war between the philosophers of England and the philoso- phers of France. These French Collections must go to the French Museum, not to the British.' And to France he sent them, without a moment's hesitation. Such an act, I take it, is worthy of the name of 'cosmopolitanism.' The bastard imitation, sometimes current under that much abused term — that which knows of no love of country, except upon a clear balance of mercantile profit — might be more fitly called by a plainer word. Nor were Frenchmen the only persons to benefit by the instances largeness of view which belonged to the new President of umhalitt the Royal Society. At a later period, he heard that Col- ™°™' lections which had been made by William Von Humboldt, and subsequently seized by pirates, had been carried to the Cape, and there detained. Banks sent to the Cape a commission for their release, and restoration to the Collector. 502 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. Book II Chap. V. He defrayed the expenses, and refused to accept of any thePouk- reimbursement. Such actions might well reflect honour junks™ on the Royal Society, as well as on the man whom the Muaju* wisest among its fellows had placed at their head. libeaby. The Royal Society had but a share of its President's attention, though the share was naturally a Benjamin's portion. He worked assiduously on the Board of Agri- culture. He helped to found the Horticultural Society and the Royal Institution of London. He became, also, in 1788, a co-founder of that 'African Institution' which contributed so largely, in the earlier years of this century, to promote geographical discovery in Africa, and to spread — of dire necessity, at but a snail's pace — some of the blessings of Christian civilization to those dark places of the earth which are full of cruelty. Banks' close intercourse with the Continent enabled him to do yeoman's service to the African Institution. Many ardent and aspiring young men in all parts of Europe were fired, from time to time, with an ambition to do some stroke or other of good work in an enterprise which was, at once, scientific and, in its ultimate issues, evangelical. Some of the aspirants were, of course, but very partially fitted or equipped for such labours. But among those who entered on it with fairest promise the proteges of Banks were conspicuous. Some brief notice of the services he was enabled to render in this direction belongs, however, more fitly, to a somewhat later date than that at which we have, as yet, arrived. Among the Fellows of the Royal Society there had been much division of opinion as to the eligibility of Joseph at ™e Ranks for their Presidency. At Court, there was none. COUBT OT . . GjionGEiii. George the Third, with all his genuine good nature, had Banks' favourable reception THE FOUNDER OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 503 been unable to restrain a lurking dislike of Sir John bookii, Pringle's friendly intercourse with Benjamin Franklin. theWun- He was pleased to see Pringle retire to his native Scotland, 3™°™' and to receive Banks at Court, in Sir John's place. He , MuSEUM did not then anticipate that the new President would, one libkaky. day, offend (for a moment) his irrepressible prejudices in a somewhat like manner. Sometimes, Sir Joseph's attendance at Court brought him into company which had become to him, in some degree, unwonted. We have seen him making a very favourable impression in the feminine circles at Otaheite. Bat the ladies in attendance on Queen Charlotte were less charmed with him. In March, 1788, I find Panny Burney diarizing (at Windsor Castle) thus : — ' Sir Joseph Banks was so exceedingly shy that we made no acquaintance at all. If, instead of going round the world, he had only fallen from the moon, he could not appear less versed in the usual modes of a tea-drinking party. But what, you will say, has a tea-party to do with a botanist, a man of science, and a President of the Royal D-Arway, Diary, vol. iv, Society ? p. 128. In March, 1779, Mr. Banks made a happy marriage with Dorothea Hugessen, daughter and coheir of William Weston Hugessen, of Provender, in Kent. Two years afterwards, the King made him a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and cultivated his familiar and fre- quent acquaintance both in town and at Windsor. Ere long, he was still further honoured with the rank of a Privy Councillor. Both men were deeply interested in agri- culture and in the improvement of stock. Sir Joseph shared his sovereign's liking for the Merino breeds ; took an active part in managing those in Windsor Park, and for many years presided, very successfully, over the annual 504 THE OEGANIZEES, AND EAELY AUGMENTOES. ctap K v!' Sales " The Kin S had been willin g to g iv e away his surplus the irora- stock, for the mere sake of promoting improvement, but he DEB OF THE j * Or ' banksian was made to see that more good was likely to accrue from and EDI sal es than from gifts. When in Lincolnshire Sir Joseph Ln«A.T. Banks laboured hard for the more complete drainage of the fens, and in many ways furthered the introduction of sound agricultural methods. He was a good neighbour ; though not a very keen sportsman. And most of his time was now necessarily passed either in London or in its neighbourhood. But, among other acts of good fellowship, he rarely visited Reresby Abbey without patronising a picnic ball at Horncastle, for the benefit of the public dispensary of that town. And it was noted by Lin- colnshire people that when, in the after-years, Sir Joseph's severe sufferings from gout kept him much away from Reresby, the dispensary suffered also — from depletion — until Mr. Dymoke, of Scrivelsby, had revived, after Banks' example, the good old annual custom of the town; The It was in the year 1797, and again in 1806, that Sir Joseph was enabled to render special service to that African enterprise which lay near his heart, by enlisting in its toils a zealous German and a not less zealous Swiss — Frederick Hornemann and John Lewis Burckhardt. It was the fate of both of those enterprising men to pay the usual penalty of African exploration. Hornemann succumbed, after six years' service. Burckhardt was spared to work for ten years. Some among the minor scientific results of his well-known travels are preserved in the Public Library at Cambridge (to which he bequeathed his manuscripts). Others of them are in the British Museum. The latter would deserve record in these pages, were it now practi- cable. Burckhardt died at Cairo on the seventeenth of African In stitution. DER or THE Banks ian MU3EUM THE FOUNDEK OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 505 October, 1817, just eleven years after his arrival in London, bookii, from Gottingen, with that letter to Sir Joseph Banks in th'f P foun- his pocket which, under Divine Providence, determined his work in life. Another great public service of a like kind, rendered by 'Sir Joseph Banks to his country and to man- lebba»t. kind, was his zealous encouragement of explorations in Australia. Meanwhile, a new outburst of discord in the Royal Society arose out of a well-merited honour conferred on its Presi- dent by the Institute of France, in 1802. It was inevitable that a body so eminent and illustrious as the French Insti- tute should not only feel gratitude to Sir Joseph Banks for that liberality of spirit which had dictated, in the midst of war, his many gracious and generous acts of service to Frenchmen, but should long since have reached the con- viction that they would be honouring themselves, not less hiselec- than honouring him, by his reception in their midst. During theiksh- the momentary lull afforded by the Peace of Amiens — when £1™°! the Institute was reorganized by the hand of the great man who was proud of its badge of fellowship, even when clad in the dalmatica — they placed Banks at the head of their eight Foreign Members. Banks' estimate of the honour of membership was much like Napoleon's. ' I consider this mark of your esteem,' said Banks, in his reply, ' the highest and most enviable literary distinction which I could possibly attain. To be the first elected as an Associate of the first Literary Society in the world surpasses my most ambitious hopes.' Several Fellows of the Royal Society resented these warm acknowledgments. They thought them both unpatriotic, Letter of m- 1 . . sogallus, and uncomplimentary to themselves. The mathematical lsoacpri- malcontents, with Bishop Horsley at their head, eagerly l^u®. 506 THE OEGANIZERS, AND EAELY ATJGMENTORS. book ii, profited by so favourable an opportunity of renewing the thkfo™. expression of their old and still lurking dissatisfaction with b™ksu!T the cfl °i ce °f their President. Horsley addressed to Sir museum Joseph a letter of indignant and angry remonstrance. libeabt. Somewhat discreditably, the Bishop chose a pseudonymous signature instead of manfully affixing his own. 'Misogallus'* was the mask under which he made an appeal to those anti-Gallican prejudices which so many of us imbibe almost with our mother's milk, and have in after-years to get rid of. He aimed a poisoned dart at his old antagonist, when pointing one of his many passionate sentences in a way which he knew would arrest the special attention of foe King. The shaft hit the mark. But the King was presently appeased. He knew Banks, and he knew the rBishop of St. Asaph. sm Joseph From time to time Sir Joseph Banks contributed many ^nTuthob:- interesting articles to the Philosophical Transactions, and 1 'to the Annals of Agriculture. His able paper on the Blight in Wheat did service in its day, and was separately pub- lished. But it is not as an author that this illustrious man will be remembered. He knew how to fructify the thoughts and ' to disseminate the wisdom of minds more largely gifted' than his own. Necessarily, space and prominence in the public eye is — more especially after a man's death — a good deal determined by authorship. Hence, in our Biographical Dictionaries, a crowd of small writers occupy a disproportionate place, and some true and illustrious public benefactors remain almost unnoticed. Undeniably, * Bishop Horsley certainly forgot the ever-memorable words which he had so often read— Matt, v, 44— when he, a prelate, signed himself ' Misogallus.' THE FOUNDEE OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 507 the fame of one such, benefactor as a Joseph Banks ought bookii, to outweigh, and must, intrinsically, outweigh, that of many the iw n ■ TT' 1 P l • 11 DE11 OF THE scores ot minor penmen. His benefactions were world- banksian wide. And by them he, being dead, yet speaks, and will ^ USE ™ long continue to speak, to very good and lofty purpose. He i^eam. died in London on the ninth of May, 1820, at the venerable age of eighty-one years completed. He died without issue, and was succeeded in his chief Lincolnshire estates by the Honourable James Hamilton Bea ™- Stanhope (afterwards Mr. Stanhope Banks), and by Sir Henry Hawlet. His Kentish estates were bequeathed to bequests. Sir Edward Knatchbtjll. His Library, Herbarium, Manuscripts, Drawings, En- ^^ } gravings, and all his other subsisting Collection's^ he 7 ana zi; ma March. 7 bequeathed to the Trustees of the British Museum, for isao. public use for ever, subject to a life-use and a life-interest in them which, together with an annuity, he specifically bequeathed to the eminent botanist, Robert Brown, who was, for many years, both his friend and his librarian. He also gave an annuity of three hundred pounds a year to Mr. Bauer, an eminent botanical draughtsman ; and he added, largely, to the innumerable benefactions he had made in his lifetime to the Botanical Gardens at Kew. To Mr. Brown he also left the use, for life, of his town house in Soho Square, subject to the life-interest, or the voluntary concession, of the testator's widow. In his first Codicil, Sir Joseph Banks made a proviso that, if it should be the desire of the Trustees of the British Museum — and if that desire should also receive the approval of Mr. Brown — the life-possessor should be at full liberty to cause the Collections to be transferred to the Museum during his lifetime. That, in fact, was the course which, by mutual consent, was eventually taken, to the manifest 508 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii. advantage of the British Public and the promotion of the foot- Science. der of the Banksian Museum and Part of Sir Joseph's personal Manuscripts were bequeathed libeak*. to the Royal Society; another portion to the British Museum; and a third portion (connected with the Coinage of the Realm) to the Royal Mint. A minor part of his Collections in Natural History had been given to the British Museum othekbe- in his own lifetime, and he had personally superintended their selection and arrangement. He had also been a bene- factor to the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow, to the Museum of the London College of Surgeons, and to that, also in London, formerly known as 'Bullock's Museum.' He was, throughout life, as eager to give, as he was diligent to get. TuE About the year 1825, negotiations were opened by the TRANSFER . . , or the Trustees of the British Museum with Mr. Robert Brown, c^l™ with the view of obtaining for the Public the immediate use of the Banksian Library and the other Collections, and, along with them, the public services of the eminent botanist under whose charge they then were. The then President of the Royal Society, Sir Humphrey Davy, acted for the Public in that negotiation ; but some delays intervened, so that it was not brought to a close until nearly the end of the year 1827. At that date, the transfer was effected. Mr. Brown became the head of the Botanical Department of the Museum, and his accession to the Staff added honour to the institution — in the eyes of all scientific Europe — as well as eminent advantage to the public service. Mr. Brown acted as Keeper until nearly the time of his decease. He died in the year 1858, full of years and of botanical fame. tiohstothe Museum. Bawksian LlBRAKY. THE FOUNDER OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM, ETC. 509 The Library of Sir Joseph Banks comprised the finest bookii, collection of books on natural history which had ever been thTfoun- gathered into one whole in England. It was also pre-emi- °™ °* ™ E nently rich in the transactions, generally, of learned musedm societies in all parts of the world ; and there is a masterly libham. Catalogue of the Collection, by Jonas Dryander, which was the printed, at Sir Joseph's cost, in the years 1798-1800. That Catalogue, I venture to hope, will, some day, become — with due modification — the precedent for a printed Catalogue of the whole Museum Library — vast as it already is, and vaster as it must needs become before that day shall have arrived. The Banksian Herbaria comprise Banks' own botanical the collections in his travels, and those of Clifeort, Her- hmbImI. mann, Clayton, Aublet, Miller, Jacquier, and Lotjreiro, together with part of those made by Tourne- fort, the friend and fellow-botanizer of Sloane, and the author of the Corollarium. They also include many valuable plants gathered during those many English Voyages of Discovery which, from time to time, Banks' example and his liberal encouragement so largely fostered. Erom the Collections now seen in the Botanical Room of the British Museum not a few of the great works of Linnaeus, Gro- noviuSj and other famous botanists, derived some of their best materials. These Collections are at present under the zealous and faithful care of Mr. John Joseph Bennett, long the assistant and the friend of Brown. Among nearly contemporaneous accessions which would beh* well merit some detailed notice, were the space for it avail- able, are a valuable assemblage of Marbles from Persepolis, which had been collected by Sir Gore Ouseley, and were EAiraoirs given to the Museum by the Collector, and a small but NOTICE OF SOME OTHER NEARLY CONTEMPO- ACCESSIONS. 510 THE ORGANIZERS, AND EARLY AUGMENTORS. book ii, choice Collection of Minerals from the Hartz Mountains, TraFouN- given to the Public by Bang George the Fourth. bInks™ ^he Persepolitan sculptures were received in the year museum 1825 ; the Minerals from the Hartzgebirge, in the year 1829. AND Library, BOOK THE THIRD. LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. 1829—1870. CONTENTS OF BOOK III:— Chapter I. Introduction :— Summary View of the History op the British Museum during the Principal- llbrarianship of joseph planta. II. Introduction (continued) : — Summary View of the History of the British Museum during the Principal-Librarianship of Sir Henry Ellis. III. Introduction (continued) : — Summary View of the History of the British Museum during the Principal-Librarianship of Sir Antonio Panizzi. IV. Another Group of Arch^ologists and Classical Explorers. V. The Founder of the Grenville Library. VI. Benefactors of Recent Days. VII. Eeconstructors and Projectors. ' The comprehensive character of the British Museum — the origin of which may be traced to the heterogeneous nature of Sir Hans Sloane's bequest — doubtless makes it difficult to provide for the expansion of its various branches, according to their relative demands upon the space and light which can be applied to their accommodation. Any attempt, however, now to diminish that difficulty by segre- gating any portion, or by scattering in various localities the components of the vast aggregate, would involve a sacrifice of great scientific advantages which are not the less inhe- rent in their union because that union was, in its origin, fortuitous ' Some passages of our evidence . . . illustrate the difficulty of drawing a line of separation, for purposes of management and superintendence, between certain Collections Its occurrence [i. e. the occurrence of such a difficulty] indicates strongly the value to Science, of the accidents which have placed in near juxtaposition the Collections of mineralogy [and] of forms of existing and extinct animal and vegetable life. The immediate connexion of all alike with the Library of the Museum is too important to allow us to contemplate its dissolution.' — Report of the Commis- sioners appointed to inquire into the Constitution and Man- agement of the British Museum (1850), p. 36. 33 CHAPTER I. GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, UNDER THE ADMINIS- TRATION, AS PRINCIPAL-LIBRARIAN, OF JOSEPH PLANTA. , . . Perseverance keeps honour bright. To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail la monumental mockery. Troilus and Cressida. * Signor, mirate, come '1 tempo vola, E siccome la vita Fugge, e la Morte lie aovra le spalle, Voi siete or qui : pensate alia partita Che 1' alma ignuda e sola Conven ch' arrive a quel dubbioso calle.' .... Petkabch (Italia mia, &c). Notices of the Life of Joseph Plant A, third Principal- Librarian. — Improvements in the Internal Economy of the Museum introduced or recommended by Mr. Planta. — His labours for the enlargement of the Collections - — and on the Museum Publications and Catalogues. — The Museum Gardens and the Duke of Bedford. Hitherto these pages have chiefly had to do with the book in, history of the integral parts of the British Museum, and history with that of the men by whom these integral parts, taken museum severally, were first founded or first gathered. We have ^pLhta. 516 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, now to glance at the organic history of the whole, after the Chap. I. . J n • histoet primary Collections and the early additions to them came, mu™um D y aggregation, to be combined into the existing national mTpLnta. esta bhshment. It may, at best, be only by glances that so wide a subject can (within the limits of this one volume) be looked over, in retrospect. That necessity of being brief suggests a connection of the successive epochs in the story of the Museum, for seventy years, with the lives of the three eminent men who have successively presided over the institution since the beginning of the present century. Those three official lives, I think, will be found to afford succinct divisions or breakings of the subject, as well as to possess a distinctive personal interest of their own. Our introductory chapters will therefore — in relation to the chapters which follow them — be, in part, retrospective, and, in part, prospective. When Dr. Charles Mokton died (10 February, 1799), Joseph Planta was, by the three principal Trustees, ap- pointed to be his successor. The choice soon commended itself to the Public by the introduction. of some important improvements into the internal economy Of the institution. It is the first librarianship which is distinctively marked as a reforming one. In more than one of his personal qualities Mr. Planta was well fitted for such a post as that of Prin- cipal Officer of the British Museum. He had been for many years in the service of the Trustees. He had won the respect of Englishmen by his literary attainments. He was qualified, both by his knowledge of foreign languages and by his eminent courtesy of manners, for that salient part of the duties of librarianship which consists in the adequate reception and the genial treatment of strangers. Joseph Planta was of Swiss parentage. He was of a UNDER Me. PLANTA, THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER JOSEPH PLANTA. 517 race and family which had given to Switzerland several bookiii, worthies who have left a mark in its national history. He histom was born, on the twenty-first of February, 1744, at Casta- mu™um segna, where his father was the pastor of a reformed church. The boy left Switzerland before he had completed the second year of his age. He began his education at Utrecht, * ,IPE or and continued it, first at the University of Gottingen, and planta, TH I RD afterwards by foreign travel — whilst yet open to the forma- peincipai. tive influences of youthful experience upon character — both in France and in Italy. It was thus his fortune to combine what there is of good in the characteristics of the cosmopo- lite with what is better in those of a patriotic son of the soil. It was Joseph Planta's fortune never to live in Switzerland, as a resident, after the days of early infancy, but, for all that, he remained a true Swiss. And one of the acts of his closing years in England was to make a most creditable contribution to Helvetic history. Andrew Planta, father of Joseph, came to London in 1752. He was a man of good parts and of pleasing address. He established himself as pastor of a German congregation, and was also made an Assistant-Librarian in the British Museum. Afterwards, he was chosen to be a Fellow of the Royal Society and a ' reader ' to Queen Charlotte. That appointment brought with it, in course of time, a measure of Court influence by which young Planta profited. His youthful ' Wanderjalire' had in- spired the growing man with a keen desire to see more of foreign countries. When the father's favour at Court put him in a position to represent at head-quarters the youth's fancy to see life abroad, and to state (as he truthfully could) that neither talent nor industry were lacking in his character, the statement obtained for Joseph Planta the secretaryship of legation at Brussels. There, he felt himself UNDEK Me. Plahta. 518 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. chT? 1 ' to be in an element which suited him ; but his filial affec- h IS toey tion brought him back to England in 1773, in order that m d ™um he might solace the last days, on earth, of his father. In that year the elder Plant a died. It was also in 1773 that Joseph Planta became an Assistant-Librarian. In the next year he was appointed to succeed Dr. Maty in both of his then offices. At the Royal Society he succeeded him as Secretary; at the Museum, he succeeded him as an Under-Librarian— when the Doctor was made head of the establishment. His new post at the Museum brought to Planta the special charge of the Department of MSS. Joseph Planta had already made — immediately after his first appointment as Assistant-Librarian — his outset in Yo\\^ ans '' authorship by the publication of his Account of the Bomansch 129-iao. Language. It is a scholarly production, though (it need hardly be said) not what would be expected, on such a subject, after the immense stride made in linguistical studies during the ninety-five years which have elapsed since it was given to literature, in pages in which nowadays such a treatise would hardly be looked for. Its first appearance was in the Philosophical Transactions. In 1 776 it was translated into German and printed at Chamouni. The subsequent years were devoted, almost exclusively, to the proper duties of his Museum office — on the days of service — and to those of the Pay mastership of Exchequer Bills, a function to which Mr. Planta was appointed in 1788, and the duties of which he discharged, with efficiency and honour, for twenty-three years. Authorship had but little of his time until a much later period of life. A little before his appointment in the administrative service of the country, Planta had married Miss Elizabeth Atwood. Eor him, marriage did just the opposite of what THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER JOSEPH PLANTA 519 it has, now and then, been said to do for some other men. book in, It took off the edge of his liking for foreign travel. For history it gave him a very happy home. Their union endured for „™m twenty-four years. Planta was not a man of the gushing ^ E D p* ANTA sort. But, to intimates, he would say — in the lonely years ; Mkenstein, there were to be but few of them — ' She was an angel f^"ittf ' in spirit and in heart.' Mrs. Planta died in 1821. Reihe.Ba.ii, 1 pp. 3, seqq. On the death of Charles Morton, Mr. Planta, as we have seen already, was made Principal Librarian. He found the Museum still in its infancy, although no less than forty-six years had passed since the bequest of Sir Hans Sloane was made to the British Public, and more than forty years since that Public had entered upon its in- heritance. The collections had kept pace with the growth of science only in one or two departments. In others the arrear was enormous. The accessibility was hampered with restrictions. The building was in pressing need of enlargement, gradual as had been the growth of some sections, and glaring as was the deficiency of other sections. Planta put his shoulders to the wheel, and met with support and encouragement from several of the Trustees. But the feeling still ran strongly against any approach to indiscriminate publicity in any department of the Museum. Men did not carry that restrictive view quite so far in 1800, as it had been expressed by Dr. John Ward — an able and good man — in 1760, and earlier; but they still looked with apprehension upon the combined ideas of a crowd of visitors, and irreplaceable treasures of learning and of art. A good many of the men of 1800 possessed, it must in candour be remembered, living recollections of the sights and the deeds of 1780. Residents in Blooms- bury were likely, on that score, to have particularly good UNDEB Mb. Plahta, 520 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEEACTOES. book in, memories. They had seen with their eyes precious manu- Chap.I. . . J J f histoey scripts, which treasured up the lifelong lore of a Mansfield, Mu™vit given by the populace to the flames. Under the influenceof such memories as these,Mr.PLANTA had to propose abolition of restrictions, with a gentle and very gradual hand. He began by improving the practice, without at first greatly altering the rules. By and by he brought, from time to time, before the Trust, suggestions for relaxations in the rules themselves. impbove- From the outset he administered the Reading Room tkodtjoed, itself with much liberality. When he became Principal Librarian the yearly admissions were much under two josbph hundred. In 1816, they had increased to two hundred Planta, in j the and ninety-two. In 1820, to five hundred and fifteen. As respects the Department of Antiquities, the students ad- mitted to draw were in 1809 less than twenty; in 1818 two hundred and twenty-three were admitted. In 1814 he recommended the Trustees to make provision for the exhibition every Thursday, ' to persons applying to see them,' the Engravings and Prints; — the persons admitted not exceeding six at any one time, and others being admitted in due succession. He also recommended a some- what similar system of exhibition for adoption in the Department of Coins and Medals. And the Trustees gave effect to both recommendations. Eventually Mr. Planta proposed, for the general show Collections of the Museum, a system of entirely free admission at the instant of appli- cation, abolishing all the hamper of preliminary forms. hiseeoom- It was also, I believe, at Mr. Planta's instance, or partly so, that the Trustees applied to Parliament, in 1812, for special grants to enable them to improve the Collection vabious f Printed Books, with reference more particularly to the MENTS IN- TRODUCED OB BE COM- mended, by Joseph Plakta, in the intebnal ECONOMY oe THE Museum. MENDATIONS FOB THE EKLABGE- MENTOJTTHK COLLEC tions. endeavour to perfeqt the National Library in the National 01' THE Museum under Me. Planta. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER JOSEPH PLANT A. 521 History — to that very limited extent to which the monu- book in, ments and memorials of our history are to be found in h'^ori print. Virtually, the grants on behalf of the Manuscript Department, not those on behalf of the Printed Book Department, were, in 1812, as they still are in 1870, the grants which mainly tend to make the British Museum what, most obviously, it ought to become, the main store- house of British History and Archaeology, both in literature and in art. The magnificent additions made by private donors to every section of the British Museum during the adminis- tration of Planta, have been sufficiently passed under review in the closing chapters of Book II. Several of them, it has been seen, were the fruits of the public spirit of indi- vidual Trustees. Such gifts amply vindicated the wisdom both of -Sir Hans Sloane and of Parliament, when both Founder and Legislature gave to men of exalted position a preference as peculiarly fit, in the judgment of each, for the general guardianship of the Museum. But private gifts — munificent as they were — left large gaps in the National Collections. It is one of Mr. Planta's vastus and ° A SYMPATHIES distinctive merits that his tastes and sympathies embraced the Natural History Department, as well as those literary departments with which, as a man of letters, he had a more direct personal connection. He supported, with his influ- ence, the wise recommendation to Parliament — made in 1810 — for the purchase of the Greville Collection of Minerals. He recommended, in 1822, the purchase, from the representatives of the naturalist Monticelli, of a like, though minor Collection, which had been formed at Naples. The Cavaliero Monticelli's Collection was, in the main, one that had been undertaken in imitation of an earlier assem- blage of volcanic products which had been also gathered at HIS CATHO- LICITY 01? SYMPATHIKS. UNDEE, Me. Plamta. 522 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book hi, Naples by Sir William Hamilton, and by the Collector histokj given (as I have already recorded) to the Trustees. In mo™™ a similar spirit he promoted the acquisitions which were made from time to time, by the instrumentality of Claudius Rich, of Henry Salt, and of several other workers in the fruitful field of Classical, Assyrian, and Egyptian archaeological exploration. Both in the literary and scientific departments of the Museum he also gave some special attention to the due continuance and completion of the various collections ibestowed on the Public by the munificence of Sir Joseph Banks. Another conspicuous merit belongs to Joseph Planta. He supported the Trustees in that wise and large-minded policy which induced them to regard publication, as well as accumulation, to be one of the chief duties of their Trust for the Nation. He thought it not enough, for example, to show to groups of Londoners, from time to time, and to occasional foreign visitants, in almost solitary state, the wealth of Nature and of Art in the Museum Collections. He saw it to be no less the duty of the faithful trustees of such trea- sures to show them to the world at large by the combined labours of the painter, the draughtsman, the engraver, and plamta-s the printer. It will ever be an honourable distinction — in the laboues os briefest record of his Museum labours — that he promoted THE m m l museum's the publication of the beautiful volumes entitled Description tims; of the Ancient Marbles in the British Museum; of the Catalogue of the Anghr Gallic Coins; of the Mausoleum and Cinerary Urns ; of the Description of Terra Cottas ; and other like works. The first-named work in particular is an especial honour to the Trustees of the Museum, and to all who were concerned in its production. Beautifully engraved, and ably edited, it made the archaeological trea- sures of the Nation widely known even to such foreigners, THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER JOSEPH PLANTA. 523 interested in the study of antiquity, as circumstances pre- bookiii, eluded from ever seeing the marbles themselves. When histoey watching — in the bygone years— the late Henry Corbould ™ d ™* h busy at the work into which he threw so much of his love, UNDISK » ...... Me.Planta as well as of his skill in drawing, I have been tempted, now and then, to envy the craft which, in its results, made our national possessions familiarly known, in the far parts of the world, to students who could never hope to see the wonderful handicraft of the old Greek sculptors, otherwise than as it is reflected and transmitted by the handicraft of the skilled modern draughtsman. Corbould had the eye to see artistic beauty and the soul to enjoy it. He was not one of the artists who are artisans, in everything but the name. In the 'Ancient Marbles in the British Museum] published under the active encouragement of the Trustees and of their Principal Librarians, during a long series of years, Corbould, as draughtsman, had just the work for which Nature had pre-eminently fitted him. Joseph Planta also took his share in the compilation of AND ' PAK ' TICULABLY, the Catalogues both of Printed Books and of Manuscripts, ohthbc*. In this department, as in the archaeological one, he extended the benefits of his zealous labour to the scholar abroad as well as to the scholar at home. What was carefully pre- pared was liberally printed and liberally circulated. Planta wrote with his own hand part of the published Catalogue of the Printed Books, and much of the Catalogue of the Cotlonian Manuscripts. To the latter he prefixed a brief life of the Pounder, by which I have gladly and thankfully profited in my own more extended labour at the beginning of this volume. One incidental employment which Mr, Planta's office entailed upon him — as Principal Librarian — was of a less grateful kind. It merits notice on more than one account 3 TALOGUES. 524 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. X S I™' V6ry trivial as is the incident of Museum history that occa- histoet sioned it, when looked at intrinsically. museum In 182], the then Duke of Bedford (John, ninth Duke) m k "pL HT a. filed in chan cery an injunction against the Trustees to the restrain them from building on the garden-ground of the tbeT™ Museum - To build was— at that time— an undoubted injury museum to the Bloomsburians, and, consequently, a not less undoubted AND THE j 1. J duke op depreciation of the Duke's estate. It is hard, nowadays, to realise to one's fancy what the former Museum gardens were in the olden time. They not only adorned every house that looked over them, but were — in practice, and by the indulgence of the Trustees and officers — a sort of small public park for the refreshment of the vicinity at large. Their neighbourhood made houses more valuable in the market. Almost seventy years before the filing of the Chancery injunctions of 1820-21, a predecessor of the Duke (John, seventh Duke) had compelled Parliament — and with great reason — to enact that the ' New Road ' should be made a broad road ; not a narrow lane. He had carried a proviso for the construction of gardens in front of all the houses along the road. Were public property, and public enjoyments, protected by English law with one tenth part of the efficiency with which private property and private 'enjoyments are protected, that clause in the 'New Road Act' of 1750 would have proved, in our own present day, a measure advantageous to public health. But public easements are unknown, or nearly unknown, to English law. And the Duke's clause has come, in course of time, to teem with public nuisance, instead of public benefit. Englishmen build at the national cost magnificent cathedrals, and then permit railway -jobbers to defile them, at pleasure, with railway ' architecture.' They construct, by dint of large taxation, magnificent THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER JOSEPH PLANTA. 525 river-embankments, and permit every sort of smoke-belching bookiii, chimney and eye-killing corrugated-iron-monstrosity to hktobt spoil the view. What the old Duke of Bedford intended ^ D ™ M to make a metropolitan improvement, as well as a defence ™ D ™ to his own property, has come to be a cause of public detri- ment, — simply because our legislation, in the year of Grace 1870, affords protection to no kind of public property that is insusceptible, by its nature, of direct valuation in pounds and pence. The action of the ninth Duke of Bedford was in con- trast with that of his predecessor. It was not altogether selfish, since there was an actual abatement of public enjoy- ment in that step which he was opposing. The Trustees of the British Museum were really compelled to take something from the Public with one hand ; — but, with the other, they gave a tenfold equivalent. Their contention, of course, prevailed against the Duke's opposition. •> It may not be intrusive here to mention that it is known that by the present Duke of Bedford very generous and liberal furtherance would be given to new schemes of ex- tension for the Museum, were Parliament, on full consider- ation, to think enlargement at Bloomsbury the right course to be taken in pending matters. But this subject will demand a few words hereafter. Plahta's energies seem for several years to have been given, almost exclusively, to his Museum duties, in com- bination (as was perfectly practicable and befitting, under the then circumstances) with his Exchequer Paymastership. But in the closing years of his Under-Librarianship many months were (not less fitly) given to a worthy literary un- dertaking. He wrote his History of the Helvetic Con- federacy towards the end of the last century, and published 526 LATEE ATJGMENTOKS AND BENEFACTOKS. cha^" 1 ' ** soon a ^ er ms appointment to the Principal- Librarianship. histoky In the next year he published a supplement to it, under museum the title of A View of the Restoration of the Helvetic mTpLnta. Confederacy. The History reached its second edition in 1807. Based primarily on the great work of Johannes Von Muller, Planta's History of the Helvetic Confederacy is both a very able production and one that is animated by a spirit of patriotism which is wise as well as strong. It was an enduring contribution to the literature of the author's fatherland. After its appearance, his official duties mainly engrossed his attention. He died, full of years and honours, in the year 1827, leaving a son, who, like his father and his grandfather, distinguished himself in the civil service of their adopted country. Joseph Planta, in his fifty-three years of service, had seen the British Museum pass from its infancy into the early stages of its maturity. But it still, at the time of his death, was too much regarded, both by the general Public and by Parliament, as, in the main, a place of popular amusement. His next successor saw the beginning of further improvements, such as lifted the Museum upon a level with the best of its fellow-institutions in all Europe. His second successor saw it lifted far above them, in several points of view. And what he witnessed of augmented improvement — when leaving office three or four years ago — was, in a very large measure, the result of his own zealous labours and of his eminent ability. CHAPTER II. INTRODUCTION TO BOOK III (Continued) -.-Gt'ROWTK, PROGRESS, AND INTERNAL ECONOMY, OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM, DURING THE PRIN- CIPAL - LIBRARIANSHIP OF SIR HENRY ELLIS. 'It is expedient that the Trustees should revise the salaries of the Establishment, with the view of ascertain- ing what increase may he required for the purpose of .... obtaining the whole time and services of the ablest men, independently of any remuneration from other sources; and that, when Buch scale of salary shall have been fixed, it shall not be competent to any Officer of the Museum, paid thereunder, to hold any other situation conferring emolument or entailing duties.' Repobt *rom Select Committee on Beitish Musedm, 14 July, 1836. Internal Economy of the Museum at the time of the death of Joseph Planta. — The Literary Life and Public Services of Sir Henry Ellis. — The Candidature of Henry Fynes Clinton. — Progress of Improvement in certain Departments. — Introduction of Sir Antonio Panizzi into the Service of the Trustees. — The House of Commons' Committee of 1835-36. — Panizzi and Henry Francis Cart. — Memoir of Cabt. — Panizzi's Beport on the proper Character of a National Library for Britain, made in October, 1837. — His successful labours for Internal Reform. — And his Helpers in the work. — The Literary Life and Public Services of Thomas Watts. — Sir A. Panizzi's Special Beport to the Trustees of 1845, and what grew thereout. — Pro- gress, during Sir H. Ellis's term of office, of the several Departments of Natural History and of Antiquities. Chap. II. When Sir Henry Ellis was appointed to be the successor histobt OF THE of Mr. Planta (20th December, 1827), the British Museum muse™ was still composed of but four departments, in conformity h^elLT Book III, Chap. II. Htstoby OP THE Museum UNDER SlE H. Ellis. Conditions of Museum ACCESSI- BILITY AT COMMKNCE- MKNT OF Mr. Ellis's rule. 528 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. with the organization of 1809. It was publicly open on three days in each week, but only during forty weeks of every year. This was a great improvement of the previous arrangements, as we have seen, under Matt and Morton. But Mr. Planta's most conspicuous improvements lay in the (admittedly more important) direction of access to the Medal, Print, and Reading Rooms. To his administration, students in all these departments were much indebted. Sir Henry Ellis was to witness and to carry out, very effi- ciently as Principal Librarian, some more extensive modi- fications of the old system of things ; but he, in his turn, was to be quite eclipsed (so to speak) in the character of Museum improver, by his successor in office. And it was, in fact, to the latter that such among the conspicuous improvements of the last twenty years of Sir Henry's official administration as related to the Department of Printed Books — and in no department were the improve- ments more striking — were pre-eminently due. Sir Henry Ellis (who has but so recently departed from amongst us) entered the service of the Trustees, as a tem- porary assistant in the Library, in the year 1800, having had already three years' experience in Bodley's Library at Oxford. When coming occasionally to London during his employment at Oxford he would see Dr. Charles Morton, who had helped to organize the Museum almost fifty years before. The public life of those two acquaintances spread, conjointly, over a period of a hundred and twenty years.* * Morton died at eighty-three ; Planta, at eighty-four j Ellis, at ninety-two. Morton, as we have seen, was known to Sir Hans Sloane. Sloane was already a noted man in the days of Charles the Second ; and he also lived to be ninety-two. The joint lives of Sloane, Morton, and Ellis extended over nearly two hundred and ten years. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 529 Had it never fallen to the lot of Henry Ellis to render book in, to the Public any service at all, in the way of administering histobt and improving the National Museum, he would still have musedm earned an honourable niche in our literary history. His g™^ 1 * contributions to literature are, indeed, very unequal in their character. Some of them are fragmentary ; some might be ^ 0DE3 thought trivial. But very many of them have sterling "tebatube value. And his archaeological labours, in particular, were elhs. zealous and unremitting. He began them in 1798. He had not entirely ceased to add to them in 1868. In the closing year of the eighteenth century he was giving further- ance to the labours .on British history of Richard Gough. In the sixty-eighth year of the nineteenth century he was still taking an intelligent and critical interest in the large undertakings of Lord Romilly and of Mr. Duffus Hardy, for affording to future historians the means of basing the reconstruction of our national history upon the one firm foundation of an exhaustive search of our national records. The fourth Principal Librarian of the British Museum was born at Shoreditch, in London, on the 29th of November, 1777. He was of a Yorkshire family long settled (and still flourishing) at Dewsbury. Henry Ellis was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, and at St. John's College, Oxford, where he graduated B.C.L. in 1802. His first book (but not, perhaps, his first publica- tion) was the History of the Parish of St. Leonard, Shore- ditch, printed in 1798. He became F.S.A. in 1800 ; one of its Secretaries in 1813 ; and its Director in 1854. To the Archaologia he was a contributor for more than fifty years. In 1800, he sent to the first Record Commission a Report on the Historical Manuscripts at St. John's. For the same Commission he wrote, in the year 1813, and the three following years, an Introduction to Domesday Book. 34 530 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. ciTi"' ^ ^is ^ e wou ^ speak very modestly in after-days, history saying : ' I have worked on Domesday for years ; but only OF THF • i • museum ln making an opening into the mine. Other men will hTi! 8 " have y et to brin S out tne met al-' For the second Record Commission he re-edited his Introduction and considerably improved it. This was done in 1832 ; and, to say the least, it brought some very good ore to the surface. When both these Commissions had given way to the better organiza- tion recently framed by Lord Romilly, he edited, for the series of Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain, the Latin Chronicle of John of Oxenedes, from a MS. belonging to Sir Robert Cotton's Library. When Oxenedes was published, just sixty years had passed from the publication of Sir Henry's first Record labour, undertaken at the instance of Lord Colchester. In the interval, he had had a great opportunity, the first glimpse of which needs must have dilated the heart of so genuine a lover of antiquity. The publication of an im- proved edition of the Monasticon Anglicanum of Dods worth and Dugdale ought to have made a new epoch in British archaeology. But the opportunity was lost. In those days, there was no encouragement for such labours at the Treasury; no enlightened promoter of them at the Rolls House. The control of the new Monasticon passed into the hands of mere tradesmen. Neither of Mr. Ellis's co-editors ever buckled to the work. Ellis himself became simply the servant of the associated publishers, who had no aim what- ever beyond turning a golden penny out of the traditional prestige of Sir William Dtjgdale's name, and out of the standing advertisement that the Monasticon was indubitably one of those books ' which no gentleman's library ought to be without.' Heaps of crude, untranslated, and uneluci- dated information were thrust into the book, against the THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 531 editor's own clear conviction of his duty, and in spite of his bookiii, remonstrance. ' We must retrench,' was the one answer hktJk to all editorial recommendations of real improvement. And OTTHE 1 Museum meanwhile the publishers were actually netting fair profits undeksie from a long list of confiding subscribers. What might well have been a 'broadstone of honour' to English literature became its glaring disgrace.* No one would more gladly have striven for a better result — had the power lain with him — than would Sir Henry Ellis. As to his nominal co-editors, they did almost nothing, from first to last. To far better result did Ellis labour upon his successive editions of Hall, Hardyng, Fabyan, and Polydore Vergil, among our chroniclers, and of Brand's Observations on Popular Antiquities, of Dugdale's History of Saint Paul's Cathedral, and of Norden's Essex, among the standard illustrations of our archaeology and topography. But his most enduring contribution to historical literature is, beyond doubt, his Original Letters, illustrative of English History, the publication of which began in 1824, and was completed in 1846. That work alone would suffice to keep his name in honourable memory for a long time to come. * I do not make this statement without ample warrant. When pre- paring, under Lord Romilly's direction, my humble contribution of the lost Liber de Hyda to the series of Chronicles and Memorials, I had competent occasion to test the Monasticon of 1813-1824, and found it to teem with errors and oversights in that part of it which I had then to do with. I had had other occasions to study it somewhat closely twenty years before, and with like result. At the interval of twenty years, one could hardly stumble twice upon exceptionally ill-edited portions of such a book. For the new ' Dugdale,' thus truthfully characterised, sub- scribers paid a hundred and thirty pounds for small paper, two hundred and sixty pounds for large paper, copies ; and the number of subscribers was considerable. So much for the ' "We must retrench ' of the publishers. 532 LATEE AITGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. chap^i 1 ' At the Britisn Museum he had a considerable advantage histoet over his predecessor in the Principal Librarianship. He 01 THE • -1 museum enjoyed the assistance, almost from the first, of an abler H H ELii S s ra staff ' in more tnan one °f tne departments, than Mr. Planta had commanded during the earlier years of his si A r B h C ellk administration. And an improved order of service had at the been established before Mr. Ellis's rule began. In this Beitish . ° museum, way appliances lay already under his hand which facilitated the work of progress, when— more especially — a strong de- mand for improvement came from without, as well as from the action of the Trustees themselves within. the British At that date the Department of Printed Books was under sta"™ *^ e cnar g e °f the Rev. Henry Hervey Baber (the eminent the time or editor of the 'Alexandrian MS.' of the Septuagint). He the Death . ox me. was assisted by Mr. Henry Francis Cary, the translator of Dante, and also by Mr. Walter, who had been one of the Librarians of King George the Third, and who, in 1831, was succeeded by Mr. Antonio Panizzi. In the Depart- ment of MSS. Mr. Ellis's Assistant-Keeper, the Rev. Josiah Eorshall, had succeeded to the charge, and the new Keeper had the able assistance of Sir Frederick Madden, whose labours for the improvement of his depart- ment are well known to scholars. The Antiquities were confided to Mr. Edward Hawkins; the various Natural History Collections to Messrs. Konig and Children. The Botanical Department was, as I have shown at the close of the preceding Book, just about to be re-organized (almost to be created) by the transfer of the Collections of Sir Joseph Banks, and with them of the services of their distinguished Keeper. Taken altogether, such a staff as this was of threefold efficiency to that with which Mr. Planta had started at the beginning of the century. Mr. Ellis enjoyed an additional advantage from the THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 533 great familiarity with the whole service of the Museum book in, which he had acquired during his labours as Secretary histom from the year 1814. The secretarial duty had been com- ^,™ H bined with the functions of keepership during thirteen y™ 1 ^™ years. Great punctuality, a conspicuous faculty for method and memory, and very courteous manners, were qualifica- tions which are not always, or necessarily, found in union with conspicuous industry. In him they were combined. Nevertheless, he narrowly escaped losing the merited reward of long and assiduous labours. JFor he had a formidable competitor. At this time, a most accomplished scholar, who deservedly ^J^™ 1 possessed large influence, both social and political, had MbH - obtained the virtual promise of almost the highest per- cuntok. sonage in the realm that whenever Mr. Planta died he should receive the offer of successorship. Mr. Henry Fynes Clinton, in those quiet ante-reform days, had been able, for twenty years, to unite the functions of a Member of Parliament with the assiduous pursuits of scholarship in one of its highest forms. Learning had higher charms for him than Politics, and he had no turn for debate, but he had steadily attended the House of Commons while giving to the world his Fasti Hellenici and Fasti Bomani. Six months before Mr. Planta's decease, the Archbishop of Canterbury had, in effect, promised Mr. Fynes Clinton that he would nominate him to be Principal Librarian, and the Archbishop well knew that, as far as learning went, such an appointment would be applauded throughout Europe. The Archbishop (Dr. Charles Manners Sutton), did not forget his promise, and his vote carried that of the then Speaker of the House of Commons, who was the Archbishop's son. Their joint communication with the Lord Chancellor procured his assent also. ' We have made,' 534 LATEE ATJGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. II. History OP THE Museum under Sir H. Ellis. Letters and Journ. of H. FyneB Clinton, in the Lite- rary Remains (1864), pass. Lord Lans- downe to Archbishop of Canter- bury; ao December, 1827. Services and character of Sir 11. Ellis. the Archbishop told Mr. Fynes Clinton, ' your recommen- dation to the King as strong as possible/ The practice, as the reader will perhaps remember, was that the then Principal Trustees should in all such cases recommend to the Sovereign two names, with such observations upon them as to those Trustees might seem appropriate. As Mr. Ellis was now the senior officer ; had had the care successively of two several departments (MSS. and Printed Books) ; had also served as Secretary, and, in all these employments, had acquitted himself with diligence and credit, there could, of course, be no difficulty as to the name which should be submitted to George the Fourth in company with that of Mr. Fynes Clinton. Other Trustees interested themselyes in supporting, indirectly but efficiently, the claims of one who had served the Board so long. And the King was pleased to prefer the second name which had been placed before him by the Principal Trustees rather than the first. Lord Lansdowne received His Majesty's commands to signify to the Archbishop that it was upon the ground of ' long service in the Museum ' that the King had made his choice. Those who had (like the writer) opportunity to watch, during most of the succeeding thirty years,. the continuance of that service, know that the King's selection was justified. Sir Henry Ellis was not gifted with any of those salient abilities which dazzle the eyes of men ; but he had great power of labour, the strictest integrity of purpose, and a very kind heart. He was ever, to the Trustees, a faithful servant, up to the full measure of his ability. To those who worked under him he was always courteous, conside- rate, and very often he was generous. He would some- times expose himself to misconstruction, in order to appease discords. He would at times rather seem wanting in THE BEITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 535 firmness of will than, by pressing his authority, wound the bookiii, feelings of well-intentioned but irritable subordinates. No H isT 0Ey one could receive from him a merited reproof — I speak ^ r u ™* M from personal experience — without perceiving that the duty otdkbsi* of giving it was felt to be a painful duty. The Commis- sioners of 1850 had ample warrant for hinting, in their Report to the Crown — when alluding to certain internal disputes — that the qualities least abounding in Sir Henry Ellis's composition were those which equip a man ' for *«p«*(i850) such harsher duties of his office, as cannot be accomplished by the aid of conciliatory manners, the index of a benevo- lent disposition.' A man of that temper will now and then, in his own despite, get forced into a somewhat bitter controversy. One sharp attack on Sir Henry's administration of his Principal-Librarian ship had a close connection with discords of an anterior date which had broken out in the Society of The sioby Antiquaries. The late Sir Harris Nicolas would scarcely or ™ EMSS - 1 •'AT POMARD. have criticised, with so much vehemence, what he thought to have been a careless indifference on Ellis's part to the acquisition for the British Museum of an important body of historical manuscripts, preserved in a chateau in a distant corner of France (and offered to the Trustees in 1829), but for the circumstance that Sir Henry's kindly unwilling- ness, evinced a little while before, to desert a very weak colleague at Somerset-House had stood in the way of some much-needed reforms in that quarter. Without in the least intending beforehand to represent things unfairly, Sir H. Nicolas acted under the influence of an uncon- scious bias or pre-judgment. The Joursanvault story is still worth telling, although it has now become an old story, and one portion of the historical treasures it relates to are now past wishing for, as an English possession. OF THE Museum UNDEB SlE H. Ellis. 536 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book in, In the course of the revolutionary convulsions in France, Chap. II. ? i i> t • hktort a great body of historical documents had been abstracted from the famous old Castle of Blois. Eventually, as years passed on, they found their way into the country-seat, at Pomard, of the Baron de Joursan vault, and with them were amalgamated an extensive collection of old family papers, many books on genealogy, and some choice illuminated missals. An English gentleman long resident in France had formed the acquaintance of the Baron de Joursanvault, and in the course of conversation came to hear of the exist- ence of these historical treasures. He also perceived that their owner had little taste for them, or ability to profit by their contents. Sir Thomas Elmsley Croft probed his French friend on the subject of parting with them. The Baron lent a willing ear, and, to whet his interlocutor's appetite, told him that a great many of the manuscripts related to the history of the English rule in France. Sir Thomas then apprised an English friend, famous for his love of old MSS., of the existence of the hoards, and of the certainty that the Baron who owned them would greatly prefer a few rouleaux of English gold to a whole castle-full of the most precious parchments that ever charmed the longing eyes of a Jonathan Oldbuck — or a Harris Nicolas. Sir Harris, directly he received this piece of news from Paris, passed it on to his friend the late Lord Canterbury, then Speaker, who, in turn, communicated the information to Sir H. Ellis, for the use of the Trustees. Ellis was sent to France — whither indeed he had, just at that moment, arranged to go, in order to spend part of his holidays in Paris, according to his frequent custom. He reached Pomard (two hundred and fifty miles from THE BKITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIE HENRY ELLIS. 537 Paris) in September, 1829, and found a vast body of book in, charters which had formed the archives of the mediaeval histob* Earls of Blois, together with many heraldic and genealogical ^™ M manuscripts chiefly relating to French families. But he ™^* ^™ found hardly any manuscripts which bore, directly, upon English history or affairs — the immediate object, it must be remembered, of the mission given him by the Trustees. Immediately on his return to Paris, Sir Henry wrote sibhmey J J . Ellis's thus to the Archbishop of Canterbury :- — ' The Collection mpobt oh is indeed a most extraordinary one of its kind, and would histobicai, be a treasure in the stores of the British Museum, or of p^^. any other public Collection, though, perhaps, for a reason which will presently appear, some of the Trustees may think a public library of Prance would be its most appro- priate repository. It is placed in two attics of the Chateau, 18Z9 > Sb p- of considerable area — and I should say sixteen feet in height — in cartons (or paste-board boxes), each two feet in length by one in depth and width. Each carton contains some hundreds of charters, at least whenever I examined them, and I made here and there my comparison with the catalogue of from twenty to thirty cartons, all answering to the catalogue and to the successive dates upon the outside of the boxes In one room there were above a hundred boxes piled up to the ceiling, the lower ones of which, where I could get at them, were full of instruments arranged as I have described. I counted also, in the same room, near a hundred and fifty bundles, all of single articles, partly piled up for want of room, and placed upon the floors. In the second room I counted a hundred and forty-nine cartons piled up like the former, and no ladder in the house to get at them. I did what I could upon a pair of steps made of two thin boards fastened to two other upright boards, but I had not even a safe pair of steps. Many of 538 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BE1STEFACTOES. Book III, Chap. II. History of THE Museum under Sir H. Ellis. Paucity op English Documents in THE Archives AT PoMARD. the cartons in the second room contained collections of a comparatively recent date, apparently the manuscripts of the Baron's father. Some of these were terriers of lands, others were marked " Pays Etrangers" " Monument Genealogiques ;'\ "Pieces Historiques " " Parlement /' " Histoire de I'Eglise." ' Of the great collection of charters (and it appeared to me to be larger than all the collection of charters at present in the British Museum put together), I am bound to say that I believe them to have formed almost the entire muni- ments of the Earls of Blois, containing whatever related to their concern in the wars of Europe in the middle ages, to their praedial possessions, their granting out of property and privileges, sales, feudal or public acts, quittances of money for military services, letters patents, expenses of household, and every act, material or immaterial, likely to be found in the archives of one of the greatest houses of England. ' I looked in vain, however, for anything illustrative of English history, except in a single bundle, tied in paper, which seemed unconnected with the cartons, and was not, as far as I could find, in any of the MS. catalogues. This bundle was entitled, in a modern hand, " Documens relatifs a l'occupation de la France par les Anglais, 1400." It consists of about one hundred vellum instruments, one or two, or perhaps more, so far in the form of letters that they were official announcements ; such as the Duke of Orleans in England in 1437, that he had obtained safe conducts for his Chancellor and Premier Ecuyer d'6curie. Amongst these are various orders of payment and acquittances for money, and several relate to Charles, Duke of Orleans, whilst prisoner in England after the fight of Agincourt. There is a payment to the Earl of Suffolk ; another to THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 539 persons fighting against the English; a payment for the book in, deliverance of the Due cI'Angouleme whilst a prisoner in histoe* England in 1412 ; various orders of John, Duke of Bed- mumum ford, the Bastard of Salisbury, the Duke of Exeter, &c, g™™^™ to persons in the care of military posts under them ; the Duke of Bedford concerning musters ; Henry the Fifth's acquittance to the parishioners of certain villages for payments on account of the war ; various grants of the same King for services in the wars ; a grant to Sir William Bourchier of the estates of the Earl of Eu, dated at Mantes in his seventh year ; and an order for a confirma- tion to be made out of the different grants of the Kings of England and Dukes, of Normandy to the House of Lepers at Dieppe.' When Sir Henry Ellis had completed at Pomard that rough examination of the Collection which he thus de* scribed on his return to Paris, his first inquiry of the owner was, of course., about, price. M. de Joursakvault was embarrassed. To 'Sir Thomas Croft he had already said that he hoped to get sixty thousand francs. Ellis had noticed, as the Baron drove him from Beaune into the court-yard of the old chateau, that its appearance denoted wealth in past rather than in present days, but he could hardly have been prepared for the effect of altered circum- stances in turning a gentleman into a chapman. In the evening the anticipated sixty thousand francs had grown into a hundred and ten thousand. Nor was this the only demand. The Duke of Wellington must use his credit at Paris to transform the Baron into a Count (without any stipulation for an entailed estate byway of ' majorat ') ; and if the task should be beyond the powers even of the con- queror of Napoleon, then M. de Joursanvadlt was to receive, from the English Government, authority to import 540 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III. Chap. II. into England five hundred pipes of Beaune wine, grown histoey upon his own estate, free of all customs duties, and for his or THE ~ museum own profit. hTiLs! k Sir Henry (who with great good sense had already taken precaution that his position at the British Museum should not be known to his host at Pomard, in the hope of pre- cluding any exaggeration of terms) remonstrated against the burden of such a demand, but all entreaty was vain. The Baron was bent on having — in addition to his £4400 — either a step in nobility, or, at the least, a handsome re- mission of customs duty. The Trustees, in the end, declined to treat. When it came to Sir Harris Nicolas's knowledge that Ellis's journey to Pomard was apparently to have no result in the way of bringing historical manuscripts into England, he felt angry as well as disappointed. It was his earnest belief — whether right or wrong — that a valuable occasion had been somewhat trifled with. He told the story,* and * After stating that Mr. Ellis had made needless proclamation at Paris of the object of his journey, Sir Harris Nicolas proceeds thus : — ■ ' Not contented with this injudicious and useless development of the objects in view, the learned gentleman himself pompously announced wherever he went that he was the " Chief Librarian of the British Museum," sent specially to treat for these manuscripts, thus making a public affair of what should have been kept private. The effect of this folly may easily be imagined. Long before the " Chief Librarian " reached Pomard, the French newspapers expressed their indignation that historical muniments should be sold to the British Government, inferring that England must be anxious to possess the records in question, when the purchase of them was made an official business. ' The effect of all this parade upon the owner of the manuscripts was a natural one ; he fancied he had erred in bis estimate of their value, and that, as they seemed to be objects of national importance to another Government, he resolved to make that Government pay at a much higher rate, for what they manifested such extraordinary anxiety to obtain, than a private individual. On the " Chief Librarian's " arrival at Pomard, he discovered that the Baron could speak little English ; and AFFAIRS OP 1835 AMD THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 541 treasured up the memory, and both the story and the nar- book in, rator's personal reminiscences of the transaction had their history share in bringing about the parliamentary enquiry into the g v ™„ affairs of the British Museum. £S££* Originally, and immediately, that inquiry was proposed to the House of Commons by Mr. Beniamin Hawes, then thepaelia J ° MENTARY M.P. for Lambeth, at the instance of a Mr. John Millard, inquiry who had been employed, for some years, on an Index of M oskum MSS., and whose employment (upon very good grounds) had been discontinued. Sir Harris Nicolajs also brought 1836 - his influence to bear. Mr. Hawes, personally, had a very earnest intention to benefit the Public by the inquiry. But his own pursuits in life were not such as to have given him the literary qualifications necessary for conducting it. With not less wisdom than modesty, when he had carried his motion for a Select Committee, he waived his claim to its chairmanship. The Committee chose for that office Mr. Sotheron Estcourt. The burden of examination, on the Baron, as he has since asserted, discovered that the " Chief Librarian " could speak less French ; hence it was with great difficulty that the latter could understand that the Baron had become so enlight- ened about his treasures as to expect, not merely double the price he originally asked for them, but as our Government had interfered on the subject, he wished it to advance one step further, by inducing his Most Christian Majesty to raise his Barony into a Comte. Such terms were out of the question ; and after spending two or three hours only in ex- amining the Collection, but which required at least as many weeks, the " Chief Librarian " returned to England re infecta, and made his report to the Trustees, who refused to purchase the Collection, but offered to buy a few documents, which the owner, of course, declined. Thus, highly valuable documents are lost to the Museum and to the country, in conse- quence, solely and entirely, of the absurd measures adopted for their acquisition.' — Nicolas, Observations on the State of Historical Literature in England, pp. 78-80. My long and observant acquaintance with Sir H. Nicolas justifies me in adding to this extract — in which there are such obvious exaggerations of statement — that I am convinced he was writing from insufficient and inaccurate information. He was incapable of wilful misstatement. 542 LATER AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book m, behalf of the Trustees, was borne — it need not be said history how ably — by men of no less mark than Sir Robert Harry m'useoh Inglis and the late Earl of Derby, then Lord Stanley. aEriM™ One of the best results of the appointment of that Committee of 1835-36 was the opportunity it gave to Mr. Baber and to Mr. Panizzi of advocating the claims of the National Library to largely increased liberality on the part of Parliament. The latter, in particular, did it with an earnestness, and with a vivacity and felicity of argument and of illustration, which I believe won for him the respect of every person who enjoyed (as I did) the pleasure of listening to his examination. I do not think that anybody in that Committee Room of 1836 thought his arguments a whit the weaker for being expressed by ' a foreigner.' But it chances to be within my knowledge that pressure was put upon Mr. Hawes, as a conspicuous member of the Committee, to induce him to put questions to a certain witness with the view of enabling that witness to attack the Trustees for appointing a foreigner to an im- portant office in the Museum. The ludicrous absurdity of an objection on that score — in relation to a great establish- ment of Literature and Science — was not, it seems, felt in those days as it would assuredly be felt in the present day. The absurdity did not strike the mind of Mr. Hawes, but, to his great credit, he steadfastly refused to admit of any impeachment in the Committee of a choice which he believed had been most fitly made in all other respects.* * I was myself present at an interview (in Lambeth), when the most urgent influence was used with Mr. Hawes to induce him to attack Mr. Panizzi's original appointment as an ' Assistant-Librarian' ; and I heard him express a strong approval of it, on the ground of the obvious qualifications and abilities of the individual officer — though himself sharing the opinion that in such appointments Englishmen should have the preference. ment to the Keeper- ship or Feinted THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 543 It is more than probable that the ability which Mr. bookih, Panizzi had displayed in the Committee Room of the ^,' House of Commons, as well as the zeal for our national 0FTHE Museum honour which he had shown himself to possess, had some- undebSik. H Ellis thing to do in preparing the way for the promotion which awaited him within a few months after Mr. Hawes' Committee made its final report to the House. But his labours in the Museum itself had certainly given substantial and ample warrant for that promotion^-under all the circumstances of the case — as will be seen presently. Amongst the duties entrusted to Mr. Panizzi after his Mb - • -i • ■ m Panizzi's entrance (in 1831) into the service of the Trustees as an appoiht- extra Assistant-Librarian, was the cataloguing of an extra- ordinary Collection of Tracts illustrative of the History of the French Revolution. He had laboured on a difficult BooM task with great diligence and with uncommon ability. In 1835, a Committee of Trustees reported, in the highest terms, on the performance of his duties, and concluded their report with a recommendation which, although the general body of Trustees did jiot act upon it, became the occasion of a very eulogistic minute. Two years after- wards, the office of Keeper of Printed Books became vacant by the resignation of the Reverend Henry Hervey Baber, who had filled it, with great credit, from the year 1802. The office of Senior Assistant-Librarian in that Depart- ment was then filled by another man of eminent literary distinction, the Reverend Henry Francis Cakt, who, as one of the best among the many English translators of Dante, is not likely to be soon forgotten amongst us. Not a few Englishmen of the generation that is now passing away learnt in his version to love Dante, before they were able to 544 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. Book III. Chap. II, read him in his proper garb, and learnt too to love Italy, hisioet as Cary loved it, for Dante's sake. mus"um Mr. Cary was the grandson of Mordecai Cary, Bishop of H N EL E tI S s K Kill aloe, and the son of a Captain in the British Army, who at liie a™ the time of Henry Cary'*s birth was quartered at Gibraltar, l™ s \* where the boy was born on the sixth of December, 1772. He f™ was educated a t Birmingham and at Christ Church, Oxford. cabt. It was in his undergraduate days at Christ Church that he began to translate the Inferno, although he did not publish his first volume until he had entered his thirty-third year, and had established himself in ' the great wen' as Reader at Berkeley Chapel (1805). Cary's 'Dante' soon won its way to fame. Among other blessings it brought about his life-long friendship with Coleridge and with the Cole- ridgian circle. He now became an extensive contributor to the literary periodicals. In 1816, he was made Preacher at the Savoy. In 1825, he offered himself to the Trustees of the British Museum as a candidate for the Keepership of the Department of Antiquities in succession to Taylor Combe. That office was given, with great propriety, to Mr. Edward Hawkins, who had assisted Mr. Combe, and had, in fact, replaced him during his illness. But Mr. Cary had met with encouragement — especially from the Archbishop of Canterbury — and kept a bright look-out for new vacancies. In May or June, 1826, he wrote to his father that he had learnt that the office of Assistant- Librarian in the Department of Printed Books was vacant. It had been, he added, held by a most respectable old clergyman of the name of Bean, and Mr. Bean was just dead. Within a week or two, Mr. Cary was appointed to be his successor. By a large circle of friends the appoint- ment was hailed as a fitting tribute to a most deserving man of letters. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 545 The homely rooms in the Court -yard of the Museum book m, allotted to the Assistant-Keeper of the Printed Book Depart- history ment were soon the habitual resort of a cluster of poets. The museum faces of Coleridge, Rogers, Charles Lamb,* and (during ~™™J£* their occasional visits to London) those of Southey and of Wordsworth, became, in those days, very familiar at the gate of old Montagu House. Coleridge had always loved Cart, and when the charms of long monologues, delivered at the Grove to devout listeners, withheld him from visits, the correspondence between Highgate and Bloomsbury 'became so frequent and so voluminous, that he is said to have endeavoured to persuade Sir Francis Ereeling that all correspondence to or from the British Museum ought to be officially regarded as * On His Ma- jesty's Service,' and to be franked, to any weight, accord- ingly. But those love-enlivened rooms were, in a very few years, to be darkly clouded. Cary lost his wife on the twenty-second of November, 1832, and almost immediately afterwards— so dreadful was the blow to him — ' a look of mere childishness, approaching to a suspension of vitality, ufeafs.v. marked the countenance which had but now beamed with ^• b [ 1 " 3 aon, vol. n, intellect.' Such are the words of his fellow-mourner. p- 198 - Part of Mr. Cary's duties at the Museum now neces- sarily fell, for a few months, to be discharged by Mr. * It was in the old rooms in the Court-yard of Montagu House that Charles Lamb enjoyed the last, I think, of his ' dinings-out.' A few days after his final visit (November, 1834) the hand of Death was already upon him. Cary, before writing the well-known epitaph, wrote some other graceful and touching lines on his old friend. They were occasioned by finding, in a volume lent to Lamb by Cary, Lamb's bookmark, against a page which told of the death of Sydney. They begin thus : — ' So should it be, my gentle friend, Thy leaf last closed at Sydney's end ; Thou too, like Sydney, wouldst have given The water, thirsting, and near Heaven.' 35 Ma. Pasizzi*s FIEST AP- 546 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, Panizzi, who, in tli e preceding year, had been appointed histoei next in office to Cart. The circumstances of that appoint- m™m ment have been thus stated by the eminent Prelate who undeksir made it:— H. Ellis. cikcum- ' Mr. Panizzi was entirely unknown to me, except by reputation. I understood that he was a civilian who had come from Italy, and that he was a man of great acquire- pointment ments and talents, peculiarly well suited for the British Museum. That was represented to me by several persons who were not connected with the Museum, and it was strongly pressed by several of the Trustees, who were of Minutes of opinion that Mr. Panizzi's appointment would be very mdence advantageous for the institution. Considering the quali- taken before ° ° J aeseiect fications of that gentleman, his knowledge of foreign thTsritish languages, his eminent ability and extensive attainments, I junTi836, 8 cou ld not doubt the propriety of acceding to their wishes.' p. 433. "When that appointment was made, Mr. Panizzi had me. already passed almost ten years in England. The greater part of them had been spent at Liverpool, as a tutor in the language and literature of Italy. Born at Brescello, in the inenglakd. Duchy of Modena, Mr. Panizzi had been educated at Reggio and at Parma; in the last-named University he had graduated as LL.D. in 1818; and he had practised with distinction as an advocate. Part of his leisure hours had been given to the study of bibliography, and to the acquisition of a library. But he was an ardent aspirant for the liberty of Italy, and, in 1820, narrowly escaped becoming one of its many martyrs. After the unsuccessful rising of that year in Piedmont, he was arrested at Cremona, but escaped from his prison. After his escape he was sentenced to death. He sought a refuge first at Lugano, and afterwards at Geneva. But his ability had made him a marked man. Austrian spies dogged his EARLX CAREER AND HIS LABOURS THE BEIT1SH MUSEUM UNDEE SIR HENEY ELLIS. 547 steps, and appealed, by turns, to the suspicions and to the boo* in, fears of the local authorities. Presently it seemed clear hhtom that England, alone, would afford, to the dreaded 'con- ^™ M spirator ' for Italy, a secure abode. At Liverpool he ac- ™ DEB SlB quired the friendship successively of Ugo Poscolo, of Roscoe, and of Brougham. In 1828, he received and accepted the offer of the Professorship of Italian Literature in the then London University, now ' University College.' In 1830, he began the publication of his admirable edition of the poems of Bojardo and Ariosto, which was completed in 1834. When Mr. Baber announced, in March, 1837, his in- ,,. , . ' ' ' Minutes of tention to resign his Keepership, Mr. Panizzi made no *«<*»»<* «■ t ■ p i rr» i i -r* • ■ i ^ Constitu- application tor the office, but he wrote to the Principal am and mi • p i • t iii'p'ji j Management Trustees an expression ot his hope that it, in the event, of the BrUhll ' any appointment was to take place on account of Mr. Baber's resignation, ' his services would be borne in §37M . D (JEteportof mind. i85o, p. ii4). One of Mr. Cart's earliest steps in the matter was to apply to his friend and fellow-poet, Mr. Samuel Rogers. Rogers — to use his own words — was one who had known Cart ' in all weathers.' His earnest friendship induced him to write a letter of recommendation to the three Prin- cipal Trustees. After he had sent in his recommendation, a genuine conscientiousness — not the less truly charac- teristic of the man for all that outward semblance of cynic- ism which frequently veiled it — prompted him to think the matter over again. It occurred to him to doubt whether he was really serving his old friend Cart by helping to put him in a post for which failing vigour was but too obviously, though gradually, unfitting him. His misgiving increased the more he turned the affair over in his mind. He then wrote three letters (to the Archbishop, Chancellor, Museum, 26 May, 1848, 548 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, an( J Speaker), recalling his recommendation, and stating histobi his reason. With the Speaker, Rogers also conversed on museum the subject. Mr. Abekcromby asked the poet : ' What do h N elli S 3 ! B y° u know about a Mr. Panizzi, who stands next to Cary ?' ' Panizzi,' said Rogers, ' would serve you very well.' ' To tell you the truth,' rejoined the Speaker, ' we think that, if Mr. Cary is not appointed, Panizzi will be the right man.' At that time, Mr. Panizzi was not personally known either to the Speaker or to the Chancellor. I give these details, first, because they became, in after- days, a very vital and influential part of the History of the British Museum. No appointment was ever made during the whole of the hundred and fifteen years which have elapsed betwixt the first organization of the establishment in 1755 and the year in which I write (1870) that has had such large influence upon its growth and its improvement ; and, secondly, because in a published life of the excellent man whose temporary disappointment led to a great public benefit a passage appears which (doubtless very uninten- tionally, but not the less seriously) misrepresents the matter, and hints, mysteriously, at underhanded influence, as though something had been done in the way of treachery to Cary. ' The Lord Chancellor and the Speaker,' writes Cary's biographer, ' acting under information, the source of which was probably known only to them and their informant, FmnfifcZZ resolved on passing him over, and appointing his subor- voLii, P . 200. dinate, Mr. Panizzi, to the vacant place.' These letters and conversations passed in the interval between the announcement that there would be a vacancy in the Museum staff and its actual occurrence. The Keepership became vacant on the twenty-fourth of June. On that day Mr. Cary made his personal application to the Archbishop. The Archbishop told him that objections were THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 549 made to his appointment. Cary, immediately after his bookiii, return, told his brother- officers Baber and Panizzi what histom the Archbishop had communicated to him. ' Then/ said H. Ellis, oy THE Museum Mr. Panizzi, 'the thing concerns me.' r Yes,' rejoined ™ DI5E Cary, ' certainly it does.' They all knew that applications for the vacant office from outsiders were talked of. Among these were the late Reverend Ernest Hawkins and the late Reverend Richard • Garnett (who afterwards succeeded to the Assistant-Librarianship). And Mr. Panizzi then proceeded to say to Mr. Cary : ' You will not, now, object to my asking for the place myself, as there are these objec- tions to you.' Cary replied, ' Not at all.' Instantly, and in Cary's presence, Mr. Panizzi wrote thus to the Archbishop : — ' I hope your Grace will not deem it pre- sumptuous in me to beg respectfully of your Grace and the other Principal Trustees to take my case into consideration, should they think it necessary to depart from the usual system of regular promotion, on appointing Mr. Baber's successor. I venture to say thus much, having been in- formed by Mr. Cary of the conversation he has had the Paniziitouw honour to have with your Grace.' The writer gave his cmtrai!^, ' letter into Mr. Cary's hand, received his brother-officer's ^/ un f ,18 ?' r ' (Minutes of immediate approval, and had that approval, at a later hour ft^if of the day and after a re-perusal of the letter, confirmed. Within the walls of the Museum, the general feeling was so strongly in favour of Mr. Cary's appointment, despite all objection (and nothing can be more natural than that it should be so — ' A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind '), that the public interest, in having an officer who would use the appointment rather as a working-tool than as a reclining staff, was, for the moment, lost sight of. Sir Henry Ellis himself, when asked to give a formal testi- monial of Mr. Panizzi's qualifications to be head of the 550 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. II. HlSTOttY OF THE Museum under Sib H. Ellis. Cary to the Lord Chan- cellor, 18 July, 1837 (The Times). Printed Book Department, answered : ' If you told me that the Bodleian Librarianship was vacant — or any other out- side Librarianship worth your having — you should have my heartiest recommendation. At present, you must excuse me ;' or in words to that effect. Edward Hawkins, then Keeper of the Department of Antiquities, expressed himself (in the hearing of the present writer) to like purpose, when asked what his opinion was on a point which, at the moment, attracted not a little attention in literary circles * Cary afterwards — and when it was too late to recall it — regretted his assent to Mr. Panizzi's application. He applied again to the Archbishop, and obtained something like a promise of support. He wrote several letters to the Lord Chancellor. In one of these he (unconsciously, as it seems) adduced a conclusive argument against his own appointment to the office he sought. He wrote that, as he was informed, the objections of his Lordship and of the Speaker were twofold : the one resting on his age, and the other on the state of his health. He answered the objec- tions in these words : — c My age, it is plain, might rather ask for me that alleviation of labour which, in this as in other public offices, is gained by promotion to a superior place, than call for a continuance of the same laborious employment.' What must have been a Lord Chancellor's ruminations upon the ' alleviation of labour' which ' a * It is necessary that I should state, with precision, the sources of the information conveyed in the text. I rely, chiefly, on three several sources, one of which is publicly accessible. My main knowledge of the matter rests (first) upon the Minutes of Evidence taken by Lord Ellesmere's Commission of 1848-1850; (secondly) upon conversations with the late Mr. Edward 'Hawkins, held in July and August, 1837, not long after the appearance of Mr. Cary's letter in The Times ; (thirdly) upon a con- versation, on the same subject, with which I was honoured by Sir Henry Ellis in 1839. UMDEE Sia II. Ellis. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDEE SIK HENEY ELLIS. 551 superior place' brines to a public servant, is a somewhat bookiii, ■ ,•,,•/ Chap. II. amusing subject ot conjecture. histoiy It was with perfect honesty and integrity of purpose that m d ™u M Mr. Cauy adduced medical testimony of his fitness for con- tinued but diminished labours. He would have exerted himself to' the best of his ability. But it was a blemish in an excellent man that (under momentary irritation) he twice permitted himself to reproach his competitor and colleague with being ' a foreigner.' One would fain have hoped that our famous countryman Daniel Defoe had, a hundred years before, put all reproach and contumely on the score of a man's not being a ' true- born Englishman ' quite out of Court, in all contentions concerning capabilities of public service. But, of all places in the world, a Museum is the queerest place in which to raise petty questions of nationality. If it be at all worthy of its name, its contents must have come from the four quarters of the globe. Men of every race under Heaven must have worked hard to furnish it. It brings together the plants of Australia ; the minerals of Peru ; the shells of the far Pacific ; the manuscripts which had been painfully compiled or transcribed by twenty generations of labourers in every corner of Europe, as well as in the monasteries of Africa and of the Eastern Desert ; and the sculptures and the printed books of every civilised country in the world. And then it is proposed — when arrangements are to be made for turning dead collections into living fountains of knowledge — that the question asked shall be : not ' What is your capacity to administer?' but 'Where were you born?' I hope, and I believe, that in later years Mr. Cart regretted that he had permitted a name so deservedly honoured to endorse so poor a sophism. under Sib H. Ellis. Panizzi's APPOINT- MENT AS 1837. 552 LATER ATTGMENTOKS AND BENEFACTOES. book in, Mr. Antonio Panizzi received his appointment on the Histoid fifteenth of July, 1837. If he had worked hard to gain mu™™ promotion, he worked double tides to vindicate it. In the following month, Mr. Cart resigned his Assistant-Libra- rianship. He left the Museum with the hearty respect and with the brotherly regrets of all his colleagues, without any eeepek op exception. Of him, it may very truly be said, he was a man thePbinted Till Books, July, milch beiOVed. Nor was it otherwise with Mr. Baber. His public services began in old Bodley towards the end of the year 1796, and they were so efficient as to open to him, at the beginning of the present century, a subordinate post in the British Museum, his claims to which he waived the instant that he knew they would stand in the way of Ellis, his early friend of undergraduate days. He becameAssistant-Librarian in 1807 ; Keeper of Printed Books in 1812. He, too,-was a man with no enemies. In literature he won (before he was fifty) an enduring place by his edition of the Vetus Testa- mentum Grcecum e Codice MS. Alewandrino .... description. Of the amiability of character which distinguished Mr. Baber, not less than did his scholarship, the present writer had more than common experience. It was my fortune to make my first intimate acquaintance (1835) with the affairs of the British Museum in the capacity of a critic on that part of Mr. Baber' s discharge of his manifold functions as Keeper which related to the increase of the Library, both by purchase and by the operation of the Copyright Act. I criticised some of his doings, and some of his omissions to do, with youthful presumption, and with that self-confident half-knowledge which often leads a man more astray, prac- tically, than does sheer ignorance. So far from resenting strictures, a few of which may have had some small validity and value, while a good many were certainly plausible but OF THE Museum under Sib H. Ellis. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDEE SIR HENRY ELLIS. 553 shallow, he turned the former to profit, and, so far from bookiii, resenting the latter, repeatedly evinced towards their hhtout author acts of courtesy and kindness. It was in his company that I first explored — as we strode from beam to beam of the unfinished flooring — the new Library rooms in which, long afterwards, I was to perform my humble spell of work on the Catalogue of the Printed Books ; as he had performed his hard-by almost thirty years earlier. Mr. Babeb survived his retirement from his Keepership (in 1837) no less than thirty-two years. He died, on the twenty-eighth of March, 1869, at his rectory -house atStret- ham, in the Isle of Ely, and in his 94th year. He had then been F.R.S. for fifty-three years, and had survived his old friend Sir Henry Ellis by a few weeks. He served his parishioners in Cambridgeshire, as he had served his country in London, with unremitting zeal and punctual assiduity. One of Mr. Panizzi's earliest employments in his new office of 1837 was to make arrangements for the formidable task of transferring the whole mass of the old Library from Montagu House to the new Building, but he also did some- thing immediately towards preparing the way for that syste- matic enlargement of the Collection of Printed Books which he had formerly and so earnestly pressed on the attention, not merely of the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1835-36, but of every Statesman and Parliament-man whose ear he could gain, whether (in his interlocutor's opinion) in season or out of season. To use the expression of the man who, at a later date, mainly helped him in that task, Mr. Panizzi's leading thought, in regard to Public Libraries, was that Paris must be surpassed. In common with others of us who, like himself, had been examined before Mr. Hawes' Committee on that subject, he had brought into 554 LATER ATJGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, salient relief some points of superiority which foreign hist'osi countries possessed over Britain, but the ruling motive, mu™bm °f the unsavoury comparison was British improvement, h K ellh E no ^ mos ^ assure dly, British discredit. In the formidable business of the transfer of the bulk of the National Library, Mr. Panizzi received his best help from a man now just lost to us, but whose memory will surely survive. Exactly six months after his own appoint- ment to the headship of his Department, he introduced This into the permanent service of the Trustees Mr. Thomas cAwssaAHD Watts. The readers of such a volume as this will not, I THE PUBLIC . . ..... ,. • • c T 1 smvicisoi imagine, think it to be a digression it i here make some wa°™. s humble attempt to record what was achieved by my old acquaintance — an acquaintance of almost one and thirty years' standing — both in his varied literary labours and in his long and fruitful service at the Museum. Thomas Watts was born in London in the year 1811. He was educated at a private school in London, where he was very early noted for the possession of three several qualities, one or other of which is found, in a marked degree, in thousands of men and in tens of thousands of pre- cocious boys, but the union of all of which, whether in child or in man, is rare indeed. Young Watts evinced both an astonishing capacity for acquiring languages — the most far remote from his native speech — and an unusual readiness at English composition. He had also a knack for turning off very neat little speeches and recitations. Before he was fifteen, he could give good entertainment at a breaking- up or a ' speech-day.' Before he was twenty, he had gained his footing as a contributor to periodical literature.* * I believe that his earliest contribution consisted of some articles entitled ' Notes of a Reader,' published in 1830, in a periodical (long since defunct) called The Spirit of Literature. These were written and OF THE British MUSEUM. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 555 In the autumn of the year 1835, Mr. Watts' attention bookiii, was attracted to the publication of the Minutes of Evidence ^ " Y taken before the Select Committee on the British Museum, the J^™^ first portion of which had been ordered to be printed, by wdeesib. the House of Commons, in the preceding August. He read the evidence with great interest, and ere long he wrote Eim (in 1836 and 1837) some valuable comments upon it, which m*™^ ' embodied several suggestions for the improvement of the E ! " Museum service, and for making it increasedly accessible Ei r to the Public. More than two or three of the suggestions so offered, he lived to carry out — long afterwards, by his own exertions, and with the cordial approval of his superior officer, Mr. Panizzi — into practice, after he had himself entered into the service of the Trustees as an Assistant in the Printed Book Department. But he chose a very unfortunate medium for his useful communications of 1836 and 1837. He printed them in the columns of the ' Mechanics' Magazine' where, for prac- tical purposes, they were almost buried. Of this fact I am able to give a small illustrative and personal instance. Possibly, it may be thought to have some little biographical value, as a trait of his character. In both of the years. above named Mr. Watts did the present writer the honour to make some remarks on his humble labours for the improvement of the Museum in 1835 and 1836. Mr. Watts 5 remarks were very compli- mentary and kind in their expression. But I never saw or heard of them, until this year, 1870, after their writer had passed from the knowledge of the many acquaintances and friends who, in common with myself, much esteemed him, and who will ever honour his memory. printed long before Mr. Watts became a correspondent of the Mechanics' Magazine, as mentioned in the text. 556 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, One of the communications which my late friend pub- Chap. II. . . * r histoei fished in that ' Mechanics' Magazine contained two sugges- MU8EUM tions — made contingently, and by way of alternative plans hellk E — ^ or ^ e en l ar g ement °f tne Museum buildings. Nearly eleven years afterwards (August, 1847), I unconsciously repeated those very suggestions, amongst many others, in a pamphlet, entitled Public Libraries in London and Paris. I was in complete ignorance that my suggestions of 1847 were otherwise than entirely original. I thought them wholly my own. Of the print which accompanied my pamphlet T give the reader an exact fac-simile, errors in- cluded, on the opposite plate. The print embodied very nearly the same thoughts, on the enlargement of the library, which had been expressed, so long before, in the pages of the 'Mechanics' Magazine' The first presented copy of that pamphlet and print was given to my friend Watts. I was then absent, far from London, and I had presently the pleasure of receiving from him a long letter, containing some criticisms and remarks on my publication. But such was his modest reticence about his own prior performance, that the letter contained no word or hint concerning the anticipation of my alternative suggestions for the enlarge- ment of the Library in his prior publication. And, in the long interval between 1837 and 1847, I suppose we had conversed about, the improvement of the Museum, and about its buildings, actual and prospective, some thirty or forty times, but (as I have said) those valuable and thought- ful articles of his, printed in 1836-7 — and making compli- mentary mention of my own labours, and of my evidence given before Mr. Hawes' Committee — never came within my knowledge. No part of their contents was even men- tioned to me. I saw them, for the first time, in January, 1870. Very few men — within my range of acquaintance N I A g u E S I REE T «; X CO CC OQ THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDEE SIR HENRY ELLIS. 557 — had so much dislike to talk of their performances, as was book hi, manifested by Thomas Watts. To this day, very much of m^ 0R i what he did for the Public is scarcely known even by those ^^ who (at one time or other) enjoyed the pleasure, and the ™ d ™sib honour, of his friendship. He was one of the men who ' did good by stealth,' and would have almost blushed to find it fame. When Thomas Watts entered the Museum, the imme- WATTS ' LABOUHS diate task entrusted to him, onerous as it was, did not (for toe the . . . 1 AUGMENTA- any long time) engross his attention. In common with tmoihi Mr. Panizzi, his • desire to increase the Library, and to Museum make London surpass Paris — 'Paris must be surpassed' LlBK4ia - are the words which close the best of those articles, printed in 1837, to which I have just now referred — amounted to a positive passion. He did not talk very much about it ; but I fancy it occupied, not only his waking thoughts, but his very dreams. Mr. Panizzi had not been at the head of his Depart- ment many weeks before he began a Special Report to the Trustees, recommending a systematic increase of the Collec- tion of Printed Books. In the autumn of 1837 he could hardly foresee that one of the attacks to be made, in the after-years, upon those who had appointed him, or who had promoted his appointment, for the crime of preferring ' a foreigner' to a high post in our National Museum, would be based upon the foreigner's neglect of English Literature. ' An Italian Librarian,' said those profound logicians, 'must, naturally and necessarily, swamp the Library with Italian books. He can't help doing it.' But, strange as it may have seemed to objectors of that calibre, this particular Italian happened to be, not only a scholar— a ripe and good one — Panizzi's Repoet, in OCTOBEE, 1837, ON THE character- istics of a National Lib easy foe 558 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book m, but a man of wide sympathies, and of catholic tastes in histokt literature. He was able himself to enjoy Shakespeare, museum n °t ^ ess thoroughly than he was able, by his critical acumen, h"-ellis IE ^° mcrease other men's enjoyment of Ariosto and of Dante. s ffi A. In October, 1837, he wrote thus : — ' With respect to the purchase of books, Mr. Panizzi begs to lay before the Trustees the general principles by which he will be guided, pmpbe if not otherwise directed, in endeavouring to answer the expectations and wishes of the Trustees and of the Public in this respect. First, the attention of the Keeper of this great emphatically British Library ought to be directed, most particularly, to British works, and to works relating to the British Empire ; its religious, political, and literary, as well as scientific history ; its laws, institutions, description, com- merce, arts, &c. The rarer and more expensive a work of this description is, the more indefatigable* efforts ought to be made to secure it for the Library. Secondly, the old and rare, as well as the critical, editions of ancient Classics, ought never to be sought for in vain in this Collection. Nor ought good comments, as also the best translations into modern languages, to be wanting. Thirdly, with respect to foreign literature, arts, and sciences, the Library ought to possess the best editions of standard works for critical purposes or for use. The Public have, moreover, a right to find, in their National Library, heavy as well as expen- sive foreign works, such as Literary Journals ; Transactions of Societies ; large Collections, historical or otherwise ; com- plete series of Newspapers ; Collections of Laws, and their best interpreters.' We have, in this brief passage, the germ * In Minutes of Evidence (page 596) printed erroneously ' reasonable.' To the brief extract, for which, alone I can here afford space, were appended, in the original Report, many pertinent amplifications and illustrations. Some of these are given in the Minutes of Evidence above referred to. OF IMPKOVE- MENT. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 559 of the admirable Report on the National Library, written book in, on a far more extended scale, which was afterwards laid history before the Government, and, ultimately, before Parliament. ^d™™ If this Report failed to lead, immediately (or, indeed, UHDEE SlE for a long time to come), to the increased means of acqui- sition on which its writer's mind was so much bent, the fault did not lie in the Trustees. It lay with the House of Commons, and with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. thbht- 1 PEDIMENTS It is hard to realise, in 1870, how entirely the effort in the way for an adequate improvement of the British Museum was an uphill task. Trustees like the late Lord Derby and the late Sir R. H. Inglis were earnestly desirous to carry out such recommendations as those of Mr. Panizzi, but the employment of urging them on the Ministry was an un- grateful one. In those days of reforming-activity, although, in 1837, the average radicals in ' the House' were not quite such devout believers in the faith that a general overturn was the only road to a general millenium as they had been in 1832, they were willing enough to listen to attacks upon the managers of any public institution (no matter how crude were the views of the assailants, or how lopsided their information), but they were not half so ready to open the public purse-strings in order to enable impugned managers or trustees to improve the institution entrusted to them upon a worthy scale. Three months after writing his Report of 1837, Mr. Panizzi was enabled to procure the official assistance of Mr. Watts. The appointment strengthened his hands, by giving to a man of extraordinary powers for organiza- tion and government, the services of a man not less extraordinary for his powers of accumulating and assi- milating detail. What each man characteristically pos- sessed, was just the right supplement to the special UNDER. SlK H. Ellis See hereafter, Chap. V. 560 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, faculties of the other. But even such a happy union of Chap. II. rrj histoei personal qualities would have failed to carry into effect the md™um large aspirations for the improvement of the Museum which both men, severally and independently, had cherished (during many years), but for one other circumstance. This was a merely incidental — one might say a fortuitous — circumstance ; but it proved very influential upon the for- tunes of the British Museum in the course of the years to come. When Mr. Panizzi began to be known in London society — at first, very much by the instrumentality of the late Mr. Thomas Grenville, who, at an early period, had become warmly attached to him — his acquaintance was eagerly cultivated. In this way he obtained opportunities to preach his doctrine of increased public support for our great national and educational institutions (his advocacy was not limited within the four walls of the Museum) in the ears of very valuable and powerful listeners. It was thought, now and then, that he preached on that topic out of season as well as in season. But the issue amply vindi- cated the zeal which prompted him to make the pleasures of social intercourse subserve the performance of a public trust. Few men, I imagine — holding the unostentatious post of a librarianship — ever possessed so many social opportunities of the kind here referred to, as were possessed by Mr. Panizzi. And even those listeners who may have thought him over-pertinacious, sometimes, in pressing his convic- tions, must needs have carried away with them the assur- ance that one public servant, at all events, did not regard his duties as ' irksome.' They must have seen that this man's heart was in his official work. So was it also in the instance of Mr. Panizzi's right- hand man within the Museum itself. Thomas Watts was not gifted with powers of persuasive argument. His THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 561 address and manners did no sort of justice to the intrinsic book hi, qualities, or to the true heart, of the man himself. To eh.™** strangers, they often gave a most inaccurate idea of his md™™ faculties and character. Under the outward guise of a ™° EESia o H. Ellis. blunt-spoken farmer, there dwelt, not only high scholarship, but a lofty sense — it would not be too strong to say a passionate sense — of public duty. He had none of the persuasive gifts of vivid talk. But he could preach forcibly, by example. When he had made some way with the first task which was assigned him, that of superintend- ing the removal of the Library, and its due ordering — in some of the details of which he was ably assisted, almost from the outset, by Mr. George Buelen (who, in January, 1838, was first specially employed to retranscribe the press-marks or symbols of the books, as they stood in old Montagu House, into the new equivalents necessi- tated by their altered position in the new Library, in which labour he was, in the April following, assisted by Mr. N. W. Simons) — and had solved, by assiduous effort and self-denying labour, some of the many difficulties which stood in the way of effecting that removal without im- peding, to any serious degree, the service of the Public Reading Room, he turned his attention, at Mr. Pajnizzl's instance, to the — to him — far more grateful task of pre- paring lists of foreign books for addition to the Library. For this task he evinced special qualities and attainments which, I believe, were never surpassed, by any librarian in the world ; not even by an Audiffredi, a Van-Praet, or a Magliabechi. Mr. Watts' earliest schoolfellows had marvelled at his linguistic faculty for acquiring with great rapidity such a degree of familiarity with foreign tongues, as gave him an amply watts' sufficient master-key to their several literatures. When 36 ATTAIN- MENTS he showed a scholarly appreciation of the hjstokt right methods of setting to work. He studied languages OF THE . ... DO musbdk m groups — giving his whole mind to one group at a time, h.ellts. anc l then passing to another. At an age when many men (far from being blockheads) are painfully striving after a literary command of their mother-tongue, young Watts had showed himself to be master of two several clusters of the great Indo-European family, and to have a very respectable acquaintance with a third. When, as a youth- ful volunteer at the Museum, he was fulfilling a request made to him by Mr. Babeb, that he would catalogue the Collection of Icelandic books given to the Public, half a century before, by Sir Joseph Banks, and also another parcel of Russian books, which had been bought at his own recommendation, the reading of Chinese literature was the labour of his hours of private study, and the reading of Polish literature was the recreation of his hours of leisure. What the feelings of an ambitious student of that strain would be when officially instructed by his superior to take under his sole (or almost sole) charge the duty of ex- amining the Museum Catalogues, and of obtaining from all parts of Europe and Asia, and from many parts of America, other catalogues of every kind, in order to ascertain the deficiencies of the Library, and to supply them, the reader can fancy. The new assistant luxuriated in his office. Many of his suggestions were periodically and earnestly supported with the Trustees by Mr. Panizzi. His labours were appreciated and often (to my personal knowledge) warmly applauded by his superior officer. HisLisTsor Pie began with making lists of Russian books that were deside- desiderata in the Museum Library ; then of Hungarian ; then of Dutch ; then of French, Italian, Spanish, and Por- tuguese ; then of Chinese ; then of Welsh ; then of the KATl. OF THE MUBEUM under Sir H. Ellis. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 563 rapidly growing, but theretofore (at the Museum) much Boomn, neglected, literature of the Americas and the Indies. hist'om I used, now and then, to watch him at his work, and to think that no man could possibly be employed more entirely to his liking. Long after I ceased to enjoy any opportunity of talking with him about his employment, I used occa- sionally to hear that similar tasks occupied, not infrequently, the hours of evening leisure as well as the hours of official duty. Some who knew him more intimately than — of late years — it was my privilege to know him, believe that his early death was in part (humanly speaking) due to his passion for poring over catalogues and other records of far-off literatures when worn-out nature needed to be refreshed, and to be recreatively interested in quite other occupations. During the last twenty years alone (1850-1869 inclu- sive) he cannot have marked and recommended for purchase less than a hundred and fifty thousand foreign works, and in order to their selection he must needs have examined almost a million of book-titles, in at least eighteen different languages. When little more than half that last-named term of years had expired he was able to write — in a Report which he addressed to Mr. Panizzi in February, 1861 — that the common object of Keeper and Assistant-Keeper had been, during almost a quarter of a century, to ' bring together from all quarters the useful, the elegant, and the curious literature of every language ; to unite with the best English Library in England, or the world, the best Russian Library out of Russia, the best German out of Germany, the best Spanish out of Spain, and so with every language from Italian to Icelandic, from Polish to Portuguese. In five of the languages in which it now claims this species of supremacy, in Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Danish, and Swedish, I 564 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. II. HlSTOKY OF 1 HE Museum uhder Sin H. Ellis. Reports of 1861, pp. 17, 18. believe I may say that, with the exception of perhaps fifty volumes, every book that has been purchased by the Museum within the last three and twenty years has been purchased at my suggestion. I have the pleasure of reflect- ing that every future student of the less-known literatures of Europe will find riches where I found poverty ; though, of course, the collections in all these languages together form but a small proportion of the vast accumulations that have been added to the Library during your administration and that of your successor.'* When the reader comes to add to his estimate of the amount of mental labour thus briefly and modestly indi- cated by the man who performed it, a thought of the further toil involved in the re-arrangement and careful classification of more than four hundred thousand volumes of books, in all the literary languages of the world (without any exception), he will have attained some rough idea of the public service which was crowded into one man's life ; and that, as we all have now to regret, not a protracted life. He will have, too, some degree of conception of the amount of acquired knowledge which was taken from us when Thomas Watts was taken. To his works of industry and of learning, the man we have lost added the still better works of a kindly, benevolent heart. Many a struggling student received at his hands both wise and loving counsel, and active help. And his good deeds were not advertised. They would not now have been spoken of, but for his loss — in the very thick of his labours for the Public. In a precious volume, which was first added to the manuscript stores of the British Museum a little before * The ' successor' referred to is Mr. "Winter Jones, then Keeper of Printed Books, now Principal-Librarian of the British Museum. EUM ee Si: H. Ellis. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 565 Mr. Watts' death, there occurs the rough lotting of a bookiii, • ■ ii Chap. II. thought which is very apposite to our human and natural histoey reflections upon such an early removal from the scene of ^ ™ B labour as that just referred to. When somebody spoke D ' l : " to Bacon of the death, in the midst of duty and of mental vigour, of some good worker or other in the vineyard of this world, almost three centuries ago, he made the fol- lowing entry in his private note-book : — ' Princes, when in jousts, triumphs, or games of victory, men deserve crowns for their performance, do not crown them below, where the deeds are performed, but call them up. So doth God by ^ M ^ DBIT - death.' Lord Bacon's Note-Book Otheh literary But these several branches of .public duty, onerous as they were, were far from exhausting Mr. Watts' mental ™*™™ m activity, either within the Museum walls or outside of watts. them. He was a frequent contributor to periodical litera- ture. To his pen the Quarterly Review was indebted for an excellent article on the History of Cyclopedias ; the Athenaeum, for a long series of papers on various topics of literary history and of current literature, extending over many years; the various Cyclopaedias and Biographical Dictionaries successively edited by Mr. Charles Knight, for a long series of valuable notices, embracing the Language and Literature of Hungary ; those of Wales ; and more than a hundred and thirty brief biographical memoirs, distin- guished alike for careful research and for clear and vigorous expression. These biographies relate, for the most part, to foreign men of letters. To the pages of the Transactions of the Philological Society he was a frequent contributor. His Memoir on Hungarian Literature, first read to that Society, procured him the distinction of a corresponding-membership of the Hungarian Academy, and the distinction was en- 566 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. cta^n 1, nanced bv ms be i n g elected on the same day with Lord histoky Macaulat. OF THE UNDEK SlK H. Ellis. The Mus Printed Book Ci logue or 1839-1869, and Watts* laboubs in eelation to IT. museum Within the Museum itself two distinct and important departments of official labour, both of which he filled with intelligence and zeal, have yet to be indicated. In 1839, museum he took part — with others — in framing an extensive code Printed l D book cata- of 'rules' for the re-compilation of the entire body of the 18MJ869, Catalogues of Printed Books. In May, 1857, he took charge of the Public Reading-Room, as Chief Superin- tendent of the daily service. It need hardly be said that the first-named task — that on the Catalogues — was a labour of planning and shaping, not one of actual execution. It was very important, how- ever, in its effects on the public economy of the Library, and it was the one only labour, as I believe, performed by Mr. Watts, whether severally or in conjunction with others, which failed to give unmixed satisfaction to the general body of readers. The Minutes of Evidence, taken by the Commissioners of 1848-1850, whilst they abound in expressions of public gratitude both to Mr. Panizzi and, next after him, to Mr. Watts, contain a not less remarkable abundance of criticisms, and of complaints, upon the plan (not the execution) of the Catalogue of 'Printed Boo&s began in 1839. The subject is a dry one, but will repay some brief attention on the reader's part. When Mr. Panizzi became Keeper, he had (it will have been seen) to face almost instantly, and abreast, three several tasks, each of which entailed much labour upon himself, personally, as well as upon his assistants. The third of them — this business of the Catalogue — proved to be not the least onerous, and it was, assuredly, not the best rewarded in the shape of its ultimate reception by those concerned more immediately in its performance. I can TO THE PLAN OF THE THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 567 speak with some sympathy on this point, since it was as a book m, temporary assistant in the preparation of this formidable hktoby and keenly-criticised Catalogue, that the present writer ^Vsctm entered the service of the Trustees, in February, 1839. ™;f That some objections to the plan adopted in 1839 are 0b « CTI0N3 well-grounded I entirely believe. But the important point in this matter, for our present purpose, is, not that the plan »™™ preferred was unobjectionable, but that the utmost effort book . . » ,-, Catalogue was used, at the time and under the circumstances ot tne a8 39-i869). time, to prepare such a Catalogue as should meet the fair requirements both of the Trustees and of the Readers. It is within my recollection that, to effect this, Mr. Panizzi laboured, personally as well as in the way of super- intendance and direction, as it has not often happened to me, in my time, to see men labour for the Public. As- suredly to him promotion brought no lessening of toil in any form. In shaping the plan of the General Catalogue of 1839- 1870 (for it is, at this moment of writing, still in active progress), the course taken was this : — A sort of committee of five persons was formed, each of whom severally was to prepare, in rough draft, rules for the compilation of the projected work, illustrated by copious examples. It was to be entirely new, and to embrace every book contained in the Library up to the close of the year 1838. The draft rules were then freely discussed in joint committee, and wherever differences of opinion failed to be reconciled upon conference, the majority of votes determined the question. Such was Mr. Panizzi's anxiety to prepare the best Cata- logue for the Readers that was practicable, that he never insisted, authoritatively, on his own view of any point whatever, which might be in contention amongst us, when he stood in a minority. On all such points, he voted upon 568 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, an exact equality with his assistants. The rules that were Chap. II. ' •> HisTony most called into question (before the Commissioners of 1 848- museuh 1850) had been severally discussed and determined in this fair hTiL S s ! e an(i sim ple way. Beyond all doubt, some of the rules might now be largely amended in the light of subsequent experi- ence. But, when adopted, they seemed to all of us the best that were practicable under all the then circumstances. The committee thus formed consisted of Mr. Panizzi himself, of Mr. Thomas Watts, of Mr. John Winter Jones (now Principal-Librarian), of Mr. John Humffreys Parry (now Mr. Serjeant Parry), and of the writer of this volume. The labour was much more arduous than the average run of readers in a Public Library have any ade- quate conception of. It occupied several months. It was pushed with such energy and industry, that many a time, after we had all five worked together, till the light of the spring days of 1839 failed us, we adjourned to work on — with the help of a sandwich and a glass of Burgundy — in Mr. Panizzi's private apartment above the old gate in the Court-yard. If the result of our joint labours had been printed in the ordinary form of books, it would have made a substantial octavo volume. The code has, no doubt, many faults and oversights, but, be they what they may, it see Mr. was a vas * improvement upon former doings in that direc- pmizzi's £j on an( j no t a \i\x\e, of it has been turned to account, of evidence before tie late years, in the Public Libraries of France, of Germany, Commission^ era of 1848-9. and of America. In the labours of this little house-committee my late friend took a very large share. To Mr. Panizzi, and to him, all their colleagues in the task of 1839 will readily admit that the chief merit of what is good, and the smallest part of the demerit of what may have been injudicious, in the Rules for the Compilation of the Catalogue of Printed THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 569 Booh (now before me) is incontestably due. My own bookui, experience in such matters, in the spring of 1839, was histoky small indeed. That of my friend Parry was even less, museum Mr. Winter Jones possessed, already, the advantage of a ondersib r " ° H. Ellis. thorough familiarity with the Library about to be cata- logued, and also an extensive and thorough general know- ledge of books. Of Mr. Panizzi's qualifications and attainments, for such a labour, it would be supererogatory and idle to say a word more, except that he had already — and single-handed — made so good a Catalogue of the fine Library of the Royal Society that the meddling of half-a- dozen ' revisers ' failed to spoil it. But there is no im- propriety in saying of Mr. Watts, that he so delighted in the labour in hand as to make it seem, to those who worked with him, that he looked upon it in the light of a pleasant recreation rather than in the light of a dry task. But whatever the ultimate differences of opinion, amongst those concerned in such a matter, about the merits of the Museum Catalogue, begun in 1839, there was no difference at all, either in the House or out of it, as to the conspicuous merits of his performance of every subsequent duty. His stores of knowledge were put, with the utmost readiness, at the service of all sorts of readers ; and he was not less admirable in the discharge of his office of Super- intendent of the Reading Room than afterwards in the more prominent office of Keeper of Printed Books — which he held little more than three years. When Sir Henry Ellis retired, in 1856, from the office of Principal-Librarian, the Collection of Printed Books — which he had found, on his accession to that office, extending to less than one hundred and fifty thousand volumes — exceeded five hundred and twenty thousand volumes. Book III, 570 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. The annual number of Readers admitted had increased hhtoey fr° m a bout seven hundred and fifty to nearly four or the thousand. Museum under sis The one step which did more than aught else to promote this improvement was the systematic survey of the then existing condition of the Printed Library, in all the great departments of knowledge, which Mr. Panizzi set on foot in 1843, and embodied in a Memoir addressed to the Trustees, on the first of January, 1845. mb. The principle on which this Memoir was compiled lay in mbmomok the careful comparison of the Museum Catalogues with the ™^ IK ' best special bibliographies, and with the Catalogues of pbmted other Libraries. In Jurisprudence, for example, the na- tional collection was tested by the Bibliotheca Juridica of Lipenixjs, Senckenberg, and Madahn ; by the list of law- books inserted in Dupin's edition of Camus' Lettres sur la profession d'Avocat, and by the Bibliotheque diplomatique choisie of Martens. In Political Economy, by Blanqxji's list given in the Histoire de I' Economie politique en Europe. The Mathematical section of the Library was compared with Rogg's Handbuch der mathematischen Literatur. In British History, the Bibliotheca Grenvilliana, and the Catalogue of the Library of the Writers to the Signet, were examined, for those sections of the subject to which they were more particularly applicable, and so on in the other departments. The facts thus elicited were striking. It was shown that much had been done since 1836 to augment almost every section of the Library ; but that the deficiencies were still of the most conspicuous sort. In a word, the statement abundantly established the truth of the proposition that ' the Collection of Printed Books in the British Museum is not nearly so complete and perfect as the National Library of Great Britain ought to be ' THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 571 and it then proceeded to discuss the further question : ' By book hi, what means can the collection be brought with all proper histoh despatch to a state of as much completeness and perfection mu™*m as is attainable in such matters, and as the public service 3™^* may require ?' It was shown that no reliance could be placed upon donations, for the filling up those gaps in the Library which were the special subject of the Memoir. Rare and pre- cious books might thus come, but not the widely miscel- laneous assemblage still needed. As to special grants for the acquisition of entire collections, not one of ten such collections, it was thought, would, under existing circum- stances, be suitable for the Museum. The Copyright-tax has no bearing, however rigidly enforced, save on current British Literature. There remained, therefore, but one adequate resource, that of annual Parliamentary grants, unfettered by restrictions as to their application, and capable of being depended upon for a considerable number of years to come. Purchases might thus be organized in all parts of the world with foresight, system, and continuity. In the letter addressed by the Trustees to the Treasury, it was stated that, ' for filling up the chasms which are so much to be regretted, and some of which are distinctly set forth in the annexed document, the Trustees think that a sum of not less than ten thousand a year will be required for the next ten years/ in addition to the usual five thousand a year for the ordinary acquisitions of the Library. The Lords of the Treasury were not willing to recom- mend to Parliament a larger annual grant than ten thou- sand pounds, 'for the purchase of books of all descrip- tions/ but so far they were disposed to proceed, ' for some Treasury years to come/ and they strongly inculcated upon the \w."' Trustees ' the necessity, during the continuance of such 572 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book in, grants, of postponing additions to the other collections Hisrosi under their charge, which, however desirable in themselves, are of subordinate importance to that of completing the Library.' OF THE Museum under Sia H. Ellis. scbjpts ADDED IN THE YEAES 1849, 1850. In 1843, an important series of modern Historical MS S., relating more especially to the South of Europe, was pur- manu- chased from the Ranuzzi family of Bologna. The papers of the Brothers Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, and Henry Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, were also secured. Addi- tions, too, of considerable interest, were made to the theo- logical and classical sections of the MS. Department, by the purchase of many vellum MSS., ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. In 1849, the most important acquisitions related to our British History. About three hundred documents illustrative of the English Wars in France (1418 to 1450), nearly ahundred autograph letters of William III, and an extensive series of transcripts from the archives at the Hague, were thus gathered for the future historian. In 1850, a curious series of Stamm- biicker, three hundred and twenty in number, and in date extending from 1554 to 1785, was obtained by purchase. These Albums, collectively, contained more than twenty- seven thousand autographs of persons more or less eminent in the various departments of human activity. Amongst them is the signature of Milton. The acquisitions of 1851 included some Biblical MSS. of great curiosity ; an exten- sive series of autograph letters (chiefly from the Donnadieu Collection), and a large number of papers relating to the affairs of the English Mint. In the year last named Sir Frederick Madden thus summed up the accessions to his Department since the year 1836 - THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 573 Volumes of Manuscripts 9051 Rolls of Maps, Pedigrees, &c 668 Manuscripts on Reed, Bark, or other material . 136 Charters and Rolls 6750 Papyri 42 Seals . . • 442 Book III, Chap. II. History of THE Museum under Sir H. Ems. Tabuiar view of the accessions And he adds : — ' If money had been forthcoming, the number to the mss. of manuscripts acquired during the last fifteen years might mentTrom have been more than doubled. The collections that have 1836 - 185L passed into other hands, namely, Sir Robert Chambers' Sanscrit MSS. ; Sir William Ouseley's Persian ; Bruce's Ethiopic and Arabic ; Michael's Hebrew ; Libri's Italian, French, Latin, and Miscellaneous ; Barrois' French and Latin ; as well as the Stowe Collection of Anglo-Saxon, Irish, and English manuscripts, might all have been so united. The liberality of the Treasury becomes very small when compared with the expenditure of individuals. Lord Ashburnham, during the last ten years, has paid nearly as large a sum for MSS. as has been expended on the National Collection since the Museum was first founded. 5 The causes which at this period again tended somewhat to growth of slacken the growth of the Printed Collection have been ^1^™° glanced at already. But during the fifteen years from ^ntupto 1836 to 1851, it had increased at the rate of sixteen thousand volumes a year, on the average. When the esti- mates of 1852 were under discussion, Mr. Panizzi stated, ' that till room is provided, the deficiency must in a great measure continue, and new [foreign] books only to a limited extent be purchased.' The grant for such pur- chases was therefore, in that year, limited to four thousand pounds. In a subsequent report, Mr. Panizzi added, ' that he could not but deeply regret the ill-consequences which must accrue by allowing old deficiencies to con- 574 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. II. History of THE Museum undee Sir H. Ellis. See hereafter, Chap. V. Growth of the Printed Section of the Library since 1852. tinue, and new ones to accumulate.' From the same report may be gathered a precise view of the actual addi- tions, from all sources, during the quinquennium of 1846- 1850. The increase in the printed books, therefore, although it had not quite kept pace with Mr. Panizzi's hopeful anticipations in 1852, had actually reached a larger yearly average, during that last quinquennium, than was attained in the like period from 1846 to 1850. The report from which these figures are taken was made in furtherance of the good and fruitful suggestion that a great Reading Room should be built within the inner quadrangle. Judging from the past, argued Mr. Panizzi, in June, 1852, 'and supposing that for the next ten years from seven thousand to seven thousand five hundred pounds will be spent in the purchase of printed books, the increase .... would be at the average of about twenty-seven thousand volumes a year, without taking into consideration the chance of an extraordinary increase, owing to the pur- chase or donation of any large collection. It was owing to the splendid bequest of Mr. Grenville that the addi- tions to the Collection in 1847 reached the enormous amount of more than fifty-five thousand volumes. After the steady and regular addition of about twenty-seven thousand volumes for ten years together, here reckoned upon, the Collection of Printed Books in the British Museum might defy comparison, and would approach, as near as seems practicable in such matters, to a state of completeness. The increase for the ten years next following might be fairly reduced to two thirds of the above sum. At this rate, the collection of books, which has been more than doubled during the last fifteen years, would be double of what it now is in twenty years from the present time [1852].' At the date of this report the number of volumes OF THE Museum UNDER SlK H. Ellis. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIE HENRY ELLIS. 575 was already upwards of four hundred and seventy thousand, book in, At the date at which I now write (January, 1870), the history number of volumes, as nearly as it can be calculated, has become one million and six thousand. On the average, therefore, of the whole period, the increase has been not less than thirty-one thousand five hundred volumes in every year. The Collection was somewhat more than doubled during the first fifteen years of Mr. Panizzi's Keepership. During the next like term of years, when the department was partly under the administration of Mr. Panizzi, and partly under that of Mr. Winter Jones, it was nearly doubled again. It follows that the anticipation expressed in the Beport of 1852 has been much more than fulfilled. Less than seventeen years of labour have achieved what was then expected to be the work of twenty years. If the other departments of the British Museum cannot show an equal ratio of growth during the term now under review, it has . not been from lack of zeal, either in their heads or in the Trustees. Their progress, too, was very great, although it is not capable of being so strikingly and compendiously illustrated. It has also to be borne in mind that the arrears, so to speak, of the Library, were relatively greater than those of some other divisions of the Museum, At the commencement of Sir Henry Ellis's term of pbogress Principal-Librarianship, the Natural-History Collections were natural partly under the charge of Dr. Leach, partly under that of Mr. Charles Konig. Both were officers of considerable T10NS scientific attainments. In the instance of Dr. Leach, cer- tain peculiar eccentricities and crotchets were mixed up in close union with undoubted learning and skill. In not a few eminent naturalists a tendency to undervalue the achievements of past days, and to exaggerate those of History Collec- 576 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, the day that is passing, has often been noted. Leach Chap. II. ■ i ,i • i • , r, histokt evinced this tendency in more ways than one. But a musedm favourite way of manifesting it led him many times into h N elli S s E difficulties with his neighbours. He despised the taxidermy of Sir Hans Sloane's age, and made periodical bonfires of Sloanian specimens. These he was wont to call his ' cremations.' In his time, the Gardens of the Museum were still a favourite resort of the Bloomsburians, but the attraction of the terraces and the fragrance of the shrub- beries were sadly lessened when a pungent odour of burning snakes was their accompaniment. The stronger the complaints, however, the more apparent became Dr. Leach's attachment to his favourite cremations. gbobm! Leach was the friend and correspondent of that eminent cultivator of the classificatory sciences, Colonel George Montagu, of Lackham. Both of them rank among the early members of the Linnsean Society, and it was under Museum. Leach's editorship that Montagu's latest contributions to the Society's Transactions were published. Montagu's 1802-13. Synopsis of British Birds marks an epoch in the annals of our local ornithology, as does his treatise entitled Testacea Britannica in those of conchology. His contributions to the National Collections were very liberal. But he did not care much for any books save those that treated of natural history. In addition to a good estate and a fine mansion, he had inherited from his brother a choice old Library at Lackham, and a large cabinet of coins. These, I believe, he turned to account as means of barter for books and spe- cimens in his favourite department of study. His love of the beauties of nature led him to prefer an unpretending abode in Devon to his fine Wiltshire house, and it was at Knowle that he died in August, 1815. His Collections in Zoology were purchased by the Trustees, and were removed his laboues in Natural Histom AND HIS Zoological 1803-9. under Sir H. Ellis. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 577 from Knowle soon after his death. Scarcely any other book m, purchase of like value in the Natural-History Department was histom made for more than twenty years afterwards. After the museum purchase of the Montagu Collection, the growth of that department depended, as it had mainly depended before it, on the acquisitions made for the Public by the several naturalists who took part in the. Voyages of Discovery or whose chance collections, made in the .course of ordinary duty, came to be at the disposal of the British Admiralty. Many of those naturalists were men of marked ability. Of necessity, their explorations were attended with much curious adventure. To detail their researches and vicissi- tudes would form— without much credit to the writer — an interesting chapter, the materials of which are superabun- dant. But, at present, it must needs be matter of hope, not of performance. The distinctive progress of the Natural-History Col- lections, from comparative and relative poverty, to a cre- ditable place amongst rival collections, connects itself pre- eminently with the labours of Dr. John Edward Gray, who will hereafter be remembered as the ablest keeper and organizer those collections have hitherto had. Dr. Gray is now (1870) in the forty-sixth year of his public service at the British Museum, which he entered as an Assistant, in 1824. He is widely known by his able edition of Griffiths' Animal Kingdom, by his Illustrations of Indian Zoology, by his account of the famous Derby Menagerie at Knowsley, and by his Manual of British Shells; but his least ostensible publications rank among the most conclusive proofs both of his ability and of his zeal for the public service. Dr. Gray has always advocated the publication — to use Mr. Car- lyle's words when under interrogatory by the Museum 2,7 578 LATER AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. book in, Commissioners of 1848 — of 'all sorts of Catalogues.' It history is to him that the Public owe the admirable helps to the mu™um study of natural history which have been afforded by the uhdersiu i on g series of inventories, guides, and nomenclators, the H.Ellis. d . _ . . publication of which began, at his instance, in the year ] 844, and has been unceasingly pursued. A mere list of the various printed synopses which have grown out of Dr. Gray's suggestion of 1844 would fill many such pages as that which the reader has now before him. The conse- quence is, that in no department of the Museum can the student, as yet, economise his time as he can economise it in the Natural-History Department. Printed, not Manu- script, Catalogues mean time saved ; disappointment avoided ; study fructified. No literary labour brings so little of credit as does the work of the Catalogue-maker. None better deserves the gratitude of scholars, as well as of the general mass of visitors. state J) r , Gray became Keeper of Zoology in 1 840. Four years natural earlier, he had given to Sir Benjamin Hawes' Committee a collec- striking account of the condition of that department, illus- t'hTmusIum trating it by comparisons with the corresponding Collections in 1836. j n p ar i S) which may thus (not without unavoidable injustice) be abridged : — The species of mammalia then in the Museum were four hundred and five; the species of birds were two thousand four hundred, illustrated by four thousand six hun- dred and fifty-nine individual specimens. At that date, the latest accessible data assigned to the Paris Collection about five hundred species of mammals, and about two thousand three hundred species of birds, illustrated by nearly six thousand specimens. The Museum series of birds was almost equally rich in the orders, taken generally ; but in gallinaceous birds it was more than proportionately rich, a THE BEITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 579 large number of splendid examples having been received book in, from India. In the birds of Africa, of Brazil, and of histoby Northern Europe, also, the Museum was already exception- J£™* M ally well-stored. DNDEU Sm J H. Ellis. The special value of the Ornithological Collection undoubt- edly showed that it had been more elaborately cared for than had been some other parts of natural history. But the extent and richness of the bird gallery, even at this period, is not to be ascribed merely to a desire to delight the eyes of a crowd of visitors. Por scientific purposes, a collection of birds must be more largely-planned and better filled than a collection of mammals, or one of fish. In birds, the essential characters of a considerable group of individual specimens may be identical and their colours entirely different. Besides the numerous diversities attendant upon age and sex, the very date at which a bird is killed may m produce variations which have their interest for the scientific ?f evidence 1 1836, p. 238. student. The number of species of reptiles was in 1836 about six hundred, illustrated by about one thousand three hun- dred specimens. This number was much inferior to that of the Museum at Paris, but it exceeded by one third the number of species in the Vienna Museum, and almost by ma.., P . m one half the then number at Berlin. (Q2996 - 9) The species of fish amounted to nearly a thousand, but this was hardly the fourth of the great collection at Paris, although it probably exceeded every other, or almost every other, Continental collection of the same date. Of shells, the Museum number of species was four thousand and twenty-five (exclusive of fossils), illustrated by about fifteen thousand individuals. This number of species was at par with that of Paris ; much superior both to Berlin and to Leyden ; but it was far from representing positive — as dis- 580 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III. Chap. II. under Sir H. Er.Lts. tinguished from comparative — wealth. There were already, Hisio»Y in 1836, more than nine thousand known species of shells. museum It was further shown in the evidence that, even under the arrangements of 1836, the facilities of public access equalled those given at the most liberal of the Continental Museums, and considerably exceeded those which obtained at fully four-fifths of their number. Among the many services rendered to the Museum by Dr. Gray, one is of too important a character to be passed over, even in a notice so brief as this must needs be. The large bequest in Zoology of Major-General Hardwicke zoomgy 01 g rew ou t °f a stipulation made by Dr. Gray, when he undertook, at General Hardwicke's request, the editorship of the Illustrations of Indian Zoology. A long labour brought to the editor no pecuniary return, but it brought an important collection to the British Public in the first instance, and eventually a large augmentation of what had been originally given. The Hardwicke Growth of the TIONS OF THE Museum. 1836-49. In March, 1849, the course of inquiries pursued by natural Lord Ellesmere's Commission led to a new review of the TTtstory collec- growth of the Natural-History Collections, and more espe- cially of the Zoology. It applied in particular to the twelve or thirteen years which had then elapsed since the prior inquiries of 1835-1836. The statement possesses much interest, but it is occasionally deficient in that systematic and necessary distinction between species and specimens which characterised the evidence of 1836. In brief, how- ever, it may be said, that in the eight years extending between June, 1840, and June, 1848, twenty-nine thousand five hundred and ninety-five specimens of vertebrated animals were added to the Museum galleries and store- houses. Of these, five thousand seven hundred and ninety- THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR HENRY ELLIS. 581 seven were mammals; thirteen thousand four hundred and bookiii, fourteen were birds ; four thousand one hundred and twelve himom reptiles ; and six thousand two hundred and seventy-two mdskdm were fish. The number of specimens of annulose animals g™™^™ added during the same period was seventy-three thousand five hundred and sixty- three : and that of mollusca and radiata, fifty-seven thousand six hundred and ten. These large additions comprised extensive gatherings made by Dyson in Venezuela, and in various parts of North America; by Gardiner and Clausen in Brazil; by Gosse in Jamaica ; by Gould, Gilbert, and Stephenson, in Australia and in New Zealand; by Hartweg in Mexico; by Goudot in Columbia ; by Verreaux and Smith in South Africa; by Prazer in Tunis; and by Bridges in Chili and in some other parts of South America. Of the splendid collections made by Mr. Hodgson in India, some more detailed mention must be made hereafter. Meanwhile, on the Continent of Europe, political com- check in motion had seriously checked the due progress or scientific oknatubal- collections. Britain had been making unwonted strides in collections the improvement of its Museum, at the very time when ° N THE A ' J Continent, most of the Continental States had allowed their fine i8«-i865. Museums to remain almost stationary. In mammals, birds, and shells, the British Museum had placed itself in the first rank. Only in reptiles, fish, and Crustacea, could , even Paris now claim superiority. Those classes had there engaged for a long series of years the unremitting research and labour of such naturalists as Cuvier, Dumeril, Valenciennes, and Milne-Edwards ; and their relative wealth of specimens it will be hard to overtake. In insects, the Museum Collection vies with that of Paris in point of extent, and excels it in point of arrangement. 582 LATER ATJGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book m, Not less conspicuous had been the growth of the several histohy Departments of Antiquities. And this part of the story of museum tne Museum teems with varied interest. Within a period h'eliis"' °^ ^ ess * nan thirty years, vast and widely-distant cities, rich in works of art, have been literally disinterred. In succes- sion to the superb marbles of Athens, of Phigaleia, and of Rome, some of the choicest sculptures and most curious minor antiquities of Nineveh, of Calah, of Erech, of Ur-of- the-Chaldees, of Babylon, of Xanthus, of Halicarnassus, of Cnidus, and of Carthage, have come to London. The growth of the subordinate Collections of Archaeology has been scarcely less remarkable. The series of ancient vases — to take but one example — of which the research and liberality of Sir William Hamilton laid a good foundation almost a century ago, has come at length to surpass its wealthiest compeers. Only a few years earlier, it ranked as but the third, perhaps as but the fourth, among the great vase-collections of Europe. London, in that point of view, was below both Naples and Paris, if not also below Munich. It now ranks above them all; pos- sessing two thousand six hundred vases, as against two thousand at Paris, and two thousand one hundred at Naples.* Another department, lying in part nearer home — that of British, Mediaeval, and Ethnological Antiquities — has been almost created by the labours of the last twenty years. The ' British' Museum can no longer be said to be a misnomer, as designating an establishment in which British Archae- ology met with no elucidation. * Birch, Ancient Pottery, vol. i, pp. 209, 210. CHAPTER III. INTRODUCTION TO BOOK \\\{GontinueS) :-GROWTH, PROGRESS, AND INTERNAL ECONOMY, OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM DURING THE PRIN- CIPAL - LIBRARIANSHIP OF SIR ANTONIO PANIZZI. 'Whatever be the judgment formed on [certain con- tested] points at issue, the Minutes of Evidence must be admitted to contain pregnant proofs of the acquirements and abilities, the manifestation of which in subordinate office led to Mr. Pauizzi's promotion to that which he now holds under circumstances which, in our opinion — formed on documentary evidence — did credit to the Prin- cipal Trustees of the day.' — Rkpoet of the Commis- sioners APPOINTED TO INQUIRE INTO THE MANAGE- MENT or the Bbitish Museum (1850). ' In consideration of the long and very valuable services of Mr. Panizzi, including; not only his indefatigable labours as Principal-Librarian, but also the service which he ren- dered as architect of the new Reading-Room, the Trustees recommended that he should be allowed to retire on full salary after 'a discharge of his duties for thirty-four years.' Hansard's Parliamentary Debates (27 July, 1866). The Museum Buildings. — The New Beading-Boom and its History. — -The House of Commons Committee of I860: — Further Beorganization of the Departments — Sum- mary of the Growth of the Collections in the gears 1856-1866, and of their increased Use and Enjoyment by the Public. No question connected with the improvement of the book m, British Museum h.as, from time to time, more largely en- his?™' grossed the attention, either of Parliament or of the Public m™ m at large, than has the question of the Buildings. On none ™p™„™ under Sib A. Panizzi 584 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book m, have the divergences of opinion been greater, or the ex- Chap.III. . „ ° ..... , , • i ii h IS toky pressions or dissatisfaction with the plans — or with the muskhm want of plan — louder or more general. Yet there is no doubt (amongst those, at least, who have had occasion to examine the subject closely) that the archi- tects of the new British Museum — first Sir Robert Smirke, and then Mr. Sydney Smirke — have been conspicuous for professional ability. Nor is there any doubt, anywhere, that the Trustees of the Museum have bestowed diligent attention on the plans submitted to them. They have been most anxious to discharge that part of their duty to the Public with the same faithfulness which, on the whole, has characterised their general fulfilment of the trust com- mitted to them. Why, it is natural to ask, has their suc- cess been so unequal ? causes or Without presuming upon the possession of competence to answer the question with fulness, there is no undue con- fidence in offering a partial reply. Part of their failure to op the new satisfy the public expectations has arisen from a laches in Museum ' j . buildings. Parliament itself. At the critical time when the character of the new buildings had practically to be decided, parsi- moniousness led, not only to construction piecemeal, but to the piecemeal preparation of the designs themselves. Tem- porary makeshifts took the place of foreseeing plans. And what may have sounded like economy in 1830 has, in its necessary results, proved to be very much like waste, long before 1870. Had a comprehensive scheme of reconstruction been looked fully in the face when, forty years ago, the new buildings began to be erected, three fourths at most of the money which has been actually expended would have sufficed for the erection of a Museum, far more satisfactory in its architectural character, and affording, at least one THE UNSA- TISEACTOEI- NESS OF MANY PARTS THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR A. PANIZZI. 585 fourth more of accommodation for the National Collections, bookiii, The British Museum buildings have afforded a salient in- His™** stance of the truth of Burke's words : ' Great expense may "™ H be an essential part in true economy. Mere parsimony is ™dkbsie not economy.' But, in this instance, the fault is plainly in Parliament, not in the Trustees of the establishment which has suffered. The one happy exception to the general unsatisfactori- ness of the new buildings — as regards, not merely architec- tural beauty, but fitness of plan, sufficiency of light, and adaptedness to purpose — is seen in the newReading-Room. ^^™ And the new Reading-Room is, virtually, the production of boom. an amateur architect. The chief merits of its design be- long, indubitably, to Sir Antonio Panizzi. The story of that part of the new building is worth the telling. That some good result should be eventually derived from the large space of ground within the inner quadrangle had been many times suggested. The suggestion offered, in 1837, by Mr. Thomas Watts was thus expressed in his letter to the Editor of the Mechanics' Magazine .- — Mr. Watts began by criticising, somewhat incisively, Thest,g - , . GESTIOKS the architectural skill which had constructed a vast quad- poubuild- rangle without providing it even with the means of a free tional circulation of air. He pinned Sir Robert Smirke on the o™3™d horns of a dilemma. If, he argued, the architect looked to OTl8 * 7 - a sanitary result, he had, in fact, provided a well of malaria. If he contemplated a display of art, he had, by consenting to the abolition of his northern portico, spoiled and destroyed all architectural effect. 'The space,' he pro- ceeded to say, which has thus been wasted, ' would have •afforded accommodation/0?" the whole Library ', much superior to what is now proposed to afford it. A Reading-Room -of ample- dimensions might have stood in the centre, and 586 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book in, been surrounded, on all four sides, with galleries for the histom' books.' Afterwards, when adverting to the great expense musbuh which had been incurred upon the facades of the quadrangle, a N p!hizz E ^ e wen t on to say : ' It might now seem barbarous to pro- Meciumic? P° se the filling up of the square — as ought originally to am)'"oi ^ ave ^ een done. Perhaps the best plan would be to xxvi.pp.a95, design another range of building entirely [new ?], enclosing the present building on the eastern and northern sides as the Elgin and other galleries do on the western. To do this, it would be necessary to purchase and pull down one side of two streets, — Montagu Street and Montagu im - Place.' see chap, ii As I have intimated already, this alternative project was of 56°s°md 1 ' unconsciously reproduced, by the present writer, ten years theaccom. later, without any idea that it had been anticipated. But panying . . fac-simiie. neither to the mind of the writer of 1837, nor to that of the writer of 1847, did the grand feature of construction which, within another decade, has given to London a splendid building as well as a most admirable Reading- Rom, present itself. The substantial merit, both of origi- nally suggesting, and of (in the main) eventually realising the actual building of 1857, belongs to Antonio Panizzi. As to the claims on that score advanced by Mr. Ho s king, formerly Professor of Architecture at King's College, they apply to a plan wholly different from the plan which was carried into execution. Mr. Hosking's scheme was drawn up, for private circu- lation, in February, 1848 (thirteen months after the writing of my own pamphlet entitled Public Libraries in London and in Paris, and more than six months after its circulation in print), when it was first submitted to Lord Elles- mebe's Commission of Inquiry. It was first published (in The Builder) in June, 1850. His object was to pro- THE BE1TISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR A. PANIZZT. 587 Vide a grand central hall for the Department of An- book in. ,. ... Cliap.III. tiquities. histokt When Mr. Hosking called public attention to his design OF THB MUSEUM of 1848 — in a pamphlet entitled Some Remarks upon the U! " ,!,SlB • Tl Tl 7 • • 7 A. Panizzi. recent Addition of a Reading-Room to the British Museum — Mr. Sydney Smirke wrote to him thus : — ' I recollect seeing your plans at a meeting of the Trustees, . . . shortly after you sent them [to Lord Ellesmere]. When, long subsequently, Mr. Panizzi showed me his sketch for a plan of a new Reading-Room, I confess it did not remind me of yours, the purposes of the two plans and the treatment and Sydney . Smirke to construction were so dmerent. * Whilst to Mr. Smirke wuiiam himself belongs the merit of practical execution, that of ^7mX design belongs no less unquestionably to Panizzi. * If the question of mere hints and analogies in construction were to be followed out to its issues, the result, I feel assured, would in no degree tend to strengthen the contention of Mr. Hosking's pamphlet. Something like a first germ of the mere ground-plan of the new Reading- Room may, perhaps, be found in M. Benjamin Delessert's Projet d'wne Bibliotheque circulaire, printed, at Paris, as far back as the year 1835, when the question of reconstructing the then ' Royal,' now ' Imperial Library,' was under discussion in the French Chambers. ' I propose,' says Delessert, 'to place the officers and the readers in the centre of a vast rotunda, whence branch off eight principal galleries, the walls of which form diverging radii . . . and have book- cases on both sides,' &c. His plan may be thus shown, in small. The differences, it :■) will be seen, between this sketch and Mr. Panizzi's sketch of 1854, are greater than are the resemblances. The new or Panjzzi Reading. 588 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, Mr. Panizzi himself preferred, at first, the plan of histoei extending the building on the eastern and northern sides. mhs"to His suggestions had the approval of the Commissioners of a^pahiz™ 1850. But the Government was slow to give power to the Trustees to carry out the plan of their officer and the recommendation of the Commissioners of Inquiry, by pro- eoom. posing the needful vote in a Committee of Supply. Plan and Report alike lay dormant from the year 1850 to 1854. It was then that, as a last resort, and as a measure of economy, by avoiding all present necessity to buy more ground of the Duke of Bedford, Mr. Panizzi recommended the Trustees to build within the quadrangle, and drew a sketch-plan, on which their architect reported favourably. Sixty-one thou- sand pounds, by way of a first instalment, was voted on the third of July, 1854. The present noble structure was completed within three years from that day, and its total cost — including the extensive series of book-galleries and rooms of various kinds, subserving almost innumerable purposes — amounted in round numbers to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds. It was thus only a little more than the cost of the King's Library, which accommodates eighty thousand volumes of books and a Collection of Birds. The new Reading-Room and its appendages can be made to accommodate, in addition to its three hundred and more of readers, some million, or near it, of volumes, without im- pediment to their fullest accessibility. To describe by words a room which, in 1870, has be- come more or less familiar, I suppose, to hundreds of thousands of Britons, and to a good many thousands of foreigners, would now be superfluous. But it will not be without advantage, perhaps, to show its character and ap- pearance with the simple brevity of woodcuts. The following illustrative block-plan shows the general THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR A. PANIZZI. 589 arrangement of the Museum building at large, at the date of the erection of the new Reading-Room. &RQAT RUSSELL STREET. Book III, Chap. III. History or THE Museum under Sra A. PANIZZI. b lock-plan of Museum (1857), DIS- TINGUISH- ING THE Libraries FROM THB Galleries oe Anti- quities, &c. I. General Block-Plan of the British Museum, as IT was in 1857. The shaded part of the building itself shows the portions allotted to the Library. The unshaded part is assigned, on the ground floor, to the Department of Antiquities, and (speaking generally) on the floor above — in common with 590 LATER ATJGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. ILL History op THE Museum uhdeu Sib A. Pahizzi. the upper floors of the Library part — to the Departments of Natural History. The ' Print Room ' is shown on the ground-plan between the Elgin Gallery and the north- western extremity of the Department of Printed Books. The next illustration shows, in detail, the ground-plan of the new Reading- Room and of the adjacent book- galleries : — II. Ground-Plan op the new or ' Panizzi ' Reading-Room, AND OF THE ADJACENT GALLERIES, 1857. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIE A. PANIZZI. 591 The general appearance of the interior of the Reading- Room may be shown thus : — apiK W^^^^Mm life* illlll I L ■ HIM mwm | i& ■MiL. s - -- \lPi8i J|J±E ip 111 ^n ii sSSS^ss ii W i 11 M awnnaj 592 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, Of course, the improvements thus effected did but solve Chap. III. . r histoey a portion of the difficulty felt, long before 1857, in accora- OP THE museum modating the National Collections upon any adequate scale, UNDER SlK A. Panizzi. Pablia- MENTASX which should provide alike for present claims and for future extension. This more effectual provision became one of the most pressing questions with which both the Trustees and their officers had now to deal. During the whole term of Sir A. Panizzi's Principal-Librarianship this building question increased in gravity and urgency, from year to year. Both the Trustees and the Principal- Librarian were intent upon its solution. But the latter was enforced, by failing health, to quit office, leaving the matter still unsolved. Most of the little information on this part of the subject inquiry which, within my present limits, it will be practicable for INTO PIIO- lill 1 posed en- me to offer to the reader, belongs, properly, to a subsequent oXteh chapter. But some brief notice must be given here of the ra"i86o M important inquiries, ' how far, and in what way, it may be desirable to find increased space for the extension and arrangement of the various Collections of the British Museum, and the best means of rendering them available for the promotion of Science and Art/ which were made, between the months of May and August of 1860, by a Select Committee of the House of Commons. The first question to be answered by the Committee of 1860 was this : Is it expedient, or not, that the Natural- . History Collections should be removed from Bloomsbury, to make room for the inevitable growth of the Collections of Antiquities ? After an elaborate inquiry, spreading over three months, the Committee reported thus : — ' The witnesses examined have, almost unanimously, testified to the preference over the other Collections, with which the Natural-His- THE BEITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR A. PANIZZI. 593 tory Collections are viewed by the ordinary and most book in, numerous frequenters of the Museum. This preference is hmtohy easily accounted for ; the objects exhibited, especially the Museum birds, from the beauty of their plumage, are calculated to ™" EE SlE ' •" r D ' A. Panizzi. attract and amuse the spectators. The eye has been accus- tomed in many instances to the living specimens in the Zoological Gardens, and cheap publications and prints have Select Committee or THE rendered their forms more or less familiar. It is, indeed, house op easily intelligible that, while for the full appreciation of i860. works of archaeological interest and artistic excellence a special education must be necessary, the works of Nature may be studied with interest and instruction by all persons of ordinary intelligence. It appears, from evidence, that many of the middle classes are in the habit of forming col- lections in various branches of Natural History, and that many, even the working classes, employ their holidays in the study of botany or geology, or in the collection of in- sects obtained in the neighbourhood of London ; that they refer to the British Museum, in order to ascertain the proper classification of the specimens thus obtained, and that want of leisure alone restrains the further increase of this class of visitors. Your Committee, in order to confirm their view of the peculiar popularity of the Natural- History Collections, beg to refer to a return from the Principal- Librarian, which shows the number of visitors in the several public portions of the Museum, at the same hour of the day, during fifteen open days, from the fifteenth of June to the eleventh of July, 1860. Prom this it appears that two thousand five hundred and fifty-seven persons were in the Galleries of Antiquities at the given hour, and one thou- sand and fifty-six in the King's Library and MSS. Rooms, while three thousand three hundred and seventy-eight were in the Natural-History Galleries; showing an excess of two 38 tjndkr Sin A. Panizzi. 594 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. cha° K iii' humctocl _and twenty per cent, in the Natural-History histoid Department over the King's Library and MSS. Rooms, museum and of thirty-three per cent, over the Galleries of Antiqui- ties, notwithstanding that the latter are of considerably greater extent than the Galleries of Natural History. The evidence received by your Committee induces the belief that the removal of these most popular collections from their present central position to one less generally accessi- ble would excite much dissatisfaction, not merely among a large portion of the inhabitants of the metropolis, but among the numerous inhabitants of the country, who from time to time visit London by railway, and to whom the proximity of the British Museum to most of the rail- way termini, as compared with the distance of the localities to which it has been proposed to transport such collections, is of great practical importance. Similar evidence shows that the proposed removal of those collections from the British Museum has excited grave and general disapproba- tion in the scientific world. Your Committee cannot here employ more forcible language than that made use of in a memorial signed by one hundred and fourteen persons, in- cluding many eminent promoters and cultivators of science in England, and presented to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1848. The following are their words : — " We beg to add the expression of our opinion that the removal of the Natural-History Collections from the site where they have been established for upwards of a century, in the centre of London, particularly if to any situation distant from that centre, would be viewed by the mass of the in- habitants with extreme disfavour, it being a well-known fact that by far the greater number of visitors to the Museum consists of those who frequent the halls containing the Natural-History Collections, while it is obvious that many of THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR A. PAN1ZZI. 595 those persons who come from the densely peopled districts of book m, the eastern, northern, and southern parts of London, would hktok feel it very inconvenient to resort to any distant locality." museum After an elaborate examination into the nature and d ™ ehSis A. Pakizzi. extent of those enlargements which the present growth and Kecom . probable increase of the several Collections of Antiquities "™^ TI0KS and of Natural History render necessary, the Committee commons' J " Committee proceed thus : — or \m. The ground immediately surrounding the Museum, says the reporter, speaking of the adjacent streets to the east, west, and north, ' comprises altogether about five and a half acres, valued by Mr. Smirke at about two hundred and forty thousand pounds. As the proprietary interest in all this ground belongs to a single owner, your Committee are of opinion that it would be convenient, and possibly even a profitable arrangement, for the State at once to purchase that interest, and to receive the rents of the lessees in return for the capital invested. The State would then have the power, whenever any further extension of the Museum became necessary, to obtain possession of such houses as might best suit the purpose in view. ' Independently, however, of this larger suggestion, your Committee are fully convinced, both from the uniform purport of the papers printed at different times by the House of Commons, and from the statements of the various witnesses whom they have now examined, that it is indis- pensable, not merely to the appropriate exhibition of our unequalled National Collections, but even to the avoidance of greater ultimate expense, through alterations and re- arrangements, that sufficient space should be immediately acquired in connexion with the British Museum, to meet the requirements of the several departments which have been enumerated under the last head, and that such space Natural HrsToiiY TIONS. 596 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, should throughout be adapted, by its position, extent, and histoey' facilities of application, to the arrangement of the collec- Mu™™ ^ ons on a comprehensive, and, therefore, probably perraa- ukdbb sir nent system. They will now proceed to point out several A. Panizzi. . J ... r sites, either on or adjoining the present ground of the Museum, which seem to them to present the greatest advan- tages for the accommodation of the respective departments.' Although, the Committee proceed to say, the amount of colmc- space which, on the foregoing estimate, would be requisite for the Natural-History Collections is not so great as to involve the necessity of their removal from the British Museum on that ground alone, your Committee, nevertheless, attach so much weight to the arguments in favour of preserving the various departments of the Museum from the risk of colli- sion with each other, that, should it be determined to pro- vide new space for Natural History in connexion with the Museum, they would make it a primary object to isolate its collections, as far as possible, from all others in the same locality. The chief part of the Natural-History Collec- tions is now on the upper floor, where they occupy, accord- ing to the return of Mr. Smirke, in November, 1857, forty-eight thousand four hundred and forty-two superficial feet. The remainder of that floor, containing, exclusively of a small space not reckoned by Mr. Smirke, twenty-one thousand five hundred and thirty-two feet, is occupied -by Antiquities. It appears to your Committee that if, by any adaptation of ground to be acquired adjoining the Museum, adequate space should be provided elsewhere for the Anti- quities now on the upper floor, the most expedient arrange- ment would be to appropriate the whole of that floor to the Natural-History Collections. If this space proved insuf- ficient for all such collections, your Committee would then recommend that the newly acquired portion should be THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR A. PANIZZI. 597 applied exclusively to the Department of Zoology ; and that book in, a sufficient portion of ground should be purchased on the histo**' north side of the Museum as a site for galleries to provide m„™um for Mineralogy, and thus also indirectly for Geology. apa™ A convenient site for this department would, in the PBIM ,. SAND opinion of the Committee, be provided by the suggested Deaw,sgs acquisition of additional ground on the north side. A building might there be erected in continuation of the present east wing of the Museum, to contain, on its upper floor, the Mineralogical Collections, and on the lower the Prints and Drawings, with adequate space both for their preservation and exhibition. In determining the site most suitable for the large addi- antiqui- tional accommodation required for this department, the Committee thought it most prudent that the Trustees of the Museum should be guided, partly by the greater or less cost of purchasing the requisite amount of ground in different directions, but chiefly by the greater or less fitness of the dif- ferent portions of ground for the best system of arrangement. In the same year in which Mr. Panizzi became Principal- i HTraiNAL Librarian (1856), one of the recommendations of Lord ecokom ^- . E.BORGANI- Ellesmere's Commission-Report of 1850 was carried zatwhahd into effect by the creation of the new office of ' Superin- Dmsioa or tendent of the Natural-History Departments.' And the ^™' former partial subdivision and reorganization of those 186M(S - departments was, in the following year, carried further by the formation of a separate Department of Mineralogy. In subsequent years, the old Department of Antiquities was, like the Natural History, divided into four departments, namely, (1) Greek and Roman Antiquities; (2) Oriental Antiqui- ties; (3) British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography; (4) Coins and Medals., 598 LATEE AUGMENTOBS AND BENEFACTOES. Book III, Chap. ill. History of THE Museum under Sib A. Panizzi. Statistics or Public Access. At present (1870), it may here be added, the entire Museum is divided into twelve departments, comprising three several groups of four sections to each. The Natural- History group being comprised of (1) Zoology; (2) Pate- ontology ; (3) Botany ; (4) Mineralogy. The Literary group comprising (1) Printed Books; (2) Manuscripts; (3) Prints and Drawings ; (4) Maps, Charts, Plans, and Topo- graphical Drawings. Experience has amply vindicated the wisdom of the principle of subdivision. But it is probable that the principle has now been carried as far as it can usefully work in practice. Increased efficiency and rapidly growing collections brought with them enlarged grants from Parliament. In the first year of Sir A. Panizzi's Principal-Librarianship, the estimate put before the House of Commons for the service of the year 1856-7 was sixty thousand pounds, as compared with a grant for the service of the year im- mediately preceding of fifty-six thousand one hundred and eighty pounds. In his last year of office, the estimate for the service of the year 1866-67 amounted to one hundred and two thousand seven hundred and forty-four pounds, against a grant in the year preceding of ninety-eight thou- sand one hundred and sixty-four pounds. There had also been, in that decade, a marked degree of increase — though one of much fluctuation — in the number of visits, both to the General Collections and, much more notably, to the Reading-Piooms and the Galleries for Study. In 1856, the number of general visitors was three hundred and sixty-one thousand seven hundred and fourteen ; in 1866, it was four hundred and eight thousand two hundred and seventy-nine. But in the 'Exhibition Year' (1862), it had reached eight hundred and ninety-five thousand and seventv-seven, which was itself little more than one-third Museum under Sir A. Panizzi. THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR A. PANIZZI. 599 of the exceptionally enormous number of visitors recorded* book hi, in the year of the first of the great Industrial Exhibitions history' (1851). It was during Sir A. Panizzi's decade that the largest number of visitors ever recorded to have entered the Museum within one day was registered. This exceptional number occurred on the ' Boxing Day ' of the Londoners, 26th December, 1858, when more than forty -two thousand visitors were admitted. Under the old system there had been a dread of holiday crowds, and the largest number ever admitted on any one day, prior to 1837, was between five thousand eight hundred and five thousand nine hundred. That number had been looked upon as a marvel. On the Easter Monday of 1837, twenty-three thousand nine hundred and eighty-five were admitted. Neither then nor on the 1858 ' Boxing Day ' was any injury or disorderly conduct complained of. The highest number of visits for study made to the Reading-Room, prior to 1857, occurred in 1850, when the number was seventy-eight thousand five hundred and thirty- three. The number in the year 1865 w r as one hundred thousand two hundred and seventy-one, but in the interval it had risen (1861) to one hundred and thirty thousand four hundred and ten. Eor several years, between 1856 and 1866, the average number of visits for study to the Galleries of Antiquities averaged about one thousand nine hundred annually ; those to the Brint Room, about two thousand eight hundred ; those to the Coin and Medal Room, about one thousand nine hundred. * Namely, two millions five hundred and twenty-seven thousand two hundred and sixteen visits, which included seventy-eight thousand two hundred and eleven visits to the Reading-Room for study. under Sib A. Panizzi. 600 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, The rapid growth of the Collection of Printed Books, histoid more especially between the years 1845-1865, which Mnranii ^ a ^> as we have seen, resulted from the unremitting labours of Mr. Panizzi, was well kept up, both under his immediate successor, Mr. John Winter Jones, and (after Mr. Jones' promotion to the Principal-Librarianship, towards the close of 1866) by the next Keeper, Mr. Watts. As is well known, the increase of the Library is still more remarkable for the character of the additions purchased than for their mere number. But recent years have afforded no such instance of individual munificence in this department of the Museum as that which will presently call for detailed notice when we record the acquisition (in 1846) of the Grenville Library, nor could any such instance, indeed, be reasonably looked for. Sir Frederick Madden's energetic researches and labours for the improvement of the Collection of MSS. would well merit a fuller account than it is here practicable to give of them. They have been perseveringly and worthily continued by his successor, Mr. Edward Augustus Bond, to whom students also owe the great and distinctive debt of the com- mencement of an admirable " Index of Matters " to the Collection generally. No greater boon, in the way of Cata- logues, was ever given within the walls of the Museum, though, as yet, it is necessarily a beginning only. The special labours of Dr. Gray in that sphere, for the Natural-History Collections, comprised the extended advantage of printing and sale. Not less, I hope, will eventually be done for the service of manuscript students. There is the desire to do it, and the means must, sooner or later, follow. The wonderful growth and development of the Collec- tions of Antiquities in recent years is the special subject of THE BEITISH MUSEUM UNDEE SIE A. PANIZZI. 601 the next chapter. That growth derives no small part of book in, its permanent scientific interest and value from the im- history' pressive way in which it illustrates the teachings of Holy mu™dm Scripture. Some of the collections amassed in the British ™° E3lSlB 1 A. Panizzi. Museum have, more than once, by dint of human vanity, been made to subserve a laudation of the wonderful achievements of Man, rather than of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God ; but for the ebullitions of human vanity there is extremely little room when a visitor stands beside the sculptured memorials of that vast empire which ' the cedars in the garden of God could not hide/ which was Ezek.x*xi, ' lifted up in the pride of its height/ only to become a com P . marvel for desolation, so that upon its ruin 'the fowls of Habak - U > 14 - the heaven remain. 5 When before our own eyes and ears the very stones cry out in the wall, and the beams out of the timber answer them, the man vainest of his science or of his philosophy must needs be led to ask himself: ' What hath God wrought?' Some very advanced men of science have become, of late, fond of ' Sunday-evening Lectures '_/or the instruction of the working classes. That would be a tolerably impressive Sunday-evening Lecture which a competent scholar could give in the Assyrian Gallery of the British Museum. Here, and now, the recent increase of the Department of Antiquities may be wholly passed over. But to that part of the history of accessions which bears upon the Natural-History Galleries some attention must needs be given, by way of continuing our former brief epitome of the improvements made between the years 1836 and 1850. Of the state of the Department of Zoology, during the earlier part of the decade now more immediately under review, a good and instructive account was given in Pro- 602 LATER AUaMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. ch^iiL fessor 0wEN ' s Annual Report of 1861. Its most material histoby portions run thus : — muse™ ' The proportion of the stuffed specimens of the class Hlrnz". Mammalia, exhibited in the glazed cases of the Southern Zoological Gallery and Mammalian Saloon, is in good con- g"owth dition. The stuffed specimens, which, from their bulk, or or thi; from want of space in the cases, stand on the floor, have histo^ 1, suffered in a certain degree from exposure to the corrosive cot™. smoke-dust of the metropolis, the effects of which cannot 1850-1861. be wholly prevented.' ' The proportion, continues Mr. Owen, of the Collection of Mammalia consisting of skins preserved in boxes, the Osteological specimens, including the horns and antlers, and the specimens kept in spirit, are all in a good state of pre- servation. The unstuffed, Osteological and bottled speci- mens are unexhibited and restricted in use, as at present located, to scientific investigation and comparison ; but it is with difficulty that the special visitor for such purposes can now avail himself of these materials, owing to their crowded accumulation in theBasement Rooms in which they are stored. ' The exhibited Collection of Birds is in a good state of preservation, is conveniently arranged for public inspection, and is usefully and instructively named and labelled. The interest manifested by visitors, and the satisfaction generally expressed in regard to this gallery, indicate the amount of public instruction and gratification which would result from a corresponding serial arrangement and exposition of the other classes of the animal kingdom. ' The stuffed and exhibited selections from the classes of Reptilia and Fishes, are in a very good state of preserva- tion ; they suffer less from the requisite processes of cleaning than the classes covered by hair, fur, or feathers. ' Of these cold-blooded Vertebrates the proportion pre- THE BRITISH MUSEUM UNDER SIR A. PANIZZI. 603 served in spirits is much greater than in Mammals and bookiii, Birds, and, consequently, through the present allotment of histoet space, the majority of the singular specific forms of Reptiles m"L and Pishes are excluded from public view. Upwards of two ^p^™! thousand specimens in spirits of these classes have been added in the past year to the previously crowded shelves of the basement store-rooms, where access to any individual speci- men is a matter of some difficulty, if not hazard. Of the above additions, fourteen hundred and fifty-six have accrued from the donation of the Secretary of State for India in Council. The interest and novelty of the specimens have constrained their acceptance, and the same reason has led to the acquisition of many additions from other sources. ' Amongst them deserve to be specified two specimens of that singular snake, the Herpeton tentaculatum, known for a century past only by a single discoloured example in the Paris Museum ; those now in the stores of the British Museum were acquired from Siam, and have served to enrich Zoology with a complete knowledge of the species, through the descriptions and figures by Dr. Gunther. ' The following may be also specified, namely, the bur- rowing Snake from South Africa, Uriechis microlepidotus ; a new genus of tree-snake, Herpetoreas ; a new genus, Barycephalus, of Saurian, from an altitude in the Himalayas of fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea ; also two new species of freshwater Tortoise, the Emys Livingstonii, dedicated to its discoverer in Africa, and the JEmys Siamen- sis. Among the additions to the class of Pishes has been acquired a new genus, Hypsiptera, of the Scomberoid family ; with several new species, including one, Centrolo- ; learned, since the time of Archbishop Ussher. But his quest was fruitless, although, as it is now well known, a Syriac version of some of those epistles did really exist in one of the monasteries which Huntington visited. The monks, then as afterwards, were chary of showing their MSS., very small as was the care they took of them. The 39 610 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Another Geo up ok Aucu^olo- gists and explorers. and those op sonnini, Browne, and others. Browne, Travels in Africa, &c, p. 43. Huntington, Observations (repr. in Ray's Coll.). Andreossi, ValUes des Lac deNation, Lord Prud- hoe's Narra- tive, &c, as abridged in Quarterly Review, vol. lxxvii, pp. 45, Beq. only manuscripts mentioned by Huntington, in recording his visits to three of the principal communities — St. Mary Deipara, St. Macarius, and El Baramous — are an Old Testament in the Estrangelo character; two volumes of Chrysostom in Coptic and Arabic ; a Coptic Lectionary in four volumes ; and a New Testament in Coptic and Arabic. Towards the close of the following century, these monasteries received the successive visits of Sonnini, of William George Browne, and of General Count Andr6- ossi. Sonnini says nothing of books. Browne saw but few — among them an Arabo-Coptic Lexicon, the works of St. Gregory, and the Old and New Testaments in Arabic — although he was told by the superior that they had nearly eight hundred volumes, with none of which they would part. General Andreossi, on the other hand., speaks slightingly of the books as merely ' ascetic works, .... some in Arabic, and some in Coptic, with an Arabic trans- lation in the margin ;' but adds, ' We brought away some of the latter class, which appear to have a date of six centuries.' This was in 1799. Browne died in 1814; Sonnini de Manoncourt, in 1812 ; Count Andreossi survived until 1828. In the year 1827, the late Duke of Northumberland (then Lord Prudhoe) made more elaborate researches. His immediate object was a philological one, his Lordship desiring to further Mr. Tattam's labours on a Coptic and Arabic Dictionary. Hearing that ' Libraries were said to be preserved, both at the Baramous and Syrian convents,' he proceeded to El Baramous, accompanied by Mr. Linart, and encamped outside the walls. "The monks in this convent,' says the Duke, ' about twelve in number, appeared poor and ignorant. They looked on us with ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 611 great jealousy, and denied having any books, except those book hi, in the church, which they showed us. 5 But having been akotheb judiciously mollified by some little seductive present, on the aZImoIo- next day, ' in a moment of good humour, they agreed to b^omm. show us their Library. From it I selected a certain number of Manuscripts, which, with the Lexicon {Selim) already mentioned, were carried into the monk's room. A long deliberation ensued, .... as to my offer to purchase them. Only one could write, and at last it it was agreed that he should copy the Selim, which copy and the MSS. I had collected were to be mine, in exchange for a fixed sum of dollars, to which I added a present of rice, coffee, tobacco, and such other articles as I had to offer/ After narrating the acquisition of a few other MSS. at the Syrian convent, or Convent of St. Mary Deipara, his Lordship proceeds : — ' These manuscripts I presented to Mr. Tattam, and gave him some account of the small room with its trap-door, through which I descended, candle in hand, to examine the manuscripts, where books, and parts of books, and scattered leaves, in Coptic, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic, were lying in a mass, on which I stood. ... In appearance, it seemed as if, on some sudden emer- gency, the whole Library had been thrown down this trap- door, and they had remained undisturbed, in their dust and neglect, for some centuries/ Ten years later, Mr. Tattam himself continued these The researches. But in the interval they had been taken up ^searches J L IN THE by the energetic and accomplished traveller Mr. Robert Levantine Curzon, to whose charming Visits to the Monasteries of the mE l oTmb. Levant it is mainly owing that a curious aspect of monastic Cdezon - life, which theretofore had only interested a few scholars, has become familiar to thousands of readers of all classes. Mr. Curzon's researches were much more thorough 612 LATER AUGKMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book m, than those of any of his predecessors. He was felicitous ahothkb in his endeavours to win the good graces of the monks, and Sch^olo- seems °ften to have made his visits as pleasant to his hosts gists and as afterwards to his readers. But, how attractive soever, Explorers. only one of them has to be noticed in connexion with our present topic — that, namely, to the Convent of the Syrians mentioned already. ' I found,' says Mr. Curzon, ' several Coptic MSS. lying on the floor, but some were placed in niches in the stone wall. They were all on paper, except three or four; one of them was a superb MS. of the Gospels, with a commentary by one of the early fathers. Two others were doing duty as coverings to large open pots or jars, which had contained preserves, long since evapo- rated. On the floor I found a fine Coptic and Arabic Dictionary, with which they refused to part.' After a most graphic account of a conversation with the Father Abbot — the talk being enlivened with many cups of rosoglio — he proceeds to recount his visit to a ' small closet, vaulted with stone, which was filled to the depth of two feet or more with loose leaves of Syriac MSS., which now form one of the chief treasures of the British Museum.' The collection thus ' preserved' was that of the Coptic monks ; the same monastery contained another which was that of the Abyssinian monks. ' The disposition of the manuscripts in the Library,' continues Mr. Curzon, ' was very origi- nal. . . . The room was about twenty-six feet long, twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high ; the roof was formed of the trunks of palm-trees. A wooden shelf was carried, in the Egyptian style, around the walls, at the height of the top of the door, underneath the shelf various long wooden pegs projected from the wall, .... on which hung the Abyssinian MSS., of which this curious Library was entirely composed. The books of Abyssinia gists and Explorers. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCH^OLOGISTS, ETC. 613 are bound in the usual way — sometimes in red leather, and book in, ill 11- Chap. IV. sometimes in wooden boards, . . . they are then enclosed in anothee a case, ... to which is attached a strap, . . . and by these akchjeolo- straps the books are hung on the wooden pegs, three or four on a peg, or more, if the books were small ; their usual size was that of a small, very thick quarto. . . . Almost all Abyssinian books are written upon skins. . . . They have no cursive writing ; each letter is therefore painted, as it were, with the reed-pen. . . . Some manuscripts are adorned with the quaintest and grimmest illustrations conceivable, .... and some are worthy of being compared with the best speci- mens of caligraphy in any language.' Then follows an amus- ing account of the ' higgling of the monks,' after a truly Abyssinian fashion, ending in the acquisition of books, of the whole of which the travellers could not, by any packing or stuffing, make their bags containable. ' In this dreadful dilemma, . . . seeing that the quarto was the most imperfect, I abandoned it ; and I have now reason to believe, on seeing the manuscripts of the British Museum, that this was the famous book, with the date of A.D. 411, the most precious acquisition to any Library that has been made in modern times, with the exception, as I conceive, of some in my own Collection. . . . This book, which contains some lost nu^'hc., works of Eusebius, has . . . fallen into better hands than as al)0Te ' mine.' In the following year (1838), the Rev. Henry Tattam (afterwards Archdeacon of Bedford), in furtherance of the purpose which had previously enlisted Lord Prudhoe's co-operation, set out upon his expedition into Egypt. He arrived at Cairo in October, and in November proceeded up the Nile as far as Esneh, visiting many monasteries, and inspecting their Libraries, in most of which he only met with liturgies and service-books. Sanobon was an ex- 614 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, ception, for there he found eighty-two Coptic MSS., some anothuk of them very fine. aeohIoio- Continuing the narrative, we find that on the 12th of explores J aimai 7 they started across the desert for the valley of the MissPtATT's Natron Lakes, and pitched their tent at a short distance joumai (un- f rom the Monastery of Macarius. The monks told them published,but " abridgeain that of these convents there had once been, on the moun- j&wew.as tain and in the valley of Nitria, no less than three hundred and sixty. Of fifty or thereabouts the ruins, it is said, may still be seen. At the Convent of the Syrians, the Arch- researches deacon was received with much civility, not, however, un- OE Akch- . * deacon accompanied by a sort of cautious circumspection. After a look at the church, followed by the indispensable pipes and coffee, the monks asked the cause to which they were in- debted for the honour of his visit. He told them discreetly that it was his wish to see their books. 'They replied that they had no more than what he had seen in the church ; upon which he told them plainly that he knew they had.' A conference ensued, and, on the next day, they 'con- ducted him to the tower, and then into a dark vault, where he found a great quantity of very old and valuable Syriac MSS. He selected six quarto volumes, and took them to the superior's room. He was next shown a room in the tower, where he found a number of Coptic and Arabic MSS., principally liturgies, with a beautiful copy of the Gospels. He then asked to see the rest. The monks looked surprised to find he knew of others, and seemed at first disposed to deny that they had any more, but at length produced the key of the apartment where the other books were kept, and admitted him. After looking them over, he went to the superior's room, where all the priests were assembled, fifteen or sixteen in number ; one of them brought a Coptic and Arabic Selim, or Lexicon, which Mr. ANOTHER GEOUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 615 Tattam wished to purchase ; they informed him they could book m, not part with it, ... . but consented to make him a copy, akothbr He paid for two of the Syriac MSS. he had placed in the akohIolo- superior's room, for the priests could not be persuaded to ^ ^ part with more The superior would have sold the Dictionary, but was afraid, because the Patriarch had written in it a curse upon any one who should take it away.' [It was the same volume which had been vainly coveted by Mr. Curzon, as well as by several preceding travellers, and of which he tells us he ' put it in one of the niches of the wall, where it remained about two years, when it was pur- chased and brought away for me by a gentleman at Cairo.'] ' In the Convent of El Baramous,' continues Miss Platt, ' Mr. Tattam found about one hundred and fifty Coptic and Arabic liturgies, and a very large Dictionary in both languages. In the tower is an apartment, with a trap -door in the floor, opening into a dark hole, full of loose leaves of Arabic and Coptic manuscripts.' At the Monastery of Amba-Bichoi, Mr. Tattam saw a lofty vaulted room, so strewn with loose manuscripts as scarcely to afford a glimpse of the floor on which they lay, ' in some places a quarter of a yard deep/ At Macarius Convent a similar sight pre- sented itself, but of these Mr. Tattam was permitted to carry off about a hundred. As the reader may well imagine, the charms of the Syriac MSS. had made too deep an impression on Mr. Tattam's heart to admit of an easy parting. Many were the longing, lingering looks, mentally directed towards them. Almost at the moment of setting out on his return to Cairo, he added four choice books to his previous spoils. In February, he resolved to revisit the convents, and once more to ply his most persuasive arguments. He was man- fully seconded by his Egyptian servant, Mahommed, whose 616 LATER AUQMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Anothkb Geoup of archaeolo- gists and Exi'LOKEES. Piatt's Journal; abridged, as above. favourite methods of negotiation much resembled those of Mr. Curzon. ' The Archdeacon soon returned/ says Miss Platt, 'followed by Mahommed and one of the Bedouins, bearing a large sack full of splendid Syriac MSS. on vellum. They were safely deposited in the tent/ At Amba-Bischoi a successful bargain was struck for an old Pentateuch in Coptic and Arabic, and a beautiful Coptic Evangeliary. On the next day, ' Mahommed brought from the priests a Soriana, a stupendous volume, beautifully written in the Syriac characters, with a very old worm- eaten copy of the Pentateuch from Amba-Bischoi, exceed- ingly valuable, but not quite perfect.' The remainder of the story, or rather the greater part of what remains, must here be more concisely told than in the words of the reviewer. The manuscripts which Mr. Tattam has thus obtained, in due time arrived in England. Such of them as' were in the Syriac language were disposed of to the Trustees of the British Museum. . . Forty-nine manuscripts of extreme an- tiquity, containing some valuable works long since supposed to have perished, and versions of others written several centuries earlier than any copies of the original texts now known to exist, constituted such an addition as has been rarely, if ever, made at one time to any Library. The col- lection of Syriac MSS. procured by Mr. Rich had already made the Library of the British Museum conspicuous for this class of literature ; but the treasure of manuscripts from Egypt rendered it superior to any in Europe. From the accounts which Lord Prudhoe, Mr. Curzon, and Mr. Tattam had given of their visits to the Monastery of the Syrians, it was evident that but few of the manu- scripts belonging to it had been removed since the time of Assemani; and probable that no less a number than ANOTHER GROUP OP ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 617 nearly two hundred volumes must be still remaining in the bookiii, Chap. IV. hands of the monks. Moreover, from several notes in the asothek manuscripts . . already brought to England, it was certain aechIoL- that most of them must be of very considerable antiquity . . . " STS AND */ T. «/ ExpLOREHS. In several of these notices, Moses of Tecrit states that, in the year 932, he brought into the convent from Meso- potamia about two hundred and fifty volumes. As there was no evidence whatever to show that even so many as one hundred of these MSS. had ever been taken away (for those which were procured for the Papal Library by the two Assemani, added to those which Mr. Cuuzon and Mr. Tattam had brought to England, do not amount to that number), there was sufficient ground for supposing that the Convent of the Syrians still possessed not fewer than about one hundred and fifty volumes, which, at the latest, must have been written before the tenth century. Application, accordingly, was made by the Trustees to the Treasury : a sum was granted to enable them to send TEJ!ASX,Eir J ' o GBANT, IN again into Egypt, and Mr. Tattam readily undertook the i8«,yon !F URTI-J Kit UK* commission. The time was most opportune. Had much more seabches. delay been interposed, these manuscripts, which, perhaps, constitute the greatest accession of valuable literature which has been brought from the East into Europe since the taking of Constantinople, would, in all probability, have ® mL been now the pride of the Imperial Library at Paris. as before. Mr. Tattam thought he could work most effectively mr. through the influence of a neighbouring Sheikh with the Tattam's expedition superior of the convent. By which means he obtained, T IN 1842. after some delays, a promise that all the Syriac MSS. should be taken to the Sheikh's house, and there bargained for. ' My servant,' he says, ' had taken ten men and eight donkeys from the village ; had conveyed them, and already bargained for them, which bargain I confirmed. That night 618 LATER AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. cta p K iv.' we can 'i e d our boxes, paper, and string, and packed them all. ahother Before ten in the morning they were on their way to Gboup of o J J AKCH2EOLO- Alexandria.' But, as will be seen in the sequel, the monks explores, were too crafty for Mr. Tattam to cope with. tischen- In 1844, Tischendori? visited the monasteries already ™°i8« VISIT explored by Curzon and Tattam. His account repro- duces the old characteristics : — ' Manuscripts heaped in- discriminately together, lying on the ground, or thrown into large baskets, beneath masses of dust The excessive suspicion of these monks renders it extremely diffi- cult to induce them to produce their MSS., in spite of the extreme penury which surrounds them But much might yet be found to reward the labour of the searcher/ In truth, the monks, poor and simple as they sometimes seemed to be, had taken very sufficient care to keep enough of literary treasures in their hands to reward ' further re- searches.' Nearly half of their collection seems to have been withheld. pacho's a certain clever Mr. Pacho now entered on the scene as NEGOTIA- TION EOJl a negotiator for the obtainment or recovery of the missing ' treasures of the tombs.' They had been virtually purchased before, but the Lords of the Treasury very wisely re-opened the public purse, and at length secured for the Nation an deipaea. inestimable possession. The new accession completed, or went far towards completing, many MSS. which before page 633, were tantalizingly imperfect. It supplied a second ancient chapter. copy of the famous Ignatian Epistles (to St. Polycarp, to the Ephesians, and to the Romans) ; many fragments of palimpsest manuscripts of great antiquity, and among them the greater part of St. Luke's Gospel in Greek ; and about four thousand lines of the Iliad, written in a fine square uncial letter, apparently not later than the sixth century. The total number of volumes thus added to the THE EECO YEEY OF THE MSS. WITH- HELD BY THE MONKS OF St. Maby See in this ANOTHER GEOUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 6J9 previous Nitrian Collections were calculated, roundly, to be bookiii. from a hundred and forty to a hundred and fifty. a™™ Gboup of Aechjeolo- That the rich accession to our sacred literature, thus gists and 1 1 1 VI EXPLOEEBS. made amidst many obstacles, should be turned speedily to WlLLIAM public advantage, two conditions had to be fulfilled, cubeton AND HIS Skilful labour had first to be employed in the arrangement labors in of a mass of fragments. Scholars competently prepared, u™,™ 1 ,,, by previous studies in Oriental literature and more espe- cially in Syriac, must then get to work on their transcrip- tion, their gloss, and their publication. It could scarcely have been expected, beforehand, that any one man would be able to undertake both tasks, and to keep them, for some years to come, well abreast. The fact, however, proved to be so. The right man was already in the right place for the work that was to be clone. The late William Cureton had entered the service of the Trustees of the British Museum in 1837, at the age of twenty-nine, when he had been already for about eight years in holy orders. He was a native of Westbury, in Shropshire. His education, begun at Newport School, had been matured at Christ-Church, Oxford. He had been just about to enter himself at Christ-Church in the ordinary way, when his father died, suddenly, leaving the family fortunes under considerable embarrassment. Cureton, and a brother of his, showed the metal they were both made of, by instantly changing their youthful plans. That the whole of the diminished patrimony might be at their mother's sole disposal, William Cureton went to Oxford as a servitor. His brother, instead of waiting for his expected commission in the Army, enlisted as a private dragoon. And certainly, in the issue, neither of these young men lost any ' dignity' — in any sense of that word — 620 LATEE ATJGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. Book III, Chap. IV. Another Group of Arch-^olo- gists and Explorers. Cureton's entrance INTO THE British Museum. on account of the step so unselfishly taken at their start in life. William Cureton began his literary labours as a Coadjutor-Under-Librarian in old Bodley. Dr. Gaisford introduced him to Dr. Bandinel, in 1834, with the words : — ' I bring you a good son. He will make a good libra- rian.' It was at Oxford that he laid the substantial foundation of his Oriental studies. After three years, he followed the fashion already set him by some of the best and ablest officers the Bodleian has ever had — Ellis, Baber, and H. O. Coxe, for example — by transferring, for a time, his services from the great Library of Oxford to that of London. His first (or nearly his first) Museum task was to set to work on the cataloguing of the Arabic and Persian MSS. In 1842, he began his earliest Oriental publication (undertaken for the ' Oriental Text Society,' to be mentioned presently), namely, Al Sharastani's 'Book of Religious and of Philosophical Sects.' At the British Museum, he became quite as notable for the amiability of his character, and the genial frankness of his manners, as for his scholarly attainments and his power of authorship. I have a vivid recollection of my own intro- duction to him, in the February of 1839, and of the impres- sion made on me by his kindly and cordial greeting. When I noted that pleasant face, which beamed with good nature as well as with intellect, I instantly appreciated the force of the words used by my introducer : ' Let me make you known,' said he, ' to my father-confessor.' I thought the choice to be obviously a felicitous one. Not less vivid is my memory of the delight Mr. Cureton manifested on re- ceiving, within the Museum vaults, the first importation from the Nitrian Desert. The sight of such a mass of torn, disorderly, and dirty fragments, would have appalled many A-ECIIjEOLO- GISTS AND EXPLOREES. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 621 men not commonly afraid of labour, but to William book in, Cureton the scholarly ardour of discovery made the task, ahother from the first, a pleasure. When successive fresh arrivals gave new hope that many gaps in the manuscripts of gi earliest importation would, in course of time, be filled up, the laborious pleasure ripened into joy. The collection, obtained by the long succession of labours already narrated, reached the British Museum on the first of May, 1843. When the cases were opened, very few indeed of the MSS. were perfect. Nearly two fkagmen- hundred volumes had been torn into separate leaves, and mmohof then mixed up together, by blind chance and human stu- mss. 8 ™" pidity. It was a perplexing sight. But the eyes that looked P0BT ™ IN on it belonged to a seeing head. Even into a little chaos like this, almost hopeless as at the first glance it seemed, the learning, assiduity, and patience of Mr. Churton gradually brought order. Of necessity, the task took a long time. First came the separation of the fragments of different works, and then the arrangement of the leaves into volumes, with no aid to pagination or catchwords. With transla- tions of extant Greek works, the collection of their originals gave, of course, great help. But in a multitude of cases every leaf had to be read and closely studied . Within about eighteen months of the reception of the MSS., Mr. Cureton had ascertained the number of volumes — reckoning books made up of fragments, as well as com- plete works— to amount to three hundred and seventeen, of which two hundred and forty-six were on vellum, and seventy on papej ; all in Syriac or Aramaic, except one volume of Coptic fragments. With the forty-nine volumes previously acquired, an addition was thus made to the MS. Department of the National Library of three hundred and sixty-six volumes. Many of these volumes contain two, 622 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Another Group or A.RCH.SOLO- G1STS AND Explorers. Dr. Cure- ton's pub- lications IN Syriac, AND IN Arabic litkrature. three, or four distinct works, of different dates, bound to- gether, so that probably, in the whole, there were of manu- scripts and parts of manuscripts, upwards of one thousand, written in all parts of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Egypt, and at periods which range from the year 411 to the year 1292. Of the specific character and contents of some of the choicest of these MSS., mention will be made hereafter. For several years, the labour on the Syriac fragments did but alternate with that on the larger bodv of the Arabic MSS., a classed catalogue of which Mr. Cureton pub- lished in 1846, — only a month or two after he had contri- buted to the Quarterly Review a deeply interesting and masterly article on the Syriac discoveries. This paper was quickly followed by his first edition of the Three Epistles of St. Ignatius (I, to Polycarp; II, to the Ephesians ; III, to the Romans). In an able preface, he contended that, of these genuine Epistles, all previous recensions were, to a considerable extent, interpolated, garbled, and spurious ; and also that the other Ignatian Epistles, so-called, are en- tirely supposititious. In the year 1S70 it need hardly be said either that this publication excited much controversy, or that competent opinion is still divided on some parts of the subject. But on two points there has never been any controversy whatever : — As an editor, William Cureton displayed brilliant ability ; as a student of theology, he was no less distinguished by a single-minded search after truth. He was never one of those noisy controversialists of whom Walter LANDORonce said, so incisively,* that they were less angry with their opponents for withstanding the truth, than for doubting their own claims to be the channels and the * In — unless a memory more than thirty years old deceive me — that noble masterpiece of English prose, the ' Citation of Shakespeare for Deer-stealmg' (1835). CIETY. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 623 champions of Truth. To his dying day, Cureton owned *°° K ™' himself to be a learner — even in Syriac. amothbb. *,. . T . Group of Within three years of the publication of Ins Ignatius, aboh^olo- Cureton gave to the world his precious edition of the explores. fragmentary Festal Letters of Athanasius, which Richard ° J . The fotjn- Burgess soon translated into English, and Lassow into dation German. The Syriac version was one of its editor's earliest omental discoveries amongst the spoils of the Nitrian monasteries, T ' and it was published at the cost of a new society, of which Cureton himself was the main founder. For the old Oriental publication society* limited itself, as its name imports, to the publication of translations. The new one — the claims of which to liberal support Cureton was never weary of vindicating — was expressly founded to print Oriental texts. This new body had his strongest sympa- thies, but he co-operated zealously with the 'Translation Fund ' as well as with the ' Text Society.' Among his other and early labours, was the publication of a Rabbinical Comment on the Book of Lamentations, and of the Arabic text of En Nasafi's Pillar of the Creed of the Sunnites (' Umdat Akidat ahl al Sunnat wa al Tamaat '), both of which books were printed in 1843. After 1845, Cureton's literary labours were almost exclu- sively devoted to that Syriac field in "which he was to be so large and so original a discoverer. The first distinctively public recognition of his services was his appointment as a Chaplain to the Queen, in 1847. Two years afterwards, he was made a Canon of Westminster and Rector of St. Margaret's. Thenceforward, his energies were divided. The charms of Syriac discovery were not permitted to ob- struct the due performance of the appropriate work of a parish-priest ; though it is much to be feared that they * The Oriental Translation Fund. 624 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Another Group of ARCHiEOLO- GISTS AND EXPLORERS. PAROCHIAL LABOURS. Further contribu- TIONS TO LITERATURE. MS. Addit. 14,640. (B. M.) Labour and its rewards IN FRESH LABOURS. were but too often permitted to interfere, more than a little, with needful recreation and rest. Among those of his parochial labours which demanded not a small amount of self-sacrifice were the rebuilding and the improved organization of the schools ; the building of a district church — St. Andrew's — in Ashley Place ; and the establishment of Working- Class Lectures, upon a wise and far-seeing plan. In 1851, he gave to scholars the curious palimpsest frag- ments of Homer from a Nitrian manuscript (now Addit. MS., 17,210), and, two years afterwards, the Ecclesiastical History of John, Bishop of Ephesus. This was quickly trans- lated into German by Schonfehler, and into English by Dr. R. Payne Smith. Then came the Spicilegium Syriacum, containing fragments of Bardesanes, of Melito of Sardes, and the inexpressibly precious fragments of an ancient recension of the Syriac Gospels, believed by Cureton to be of the fifth century, and offering considerable and most interesting divergences from the Peshito version. In a preface to these evangelical fragments of the fifth century, their editor contends that they constitute a far more faithful representation of the true Hebrew text than does the Peshito recension, and that the remark holds good, in a more especial degree, of the Gospel of St. Matthew. This publication appeared in 1858. Enough has been said of these untiring labours to make it quite intelligible, even to readers the most unfamiliar with Oriental studies, that their author had become already a celebrity throughout learned Europe. As early as in 1855, the Institute of France welcomed Dr. Cureton, as one of their corresponding members, in succession to his old master, Gaisford, of Christ-Church. In 1859, the Queen conferred on him a distinction, which was especially ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 625 appropriate and dear to his feelings. He became ' Royal book hi, Trustee' of that Museum which he had so zealously served ahothee as an Assistant- Keeper of the MSS., up to the date of his ^chIoio- appointment to his Westminster parish and canonry. No ° ISTSAKD 1 r , EXPLOEEBS. fitter nomination was ever made. Unhappily, he was not to be spared very long to fill a function so congenial. Yet one other distinction, and also one other and most honourable labour, were to be his, before another illustrious victim was to be added to the long list of public losses in- flicted on the country at large by the gross mismanage- ment, and more particularly by what is called — sardonically, I suppose — the ' economy' of our British railways. Cure- ton's life too, like some score of other lives dear to litera- ture or to science, was to be sacrificed under the car of our railway Juggernaut In 1861, he published, from another Nitrian manuscript, Eusebitjs' History of the Martyrs in Palestine. Early in 1863, he succeeded the late.Beriah Botfield in the Chair the of the Oriental Translation Fund. On the twenty-ninth and its ' of May, of the same year, a railway ' accident' inflicted s^es. upon him such cruel injuries as entailed a protracted and painful illness of twelve months, and ended — to our loss, but to his great gain — in his lamented death, on the seven- teenth of June, 1864. He died where he was born, and was buried with his fathers. The writer of these poor memorial lines upon an admirable man well remembers the delight he used to ex- press (thirty years ago) whenever it was in his power to revisit his birthplace, and knows that the delight was shared with the humblest of its inhabitants. Dr. Cueeton was one of those genuine men who (in the true and best sense of the words) are not respecters of persons. He had a frank, not a condescending, salutation for the lowliest ac- 40 626 LATEE AUQ-MENTOKS AND BENEFACTOKS. book hi, quaintances of youthful days. And those lowliest were not Chap. IV. " • anothee among the least glad to see his face again at his holiday- aechIolo- visits ; nor were they among the least sorrowful to see it, when it bore the fatal, but now to most of us quite familiar, traces of victimism to the mammon-cult of our railway directors. GISTS AND EXPLOBEBS. theaechje- Just as we have to go very far back indeed in the history OLOGICAL „ ° " dxpioea- of the Manuscript Department of the British Museum, m LtTnt!™ 15 order to find an accession quite as notable as are — taking them as a whole — the manuscripts of the Nitrian monas- teries, so have we also to do in the history of the several Departments of Antiquities, in order to find any parallel to the acquisitions of monuments of art and archaeology made during the thirty years between 1840 and 1870. In point of variety of interest, in truth, there is no parallel at all to be found. In archaeology, however — as in scientific discovery, or in mechanical invention — every great burst of new light will be seen, if we look closely enough, to have had its remote precursive gleams, howsoever faint or howsoever little noticed they may have been. Austen Henry Layard, for example, is a most veritable ' discoverer.' Nevertheless, the researches of Layard link themselves with those of Claudius Rich, and with the still earlier glimpses, and the mere note-book jottings, of Carsten Niebuhr, as well as with the explorations of Layard's contemporary and most able French fellow-investigator, Monsieur Botta. In like manner, Nathan Davis is the undoubted disinterrer of old Carthage, but the previous labours of the Italian canon and archaeologist Spano, of Cagliari, and those of the French geographers De Dreux and Dureau de La Malle, imperfect as they all were, ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 627 helped to put him upon the quest which was destined to bookiii, . , , Chap. IV. receive so rich a reward. another It is obvious, therefore, that a tolerably satisfactory ac- ammom- count of the researches of the renowned archaeologists men- * ISTS AND O EXPLORKHS. tioned at the head of this chapter must be prefaced with some notices of much earlier and much less success- ful labours than theirs; and a thorough account would need greatly more than that. But, at present, I cannot hope to give either the one or the other. Rapid glances at the recent investigations are all that, for the moment, are permitted me, and for the perfunctory manner of these I shall have to make not a little demand on the reader's in- dulgence. The subject-matter is rich enough to claim a volume to itself; nor would the story be found to lack well-sustained and varied interest, even if retold at large. The first inquiries and explorations in Lycia of Sir Charles Fellows began several years earlier than those in Assyria of Mr. Austen Layard, but an intelligible narra- tive of what Layard did, in 1845, must needs start with a notice, be it ever so brief, of what Botta had been doing in 1842. The Lycian excavations were also effectively begun in 1842. They were, in fact, contemporaneous with the first excavations at Nineveh. I begin, therefore, with the closely-linked labours of Botta and of Layard, prefacing them with a glance at the previous pursuits and aims in life of our distinguished fellow-countryman. Austen Henry Layard is an Englishman, notwithstand- austen ing his birth in Paris (5th of March, 1817), and his descent layard from one of the many Huguenot families who (in one sense) do honour to France for their sufferings for conscience sake, and who (in many more senses than one) do honour to England by the way in which zealous and persevering exertions in the service of their adopted country have AND HIS EARLY CAREER. 628 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Another Gboup of Akchjiolo- gists amd Explobees. The JOUENEY THEOUGH Asia Minor and SxaiA in 1839-1840, Nineveh and its Remains (1849), vol. i, p.Z. enabled them to pluck the flowers of fame, or of distinction, from amidst the sharp thorns of adversity. Austen Lattard is the grandson of the honoured Dr. La yard, Dean of Bristol, and he began active life, whilst yet very young, in a solicitor's office in. the City of London. But he had scarcely reached twenty- two years of age before family circumstances enabled him to gratify a strong passion for Eastern travel. Archaeo- logy had no share, at first, in the attractions which the Levant presented to his youthful enterprise. But a fervid nature, a good education, and a wonderful power of self- adaptation to new social circumstances, made the mind of the young traveller a fitting seedplot for antiquarian know- ledge, whenever the opportunity of acquiring it should come. To a man of that stamp it would be impossible that he should tread near those ancient ruins, every stone of which must needs connect itself with some ' reverend history ' or other — when the discerning eye should at length pore upon it and ponder it — without the ambition stirring within him to make at least an earnest attempt to explore and to decipher. To this particular man and his companion in travel, Fortune was propitious, by dint of her very parsi- mony. Ashe says himself: 'No experienced dragoman measured our distances or appointed our stations. We were honoured with no conversations by pashas, nor did we seek any civilities from governors. We neither drew tears nor curses from the villagers by seizing their horses, or searching their houses for provisions ; their welcome was sincere ; their scanty fare was placed before us ; we ate, and came, and went in peace.' It was almost thirty years ago — about the middle of April, 1840 — that Mr. Layard looked upon those vast ruins on the east bank of the Tigris, opposite Mosul, which FIRST DIS- COVERIES. ANOTHER GROUP OP ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 629 include the now famous mounds of Konyunjik and of bookiii, Nebbi Yunus. Having gazed on them with an incipient anotheb longing — even then — to explore them thoroughly, he and HZmZo- his companion rode into the desert, and looked with new GISTS AND ExPLORTES wonder at the great mound of Kalah Sherghat, the site of which is by some geographers identified with the Assur of the book Genesis.* After that hasty and tantalising visit, in the spring of 1840, Layard did not again see Mosul until the summer of 1842, when he was again travelling- Tatar, and hurrying to Constantinople. In the interval, he had often thought of his early purpose, and had talked of it to many travellers. Now, in 1842, he heard that what he had hitherto been able only to contemplate, as the wished- for task of the future, Monsieur Botta, the new French botta-s Consul at Mosul, had, for some months, been actually working upon ; although, as yet, with very small success. Our countryman encouraged the French Consul in his un- dertaking, and presently learned that by him the first real monument of old Assyria had been uncovered. This pri- mary discovery was not made at Kouyunjik, but at Khor- sabad, near the river Khauser, many miles away from the place at which the first French excavations had been made, early in 1842. The delighted emotions of Monsieur Botta, when he found himself, very suddenly, standing in a chamber in which — to all probability — no man had stood since the Fall of Nineveh, and saw that the chamber was lined with sculptured slabs of ' gypsum-marble ' or alabaster, full of historic scenes from the wars and triumphs of Assyria, a * Comp. ' Asshur builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah.' — Gen. x, 11. Mr. Layard quotes this passage, in Nineveh and its Remains (vol. i, p. 4, edit. 1849), and seems to identify ' Kalah Sherghat' as retaining its ancient name. 630 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Another Group OB Arch.3eoi.o- G1STS AND Explorers. reader can better imagine than a writer can describe. Botta- himself rather indicates than depicts them, in the deeply interesting letters which he speedily addressed to his friend Mohl at Paris (and which by Mohl were not less .promptly published in the Journal Asiatique, to be within a month or two pondered and wondered over by almost every archaeologist in Europe). The delight, and also the surprise, were enhanced when the discoverer saw that almost every slab had a line of wedge-shaped characters carved above it, giving hope of history in . legible inscrip- tions, as well as history in ruins. For, unhappily, nearly all the sculptures first discovered at Khorsabad were frac- tured. The durability of the Assyrian style of building had brought about the defacement of the sculptured records. The walls -were formed of blocks of gypsum, backed and lined, so to speak, with enormous masses of clay. When the weight of such large earth-banks pressed down upon the sculptured slabs, these were thrust from their place. Many that were still in position, when first seen, fell, or crumbled, as the explorer was looking at them. He had to shore-up and underpin, as he went on ; and to do this by unpractised hands. Else, the more diligent his excavations, the more destructive they would have been of the very end he had in view. Latard was at Constantinople when the news came of M. Botta's increasing successes. His detention there had been unexpected, as well as unavoidable. But he wrote to England without delay. He had a foresight that Botta would not lack encouragement in France. He felt no unworthy jealousy on account of the fact that it was a Frenchman who was now disinterring historic trea- sures of a hitherto unexampled kind, and who was rapidly ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 631 securing historic fame for himself.* Mr. Latard knew — book in, few men just then knew more fully — that in all matters anotme of learning and- of discovery the gains of Prance are the ^bchIoL. gains of the world. For the staunchest of John Bulls ™ TSi,,I> O ^ ExPLOBEES. amongst us must acknowledge that in the arts of scientific lATAED . a dissemination and exposition a Frenchman (other things °™btubes 1 ^ TO THE being equal) has usually twice the expertness of an Eng- bemish lishman. But he was naturally desirous that France mint. should not have all the glory of Assyrian discovery. What, then, was the reception with which his first overtures were met ? ' With a single exception,' in the person of his London correspondent, ' no one,' he tells us, ' in England ' . . . . ' seemed inclined to assist or take any interest in f '»«"* ani " its Remains, such an undertaking.' ™i.i,p.io. What, on the other hand, were the encouragements given to the French explorer by the Government and the Nation of France ? They were large ; they were ungrudgingly given; and they were instantaneously sent. In Mr. Latabd's words : ' The recommendation was attended to with that readiness and munificence which [has] almost invariably distinguished the French Government in under- takings of this nature. Ample funds to meet the cost of libebalaid extensive excavations were at once assigned to M. Botta, tom.botta and an artist of acknowledged skill was placed under his orders, to draw such parts of the monuments discovered as could not be preserved or removed.' Who will wonder * Nor was there any petty or unworthy jealousy in the distinguished French explorer. ' During the entire period of his excavations,' writes Mr. Layard, ' M. Botta regularly sent me, not only his [own] descriptions, but copies of the inscriptions, without exacting any promise as to the use I might make of them. That there are few who would have acted thus liberally, those who have been engaged in a search after Antiquities in the East will not be inclined to deny.' — Nineveh and its Remains, vol. i, p. 14 By the Fbench GOVEEN- — England ANDl'fiAWCE. 632 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, that at first it seemed as though France would carry off all anotheb the stakes, and England have no place at all in the archaeo- Gkoup OP 1 • i ri ahch^olo- logical race ? explores. Mr. Layard, however, was otherwise minded. And he contrasts: found, presently, a powerful helper in the person of the British Ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Stratford Can- ning (now Lord Stratford de Redcliffe). Had it not been for the union, in that ambassador, of a large intellect, a liberal mind, and a strong will, and also for the absence, in him, of that shrinking from extra-official responsibilities which in so many able men has often emasculated their ability, Mr. Layard's efforts, earnest and unremitting as they were, would assuredly have been foiled. The reader will perceive that for what was achieved, in 1845 and. in the subsequent years, on the banks of the Tigris, the British public owe a debt of gratitude to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the encourager of the enterprise, as well as to Mr. Layard, its originator. But neither does this fact, nor does the like of it, five years earlier, in the help given by Lord Ponsonby to the Lycian researches of Sir Charles Fellows, invalidate or weaken the remark I have ventured to make (on pages 348 ; 381, of the present volume, and elsewhere) about the discreditable and long-continued apathy of our Foreign Office in matters of art and literature ; especially if we compare on- that head British practice with French prac- tice. Perhaps, at first blush, it might be thought some- what presumptuous, in a private person, to remark so freely on what seem to him the shortcomings of statesmen. But it has to be borne in mind that, in such cases as this, out- spoken criticism is rather the expression of known public opinion, than of mere individual judgment. The one writer, how humble soever, is very often the mouthpiece of ANOTHEE GEOUP OF AECH^EOLOGISTS, ETC. 633 (he thoughts of many minds. Nor is other warrant for Booxm, such criticism lacking. anotheb Three years after beginning his excavations at Nimroud, 2*°™ °* . Mr. Layard himself wrote thus (from Cheltenham) : — ' It is ™tsahd s EXPLOEEES. to be regretted that proper steps have not been taken for the transport to England of the sculptures discovered at Nineveh. Those which have already reached this country, and (it is to be feared) those which are now on their way, have consequently suffered unnecessary injury; yet, . . . they are almost the only remains of a great city »*»«»* «*<* ' J . J D J Us Remains, and of a great nation. voi.i, P .xm. Part of the injury now observable in the Assyrian sculp- tures of the British Museum was, of course, inseparable from circumstances attending the discovery. Besides the injury already spoken of — from the pressure of the earth- banks — all the low-reliefs of one great palace had suffered from intense heat. From this cause, Mr. Layard's expe- riences recall, in one particular, the impressive accounts we have all read of the opening of ancient tombs in Egypt and in Italy. The fortunate excavator suddenly beheld a kingly personage, in fashion as he lived. The royal fore- head was still encircled by a regal crown. The fingers were decked with rings ; the hand, mayhap, grasped a sceptre. But whilst the discoverer was still gazing in the first flush of admiration, the countenance changed ; the orna- ments crumbled ; the sceptre and the hand that held it alike became dust. So it was, at times, at Nimroud. Some of the calcined slabs presented, for a moment, their story in its integrity. Presently, they fell into fragments. None the less, when the reader goes into the Kouyunjik Gallery ; looks at the sculptures from Sennacherib's palace; observes the innumerable 'joinings,' and then 0FTHE glances at his official ' Guide' (which tells him, at page 85, ™»'<» Mixed hatuee or THE CAUSES 634 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. cha° K iv' ' man y single slabs reached this country in three hundred or anotheu four hundred pieces'), he is bound for truth's sake to re- AoBiOLo- member that, whilst some of the breakage is ascribable to ex'™. the action of fire at the time of the Fall of Nineveh, sekvable another portion of it is ascribable to the want or absence ik the of action, on the part of some worthy officials in the public Museum , . x t * A sculptuees service of Britain, just twenty-five centuries afterwards. PROM Assyria. With Sir Stratford Canning's help, and with the still better help of his own courage and readiness of resource, Mr. Latard surmounted most of the obstacles which lay in his path. There was a rich variety of them. To quote but a tithe of his encounters with Oandian pashas, Turco- man navvies, Abou-Salman visitors, and Mosul cadis and muftis, would ensure the reader's amusement beyond all doubt ; but the temptation must be overcome. Happily, the original books are well known, though the anecdotes are more than racy enough to bear quotation and requo- tation. iatahd's Two incidents of the first explorations (1845-46) must needs be told. The earliest discovery was made on the twenty- eighth of November. The indications of having approached, at length, a chamber lined with sculpture, rejoiced the Arab labourers not less than it rejoiced their employer. They kept on digging long after the hour at which they were accustomed to strike work. The slab first uncovered was a battle scene. War chariots drawn by splendidly equipped * horses contained three warriors apiece, in full career. The chief of them (beardless) was clothed in complete mail, ' and wore a pointed helmet on his head, from the sides of which fell lappets covering the ears, the lower part of the face, and the neck. The left hand (the arm being extended) grasped a bow at full stretch ; whilst the right, drawing the string to PIRST DIS- COVKRY, 28th JFov. 1845. Gkodp of ARcn-acoLO- GISTS AND EXPLOKEES. ANOTHER GROUP OP ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 635 the ear, held an arrow ready to be discharged. A second book in, warrior urged, with reins and whip, three horses to the another utmost of their speed. ... A third, without helmet and with flowing hair and beard, held a shield for the defence of the principal figure. Under the horses' feet, and scattered about, were the conquered, wounded by the arrows of the conquerors. I observed with surprise the elegance and richness of the ornaments, the faithful and delicate deli- neation of the limbs and muscles, both in the men and horses, and the knowledge of art displayed in the grouping of the figures and the general composition. In all these respects, as well as in costume, this sculpture appeared to #*»««*«»<* me, not only to diner trom, but to surpass, the bas-reliefs (\m\ TO i. i, of Khorsabad.' p ' 41 ' Thus cheered, the work of digging went on with fresh vigour, and in new directions. Parts of a building which had suffered from decay, not from fire, were at length unco- vered. Slabs of still greater beauty were disclosed. 'I now thought,' says the explorer, ' I had discoveredjhe earliest palace of Nimroud.' On the morning after the discovery of these new and more choice sculptures — middle of February, 1846 — Mr. Latard rode away from the mound to a distant Arab en- campment — wisely cultivating, as was his manner, a good understanding with a ticklish sort of neighbours. Two early Arabs, from this camp, had already paid a morning visit to the mound. They hastened back at a racing pace. Before they could well pull up their horses, or regain their own Oriental composure, the riders shouted at sight of Layard : ' Hasten, O Bey, to the diggers. They have found great Nimkod himself. Wallah ! it is wonderful, but it is true ! We have seen him with our eyes.' The 'Bey' did not wait for lucid explanations; but 636 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book hi, urged his horse to emulate the speed with which the grateful, ahothee though mysterious, tidings had been brought to him. No abchLoL- sooner had he entered the new trench at the mound, than gists ajsd h e saw a splendidly sculptured head, the form of which Exploeees. r j r ' assured him at a glance that it must belong to a winged i6w., P .65. bull or lion like to those of Persepolis and of Khorsabad. Its preservation was perfect, its features sharply cut. The 1846, Arab workmen stood looking at it with intent and fear- aary ' expressing eyes — but with open palms. The first word that came from their lips begged a ' back-sheesh,' in honour of the auspicious occasion. The terror of one of them, only, had led him to. scamper at full speed to his tent, that he might hide himself from the frightful monster whose aspect seemed to threaten vengeance on those rash men who had dared to disturb his long repose, in the bowels of the earth. Scarcely had Mr. Layard glanced at ' Nimrod ' before he found that more than half the tribe whose encampment he had just left had followed hard at his heels. They were headed by their Sheikh. It would be difficult to depict, in few words, the conflict of their feelings. Admiration, terror, anger, had each a part in the emotion which was evinced, no less in their gestures than in their words. ' There is no God aid., p. 66. but God, and Mahomed is his prophet ! This is not the work of men's hands, but of those infidel giants whom the Prophet — peace be with him ! — has said, that " they were higher than the tallest date-tree." This is one of the idols which Noah — peace be with him ! — cursed before the Flood.' Such were the words of Sheikh Abd-ur-rahman himself. He showed great reluctance, at first, to enter the trench. But when once in, he examined the image with great and continued earnestness. All his followers echoed his verdict. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 637 But the townspeople of Mosul were more difficult to deal bookiii, • Chan I"V. with. The Cadi called a meeting of the Mufti and the anothee Geoup of achjeolo Ulema, to discuss the most effectual protest against such EXPLOKEES. an atrocious violation of the Koran as that committed by G ~ passim. the unbelieving explorer and his mercenary labourers. Their notions about Nimkod were very vague. Some thought him to have been an ancient true-believer ; others had a strong misgiving that he, like his unearther, was but an infidel. They were all clear that the digging must be stopped. It tasked all Mr. Layard's skill, experience, and Nineveh and force of character, to surmount these new difficulties. When they had been at length overcome — with the brilliant results known now to most Englishmen — he had to face the enormous difficulties of transport. The great human- headed lions he was obliged to leave in their original posi- tion. A multitude of smaller sculptures (many of them reduced in bulk by sawing) were safely brought to England. The first arrivals came in 1847* In 1849 and in 1850, the excavations in the mounds first opened were vigorously resumed, and new researches were made in several direc- tions. Early in 1850, the explorers, buckled to the task of removing the lions. That chapter in Mr. La yard's familiar narrative is not the least interesting one. * It is a slight blemish in Mr. Layard's otherwise admirable books that they are loose in the handling of dates. It is sometimes necessary to turn over hundreds of pages in order to be sure of the year in which a particular excavation was made, or in which an interesting incident occurred. Sometimes, again, there is an actual conflict of dates, e. g. Discoveries in the Ruins, &c. (1853), p. 3, 'After my departure from Mosul in 1847,' and again, p. 66, ' On my return to Europe in 1847 ;' but at p. 162, we read : ' Having been carefully covered up with earth, pre- vious to my departure in 1848, they [the lions] had been preserved,' &c. I mention this simply because it is possible that error may thus, once or twice, have crept into the marginal dates given above, though pains has been taken about these. Geoup of Archaeolo- gists AND EXPLOBEKS. Discoveries in 638 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book in, The explorations partially interrupted in 1847 were ahothee resumed in 1849. From the October of that year until April, 1851, they were carried on with even more than the old energy, for the means and appliances were more ample, and the encouragements drawn from success followed each thsBuinsof ther in far quicker succession. Nineveh and ± Baiyim The suspension had been but partial, for Mr. Hormuzd pp.i63,i63; Rassam, then British Vice-Consul at Mosul, had been **9 W empowered to keep a few men still digging at Kouyunjik. He had there unearthed several new sculpture-lined cham- bers of no small interest. But at Nimroud nothing worthy of mention had been done during Layard's absence. That was now his first object. Kouyunjik, however, for a long oct/andNov. time gave the best yield. In December the south-east facade of the Kouyunjik Palace was uncovered. It was found to be a hundred and eighty feet in length, and contained, among other sculp- tures, ten colossal bulls and six human figures. The accompanying inscriptions contained the early annals of Sennacherib, and of his wars with Merodach Ba- ladan.* Presently, the labours on the north-west palace at Nim- roud were also richly rewarded. The somewhat higher antiquity of that building, as compared with the homo- geneous structures of Kouyunjik and Khorsabad,had already impressed itself with the force of conviction on Mr. Layard's individual mind. The fact now became manifest to all eyes that had the capacity to see. These Nimroud monuments belong, — according to the opinion of the best archaeologists, — most of them, to the * The Berodach-Baladan of 2 Kings, xx, 12, who ' sent letters and a present unto Hezekiah, when he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick.' ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 639 eighth, some of them, however, to the earlier part of the booh; in, seventh centuries B.C. They now occupy the most cen- amothee tral of the Assyrian Galleries in the British Museum. The abchIoL- monuments of Kouyuniik and of Khorsabad are probably ° ISTS AND » •> 1 ■/ ExPLOEEES. but little anterior to the supposed date (625 B.C.) of the destruction of Nineveh. These are exhibited in galleries adjacent to the 'Nimroud Central Saloon.' To describe only a few of them in connection with the interesting cir- cumstances of their respective disclosures would demand another chapter. A word or two, however, must be given to one among the earlier discoveries (October, 1846), and to one among the latest of those made (in the spring of 1851)', whilst Mr. Layakjd himself remained in the neigh- bourhood of Mosul. At Nimroud many trenches had, in those early days, been discoveby opened unprofitably. Mr. Layard doubted whether he ought to carry them further. Half inclined to cease, in this direction, he resolved, finally, that he would not abandon 18 «> ,.-. -, I'-ii-ii October a cutting on which so much money and toil had been spent, (found in until the result of yet another day's work was shown. ' I thegreat mounted my horse,' he says — to ride into Mosul — ' but had mound) - i i pi ,-\ ii niii in Nineveh and scarcely lett the mound when a corner ot black marble was UsRem aim, uncovered, lying on the very edge of the trench.' It was amlmT part of an obelisk seven feet high, lying about ten feet below the surface. Its top was cut into three gradines, covered with wedge-shaped inscriptions. Beneath the gradines were five tiers of sculpture in low-relief, continued on all sides. Between every two tiers of sculpture ran a line of inscription. Beneath the five tiers, the unsculptured surface was covered with inscriptions. These, as subse- quent researches have shown, contain the Annals of Shal- maneser, King of Assyria, during thirty-one years towards the close of the ninth century before our Lord. The tribu- OF THE BLACK- MABBLE OBELISK, 640 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Another Group op Ab.ch.eolo- gists and explorers. Ibid., 346. taries of the great monarch are seen in long procession; bearing their offerings. In the appended cuneiform record of these tributaries are mentioned Jehu, ' of the House of Omri,' and his contemporary Hazael, King of Syria. Well may the proud discoverer call his trophy a ' precious relic' The dis- coveries at kouyunjik OP THE SPRING or 1851. Discoveries at Nineveh (eSit. 1853), pp. 683-584 We now leap over more than four eventful years. Mr. Layard is about to exchange the often anxious but always glorious toils of the successful archaeologist, for the not less anxious and very often exceedingly inglorious toils of the poli- tician. He will also henceforth have to exchange many a pleasant morning ride and many a peaceful evening ' tobacco- parliament' with Arabs of the Desert, for turbulent dis- cussions with metropolitan electors, and humble obeisances in order to win their sweet voices. Just before he leaves Mosul come some new unearthings of Assyrian sculpture, to add to the welcome tidings he will carry into England. He found, he tells us — in one of the closing chapters of his latest book — that to the north of the great centre-hall four new chambers, full of sculpture, had been discovered. On the walls of a grand gallery, ninety- six feet by twenty- three, was represented the return of an Assyrian army from a campaign in which they had won loads of spoil and a long array of prisoners. The captured fighting men wore a sort of Phrygian bonnet reversed, short tunics, and broad belts. The women had long tresses and fringed robes. Sometimes they rode on mules or were drawn — : by men as well as by mules — in chariots. The captives were the men and women of Susiana. The victor was Sennacherib. In several subsequent years — 1853, 1854, 1855, when most Englishmen were intently acting, or beholding with ANOTHER GEOUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 641 suspended breath, the great drama in the Crimea — a famous book in, compatriot was continuing the task so nobly initiated by akothke Austen Layard. Sir Henry Rawlinson (made by this f™™ °* _ time Consul- General at Baghdad) carried on new excava- GISTaAND tions, both at Nimroud and at Kouyunjik. In these he was ably assisted by Mr. W. K. Lorrus, as well as by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, the helper and early friend of Layard, and (in the later stages) by Mr. Taylor. Another obelisk, with portions of a third and fourth ; thirty-four slabs sculptured in low-relief; one statue in the round; and a multitude of smaller objects, illustrating with wonderful diversity and minuteness the manners and customs, the modes of life and of thought, as well as the wars and conquests, the luxury and the cruelty, of the old Assyrians, were among the treasures which, by the collective labour of these distinguished explorers, were sent into Britain. Another ' recension,' so to speak, of the early Annals of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, inscribed upon a cylinder, was not the least interesting of the monuments found under the direction of Sir Henry Rawlinson, whose name had already won its station — many years before his consulship eaely at Baghdad — beside those of Grotefend, of Burnouf and of Lassen, in the roll of. those scientific investigators by whose closet labours the researches and long gropings cuheifoem !-> O r t> IN3CEFI>- ' of the Riches, the Bottas, and the Layards, were des- tions tined to be interpreted, illustrated, and fructified for the world of readers at large. For it is not the least interesting fact in this parti- cular -and most richly-yielding field of Assyrian archseo- logy — that several men in Germany ; — more than one man in Prance; — and one man, at least, in Persia, had been working simultaneously, but entirely without concert, at those hard and, for a time, almost barren studies which 41 LABOURERS ON THE DECIPHER- ING OF Book III, Chap. IV. Anotheb Gboup op ArCR/KOLO- GISTS AND Explore us. The TBAVELS AND RE- SE A£Gn ES of Sir Charles Fellows in Lycia. The ANA- LOGIES AND THE CON- TRASTS BETWEEN Fellows and Layabd. 642 LATER AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. were eventually to supply a master-key to vast libraries of inscriptions brought to light after an entombment of twenty- five hundred years. Scarcely smaller than the debt of gratitude which Britain owes to Mr. La yard and to Lord Stratford de Redcliefe, for the Marbles and other antiquities of Assyria, is the debt which she owes to the late Sir Charles Fellows for those of Lycia. Nor ought it to be passed over without remark that the admirably productive mission to the Levant of Mr. Charles Newton seems to have grown, in germ, out of the applications made at Constantinople on behalf of Sir Charles Fellows. In that merit he has but a very small share. The merit of the Lycian discoveries is all his own. He has now gone from amongst us, — like most of the bene- factors whose public services have been recorded in this volume. How inadequate the record ; how insufficient for the task the chronicler ; no one will be so painfully con- scious, as is the man whose hand — in the absence of a better hand — has here attempted the narrative. The Museum story has been long. What remains to be said must needs be put more briefly. But because Sir Charles Fellows has been so lately removed from the land he served with so much zeal and ability, I shall still venture to claim the indulgence of my readers for a somewhat detailed account of the work done in Lycia, and of the man who did it. In one respect, it was with Charles Fellows as with Austen Layard. A youthful passion for foreign travel, and what grew out of that, lifted each of them from obscurity into prominence. . But Layard achieved fame at a much earlier age than did Sir Charles Fellows. Sir Charles was almost forty before his name came at all before the Public. Layard was already a personage at eight and Gaoup of Abch^olo- gists and exploukbs. TRAVELS IN ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 643 twenty. This small circumstantial difference between the bookiii, fortune of two men whose pursuits in life were, for a time, another so much alike, deserves to be kept in mind, on this account : Sir Charles lived scarcely long enough to see any fair appreciation of what he had accomplished. Even those whose political sympathies incline them to a belief that Mr. Layard's official services will never suffice to console Eng- lishmen for the interruption of his archaeological services, hope that he may live long enough to enjoy a rich reward for the latter in their yearly-increasing estimation by his countrymen at large. They will delight to see the fervid member for Southwark utterly eclipsed in the fame of the great discoverer of long-entombed Assyria. Sir Charles Fellows was the son of Mr. John Fellows, The TRA"\ . of Nottingham. He was born in 1799. In the year 1837, asiaminoe, he set out upon a long tour in Asia Minor. Archaeological discovery no more formed any part of a preconcerted plan in Mr. Fellows' case than it did, two or three years after- wards, in Mr. Latarjj's. Both were led to undertake their respective explorations in a way that (for want of a more appropriate word) we are all accustomed to call ' accidental.' In February, 1838, he found himself at Smyrna. After a good deal of observation of men jand manners, he betook himself to an inspection of the buildings. He soon found joumai that not a little of the modern Smyrna was built out of the Xh»7<™ ruins of the Smyrna of the old world. Busts, columns, Exm ™ min J Asia Minor, entablatures, of white marble and of ancient workmanship, pp- 8 . se 4i- were everywhere visible, in close admixture with the re- cently-quarried building-stone of the country and the period. But not only had the old marbles been built into the new edifices ; they had been turned into tombstones. AND WHAT GREW THEREOUT. 644 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Cbap. IV. Another Group or Arch^olo- gists akd Explorers. Ibid., p. 9. The ex- plorations in Antt- hieli.us Ai\H ITS VICINITl". 1838, April. Certain Jews, of an enterprising and practical turn of mind, had bought, in block, a whole hill-full of venerable marbles, in order to have an inexhaustible supply of new tombstones close at hand. In another part of the suburbs of the town, the walls of a large corn-field turned out, on close examina- tion, to be built of thin and flat stones, of which the inner surface was formed of richly-patterned mosaic, black, white, and red. From that day, the traveller, wheresoever he journied, was a scrutinising archaeologist. And the travel- ler, thus equipped for his work, was busied, two months afterwards, in exploring that most interesting part of Asia Minor (a part now called 'Anadhouly'), which includes Lydia, Mysia, Bithynia, Phrygia, Pisidia, Lycia, Pamphylia, and Caria; and much of which was never before trodden — so far as is known, and the knowledge referred to is that of the best geographers in England, discussing this matter expressly, at a meeting of the Geographical Society — by the feet of any European.* On the eighteenth of April, Mr. Fellows found himself in the romantically beautiful, but rugged and barren, neigh- bourhood of Antiphellus. The ancient town of that name possessed a theatre, and a multitude of temples, grandly placed on a far- out jutting promontory. Eor miles around, the rocks and the ravines were strewn with marble frag- ments. The face of the. cliff, which, on one side, overhangs the town, was seen to be deeply indented with rock-tombs, richly adorned. They contained sarcophagi of a special * And in which not a few readers will be sure to feel all the more interest, because of its sacred associations, when they call to mind those first-century travels of certain famous travellers who, ' after they had passed throughout Pisidia, came to Pamphylia, and when they had gone through Phrygia, . . . and were come to Mysia, assayed to go into Bythinia, but the Spirit suffered them not ;' — having work for them to do in another quarter. ANOTHEE GEOUP OF AECH/EOLOGISTS, ETC. 645 form. The lid of each of them bore a rude resemblance to bookiii, a pointed arch. It sounds at first almost grotesquely, in another the ear of a reader of Mr. Fellows' Journal of 1839, to 1 E K ™ - liear him speak of Lycian tombs as 'Elizabethan' in their gists and 1 , . EXPLOEEUS. architecture. But, in the sense intended, the term is strictly apposite. If the reader will but glance at one of Excursion," Mr. Fellows' many beautiful plates of those rock-tombs, p c i^ ame ' he will see at once that they look not unlike the stone- mullioned windows of our own Tudor age. But the discovery which eclipsed all Mr. Fellows' previous researches was that of the ancient capital of Lycia — Xanthus. Next in importance to that was his disinter- ment of Tlos. He saw the ruins of otber and, in their dny, famous towns. It was plain that he had now before him a fine opening to add to the stores of human know- ledge in' some of its grandest departments — artistic, his- torical, biblical. But, in 1838, he had not the most ordi- nary appliances of minute research. He went back to England ; found (as Lataed was also destined to find, very shortly afterwards) only a very little encouragement, at official hands; much more than a little, however, in his own reflections and foresight. In 1839., he went back to Lycia, fuutheh taking with him George Schabf, then carefully described as ' a young English artist,' now widely known as an ^ xLT eminent archaeologist. Fellows explored. Schahf drew. THUS > AND ° L IN OTHEB Early in 1 840, ten Lycian cities were added to the previous pauts of discoveries. Each of them contained many precious works ism-43. of ancient art. In order to effectual excavation, and in order also to the safety of what was found from destruction by Turkish bar- barities, the Sultan's firman was essential. The difficulties were much like those which, as I have had occasion to show D1SCOVEEIK3 IN THE pp. 383, aeqq. 646 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book m, in ' Book Second,' lay in the path of Lord Elgin, under Chap. IV. ..,.■' V anothkk similar circumstances, more than forty years earlier. By amhIolo- Lord Ponsonby's zealous efforts, they were at length sur- exploeIL mo ™ te 4- At the earnest instance of the Museum Trustees, see Book ii, tne Government at home seconded the exertions of their Bp ai 383 ! S eao am bassador at Constantinople ; and this combination of endeavour made that feasible which the best energies of Sir Charles Fellows, single handed, must have utterly failed to secure. The reader will not, I incline to think, regard as an instance of overmuch detail, if I here add — for instructive comparison with the terms of the official letter procured by Lord Elgin — the words in which Rifaat Pasha, in June, 1841, describes the antiquities, the removal whereof was to be" graciously permitted. In 1800, Lord Elgin (after enor- mous labour) was empowered to * take away any pieces of stone, from the Temples of the Idols, with old inscriptions or figures thereon.' Now — in 1841 — the 'pieces of stone' are described as ' antique remains and rare objects.' The schoolmaster, it will be seen, had been at work at Constantinople. The explorations at Cadyanda, at Pinara, and at Sidyma, richly merit the reader's attention, as an essential part of pinaka,&c our present subject. But happily Sir Charles Fellows' books are both accessible and popular. Here we must hasten on to Xanthus, and Sir Charles' story must now be told in his own expressive and graphic words : the exca- ' Xanthus certainly possesses some of the earliest Archaic xanthm^ sculpture in Asia Minor, and this connected with the most beautiful of its monuments, and illustrated by the language of Lycia. These sculptures to which I refer must be the work of the sixth or seventh centuries before the Christian era, but I have not seen an instance of these remains having The re- searches at Cadtanda, AECH.&OLO- GTSTS AND EXPLORERS. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 647 been despoiled for the rebuilding of walls ; and yet the book in, decidedly more modern works of a later people are used as another materials in repairing the walls around the back of the ^°™°* city and upon the Acropolis ; many of these have Greek inscriptions, with names common among the Romans. The whole of the sculpture is Greek, fine, bold, and simple, bespeaking an early age of that people. No sign whatever is seen of the works of the Byzantines or Christians. 'To lay down a plan of the town is impossible, the whole being concealed by trees ; but walls of the finest kind, Cyclopean blended with the Greek, as well as the beautifully squared stones of a lighter kind, are seen in every direction ; several gateways also, with their paved roads, still exist. I observed on my first visit that the temples have been very numerous, and, from their position along the brow of the cliff, must have combined with nature to form one of the most beautiful of cities. The extent I now find is much greater than I had imagined, and its tombs extend over miles of country I had not before seen. The beautiful gothic-formed sarcophagus-tomb, with cha- riots and horses upon its roof, of which I have before spoken and have given a sketch of a battle-scene upon the side, accompanied with a Lycian inscription, is again a chief object of my admiration amidst the ruins of this city. Of the ends of this monument I did not before show drawings, but gave a full description. Beneath the rocks, at the back of the city, is a sarcophagus of the same kind, and almost as beautifully sculptured ; but this has been thrown down, and the lid now lies half-buried in the earth. Its hog's-mane is sculptured with a spirited battle-scene. Many Greek inscriptions upon pedestals are built into the walls, which may throw some light upon the history of the city ; they are mostly funereal, and belong to an age and qtsts and Explorers. 648 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, people quite distinct from those of the many fine Lycian amoth™ remains. abchIoL- ' Two of m y days have been spent in the tedious, but, I trust, useful occupation, of copying the Lycian inscription from the obelisk I mentioned in my former volume that I had seen : this will be of service to the philologist. Having, with the assistance of a ladder, ascended to a level with the top of the monument, I discovered a curious fact : the characters cut upon the upper portion are larger and wider apart than those on the lower, thus counteracting the effect of diminution by distance, as seen from the ground. As the letters are beautifully cut, I have taken several im- pressions from them, to obtain fac-similes. By this in- scription I hope to fix the type of an alphabet, which will be much simplified, as I find upon the various tombs about the town great varieties, though of a trifling nature, in the forms of each letter; these varieties have hitherto been considered as different characters. This long public in- scription will establish the form of all the letters of an alphabet, one form only being used throughout for each letter : if this should be deciphered, it may be the means of adding information to history. The inscription exceeds two hundred and fifty lines. ' It is to be regretted that the obelisk- is not perfect ; time or an earthquake has split off the upper part, which lies at its foot. Two sides of this portion only remain, with inscriptions which I could copy; the upper surface being without any, and the lower facing the ground : its weight of many tons rendered it immoveable. I had the earth excavated from the obelisk itself, and came to the base, or probably the upper part of a flight of steps, as in the other obelisk-monuments of a similar construction. The characters upon the north-west side are cut in a finer ANOTHER GROUP OP ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 649 and bolder style than on the others, and appear to be the bookiii, most ancient. Should any difference of date occur on this anothm monument, I should decide that this is the commencement A e°h1olo- or original inscription upon it. e™=s. ' This, which I must consider as a very important monu- ment, appears to have on the north-east side a portion of its inscription in the early Greek language ; the letters are comparatively ill cut, and extremely difficult at such an elevation to decipher j seizing favourable opportunities for the light, I have done my best to copy it faithfully, and glean from it that the subject is funereal, and that it relates to a king of Lycia ; the mode of inscription makes the monument itself speak, being written in the first person. Very near to this stands the monument, similar in form, which I described in my last Journal as being near the theatre, and upon which remained the singular bas-reliefs of which I gave sketches. On closer examination I find j mrna iofan. these to be far more interesting and ancient than I had Exm ™ mi " o Asia Minor, before deemed them. They are in very low relief, re- ««.(2na sembling in that respect the Persepolitan or Egyptian bas- Appendix. reliefs. ' I have received/ continues Sir Charles Fellows, ' from Mr. Benjamin Gibson of Rome a letter in reference to these bas-reliefs : his interpretation of this mysterious subject appears far the best that I have yet heard ; and from finding the district to have been in all probability the burial-place of the kings, it becomes the more interesting. Mr. Gibson writes — " The winged figures on the corners of the tomb you have discovered in Lycia, represented flying away with children, may with every probability be well supposed to have a reference to the story of the Harpies flying away with the daughters of King Pandarus. This fable we find related by Homer in the Odyssey, lib. xx, where they are 650 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Anotheb Group of Archaeolo- gists AND EXPLOBEBS. Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, pp. 336-340. Many sub- sequent DISCOVE- RIES; (THE DETAILS HEBE NECES- SABILY PASSED OVEE). The dippi- culties op tbanspobt. Jan., 1843. stated to be left orphans, and the gods as endowing them with various gifts. Juno gives them prudence, Minerva instructs them in the art of the loom, Diana confers on them tallness of person, and lastly Venus flies up to Jupiter to provide becoming husbands for them ; in the mean time, the orphans being thus left unprotected, the Harpies come and * snatch the unguarded charge away.' Strabo tells us that Pandarus was King of Lycia, and was worshipped particularly at Pinara. This tomb becomes thus very in- teresting ; which, if it be not the tomb of Pandarus, shows that the story was prevalent in Lycia, and that the great author of the Iliad derived it from that source. With this clue, we have no difficulty in recognising Juno on the peculiar chair assigned to that goddess, and on the same side is Venus and her attendants ; upon another is probably represented Diana, recognised by the hound. The seated gods are less easily distinguished. In the Harpies, at the four corners of the tomb, we have the illustration of those beings as described by the classic writers." ' Every lateral excursion made by Sir C. Fellows, and by his companions in travel, added to his collection rich works of sculpture, and not a few of them added many varied and most interesting minor antiquities. But I must needs resist all temptation to enlarge on that head, though the temptation is great. The twentieth and subsequent chap- ters of the book itself (I refer to the collective but abridged 'Travels and Researches in Asia Minor of 1852) will abundantly repay the reader who is disposed to turn to them — whether it be for a renewed or for a new reading. When the task of removal had to be undertaken, difficul- ties of transport were found, under certain then existing circumstances, to be graver obstacles than had been Turkish ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 651 prejudice or Turkish apathy at an earlier stage of the busi- book in, ness. The maritime part of the duty had been entrusted to anotheb Captain Graves, of H.M. Ship Beacon. The captain left ^nmaw- his ship at Smyrna ; sailed with Fellows for the Xanthus, ™™ A E ™ S in a steam-packet ; but omitted, to provide himself with the needful flat-bottomed boats. When they reached the site of the marbles which were to be carried away, Captain pebmiy. Graves said he would not have any of the stores taken down the river ; that stores must be obtained from Malta ; and that he would take all hands away from the diggings at the beginning of March. The reader may imagine the reflections of the eager discoverer at this sudden check, — /jm, pp .«o, coming, as it did, at the very beginning of the burst. Beqq ' He took a solitary walk of many hours, he tells us, before he could resolve upon his course of action. He saw before him, to use his own words, ' a mine of treasure.' He had willing hands to work it ; ample firmans to stave off oppo- sition ; nothing deficient save boats and tackle. A year might possibly pass in awaiting them from Malta; and, meanwhile, the ignorance of the peasantry, the indiscreet curiosity of travellers, or the sudden growth of political complications, might destroy the enterprise irrecoverably. He resolved, in his perplexity, to construct by his own exertions tackle that would suffice for the removal to the coast ; got native help in addition to the willing efforts — however unscientific — of the honest sailors of the Beacon ; succeeded in getting a portion of the precious objects of his quest to the waterside, before the arrival of the ship ; and got them also strongly cased up. Then he sailed with Graves for Malta. The worthy captain resigned the honourable task — to him so unwelcome — into the hands of Admiral Sir Edward Owen. A new expedition started from Malta at the end of April, and brought away seventy- 652 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. cha° K iv' eig ^ lt cases °^ scul P ture m June; leaving the splendid but ahoihee too-heavy 'winged-chariot-tomb' — so called by its dis- auchIolo- coverer in one place, and elsewhere called 'horse-tomb/ e^lokees. but since ascer tained to be the tomb of a Lycian satrap amival ™ named Paiafa ; it is adorned with figures of Glaucus, or ihe G ™st OF P erna P s of Sarpedon, in a four-horse chariot— until next seeieso* year. The seventy-eight cases were brought to England Xanthian , . , . makblks. by the Queen s ship Cambridge in the following December. Dec, 1841. 0q the fourteenth of MaJ) 1842j ^ Trustees of the British Museum thus recorded their sense of Mr. Fellows' public services: — 'The Trustees desire to express their sense of Mr. Fellows' public spirit, in voluntarily un- dertaking to lend to so distant an expedition the assist- ance of his local knowledge and personal co-operation. They have viewed with great satisfaction the decision and energy evinced by Mr. Fellows in proceeding from Smyrna to Constantinople, and obtaining the necessary authority for the removal of the marbles ; as well as his judicious directions at Xanthus, by which the most desirable of the valuable monuments of antiquity formerly brought to light by him, together with several others, of scarcely less M'nutestf i n t eres t now f or the first time discovered and exca- the Trustees ' of the British yated, have been placed in safety, and— as the Trustees Museum; L i <» i t • l i4Ma,,i8-t2. have every reason to hope — secured for the National (Appendix to -_. , Feiiows). Museum. This hope was more than realised. It shows the energy of Fellows, that the expedition to Lycia of 1841 was his third expedition. In 1846 he made a fourth. It was rich in discovery ; but I fear somewhat exhausting to the strength of the explorer. He lived a good many years, it is true, after his return to England ; but how easily he yielded when a sudden attack of illness came, I shall have the pain of showing presently. ANOTHER GEOUP OF ARCILEOLOGISTS, ETC. 653 In the interval between his third and fourth journeys to bookiii, Lycia, Fellows married a fellow-townswoman, Mary, the anotheb only daughter of Francis Hart, of Nottingham, but she am^olo- survived the marriage only two years. A year after her gistsand . J J Explobers. death he married the widow of William Knight, of Oat- lands, in Herts. On his final return from Lycia he was knighted, as a token (and it was but a slender one) of the public gratitude for his services. At the close of October, 1860, a sudden attack of pleurisy invaded a toilworn frame. On the eighth of the following month he died, at his house in Montagu Place, London, in the sixty-first year of his age. Taken broadly, the sculptures of Lycia may be described date a»d as works which range, in date, from the sixth century before ™the C ™ our Lord to almost as many centuries — if we take the ™"™™ TS minor antiquities into account — after the commencement of ' l " iaw . x Galleby.' the Christian era. Some of them rank, therefore, amongst the earliest original monuments of Greek art which the British Museum possesses ; and date immediately after the casts of the sculptures of Selinus and of iEgina. On some of the myths and on the habits of Lycian life there has been a sharp controversy, of the merits of which I am very incompetent to speak. Narrower and narrower as my limits are becoming, I yet feel it due to a public bene- factor, who can no longer speak for himself otherwise than by his works, that in these waning pages he should be per- mitted to supply at least a part of his own explanatory comments upon the story of his discoveries. It is one of enchaining interest to the students of classical antiquity. The famous ' Harpy Tomb,' thinks Sir Charles Fellows, is to be enumerated as among the most ancient of the remain- ing works of the ' Tramilae,' or ' Termilse, 5 mentioned both 654 LATEE ATJGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Another Gaoup op Arcii.eolo- G1STS AMD Explorers. Fellows' accouht OP THE L.-XCIAN Mahbles. by Herodotus and by Stephen of Byzantium, as well as on the Xanthian obelisk or stele, now called the ' Inscribed Monument/ and numbered' 141' in the Lycian Gallery of the Museum. Sir Charles Fellows proceeds to say that ' the shaft, frieze, and cap of this monument, weighing more than a hundred tons, has been by an earthquake moved upon • its pedestal eighteen inches towards the north-east, throwing to the ground two stones of the frieze towards the south-west: in this state I found it in 1838. In 1841 the eight stones of this frieze were placed in the Museum. The only similar art which I know in Europe is in the Albani Villa near Rome. This slab is" described by Winckelmann as being of earlier workmanship than that of Etruria. I shall not dwell upon these works, as they were found in situ, and will therefore be as well understood in England as if seen at Xanthus. I may draw attention to the blue, red, and other colours still remaining upon them. The subject also being that of the family of King Pandarus, it should ever be borne in mind that this monu- ment stood in the metropolis of Lycia, and within twelve miles of the city of Pinara, where we are told that Pandarus was deified. This and the neighbouring tombs stood there prior to the building of the theatre, which is probably of Greek workmanship. The usual form of this structure must have been partially sacrificed on account of these monuments, as the seats rising in the circles above the diazoma have abruptly ceased on the western side, and have not been continued towards the proscenium. Near to one of the vomitories in the south-eastern bend of the diazoma is a similar monument to the Harpy Tomb, which has had the capstone and bas-reliefs removed, and the shaft built over by the theatre. Upon one of its sides is a short Lycian Gboup of Auch^olo- gists amd Explorers. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 655 inscription, and a few words referring to its repair remain book in, upon another side in the Greek character. another ' Not far from these stands the inscribed stele, which is of the highest interest ; of this, which is too heavy and too much mutilated to allow, without great labour, of its removal to the Museum, I have had casts taken in plaster. Prom my publications you would learn that a portion of the top of this [monument], weighing several tons, had been split off by the shocks of earthquakes : of this I have also had casts taken. In excavating around the monument on the south- west, and in the opposite direction to which the top had split off, I found the capstone had been thrown which had surmounted bas-reliefs ; also two fragments of a bas-relief, but I think too high to have been placed upon this stele : they are the work of the same age, and are now placed in the Museum. The most important discovery here was of the upper angles broken from the monument, and having upon them the inscription on each side, thus perfecting, as far as they extend, the beginnings and ends of the upper lines of the inscription ; these original stones I have brought home, being useless and insecure, if left in fragments with the monument. The exact form of the letters of the Greek portion of this inscription, compared with many others of which I shall speak, will do much to fix a date to these works. ' Upon the point of rock on the north-west side of the Acropolis is a fine Cyclopean basement, which has probably been surmounted by a similar monument to those of which I have spoken. No trace is found of any of its fragments ; and from its position, shocks in the same direction as those which have destroyed the others would have thrown this down the perpendicular cliff into the river which flows about three hundred feet beneath. 656 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, ' The masses of Cvclopean foundations traced around and Chap. IV. vi anothkk upon the Acropolis, have been too much worked in, and akchIoL- converted to the use of an after people to ascertain their ii™omM or igi na l f° rm : they certainly have not been continuous, forming a wall or defence for the Acropolis ; indeed, its natural position would render this superfluous, the cliffs on the south and west are inaccessible. I observe that most of the forms are referable to vast pedestals or stoas for large monuments ; and from their individual positions at various elevations, and upon angles and points, I believe that the Acropolis has been covered with the ornamented monuments of this early people. The walls and basements of these separate buildings have since been united by strong lines formed of the old materials, the most ready for the purpose, and all put together with a very excellent cement, of which I have brought away specimens. A wall of this formation, facing the south-west, attracted my attention in 1838, by displaying some sculptured animals and chariots built as material into its front. This wall we have, with great labour, owing to the hardness of the cement, entirely removed ; behind a portion of it we found a fine Cyclopean wall, which had slightly inclined over from the weight of earth behind ; the casing which we have re- moved strengthened it, and, connecting the old buildings with others, formed a line of fortification, probably in Roman times. From the great size of the blocks used in constructing this wall, from the similarity of the stone, as well as from the sculpture traceable upon almost the whole of them, I conclude that they must have been the ruins of monuments in the immediate neighbourhood ; basements for such are on either side. The works found here are entirely those of the early people; and I may extend this remark to all found upon the Acropolis. The ANOTHER GEOUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 657 architectural fragments, many specimens of which I bring book in, away, are all Lycian, and would form monuments imitative AH of wooden constructions — beam-ends, ties, mortices, and RC "- P "' cornices, similar to the tombs shown in the drawings, but G » double the size in point of scale to any now existing ; bearing this in mind, I do not think it improbable that the sculptures representing a chariot procession have filled the panels on either side ; should this be the case we have nearly the whole complete. The cornice and borders of these strongly corroborate this idea. We have four some- what triangular stones, with sitting sphinxes upon each ; these would complete the two gable ends in similar form and spirit of device to the generality of the tombs of this people. There is also an angle-stone, interesting from its sculpture, and from its style and subject blending these works with the age of the " Harpy-Tomb." ' To continue with the works of the early inhabitants : We must next notice the tombs at the foot of the rocky heights at the south-eastern parts of the city : of these the most beautiful are the kind having Gothic-formed tops ; these can be seen in the various drawings. The structure generally consists of a base or pedestal which has con- tained bodies, the Platas, surmounted by a plinth or solid mass of stone, which is often sculptured ; above this is a sarcophagus, generally imitative of a wood-formed cabinet, the principal receptacle for the bodies, the Soros ; upon this is placed a Gothic lid, sometimes highly ornamented with sculpture, which also served as a place of sepulture, probably the Isostee. From one of these, in which the lower parts were cut out of the solid rock, and the top had fallen and been destroyed, I have had casts taken, as the subject is intimately connected with the frieze of the wild animals on the Acropolis. On this tomb, the inscription 42 OTHER OUP OF Archjgolo- gists and Explorers. GISTS AND F.XPLORKRS. 658 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, i s cu t i n the language of the early people. Not far distant another from this is a tomb which, from the sculpture upon it, I a-echLolo- distinguish as the " ChimEera-Tomb." The lid of this, which I found in 1840, is perfect, but had been thrown to the ground by the effect of earthquakes; the chamber from off which it had slidden was inclining towards the lid ; beneath the chamber a few stones forming the foundation and step (in the same block) are alone to be found. There is here no trace of the first two stories, and from the rock approaching the surface of the ground I found no depth of earth for research. Upon the chamber of this tomb is a Lycian inscription, of which I have casts, in order that they may be used in reconstructing the monument in the Museum. The other tomb of this character, and by far the most highly ornamented, was the tomb of Paiafa, and I call it, from its sculpture, the " Winged-Chariot-Tomb." In finding this monument, in 1838, I observed that each part had been much shaken and split by earthquake, but no portion was wanting except a fragment from the north corner. This monument combines matters of great in- terest, showing in itself specimens of the architecture, sculpture, and language. I have stated that this style of monument is peculiar to Lycia ; and I now add, from the knowledge derived from my research in that country, that Lycia contains none but these two of this ornamental de- scription. These differ in minor points, making the pos- session of each highly desirable, and I am glad that these will be placed in our National Museum. The tombs of Telmessus, Antiphellus, and Limyra, are similar in construc- tion, but have not the sculptured tops and other ornamental finishings seen in these. ' Upon the Acropolis, and fallen into a bath, we found a pedestal having sculptured upon the side a god and goddess ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 659 within a temple, in excellent preservation. On the oppo- bookiii, site side of the pedestal is a very singular subject, which, a'nothIe had not certain points both of execution, material, and a*°™°* . position occurred, I should have attributed to the Byzan- ° ISTS AND tine age. Amongst many other animals, the object of chase to a hunter is seen much mutilated : this may have been the representation of a novel idea of the Chimgera : the hind quarters of a goat remain, with a snake for its tail. It is greatly to be regretted that the other fragments could not be found. On observing in the ground some very ancient forms of the Greek letters, differing from all others found so commonly here, cut upon a slab of marble, I had it taken up, and was delighted to find that it was a pedestal, with a Lycian inscription upon the other side ; this will be valuable, as showing the form of the Greek characters in use at the age of the language of Lycia. This same type is seen in all the bilingual inscriptions, of which we have only casts. ' Of another pedestal at Tlos I have taken casts, which will be valued from the subjects of the bas-reliefs. The pedestal of one stone was formed of two cubes, a small one upon a larger. The fourth side of the upper one was not sculp- tured. One slab of the larger cube represents in bas- relief a view of the Acropolis of Tlos, the Troas of these early people : probably the hero whose deeds were by this monument commemorated, and whose name occurs twice upon it, was engaged in the defence or capture of the city. At Tlos I also found cut in the rock of the Acro- polis a tomb with an Ionic portico. Within this are repre- mu.-r\^ sented a panelled and ornamented door, and several ^""arf* sculptured devices and animals, as shown in the drawings t a ™™*f t0 and plans. On the side, and within the portico, is a very edition of sir early bas-relief of Bellerophon upon Pegasus, and probably book. GISTS AND EXPLOBEES. 660 LATEE AUGMENTOKS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, a chimsera beneath the horse : but this portion of the sculp- anoihue ture is unfinished, and the rock beneath is left rough ; the amhIolo- columns of the portico are only blocked out from the rock. Of the bas-relief of Bellerophon I have casts, and the full detail of the colouring which now remains upon the. figures. This is probably the earliest sculpture which we have ob- tained. From Cadyanda I have casts of parts of a beau- tiful tomb, which is so much in ruins, and shaken into frag- ments, that I could not even take casts of the whole of the sculptures that remain. The roof or lid is wanting. The tomb now consists of a chamber in imitation of a wooden structure, and in the panels is sculpture ; surmounting this is a smaller solid block, or plinth, also sculptured, but the upper part is wanting. These bas-reliefs, of which I show many drawings in my 'Lycia,' derive great additional interest from several of the figures having near them names in- scribed in two languages— the Greek and the Lycian. The casts of these, I doubt not, will be valued as important illus- trations. From Myra I have casts of the whole of the figures ornamenting one of the rock-tombs. Three of these subjects from within the Portico retain so much of their original painting that I have had the casts coloured on the spot as fac- similes, and a portion of the paint is preserved for chemical examination. There are from this tomb eleven figures the size of life. Of the inscriptions of this people I have made many copies ; I have had casts of one long one from the large Gothic-formed tomb at Anti- phellus, also of the bilingual inscription from the same place, and of another from Levisse, near the ancient Telmessus. ' Of the age of the next works of which I must speak, and which are a large portion of the collection from Xanthus, I have great difficulty in forming an opinion. The whole Gboup of Archaeolo- gists AND EXPLORERS. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCH^OLOGISTS, ETC. 661 were found around a basement which stands on the edge of a bookiii, cliff to the south-east of the ancient Acropolis. The monu- ABoi™ ment which stood upon this stoa has been thrown down by earthquake, almost the whole of its ruins falling towards the north-west. These works are of a people quite distinct from the preceding, both in their architecture, sculpture, and language : these are purely Greek. On carefully ex- amining the whole of the architectural members of which I have specimens selected (some retaining coloured patterns upon them), as well as the position in which each of the various parts were thrown, I have, in my own mind, re- constructed the building, the whole of which was of Parian marble, and highly finished. The monument which I sup- pose to have crowned this basement has been either a mag- nificent tomb, or a monument erected as a memorial of a great victory. In re-forming this, I require the whole of the parts that we have found, and none are wanting except two stones of the larger frieze, and the fragments of the statues. The art of this sculpture is Greek, but the subjects show many peculiarities and links to the earlier works found in Lycia. The frieze, representing the taking refuge within a city, and the sally out of its walls upon the besiegers, has many points of this character. The city represented is an ancient Lycian city, and has within its walls the stele, or monument known alone in Xanthus. The city is upon a rock ; women are seen upon the walls. The costume of the men is a longer and thinner garment than is seen in the Attic Greeks. The shields of the chiefs are curtained. The saddle-cloth of the jaded horse entering the city is precisely like the one upon the Pegasus of Bellerophon, and the conqueror and judge is an Eastern chief, with the umbrella, the emblem of Oriental royalty, held over him. The body-guard and conquering party of the chief are 662 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. IV. Anothkh Group op Archaeolo- gists AND EXPLOEERS. Travels and Researches in Jsia Minor, pp. 439, 430 1852). Greek soldiers. Many of these peculiarities are also seen in the larger frieze, and also in the style of the lions and statues. The form of the building, which alone I can reconcile with the remains, is a Carian monument of the Ionic order. Bearing in mind all these points, I am strongly inclined to attribute this work to the mercenaries from iEolia and Ionia, brought down by Harpagus to conquer the inhabitants of Xanthus, whom they are said to have utterly destroyed. This monument may have been the tomb of a chief, or erected as a memorial of the conquest of the city by Harpagus. No inscription has been found, or it might probably have thrown some light upon the date of this work. In the immediate neighbourhood were found the other friezes, representing hunting-scenes, a battle, offerings of various kinds and by different nations, funeral feasts, and several statues which are of the same date.' Sir Charles then concludes thus : — ' The whole of the remaining works now to be traced amidst the ruins of Xanthus are decidedly of a late date ; scarcely any are to be attributed to a period preceding the Christian era, and to that age I cannot conceive the works just noticed to have belonged. A triumphal arch or gate- way of the city at the foot of the cliff of which I have spoken has upon it a Greek inscription, showing it to have been erected in the reign of Vespasian, A.D. 80 : from this arch are the metopes and triglyphs now in the Museum. Through this is a pavement of flagstones leading towards the theatre. To this age I should attribute the theatre, agora, and most of the buildings* which I have called Greek, and which are marked red upon the plan. To this people belong the immense quantity of mosaic pavements which have existed in all parts of the city. Almost all the small pebbles in the fields are the debris of these works. In many ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 663 places we have found patterns remaining which are of bookih, coarse execution, but Greek in design.' another Group or Arch^old- The not a whit less interesting discoveries at Halicar- °' STS AHD O EXPLORERS. nassus and elsewhere, made chiefly in the years 1856, The 1857, and 1858, by Mr. Charles Newton, now claim M"™ 801 attention, but my present notice of them can be but very sassus . ° r •* l ^ Cnidds.and inadequate to the worth of the subject. They as richly opBran- t-\\ in -V; deserve a full record as do the explorations of Layard or those of Fellows, The earliest, in arrival, of the Halicarnassian Marbles were procured by our Ambassador at Constantinople (then Sir Stratford Canning, now) Lord Stratford de B-edcliffe. These first-received mai'bles comprise twelve slabs, sculptured with the combats of Greeks and Amazons in low-relief; and were removed from the w r alls of the mediaeval castle of Budrum, in the year 1846, with the permission, of course, of the Sublime Porte. It is a tribute all the stronger to the energy of Lord Stratford to find another man of energy writing, in 1841 : 'I would not have been a party to the asking what — to all who have seen them' (namely, the Marbles of Halicar nassus, built into the inner walls of Budrum Castle) — ' must be considered as an unreasonable request.' It took, it is true, five years for R^ car cL'sin Lord Stratford to overcome the obstacle which to Mr. ^"Jj^ Fellows seemed, in 1841, quite insuperable. ( 1853 >- In 1856, and expressly in order to a thorough explora- Tira tion of the site of Halicarnassus, and of other promising ^^ parts of the Levant, Mr. Charles Newton, then one of Il ™ , °' 1 ... Mr.Charlks the ablest of the officers of the Department of Antiquities nbwton. (whose loss at the Museum, even for three or four years, was not very easily replaceable), accepted the office of British Vice-Consul at Mitylene. In 1857, he discovered 664 LATER ATJGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book m, four additional slabs (similar to those received from the Chap. IV. v _ another Ambassador), on the site of the world-famous mausoleum akciwlo- itself; several colossal statues, and portions of such ; expmeees. together with a multitude of architectural fragments of almost every conceivable kind ; columns — mostly broken into many portions — with their bases, capitals, and entab- latures, in sufficient quantity and diversity to warrant a faithful restoration of the ancient building by a competent hand. From Didyme (near Miletus), from Cnidus, and from Branchidae, many fine archaic figures in the round ; some colossal lions ; and an enormous number of fragments both of sculpture and of architecture ; with many minor anti- quities, various in character and in material, were succes- sively sent to England. Mr. Charles Newton's narrative of his adventures at Budrum, and at several of the other places of his sojourn and excavations, is very graphic. Some por- tions of it are worthy to be placed side by side with the best chapters of the earlier narrative of the explorations and travelling experiences of Layakd. Of the most famous trophy of Mr. Newton's first mission to the East — the mausoleum built by Queen Artemisia — the discoverer has himself more recently given this brief and striking descriptive account : — the tomb This monument, writes Mr. Newton, in 1869, was erected 'to contain the remains of Mausolus, Prince of Caria, about B.C. 352. It consisted of a lofty basement, on which stood an oblong Ionic edifice, surrounded by thirty-six Ionic columns, and surmounted by a pyramid of twenty-four steps. The whole structure, a hundred and Bmietothe forty feet in height, was crowned by a chariot-group in o/Jnfyul white marble, in which probably stood Mausolus himself, P M4, C 75. represented after his translation to the world of demigods of Mauso- lus at Halioab- NASSUS. Group of Arc ideolo- gists AND BXPtOKEES. ANOTHER GROUP OP ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 665 and heroes. The peristyle edifice which supported the bookiii, .,,,„. . i-i-i Chap. IV. pyramids was encircled by a irieze, richly sculptured in high- another relief,' and so on. The frieze thus mentioned is that of which the twelve slabs were, as already mentioned, given by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe in 1846, four exhumed by Newton himself in 1857, and one more purchased from the Marchese Serra, of Genoa, in 1865. This piecemeal acquisition of the principal frieze, by dint of researches spread over twenty years, is not the least curious of the facts pertaining to the story. But the annals of the Museum comprise ten or twelve similar instances of ultimate reunion, after long scattering, of the parts of one whole. They tell of manuscripts (made perfect after the lapse of a century, it may be) as well as of sculptures, thus toilsomely recovered. But the Greco-Amazonian battle-frieze was not the only frieze of the famous mausoleum. The external walls of the ' cella ' had two other friezes, of which Mr. Newton suc- ceeded in recovering several fragments, some of them of much interest. And the mausoleum was profusely adorned, with sculptures in the round as well as with the richly carved figures in relief, both high and low, which encircled (in all probability) the very basement, as well as the peri- style and the cella portions of this marvellous structure. Lions in watchful attitudes (' lions guardant/ in heraldic phrase) stood here and there, and the fragments of these which have been recovered testify to their variety of scale, as well as to their number. The names of five famous sculptors of the later Athenian school — Scopas, Leochares, Bryaxis, Timotheus, Ptthios — who were employed upon the decoration of the tomb itself, or upon the chariot-group, have been recorded, and it would seem that each of four of these had one side of the tomb specially assigned to him. ' The material of the sculpture was Parian marble, and the Book IIT, Chap. IV. Another Group of Archaeolo- gists and Explorers. Newton, in Guide, as above, p. 74 ; and Travels and Discoveries in the Levant, vol. ii, pp. 108-137; and passim. The ex- plorations or Nathan Davis at Carthage and Utica. 666 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. whole structure was richly ornamented with colour. The tomb of Mausolus was of the class called by the Greeks heroon, and so greatly excelled all other sepulchral monu- ments in size, beauty of design, and richness of decoration, that it was reckoned one of the " Seven Wonders of the World." ' While LiYARD was unearthing Nineveh; Fellows bringing into the light of day the long-lost cities of Lycia; and Charles Newton restoring, before men's eyes, this funereal marvel of the ancient world, which had long been known (in effect) only by dim memories and traditions; Dr. Nathan Davis, in his turn, was exhuming Carthage and Utica. All these distinguished men were labouring, in common, for the enrichment of our National Museum, within a period of some twenty years. Three of them may be said to have been busied (in one way or other) with their self-denying tasks contemporaneously.* If we take into the account the variety, as well as the intrinsic worth, of the additions thus made to human knowledge ; above all, if we duly estimate the value of those links of connection * I stall not, I trust, be suspected of a want of gratitude for the eminent and most praiseworthy efforts of Mr. Davis — one of the many Americans who have returned, with liberal profuseness, the reciprocal obligations which all Americans owe to Britain (for their ancestry, and also for the noble interchange of benefits between parent and offspring, prior to 1776 ; if for nought else), if I venture to remark that the above- written passage in the text has been inserted somewhat hesitatingly, as far as it concerns the date of the Carthaginian explorations. No index ; no summary ; no marginal dates ; conflicting and obscure dates, when any dates appear anywhere ; no introduction, which introduces anything ; scarcely any divarication of personal knowledge and experiences, from borrowed knowledge and experiences ; such are some of the difliculties which await the student of Carthage and her Remains. Tet the book is full of deep interest ; its author is, none the less, a benefactor to Britain, and to the world. Grnup or ARCHAEOLO- GISTS AND EXPLOtthUS. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 667 between things human and things divine, which are the bo.»ktu, most essential characteristic of some of the best of these ano™** acquisitions, it may well be said that the annals of no museum in the world can boast of such an enrichment as this, by the efforts of the travellers and the archaeologists of one generation. And all of these explorers are — in one sense or other — Britons. On one incidental point, I have to express a hope that the reader will pardon what he may be momentarily inclined to think an over-iteration of remark. If I have really adverted somewhat too frequently to the connection which many of these rich archaeological acquisitions, of 1842-1861, present between the annals of man and the Book of God, I have this to plead, in extenuation : Certain writers pass over that connection so hurriedly as almost to lose sight of it. And we live in an age in which some of our own countrymen — some of those among us to whom the Creator has been most bounteous in the bestowal of the glorious gifts of mind and genius — have even spoken of our best of all literary posses- sions as ' Jew-Records,' and ' Hebrew old-clothes.' Those particular expressions, indeed, were employed long before the arrival of the Assyrian Marbles. But I think I have seen them quoted since. Among the spoils of Carthage and of Utica which we owe the spotls to Dr. Nathan Davis, are many rich mosaic pavements, of thage and the second and third centuries of our era, and a multitude UltcA ' of Phoenician and Carthaginian inscriptions, extending in date over several centuries. And it must be added that many of the antiquities, and more especially of the mosaics, excavated under Dr. Davis's instructions at Utica, were found to possess greater beauty, and a more varied in- terest, than most of those which were disinterred by him Group of Arch^olo- gists and explorkrs. 668 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book tii, from amidst the rains of Carthage. Many of these, like ahotheb some of the choice treasures of Nineveh, are, in a sense, still buried — for want of room at the British Museum ade- quately to display them. The reader may yet, but too fitly, conceive of some of them as piteously crying out (in 1870, as in I860)— ' Here have ye piled us together, and left us in cruel confusion, Each one pressing his fellow, and each one shading his brother ; None in a fitting abode, in the life-giving play of the sunshine ; Here in disorder we he, like desolate bones in a charnel.' othke con- Many other liberal benefactors to the several Archaeological SPICUOUS avghkk- Departments of the Museum deserve record in this chapter. g^lemes* But the record must needs be a mere catalogue, not a oeanti- narrative: and even the catalogue will be an abridged fJUlTIES. ° u one. Foremost among the discoverers of valuable remains of Greek antiquity, subsequent to most of those which have now been detailed, are to be mentioned Mr. George Dennis, who explored Sicily in 1862 and subsequent years ; and Captain T. A. B. Spratt, who travelled over Lycia and the adjacent countries, -following in the footsteps of Sir Charles spratt ana Fellows, and who enjoyed the advantage of the company travels in and co-operation of two able and estimable fellow-travellers, Lyda.mtya,, Edward Forbes and Edward Thomas Daniell, both of and the coyotes whom, like their honoured precursor in Lycian exploration, (2 vols, 1847), ' . I passim. have-been many years lost to us. The antiquities collected in Sicily by Dennis, at the national cost, were chiefly from the tombs. They included very many beautiful Greek vases, a collection of archaic terra-cottas, and other minor antiquities.* Some of the * These were given to the Museum by Lord Russell, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Lord Russell was one of the earliest of Group ov 'A-KCHjEOLO- GI5TS AND EXPLOKKHS. subsequent years. ANOTHER GROUP OF ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ETC. 669 marbles discovered by Spratt are of the Macedonian period, book in, and probably productions of the school of Pergamus. ah'othi™ At Cameras and elsewhere, in the island of Rhodes, im- portant excavations were carried on by Messrs. Biliotti and Salzmann. These also were effected at the public Beporlsof charge. In the course of them nearly three hundred tombs were opened, and many choicely painted fictile vases of the im, and best period of Greek ceramography were found. Those researches at Rhodes were the work of the years 1862, 1863, and 1864. In 1865, the excavations at Halicar- nassus were resumed by order of the Trustees, and under the direction of the same explorers, and with valuable results. In 1864, an important purchase of Greek and Roman statues, and of the sculptures from the Farnese Col- lection at Rome, was made. In the following year came an extensive series of antiquities from the famous Collection of the late Count Pourtales. Of the precious objects ob- tained by the researches of Mr. Consul Wood, at Ephesus, in the same and subsequent years, a brief notice will be found in Chapter VI. the Foreign Secretaries who began a new epoch, in this department of public duty, by setting new official precedents of regard and fore- thought for the augmentation of the national collections. CHAPTER V. THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENVILLE LIBRARY. ' He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one, Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading ; Crabbed, mayhap, to them that loved him not ; But to those men that sought him, sweet as Summer.' — Henry VIII. 'If a man be not permitted to change his political opinions — when he has arrived at years of discretion — lie must be born a Solomon.' — W. F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, (toI. Tiii, p. 237). The Grenvilles and their Influence on the Political Aspect of the Georgian Reigns.— The Public and Literary Life of the Right Honourable Thomas Grenville. — History of the Grenville Library. Book III, Chap.V. The 1'OUNDF.ll or THE Geenvilik LlBBART. It was the singular fortune of Thomas Grenville to belong to a family which has given almost half a score of ministers to England ; to possess in himself large diplo- matic ability ; and to have been gifted — his political oppo- nents themselves being judges — with considerable talents for administration ; and yet, in the course of a life pro- tracted to more than ninety years, to have been an active diplomatist during less than one year, and to have been a Minister of State less than half a year. It is true that he was of that happy temperament which both enables and tempts a man to carve out delightful occupation for himself. He had, too, those rarely combined gifts of taste, fortune, and public spirit, which inspire their possessor with the will, THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENV1LLE LIBRARY. 671 and confer upon him the power, to make his personal enjoy- book in, ments largely contribute (both in his own time and after it) T ^T to the enjoyments of his fellow-countrymen. It might be ^°™™ true, therefore, to say that Thomas Grenville was the geenville J _ _ LlBBABY. happier and the better for his exclusion, during almost WHATWAS forty-nine-fiftieths of his lone life, from the public service. IT THAT But it can hardly be rash to say that England must needs Thomas have been somewhat the worse for that exclusion. AMO , ra oii Nor was it altogether a self-imposed exclusion. There ^1™?" was among its causes a curious conjunction of outward accidents and of philosophic self-resignation to their results. Untoward chances abroad twice broke off the foreign em- bassies of this eminent man. Unforeseen political compli- cations amongst Whigs and semi- Whigs twice deprived him of cabinet office at home. But, no doubt, neither shipwreck at sea nor party intrigue on land would have been potent enough to keep Thomas Grenville out of high State em- ployment, but for the personal fastidiousness which withheld him from stretching out his hand, with any eagerness, to grasp it. It would, perhaps, be hard to lay the finger on any one the pou- family recorded in the ' British Peerage' which so long and Whence so largely influenced our political history, in the Georgian e**™ LLE era of it, as did that of Grenville. During the century v**™-, m t " DURATION (speaking roundly) which began with the suppression of the and its Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. and ended with the Repeal of the Corn Laws, Grenvilles are continually prominent in every important political struggle. The personal influence and (for lack of a plainer word) the characteristic ' idiosyncrasy ' of individual Grenvilles notoriously shaped, or materially helped to shape, several measures that have had world-wide results. But perhaps the most curious feature in their political history as a family is this : At almost every great PECULIAR CHARACTER- ISTICS. Book III, Chap. V. The FOBNDEK OF THE Gkknville LlBKAKY. 672 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. crisis in affairs one Grenville, of ability and prominence, is seen in tolerably active opposition to the rest of the Grenvilles. In the political history of the man who forms the subject of this brief memoir the family peculiarity, it will be seen, came out saliently. Paeentage and eaelt! LIFE OF Thomas Geekville. His SHOET DIPLOMATIC CAlion. Bee above, Bonk II, Chap. Ill, page 431. " The political Grenvilles were offshoots of an old stock which, in the days of eld, were richer in gallant soldiers than in peace-loving publicists. The old Grenvilles dealt many a shrewd swordthrust for England by land and by sea, in the Tudor times, and earlier. The younger branch has been rich in statesmen and rich in scholars. Not a few of them have shone equally and at once in either path of labour. Thomas Grenville was the second son of the Minister of George the Third, George Grenville, — himself the second son of Richard Grenville, of Wotton, and of Hester Temple (co-heiress of Richard Temple, Lord Cobham, and herself created Countess Temple in 1749). He was born on the thirty -first of December, 1755, and entered Parlia- ment soon after attaining his majority. In the House of Commons he voted and acted as a follower of Lord Rock- ingham and a comrade of Charles Fox, in opposition to the other Grenvilles and the ' Grenvillite ' party. Had the famous India Bill of Fox's ministry been carried into a law, Thomas Grenville, it was understood, would have been the first Governor-General of India under its rule. His first entrance into the diplomatic service was made in 1782. His mission was to Paris. Its purpose, to nego- tiate with Benjamin Franklin a treaty of peace with America. The circumstances beneath the influence of which it was undertaken I have had occasion to advert to, already, in the notice of Lord Shelburne. It is needless to return to them now. THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENVILLE LIBRARY. 673 Thomas Grenville's union in the double negotiation book in, with Mr. Oswald (instructed by Shelburne, it will be re- t™ membered, as Grenville was by Fox) proved to be very „°™" KK distasteful to him. From the beginning it boded ill to the Gbenv]LLB success of the mission. As early as the 4th of June, 1782, we find Mr. Grenville writing to Fox thus : — ' I entreat This Mis - ... s *ON TO you earnestly to see the impossibility of my assisting you paek, under this contrariety I cannot fight a daily battle with Mr. Oswald and his Secretary.* It would be neither T GrenviUB for the advantage of the business, for your interest, or for toFro[ ; . 'J ' 4th June, your credit or mine ; and, even if it was, /could not do it.' i783. The then existing arrangements of the Secretaryship of State gave the control of a negotiation with France to one Secretary, and of a negotiation with America to the other. The reader has but to call to mind the well-known political relationship between Fox and Shelburne in 1782, to gain a fully sufficient key to the consequent diplomatic relation- ship between Oswald and Thomas Grenville, when thus comp.aiso . . same to engaged in carrying on, abreast, a double mission at the same, Court of Paris. To add to the obvious embroilment, Os- (clrtami wald had shortly before received from Benjamin Franklin c ^\\.\^ a suggestion that Britain should ' spontaneously ' cede pp- 36 - 51) Canada, in order to enable his astute countrymen at home the better to compensate both the plundered Royalists and those among the victorious opponents of those Royalists who had, from time to time, sustained any damage at the hands of the British armies. The most earnest entreaties, from many quarters, were used to induce Grenville to remain at Paris. His political friends, and his family connections, were, on that point, alike urgent. But all entreaties were in vain. When the * Meaning Lord Shelburne. See, heretofore, pp. 431-433. 43 674 LATER AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS, isooxiii, news reached him of Lord Rockingham's death, and of Uiap.V. ill the the break-up in the Cabinet which followed, his decision ofthe" 1 was, if possible, more decided. He still clave to Fox, while to™ his brother, Lord Temple, accepted from Shelburne the Lieutenancy of Ireland. A Lordship of the Treasury or the Irish Secretaryship was by turns pressed upon Mr. Grenville by Lord Temple with an earnestness which Lord Tempic maybe called passionate. 'Let me hope,' said he, 'that TiUe,i2tu you will feel that satisfaction that every [other] member of my family most earnestly feels at my acceptance of the Lieutenancy of Ireland. ... I conjure you, by everything that you prize nearest and dearest to your heart ; by the joy I have ever felt in your welfare ; by the interest I have ever taken in your uneasiness ; weigh well your determina- tion ; it decides the complexion of my future hours I have staked my happiness upon this cast.' The resolve of Thomas Grenville to adhere to the position he had taken was the cause of a family estrangement which en- dured for many years. But the more a reader, familiar with the annals of the time (and especially if he be also familiar with the personal history of Lord Temple before and after), may study Lord Temple's letters of 1782, the less he is likely to wonder that the peculiar line of argu- ment they develope failed to attain the aim they had in view. The vein that runs through them is plainly that of personal ambition ; not of an adherence — at any cost — to a sincere conviction, whether right or wrong, of public duty. Such a line of argument was, at no time, the line likely to commend itself to Thomas Grenville. Both his virtues, and what by many politicians will be regarded as his weak- nesses, alike armed him against obvious appeals to mere self-interest or self-aggrandisement. FOUADEE OF THE Ghenvillk LlBHARY. 1784-90. THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENVILLE LIBRARY. 675 One result — and the not unanticipated result — of the book in family estrangement of 1782 was that, two years later, Mr. tub Grenville found himself to have no longer the command of a seat in Parliament. For four years to come he gave most of his leisure to a pursuit which he loved much better The mT „ — as far as personal taste was concerned — namely, to the resumption of his systematic studies in classical literature, uahekt, But in 1790 he was elected a burgess for the town of Aid borough. Thenceforward, and for a good many years, politics again shared his time with literature, and with those social claims and duties to which no man of his day was more keenly alive. In 1795 a second diplomatic mission was offered t'o him, and it was accepted. In the interval, another and more lasting change had come across his career in Parliament. He was one of the many ' Foxites ' who utterly disapproved the course which their old leader adopted in regard to the French Revolution and to the rising passion to glorify and to imitate it at home. To the ' Man of the People ' (as he was very fancifully called), the English countershock to the French overturn was, in one sense, specially fatal. It ripened peculiar, though hitherto in some degree latent, weaknesses. And with these, when they became salient, Thomas Grenville had really as little fellow-feeling as had Edmund Burke. Alike both men now supported Pitt, with whom, as experience increased and judgment matured, they both had always had intrinsically far more in common. And among the results of the new political relationships came a restoration of family harmony. George Grenville became Pitt's Foreign Secretary ; Thomas Grenville became Pitt's Minister to the Court of Berlin. One year later, he again sat in Parliament for Buckingham. 676 LATEE ATJGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Urap.V. The I'oondke OF THE Grenville LIBRARY. The Mis- SION TO Berlin, 1795. The Cabinet or 1806. The 'Chief Justick- s H IP IN .Eyre,' SOUTH OP Trent. 1800-1845. The mission to Berlin was first impeded by a threatened shipwreck among icebergs at sea, and, when that impedi- ment had been with difficulty overcome, the journey was again and more seriously obstructed by an actual shipwreck upon the coast of Flanders. Mr. Grenville's life was ex- posed to imminent danger. After a desperate effort, he succeeded in saving his despatches and in scrambling to land. But he' saved nothing else ; and the inevitable delay enabled the French Directory to send Sieyes to Berlin, in advance of the ambassador of Britain. The able and versatile Frenchman made the best of his priority. Mr. Grentille was not found wanting in exertion, any more than in ability. But in the then posture of affairs the advantage in point of time, proved to be an advantage which no skill of fence could afterwards recover. Hence it was that the mission of 179 5 became practically an abor- tive mission. With it ended the ambassador's diplomatic career. Almost equally brief was his subsequent actively official career in England. On the formation of Lord Grenville's Cabinet (February, 1806), no office was taken by the Pre- mier's next brother. But on the death of Fox, six months later, he became First Lord of the Admiralty. That office he held until the formation of the Tory Government, in the month of April, 1807. It was too brief a term to give him any adequate opportunity of really evincing his adminis- trative powers. And during almost forty remaining years of life he never took office again, contenting himself with that now nominal function (conferred on him in the year 1800), the 'Chief-Justiceship in Eyre, to the south of the river Trent,' of the profits of which, as will be seen pre- sently, he made a noble use. That office in Eyre had once been a function of real gravity and potency. It was still THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENV1LLE LIBRARY. 677 a surviving link between the feudal England of the Henrys book in, and the Edwards, on the one hand, and the industrial the' England of the Georges on the other. Under a king who Library Founder oe THE could govern, as well as reign, the ' Chief- Justiceship in Gi ' AND WHAT MIGHT HAVE COME OF ITS PERPETUA- Eyre' might have shown itself, in one particular, to possess a real and precious vitality still. By possibility, the sports of twelfth- century and chase-loving monarchs might have been made to alleviate the toils, to brighten the leisure, and to lengthen the lives, of nineteenth-century and hard-toiling artisans. For in exerting the still leqal powers (long the chief ° ... Justiceship dormant, but not abolished) of the forest justiceship, a ineire, potent check might have been provided against the pro- fligate, although now common, abuse of the powers entrusted by Parliament to the Board of Woods and Forests. No new T,ov legislation was wanted to save many splendid tracts of forest land (over which the Crown then — and as well in 1845, as in 1800 — possessed what might have been indestructible ' forestal rights'), for public enjoyment for ever. Existing laws would have sufficed. But no blame on this score lies at the charge of the then Chief Justice in Eyre. Had Mr. Grenville, for example, ever conceived the idea of using the Forest Laws to preserve for the English people, we will say, Epping Forest, or any other like sylvan tract on this side of Trent, as a 'People's Park' for ever, he would have been laughed at as a Quixote. If Parliament in 1870 is fast becoming alive to the misconduct of those * Commissioners' who have dealt with the Forestal rights of the Crown exactly in the spirit of the pettiest of village shopkeepers, rather than in the spirit of Ministers of State, there was in Mr. Grenville's time scarcely the faintest whisper of any such conviction of public duty in regard to that matter. Not one Member of Parliament, I think, had ever (at that time) pointed out the gross hypocrisy, as well 678 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book HI, Chap. V. The Founder or THE GRENVILLE LIBRARY. Will Of the Rt. Eon. T. Grenville ; Oct., 1845. Mr. T. (x RENVILLE'S J INTER- COURSE WITH, AND ESTEEM I'OH, Sir A. Panizzi. as the folly, of selling by the hands of one public board and for a few pounds hundreds of acres of ancient and lovely woodlands, and then presently buying, by the hands of another public board, acres of dreary and almost unim- proveable barrenness by the expenditure of several thou- sands of pounds, in order to provide new recreation grounds for ' public enjoyment !' Of that forestal Chief- Justiceship Mr. Grenville was the last holder. The office had been established by Wil- liam the Conqueror. It was abolished by Queen Victoria. One of the chief pursuits of those forty years of retirement which ensued to the founder of the Gren- ville Library, upon the breaking up of the Grenville Administration of 1806, was book-buying and book-read- ing. ' A great part of my Library' — so wrote Mr. Gren- ville, in 1845 — 'has been purchased by the profits of a sinecure office given me by the Public' If that sinecure was not and, under the then circumstances, could not have been by its holder's action or foresight, made the means of preserving for public enjoyment such of the ancient forests as, early in this century, were still intact in beauty, and also lay near to crowded and more or less unhealthy towns, it was at least made the means of giving to the nation a garden for the mind. ' I feel it,' continued Mr. Grenville, in his document of 1845, 'to be a debt and a duty, that I should acknowledge my obligation by giving the Library so acquired to the British Museum for the use of the Public' I have had occasion, already, to mention that many years before his death Mr. Grenville formed a very high estimate of the eminent attainments and still more eminent public services of Sir A. Panizzi. No man had a better opportunity of knowing, intimately, the merits of the then THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENVILLE LIBRARY. 679 Assistant-Keeper of the printed portion of our National book in, Library. Mr. Grenville showed his estimate in a con- the elusive and very characteristic way. He had earnestly °™° ffl supported (in the year 1835) the proposal of a Sub-corn- £"™" E mittee of Trustees that Mr. Panizzi's early services — more mnutesof especially in relation to the cataloguing of what are known, ^ZvT'' at the Museum, as 'the French Tracts,' but also as to other subsequent labours — should be substantially recognised by an improve- seqq.' ment of his salary. At a larger meeting, the recom- mendation of the smaller sub-committee was cordially adopted in the honorary point of view, but was set virtually aside, in respect to the ' honorarium.' That latter step Mr. Grenville so resented that he rose from the table, and never sat at a Trustee meeting again. He many times m««ta afterwards visited the- Museum ; and I well remember the ^a^Z"' impression made upon my own mind by his noble appear- ance, at almost niuety years of age, on one of the latest of those visits — not very long before his death. But in the Committee Room he never once sat, during the last eleven years of his life. The fact being so, Readers unfamiliar with the 'blue- cmc™- ° r STANCES books ' will learn without surprise that a conversation which between Mr. Grenville and Mr. Panizzi, in Hamilton g*™™""' Place, was the prelude to his noble public gift of 1846. ™" T ** n0 ' That conversation took place in the autumn of 1845. He, gbbnviub in the course of it, assured Mr. Panizzi (by that time at the head of the Printed Book Department) of his settled ™ p : p an 4, purpose, and evinced a desire that his Library should be °^ tcs preserved apart from the mass of the National Collection. oi\m. He then remarked, ' You will have a great many duplicate books, and you will sell them,' speaking in a tone of inquiry. ' No/ replied Panizzi, the ' Trustees will never sell books that are given to them.' Mr. Grenville rejoined with an 680 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. bookui, evident relief of mind, 'Well, so much the better.' Long Chap.V. mil.. the afterwards, when visiting Mr. Panizzi in his private study, of the™ ne asked the question — * Where are you going to put my l™ey. LI! books ? ! see y° ur rooms are already full.' He was taken to the long, capacious, but certainly not very sightly, ' slip,' contrived by Sir R. Smirke on the eastern outskirt of the seethe m ^ G King's Library. 'Well/ was the Keeper's reply, Km, We- 'if we can't do better, we will put them here; and, as you see, my room is close by. Here, for a time, they will at least be under my own eye.' The good and generous book- lover went away with a smile on his genial face, well assured that his books would be gratefully cared for. theeecep- Mr. Grenville died on the 17th of December, 1846. museum On the day of his death it chanced that the present writer geenville was engaged on a review-article about the history of the collection. M useum Library. Ere many days were past it was his pleasant task to add a paragraph: — the first that was written on the subject — respecting the new gift to the Public. But an accident delayed the publication of that article until the following summer. Meanwhile, the final day of the reception of the books — a dreary, snowy day of the close of February — was, to us of the Museum Library, a sort of holiday within-doors. Very little work was done that day ; but many choice rarities in literature, and some in art, were eagerly ex- amined. All who survive will remember it as I dq. To lovers of books, such a day was like a glimpse of summer sunshine interposed in the thick of winter. To tell what little can here be told of the history and character of the Grenville Library in other words than in those well-considered and appropriate words which were or THTC GllENVJLLE Library. Panizzi's account of some of thk CUOJCtiST BOOKS IN THE THE FOUNDER OF THE GEENVILLE LIRRARY. 681 employed by the man who had had so much delightful book hi, intercourse with the Collector himself, and to whom belongs the' a part of the merit of the gift, would be an impertinence. In his report on the accessions of the year 1847, Mr. Panizzi wrote thus : — 'It would naturally be expected that one of the editors of the " Adelphi Homer " would lose no opportunity of collecting the best and rarest editions of the Prince of Poets. iEsop, a favourite author of Mr. Gren- ville, occurs in his Library in its rarest forms ; there is no grektihe doubt that the series of editions of this author in that Library is unrivalled. The great admiration which Mr. Grenville felt for Cardinal Ximenes, even more on account of the splendid edition of the Polyglot Bible which that prelate caused to be printed at Alcala, than of his public character, made him look upon the acquisition of the Mos- chus, a book of extreme rarity, as a piece of good fortune. Among the extremely rare editions of the Latin Classics, in which the Grenville Library abounds, the unique complete copy of Azzoguidi's first edition of Ovid is a gem w r ell deserving particular notice, and was considered on the whole, by Mr. Grenville himself, the boast of his collec- tion. The Aldine Virgil of 1505, the rarest of the Aldine editions of this poet, is the more welcome to the Museum as it serves to supply a lacuna ; the copy mentioned in the Catalogue of the Royal Collection not having been trans- ferred to the National Library. - The rarest editions of English Poets claimed and obtained the special attention of Mr. Grenville. Hence we find him possessing not only the first and second edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales by Caxton, but the only copy known of an hitherto undiscovered edition of the same work printed in 1498, by Wynktn be Worde. Of Shakespeare's collected Dramatic Works, the Grenville Book III, Chap. V. The Found ku or THK GrRENVlLLK LIBRARY. Piinizzi'a Report, in the Annual Returns of 1847, passim, 682 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Library contains a copy of the first edition, which, if not the finest known, is at all events surpassed by none. His strong religious feelings and his sincere attachment to the Established Church, as well as his knowledge and mastery of the English language, concurred in making him eager to possess the earliest as well as the rarest editions of the translations of the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue. He succeeded to a great extent ; but what deserves particular mention is the only known fragment of the New Testament in English, translated by Tyndale and Roy, which was in the press of Quentell, at Cologne, in 1525, when the trans- lators were obliged to interrupt the printing, and fly to escape persecution. ' The History of the British Empire, and whatever could illustrate any of its different portions, were the subject of Mr. Grenville's unremitting research, and he allowed nothing to escape him deserving to be preserved, however rare and expensive. Hence his collection of works on the Divorce of Henuy VIII ; that of Voyages and Travels, either by Englishmen, or to countries at some time more or less connected with England, or possessed by her ; that of con- temporary works on the gathering, advance, and defeat of the "Invincible Armada;" and that of writings on Ire- land; — are more numerous, more valuable, and more interesting, than in any other collection ever made by any person on the same subjects. Among the Voyages and Travels, the collections of De Bry and Hulsius are the finest in the world ; no other Library can boast of four such fine books as the copies of Hariot's Virginia, in Latin, German, French, and English, of the De Bry series. And it was fitting that in Mr. Grenville's Library should be found one of the only two copies known of the first edition of this work, printed in London in 1588, wherein an FOUKDEE OF THE g renville Library. THE FOUNDER OF THE GEENVILLE LIBRARY. 683 account is given of a colony which had been founded by his b°°k m> familv namesake. Sir Richard Grenville. the ' Conversant with the Language and Literature of Spain, as well as with that of Italy, the works of imagination by writers of those two countries are better represented in his Library than in any other out of Spain and Italy ; in some branches better even than in any single Library in the countries themselves. No Italian collection can boast of such a splendid series of early editions of Ariosto's Orlando, one of Mr. Grenville's favourite authors, nor, indeed, of such choice Romance Poems. The copy of the first edition of Ariosto is not to be matched for beauty ; of that of Rome, 1533, even the existence was hitherto unknown. A per- fect copy of the first complete edition of the Morgante Maggiore, of 1482, was also not known to exist before Mr. Grenville succeeded in procuring his. Among the Spanish Romances, the copy of that of Tirant lo Blanch, printed at Valencia, in 1490, is as fine, as clean, and as white, as when it first issued from the press ; and no second copy of this edition of a work professedly translated from English into Portuguese, and thence into Valencian, is known to exist except in the Library of the Sapienza, at Rome. ' But where there is nothing common, it is almost depre- ciating a collection to enumerate a few articles as rare. It is a marked feature of this Library, that Mr. Grenville did not collect mere bibliographical rarities. He never aimed at having a complete set of the editions from the press of Caxton or Aldus ; but Chaucer and Gower by Caxton were readily purchased, as well as other works which were desirable on other accounts, besides that of having issued from the press of that printer ; and, when possible, select copies were procured. Some of the rarest, (584 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III Chap. V, and these the finest, Aldine editions were purchased by him, the 1- for the same reasons. The Horce in Greek, printed bv POUNDEU A • ft or ™e' Aldus m 16°, in 1497, is a volume which, from its Jan- L™" § ua S e > s[ze > and rarit y. is of the greatest importance for the literary and religious history of the time when it was printed. It is therefore in Mr. Grenville's Library. The Virgil of 1 501 is not only an elegant book, but it is the first book printed with that peculiar Italic, known as Aldine, and the first volume which Aldus printed, "forma enchi- ridii," as he called it, being expressly adapted to give poor scholars the means of purchasing for a small sum the works of the classical writers. This also is, therefore, among Mr. Grenville's books ; and of one of the two editions of Virgil, both dated the same year, 1514, he purchased a large paper copy, because it was the more correct of the two. ' It was the merit of the work, the elegance of the volume, the "genuine" condition of the copy, &c, which together determined Mr. Grenville to purchase books printed on vellum, of which he collected nearly a hundred. He paid a very large sum for a copy of the Furioso of 1532, not because it was " on ugly vellum/' as he very properly desig- nated it, but because, knowing the importance of such an edition of such a work, and never having succeeded in pro- curing it on paper, he would rather have it on expensive terms and " ugly vellum,'' than not at all. 'By the bequest of Mr. Grenville's Library, the collec- tion of books printed on vellum now at the Museum,and com- prising those formerly presented by George II, George III, and Mr. Crach erode, is believed to surpass that of any other National Library, except the King's Library at Paris,of which Van Eraet justly speaks with pride, and all foreign competent and intelligent judges with envy and admiration. In justice THE FOTJNDEE OP THE GEENVILLE L1BEAEY. G85 to the Grenville Library, the list of all its vellum books book in, ought to be here inserted. As this cannot be done, some Till' only of the most remarkable shall be mentioned. These °™r K are — the Greek Anthology of 1494 ; the Book of Hawking » KEN1 ' ILLE */*/ J J Libra ax. of Juliana Burners of 1496 ; the first edition of the Bible, known as the " Mazarine Bible," printed at Mentz about 1454 ; the Aldine Dante of 1 502 ; the first Rationale of D u- randus of 1459 ; the first edition of Fisher On the Psalms, of 1 508 ; the Aldine Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Petrarca, of 1501 ; the Livy of 1469 ; the Primer of Salisbury, printed in Paris in, 1531; the Psalter of 1457, which supplies the place of the one now at Windsor, which be- longed to the Royal Collection before it was transferred to the British Museum ; the Sforziada, by Simoneta, of 1490, a most splendid volume even in so splendid a Library ; the Theuerdank of 1517; the Aulus Gellius and the Vitruvius of Giunta, printed in 1515, &c. &c. Of this identical copy of Vitrivius, formerly Mr. Dent's, the author of the Biblio- graphical Decameron wrote, "Let the enthusiastic admirers of a genuine vellum Junta — of the amplest size and in spot- less condition — resort to the choice cabinet of Mr. Dent for such a copy of this edition of Vitruvius and Frontinus." The Aulus Gellius is in its original state, exactly as it was Pali's when presented to Lorenzo de' Medici, afterwards Duke fariilmmt, of Urbino, to whom the edition was dedicated.' as above. CHAPTER VI. OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. - CREATION OF THE NEW DEPARTMENT OF BRITISH AND MEDIiEVAL ANTIQUITIES AND ETHNOGRAPHY. ' Amidst tablets and stones, inscribed with the straight and angular characters of the Runic alphabet, and similar articles which the vulgar might have connected with the exercise of the forbidden arts, were disposed, in great order, several of those curious stone axes, formed of green granite, which are often found in these Islands. . . . . . There were, moreover, to be seen amid the strange collection stone sacrificial knives . . . and the brazen implements called Celts, the purpose of which has troubled the repose of so many antiquaries.' — The Pirate, c. xxviii. ' A Museum of Antiquities — not of one People or period only, but of all races and all times — exhibits a vast com- parative scheme of the material productions of man. "We are thus enabled to follow the progress of the Fine and Useful Arts, contemporaneously through a long period of time, tracing their several lines backwards till they con- verge at one vanishing point of the unknown Past. 5 — C. T. Newton {Letter to Col. Mure, 1653). Scantiness of the Notices of some Contributors to the Natural- History Collections, and its cause. — The Duke of Blacas and Ms Museum of Greek and Roman Anti- quities. — Hugh Cuming and his Travels and Collections in South America. — John Rutter Chorley, and his Collection of Spanish Plays and Spanish Poetry. — George Witt and his Collections illustrative of the History of Obscure Superstitions. — The Ethnographical Museum of Henry Christy, and its History. — Colonial Archaeologists and British Consuls : The History of the Woodhouse Collection, and of its transmittal to the BENEFAC- TORS OF Recent Days. OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. 687 British Museum. — Lord Napier and the acquisition of the Abyssinian MSS. added in 1868. — The Travels of Von Siebold in Japan, and the gathering of his Japanese Library. — Felix Slade and his Bequests, Artistic and Archaeological. No reader of this volume will, in the course of its book in, perusal, have become more sensible than is its author of a ornm want of due proportion, in those notices which have occa- sionally been given of some eminent naturalists who have conspicuously contributed to the public collections, as compared with the notices of those many archaeologists and book-gatherers who, in common with the naturalists, have been fellow-workers towards the building up of our National Museum. I feel, too, that my own ignorance of natural £"*""* history is no excuse at all for so imperfect a fillina;-out of THE M0TICF J w m L . m OF NATUHAl. the plan which the title-page itself of this volume implies. isTsiHims I feel this all the more strongly, because I dissent entirely from those views which tend to depreciate the' importance of the scientific collections, in order (very superfluously) to enhance that of the literary and artistic collections. Par from looking at the splendid Galleries of mammals, or of birds, or of plants, as mere collections of ' book-plates,' gathered for the ' illustration' of the National Library, or from sharing the opinion that the books and the antiquities, alone, are ' what may be called the permanent departments of the British Museum' (to quote, literally, the words of a publication* issued whilst this sheet is going to press, words which seem somewhat rashly — considering whence they come — to prejudge a question of national scope, and one which it assuredly belongs alone to Parliament to settle), * A Sandy-Book of the British Museum, for Every-day Readers.' 1870 (Cassell and Co.). "VOLUMB, AND ITS CAUSE. 688 LATER ATJGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Cliap. VI. Otiiee Benefac- tors of Recent Bays. The foema- tion OK THE NEW DEPAET- MEPiT OF Beitishand Medusvai. Antiqui- TIES. I regard these scientific collections as possessing, in common with the others, the highest educational value, and as also possessing, even a little beyond some of the others, a spe- cial claim, it may be, upon the respect of Englishmen. That speciality of claim seems to me to accrue from the fact, that two of the early Founders, and one of the most conspicuous subsequent Benefactors of the Museum, were pre-eminently Naturalists. Such was Courten. Such was Sloane. Such was Sir Joseph Banks. I shall have erred greatly in my estimate of the regard habitually paid by a British Parliament to the memory of the eminent bene- factors of Britain, if, in the issue, it do not become apparent that such a consideration as this will weigh heavily with those who will shortly — and after due deliberation and debate — have to decide pending questions in relation to the enlargement and to the still further improvement of the British Museum. Be that however as it ultimately shall prove to be, if the Public should honour this volume with a favourable re- ception, it will be its author's endeavour (in a second edition) to supplement, by the knowledge and co-operation of others, the ignorance and the deficiencies of which he is very conscious in himself. In resuming the notices connected with the now truly magnificent Collection of Antiquities, we have to glance at the organizing of a new ' Department' in the Museum. During at least two generations it has been, from time to time, remarked — with some surprise as well as cen- sure—that the 'British' Museum contained no 'British' Antiquities. Sometimes this criticism has been put much too strongly, as when, for example, one of the recent biographers of Wedgwood thus wrote (in 1866, but refer- OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. 689 ring also to a period then ninety years distant). ' At that bookiii, date, as at present, everything native to the soil, or pro- om« duced by the races who had lived and died upon it, was ^Top " repudiated by those who were the rulers of the National ^™ T Collection.' At that time, assuredly, there were already in Meteyardj the Museum a good many British beasts, British birds, and f^J ^ British books; — no inconsiderable part of the 'pro- ™i. a, p. w. ductions' of our soil and of the races born and nurtured upon it. But, within a few months after the appearance of the criticism I have quoted, all ground for its repetition was removed by the formation of the ' Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography.' It is thus organized, in six separate sections : — § I. British Antiquities anterior to the Roman period. II. Roman Antiquities found in Britain. III. Anglo-Saxon Antiquities. IV. Mediaeval sculpture, carving, paintings, metal work, enamels, pottery, glass, stone ware; and implements of various kinds, and of various material. V. Costumes, weapons, accoutrements, tools, furniture, indus- trial productions, &c. — both ancient and modern — of non-European races. VI. Pre-historic Antiquities* * See the / notice, here- after, of tlie To the enrichment of the fourth section of this new chlist y Museum. department of the Museum (in a small degree), as well as (much more largely) to that of the Classical Collections, the choice treasures gathered in France during two generations by successive Dukes of Blacas largely contributed. The first of these Dukes, Peter Lewis John Casimir de the blacas Museum Blacas, was born at Aulps in the year 1770. He was of a audits family which has been conspicuous in Provence from the be- isi^isea' ginning of the Crusades. Attaining manhood just at the eve of the Revolution, the Duke followed the French princes into 44 690 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEPACTOES. Book III, Chap. VI. Othee BENEPAC- TOES OE Recent Days. FOEMATION OE THE BLACAS Museum. exile, and warmly attached himself to Lewis the Eigh- teenth, to whom, in after years, he became the minister of predilection, as distinguished from that monarch's many ministers of constraint. He had, in his own day, the reputation of being a courtier ; but seems to have been, in truth, an honest, frank, and outspeaking adviser. One saying of his depicts quite plainly the nature of the man, and also the nature of the work he had to do : — " If you want to defend your Crown, you musn't run away from your Kingdom.' Those words were spoken in 1815 ; and, as we all know, were spoken in vain. A statesman of that stamp — one who does not watch and chronicle the shiftings of popular opinion, in order to know with certainty what are his own opinions, or in order to shape his own political ' principles' — rarely enjoys popu- larity. De Blacas became so little popular at home, that the King was forced to send him, for many years, abroad. At Rome, he negotiated the Concordat (1817-19); at Naples, he advised an amnesty (1822), together with other measures, some of which were too wise for the latitude. In the interval between his two residences at the Court of Naples, he took part in the Congress of Laybach. The opportunities afforded by diplomacy in Italy and in other countries were turned to intellectual and archaeolo- gical, as well as to political, account. He imitated the example of Hamilton and of Elgin, and that of a crowd of his own countrymen, long anterior to either. Since his son's death, the British Museum has, by purchase, entered into his archaeological labours almost as largely — in their way and measure — as it has inherited the treasures of its own enlightened ambassadors at Naples and at Constan- tinople. The Duke died at Goeritz in 1839. Nine years earlier, OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. 691 he had advised Charles X against the measures which book m, precipitated that king into ruin ; and when the obstinate otheu monarch had to pay the sure penalty of neglecting good T0 T s E ot° advice, the giver of it voluntarily took his share of the ^™ NT infliction. He offered to attend Charles into exile in 1830, as he had attended him forty years before, when in the flush of youth. He lies buried at the King's feet, in the Church of the Franciscans at Goeritz — ' He that can endure To follow, in exile, his fallen Lord, Doth conquer them that did his master conquer, And earns his place i' the story.' The late Duke of Blacas augmented his father's collec- °"" M ™ 1 O OF THE tions by many purchases of great extent and value. His Blacas " . . . Collection. special predilection was for coins and gems. In that department the combined museum of father and son soon came to rank as the finest known collection, belonging to an individual possessor. It includes seven hundred and forty-eight ancient and classical cameos and intaglios, and two hundred and three others which are either mediaeval, oriental, or modern. The most precious portion of the Strozzi cabinet passed into it, as did also a choice part of the collections, respectively, of Barth and of De la Turbie. The Blacas Museum is also eminently rich in vases and paintings of various kinds j in sculptures, on every variety of material ; in terracottas, and in ancient glass. Its ' silver toilet service' of a Christian Roman lady of the fifth cen- tury, named Projecta, has been made famous throughout Europe by the descriptive accounts which have appeared from the pen of Visconti and from that of Labarte. The casket is richly chased with figure-subjects. Among them are seen figures of Venus and Cupid ; of the lady herself and of her bridegroom, Secundus. Roman bridesmaids, of 692 LATEK AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTOES. book in, indubitable flesh and blood, are mingled with the more Chap. VI. ' 8 othee unsubstantial forms of Nereids, riding upon Tritons. Benefao- Recent T>A?S Of the men devoted, in our own day, to the enchaining hubh pursuits of Natural History, few better deserve a compe- cuming;his tent biographer than does Hugh Cuming, whose career, in THA.VELS ... D and his its relation to the Museum history, has an additional interest for us from the circumstance that his course in life was partly shaped by his having attracted, in childhood, the TIONS, IN America AND ELSE- raitE. notice of another worthy naturalist and public benefactor, see page 376. Colonel George Montagu, of Lackham. Young Cuming's childish fondness for picking up shells and gathering plants attracted Colonel Montagu's notice about the time that the boy was apprenticed to a sailmaker, living not far from the boy's native village, West Alvington, in Devon. The elder naturalist fostered the nascent pas- sion of his young and humble imitator, and the trade of sailmaking brought Cuming, whilst still a boy, into contact with sailors. The benevolent and Nature-loving Colonel told the youngster some of the fairy tales of science ; the tars spun yarns for him about the marvels of foreign parts. A few, and very few, years of work at his trade at home were followed by a voyage to South America. At Valpa- raiso he resumed his handicraft, but only as a step (by aid of frugality and foresight) towards saving enough of money to enable him to devote his whole being to conchology and to botany. Seven years of work under this inspiring ambition, seem to have enabled the man of five-and-thirty to retire from business, and to build himself a yacht. But his was to be no lounging yachtman's life ; it was rather to resemble the life of an A.B. before the mast. The year 1827 was spent in toiling and dredging, to good purpose, amongst the islands of the South Pacific. When he re- v. y. OTHER BENEFACTORS OP RECENT DAYS. 693 turned to Valparaiso, the retired sailmaker found that he book in, had won fame, as well as many precious rarities in concho- otheh logy and botany. The Chilian Government gave him j™^ " special privileges and useful credentials. He then devoted RECENT two years to the thorough exploration of the coasts extend- . ing from Chiloe to the Gulf of Conchagua. He botanized Aae ^ m ° & 0fl865; in plains, marshes and woods ; he turned over shingle, and setumpre- explored the crannies of the cliffs, with the patient endur- TJtmment, ance of a Californian gold-digger, and was much happier in his companions. In 1831, he returned to England, with a modest ,but assured livelihood, and with inexhaustible treasures in shells and plants, of which multitudes were theretofore unseen and unknown in Europe. The year 1831 was a happy epoch for a conchologist. The ' Zoological Society had just gained a firm footing. Broderip and Sowerby were ready to exhibit and to describe the rich shells of the Pacific. Richard Owen was eager to anatomize the molluscs, and to write their bio- graphy. Some of the novelties brought over by Cuming in 1831 were still yielding new information thirty years afterwards ; probably are yielding it still. In 1835, Mr. Cuming returned to America. He devoted four years to an exhaustive survey of the natural history — more especially, but far from exclusively, the conchology and the botany — of the Philippine group of islands, of Malacca, Singapore, and St. Helena. Cuming was fitted for his work not more by his scientific ardour and his patient toil-bearing, than by his amiable character. He loved children. His manner was so attrac- tive to them that in some places to which he travelled a schoolful of children were extemporised into botanic mis- sionaries. The joyous band would turn out for a holiday, and would spend the whole of it in searching for the plants, 694 LATER AUGMENTOKS AND BENEFACTOKS. Book III, Chap. VI. Other Benefac- tors op Recent Dak a. R. Owen, On a National Museum of Natural His- tory, pp. 53, seqq. Comp. Athe- tixum as above, and the Museum returns of 1865 and subsequent years. the shells, and the insects, with the general forms and appearances of whieh the promoter and rewarder of their voluntary labours had previously familiarised them. He returned to England with such a collection of shells as no previous investigator had brought home ; and with about one hundred and thirty thousand specimens of dried plants, besides many curious specimens in other departments. His collections had been a London marvel before he set out on his third voyage of discovery. He then possessed, I believe, almost sixteen thousand species, and they were regarded as a near approximation to a perfect collection, according to the knowledge of the time. If the writer of the able notice of him which the Athenaum published immediately after his death was rightly informed, Cuming nearly doubled that number by the results of his final voyage, and by those of subsequent purchases made in Europe. Very naturally, strenuous efforts were made to ensure the perpetuity of this noble collection during its owner's lifetime. The history of those efforts still deserves to be told, and for more than one reason. But it cannot be told here. This inadequate notice of a most estimable man must close with the few words which, three years ago, closed Professor Owen's annual Beport on the Progress of the Zoological Portion of the British Museum. ' The disco- veries and labours of Mr. Hugh Cuming/ he then wrote, ' do honour to his country ; the fruition of them by Natu- ralists of all countries now depends mainly on the acquisi- tion of the space required for the due arrangement, exhi- bition — facility of access and comparison — of the rarities which the Nation has acquired.' And then he adds a small individual instance, as a passing illustration of the value of Mr. Cuming's lifelong pursuit — 'Among the choicer rari- ties, . . , brought from the Philippines in 1 840, was a specimen OTHER BENEFACTOES OF RECENT DAYS. 695 of siliceous sponge (described and figured in the Transac- bookiii, tions of the Zoological Society), known as Eupleciella Asper- otheh gillum.' Up to the date of Mr. Cuming's death (tenth fo^o* ' August, 1865), this specimen — of what, for non-zoological ^1™!™ readers, may be likened to a sort of coral of rare beauty — Transactions, brought over in 1840, was unique. In the year next after p ^™ 1 ' 1 ' 1 ' the discoverer's death, many fine and curious specimens were sent from the Philippines. The solitary explorer of 1839 had at length been followed by a school of explorers. Such men as Cuming live after their death, and hence the marvellous increase, within a very few years, in our know- ledge of Nature, and of God's bounty to the world he made. By a man who did but little in literature, although he j. &. possessed attainments which, in some respects, seem to and mis h-t ,\ n 1 111 COLLECTION ave surpassed those or a good many men whose lucubra- MIH b tions have had much publicity and vogue, a valuable addi- poctsTkd tion was made a few years ago, by bequest, to the Museum DaAMATISTS - Library, both in the printed and manuscript departments. Mr. John Rutter Chorley had collected about two hundred witt °f Mr. Rutter volumes of the Spanish poetry and drama, and had enriched cuoriey.im. them with manuscript notes, bibliographical and critical. He had also prepared chronological tables of the drama- tists — writing them in Spanish, of which he was a master — - together, with an account of their respective works. He had, I think, contemplated, at some future time, the prepa- ration of some such book on the Spanish theatre as that published by Mr. Ticknor, many years ago, on Spanish literature at large. Whether the appearance of Ticknor's valuable book deterred Mr. Chorley from prosecuting his purpose, I know not. Probably he was one of the many men the very extent of whose knowledge inspires a fasti- diousness which prompts them to keep on increasing their 696 LATEE ATJGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. book in, private store, and to defer, almost until death overtakes otheu them, the drawing from that store for the Public. If there to™ot° ma J really, by some dim possibility, have been here and rkbnt there an inglorious Hampden, or a mute Shakespeare, it is very certain that there have been, in literary history and in like departments of human study, many an unknown Disraeli, many a Tom Warton, brimful of knowledge about poets and poetry, who never could have lived long enough to put to public use the materials he had labo- riously brought together. George Witt and TIONS ILLUS- TRATIVE OV THE History of tions Of another Collector, whose pursuits lay at an opposite his collec- pole to those of Mr. Chorley, it would not be edifying to say very much in these pages. Some among the collections illustrative of the history of obscure superstitions (to quote supkrsti- the polite euphuism of one of the Museum Returns to Parliament) partake, in a degree, of the peculiar associations which connect themselves with the bare name of a place at which some few of them were really found — that too famous retreat of the Emperor Tiberius. Others of them, how- ever, possess a real archaeological value from a different point of view. All, no doubt, are characteristically illustrative, more or less, of the doings ' in the dark places of the earth,' and may point a moral, howsoever little fitted to adorn a tale. Mr. George Witt, P.R.S., the collector of these curiosi- ties of human error, was a surgeon who had lived much in Australia, and who, on his return from the Colonies, had retired to a provincial town in England, where, at first, he amused hi3 leisure by gathering a small museum of natural history. Of that collection I remember to have seen a printed catalogue, but I imagine that he sold it in his life- time, as no part of his objects of natural history came, with his other and much more eccentric museum, to the aug- BENE* AC- TORS OF Recent Days. USEXJM. AND IT3 toundkr's OTHER BENEFACTORS OF EECENT DAYS. 697 mentation of the public stores. Towards the close of his Bocmiir, life he lived in London, and used to amuse himself by 0™ exhibiting, and by lecturing upon, what he regarded as the more racy portion of his later collections. He chose (I am told) the hour of eleven o'clock on Sunday morning for such peculiar expositions, but I do not think that these ' Sunday Lectures ' were regarded, either by the man who gave them or by his auditors, as especially fitted for ' the in- struction of the working classes.' Of a very different calibre to Mr. George Witt was the t»« donor of the noble Museum of Ethnography which, for m -want of room at Bloomsbury, still occupies the late donor's dwelling-house, almost two miles off. It is not too much HIST0KY to say of Henry Christy, that he was both an illustrious man of science and an eminent Christian. The man whose fame as a searcher into antiquity is spread alike over Europe and America, is also remembered in many Irish cabins as one who was willing to spend, lavishly, his health and strength, as well as his money, in lifting up, from squalid beds of straw and filth, poor creatures stricken at once with famine and with fever, and so stricken as sometimes to have almost lost the semblance of humanity. He is also remem- bered by Algerian peasants, by West African negroes, and by Canadian Indians for like deeds of beneficence. When Prussian insolence and Prussian barbarity struck down Danes who were defending hearth and home, Christy was again the open-handed benefactor of the oppressed. When Turks were, in like manner, beating down by sheer brute force the Druses of Syria, Henry Christy was relieving the distressed and the down-trodden in the East, with no less liberality than he had evinced a little while before in reliev- ing them in the North of Europe. Eenkfac- TOHS OV Recent Days. 698 LATEB AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. chaTvL The time wmcn works of good-samaritanism such as othee these left unoccupied was given to a vast series — or rather to a succession of series : — of explorations which have had already a noble result, and which will yield more and more fruit for many a year to come. The scene of them embraced Mexico, the United States, British America, Denmark, and several Departments of Southern and Western France. Their period ' reached from 1860 — when he had just entered the fiftieth year, of his age — almost to the day of his lamented and sudden death in the May of 1865. His able and beloved friend and fellow- worker Lartet was with him in the Allier, when the fatal illness struck him, at the age of fifty-four. It will be pardoned me, I trust, if in this connection I quote, once again, those thoughtful words, out of the private note-book of Lord Bacon, which I ap- plied in a former chapter to another and more recent public loss — ' Princes, when men deserve crowns for their performances, do not crown them below, where the deeds are performed, but call them up. So doth God, by death.' ciiakactee The little that need here be added as to the nature and extent of Mr. Christy's gift to the Public, will be best said in the words of the present able Curator of the Col- lection, Mr. A. W. Franks. But it should be first pre- mised that the posthumous gift was only the continuation of a long series of gifts, which embraced the Museums, not of England alone, but those of Northern and of Southern Europe, and (as I think) some of those of America : — Among the most important contents of the Christy Museum is a collection of stone implements from the Drift. Nomn rpjjgy are ^g mos t anc ient remains of human industry hitherto discovered; they include a remarkably fine series from St. Acheul, near Amiens. Antiquities found in the OJT THE Christy Museum. Ancient Europe and part OK OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. 699 Caves of Dordogne, were excavated by Mr. Christy and M. book in, Chap. VI. Lartet, at the expense of the former. This collection is otheb. . . l-iT i r> l ■ Benefac- very extensive, and includes a number ot drawings on rem- TOKS or. deer bone and horn, probably some of the most ancient works ^™ KT of art that have been preserved. It would have been still more extensive, had it not been known that Mr. Christy Franks- intended to present the unique specimens to the French ctZty" Museum, an intention which the Trustees under his Will have ^,"" d M ™ a) . felt bound to fulfil. The Museum includes many ancient stone implements found on the surface, in England and Ireland, Prance, Belgium, and Denmark. The last of these is a remarkable collection, and includes a good series from the Danish Kitchenmiddens. A few specimens from Italy are also to be found ; a valuable collection from the caves at Gibraltar; and specimens from the Swiss Lakes. For con- venience, a case of ancient stone implements from Asia has been placed in this room, as well as the more modern implements,, dresses, and weapons of the Esquimaux of America and Asia, and of the maritime tribes of the North- West Coast of America. These furnish striking illustrations of the remains found in the Caves of Dordogne, and prove that, while the climate was similar to that of the northern countries in question, the inhabitants of that part of France must have resembled the Esquimaux in their habits and implements. The African Collection is very extensive, and supplies a afeicaakd lacuna in the collections of the British Museum, where there are few objects from this continent. The same may be said of the series from the Asiatic Islands. The collec- tion from Asia proper is not very numerous ; the races now occupying that continent being generally in a more advanced state of civilization than that which especially interested Mr. Christy. Attention should, however, be 700 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, called to two valuable relics from China: an Imperial State Chap. VI. c ..... . f otuek feeal carved, in jade, and a set of tablets of the same mate- tois IT' rial. on which has been engraved a poem by the Emperor tax KIEN-LUNG. Dais. melamsia The Polynesian Room contains a valuable collection of nksiI 017 ' wea P ons > ornaments, and dresses, both from the islands inhabited by the black races of the Pacific, and from those of Polynesia proper. Many of the specimens are of inte- rest, as belonging to a state of culture which has now completely changed, and as illustrating manners and cus- toms that have disappeared before the commerce and the teaching of Europeans. AsIA In the ' Asian Room ' are placed the larger objects from the Pacific, such as spears, clubs, and paddles. The col- lection of spears is very large and interesting. The Australian Collection is very complete, and it would not be easy to replace it, inasmuch as the native races are dwindling in most parts of that continent. The American department in chief includes antiquities and recent implements and dresses from the North Ameri- can Indians ; ancient Carib implements ; and recent collec- tions from British Guiana, and other parts of South Ame- rica. The most valuable part of the contents of this room is the collection of Mexican antiquities, which is not only extensive, but includes some specimens of great rarity. Among them should be especially mentioned the follow- ing . — An axe of Avanturine jade, carved into the form of a human figure ; a remarkable knife of white chalcedony ; a sacrificial collar formed of a hard green stone ; a squat- ting figure, of good execution, sculptured out of a volcanic rock ; and three remarkable specimens coated with polished stones. The latter consist of a wooden mask covered with a mosaic of blue stones, presumed to be turquoises, but Australia AND FAKT of North America. North and South America. Report, OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. 701 more probably a rare form of amazon-stone ; a human skull bookiii, made into a mask, and coated with obsidian and the blue on™ stone mentioned above ; and a knife with a blade of flint, T0 ™ E ot° and with a wooden handle, sculptured to represent a ^™™ T Mexican divinity, and encrusted with obsidian, coral, malachite, and other precious materials. There is also a Franks' small but choice collection of Peruvian pottery. A catalogue of the collection was privately printed by Mr. Christy in 1862; but it embraces only a small part of the present collection. A more extended catalogue is in preparation. It is due to accuracy to add that the aspect of the rooms devoted to the Christy Museum in Victoria Street, and the facilities of study which they afford, are utterly unsatis- factory to real students. They are adapted only to holiday sightseers, who look and go, and but to very small groups, indeed, even of them. Every praise is due both to the Trustees and to their officer, for having done their best, under strait and lament- able limitations, -the removal of which is the duty of Par- liament and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not that of the Trustees. Under the Premiership of such an emi- nent scholar and writer as Mr. Gladstone, humbler stu- dents of history and of literature would fain hope that a long-standing reproach will speedily be removed ; but his ministerial surroundings are unfriendly to such anticipa- tions. After words which we have recently heard, from the Treasury Bench itself, about Public Parks, there is only scanty ground for hope that much improvement can, under existing circumstances, be looked for in respect to Public Museums. At all events, the condition, as to space, of the Christy Museum in Victoria Street, no less than the condition, in 702 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, that respect, of portions of the general Museum of Antiqui- othek ' ties at Bloomsbury itself — and of nearly all our splendid national collections in Natural History — gives tenfold im- portance to that question of speedy enlargement or efficient the state reconstruction which it will be my duty rather to state, of the ^an j- di scuss m t^ nex t chapter. It will be my earnest Chbisty 3 r J collection aim to state it with impartiality, and, for the most part, in in us better words than ray own. Benepac TOES OP Recent Dats. BKAKINGS UPON THE vjestionop Next iii importance — but next at a long interval — to Museum x ° keoon- the accessions which the Nation owes to the munificence of STBUCTION. Henry Christy, comes the bequest of Mr. James Wood- The AKCHjE- , . ologioal house, of Corfu, the circumstances attendant upon which BEQUEST , 1 • 1 •, or james nave much singularity. op°cokp°u! se ' It i s on ly of late years (speaking comparatively) that British Consuls have become at all notable as collectors of antiquities. But when once the new fashion was set, it spread rapidly, and it may now be hoped that there will be as little lack of continuance as of speed. In Chapter V, I had to mention (though very inadequately to the worth of their labours) several Consuls in the Levant, who have eminently distinguished themselves in augmenting our National Museum. But in this chapter the reader must be introduced to a Consul who rather obstructed than pro- moted a worthy public object. James Woodhouse was a British subject engaged in commerce, who had resided for many years at Corfu (where for a time he had filled the office of Government Secretary), and who consoled his self-imposed exile by collecting a cabinet of coins, which eventually became, one of great value, and also an extensive museum of miscellaneous, but chiefly of Greek, antiquities. Repeatedly, during his life- time, he announced his desire and purpose to perpetuate TOES OF Recent Days. The cie- cumstakces OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. 703 his collection by giving it to the British Museum. When book in, Chan VI. his health failed, he began to superintend in person the oihek packing up of the most valuable portions of his museum ; but illness grew upon him, and he was forced to leave off his preparations abruptly. A delicate circumstance connected with his family circle seems to have combined with this regretted interruption, by increasing illness, of his precautionary measures and intentions (the secure fulfilling of which lay near his heart), to make him uneasy and anxious. He sent for a legal friend, Dr. Zambelli ; told him of his plans, and also of o«m his fears that they might be — in the event of his sudden behest. death, and he felt that death was fast coming — obstructed. Zambelli told him that the person to whom his purpose and wishes ought to be communicated, without delay, was undoubtedly the British Consul- General, Mr. Saunders. In joint communication with both of them, a deed of gift was prepared. 'Having been engaged,' said the donor, ' in numismatic pursuits, .... and being desirous that the Collection of Coins and other Antiquities so formed by me, should be dedicated to national purposes, I give,' and so on. No inventory, however, had been made when the donor died, on the twenty-sixth of February, 1866. Before Woodhouse's death, Mr. Consul- General Saunders put a guard round the house ; and, immediately after the event, sent away all the household, taking official possession of the whole of the effects, in the manner usual in cases of undoubted intestacy.* He then, according to his own state- ment, set about ' selecting such portions ' of Mr. Wood- * This, I think, has been clearly shown by the correspondence laid before Parliament. The reader is referred to the papers of the session of 1867, entitled Correspondence as to the Woodhouse Collection of Anti- quities, printed by order of Lord Derby, as Foreign Secretary. 704 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, house's property as 'seemed' (to him and to a clerical othek ' friend of the collector) ' suitable for the British Museum. 5 to™ s E ot C Most naturally, when the intelligence came to the Museum, recent ft was thought by the Trustees that Mr. Saunders had both very seriously exceeded, and very gravely fallen short of, his obvious official duty. ' Selection ' was felt to have been superfluous in respect to any and every item, of every kind, belonging to the donor's museum. Just as plainly, -the instant forwarding of the whole, on the other hand, was a peremptory obligation upon the British Consul. Eventually (and by the zealous exertions of Sir A. Panizzi and of Mr. Charles Newton, respectively, on behalf of the Trustees) conclusive evidence was placed before Lord Stanley (the now Earl of Derby, and then, it will be remembered, Foreign Secretary of State) that . Mr. Consul- General Saunders had divided the Woodhouse antiquities into two portions, and had then proceeded to allot the smaller portion to the British Museum, and the larger to the ' heirs-at-law ' of the deceased. Nor is it yet quite certain that such division was all the division that occurred. After long inquiries and much correspondence — as well between the Foreign Office and the Queen's Advocate, as between the Trustees and their officers on the one hand, and various persons at Corfu, including, of course, the Consul- General himself, on the other — Lord Stanley touched the point of the affair with characteristic keenness when he wrote, in his despatch to Mr. Saunders of the seventh of January, 1867 : ' Your neglect to make an Inventory of the effects of the deceased has been the main cause of the doubts which have been felt as to the propriety of .your conduct in this matter, and of the inquiry which has been the conse- quence of those doubts.' But that neglect was then incurable. And, subsequently OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. 705 to the despatch thus worded, further inquiry has but made book in, the omission more regrettable. The making of the In- oimJ 1 ventory had been pressed on Mr. Saunders' attention at Benoao - «/ A TOES OF the time of the Collector's death. eeceht Hays. That part of the Woodhouse Museum which came to Newton; m L Returns to England in 1866 included a very interesting Collection of rariiammt, Greek Coins, chiefly from Corcyra, Western Greece, and i866. the Greek islands ; an extensive series of rings and other personal ornaments ; some ancient glass ; a few medallions ; a few sculptures, in marble, of doubtful antiquity; and last, but far indeed from being least acceptable, a most beautiful head of Athene in cameo, cut on a sardonyx. It was thought by the antiquary Vischer — who saw this fine cameo about the year 1854 — that it represents the head of Phidias' famous statue in gold and ivory, and therefore had a common origin with the jasper intaglio so often praised by archaeologists who have seen the Imperial Cabinet at "*' BAlr *s<> J ° ■*■ aus Gnechen- Vienna. i**d, v .z. Some of my readers will remember that although war, LoKD Napieb oit and the calamities which commonly accompany it, have magdala, often devastated museums and libraries, it has occasionally enriched them. Sometimes by sheer plunder, as under Catharine of Russia and the marshals of her predatory armies. Sometimes by acts of genuine beneficence and ahdmss. i public spirit, as in Ireland under Blount (afterwards Earl isor-s™" of Devonshire) ; and, again, under the great Protector. Lord Napier adds his honoured name to the small category of the soldiers who have justifiably turned victorious arms to the profit of learning, and the enrichment of honestly built- up national collections. I cannot, however, but regard as utterly unworthy of the British arms and name certain 45 Vischer, Archaeologi- AND THE ADDITIONS TO THE Museum of THE Antiquities 706 LATER AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book hi, acquisitions which were incidental to that campaign. ' Mr. othek Holmes, the officer attached to the Abyssinian Expedition TmslT by the Trustees of the British Museum ' — I quote exactly d!ys. KT an< ^ literally from the ' Accounts and Estimates ' of last year (1869) — 'collected . . . among other objects, a silver chalice and a paten bearing iEthiopic inscriptions, showing them to have been given to various churches by King Theodore.' the col- I am certain to be uncontradicted when I assert, that oTsacba- neither the Trustees of the British Museum, nor Lord plIte 1 ™ Napier of Magdala, instructed Mr. Holmes to take from abissisia. Christian churches in Abyssinia their sacramental plate, or their processional crosses. It is a far pleasanter task to praise the diligence with which Mr. Holmes executed the Commission really given him by the Trustees. He collected many specimens of Abyssinian art and industry which were fit contributions to the col-' the National Museum. In like manner, Lord Napier AsissiHiAif authorised the collection, partly by officers under his com- mand, and partly by the researches of Mr. Holmes, of a series of Abyssinian Manuscripts, extending to three hun- dred and thirty-nine volumes. These were given to the Museum by the then Secretary of State for India. the slade In the same year with the Abyssinian spoils, came a noble addition to the Art Collections of the Museum by the bequest of the late Felix Slade, and a rich addition to the Library, by the purchase of the Japanese books collected by the late Dr. Von Siebold, during the later of his two visits to Japan, a country which he so largely contributed to make well known to the rest of the world. "Felix Slade was the younger son of Robert Slade, in his day a well-known Proctor in Doctors' Commons. Mr. William Slade, elder brother of Felix, had inherited the OTHER BENEFACTORS OF EECENT DAYS. 707 valuable estate of Halsteads in Lonsdale (Yorkshire), under book m, Chan VI the will of the last male-heir of that family, and on his early othee death he was succeeded by his brother, the benefactor. J™ " Truly a ' benefactor.' To purposes of public charity he ^ MT bequeathed not less than seven thousand pounds, and bequeathed that sum with wise forethought, and with Christian generality of view. He founded and munificently endowed Professorships of Art at each of the ancient Uni- versities, and at University College in London. To the British Museum he gave the splendid bequest about to be described, which had been selected with exquisite taste, knowledge and judgment, and which, under such rare con- ditions of purchase, had cost him more than twenty-five thousand pounds. I describe it in the precise words — chiefly from the pen of one of his Executors — which are used in the Return to Parliament of 1869 : — ' The collection of glass the slade and other antiquities bequeathed to the Nation by the late an™*^- Pelix Slade, Esq., f.s.a,, includes about nine hundred and ™- fifty specimens of ancient glass, selected with care, so as to represent most of the phases through which the art of glass- working has passed. Collected in the first instance with a view to artistic beauty alone, the series has been since gra- dually enriched with historical specimens, as well as with curiosities of manufacture, so as to illustrate the history of glass in all its branches. ' Of early Egyptian glass there are not many examples in the collection ; one of some interest is a case for holding the stibium, used by the Egyptian ladies for the eye, and which is in the form of a papyrus sceptre. The later pro- ductions of Egypt are represented by some very minute specimens of mosaic glass, formed of slender filaments of various colours fused together, and cut into transverse sections. 708 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book m. ' To the Phoenicians have been attributed the making of othkb many little vases of peculiar form and ornamentation that J™"' are met with, not unfrequently, in tombs on the shores of recemt t ij e Mediterranean. They are of brilliant colours, with zig- zag decoration, and exhibit the same technical peculiarities, so that they must have been derived from one centre of fabrication. Of these vases there is a considerable series, showing most of the varieties of form and colour that are known. ' The collection is especially rich in vessels moulded into singular shapes, found principally in Syria and the neigh- bouring islands, and which were probably produced in the workshops of Sidon, but at a later time ; possibly as late as the Roman dominion. The Museum Collections were pre- viously very ill provided with such specimens. To the same date must belong a vase handle, stamped with the name of Artas the Sidonian, in Greek and Latin cha- racters. ' Of Roman glass there is a great variety, as might be expected from the skill shown in glass-making during the Imperial times of Rome. Large vases were not especially sought after by Mr. Slade, but two fine cinerary urns may A.w.Fi!mks, be noticed, remarkable not only for their form, but for the smT beautiful iridescent colours with which time has clothed a* 'Si? them. There is also a very fine amber-coloured ewer, with mentary bj ue filaments round the neck, which was found in the Returns of - . . ... 1809. Greek Archipelago ; an elegant jug or bottle with diagonal fiutings, found at Barnwell, near Cambridge, and a brown bottle, splashed with opaque white, from Germany. Of cut glass, an art which it was formerly denied that the Romans possessed, there are good examples; such, for instance, is a boat-shaped vase of deep emerald hue, and of the same make apparently as the Sacro Catino of Genoa ; a Benefac- tors oe Recent Days. OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. 709 bowl cut into facets, found near Merseburg, in Germany ; book hi, and a cup, similarly decorated, found near Cambridge. ™ee The last two specimens are of a brilliant clear white, imi- tating rock crystal, a variety of glass much esteemed by the Romans. Several vessels found in Germany are remarkable for having patterns in coloured glass, trailed as it were over the surface. There are two very fine bowls of millefiori glass, one of them with patches of gold, and very numerous polished fragments illustrating the great variety and taste shown by the ancients in such vessels. Two vases exhibit designs in intaglio ; one of them, a subject with figures ; the other, a bowl found near Merseburg, exhibits the story of Diana and. Actaeon ; the goddess is kneeling at a pool of water in a grotto ; Actseon is looking on, and a reflection of his head with sprouting horns may be distinguished in the water at the goddess's feet ; to prevent any mistake, the names of the personages, in Greek, are added. This bowl may be of a late date, probably early Byzantine. Of vases decorated in cameo, fragments alone are to be found in the collection ; but as only four entire vases are known, this is not surprising. One of the fragments seems to be part of a large panel which has represented buildings, &c, and has on it remains of a Greek inscription. There are several glass cameos and intaglios, the representatives of original gems that have long since been lost; one of the cameos is a head of Augustus ; another represents an Egyptian prin- cess; whilst among the intaglios are several of great excellence ; of these should particularly be noticed a blue paste representing Achilles wounded in the heel, and crouch- ing down behind his rich shield, a gem worthy of the best period of Greek art. One of the rarest specimens in the collection is a circular medallion of glass, on which is painted a gryphon ; the colours appear to be burnt in, and BENEFAC- TORS OP .Recent Days. 710 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, it is therefore a genuine specimen of ancient painting otheb on glass, of which but three other instances are known. ' In the fourth and fifth century it was the habit to orna- ment the bottoms of bowls and cups with designs in gold, either fixed to the surface or enclosed between two layers of glass. These specimens have generally been found in the Catacombs of Rome ; but two or three have been found at Cologne, one of which is in the collection. It is the re- mains of a disc of considerable size, with a central design, now destroyed; around are eight compartments, with sub- jects from the Old and New Testaments : Moses striking the Rock, the History of Jonah, Daniel in the Lions' Den, the Fiery Furnace, the Sacrifice of Isaac, the Nativity, and the Paralytic Man ; of these, the Nativity is a very rare representation. ' Of glass of a Teutonic origin there is but one specimen in the collection, a tumbler of peculiar form, from a cemetery at Selzen, in Rhenish Hesse. Like other glasses of the time, it is so made that it cannot be put down until it has been emptied, and thus testifies to the convivial habits of the Teutons. ' Of early Byzantine glass but little is known ; the bowl with Diana and Actaeon, already noticed, is very probably of that period ; and a Byzantine cameo with the head of Christ should be mentioned. ' Of glass of the middle ages, from the West of Europe, but little or nothing has been preserved save the exquisite painted glass in cathedrals and churches. Of the Eastern glass of the same period several specimens are in the col- lection. Among these is a very beautiful bottle, probably of the thirteenth century, decorated with a minute pattern of birds ; a lamp of large size, made in Syria to hang in a mosque, bears the name of Sheikhoo, a man of great wealth OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAYS. 711 and importance in Egypt and Syria, who died in 1356, after bookiii, building a mosque at Cairo. oimm \ ' To a later period of the Eastern glass works may be T o™ot°* referred an ewer of a sapphire blue, resplendent with gold p"™ NT arabesques, and several other richly decorated pieces, all made in Persia. ' Venice for many centuries held the foremost place among the makers of glass. Enriched, to begin with, by her very extensive trade in beads, she received gladly the Byzantine workers in glass, who had been driven out of Constantinople by the Turks. Henceforward the variety of her glass wares increased, and must have brought much profit. The earliest glass vases which can with certainty be referred to Venice are of the fifteenth century ; of these, a large covered cup with gilt ribs is remarkable for its early date and size. The two finest specimens are, however, two goblets richly ena- meled ; one of them is blue, with a triumph of Venus ; the other green, with two portraits. These were the choicest specimens in the Debruge and Soltykoff Collections suc- cessively, and were obtained by Mr. Slade, for upwards of four hundred pounds, at the sale of the latter collection. Among other enameled specimens may be noticed three shallow bowls, or dishes, with heraldic devices : one has the arms of Pope Leo X, 1513-1521 ; another those of Leo- nardo Loredano, Doge of Venice, 1501-1521 ; and the third the arms of Fabrizio Caretto, Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, 1513-1521. ' The blown glasses of Venice are numerous and well selected, exhibiting great beauty of outline and variety of design. Among them should be especially remarked, a very tall covered cup, surmounted with a winged serpent, from the Bernal Collection ; and two drinking glasses, with ena- meled flowers forming the stems. 712 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. Book III. Chap. VI. Beneeac tors or Recent Dais. ' The coloured vases display most of the hues made at othee Venice ; ruby, purple, green, and blue, as well as an opales- cent white and an opaque white, the latter often diversified with splashes of other colours. To these may be added ' various imitations of agate, avanturine, &c. Another pecu- Ibove S,aa liar fabric of Venice is we U illustrated, the frosted glass belonging generally to an early period. ' In the production of millefiori glass the Venetians did not equal the ancients, either in harmony of colour or variety of design. The rosettes were formed of sections of canes, such as were employed in making beads. The specimens of this glass are rare, but there are not less than seven pieces so ornamented in the collection. * Of lace glass, one of the most remarkable productions of Venice, and which nowhere has been carried to such per- fection, there are many fine specimens, both in form and delicacy of pattern, as there are likewise of the variety called reticelle. Among the latter is a tall covered cup with snakes on the cover and itf the stem ; there should also be noticed a drinking glass, in the stem of which is enclosed a half sequin of the Doge Erancesco Molino, 1647. ' Of unquestionably ancient French glass but few speci- mens are known. This adds much to the value of a goblet in the collection, with enameled portrait of Jehan Boucau and his wife Antoinette, made about 1530. ' German glass is fully represented : the earlier specimens are richly decorated with enamel, chiefly heraldic devices ; they are dated 1571, 1572, &c. A few are painted like window glass, and among them .is a cylindrical cup, dated 1662, on which is depicted the procession at the christening of Maximilian Emmanuel, afterwards Elector of Bavaria. The later German specimens are engraved, and some of them by artists of note. Of ruby glass, another production OTHER BENEFACTORS OF RECENT DAIS. 713 for which Germany was famed, there are good specimens; bookiii one bears the cypher of John George IV, Elector of ^ m Saxony, another that of Frederick the First. Kunckel, ^„"' to whom these glasses are attributed, was successively in Ei!CI:NT the service of both princes. ' Though glass was early made in Flanders, the most ancient specimens in the collection under this head have been regarded as Venetian glasses decorated in the Low Countries. If made at Venice, they must, from certain peculiarities of form, have been designed for the Flemish and Dutch markets. The ornaments are etched, and con- tain allusions to the political events of the country : for instance, the arms of the seventeen provinces chained to those of Spain, and dated 1655 ; a portrait of Philip IV; William II of Orange; his wife, Mary op England; Olden Barneveldt, &c. Some of the later specimens are engraved on the lathe in a very ornamental manner, and others delicately stippled. One of the! latter bears the name of F. Greenwood, and others are attributed to Wolf. ' In English glass the collection is not rich, the difficulty of identifying such specimens being very great; some of them are referred to the works at Bristol, which produced ornamental glass about a century ago. ' Some valuable additions to the collection of glass have been received from the Executors of Mr. Slade, purchased by them out of funds set aside for the purpose. They are nineteen in number, and among them may be especially noticed a very fine Oriental bottle with elaborate patterns in gold and enamel, together with figures of huntsmen, &c. It may be referred to the fourteenth century, and was formerly in the possession of a noble family at Wurzburg. Two specimens of Chinese glass, dated in the reign of the Em- 714 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Boonin, peror Kien-Lung, 1736-1796 ; and several ancient Flemish othbe and Dutch glasses. Bknetac- TOBS OF Recent Dais. Franks, as above. ' By the acquisition of the Slade Collection the series of ancient and more recent glass in the British Museum has probably become more extensive, as well as more instruc- tive, than any other public collection of the kind, and it will afford ample materials for study both to the artist and the antiquary. ' In addition to his collection of glass, Mr. Slade has bequeathed to the Museum a small series of carvings in ivory and metal work, from Japan, which are full of the humour and quaintness which characterise the art of that country. ' He has likewise bequeathed to the Museum such of the miscellaneous works of art in his possession as should be selected by one of his Executors, Mr. Franks. The objects so selected are not numerous, but include some valuable additions to the National Collection. 'Among them may be noticed the following : — Two very beautiful Greek painted vases, cenochoae with red figures of a fine style ; these were two of the gems of the Durand and Hope Collections successively ; also a fine tazza, with red figures very well drawn, formerly in the Rogers Collection. Two red bowls of the so-called Samian ware, with orna- ments in relief; one of them was discovered near Capua, the other is believed to have been found in Germany ; an antique hand, in rock crystal, of which a drawing by Santo Bartoli is preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor, and a small Roman vase of onyx ; a panel, probably from a book cover, a fine example of German enamel of the twelfth century, from the Preaux Collection ; a very fine flask- shaped vase of Italian majolica, probably of Urbino ware, and representing battle scenes ; three elegant ewers, one of OTHEE BENEFACTOES OP RECENT DAYS. 715 them made at Nevers, another of Avignon ware, and the book m, third probably Venetian — all three are rare specimens ; an othek oval plate of niello work on silver, and a silver plate en- T ™slt c ~ graved in the style of Crispin de Passe ; three early speci- ^™ HT mens of stamped leather work, commonly termed cuir- bouilli; a tile from the Alhambra, but probably belonging Franks, as to the restorations made to that building in the sixteenth century. ' The value of Mr. Slade's bequest is considerably increased by a very detailed and profusely illustrated catalogue of the Collection which, having been prepared during his lifetime, will be completed and distributed, according to his directions. ' Since the Cracherode bequest, which formed the nucleus of the British Museum Print Collections, no acquisition of the kind approaches the bequest of Mr. Slade in rare and choice specimens of etchings and engravings, wherein nearly every artist of distinction is represented. The collection comprises rare specimens of impressions from Nielli and prints of the School of Baldini ; fine examples of some of the best productions of Andrea Mantegna, Zoan Andrea Vavassori, Girolamo Mocetto, Giovanni Battista del Porto, Jean Duvet, Marc Antonio, with his scholars and followers, the master of the year 1466 j Martin Schongauer, Israel van Meckenen, Albert Diirer, Lucas van Leyden, Hans Burgmair, Lucas Cranach, Ma- theus Zazinger, the Behams, Rembrandt, Vandyck, Adrian Ostade, Paul Potter, Karl du Jardin, Jan Both, N. Berghem, Agostino Caracci, Wenceslaus Hollar, Cornelius Visscher, Crispin and Simon de Passe, S. a Bolswert, Houbraken, G.w.xeia, L. Vorsterman, Jacques Callot, Claude Mellan, Nanteuil, George Wille, Faithorne, Hogarth, L. A. B. Desnoyers, F. Forster, Sir R. Strange, William Woollett, Porporati, in Parlia- mentary Heturns of 1869. Benefac TORS OF Recemt Days. 1NG IN THE BLADE C LECTION 716 LATER ATJGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book m, Pefetti, Pietro Anderloni, Raphael Morghen, Giuseppe othek Longhi, Garavaglio, and others. There are also some rare English portraits and book -illustrations. 'The specimens of binding from the Slade Collection thesbeci- ( now placed in the Printed Book Department), continues mens or the Report of 1S69, are twenty-three in number, chiefly of PRINTING * 'J ' J and bind- foreign execution, and afford examples of the style of 1NG IN THE -p. _ ...., slade col- Jtadelotjp, Dussecul, Derome, and other eminent binders. One of the volumes, an edition of Paulus JEmylius, Be gestis Francorum (Paris, 1555, 8vo), is a -beautiful speci- men of the French style of the period, with the sides and back richly ornamented in the Grolier manner. An Italian translation of the works of Horace (Venice, 1581, 4to), is of French execution, richly tooled, and bears the arms of Henry III of Prance. A folio volume of the Reformation der Stadt Nurnberg (Frankfort, 1566), which is a magnifi- cent specimen of contemporary German binding, formerly belonged to the.Emperor Maximilian the Second, whose arms are painted on the elegantly goffered gilt edges. An edition of Ptolemy's Geographies Narrationis libri octo (Lyons, 1541, fol.) affords a fine illustration of the Italian style of about that date. The copy of a French translation of Xenophon's Cyropcedia, by Jacques de Vintemille (Paris, 1547, 4to), appears to have been bound for King Edward VI, of England, whose arms and cypher are on the sides, while the rose is five times worked in gold on x. watts, the back. A volume of Bishop Hall's Contemplations on the Old Testament (London, 1626, 8vo), in olive morocco contemporary English binding, has the Royal arms in the centre of the sides, and appears to have been the dedication copy of King Charles the First.' It is proposed, con- cludes the Report, to exhibit some of the most beautiful specimens comprised in Mr. Slade's valuable donation, in one of the select cases in the King's Library. in Relurnt, as above. OTHER BENEFACTORS OP RECENT DAYS. 717 Mr. Slade also bequeathed three thousand pounds for bookiii, the augmentation, by his Executors, of his Collection of otSe Ancient Glass, and five thousand pounds to be by them J™ ' expended in the restoration of the parish church of Thorn- ^ KT ton-in-Lonsdale. Philip Von Siebold was born at Wurtzburg, in February, vohSbbold 1796, and in the university of that town he received his $™™ m education. He adopted the profession of medicine, but CoLI - I!C - 1 L TIONS O* devoted himself largely to the study of natural history. In isas-8. the joint capacity of physician and naturalist, he accompa- nied the Dutch Embassy to Japan in the year 1823. He was a true lover of humanity, as well as a lover of science. Many Japanese students were taught by him both the curative arts, and the passion for doing good to their fellow- men, which ought to be the condition of their exercise and practice. He won the respect of the Japanese, but his ardent pursuit of knowledge brought him into great peril. In 1828 he was about to return to Europe, laden with scientific treasures, when he was suddenly seized and im- prisoned for having procured access to an official map of the Empire, in order to improve his knowledge of its topo- graphy. His imprisonment lasted thirteen months. At last he was liberated, and ordered to do what he was just about to do when arrested. (Siebold, says his biographer, kam mit der Verbannung davon.) But his banishment was not perpetual. In 1859, he returned. He won favour and employment from the then Tycoon. He returned to his birthplace in 1862, and died there in October, 1866. Of his second library, Mr. Watts wrote thus : — ' The collection of Japanese books was one of two formed by Dr. 718 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, Von Siebold during his residence in, and visits to, Japan. othek The first of these collections, which is now at Leyden, and tomoi°" °f which a catalogue was published in 1845, was long recent considered as beyond comparison the finest of its kind out of Japan and China ; but the second, now in the Museum, is much superior. That at Leyden comprises five hundred and twenty-five works, that in London one thousand and eighty-eight works, in three thousand four hundred and forty-one volumes. It contains specimens of every class of literature : cyclopaedias, histories, law-books, political pam- phlets, novels, plays, poetry, works on science, on antiqui- ties, on female costume, on cookery, on carpentry, and on dancing. It abounds in works illustrative of the topo- graphy of Japan, as, for instance, one, in twenty volumes, on the secular capital Yeddo, and two, in eleven volumes, on the religious capital Miaco; collections of views of Yeddo and of the volcano Fusiyama, &c. &c. There are also several dictionaries of European languages, testifying to the eagerness with which the Japanese now pursue that study. The Museum was already in possession of a second edition of an English dictionary published at Yeddo in 1866, in which the lexicographer, Hori Tatsnoskay, ob- serves in the. preface, "As the study of the English lan- guage is now becoming general in our country, we have had for some time the desire to publish a pocket dictionary of the English and Japanese languages, as an assistance to our scholars," and adds that the first edition is " entirely sold out." These dictionaries may now assist Europeans to study the language of Japan, and it is believed that the Japanese Library now in the Museum will afford unequalled opportunities for the study of its literature.' This was the last sentence in the last official report which Mr. Watts lived to write, for the purpose of being OTHEE BENEFACTOES OF RECENT DAYS. 719 laid before Parliament. He died on the ninth of Sep- book in, tember, 1869, at the age of fifty-nine. His post was not othe» ' filled up until the end of December, when he was succeeded ^"slt"' by Mr. William Brenchley Rye, who was then Senior £"°™ T Assistant- Keeper in the Department of Printed Books. Mr. Rye is well known in literature. He has edited, with great ability, several works of early travel for the use- ful 'Hakluyt Society/ — an employment which he has often shared with his friends and Museum colleagues Messrs. Winter Jones and Richard Henry Major, and with like honourable distinction in its performance. More recently, he has increased his reputation by a book which has been largely read, and which well deserves its popularity — England as seen by Foreigners. This work was published in 1865. CHAPTER VII. Book III, Chap. VII. J&K CON- STRUCTORS AND PRO- JECTORS. Grosley *s IDEA. OF severing the Museum Collec- tions, 1765. RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. ' What do we, as a nation, care about books ? How much do you think we spend altogether on our Libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses ? If a man spends lavishly on his Library, you call him mad, — a Bibliomaniac. But you never call any one a Horse-maniac, though men ruin themselves every day by their losses, and you do not hear of people ruining them- selves by their books. Or, to go lower still, how much do you think the contents of the bookshelves of the United Kingdom, public and private, would fetch, as compared with the contents of its wine-cellars.' — Ausein, Sesame and Lilies, pp. 75-77. The various Projects and Plans proposed, at different times, for the Severance, the Partial Dispersion, and the Re- arrangement, of the several integral Collections which at present form ' The British Museum.' The first reconstructor, in imagination, of the British Museum on the plan of severing the literature from the scientific collections, was a speculative and clever French- man, Peter John Grosley, who visited it within less than six years of its being first opened to public inspection. Grosley expressed great admiration for much that he saw, and he also criticised some of the arrangements that seemed to him defective, with freedom but with courtesy. Some of my readers will probably think that he hit a real blot, at that time, when he said : ' The Printed Books are the weakest part of this immense collection. The building cannot contain such a Library as England can form and ought to form for the ornament of its capital. It has a building quite ready in the " Banquetting-House " [at Whitehall], and that building could be enlarged from time to time as occasion might require.' RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 721 Other writers, at various periods, have advocated book in, the severance of collections which seemed to them recow- too multifarious to admit of full, natural, and equable 1™^™^ development, in common. There is perhaps no apparent JMT0ES - reason, on the surface, why a great Nation should not be able to enlarge the most varied public collections as effec- tively, and as impartially, within one building, as within half a dozen buildings. Nor does there seem to be any necessary connection between the wise and liberal government of public collections, and their severance or division into many buildings, rather than their combination within a single structure. Nevertheless it is certain that many thinkers have, by some process or other, reached the conclusion that severance would favour improvement. Seventy years after Grosley wrote, Thomas Watts re- M ». watts- vived the proposition of dividing the contents of the British ™° p T h* TI0N Museum, but he revived it in a new form. His idea was to sevekanci: or THE remove the Antiquities and to retain at Montagu House museum COLLEC- both the Libraries and the Natural History Collections. txons,i887. ' The pictures have been removed,' wrote Mr. Watts in 1837, 'why should not the statues follow? The collections at the Museum would then remain of an entirely homo- geneous character. It would be exclusively devoted to con- veying literary information; while the collection at the National Gallery would have for its object to refine and cultivate the taste.' It was not by any oversight that Mr. Watts spoke of the ' homogeneity ' of Manuscripts, Printed Books, and Natural-History Collections. He (at the time) meant what he said. But I doubt if the naturalists would feel flattered by the reason which he gives in illustration of his ^ at ' s ' ? , J o Mechanics' opinion. ' The various curiosities accumulated at the J^w**". Museum might be considered/ he continues, 'as a vast pp. aas.seqq. 46 722 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. ch° K \ii assem Mage of book-plates, serving to illustrate and elucidate reoow- the literature of the Library.' ahdpeo- Be that as it may, the idea of removing either the Antiquities or the Printed Books has long ceased to be mooted. All who now advocate severance advise, I think, that the Natural History Collections should be removed, and none other than those. But hitherto the idea of sever- ance, in any shape, has been uniformly repudiated both by Royal Commissions of Inquiry, and by Parliamentary Committees. The question, however, is sure to be revived, and that speedily. Ere long it must needs receive a final parliamentary solution — aye or no. In this chapter I shall endeavour to state, — and as I hope with impartiality, — the main reasons which have been seve- rally adduced, both by those who advocate a severance, and by those who recommend the continuance of the existing union of all the varied and vast Collections now at Blooms- bury. There can be no better introduction of the subject than that which will be afforded by putting before the reader, on the one hand, a detailed and well-considered plan which con- templated the maintenance of the Museum as it is ; and, on the pther, the elaborate report in favour of transferring the scientific collections to a new site, — in order to gain ample space at Bloomsbury for a great Museum of Literature and Archaeology, such as should be in every point of view worthy of the British Empire, — which was approved of by a Treasury Minute more than eight years ago. , Of the several schemes and projects of extension which rest on the twofold basis of (1) the retention at Bloomsbury of nearly all the existing collections, with ample space for their prospective increase, and (2) such an effective internal EECONSTRUCTOES AND PROJECTORS. 723 rearrangement of the collections themselves as would greatly book in, increase the public facilities of access and study, none rzoon- better deserves the attention of the reader than that which 3pbo- 3 was submitted in the first instance to the Trustees of the JECT0K3 - British Museum, and subsequently to Parliament (in 1860) by Mr. Edmund Oldfield, then a Senior Assistant in the Department of Antiquities, entrusted (in succession to Mr. C. T. Newton, on his proceeding to Greece) with the charge of the Greek and Roman Galleries. By this plan it is pro- posed to erect on the west side of the Museum a new range of Galleries for Greek and Roman Antiquities. The facade in Charlotte Street — prolonged to the house No. 4 in Bedford Square — would extend to about 440 feet in length , with an usual depth of 140, increased at the southern ex- tremity to 190 feet. This new range would provide for the whole of the present Greek, Roman, Phoenician, and Etruscan Antiquities, and for considerable augmentations. To Assyrian Antiquities would be assigned the present Elgin Gallery, the ' Mausoleum Room,' and the ' Hellenic Room,' together with two other rooms — gained in part by new adaptations of space comprised within the existing buildings. The rooms now devoted to the Antiquities of Kouyunjik and Nimroud would then be applied to the me. reception of Egyptian Antiquities, together with a room to phmectot be constructed on the site of the present principal staircase. Action The Lvcian Gallery would retain its site, with an enlarge- ° F THE *> J ' o Gallebies ment westward. I quote. Mr. Oldfield's own descriptive oiahthjui- account of his project, in full, from the Appendix to the (i858-i860). Minutes of -Evidence of 1860. I. Entrance Hall. — On the north side is a staircase, such as suggested enteance by Mr. Panizzi, forming the access to the galleries of Natural History. Hall. II. Room for the first reception, unpacking, and examination of sculp- Pbivate tares, the consideration of such as are offered for purchase, the cleaning Ko011 TOR SCDLTTOBES. 724 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. VII. Kecon- structoh3 AND PRO- JECTORS. Mb. Oldfield's Project or Kecon- struction (1868-1860)— continued. First Egyptian Koom. Second Egyptian Koom. Third Egyptian Koom. Fourth Egyptian Koom. •Fifth Egyptian Boom, Sixth Egyptian &OOH. and repairing of marbles and mosaics, and storing of pedestals, mason's apparatus, and machinery, &c. III. First Egyptian Room. — The present two staircases, and the wall at the east end of the Assyrian Transept being removed, a handsome entrance would be obtained to the galleries of Antiquities. The room would be about seventy-six feet by thirty-five, and though not very well lighted, might suffice for the monuments of the first twelve dynasties of Egypt, at present in the northern vestibule and lobby, which have no very artistic character. IV. Second Egyptian Boom. — The monuments of the Eighteenth Dynasty would here commence. Terminating the vista from the north would be the head of Thothmes III, more advantageously seen than in its present position, where it stands in front of a doorway, and exposed to a cross light. • V. Third Egyptian Boom. — For smaller remains of the same period. The alcoves should be removed, and a door opened on the north side. VI. Fowrth Egyptian Boom. — To remedy the darkness of this room, an opening should be made in the ceiling, inclosed by a balustrade in the room above (v. Plan of Upper Floor), and covered with glass ; whilst the roof of this upper room should be lightened, at least in the central compartment, by substituting glass for its present heavy ceiling. The small space thus sacrificed in the floor of the upper room would be a less serious loss than the virtual uselessness of so large an apartment below. With the proposed improvement in the lighting, the Fourth Egyptian Room would be well adapted for the colossal monuments of Amenophis III ; without it, the room could hardly serve for any purpose but a passage. VII. Fifth Egyptian Boom. — In the middle would be arranged, in two rows, the remaining sculptures of the Eighteenth and part of those of the Nineteenth Dynasty. In the recesses between the pilasters might be fixed wall cases, which would rather improve than impair the archi- tectural effect of the room, and for which the light is well adapted, the rays from the opposite windows striking sufficiently low to obviate the shadow occasioned by shelves in rooms lighted from above. Such cases would contain small objects from the Egyptian collection now on the Upper Floor. VIII. Sixth Egyptian Boom. — This room, originally ill lighted, has been further darkened by the new Reading Room, erected within a few yards of its windows. If, however, an opening were made in the ceiling (as proposed for Room VI, and if the roof of the room above were somewhat modified, light might be thrown both on the magnificent bust of Rameses II and on the east wall of the room. The middle window in that wall, which furnishes no available light, might then be blocked up ; and before it might stand the cast from the head of the RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTOES. 725 colossus at Abousimbul, now placed over a door in the northern vesti- Book III, bule, but which ought, in any re-arrangement, to be united with the Chap.vrj.. other monuments of Rameses II, and which would finely terminate the STHUCT0E3 vista, looking from the west. and Pbo- IX. Seventh Egyptian Boom. — Here would be the sculptures, both of ,ECT0I1S - the native dynasties posterior to the Nineteenth, and of the Ptolemaic Mb. and Roman periods, which at present occupy the southern Egyptian LDI,IE1,D s t Jtroject or Gallery. In the recesses between the pilasters might be wall cases. recon- X. Eighth Egyptian Boom. — This, and the two succeeding rooms, struction would be appropriated to smaller Egyptian remains. The light on the ( 18! >8-1860)— western side of these rooms falls so nearly vertically, from the over- shadowing mass of building adjoining, that wall cases would have their Bgyptiah contents completely thrown into shade by the shelves, or by the tops of room. the cases. Objects in the middle of the room, on the other hand, would ElGHTH be in uninterrupted light. It is, therefore, proposed to place against Egsftian the walls inscribed tablets, which are best seen under an acutely striking RooM - light; painted plaster friezes, which, from their strong colours and coarse execution, do not require much light ; and framed papyri, which are liable to injury from exposure to powerful light. Along the centre of the room would be arranged mummies, and mummy cases, in glass frames, with table cases for scarabsei, and other small objects, which are most conveniently exhibited on flat or sloping surfaces. XI. Ninth Egyptian Boom. — The thoroughfare is here too great for Ninth objects to be conveniently arranged in the centre ; but the walls might Egyptian be occupied as in the preceding room. XII. Tenth Egyptian Boom. — To be arranged similarly to the ^ NTH Eighth. Koom. Summary of the Accommodation provided in the plan for Egyptian SMMiJffOT Antiquities : — aocommo- 1. The large sculptures would gain Rooms III, IV, and YI, in lieu dation fob. of the northern vestibule. 2. The inscribed tablets; which at present occupy the recesses of Rooms VII, VIII, IX, containing four hundred and twenty -two linear feet of wall space, and the walls of the northern vestibule, containing about eighty feet, or altogether about five hundred and two feet, would share with the framed papyri and painted plaster friezes the walls of Rooms III, IV, V, VI, VIII, X, XI, XII, containing altogether about nine hundred and sixty feet. 3. The mummies, overcrowded in a room containing two thousand and fourteen square feet of available open space, and the coflins in the present ' Egyptian Ante-room,' would be arranged, with several table cases, in Rooms X and XII, containing altogether about four thousand and eighty square feet. 4 The small objects, now in wall cases extending to two hundred and Antiqui- ties. 726 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEPACTOES. Book III, Chap. VII. Recon- steuctoes AND Pbo- JECTOES. Me. Oldfield's Peoject Off Recon-* steuction (1858-1860)- continued. I'JEST AssYHIAN Room. Second Assyrian Boom. thirty-seven feet of linear measurement, and in three table cases, would be arranged in wall cases, extending to three hundred and eighty-three feet, and in several table cases, of which the exact extent cannot be fixed. The additional space here provided for large Egyptian sculptures is not so much needed for the present as is the case in some other series ; but the greater comparative difficulty of moving objects so bulky makes it advisable to secure, as far as possible, the permanence of any re- arrangement, by leaving room for the probable incorporations of future years. The accommodation provided for smaller objects is little more than they already require for advantageous display. XIII. First Assyrian or Nimroud Room.— This room, on the site of the basement-room, would be formed by demolishing the small room, with the adjoining students' room and staircase; by extending over their site the glass roof of room ; by throwing a floor, on a continuous level with those of the adjoining galleries, and supported upon iron pillars, over so much of room as is coloured brown in the plan ; and by carrying up thin partitions from this floor to the glass roof, so as to inclose a new apartment. This apartment would, at the south end, extend across the whole breadth of room, but elsewhere it would be limited to a central space, nineteen feet wide, corresponding to the present central compartment of room, so as to leave open an area of ten feet wide on each side. The open areas would serve to light both the whole room below, of which the central portion would be partially obscured by the new structure, and also the rooms in the adjoining base- ments, which, though no longer used for exhibition, might be serviceable for other subordinate purposes. In one of the open areas might be a private staircase to the basement. Room XIII would be considerably loftier than the present ' Nimroud Side Gallery,' and it would contain two thousand nine hundred and seventy superficial feet, and three hun- dred and fourteen linear feet of wall-space, instead of two thousand one hundred and seventy-six superficial feet, and two hundred and seventy- eight feet of wall-space. In this new room would be placed the earliest of the Assyrian monuments, those of Sardanapalus I; at the south end those found in the two small temples at Nimroud, including the colossal lion, the arched monolith and altar, and the mythological figures from a doorway ; in the northern portion, the sculptures from the North-west Palace at Nimroud, including the small winged lion and bull, now in room. XIV. Second Assyrian Room. — This would contain a continuation of the series from Nimroud. On the west side the colossal winged lions now in the western compartment of the Assyrian Transept, which would complete the monuments of Sardanapalus I ; in other parts of the room, the few but important sculptures of Divanubara, Shammaz-Phal, RECONSTEUCTOES AND PEOJECTOES. 727 and Pul, now somewhat scattered for want of the requisite accommoda- Book ill, tion in room, but for which there would here be ample space, and an j^* „„. ' advantageous light. steuctohs XV. A proposed new room, to be entitled the Third Assyrian or AND Puo " Khorsabad Boom, the Assistant-Keeper's study being removed, and accommodation being provided for him elsewhere. The room might be ^ E ' forty- seven feet by forty, about the same height as XIV, and simi- p E0JECT or larly lighted by a central skylight ; beneath it would be a basement Rkcoh- room for the uses of the establishment. Room XV would contain, first, steuction the bas-reliefs of Tiglathpileser II from the South-west edifice of Nim- cmt { nued _ roud; and secondly, the Khorsabad collection, or monuments of Sargina, which is next in chronological order to the Nimroud collection. The a ssteiam two colossal bulls of Sargina are marked in the plan as facing each Eoom. other, an arrangement common at Khorsabad. Deducting space for the bulls, upwards of eighty linear feet of wall- surface would remain in the room, which is considerably more than the bas-reliefs of Tiglath- pileser and Sargina require. The new building would necessarily obscure some of the windows of the adjoining basement, but this is of minor importance ; and the evil might be diminished on the western and southern side, by leaving open spaces in the floor behind each of the colossal bulls. Between the bulls would be a passage to XVI. Fomih Assyrian or Sennacherib Room. — Here would be the 1'oimra first part of the collection discovered at Koyunjik, the monuments of Assyeian Sennacherib, now inconveniently divided, and arranged partly in the 00M ' ' Koyunjik Gallery,' and partly in the ' Assyrian Basement Room.' These monuments consist, almost entirely, of bas-reliefs, extending as at present arranged, to about three hundred and fifty-one feet (two hundred and eight on the ground floor, and one hundred and forty- three in the basement). In a lofty and wide room, however, such as XVI, an upper row of bas-reliefs might be introduced over many of the smaller slabs, now arranged in a single row only ; by this means the sculptures of Sennacherib might all be included on the east, west, and north sides of the room, containing three hundred and seventeen linear feet of wall-space, leaving the south side, or twenty- seven feet, for sculptures of Sardanapalus III, the last monarch of the Assyrian series. In the centre of the room would be glass cases for the nume- rous tablets, cylinders, and other small objects of this collection, which it is most instructive to exhibit in connection with the sculptures. The only architectural alteration desirable in the room would be to open skylights in the lateral portion of the roof, and to close those in the central, in order to obtain a sharper light, upon the principle so success- fully adopted in the present ' Nimroud Side Gallery.' XVII. Fifth Assyrian Boom. — Here would be the continuation Vain of the monuments of Sardanapalus III, which conclude the Assyrian ^ SSYEIAN 728 LATER AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. VII. Recon- steuctoes AND Pho- JECTOES. Me. Oldeield's Peoject of Recon- struction (1858-1860)— continued. Sl'MMABY or accom- modation EOR ASSS- EIAN ANTI- QUITIES. department ; they are at present divided like those of Sennacherib, and part exhibited in the ' Koyunjik Gallery,' part in the basement room ; altogether they now extend to three hundred and seventy -three feet ; but as the greater part might, in Room XVII, be very well arranged in double rows, and some of those in single rows might, without injury, be less widely spread, two hundred and twenty-five feet would suffice for their exhibition ; of this space twenty- seven feet would be supplied by Room XVI, and the remainder by XVII. The centre of the room should be appropriated as the preceding, and the lighting similarly modified. Summary op the Accommodation provided in the Plan for Assyrian Antiquities. Amownt of Wall-space now m use Amount of Wall-space in the Plan for Assyrian Bas-reliefs. for Assyrian Bas-reliefs. Linear feet. Linear feet. Nimroud Side Gallery . 278 Room XIII . . . .314 Mmroud Central Saloon . 82 „ XIV. ... 95 Assyrian Transept . .125 „ XV. . . 145 Koyunjik Gallery . . 242 „ XVI. . . .344 Assyrian Basement Room . 243 „ XVII. . . .199 970 1,097 Bas-reliefs in the middle of Basement Room . . 254 1,224 It thus appears that the wall-space provided in the plan, though one hundred and twenty-seven feet more than the wall-space in the existing rooms, falls short by one hundred and twenty-seven feet of the total linear extent of the bas-reliefs, as now arranged. In lieu, however, of placing slabs in the middle of a gallery, as is done in the basement room, and as it would likewise be possible to do in XVI or XVII, it is thought better, in these last rooms, to provide the additional space by simply carrying up the slabs to a greater height. The space for central cases for small objects, which is at present four thousand and eighty square feet in rooms would be eight thousand one hundred and seventy square feet in Rooms XVI and XVII, an amount so abundant as to supersede the necessity for any wall-cases. The accommodation here provided for Assyrian antiquities is little more in quantity, though much better in quality, than the present. EECONSTEUCTOES AND PEOJECTOES. 729 But this is nearly the only branch of the archaeological collections to BooK m . which there seems little probability of future additions. If, contrary to !z expectation, any such should be made, a supplemental room might be steuctoes built on the vacant space to the north of the Assyrian galleries. and Peo- XVIII. Persian Boom. — The sculptures to be here exhibited, which • nsCTOas - are all bas-reliefs, would probably not occupy more than half the wall- Ma - space, which is forty-seven linear feet. They belong chiefly to the sixth LDTIEL:D 3 r J in Peoject op century, B.C., and properly therefore succeed the Assyrian, which range b,ecoi»- from the tenth to the seventh century, B.C. steuction XIX. Lycian Gallery. — It is intended to reserve this room for the ( 185 8-1860)— continued. monuments peculiarly characteristic of Lycia, and to transfer to the Greek galleries those in which the Greek element is predominant ; such EESIAN as, particularly, the sculptures of the Ionic trophy monument or herowm from Xanthus, now scattered over the room, and, if necessary, the casts q alleet from the rock tomb at Myra. This would leave abundant space for the purely Lycian remains. The harpy tomb, of which the bas-reliefs fur- nish a very important illustration of archaic Greek art, might best be placed in an isolated position near the entrance to the Greek galleries, where it would be favourably lighted and conspicuously seen. Its pre- sent place might be filled by the rude sarcophagus with sculptures of lions. The lighting of the Lycian room, which is very defective, should be improved by an alteration in the roof ; but it is thought better not to enter into the details of such alteration in the present paper. XX. First Greek or Inscription Room. — The room beneath this being Fiest supposed to be withdrawn from exhibition, the staircase at the west end Gk]!I '- k; should be separated by a partition, and entered through a private door. 0OM ' All Greek inscriptions, except the sepulchral, and such as are engraved on architectural or sculptural monuments, would be here collected. At this point the new buildings commence with — XXI. Second Greek or Branchidce Boom,, thirty feet by twenty -four. — The height both of this and the four succeeding rooms should be about geeek twenty feet. This would contain the earliest Greek sculptures, of which Room. the principal are those procured by Mr. Newton from Branchidse. The ten seated statues would be arranged on each side, as in the ' Sacred "Way ' at that place, and the recumbent inscribed lion and the sphinx placed at the end of the room. XXII. Third Greek Boom, twenty -four feet by seventeen. — This would gbeek contain other archaic works, including the casts from Selinus. Room. XXIII. Fourth Greek or JEginetan Boom, thirty-eight feet by twenty- foubth four. — Here would be fixed, in two recesses, the restorations of the two Gbeek pedimental groups from jEgina, which are exactly of the length of this room, and which might be placed at a more convenient level for examina- tion than their present elevated position in room. Fifth XXIV. Fifth Greek Boom, seventeen feet by twenty-four. — On a pedes- jj™™ JECTOES. Me. Oldkfeld's 730 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book ill, tal, facing the great Greek gallery, might stand the semi-archaic Apollo, too™' from Byzantium. siKucTOiis XXV. Sixth Greek or Phigaleian Boom, thirty-eight feet by twenty- *™ Pe °- four.— Here would be the casts from the Temple of Theseus, and the sculptures and casts from the Temple of Wingless Victory, both of the middle of the fifth century, B.C. ; also the Phigaleian collection, which Psoject or * s a somewhat later production of the same school. The friezes, arranged Eecon- in two rows, would just fill the room. stkuction XXVI. Seventh Greek or Parthenon Boom. — Here would commence continued. * ne g ran d suite of galleries for large sculptures, of which the general breadth would be forty -two feet, and the height from thirty to thirty- Geeek fi ye ^ ee *- By its side would run a secondary suite, twenty feet wide, Room. and from fifteen to twenty feet high, for minor specimens, of which the Seventh interest generally is rather archaeological than artistic. These latter Gekek objects are both more conveniently classified, and more favourably seen, Room. j^ gma ]2 roomg ; jf placed in large galleries, beside grand monumental works, they lose importance themselves, whilst they fritter away the effect of what is really more valuable. The Seventh Greek Room, which is two hundred and forty-one feet long, would contain only the remains of the Parthenon ; which might be arranged as indicated in the Plan, so as at once to keep the pedimental groups and the frieze from interfering with each other, and to distinguish, more accurately than is now done, the original connection or disconnection of the several slabs of the frieze. As we possess the entire frieze from the east end of the temple, and casts of the entire frieze from the west, these two are here arranged opposite each other, towards the middle of the two side walls of the room. On either side are the slabs from the north and south flanks of the temple, which are mostly disconnected. In front of the casts from the west is a proposed full-sized model of part of the entablature, sup- ported by one original and five restored capitals, with the upper parts of their shafts, and incorporating ten of the metopes, so as to explain their original combination with the architecture. The total height of this model might be about eighteen feet. The metopes not included in it should be attached to the wall opposite, over the frieze. The finest of the pedimental groups would face the grand entrance from the Lycian Gallery, through which the whole might be seen in one view, from any distance less than forty-eight feet. If it were desired to retain the two small models of the Parthenon in the room, they might stand near the sooth end. Eionra XXVII. Eighth Greek or Erechtheum Boom, sixty -five feet by twenty- Geeek b j Xj £ or monuments of the era between Phidias and Scopas, of which the principal are the remains of the Erechtheum. Ninth XXVIII. Ninth Greek, or Mausoleum Boom, one hundred and twenty feet in length, forty-two in breadth, and eighty across the transept. — Geeek Room. RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 751 Here would be, 1. The marbles procured by Lord Stbateobd and Mr. Book ill, Newton, from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus ; in the west transept, Chap.vil. the group from the quadriga, and in the southern part of the room the steuctoes other important sculptural and architectural remains of the building, A ™ P*°- including the frieze. 2. In the east transept, the colossal lion from ,E0T0US - Onidus, with a few other sculptures of the same school. 3. In the Mr - northern part of the room, the Xanthian Ionic monument, here placed for LDrlEtD * comparison with the remains of the Mausoleum. The whole upper portion Recon- of this monument, commencing with the higher of the two friezes which stbuction surrounded the original base, might be reconstructed, though not <- lss ^- ls J l '>~ restored, and would form a striking termination to the vista through the galleries. The lower frieze might be arranged against the adjoining walls of the room. XXIX. Tenth Greek Boom. — Having thus passed through the great tenth monumental series of Greek sculptures in chronological order, the Geeek visitor would return south by the side rooms, containing minor remains RooM - of the same school. The Tenth Greek Room would be forty-two feet by twenty, and would contain the latest of the smaller sculptures. XXX. Eleventh Greek Boom, thirty-three feet by twenty. — This should eleventh be appropriated to the small fragments from the Mausoleum, which would Geeek thus be in immediate connection with its larger sculptures, without 00M ' impairing their grandeur of effect. XXXI. XXXII. Twelfth and Thirteenth Greek Booms, together one Twelfth hundred and thirty-five feet in length and twenty in breadth. — The AHD TmK " exact position of the wall separating these rooms might be reserved till geeek the arrangement of their contents was settled. In one might be archi- Rooms. tectural fragments, from buildings not represented in the large galleries ; in the other, small tablets, votive offerings, altars, and other minor sculptures. XXXIII. Fourteenth Greek or Sepulchral Boom, ninety -three feet by fooeteehth eighteen. — Here would be all the Greek sepulchral monuments now in Geeek the basement. The casts from the sculptured tomb at Myra, of which RoOM - the style is more Greek than Lycian, might also be here placed, as indi- cated in the plan, in case it should be thought desirable to remove them from the Lycian Room, though the expediency of this transfer may perhaps be doubted. Wherever placed, these casts ought to be so put together as to explain the true arrangement of the originals. [Then follows a Summary of the Accommodation provided in the Flan for Greek Sculptures, amounting to a^superficial area of twenty-seven thousand four hundred and ten square feet, and to two thousand one hundred and ninety-one lineal feet of wall-space.] XXXIV. Etruscan Boom. — The next parallel on the ground floor eteuscau would be devoted to the monuments of ancient Italy. The earliest are Boom. the Etruscan, which, being altogether taken from tombs, would properly JECTOES. Ma. Oldfield's 732 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, be placed adjacent, on the one side to the Greek, on the other to the Eecoh- Roman, sepulchral collections. The principal portion of the Etruscan steuctobs Room would be fifty -five feet by forty, with additional recesses at the asd Peo- south end, the whole about twenty feet high. Two rows of pilasters would divide the room into three compartments, the central for the gangway, the other two to be fitted up as a series of tombs, of which the Peojectot sides would be formed of the mural restorations, with fac- similes of Kecom- paintings from Corneto and Yulci. Within these restored tombs would stbuction be such sarcophagi as we possess, found in the tombs themselves. The continued fac- similes of the painted roofs of two of the tombs might be fixed above them, at such a height as not to obstruct the light. In the central com- partment, which contains six shallow recesses between the pilasters, 'might be monuments from various tombs other than those here restored. XXXV. Staircase Boom, forty feet by thirty, and of the same height as the three united stories of the western galleries. — Four successive flights of steps would be required to reach each floor. The landings between the first and second, and between the third and fourth flights, might each be supported by Caryatid or Atlantic figures, which would give the whole composition an ornamental effect, as seen from the east side. Beneath one side of this staircase might be a private one leading to the western basement. To the north is another private staircase, conducting to the basement under the Greek galleries. The adjoining passage leads to — Fiest XXXVI. First Groeco-Boman Boom. — The Etruscan monuments are Gbjeco- succeeded chronologically by the Grseco-Roman, here placed so as to adjoin the galleries both of Greek and of Roman art. In accordance with the character of Graeco- Roman sculpture, the apartments con- taining it should be somewhat ornamentally constructed and arranged, as in the great continental museums, where works of this class form the staple of the collections. The position of the principal objects in all this series of rooms is marked in the plan, without distinguishing them indi- vidually, as none are of such a character as to require any special archi- tectural provision. The first room is one hundred and six feet by twenty-six, exclusive of the alcoves. Its height need not, for the display of statuary, exceed twenty feet ; but if, for architectural effect, a vaulted ceiling is preferred, the height must be increased. In the Braccio Nuovo, in the Vatican Museum, which is probably the finest gallery of this kind in Europe, and has a cylindrical vault, with a central skylight, the proportion of height to breadth is about thirty-seven feet to twenty- seven ; but in the darker climate of London the height should not, if possible, exceed the breadth. Second XXXVII. Second Qraco-Boman Boom, or Botumda, sixty feet in diameter, and about sixty feet high in the centre, being surmounted by Roman Room. Gb.xco< Roman Room. RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 733 a hemispherical dome. — This room is, with slight variations, and on a somewhat smaller scale, a copy of the Rotunda in the Museum of Berlin, an apartment universally admired for its architectural beauty, and only defective as a hall for sculpture from the unnecessary smallness of the central skylight. The entablature over the columns would support a gallery, opening into the first floor of the western buildings. XXXVIII. Third Orisco-Bomcm Boom, similar to the first, but only one hundred and one feet long, exclusive of the northern alcove. The spaces between the lateral alcoves on the east side of the First and Third Grseco-Roman Rooms might either be covered with glass, or left open for ventilation, though the second arrangement would involve a provision for the drainage below. The amount of accommodation for Greeco-Roman sculptures can- not, from the form of the rooms, be stated with the same exactness as that for the Greek. Exclusive of the alcoves, there would be in the— First Gallery Third Gallery . Superficial Area. 2,756 square feet. 2,626 ~ „ 5,382 Length of Wall-space. 180 linear feet. 152 332 „ Book III, Chap. VII. Rkcon- steuctoes AHD Pno- JECTOES. Me. Oldeield's Pboject c-f Becon- steuction (1858-1860)— continued. Thibd GB.MCQ- Roman Room. Summaey or accommoda- tion EOR G&mco- B-OMAN SculP- TUEES. Means of potube en- largement. The Rotunda would not have available space in proportion to its size. Twelve statues or busts between the columns, and perhaps a large sculpture in the centre, would be the natural complement of the room. The wall-space behind the columns would not be available for sculpture. The total accommodation in the three rooms would amply suffice for our present collection, even somewhat enlarged. As it increased, however, further space might be obtained by erecting in the first and third rooms transverse walls, opposite the alcoves in the Roman galleries, thus sub- dividing the first room into three principal compartments, with a small lobby at each end, and the third into three compartments (of which the most northern would need some modification), with a lobby at the south end. The doorways through these walls might be twelve feet wide, so as to preserve the continuous appearance of the suite ; and they would still leave one hundred and twelve feet of additional wall-space in the first room, and eighty -four in the third. The lighting would be some- what improved by such an alteration. The last suite of galleries on the ground floor would contain the westeen Roman and Phoenician remains. To avoid any obscuration from the Galleeies houses on the west side of Charlotte Street, the windows should be as high in the wall as possible, and as broad as architectural propriety 734 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book IT], Chap. Vll. Recon- steu ctobs AND Peo- JECTOKS. Mb. Olofield's Pboject OF Recon- stbuction (1858-1860)- continued. Pibst EOMAN Room. Hall. Second Roman Room. Thibd Roman Room. Foubth Roman Room. Means of future ENLAEGE- MKNT. PHOSNICtAN Room. Supple- mental Room. would admit, whilst the rooms should be not less than twenty -five feet high. XXXIX. First Roman Boom, one hundred and ten feet by twenty- eight, exclusive of the alcoves. — It would contain mosaics, including those from Carthage, and miscellaneous sculptures, altars, architectural fragments, &c. ; the mosaics indifferently placed on all sides of the room, the sculptures on the east side and against the two end walls. XL. Hall, fifty-six feet by seventeen. — Here might be an entrance from Charlotte Street, which on many occasions would furnish a con- venient relief to the principal entrance to the Museum. It would open immediately into the Rotunda, and through the vista beyond would be seen, in the distance, the cast of the colossal head from Abousimbul. "Within the two abutments of the Rotunda would be recesses for the attendants to sell catalogues, receive umbrellas, &c. XLI. Second Roman or Iconographical Room, fifty-four feet by twenty- eight, without the alcoves. — This would contain the series of portrait statues and busts, in chronological order. The west, or dark side of the room, could only be used for very inferior sculptures. XLII. Third {or Anglo-) Roman Room, the same size as the preceding, for Roman monuments found in this country. The rude character of many would admit of placing them on the west side. XLIII. Fourth Roman or Sepulchral Room, eighty-two feet by twenty- six, containing Roman sarcophagi for which the west side might be partially available, and sepulchral cippi, and inscriptions. At the north-east angle would be a Columbarium, twenty-three feet by fourteen, fitted up like that in the present Sepulchral Basement Room, but with the advantage of a skylight. [Then follows a Summary of Accommodation provided in the plan for Roman Sculptures, amounting to a superficial area (without alcoves) of eight thousand five hundred and fifty-eight square feet, and seven hun- dred and seventeen linear feet of wall-space.] The first three rooms, when their contents sufficiently increased, would admit of an easy alteration, which would not merely increase the wall-space, but much improve the lighting, by simply inserting trans- verse walls between each window. Against these walls the sculptures would have a true side light, whilst those against the east wall would be protected from double lights. It may even be doubted whether such an arrangement should not be adopted in the first instance, without waiting till the additional accommodation is actually required. XLIV. Phoenician Room, twenty-six feet squai'e. — Here would be the stela and bas reliefs from Carthage and its vicinity, with the few Punic inscriptions which we possess. The room contains six hundred and seventy-Bix superficial feet, and eighty^eight of wall-space. XLV. A similar room to the preceding, which, in case of necessity, RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 735 might serve for extending the Phoenician collection. In the mean time it might perhaps be used for exhibiting such miscellaneous inferior sculptures as could be advantageously weeded from the regular series, though circumstances might temporarily prevent their removal from the Museum. In such case it might be entitled ' Supplemental Room.' In accordance with a suggestion made in the Committee now sitting, the writer has added to the new buildings proposed in his plan another story, or second floor, over the first. The advantage of this is, that it would provide for objects which it might be more costly or inconvenient to accommodate elsewhere. But it involves necessarily two evils : 1. That the height of the second floor, involving an ascent of perhaps nearly one hundred steps (though this is not more than is common in continental museums), might excite complaint in English visitors. 2. That so lofty a building, by excluding all oblique rays from the east side of the Grseco-Roman galleries, would make the light on the statues and busts there placed somewhat too vertical. "With regard to the collections to be provided for on the upper floors, it is here assumed, though of course without any express authority, that Ethnography and Oriental Antiquities would be removed from the Museum, and better accommodated elsewhere. The British and Me- diaeval Collections, however, are supposed to be retained ; if they are removed, a modification of this plan must in consequence be made. The apartments should all be about eighteen feet high, the windows of the same breadth as those below, but, except in the Terracotta Room, only about eight feet high, and as near the ceiling as possible. On the east side should be corresponding windows, so that each wall would be illuminated; for cross lights, though so injurious to sculptures, are generally desirable for galleries filled with wall-cases. All the windows should have ground glass, to prevent injury to the collections from the sun. 1. Vase Gallery. — Two hundred and twenty-two feet long, the southern half twenty-six feet wide, and the northern twenty-eight feet. The wall-cases should be about eight feet high, like those in our First "Vase Room ; and the transverse projections, flanked by pilasters, would be only of the same height, so as not to shut out the view of the upper part of the gallery ; having glass on each side, they would serve for vases with double paintings, such as we now exhibit only in dwarf central cases. The most important vases should stand isolated on tables, or pedestals, on each side the gangway ; as in the present arrange- ment of the Temple Collection. Although the superficial area of this gallery (five thousand nine hundred and ninety-two feet) is little more than a third greater than that occupied by vases in the present build- ings (four thousand three hundred and twenty-one feet), the amount of accommodation it would afford is nearly double. For the present wall- Book III. Chap. VII. Recon- structors AND PRO- JECTORS. Me. oxdfield's Project of Recon- struction (1858-1860)— continued. Plan or Upper Floors. Advantages and EVTLS OF A SECOND STORY. Collec- tions RE- TAINED or REMOVED. FIRST Floor ob New Buildings for Anti- quities ; its con- struction. Vase GALLERY. Its accom- modation. 736 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEPACTOES. Book III, Chap. VII. Rkcon- structors AND Pro- jectors. Me. Oldtield's Project of Recon- struction (1858-1860)— continued. Proposed Etruscan apartment. Terracotta Room. Gallery of Rotunda. Accommo- dation eor Terra- cottas. Glass Room. cases, eight feet high, extend to one hundred and forty-six feet of linear measurement; those ten feet high will, when the collection is fully- arranged, extend to eighty-four feet ; the whole therefore may be reck- oned as equivalent to two hundred and fifty-one feet of cases, eight feet high. The total extent, however, of such wall-cases in the proposed gallery is four hundred and fifty-five feet. The projections also, with the tables and pedestals, may safely be estimated as providing twice the accommodation for vases painted on both sides which is now furnished by the dwarf central cases, besides exhibiting them much more conve- niently. It should be added that the vases would be better lighted than at present ; whilst the length and comparative openness of the gallery would produce a more striking impression on the passing visitor. The accommodation here provided being so ample, it might be de- sirable to appropriate one compartment of the gallery to an exclusively Etruscan Collection, comprising not merely the pottery of the Etruscans, properly so called, but that for which they were really more distinguished in ancient times, their bronze and other metal work. 2. Terracotta Boom. — Fifty-six feet by seventeen. As no windows could be made on the east side, there should be no cases on the west ; but the western windows, which do not correspond with the others of this story, should extend from near the ceiling to four or five feet from the floor. A sloping case might then be placed in each window, for lamps and other small objects, requiring a strong light. Against the east wall should be cases for vases, and other large objects. 3. Gallery of the Botvmda. — From one hundred and eighty to one hun- dred and ninety feet in circumference, and about nine feet wide. The powerful light from the centre of the dome would be favourable to terra- cotta statuettes and bas-reliefs, which could all be contained in shallow wall-cases, that would not materially narrow the gangway.* The Townley Collection of bas-reliefs, now in the Second Yase Room, might be arranged in panels all round, so as to produce a decorative effect, agreeable to their original destination. The entire space provided in these two rooms is much more than our terracottas can absolutely require ; but this will facilitate an ornamental arrangement of the collection, appropriate to the character of the larger room. The small spaces between the Rotunda and the main building would serve for closets. 4. Glass Moom, twenty-eight feet by twenty-six. — The fittings proper for glass being different from those of terracottas, it is desirable to give * In the accompanying Plan (of the Parliamentary Report, 1860), pilasters of unnecessary size have been inadvertently introduced into this gallery, reducing both the extent of the wall-cases, and the breadth of the gangway, in a manner never intended. RECONSTRTTCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 737 it a separate room. This should be similarly arranged to the Yase book in, Gallery, with wall-cases eight feet high, and table-cases in the centre. chap. VII. 5. Bronze Gallery, three apartments united : together eighty -two feet EC0N - . . « n -> STEUCTOKS by twenty-eight. — As the advantage of a skylight for the bronze sta- AND p ao _ tuettes is necessarily sacrificed by the adoption of an upper floor, it jectoes. would be best to place them, as far as possible, against each side of the me. transverse projections, separating those sides by internal partitions, and Oldfield's employing some contrivance to protect the bronzes from the cross light Ekcoh . of the further windows, an arrangement possible with small objects in SI euction glass cases, though not with large statuary. In the middle of the (1858-1860)— gallery might be table-cases, placed longitudinally, or important objects em """ ' on pedestals. The increase of accommodation in the Bronze Gallery, Beonze as in the Yase Gallery, is more than proportionate to the increase of lTS ACC0OT . space. Though the superficial area is only two thousand two hundred modation. and ninety- six feet, in lieu of our present quantity, two thousand and twenty-one, the extent of wall-cases, which now is only one hundred and thirty-eight feet, would, even allowing doorways of twelve feet wide between each of these compartments, be increased to two hundred and fifty feet, equivalent, after allowing for the difference in height of the cases, to two hundred feet. This, if the Etruscan bronzes were trans- ferred as already suggested, would liberally provide for the Greek and Roman Collection. Each room should be fifteen to eighteen feet high ; the windows exclu- s K0OND sively on the east side, and extending from the ceiling to four or five Ei.ook op feet from the floor. As the aspect is nearly N.E., the sun could not be New BmLD - injurious, and the glass of the windows, therefore, had better be un- AMTlqul . ground. ties. 1. British Booms, each twenty-seven feet by twenty-six. — That which British adjoins the staircase (and, if necessary, those on each side), should be Rooms. lighted from the roof, and have wall-cases all round, with a separate case in the centre. The other rooms should have wall- cases on the west side, and shallower cases against the transverse walls. Two long table- cases in each room might extend from the windows to a line with the doorway. 2. Mediaeval Booms, each twenty-eight feet by twenty-seven, and simi- medieval larly arranged to the British. — Though the entire superficial area in the Rooms. British and Mediseval Rooms is only five thousand and seventy-two feet, summary of in lieu of four thousand and forty-six, the amount in the present build- accommo- ing, yet the wall-space is four hundred and sixty-six feet, instead of only Bkit1shanu two hundred and ninety-seven, and the cases, having no windows above, Medieval. might, if necessary, be made ten feet high, like the present. The gain in table-cases would be much greater. In lieu of six, there would be twelve, each sixteen or eighteen feet long, instead of ten ; whilst the central case in the room adjoining the staircase might be at least as 47 BOOK III, Chnp.VII. Rkcon- steuctoks AND PEO- JECTOES. Me. OLDriELD's Peoject or Kecon- steuctioh (1858-1860)— continued. Gem Room. Coin and Medal Galleey. Peivate Booms 07 Coin Dje- paetment. Ootee Coin Booii. Innee Coin llOOM. 738 LATER AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. capacious as the large separate casein the present British and Medieval Room. The lighting would throughout be more advantageous for these collections than at present ; and the rooms, from the character of the windows, might be bright instead of gloomy. 3. Gem Boom.— As the contents of this and the succeeding room have more or less intrinsic value, an iron door might be placed at the end of the Mediaeval Gallery, to be open only when the public are admitted to the Museum . The Gem Room, twenty-eight feet by twenty-seven, would be fitted like the preceding. The gems would occupy the table-cases, which would accommodate a far larger collection than ours, and would exhibit them in the best possible light for such objects. In the wall- cases might be displayed the gold and silver ornaments, which would have much more space than as now arranged, though in a room only of the same size. 4. Coin and Medal Gallery, fifty-six feet by seventeen. — As the dome of the Rotunda would only rise a few feet above the floor of this gallery, and would, from its curvature, recede to a distance of several feet,? win- dows on the east side would be quite unobstructed. In each might stand a table-case, six or seven feet long, on which would be exhibited, under glass, a series of coins and medals which, though not the most valuable of our collection in the eyes of a numismatist, would suffice to give the public an interesting and instructive view of the monetary art. In the drawers of these cases might be kept the moulds and casts of the Coin Collection. Against the side walls might be upright cases, or frames, for extending the exhibition; but the walls facing the windows, having a front light, would be unsuitable for coins or medals, and must be em- ployed for some other purpose. 5. The rooms which remain would be a private suite for the Coin Department. The present rooms of that department are arranged in an order the reverse of what is best for security and convenience, the coins being kept in an outer room, which must be passed in going either to the Keeper's study, or to the Ornament Room, a room open to all persons merely on application. In the accompanying plan the contents of the Ornament Room have been transferred to the Gem Room ; and the Keeper's study is placed near the beginning of the private suite. Outer Coin Boom, twenty-eight feet by twenty-seven, for the freer exhibition of coins to properly introduced persons, for the use of artists copying coins or other minute objects, and all other purposes now served by the Medal Room, except the custody of the collection, and work of the department. Inner Coin Boom, fifty-five feet by twenty-eight, secured by a strong iron door, of which the Keeper, Assistant-Keeper, and Principal-Libra- rian, would alone have keys. — In this room, to which none but the RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 739 departmental staff would be admitted, the coins and medals would be preserved, arranged, and catalogued ; they would be carried hence by the officers into the Outer Room when required for inspection. The room is somewhat more than half as large again as the present Medal Room ; and as the absence of visitors, and of the barriers their presence now requires, would leave the whole space free, there would be ample accommodation for any probable enlargement of the collection. The library of the department might be arranged partly in this, partly in the Outer Room. Of the apartments reserved as private, two are placed at the south end of the first and second floors, and each of these might, if necessary, be subdivided into two small studies, each twenty- six feet by thirteen, for the use either of officers or students. Private rooms are, however, required on the ground floor, to replace the female students' room, and the Assistant-Keeper's study, proposed to be removed for the new Nim- roud and Khorsabad Galleries. The most effectual provision for these and other wants would be one which has been suggested during the present inquiry, namely, to transfer to the Department of Antiquities the several rooms now occupied as the Trustees' Room and adjoining offices, and to remove the official establishment to new rooms to be erected on the east side of the Museum. Should this be found imprac- ticable, the present Insect Room, and adjoining studies, might, in the event of the transfer of this part of the Zoological Department to the upper floor, furnish the required accommodation. In default of both these alternatives, rooms might be constructed north of the new Assyrian Galleries, though, in the opinion of the writer, this ground should only be built over as a last resort. The basement, both of the old and new buildings, would, though unfitted for exhibition, and shut up from the public, be more or less available for workshops, storing-places, retiring-rooms, &c. No part of the existing basement would be made altogether useless, though the rooms under the present Greek Galleries would all be somewhat dark- ened. The basement under the new buildings may, with reference to lighting, be divided into three classes : — 1. The rooms under the first six or small Greek Rooms, the south end of the Etruscan Room, and the north end of the Greek Galleries, would all have ordinary windows, and be better lighted than any part of the basement now used for the purposes mentioned. 2. The rooms under the Roman Galleries, which would also have windows, would be less well lighted than the preced- ing, being some feet below the level of Charlotte Street, and being further somewhat obscured by the grating over the area, and the parapet to screen it from passengers in the street, which would both probably be thought necessary. 3. The basement under the Grseco- Roman, and greater part of the small Greek Galleries, would receive Book III, Chap. VII. Recon- structors and Pro- jectors. Mb. Old field's Project of Recon- struction (1858-1860)— continued. Private Rooms in Plan. Others suggested. Use of basement. Lighting on BASEMEN 1'. 740 LATEE AUGMENTOES AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. VII. Recon- structors AND PRO- JECTORS. Mk. Oldfield's Project or Recon- struction (1858-1860)— continued. summary of space fob Antiqui- ties. Extra SPACE. Space in basement. Space TRANS- FERRED to Natural HISTORY. Public Galleries. Studies for officers and stu- dents. Suggestion for in- creasing those for siudents. a partial light from tie openings between them. To increase this, how- ever, and to furnish the only light to the basement under the Four- teenth Greek Room, and the apartments adjoining its west side, panels of strong glass or open metal work might be inserted at convenient places in the various floors, and serve rather as an ornament to them. With the aid of some such arrangement, the last-mentioned portions of the basement would serve as storing-rooms ; in default of it, they could merely be available for any apparatus used in heating or ventilation. [Then follows a General Summary of Additional Space provided for the Collections of Antiquities, amounting to a net addition of forty-one thousand nine hundred and fifty- six square feet of superficial area.] This is somewhat less than the additional space demanded in the estimate supplied to the Committee by Mr. Hawkins ; but it supposes the removal of the Oriental and Ethnographical Collections, which Mr. Hawkins, when considering only the existing department, and not the question of its modification, included in its contents. In addition, however, to the space provided for the collections, the new buildings would comprise about eight thousand six hundred feet on the three principal floors, for studies, closets, staircases, &c. The space in the basement it is unnecessary to estimate in detail, being manifestly superabundant for its purpose. The Plan of the Upper Floors shows the accommodation which might be provided, upon the present scheme, for the Departments of Natural History, by transferring to them the galleries and studies on that floor now occupied by Antiquities, and constructing an upper room on the site of the staircase, to unite the Central Saloon (Return 379, Plan 18, No. 1), into which the new principal staircase would conduct, with the galleries so transferred. The apportionment of the space amongst the different collections of Natural History must be left to more competent authorities than the present writer. He may, however, add a few words on the general character of the apartments comprehended in the transfer. The public galleries are similar to the present Zoological Galleries, not merely in their structure, but in their fittings. The wall-cases, therefore, might be available, without alteration, for the new collections ; and the central cases might either be retained for Natural History, or removed to the new upper floors for Antiquities, as was found more convenient. The present Medal and Ornament Rooms might serve for the use of students, whilst the four private studies numbered 6, 7, 10, and 10 in Plan 18, would be used by the officers. The rooms for students might, if necessary, be further increased by a trifling alteration, in the event of the official establishment being transferred to the east of the Museum. In place of the closet adjoining the Medal Room, a private staircase might descend by a few steps to the entresol below, the whole of which might then be made an appendage to the upper, instead of the lower RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 741 floor, and would furnish two convenient rooms for students, over those numbered 4 and 6 in Plan 17. The same staircase, falling in with one .already existing between the entresol and Secretary's Office, would supply a private communication between the upper and lower floors, in lieu of that abolished for the construction of the First Egyptian Room (III, 69). The total area of the apartments transferred to Natural History may be summarily stated thus : — Public Galleries : Present Galleries of Antiquities Proposed room over III (69) Students' Working Rooms Closets, Passages, and Staircase . Total addition . Without Entresol. With Entresol. 19,185 2,660 21,845 1,749 868 936 21,845 3,168 868 1,557 • 25,398 27,438 Book III, Chap. VII. Recon- structors AND PRO- JECTORS. Mb. Oldfield's project of Recon- struction (1858-1860)— continued. Summary of space for Natural History. knce of giving it a distinct FLOOR. Independently of the increased accommodation, the advantage of Convenl acquiring for Natural History the exclusive possession of the upper floor is obvious and unquestionable, though the gain is not limited to that department. By separating its galleries entirely from those of Antiqui- ties, the practical superintendence of each would be simplified ; one de- partment would no longer be a necessary thoroughfare to another ; the confusion of ideas experienced by ordinary visitors from the juxtaposi- . tion of collections so incongruous would be avoided ; and as each de- partment would have a separate entrance, a facility would be given for varying their periods or regulations of admission, as the circumstances of each might at any time require ; considerations which must hereafter acquire increasing weight in proportion to the increasing magnitude of the Museum. The ground immediately round the Museum, on the average of its Estimate ot three sides, is valued in the Report of the Special Committee of Trustees M ^ T *° EX " (twenty-sixth November, 1859), at about forty-three thousand five p EH se. hundred pounds per acre. The houses in Charlotte Street are inferior ExPEKSE OT in character to those on the other two sides, and might doubtless be ground. purchased at a proportionately less price ; but the writer, being anxious to err only on the safe side, assumes the average price as necessary. The ground proposed to be taken is about four hundred and fifty feet long, by a breadth generally of one hundred and fifty feet, but at the south end not exceeding one hundred and ten feet ; so that the total area is about sixty-four thousand seven hundred square feet, or somewhat 742 LATEE AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. Til. It EC OB- STRUCTORS AND PRO- JECTORS. Ma. Oldfield's Project of RECON- STRUCTION (1858-1860)— continued. Of BUILD- INGS. less than an acre and a half. The price, therefore, may be set dotm at sixty-five thousand pounds. Buildings are estimated in the same report to cost about two pounds per square foot, reckoned upon the total internal area of the principal floors, without the basement. This calculation is founded on buildings consisting of a basement, a ground floor, and one upper floor. The buildings proposed by the writer are in one respect more costly than these, as their basements bear a larger proportion to those floors on which the cost is calculated. But in two other respects they are more economical : — 1. Because they include, in one part, a second floor, which swells the space from which the expense is calculated, without involving any addition to the basement, 2. Because some of the galleries on the ground floor are not really separate buildings, but parts of a single block of buildings, subdivided merely by partition walls. On the whole, there- fore, the estimate of two pounds per foot seems the safest basis of calculation. Now the quantity of internal area or floor space in the proposed new buildings is — For the collections For studies, staircases, &c. Total 71,760 square feet. 8,600 80,360 Meads of future ex- TENSION. Appendix to Minutes of Evidence, 1860, pp. 245, adfin. This gives, therefore, one hundred and sixty thousand seven hundred and twenty -pounds for buildings, which, added to sixty -five thousand pounds for ground, would amount to two hundred and twenty»five thousand seven hundred and twenty pounds. A further sum must be added for alterations of the existing building, particularly for the re- moval and reconstruction of the staircase, and the formation of the two rooms described as III (69) and XIII (15). Assuming the expense of these alterations, quite conjecturally, at ten thousand pounds, the total cost would be two hundred and thirty -five thousand seven hundred and twenty pounds. The largeness of the valuation allowed for the ground gives reason to believe that the actual expense of ground and buildings would not exceed, and might probably fall short of, this estimate. [In concluding his remarks on this plan of reconstruction, Mr. Oldfield points out that if ever hereafter further extensions should be required, they might be obtained without material disturbance of the proposed galleries. For Antiquities, one or more additional houses might be pur- chased either in Bedford Square, commencing with No. 4, or in Charlotte Street, commencing with No. 3. The former would be required for the prolongation of the Greek, Grseco-Roman, or Roman Galleries ; the RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 743 latter for the Etruscan or Phoenician. For the minor collections on the book HI, upper floors either side would be equally appropriate. If further space Chap. vil. were needed for Natural History, galleries might be built as suggested E00N " . STRUC T0R3 by Professor Maskelyne, extending either northwards to Montague AN d Peo- Place, or eastwards to Montague Street, as found convenient.] jectoes. To the clear and forcible exposition of his plan, thus given by its framer in the paper submitted to the Committee of I860, many further elucidations were added in evidence. But enough has already been quoted for the perfect intelli- gibility of the plans so proposed for the sanction of the Trustees and of Parliament. ' I think/ said Mr. Oldfield, when questioned, in the Committee, as to the extent of pro- vision for the probable future requirements of the Museum, ' the proper mode is to secure so much space as will at least meet those demands which are likely to occur during the construction of the building; and then, above all, to adopt a system of construction which would at any future time admit of an extension, without derangement of that which now exists, and so would obviate the very great expense ^.IZf and inconvenience which has hitherto occurred from altera- June,i86o, tions and reconstructions.' 143. In reporting upon this plan, originally framed in 1858, the Committee of 1860, after comparing with it two other but only partial plans of extension and rearrangement, pre- pared respectively by Mr. Sydney Smirke and by Mr. Nevil Story-Maskeltne, observe : ' Your Committee have reason to think that if any of these plans were adopted — involving the [immediate] purchase of not more than two acres of land, with the [immediately] requisite buildings and alterations — the cost would not exceed three hundred thousand pounds. If, however, only this limited portion of land should be at once acquired, it is probable that the price of what remains would be enhanced. If the whole were to STEUCTORS AND PeO- JECTOBS. 744 LATEE AUGMENTOKS AND BENEFACTORS. book in, be purchased, as your Committee have already recommended, eecon- the cost above stated would be., of course, increased.' The recommendation here referred to has been already quoted in a preceding chapter, together with a statement of the grounds on which it was based. The only additional elucidation, on this head, which it seems necessary to give may be found in a passage of the evidence of one of the Trustees, Sir Roderick Mcrchison, seechap.m who, in 1858, with other eminent men of science, presented a Memorial to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, pray- ing that the British Museum might not be dismembered by any transference of the Natural History Collections to another locality. After saying : ' I entirely coincide still in every opinion that was expressed in that Memorial, and I have since seen additional and stronger reasons for wishing that [its prayer] should be supported,' Sir Roderick added : 'When it was brought before us [that is, before a Sub- Committee of Trustees] in evidence, that if we were largely to extend the British Museum at once in situ, and that as large a building were to be made in situ as might be made at Kensington, we then learned that the expense would be greater. But I have since seen good grounds to believe that by purchasing the ground rents or the land, to north, east, or west, of the Museum, according to a plan which I believe has now been prepared and laid before the members of the Committee [referring to that of Mr. Oldfield, just described], and availing ourselves of the gradual * power of enlargement the Nation would be put to a much less mdtZe° expense for several years to come, and would in the end i35o!p P !iS rea ^ se an tnose Ejects which it is the aim t of men of 103 - science to obtain.' * Printed by oversight ' general' in the Minutes of Evidence. f Printed ' object ' in Minutes of Evidence, as above. RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 745 The chief alternative plan is based on the transference of book hi, the Natural History Collections to an entirely new site, and rmo'n- on the devotion to the uses of the Literary and Archaeological Departments of the Museum of the whole of the space so freed from the scientific departments. The Committee of 1860 condemned this plan in the p^hioe .-,-,. , , THE TRANi main (but only, as it seems, by a single voice upon a ference division), but what that Committee had under consideration was only the first form into which the plan of separation had been shaped. At the end of the year 1861 and tionsto i P i t -i i Kensington beginning of 1862, that plan was again brought before a (on structors and Pro- jectors. OF THE Natural History Collec- ELSE- Sub-Committee of the Trustees, at the express instance of ^61-62. the Lords of Her Majesty's Treasury, and it was thus reported upon : — Tour Committee, to whom it has been referred to consider the best Report of manner of carrying into effect the Treasury Minute of the thirteenth of DB " 0M " £ ° J MITTEE OF November, 1861, and the Resolution passed at the special general trustees, meeting of the third of December of the same year, have unanimously Jan -. 1862. agreed to the following report :* — The Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury state in that Minute of Minute, ' That, in their judgment, some of the collections ought to be Treasury. removed from the present buildings, and that they will be prepared to make proposals at the proper time to the Royal Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1851, with a view to the provision, on the estate of the Commissioners, of space and buildings, which shall be adequate to receive in particular, at first the Mineralogical, Geological, and Paleeon- tological Collections, and ultimately, in case it shall be thought desirable, all those of the Natural History Departments.' Their Lord- ships, after having invited the Trustees to prosecute the further exami- nation of the question, continue as follows: — 'It will have to be considered what other or minor branches of the collections may, with propriety or advantage, be removed to other sites, or even made over, if in any case it might seem proper, to other establishments.' * It is to this Report of 1862 that the accompanying lithographic fac-similes of the original illustrative plans belong. Two of them show the then existing arrangements of the principal floors ; the other two show the then proposed alterations and re-arrangements. 746 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book' III, Chap. VII. Recon- steuctoe3 AND PEO- JECTOES. All Collec- tions op Natdeal HlSTOET TO BEEEMOVED. Botany. Ethnolooi- oal Collec- tion to BE EEMOVED. Tour Committee have, therefore, thought it their duty at the outset to examine whether all the Natural History Collections, viz. the Zoo- logical and Botanical, in addition to the Geological, Palaeontological, and Mineralogical, specified in the Treasury Minute, might with propriety and advantage be removed from the present British Museum buildings. The importance, as regards science, of preserving together all objects of Natural History, was forcibly urged by Sir R. Mttrchison, at the special general meeting' of the third of December. In a Memorial laid before the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1858, and signed by more than one hundred and twenty eminent promoters and cultivators of science,* it was represented ' that as the chief end and aim of natural history is to demonstrate the harmony which pervades the whole, and the unity of principle, which bespeaks the unity of the Creative Cause, it is essential that the different classes of natural objects should be preserved in juxtaposition under the roof of one great building.' Tour Committee concur in this opinion, and they have come to the conclusion that it is essential to the advantage of science and of the collections which are to remain in Bloomsbury, that the removal of all the objects of Natural History should take place, and, as far as practicable, should be simultaneously effected. With regard to Botany, it is a question whether the existence of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew does not suggest an exception as to the place to which the British Museum Botanical Collection should be removed, reserving a small series for the illustration of fossil Botany, in connexion with Palaeontology. It is to be kept in view that the removal of the Palaeontology, Geology, and Mineralogy, would leave unoccupied only two very inconveniently placed rooms in the basement, besides the north half of the north gallery on the upper floor (about four hundred feet in length, by thirty- six in width); whereas the recently imported marbles from Halicar- nassus, Cnidus, Geronta, and Cyrene, fill completely the. space under the colonnade, extending to about five hundred and forty feet in length. Nor can your Committee omit to add, that should the removal of the Botany and Zoology be delayed, the final and systematic arrangement of the collections which are to remain must be equally delayed ; while, if any portions of these were removed to other situations in the Museum, or their final transfer postponed, many of the objects retained would have again to be shifted for the sake of congruity and economy of space. It is, therefore, recommended by your Committee, that all the Natural History Collections be speedily and simultaneously removed. Together with these the Ethnological Collection ought to be provided * Parliamentary Return, No. 456, of the Session 1858. RECONSTRTJCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 747 for elsewhere. Most of the objects which it contains have no affinity book III, with those which are contained in the other parts of the Museum, nor is Chap. vn. the collection worthy of this country for its extent, nor yet, owing to its Ej!CON " exceptional character, is it brought together m a methodical and AND p E0 . instructive manner. Occupying but a secondary place in the British jectoes. Museum, it cannot obtain either the space or the attention which it might obtain, were it not surrounded and cast into the shade by a vast number of splendid and interesting objects which have irresistible claims to preference. Mr. Hawkins was of opinion, ' that if Ethnography be retained,' it would be necessary to quadruple the space for its exhibi- tion. The Select Committee in their report (p. vii), state that ' they have received evidence from every witness examined on this subject in favour of the removal of the Ethnographical Collection.' If it were to be retained, an area of ten thousand feet (same report, p. xi) would be required. Tour Committee cannot, therefore, hesitate to recommend the removal of the Ethnographical Collection to a fitter place. Nor can they hesitate in proposing the removal, from the present Ornithological Gallery, of the Collection of Portraits hanging on the walls above the Poetbaits presses containing the stuffed birds. Those paintings having no connexion with the objects for the preservation of which the Museum was founded, would never have been placed there had there been a National Portrait Gallery in existence for their reception. The following is a detailed statement of the space which would be left space lei-i vacant in various parts of the Museum by the removal of the above vacant. collections Then follows an enumeration, first, of the space left vacant by the removal of the Geological, Palseontological, and Mineralogical Collections, amounting in the whole to an area of twenty thousand one hundred and thirty-five feet ; secondly, of the space left vacant by the removal of the -Zoological Collection, amounting to an area of thirty- five thousand four hundred and twenty-eight feet ; thirdly, of the space left vacant by the removal of the Botanical Collection, amounting to five thousand nine hundred feet ; and, finally, of the space left vacant by the removal of the Ethnological Collection, namely, a room on the south side of the upper floor, marked ' 3 ' on the plan, ninety-four feet by twenty-four, giving an area of two thousand two hundred 748 LATER ATTG-MENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book HI, Chap. VII. Kecon- steuctors AKD PeO- JECTOES. Teeasuet Minute; ai.teeation of peesent building. Tkustees' Offices . and fifty-six feet ; and giving, in the whole, an aggregate area of sixty-five thousand and seventy-nine feet. Having enumerated the collections which might, with propriety and advantage, be removed from the British Museum, and stated the extent of new accommodation which would consequently be gained for other collections, the Committee proceeded to consider, in the words of the Treasury Minute, 'the two important questions — first, of such final enlargement and alterations of the present build- ings as the site may still admit, and as may be conducive to the best arrangement of the interior ; secondly, of the redistribution of the augmented space among the several collections that are to remain permanently at the Museum, among which, of course, my Lords give the chief place to the Library Departments and the Antiquities.' The Committee, agreeing with their Lordships that the chief claims in the redistribution of the augmented space are those of the Antiquities and of the Library Departments, then proceed to say that — They have thought themselves bound also to pay attention to certain other important purposes, to which a portion of the space to be obtained by alterations within and by building on some remaining spots of un- occupied ground, might be beneficially applied. Tour Committee have, in the first place, had their attention drawn to that part of the existing buildings appropriated to the administrative department of the Museum. The want of space for clerks, for Museum publications, for stationery, for the archives of the Trust, for papers of all descriptions, for the transaction of business with officers and servants of the Trustees, and with tradesmen, as well as the want of a waiting- room for strangers of all ranks who have to attend on the Trustees, or wish to have interviews with their chief officer or any of the persons attached to his office, is the cause of great embarrassment and discom- fort. To which is to be added the inconvenience caused by the unsuit- able arrangement of the rooms, which renders those who occupy them liable to perpetual interruptions. Moreover, by the strict rule forbid- ding the admission of artificial light into the Museum, the period of available working time is occasionally much abridged. Another site RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 749 must be found for this department ; there are no means of providing on its present site against the evils above mentioned. In the next place, your Committee have taken into consideration the absolute necessity of providing for the exhibition of specimens of -coins and medals, always intended by the Trustees, but never carried into effect for want of space. And not only a selection of coins and medals, but also one of gems, cameos, and valuable ornaments, should be exhi- bited to Museum visitors. The want of room for such a purpose is the source of great trouble and inconvenience. The present Medal Room is much too confined even for the arrangement and preservation of its contents, and for such accommodation of its officers as is necessary to enable them to perform properly their duties. Moreover, as visitors cannot be indiscriminately admitted to the Ornament Room, still less to the Medal Room, such of them as do not take the proper steps for gaining access to those rooms are debarred from seeing even specimens of objects which acquire a peculiar interest in proportion to the strict- ness with which they are guarded. The general visitors should have an opportunity of satisfying their laudable curiosity by seeing a good selec- tion of coins, just as they can at the present time see interesting speci- mens of manuscripts and printed books ; scholars and persons who have special reasons for examining coins leisurely and minutely, ought to have the means of doing so comfortably under proper regulations, and in a separate room, in the same manner as readers are allowed to use books ; but no stranger should be admitted into the room where the Collection of Coins andMedals is preserved unless in rare and exceptional cases, and always in the presence of the Principal Librarian, or the keeper of the department. In the third place, your Committee, being aware of the importance of space for the due exhibition of prints and drawings, and of the repeated complaints of the keeper of that department, who cannot find room wherein to arrange the collection so as to have it safely preserved as well as readily accessible, have given their best attention to those complaints. Most of the inconveniences which are felt by visitors, as well as by Museum officers, in the existing Medal Room, are equally felt in the existing Print Room ; and many of the wants which it is suggested should be provided for to make the Collection of Coins and Medals as useful and instructive as it ought to be in a great national institution, are wants against which provision must be made in order to render equally useful and instructive the Collection of Prints and Drawings. These wants are ample space for classing, arranging, and preserving the bulk of the collection, as well as ample space wherein to exhibit, for the amusement and instruction of the public generally, such a selection of prints and drawings as may be calculated to give a general notion of both arts from their infancy to comparatively modern times, in various Book III, Chap. VII. Uecon- stuuctohs AND PRO- JECTORS. Exhibition or Coins and Medals. Exhibition or Prints and Draw- ings. 750 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. VII. Recon- structor3 AND PRO- JECTORS. BINDERS' Shops. Altera- tions and be -distri- bution oe SPACE gene- rally. New stair' CASES. countries, and according to the style of the most celebrated masters. Studies should likewise be provided for the keeper, and also for an assis- tant-keeper, in this department, as well as accommodation for artists who come to copy or study critically any of the objects, or classes of objects, forming part of this collection, and for those who come for the purpose of researches requiring less minute attention, and who desire to see a variety of prints and drawings in succession. In the fourth place, your Committee have taken into consideration the want of space for carrying on the binding of the Museum books. The Collection of Manuscripts, and, much more, that of Printed Books, have of late years been increasing with unexampled rapidity ; but the bookbinders' accommodation has not been increased in a corresponding ratio. The damage caused, particularly to new books, placed unbound in the readers' hands, may well be conceived ; and the Trustees were compelled, by the necessity of the case, to sanction an expedient of doubtful legality, by allowing a large number of books, which in case of misfortune might be easily replaced at a comparatively small outlay, to be taken out of the Museum to be bound in a house immediately oppo- site to it, hired by the bookbinder. Tour Committee think that Buch an arrangement, avowedly a temporary one, ought not to continue a moment longer than is unavoidable ; and that adequate provision should be made as speedily as possible within the Museum premises for binding all books belonging to the Trust. Tour Committee will now proceed to consider the questions of the final enlargement and alterations of the present buildings, and of the redistribution of the augmented space for the several purposes above mentioned. In making the following proposals, your Committee have kept in view the principle that it would not be advisable for the Trus- tees to appropriate specifically to particular objects any particular space. They will, therefore, as much as possible, confine themselves to stating how the augmented space should be generally redistributed among the remaining collections, giving the chief place to the Antiqui- ties and Library; the arrangement of the particular objects or classes of objects should rest on the responsibility of the head of each depart- ment, who would in due time submit his views to the Trustees. Tour Committee also wish it to be clearly understood that the structural details herein suggested or implied, must be considered liable to such modifications as the farther development of the scheme may require. In the building as now arranged, the principal staircase (No. <39 on the plan of the ground floor) is situated on the left in the Entrance Hall (No. 2) ; opposite to the entrance is the corridor (No. 80) leading to the Reading-Room ; east and west of that corridor, between the main building and the new Library, there is an area (No. 70 and 79) about thirty feet wide unoccupied. It has long been suggested that the prin- The Secretary!? dtp. ... * . IMJanxtscript . . , frrnt&cUBooh. ... - ..,.*.. ~Recu&ng Hoorrv . . , Zoology , , .4/Zt/Jp7Z?isA „ is deftn&cl ~by aJfarpU lint .. » .. > Green, ... • . . .. , , - SeSom.... »... RECONSTRTJCTORS AND PROJECTORS. 751 cipal staircase should be removed from No. 69, and that two staircases be erected on the area 70 and 79, one on each side of No. 80. The hall entrance (No. 2) would be lighted by the skylight already existing in the roof, and by a corresponding opening to be made in the upper floor. The site of the principal staircase, No. 69, would be occupied by a large room, seventy-five feet by thirty -five, giving an area of two thousand six hundred and twenty-five feet, exactly like the one opposite to it (No. 58) in height as in every other respect, with a floor on a level with the rest of the building. There are blank windows on the north side of the principal staircase that would have to be cut through to light the new room, and additional light could be admitted if necessary. On the south of the projected new room is a narrow room, ninety-four feet by twenty-four (No. 3), designated as the Roman Gallery, the light of which is very defective, especially on the side of the windows opening under the front colon- nade. The Collections of Antiquities contain some large objects, more interesting archseologically than artistically, for which light on each side of them is very desirable. If the wall now separating the staircase from No. 3 were removed, and pilasters or columns substituted (the upper part of that wall in the floor above might likewise be removed if desirable), a room ninety -four feet by sixty, giving an area of five thou- sand six hundred and forty feet, admirably adapted for antiquities of this kind, would be obtained. At the western extremity of the Roman Gallery (No. 3), and turning southward, are the Trustees' room (No. 4), two rooms for clerks (No. 5 and 6), and the study of the Principal- Librarian (No. 7). It is proposed to remove all the partition walls inside the space occupied by No. 4, 6, and 5, and by the corridor on the east of No. 4, and to open windows on the west side at the same height, and uniform with those in the gallery No. 17, of which this part of the building would then be a continuation, opening a communication like that on the corresponding side on the east (between No. 56 and 63). The Egyptian Gallery might thus be extended to the total length of four hundred and sixty -five feet. By removing the corridor and study No. 7, as well as the projection on the north side of the house now occupied by Mr. Carpenter, so far west as the point at which it would intersect a prolongation to the south of the west wall of the first Elgin Room, a plot of unoccupied ground, one hundred feet by seventy -five, might be turned to great advantage. The interior arrangement of this newly acquired space would depend on the purposes to which the Trustees should think fit to apply it : whether, for instance, it might be advisable to throw into it the third Graeco- Roman Saloon (No. 10), which is now by common consent too narrow, or whether the western part of that plot of ground had not better be set out as a continuation of the Elgin Room, which should be carried Book III, Chap. VII. Recon- sthuctoks AND PRO- JECTORS. Present Roman Gallery. Trustees' PRESENT Ofpices. New build- ings on No. 11. 752 LATER AUGMENTORS AND BENEFACTORS. Book III, Chap. VII. Recon- structors and Pro- jectors. Space acquired (No, 4, 5, 6,7, 10, 11, 13). Buildings on No. 31 AND 32, AND alteration of present Print Boom. Alteration of stair- case, No. 27. through the end of the above room (No. 10) and of the Lycian Room (No. 13). Before finally deciding this point it would be imperative to determine what is to be done with the Lycian Room, which is in an unfinished state, because it neither is nor ever was large enough for the collection for which it was intended ; whilst, on the other hand, it con- tains objects which ought never to have been placed there, and which ought to be removed. Until the keeper of the department has before him a correct plan of all the space which he may eventually have at his disposal, and until he has well considered how the objects to be placed ought to be arranged, he cannot give a decided opinion upon any scheme for building on the plot now under consideration. For the present pur- pose it is enough to say that the Trustees' room and those annexed (No. 4, 5, and 6), giving an area of about two thousand nine hundred and fifty feet on the ground floor, and a large piece of ground, one hundred feet by seventy-five, may be beneficially applied to the Depart- ment of Antiquities. , No. 14 and 18 are the two Elgin Rooms, containing the finest reliques of Greek art in existence, which have remained unarranged for years, owing to the difficulties which the space hitherto available presented for their definitive arrangement, and to the uncertainty of the final appro- priation of the space No. 31. It seems, however, to be generally admitted that on the unoccupied plot of ground, No. 31, a continuation of the second Elgin Room should be erected of the same width, to include the Print Room, the floor of which should be lowered to the general level of the Museum ground floor, and its width extended west- ward about seven feet. Another gallery might thus be formed altogether four hundred and seventy -five feet long and thirty-seven wide. Should it not extend farther than the southern extremity of the first Elgin Room (No. 14), its length would be three hundred and thirty feet. The plot of ground, No. 32, ought also to be applied to the accommodation of Antiquities. The study No. 23 should be done away with. The two lower flights of the N.W. staircase, No. 27, should be taken down and reconstructed in No. 26 and 36, with the necessary alterations to recon- nect them with the two upper flights, which would remain as they are now. The studies No. 28, and passage No. 29, should be cleared away, as well as those above them, together with the lower part of the western wall of No. 27, the southern wall of that space being continued to No. 30, thus forming a passage or gallery, about twenty-two feet wide, for communication between the Northern Egyptian Gallery and the new gallery to be erected at the north of the Elgin Booms. From the new passage thus formed there should be an opening on the south side, and a flight of steps to descend to the gallery which is to be built on No. 32. There would be room under the new staircase, in the space No. 36, to form an additional study for the Printed Book (references continued.) SO, 51, 52. MoyoU/ library. 53,54-, Eastern/ Printed books. 55. J)?. . . Manuscripts 56. Manuscript ScHoaru. 57. Study 58. Grenvffle, Xibrcay. 59,-67. Manuscripts. 68. Lobby. 69. Passage, to JSew Offices, &? 70. 73. Area/. 7*. 75. 76. Area/. 77. -Passage. 78. 79. Area. 80. Entrance to ^Reacting Moonu 81. J'ew BuUdinq fbrlhnders. 82. 2>?.. . .. J>* . **r and to the great disfigurement of the noble facade which entitles the Ubgbkcy or Museum to claim rank among the most classical buildings of modern times. Should the above proposals of your Committee meet with the approbation of the Trustees and the sanction of the Government, they ought to be earned into effect without delay. The Government would, doubtless, lose no time in providing a proper building for the reception of such collections as are to be removed from the Museum ; until this removal has taken place, no re-distribution of the vacated space can be undertaken ; but the new structures proposed to be erected on ground now unoccupied ought to be proceeded with at once, that they might be, rendered available as speedily as possible. what to be Tour Committee are of opinion that the new building facing Montague iibstputin gtreet, the building for the bookbinder, the building intended to be erected on the ground now vacant between the Elgin Room and the Print Room, and the construction of the new principal staircases, should be commenced immediately. The building intended to be erected on the vacant ground on the west of the Trustees' Room (No. 11 on the plan), must, necessarily, be postponed for awhile. The alterations which might and ought to be rapidly completed, are those which will be required on the east side of the King's Library (No. 55 and 57), to transfer the gallery to the Department of MSS. from that of Printed Books. Committee The Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury state that ' they will be prepared to enter upon the details of these questions in commu- nication with the Trustees, and even, if it should be desired, to offer suggestions upon them.' Tour Committee are of opinion that the proffered assistance should be at once accepted ; and that in order to derive all possible advantage from that assistance a small Committee of Trustees should be appointed to carry on the necessary communica- tions with the Treasury, either verbally or otherwise, and to consider with their Lordships all suggestions that might be offered respecting the HAND. or Trustees to be ap- pointed. RECONSTRUCTORS AND PROJECTOKS. 761 points touched upon in this Report, and their details. This Committee book ill, would be similar to that which the Trustees requested the Treasury to Chap. VII. appoint, by letter of the twentieth of June, 1829, and which was after- llEC0N " wards appointed by the Trustees themselves, with the approbation of AND p E0 . their Lordships, to direct and superintend, not only the works then in jectobs. progress, but those to be afterwards undertaken. On the tenth of February, 1862 — after the communi- cation of this Report to each of the Trustees individually — the recommendations of the Sub-Committee were unani- mously approved, at a Special General Meeting of the Trustees, at which twenty-four members of the Board correspond- were present. After the adoption of the plans thus ™7ifl2l accepted, another Sub-Committee of Trustees was appointed Museum, so. r . . ... 97 of Session to confer with the Treasury in order to their realisation. isbz. Before Parliament, this plan of severance and of re- arrangement — after some modifications of detail which are too unimportant for remark — was supported, in 1862, with the whole influence of the Government. But it failed to win any adequate amount either of parliamentary or of public favour. Some men doubted if the estimated saving, as between building at Bloomsbury and building at Ken- sington, would or could be realized. Others denied that the evils or inconveniences attendant upon severance would be compensated by any adequate gain on other points. The popularity of the Natural History Collections ; the facilities of access to Great Russell Street ; the weighty — though far from unanimous — expressions of opinion from thePaklia- D L , MENTABY eminent men of science in favour of continuance and debate of enlargement, rather than of severance and removal; all these and other objections were raised, and were more or less dwelt upon, both in the House of Commons and in scientific circles out of doors, scarcely less entitled to dis- cuss a national question of this kind. The Commons STBUCTOKS AHD PaO- JECTORS. 762 LATEE ATJGMENTOES AND BENEFACTOES. book in, eventually decided against the project by their vote of the Ktco™ - 19th May, 1862. Substantially, — and in spite of small subsequent addi- tions from time to time to the buildings at Bloomsbury — the question of 1862 is still the question of 1870. As I have said, it has been my object to state that question rather than to discuss it. Should it seem, after full examination, that good government may be better maintained, and adequate space for growth be efficiently provided, by enlarging the existing Museum, would it be worthy of Britain to allow the additional expenditure of a few scores of thousands of pounds — an expenditure which would be spread over the taxation of many years — to preponderate in the final vote of Parliament over larger and more enduring considerations ? In the session of 1866 Mr. Spencer Walpole spoke thus : ' You must either determine to separate the Collec- tions now in the Museum, or buy more land in Bloomsbury. I have always been for keeping them together. I am, however, perfectly willing to take either course, provided you do not heap those stores one on another — as at present,' (July, 1866) — 'in such a manner as to render them really not so available as they ought to be to those who wish to make them objects of study.' Few men are so well entitled to speak, authoritatively, on the question — because few have given such an amount of time and labour to its consideration. By every available and legitimate expression of opinion the Trustees have acted in the spirit of this remark, made almost four years since, by one of the most eminent of their number. The words are, unfortunately, as apposite in March, 1870, as they were in July, 1866. THE END. GENERAL INDEX. Abbo r, George, Archbishop of Canter- bury, 66, 70 Abercorn, Earl of. See Hamilton Abercromby, Sir Ralph, 548 Abyssinia, MSS., brought from, 707 Accessibility, Public, of the British Museum, Successive changes in the Regulations and Statistics of the, 323, 336, 338, 339, 341, 368, 520, 599 Adair, Sir Robert, 373 iEginse, Vases and other Antiquities brought from, 386 seqq. Africa, Pre-historic and Ethnographical Collections from, 699 seqq. Agarde, Arthur, and Sir Robert Cotton, 85, 86 Albemarle, Duchess of. See Monk Albums, Series of German, 457 Alexandria, Sarcophagus from, 365 seqq. Allan- Greg Cabinet of Minerals, 606 Almanzi, Joseph, Hebrew Library of, 42 Amadei, Victor, Marbles from the Col- lection of, 372 Amba-Bichoi, Biblical MSS. from the Monastery of, 615 seqq. America, Pre-historic and Ethnogra- phical Collections from, 699 seqq. Anadhouly, Exploration by Sir Charles Fellows of, 644 Ancient Marbles in the British, Museum, Description of the, 372 seqq. Anderson, Edmund (of Eyworth and Stratton), 132 Andreossi, Anthony Francis, Count, Re- searches in theMonasteries of Nitria of, 610 Angouleme, Duke of, 539 Anne, Queen of England, 207 seqq. Anne of Denmark, Queen Consort of James 1, 153, 156, 166 Ansse de Villoisin, John Baptist, G. d', 455 Antiphellus, Researches of Sir Charles Fellows at, 644 Antiquites Strusques, &c, 352 seqq. Apotheosis of Homer, 401 Arcadia, Archaeological Explorations in, 397 seqq. Argos, Vases and other Antiquities from, 386 Artas of Sidon, Ancient glasswork of, 709 seqq. Artemisia, Ancient Sculptures from the Mausoleum built by, 664 seqq. Arundel, Earl of. See Fitzalan Arundel, Earl of. See Howard Arundelian Library, 198 seqq. Arundelian Marbles, 197 seqq. Ashburnham House, Fire at, 140 Askew, Anthony, 472 Assemani, Joseph Simon, and Stephen Erode, obtain, for the Vatican, Syriac MSS. from the Monastery of the Syrians, 617 Assyrian Antiquities, First beginning of the Collection of, 401 ; Account of the Discoveries by Mr. Layard and his successors of, 629 seqq. Athanasius, Saint, Syriac Version of the Festal Letters of, 623 764 INDEX. Athens, Researches of Lord Elgin at, their History and Results, 381 seqq. Auhlet, John Baptist Christopher Fusee d', Botanical Collection of, 509 B. Babee, Bev. Henry Hervey, M.A., Services of, in the Department of Printed Books, 532, seqq., 542; Death of, 553 Bacon, Francis, Viscount St. Alban's, is assisted by Sir B. Cotton in his endeavour to frame an acceptable measure for a union with Scotland, 57 Bankes, George, 441 Banks-Hodgkenson, J., 488 Banks, Sir Joseph, Bart., P.R.S., No- tices of the Life, Travels, Labours, and Benefactions of, 335, 480— 489. 497 — 501, 509 ; His Correspondence with Sir William Hamilton on Vol- canic Eruptions, 354 seqq. Banks, Mrs. S. S., Bequest of, 27 Barbadoes, Notices of the Early His- tory of the Island of, and of the attempts at plantation there made by William Courten and others, 251 seqq., 261 seqq. ; Botanizing Expe- dition of Sir Hans Sloane at, 278 Barberini (or Portland) Vase, History of the, 461 Barbier, Anthony Alexander, 455 Barbier, Eugene Auguste, 452 Barlow, Hugh, 349 Barnard, Sir Frederick Augusta, La- bours of, as Royal Librarian, 468, ' 472 ; Johnson's Letter to him on the Collection of Books, ib. Barrington, Shute, Bishop of Durham, 420 Earth Cabinet of Gems, 691 Battely, William, 240 Bean, Bev. James, M.A., 544 Beattie, James, LL.D., Conversation with King George III of, 475 Beauclerc, Topham, 425 Beaumont, Sir George, Bart., Bequest of a Gallery of Pictures to the British Museum by, 30, 460 Bentinck Papers, 457 Bentley, Richard, D.D., Royal Libra- rianship of, 140, 169 Berkeley, Mary, 345 Berlin Museum, 579 Bernard, Sir John, 299 Beroldingen Fossils, 26 Bethel, Slingsby, 299 Biblical MSS. of the Nitrian Monas- teries, 610 seqq. Biliotti and Salzmann, Messrs., Ar- chaeological Researches of, in the Island of Rhodes, 669 Birch, Thos., D.D., Services of, as an early Trustee, 415 seqq.; his be- quests, 415 Blacas, P. L. J. Casimir de, Duke of Blacas, Museum of, 689 seqq. Blagrove, Major, 408 Blois, Earls of, Archives, now at Po- mard, of the, 536 seqq. Bodley, Sir Thomas, and Sir B. Cotton, 332 Bolingbroke, Henry, Viscount. See St. John Bolton, Edmund, 84 Bonaparte, Lucien, Prince of Canino Acquisition of part of the Collection of Vases formed by, 35 Bond, Edward Augustus, 600 Bonpland, M., 455 Borell, H. P., Collection of Greek and Roman Coins made by, 34 Borough, Sir John, 195 Bosset, Colonel de, Collection of Greek Coins made by, 25, 400 Botanical Collections, 267, 269, 277 seqq., 283, 295, 492 seqq., 507 Botanical Collections in France, 260 seqq., 500 Botanical Collections in Germany and Italy, 267 INDEX. 765 Botanical Studies in England, Notice of the rise and progress of, 259 seqq. Botanic Gardens at Chelsea, 275, 293, 297 Botanic Garden at Paris, 500 Botta, P. E., Assyrian Researches of, 616 ; his first and hrilliant discove- ries at Khorsabad, 629 ; his genial and liberal co-operation with Layard, 631, foot-note Bondaen, Peter, 255 Bourchier, Sir William, 539 Bowood in Wiltshire, Lord Shelburne's improvements at, 428 Bowring, J., Entomological Collection of, 51 Boyle, Kobert, 275 Branchidse, Ancient Sculpture brought by C. T. Newton from, 664 Brander, Gustavus, Gift of the ' So- lander Fossils,' by, 21, 333 Briasson's Correspondence with Sir H. Sloane respecting a French version of the Natural History of Jamaica, 289 Bridges' Zoological Collections made in South America, 581 Bridgewater, Francis Henry, Earl of. See Egerton Brienne, Henry Lewis de Lomenie de, Count. See Lomenie Brindley, James, 447 British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography, Formation of the new Department of, 688 British Museum, Chronological Epitome of the principal incidents in the for- mation, enlargement, and growth of the successive Collections which con- stitute the, 6 — 47 Brocas, Elizabeth, 52 Brocas, William, 52 Brondsted, Peter Olave, 399 Brougham, Henry, Lord Brougham and Vaux, 547 Brown, Robert, F.E.S., Keeper of Bo- tany, Services of, 507, 508 Browne, William George, Researches in the Nitrian Monasteries of, 610 Bruce, Agnes, of Conington in Hunt- ingdonshire, 49 Bruce, Thomas, Earl of Elgin and Kin- cardine, Archaeological Explorations at Athens and in various other parts of Greece, 381—396 ; Notices of his Life and Public Career, iJ.,"400, 411 j the controversy as to the archaeolo- gical and artistical value of the Elgin Marbles, 411 seqq.; other national results of Lord Elgin's Embassy and Public' Spirit, 439 Bruchmann's Fossils, 39 Bruni d'Entrecasteaux, Joseph Anthony, 500 Bryant, Jacob, 479 Bryaxis, Ancient Sculptures by, 665 Buchan, Mr., a Naturalist engaged in the Voyage of Banks and Cook, 493 Buckingham House and its History, 318 Buckland, William, D.D., 449 Budrum (the ancient Halicarnassus), Explorations of C. T. Newton and other Archaeologists at, 663 seqq. Burckhardt, John Lewis, Travels and Researches in Africa of, 404 Burlamachi, Philip, 250 Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop of Salisbury, 133, 211 Burney, Charles, D.L\, Notices of the Life, Labours, and Literary Character of, with Notices of his Manuscript and Printed Collections, 435-438; 440 seqq. Burney, Frances (afterwards Mme. d'Arblay), 475, 503 Burnouf, M., Researches on Assyrian Palaeography of, 641 Bute, Earl of. See Stuart Byres, James, 372 Byron, George Gordon, Lord Byron, Autograph MSS. of, 458 ; Notice of the recent slander on the fame of, ib. 766 INDEX. Cadogan, Charles Sloane, 297 Cadogan, Lord, 300, 304 Cadyanda, Casts of Bock-Tombs at, 660 Caesar Papers, 426 Calah (of Genesis) Conjectural identi- fication of, 629 Calvert, Sir William, 299 Camden, William, Friendship of Sir Ro- bert Cotton, and, 52, 53, their joint labours on the Britannia, 54; their archaeological tour in the north of England, ib.; other joint labours and friendly intercourse, 87, 98 Campi Phlegrcei, 350 Canino, Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of, and his Collection of Greek Vases, 35 Canning, Stratford, Lord Stratford de BedclifFe, encourages liberally the researches of Layard, 632 ; procures from Halicarnassus the primary spe- cimens of the sculptures of the Mau- soleum and presents them to the Nation, 663 Canova, Anthony, Opinion on the Elgin Marbles of, 455 Caraffa, Carlo, MSS. of, 457 Carew, George, 261 seqq. Carleton, Dudley, Lord Dorchester, 65, 176 Carlisle, James, Earl of. See Hay. Carmina Quadragesimalia of 1748, Oxford, 418 Carr, Robert, Earl of Somerset, Poli- tical connection between Sir Bobert Cotton and, 66 seqq., Somerset's intercourse with the Court of Spain, 69. His alleged complicity in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, 31 seqq. Carr, Frances, Countess of Somerset, 66 seqq. Carteret, Lady Sophia, 424 Carthage, Explorations on the site of ancient, and their results, 666 Cary, Henry Francis, Notice of the Literary Life and Museum Service of, 532 ; circumstances attendant on his Candidature for the Keepership of Printed Books in 1837, 543 seqq. Casaubon, Isaac, 167 Casier, Margaret, 249 Casley, David, Services of, as Deputy Boyal Librarian, 140, 144 Castile, Earls of, 56 Catharine, EmpresB of Bussia, 407 Catalogue of the Anglo- Gallic Coins, 522 Catalogue of the Printed Books, 523, 533, 566 seqq. Cautley, Major, Fossils collected in the Himalayas, by, 39 Cavendish, Mary, Duchess of Portland, 462 Caxton,William,Seriesoftheproductions of the press of, 476-478, 681-683 Cecil, William, Lord Burghley, 427 Cecil, Bobert, Earl of Salisbury, 88, 162 Chaloner, Sir Thomas, 158, 159 Chamberlain, John, 176 Charles I, King of England, 68, 91, 94, 98, 101, 124, 331 Charles II, King of England, 260 Charles X, King of France, 691 Charlett, Arthur, 236, 283 Chelsea, Botanic Garden at, 275, 293, 297 Chelsea, Manor House of, and its History, 294 seqq. Children, John George, 532 Chimsera Tomb from Lycia, 658 Chinese Books, Hull's Collection of, 461 Chinese Antiquities and Curiosities, 700 Choiseul Gouffier, M. G. A. L. de, Count, Archaeological Besearches in Greece of, 384 Chorley, J. Butter, Collection of Spanish Dramatic Poetry formed and be- queathed by, 695 seqq. INDEX. 767 Christy, Henry, Notices of the Life, Beneficence, and Archaeological ex- plorations of, 697 seqq. ; his Collec- tions and their bequest to the Public, 699 seqq., 701 Churchill, John, Duke of Marlborough, 209 seqq. Clarke, Edward Daniel, LL.D., and the Sarcophagus from Alexandria, 366 ; MS. of the Greek Orators obtained by him at Constantinople, 439 Clayton's Herbarium, 509 Cnidus, Ancient Sculpture brought by C. T. Newton from, 664 seqq. Cockerell, Charles Robert, Researches in Phigaleia of, 397 Codex Alexandrinus, 167, 170 Coinage of the Realm, Collections by Sir Joseph Banks , on the, 508 Coins, Medals, and Gems, Collection of, 139, 201, 271, 295, 303, 412, 417, 421, 443, 705 Coke, Sir Edward, 80, 82, 149 Coke, Thomas, Earl of Leicester, 372 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 545 Combe, Taylor, 392, 399 Conington, in Huntingdonshire, 49 Constable, Alice, 132 Constantinople, Early Researches for Greek Marbles and MSS. at, 191 seqq. Conway, Sir Edward, 184 Conyers, John, 259 Cook, Captain James, 334 Corinth, Vases and other Antiquities brought from, 386 seqq. Cotton, Sir John, 135, 139 Cotton, Sir John, Great-grandson of the Founder, Donor of the Cotton Library and Antiquities, 134, 306 Cotton, John, Grandson of the Founder, 133 Cotton, Robert (of Gedding, Cam- bridgeshire), 139 Cotton, Sir Robert (of Hatley St. George, in Cambridgeshire), 139 Cotton, Sir Robert Bruce, Descent and Pedigree of, 50 1570-1585. His education and early friendships, 52 1587-98. Commencement and growth of his library and museum, 53 1599. His archaeological tour in the North of England with Camden, and his share in the composition of the Britannia, 54; is em- ployed by the Queen to prepare a tractate on the precedency of England over Spain, 55 ; ana- lysis of that treatise, ib. 1603. Writes a Discourse on King James' descent from the Saxon Kings, 56 ; is knighted, ib. ; and returned to Parliament for Hun- tingdonshire, but takes little part in its debates, 57 ; accepts a prominent share in the labour of Committees, ib. ; and carries on an extensive correspondence both literary and political, ib. ; acquires for his Library a mass of State Papers, 58; petitions Queen Elizabeth for the esta- blishment of a National and Public Library for England, ib. ; inference which is obviously de- ducible thence in relation to the charge that Sir R. Cotton was an embezzler of Public Records, 59. 1607. Receives an address from the Corporation of Loudon, praying him to restore certain documents alleged to belong to the City Chamber, ib. 1608. Proposes to the King certain reforms in the naval administra- tion of the country, 62; and obtains Letters Patent, creating a commission of Naval Inquiry, 63 ; takes a leading part in the labours of the Commission, and prepares its report, 63 768 INDEX. Cotton, Sir R. (continued). 1609. His Report on the Crown lie- venues, and his Memorials on the necessity for a reform in the royal expenditure, 64 1611. Proposes to the King the crea- tion of a new hereditary dignity — the Baronetage of England, 65 j receives that dignity, but is dissatisfied with the mode in which his idea is worked out, 66 1613-15. Nature of his political connection and intercourse with the Earl of Somerset, 67 ; his alleged share in carrying on negotiations with Gondomar, in relation to the projected match with Spain, 68 1615. He receives a visit from Gon- domar, in which that ambassa- dor introduces himself as a lover of antiquities desirous to view the Cottonian Library, ib. ; is charged with the communica- tion of State Papers to Gondo- mar, 69; returns the Spanish ambassador's visit, 70, 71 ; Gon- domar's account of what passed at their several interviews, ib. ; notices of Mr. S. R. Gardiner's ■comments on and deductions from that account, 72 note; is en- trusted by Somerset with the temporary care of certain jewels of the Crown, 75 ; and is con- sulted by him with reference to the drafting of a royal pardon to be passed under the Great Seal, 77 ; writes a Letter to Prince Charles (afterwards King Charles I), in relation to foreign affairs and in praise of warlike exercises, 79 ; is accused of com- municating papers and secrets of State to the Spanish Ambas- sador, 79; proceedings taken against him thereupon, 80 seqq. Cotton, Sir R. (continued). 1616, Juae ; 19 liberated, 83 ; and receives a pardon under the Great Seal, ib. ; his conduct and his literary labours in retirement, 84 seqq. ; instances of the liber- ality with which he communi- cates his knowledge and his manuscripts, 87, 88 1616-23. His share in the labours which resulted in the ' Petition of Right,' 89 1624, April. His Remonstrance of the Treaties of Amity and Mar- riage with Austria and Spain, 91 ; his advice on the prosecu- tion of the Spanish Ambassa- dors, and Report addressed to Buckingham, 92 1625, August. Speech ascribed to him in the Parliament held at Oxford, 93; its eulogy on the political conduct of Somerset, 96 ; the friendly intercourse be- tween Cotton and Sir Symonds d'Ewes, 97 seqq. 1626, The scene at Cotton House on occasion of the Coronation of Charles I, 99; his conduct in 1626 and subsequent years, as an unofficial adviser of the Crown, 101 seqq. ; his opinions on Coin- age, and on the management of the Royal Mint, 103 seqq. 1628, Jan. Appears at the Privy Coun- cil Board, and delivers a Dis- course advising the immediate calling of a Parliament, 106 ; but has no seat in that Parliament, ib. 1629, November. Is accused of cir- culating a Proposition to bridle Parliaments, written by Sir Robert Dudley, 107 seqq. ; His- tory of that production, 110 seqq. ; Sir Robert's Library is placed under seal, and remains so until his death, 107, 117, INDEX. 769 seqq. ; intercourse between Ben Jonson and Cotton, 116 1630. Decline of Cotton's health, and his correspondence with Dr. Prodsham, 118 ; his visit to Amphyllis Ferrers, and the plot to obtain money from him, 120 seqq. ; the proceedings in the Court of Star Chamber thereon, ib. 1631. Illness, 123 ; Conferences with Dr. Oldisworth and with Bishop Williams, 124 ; death, 125 Cotton, Sir Thomas, Bart., 125, 127, 129, 131, 161 Cotton, Thomas, 49, 118 Cotton, William, 49, 53 Cottoni Posihwma, 91 seqq. and foot- note Courten, Peter, 250 Courten, Sir Peter, 254 Courten, Sir William, Bart., 251, 256, 260, 267 Courten, William (I), 249 Courten, William (II), 257 Courten, William, Pounder of the Sloane Museum : 1642, March. Birth and Parentage, 259 1656. Benefaction to the Tradescant Museum, ib. 1657 ? Residence at Montpelier, 260 1662. Contention with George Carew respecting the admini- stration of the Estates of Sir William Courten, 262 seqq. 1663, July. Presents a petition to King Charles II, 263; but sub- sequently enters into a compro- mise with Carew, ib. ; and re- tires to Fawsley, 264 1670. Relinquishes his family name and returns to Montpelier, whence he makes many Conti- nental tours and extensive Collections both in Natural His- tory and in Antiquities, 267 seqq. 1684? Returns to England, 268; establishes his museum in the Middle Temple, 269 ; his corre- spondence with Sloane, ib. 1686. Account of a Visit to Courten's Museum by Johu Evelyn, 270 1695. Another Account of a like visit by Ralph Thoresby, 271 1695-1701. His closing years, 272 1702, March. Death and monumental inscription, 273 Cracherode, Clayton Mordauut, Notices of the Life and of the Literary and Archaeological Collections of 417-421 ; his Bequests to the Nation, 421 Craven, Keppel, Bequest of, 38 Croft, Sir Thomas Elmsley, 536 Croizet's Fossil Mammalia collected in Auvergne, 37 Crommelinck, Peter, 249 Cromwell, Oliver, 90 Cromwell, Sir Oliver, 56 Cromwell, Thomas, Earl of Essex, 370- Cuming, Hugh, Notices of the Life, . Travels, and Collections in Natural History of, 692 seqq. Cureton, William, Early labours in Bodley's Library of, 619 ; becomes Assistant-Keeper of MSS. in the British Museum, and devotes himself to the Oriental Department, 620 ; his labours on the MSS. from the Monasteries of Nitria, 621 ; and his account of the discoveries there made, given in the Quarterly Seview of 1846, 622 ; publishes a Syriac version of the Festal Letters of 'St. Athanasius, 623 ; his Spieilegium Syriacum, 624 ; other publications and labours, lite- rary and parochial, ib. ; is made a Royal Trustee, ib.; publishes the Martyrs in Palestine of Eusebius 625; his lamented death, ib. Cuvier, George, 455 49 770 INDEX. Cyrene, Archaeological Researches at, 40 D. Da Costa, Solomon, 328 seqq. Daniell, Edward Thomas, Researches in Lycia of, 668 Davis, Nathan, Explorations on the site of Ancient Carthage made by, and their results, 666 seqq. Davy, Sir Humphrey, 508 Debruge Collection, Specimens of An- cient Glass now in theBritish Museum formerly in the, 712 Dee, John, 58 De Foe, Daniel, 208 Delessert, Benjamin, 587 Dendy, Sergeant, 131 Dennis, George, Archaeological Explora- tions in Sicily of, 668 Denon, Vivant, 362 Description of the Ancient Marbles in the British Museum, 522 seqq. Description of the Terra Cottas in the British Museum, 522 Des Hayes, M., Tertiary Fossils col- lected in France by, 38 Dethick, William, 52 D'Ewes, Adrian, 237 D'Ewes, Sir Symonds, Notices of the Researches, the Political Career, and the Antiquarian Collections of, 82, 83, 91, 97-99, 133, 237 D'Hancarville, J. B., 372, 375 Didyme, Ancient Sculpture brought from, 664 Digby, John, Earl of Bristol, 69 Dordogne, Exploration of the Caves of, and its results, 699 Doubleday, John, 463 Downing, Frances, 134 Downing, Sir George, 134, 262 Drawings, Collections of, 310, 408, 421 Dreux, M. de, Researches on the site of Ancient Carthage carried on by, 626 Dryander, Jonas, 509 Dudley, Edmund, 113 Dudley, Sir Robert, and the Proposition to bridle the Impertinency of Parlia- ments, 110 Dugdale, Sir William, 435 Durand Collection of Vases, 715 Dureau de La Malle, Researches on the site of Ancient Carthage of, 626 Dutertre, M., 362 Dyson, Mr., Zoological Collections made in Venezuela by, 581 E. Edmonds, Mr., 59 Edward VI, King of England, 64 Edwards, Major Arthur, Bequest in augmentation of the Cottonian Library, made by, 142, 305; this Bequest was, for a longperiod after the foundation of the Museum, the main- Btay of its Library, 443 sca& foot-note Edwards,- George, 301 Egerton, Francis, Earl of Ellesmere, 597 Egerton,Francis Henry, Earl of Bridge- water, Notices of the Life, Character, and Testamentary Benefactions of, 446-455 Egerton, Francis, Duke of Brldgewater, K.G., 446 Egerton, Lady Katharine, 257 Egyptian Antiquities, Early History of the Collection of, 347 seqq., 362 seqq. Egyptian Glass in the Slade Collection, 708 Elgin, Thomas, Earl of. See BEr/OE Eliot, Sir John, 56, 90, 93, 94, 96, 101 Elizabeth, Queen of England, 51, 103, 157 Ellesmere, Francis, Earl of. See Egerton Ellis, Sir Henry, Notice of the Literary Labours and Public Services of, 524- 534, 549, 569 Elmsley, Thomas, 419 Empson, James, 304, 322 INDEX. 771 Epistles of St. Ignatius, Syriae Version of, 609 Erskine, William, Oriental MSS. of, 42 Esquimaux Collections made and be- queathed by Henry Christy, 699 seqq. Estcourt, T. B. Sotheron, 541 Ethnography and British and Mediaeval Antiquities, Organization of the De- partment of, 688 Etruria in Staffordshire, Debt to the Hamilton Vases of the Porcelain Works established at, 353 EvangeKary of King Ethelstan, 98 Evelyn, John, 196, 201, 270 Fabmeb, Richard, 476 Fellows, Sir Charles, Early Life and Travels of, 642 ; his researches in Lyeia and other parts of Asia, and his excavations of ancient marbles, 644 seqq. ; his death, 653 ; his views of the date and archaeological character of the Lycian Marbles, 654 seqq. Penwick, Sir John, 206 Fermor, Sir William, 199 Ferrers, Amphyllis, 120 Fitzalan, Henry, Earl of Arundel, 172 Fleetwood, Sir Robert, 254 Forbes, Edward, Researches in Lycia, of, 668 Eorshall, Rev. Josiah, 141, 532 Foscarini, Anthony, 179 Foscolo, Hugh, 547 Fossils, Collections of, 22, 26, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 333 Fox, Charles James, 673 seqq. Fox, Henry, Lord Holland, 310, 423 Foxe, John, 325 Fragmenta Scenica Orceea, 441 and foot-note France, State Papers and other MSS. relating to the history of, 456, 572 France, Notice of the early and per- sistent efforts for the acquisition for public use of the treasures of Learn- ing and Art made by the Statesmen of, 348 Franklin, Benjamin, 672, 673 Franks, A. W., Account of some of the choice specimens in the Christy Col- lection by, 698 seqq.; and of those in the Slade Collection, 708 seqq. Fraser, Mr., Zoological Collections made in Tunis by, 581 Frattochi (the ancient Bovillse), Dis- covery of Ancient Sculpture at, 401 Frederick, Prince of Wales, 294 Fusee d'Aublet, J. B. C, 509 Fynes-Clinton, Henry, Candidature for the Principal Librarianship of the Museum of, 533 G. Gaispobd, Thomas, 620, 624 Galloway, Patrick, 155 Gardiner, S. R., Notice of the account of the intercourse between Sir R. Cotton and the Count of Gondomar given by, 52, 72, 146 Gardiner, Mr., Zoological Collections made in Brazil by, 581 Garnett, Rev. Richard, 549 Garrick, David, 415 Gaston, Duke of Orleans, 270 Gautier, Abbe, 221 George III, King of Great Britain, Gift to the Nation of the Thomason Library by, 330 ; his Political Inter- course with Lord Shelburne, 430 seqq. ; his Literary tastes and Cha- racter, 465 seqq.; Formation of his Library, 469; his Conversations with Johnson and with Beattie, 474 seqq. ; Pains taken by him in forming a series of the early produc- tions of the English Press, 477 seqq. ; Circumstances which attended the 772 INDEX. Gift of his Library to the Nation, 482 seqq. George IV, King of Great Britain, 465, 482 seqq. German Albums, aeries of, 457 German Glass in the Slade Collection, Early, 713 Gibbons, Grinling, 273 Gibson, Benjamin, Remarks of, on the Lycian Marbles discovered by Sir C. Fellows, 649 Gilbert, Mr., Zoological Collections made in Australia and New Zealand by, 581 Ginguene", Peter Lewis, Library of, 442, 455 Glass, Slade Collection of Ancient, 708 seqq. Goade, Dr., 193 Godolphin, Sydney, Earl of Godolphin, 211 Goldsmith, Oliver, 425 Gondomar, Diego de Sarmiento, Count of, Intercourse of Sir R. Cotton with, 68, 80, 81, 95, 102, 146 Gorges, Ferdinando, 187 Gosse, P. H., Zoological Collections made in Jamaica by, 581 Goudot, M., Zoological Collections made in Columbia by, 581 Gough, Richard, 529 Gould, John, Zoological Collections made in Australia and in New Zea- land by, 381 Graves, Captain, 651 Gray, John Edward, F.R.S., Public Services of, 577 seqq. ; his Illustra- tions of Indian Zoology, ib.; Cata- logues and Synopses of the Natural History Collections originated by, 578; Evidence on the comparative state of those Collections in 1836 and in 1849, 579 seqq. Greek and Roman Marbles, History of the Collection of, 372 seqq. Greek Coins, Collection of, 412, 705 Greek Manuscripts, Researches in the 17th century for the Collection of, 199 seqq. Greek Marbles, Early Researches in the Levant for the acquisition of, 189 seqq. Gregg, William, 210 Grenville, Thomas, Notices of the Po- litical Life of, 670 seqq. ; on his re- tirement from politics he devotes himself to literary and social pursuits, and collects his Library, 677 seqq.; its character, 678, 681; his Conversa- tion with Sir A. Panizzi as to its destination, 679 Grenville, Richard, Marquess of Buck- ingham, 674 seqq. Greville, Charles, 356, 459 Grey, Lady Jane, 113, 477 Grey, Henry, Earl of Kent, 254 Grey, Henry, Duke of Kent, 446 Grey, Lady Anna Sophia, 446 Grey, Thomas, Earl of Stamford, 241 Gronovius, John Frederick, Herbarium of, 509 Grosley, Peter John, Account of the early condition and regulations of the British Museum by, 337 Grotefend, George Frederick, 641 Guenther, Dr., 603 Guiscard, Anthony de, 217 H. Haeberlein Fossils, 40 Halicarnassian Marbles, 663 seqq. Haller von Hallerstein, Charles, 397 Hailey, Edmund, 276 Hamilton, Gavin, 372, 374, 376, 406 Hamilton, Sir William, Notices of the Diplomatic Career, the scientific re- searches, the archaeological and ar- tistic Collections of, 347-360; his promotion of the explorations of Lord Elgin, 382; he brings to England the Barberini or Portland Vase, 459 INDEX. 773 Hamilton, Lady, 356, 358 Hamilton, William Richard, 399 Hampden, John, 300 Hanbury, William, 137, 139 Hancarville, J. B. d', 352 Harcourt, Simon, Lord Chancellor of Great Britain, 225 Hardiman, John, 456 Harding Prints and Drawings, 36 Hardy, Sir Thomas Duffus. 529 Hardwicke, Major-General, Bequest of Zoological Collections by, 580 Hargrave, Francis, Library of, 435 Harley, Sir Edward, 204, 234 Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxlord, a Trus- tee of the Cotton Library under the Act of 1700, 139; Parentage and. Descent of, 203 ; his first public ap- pearance on occasion of the Revolution of 1688, 204 ; his Parliamentary and Official Career, 205 seqq.; his Secre- taryship of State, 207 ; he protects De Foe, 208 ; the crime of William Gregg and the use made of it by Harley's enemies, 210 ; his dismissal from the Secretaryship, 211 ; he intrigues against the Godolphin Mi- nistry, 212 ; becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer, 213 ; his friendship with Swift, 214; Guiscard's attempt on his life and its results, 217 ; he becomes Lord High Treasurer, 219 ; his intercourse with the ' October Club,' 220; and with the Jacobite exiles, 221 seqq. ; his intercourse with George the First, 229 ; his im- peachment, 230 ; and trial, 232 ; returns to Parliament, 233 ; his Do- mestic Life, 234 ; the History of his Library, 235, 477 seqq.; its Acqui- sition by Parliament, 242 ; extracts from the Stuart Papers illustrative of the intercourse of Lord Oxford with the Jacobites subsequently to the Accession of George I, 242 seqq. Harley, Edward, Earl of Oxford, 241, 307 Monuments of the Con- quest of Xanthus by, 662 Harpy - Tomb, or Pandarus - Tomb, brought from Xanthus, 649, 654 Hartweg, Mr., Zoological Collections made in Mexico by, 581 Hawes, Sir Benjamin, 544 Hawkins, Edward, 43, 532 Hawkins, Ernest, 549 Hawkins, Thomas, 34 Hawle3', Sir Henry, 507 Hays' Egyptian Antiquities, 45 Heber, Richard, 483 Hebrew Books, Collections of, 42, 329 Henrietta Maria, Queen Consort of Charles I, 186 Henry III, King of England, 79 Henry V, King of England, 79 Henry VII, King of England, 113 Henry VIII, King of England, 54 Henry, Prince of Wales, Life and Cha- racter, 153 seqq. ; his intercourse with Ralegh and his influence upon Naval Affairs, 160; his purchase of Lord Lumley's Library, 162 ; the projects for his marriage, 164 ; his death, 166 ; union of his Library with that at Whitehall, 167; subsequent history of the Royal Library until its incor- poration with the British Museum, 168 seqq. Heralds' College, Arundelian MSS. at the, 202 Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 235 Herbert, Elizabeth, 134 Herbert, Lord Chief Justice, 278 Herculaneum, Explorations at, 353 Hickes, Sir Michael, 426 Hickes, Sir William, 426 Hill, Sir John, 322 Hoare, Sir Richard Colt, Benefactions of, 459 Hoeck, J. van, 240 Holies Bentinck, Margaret, Duchess of Portland, 242 HoKes, Thomas, 347 774 INDEX. Holwell Carr, "William, Bequest of Pic- tures to the British Museum by, 30 Homer, Palimpsest Fragments of, found amongst the MSS. from the Nitrian Monasteries, 624 Honeywood, Elizabeth, 133 Hope Collection of Vases, 715 Hornemann, Frederick, 504 Horsley, Samuel, Bishop of St. Asaph, 506 Hosting, William, 586 Howard, Henry, Earl of Northampton, 64, 66, 81, 113 Howard, Margaret, 132 Howard, Lady Philippa, 370 Howard, Philip, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, 163, 174 Howard, Thomas, Earl of Arundel, Surrey, and Norfolk, Correspondence with Sir R. Cotton of, 87; his early life and his career at Court, 174 seqq. ; beginnings of his extensive Collec- tions in literature, art, and archaeo- logy, 177; his quarrel with Lord Spencer, ib.; the adventure of his wife at Venice and its consequences, 179 ; his imprisonment by Charles I, 183 seqq.; his efforts in Colonization, 186; his withdrawal from England, and death, 188 ; character and his- tory of the Arundelian Collections, 189 seqq. Howard, Henry, Duke of Norfolk, 197, 199 Howell, James, 52, 94, 101 Hubert, Robert, 259 Hugessen, Dorothea, 503 Hugessen, William Weston, 503 Hull, John Fowler, 460 Humboldt, William von, 455, 501 Huntington, Robert, Bishop of Raphoe, 609 Hutchinson, General Lord, 362, 367 Hutton, William, 340 Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, 265 Hyde, Lawrence, Earl of Rochester, 572 I. Icelandic Books,' 497 Ignatius, St., Nitrian MSS. of the Epistles of, 609 seqq. Inglis, Sir Robert Harry, 542 Institute of Egypt, 362 seqq. Institute of France, 505 Irish Manuscripts, Collections of, 456, 457 Italian Topography, Collection of, 460 J. Jackson, Cyril, 422 Jacquier, M., 509 James I, King of England, &c, 49, 65, 69, 73, 85, 86, 87, 103, 111, 131, 154 James Stuart, Prince of Wales (called ' The Old Pretender'), 221 seqq., 244, 245 James, Richard, 114 seqq. Japanese Books, 718 seqq. Jenkins, Thomas, 372, 376, 377 Jenkinson, Robert Banks, Earl of Liverpool, 483 Johnson, Samuel, 242, 469, 470, 471, 473, 475 Jolles, Sir John, 59 Jones, John Winter, 568, 575, 600 Jones, Inigo, 163 Jonson, Benjamin, 116 Journal Britannique, 343 Joursanvault, Baron de, 536 seqq. Junius, Francis, 199 Jussieu, Bernard de, 289 ■ K. Kate, John, Bishop of Lincoln, 441 Kennet,White, Bishop of Peterborough, 427 Khorsahad and Kouyunjik, Discoveries at, 629 seqq. King, Dr. William, 286 Knatchbull, Sir Edward, 507 Knight, Gowin, 321, 342 INDEX. 775 Knight, Richard Payne, Notices of the Public and Literary Life, the Collec- tions, the Writings, and the Bene- factions of, 401-412, 460 ; his opinions and his Parliamentary Evidence on the Elgin Marbles, 389, 411 seqq. Knightley, Sir Richard, 254 Kokscharow Minerals, 42 Kbnig, Charles, 532, 575 La Billaediebe, M. de, Botanical and and other Collections of, 500 Lambarde, William, 52 Lambe, Dr., 87 Lansdowne Manuscripts, 526 seqq. Lansdowne, William, Marquess of. See Petty-Fitzmaubice Lartet, M., 699 seqq. La Turbie Gems, 691 Laud, Archbishop, 151 Laurenzano Collection, Marbles for- merly in the, 373 seqq. La Valliere, Duke of, 472 Layard, Austen Henry, Notices of the Travels,the Archaeological Researches and Collections of, 627 seqq. Leach, Dr., 573 Leheup, Peter, and his dealings with the Foundation-Lottery of the British Museum, 309, 340 Lemery, Nicholas, 275 Le Neve, Peter, 435 Lennox, Esme, Duke of. See Stttaet Leochares, Sculptures of, 665 Lerma, Duke of, 71 Lethieullier, Pitt, 347 Lethieullier, Smart, 347 Lethieuillier, William, 347 Levant Manuscripts, Early Researches for the Acquisition of, 609 seqq. Lever, Sir Ashton, 339 Ley, James, Earl of Marlborough, 53 Leyden, Natural History Museum of, 579 Limyra, Tombs of, 658 Linart, M., Visit to the Monasteries of the Nitrian Desert of, 610 Lincolnshire, Collections for, 435 Lind, Dr., 495 Linkh, James, 397 Linnaeus, Charles, 509 Lisle, William, 87 Lloyd, William, Bishop of Lichfield, 236 Locke, John, 267 Lomenie, Henry de, Count of Brienne, Manuscripts of, 235 Long, Charles, Lord Farnborough, 456, 483 Loureiro, John de, Herbarium of, 509 Lucar, Cyril, Patriarch of Constanti- nople, 167 Lumley, John, Lord Lumley, Library of, 162 Lusieri, John Baptist, 382 Lycian Marbles, 645 seqq. Lyttelton, Sir Edward, 254 Lyttelton, Sir Thomas, 206 M. Macclesfield, Earl of. See Paekeb Madden, Sir Frederick, 122, 141, 523 Magna Graecia, Antiquities from, 351 seqq. Major, Richard Henry, 471 Manchester, Henry, Earl of. See Montagu Manuscript Collections, 242, 303, 304, 426, 455, 460, 461, 485, 523, 616- 624, 707 Map and Chart Collections, 471 Marsden's Collections of Oriental Coins, 35 Maty, Matthew, 322, 342 Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, Sculp- tures of the, 664 seqq. Mausoleum and Cinerary Urns, 522 Maynwaricg, Roger, 87 Menou, General, and the Egyptian Antiquities collected by the French Explorers, 363 Menzies, Archibald, 334 776 INDEX. Merret, Christopher, 290 Mewtas, Thomas, 117 Millard, John, 541 Mineralogical Collections, 459, 510, 521 Minutes of Evidence before Select Com- mittee on the British Museum of 1835-36, 555, 558 ;— before the Royal Commissioners of 1848-50, 566 Moll, Baron von, 413 Mommsen, Tycho, MSS. of, 457 Monck-Mason, Henry, MSS. of, 457 Monk, Christopher, Duke of Albemarle, 270 Montagu, Colonel George, Collections in Zoology of, and his public bene- faction, 459, 576, 692 Montagu, John, Earl of Sandwich, 489 Montagu, Ralph, Duke of Montagu, 319 Montagu House and its history, 319, 324 Monticelli's Minerals, 521 Morghens, Raphael, Prints of, 36 Moritz, Charles, 338 Morrison, Robert, Chinese Library of, 37 Morton, Dr. Charles, 322, 344, 519 Mouncey, John, 250 Museum Tradescantiawum, 259 Musgrave, Sir William, Benefactions of, 416 Myra, Casts of Rock Tombs at, 660 N. Napier of Magdala, Lord, Efforts for the collection of Abyssinian MSS. and Antiquities during the late Campaign made by, 703 seqq. Napoleon and the Institute of Cairo, 366; his plans for the acquisition • of the Marbles of the Parthenon, 384 Natural History Collections, Proposi- tions which have been made for the removal of the, 513 ; 594 seqq. ; 744 seqq. Natural History of Jamaica, 289 seqq. Nelson, Horatio, Lord Nelson, 356, 359, 361 Neville, Sir Henry, 55 Newton, Adam, 157 Newton, Charles Thomas, Researches for Antiquities at Halicarnassus, Branchidse, Cnidus, &c, of, 663 seqq.; his labours in respect to the Wood- house Collection, 704 Newton, Sir Isaac, 499 Nice, Daniel, Museum of, 195 Nicolas, Sir Harris, 535, 541 Nimeguen, Discovery of Ancient Bronzes near, 409 Nimroud, Excavations of Mr. Layard and his Successors at, 629 seqq. Nitrian Monasteries, Account of the successive researches for MSS. in the Libraries of the, 609 seqq. Norgate, Edward, 195 Northampton, Henry, Earl of. See Howabd O. Oldiswoeth, William, 124 Onslow, Arthur, 306 Orsini, Plavio, MSS. of, 457 Osborne, Sir John, 240 Oswald, James, 673 Ouseley, Sir Gore, 461, 509 Overbury, Sir Thomas, 67, 81, 82, 83 Owen, Admiral Sir Edward, 651 Owen, Richard, on the growth and progress of the Zoological Collections, 602, 694 ; on the state, classification, and requirements of the Collection of Minerals, 606. Paoho, Mr., negotiates the transfer from the Monastery of St. Mary Deipara of a residuary Collection of Syrian MSS. previously withheld, 618 Paiafa, Xanthian tomb of, 652, 658 Palmer, Sir Geoffrey, 263 INDEX. 777 Pandarus, Lycian Marbles illustrative of the Legend of, 654 Panizzi, Sir Antonio, 485, 523, 543, 546, 552, 558, 559, 560, 563, 567, 570, 704; his influence on the be- quest of the Grenville Library, 678 seqq. ; his designs and labours for the construction of the New Reading Room, 586 seqq. ; his account of the choice books in the Grenville Col- lection, 681 seqq.; testimony borne in Parliament in 1866 to his public services, 583 Papin, Dionysius, 276 Paramythia (in Epirus), Discovery of ancient Bronzes at, 407 Paris and London Museums compared, 579, 581 Parker, George, Earl of Macclesfield, 299, 304 Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 58 Parry, John Humffreys, 568 Paynell, Robert, 241 Pelham, Henry, 307, 309 Pell, John, 427 Pennant, Thomas, 496 Percy, Algernon, Duke of Northum- berland, 610 Perez, Anthony, 457 Persepolitan Marbles, 461 Persian MSS., 456, 459 Peters, Hugh, 168 Petiver, James, 290 Pett, Phineas, 161 Petty, William, 191, 193 Petty -Fitzmaurice, William, Marquess of Lansdowne, 426 seqq., 672 Petyt, William, 435 Phigaleia, Marbles of, 396 seqq. Phoenician Glass, 708 Piaggi, Anthony, 358 Pierre-Luisit (Pays-de-Bagey), Dis- covery of ancient Sculpture at, 407 Pindar, Sir Paul, 260, 267 Pinelli Library, 438 Pirckheimer Library, 195 Pitton de Tournefort, Joseph, 267 Planfca, Andrew, 517 Planta, Joseph, Notices of the Life, Literary Works, and Public Services of, 517 seqq. Portland Vase, History of the, 461 ' seqq. Pourtales Collection of Antiquities, 669 Proposition to bridle the Impertinence of Parliaments, 100 R. Ralegh, Sir Walter, 87, 113, 147, 160, 161, 187 Ratcliffe, John, 476 Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 641 Ray, John, 275, 282 Reid, George William, on Prints in the Slade Collection, 716 Rich, Claudius James, 459, 616 Robartes, John, Earl of Radnor, 241 Roberts, Edward, 25 Roe, Sir Thomas, Researches in the Levant of, 167, 192 seqq. Rosetta Inscription, 365 seqq. Royal Academy of Arts, 471 Royal Society, 284 seqq., 498 seqq. Russell, John, Duke of Bedford, 524 Rycaut, Sir Paul, 427 Rye, William Brenchley, 719 Rymer, Thomas, 328 S. Saint-John, Henry, Viscount Boling- broke, 212 seqq., 309 Saint-John, Oliver, 110, 114 Salisbury, Earl of. See Cecil Salway, Richard, 268 Sancroft, William, Archbishop of Can- terbury, 235 Saunders, Dr. Sedgwick, on certain MSS. in the Cotton Collection, 151 Saunders, 'William, 703 seqq. 778 INDEX. Scharf, George, 645 Scopas, Sculptures of, 665 Segar, Sir William, 435 Seguier, Peter, 235, 240 Selden, John, 97, 130, 131, 419 Sennacherib, Sculptural Monuments of, 633, 640 seqq. Serra, Marquess (of Genoa), 665 Seymour, Edward, Duke of Somerset, 64, 211 Sheepshanks, John, 35 Sicily, Archaeological Researches in, 668 Siebold, Philip Francis von, Travels and Researches in Japan of, 717 seqq. ; his Japanese Libraries, 718 Slade, Felix, Collections and Bequests of, 707 seqq. Sloane, Sir Hans : 1660 - 1677 - 1683. Parentage, and early education in Ireland, 274 1678. Studies Chemistry, Botany, and Medicine in London, 275 1683. Goes to France to prosecute his professional and scientific education, ib. 1684. Commences his medical career in London, 276 1687. Proceeds to the West Indies as Physician to the Governor- General and to the Fleet, and during that Voyage begins the formation of his Museum, 278 seqq. 1689. Returns to England with ex- tensive Collections, 281 1693. Becomes Secretary of the Royal Society, 282 1696. Publishes his first scientific work, ib. 1690 to 1727. Resumes the publication of the suspended Philosophical Transactions, 284; Discussions between Sloane and Woodward, 286 ; Enumeration of the honours and distinctions con- ferred upon him, 287 1708. Publishes the first volume of the Natural History of Jamaica, 288 1710-18. Incorporation of the Col- lections of Plukenet, Petiver, and others, with Sloane's Museum, 290; his extensive correspondence and charities, 291 1741. Retires to his Manor House at Chelsea, 293 1748. Visit to the Sloane Museum of the Prince and Princess of Wales, 294 1748-9. Last Will and Codicils, 296 seqq. ; declining years and death, 300 ; Comparative Synoptical Table of his Museum in 1725 and in 1753, 303 ; its acquisi- tion by Parliament and its pub- lic establishment, in 1753, 304 seqq. Smirke, Sir Robert, 584 seqq. Smirke, Sydney, 587 seqq., 596 Smith and Porcher, Explorations at Cyrene of Messrs., 40 Smith, Joseph, 469 Smith, Robert, 59 Smith, Dr. Thomas, 142 Smith, Sir Thomas, 235 Solander, Daniel Charles, 491 Soltikoff Collection, 712 Somers, John, Lord Somers, 139 Somerset, Earl of. See Caeb Somerville, Lord, 480 Sonnini de Manoncourt, Charles N. S., Researches in the Nitrian Monas- teries of, 610 Spanish MSS., 456 Spanish Poetry and Drama, Chorley Collection of, 695 Spano (Canon), of Cagliari, 626 Spencer, Charles, Earl of Sunderland, 239 Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, 735 seqq., 410 Spelman, Sir Henry, 124 INDEX. 779 Spratt, T. A. B., Researches in Lycia of, 668 Stephen, James Francis, 38 Strozzi Gems, 691 Stuart, Esme, Duke of Lennox, 71, 182 Suffolk, Thomas, Earl of. See Howabd Swift, Jonathan, 214 seqq. T. Tattam, Henry, Researches in the Nitrian Monasteries of, 613 Theyer, Charles and John, 168 Thomason, George, 331 Thoresby, John, Visit to Courteu's Museum of, 270 Tischendorf's Visit to the Nitrian Monasteries, 618 Towneley, Charles, Birth and Ancestry of, 369 ; his Continental Education and Travels, 370; History of his Collection of Ancient Sculpture, 372 seqq. ; his return to Italy and further enlargement of his Gallery, 377 seqq. ; its testamentary disposal, and subsequent acquisition by Parlia- ment, 379 Tradescant'a Museum, 259 Tyrwhitt, Thomas, Benefactions of, 417 XT. Utica, Archaeological Researches at, 666 seqq. Vase Collections, Notices of the growth and extent of the, 351, 386 seqq. Villiers, George, Duke of Buckingham, 68, 73, 84, 85, 86, 91, 99, 100, 116 Vincent, Augustine, 87 Vossius, Gerard John, 235 W. Wake, Sir Isaac, 195 Walker, Sir Edward, 176 Walpole, Horace, Earl of Orford, 309, 310, 322, 405, 415, 426, 429 Wanley, Humphrey, 143, 235, 236, 238, 240, 241, 427 Warburton, John, 240, 435 Warburton, William, Bishop of Glou- cester, 457 Ward, Dr. John, 336, 347, 519 Watts, Thomas, Notice of the Literary Life and Public Services of, 554 seqq. ; his remarks on the new buildings of the Museum, 585 seqq. ; his account of the specimens of Book- binding in the Slade Collection, 716 ; and of the Japanese Library of P. P. von Siebold, 719 Watson- Wentworth, Charles, Marquis of Rockingham, 429 Webb, Philip Carteret, 426 Wedgwood, Josiah, 358 Wendeborn, Frederick, 338, 485 Wentworth, Thomas, Earl of Strafford, 111, 186 Wesenham Family, 49 West, James, 427, 476 Whitaker, Lawrence, 117 Whitelocke, Bulstrode, 168 Wilbraham, Roger, 409 Williams, John, Archbishop of York, 87, 124 Witt, George, 696 Wood, Antiquarian explorations at Ephesus of Mr. Consul, 669 Woodhouse, James, Museum of Anti- quities formed at Corfu by, 702 ; its bequest to the Public, and the cir- cumstances attendant thereon, 703 seqq. Woodward, Dr. John, 259, 286 Wotton, Sir Henry, 179, 181 780 INDEX. x. Xanthus and its sculptured monu- ments, Discovery by Sir C. Fellows of, 645 seqq. Yelverton, Sir Henry, 178 Young, Arthur, 480 Young, Patrick, 167 Young, Thomas, 367 PBIKTED BY J. E. ADLAKD, BAItTHOLOHEW CLOSE.