Debates, vol. xix, col. 850.
But, be that as it may, party intrigue, rather than ministerial incapacity, had to do, confessedly, with the rapid overthrow of the Government of July, 1782.
Personally, LordShelburnewas 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 inShelburne’scase, the struggle of the politician did not, as inCanning’s, break down the bodily vigour of the man. LordShelburnehad twenty-two years of retirement yet before him, when he resigned the premiership in 1783. And they were years of much happiness.
The closing Years of Lord Lansdowne’s Life.
Part of that happiness was the result of the domestic union just adverted to. Another part of it accrued from the rich Library which the research and attention of many years had gradually built up, and from the increased leisure that had now been secured, both for study and for theenjoyment of the choice society which gathered habitually at Lansdowne House and at Bowood.
LordShelburne’sretirement had been followed, in 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 LordCarrington. 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 combined with some that were especially his own, made ample amends.
The exciting debates which grew out of the French Revolution and the ensuing events on the Continent, called LordLansdowne, 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 Purchase of the Lansdowne Manuscripts.
In order to acquire for the nation that precious portion of LordLansdowne’sLibrary which was in manuscript, the 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 Parliamentfor the improvement of the national collections of books.
Four thousand nine hundred and twenty-five pounds was the sum given to LordLansdowne’sexecutors for his manuscripts. Besides the successive accumulations of State Papers heretofore mentioned, theLansdowneCollection included other historical documents, extending in date from the reign ofHenry the Sixthto that ofGeorge the Third; the varied Collections of WilliamPetyton parliamentary and juridical lore; those ofWarburtonon the topography and family history of Yorkshire, and ofHolles, containing matter of a like character for the local concerns of the county of Lincoln; the Heraldic and Genealogical Collections ofSegar,Saint George,Dugdale, andLe Neve; and a most curious series of early treatises upon music, which had been collected by JohnWylde, who was for many years precentor of Waltham Abbey, in the time of the second of the Tudor monarchs.
The Acquisition of the Hargrave and Burney Libraries.
The Lansdowne Collection did not contain very much of a classical character. Its strength, it has been seen already, lay in the sections of Modern History and Politics. The next important addition to the Library of the Museum—that of the manuscripts and printed books of FrancisHargrave—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.Hargrave’sLegal Library was bought in 1813. CharlesBurney’sClassical Library was bought in 1818. In the biographical point of view neither of these men ran a career which offers much of narrative interest. The one careerwas that of a busy lawyer; the other, that of a laborious scholar. But toBurney’slife a few sentences may be briefly and fitly given.
The second CharlesBurneywas a younger son of the 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 dogBurney,’ 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 Life and Literary Works of Dr. Chas. Burney.
CharlesBurney, junior, was born at Lynn, in Norfolk, on the 10th of December, 1757. He was educated at the Charter House in London, at Caius College, Cambridge, and at King’s College, Aberdeen. At Aberdeen,Burneyformed 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 ofBurney’slife. 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 successful 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 byGuizot, 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.’ InBurney’scase, the combinedassiduity of an energetic man at the author’s writing-table, at the master’s desk, and also (it must in truthful candour be added) at his flogging block,[5]brought him a large fortune as well as a wide-spread reputation. This fortune enabled him to collect what, for a schoolmaster, I imagine to have been a Classical Library hardly ever rivalled in beauty and value. It was the gathering of a deeply read critic, as well as of an open-handed purchaser.
The bias of Dr.Burney’slearning and tastes in literature 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. OfÆschylushe had amassed forty-seven editions; ofSophocles, one hundred and two; ofEuripides, one hundred and sixty-six.
His first publication was a sharp criticism (in theMonthly Review) on Mr. (afterwards Bishop)Huntingford’sCollection of Greek poems entitledMonostrophica. This was followed, in 1789, by the issue of an Appendix toScapula’sLexicon; and in 1807 by a collection of the correspondence ofBentleyand other scholars. Two years later, he gave to students of Greek hisTentamen de Metris ab Æschylo in choricis cantibus adhibitis, and to the youthful theologians his meritorious abridgment of BishopPearson’sExposition of the Creed. In 1812, he published the Lexicon ofPhilemon.
The only Church preferments enjoyed by Dr.Burneywere the rectory of St. Paul, Deptford, near London, and that of Cliffe, also in Kent. His only theological publication—other than the abridgment ofPearson—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, CharlesBurneywas a very sociable man. He lived much withParrand withPorson, 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 Books in Burney’s Library.
Some of Dr.Burney’schoicest books were obtained when the Pinelli Library was brought to England from Italy. The prime ornament of his manuscript Collection, a thirteenth century copy of theIliad, of great beauty and rich in scholia, was bought at the sale of the fine Library of CharlesTowneley, Collector of the Marbles.
Although classical literature was the strength of theBurneyCollection, it was also rich in some other departments. Of English newspapers, for example, he had brought together nearly seven hundred volumes of theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries, reaching from the reign ofJames the Firstto the reign ofGeorge the Third. No such assemblage had been theretofore formed, 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. ForBurney’slife-long study of the Greek drama had gradually inspired him with a desire to trace what, in a sense, may be termed its modern revival, in the grand sequel given to it byShakespeareand his contemporaries. He had also collected about five thousand engraved theatrical portraits, and two thousand portraits of literary personages.
A large number of his printed books contained marginal manuscript notes byBentley,Casaubon,Burmann, and other noted scholars. And in a series of one hundred and seventy volumesBurneyhad 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 ofFragmenta Scenica Græca.
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 LordElgin’sOttoman Embassy, and brought into England. It supplied lacunæ which are found wanting in all other known manuscripts. It completed an imperfect oration ofLycurgus, and another ofDinarchus. Another MS. of the Greek orators, of the fifteenth century, is only next in value to that derived fromClarke’sresearches in the East, of 1800. There is also a very fine manuscript of the Geography ofPtolemy, with maps compiled in the fifteenthcentury, and two very choice copies of the GreekGospels, one of which is of the tenth, and the other of the twelfth centuries.
In Latin classics, theBurneyManuscripts include a fourteenth centuryPlautus, 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 byPappus Alexandrinus, aCallimachusof the same date, and a curious Manuscript of theAsinus AureusofApuleius, 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.Burneydied 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 parishioners at his loss.
Doctor Burney’s Character.
For inBurney, too, the scholar and the Collector had 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 learning 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.’
Another meeting was called shortly afterwards, with a like object, but of another sort. Despite his reverence for Busbeian traditions, Dr.Burneyhad known how to win the love of his pupils.|Annual Biography and Obituary, vol. iii, p. 225.|A large body of them met, under the chairmanship of the excellent JohnKaye, then Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, and they subscribed for the placing of a monument to their old master in Westminster Abbey.
The application of the Trustees of the British Museum to Parliament for the purchase of Burney’s Library.
On the twenty-third of February, 1818, the Trustees of the British Museum presented to the House of Commons a petition, praying that Dr.Burney’sLibrary should be acquired for the Public. The prayer of the petition was supported by Mr.Bankesand by Mr.Vansittart, and a Select Committee was appointed to inquire and report 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. CharlesBurneyhad collected no fewer than seven hundred and twenty-five editions.[6]|Acquisition of the Burney Library by the Nation.|His Collection of the Greek dramatists was not only, as I have said, extensive, but it 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 exhibited,at one view, all the diversities of text, recension, and commentary. His Greek grammarians were arrayed in like manner. And his collection of lexicographers generally, and of philologists, was both large and well selected.
Report of Select Committee, 1818; passim.
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.Burneya much larger sum, and that, possibly, if sold by public auction, it might have produced to his representatives more than twenty thousand pounds.
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 contributions to French literature.|Collection of P. L. Ginguené.(Died 11 Nov., 1816.)|Pier LuigiGinguené—author of theHistoire Littéraire d’Italieand a conspicuous contributor to the early volumes of theBiographie 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 extended, in the whole, to more than four thousand three hundred separate works, of which number nearly one thousand 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.
A more numerous printed Library had been purchased together with a cabinet of coins and a valuable herbarium, at Munich, three years earlier, at the sale of the Collections of BaronVon Moll. His Library exceeded fourteen thousand volumes, nearly eight thousand of which related to the physical sciences and to cognate subjects.|Collection of Baron von Moll.(1815.)|The cost of this purchase, with the attendant expenses, was four thousand seven hundred and seventy pounds. The whole sum was defrayed out of the fund bequeathed by Major ArthurEdwards.[7]
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 pounds[8]for the purchase of printed books relating to British History.
Francis Hargrave and his Collections in Law Literature.
The peculiar importance of the Hargrave Collection consisted in its manuscripts and its annotated printed books. The former were about five hundred in number, and were works of great juridical weight and authority, not merely the curiosities of black-letter law. Their Collector 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 legalprofits. And thus the same legislative act which enriched the Museum Library, in both of its departments, helped to smooth the declining years of a man who had won an uncommon distinction in his special pursuit. FrancisHargravedied on the sixteenth of August, 1821, at the age of eighty.
The Egerton Bequest.
Leaving now this not very long list of acquisitions made 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. LikeCracherode, and likeBurney, Francis HenryEgertonbelonged 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 services to the nation, and that in an unusual variety of paths.
Each of these three clergymen is now chiefly remembered 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.Cracherodewas 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.Burneywas 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.Egertonwas unsuited to clerical work of almost any and every kind. Yet he, too, with all his eccentricities 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—veryreal though indirect—upon the special duties of the priestly function, for which he was himself so little adapted. The bequests of FrancisEgertonhad, among their many useful results, the enabling of ThomasChalmersto add 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, nowadays, 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.Cracherodedid this.Burneyhelped to do it.Egertonnot only did the like, in his degree, in several parts of England, but he enabled 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.Neglecting to learn many lessons which the Church teaches, to her clergy as well as to laymen, he had at least learnt one lesson of practical and permanent value.
Hence it is that, in addition to the matchless roll of English worthies which, in her best days, the Church has furnished—in that long line of men, from her ranks, who have done honour to her, and to England, undereverypoint 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, Earl of Bridgewater, and Founder of the ‘Bridgewater Treatises.’
Francis HenryEgertonwas a younger son of JohnEgerton, Bishop of Durham, by the Lady Anna SophiaGrey, daughter and coheir of HenryGrey, Duke of Kent. He was born on the eleventh of November, 1756. The Bishop of Durham was fifth in descent from the famous Chancellor of England, ThomasEgerton, Viscount Brachley, to whom, as he lay upon his death-bed,Baconcame with the news of KingJames’spromise to make him an Earl. Before the patent could be sealed, the exchancellor, it will be remembered, was dead, andJames, 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 HenryEgertonwas, in his old age, the eighth and last inheritor.
Mr.Egertonwas 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 ofBridgewater—the father of inland navigation in Britain—to the Rectoryof Middle, in Shropshire, a living which he held for eight and forty years.
He was a toward and good scholar. From his youth 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 QueenElizabeth, and of a new element introduced into the mercantile greatness of England underGeorge the Third. A man may be forgiven for being proud of a family which included the servant ofElizabethand friend ofBacon, as well as the friend ofBrindley. 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’swritings 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 ofEgerton.
In the year 1796, he appeared as an author in another department, and with much credit. His edition of theHippolytusofEuripidesis 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 ofSappho. 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.
One of the most noted manifestations of this eccentricity was but the distortion of a good quality. He had a fondness 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 carriage, full of dogs, attended with as much state and solemnity 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 recondite learning, such as meet commonly with small reward in this world.[9]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 ofBridgewater, under the creation of 1617, on the decease of Francis third Duke and sixth (Egerton) Earl—Francis HenryEgertonbecame eighth Earl ofBridgewater. 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 avery large estate, although the vast ducal property in canals had passed, as is well known, in 1803, to theLeveson-Gowers.
Part of LordBridgewater’sleisure at Paris was given 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 ofDidot. Very wisely, he resolved to enable abler men to do the work more efficiently. 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’ ofChalmers,Buckland,Whewell,Prout,Roget, and their fellows in the task, reads thus:—
Lord Bridgewater’s Bequests for the preparation of Treatises on Natural Theology.
‘I give and bequeath to the President of the Royal Society the sum of eight thousand pounds, to be applied according to the order and direction of the said President of the Royal Society, in full and without any diminution or abatement whatsoever, in such proportions and at such times, according to his discretion and judgment, and without 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 nominate or appoint and employ. And it is my will and particular 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 Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation,” illustrating such work by all reasonable arguments; as, for instance, the variety and formation of God’s creatures, in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms;the effect of digestion, and thereby of conversion; the construction 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 circulation and sale of the aforesaid work shall be paid by the said President of the said Royal Society, as of right, as a further remuneration and reward to such persons as the said President 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 persons, 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 complied with by such person or persons so nominated, appointed, and employed by him as aforesaid.’
Bequests of Lord Bridgewater to the British Museum.
What was done by the Trustees under this part of LordBridgewater’sWill, 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 giveand bequeath to the Trustees for the time being of theBritish Museumat Montagu House, in London, to be there deposited ... for the use of the said Museum, in conformity with the rules, orders, and regulations of the said establishment, absolutely and for ever, all and every my Collection of Manuscripts as hereinafter particularly described. That is to say, the several volumes of Manuscripts, 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,Bridgewater’], 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 bequeathed by me to the Library atAshridge, 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, registers, 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 collected and removed to theBritish Museumas aforesaid,under the particular care, superintendence, and direction of Eugene AugusteBarbier, one of my Trustees and Executors hereinafter appointed; for which particular service I give and bequeath to him, the said Eugene AugusteBarbier, the sum of two thousand pounds sterling. I also give, bequeath, and demise unto the said Trustees of theBritish Museumall my estate, lands, parcels of land, ground, hereditaments and appurtenances, situate in the parish ofWhitchurch-cum-Marbury, 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 saidBritish Museumfor 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 judgment, so as to promote the growth of the larger trees; and that the same estate, lands, parcels of land, ground, hereditaments 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 ofEgerton, or of or from any person orpersons having that name, or of or from the Rector ofWhitchurch-cum-Marburyaforesaid for the time being; and upon further trust that they the said Trustees of the British 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 aforesaid 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 theBritish Museumfor 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 nearLittle 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 ofEgerton, or any person or persons bearing that name, and do andshall pay over the rents, issues, and profits thereof, as and when received, to the Trustees for the time being of theBritish Museumaforesaid, to be laid out and applied by such last-mentioned Trustees in the service and for the continued augmentation of the said Collection of Manuscripts; 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 ofAshridge, 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 theBritish 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,|Will of Francis Henry, Earl of Bridgewater.(Official copy.)|my said Collection of Manuscripts so deposited in theBritish Museumas aforesaid, in the most advantageous manner, according to their judgment and discretion.’
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 acumen of aFearneor a St.Leonards. But the drift of the Will was undisturbed. The restrictions as to the underletting of the Whitchurch estate, and the like, were now limited by codicils to a prescribed term of years afterthe testator’s death; power was given to the Museum Trustees to sell, also after a certain interval, the landed estate bequeathed for the purchase of manuscripts, should it be deemed conducive to the interest of the Library so to do; 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.
Minutes of Trustees; (printed in Parliamentary Paper of 1835–6).
On the 10th of March, 1832, the Trustees resolved that the yearly proceeds of the last-named bequest should be paid to the Librarians in charge of the MSS., but that their ordinary salaries, on the establishment, should be diminished by a like amount.
Character of the Egerton MSS.;
The Manuscripts bequeathed by LordBridgewatercomprise a considerable collection of the original letters of the Kings, Queens, Statesmen, Marshals, and Diplomatists, 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, Ginguené, 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 Ginguené, of Humboldt, and of Visconti—contain much interesting matter on questions of archæology, art, and history.
and of the Additions made to it from 1832 to 1870.
The earliest additions to the Egerton Collection were made by the Trustees in May, 1832. In the selection of MSS. for purchase the Trustees, with great propriety, have given a preference—on the whole; not exclusively—to thatclass 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 VenetianPortolanoof the fifteenth century.|The Hardiman MSS. on Irish Archæology and English History.|In the same year a large series of Irish Manuscripts, collected by the late JohnHardiman, was acquired. This extends from the Egerton number ‘74’ to ‘214’; and from the same Collector was obtained the valuableMinutes of Debates in the House of Commons, taken by ColonelCavendish, between the years—so memorable in our history—from 1768 to 1774.[10]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, ThomasRodd. From the same source another like collection was obtained in 1840. An extensive series of French State Papers was acquired (by the agency of Messrs.BarthesandLowell) 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 French historical manuscripts.
Meanwhile, the example set by LordBridgewaterhad incited one of those many liberal-minded Trustees of the British Museum who have become its benefactors by augmentation, as well as by faithful guardianship, to follow it in exactly the same track.|Augmentation of Lord Bridgewater’s Gift by that of Lord Farnborough, 1838.|CharlesLong, Lord Farnborough, 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 Bridgewaterfund. LordFarnborough’sbequest now produces eighty-six pounds a year; LordBridgewater’s, about four hundred and ninety pounds a year. Together, therefore, they yield five hundred and seventy pounds, annually, for the improvement of the National Collection of Manuscripts.
In 1850 and 1852, an extensive series of GermanAlbums—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 in 1850.|Egerton MSS.1704–1756.||Ib.1758–1772.|In 1857, the important historical collection, known as ‘the Bentinck Papers,’ was purchased from TychoMommsen, of Oldenburgh. In the following year, another series of Spanish State Papers, and also the Irish Manuscripts of HenryMonck Mason;—in 1860, a further series of ‘Bentinck Papers,’—and in 1861, an extensive collection of the Correspondence ofPopeand of BishopWarburton, were successively acquired.
To these large accumulations of the materials of history were added, in the succeeding years, other important collections of English correspondence, and of autograph MSS. of famous authors; and also a choice collection of Spanish and Portuguese Manuscripts brought together by Countda Ponte, and abounding with historical information.|Egerton MSS.2047–2064.|To this an addition was made last year (1869) of other like papers, amongst which are notable some VenetianRelazioni; papers of Cardinals CarloCaraffaand FlavioOrsini; and some letters of AntonioPerez.|Ib.2077–2084.|In 1869, there was also obtained, by means of the conjoined Egerton and Farnborough funds,|Ib.2087–2099.|a curious parcel of papers relating to the early affairs of the Corporation and trade of Dover, from the year 1387 to 1678;|Ib.2086; 2100.|together with some other papers illustrative of the cradle-years of our Indian empire.
Amongst the latest accessions obtained from the Bridgewater fund are some MSS. from the hand of a famous English poet of the last generation. These have now an additional, and special, interest in English eyes, from a recent lamentable occurrence.|The ‘Byron MSS.’ in the Egerton Collection (1867).|The pen of a slanderer has aimed at gaining a sort of celebrity, more enduring than anything of its own proper production could hope to secure, by attempting to affix onByronand on AugustaLeigh—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 calumnycan, and will, be conclusively exposed. Meanwhile, the slanderer’s poor aim will, probably, have been reached—but in an unexpected and unenviable way.