Lord Oxford gave orders for the Golden Manuscript to be secured, and commissioned Mr. Vaillant to buy it with all secrecy and prudence. There are several entries in Wanley's Diary concerning the negotiations for this purchase, and on the 27th June all was brought to a happy conclusion.
"This day the Codex Aureus Latinus was cleared out of the king's warehouse, and delivered into my custody." On the 29th its solemn entry into the Harleian library is recorded, and on the 13th July of the following year, we find that "Mr. Elliot, having clothed the Codex Aureus in my Lord's morocco leather, took the same home this day, in order to work upon it with his best tools, which he can do with much more conveniency at his own house than here." Wanley makes a note of this circumstance because of his "speedy journey to Oxford in case any ill accident should happen."
This celebrated MS. is written throughout in gold letters upon vellum, with the exception of the first lines of chapters in the Gospels and the first lines of the subsidiary articles, which are in red ink. The paintings of the four evangelists are extremely interesting, and the title-pages are stained purple. This codex is described by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson as French, of the time of Charlemagne, and we may add that its position in the Harleian may be compared to that of the Durham or Lindisfarne Gospels in the Cottonian library.
The manuscripts numbered 2820 and 2821 are further examples of partially purple-stained vellum, in imitation of earlier work. They are of German workmanship of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The execution of the miniatures is condemned by Sir Edward Thompson as "very rude" and "hard," but with all deference to so great an authority we must put in a plea for them, on the score of their extreme naivete and candour.
A mediaeval roll of immense interest, one of the greatest treasures of this collection, consists of a series of beautiful outline drawings, known as the Guthlac Roll, representing scenes from the life of St. Guthlac. These drawings, which are of the twelfth century, are contained in eighteen rondeaux, intended, perhaps, as a design for a stained-glass window in honour of the saint at Croyland. They quaintly describe, in exquisite delicacy of form and colour, how the young Guthlac, after taking leave of his parents, renounces the profession of arms, and receives the tonsure at the hands of Bishop Hedda. Then, sailing away in a boat to Croyland, he builds an oratory with the help of two companions, Becelin and Tatwin, and an angel converses with him. No sooner is he launched on his new career of prayer, good works, and bodily mortification, than demons assail him, carry him to the roof of his oratory, and scourge him with knotted cords. But he scares them away with the white scourge given to him by St. Bartholomew. He is then ordained priest, instructs Ethelbald in the Christian religion, and prophecies that he will be king. The last six rondeaux show forth the death of Guthlac, the burial of his body by his sister Pega, his appearing to Ethelbald and his attendants who are weeping round his tomb, and his blissful state in heaven among the benefactors of Croyland Abbey.
Reference has already been made to Wanley's Diary,* a chronicle of the purchases made by Lord Oxford during the greater part of Wanley's custodianship, and of the principal events which happened in the library. It begins on the 2nd March 1714, when Wanley had been librarian for about six years. Many of the entries are exceedingly curious, as demonstrating the energy with which old manuscripts were traced, discovered, and purchased, and the tact and discretion employed, in order to induce their owners to part with them. A fine manuscript of part of Bede's Ecclesiastical History in Saxon, and two other valuable Saxon MSS. — King Alfred's translation of Ossian and a copy of Aelfrick's Grammar—were discovered in private hands, besides the Psalterium Gallicanum of St. Jerome "with the * and ./., written about the time of the last King Ethelred, with the Litany and some prayers, being one of the most beautiful books that can be seen."
* Lansdowne MSS., 771, 772.
There was, moreover, a constant movement in the library itself. All those who had any kind of manuscript for sale came to Wanley, and he notifies in his diary the arrival of books in Chinese, Armenian, Samaritan, Hebrew, Chaldee, Aethiopic and Arabic (both in Asiatic and African letters), in Persian, Turkish, Russian, Greek (ancient and modern), Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, Provencal, High German, Low German, Flemish, Anglo-Saxon, English, Welsh, and Irish, in all about 940 manuscripts,
"Which is," he remarks, "a great parcel, besides which my Lord hath got many other MSS. remaining at Wimpole . . . . My Lord hath not only other MSS. in this room, written in almost all those [languages] above enumerated, but also in those that follow, which I call to mind on the sudden-viz., Chinese, Japanese, Sanscrit or Hanscrit, Malabaric, Syriac, in the Nestorian, as well as in the common characters (some few specimens of Coptic letters), Slavonian, Wallachian, Hungarian, Courlandish, Francic or old Teutonic, Biscayan, Portuguese." On another occasion, a person who had some books for sale, which he was anxious that Lord Oxford should buy, offered Wanley a douceur, in the hope that the librarian would press their purchase, "not knowing," he says simply, "the kind of man I am." Wanley refused the bribe, but advised his patron to buy the books, which he did.
At another time—
"A French sort of droll came to my lodging, saying he was sent to me by Mr. Bu-Pis, of Long Acre. He pulled out a 40 paper MS., dedicated to Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, treating of Geomancy, and other like nonsense, being written mostly in German. Monsieur stumped up the value of it, and often swore it was the finest thing in the world. I asked him the price of it, and looked grum and gravely, which he saw with satisfaction; but as soon as his answer of fifty guineas was out, I replied that was the book mine he should have it for the hundredth part of a quart d'ecu. The droll would, however, have made remonstrances, but I would hear none; il ne vaut rien being my word. So I waited on him downstairs, which he took as a piece of ceremony; but indeed it was to see him out of the house without stealing something."
One of the most important negotiations chronicled by Wanley relates to the purchase of the Graevius MSS. in 1724-25. Johann Graevius was a German classical scholar, born in 1632, and chiefly known by his Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanorum, and his Antiquitatum et Historianum Italia, in 45 volumes. His library, one of the most remarkable in Europe, was sold at his death in 1703 to the elector, Johann Wilhelm, for 6000 Reichsthaler. The elector presented all the printed books in this collection to the University of Heidelberg, but kept the manuscripts, 110 in number, in his own library at Dusseldorf They were accounted such treasures, that travellers, interested in antiquities, were taken to see them. The German scholar Uffenbach, who visited the elector's library in VI I, says of them:
"Among the few MSS. that were shown to me, the most remarkable was a beautiful old quarto codex of Horace, which Graevius once lent to Mr. Bentley, who could not be prevailed on to restore it till forced into it by the threat that the elector would appeal to the Queen. There were several volumes of autograph letters from learned men, collected by Graevius, and several very beautiful breviaries, among which was one in duodecimo, bound in silver, and containing as many beautiful figures as I have ever seen in such books. Mr. Le Roy also showed me the 'Officia Ciceronis,' printed by Scheffer in 1466—namely the books De Amicitia et Senectute."
The above books, together with others not mentioned by Uffenbach, subsequently found their way into the Harleian library, and have been identified by Mr. A. C. Clark, who has made a careful study of them aided by the dates written in Wanley's hand on the first page.*
* See his interesting paper in the "Classical Review," October 1891,The Library of J. G. Gravius.
The manner of their disappearance from the elector's library illustrates the more than questionable dealings to which book-collectors were often subjected at the hands of their librarians. There is a curious correspondence preserved in the Bodleian library, consisting of autograph letters which passed between Buchels, the elector's librarian at Dusseldorf, and Zamboni, the resident at the court of Great Britain for the Landgraf of Hessen Darmstadt. In appearance the correspondence is innocent enough: Zamboni has manuscripts for sale on behalf of persons abroad. But there is far more than meets the eye, and the letters contain almost beyond doubt the disguised and detailed account of how the elector was robbed of his manuscripts, and how Zamboni defrauded the fraudulent librarian Buchels. Indeed the whole history of the Graevius manuscripts seems to be one of peculation, until they came into Lord Oxford's possession. Graevius himself was by no means irreproachable in the matter of restoring borrowed books; Buchels, a Latin scholar and bibliograph of some merit, had a suspicious tendency to appropriate his master's goods; and Zamboni, had he lived in these days, would certainly have been prosecuted for criminal bankruptcy, if, indeed, the greater part of the transaction were not considered too dishonest to risk exposure.
Buchels, in writing to Zamboni, 13th August 1717, maintains an air of mystery about the books which he offers to him for sale, professing to get them from various monasteries, and describing the difficulties which he has in obtaining them. There are English dealers about, too, who raise the price of everything. By degrees he sends lists of what he has to dispose of, and shelters himself behind a mysterious friend, who is obliged to sell such and such a manuscript. Sometimes this friend is travelling about, sometimes he is in the country, but he is always the source of difficulties. But Zamboni is not deceived to the extent to which Buchels wishes to deceive him, and he knows full well that the manuscripts offered to him all formed part of the Codices Graeviani, and he tells Wanley so, but does not of course mention Buchels. Meanwhile there is much bargaining between Buchels and Zamboni; but it is certain, from the correspondence in the Bodleian library, that Zamboni never paid for the MSS. which he sold to Lord Oxford in anything but promises. The bills which he gave were never met, and if the elector was the loser, his librarian cannot be said to have profited by the fraud which he undoubtedly committed.
Wanley's part in the transaction, a strictly honourable one, is fully recorded in the Diary. On the 26th December 1724, he wrote:—
"The last night Mr. Mattaire came to me and said that he had seen Signor Zamboni, and nine MSS. which are lately come to him from Italy—that they will soon be sent to his house without being shown to any other, and that then I shall see them forthwith. And further, that this Signor expects a little parcel of Greek MSS., not yet arrived." Three weeks later he again wrote:—
"This morning I went to Mr. Mattaire, with whom I saw fifteen old Latin MSS., or fragments of MSS., belonging now to Signor Zamboni, but formerly to the Dutch Professor Graevius.
He opened a negotiation, and after some months wrote thus:—
"Signor Zamboni, sending a very kind letter to me, desiring to visit me, either here or at my lodgings, I desired he would please to call here, my lodgings being out of order, by reason of my maid's being married yesterday. Signor Zamboni came hither about 2, and I showed him many more of my Lord's MSS. to his great satisfaction. At length he desired that I would go along with him to an ordinary, where he was to dine with some foreign persons of distinction. I complied with his request, as thinking I might do my Lord some service; and after dinner was over, and the rest of the company gone, he assured me that as to the price of the MSS. which he hath sent hither, he will leave it entirely to my regulation, and accept of whatever I shall think an equitable price for them; only, he desires a dispatch as speedy as may be, lest the owner should send for them back. He further said that the owner chiefly values the two volumes of learned men's Letters, the Saxon Spieghel, and the Prayerbook of Solyman the Magnificent."
Three days later, 27 September 1725, the Diary further records:—
"Yesterday Signor Zamboni came to me, and was entertained to his own content and satisfaction. He conferred with me about the MSS. here in my custody, and will stand to my award, between my Lord and him. He says that as to the things my Lord formerly had of him, that he was no gainer, but that in one of the parcels, he of himself lowered the price twenty pounds less than his commission ran for. I hope I shall be able to separate the two volumes of Letters, the Saxon Spieghel and Solyman's Prayer-book, although they are very curious and valuable things, and so my Lord may have the others very cheap. This done, I believe that the same Letters and two MSS. may in time fall into my Lord's hands at a price far lower than they are now held up at. Signor Zamboni, who proves to be a good-natured and is [I believe] an honest gentleman, mentioned 4000 more original Letters in the possession of his correspondent, which may soon be brought over into England."
On the 2nd October he added:—
"I waited on Signor Zamboni yesterday, who is daily teased by his Dutch correspondent about the chest of MSS. lying here."
There was a further delay of nearly a fortnight, and then Wanley wrote to the rogue Zamboni to the effect that Lord Oxford had at last seen many of his manuscripts, which he was not unwilling to buy at a reasonable price, and that he would willingly forego the two volumes of letters, the Saxon Spieghel and Sultan Solyman's Prayerbook, "if held up too dear." He asked for the Greek MS. of Hesiod which he formerly saw among them, but which had since been withdrawn. Ultimately he sent back some of the books for which "this most greedy Signor" asked "the most horrible price." Wanley's hope that they might subsequently come to the library for less money was fulfilled as far as the letters were concerned; these are now to be found in volumes 4933 4934 4935 and 4936. Among them are a few other letters which were already in the Harleian library when the Dusseldorf manuscripts were purchased. Wanley had them all bound up together.
The manuscripts bought by Wanley from Zamboni number eighty-four, and comprise nearly all the important books mentioned in the Graevius catalogue. The Hesiod is the only valuable Greek MS. missing, and the principal Latin MS. of this collection, which did not pass into the Harleian library, is a Terence. It is also to be regretted that Wanley did not secure the prayers of Solyman and the celebrated Saxon Spieghel. Of the eighty-four other MSS., two have a special historical interest: the Cicero (2682) and the Quintilian (2664), both of which can be traced to the Cathedral library at Cologne.
Graevius borrowed the Cicero in 1663 from the authorities, but never returned it. The elector, Johann Wilhelm, bought it among other books which were sold at his death. It consists of a folio of 192 leaves of coarse vellum written in a German hand of the latter part of the eleventh century, and has been the subject of much learned criticism. It was collated by Mr. A. C. Clark, but until he identified it as one of the books that had formed part of the Graevius collection, very little attention had been paid to it. There is no trace of it before the sixteenth century, beyond the fact that its first collator was Modius of Cologne, who was allowed to use the Cathedral library, to which the Cicero then belonged. The acquisition of these manuscripts was the last important purchase made by Wanley; he died a few months later, aged fifty-three.
Besides the above-mentioned treasures from the Dusseldorf library the Harleian possesses, among other Greek classical manuscripts, some that are unique in character. Sir Edward Thompson, in his "Catalogue of Ancient Greek MSS. in the British Museum," calls attention to three in the Harleian collection which appear to him to be of superior merit. These are: (1) The Greek-Latin glossary of the seventh century. This manuscript is of singular interest both for language and palaeography, and consists of 277 leaves of vellum varying in thickness, some of it being very coarse. At the end, on a fly-leaf is some scribbling in what is described as "a Merovingian hand." (2) The Greek MS. of the ninth or tenth century, imperfect in the beginning, and in several other places, described by Wanley as the Codex Prusensis. The initial letters, some of which are ornamented, are generally red. (3) A volume numbered 5694 in the catalogue, and containing a part of Lucian's works, on 134 leaves of fine vellum of the tenth century. On the second fly-leaf are these words in an Italian fifteenth-century hand: "Libro de Jo. Chalceopylus, Constantinopolitanus," and at the bottom of the page, "Antonii Seripandi ex Henrici Casolle amici optimi munere." Wanley says that this MS. was supposed to have been carried from the old imperial library at Constantinople to the monastery of Bobi near Naples. He considered it "the finest old Greek classical MS. now in England." The library of Seripandus was preserved in the Augustinian monastery of St. John of Carbonara at Naples, but a part of it was sold to Jan de Witt, who took it to Holland, and this manuscript was among the number, and was included in the sale catalogue of De Witt's library in 1701. It was bought by Jan van der Mark of Utrecht, and on this account it is described in the Amsterdam edition of the work as the Codex Marcianus. Later on it came into the possession of John Bridges of Northamptonshire, who sold it to the second Lord Oxford.
The earliest Latin MS. in the Harleian library is a copy of the four Gospels of the sixth or seventh century—No. 1775. It was bought by the founder of the library from Jean Aymon, who stole it, together with eight other manuscripts, from the Bibliothique Royale in Paris, in 1707. It still bears on folio 2 its original press-mark. Another MS. in Lord Oxford's possession having been identified as one of these, was restored to its rightful owners in 1729. This relic of early Christian times consists of 35 leaves of the Epistles of St. Paul, the canonical Epistle, and the Apocalypse, written in gold letters on vellum. The adventure through which it found itself in the Harleian library together with the precious No. 1775, may be thus briefly related:
Jean Aymon was a renegade French priest who had retired to the Hague, married, and become a Lutheran pastor. He enjoyed a considerable reputation for learning and piety among the Dutch; but wearying of his monotonous, uneventful life, he resolved on returning to France under pretext of offering to Monsieur Clement, the king's sub-librarian, a certain book which he had discovered. He accordingly wrote to Clement asking him to procure him a passport, in order that he might present the book in question, and reveal some important matters to the king. Clement obtained the passport, and Aymon returned to France, where, in order to ingratiate himself with the librarian, he declared that he wished to be restored in religion. He was advised to retire for a time to the seminary of Foreign Missions, in order to study his position and to prepare for his rehabilitation as a priest. But he complained bitterly of the treatment which he received at the seminary, and paid frequent visits to Clement, who, with astounding simplicity, allowed him to remain for hours, often quite alone, in the Royal library. Here he employed himself in making selections from priceless manuscripts, sometimes cutting out pages from the middle of a volume where the theft would be less easily detected. When he had gathered in a considerable harvest, he cleverly obtained another passport, and escaped back to the Hague with his ill-gotten gains. He accounted for his absence by saying that he had been to seek documents, important for the defence of religion, and made no secret of having brought back rich trophies. It was thus through public rumour that Clement first became aware that the king's library had been robbed. But Aymon's method of pilfering had so far succeeded that it was some time before it could be ascertained what number of manuscripts he had carried off. By degrees, however, the list was completed and sent to Holland. The Abbe Bignon was the king's librarian at the time when it was discovered that one at least of the stolen treasures was in the Harleian library. As soon as Edward, Lord Oxford became aware of the fact, he hastened to restore it, and received in exchange a very polite acknowledgement of his courtesy from Cardinal Fleury on behalf of the king.*
* L. V. Delisle, Le Cabinet des Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque Imperiale.
In 1725 Wanley enumerated the Greek MSS. in the Harleian collection as 173. Among the illuminated ones, that which bears the number 1810 demands special attention. It is an Evangelia executed in Greece in the twelfth century, and written in black and red characters on the finest vellum. Some of the miniatures have suffered woefully, the paint having cracked in parts, but the faces are still full of beauty and life. One of the least damaged represents the death of the Blessed Virgin. The apostles surround the bed on which she lies extended; the aged St. Peter lifts up his hands in an attitude of grief; St. John is leaning over her left side; another bends forward and embraces her feet. In a lozenge-shaped medallion on a gold background our Lord holds her soul in His arms, in the form of a little child. A crowd of people form the background, and a figure at the head of the bed swings a censer. Three women contemplate the scene from a small window.
Another remarkable miniature, the last in the volume, is a good deal cracked, but still extremely interesting for the force and delicacy of touch which it displays. Our Lord appears to the apostles after His Resurrection. St. Thomas is in the act of placing his finger in the wounded side. The print of the nails is seen in the hands and feet. Sir Edward Thompson distinguishes this manuscript with his by no means frequent encomium, "very good."
The Greek Evangelium of the ninth or tenth century (5787), with its ornamental initials and borders, and St. Jerome's Latin version of the Psalter (2793), with a preface addressed to Sophronius, and written in a tenth-century hand, should not be passed over.
Another Psalter (2904), executed in England at the end of the tenth or beginning of the eleventh century, has a fine drawing of the Crucifixion, and grand initial letters. Westwood, in his Facsimiles and Miniatures, considers this drawing to be the finest of the kind, and the initial B (Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum), the noblest with which he is acquainted. This manuscript has most of the characteristics of the later Anglo-Saxon school-the hunched-up shoulders to express grief, the attenuated lower limbs, and the manner in which prominence is given to the central figure by drawing the others much smaller. On a scroll which St. John holds are the words, "Hic est discipulis qui testimonii perhibet." The arrangement of Pilate's superscription—"Hic est Nazaren IHC rex judaeor"—is unusual but not without precedent.
The Harleian library contains no fewer than 300 MSS. of the Bible or parts of the Bible, written and illuminated between the seventh and the fourteenth centuries. Of the later copies we may note one of the whole Bible, written in the thirteenth century, and described in the "Catalogue of Ancient MSS. in the British Museum," as remarkable; and a Psalter, written before 1339, splendidly illuminated, and further interesting as having belonged to Philippa of Hainault, and as bearing the arms of England without those of France.
There is also a fine series of Talmudical and Rabbinical books; nearly 200 volumes of Fathers of the Church, as well as liturgical books of the different Latin and Greek rites.
The polite literature of the Middle Ages is admirably represented, among other examples by the famous Roman de la Rose, with its brilliant fourteenth-century miniatures, its wonderful figures gorgeously dressed, its broad borders richly decorated with fruit, birds, insects, and flowers, of which the rose is the most salient feature. One fascinating miniature shows—
Comment Narcissus se miraA la fontaine et souspira";
and after a long but delightful pilgrimage by flowery meads and limpid streams, amid curious mediaeval gardens
"La conclusion du rommantEst que vous voiez ez lemantQui prent la rose a son plaisirEn qui estait tout son desir."
This glimpse of the treasures of the Harleian library will at least account for the great celebrity it attained within a comparatively short time of its foundation. Wanley was careful to enter into his Diary the names of visitors, and any interesting details connected with them, and their motives for an inspection. On the 15th January 1719/20 he observed:—
"Dr.Fiddes came, and communicated to me his intention of writing the life of Cardinal Wolsey at large; and desired me to transcribe for him all such materials in this library as I should find for his purpose. I showed him divers things here, and gave him notice of many others in the Cottonian library, etc., but as to transcribing for him, begged his excuse, etc."
On the 22nd December 1721,
"Mr. Bowles, the Bodleian library-keeper, came, and I spent most of the time showing him some of the rarities here, to his great wonder and satisfaction."
And on the 28th
"Mr. Bowles came and saw more of the rarities here."
Two more visits from Mr. Bowles are chronicled, when he saw "yet more of the curious books, papers, and parchments here"; and shortly after Wanley wrote, "many come and tarry long." A visit from David Casley, keeper of the Cottonian and Royal libraries, on the 4th November 1725, is suggestive of a certain amount of friction between the two rival librarians. It is nearly the last entry in Wanley's record:—
"Mr. Casley came to collate my Lord's MSS. of Titus Livius for Mr. D'Orville, by my Lord's order. I am civil to him, but when just now he offered me a South Sea bond as security to let him carry one of the said MSS. home to collate it there, I would by no means hearken to such a proposal."
Perhaps Wanley would have regarded him with still greater suspicion if he had known that Casley was to be his successor in cataloguing the MSS. which he kept with so jealous a care. The talents of the two men were very different, as the catalogue itself shows. That part of it for which Wanley was responsible contains a description and an abstract of each manuscript. Casley, whose knowledge of the age of manuscripts has never been surpassed, contented himself with fixing their dates without any reference to their contents.
The work of building up the library does not seem to have flagged or deteriorated after Wanley's death. The search for precious MSS. was still actively carried on, and copies of a large collection of original, royal, and other letters and State Papers in the Lansdowne library furnish us with an example of Lord Oxford's unabated zeal in the pursuit of books. Appended to these papers is a note written on the first leaf by Mr. J. West, and dated 2nd May 1742:—
"Mem. I went with Edward, Earl of Oxford, to view these MSS. at a barber's shop next door to the Bull Head Tavern, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, when we were carried up two pair of stairs, and an old woman asked 300 pounds for the MSS., which was thought exorbitant, but which would have been given, if she would have declared any lawful title to us as owner of them."
After Casley, Hocker, deputy-keeper of the records in the Tower, undertook to continue the catalogue, but only completed it as far as the number 7355. When the collection was brought to the British Museum, after the death of the second Lord Oxford, Dr. Brown, Professor of Arabic at Oxford, and Dr. Kennicott, Fellow of Exeter College, added titles to such of the Arabic and Hebrew MSS. as needed them. Gomez, a learned Jew, was employed to do the same for the rabbinical books that were without titles. In 1800 the Rev. Robert Nares was appointed to continue and revise the catalogue. In a letter to Bishop Percy, dated British Museum, 19th January 1801, Nares wrote:—
"I am just now deep in old MSS., correcting all that part of the Harleian catalogue which was left unfinished by Humphrey Wanley, and very imperfectly executed by Mr. Casley."
The work done by Nares was supplemented by Stebbing Shaw, and Douce. The Rev. T. Hartwell Horne added a series of indexes, and published the catalogue in 1812.*
* Nichol's Literary Illustrations, vol. vii., p. 591.
On the death of Edward, Earl of Oxford, in 1741, his widow,* who is described as a "dull, worthy woman," cared to retain few of her husband's treasures. His various curiosities were sold by auction; his printed books, pamphlets, and engravings were disposed of to Thomas Osborne, a bookseller of Gray's Inn, for 13,000 pounds—several thousand pounds less than the cost of their bindings. A selection of scarce pamphlets found in the library was made by Oldys, and printed in 8 volumes, in 1746, under the title of the "Harleian Miscellany." Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote a preface to this work. The best edition of the "Harleian Miscellany" is that of Thomas Park, in 10 volumes, published between 1808-13.
* She was Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, only daughter of John, fourth Earl of Clare, created Duke of Newcastle.
There still remained the precious manuscripts, and it had been the wish of Lord Oxford that books so carefully collected might not be dispersed. In accordance with this wish, Lady Oxford sold them to the nation in 1753 for the inconsiderable sum of 10,000 pounds. They then consisted of 7639 volumes, besides 14,236 original rolls, charters, deeds, and other documents, and these were removed to the British Museum, where they found a safe and suitable resting-place.
But although fortunately the Harleian MSS. have been preserved from the fate of so many choice volumes in the Cottonian library, they have suffered to some extent from the carelessness or dishonesty of borrowers. The second Lord Oxford was generous to a fault in lending, with the inevitable result. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the only one of his literary friends whom Lady Oxford tolerated,* wrote the following letter to her husband from Avignon in 1745, at the time when probably, the MSS. having been removed to the British Museum, attention was directed to the fact that some were missing:—
"I perfectly remember carrying back the manuscript you mention, and delivering it to Lord Oxford. I never failed returning to himself all the books he lent me. It is true I showed it to the Duchess of Montague, but we read it together, and I did not even leave it with her. I am not surprised in that vast quantity of manuscripts, some should be lost or mislaid, particularly knowing Lord Oxford to be careless of them, easily lending and as easily forgetting he had done it. I remember I carried him once one very finely illuminated that when I delivered he did not recollect he had lent it to me, though it was but a few days before. Wherever this is, I think you had need be in no pain about it."**
* "It is a common remark that people of brilliant parts often have no objection to relax or REST their understandings in the society of those whose intellects are a little more obtuse. Here was an instance: the gods never made anybody less poetical than Lady Oxford; and yet Lady Mary Wortley, though in general not over tolerant to her inferior's incapacity, appears upon the whole to have loved nobody so well. And there was an exception equally striking in her favour; for Lady Oxford, heartily detesting most of the wits who surrounded her husband, yet admired Lady Mary with all her might-pretty much as the parish clerk reverences the rector for his Greek and Hebrew. Lady Bute confessed that she sometimes got into sad disgrace by exclaiming, 'Dear mama! how can you be so fond of that stupid woman?' which never failed to bring upon her a sharp reprimand and a lecture against rash judgments, ending with 'Lady Oxford is not shining, but she has much more in her than such giddy things as you and your companions can discern."*— The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, edited by her great-grandson, Lord Whamcliffe, 2nd ed., vol. i., p. 66. Introduction.
** Letters, vol. ii., p. 147.
Two years after the removal of the Harleian library to the British Museum, Lady Oxford died, leaving an only daughter, Margaret Cavendish, married to William Bentinck, second Duke of Portland. She was the "noble, lovely little Peggy" sung by Prior. As she had inherited none of her father's and grandfather's tastes, it was fitting that the grand collection of MSS., for the sake of which they had impoverished themselves, should enrich an innumerable multitude of scholars and students of all nations and for all time.