CHAPTER III

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THE CHIEF COLLECTOR AND THE AUGMENTORS OF THE OLD ROYAL AND PUBLIC LIBRARY AT ST. JAMES’.

‘Death never makes such effectual demonstration of his power, as when he singles out the man who occupies the largest place in public estimation;—as when he seizes upon him whose loss is felt, by thousands, with all the tenderness of a family bereavement;—puts a sudden arrest, ... before the infirmities of age had withdrawn him from the labours of usefulness;— ... and sends the fearful report of this his achievement through the streets of the city, where it runs, in appalling whispers, among the multitude.’—

THOMAS CHALMERS.

_Life of_ HENRY, _Prince of Wales, son of_ JAMES I, _and virtual Founder of the ‘Royal Library.’—Its Augmentors and its Librarians.—Acquisition of the Library of the_ THEYERS.—_Incorporation with the Collections of_ COTTON _and of_ SLOANE.

[Sidenote: BOOK I, Chap. III. LIFE OF HENRY, PRINCE OF WALES.]

HENRY, Prince of Scotland, and afterwards of Wales, was born at Stirling Castle on the 19th of February, 1594. King JAMES had married ANNE of Denmark more than four years before the Prince’s birth, but a certain grotesqueness which had marked some of the characteristic circumstances of the marriage in Norway (in 1589) was not without its counterpart among the incidents that came to be attendant on the subsequent event at home. One of these incidents is thus narrated in the quaint narrative of a Scottish courtier who made it his business to chronicle the movements of the Court with newsmanlike fidelity:—‘Because the chappell royal was ruinous and too little, the King concluded that the old chappell should be utterly rased, and a new [one] erected in the same place that should be more large, long, and glorious, to entertain the great number of strangers’ who were expected to be present at the baptism. The interval demanded for the restoration of this decayed chapel at Stirling entailed an unusual delay between the child’s birth and his baptism, but it gratified the King by enabling him to send invitations far and wide. Had all of them met with acceptance they would have resulted in the presence of a cloud of witnesses, such as had rarely been seen in Scotland upon any the most famous occasion of courtly rejoicing.

[Sidenote: PRINCE HENRY’S BAPTISM AT STIRLING.]

For the presence of two guests in particular JAMES was anxious. He wished to see an ambassador extraordinary from the Court of ELIZABETH, and another from that of HENRY THE FOURTH. HENRY would not gratify his wish, and the omission was much resented. ELIZABETH, on the other hand, was ostentatiously swift to comply, but her willingness was well nigh defeated by one of the common accidents of life. She had fixed her choice on the brilliant Earl of CUMBERLAND, whose love of magnificence was scarcely less prominent than was his love of adventure. He could grace a royal festivity, as conspicuously as he could lead a band of eager soldiers, or a crew of daring navigators. Just as the Earl’s costly preparations for his embassy were completed, he fell sick. Some days were lost in the hope of his speedy recovery, but the Queen was soon obliged to nominate the Earl of SUSSEX in his stead. SUSSEX had then to make preparations in turn. The day fixed for the ceremony in Scotland had to be more than twice postponed, in order to ensure his presence. In all, more than six months elapsed before the babe was really baptized. We will hope that the Court Chronicler exaggerates a little when he tells us that ‘the time intervening was spent in magnificent banquetting and revelling.’ [Sidenote: _True Reportarie of the baptisme of the Prince of Scotland_, MS. ADDIT., 5795 (B. M.).] If so, the potations at Stirling must have vied with those of Elsinore.

When the long-expected day arrived (30 August, 1594) the child lay ‘on a bed of estate richly decored ... with the story of HERCULES.’ The old Countess of MAR lifted him into the arms of LENNOX, and by him the babe was transferred to those of the English ambassador who held him during baptism. Then Patrick GALLOWAY, we are told, learnedly entreated upon a text from the 21st chapter of Genesis.

The Bishop of ABERDEEN taught, in his turn, upon the Sacrament of Baptism—first in the vulgar tongue and then in Latin—and his discourse was followed by the twenty-first Psalm, ‘sung to the great delectation of the noble auditory,’ and also by a panegyric upon the Prince, delivered in Latin verse, from the pulpit. Then came a banquet, at which ‘six gallant dames’ had the cruel task assigned them of performing ‘a silent comedy.’ To the banquet succeeded a ‘desart of sugar,’ drawn in upon a triumphal chariot. The original programme had provided that this richly-laden chariot should be drawn by a lion, for whose due tameness the projector had pledged himself. But to King JAMES a lion, like a sword, was at all times an unpleasant object. He said that it would affright the ladies, and that ‘a black-moore’ would be a more safe propeller. Banquet and dessert together lasted from eight o’clock in the evening until three of the following morning. At intervals, the cannon of Stirling Castle roared, until, says our chronicler, ‘the earth trembled therewith.’

Thus was ushered in a brief but remarkable life. It lasted less than nineteen years. [Sidenote: _Ibid._, pp. 6–17, verso.] Then to the cradle which had been so richly emblazoned with the labours of HERCULES, in all the colours of embroidery, there succeeded the hearse of black velvet thickly set with its plumes of sombre feathers. One half, however, of those nineteen years that stood between cradle and hearse were years passed upon an arena to which the course of events had given almost world-wide importance and conspicuousness. The Prince’s career was, by the necessity of his position still more than by reason of his youth, a career of promise, not of performance. But every year which passed after the removal from Scotland seems to have intensified the promise in the eyes of those who watched it, as well as to have deepened a conviction in the minds of nearly all thoughtful bystanders that to a grand ambition there were about to be proffered, in GOD’S due time, means and appliances more than usually large, and a grand field of action. So it seemed to human expectation. And because, in those long-past years, it reasonably seemed so, there is still somewhat of a real human interest attaching to incidents which, otherwise, would be trivial and barren.

EARLY DISSENTIONS AT COURT.

One unhappy circumstance which occurred before HENRY was eighteen months old testified to the existence, even at that date, of unhappy domestic relations of the kind which on many subsequent occasions brought bitterness into his daily life. Queen ANNE was deprived of the care of her child very soon after his baptism. The Earl of MAR was appointed to be his governor, and the Earl’s mother assumed that place in the upbringing of the royal infant which, in most cases, custom no less than nature would have assigned to the Queen herself. Her natural resentment brought about more than one angry discussion at Court. After one of those scenes of turbulence, JAMES gave to MAR, in writing, this characteristic command: ‘Because in the surety of my son consisteth my surety, I have concredited unto you the charge of his keeping.... This I command you out of my own mouth, _being in the company of those I like_. Otherwise, for [_i. e._ notwithstanding] any charge or necessity that can come from me, you shall not deliver him.’

In 1599, Adam NEWTON became Prince HENRY’S tutor; and the choice seems to have been a happy one. The boy had a most towardly inclination to learn. The tutor had both a genuine love of letters and a real delight in teaching. He had also the wisdom which shuns extremes. Under NEWTON’S care the child remained, in spite of an obliging offer from Pope CLEMENT THE EIGHTH to have him educated at Rome under the papal eye.

At the death of ELIZABETH, and after receiving the news of his own proclamation as her successor, the delighted father wrote to his son—then just entering on his tenth year—a letter which depicts its writer in a way as lifelike as does the warrant addressed to MAR. [Sidenote: JAMES’ LETTER TO PRINCE HENRY ON THE ACCESSION TO THE ENGLISH CROWN.] I quote it, literally, from the hurriedly-written original, as it now lies before me: ‘My Sonne, That I see you not before my pairting, impute it to this greate occasion, quhairin tyme is so precious. But _that_ I[25] shall, by Goddes grace, shortlie be recompenced by your cumming to me shortlie, and continuall residence with me ever after. Lett not this news make you proude or insolent. For a Kings sonne and heire was ye before, and na maire are ye yett. The augmentation that is heirby lyke to fall unto you is but in caires and heavie burthens. Be therefore merrie, but not insolent. Keepe a greatness, but _sine fastu_. Be resolute, but not willfull. Keeye your kyndness, but in honorable sorte. Choose none to be your play fellowis but thaime that are well-borne. And above all things, give never good countenance to any but according as ye shall be informed that thay are in estimation with me. Looke upon all Englishmen that shall cum to visit you as among youre loving subjects; not with that ceremonie as towardis straingers, and yett with such hartines as at this tyme they deserve.’ And so forth. For, notwithstanding the King’s haste to set out on his journey, his pen ran on. But all his advice is in one strain. The variations are for ornament. In me, he says (only not so briefly), you see a model king. Mould yourself after that pattern, and you will be a model prince. ‘I send you my booke,’ he adds—referring to Βασιλικον δωρον— ... ‘ye must level everie mannis opinions or advices unto you, as ye finde thaime agree or discorde with the rules thaire sett down.’ Near as they commonly were in person, in the after years, JAMES still found occasion to write to HENRY a good many letters. This one theme runs through them all. But no amount of hortatory discourse could hinder the new metal from overrunning the worn and antiquated mould.

[Sidenote: PRINCE HENRY IN ENGLAND.]

Prince HENRY came into England in the June of 1603. He was invested with the Garter on the 2nd of July at Windsor. Sir Thomas CHALONER (son of ELIZABETH’S well-known ambassador to the Emperor) succeeded MAR in the office of Governor. He was a man of many accomplishments, and had a strong bias for some of the physical sciences. But it does not seem that he possessed that force of character which in the elder Sir Thomas CHALONER was a conspicuous quality.

From a very early age, HENRY showed that in him were combined in happy proportions a strong relish for the pleasures of literature with a relish not less keen for the pursuits and employments of an active and out-of-doors life. He could enjoy books thoroughly, without being absorbed by them. He had a manly delight in field sports, without falling under the temptation to become a slave to his pastime. If in anything his enjoyments tended to excess, as he grew towards maturity, it was seen in his devotion to warlike exercises. So that even the excess testified to that real manliness of spirit which keeps the body in subjection, instead of pampering its pleasures and its aptitudes. He seems to have learnt, unusually early in life, that the natural instincts of youth will have their truest gratification, and will retain their fullest zest, when made, by deliberate choice, steps towards a conscious fitness for the duties of manhood. Alike in what we have from his own pen, and in the testimonies of those who were the closest observers of his brief career, we see evidence that he had formed a due estimate of the responsibilities that, to human view, lay close before him. Of his thoughts about kingship we possess only fragments. Of his father’s thoughts on that subject we enjoy an exhaustive exposition. The contrast in the thinking is curiously significant.

Some of the best known anecdotes of HENRY’S life exhibit the interest he felt in naval matters. That tendency may, perhaps, have taken its birth in a London incident of March, 1604. The Earl of NOTTINGHAM, Lord High Admiral, was then in the flush of Court favour. The Prince had been but for a few months in England, and his sight-seeing had not, as yet, included the baptism[26] of a ship. [Sidenote: ORIGIN OF HENRY’S INTEREST IN NAVAL AFFAIRS.] The Admiral prepared that novelty to please him. It was at the Tower that the Prince first examined the ‘_Disdain_’ (15 March, 1604). Whether at the same time he made his first acquaintance with the most famous inhabitant of the Tower is matter of mere conjecture. [Sidenote: _Life of Pett_, MS. HARL., vol. 6279 (B. M.). (Cited by Birch, p. 39.)] RALEGH, at all events, was there[27] on the day when Phineas PETT moored his new vessel off Tower Wharf, for the Prince’s delight. Before any long time had passed, RALEGH was busy in the composition of a _Discourse of a maritimal voyage, and of the passages and incidents therein_, with a like object. The acquaintance, however began, was improved with every passing year. Of the many hopes which came to a sudden end eight years afterwards, few, it is probable, were more sanguine or more far-reaching than those of the King’s keenly watched and dreaded prisoner. [Sidenote: HENRY AND RALEGH.] For England, RALEGH saw in Prince HENRY a wise and brave king to come. For himself, he saw not only a generous friend, but a man who might be the means of giving shape and substance to many patriotic schemes with which a brain that could not be imprisoned had long been teeming.

There is evidence that on more than one topic of public policy RALEGH’S counsel made a deep impression on HENRY. One instance of it will be seen presently. But apart altogether from such positive results as admit of testimony, their intercourse is memorable. It must have been by virtue of some congeniality of nature that a youth in HENRY’S position so quickly leapt—across many obstacles—to an appreciation, alike of the circumstances and of the character of RALEGH, which still commends itself to those who have looked into them most searchingly. The estimate has been many times confirmed by the investigations of history, long afterwards, but it was strongly opposed to the broad current of contemporary opinion. A heart larger than the average may have its divinations, as well as the intellect that is more acute and better furnished than the average.

[Sidenote: THE INVESTIGATION INTO THE NAVAL DOCKYARDS.]

But the generous heart is often allied with a hasty temper. The impression made on the Prince by RALEGH’S writings on naval matters had, amongst other results, that of increasing both his interest in the management of the royal dockyards, and his familiar intercourse with Phineas PETT. PETT was master shipwright at Chatham, and, as we have seen, the designer of the prince’s first vessel _Disdain_. [Sidenote: 1608. April. See Chap. ii, pp. 62, 63.] When Sir Robert COTTON had induced the King to issue that Commission of Inquiry into the Navy, of the results of which some account has been given in the preceding Chapter, PETT was one of the persons whose official doings were brought into question. HENRY took a warm interest in the inquiry and testified openly his anxiety on PETT’S behalf. A specific charge about an alleged disproportion between timber paid for and the vessels built therewith was investigated at Woolwich. Both the King and the Prince were present. HENRY stood by PETT’S side. [Sidenote: MS. Life of Phineas Pett, in MS. HARL. 6279 (B. M.) p. 45.] When the evidence was seen to disprove the charge, the Prince cried with a loud voice—disregarding alike the royal presence and the forms of law—‘Where be now those perjured fellows that dare thus abuse His Majesty with false informations? Do they not worthily deserve hanging?’

The warmth of HENRY’S friendship seems to have suffered little diminution by the absence of its objects. [Sidenote: HENRY’S FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE.] When his friends went to far-off countries he encouraged them to be active correspondents by setting them a good example. He welcomed all sorts of real and worthy information. About the government and affairs of foreign countries his curiosity was insatiable. When important letters came to him he not only read them with care but made abstracts of their contents. When the labour-loving Lord Treasurer SALISBURY noticed, with regret, in his son CRANBORNE certain indications of a turn towards indolence, it was by an appeal to Prince HENRY’S example that he strove to correct the failing. HENRY evinced eagerness to learn by all methods. Books, letters, conversation, personal insight into notable things and new inventions,—were alike acceptable to him.

[Sidenote: HIS PURCHASE OF LORD LUMLEY’S LIBRARY.]

In April, 1609, the death of John, Lord LUMLEY, without issue, enabled the Prince to gratify his love of books by purchasing a Library which probably was more valuable than any other collection then existing in England, with the exception of that of Sir Robert COTTON.

Thirty years before, Lord LUMLEY had inherited the fine library of his father-in-law, Henry FITZALAN, Earl of ARUNDEL, who had been a collector of choice manuscripts at a time when the reckless dispersion of monastic treasures impoverished the nation, but gave, here and there, golden opportunities to openhanded private men. When the estates of the FITZALANS came to LUMLEY—in virtue of an entail made by the Earl of ARUNDEL during Lady LUMLEY’S lifetime—the splendid succession had lost its best charm. The wife who had thus enriched him was dead, and he was childless. His wife’s sister, the Duchess of NORFOLK, was also dead, but had left a son. [Sidenote: Muniments at Norf. House (Sussex, Box 7), as cited in Tierney’s _Arundel_, p. 19.] LUMLEY sold his life interest in the broad lands, and forests, and in the famous castle of Arundel, to the next heir, but he kept the library and found one of the chief pleasures of his remaining term of life in liberally augmenting it. HENRY’S first care, after his purchase, was to have a careful catalogue made of the collection. And he soon gave evidence that he had bought the books for use; not for show. [Sidenote: _Privy Purse Book_; in _Domestic Correspondence_, JAMES I, vol. lvii, § 87, p. 4. (R. H.)] He also made many important additions, from time to time, during his three years’ ownership.

Perhaps the most festive days of that brief span were the sixth of January, 1610, and the sixth of June of the same year, on both of which Whitehall again witnessed a gay tournament. [Sidenote: THE TOURNAMENTS OF 1610.] On twelfth-day, at the head of a band of knights which included LENNOX, ARUNDEL, SOUTHAMPTON, 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. [Sidenote: _Chronicle of England_, p. 898. _The Speeches at Prince Henries Barriers_; and _Oberon, a Masque_. (Jonson’s _Works_, vol. v, pp. 965–974, 1st edit.)] At Whitehall,—as at Stirling sixteen years before,—the banquetting lasted seven hours, but it was enlivened by a comedy in which the ladies were not condemned to silence. In the following June, HENRY’S creation as Prince of WALES was celebrated by tiltings on a more extensive scale, as well as by masques and dances, and by an elaborate naval battle upon the Thames. But the prince himself seems to have 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 received of the course of public events 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 apparent became increasingly obvious during the long negotiations and correspondence about the projects of marriage for the prince himself and for his sister. [Sidenote: THE PROJECTS FOR ROYAL MARRIAGES.] [Sidenote: 1611–1612.] 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 relations 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 proposition 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 the next few years were destined to give significance. I quote from the original letter, preserved (with a large mass of other letters from the same hand) amongst the Harleian MSS.[28]

‘As for the 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.’

[Sidenote: 1612. Oct. 5. Henry to James; MS. HARL., 6986, f. 180.]

The writer then hints a fear that he may, unwittingly, have incurred a renewal of the paternal displeasure which some expressions of opinion in his former letter on the same 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 afterwards, the arm that penned this letter was stretched out,—still and rigid.

The Prince was seized with sudden illness on the 10th of October, five days after its date. [Sidenote: DEATH. 1612. November.] The first appearances were such as are wont to follow upon a great chill, after excessive exercise—to which HENRY was always prone. In spite of much pain and some alarming symptoms, he persisted 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 administration 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 responded 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 harvest belonged to the things unseen. Contemporaries who had treasured up, in memory, many of those small matters which serve to mark character, were wont sometimes to draw contrasts between the prince and his brother. 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.

[Sidenote: DISPOSAL OF THE PRINCE’S LIBRARY.]

HENRY had died intestate. The library which he had purchased from the Executors of Lord LUMLEY fell to the disposal of the King. The greater part of it went to augment 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.

[Sidenote: UNION OF THE ST. JAMES’ AND WHITEHALL LIBRARIES.]

The library remained at St. James’ under the charge, for a time, of the prince’s librarian, Edward WRIGHT. The relics of the royal collection at Whitehall were then in the 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. [Sidenote: Roe, _Negotiations_, pp. 335; 618.] It was to his hands that Sir Thomas ROE delivered the ‘Alexandrian Manuscript’ of the Greek Bible, the precious gift to King CHARLES of Cyril LUCAR, Patriarch of Constantinople.

YOUNG survived until 1652, but he was deprived of his 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. [Sidenote: Comp. _Order-Book of Council of State_, vol. v, p. 454, and vol. xxiv, p. 604. (R. H.)] 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 a Public Library. [Sidenote: WHITELOCKE’S _Embassy to Sweden_, vol. i, p. 273. (Reeve’s edit.)] Four years afterwards, WHITELOCKE held at Stockholm a curious conversation with Queen Christina 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 Royal Navy. [Sidenote: ACQUISITION OF THE THEYER LIBRARY.] 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 mediæval science. It embraced many of the treasured book-possessions of a long line of Abbots and Priors of Llanthony,[29] and the common-place-books of Archbishop CRANMER.

At CHARLES THE SECOND’S death the number of works in the royal collection had increased to more than ten thousand. 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.... [Sidenote: Petrarch, _De remediis utriusque fortunæ_.] They would weep to think that one man—ostentatious of a possession for 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 proposed 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, probability that when BENTLEY gave expression to this wish, at the close of the seventeenth century, he was unconsciously reviving one among many projects for the 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.

[Sidenote: THE ULTIMATE INCORPORATION OF THE ROYAL LIBRARY WITH THE COLLECTIONS OF SLOANE AND OF COTTON.]

When the time came, the number of volumes of the Royal Collection which remained to be incorporated with 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 together—probably exceeded fifteen thousand.

Amongst the acquisitions so gained by the nation the first place of honour belongs to the _Codex Alexandrinus_. It stands, by the common consent of biblical palæographers, 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 illuminated 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 royal library, and truly as it may be said that Prince HENRY’S acquisitions amounted virtually to its re-foundation, many of the finest books of long anterior date had survived their varied perils. And some others have 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 confiscations 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.

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