Chapter II

.]

The next donor, in order of time, was a Jewish merchant, and stock-broker, of humble origin, but of princely disposition. [Sidenote: 1759. DA COSTA’S HEBREW COLLECTION.—HISTORY OF THE COLLECTOR.] Solomon DA COSTA was one of the many men who have done honour to commerce not merely by its successful prosecution, but by the conspicuous union of mercantile astuteness with noble tastes and true beneficence. [Sidenote: _Correspondence of Thomas Hollis._] His talents for business enabled him to make a hundred thousand pounds—which in his day was more, perhaps, than the equivalent of four hundred thousand in ours. He had made it, says a keen observer, who knew the man well, ‘without scandal or meanness.’ When wealth made him independent, he spent his new leisure, not in luxury but in hard labour for the poor.

DA COSTA had come, from Amsterdam, into England, in the year 1704. His struggling Hebrew compatriots were among the earliest sharers in his bounty. But his heart was too large to suffer that bounty to be limited by considerations either of race or of local neighbourhood. To him, as to the Samaritan of old, distress made kinship. He was wont to journey, from time to time, through thirty or forty parishes of Surrey and of Kent, with the punctual diligence of a commercial traveller, simply to succour the distressed by that best of all succour, the provision of means through which, in time, self-help would be developed and ensured. Provident loans, clothing-funds, the education and apprenticeship of necessitous children, were the forms in which DA COSTA’S benevolence delighted to invest not only his money, but his personal exertion and his cordial sympathy. He devoted more than a thousand pounds a year to the benefit of Christian Englishmen, besides all that he gave to the poor of his own faith and race. And to both he gave, without noise or ostentation.

He had, too, the breadth of view which enabled him to put, on their true foot of equality, the claims of the necessitous mind, as well as those of the necessitous body. Unlike many other men of genuine beneficence, popular estimates of giving did not mislead him into one-sidedness of aim.

Within a few years of DA COSTA’S arrival in England, probably about the year 1720, and when, with youthful ardour, he was seeking to acquire knowledge as well as to make money, he met, at a bookseller’s, with a remarkable collection of Hebrew books, of choice editions and in rich and uniform bindings. The collection had that sumptuousness of aspect which invited inquiry into its origin. All that he could learn on that score was the probability that some statesman or other of the Commonwealth period, had collected them for a public but unfulfilled purpose, and that they had fallen—with so much other spoil—into the hands of CHARLES THE SECOND. By that King’s order they had received, if not their rich binding, at least his crown and cypher as marks of the royal appropriation, and then (in a truly Carolinian fashion) were left in the hands of the King’s stationer for lack of payment of the charge of what—whether binding or mere decoration—had been done to the books by the royal command. DA COSTA prized them as among his chief treasures, but directly he heard of the foundation of a great repository of learning, the emotions of the Jewish broker were such as might have been felt by ‘broad-browed VERULAM,’ could he have lived to see that day; save only that BACON would first have scanned the evidence about the origin of the institution, and would have discriminated the praise.

DA COSTA wrote a letter to the Trustees. The generous heart is facile in ascribing generosity. ‘A most stately monument’ said DA COSTA, ‘hath been lately erected and endowed, by the wisdom and munificence of the British Legislature,’ and he accompanied his eulogy with a prayer that the Almighty would ‘render unto them a recompense, according to the work of their hands.’ [Sidenote: Da Costa to the Trustees of the Brit. Museum, ‘5th of Sivan, 5519’ [1759]]. He brought his mite of contribution, he added, not only as proof of sympathy with the work in progress, ‘but as a thanksgiving offering, in part, for the generous protection and numberless blessings which I have enjoyed under the British Government.’

The gift embraced several Biblical Manuscripts of value, and a still choicer series of early printed books, one hundred and eighty in number. The giver has a merited place in the roll of our public benefactors; and his devout prayer for the new Museum, ‘May it increase and multiply ... to the benefit of the people of these nations and of the whole earth,’ has had a more conspicuous fulfilment than could, in 1759, have been imagined by the most sanguine of bystanders.

[Sidenote: GIFT OF THE THOMASON COLLECTION OF ENGLISH BOOKS OF 1641–1662, BY GEORGE III.]

Three years afterwards, and soon after his accession to the throne, King GEORGE THE THIRD gave to the Nation that most curious assemblage of nearly the whole English literature of two and twenty eventful years of Civil War,—open or furtive,—which is known to the Public as the ‘Thomason Collection,’ though its technical name within the Museum walls continues, as of old, to be ‘the King’s Tracts.’

That name is the less appropriate from its tendency to give an inaccurate idea of the contents of the King’s gift, as well as from its disregard of the origin of the Collection. The ‘tracts’ include the most ponderous theological quartos that ever came from an English press as well as the tiniest handbill, or the fugitive circular which called together a ‘Committee of Sequestrators’ at Wallingford House.

[Sidenote: GEORGE THOMASON AND HIS LABOURS.]

George THOMASON, its collector, was an eminent London bookseller, of royalist sympathies, who watched intensely the progress of the great struggle between King and Parliament, Cavalier and Roundhead, and who had noted with professional keenness how strikingly the printing press was made to mirror, almost from day to day, the strife of senators in council, as well as that of soldiers in the field. He had seized, in 1641, the idea of helping posterity the better to realize every phase of the great conflict, the oncoming of which many men had long foreseen, by gathering everything which came out in print—as far as vigilant industry could do so—whether belonging to literature, and to the obvious materials of history, or merely subserving the most trivial need of the passing moment. He failed, of course, to secure everything; but his endeavour was wonderfully successful, on the whole. He also gathered many manuscripts which no printer in England dared to put into type. And he obtained a large number of political and historical pieces, bearing on English affairs, which had issued from foreign presses; their authors being sometimes foreign observers of the struggle, but more frequently British refugees.

CHARLES THE FIRST congratulated THOMASON on the utility of his idea. More than once the King was able to gratify his curiosity by borrowing some tract or other which only our collector was known to possess. The Parliament, meanwhile, was far from exhibiting any literary sympathies in the undertaking. Some of its leaders loved freedom of the press when it was seen to be a channel for urging forward their peculiar doctrines and aims, but had the gravest doubts about its policy when it manifestly helped their opponents and gave back blow for blow. The ‘Thomason Collection’ came to be viewed, at length, much in the light in which soldiers view an enemy’s battery. If it could be captured and carried off, some of the pieces might be turned against the enemy. If the attempt at complete capture should miscarry, a sudden sally might at least enable the assailants to destroy what they had failed to secure.

Hence it was that the poor Collector came to be in such alarm about the possible fate of his treasures that he had them repeatedly packed into cases, and, as the successes of the war veered to and fro, sent them, at one time, far to the south of London; at another time, as far to the east; now, smuggled them, concealed between the real and false tops of tables, into a city warehouse; and anon made a colourable sale of them to the University of Oxford.

When the King enjoyed his own again, the Collection was offered, as fit to be made a royal one. It contained more than thirty-three thousand separate publications—bound in about 2,200 volumes—issued between 1640 and 1662 inclusive. But CHARLES THE SECOND was busied with pursuits having little to do with any kind of learning, and was ill inclined, as we have seen already, to burden his Treasury for the enrichment of his Library. Sir Thomas BODLEY’S Trustees at Oxford refused the offer, in their turn, under a very different but scarcely less obstructive pressure. Their excellent founder had formed peculiar and stringent views about the literature worthy of a great University. He had warned them against stuffing his library with ‘mere baggage books.’ And so future Bodleian curators had, in another age, to buy with large bank notes many things which their predecessors could have bought with small silver coins;—just as in the ancient story.

The unfortunate Collection went a-begging. The books passed from hand to hand, somewhat, it would seem, by way of pledge or mortgage. They had cost a large sum of money, and a larger amount of toil. When his expectations were at their best the first owner, it is said, refused several thousands of pounds for them. [Sidenote: THE ACQUIREMENT OF THE THOMASON COLLECTION BY GEORGE III.] His ultimate successors in the possession were glad, in 1762, to accept, at the hands of King GEORGE THE THIRD, three hundred pounds. The purchase was recommended to him by Thomas HOLLIS, and also by Lord BUTE, as a serviceable addition to the newly founded Museum. [Sidenote: 1762.] As all readers now know, it has largely subserved our history already. It is not less certain that the ‘Thomason Collection’ embodies a store of information yet unused.

[Sidenote: THE BRANDER FOSSILS.]

[Sidenote: 1766.]

The next augmentor of the Museum was one of its Trustees, Gustavus BRANDER, distinguished as a promoter of natural science, and more especially of mineralogy and palæontology in the early stages of their study in England. A remarkable collection of fossils found in Hampshire, in the London Clay, was given by Mr. BRANDER to the Public, after having been, at his cost, carefully examined and described by Dr. SOLANDER. It was the first notable contribution to the grand series of specimens in palæontology which, in their combination, have made the British Museum the most important of all repositories in that department of science.

To the Zoological Collections, the additions made, whether by gift or by purchase—save as the result, more or less direct, of ‘Voyages of Discovery,’ which will be noticed presently—were for many years very unimportant. The first purchase worthy of record was a collection of stuffed birds, formed in Holland, and acquired, in 1769, for four hundred and sixty pounds. This purchase was made by the Trust.

The reign of GEORGE THE THIRD is marked by very few characteristics which are more honourable, both to King and people, than is its long series of expeditions to remote countries made expressly, or mainly, for purposes of geographical and scientific discovery, and extending over almost the whole of the reign.

[Sidenote: ACCESSIONS ACCRUING FROM VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY. 1760–1820.]

Scarcely one voyage of the long series failed to bring, directly or indirectly, some valuable accession or other to the Collection of Natural History. Sometimes such accessions came to the Museum as the gifts of the navigators and explorers themselves. In this class of donors the name of Captain James COOK,[56] and that of Archibald MENZIES, occur both early and frequently. Sometimes they came as the gifts of the Board of Admiralty. Sometimes, again,—and not infrequently—as those of the King, who, in his best days, took a keen interest in enterprise of this kind, and delighted in talking with the captains of the discovery ships about their adventures, and about the marvels of the far-off lands they had been among the first to see. Nor did the King stand alone in his active encouragement of remote explorations. Many of the great and wealthy nobles gave generous furtherance to them, and were equally ready to make available for scientific study the new specimens which the ships brought home. In this way, for example, the Marquess of ROCKINGHAM gave to the Museum a curious collection of reptiles gathered in Surinam.

In the same manner was furnished that minor, but very popular and instructive, collection illustrating the rude arts and modes of life of the newly explored countries, which some yet among us can remember as occupying the ‘South Sea Room’ of the old house. In the course of years it came to be eclipsed by much better collections of the same kind elsewhere, and so to wear a meagre and somewhat obsolete aspect. But it had rendered good service in its day, and was the germ of what will become, it may be hoped, in due time, an ethnological collection worthy of a seafaring people.

[Sidenote: EPOCHS IN THE GROWTH OF THE NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS.]

As regards the Natural History Collections, the growth of the Museum may be said to have been mainly dependent on the Voyages of Discovery for more than forty years. That source of improvement seems to mark, distinctively, the first epoch in the history of those collections. Then came a second epoch, marked by some approach to systematic improvement, in all branches, by means of the purchase of entire private collections as opportunity offered. A third period may be dated from the acquisition of the botanical and other gatherings of Sir Joseph BANKS in 1827. Sir Joseph’s splendid gift was soon followed by so many other gifts—sometimes as donations, more frequently as bequests—that for many years the liberality of benefactors quite eclipsed the liberality of Parliament. Only of late years can it be said that the public support of the Natural History Collections has been worthy, either of the Nation or of their own intrinsic importance to it. By degrees, statesmen have become convinced that such collections are much more than the implements of a knot of professed naturalists, and the toys of the public at large. Slowly, but surely, the economic and commercial value of a great museum of natural history, as well as its educational value, have come saliently into view. And a wise enlargement of the contributions from national funds has had the excellent result of stimulating, instead of checking, the benefactions of individuals.

Some of the particular steps by which so conspicuous an improvement has been gradually brought about will claim our notice hereafter, in their due order.

If, for a long series of years, the degree of liberality with which these varied collections were shown to the Public at large scarcely accorded, either with their origin, or with the purpose for which they had been avowedly combined, it should be borne in mind that ‘the Public’ of 1759 was a very different body from the Public of a century later. It is only by degrees that indiscriminate admission to museums has come to be either very useful or quite feasible. There was a good deal of warrant in 1759 for the opinion recorded by one of the Trustees when the Rules were first under discussion. [Sidenote: MS. ADDIT., 6179, f. 61.] ‘A general liberty,’ said Dr. John WARD, the eminent Gresham Professor, ‘to ordinary people of all ranks and denominations, is not to be kept within bounds. Many irregularities will be committed that cannot be prevented by a few librarians who will soon be insulted by such people [as commit abuses], if they offer to control or contradict them.’ But, after all, the inadequate strength of the staff was the main cause of such of the restrictions as were chiefly complained of.

The original regulations, with but small change, remained in force for about forty-five years. How they worked will be best and most briefly shown by citing the experiences of two or three notable visitors, at various periods, during the last century.

[Sidenote: GROSLEY’S ACCOUNT OF THE MUSEUM IN 1765.]

In 1765, Peter John GROSLEY, an accomplished and keen-eyed Frenchman, familiar with the Museums of Italy as well as with those of his own country, visited the new Museum, and recorded his impressions of it. With the building he was charmed. He had already seen many parts of England, but nowhere any house that he thought worthy to be compared with Montagu House. He calls it ‘the largest, the most stately, the best arranged, and most richly decorated’ structure of its kind in all England. He made repeated visits. What chiefly arrested his attention in the Natural History rooms were the beauty of the papillonacea—comprising, he thought, ‘all that either the old world or the new can supply in this kind’—and the strangeness of some mineral specimens brought from the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. The Printed Books he thought to be ‘the weakest part of this vast collection.’ In one of the principal rooms, ‘I saw,’ he continues, ‘not without astonishment, a very fine bust of Oliver CROMWELL, occupying a distinguished place!’ He praises the courtesy with which Drs. MATY and MORTON discharged, by turns, the duty of exhibition. ‘They show,’ he says, ‘the most obliging readiness to explain things to the visitor, but,’ he adds, with obvious truth, ‘their very courtesy is wont to make a stranger content himself with hasty and unsatisfactory glances, that he may not trespass on their politeness.’ And then he makes a wise practical suggestion, which was carried into effect, almost half a century afterwards.

‘In order really to carry out the intentions of Parliament,’ writes GROSLEY, in 1765, ‘it is to be wished that the Public should be admitted more liberally, and more easily, by placing a warder in every room, to be continually present during the public hours.’

Ten years afterwards, the difficulty on this score had so increased that a notification to the following effect was circulated: ‘British Museum, 9th August, 1776. The Applicants of the middle of April are not yet satisfied. [Sidenote: MS. ADDIT., 10,555, fol. 14.] Persons applying are requested to send weekly to the porter to know how near they are upon the List.’

[Sidenote: VISIT OF C. P. MORITZ IN 1782.]

In 1782, the plan had so far improved that instead of waiting from April until August, a visitor could usually get admission within a fortnight or so after applying for a ticket. We have an intelligent and amusing account of a visit then made. This time the narrator is a German,—Charles MORITZ, of Berlin. ‘In general,’ writes MORITZ, ‘you must give in your name a fortnight before you can be admitted. But, by the kindness of Mr. WOIDE’—a countryman of the traveller, and, at that time, an Assistant-Librarian in the Museum,—‘I got admission earlier.... Yet, after all, I am sorry to say that it was the room, the glass-cases, the shelves, ... which I saw; not the Museum itself, so rapidly were we hurried on through the departments. The company who saw it when I did, and in like manner, was variously composed. They were of all sorts, and some, as I believe, of the very lowest classes of the people of both sexes, for, as it is, the property of the Nation, every one has the same ‘right’—I use the term of the country—to see it that another has. [Sidenote: WENDEBORN’S ACCOUNT OF THE MUSEUM. 1780–90.] I had Mr. WENDEBORN’S book in my pocket, and it, at least, enabled me to take more particular notice of some of the principal things.’

The book thus referred to by MORITZ is the German original of that account of English society and institutions which WENDEBORN himself translated, a few years afterwards, into English, and published at London, under the title of _A View of England_.

Its author had settled in London as the Minister of a German Congregation. He was himself a studious frequenter of the Museum, and says of it: ‘The whole is costly, worth seeing, and honourable to the Nation; when taken altogether it has not its equal. When considered in its separate branches, almost each of them singly may be surpassed by some other collection even in England itself.’ But the only collection which he specifies as, in this sense, superior, are the Hunterian Museum, and that which had been formed by Sir Ashton LEVER, and which, when the _View of England_ was written, belonged to Mr. PARKINSON. [Sidenote: Wendeborn, _A View of England_, vol. i, 323–325.] Of the Museum Library, WENDEBORN says, ‘though a numerous and valuable collection, it is yet, in many respects, very deficient, and as to its use, much circumscribed.’

When the German visitor of 1782 pulled Mr. WENDEBORN’S book from his pocket, as he was hurried through the Museum, the action attracted the attention of the other visitors. The more intelligent of them pressed round him to see if the book could be made to yield any information for their behoof also. And the stranger gratified their curiosity by translating a passage or two in explanation of the objects they were passing. Then came an exquisite bit of sub-officialism.

‘The gentleman who conducted us’ observes MORITZ, ‘took little pains to conceal the contempt which he felt for my communications when he found it was only a German description of the British Museum which I had.’ ‘So rapid a passage,’ he continues, ‘through a vast suite of rooms, in little more than one hour of time, with opportunity to cast but one poor longing look of astonishment on all the vast treasures of nature, antiquity, and literature, in the examination of which one might profitably spend years, confuses, stuns, and overpowers the visitor.’

Two years later, we have a similar account of the experiences of an inquisitive Englishman, and of one who is much more outspoken in his complaint. [Sidenote: WILLIAM HUTTON’S VISIT IN 1784.] William HUTTON, the historian of Birmingham, came to London in December, 1784. ‘I was unwilling to quit it,’ he writes, ‘without seeing what I had, many years, wished to see. But how to accomplish it was the question. I had not one relative in that vast metropolis to direct me.... By good fortune, I stumbled upon a person possessing a ticket for the next day, which he valued less than two shillings. We struck a bargain in a moment and were both pleased.... I was not likely to forget Tuesday, December 7th, at eleven.’ HUTTON, shrewd as he was, did not suspect the real nature of his ‘bargain.’ He had met with a professional dealer in Museum tickets; one of several who, on a humbler scale, followed in the steps of Peter LEHEUP, but were lucky enough not to excite the anger of the House of Commons.

He was taken through the rooms in company with about ten other persons, at a very rapid rate. He asked their conductor for some information about the curiosities. The reply, he says, so humbled him that he could not utter another word. ‘The company seemed influenced. They made haste and were silent. No voice was heard but in whispers. If a man spends two minutes in a room, in which a thousand things demand his attention, he cannot bestow on them a glance apiece.... It grieved me to think how much I lost for want of a little information. In about thirty minutes we finished our silent journey through the princely mansion, which would well have taken thirty days.... I had laid more stress on the British Museum, than on anything else which I should see in London. It was the only sight which disgusted me.... [Sidenote: Hutton, _A Journey to London_, pp. 187–196.] Government purchased this rare collection at a vast expense, and exhibits it as a national honour.... How far it answers the end proposed this account will testify.’

Better days were at hand. But it was not until 1805 that the rules of admission were even so far effectively revised as to abolish the traffic in tickets. Nor was any ‘Synopsis’ of the contents of the Museum provided until 1808. In that year admission tickets were abolished wholly.

Straitened means of maintenance have, at all times, had far more to do with any inadequate provision for public usefulness of which (in days long past) there may have been well-grounded cause of complaint, than had neglect or oversight on the part of any officer.

The officers, too, were, for a very long period after the establishment of the Museum, engaged, and remunerated, only for an attendance, in rotation, for two hours daily, on alternate days. A largely increased provision by Parliament was the essential condition of any large increase in the accessibility of the institution.

As early as in 1776 the necessary expenditure in salaries and wages alone (at a very low scale of payment), exceeded the annual income (£900) accruing from the original endowment fund. After Parliament had made an additional provision—first introduced in a clause of what was then called a ‘hotch-potch Act’—averaging £1000 yearly, the total annual income was still but £2448, including the yearly three hundred pounds accruing from the ‘EDWARDS Fund,’ and the £248, paid, under the grant of GEORGE THE SECOND, as the net yearly salary of the ‘King’s Librarian.’ For a considerable period, the sums expended in purchases—for all the departments collectively—had not amounted, in any one year, to one hundred pounds.

[Sidenote: THE CAREER OF DR. MATTHEW MATY.]

On the decease of the first Principal Librarian, Dr. Gowin KNIGHT, in 1772, Dr. Matthew MATY was appointed to that office. He was born at, or in the neighbourhood of Utrecht, in 1718, and was educated in the University of Leyden, where he took his degrees in 1740, the subject of his inaugural dissertation, for that of M.A. and Doctor of Philosophy, being ‘custom,’ and its wide results and influence social and political. His essay was published (under the title _Dissertatio philosophica inauguralis de Usu_,) in 1740. For the degree of Doctor in Medicine, he treated of the effects of habit and custom upon the human frame (_De Consuetudinis efficacia in corpus humanum_). This medical dissertation was also published at Leyden, in the usual form, in the same year. Both essays showed much ability, along with many faults and crudities. Some of these became matters of conversation and correspondence between the author and his friends. The subject was less hacknied than that of the majority of academical essays, and MATY was induced to reconsider it. He republished the result of his thoughts, in a greatly improved form, in the following year at Utrecht, and, to gain a wider audience, wrote in French. The _Essai sur l’Usage_ attracted much attention, and served to pave the way for the establishment by its author, eight years afterwards, of the periodical entitled, _Journal Britannique_, as editor of which he is now best remembered. He came to England in 1741, practised as a physician, attained considerable reputation, and distinguished himself more especially by following in the path of Sir Hans SLOANE, and others, as an earnest supporter of the practice of inoculation. In this field he was able to render good service, both by his professional influence and by his pen. In the sharp controversies which soon, and for a time, impeded the new practice, he took a large share, and his publications on the subject are distinguished from many others by their union of moderation of tone with vigour of advocacy.

MATY’S predilections, however, pointed to a literary rather than to a medical career. He had early taken that ply, and it was not easily effaced. Within six years (1750–1756) he published eighteen volumes of the _Journal Britannique_—edited in London but printed at the Hague—in the toils of which he was, according to GIBBON, almost unaided. GIBBON, too, bears testimony to the amiability of the man, as well as to the industry of the writer. His own first and youthful achievement in literature had MATY’S encouragement and active aid. [Sidenote: _Memoirs of Gibbon_, p. 107.] When the _Essai sur l’Etude de la Littérature_ was, after much filing and polishing, given to the Public, a preliminary letter from MATY’S pen accompanied it, and by him the essay was carried through the press.

When he succeeded Dr. Gowin KNIGHT, as Principal Librarian in 1772, his health was already failing. He occupied the post during less than four years. To the last, his pen was busily employed. He was a contributor to several foreign journals, as well as to the _Philosophical Transactions_, some volumes of which he edited, or assisted to edit, in his capacity as one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society, to which office he had been appointed in 1765. Among his minor literary publications are a life of BOERHAAVE, in French, and one of Dr. Richard MEAD, in English. At the time of his death he was working on the _Life of Lord Chesterfield_, afterwards prefixed to the collective edition of the Earl’s _Miscellaneous Works_. Dr. MATY died in 1776, and was succeeded in his Librarianship by his colleague, Dr. Charles MORTON, who had had, from the beginning, the charge of the department of Manuscripts, and had also acted as Secretary to the Trustees.

[Sidenote: NOTICE OF DR. CHARLES MORTON, THIRD PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN.]

Dr. MORTON was a native of Westmoreland, and was born in 1716. Until the year 1750 he had practised as a physician at Kendal. In 1751 he became a Licentiate of the College of Physicians, and in the following year a Fellow of the Royal Society. His service in the British Museum lasted from 1756 to 1799. There are several testimonies to the courtesy with which he treated such visitors and students as came under his personal notice, but his long term of superior office was certainly not marked by any striking improvement in the public economy of the Museum. And how much room for improvement existed there the reader has seen. Dr. MORTON, like his predecessor, was one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society. He filled that office from the year 1760 to 1774. He contributed several papers to the _Philosophical Transactions_, as well on antiquarian subjects as on topics of physical science, and he was the first editor of Bulstrode WHITELOCKE’S remarkable narrative of his embassy to Sweden during the Protectorate. MORTON’S writings are not remarkable either for vigour or for originality, but, on more topics than one, they had the useful result of setting abler men awork. He was three times married: (1) to Mary BERKELEY, the niece of SWIFT’S frequent correspondent Lady Elizabeth GERMAINE; (2) to Lady SAVILE; (3) to Mrs. Elizabeth PRATT. He died on the 10th February, 1799.

Of his successors in the office of Principal Librarian some account will be found in the Introductory Chapter of Book III.

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