part ii

. p. 631.]

WILLIAM PETTY FITZMAURICE, FIRST MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE, 1737-1805

William Petty Fitzmaurice, third Earl of Shelburne and first Marquis of Lansdowne, was born in Dublin on the 2nd of May 1737. He was first privately educated, and afterwards at Christ Church, Oxford, which he left early to take a commission in the Guards. He served with the British troops under Prince Ferdinand in Germany, and was present at the battles of Kampen and Minden, where he distinguished himself by his personal valour. He became a Major-General in 1765. In May 1760, and again in April 1761, he was elected member for Wycombe, but he sat for a short time only in the House of Commons, as the death of his father on the 10th of May 1761 called him to the House of Lords. In April 1763 he was placed at the head of the Board of Trade and Plantations, a post which he held only till September in the same year; but in 1766, when Pitt, Earl of Chatham, formed his second administration, he included Lord Shelburne in it as Secretary of State for the Southern Department, to which, at that time, the Colonial business was attached. From this post, however, he was dismissed in October 1768 by the Duke of Grafton, whose influence in the Cabinet became paramount when the Earl of Chatham's illness prevented him taking an active share in the government. Lord Shelburne remained out of office until March 1782, when on the formation of the Rockingham administration he became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. This ministry was dissolved on the death of Lord Rockingham on the 1st of July in the same year, and the King entrusted Lord Shelburne with the construction of a new one, which lasted but little over seven months, as it was defeated in February 1783 by the vote of the Fox and North coalition. Shortly after his retirement he was created Earl Wycombe and Marquis of Lansdowne. Lord Lansdowne did not again accept office, but devoted himself to the augmentation of his fine library, the formation of which had occupied his attention for many years. It was especially rich in historical and political manuscripts, and comprised, among other collections, one hundred and twenty-one volumes of the papers and miscellaneous correspondence of Lord Burghley, including his private note-book and journal, which had formerly been in the hands of Strype the historian. The library also contained a considerable portion of the important collection of State papers amassed by Sir Julius Caesar, Master of the Rolls in the reign of James I.; the historical collections of White Kennet, Bishop of Peterborough, which amounted to a hundred and seven volumes, many of them being in the bishop's handwriting; the heraldic and genealogical collections of Segar, St. George, Dugdale, Le Neve, and other heralds; and some valuable legal, topographical, musical, biblical and classical manuscripts. The collection of manuscripts, which amounted to one thousand two hundred and forty-five volumes, was acquired in 1807 by the Trustees of the British Museum for the sum of four thousand nine hundred and twenty-five pounds. The printed books, among which were many valuable topographical works and some rare volumes of English literature, numbered about twenty thousand. They were sold by Leigh and Sotheby in 1806, and together with the maps, charts, books of prints, etc., realised over eight thousand three hundred and fifty pounds. The Marquis, who collected pictures and sculpture as well as books, died on the 7th of May 1805, at the age of sixty-eight, and was succeeded by his son John Henry.

TOPHAM BEAUCLERK, 1739-1780

The Honourable Topham Beauclerk was the only son of Lord Sydney Beauclerk, and a grandson of the first Duke of St. Albans. He was born in 1739, and on the death of his father in 1744 succeeded to the estates which Lord Sydney had inherited from Mr. Richard Topham, M.P. for Windsor. In 1757 Beauclerk matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford, but seems to have left the University without taking a degree. While he was at Oxford he made the acquaintance of Dr. Johnson, who appears to have been greatly attracted to him on account of his wit and conversation. This intimacy surprised many of Johnson's friends, for although Beauclerk valued science and literature, he was also gay and dissipated. 'What a coalition,' said Garrick, when he heard of it, 'I shall have my old friend to bail out of the Round-house.' Notwithstanding somewhat frequent squabbles, the friendship lasted for upwards of twenty years, and on Beauclerk's death Johnson remarked of him--'that Beauclerk's talents were those which he had felt himself more disposed to envy, than those of any whom he had known.'[84] His conversational powers were evidently of a very high order, for Dr. Barnard, Bishop of Limerick, in his well-known lines on Dr. Johnson, writes of him:

'If I have thoughts, and can't express 'em, Gibbon shall teach me how to dress 'em In terms select and terse; Jones teach me modesty and Greek; Smith, how to think; Burke, how to speak; And Beauclerk to converse.'

Beauclerk married on the 12th of March 1768 Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter of the second Duke of Marlborough, two days after her divorce from Lord Bolingbroke and St. John. He died at Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, on the 11th of March 1780, leaving one son and two daughters.

Beauclerk possessed a fine library of upwards of thirty thousand volumes, which he kept at his residence at Muswell Hill, near London, stored, as Horace Walpole informs us, 'in a building that reaches half-way to Highgate.' It did not contain many rare books, but it was rich in works relating to natural history, voyages and travels, and English and French plays; and Dibdin says that it was also valuable to the general scholar, and to the collector of English antiquities and history. It also possessed a few curious and choice manuscripts. Some of the books appear to have belonged to Mr. Topham, but most of them were collected by Beauclerk. After his death they were sold by auction by Mr. Paterson 'at the Great Room, heretofore held by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures, opposite Beaufort Buildings, in the Strand, London,' on Monday, April 9th, 1781, and the forty-nine following days. A priced copy of the catalogue is in the British Museum.

Beauclerk, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, was a collector of natural curiosities, as well as books, and botany was one of his favourite studies. He had also an observatory at Muswell Hill.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 84: Boswell, _Life of Johnson_ (London, 1811), vol. iii. p. 460.]

REV. BENJAMIN HEATH, D.D., 1739-1817

[Illustration: REV. BENJAMIN HEATH, D.D.]

The Rev. Benjamin Heath, D.D., one of the sons to whom Mr. Benjamin Heath gave a part of his books, was born on the 29th of September 1739. He was educated at Eton and at King's College, Cambridge, of which College he became a Fellow. After leaving the University he was appointed an assistant master at Eton, and in 1771 succeeded Dr. Sumner as headmaster of Harrow, a post he held for fourteen years.[85] He died on the 31st of May 1817, at the rectory of Walkerne in the county of Hertford, a living given to him by his College, which he held with the rectory of Farnham in Buckinghamshire. He was buried at Exeter. Dr. Heath, who was 'a scholar and a bibliomaniac,' added greatly to the library given to him by his father, for which he built a large room at Walkerne, where, says Dibdin, 'he saw, entertained, and caressed his friends, with Alduses in the forenoon, and with a cheerful glass towards evening, hospitable, temperate, kind-hearted, with a well furnished mind and purse, and with a larder and cellar which might have supplied materials for a new edition of Pynson's _Royal Boke of Cookery and Kervinge_, 1500, 4to.'[86] Some years before his death Heath offered his books to King's College, Cambridge, for half the sum they had cost him; but the College authorities declined the purchase, and he then sold the principal portion of them to some private individuals, who, Dibdin believes, were Messrs. Cuthell and Martin, for three thousand pounds beneath the sum they ultimately produced,[87] and they instructed Mr. Jeffery of 11 Pall Mall to sell the books by auction. The sale took place on Thursday, the 5th of April 1810, and twelve following days and Wednesday, May 2nd, and eighteen following days. It consisted of four thousand seven hundred and eighty-six lots, which realised eight thousand eight hundred and ninety-nine pounds. The sale catalogue states that the library consisted of 'rare, useful and valuable publications in every department of literature, from the first invention of printing to the present time, all of which are in the most perfect condition.' Another catalogue, with the prices and purchasers' names, of which it is said only two hundred and fifty copies were printed, was published later in the year by Constable of Edinburgh. Both the catalogues are to be found in the Library of King George III. in the British Museum. Dibdin describes this sale in enthusiastic terms in his _Bibliomania_:--'Never,' he writes, 'did the bibliomaniac's eye alight upon "sweeter copies"--as the phrase is; and never did the bibliomaniacal barometer rise higher than at this sale! The most marked phrensy characterized it. A copy of the Editio Princeps of Homer (by no means a first-rate one) brought L92:[88] and all the ALDINE CLASSICS produced such an electricity of sensation that buyers stuck at nothing to embrace them!'[89]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 85: Dibdin, _Bibliographical Decameron_, vol. iii. p. 368.]

[Footnote 86: Dibdin, _Bibliographical Decameron_, vol. iii. p. 369.]

[Footnote 87: _Ibid._, iii. 370.]

MAJOR THOMAS PEARSON, 1740?-1781

Major Thomas Pearson was born about the year 1740 at Cote Green, near Burton-in-Kendal, Westmoreland. He was educated at Burton, and came to London about 1756 to fill a post in the Navy Office, which he resigned in 1760. In the course of the following year he left England, having obtained a cadetship on the Bengal Establishment, in which he rose to the rank of Major. He distinguished himself on several occasions, and was particularly noticed by Lord Clive, to whom he adhered during the mutiny fomented by Sir Robert Fletcher, at whose trial he held the office of Judge Advocate. In 1767 Pearson married a sister of Eyles Irwin, the traveller and writer. This lady died in the following year, and an epitaph inscribed to her memory may be found, together with other poetical pieces by Pearson, in vol. iv. of Pearch's _Collection of Poems_. Pearson returned to England in August 1770 with Governor Verelst, under whom he had acted as Military Secretary, and built a house for himself at Burton, in which he collected a very extensive library, consisting of works on the history, antiquities, topography, and heraldry of Great Britain and Ireland, foreign history, voyages and travels, natural history, etc., but it was principally remarkable for the large number of books in all branches of old English literature, and it was especially rich in the works of the early poets and dramatists. In 1776 Pearson again went to India, but after a residence there of five years he fell a victim to the effects of the climate, and died at Calcutta on the 5th of August 1781. Some years after his death his library was brought from Westmoreland, and sold on April 14th, 1788, and twenty-two following days, by T. and J. Egerton at their room in Scotland Yard. The prices obtained at the sale, in which there were five thousand five hundred and twenty-five lots, were very small:--Boccaccio's _The Falle of Princis and Princesses and other Nobles_, translated by Lydgate, and printed by Pynson in 1494, fetched but one pound, twelve shillings; _The Castell of Laboure_, also printed by Pynson, two guineas; two books printed by Wynkyn de Worde--Hawes's _Example of Virtu_, and _The Lyf of Saynt Ursula_, translated by Hatfield--seven pounds, ten shillings and one pound, ten shillings; Skelton's _Ryght Delectable Traytise upon a goodly Garlande, or Chapelet of Laurell_, printed by Richard Faukes in 1523--an excessively rare, if not unique book--seven pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence; Peele's _Polyhymnia_, London, 1590, three guineas; Lyly's _Midas_, London, 1592, seven pounds; and _England's Helicon_, collected by John Bodenham, London, 1600, five pounds, ten shillings. Two volumes of ballads, chiefly collected by the Earl of Oxford, and purchased by Major Pearson at Mr. West's sale, were bought by the Duke of Roxburghe for thirty-six pounds, four shillings and sixpence, and are now, with additions by the Duke, preserved in the British Museum. Books bound for Pearson may be recognised by the device of a bird surmounting a vase, stamped on the panels of the back.

[Illustration: DUKE OF ROXBURGHE.]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 88: The marked catalogue says L94, 10s.]

[Footnote 89: _Bibliomania_, London, 1811, p. 617.]

JOHN KER, DUKE OF ROXBURGHE, 1740-1804

John Ker, third Duke of Roxburghe, was born on the 23rd of April 1740 in Hanover Square, London. He was the elder son of Robert Ker, second Duke, and on the death of his father in 1755 succeeded to the title and estates. While on a tour on the Continent he became greatly attached to Christiana, eldest daughter of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and there is little doubt that she would have become his wife had not King George III. soon afterwards sought the hand of the Princess's younger sister in marriage, when it was considered necessary to break off the match, partly for political reasons, and partly because 'it was deemed indecorous that the elder sister should be the subject of the younger.' This was a great disappointment to both the Duke and the Princess, who evinced the strength of their affection by remaining single during their lives. George III., probably feeling that he had done the Duke an injury, always manifested a warm friendship for him, and bestowed upon him various appointments in the royal household. In 1768 he was made a Knight of the Thistle, and in 1801 was invested with the Order of the Garter. He died on the 19th of March 1804.

The Duke, who was remarkable both for his fine presence and his mental accomplishments, collected a magnificent library at his residence in St. James's Square, London. It contained among numerous other treasures the famous Valdarfer Boccaccio, upwards of a dozen volumes printed by Caxton, and many from the presses of Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, Julian Notary, and other early English printers. The first, second, and third Shakespeare folios were in the collection, as well as a large number of early quarto plays. The library was especially rich in choice editions of the French romances, and in the works of the English dramatists who flourished during the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. Some rare books printed in Scotland were also to be found in it. The collection of broadside ballads in three thick folio volumes, now in the British Museum, is perhaps the most extensive and interesting ever brought together. It was begun by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, from whose library it passed successively to those of Mr. James West and Major Thomas Pearson, and at the sale of the books of the last-named collector it was purchased for thirty-six pounds, four shillings and sixpence by the Duke, who made many additions to it while in his possession. The collection has been admirably edited by Mr. William Chappell and the Rev. J.W. Ebsworth for the Ballad Society. Other books deserving special notice were the first edition of Pliny, printed by J. de Spira at Venice in 1469; Cicero's _Epistolae ad Atticum_, etc., printed at Rome in 1470; the 1580 edition of the _Paradyse of Daintie Devises_, and the first edition of Shakespeare's _Sonnets_.

Among the manuscripts the most valuable were Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, bound with Lydgate's _Life of St. Margarete_, on vellum, with illuminations, and the _Mystere de la Vengeance de Nostre Seigneur_, also on vellum.

The library was sold in 1812 by Mr. Evans of Pall Mall in the dining-room of the Duke's house in St. James's Square, and the total amount realised was twenty-three thousand three hundred and ninety-seven pounds, ten shillings and sixpence. The sale, which consisted of nine thousand three hundred and fifty-three lots, lasted forty-two days, commencing on the 18th of May, and ending on the 4th of July. It was followed by a supplementary one of seven hundred and sixty-seven lots, which began on the 13th of July, and lasted till the 16th of the same month. The catalogue was compiled by Mr. George Nicol, bookseller to the King. The sale excited very great interest; and Dibdin, who gives an account of it in his _Bibliographical Decameron_, tells us 'the room was so crowded that nothing but standing upon a contiguous bench saved the writer of _The Bibliographical Decameron_ from suffocation.' The prices obtained for the books were very high. That 'most notorious volume in existence,' the Valdarfer Boccaccio, which cost the Duke of Roxburghe but one hundred guineas, was acquired by the Marquis of Blandford, after a severe struggle with Lord Spencer, for two thousand two hundred and sixty pounds, and Dibdin says that the Marquis declared that it was his intention to have gone as far as five thousand guineas for it. A copy of the _Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_, which once belonged to Elizabeth Grey, wife of Edward IV., was purchased by the Duke of Devonshire for one thousand and sixty pounds, ten shillings; while three other books from the press of Caxton, _The Mirrour of the World_, the _Fayts of Arms_, and Gower's _Confessio Amantis_, sold respectively for three hundred and fifty-one pounds, ten shillings, three hundred and thirty-six pounds, and three hundred and thirty-six pounds. The collection of ballads fell to Mr. J. Harding for four hundred and seventy-seven pounds, fifteen shillings. At the sale of Mr. B.H. Bright's books in 1845 it was secured for the British Museum for the sum of five hundred and thirty-five pounds. The first folio of Shakespeare's Plays fetched one hundred pounds, and his Sonnets twenty-one pounds. The two manuscripts mentioned realised three hundred and fifty-seven pounds and four hundred and ninety-three pounds, ten shillings.

A dinner was given, at the suggestion of Dr. Dibdin, to commemorate the sale of the Boccaccio; and Earl Spencer, Dr. Dibdin, and other bibliophiles met on the day of the sale at St. Alban's Tavern, St. Alban's Street--now Waterloo Place--and then and there formed the Roxburghe Club; Earl Spencer being the first President.

MICHAEL WODHULL, 1740-1816

Michael Wodhull, the translator of the tragedies of Euripides, was born at Thenford, Northamptonshire, on the 15th of August 1740. His father was John Wodhull, a descendant of Walter Flandrensis, who held the estates of Pateshull and Thenford in the time of William I. He received his early education under the Rev. William Cleaver of Twyford, Bucks. He was afterwards sent to Winchester, and at the age of seventeen proceeded to the University of Oxford, matriculating from Brazenose College. While still young Wodhull inherited a considerable fortune from his father, and he built a fine mansion on the family estate at Thenford, in which he kept his library. He was High Sheriff of Northamptonshire in 1783. Wodhull married a daughter of the Rev. J. Ingram of Wolford, Warwickshire, by whom he had three children, who all predeceased him. He died on the 10th of November 1816. In addition to his translations of the tragedies of Euripides, Wodhull was the author of several poems. From 1764 to his death Wodhull was an indefatigable collector of rare and curious books, and Dibdin says of him that 'a better informed or more finished bibliographer existed not either in France or England.'

[Illustration: BOOK-STAMP OF MICHAEL WODHULL.]

His splendid library, which was a great consolation and pleasure to him in the solitude of the last years of his life, was particularly rich in early editions of the Greek and Latin classics, and in works printed in the fifteenth century. All the books--many of which were bound by Roger Payne--were in fine condition, and some of them had once formed part of the libraries of Francis I., Grolier, Henry II. and Diana of Poitiers, Longepierre, and other famous French collectors, and were bound by such fine craftsmen as Boyet, Derome, Monnier, etc. The covers of the volumes bound for Wodhull are mostly impressed with a stamp of his arms, impaled with those of his wife. A portion of Wodhull's books, principally duplicates, was sold by Leigh, Sotheby and Son, of York Street, Covent Garden, at two sales in 1801 and 1803. The first sale consisted of a thousand and fifty-nine lots, which realised three hundred and sixty-one pounds, ten shillings; and the second of one thousand six hundred and thirty-nine lots, for which the sum of eight hundred and fifteen pounds was obtained. The remainder of the library appears to have been kept at Thenford until 1886, when Mr. J.E. Severne, M.P., to whom it had descended, determined to part with it, and it was sold by Wilkinson, Sotheby and Hodge on January 11th, 1886, and nine following days. There were two thousand eight hundred and four lots in the sale, which produced the large sum of eleven thousand nine hundred and seventy-two pounds, fourteen shillings and sixpence.

The following are a few of the rarest and most interesting books in this splendid collection, with the prices they fetched:--the _Catholicon_ of Joannes Balbus, printed at Mentz in 1460, three hundred and ten pounds; _Cicero de Officiis_, printed at Mentz in 1466, seventy-one pounds; _Tullius de Senectute et Amicitia_, printed by Caxton in 1481, two hundred and fifty pounds; (a perfect copy of Caxton's _Mirrour of the World_ was sold in the 1803 sale for thirty-eight pounds, seventeen shillings); the first edition of Homer, printed at Florence in 1488, two hundred pounds; _Poliphili Hypnerotomachia_, printed by Aldus in 1499, fifty-three pounds; the Aldine Virgil of 1501, one hundred and forty-five pounds; _Roman de Guy de Warwick_, Paris, 1525, one hundred and thirty pounds; the _New Actes and Constitucionis of Parliament maid by James V., Kyng of Scottis_, printed on vellum at Edinburgh in 1541, one hundred and fifty-one pounds; the _Contes_ of La Fontaine, Amsterdam (Paris), 1762, in two small 8vo volumes, bound in red morocco, ninety-three pounds; Moliere's Works, with plates by Moreau, six volumes, 1773, seventy-seven pounds.

Among the books with historical or fine bindings were Alcyonius, _Medices Legatus de Exsilio_, in aedib. Aldi, Venetiis, 1522, bound for Francis I., with the arms of France, the crowned initial of the king, and the salamander stamped on the covers, fifty-eight pounds; Aristotle, _De Arte Poetica_, Florentiae, 1548, bound for Henry II. of France and Diana of Poitiers, with the devices of the king and his mistress on the covers, two hundred and five pounds; Crinitus, _De Poetis Latinis_, Florentiae, 1505, bound for Grolier, seventy-four pounds; _Irenici Germania_, Hagenoae, 1518, also bound for Grolier, sixty-two pounds; and two works by Giordano Bruno--_Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante_, Parigi, 1584, and _La Cena de la Ceneri_, 1584; the former bound in citron morocco, with a red double by Boyet, and the latter in a beautiful mosaic binding by Monnier, realised respectively the large sums of three hundred and sixty pounds and three hundred and sixty-five pounds.

The principal manuscripts were a copy of Dante, with a commentary by Joannes de Sarravalle, written in the years 1416-17, which sold for one hundred and fifty-one pounds; and a very beautiful Roman Breviary of the beginning of the sixteenth century, on vellum, illuminated for Francois de Castelnau, Archbishop of Narbonne, for which five hundred and fifteen pounds was obtained.

FRANCIS HARGRAVE, 1741?-1821

Francis Hargrave, the eminent law writer, who was born about 1741, was the son of Christopher Hargrave of Chancery Lane. He entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn in 1760, and in 1772 he greatly distinguished himself in the Habeas Corpus case of James Sommersett, a negro. Soon afterwards he was appointed one of the king's counsel, and in 1797 he was made Recorder of Liverpool. He was also for many years Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn. In 1813, in consequence of the impaired state of Hargrave's health, his wife petitioned Parliament to purchase the fine law library which he had amassed, consisting of a considerable number of printed books and about five hundred manuscripts; and on the recommendation of a Committee of the House of Commons the collection was acquired by the Government for the sum of eight thousand pounds, and deposited in the British Museum. Edwards, in his _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_, says that 'the peculiar importance of the Hargrave Collection consisted in its manuscripts and its annotated printed books. The former were about five hundred in number, and were works of great juridical weight and authority, not merely the curiosities of black-letter law. Their collector was the most eminent parliamentary lawyer of his day, but his devotion to the science of law had, to some degree, impeded his enjoyment of its sweets. During some of the best years of his life he had been more intent on increasing his legal lore than on swelling his legal profits. And thus the same legislative act which enriched the Museum Library, in both of its departments, helped to smooth the declining years of a man who had won uncommon distinction in his special pursuit.' A catalogue of the manuscripts was compiled by Sir Henry Ellis, and published in 1818. Hargrave, among other important legal works, published a new edition of _State Trials from the eleventh year of Richard II. to the sixteenth of George III._, in eleven volumes folio, in 1776-81; _Juridical Arguments and Collections_, in two volumes, in 1797-99; and _Jurisconsult Exercitations_, in three volumes, in 1811-13. He died on the 16th of August 1821, and was buried in Lincoln's Inn Chapel. Lord Lyndhurst, in speaking of Hargrave's great legal knowledge, declared that 'no man ever lived who was more conversant with the law of his country.'

ISAAC REED, 1742-1807

Isaac Reed, the editor of Shakespeare, was born in London on the 1st of January 1742. He was a conveyancer, and had chambers, first in Gray's Inn and afterwards in Staple Inn, where he died on the 5th of January 1807. He was buried at Amwell in Hertfordshire. Reed, who was a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, collected books for upwards of forty years, and Dibdin says that 'he would appear to have adopted the cobbler's well-known example of applying one room to almost every domestic purpose: for Reed made his library his parlour, kitchen, and hall.' His extensive collection of books, which was rich in works relating to the English drama and poetry, was sold by King and Lochee, 38 King Street, Covent Garden, on Monday, November 2nd, 1807, and thirty-eight following days. The sale consisted of eight thousand nine hundred and fifty-seven lots, including prints and a few miscellaneous articles, and realised four thousand three hundred and eighty-six pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence. A copy of the catalogue, with the prices added in manuscript, is preserved in the Library of King George III. in the British Museum.

SIR JOSEPH BANKS, BART., 1744-1820

The Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., to whom the British Museum, in addition to other bequests, is indebted for one of the finest libraries of books on natural history ever collected, was born in Argyle Street, London, on the 13th of February 1744. He was the only son of William Banks, of Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire, by his wife Sarah, daughter of William Bate. Banks was first educated at Harrow and Eton, and proceeded afterwards to Christ Church, Oxford, which college he entered as a gentleman-commoner in 1760. In 1761 his father died, leaving him a large estate. He left the University in 1763, after having taken an honorary degree, and in 1766 he set out on a scientific voyage to Newfoundland with his friend Lieutenant Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, and brought back a large collection of plants and insects. In 1768 he accompanied Captain Cook's expedition round the world in _The Endeavour_, a vessel which he equipped at his own expense, taking with him his friend and librarian Dr. Solander, two draughtsmen, and several servants. This voyage, which was attended by many dangers and privations, occupied nearly three years, and the specimens which the enterprising collectors brought home with them excited very great and general interest. Banks was anxious to join Captain Cook's second expedition, but owing to some difficulties respecting the fittings of the ship in which he was to have sailed he relinquished his purpose, and in 1772 paid a visit in company with Dr. Solander to Iceland, where he obtained a large number of botanical specimens, and also purchased a collection of Icelandic manuscripts and printed books, including the library of Halfdan Einarsson, the literary historian of the island, which he gave to the British Museum on his return to England. Ten years later he presented a second collection to that institution. In 1778 Banks succeeded Sir John Pringle as President of the Royal Society, a post he held for upwards of forty-one years. He had been a Fellow since the year 1766. In 1779 he married Dorothea, daughter of William Weston-Hugesson of Provender, in the parish of Norton, Kent, and in 1781 he was created a baronet. In 1795 he received the Order of the Bath, and in 1797 he was sworn of the Privy Council. The National Institute of France elected him a member in 1802. He died at his house at Spring Grove, Isleworth, on the 19th of June 1820, leaving a widow but no issue.

Sir Joseph Banks, even when a schoolboy, took great interest in all branches of natural history, and during his residence at Oxford he procured the appointment of a lecturer on natural science in the University. He was always exceedingly generous in his relations with men of science, and the splendid collections in his house in Soho Square were always open to them for study and investigation.

Sir Joseph Banks bequeathed his library, with the exception of some manuscripts which he left to the Royal Society and the Mint, his herbarium, drawings, engravings, and other collections to the Trustees of the British Museum, subject to a life interest and a life use in them by his friend and librarian, Mr. Robert Brown, the eminent botanist. This bequest was accompanied by a proviso that Mr. Brown should be at liberty to transfer the collections to the British Museum during his lifetime, if the Trustees were desirous to receive them, and he were willing to comply with their wishes. An arrangement to this effect was eventually carried out, and in the year 1827 the transfer was effected; Mr. Brown at the same time receiving the appointment of Keeper of the Department of Botany in the Museum, a post he held until his death in 1858.

The number of printed books acquired by the Museum amounted to about sixteen thousand, consisting principally of works on natural history and the journals and transactions of learned societies. The manuscripts numbered but forty-nine, but among them were the log-books of _The Endeavour_, _The Resolution_, and _The Racehorse_, and the journals of Tasman, Carver, Verwey and other navigators.

A catalogue of the library was compiled by Mr. Jonas Dryander, who succeeded Dr. Solander as Sir Joseph's librarian, in five volumes, and published in London in the years 1798-1800.

Sir Joseph Banks was the author of two treatises:--one, _On the Cause of Blight in Corn_, published in 1805; and the other on _Some Circumstances relative to Merino Sheep_, published in 1809; together with some articles contributed to the journals of learned societies. He evidently intended at one time to publish a work embodying the results of his researches, as the plates were engraved, and the text partly prepared for press, but the death of his librarian Dr. Solander in 1782 appears to have caused him to relinquish his purpose. Kaempfer's _Icones Plantarum_ was published by him in 1791, and he also superintended the issue of Roxburgh's _Coromandel Plants_ in 1795-1819. A statue of Sir Joseph by Sir Francis Chantrey is placed in the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, and a portrait of him by Sir Thomas Lawrence is hung in the board-room of the British Museum. Another portrait of him by Thomas Phillips, R.A., is in the National Portrait Gallery.

Sarah Sophia Banks, the only sister of Sir Joseph Banks, possessed similar tastes to her brother, and amassed a considerable number of books, coins, objects of natural history, etc. She died at her brother's house in Soho Square on the 27th of September 1818; and after her death a portion of her collections, consisting of sixty-six volumes of manuscripts, chiefly relating to heraldic matters, ceremonials, archery, etc., together with several printed books principally treating of chivalry, knighthood, etc., some of them enriched with her MS. notes, were presented to the library of the British Museum by Lady Banks, the wife of Sir Joseph. Several of the volumes were in very fine bindings.

REV. JOHN BRAND, 1744-1806

The Rev. John Brand, the author of _Observations on Popular Antiquities_, was born on the 19th of August 1744 at Washington, in the county of Durham, where his father Alexander Brand was parish clerk. When fourteen years of age he was apprenticed to his uncle Anthony Wheatley, a shoemaker of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and during his residence in that town he attended the grammar school there. He displayed so much ability and industry that the master of the school, the Rev. Hugh Moises, with the assistance of some friends, sent him to Lincoln College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1775. He had been ordained some time previously, and, after filling several curacies, in 1784 he was presented by the Duke of Northumberland to the rectory of the united parishes of St. Mary-at-Hill and St. Mary Hubbard in the city of London. In the same year he was elected resident secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, an office he held until his death on the 11th of September 1806. He was buried in the chancel of his church. Brand had a very extensive knowledge of antiquities, and he accumulated a large library, which was very rich in old English literature.

Among the rarer books were the _Knight of the Tower_, printed by Caxton in 1484; the _Dyalogue of Dives and Pauper_, and Arnold's _Chronicle of the Customs of London_, printed by Pynson in 1493 and 1521; _A Plaister for a Galled Horse_, London, 1548; John Byshop's _Beautiful Blossomes_, London, 1577; Thomas Bentley's _Monument of Matrones_, London, 1582; _A Booke of Fishing with hooke and line_, London, 1600; Mrs. Fage's _Poems_, London, 1637; and _A Juniper Lecture_, London, 1639. The collection also contained some curious works on witches.

After Brand's death, the library was sold in two parts by Stewart of 194 Piccadilly. The first sale took place on May 6th, 1807, and thirty-six following days, 'Sundays, the King's Birthday, and May 21-26 excepted.' It consisted of eight thousand six hundred and eleven lots of printed books, and two hundred and forty-three of manuscripts, which realised four thousand three hundred pounds. The second part, containing duplicates and pamphlets, was sold on February the 8th, 1808, and fourteen following days, 'Sundays and the Fastday excepted.' There were four thousand and sixty-four lots in this portion, and the sum obtained for them was eighteen hundred and fifty-one pounds. _The Knight of the Tower_ was purchased by Mr. Payne the bookseller for Earl Spencer for one hundred and eleven pounds, six shillings; Arnold's _Chronicle_ fetched eighteen guineas; the _Dyalogue of Dives and Pauper_, four pounds, three shillings; Bentley's _Monument of Matrones_, eight pounds, eighteen shillings and sixpence; and Mrs. Fage's _Poems_, five pounds, fifteen shillings and sixpence. A copy of Brand's own work on _Popular Antiquities_, with additions for a new edition, sold, with the copyright, for six hundred and thirty pounds.

In addition to his _Observations on Popular Antiquities_, which appeared in 1777, Brand published a work on the _History and Antiquities of the town and county of Newcastle-upon-Tyne_ in 1789; and in 1775 a poem _On Illicit Love, written among the ruins of Godstow Nunnery, near Oxford_--the place where the celebrated Rosamond, the mistress of Henry II., was buried. He also contributed many papers to the _Archaeologia_ of the Society of Antiquaries.

Nichols, in his _Literary Anecdotes_,[90] says of Brand that 'his manners, somewhat repulsive to a stranger, became easy on closer acquaintance, and he loved to communicate to men of literary and antiquarian taste the result of his researches on any subject in which they might require information.'

JOHN DENT, 1750?-1826

Mr. John Dent was born about the middle of the eighteenth century. His father is said to have been the master of a school in a small town in Cumberland. At an early age he entered the banking-house of Messrs. Child and Co. of London as a clerk, and in 1795 rose to be a partner in the firm. In 1790 he was elected Member of Parliament for the borough of Leicester, and held the seat during five successive Parliaments until the dissolution in 1812. Six years later he was chosen Member for Poole, which he represented till 1826. He died at his residence in Hertford Street, Mayfair, on the 14th of December 1826.

Mr. Dent, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, accumulated a very fine library, which was very rich in the Greek and Latin Classics and early English literature. It also contained some very beautiful manuscripts. After his death it was sold in two parts by Mr. Evans of Pall Mall. The first sale, which took place on March the 29th, 1827, and eight following days, consisted of fifteen hundred and two lots, and realised six thousand two hundred and seventy-eight pounds, twelve shillings. The second portion of the books was sold on the 25th of the succeeding month and eight following days. There were one thousand four hundred and seventy-four lots in this sale, which brought eight thousand seven hundred and sixty-two pounds, seven shillings. The following are a few of the many very rare books which this noble collection contained, and the prices which were obtained for them:--

Fust and Schoeffer's Latin Bible of 1462, one hundred and seventy-three pounds, five shillings; a vellum copy of the first edition of Livy, printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome in 1469, two hundred and sixty-two pounds, ten shillings; the first edition of the _Anthologia Graeca_ on vellum, printed at Florence in 1494, seventy pounds; a perfect copy of Higden's _Polychronicon_, printed by Caxton in 1482, one hundred and three pounds, nineteen shillings; three other imperfect Caxtons, fifty-eight pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence; Barclay's _Shyp of Folys_, printed by Pynson in 1509, thirty pounds, nine shillings; Bradshawe's _Lyfe of Saynt Radegunde_, printed by Pynson, without date, thirty-two pounds; _The Cronycle of Englonde_, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1502, thirty-eight pounds, seventeen shillings; a copy on vellum of the _Orcharde of Syon_, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1519, sixty-five pounds, two shillings; _Vitruvius de Architectura_, printed on vellum by P. de Giunta in 1513, one hundred and seven pounds, two shillings; the Coverdale Bible, 1535, eighty-nine pounds, five shillings; and Archbishop Parker's _De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae_, 1573, forty pounds. Mr. Dent possessed the first three Shakespeare folios, and a large number of the separate quarto plays. The folios realised respectively one hundred and ten pounds, five shillings, fifteen pounds, and sixty-five pounds, two shillings. The copy of the third folio had many contemporary manuscript corrections. Of the quarto plays, twenty-six pounds was obtained for the first edition of _Love's Labors Lost_, twenty-two pounds for the first edition of _Othello_, sixteen pounds for the first edition of _The Merchant of Venice_, and four pounds, ten shillings for the first edition of _Midsummer Night's Dream_.

Several of the manuscripts were of exceptional beauty and interest. A Roman Breviary, with illuminations in the finest Flemish style, presented to Queen Isabel of Castile by Francisco de Rojas, sold for three hundred and seventy-eight pounds; a copy of the Gospels in Greek, said to have been written about the end of the eleventh century, for two hundred and sixty-seven pounds, fifteen shillings; an _Office de la Vierge_, written by Nicolas Jarry, the celebrated calligraphist, in 1656 for Anne of Austria, and which afterwards passed into the possession of Madame de Maintenon and the Prince de Conti, for one hundred and ten pounds, five shillings; and a copy of the _Westminster Liber Regalis_, written in the fifteenth century, for fifty-five pounds, thirteen shillings. All these manuscripts were on vellum. The copies of the Roman Breviary and the Greek Gospels are described by Dibdin in his _Bibliographical Decameron_ (vol. i. pp. clxiii and xcii).

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 90: Vol. ix. p. 653.]

RIGHT HON. THOMAS GRENVILLE, 1755-1846

[Illustration: THOMAS GRENVILLE. After a Portrait by Hoppner.]

The Right Hon. Thomas Grenville, who was born on the 31st of December 1755, was the second son of the Right Hon. George Grenville, the statesman, who succeeded Lord Bute as Premier in 1763, and Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Wyndham. In 1771 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, as a gentleman-commoner, and in 1778 he was appointed ensign in the Coldstream Guards, which he left the following year to become a lieutenant in the 80th foot. In 1780 he was elected Member for Buckinghamshire, and became a follower of Lord Rockingham and Mr. Fox, the latter of whom thought so highly of his talents that he intended, if his India Bill had passed, to have made him Governor-General. Towards the close of the war with the United States, Mr. Grenville was sent to Paris to negotiate terms of peace, but only remained there a short time, being recalled by the death of the Marquis of Rockingham and a change of ministry. On his return to this country he continued for some time to support Mr. Fox, but the course pursued by that statesman with regard to the French Revolution caused him to transfer his allegiance to Mr. Pitt, and in 1794 Mr. Grenville accepted the post of Minister Extraordinary to the Court of Vienna. In 1798 he became a privy councillor, and in 1799 he was sent as Ambassador to Berlin to endeavour to prevent the King of Prussia deserting the coalition against France; but the first vessel in which he sailed was stopped by ice, and the second was wrecked, and the delay which ensued rendered the mission an abortive one. In 1800 he was made Chief Justice in Eyre to the South of the Trent, a sinecure office of two thousand a year, of which he was the last holder. On the fall of Mr. Pitt's ministry in March 1801, Mr. Grenville ceased to support the Tory party, and renewed his political connection with Mr. Fox, and in 1806, shortly after his brother, Lord Grenville, became Prime Minister, he was appointed President of the Board of Control. On the death of Mr. Fox on the 13th of September 1806, he succeeded Lord Howick as First Lord of the Admiralty, a post he held until the formation of the Duke of Portland's administration in April 1807, when he finally retired from office, and devoted the remaining forty years of his life to literature, and to the collection of the splendid library, which is now one of the great glories of the British Museum. From an early age Mr. Grenville was animated by an ardent love for books, and took a great interest in the development of the National Library, of which he was for many years a Trustee. He died at Hamilton Place, Piccadilly, on the 17th of December 1846, at the age of ninety-one. Mr. Grenville had originally bequeathed his library to his great-nephew the Duke of Buckingham, but the circumstance that it was principally purchased from the profits of the sinecure office which he had held for so many years, led him to the conclusion that it was 'a debt and a duty' that the collection so acquired should be devoted to the use of the public. In the autumn of 1845, in the course of a conversation with his friend Mr. Panizzi, afterwards Sir Anthony Panizzi, then Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum, he informed him of his intention; and after his death it was found that he had revoked the bequest to the Duke of Buckingham, and left his noble collection to the nation. A full and interesting description of the printed books in the library by Sir Anthony Panizzi is to be found in the Report on the accessions to the Museum for the year 1847, and we cannot do better than give the account of them in the words of the famous librarian, who had himself much to do with the acquisition of this magnificent gift:--

'With exception of the Collection of His Majesty George the Third, the Library of the British Museum has never received an accession so important in every respect as the Collection of the Right Honourable Thomas Grenville.... Formed and preserved with the exquisite taste of an accomplished bibliographer, with the learning of a profound and elegant scholar, and the splendid liberality of a gentleman in affluent circumstances, who employed in adding to his library whatever his generous heart allowed him to spare from silently relieving those whose wants he alone knew, this addition to the National Library places it in some respects above all libraries known, in others it leaves it inferior only to the Royal Library at Paris. An idea may be formed of the literary value of Mr. Grenville's Library by referring to its pecuniary value; it consists of 20,240 volumes, forming about 16,000 works, which cost upwards of L54,000, and would sell for more now. During his lifetime, Mr. Grenville's library was most liberally rendered accessible to any person, however humble his condition in life, who could show the least cause for asking the loan of any of his precious volumes. By bequeathing the whole to his country, Mr. Grenville has secured to literary men, even after his death, that assistance, as far as it relates to the use of his books, which he so generously bestowed on them in every way during his long and dignified career:--the career of a man of high birth, distinguished for uniting to a powerful and cultivated intellect a warm and benevolent heart.'

Sir Anthony Panizzi, in describing the contents of the collection, adds: 'It would naturally be expected that one of the editors of the "Adelphi Homer" would lose no opportunity of collecting the best and rarest editions of the Prince of Poets. AEsop, a favourite author of Mr. Grenville, occurs in his Library in its rarest forms; there is no doubt that the series of editions of this author in that library is unrivalled. The great admiration which Mr. Grenville felt for Cardinal Ximenes, even more on account of the splendid edition of the Polyglot Bible which that prelate caused to be printed at Alcala, than of his public character, made him look upon the acquisition of the Moschus, a book of extreme rarity, as a piece of good fortune. Among the extremely rare editions of the Latin Classics, in which the Grenville Library abounds, the unique complete copy of Azzoguidi's first edition of Ovid is a gem well deserving particular notice, and was considered, on the whole, by Mr. Grenville himself, the boast of his collection. The Aldine Virgil of 1505, the rarest of the Aldine editions of this poet, is the more welcome to the Museum, as it serves to supply a lacuna; the copy mentioned in the Catalogue of the Royal Collection not having been transferred to the National Library.

'The rarest editions of English Poets claimed and obtained the special attention of Mr. Grenville. Hence we find him possessing not only the first and second edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales by Caxton, but the only copy known of a hitherto undiscovered edition of the same work printed in 1498 by Wynkyn de Worde. Of Shakespeare's collected Dramatic Works, the Grenville Library contains a copy of the first edition, which, if not the finest known, is at all events surpassed by none. His strong religious feelings, and his sincere attachment to the Established Church, as well as his mastery and knowledge of the English Language, concurred in making him eager to possess the earliest, as well as the rarest, editions of the translations of the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue. He succeeded to a great extent; but what deserves particular mention is the only known fragment of the New Testament in English, translated by Tyndale and Roy, which was in the press of Quentell, at Cologne, in 1525, when the printers were obliged to interrupt the printing, and fly to escape persecution.

'The History of the British Empire, and whatever could illustrate any of its different portions, were the subject of Mr. Grenville's unremitting research, and he allowed nothing to escape him deserving to be preserved, however rare and expensive. Hence his collection of works on the Divorce of Henry VIII.; that of Voyages and Travels, either by Englishmen, or to countries at some time more or less connected with England, or possessed by her; that of contemporary works on the gathering, advance, and defeat of the "Invincible Armada"; and that of writings on Ireland,--are more numerous, more valuable, and more interesting than in any other collection ever made by any person on the same subjects. Among the Voyages and Travels, the collections of De Bry and Hulsius are the finest in the world; no other library can boast of four such fine books as the copies of Hariot's Virginia, in Latin, German, French, and English of the De Bry series. And it was fitting that in Mr. Grenville's library should be found one of the only two copies known of the first edition of this work, printed in London in 1588, wherein an account is given of a colony which had been founded by his family namesake, Sir Richard Grenville.

'Conversant with the language and literature of Spain, as well as with that of Italy, the works of imagination by writers of those two countries are better represented in his library than in any other out of Spain and Italy; in some branches better even than in any single library in the countries themselves. No Italian collection can boast of such a splendid series of early editions of Ariosto's Orlando, one of Mr. Grenville's favourite authors, nor, indeed, of such choice Romance Poems. The copy of the first edition of Ariosto is not to be matched for beauty; of that of Rome, 1533, even the existence was hitherto unknown. A perfect copy of the first complete edition of the _Morgante Maggiore_ of 1482, was also not known to exist before Mr. Grenville succeeded in procuring his. Among the Spanish Romances, the copy of that of "Tirant lo Blanch," printed at Valencia in 1490, is as fine, as clean, and as white as when it first issued from the press; and no second copy of this edition of a work professedly translated from English into Portuguese, and thence into Valencian, is known to exist except in the library of the Sapienza at Rome.

'But where there is nothing common, it is almost depreciating a collection to enumerate a few articles as rare. It is a marked feature of this library, that Mr. Grenville did not collect mere bibliographical rarities. He never aimed at having a complete set of the editions from the press of Caxton or Aldus; but Chaucer and Gower by Caxton were readily purchased, as well as other works which were desirable on other accounts, besides that of having issued from the press of that printer; and, when possible, select copies were procured. Some of the rarest, and these the finest, Aldine editions were purchased by him for the same reasons. The Horae in Greek, printed by Aldus in 16mo in 1497, is a volume which, from its language, size, and rarity, is of the greatest importance for the literary and religious history of the time when it was printed. It is, therefore, in Mr. Grenville's library. The Virgil of 1501 is not only an elegant book, but it is the first book printed with that peculiar _Italic_, known as Aldine, and the first volume which Aldus printed, "forma enchiridii," as he called it, being expressly adapted to give poor scholars the means of purchasing for a small sum the works of the classical writers. This also is, therefore, among Mr. Grenville's books; and of one of the two editions of Virgil, both dated the same year, 1514, he purchased a large paper copy, because it was the more correct of the two.

'It was the merit of the work, the elegance of the volume, the "genuine" condition of the copy, etc., which together determined Mr. Grenville to purchase books printed on vellum, of which he collected nearly a hundred. He paid a very large sum for a copy of the Furioso of 1532, not because it was "on ugly vellum," as he very properly designated it, but because, knowing the importance of such an edition of such a work, and never having succeeded in procuring it on paper, he would rather have it on expensive terms and "ugly vellum," than not at all.

'By the bequest of Mr. Grenville's library, the collection of books printed on vellum now at the Museum, and comprising those formerly presented by George II., George III., and Mr. Cracherode, is believed to surpass that of any other National Library, except the King's Library at Paris, of which Van Praet justly speaks with pride, and all foreign competent and intelligent judges with envy and admiration. Injustice to the Grenville Library, the list of all its vellum books ought here to be inserted. As this cannot be done, some only of the most remarkable shall be mentioned. These are--the Greek Anthology of 1494; the Book of Hawking, of Juliana Berners, of 1496; the first edition of the Bible, known as the "Mazarine Bible," printed at Mentz about 1454; the Aldine Dante of 1502; the first Rationale of Durandus of 1459; the first edition of Fisher On the Psalms, of 1508; the Aldine Horace, Juvenal, Martial, and Petrarca, of 1501; the Livy of 1469; the Primer of Salisbury, printed in Paris in 1531; the Psalter of 1457, which supplies the place of the one now at Windsor, which belonged to the Royal Collection before it was transferred to the British Museum; the Sforziada, by Simoneta, of 1490, a most splendid volume even in so splendid a library; the Theuerdank of 1517; the Aulus Gellius and the Vitruvius of Giunta, printed in 1513, etc., etc. Of this identical copy of Vitruvius, formerly Mr. Dent's, the author of the Bibliographical Decameron wrote, "Let the enthusiastic admirers of a genuine vellum Junta--of the amplest size and in spotless condition--resort to the choice cabinet of Mr. Dent for such a copy of this edition of Vitruvius and Frontinus." The Aulus Gellius is in its original state, exactly as it was when presented to Lorenzo de' Medici, afterwards Duke of Urbino, to whom the edition was dedicated.'

In addition to the printed books, the Grenville Library contains sixty-four manuscripts, many of them being of great interest and value. The finest of them is a volume of exquisite miniature drawings by Giulio Clovio, executed by command of Philip II. of Spain, and representing the victories of the Emperor Charles V. This volume was formerly in the Escurial. Other notable manuscripts are the original drawings for Hariot's Virginia in the De Bry collection, made by John White; Norden's Description of Essex; the Third Voyage of Vespucius in Latin; and two very interesting documents relating to the Spanish Armada--one being an original letter from the Lords of the Council to the Lord High Admiral, regarding the preparation of the fleet, dated July 21, 1588; and the other, a Resolution of a Council of War, held by the admirals and captains of the fleet which dispersed the Armada, dated August 1, 1588. The former of these papers is signed by Chr. Hatton (Cancs.), W. Burghley, F. Knollys, T. Heneage, Poulet, and J. Wolley; the latter by C. Howard, George Cumberland, T. Howarde, Edmonde Sheffeylde, Fr. Drake, Edw. Hoby, John Hawkyns, and Thomas Fenner.

There is a catalogue of Mr. Grenville's library in three parts (London, 1842-72). Parts 1 and 2 were compiled by Messrs. Payne and Foss, the booksellers of Pall Mall, who bought largely for him; and