Chapter IV: Preface (4)

This room, Mr. Wheatley tells us in his excellent account of the library in vol. i. of _Bibliographica_, 'was at the Navy Office in Crutched Friars, and the illustration in the ordinary editions of the _Diary_ shows the position of the cases when they were transferred to the house in York Buildings (now Buckingham Street, Strand).' 'The presses,' he adds, 'are handsomely carved, and have handles fixed at each end; the doors are formed of little panes of glass, and in the lower divisions the glass windows are made to lift up. The books are all arranged in double rows; but by the ingenious plan of placing small books in front of large ones, the letterings of all can be seen. Neatness was a mania with Pepys, and the volumes were evened on all the shelves; in one instance some short volumes have been raised to the required height by help of wooden stilts, gilt in front.'

The library consists principally of ordinary books, but it also comprises some valuable manuscripts, and many volumes from the presses of the early English printers. It contains as many as nine Caxtons, eight Pynsons, and nineteen Wynkyn de Wordes, several of the last being unique. The books printed by Caxton are the _Game of the Chesse, Polychronicon, Chronicles of England, Description of Britain, Mirrour of the World, Book of the Order of Chivalry_, the first and second editions of the _Canterbury Tales_, and the _Chastising of God's Children_. Among the most interesting collections is one of eighteen hundred ballads in five folio volumes; and another of four duodecimo volumes of garlands and other popular publications, printed for the most part in black letter. The volumes are lettered: Vol. 1 _Penny Merriments_, Vol. 2 _Penny Witticisms_, Vol. 3 _Penny Compliments_, and Vol. 4 _Penny Godlinesses_. In the first volume of the ballads Pepys has written:--'My collection of ballads, begun by Mr. Selden, improv'd by the addition of many pieces elder thereto in time; and the whole continued to the year 1700.' The library also possesses collections of old novels, pieces of wit, chivalry, etc, plays, books on shorthand, tracts on the Popish Plot, liturgical controversies, sea tracts, news-pamphlets, etc.

The most interesting manuscripts are the famous _Diary_ in six volumes, the papers collected by Pepys for his proposed _Navalia_, and a collection of Scottish poetry, formed by Sir Richard Maitland of Lethington, Lord Privy Seal and Judge in the Court of Session, who died in 1586. The drawings and prints in the library are numerous and valuable. Among them are portraits of Pepys's friends, and prints and drawings illustrating the city of London; one of the rarest of these is the large plan of London attributed to Agas, of which only one other copy is known. The library also contains some volumes of music with the title, _Songs and other Compositions, Light, Grave and Sacred, for a single voice adjusted to the particular compass of mine; with a thorough base on ye ghitarr by Cesare Morelli_. Several songs composed by Pepys are in this collection, one of which, entitled _Beauty Retire_, was a great success, and the composer was very proud of it. All the books in the library are in excellent condition, and, with the exception of a few in morocco or vellum, are bound in calf. Almost all of them bear Pepys's arms on the lower cover; while on the upper is found a shield with the inscription, SAM. PEPYS CAR. ET IAC. ANGL. REGIB. A SECRETIS ADMIRALIAE. This shield is surmounted with his helmet and crest, and is surrounded by mantling, in which are introduced two anchors, indicating his office. He also used three bookplates--one with his arms, quartering Talbot of Cottenham; a second with his portrait by Robert White, with his motto, _Mens cujusque is est Quisque_, from the _Somnium Scipionis_ of Cicero; and a third bearing his initials, with two anchors crossed, together with his motto.

Pepys left his library, together with his other property, to his nephew, John Jackson; but in a paper of directions respecting it, preserved among the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, he expresses a desire that at his nephew's death it should be placed in either Trinity or Magdalene College, Cambridge, preferably 'in the latter, for the sake of my own and my nephew's education therein.' In addition to Pepys' collection at Magdalene College, the Bodleian Library contains a series of his miscellaneous papers in twenty-five volumes, together with numerous other volumes which belonged to him, including many curious dockyard account-books of the times of King Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth.[48] These were bequeathed to the library by Dr. Richard Rawlinson, the nonjuring bishop. Mr. John Eliot Hodgkin, F.S.A., of Childwall, Weybridge, Surrey, also possesses some papers which once belonged to Pepys.

Pepys published _Memoirs relating to the State of the Royal Navy of England for ten years determined December 1688_, in 1690; and a work entitled _The Portugal History: or a Relation of the Troubles that happened in the Court of Portugal in the years 1667 and 1668 ... by S.P., Esq._, printed at London in 1677, is also attributed to him. His well-known _Diary_, the manuscript of which fills six small volumes of closely written shorthand, was first deciphered by the Rev. John Smith, Rector of Baldock, Hertfordshire, and was published, with a selection from his private correspondence, by Lord Braybrooke, in two volumes in 1825. It has since been several times reprinted. The last edition, edited by Mr. H.B. Wheatley, F.S.A., published in eight volumes octavo in 1893-96, contains the whole of the _Diary_, with the exception of passages which cannot possibly be printed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 48: Macray, _Annals of the Bodleian Library_.]

EDWARD STILLINGFLEET, BISHOP OF WORCESTER, 1635-1699

Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, was the seventh son of Samuel Stillingfleet of the family of Stillingfleet of Stillingfleet, Yorkshire. He was born at Cranborne in Dorsetshire on the 17th of April 1635, and received his early education in the grammar schools of Cranborne and Ringwood. In his fifteenth year he was admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge, where he obtained a Fellowship in 1653. For several years after leaving college he was engaged as a private tutor, first in the family of Sir Roger Burgoyne of Wroxall in Warwickshire, and afterwards in that of the Hon. Francis Pierrepoint of Nottingham, during which period he was ordained by Ralph Brownrig, the deprived Bishop of Exeter. In 1657 he was presented by Sir R. Burgoyne to the rectory of Sutton, Bedfordshire, and in 1665 the Earl of Southampton gave him the rectory of St. Andrew's, Holborn. He was also appointed Preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and shortly afterwards Reader of the Temple, and Chaplain in Ordinary to Charles II. In 1667 he was collated to a Canonry in St. Paul's, London; in 1669 he became a Canon 'in the twelfth prebend' in Canterbury Cathedral; in 1677 Archdeacon of London; in 1678 Dean of St. Paul's; and on the 13th of October 1689 he was consecrated Bishop of Worcester. He died at his residence in Park Street, Westminster, on the 27th of March 1699, and was buried in Worcester Cathedral, where a monument was erected to his memory by his son, with a Latin epitaph by Richard Bentley, who had been one of his chaplains.

Bishop Stillingfleet collected 'at a vast expence of time, pains and money' a very choice and valuable library, which contained a considerable number of manuscripts, and upwards of nine thousand five hundred printed volumes, besides many pamphlets. It is stated that there were over two thousand folios in it, and that it cost the Bishop six thousand pounds. Evelyn in a letter to Pepys, dated August 12th, 1689, writes: 'The Bishop of Ely[49] has a well stor'd library; but the very best is what Dr. Stillingfleete, Deane of St. Paule's, has at Twicknam, ten miles out of towne.' After Stillingfleet's death his library was offered for sale. Entries in Evelyn's diary[50] show that great efforts were made to persuade William III. to buy it, but they evidently failed, as the historical manuscripts were purchased by Robert Harley (afterwards Earl of Oxford), while the remainder of the collection was acquired by Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of Armagh, who bought the books for a public library in Dublin which he had founded. He is said to have paid two thousand five hundred pounds for them. Stillingfleet, who on account of his handsome person was nicknamed 'the beauty of holiness,' was the author of _Origines Britannicae, or Antiquities of the British Churches_, and many controversial works. His collected works were printed in 1710 in six volumes folio, and a volume of his miscellaneous works was published in 1735 by his son, the Rev. James Stillingfleet, Canon of Worcester.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 49: John Moore, Bishop of Ely, whose library was purchased by King George I., and presented by him to the University of Cambridge.]

[Footnote 50: '_April 29, 1699._--I dined with the Archbishop, but my business was to get him to persuade the King to purchase the late Bishop of Worcester's library, and build a place, for his own library at St. James's, in the Parke, the present one being too small.'

'_May 3, 1699._--At a meeting of the Royal Society I was nominated to be of the Committee to wait on the Lord Chancellor to move the King to purchase Bp. of Worcester's library.']

JOHN MOORE, BISHOP OF ELY, 1646-1714

John Moore, Bishop successively of Norwich and Ely, who was born at Sutton-juxta-Broughton, Leicestershire, in 1646, was the eldest son of Thomas Moore, an ironmonger at Market Harborough. He was educated at the Free School, Market Harborough, and at Clare College, Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship in 1667. Having taken holy orders, he was collated in 1676 to the rectory of Blaby in Leicestershire; and in 1679, through the influence of Heneage Finch, Earl of Nottingham, who, in 1670, had appointed him his chaplain, he was installed canon in Ely Cathedral. In 1687 he was presented by the dean and chapter of St. Paul's to the rectory of St. Austin, London, and in 1689 he obtained the rectory of St. Andrew's, Holborn, which he held with his canonry at Ely until 1691, when he was consecrated Bishop of Norwich. He remained in that see until 1707, in which year he was translated to the more valuable bishopric of Ely. Moore died on the 31st of July 1714, from the effects of a cold which he caught while presiding at the trial of Dr. Bentley, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, who was charged with encroaching on the privileges of the fellows of that institution. He was buried in Ely Cathedral, where a monument was erected to his memory.

Bishop Moore, who is called by Dibdin 'the father of black-letter collectors in this country,' was a great and generous patron of learning, and formed a magnificent library, which at the time of his death contained nearly twenty-nine thousand printed books and seventeen hundred and ninety manuscripts. John Bagford was the principal assistant in its collection, and in return for his services the Bishop procured him a place in the Charterhouse. The library, which was kept in the episcopal residence in Ely Place, Holborn, where it occupied 'eight chambers,' is mentioned in _Notices of London Libraries_, by John Bagford and William Oldys, where it is stated that 'Dr. John Moore, the late Bishop of Ely, had also a prodigious collection of books, written as well as printed on vellum, some very ancient, others finely illuminated. He had a _Capgrave's Chronicle_, books of the first printing at Mentz, and other places abroad, as also at Oxford, St. Alban's, Westminster, etc.' John Evelyn, Bishop Burnet, and Ralph Thoresby also write in terms of high praise of the excellence and great extent of the collection. Richard Gough, the antiquary, states that 'the Bishop formed his library by plundering those of the clergy in his diocese. Some he paid with sermons or more modern books; others only with quid illiterati cum libris'; but there appears to be little, if any, truth in this accusation. Moore, who was anxious that his library should not be dispersed after his death, offered it, in 1714, to Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, for the sum of eight thousand pounds; but the negotiation failed in consequence, it is said, of the Bishop 'insisting on being paid the money in his lifetime, though Lord Oxford was not to have the books till the Bishop's death.' After Moore's decease the collection was sold for six thousand guineas to George I., who gave it, on the suggestion of Lord Townsend, to the University of Cambridge. A special book-plate, designed and engraved by John Pine, was placed in the volumes. At the same time that the king sent these books to the University he despatched a troop of horse to Oxford, which occasioned the two well-known epigrams attributed to Dr. Tripp and Sir William Browne--

'Contrary methods justly George applies
To govern his two universities,
To Oxford sent a troop of horse;--for why?
That learned body wanted Loyalty.
To Cambridge he sent books, as well discerning,
How much that loyal body wanted learning.'

The reply by Sir W. Browne runs--

'Contrary methods justly George applies
To govern his two universities,
And so to Oxford sent a troop of horse,
For Tories hold no argument but force;
To Cambridge Ely's learned books are sent,
For Whigs admit no force but argument.'

This is not the only version of these epigrams, but the Rev. Cecil Moore in his Memoir of the Bishop considers it to be the correct one.

Moore's diaries, letters, and private accounts are also preserved in the Cambridge University Library. A volume containing his printed sermons was published in 1715, and a second issue in two volumes in 1724. Both series were edited by the Rev. Samuel Clarke, D.D.

JOHN BAGFORD, 1650?-1716

John Bagford was born about 1650. The exact date of his birth is unknown, and he does not appear to have been acquainted with it himself, for a short time before his death he informed Mr. James Sotheby that he was either sixty-five or sixty-six years of age, he could not tell which. According to the belief of Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, he was born in Fetter Lane, London, and he was no doubt for some time a shoemaker, for in a very curious and entertaining little treatise on the _Art of Shoemaking and Historical Account of Clouthing of ye foot_, which is believed to have been written by him, and is now preserved among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum, the writer states that he was brought up to the 'craft of shoemaking.' This trade, however, he soon abandoned for a more congenial occupation, and he became a collector of books on commission for booksellers and amateurs. In pursuance of this work he made several journeys to the Continent, and acquired a great knowledge of books, prints, and literary curiosities. He was specially employed by Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, Sir Hans Sloane, and John Moore, Bishop of Ely, who appear to have greatly appreciated his judgment, diligence, and honesty; and the last-named collector procured him, as some recompense for his services, admission into the Charterhouse. Nothing is known of Bagford's parents, and little of his domestic life, but he appears to have been married, for on the back of a leaf in one of the volumes of his collections we find the following memorandum in Bagford's writing: 'John, son of John and Elizabeth Bagford, was baptized 31st October 1675, in the parish of St. Anne, Blackfriars.' This son seems to have become a sailor in the Royal Navy, for in another volume in the same collections there is a power of attorney, dated April 6, 1713, signed by John Bagford, Junior, empowering his 'honoured father, John Bagford, Senior, of the parish of St. Sepulchre, in the county of Middlesex, bookseller,' to claim and receive from the Paymaster of Her Majesty's Navy his wages as a seaman in case of his death. Bagford, who took great interest in all descriptions of antiquities, was one of the little group of distinguished men who reconstituted in 1707 the Society of Antiquaries. He died, Dr. Birch informs us, at Islington on the 15th of May 1716, and was buried in the graveyard belonging to the Charterhouse.

During his researches for his employers Bagford amassed two great collections: one consisting of ballads, now known as the 'Bagford Ballads'; the other being a vast collection of leaves from manuscripts, title-pages and fragments of books, specimens of paper, book-plates, engravings, bindings, catalogues, advertisements, and various interesting and curious pieces. With the aid of these materials Bagford intended to write a history of printing, and in 1707 he published his _Proposals for an Historical Account of that most universally celebrated as well as useful Art of Typography_. The work, which was also to contain a history of bookbinding, paper-making, etc., was, however, never published, and it has been often stated that Bagford was quite incompetent to carry out such an undertaking. This may possibly have been the case, for although he was certainly a man of much ability, and possessed an extensive knowledge of books, he had received but little education. Several of his contemporaries, however, held a different opinion, and among them Hearne, who repeatedly expresses in his works his admiration of both Bagford's genius and his collections.

The method of compiling a history of printing from a collection of title-pages appears to be both a clumsy and a costly one, but it seems probable from entries in the diary of Oldys, and from Gough's memoir of Ames, that that bibliographer wrote his _Typographical Antiquities_ with the aid of similar materials.

Bagford has been subjected to very severe censure for mutilating books for the purpose of forming his collection of title-pages. Mr. Blades, in his work _The Enemies of Books_, accuses him of being 'a wicked old biblioclast who went about the country, from library to library, tearing away title-pages from rare books of all sizes'; and Dr. Dibdin in _Bibliomania_ states that he 'was the most hungry and rapacious of all book and print collectors.' The testimony of Hearne (who knew Bagford well, and who was also amply qualified to judge both of his merits and demerits), however, is very different. He writes: 'It was very laudable in my Friend, Mr. John Bagford (who I think was born in Fetter Lane, London), to employ so much of his time, as he did, in collecting Remains of Antiquity. Indeed he was a man of very surprising genius, and had his education (for he was first a shoemaker, and afterwards for some time a bookseller) been equal to his natural genius, he would have proved a much greater man than he was. And yet, without this education, he was, certainly, the greatest man in the world in his way.... 'Tis very remarkable, that, in collecting, his care did not extend itself to Books and to the fragments of Books, only, but even to the very Covers, and to the Bosses and Clasps; and all this, that he might, with the greater ease, compile the History of Printing, which he had undertaken, but did not finish. In this noble Work he intended a Discourse about Binding,... and another about the Art of making paper, in both of which his observations were very accurate.'

A great number of the title-pages and fragments collected by Bagford are evidently taken from books which could be purchased in his day for a few shillings, many of them probably for a few pence; while it is possible that some may have been salvage from the Great Fire of 1666, when we know immense quantities of books were burnt or damaged. The collections, it is true, contain fragments of the Gutenberg Bible, various Caxtons, and other rare books, but there is no reason to think that these were abstracted from complete copies; it is much more likely that they were odd leaves which Bagford had picked up, while the leather stains on some of the most valuable show that they once formed part of the padding of old bindings. Many of the books were probably acquired by Bagford when he took part in the book-hunting expeditions of the Duke of Devonshire, the Earls of Oxford, Sunderland, and other collectors, who amused themselves every Saturday during the winter in rambling through various quarters of the town in search of additions to their libraries. After Bagford's death Hearne was very anxious to obtain his collections, as he wished to publish 'a book from them, for the service of the public, and the honour of Mr. Bagford,' but much to his chagrin he was forestalled by Wanley, Lord Oxford's librarian, who acquired them for his employer's library, and they formed part of the Harleian Manuscripts, etc., purchased in 1753 for the British Museum. Wanley, however, does not appear to have secured the whole of Bagford's papers, as the Sloane collection contains four volumes of manuscripts and printed matter which belonged to him, and the Bodleian Library possesses some Indulgences which he acquired and gave to Hearne.

The Bagford collections in the British Museum consist of one hundred and twenty-nine[51] volumes, including three of ballads. The manuscript pieces are contained in thirty-six folios; the printed pieces in sixty-three folios, twenty-one quartos, and nine octavos. Among the more important manuscripts are Bagford's Commonplace Book; his Book of Accounts; his Account of Public and Private Libraries; Collections in reference to Printing; Names of old English Printers, with lists of the works which passed through their hands; an Account of Paper; Patents granted to Printers in England; Observations on the History of Printing; Lives of famous Engravers, etc. The collection also contains a large number of fragments of early Bibles, Service Books, Decretals, Lives of Saints, etc. These are almost entirely of vellum, and some of them are as early as the eighth century.

Among the printed fragments is a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible,[52] portions of the _Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_, the _Polychronicon_, the _Book of Fame_, and many other books from the presses of Caxton, Machlinia, Rood and Hunte, Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and other early printers, both English and foreign.

The maps in the collection are especially important and interesting, including a very rare one sometimes found in Hakluyt's _Navigations and Discoveries of the English Nation_, printed in the years 1599 and 1600, and worth at least two hundred pounds;[53] and the even more valuable celestial and terrestrial planispheres by John Blagrave of Reading, which are believed to be unique. There are also some rare documents relating to the Post Office; a number of early book-plates; some fine specimens of English, French, and German stamped bindings of the sixteenth century; several volumes of Chinese, marbled, and other papers; early almanacks; a quantity of engravings of towns, costumes, trades, furniture, etc.; curious advertisements of tobacco, tea, quack medicines, etc.; specimens of fine writing; and many other miscellaneous papers of much interest.

Bagford was the author of a letter on the antiquities of London, prefixed to the first volume of Hearne's edition of Leland's _Collectanea_; and also of an _Account of London Libraries_, first printed in 1708 in _The Monthly Miscellany, or Memoirs for the Curious_. This little brochure was continued by Oldys, and the complete work published by Mr. James Yeowell in 1862. _The Essay on the Invention of Printing, by Mr. John Bagford_, in vol. XXV. of the _Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society_, was, Dibdin says, drawn up by Wanley. The collection of ballads has been edited by the Rev. J.W. Ebsworth for the Ballad Society.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 51: It is somewhat doubtful whether a few of these belonged to Bagford.]

[Footnote 52: Probably given to Bagford by Michael Maittaire, the collector, who possessed a very imperfect copy of the Gutenberg Bible, which sold for fifty shillings at the sale of his library.]

[Footnote 53: This is believed to be the map alluded to by Shakespeare in Act. iii. Sc. 2 of _Twelfth Night_, where he makes Maria say of Malvolio: 'He does smile his face into more lines than there are in the new map, with the augmentation of the Indies.']

THOMAS HERBERT, EIGHTH EARL OF PEMBROKE, 1656-1733

Thomas Herbert, eighth Earl of Pembroke, who was born in 1656, was the third son of Philip, the fifth Earl. By the deaths of his elder brothers, the sixth and seventh Earls, he succeeded to the title in 1683, and from that time to his death in 1733 he held many of the highest appointments in the State. He was one of the representatives of England at the treaty of Ryswick, and he carried the Sword of Justice at the coronations of William and Mary, Anne, George I. and George II. He was also President of the Royal Society in 1689-90.

Many of the Earls of Pembroke were men of culture and patrons of learning. In 1629 William, the third Earl, gave to the University of Oxford, of which he was Chancellor, a very valuable series of Greek manuscripts collected by Giacomo Barocci, a gentleman of Venice; and in 1649 his brother Philip, the fourth Earl, gave to the same University, of which he was also Chancellor, a splendidly bound copy of the Paris Polyglot Bible, printed in 1645 in nine volumes. These two brothers are 'the incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the first folio of Shakespeare is dedicated. There had been for several generations a library at Wilton House, Salisbury, which Dibdin considered to be one of the oldest of private collections existing; but Thomas, the eighth Earl, added to it so large a number of rare books that it 'entitled him to dispute the palm even with the Lords Sunderland and Oxford.' Maittaire, in his _Annales Typographici_, calls the library a 'Bibliotheca exquisitissima,' and styles its owner 'Humanitatis politioris cultor et patronus.' Dibdin also states that Lord Pembroke spared no expense for books, and that he was 'a collector of everything the most precious and rare in the book-way.' The library was still further augmented by his successor Henry.

Dr. Dampier, Bishop of Ely, compiled a list in 1776 of the earlier printed works in the library, which Dibdin has reproduced in his _Decameron_. The books are one hundred and ninety-nine in number, of which one hundred and eighty-eight are of the fifteenth century. The list contains eight Caxtons, eighteen volumes printed by Jenson, and ten by the Spiras. Among the most notable of the incunabula are the _Rationale Divinorum Officiorum_ of Durandus, on vellum, printed by Fust and Schoeffer at Mentz in 1459; the _Catholicon_ of Balbus, printed at Mentz in 1460; _Cicero de Oratore_, printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at the Monastery of Subiaco in 1465; Cicero's _Epistolae ad Familiares_, printed by Joannes de Spira at Venice in 1469; and the _Bokys of Hawkyng and Huntyng_, printed at St. Albans in 1486. The Caxtons are _The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy_; the first and second editions of _The Game of the Chesse_; the first edition of _The Dictes or Sayings of the Philosophers_, _Tully of Old Age_, _Chronicles of England_, the _Polychronicon_, and the _Liber Festivalis_.

NARCISSUS LUTTRELL, 1657-1732

Narcissus Luttrell, who was born in 1657, was the son of Francis Luttrell of London, a descendant of the Luttrells of Dunster Castle, in the county of Somerset. He received his early education under Mr. Aldrich at Sheen in Surrey, and in 1674 was admitted a fellow-commoner of St. John's College, Cambridge. In the succeeding year he was created M.A. by royal mandate.[54] While at the University he presented a silver tankard to his college, which was lost, together with a quantity of other plate, on the 9th of October 1693, for the recovery of which a reward of ten pounds was offered.[55] Luttrell, who, Dibdin says, was 'ever ardent in his love of past learning, and not less voracious in his bibliomaniacal appetites,' formed an extensive library at Shaftesbury House, Little Chelsea, where he resided for many years in seclusion. Hearne speaks of it 'as a very extraordinary collection,' and adds that 'in it are many manuscripts, which, however, he had not the spirit to communicate to the world, and 'twas a mortification to him to see the world gratified without his assistance.' A special feature of the library was the large and interesting collection of fugitive pieces issued during the reigns of Charles II., James II., William III., and Anne, which Luttrell purchased day by day as they appeared. Sir Walter Scott found this collection, which in his time was chiefly in the possession of the collectors Mr. Heber and Mr. Bindley, very useful when editing the _Works_ of Dryden, published in eighteen volumes at London in 1808. In the preface he remarks that 'the industrious collector seems to have bought every poetical tract, of whatever merit, which was hawked through the streets in his time, marking carefully the price and date of purchase. His collection contains the earliest editions of many of our most excellent poems, bound up, according to the order of time, with the lowest trash of Grub Street.' On Luttrell's death, which took place at his residence in Chelsea on the 27th of June 1732, the collection became the property of Francis Luttrell (presumed to be his son), who died in 1740. It afterwards passed into the possession of Mr. Serjeant Wynne, and from him descended to Edward Wynne, his eldest son, the author of _Eunomus, or Dialogues concerning the Law and Constitution of England; and a Miscellany containing several law tracts_, published at London in 1765. He died a bachelor in 1784, and the library, which had been considerably enlarged by its later possessors, was inherited by his brother, the Rev. Luttrell Wynne, of All Souls' College, Oxford, by whose direction it was sold by auction by Leigh and Sotheby in 1786. The sale, which consisted of two thousand seven hundred and fifty-six lots, commenced on March 6th, and lasted twelve days. It is stated in the catalogue that 'great part of the library was formed by an Eminent and Curious Collector in the last Century, and comprehends a fine Suite of Historical, Classical, Mathematical, Natural History, Poetical and Miscellaneous Books, in all Arts and Sciences ... by the most Eminent Printers, Rob. Steph., Morell, Aldus, Elzevir, Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, &c. &c. Also a very curious Collection of old English Romances, and old Poetry; with a great number of scarce Pamphlets during the Great Rebellion and the Protectorate.' Various portions of the Luttrell collections were bought by Messrs. Heber and Bindley. The greater part of those purchased by Mr. Bindley were eventually acquired by the British Museum at the Duke of Buckingham's sale in 1849, while those which belonged to Mr. Heber are now to be found on the shelves of the Britwell library. Dibdin informs us that 'a great number of poetical tracts was disposed of, previous to the sale, to Dr. Farmer, who gave not more than forty guineas for them.' Two Caxtons in the sale--the _Mirrour of the World_ and _Caton_--fetched respectively five guineas and four guineas, and a collection of plays, in twenty-one volumes, by Gascoigne, Dekker, etc., sold for thirty-eight pounds, seventeen shillings.

Luttrell compiled a chronicle of contemporary events, which was frequently quoted by Lord Macaulay in his _History of England_. This remained in manuscript for many years in the library of All Souls' College, Oxford, but in 1857 it was printed in six volumes by the Delegates of the University Press under the title of _A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs from September 1678 to April 1714_. He also left a personal diary in English, but whimsically written in Greek characters, consisting principally of entries recording the hours of his rising and going to bed, the manner in which he spent his time, what friends called to see him, the sermons he heard, where and how he dined, and the occasions, which were not infrequent, when he took too much wine. This manuscript is preserved in the British Museum (Add. MS. 10447).

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 54: _Notes and Queries._ Second Series. Vol. xii., page 78.]

[Footnote 55: See _London Gazette_, October 16-19, 1693.]

SIR HANS SLOANE, BART., 1660-1753

Sir Hans Sloane, Bart., was born on the 16th of April 1660 at Killileagh, County Down, Ireland. His father, Alexander Sloane, was a Scotchman, who had settled in Ireland on his appointment to the post of receiver-general of the estates of Lord Claneboy, afterwards Earl of Clanricarde.[56] Hans Sloane gave early indications of unusual ability, and as soon as his health, which was delicate, would permit, he came to London, and devoted himself to the study of medicine, and the kindred sciences of chemistry and botany. In 1683 he went to Paris, which at that time possessed greater facilities for medical education than could be found in London. Having taken the degree of Doctor of Medicine in the University of Orange in July 1683, he made a tour in France, and towards the close of the year 1684 he returned to England and settled in London. In 1685 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1687 he was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians. His love for scientific research led him to accept the offer of the post of physician to the Duke of Albemarle, who had been recently appointed Governor-General of the West India Colonies. He was also appointed physician to the West Indian fleet. He set sail for Jamaica on the 12th of September 1687, and reached Port Royal on the 19th of December; but in consequence of the death of the Duke, which took place towards the end of the following year, Sloane returned to England in May 1689, bringing with him large collections in all branches of natural history, which he had obtained in Madeira, as well as in Jamaica and other West Indian islands. In 1693 Sloane was appointed to the Secretaryship of the Royal Society, and in 1727 he had the honour of succeeding Sir Isaac Newton as President. His professional career was a very successful one. In 1712 he was made Physician-Extraordinary to Queen Anne, whom he attended during her last illness; and in 1716 he was created a baronet by King George I., who also bestowed on him the post of Physician-General to the Forces. On the accession of King George II. in 1727 he was appointed First Physician to the King. He was elected President of the College of Physicians in 1719, and held the office till 1735. In 1741 he removed his museum and library from his residence in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, to the fine old manor-house of Chelsea, which he had purchased from the family of Cheyne. Here he spent his time in the society of his friends, and in enriching and arranging the treasures he had collected. He died after a short illness on the 11th of January 1753, in the ninety-third year of his age, and was buried in Chelsea church, where a monument was erected to his memory by his daughters. Sir Hans Sloane married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Alderman Langley, and widow of Fulk Rose of Jamaica, by whom he had four children, two of whom died young. Sarah, the elder of the two daughters who survived their father, married George Stanley of Poultons, Hampshire; the younger, Elizabeth, married Colonel Charles Cadogan, afterwards second Baron Cadogan.

A table drawn up by Sloane's trustees immediately after his death shows that, in addition to his splendid natural history museum, his collections comprised between forty and fifty thousand printed books, three thousand five hundred and sixteen manuscripts,[57] and six hundred and fifty-seven pictures and drawings. The coins and medals amounted to thirty-two thousand, and other antiquities to two thousand six hundred and thirty-five. Sir Hans Sloane expressed a desire in his will that his collection in all its branches might be kept and preserved together after his decease, and that an application should be made by his trustees to Parliament for its purchase for twenty thousand pounds, a sum which did not represent more than a fourth of its real value. This application was favourably received, and in June 1753 an Act was passed, 'For the purchase of the Museum, or Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts; and for providing one general repository for the better reception and more convenient use of the said Collections; and of the Cottonian Library, and of the additions thereto.' The Act further enacted that a board, consisting of forty-two trustees, be appointed for putting the same into execution; and at a general meeting of this body, held at the Cockpit, at Whitehall, on the 3rd of April 1754, it was resolved to accept of a proposal which had been made to them, of the 'Capital Mansion House, called Montague House, and the freehold ground thereto belonging, for the general repository of the British Museum, on the terms of ten thousand pounds.'[58] Although the Act had been passed, considerable difficulty was experienced in finding the purchase-money. When the matter was brought before George II. he dismissed it with the remark, 'I don't think there are twenty thousand pounds in the Treasury'; and eventually it was proposed that the needful sum should be raised by a public lottery, which should consist of 'a hundred thousand shares, at three pounds a share; that two hundred thousand pounds should be allotted as prizes, and that the remaining hundred thousand--less the expenses of the lottery itself--should be applied to the threefold purposes of the Act, namely, the purchase of the Sloane and Harleian Collections; the providing of a Repository; and the creation of an annual income for future maintenance.'[59] Sir Hans Sloane's principal work was the _Natural History of Jamaica_, 2 vols., London, 1707-25, which occupied him for no less than thirty-eight years.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 56: Edwards, _Lives of Founders of the British Museum_, p. 274.]

[Footnote 57: There are 4100 volumes of Sloane MSS. in the British Museum. A catalogue of them, compiled by the Rev. S. Ayscough, was printed in 1782.]

[Footnote 58: Sims, _Handbook to the Library of the British Museum_, p. 2.]

PETER LE NEVE, 1661-1729

Peter Le Neve was the son of Francis Neve (the _Le_ had been dropped for several generations, when Peter resumed the ancient form of his name), a citizen and draper of London. He was born in London in 1661, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School. From an early age he displayed a great love of antiquarian pursuits, and in 1707, when the Society of Antiquaries was reconstituted, he was chosen the first President, which office he held until 1724. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society. On the 17th of January 1690, Le Neve was appointed Rouge-Croix Pursuivant; on April the 5th 1704, Richmond Herald; and on the 25th of the succeeding month Norroy King-at-Arms. He died on the 24th of September 1729, and was buried in the chancel of Great Witchingham Church, Norfolk. Oldys states that Le Neve had 'a vast treasure of Historical Antiquities, consisting of about 2000 printed books and above 1200 MSS., interspersed with many notes of his own.' Oldys also mentions that 'it is said that he had some pique with the Heralds' Office a little before his death, so cut them off with a single book, otherwise he had left them the whole of his library.'[60]

'Honest Tom Martin of Palgrave,' the antiquary, who was Le Neve's executor, and who married his widow, appears to have succeeded to the bulk of Le Neve's collections. They were sold by auction in 1731. The title-page of the sale catalogue reads:--'A Catalogue of the valuable library collected by that truly Laborious Antiquary, Peter Le Neve, Esq.; Norroy King of Arms (lately deceas'd), containing most of the Books relating to the History and Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland, and many other nations. With more than a thousand Manuscripts of Abstracts of Records, etc., Heraldry, and other Sciences, several of which are very antient, and written on Vellum. Also, a great number of Pedigrees of Noble Families, etc. With many other Curiosities. Which will be Sold by Auction the 22nd Day of February 1730-1 at the Bedford Coffee-house, in the Great Piazza, Covent Garden. Beginning every Evening at Five a-Clock. By John Wilcox, Bookseller in Little Britain.'

The sale appears to have lasted about a fortnight, and was followed by a small supplementary one on March the 19th, of 'Some Curiosities and Manuscripts omitted in the previous Catalogue.' A copy of the sale catalogue, with the prices and the names of some of the purchasers in manuscript, is to be found in the British Museum.

Although Le Neve was an ardent collector and compiled a considerable number of works on heraldry and topography, many of which are preserved in the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, Heralds' College, and the Record Office, he does not appear to have printed anything. His list of _Pedigrees of Knights made by King Charles II., King James II., King William III. and Queen Mary, King William alone, and Queen Anne_, was edited by Dr. G.W. Marshall for the Harleian Society in 1873.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 59: Edwards, _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_, p. 308.]

[Footnote 60: _Memoir of Oldys_, etc. London, 1862, p. 76.]

ROBERT HARLEY, FIRST EARL OF OXFORD, 1661-1724

AND

EDWARD HARLEY, SECOND EARL OF OXFORD, 1689-1741

Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, who was born in Bow Street, Covent Garden, on the 5th of December 1661, was the eldest son of Sir Edward Harley, K.B., who was Governor of Dunkirk after the Restoration. Entering Parliament in 1689, in 1701 he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons; in 1710 he was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in 1711 he was created Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, and made Lord High Treasurer, from which post he was dismissed in 1714. In 1713 he received the Order of the Garter. He was impeached by the House of Commons in 1715; acquitted without being brought to a trial in 1717, and died at his house in Albemarle Street, London, on the 21st of May 1724.

Harley was the greatest collector of his time, and formed a splendid library, which, at the time of his death, besides the printed books, contained more than six thousand volumes of manuscripts, and an immense number of charters, rolls, and deeds. This noble collection was inherited by Lord Oxford's son Edward, second Earl, by whom it was very considerably augmented in every department; and when he died in June 1741, the volumes of manuscripts amounted to seven thousand six hundred and thirty-nine volumes, exclusive of fourteen thousand two hundred and thirty-six original rolls, deeds, charters, and other legal documents. The printed books were estimated at about fifty thousand volumes, the pamphlets at about three hundred and fifty thousand, and the prints at forty-one thousand. In the _Account of London Libraries_, by Bagford and Oldys, it is stated:--

'For libraries in more expressly particular hands, the first and most universal in England, must be reckoned the Harleian, or Earl of Oxford's library, begun by his father and continued by himself. He has the rarest books of all countries, languages, and sciences, and the greatest number of any collector we ever had, in manuscript as well as in print, thousands of fragments, some a thousand years old; vellum books, some written over; all things especially respecting English History, personal as well as local, particular as well as general. He has a great collection of Bibles, etc., in all versions, and editions of all the first printed books, classics, and others of our own country, ecclesiastical as well as civil, by Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, Pynson, Berthelet, Rastall, Grafton, and the greatest number of pamphlets and prints of English heads of any other person. Abundance of ledgers, chartularies, old deeds, charters, patents, grants, covenants, pedigrees, inscriptions, etc., and original letters of eminent persons, as many as would fill two hundred volumes; all the collections of his librarian Humphrey Wanley, of Stow, Sir Symonds D'Ewes, Prynne, Bishop Stillingfleet, John Bagford, Le Neve, and the flower of a hundred other libraries.'

The library was remarkably rich in early editions of the Greek and Latin classics (there were as many as one hundred and fifteen volumes of various works by Cicero printed in the fifteenth century), English early poetry and romances, and books of prints, sculpture and drawings. The collection of Caxtons was both large and fine, and it comprised the only perfect copy known of the _Book of the Noble Histories of King Arthur_, which, nearly a century and a half after the dispersion of the Harleian library, was purchased for nineteen hundred and fifty pounds, at the sale of the Earl of Jersey's books in 1885, by Mr. Quaritch for a New York collector.

The volumes in the library were all handsomely bound; mostly in red morocco, and tooled with a distinctive kind of ornamentation, which has since been known as the Harleian Style. This commonly consisted of a centrepiece, generally of a lozenge form, surrounded by a broad and elegant border. Eliot and Chapman were the binders of the greater portion of the books, at a cost, it is said, of upwards of eighteen thousand pounds.

Humphrey Wanley was for several years librarian to both the first and the second Earls, and he commenced the compilation of the catalogue of the manuscripts, which was finally completed by the Rev. Thomas Hartwell Horne in 1812. Among the Lansdowne manuscripts in the British Museum is a diary,[61] kept by Wanley, which contains much interesting information respecting the library. Some time after Wanley's decease, William Oldys was appointed librarian at a salary of two hundred pounds per annum.

The second Earl of Oxford had a passion for building and landscape gardening, as well as for collecting books, paintings and curiosities, and some years before his death these expensive tastes involved him in pecuniary difficulties. George Vertue, the eminent engraver, in one of his commonplace-books, now preserved in the British Museum,[62] thus feelingly refers to the embarrassed circumstances of the Earl:--'My good Lord, lately growing heavy and pensive in his affairs, which for some late years have mortify'd his mind.... This lately manifestly appeared in his change of complexion; his face fallen less; his colour and eyes turned yellow to a great degree; his stomach wasted and gone; and a dead weight presses continually, without sign of relief, on his mind.'

A fortnight after this was written Vertue had to lament his loss.

Lord Oxford died in Dover Street, London, on the 16th of June 1741, and on his decease the library became the property of Margaret, Duchess of Portland, the only daughter and heiress of the Earl, who sold the printed books to Mr. Thomas Osborne, the bookseller of Gray's Inn, for about thirteen thousand pounds. The manuscripts were purchased by Parliament in 1753 for the sum of ten thousand pounds, and were placed in the library of the British Museum four years later. The portraits, coins, and miscellaneous curiosities were sold by auction in March 1742.

Osborne bought Lord Oxford's books with a view of disposing of them by sale, and engaged Dr. Johnson and Oldys to compile a catalogue of them, which was printed in four volumes octavo in the years 1743-44. A fifth volume was issued in 1745, but this is nothing more than an enumeration of Osborne's unsold stock. Osborne also published in eight volumes quarto, '_The Harleian Miscellany: or, a Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts_, as well as in Manuscript as in Print, found in the late Earl of Oxford's library, interspersed with Historical, Political and Critical notes. London 1744-46.' This work, which was edited by Oldys, was republished by Thomas Park in 1808-12, with two supplemental volumes. A catalogue of the pamphlets contained in the _Harleian Miscellany_ was also prepared by Oldys, and printed in a quarto volume, which appeared in 1746; and a _Collection of Voyages and Travels_, compiled from the _Miscellany_, was published in two volumes folio in 1745.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 61: Lansdowne MSS. 771, 772.]

[Footnote 62: Add. MS. 23,093.]

JOHN BRIDGES, 1666-1724

John Bridges, the author of _The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire_, was born in 1666 at Barton Seagrave, Northamptonshire. He was appointed Solicitor of the Customs in 1695, a Commissioner of the Customs in 1711, and in 1715 a Cashier of the Excise. He was a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He died on the 16th of March 1724.

Bridges, who is mentioned with great respect by Hearne and other antiquaries, was, says Dibdin, 'a gentleman, a scholar, and a notorious book-collector.' His library, which consisted of 'above 4000 Books and Manuscripts in all languages and faculties, particularly in Classics and History, and especially the History and Antiquities of Great Britain and Ireland,'[63] was sold at his chambers, No. 6 Lincoln's Inn, by Mr. Cock, on the 7th of February 1726, and twenty-six following days. The number of lots was four thousand three hundred and thirteen, and the total proceeds of the sale were four thousand one hundred and sixty pounds, twelve shillings. The books sold well, and Hearne, in his _Diary_, under February 15th, 1726, writes: 'My late friend John Bridges esqr.'s books being now selling by auction in London (they began to be sold on Monday the 7th inst.). I hear they go very high, being fair books, in good condition, and most of them finely bound. This afternoon I was told of a gentleman of All Souls' College, I suppose Dr. Clarke, that gave a commission of 8s. for an Homer in 2 vols., a small 8 deg. if not 12 deg.. But it went for six guineas. People are in love with good binding more than good reading.' Humphrey Wanley, who was a buyer at the sale for Lord Oxford's library, was much dissatisfied with the large sums which the books fetched, and suspected there was a conspiracy to run up the prices. He writes in his _Diary_ (February 9, 1725-26): 'Went to Mr. Bridges's chambers, but could not see the three fine MSS. again, the Doctor his brother having locked them up. He openly bid for his own books, merely to enhance their price, and the auction proves to be, what I thought it would become, very knavish'; and on the 11th of February he adds: 'Yesterday at five I met Mr. Noel and tarried long with him; we settled then the whole affair touching his bidding for my Lord [Oxford] at the roguish auction of Mr. Bridges's books. The Reverend Doctor one of the brothers hath already displayed himself so remarkably as to be both hated and despised, and a combination among the booksellers will soon be against him and his brother-in-law, a lawyer. These are men of the keenest avarice, and their very looks (according to what I am told) dart out harping-irons. I have ordered Mr. Noel to drop every article in my Lord's commissions when they shall be hoisted up to too high a price. Yet I desired that my Lord may have the Russian Bible, which I know full well to be a very rare and a very good book.'

A copy of the sale catalogue, with the prices in manuscript, is preserved in the library of the British Museum.

Bridges expended several thousand pounds in making collections for his _History of Northamptonshire_, which, after many delays, was published under the editorship of the Rev. Peter Whalley in 1791.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 63: Description of library in sale catalogue.]

JOHN MURRAY, 1670-1748

John Murray of Sacombe in Hertfordshire, who was born on the 24th of January 1670, and died on September 13, 1748, was an indefatigable collector of books. In the _Account of London Libraries_, by Bagford and Oldys, we read that he 'made scarce publications of English authors his inquiry all his life,' and that he had been 'a collector above forty years at all sales, auctions, shops, and stalls, partly for his own curiosity, and partly to oblige such authors and gentry as have commissioned him.' He was a friend of Hearne, who frequently mentions him in his works and _Diary_. Hearne states that Murray told him he began to collect books at thirteen years of age. Dr. Rawlinson possessed a painting of him, which was engraved by Vertue. He is leaning on three books, inscribed 'T. Hearne, V. III., Sessions Papers, and Tryals of Witches,' and holding a fourth under his coat. Underneath are the following lines, signed G.N.:--

'Hoh Maister John Murray of Sacomb!
The Works of old Time to collect was his pride,
Till Oblivion dreaded his Care:
Regardless of Friends, intestate he dy'd,
So the Rooks and the Crows were his Heir.'

DR. MEAD, 1673-1754