Chapter V: The Collector of the Harleian Mss (2)

Probably few politicians have owed quite so large a debt of gratitude to their enemies as that incurred by the Earl of OXFORD. His ministry at home had been marked by weaknesses which went perilously near the edge of public calamity. The Peace which was its characteristic achievement abroad had brought with it many real blessings, but they were won at the cost of a large sacrifice of national pride, if not also by some sacrifice of national honour. The wild excesses of his adversaries now gave back to the obnoxious Minister the strength of his best days. [Sidenote: OXFORD’S BEHAVIOUR UNDER TRIAL.] When POPE wrote of him, ‘The utmost weight of ministerial power and popular hatred were almost worth bearing for the glory of so dauntless a conduct as he has shown under it,’ the praise came from a pen which is known to have been employed, now and again, to flatter the great. But it was no flatterer who wrote to OXFORD himself—‘Your intrepid behaviour under this prosecution astonishes every one but me, who know you so well, and how little it is in the power of human actions or events to discompose you. I have seen your Lordship labouring under great difficulties and exposed to great dangers, and overcoming both, by the providence of God, and your own wisdom and courage.’ Those words came from one of the shrewdest and most acute observers of human character that have ever lived. They were written after a close and daily intimacy of four eventful years. OXFORD, in his day of power, had disappointed SWIFT of some cherished hopes, which now could never be renewed. The praise of SWIFT must have been sincere. [Sidenote: Swift’s _Correspondence_, in Works, by Scott, vol. xvi, pp. 232, 233.] When such a writer, at such a time, goes on to add—‘You suffer for having preserved your country, and for having been the great instrument, under God, of his present Majesty’s peaceable accession to the throne;—this I know, and this your enemies know’—the most prepossessed reader cannot but feel that the absence from the two and twenty articles of impeachment of any charge of plotting against the Hanover succession is alike intelligible and significant.

[Sidenote: THE TRIAL. 1717, July.]

When Oxford’s imprisonment could be no longer protracted without a trial, the two Houses of Parliament were unable to agree as to the mode of proceeding. It was obvious on all sides that the charge of ‘treason’ would fail. The Lords declared that on the articles imputing treason judgment must be given, before the articles imputing ‘other high crimes and misdemeanours’ could be entered upon. They declared that the attempt of the Commons to mix up the two was ‘a new and unjustifiable proceeding.’ [Sidenote: _Lords’ Journals_, vol. xx, p. 515, seqq. _Commons’ Journals_, vol. xviii.] The Commons refused to adduce evidence on the charge of treason, and to take the issue upon that.

[Sidenote: _State Trials_, vol. xv, 1164, seqq.]

On the first of July, 1717, the Earl was brought to the bar to hear from the Lord High Steward a declaration that ‘Robert, Earl of OXFORD, is, by the unanimous vote of all the Lords present, acquitted of the articles of impeachment exhibited against him, by the House of Commons, for High Treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours, and that the said impeachment shall be and is hereby dismissed.’ Then the Steward said, ‘Lieutenant of the Tower, You are now to discharge your prisoner.’

[Sidenote: OXFORD’S RETURN TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 1717, July.]

On the third of July, the Earl resumed his seat as a peer of Parliament. On the fourth, the Commons resolved to address the King, beseeching him ‘to except Robert, Earl of OXFORD, out of the Act of Grace which Your Majesty has been graciously pleased to promise from the throne, to the end the Commons may be at liberty to proceed against the said Earl in a parliamentary way.’ [Sidenote: _Journals_, vol. xviii, p. 617.] No such proceeding, of course, was taken or intended.

For several years to come Lord OXFORD took part, from time to time, in the business of Parliament. He served often on Committees in these final years of his public life, just as he had done during his early years of apprenticeship in the Lower House. In the Lords, as in the Commons, he was listened to with especial deference on points of parliamentary law and privilege.

From time to time, also, the Jacobite agitators, both at home and abroad, made repeated appeals to him, direct or indirect, for countenance and help in their schemes. They had, it seems, a confident hope that the sufferings and the humiliation inflicted on him in the years 1715–1717 must have so entirely alienated him from the reigning House, as now, at all events, to have prepared him to be really their fellow-conspirator, on the first occurrence of a promising opportunity. [Sidenote: ALLEGED RENEWAL OF CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE STUART AGENTS.] How far the Earl listened to such suggestions and persuasions is still, it will be seen, matter of great and curious uncertainty.[38]

[Sidenote: DOMESTIC LIFE OF LORD OXFORD.]

Lord OXFORD’S private life was not less chequered by rapid alternations of sunshine and of gloom than was his political career. In August, 1713, he gratified a cherished desire by the marriage of his son Edward, Lord HARLEY, with the Lady Henrietta CAVENDISH HOLLES, daughter and heiress of John, Duke of NEWCASTLE (who died in 1711). With what Lord HARLEY had already derived under the Duke’s will, this marriage brought him an estate then worth sixteen thousand pounds a year, and destined to increase enormously in value. Three months afterwards the Earl lost a dearly loved daughter, the Marchioness of CAERMARTHEN, who died at the age of twenty-eight. It was of her that SWIFT wrote to him—‘I have sat down to think of every amiable quality that could enter into the composition of a lady, and could not single out one which she did not possess in as high a perfection as human nature is capable of. But as to your Lordship’s own particular, as it is an unconceivable misfortune to have lost such a daughter, so it is a possession which few can boast of to have had such a daughter. I have often said to your Lordship that “I never knew any one by many degrees so happy in their domestics as you;” and I affirm that you are so still, though not by so many degrees.... [Sidenote: Swift to Oxford; 21 Nov., 1713. (_Works_, vol. xvi, pp. 78–80.)] You began to be too happy for a mortal; much more happy than is usual with the dispensations of Providence long to continue.’

Under the sorrows both of public and of private life it was his wont to find a part of his habitual consolations in the use, as well as in the increase, of his splendid library. [Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY.] He began the work of collection in youth, and to add to his treasures was one of the matters which, at intervals, occupied his latest thoughts.

Among the famous Englishmen whose manuscripts passed, either wholly or partially, into the Harleian Library are to be counted Sir Thomas SMITH; John FOX, the martyrologist; John STOWE, the historian; Edward, Lord HERBERT of Cherbury; and Archbishop SANCROFT. Among famous foreigners, Augustus LOMENIE DE BRIENNE; Peter SÉGUIER, Chancellor of France; and Gerard John VOSSIUS. Perhaps the most extensive of the prior collections which it had absorbed, in mass, was the assemblage of manuscripts that had been gathered by Sir Symonds D’EWES, whose acquisitions included a rich series of the materials of English history.

The inquiries which led to the purchase of the D’EWES’ Collection were the occasion of making fully known to Robert HARLEY a model librarian in the person of Humphrey WANLEY. [Sidenote: HUMPHREY WANLEY; HIS LIFE, LETTERS, AND JOURNAL.] The latter portion of WANLEY’S life was wholly devoted to the service of the Harleian Library, and his employment there was a felicity, both for him and for it. His journal of the incidents which occurred during the growth of the collection given to his care is the most curious document in its kind which is known to exist. That journal illustrates the literary history and the manners of the time, not less amusingly than it exhibits the personal character of its writer, and the fidelity with which he worked at his task in life.

WANLEY was the son of a country parson, little known to fame, but possessing some tincture of learning, and was born at Coventry, on the 21st of March, 1673. In his youth he attracted the favourable notice of his father’s diocesan, William LLOYD, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry (and afterwards of Worcester), by whom he was sent to Edmund Hall at Oxford. That hall he soon exchanged for University College, on the persuasion of Dr. Arthur CHARLETT, by whose influence he was afterwards made an Underkeeper of the Bodleian Library. He took no degree, but won some distinction, whilst at Oxford, by the services which he rendered to Dr. MILL in collating the text of the New Testament.

On leaving the University, WANLEY went to London, where he became Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. He translated OSTERVALD’S _Grounds and Principles of the Christian Religion_; and compiled a valuable Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts preserved in the chief libraries of Great Britain. The last-named labour gave proof of much ability. It was a sample of the work for which its writer was best fitted.

As Speaker of the House of Commons, HARLEY took a considerable part in organizing the Cottonian Library, when it became a public institution under the Act of Parliament. WANLEY proffered to the Speaker, on this occasion, some advice about the necessary arrangements; became well acquainted with HARLEY’S bookishness, and saw how eagerly he would welcome opportunities for the improvement of his own library, as well as of that newly acquired by the Public.

[Sidenote: THE D’EWES COLLECTIONS AND THEIR HISTORY.]

The Sir Symonds D’EWES of that generation was the grandson of the diligent antiquary and politician who has been heretofore mentioned in this volume as the close friend of Sir Robert COTTON, and to whose labours, in a twofold capacity, students of our history owe a far better acquaintance with parliamentary debates, in the times both of ELIZABETH and of CROMWELL, than, but for him, would have been possible. The grandson of the first Sir Symonds had inherited from his ancestor a valuable library; but its possession had no great charm for him. He was willing to part with it, for due consideration, yet aware that he was under an obligation, moral if not legal, not so to part with his books as to lead to their dispersion.

On that head, the original collector had thus expressed himself in his last Will:—‘I bequeath to Adrian D’EWES, my young son yet lying in the cradle, or to any other of my sons, hereafter to be born, who shall prove my heir (if God shall vouchsafe unto me a masculine heir by whom my surname and male line may be continued in the ages to come), my precious library, in which I have stored up, for divers years past, with great care, cost, and industry, divers originals and autographs, ... and such [books] as are unprinted; and it is my inviolable injunction and behest that he keep it entire, and not sell, divide, or dissipate it. Neither would I have it locked up from furthering the public good, the advancing of which I have always endeavoured; but that all lovers of learning, of known virtue and integrity, might have access to it at reasonable times, so that they did give sufficient security to restore safely any original or autograph ... borrowed out of the same, ... without blotting, erasing, or defraying it. But if God hath decreed now at last to add an end to my family in the male line, His most holy and just will be done!’ In that case, the testator proceeds to declare, it is his desire that the library should pass to his daughter and her heirs, on like conditions as to its perpetual preservation, so ‘that not only all lovers of learning ... may have access to it at seasonable times, but also that all collections which concern mine own family, or my wife’s, may freely be lent ... to members thereof,’ &c. [Sidenote: D’Ewes, _Autobiography_, in MS. Harl. (B. M.)] Then the testator adds—in relation to the last-named clause—an averment that he had ‘only sought after the very truth, as well in these things as in all other my elucubrations, whilst I searched amongst the King’s records or public offices.’

[Sidenote: WANLEY’S ACCOUNT OF THE ACQUISITION OF THE D’EWES LIBRARY.]

It having come to WANLEY’S knowledge or belief, in the year 1703, that possibly arrangements might be made to obtain this library, for the Public, from the then possessor, he wrote to HARLEY in these terms:—‘Sir Symonds D’EWES being pleased to honour me with a peculiar kindness of esteem, I have taken the liberty of inquiring of him whether he will part with his library, and I find that he is not unwilling to do so. And that at a much easier rate than I could think for. I dare say that it would be a noble addition to the Cotton Library; perhaps the best that could be had anywhere at present.... If your Honour should judge it impracticable to persuade Her Majesty to buy them for the Cotton Library—in whose coffers such a sum as will buy them is scarcely conceivable—then, Sir, if you shall have a mind of them yourself I will take care that you shall have them cheaper than any other person whatsoever. I know that many have their eyes upon this collection.’ [Sidenote: Wanley to Harley; MS. Lansd. 841, fol. 63. (B. M.)] ‘I am desirous,’ he goes on to say, ‘to have this collection in town for the public good, and rather in a public place than in private hands; but, of all private gentlemen’s studies, first in yours. I have not spoken to anybody as yet, nor will not till I have your answer, that you may not be forestalled.’

HARLEY welcomed the overture thus made to him, and WANLEY, on his behalf, entered upon a negotiation which ended in the eventual acquisition of the whole of the D’EWES Manuscripts for the Harleian Collection. Soon afterwards, WANLEY became its librarian.

In the course of this employment he watched diligently for other opportunities of a like sort; established an active correspondence with booksellers, both at home and abroad; and induced Lord OXFORD to send agents to the Continent to search for manuscripts. [Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY, CONTINUED.] But the Earl had soon to meet an eager rival in the book-market, in the person of Lord SUNDERLAND, who in former years had been, by turns, his colleague and his opponent in the keener strife of politics. In their new rivalry, Lord SUNDERLAND had one considerable advantage. He cared little about money. If he succeeded in obtaining what he sought for, he rarely scrutinised the more or less of its cost. WANLEY was by nature a bargainer. He felt uneasy under the least suspicion that any bookseller or vendor was getting the better hand of him in a transaction. And he seems, in time, to have inoculated Lord OXFORD with a good deal of the same feeling. Some of the entries in his diary put this love of striking a good bargain in an amusing light.

Thus, for example, in telling of the acquisition of a valuable monastic chartulary which had belonged to the ‘Bedford Library’ at Cranfield, he writes thus:—‘The said Chartulary is to be my Lord’s, and he is to present to that library _St. Chrysostom’s Works_, in Greek and Latin, printed at Paris, for which my Lord shall be registered a benefactor to the said library. Moreover, Mr. FRANK will send up a list of his out-of-course books, out of which my Lord may pick and choose any twenty of them gratis.... I am also to advise that he is heartily willing and ready to serve his Lordship in any library matters; ... particularly with [Sir John] OSBORNE of Chicksand Abbey, where most part of the old monastical library is said yet to remain.’ [Sidenote: Wanley’s _Diary_, vol. i, pp. 13, 21. 1720, February.] And again, on another occasion:—‘My Lord was pleased to tell me that Mr. GIBSON’S last parcel of printed books were all his own as being gained into [the bargain with] the two last parcels of manuscripts bought of him.’ [Sidenote: _Ib._, vol. ii, f. 24.] GIBSON’S protest that he was entitled to an additional thirty pounds was quite in vain.

Of the innumerable skirmishes between librarian and bookseller which WANLEY’S pages record with loving detail, two passages may serve as sufficient samples:—‘VAN HOECK, a Dutchman’ he writes in 1722, ‘brought to my Lord a small parcel of modern manuscripts, and their lowest prices,—which proved so abominably wicked that he was sent away with them immediately.’ And, in February, 1723:—‘BOWYER, the bookseller, came intreating me to instruct him touching the prices of old editions, and of other rare and valuable books, pretending that thereby he should be the better able to bid for them; but, as I rather suppose, to be better able to exact of gentlemen. I pleaded utter inexperience in the matter, and, without a quarrel, in my mind rejected this ridiculous attempt with the scorn it deserved. [Sidenote: Wanley’s _Diary_, vol. i, f. 73, verso. MS. Lansd., 771. (B. M.)] This may be a fresh instance of the truth of TULLIE’S paradox, “that all fools are mad.”’

In the year 1720, large additions were made, more especially to the historical treasures of the Harleian Library, by the purchase of manuscripts from the several collections of John WARBURTON (Somerset Herald), of Archdeacon BATTELY, and of Peter SÉGUIER (Chancellor of France). Another important accession came, in the same year, by the bequest of Hugh THOMAS. [Sidenote: _Ibid._, pp. 35, 42, 48.] In 1721 purchases were made from the several libraries of Thomas GREY, second Earl of STAMFORD; of Robert PAYNELL, of Belaugh, in Norfolk; and of John ROBARTES, first Earl of RADNOR.

Lord OXFORD died on the 21st May, 1724, at the age of sixty-three. [Sidenote: DEATH OF LORD OXFORD.] WANLEY records the event in these words: ‘It pleased God to call to His mercy Robert, Earl of OXFORD, the founder of this Library, who long had been to me a munificent patron.’

[Sidenote: Corresp., in _Works_, vol. xvi, p. 438.]

When condoling with the new Earl upon his father’s death, SWIFT wrote to him:—‘You no longer wanted his care and tenderness, ... but his friendship and conversation you will ever want, because they are qualities so rare in the world, and in which he so much excelled all others. It has pleased me, in the midst of my grief, to hear that he preserved the greatness, the calmness, and intrepidity, of his mind to his last minutes; for it was fit that such a life should terminate with equal lustre to the whole progress of it.’ It is honourable alike to the man who was thus generously spoken of, and to the friend who mourned his loss, that the testimony so borne was a consistent testimony. The failings of HARLEY were well known to SWIFT. In the days of prosperity they had been freely blamed; and face to face. When those days were gone, the good qualities only came to be dwelt upon. To the unforgiving enemy, as to the bereaved son, SWIFT wrote about the merits of the friend he had lost. ‘I pass over that paragraph of your letter,’ said BOLINGBROKE, in reply, ‘which is a kind of an elegy on a departed minister.’

When the Harleian Library was inherited by the second Earl of OXFORD (of this family) it included more than six thousand volumes of Manuscripts, in addition to about fourteen thousand five hundred charters and rolls. By him it was largely augmented in every department. [Sidenote: INCREASE OF THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY BY EDWARD, EARL OF OXFORD. 1724–1741.] [Sidenote: See MS. ADDIT., 5338. (B. M.)] He made his library most liberally accessible to scholars; and when, by a purchase made in Holland, he had acquired some leaves of one of the most precious biblical manuscripts in the world—leaves which had long before been stolen from the Royal Library at Paris—he sent them back to their proper repository in a manner so obliging as made it apparent that his sense of the duties of collectorship was as keen as was his sense of its delights. At his death, on the 16th of June, 1741, the volumes of manuscripts had increased to nearly eight thousand. The printed books were estimated at about fifty thousand volumes, exclusive of an unexampled series of pamphlets, amounting to nearly 400,000, and comprising, like the manuscripts, materials for our national history of inestimable value.

The only daughter and heiress of the second Earl, Margaret, by her marriage with William, Duke of PORTLAND, carried her share in a remnant of the fortunes of the several families of CAVENDISH, HOLLES, and HARLEY, into the family of BENTINCK. The magnificent printed library which formed part of her inheritance was sold and dispersed. [Sidenote: Johnson, _Account of the Harleian Library_; _Works_, vol. v, p. 181.] It was of that collection that JOHNSON said, ‘It excels any library that was ever yet offered to sale in the value as well as in the number of the volumes which it contains.’

The Manuscripts were eventually purchased by Parliament for the sum of ten thousand pounds. [Sidenote: THE PURCHASE OF THE HARLEIAN MSS. FOR THE NATION.] With reference to this purchase the Duchess of PORTLAND wrote as follows, in April, 1753, to the Speaker of the House of Commons:—‘As soon as I was acquainted with the proposal you had made in the House of Commons, in relation to my Father’s Collection of Manuscripts I informed my Mother [the then Dowager Countess of OXFORD] of it, who has given the Duke of PORTLAND and me full power to do therein as we shall think fit.

‘Though I am told the expense of collecting them was immense, and that, if they were to be dispersed, they would probably sell for a great deal of money, yet, as a sum has been named, and as I know it was my Father’s and is my Mother’s intention that they should be kept together, I will not bargain with the Publick. I give you this trouble therefore to acquaint you that I am ready to accept of your proposal upon condition that this great and valuable Collection shall be kept together in a proper repository, as an addition to the Cotton Library, and be called by the name of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts.

‘I hope you do me the justice to believe that I do not consider this as a sale for an adequate price. [Sidenote: Duchess of Portland to Arthur Onslow; MS. ADDIT., 17521, f. 30. (B. M.)] But your idea is so right, and so agreeable to what I know was my Father’s intention, that I have a particular satisfaction in contributing all I can to facilitate the success of it.’

If it were possible to give, in few words, any adequate view of the obligations which English literature, and more especially English historical literature, owes to the Collectors of the Harleian Manuscripts, there could be no fitter conclusion to a biographical notice of Robert HARLEY. Here, however, no such estimate is practicable. Nor, in truth, can it be needed in order to convince the reader that ‘some tribute of veneration’—to use the apposite words which JOHNSON prefixed to the Harleian Catalogue—is due to the ardour of the two HARLEYS for literature; and ‘to that generous and exalted curiosity which they gratified with incessant searches and immense expense; and to which they dedicated that time and that superfluity of fortune which many others, of their rank, employ in the pursuit of contemptible amusements or the gratification of guilty passions.’

NOTE TO CHAPTER V.

_EXTRACTS FROM THE STUART PAPERS, REFERRING TO INTERCOURSE OF ROBERT
HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD, WITH THE JACOBITES, AFTER THE ACCESSION OF
GEORGE I._

1. [1717?] A document which, could it be recovered, would go far towards clearing up some of the uncertainties which exist as to Lord Oxford’s intercourse with the Pretender and his agents, subsequently to the death of Queen Anne, was seen by Sir James Mackintosh among the Stuart Papers acquired by George the Fourth. It was afterwards vainly searched for by Lord Mahon, when engaged upon his _History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht_. [Sidenote: _Edin. Rev._, vol. lxii, pp. 18, 19.] It is still known only from the cursory notes made by Mackintosh, and referred to by a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ in these words: ‘During Oxford’s confinement in the Tower there is a communication from him to the Pretender, preserved among the Stuart Papers, offering his services and advice; recommending the Bishop of Rochester as the fittest person to manage the Jacobite affairs,—the writer himself being in custody; and adding that he should never have thought it safe ‘_to engage again_ with His Majesty if Bolingbroke himself had been still about him.’

2. 1717. September 29. Bishop ATTERBURY to Lord MAR:—

‘Your accounts of what has been said here concerning some imaginary differences abroad have not so much foundation as you may suppose. At least, if they have, I am a stranger to it.... The result of any discourse I shall have with [the Earl of Oxford?] will be sure to reach you by his means. [Sidenote: _Stuart Papers_, 1717.] You will, I suppose, have a full account of affairs here from his and other hands.’

3. [1717?] The same to the same.

[Sidenote: _Ibid._]

‘Distances and other accidents have, for some years, interrupted my correspondence with [the Earl of Oxford?] but I am willing to renew it, and to enter into it upon a better foot than it has ever yet stood, being convinced that my so doing may be of no small consequence to the service. I have already taken the first step towards it that is proper in our situation, and will pursue that by others as fast as I can have opportunity; hoping that the secret will be as inviolably kept on your side as it shall be on this, so far as the nature of such a transaction between two persons who must see one another sometimes can pass unobserved.’

[Sidenote: _Edin. Rev._, as before.]

4. 1721. ‘Among the same papers,’ says the Reviewer quoted on the previous page, ‘there is a letter from Mrs. Oglethorpe to the Pretender (Jan. 17, 1721), containing assurances from Lord Oxford of his eternal respect and good wishes, which from accidental circumstances he had been unable to convey in the usual manner.’

5. 1722. April 14. THE PRETENDER [to Lord OXFORD?]

‘If you have not heard sooner or oftener from me, it hath not, I can assure you, been my fault. Neither do I attribute to yours the long silence you have kept on your side, but to a chain of disappointments and difficulties which hath been also the only reason of my not finding all this while a method of conveying my thoughts to you, and receiving your advice, which I shall ever value as I ought, because I look upon you not only as an able lawyer but a sincere friend. [Sidenote: _Stuart Papers_, 1722.] This will, I hope, come soon to your hands, and the worthy friend by whose canal I send it will accompany it, by my directions, with all the lights and information he or I can give, and which it is therefore useless to repeat here.’

6. 1722. April 16. THE PRETENDER to ATTERBURY.

‘I am sensible of the importance of secrecy in such an affair, yet I do not see how it will be possible to raise a sufficient sum, or to make a reasonable concert in England, without letting some more persons into the project. [Sidenote: _Ibid._] You on the place are best judge how these points are to be compassed, but I cannot but think that [the Earl of Oxford?] might be of great use on this occasion. [Lord Lansdowne?] is to write to him on the subject, and I am confident that if you two were to compare notes together you would be able to contrive and settle matters on a more sure and solid foundation than they have hitherto been.’

7. 1722. In a report made to the Earl of Mar by George Kelly, one of his emissaries employed in England, it is stated that on the delivery, by Kelly, of Mar’s letter to Atterbury, the prelate asked the messenger if he had anything to say, in addition to the contents of the letter, and that he replied (in the jargon of his calling): ‘It is a proposal for joining stocks with the Earl of Oxford, and taking the management of the Company’s business into their hands.’ Atterbury, according to this story, required a day’s deliberation, and then told Kelly that he was ‘resolved to join both heart and hand with the Earl; and not only so, but in the management and course of the business he would shew him all the deference and respect that was due to a person who had so justly filled the stations which he had been in.’ The Bishop, says Kelly, also added that he was ‘resolved to dedicate the remainder of his days to the King’s service, and proposed, by this reunion, to repay some part of the personal debt which he owed to the Earl of Oxford, to whom he would immediately write upon this subject.’ [Sidenote: _Ibid._] The messenger goes on to assure Lord Mar that Atterbury ‘is entirely of your opinion that there is not much good to be expected from the present managers, and thinks it no great vanity to say that the Earl of Oxford and himself are the fittest persons for this purpose; but the chief success of their partnership will depend upon the secrecy of it.’

Of the genuineness of the several letters,—of the credit due to the emissaries and their reports,—even of the accurate identification, in some instances, of the ‘Mr. Hackets,’ ‘Houghtons,’ and numerous other pseudonyms, under which ‘Lord Oxford’ is assumed to be veiled, there are, as yet, no adequate means of judging.