Chapter IV

THE KING’S OR ‘GEORGIAN’ LIBRARY;—ITS COLLECTOR, AND ITS DONOR.

‘A crown,
Golden in show, is but a wreath of thorns;
Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights,
To him who wears the regal diadem.’

· · · · ·

‘O polish’d perturbation! golden care!
That keep’st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night!’—
_Henry IV_, Part 2, iv, 4.

_Notices of the Literary Tastes and Acquirements of King_ GEORGE THE
THIRD.—_His Conversations with Men of Letters.—History of his
Library and of its Transfer to the British Nation by_ GEORGE THE
FOURTH.

The strong antagonisms in mind, in disposition, and in tastes, which existed between GEORGE THE THIRD and GEORGE THE FOURTH, may be seen in the small and incidental acts of their respective lives, almost as distinctly, and as sharply defined, as they are seen in their private lives, or in their characteristic modes of transacting the public business. [Sidenote: THE CONTRASTS BETWEEN GEORGE III AND GEORGE IV.] GEORGE THE THIRD regretted the giving away of the old ‘Royal Library’ of the Kings his ancestors, not because he grudged a liberal use of royal books by private scholars, but because he thought a fine Library was the necessary appendage of a palace. He occasionally stinted himself of some of his personal enjoyments in life, in order to have the more means to amass books. He formed, during his own lifetime, a Library which is probably both larger and finer than any like Collection ever made by any one man, even under the advantageous conditions of royalty. When he had collected his books, he made them liberally accessible. To himself, as we all know, Nature had not given any very conspicuous faculty for turning either books or men to good account; nor had education done much to improve the parts he possessed.

GEORGE THE FOURTH, as it seems, regretted the formation of the new Royal Library by the King his father, because, when he inherited it, he found that its decent maintenance and upkeeping would demand every year a sum of money which he could spend in ways far more to his taste. He had been far better educated than his father had been. And to him Nature had given good abilities; but study was about the last and least likely use to which, at any time, he was inclined to apply them. If he saw any good at all in having, on his accession, the ownership of a large Library, it lay, not in the power it afforded him of benefiting literature, and the labourers in literature, but in the possibility he saw that so fine a collection of books might be made to produce a round sum of money. One of his first thoughts about the matter was, that it would be a good thing to offer his father’s beloved Library for sale—to the Emperor of Russia. By what influences that shrewd scheme of turning a penny was diverted will be seen in the sequel.

If GEORGE THE THIRD was, in respect to his parts, only slenderly endowed, he had in another respect large gifts. Both his industry and his power of sustained application were uncommon. And his conscientious sense of responsibility for the use of such abilities as he had was no less remarkable. Whatever may have been his mistakes in government, no man ever sat on the British throne who was more thoroughly honest in his intentions, or more deeply anxious to show, in the discharge of his duties, his consciousness of being

‘Ever in his great taskmaster’s eye.’

That his public acts did not more adequately correspond with his good desires was due, in large measure, to an infelicitous parentage and a narrow education.

As the father of lies sometimes speaks truth, so a mere party manifesto may sometimes give sound advice, though clothed in a discreditable garb. [Sidenote: THE EDUCATION OF GEORGE III, AFTER THE DEATH OF FREDERICK, PRINCE OF WALES.] When public attention came first to be attracted to the character of the peculiar influences which began to mould the training of the young Prince of WALES soon after his father’s death, a Court Chamberlain received, one morning, by the post, an unsigned document, which he thought it his duty to place in the hands of the Prime Minister, and he, when he had read it, thought the paper important enough to be laid before the King. This anonymous memorial denounced, as early as in the winter of 1752 (when the Prince was but fourteen years old), the sort of education which GEORGE THE THIRD was receiving as being likely to initiate an unfortunate reign.

The paper (which I have now before me) is headed: ‘_A Memorial of several Noblemen and Gentlemen of the first rank_,’ and in the course of it there is an assertion—as being already matter of public notoriety—‘that books inculcating the worst maxims of government, and defending the most avowed tyrannies, have been put into the hands of the Prince of Wales,’ and such a fact, it is said, ‘cannot but affect the memorialists with the most melancholy apprehensions when they find that the men who had the honesty and resolution to complain of such astonishing methods of instruction are driven away from Court, and the men who have dared to teach such doctrines are continued in trust and favour.’[12]

[Sidenote: _A Memorial_, &c.; MS. ADDIT. 6271, fol. 3.]

Making all allowance for partisan feeling and for that tinge of Whig oligarchism which peeps out, as well in the very title, as in the contents of this ‘Memorial,’ there was obvious truth in the denunciation, and a modicum of true prophecy in the inference. But such a remonstrance had just as little effect, in the way of checking undue influences, as it had of wisdom in the form given to it, or in the mode of its presentation at Court.

[Sidenote: NARROW RANGE OF GEORGE THE THIRD’S TASTES FOR BOOKS.]

The Prince’s education was not merely imbued with ideas and maxims little likely to conduce towards a prosperous reign. It was intellectually narrow and mean. He grew up, for example, in utter ignorance of many of the great lights of English literature. In respect to all books, save one (that, happily, the greatest of all), he became one of those who, through life, draw from the small cisterns, instead of going to the deep wells. He seems to have been trained to think that the literary glories of his country began with the age of Queen ANNE.

In after-years, GEORGE THE THIRD attained to some dim consciousness of his own narrowness of culture. The ply, however, had been too early taken to be got rid of. No training, probably, could have made him a scholar. But his powers of application under wise direction would have opened to him stores of knowledge, from which unwise influences shut him out for life. His faculty of perseverance in study, it must be remembered, was backed by thorough honesty of nature, and by an ability to withstand temptations. When he was entering his nineteenth year, a sub-preceptor, who had watched him sedulously, said of him: ‘He is a lad of good principle. He has no heroic strain, and no turn for extravagance. He loves peace, and, as yet, has shown very virtuous principles. He has the greatest temptation to gallant with ladies, who lay themselves out in the most shameless manner to draw him on, but to no purpose.’ Certainly this last characteristic was neither an inherited virtue nor an ancestral tradition. And it stands in curious contrast with the tendencies of all his brothers and of almost all his sons.

From youth upwards the Prince read much, though he did not read wisely. No sooner was he King than he began to set about the collection of his noble Library. In the choice of a librarian he was not infelicitous, though the selection was in part dictated by a feeling of brotherly kindness. For he chose a very near relative—Mr. afterwards Sir Frederick Augusta BARNARD. Mr. BARNARD had many qualities which fitted him for his task.

[Sidenote: FOUNDATION OF THE NEW ROYAL LIBRARY.]

The foundation of the Library was laid by a very fortunate purchase on the Continent. Its increase was largely promoted by a political revolution which ensued shortly afterwards; and, in order to turn his large opportunities to most account, the King’s Librarian modestly sought and instantly obtained the best advice which that generation could afford him—the advice of Samuel JOHNSON.

In 1762, the fine Library of Joseph SMITH, who had been British Consul at Venice during many years, was bought for the King. It cost about ten thousand pounds. SMITH had ransacked Italy for choice books, much as his contemporary, Sir William HAMILTON, had ransacked that country for choice vases. And he had been not less successful in his quest. In amassing early and choice editions of the classics, and also the curiosities and rarities of fifteenth century printing, he had been especially lucky. From the same source, but at a later date, GEORGE THE THIRD also obtained a fine gallery of pictures and a collection of coins and gems. For these he gave twenty thousand pounds. [Sidenote: _Dactyliotheca Smithiana_; 1767; Lady M. W. Montagu, _Letters_, vol. iii, p. 89.] For seven or eight years the shops and warehouses of English booksellers were also sedulously examined, and large purchases were made from them. In this labour JOHNSON often assisted, actively, as well as by advice.

When the suppression of the Jesuits in many parts of Europe made the literary treasures which that busy Society had collected—often upon a princely scale and with admirable taste, so far as their limitations permitted—both the King and his librarian were struck with the idea that another fine opportunity opened itself for book-buying on the Continent. It was resolved that Mr. BARNARD should travel for the purpose of profiting by it. Before he set out on his journey, he betook himself to JOHNSON for counsel as to the best way of setting about the task.

JOHNSON’S counsel may be thus abridged: The literature of every country may be best gathered on its native soil. And the studies of the learned are everywhere influenced by peculiarities of government and of religion. In Italy you may, therefore, expect to meet with abundance of the works of the Canonists and the Schoolmen; in Germany with store of writers on the Feudal Laws; in Holland you will find the booksellers’ shops swarming with the works of the Civilians. [Sidenote: SUBSTANCE OF JOHNSON’S ADVICE ON THE COLLECTION OF THE KING’S LIBRARY.] Of Canonists a few of the most eminent will suffice. Of the Schoolmen a liberal supply will be a valuable addition to the King’s Library. The departments of Feudal and Civil Law you can hardly render too complete. In the Feudal Constitutions we see the origin of our property laws. Of the Civil Law it is not too much to say that it is a regal study.

In respect to standard books generally, continued JOHNSON, a Royal Library ought to have the earliest or most curious edition, the most sumptuous edition, and also the most useful one, which will commonly be one of the latest impressions of the book. As to the purchase of entire libraries in bulk, the Doctor inclined to think—even a century ago—that the inconvenience would commonly almost overbalance the advantage, on the score of the excessive accumulation of duplicate copies.

And then he added a remark which (long years afterwards) Sir Richard Colt HOARE profited by, and made a source of profit to our National Museum. ‘I am told,’ said JOHNSON, ‘that scarcely a village of Italy wants its historian. And it will be of great use to collect, in every place, maps of the adjacent country, and plans of towns, buildings, and gardens. By this care you will form a more valuable body of geography than could otherwise be had.’

On that point—as, indeed, on all the points about which he gave advice—JOHNSON’S counsel bore excellent fruit. The ‘body of geography’ contained in the Georgian Library has never, I think, been surpassed in any one Collection (made by a single Collector) in the world. It laid, substantially, the foundation of the noble assemblage of charts and maps which now forms a separate Department of the Museum, under the able superintendence of Mr. Richard Henry MAJOR, who has done much for the advancement of geographical knowledge in many paths, but in none more efficiently than in his Museum labours.

Like good counsel was given to BARNARD by the great lexicographer, in relation to the gathering of illustrated books. He told the King’s Librarian that he ought to seek diligently for old books adorned with woodcuts, because the designs were often those of great masters.

[Sidenote: JOHNSON’S REMARK ON MODERN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS.]

When to this remark the Doctor added the words: ‘Those old prints are such as cannot be made by any artist now living,’ he asserted what was undoubtedly true, if he limited that high praise to the best class of the works of which he was speaking. But his words carry in them also an indirect testimony of honour to GEORGE THE THIRD. If, in the century which has passed since Samuel JOHNSON discussed with Frederick BARNARD the wisest means of forming a Royal Library, a great stride has been made by the arts of design in Britain, a share of the merit belongs to the patriotic old King. He was amongst the earliest in his dominions to encourage British art with an open hand. He was not only the founder of the Royal Academy, but a most liberal patron to artists; and he did not limit his patronage to those men alone who belonged to his own Academy. If for a series of years the Royal Academy did less for Art, and did its work in a more narrow spirit of coterie than it ought to have done, the fault was not in the founder. And, of late years, the Academy itself has, in many ways, nobly vindicated its foundation and the aid it has received from the Public. Towards the foundation of the Academy, GEORGE THE THIRD gave, from his privy purse, more than five thousand pounds. To many of its members he was a genial friend, as well as a liberal patron.

Many other institutions of public education shared his liberality. Some generous benefactions which he gave to the British Museum itself, in the earlier years of his reign, have been mentioned already. But there were a crowd of other gifts, both in the earlier and in the later years, of which the limits of this volume at present forbid me to make detailed mention.

The Continental tour of Mr. BARNARD was very successful as to its main object. He obtained such rich accessions for the Library as raised it—especially in the various departments of Continental history and literature—much above all other Libraries in Britain.

[Sidenote: _Bibliotheca Askeviana_ (1775). _Literary Anecdotes of
Eighteenth Century_, vol. iv, p. 513 (183–).]

Within a few years of his return to England the very choice Collection which had been formed by Dr. Anthony ASKEW came into the market. For this Library, in bulk, the King offered ASKEW’S representatives five thousand pounds. They thought they could make more of the Collection by an auction, but, in the event, obtained less than four thousand pounds. The Askew Library extended only to three thousand five hundred and seventy separate printed works, but it contained a large proportion of rare and choice books. The chief buyers at the sale were the Duke of LA VALLIÈRE and (through the agency of DE BURE) LEWIS THE SIXTEENTH. The King of England bought comparatively little, although on this occasion Mr. BARNARD could scarcely have withholden his hand on the score of the special injunctions which the King had formerly laid down for his guidance in such public competitions.

For it deserves to be remembered that GEORGE THE THIRD’S conscientious thoughtfulness for other people led him, early in his career as a Collector, to give to his librarian a general instruction such as the servants of wealthy Collectors rarely receive. ‘I do not wish you,’ he said, ‘to bid either against a literary man who wants books for study, or against a known Collector of small means.’ He was very free to bid, on the other hand, against a Duke of ROXBURGHE or an Earl SPENCER.

The King’s kindness of nature was also shown in the free access which he at all times afforded to scholars and students in his own Library. To this circumstance we owe some of the most interesting notices we have of his opinions of authors and of books.

[Sidenote: THE OLD LOCALITIES OF THE GEORGIAN LIBRARY.]

In the earliest years of the Royal Collectorship part of the Library was kept in the old palace at Kew, which has long since disappeared, the site of it being now a gorgeous flower-bed. Afterwards, and on the acquisition for the Queen, of Buckingham House,[13] the chief part of the Collection was removed to Pimlico, and arranged in the handsome rooms of which a view appears, by way of vignette, on the title-pages of the sumptuously printed catalogue prepared by BARNARD. It was at Buckingham House that JOHNSON’S well-known conversation with the King took place, in February, 1767.

When JOHNSON first began to use the Royal Collection it was still in its infancy. He was surprised both at its extent and at the number of rare and choice books which it already included. He had seen BARNARD’S assiduity, and had helped him occasionally in his book-researches, long prior to the tour of 1768. But it astonished him to see that the King, within six or seven years, had gathered so fine a Library as that which he saw in 1767. He became a frequent visitor. The King, hearing of the circumstance, desired his librarian to let him know when the literary autocrat came again.

[Sidenote: THE INTERVIEW AT BUCKINGHAM HOUSE BETWEEN GEORGE III AND DR.
JOHNSON.]

The King’s first questions were about the doings at Oxford, whence, he had been told, Johnson had recently returned. The Doctor expressed his inability to bestow much commendation on the diligence then exhibited by the resident scholars of the University in the way of any conspicuous additions to literature. [Sidenote: 1767, February.] Presently, the King put to him the question, ‘And what are you about yourself?’ ‘I think,’ was the answer—given in a tone more modest than the strict sense of the words may import—‘that I have already done my part as a writer.’ To which the King rejoined, ‘I should think so too, had you not written so well.’ After this happy retort, the King turned the conversation on some recent theological controversies. About that between WARBURTON and LOWTH he made another neat though obvious remark—‘When it comes to calling names, argument, truly, is pretty well at an end.’ They then passed in review many of the periodical publications of the day, in the course of which His Majesty displayed considerable knowledge of the chief books of that class, both English and French. [Sidenote: Croker’s _Boswell_, pp. 184–186.] He showed his characteristic and kingly attention to minutiæ by an observation which he made when JOHNSON had praised an improved arrangement of the contents of the _Philosophical Transactions_—oblivious, at the moment, that he had himself suggested the change. ‘They have to thank Dr. JOHNSON for that,’ said the King.

Another remark made by GEORGE THE THIRD during this conversation deserves to be remembered. ‘I wish,’ said he, ‘that we could have a really well-executed body of British Biography.’ This was a desideratum in the seventh year of the old King, and it is a desideratum still in the thirty-fourth year of his granddaughter. The reign of Queen VICTORIA was comparatively young when the late Mr. MURRAY first announced, not without some flourish of trumpets, a forthcoming attempt at such a labour, but the little that was said as to the precise plan and scope of the work then contemplated, gave small promise of an adequate performance; and hitherto there has been no performance at all.

[Sidenote: THE KING’S CONVERSATION WITH DR. BEATTIE;]

Six years after the interview with JOHNSON, another literary conversation, of which we have a record, was held in the Royal Library. But on this occasion the scene was Kew. Dr. BEATTIE’S fame is now a thing of the past. There is still, however, some living interest in the account of the talk between the author of _The Minstrel_ and his sovereign, held in 1773, [Sidenote: 1773. August.] about liturgies, [Sidenote: Forbes, _Life of Beattie_, vol. i, pp. 347–354.] about prayers occasional and prayers _ex tempore_, and about the methods of education adopted in the Scottish universities.

The King’s least favourable—but not least characteristic—appearance, as a talker on literary subjects, is made in that conversation with Miss BURNEY, [Sidenote: AND WITH MISS BURNEY.] in which he uttered his often-quoted remark on SHAKESPEARE:—‘Was there ever such stuff as great part of _Shakespeare_—only one must not say so?’ [Sidenote: 1785. December.] The sense of the humorous seems in GEORGE III to have been wholly lacking. And some part of the sadness of his life has probably a vital connexion with that deficiency.

In the last-mentioned conversation, the King evinced considerable acquaintance with French literature. He shared, to some extent, the then very general admiration for ROUSSEAU, on whom he had bestowed more than one act of kindness during the brief English exile of the author of _Emile_. [Sidenote: D’Arblay, _Diary_, vol. ii, pp. 395–398.] He shared, also, the common impression as to the absence of gratitude in the brilliant Frenchman’s character. When Miss BURNEY told him that his own portrait had been seen to occupy the most conspicuous place in ROUSSEAU’S living-room after his return to France, the King was both surprised and touched.

Next after the large and choice acquisitions made for the King’s Library on the Continent, some of its most conspicuous and valuable literary treasures were acquired at the several sales, in London, of the Libraries of James WEST (1773), of John RATCLIFFE (1776), and of Richard FARMER (1798). It was at the first of these sales that GEORGE THE THIRD laid the foundation of his unequalled series of the productions of the father of English printing.

[Sidenote: GEORGE THE THIRD’S SERIES OF BOOKS FROM CAXTON’S PRESS.]

The _Caxtons_ bought for the King at West’s sale included the dearly prized _Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_ (1472–1474?), the _Booke of the Chesse_ (1476?), the _Canterbury Tales_ of CHAUCER (1478?), the _Dictes and Sayinges of the Philosophers_ (1480), the _Mirrour of the World_ (1481), the _Godfrey of Boloyne_ (1482), the _Confessio Amantis_ (1483), the _Paris and Vienne_ (1485), and the _Royal Booke_ (1487?). Of these, the lowest in price was the _Confessio_ of 1483, which the King acquired for nine guineas, and the highest in price was the _Chaucer_ of 1478, which cost him forty-seven pounds fifteen shillings.

At the same sale, he also acquired another Caxton, which has a peculiar interest. The King’s copy of the _Troylus and Creside_ (probably printed in the year 1484) formerly belonged

‘To Her, most gentle, most unfortunate,
Crowned but to die—who in her chamber sate
Musing with Plato, though the horn was blown,
And every ear and every heart was won,
And all, in green array, were chasing down the sun;’

and it bears her autograph.

Three years after the dispersion of WEST’S Library came that of the extraordinary Collection which had been made by a Bermondsey ship-chandler, John RATCLIFFE by name. This worthy and fortunate Collector has been said, commonly, to have amassed his black-letter curiosities by buying them, at so much a pound, over his counter.[14] But of such windfalls no man has ever been so lucky as to have more than a few. [Sidenote: JOHN RATCLIFFE OF BERMONDSEY AND HIS CURIOUS LIBRARY.] John RATCLIFFE was, like his King, a large buyer at WEST’S sale, and at many other sales, upon the ordinary terms.

By pains and perseverance he had collected of books printed by CAXTON the extraordinary number of forty-eight. No Collector ever surpassed, or even reached, that number, except Robert HARLEY, in whose days books that are now worth three hundred pounds could, not infrequently, be bought for much less than the half of three hundred pence.

RATCLIFFE’S forty-eight _Caxtons_ produced at his sale two hundred and thirty-six pounds. The King bought twenty of them at an aggregate cost of about eighty-five pounds. Amongst them were the _Boethius_, of 1478; the _Reynarde the Foxe_, of 1481; the _Golden Legende_, and the _Curial_, both of 1484; and the _Speculum Vitæ Christi_, probably printed in 1488. The _Boethius_ is a fine copy, and was obtained for four pounds six shillings. A few years ago an imperfect copy of the same book brought more than sixteen times that sum.

[Sidenote: GIFTS TO THE KING’S LIBRARY.]

Two others of the King’s _Caxtons_ were the gift of Jacob BRYANT. One of these is Ralph LEFEVRE’S _Recueil des histoires de Troye_, printed, probably, in 1476. The other is the _Doctrinal of Sapience_, printed in 1489. This last-named volume is on vellum, and is the only copy so printed which is known to exist. A third Caxton volume was bequeathed to GEORGE THE THIRD by Mr. HEWETT, of Ipswich. This is the _Æsop_ of 1484, and is the only extant copy. [Sidenote: GEORGE III AND THE BIBLIOMANIA.] It was delivered to the King by Sir John HEWETT and Mr. Philip BROKE, the legator’s executors. GEORGE THE THIRD was very sensitive to the special triumphs of collectorship, and would be sure to prize the _Æsop_ all the more for its attribute of uniqueness.

A story in illustration of this specific tinge of the bibliomania in our royal Collector was wont to be told by Sir Walter SCOTT, and is mentioned in his interesting obituary notice of the King, printed in the _Edinburgh Weekly Journal_[15] immediately after the King’s death. According to SCOTT, GEORGE THE THIRD was fond of crowing a little over his brother-collector, the Duke of ROXBURGHE, on the score that the royal copy of the famous _Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_ had a pre-eminence over the Roxburghe copy. The pre-eminence was of a sort, indeed, to which no one but a thorough-paced Collector would be sensible. For it consisted in the ‘locking,’ or wrong imposing, of certain pages, afterwards corrected at press. The fault, therefore, indicated priority of working off. But I do not find in the King’s _Recuyell_—which now lies before me—the peculiarity spoken of in the poet’s story. Such a fault does exist in the Roxburghe copy, which now belongs to the Duke of DEVONSHIRE. Other and authenticated anecdotes, however, are abundant, which suffice to show the close knowledge of, and the keen interest in, his books, by which GEORGE THE THIRD was characterised. It was a still better trait in him that he found real pleasure in knowing that the treasures and rarities of his Library subserved the inquiries and studies of scholars. Nor did he make narrow limitations. Men like JOHNSON and Bishop HORSLEY profited by the Collection. So, too, did men like GIBBON and PRIESTLEY.

The total number of Caxton prints amassed by GEORGE III was thirty-nine. Of these three are in the Royal Library at Windsor—namely, the _Recueil_ (1476?), the _Æsop_ (1484), and the _Doctrinal_ (1489).

[Sidenote: GEORGE THE THIRD’S APPEARANCE AS AN AUTHOR.]

To a keen enjoyment of the pleasures of collectorship, the King added, in 1787, a passing taste of those of authorship. As a Collector, the bibliomania did not engross him. He had a delight in amassing fine plants as well as fine books. The _Hortus Kewensis_ (in both applications of the term) was largely indebted to his liberality of expenditure and to his far-spread research. He sent botanic missionaries to the remotest parts of Asia, as well as to Africa. He took the most cordial interest in those varied voyages of discovery which—as I have observed in a former chapter—cast so distinctive a lustre on his reign, and in consequence of which such large additions were made to our natural history collections, public and private. And he did much to promote scientific agriculture, both by precept and by example. It was as a practical agriculturist that the King (under a slight veil of pseudonymity[16]) made his bow to the reading public by the publication of seven articles in Arthur YOUNG’S useful and then well-known periodical, the _Annals of Agriculture_.

Those articles have a threefold aim. They inculcate the wisdom, for certain soils, of an intermediate system of treatment and of cropping, midway between the old routine and the drill-husbandry, then of recent introduction; they describe several new implements, introduced by DUCKET of Esher and of Petersham; and they advocate an almost entire rejection of fallows. They further describe a method, also introduced by Farmer DUCKET, and then peculiar, of destroying that farmer’s pest, couch-grass (_triticum repens_), by trench-ploughing it deep into the ground, and contain many other practical suggestions, some of which seem to have been empirical, and others so good that they have become trite.

But the best service rendered by GEORGE THE THIRD to the agricultural pursuits, of which he was so fond, was his introduction of the Merino flocks, which became conspicuous ornaments to the great and little parks at Windsor. Part of the success which, for a time, attended the importation of those choice Merino breeds was due to the zealous co-operation of Lord SOMERVILLE and of Sir Joseph BANKS [see the next chapter], but the King himself took a real initiative in the matter; acquired real knowledge about it; and deserved, by his personal efforts, the cognomen given him (by some of those worthy farmers who used to attend the annual sales at Windsor) of ‘the Royal Shepherd.’

[Sidenote: ILLNESS OF GEORGE III;]

The recreative pursuits, alike of the book-collector and of the agriculturist, as well as the labours of the conscientious monarch, were at length to be arrested by that great calamity which, after clouding over some months of the years of vigour, was destined to veil in thick gloom all the [Sidenote: 1810.] years of decline—the years when great public triumphs and crushing family afflictions passed equally unnoted by the recluse of Windsor.

‘Thy lov’d ones fell around thee.
... Thou, meanwhile,
Didst walk unconscious through thy royal towers,
The one that wept _not_, in the tearful isle!

· · · · ·

But who can tell what visions might be thine?
The stream of thought, though broken, still was pure.
Still on that wave the stars of Heaven might shine
Where earthly image would no more endure.
Nor might the phantoms to thy spirit known,
Be dark or wild,—creations of Remorse,—
Unstain’d by thee, the blameless Past had thrown
No fearful shadows o’er the Future’s course.’

[Sidenote: AND HIS DEATH.]

When GEORGE THE THIRD died at Windsor Castle, on the 29th of January, 1820, the public mourning was sincere. [Sidenote: 1820. January.] During its ten years of rule, the Regency had done very much to heighten and intensify regret for the calamity of 1810. The errors of the old monarch came, naturally, to be dwarfed to the view, when his private virtues acquired all the sharp saliency of contrast.

Since his death, political writers have usually been somewhat harsh to his memory. But the verdict of history has not yet been given in. When the time for its delivery shall at length come, there will be a long roll of good deeds to set off against many mistakes in policy. Nor will the genuine piety, and the earnest conscientiousness of the individual man—up to the measure of the light vouchsafed to him—be forgotten in the preliminary summing up. What GEORGE THE THIRD did for Britain simply in conferring upon it the social blessings of a pure Court, and of a bright personal example, is best to be estimated by contemplating what, in that respect, existed before it, and also what came immediately after it. Comparisons of such a sort will serve, eventually, to better purpose than that of feathering the witty shafts of reckless satirists, whether in prose or in verse. Meanwhile, it is enough to say that no honester, no more God-fearing man, than was GEORGE THE THIRD, ever sat upon the throne of England.

During all the time of his long illness, the King’s Library had continued, more or less, to grow. When he died, it contained sixty-five thousand two hundred and fifty volumes, besides more than nineteen thousand unbound tracts. [Sidenote: STATE OF THE KING’S LIBRARY IN JANUARY, 1820.] These have since been bound severally. The total number of volumes, therefore, which the Collection comprised was about eighty-four thousand. At the time of the King’s decease, the annual cost of books in progress, and of periodical works, somewhat exceeded one thousand pounds. The annual salaries of the staff—four officers and two servants—amounted to eleven hundred and seventy-one pounds. The Library occupied a fine and extensive suite of rooms in Buckingham Palace. One of them was large enough to make a noble billiard-room.

The Royal Library, therefore, embarrassed King GEORGE THE FOURTH in two ways. It cost two thousand two hundred pounds a year, even without making any new additions to its contents. It occupied much space in the royal residence which could be devoted to more agreeable purposes. Then came the welcome thought that, instead of being a charge, it might be made a source of income. The Emperor of Russia was known to covet, as a truly imperial luxury, what to the new King of Great Britain was but a costly burden. He broached the idea—but met, instead of encouragement, with strong remonstrance.

The news of the royal suggestion soon spread abroad. Amongst those who heard of it with disgust were Lord FARNBOROUGH (who is said to have learnt the design in talking, one day, with Princess LIEVEN) and Richard HEBER. Both men bestirred themselves to prevent the King from publicly disgracing the country in that way. Lord FARNBOROUGH betook himself to a conference with the Premier, Lord LIVERPOOL. Mr. HEBER discussed the matter with Lord SIDMOUTH. By the ministers, public opinion upon the suggested sale was pretty strongly and emphatically conveyed to His Majesty, whatever may have been the courtliness of tone employed about it.

[Sidenote: CONFERENCE BETWEEN GEORGE IV AND HIS MINISTERS ON DISPOSAL OF
THE LIBRARY.]

GEORGE THE FOURTH, however, was not less strongly impressed by the charms of the prospective rubles from Russia. He felt that he could find pleasant uses for a windfall of a hundred and eighty thousand pounds, or so. And he fought hard to secure his expected prize—or some indubitably solid equivalent. [Sidenote: R. Ford, in the _Quarterly Review_ (Dec., 1850), vol. lxxxviii, p. 143;] ‘If I can’t have the rubles,’ said the King, ‘you must find me their value in pounds sterling.’ The Ministers were much in earnest to save the Library, and, in the emergency, laid their hands upon a certain surplus which had accrued from a fund furnished some years before by France, to meet British claims for losses sustained at the date of the first French Revolution. [Sidenote: Comp. _Minutes of Evidence taken by the Commissioners on Brit. Mus._ (also in 1850), pp. 117, 118.] But the expedient became the subject of an unpleasant hint in the House of Commons. And the Government, it is said, then resorted to that useful fund, the ‘Droits of Admiralty.’ By hook or crook, GEORGE THE FOURTH received his ‘equivalent.’ He then sat down to his writing-table (at Brighton), to assure Lord LIVERPOOL—in his official capacity—of the satisfaction he felt in having ‘this means of advancing the Literature of my Country.’ Then he proceeded to add:—‘I also feel that I am paying a just tribute to the memory of a Parent, whose life was adorned with every public and private virtue.’

The Executors or Trustees of King GEORGE THE THIRD knew well what the monarch’s feelings about his Library would, in all reasonable probability, have been, had he possessed mental vigour when preparing for his last change. They exacted from the Trustees of the Museum a pledge that the Royal Library should be preserved apart, and entire.

[Sidenote: THE NEW BUILDING ERECTED FOR THE GEORGIAN LIBRARY.]

Parliament, on its side, made a liberal provision for the erection of a building worthy to receive the Georgian Library. The fine edifice raised in pursuance of a parliamentary vote cost a hundred and forty thousand pounds. [Sidenote: 1821–28.] It provided one of the handsomest rooms in Europe for the main purpose, and it also made much-needed arrangements for the reception and exhibition of natural-history Collections, above the books.

The removal of the Royal Library from Buckingham House was not completed until August, 1828. All who saw the Collection whilst the building was in its first purity of colour—and who were old enough to form an opinion on such a point—pronounced the receptacle to be eminently worthy of its rich contents. The floor-cases and the heavy tables—very needful, no doubt—have since detracted not a little from the architectural effect and elegance of the room itself.

Along with the printed books, and the extensive geographical Collections, came a number of manuscripts—on historical, literary, and geographical subjects.[17] By some transient forgetfulness of the pledge given to Lord FARNBOROUGH, the manuscripts, or part of them, were, in March, 1841, sent to the ‘Manuscript Department’ of the Museum. [Sidenote: _Minutes of Evidence_ (1850), as above.] But Mr. PANIZZI, then the Keeper of the Printed Books, successfully reclaimed them for their due place of deposit, according to the arrangement of 1823. Nor was such a claim a mere official punctilio.

In every point of view, close regard to the wishes of donors, or of those who virtually represent them, is not more a matter of simple justice than it is a matter of wise and foreseeing policy in the Trustees of Public Museums. The integrity of their Collections is often, and naturally, an anxious desire of those who have formed them. In a subsequent chapter (C. ii of Book III) it will be seen that the wish expressed by the representatives of King GEORGE THE THIRD was also the wish of a munificent contemporary and old minister of his, who, many years afterwards, gave to the Nation a Library only second in splendour to that which had been gathered by GEORGE THE THIRD.

Not the least curious little fact connected with the Georgian Library and its gift to the Public, is that the gift was _predicted_ thirty-one years before GEORGE THE FOURTH wrote his letter addressed to Lord LIVERPOOL from the Pavilion at Brighton, and twenty-eight years before the death of GEORGE THE THIRD.

In 1791, Frederick WENDEBORN wrote thus:—‘The King’s private Library ... can boast very valuable and magnificent books, which, as it is said, will be one time or another joined to those of the British Museum.’ WENDEBORN[18] was a German preacher, resident in London for many years. He was known to Queen CHARLOTTE, and had occasional intercourse with the Court. May it not be inferred that on some occasion or other the King had intimated, if not an intention, at least a thought on the matter, which some courtier or other had repeated in the hearing of Dr. WENDEBORN?