BOOK III. Chapter III. Library of the British Museum. lection, obtained (piecemeal) from the monastery of St. Mary Deipara in the Nitrian Desert. But this acqui(Continued.) sition belongs, in part, to a subsequent year, and will therefore be narrated in the next chapter. Bequest of the In attempting to epitomize the principal results of the important step taken in 1845 for the improvement of the printed part of the Museum Library, I have somewhat overrun the precise chronological limits assigned to this division of the subject. It yet remains to record the noblest gift which the national collection has received since that of the Library formed by George III. In a codicil to the last Will (dated October 1845) of the Right Honourable Thomas Grenville, who died on the 17th December 1846, occurred the following passage: "I do make, publish, and declare this as and for a further Codicil to my last Will and Testament. With the warmest continued affection to the Duke of Buckingham, and to my family, I feel it incumbent upon me, upon further consideration, to cancel the bequest of my Library and bookcases as contained in my Will. A great part of my Library has been purchased from the profits of a sinecure office given me by the Public, and I feel it to be a debt and a duty that I should acknowledge this obligation by giving that Library acquired to the British Museum for the use of the Public. I do, therefore, revoke the bequest... of my Library to my great-nephew Richard, Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, for life, with remainder to the senior male descendant of the head of my family, as an heir-loom; and I do hereby give and bequeath my Library, such as it may be at the time of my death, to the Trustees of the British Museum, for the purposes thereof, and benefit of the Public. But I do not mean hereby to disturb the bequest, made by my Will to the said Duke, of such of my letters and papers as my executors may, on examination, consider as worth being added to the large manuscript collection at Stowe. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand, this 28th day of October, 1845.-THOMAS GRENVILLE." BOOK III. Chapter III. Library of the British Museum. (Continued.) public career. The testator was a descendant of an old stock, rich in gallant soldiers in days of yore, and of that branch of it which in later times has been fertile in statesmen and scholars. He had already entered into public life Mr. Grenville's when Washington was beginning to organize the army which won American Independence, and he was still living, in mental vigour, when Charles Napier was civilizing Scinde, and Hardinge was beating back the Sikhs, on the banks of the Sutlej. In early life he was the supporter and the friend of Fox, in opposition to his family connexions, but he joined in the temporary secession, occasioned by the course which that statesman pursued at the period of the French Revolution. The only conspicuous office which he had ever held in England-he had been for short periods British Minister at Paris and at Berlin-was that of First Lord of the Admiralty, in 1806 and 1807, and this office was filled for too brief a term to afford fair evidence of his latent powers. The refined tastes of the highly cultivated student, combined with a keen enjoyment of social pleasures, in their best form, may probably have BOOK III, Chapter III. indisposed him for the career of politics in turbulent Library of the times. But, be this as it may, the last forty years of British Museum. (Continued.) his long life were, as regards public affairs, those of a spectator rather than of an actor. In private life his hospitalities were bounteous, and his charities both generous and unobtrusive. The office alluded to in his codicil was that of "ChiefJustice in Eyre, South of Trent." It dated from the time of the Norman Kings. In the palmy days of their Forest-laws it was an important post, but it had long ceased to be more than a convenient sinecure for the reward of political partisanship. Of those old Forestjudges Mr. Grenville was the last, and it is no insignificant incident in English life that many a poor student will owe his access to choice literary treasures in the twentieth century, partly to the profits which had accrued from a feudal office, established in the twelfth. and At the time of Mr. Grenville's decease, the Library contained 20,240 volumes, comprising about 16,000 distinct works. Its cost was upwards of £54,000, in the authoritative judgment of Mr. Panizzi, long and intimately acquainted with the collection, it would have sold for a larger sum.1 Many of the books are enriched by Mr. Grenville's MS. notes, usually written on slips of paper, for the preservation of which ample precaution has doubtless been taken. Sometimes these notes are additions to other notes of earlier and famous owners. For uniform beauty of condition and splendour of binding it is probably-having regard to its extent 1 Parliamentary returns of 1841, No.139, p. 11. -without a rival. The Grolier and De Thou volumes BOOK III. Chapter III. British Museum. (Continued.) (of the latter there are no less than forty) were numer- Library of the ous, and, of course, untouched. Original bindings were usually retained, and when necessary repaired with the utmost care. In other cases, the best binders-the Lewises and the Mackenzies of the day-employed all their taste and skill in the suitable, and often the magnificent, adornment of the books. CHAPTER IV. FURTHER PROGRESS OF THE LIBRARY OF THE I myself have seen vast heaps of Manuscripts... of the Fathers, or other learned authors, in the Monasteries at Mount Athos, and elsewhere, all covered over with dust and dirt, and many of them rotted and spoiled. COVEL (1675). Some Account of the Greek Church. BOOK III. Chapter IV. British Museum. What Antiquarian, worthy of the name, would be arrested.....by distant barriers, when beyond them a whole Harem of Virgin MSS. wooed his embrace, glowing, like so many Houris, with immortal youth, and rich in charms which increased with each revolving Century? STEPHEN. Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography. FOR three centuries the attention of scholars had been Library of the repeatedly attracted towards the Monasteries of the (Continued.) Levant, as the mysterious repositories of valuable manuscripts. Numerous were the attempts to explore them, and frequent such small and fragmentary acquisitions Early inquiries as served but to stimulate curiosity, and to keep exNitrian Monas pectation alive. Gilles de Loche told Peiresc a traveller's story of a collection he had seen of "about MSS. in the teries. |