Chap. III. BOOK year of the devastations on the other side of the Channel, BOOK II, chronicled by our daily papers, Mr. CRACHERODE WAS thought by his friends to have aged' full ten years in his aspect. The one active and incessant pursuit of this noiseless career was the gathering together of the most choice books, the finest coins and gems, the most exquisite drawings and prints, which money could buy, without the toils of travel. Our Collector's liberality of purse enabled him to profit, at his ease, by the truth expressed in one of the wise maxims of John SELDEN :—The giving a dealer his price hath this advantage; he that will do so shall have the refusal of whatsoever comes to the dealer's hand, and so by that means get many things which otherwise he never should have seen.' The enjoyment-almost a century ago—of six hundred pounds a year in land, and of nearly one hundred thousand pounds invested in the sweet simplicity' of the three per cents., enabled Mr. CRACHERODE to outbid a good many competitors. His natural wish that what he had so eagerly gathered should not be scattered to the four winds on the instant he was carried to his grave, and also the public spirit which dictated the choice of a national. repository as the permanent abode of his Collections, has already made that long course of daily visits to the London dealers in books, coins, and drawings, fruitful of good to hundreds of poorer students and toilers, during more than two generations. From stores such as Mr. CRACHERODE'Swhen so preserved—many a useful labourer gets part of his best equipment for the tasks of his life. He, too, would enjoy a visit to the 'PAYNES' and the 'ELMSLYS' of the day as keenly as any book-lover that ever lived, but is too often, perhaps, obliged to content himself with an outside glance at the windows. Public libraries put him practi LOVERS AND BENEFAC TORS. Воок 11, Chap. III. Воок PUBLIC BENEFAC TORS. cally on a level with the wealthiest connoisseur. When, as in this case-and in a hundred more—such libraries derive LOVERS AND much of their best possessions from private liberality, a life like Mordaunt CRACHERODE'S has its ample vindication, and the sting is taken out of all such sarcasms as that which was levelled in the shape of the query, In all that big library is there a single book written by the Collector himself?'-by some snarling epistolary critic, when commenting on a notice that appeared in The Times on the occasion of Mr. CRACHERODE'S death. On another point our Collector was exposed to the shafts of sarcastic comment. He loved a good book to be printed on the very choicest material, and clothed in the richest fashion. The treasure within would not incline him to tolerate blemishes without. In CRACHERODE's eyes, external charms such as these were scarcely less essential than the intrinsic worth of the author. Large paper' and broad pure margins are fancies which it needs not much culture or much wit to banter. But now and then, they are ridiculed by those who have just as little capacity to judge the pith and substance of books, as of taste to appreciate beauty in BOOK II, their outward form.* Chap. III. TORS. The solidity of those three per cents., and the plodding POLIC perseverance of their owner, were in time rewarded by the BENEFAC collection (1) of a library containing only four thousand five hundred volumes, but of which probably every volume -on an average of the whole-was worth, in mercantile eyes, some three pounds; (2) of seven portfolios of drawings, still more choice; (3) of a hundred portfolios of prints, many of which were almost priceless; and (4) of coins and gems-such as the cameo of a lion on sardonyx, and the intaglio of the Discobolos-worthy of an imperial cabinet. The ruling passion kept its strength to the last. An agent was buying prints, for addition to the store, when the Collector was dying. About four days before his death, Mr. CRACHERODE mustered strength to pay a farewell visit to the old shop at the Mews-Gate. He put a finely printed Terence (from the press of FOULIS) into one pocket, and a large paper Cebes into another; and then,-with a longing look at a certain choice Homer, in the course of which he mentally, and somewhat doubtingly, balanced its charms with those of its twin brother in Queen Square,-parted finally from the daily haunt of forty peripatetic and studious years. Clayton Mordaunt CRACHERODE died towards the close of 1799. He bequeathed the whole of his collections to the Nation, with the exception of two volumes of books. A polyglot Bible was given to Shute BARRINGTON, Bishop "Or must I, as a wit, with learned air Like Doctor Dibdin, to Tom Payne's repair, Meet Cyril Jackson and mild Cracherode there? 'Hold!' cries Tom Payne, 'that margin let me measure, And rate the separate value of the treasure' Eager they gaze. Well, Sirs, the feat is done. Cracherode's Poetæ Principes have won!" Mathias, Pursuits of Literature. BOOK II, Chap. III. Воок LOVERS AND TORS. THE OF THE LANSDOWNE MANU SCRIPTS. of Durham; a princeps Homer to Cyril JACKSON, Dean of Christ Church. Those justly venerated men were his two dearest friends. The next conspicuous donor to the Library of the British Museum was a contemporary of the learned recluse of Queen Square, but one whose life was passed in the thick of that worldly turmoil and conflict of which Mr. CRACHERODE had so mortal a dread. To the Collector of the 'Lansdowne Manuscripts,' political excitement was the congenial air in which it was indeed life to live. But he, also, was a man beloved by all who had the privilege of his intimate friendship. William PETTY FITZMAURICE, third Earl of Shelburne, and first Marquess of Lansdowne, was born in Dublin, in May, 1737. He was the son of John, Earl of Shelburne in the peerage of Ireland, and afterwards Baron Wycombe in peerage of Great Britain. The Marquess's father united the possessions of the family founded by Sir William PETTY with those which the Irish wars had left to the ancient line of Fitzmaurice. the William, Earl of SHELBURNE, was educated by private tutors, and then sent to Christ Church, Oxford. He left the University early, to take (in or about the year 1756) a commission in the Guards. He was present in the battles of Campen and of Minden. At Minden, in particular, he evinced distinguished bravery. In May, 1760, and again in April, 1761, he was elected by the burgesses of High Wycombe to represent them in the House of Commons. But the death of Earl John, in the middle of 1761, called his son to take his seat in the House of Lords. He soon evinced the possession of powers eminently fitted to shine in Parliament. The impetuosity he had shown on the field Chap. III. Book of Minden did not desert him in the strife of politics. Book II, Those who had listened to the early speeches of PITT might well think that the army had again sent them a 'terrible cornet of horse.' So good a judge of political oratory as was Lord CAMDEN thought SHELBURNE to be second only BEGINNING to CHATHAM himself. LOVERS AND TORS. OF LORD SHEL CAREER IN MENT. Lord SHELBURNE's first speech in Parliament-the first, BURNE'S at least, that attracted general notice-was made in support PARLIA of the Court and the Ministry (November 3, 1762). Within less than six months after its delivery he was called to the Privy Council, and placed at the head of the Board of Trade and Plantations. This appointment was made on the 23rd of April, 1763. Just before it he had taken part in that delicate negotiation between Lord BUTE and Henry Fox (afterwards Lord HOLLAND) which has been kept well in memory by a jest of the man who thought himself the loser in it. This early incident is in some sort a key to many later incidents in Lord SHELBURNE's life. AND HENRY For, in all the acts and offices of a political career, save SHELBURNE only one, Lord SHELBURNE was characteristically a lover of Fox. soft words. In debate, he could speak scathingly. In conversation, he was always under temptation to flatter his interlocutor. In this conversation of 1763 with Fox, SHELBURNE's innate love of smoothing asperities co-operated with his belief that it was really for the common interest that BUTE and Fox should come to an agreement, to make him put the premier's offer into the most pleasing light. When Fox found he was to get less than he thought to have, he fiercely assailed the negotiator. Lord SHELBURNE's friends dwelt on his love of peace and good-fellowship. At worst, said they, it was but a pious fraud.' 'I can see the fraud plainly enough,' rejoined Fox, but where is the piety?' |