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BOOK II, Chap. IV. THE

KING'S OR 'GEORGIAN' LIBRARY.

THE CON

TRASTS BE-
TWEEN

GEORGE III
AND GEORGE
IV.

CHAPTER IV.

THE KING'S OR 'GEORGIAN' LIBRARY;-
ITS COLLECTOR, AND ITS DONOR.

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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. 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

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e and upkeeping would -ey which he could spend in He had been far better educate And to him Nature had given as about the last and least likely he was inclined to apply them. If e n having, on his accession, the owner , it lay, not in the power it afforded s erature, and the labourers in literature, br y he saw that so fine a collection of bo le to produce a round sum of money. One oughts about the matter was, that it would be to offer his father's beloved Library for saleOr of Russia. By what influences that shrewd ning a penny was diverted will be seen in

THE THIRD was, in respect to his parts, only wed, he had in another respect large gifts. stry and his power of sustained application on. And his conscientious sense of responsi

BOOK II, Chap. IV. THE

KING'S OR

bility for the use of such abilities as he had was no less remarkable. Whatever may have been his mistakes in GEORGIAN' 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

LIBRARY.

THE EDUCA

TION OF

GEORGE III,

AFTER THE

DEATH OF

PRINCE OF

WALES..

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. When public attention came first to be attracted to the character of the peculiar influences which began to mould the training of the young FREDERICK, 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

Chap. IV.

KING'S OR

LIBRARY.

4 Memorial, ADDIT. 6271,

&c.; MS.

y find that the men who had the honesty and resolution BOOK II, complain of such astonishing methods of instruction are THE en away from Court, and the men who have dared to 'GEORGIAN' -h such doctrines are continued in trust and favour.'* Iaking all allowance for partisan feeling and for that e of Whig oligarchism which peeps out, as well in the title, as in the contents of this 'Memorial,' there was ous truth in the denunciation, and a modicum of true hecy in the inference. But such a remonstrance had as little effect, in the way of checking undue influences, had of wisdom in the form given to it, or in the mode = presentation at Court.

fol. 3.

RANGE OF

THIRD'S

TASTES FOR

e Prince's education was not merely imbued with NARROW
and maxims little likely to conduce towards a pros- GEORGE THE
s reign. It was intellectually narrow and mean. He
up, for example, in utter ignorance of many of the BOOKS.
lights of English literature. In respect to all books,
one (that, happily, the greatest of all), he became one
ose who, through life, draw from the small cisterns,

rd Harcourt resigned his office of Governor to the Prince at the
ng of December, 1752. Scott, then the Prince's tutor, was
ended to his office by Bolingbroke. The Bishop of Peter-
's appointment as Preceptor was made in January, 1753.
the books complained of, the Histoire de la Grande Bretagne
er Orléans, and the Introduction à la vie du Roi Henri IV of
Jesuit, Father Péréfixe, are said to have been included. Another
e famous book, which was much in Prince George's hands in his
ars, was also obnoxious to the Whigs-Bolingbroke's Idea of a
King. But it would scarcely have been prudent in the malcon-
have put a work which (whatever its faults) ranks, to some extent,
ur English classics, in the same expurgatory, or prohibitory,
Eh the books of Orléans and of Péréfixe. If George the Third
harm out of Lord Bolingbroke's book, he probably obtained
good. Pure Whiggism-pure but not simple-has never been
any discriminating tolerance of spirit. And, in 1752, it was
the prospect that the continuance of its long domination was

1.

BOOK II, Chap. IV.

THE

instead of going to the deep wells. He seems to have been trained to think that the literary glories of his country GEORGIAN began with the age of Queen ANNE.

KING'S OR

LIBRARY.

FOUNDATION

OF THE NEW ROYAL LIBRARY.

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 subpreceptor, 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.

The foundation of the Library was laid by a very fortunate purchase on the Continent. Its increase was largely

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