In May of this year died Henry Hyde, Lord Cornbury, son of Henry Hyde,
Earl of Rochester, and great-grandson of the great Earl of Clarendon. He
had made a will bequeathing all the Chancellor's MSS. to the University
of Oxford, to be printed at their press, and the profits to be devoted
to a school for riding and other athletic exercises in the University,
should such an institution be accepted, or else to other approved uses.
Dying before his father, through the effects of an accident, his bequest
was void, as he was never actually in possession of the papers to which
it referred; but after the death of his father in Dec. following, his
sisters, who were the co-heiresses, carried out his will, by sending all
the Clarendon MSS. in their possession to the University on the same
conditions[215]. From these was published in 1759 (in which year the
papers appear to have been deposited in the Library) the _Life_ of the
first Earl, reprinted in several editions up to the year 1827. This was
followed, in 1767-73, by the publication, under the editorship of Dr.
Rich. Scrope, of Magd. Coll., of vols. i., ii. of a selection from the
_State Papers_; of which vol. iii. appeared under the editorship of Mr.
Thos. Monkhouse, of Queen's Coll., in 1786. During the progress of this
publication, however, the original collection of MSS. papers was very
largely increased by the acquisition of various portions which had long
before been detached. Some were obtained, before the publication of vol.
i., from the executors of Rich. Powney, LL.D.; and many were presented
to the University, before the publication of vol. ii., by the Radcliffe
Trustees, who had bought them for £170 when sold by auction in 1764 by
the executors of Joseph Radcliffe, Esq., one of the executors to Edward,
third Earl of Clarendon, who died in 1723. Dr. Douglas (afterwards
Bishop of Salisbury), who was employed in the latter purchase, himself
bought and gave some MSS. which had belonged to Mr. Guthrie, and was
instrumental also in procuring some letters from Viscountess Middleton,
&c. Again, before the publication of vol. iii. many further papers were
purchased by the Radcliffe Trustees from a Mr. Richards, near Salisbury
(from whose father Mr. Powney had obtained his portion), and from Mr. W.
M. Godschall, of Albury, Surrey. And lastly, about eight or ten years
ago, several boxes (including Clarendon's own iron-bound _escritoire_),
containing miscellaneous papers, were forwarded by the Clarendon
Trustees in final discharge of their trust.
A MS. of the _History of the Rebellion_, in seven volumes, together with
one of the _Contemplations_, in three volumes, was forwarded in 1785 or
1786 by the Duke of Queensbury. The former MS. appears to be that from
which the first edition was printed by the Earl of Rochester[216].
A complete Calendar of the _Clarendon State Papers_ is now in progress
under the care of several editors. As far as it has advanced, it has
proved the good judgment and the extreme correctness with which the
printed selection was made; but as that selection ended with the
Restoration, while the papers themselves reach on to 1667, the year of
the Earl's banishment, the later portion may be expected to contain much
of fresh interest and value.
It was in this year also that the first portion of the MSS. of Thomas
Carte, the 'Englishman' and historian, came to the Library. It has been
universally supposed that his voluminous and invaluable collections came
_en masse_ subsequently to his death, but the Library Register shows
that Oxford was indebted to him for a considerable and important portion
during his life. In this year we find that he sent the papers which
relate to the life of the great Duke of Ormonde, with a large number of
others bearing on the history of Ireland from the time of Queen
Elizabeth, comprised in thirty volumes folio and quarto. In the
following year, shortly before his death (which occurred on April 2,
1754) he forwarded twenty-six more of his Irish volumes, in folio,
marked A, B, C, D, &c. And in 1757 nine more of the same series were
forwarded by his widow from Caldecot, near Abingdon, according to an
entry in the old Catalogue, which appears to correspond to one in the
annual Register to the effect that four more boxes were forwarded by the
executors, 'by order of Rev. Mr. Hill.' The remainder of his collections
were left in the hands of his widow, who, re-marrying to Mr. Nicholas
Jernegan, or Jerningham (of the family seated at Cossey, Norfolk),
bequeathed them, upon her death, to him, with the reversion to the
University of Oxford. While they were in Mr. Jernegan's possession they
were largely used by Macpherson for his publication of _State Papers_,
for which use of them £300 were paid; and the agreement entered into by
the publisher Cadell, when borrowing some of them for this purpose, is
preserved in the MS. Catalogue of the collection. In 1778, however, Mr.
Jernegan disposed of his life-interest to the University, for (as
Nichols[217] was informed by Price) the sum of £50, and the remainder
were consequently at once transferred to the Library. The collection
numbers altogether 180 volumes in folio, fifty-four in quarto, and seven
in octavo, besides several bundles of Carte's own papers; and is
accompanied by a very full list of contents, compiled by Carte himself,
in one folio volume. The mass of papers relating to Ireland which these
volumes contain is enormous, drawn chiefly from the stores accumulated
by Ormonde at Kilkenny Castle; to which are added miscellaneous
historical collections derived from Lords Huntingdon, Sandwich, and
Wharton. There are, also, several volumes of extracts and papers,
collected with immediate reference to Carte's _History of England_. And
a third, and especially interesting, portion consists of the papers of
Mr. David Nairne, under-secretary to James II during his exile, which
reach from 1692 to 1718, and fill two volumes in folio and eight or nine
in quarto. It was from these that Macpherson chiefly compiled his
_Original Papers_, published in 1775, in 2 vols., 4^o. A Report upon the
contents of the collection, with special reference to Ireland (omitting
the Nairne papers) was made to the Master of the Rolls by T. Duffus
Hardy, Esq., and Rev. J. S. Brewer in 1863, and was printed in the
following year, together with an extremely useful summary of the
contents of the various volumes, and a reference-table of the letters,
&c., printed by Carte in his Ormonde volumes. In consequence of this
Report, two Commissioners (the Rev. Dr. Russell, President of Maynooth,
and J. P. Prendergast, Esq.) were appointed to examine the whole series,
and select for transcription all historical and official papers of
interest relating to Ireland, with a view to the preservation of copies
in the Record Office at Dublin. Several transcribers are therefore now
continuously employed in transcribing for this purpose the papers
selected by the Commissioners. Some notice of the MSS. is to be found in
the Record Commission Report for 1800, p. 354.
[215] On Feb. 4, 1868, a scheme for the appropriation of the accumulated
fund (now amounting to about £12,000), which had been approved by the
Clarendon Trustees, was accepted by Convocation. The money is to be
applied to the erection of laboratories, &c., at the University Museum,
for the Professor of Experimental Philosophy.
[216] In the Benefaction Book this gift is entered under 1793, but it is
mentioned in the Preface to vol. iii. of the _State Papers_, dated May
29, 1786, as having been '_lately_' given. Another copy of part of the
_History_, partly written by William Edgeman, who was Hyde's secretary
at Scilly and during his first exile, came to the Library among
Rawlinson's MSS., by whom it was bought at the sale of the Chandos
Library in 1747 for £1 10_s._!
[217] _Lit. Anecd._ ii. 514.