THE FOUNDER OF THE GRENVILLE LIBRARY.
‘He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one,
Exceeding wise, fairspoken, and persuading;
Crabbed, mayhap, to them that loved him not;
But to those men that sought him, sweet as Summer.’—
_Henry VIII._
‘If a man be not permitted to change his political opinions—when he
has arrived at years of discretion—he must be born a SOLOMON.’—
W. F. HOOK, _Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury_, (vol. viii, p.
237).
_The_ GRENVILLES _and their Influence on the Political Aspect of the
Georgian Reigns.—The Public and Literary Life of the Right
Honourable Thomas_ GRENVILLE.—_History of the_ GRENVILLE
_Library_.
It was the singular fortune of Thomas GRENVILLE to belong to a family
which has given almost half a score of ministers to England; to possess
in himself large diplomatic ability; and to have been gifted—his
political opponents themselves being judges—with considerable talents
for administration; and yet, in the course of a life protracted to more
than ninety years, to have been an _active_ diplomatist during less than
one year, and to have been a Minister of State less than half a year. It
is true that he was of that happy temperament which both enables and
tempts a man to carve out delightful occupation for himself. He had,
too, those rarely combined gifts of taste, fortune, and public spirit,
which inspire their possessor with the will, and confer upon him the
power, to make his personal enjoyments largely contribute (both in his
own time and after it) to the enjoyments of his fellow-countrymen. It
might be true, therefore, to say that Thomas GRENVILLE was the happier
and the better for his exclusion, during almost forty-nine-fiftieths of
his long life, from the public service. [Sidenote: WHAT WAS IT THAT KEPT
THOMAS GRENVILLE ALOOF FROM POLITICAL OFFICE?] But it can hardly be rash
to say that England must needs have been somewhat the worse for that
exclusion.
Nor was it altogether a self-imposed exclusion. There was among its
causes a curious conjunction of outward accidents and of philosophic
self-resignation to their results. Untoward chances abroad twice broke
off the foreign embassies of this eminent man. Unforeseen political
complications amongst Whigs and semi-Whigs twice deprived him of cabinet
office at home. But, no doubt, neither shipwreck at sea nor party
intrigue on land would have been potent enough to keep Thomas GRENVILLE
out of high State employment, but for the personal fastidiousness which
withheld him from stretching out his hand, with any eagerness, to grasp
it.
[Sidenote: THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF THE GRENVILLE FAMILY; ITS DURATION
AND ITS PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS.]
It would, perhaps, be hard to lay the finger on any one family recorded
in the ‘_British Peerage_’ which so long and so largely influenced our
political history, in the Georgian era of it, as did that of GRENVILLE.
During the century (speaking roundly) which began with the suppression
of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, and ended with the Repeal of the Corn
Laws, GRENVILLES are continually prominent in every important political
struggle. The personal influence and (for lack of a plainer word) the
characteristic ‘idiosyncrasy’ of individual GRENVILLES notoriously
shaped, or materially helped to shape, several measures that have had
world-wide results. But perhaps the most curious feature in their
political history as a family is this: At almost every great crisis in
affairs one GRENVILLE, of ability and prominence, is seen in tolerably
active opposition to the rest of the GRENVILLES. In the political
history of the man who forms the subject of this brief memoir the family
peculiarity, it will be seen, came out saliently.
The political GRENVILLES were offshoots of an old stock which, in the
days of eld, were richer in gallant soldiers than in peace-loving
publicists. The old GRENVILLES dealt many a shrewd swordthrust for
England by land and by sea, in the Tudor times, and earlier. The younger
branch has been rich in statesmen and rich in scholars. Not a few of
them have shone equally and at once in either path of labour.
[Sidenote: PARENTAGE AND EARLY LIFE OF THOMAS GRENVILLE.]
Thomas GRENVILLE was the second son of the Minister of GEORGE THE THIRD,
George GRENVILLE,—himself the second son of Richard GRENVILLE, of
Wotton, and of Hester TEMPLE (co-heiress of Richard TEMPLE, Lord Cobham,
and herself created Countess TEMPLE in 1749). He was born on the
thirty-first of December, 1755, and entered Parliament soon after
attaining his majority. In the House of Commons he voted and acted as a
follower of Lord ROCKINGHAM and a comrade of Charles FOX, in opposition
to the other GRENVILLES and the ‘Grenvillite’ party. Had the famous
India Bill of FOX’S ministry been carried into a law, Thomas GRENVILLE,
it was understood, would have been the first Governor-General of India
under its rule.
[Sidenote: HIS SHORT DIPLOMATIC CAREER.]
His first entrance into the diplomatic service was made in 1782. His
mission was to Paris. Its purpose, to negotiate with Benjamin FRANKLIN a
treaty of peace with America. [Sidenote: See above, Book II, Chap. III,
page 431.] The circumstances beneath the influence of which it was
undertaken I have had occasion to advert to, already, in the notice of
Lord SHELBURNE. It is needless to return to them now.
Thomas GRENVILLE’S union in the double negotiation with Mr. OSWALD
(instructed by SHELBURNE, it will be remembered, as GRENVILLE was by
FOX) proved to be very distasteful to him. From the beginning it boded
ill to the success of the mission. As early as the 4th of June, 1782, we
find Mr. GRENVILLE writing to FOX [Sidenote: THE MISSION TO PARIS,
1782–3.] thus:—‘I entreat you earnestly to see the impossibility of my
assisting you under this contrariety.... I cannot fight a daily battle
with Mr. OSWALD and his Secretary.[44] [Sidenote: T. Grenville to Fox;
4th June, 1782.] It would be neither for the advantage of the business,
for your interest, or for your credit or mine; and, even if it was, _I_
could not do it.’
The then existing arrangements of the Secretaryship of State gave the
control of a negotiation with _France_ to one Secretary, and of a
negotiation with _America_ to the other. The reader has but to call to
mind the well-known political relationship between FOX and SHELBURNE in
1782, to gain a fully sufficient key to the consequent diplomatic
relationship between OSWALD and Thomas GRENVILLE, when thus engaged in
carrying on, abreast, a double mission at the Court of Paris. [Sidenote:
Comp. also same to same, June 16. (_Court and Cabinets_ of Geo. III, pp.
36–51.)] To add to the obvious embroilment, OSWALD had shortly before
received from Benjamin FRANKLIN a suggestion that Britain should
‘spontaneously’ cede Canada, in order to enable his astute countrymen at
home the better to compensate both the plundered Royalists and those
among the victorious opponents of those Royalists who had, from time to
time, sustained any damage at the hands of the British armies.
The most earnest entreaties, from many quarters, were used to induce
GRENVILLE to remain at Paris. His political friends, and his family
connections, were, on that point, alike urgent. But all entreaties were
in vain. When the news reached him of Lord ROCKINGHAM’S death, and of
the break-up in the Cabinet which followed, his decision was, if
possible, more decided. He still clave to FOX, while his brother, Lord
TEMPLE, accepted from SHELBURNE the Lieutenancy of Ireland. A Lordship
of the Treasury or the Irish Secretaryship was by turns pressed upon Mr.
GRENVILLE by Lord TEMPLE with an earnestness which may be called
passionate. [Sidenote: Lord Temple to T. Grenville, 12th July.] ‘Let me
hope,’ said he, ‘that you will feel that satisfaction that every [other]
member of my family most earnestly feels at my acceptance of the
Lieutenancy of Ireland.... I conjure you, by everything that you prize
nearest and dearest to your heart; by the joy I have ever felt in your
welfare; by the interest I have ever taken in your uneasiness; weigh
well your determination; it decides the complexion of my future
hours.... I have staked my happiness upon this cast.’ The resolve of
Thomas GRENVILLE to adhere to the position he had taken was the cause of
a family estrangement which endured for many years. But the more a
reader, familiar with the annals of the time (and especially if he be
also familiar with the personal history of Lord TEMPLE before and
after), may study Lord TEMPLE’S letters of 1782, the less he is likely
to wonder that the peculiar line of argument they develope failed to
attain the aim they had in view. The vein that runs through them is
plainly that of personal ambition; not of an adherence—at any cost—to a
sincere conviction, whether right or wrong, of public duty. Such a line
of argument was, at no time, the line likely to commend itself to Thomas
GRENVILLE. Both his virtues, and what by many politicians will be
regarded as his weaknesses, alike armed him against obvious appeals to
mere self-interest or self-aggrandisement.
One result—and the not unanticipated result—of the family estrangement
of 1782 was that, two years later, Mr. GRENVILLE found himself to have
no longer the command of a seat in Parliament. [Sidenote: THE WITHDRAWAL
FROM PARLIAMENT, 1784–90.] For four years to come he gave most of his
leisure to a pursuit which he loved much better—as far as personal taste
was concerned—namely, to the resumption of his systematic studies in
classical literature. But in 1790 he was elected a burgess for the town
of Aldborough. Thenceforward, and for a good many years, politics again
shared his time with literature, and with those social claims and duties
to which no man of his day was more keenly alive.
In 1795 a second diplomatic mission was offered to him, and it was
accepted. In the interval, another and more lasting change had come
across his career in Parliament. He was one of the many ‘Foxites’ who
utterly disapproved the course which their old leader adopted in regard
to the French Revolution and to the rising passion to glorify and to
imitate it at home. To the ‘Man of the People’ (as he was very
fancifully called), the English countershock to the French overturn was,
in one sense, specially fatal. It ripened peculiar, though hitherto in
some degree latent, weaknesses. And with these, when they became
salient, Thomas GRENVILLE had really as little fellow-feeling as had
Edmund BURKE. Alike both men now supported PITT, with whom, as
experience increased and judgment matured, they both had always had
intrinsically far more in common. And among the results of the new
political relationships came a restoration of family harmony. George
GRENVILLE became PITT’S Foreign Secretary; Thomas GRENVILLE became
PITT’S Minister to the Court of Berlin. One year later, he again sat in
Parliament for Buckingham.
The mission to Berlin was first impeded by a threatened shipwreck among
icebergs at sea, and, when that impediment had been with difficulty
overcome, the journey was again and more seriously obstructed by an
actual shipwreck upon the coast of Flanders. [Sidenote: THE MISSION TO
BERLIN, 1795.] Mr. GRENVILLE’S life was exposed to imminent danger.
After a desperate effort, he succeeded in saving his despatches and in
scrambling to land. But he saved nothing else; and the inevitable delay
enabled the French Directory to send SIÈYES to Berlin, in advance of the
ambassador of Britain. The able and versatile Frenchman made the best of
his priority. Mr. GRENVILLE was not found wanting in exertion, any more
than in ability. But in the then posture of affairs the advantage in
point of time, proved to be an advantage which no skill of fence could
afterwards recover. Hence it was that the mission of 1795 became
practically an abortive mission. With it ended the ambassador’s
diplomatic career.
[Sidenote: THE CABINET OF 1806.]
Almost equally brief was his subsequent actively official career in
England. On the formation of Lord GRENVILLE’S Cabinet (February, 1806),
no office was taken by the Premier’s next brother. But on the death of
FOX, six months later, he became First Lord of the Admiralty. That
office he held until the formation of the Tory Government, in the month
of April, 1807. It was too brief a term to give him any adequate
opportunity of really evincing his administrative powers. And during
almost forty remaining years of life he never took office again,
contenting himself with that now nominal function (conferred on him in
the year 1800), [Sidenote: THE ‘CHIEF-JUSTICESHIP IN EYRE,’ SOUTH OF
TRENT. 1800–1845.] the ‘Chief-Justiceship in Eyre, to the south of the
river Trent,’ of the profits of which, as will be seen presently, he
made a noble use. That office in Eyre had once been a function of real
gravity and potency. It was still a surviving link between the feudal
England of the Henrys and the Edwards, on the one hand, and the
industrial England of the Georges on the other. Under a king who could
govern, as well as reign, the ‘Chief-Justiceship in Eyre’ might have
shown itself, in one particular, to possess a real and precious vitality
still. By possibility, the sports of twelfth century and chase-loving
monarchs might have been made to alleviate the toils, to brighten the
leisure, and to lengthen the lives, of nineteenth-century and
hard-toiling artisans. [Sidenote: THE CHIEF-JUSTICESHIP IN EYRE, AND
WHAT MIGHT HAVE COME OF ITS PERPETUATION.] For in exerting the still
_legal_ powers (long dormant, but not abolished) of the forest
justiceship, a potent check might have been provided against the
profligate, although now common, abuse of the powers entrusted by
Parliament to the Board of Woods and Forests. No new legislation was
wanted to save many splendid tracts of forest land (over which the Crown
then—and as well in 1845, as in 1800—possessed what might have been
indestructible ‘forestal rights’), for public enjoyment for ever.
Existing laws would have sufficed. But no blame on this score lies at
the charge of the then Chief Justice in Eyre. Had Mr. GRENVILLE, for
example, ever conceived the idea of using the Forest Laws to preserve
for the English people, we will say, Epping Forest, or any other like
sylvan tract on this side of Trent, as a ‘People’s Park’ for ever, he
would have been laughed at as a Quixote. If Parliament in 1870 is fast
becoming alive to the misconduct of those ‘Commissioners’ who have dealt
with the Forestal rights of the Crown exactly in the spirit of the
pettiest of village shopkeepers, rather than in the spirit of Ministers
of State, there was in Mr. GRENVILLE’S time scarcely the faintest
whisper of any such conviction of public duty in regard to that matter.
Not one Member of Parliament, I think, had ever (at that time) pointed
out the gross hypocrisy, as well as the folly, of _selling_ by the hands
of one public board and for a few pounds hundreds of acres of ancient
and lovely woodlands, and then presently _buying_, by the hands of
another public board, acres of dreary and almost unimprovable barrenness
by the expenditure of several thousands of pounds, in order to provide
new recreation grounds for ‘public enjoyment!’
Of that forestal Chief-Justiceship Mr. GRENVILLE was the last holder.
The office had been established by WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. It was
abolished by Queen VICTORIA. One of the chief pursuits of those forty
years of retirement which ensued to the founder of the Grenville
Library, upon the breaking up of the Grenville Administration of 1806,
was book-buying and book-reading. ‘A great part of my Library’—so wrote
Mr. GRENVILLE, in 1845—‘has been purchased by the profits of a sinecure
office given me by the Public.’ If that sinecure was not and, under the
then circumstances, could not have been by its holder’s action or
foresight, made the means of preserving for public enjoyment such of the
ancient forests as, early in this century, were still intact in beauty,
and also lay near to crowded and more or less unhealthy towns, it was at
least made the means of giving to the nation a garden for the mind. ‘I
feel it,’ continued Mr. GRENVILLE, in his document of 1845, [Sidenote:
_Will of the Rt. Hon. T. Grenville_; Oct., 1845.] ‘to be a debt and a
duty that I should acknowledge my obligation by giving the Library so
acquired to the BRITISH MUSEUM for the use of the Public.’
[Sidenote: MR. T. GRENVILLE’S INTERCOURSE WITH, AND ESTEEM FOR, SIR A.
PANIZZI.]
I have had occasion, already, to mention that many years before his
death Mr. GRENVILLE formed a very high estimate of the eminent
attainments and still more eminent public services of Sir A. PANIZZI. No
man had a better opportunity of knowing, intimately, the merits of the
then Assistant-Keeper of the printed portion of our National Library.
Mr. GRENVILLE showed his estimate in a conclusive and very
characteristic way. [Sidenote: _Minutes of Inquiry_, &c., 1848, and
subsequent years, pp. 141, seqq.] He had earnestly supported (in the
year 1835) the proposal of a Sub-committee of Trustees that Mr.
PANIZZI’S early services—more especially in relation to the cataloguing
of what are known, at the Museum, as ‘the French Tracts,’ but also as to
other labours—should be substantially recognised by an improvement of
his salary. At a larger meeting, the recommendation of the smaller
sub-committee was cordially adopted in the honorary point of view, but
was set virtually aside, in respect to the ‘honorarium,’ That latter
step Mr. GRENVILLE so resented that he rose from the table, and never
sat at a Trustee meeting again. [Sidenote: _Minutes of Evidence_, as
above.] He many times afterwards visited the Museum; and I well remember
the impression made upon my own mind by his noble appearance, at almost
ninety years of age, on one of the latest of those visits—not very long
before his death. But in the Committee Room he never once sat, during
the last eleven years of his life.
[Sidenote: CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH MARKED THE GIFT TO THE NATION OF THE
GRENVILLE LIBRARY.]
The fact being so, Readers unfamiliar with the ‘blue-books’ will learn
without surprise that a conversation between Mr. GRENVILLE and Mr.
PANIZZI, in Hamilton Place, was the prelude to his noble public gift of
1846. That conversation took place in the autumn of 1845. [Sidenote:
Ibid.; and comp. p. 780 of the _Minutes_ of 1849.] He, in the course of
it, assured Mr. PANIZZI (by that time at the head of the Printed Book
Department) of his settled purpose, and evinced a desire that his
Library should be preserved apart from the mass of the National
Collection. He then remarked, ‘You will have a great many duplicate
books, and you will sell them,’ speaking in a tone of inquiry. ‘No,’
replied PANIZZI, the ‘Trustees will never sell books that are given to
them.’ Mr. GRENVILLE rejoined with an evident relief of mind, ‘Well, so
much the better.’ Long afterwards, when visiting Mr. PANIZZI in his
private study, he asked the question—‘Where are you going to put my
books? I see your rooms are already full.’ He was taken to the long,
capacious, but certainly not very sightly, ‘slip,’ contrived by Sir R.
SMIRKE on the eastern outskirt of the noble King’s Library. [Sidenote:
See the Plan, hereafter.] ‘Well,’ was the Keeper’s reply, ‘if we can’t
do better, we will put them _here_; and, as you see, my room is close
by. Here, for a time, they will at least be under my own eye,’ The good
and generous book-lover went away with a smile on his genial face, well
assured that his books would be gratefully cared for.
[Sidenote: THE RECEPTION AT THE MUSEUM OF THE GRENVILLE COLLECTION.]
Mr. GRENVILLE died on the 17th of December, 1846. On the day of his
death it chanced that the present writer was engaged on a review-article
about the history of the Museum Library. Ere many days were past it was
his pleasant task to add a paragraph—the first that was written on the
subject—respecting the new gift to the Public. But an accident delayed
the publication of that article until the following summer.
Meanwhile, the final day of the reception of the books—a dreary, snowy
day of the close of February—was, to us of the Museum Library, a sort of
holiday within-doors. Very little work was done that day; but many
choice rarities in literature, and some in art, were eagerly examined.
All who survive will remember it as I do. To lovers of books, such a day
was like a glimpse of summer sunshine interposed in the thick of winter.
To tell what little can here be told of the history and character of the
Grenville Library in other words than in those well-considered and
appropriate words which were employed by the man who had had so much
delightful intercourse with the Collector himself, and to whom belongs a
part of the merit of the gift, would be an impertinence. [Sidenote:
PANIZZI’S ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE CHOICEST BOOKS IN THE GRENVILLE
LIBRARY.] In his report on the accessions of the year 1847, Mr. PANIZZI
wrote thus:—‘It would naturally be expected that one of the editors of
the “Adelphi _Homer_” would lose no opportunity of collecting the best
and rarest editions of the Prince of Poets. ÆSOP, a favourite author of
Mr. GRENVILLE, occurs in his Library in its rarest forms; there is no
doubt that the series of editions of this author in that Library is
unrivalled. The great admiration which Mr. GRENVILLE felt for Cardinal
XIMENES, even more on account of the splendid edition of the Polyglot
_Bible_ which that prelate caused to be printed at Alcala, than of his
public character, made him look upon the acquisition of the _Moschus_, a
book of extreme rarity, as a piece of good fortune. Among the extremely
rare editions of the Latin Classics, in which the Grenville Library
abounds, the unique complete copy of AZZOGUIDI’S first edition of _Ovid_
is a gem well deserving particular notice, and was considered on the
whole, by Mr. GRENVILLE himself, the boast of his collection. The Aldine
_Virgil_ of 1505, the rarest of the Aldine editions of this poet, is the
more welcome to the Museum as it serves to supply a lacuna; the copy
mentioned in the Catalogue of the Royal Collection not having been
transferred to the National Library.
‘The rarest editions of English Poets claimed and obtained the special
attention of Mr. GRENVILLE. Hence we find him possessing not only the
first and second edition of CHAUCER’S _Canterbury Tales_ by CAXTON, but
the only copy known of an hitherto undiscovered edition of the same work
printed in 1498, by WYNKYN DE WORDE. Of SHAKESPEARE’S collected Dramatic
Works, the Grenville Library contains a copy of the first edition,
which, if not the finest known, is at all events surpassed by none. His
strong religious feelings and his sincere attachment to the Established
Church, as well as his knowledge and mastery of the English language,
concurred in making him eager to possess the earliest as well as the
rarest editions of the translations of the Scriptures in the vernacular
tongue. [Sidenote: Panizzi’s _Report_, in the _Annual Returns_ of 1847,
passim.] He succeeded to a great extent; but what deserves particular
mention is the only known fragment of the _New Testament_ in English,
translated by TYNDALE and ROY, which was in the press of QUENTELL, at
Cologne, in 1525, when the translators were obliged to interrupt the
printing, and fly to escape persecution.
‘The History of the British Empire, and whatever could illustrate any of
its different portions, were the subject of Mr. GRENVILLE’S unremitting
research, and he allowed nothing to escape him deserving to be
preserved, however rare and expensive. Hence his collection of works on
the Divorce of HENRY VIII; that of Voyages and Travels, either by
Englishmen, or to countries at some time more or less connected with
England, or possessed by her; that of contemporary works on the
gathering, advance, and defeat of the “Invincible Armada;” and that of
writings on Ireland;—are more numerous, more valuable, and more
interesting, than in any other collection ever made by any person on the
same subjects. Among the Voyages and Travels, the collections of DE BRY
and HULSIUS are the finest in the world; no other Library can boast of
four such fine books as the copies of HARIOT’S _Virginia_, in Latin,
German, French, and English, of the DE BRY series. And it was fitting
that in Mr. GRENVILLE’S Library should be found one of the only two
copies known of the first edition of this work, printed in London in
1588, wherein an account is given of a colony which had been founded by
his family namesake. Sir Richard GRENVILLE.
‘Conversant with the Language and Literature of Spain, as well as with
that of Italy, the works of imagination by writers of those two
countries are better represented in his Library than in any other out of
Spain and Italy; in some branches better even than in any single Library
in the countries themselves. No Italian collection can boast of such a
splendid series of early editions of ARIOSTO’S _Orlando_, one of Mr.
GRENVILLE’S favourite authors, nor, indeed, of such choice Romance
Poems. The copy of the first edition of ARIOSTO is not to be matched for
beauty; of that of Rome, 1533, even the existence was hitherto unknown.
A perfect copy of the first complete edition of the _Morgante Maggiore_,
of 1482, was also not known to exist before Mr. GRENVILLE succeeded in
procuring his. Among the Spanish Romances, the copy of that of _Tirant
lo Blanch_, printed at Valencia, in 1490, is as fine, as clean, and as
white, as when it first issued from the press; and no second copy of
this edition of a work professedly translated from English into
Portuguese, and thence into Valencian, is known to exist except in the
Library of the Sapienza, at Rome.
‘But where there is nothing common, it is almost depreciating a
collection to enumerate a few articles as rare. It is a marked feature
of this Library, that Mr. GRENVILLE did not collect mere bibliographical
rarities. He never aimed at having a complete set of the editions from
the press of CAXTON or ALDUS; but _Chaucer_ and _Gower_ by CAXTON were
readily purchased, as well as other works which were desirable on other
accounts, besides that of having issued from the press of that printer;
and, when possible, select copies were procured. Some of the rarest, and
these the finest, Aldine editions were purchased by him, for the same
reasons. The _Horæ_ in Greek, printed by ALDUS in 16º, in 1497, is a
volume which, from its language, size, and rarity, is of the greatest
importance for the literary and religious history of the time when it
was printed. It is therefore in Mr. GRENVILLE’S Library. The _Virgil_ of
1501 is not only an elegant book, but it is the first book printed with
that peculiar _Italic_, known as Aldine, and the first volume which
ALDUS printed, “_forma enchiridii_,” as he called it, being expressly
adapted to give poor scholars the means of purchasing for a small sum
the works of the classical writers. This also is, therefore, among Mr.
GRENVILLE’S books; and of one of the two editions of _Virgil_, both
dated the same year, 1514, he purchased a large paper copy, because it
was the more correct of the two.
‘It was the merit of the work, the elegance of the volume, the “genuine”
condition of the copy, &c., which together determined Mr. GRENVILLE to
purchase books printed on vellum, of which he collected nearly a
hundred. He paid a very large sum for a copy of the Furioso of 1532, not
because it was “on ugly vellum,” as he very properly designated it, but
because, knowing the importance of such an edition of such a work, and
never having succeeded in procuring it on paper, he would rather have it
on expensive terms and “ugly vellum,” than not at all.
‘By the bequest of Mr. GRENVILLE’S Library, the collection of books
printed on vellum now at the Museum, and comprising those formerly
presented by GEORGE II, GEORGE III, and Mr. CRACHERODE, is believed to
surpass that of any other National Library, except the King’s Library at
Paris, of which VAN PRAET justly speaks with pride, and all foreign
competent and intelligent judges with envy and admiration. In justice to
the Grenville Library, the list of all its vellum books ought to be here
inserted. As this cannot be done, some only of the most remarkable shall
be mentioned. These are—the Greek _Anthology_ of 1494; the _Book of
Hawking_ of JULIANA BERNERS of 1496; the first edition of the _Bible_,
known as the “Mazarine Bible,” printed at Mentz about 1454; the Aldine
_Dante_ of 1502; the first _Rationale_ of DURANDUS of 1459; the first
edition of FISHER _On the Psalms_, of 1508; the Aldine _Horace_,
_Juvenal_, _Martial_, and _Petrarca_, of 1501; the _Livy_ of 1469; the
_Primer of Salisbury_, printed in Paris in 1531; the _Psalter_ of 1457,
which supplies the place of the one now at Windsor, which belonged to
the Royal Collection before it was transferred to the British Museum;
the _Sforziada_, by SIMONETA, of 1490, a most splendid volume even in so
splendid a Library; the _Theuerdank_ of 1517; the _Aulus Gellius_ and
the _Vitruvius_ of Giunta, printed in 1515, &c. &c. Of this identical
copy of _Vitruvius_, formerly Mr. DENT’S, the author of the
_Bibliographical Decameron_ wrote, “Let the enthusiastic admirers of a
genuine vellum Junta—of the amplest size and in spotless
condition—resort to the choice cabinet of Mr. DENT for such a copy of
this edition of Vitruvius and Frontinus.” [Sidenote: Panizzi’s _Report
to Parliament_, as above.] The _Aulus Gellius_ is in its original state,
exactly as it was when presented to LORENZO DE’ MEDICI, afterwards Duke
of Urbino, to whom the edition was dedicated.’