(Vol. iii., p. 427.)
In the following passage (extracted from the _Quarterly Review_, No.
CLXXV., Dec. 1850, p. 143.) it is declared that the nation _did_ "pay"
for this "munificent present." The writer is understood to be Mr. R.
Ford; and if his statement is not refuted, the business will henceforth
take its place as a sale which the nation was duped into regarding as a
gift:--
"The secret history," says the reviewer, "was this: King George
IV., having some pressing call for money, did not decline a
proposition for selling the library to the Emperor of Russia. Mr.
_Heber_, having ascertained that the books were actually booked
for the Baltic, went to Lord _Sidmouth_, then Home Secretary, and
stated the case; observing what a shame it would be that such a
collection should go out of the country: to which Lord Sidmouth
replied: 'Mr. Heber, it shall not!'--and it did not. On the
remonstrance of Lord Sidmouth, of whose manly and straightforward
character George IV. was very properly in awe, the last of the
_grands monarques presented_ the books to the British Museum, _on
the condition_ that the value of the rubles they were to have
fetched should be somehow or other made good to him by ministers
in pounds sterling. This was done out of the surplus of certain
funds furnished by France for the compensation of losses by the
Revolution. But his ministers, on a hint from the House of Commons
that it was necessary to refund those monies, had recourse, we are
told, to the droits of the Admiralty."
So that the books were not given, but paid for, out of public monies:
which ministers could not have made the object of a bargain, had they
been the king's, and not the nation's. And the inscription in the
Museum--like many others--"lifts its head and lies," _i. e._ unless the
_Quarterly Review_ has been inventing a story, instead of telling a true
bit of secret history, decidedly worth noting if true.