[We believe the Quarterly Reviewer has been misinformed as to the
facts connected with the transfer of the Royal Library to the
British Museum. We have reason to know that George IV., being
unwilling to continue the expense of maintaining the Library,
which he claimed to treat, not as a heirloom of the crown, but as
his own private inheritance, entertained a proposal for its
purchase from the Russian Government. This having come to the
knowledge of Lord Liverpool (through Dibdin, from Lady Spencer, to
whom it had been mentioned by the Princess Lieven), the projected
sale was, on the remonstrance of the Minister, abandoned, and the
Library presented to the nation. The King thus got rid of the
annual expenses; and although we do not believe that any bargain
was made upon the subject, it is not unlikely that the Ministry
felt that this surrender of the Library to the country gave the
King some claim to assistance towards the liquidation of his
debts, and that such assistance was accordingly furnished. Even if
this were so, though the result might be the same, the transaction
is a very different one from the direct bargain and sale described
in the _Quarterly Review_.]
In justice to Kind George IV., the letter which he addressed to the late
Earl of Liverpool, on _presenting_ the books to his own subjects, should
be printed in your columns. I saw the autograph letter soon after it was
written, and a copy of it would be very easily met with.
Would it not have been both desirable and very advantageous, to have
converted the banqueting room at Whitehall into a receptacle for this
magnificent collection, which would doubtless have been augmented from
time to time?
Instead of concentrating such vast literary treasures at the Museum,
might it not have been expedient to diffuse them partially over this
immense metropolis?
To Peers and M. P.'s, especially, a fine library at Whitehall would be a
great boon. The present chapel was never consecrated, and its beautiful
ceiling is little suited to a house of prayer.