Such a fact is a conclusive proof of magnanimity of spirit, whatever may

be thought of its bearings in regard to political insight. [Sidenote:

COLONIZING EFFORTS OF LORD ARUNDEL.] Opinion is less likely to differ

with respect to exertions of quite another order which occasionally

occupied Lord ARUNDEL’S mind and energies during at least twenty years

of his political life.

One of the best known incidents in his varied career is also one of its

most honourable incidents. His friendship for RALEGH grew out of a deep

interest in colonization. And the calamitous issue of that famous voyage

to Guiana in 1617 which ARUNDEL had promoted was very far from inducing

him to abandon the earnest advocacy of a resumption, in subsequent

years, of the enterprise which RALEGH had had so much at heart. His

efforts were more than once repeated, but the same influences which

ruined RALEGH foiled the exertions of ARUNDEL and of those who worked

with him.

[Sidenote: _Grant Book_, James I, pp. 307, seqq. _Domest. Corresp._,

James I, vol. cviii, § 85.]

He then turned his attention towards the wide field of colonial

enterprise which presented itself in New England. From the autumn of

1620 until the summer of 1635 he, from time to time, actively supported

the endeavours of the ‘Council for the Planting of New England.’

[Sidenote: _Proclamation Book_, May 15, 1620. (R. H.)] The Minute in

which that Council summed up the causes which induced it, at the date

last-named, to resign its charter is an instructive one. [Sidenote:

SURRENDER OF THE NEW ENGLAND CHARTER.] It expresses, in few words, the

views of Lord ARUNDEL and of his ablest fellows at the board:—‘We have

found,’ say the Councillors, in their final Minute, ‘that our endeavours

to advance the plantation of New England have been attended with

frequent troubles and great disappointments. We have been deprived of

near friends and faithful servants employed in that work. We have been

assaulted with sharp litigious questions before the Privy Council by the

Virginia Company, who had complained to Parliament that our Plantation

was a grievance.’ They proceed to say that a promising settlement which

had been established, under the governorship of Captain GORGES in

Massachusetts Bay, had been violently broken up by a body of speculative

intruders who, without the knowledge of the Council of New England, had

found means to obtain a royal ‘grant of some three thousand miles of the

sea-coast.’ Finding it by far too great a task, for their means, to

restore what had thus been brought to ruin, ARUNDEL, and his

fellow-councillors were constrained to resign their charter.

[Sidenote: _Colonial Papers_, vol. viii, § 58. (R. H.)]

Four years later the Earl formed an elaborate plan for the colonization

of Madagascar. But the events of 1639–40 soon made its effectual

prosecution hopeless.

The latest notice we have of the Earl of ARUNDEL, from the hand of any

eminent contemporary, occurs in the Diary of John EVELYN, and is dated

six months before the Earl’s death. [Sidenote: DEATH AT PADUA, 1646.] In

June of the preceding year (1645) EVELYN had paid a visit to Lord

ARUNDEL at his house in Padua, and had then accompanied him to a famous

garden in that city known as the ‘Garden of Mantua.’ [Sidenote: Evelyn,

_Diary_, vol. 1, p. 212.] They had also explored together some ancient

ruins lying near the Palace of Foscari all’ Arena. When EVELYN renewed

his visit in March, 1646, the Earl was no longer able to leave the

house. [Sidenote: _Ibid._, pp. 218, 219.] ‘I took my leave of him,’ says

the diarist, ‘in his bed, where I left that great and excellent man in

tears, on some private discourse of crosses that had befallen his

family, particularly the undutifulness of his grandson, Philip, turning

Dominican friar; and the misery of his country, now embroiled in civil

war. He caused his gentleman to give me directions, written with his own

hand, what curiosities I should inquire after in my journey; and

so—enjoyning me to write sometimes to him—I departed.’ The Earl died at

Padua on the 24th September, 1646, having entered into the sixty-second

year of his age. In compliance with the directions of his Will his

remains were brought to England and buried at Arundel.

It remains only to add a few particulars of the character and sources of

the splendid collections which the Earl of ARUNDEL, by the persistent

labours and the lavish expenditure of more than thirty years, had

amassed. The surviving materials for such an account are, however, very

fragmentary. [Sidenote: NOTICES OF THE ARUNDELIAN COLLECTIONS.] Those

which are of chief interest occur in the correspondence which passed

between the Earl and Sir Thomas ROE during the embassy of that eminent

diplomatist to the Ottoman Porte in the years 1626–1628.

The Earl’s zeal as a collector, and the public attention which his

personal successes in that character during his Italian travels had soon

attracted, naturally excited a like ambition on the part of several of

his contemporaries. Conspicuous in this respect were his brother-in-law

the Earl of PEMBROKE, and his political rival and enemy the Duke of

BUCKINGHAM. ARUNDEL’S success in amassing many fine pictures had, in

like manner, already attracted the attention of Prince CHARLES to that

peculiarly fascinating branch of collectorship.

[Sidenote: CORRESPONDENCE WITH SIR THOMAS ROE.]

When Sir Thomas ROE set out for Constantinople he was charged with

commissions to search for antiquities on BUCKINGHAM’S behalf, as well as

on Lord ARUNDEL’S. He was himself a novice in such inquiries. He had to

encounter excessive difficulties from the jealousy, and sometimes the

dishonesty, of the Turkish and other agents whom he was obliged to

employ. Most of them were stubborn in their belief that a search for old

marbles did but mask the pursuit of buried treasure of greater currency.

And to difficulties of this sort was added a standing fear that every

service rendered to the Earl Marshal might be esteemed an offence to the

powerful favourite at Whitehall.

To an urgent letter which he had received from ARUNDEL just as he was

embarking, Sir Thomas replied, from Constantinople, in January, 1622. ‘I

moved our Consul, Richard MILWARD, at Scio, whom I found prepared and

ready,’ he reports. ‘We conferred about “the Maid of Smirna” which he

cannot yet obteyne, without an especiall command [from the Porte]. I

brought with mee from Messina the Bishop of Andre, one of the islands of

the Arches, a man of good learning and great experience in these parts.

Hee assured mee that the search after old and good authors was utterly

vaine.... The last French ambassador had the last gleanings. Only of

some few he gave mee notice as of an old Tertullian, and a piece of

Chrisostome ... which may be procured to be copied, but not the

originall.... Concerning antiquities in marbles, there are many in

divers parts, but especially at Delphos, unesteemed here, and, I doubt

not, easy to be procured for the charge of digging and fetching, which

must be purposely undertaken. It is supposed that many statues are

buried to secure them from the envy of the Turks, and that, leave

obteyned, [they] would come to light, which I will endeavour as soon as

I am warm here.’ After mentioning that he had already procured some

coins, he adds, with amusing naïveté, ‘I have also a stone, taken out of

the old pallace of Priam in Troy, cutt in horned shape, but because I

neither can tell of what it is, nor hath it any other bewty but only the

antiquity and truth of being a peece of that ruined and famous building,

I will not presume to send it you. [Sidenote: Sir T. Roe to Lord

Arundel, 27 Jan., 1621 [O. S.]; _Negotiations_, p. 16.] Yet I have

delivered it to the same messenger, that your Lordship may see it and

throw it away.’

Two years afterwards the ambassador has to tell Lord ARUNDEL a mingled

story of failure and success: ‘The command you required for the Greeke

to be sent into Morea I have sollicitted [of] two viziers, one after the

other, butt they both rejected mee and gave answere, that it was no tyme

to graunt such priviledges. Neare to the port they have not so great

doubt and therefore I have prevailed with another, and [have] sent Mr.

MARKHAM, assisted with a letter from the Caplen Bassa, whose

jurisdiction extends to all the islands and sea-ports.... On Asia side,

about Troy, Zizicum, and all the way to Aleppo, are innumerable pillars,

statues, and tombstones of marble, with inscriptions in Greeke.

[Sidenote: _Ibid._, 10 May, 1623, _Negotiations_, p. 154.] These may be

fetcht at charge, and secrettly; butt yf wee ask leave it cannot be

obteyned; therefore Mr. MARKHAM will use discretion rather then power,

and so the Turks will bring them for their proffitt.’

ROE’S report encouraged Lord ARUNDEL to send an agent, named PETTY, on a

special exploring mission into various parts of the Ottoman Empire. The

agent thus selected was eminently fitted for his task, and showed

himself to be a man of untiring industry. Very soon after PETTY’S

arrival at Constantinople, Sir Thomas ROE wrote to the Duke of

BUCKINGHAM an account of his successful researches, and he prefaced it

with an acknowledgement that ‘by conference with Mr. PETTY, sent hither

by my Lord of ARUNDELL, I have somewhat bettered my sckill in such

figures. We have searched all this cyttye,’ he proceeds to say, ‘and

found nothing but upon one gate, called anciently _Porta Aurea_, built

by CONSTANTINE, bewtifyed with two mighty pillars, and upon the sides

and over it, twelve tables of fine marble cutt into historyes,—some of a

very great relevo, sett into the wall with small pillars as supporters.

Most of the figures are equall; some above the life some less.

[Sidenote: Roe to the Duke of Buckingham, 11 May, 1625, _Negotiations_,

pp. 386–7.] They are—in my eye—extremely decayed, but Mr. PETTY doth so

prayse them, as that he hath not seene much better in the great and

costly collections of Italye.... The fower to which I have most

affection ... are both brave and sweete.... The relevo so high that they

are almost statues, and doe but seeme to sticke to the ground.’

In October of the same year Sir THOMAS sent an elaborate account to the

Earl of ARUNDEL of the progress made by PETTY, and of his own exertions

to provide him with every possible facility. [Sidenote: THE PROPOSED

PARTITION OF ANCIENT MARBLES BETWEEN ARUNDEL AND BUCKINGHAM.] He told

the Earl of the difficulty of his own position towards the Duke of

BUCKINGHAM, and besought him to admit of an arrangement by which the

product of the joint exertions of ambassador and agent should be divided

between the competitors. PETTY, he reports, ‘hath visited Pergamo,

Samos, Ephesus, and some other places, where he hath made your Lordship

great provisions.... I have given him forceable commands, and letters of

recommendation from the Patriarch. I have bene free and open to him in

whatsoever I knewe, and so I will continue for your Lordship’s command.

But your Lordship knowing that I have received the like from the Duke of

BUCKINGHAM, and engaged my word to doe him service hee might judge it

want of witt, or will, or creditt, if Mr. PETTY, who could doe nothing

but by mee, should take all things before or from mee. Therefore to

avoid all emulation, and that I might stand clear before two so great

and honourable patrons, I thought I had made agreement with him for all

our advantages. Therefore we resolved to take down those sixe mentioned

relevos on _Porta Aurea_, and I proceeded so far as I offered 600

dollars for four of them, to bee divided between his Grace and your

Lordship by lotts. And if your Lordship liked not the price, Mr. PETTY

had his choice to forsake them. But now, I perceave, he hath entitled

your Lordship to them all by some right that, if I could gett them, it

were an injury to divide them.... But I am sorry wee strive for the

shadowe. Your Lordship may beleeve an honest man, and your servant, I

have tried the bassa,—the capteyne of the Castle,—the overseer of the

Grand Signor’s works,—the soldiours that make that watch,—and none of

them dare meddle. They [the sculptures] stand between two mighty pillars

of marble, on other tables of marble supported with less pillars, uppon

the cheife port of the Citty, the entrance by the Castle called “The

Seaven Towres,” which was never opened since the Greeke Emperour lost

it, but a counterscarfe and another wall built before it.... There is

butt one way left in the world, which I will practice.... [Sidenote: Roe

to Arundel, 30 Oct, 1625; _Negotiations_, pp. 444–446.] If I gett them

not, I will pronounce [that] no man, no ambassadour, shall ever bee able

to doe it;—except, also, the Grand Signor, for want, will sell the

Castle.’

Just before the date of this letter PETTY had suffered shipwreck on the

coast of Asia, when returning from Samos. Together with his papers and

personal baggage, he lost the fruits of long and successful researches.

But his inexhaustible energies enabled him to recover what, to the men

about him, seemed to have hopelessly perished. He found means to raise

the buried marbles from the wreck. [Sidenote: _Ibid._, 7 April, 1626, p.

495.] ‘There was never man,’ wrote Sir Thomas ROE, with the frank

admiration of a congenial spirit, ‘so fitted to an employment; that

encounters all accidents with so unwearied patience; eates with Greekes

on their worst dayes; lyes with fishermen on plancks, at the best; is

all thinges to all men, that he may obteyne his ends, which are your

Lordship’s service.’

To Dr. GOADE, one of the chaplains of Archbishop ABBOT, Sir Thomas ROE

continued the narrative of PETTY’S zealous researches, and of the

success which attended them. ‘By my means,’ he wrote, ‘Mr. PETTY had

admittance into the best library known of Greece, where are loades of

old manuscripts, and hee used so fine arte, with the helpe of some of my

servants, that hee conveyed away twenty two. I thought I should have had

my share, but hee was for himselfe. Hee is a good chooser; saw all, or

most, and tooke, I thincke, those that were and wilbe of greate esteeme.

Hee speaketh sparingly of such a bootye, but could not conteyne sometyme

to discover with joy his treasure.... I meant to have a review of that

librarye, but hee gave it such a blow under my trust that, since, it

hath been locked up under two keys, whereof one kept by the townsmen

that have interest or oversight of the monastery, so that I could do no

good.... [Sidenote: _Ib._, p. 500.] My hope is to deale with the

Patriarch, and not to trust to myselfe, and to chances.’

In November, 1626, Sir Thomas further informed the Duke of BUCKINGHAM

that ‘Mr. PETTY hath raked together two hundred peices [of sculpture],

all broken, or few [of them] entyre.... Hee had this advantage, that hee

went himselfe into all the islands, and tooke all he saw, and is now gon

to Athens.’ [Sidenote: _Ib._, p. 570; comp. pp. 619; 647; 692, and 764.]

In subsequent letters and despatches the diplomatist returns often to

this unofficial branch of his duties, and makes it very apparent that

PETTY’S zeal had, for a time, spoiled the market of the agents who

followed in his track.

[Sidenote: LORD ARUNDEL’S RESEARCHES IN ITALY.]

Lord ARUNDEL was not less ably served by the factors and representatives

whom he employed in Italy, in Germany, and in the Netherlands. But the

story is far too long to be told in detail. [Sidenote: MSS. at Norfolk

House; printed, in Tierney’s _Arundel_, p. 489.] Their success in

collecting choice pictures and other works of art was so conspicuous

that when one of them had an interview with RUBENS at Antwerp, to give a

commission from Lord ARUNDEL, the great painter—himself, it will be

remembered, an eminent collector also—said to him: ‘I regard the Earl in

the light of an evangelist to the world of art, and as the great

supporter of our profession.’ In these artistic commissions and

researches William TRUMBULL, Edward NORGATE, Sir John BOROUGH, and Sir

Isaac WAKE, especially distinguished themselves. Their correspondence

with Lord ARUNDEL is spread over a long series of years, and it abounds

with curious illustrations of ‘the world of art,’ as it lived and moved

in the earlier part of the seventeenth century.

Among those entire collections which the Earl purchased in bulk, two are

more particularly notable—the museum, namely, of Daniel NICE, and the

library of the family of PIRCKHEIMER of Nuremberg.

NICE’S Museum was especially rich in medals and gems. [Sidenote: Evelyn

to Pepys; _Diary and Corresp._, vol. iii, p. 300.] If EVELYN’S

information about the circumstances of that acquisition was accurate, it

cost the Earl the sum—enormous, at that date—of ten thousand pounds. I

cannot, however, but suspect that into that statement some error of

figures has crept.

The acquisition of the PIRCKHEIMER Library was made by the Earl himself,

during his diplomatic mission into Germany on the affairs of the

Palatinate. In this collection some of the choicest of the Arundelian

MSS. which now enrich the British Museum were comprised. Its foundation

had been laid more than a hundred and thirty years before the date of

the Earl’s purchase. But part of the library of the first founder had

passed into the possession of the City of Nuremberg. The collection

which Lord ARUNDEL acquired was rich both in classical manuscripts and

in the materials of mediæval history.

The liberality with which these varied treasures, as they successively

arrived in London, were made accessible to scholars was in harmony with

the open-handedness by means of which they had been amassed. For a few

years Arundel House was itself an anticipatory ‘British Museum.’ Then

came the civil war. But the injury which the ARUNDEL collections

sustained from the insecurity and commotions of a turbulent time is very

insignificant, in comparison with that sustained, after the Restoration,

through the ignorance and the indolence of an unworthy inheritor.

[Sidenote: THE SUCCESSORS OF LORD ARUNDEL.]

The immediate heir and successor of Earl Thomas survived his father less

than six years. He died at Arundel House in April, 1652, leaving several

sons, of whom the two eldest, Thomas and Henry, became successively

Earls of Arundel and Dukes of Norfolk. The first of these was restored

to the dukedom in 1660. But the whole of his life, after attaining

manhood, was passed in Italy and under the heavy affliction of impaired

mental faculties, following upon an attack of brain-fever which had

seized him at Padua, in 1645. He never recovered, but died in the city

in which the disease had stricken him, lingering until the year 1677. It

was in consequence of this calamity that the inheritance of a large

portion of the Arundelian collections, and also the possession of

Arundel House in London, passed from Earl Henry-Frederick to his second

son, Henry.

We learn from many passages both in the Diary and in the Letters of John

EVELYN that, under the new owner, Arundel House and its contents were so

neglected as, at times, to lie at the mercy of a crowd of rapacious

parasites. In one place he speaks of the mansion as being infested by

‘painters, panders, and misses.’ In another he describes the library as

suffering by repeated depredations. He remonstrated with the owner, and

at length obtained from him a gift of the library for the newly-founded

Royal Society, and a gift of part of the marbles for the University of

Oxford. In his Diary he thus narrates the circumstances under which

these benefactions were made:—

[Sidenote: GIFT OF THE ARUNDEL LIBRARY TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY;]

Having mentioned that on the destruction of the meeting-place of the

Royal Society, its members ‘were invited by Mr. HOWARD to sit at Arundel

House in the Strand,’ he proceeds to say that Mr. HOWARD, ‘at my

instigation, likewise bestowed on the Society that noble library which

his grandfather especially, and his ancestors, had collected. This

gentleman had so little inclination to books that it was the

preservation of them from embezzlement.’ [Sidenote: Evelyn, _Diary,

&c._, vol. ii, p. 20.] Elsewhere he says that not a few books had

actually been lost before, by his interference, the bulk of the

collection was thus saved. The gift to the Royal Society was made at the

close of the year 1666.

[Sidenote: AND THAT OF THE MARBLES TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD.]

In September of the following year this entry occurs in the same

Diary:—‘[I went] to London, on the 19th, with Mr. Henry HOWARD of

Norfolk, of whom I obtained the gift of his Arundelian Marbles,—those

celebrated and famous inscriptions, Greek and Latin, gathered with so

much cost and industry from Greece by his illustrious grandfather the

magnificent Earl of ARUNDEL.... When I saw these precious monuments

miserably neglected, and scattered up and down about the garden and

other parts of Arundel House, and how exceedingly the corrosive air of

London impaired them, I procured him to bestow them on the University of

Oxford. This he was pleased to grant me, and now gave me the key of the

gallery, with leave to mark all those stones, urns, altars, &c., and

whatever I found had inscriptions on them, that were not statues. This I

did, and getting them removed and piled together, with those which were

encrusted in the garden-walls, I sent immediately letters to the

Vice-Chancellor of what I had procured.’ [Sidenote: _Ib._, p. 29. (edit.

1850.)] On the 8th of October he records a visit from the President of

Trinity, ‘to thank me, in the name of the Vice-Chancellor and the whole

University, and to receive my directions what was to be done to show

their gratitude to Mr. HOWARD.’

Ten months later, EVELYN records that he was called to London to wait

upon the Duke of NORFOLK. The Duke, he says, ‘having, at my sole

request, bestowed the Arundelian Library on the Royal Society, sent to

me to take charge of the books and remove them.... Many of these books

had been presented by Popes, Cardinals, and great persons, to the Earls

of ARUNDEL and Dukes of NORFOLK; and the late magnificent Earl of

ARUNDEL bought a noble library in Germany which is in this collection.

[Sidenote: _Ib._, pp. 122, 123.] I should not, for the honour I bear the

family, have persuaded the Duke to part with these, had I not seen how

negligent he was of them; suffering the priests and everybody to carry

away and dispose of what they pleased, so that abundance of rare things

are irrecoverably gone.’

A curious narrative communicated, almost a century afterwards, to the

Society of Antiquaries, by James THEOBALD, proves that in this respect

the gallery of antiquities—notwithstanding the noble benefaction to

Oxford—was even more unfortunate than the library of books. At the time

when these gifts were obtained for Oxford and for the Royal Society,

another extensive portion of the original collections had already passed

into the possession of William HOWARD, Viscount Stafford, and had been

removed to Stafford House. Lord STAFFORD was a younger son of the

collector, and appears to have received the choice artistic treasures

which long adorned his town residence by the gift of his mother.

[Sidenote: DISPERSION OF PART OF THE ARUNDEL MARBLES.] According to

EVELYN, Lady ARUNDEL also ‘scattered and squandered away innumerable

other rarities, ... whilst my Lord was in Italy.’ But in this instance

he appears to speak by hearsay, rather than from personal knowledge.

TIERNEY, the able and painstaking historian of the family, asserts that

its records contain no proof whatever of the justice of the charge.

[Sidenote: _History of Arundel_, p. 509.] And he traces the origin of

EVELYN’S statement to a passage in one of the letters of Francis JUNIUS,

in which it is said of Lady ARUNDEL that she ‘carried over a vast

treasure of rarities, and convaighed them away out of England.’ Even to

JUNIUS, notwithstanding his connection with the family, the charge may

have come but as a rumour.

Be that as it may, the subsequent dispersion of many treasures of art

which the Earl had collected with such unwearied pains and lavish

expenditure is unquestionable.

Lord Henry HOWARD, it has been shown, excepted the ‘statues’ from his

gift to the University. They remained at Arundel House, but so little

care was bestowed upon their preservation that when the same owner

afterwards obtained an Act of Parliament empowering him to build streets

on part of the site of Arundel House and Gardens, many of these statues

were broken by the throwing upon or near them of heaps of rubbish from

the excavations made, in the years 1678 and 1679, for the new buildings.

These broken statues and fragments retained beauty enough to attract

from time to time the admiration of educated eyes when such eyes chanced

to fall upon them. Those which long adorned the seat of the Earls of

POMFRET, at Easton Neston, in Oxfordshire, were purchased by Sir William

FERMOR, and were given to the University of Oxford by one of his

descendants. Others which are, or were, at Fawley Court, near Henley,

were purchased by Mr. FREEMAN. Others, again, were bought by Edmund

WALLER, the poet, for the decoration of Beaconsfield.

Still more strange was the fate which befell certain other marbles which

Lord Henry (by that time Duke of NORFOLK) caused to be removed from

Arundel House to a piece of waste ground belonging to the manor of

Kennington. These the owner seems to have regarded as little better than

lumber. It is therefore the less surprising that his servants took so

little care of them as to suffer them to be buried, in their turn,

beneath rubbish which had been brought to Kennington from St. Paul’s,

during the rebuilding of that cathedral. By-and-bye, precious marbles,

excavated amidst so many difficulties arising from Turkish barbarism in

Asia Minor, had to be re-excavated in England. Many years after their

second burial, some rumour of the circumstance came to the knowledge of

the Earl of BURLINGTON, and by his efforts and care something was

recovered. But the researches then made were, in some way, interrupted.

They were afterwards resumed by Lord PETRE. [Sidenote: Narrative by

Theobald; printed in ANECDOTES OF HOWARD FAMILY, pp. 101–120.] ‘After

six days’ of excavation and search, says an eye-witness, ‘just as the

workmen were going to give over, they fell upon something which gave

them hopes. Upon further opening the ground they discovered six

statues, ... some of a colossal size, the drapery of which was thought

to be exceeding fine.’ These went eventually to Worksop.

Some Arundelian marbles were, it is said, converted into rollers for

bowling-greens. The fragments of others lie in or beneath the

foundations of the houses in Norfolk Street and the streets adjacent.

The Stafford-House portion of the collections—which included pictures,

drawings, vases, medals, and many miscellaneous antiquities of great

curiosity—was sold by auction in 1720. At the prices of that day the

sale produced no less a sum than £8852.

The Arundelian cabinet of cameos and intaglios, now so famous under the

name of ‘The Marlborough Gems,’ was offered to the Trustees of the

British Museum for sale, at an early period in the history of the

institution. The price asked by the then possessor, the Duchess Dowager

of NORFOLK, was £10,000. But at that time the funds of the nascent

institution were inadequate to the purchase.

It affords conspicuous proof of the marvellous success which had

attended Lord ARUNDEL’S researches to find that the remnants, so to

speak, of his collections retain an almost inestimable value, after so

many losses and loppings. They are virtually priceless, even if we leave

out of view all that is now private property.

When the Arundelian MSS. were transferred, in the years 1831 and 1832,

to the British Museum, their money value—for the purposes of the

exchange as between the Royal Society and the Museum Trustees—was

estimated (according to the historian of the Royal Society) at the sum

of £3559. [Sidenote: Weld, _History of the Royal Society_, vol. ii, pp.

448, 449.] This sum was given by the Trustees, partly in money, and

partly in printed books of which the Museum possessed two or more than

two copies. The whole of the money received by the Royal Society was

expended by its Council in the purchase of other printed books. So that

both Libraries were benefited by the exchange.

It may deserve remark that a somewhat similar transfer had been

contemplated and discussed during the lifetime of the original donor.

The project, at that period, was to make an exchange between the Royal

Society and the University of Oxford. The University induced EVELYN to

recommend Lord Henry HOWARD to sanction an exchange of such MSS. ‘as

concern the civil law, theology, and other scholastic learning, for

mathematical, philosophical, and such other books as may prove most

useful to the design and institution of the Society.’ [Sidenote: Evelyn

to Howard; 14 March, 1669.] But at that time, after much conference, it

was otherwise determined.

The heraldical and genealogical books belonging to the original ARUNDEL

Library were given, at the date of the first transfer of the bulk of the

collection to the Royal Society, to the Heralds’ College. They still

form an important part of the College Library, and they include valuable

materials for the history of the family of HOWARD.

CHAPTER V.

THE COLLECTOR OF THE HARLEIAN MSS.

‘A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,

Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,

The rage of power, the blast of public breath,

The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.—

POPE, _Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford, in the Tower_.

‘Whether this man ever had any determined view besides that of

raising his family is, I believe, a problematical question in the

world. My opinion is that he never had any other.... Oxford fled

from Court covered with shame, the object of the derision of the

Whigs and of the indignation of the Tories.’—BOLINGBROKE, _Letter to

Sir W. Wyndham_.

_The_ HARLEY _Family.—Parliamentary and Official Career of Robert_

HARLEY, _Earl of Oxford.—The Party Conflicts under Queen_

ANNE.—_Robert_ HARLEY _and Jonathan_ SWIFT.—HARLEY _and the Court

of the Stuarts.—Did_ HARLEY _conspire to restore the

Pretender?—History of the Harleian Library.—The Life and

Correspondence of Humphrey_ WANLEY.

[Sidenote: BOOK I, Chap. V. THE COLLECTOR OF THE HARLEIAN MSS.]

Robert HARLEY was the eldest son of Sir Edward HARLEY, of Brampton

Bryan, in Herefordshire, by his second wife, Abigail, daughter of

Nathaniel STEPHENS, of Essington, in Gloucestershire. He was born at his

father’s town-house in Bow Street, Covent Garden, in the year 1661.

[Sidenote: THE HARLEY FAMILY.]

The HARLEYS had been a family of considerable note in Herefordshire

during several centuries. Many generations of them had sat in the House

of Commons, sometimes for boroughs, but not infrequently for their

county. Sir Edward sided with the Parliamentarians during the Civil

Wars. He was, however, one of those moderate statesmen who, in the words

of a once-celebrated clerical adherent and martyr of their party,

Christopher LOVE, judged it ‘an ill way to cure the body politic, by

cutting off the political head.’ In due time he also became one of those

‘secluded members’ of the Long Parliament who published the

‘Remonstrance’ of 1656, and who were then as strenuous—though far less

successful—in opposing what they deemed to be the tyranny of the

Protector, as they had formerly been in opposing the tyranny of the

King. Sir Edward HARLEY promoted the restoration of CHARLES THE SECOND,

and sat in all the Parliaments of that reign. He distinguished himself

as a defender of liberty of conscience in unpropitious times; and he

won, in a high degree, the respect of men who sat beside him in the

House of Commons, but were rarely counted with him upon a division.

The first public act of Robert HARLEY of which a record has been kept is

his appearance with his father, in 1688, at the head of an armed band of

tenantry and retainers, assembled in Herefordshire to support the cause

of the Prince of ORANGE, when the news had come of the Prince’s arrival

in Torbay.

[Sidenote: HARLEY’S PARLIAMENTARY CAREER.]

In the first Parliament of WILLIAM and MARY Robert HARLEY sat for

Tregony. To the second he was returned by the burgesses of New Radnor.

The first reported words of his which appear in the debates were spoken

in the course of a discussion upon the heads of a ‘Bill of Indemnity.’

‘I think,’ said he on this occasion, ‘that the King in his message has

led us. He shews us how to proceed for satisfaction of justice. There is

a crime [of which] God says, He will not pardon it. [Sidenote: Grey’s

_Debates_, vol. ix, p. 247.] ’Tis the shedding of innocent blood. A

gentleman said that the West was “a shambles.” What made that shambles?

It began in law. It was a common discourse among the Ministers that “the

King cannot have justice.”’ The debate on the Bill of Indemnity of 1690

may be looked upon as, in some sort, the foreshadowing of a long spell

of political conflict, in which Robert HARLEY was to take a conspicuous

share. Twenty seven years afterwards the strife of parties was to enter

on a new stage. Some of the men who acted as the political Mentors of

the new member of 1689–90 were to live long enough to clamour for his

execution as a traitor, and, on their failure to produce any adequate

proof that he was guilty, were to console themselves by insisting on his

exclusion from the ‘Act of Grace’ of 1717.

HARLEY won his earliest distinctions in political life by assiduous,

patient, and even drudging labour on questions of finance. [Sidenote:

MS. Harl. 7524, f. 139, seqq.] During six years, at least, he worked

zealously as one of the ‘Commissioners for stating the Public Accounts

of the Kingdom.’ In parliamentary debates on the public establishments

and expenditure he took a considerable share. As a speaker he had no

brilliancy. His usual tone and manner, we are told, were somewhat

listless and drawling. But occasionally he would speak with a certain

pith and incisiveness. [Sidenote: Grey’s _Debates_, vol. x, p. 268.]

Thus, in November, 1692, in a discussion on naval affairs, he said—‘We

have had a glorious victory at sea. But although we have had the honour,

the enemy has had the profit. They take our merchant ships.’ Again, in

the following year, when supporting the Bill for more frequent

Parliaments, he spoke thus:—‘A standing Parliament can never be a true

representative. Men are much altered after they have been here some

time. They are no longer the same men that were sent up to us.’

Of the truth of that saying, in one of its senses, HARLEY became himself

a salient instance. Bred a Whig, and during his early years acting

commonly with the Whigs, his party ties were gradually relaxed. By

temper and mental constitution he was always inclined to moderate

measures. As the party waxed fiercer and fiercer, and as its policy came

to be more and more obviously the weapon of its hatreds, HARLEY soon lay

open to the reproach of being a trimmer. The growing breach became

evident enough in the course of the debates on the treason of Sir John

FENWICK, in November, 1696. [Sidenote: HIS SPEECH ON THE ATTAINDER OF

FENWICK.] He then argued, with force and earnestness, that atrocity in a

crime is no justification or excuse for violence and unscrupulousness in

a prosecutor. Some of his applications of that sound doctrine are very

questionable. But it is to his honour that he preached moderation with

consistency. He did not bend it to the exigencies of the party he was

approaching, any more than to those of the party from which he was

gradually withdrawing himself.

Meanwhile he had signalised his powers in another way. By long study he

had acquired a considerable knowledge of parliamentary law and

precedent. He had taken his full share in the work of committees. In

February, 1701, he was proposed for the Speakership, in opposition to

Sir Thomas LITTLETON. He had a large body of supporters, nor were they

found exclusively in the Tory ranks. The King sent for LITTLETON, and

told him that he thought it would be for the public service that he

should give way to the choice of Mr. HARLEY in his stead. But the

election was carried by a majority of only four votes. ‘It is a great

encouragement to his party,’ wrote TOWNSHEND to WALPOLE, who was then in

the country, ‘and no small mortification to the Whigs.’ HARLEY retained

the Speakership until the third session of the first Parliament of Queen

ANNE.

Whatever may have been the ‘mortification of the Whigs’ at his

elevation, it is certain that at this time HARLEY laboured zealously for

the establishment of the Protestant succession to the throne. [Sidenote:

HARLEY AND THE ACT OF SUCCESSION.] [Sidenote: 1701. March.] In the

preparation, facilitating, and passing of that measure he took so

influential a part that, afterwards, he was able to say, in the face of

his opponents, when they were most numerous and most embittered, ‘I had

the largest hand in settling the succession of the House of Hanover.’

The assertion met with no denial.

It is evident, too, that the qualities for which he was already reviled

by extreme partisans on both sides were—in their measure—real

qualifications, both for the office of Speaker and for the special task

of that day. The party leaders who were then most eagerly followed were

men bent on crushing their adversaries as well as conquering them. It

was inevitable that by such men HARLEY’S moderation towards opponents

should be regarded as more cajolery. And of that unhappy quality he was

destined, at a later day, to acquire but too much.

[Sidenote: THE SECRETARYSHIP OF STATE, 1704.]

On the 27th of April, 1704, Mr. Speaker HARLEY was sworn of the Privy

Council. On the 18th of May he received the seals as one of the

Principal Secretaries of State. [Sidenote: _Privy Council Register_,

Anne, vol. ii, p. 102.] He had scarcely entered on the duties of his

office before he was busied with precautionary measures in Scotland

against an anticipated Jacobite insurrection, as well as with a large

share of the foreign correspondence. But just at that busy time he found

means to begin—though he could not then complete—an act of charity which

is memorable both on the recipient’s account and on the score of some

well-known political consequences which eventually grew thereout.

At the time when HARLEY became a member of the GODOLPHIN administration

Daniel DE FOE lay in Newgate, under a conviction for seditious libel,

committed in the publication of his famous tract, _The Shortest Way with

the Dissenters_. [Sidenote: HARLEY’S PROTECTION OF DE FOE, 1704.] The

new Secretary sent a confidential person to the prison with instructions

to visit DE FOE, and to ask him, in the Minister’s name, ‘What can I do

for you?’ DE FOE’S characteristic reply must be given in his own

words:—‘In return for this kind and generous message I immediately took

pen and ink, and writ the story of the blind man in the Gospel, ... to

whom our blessed Lord put the question, “What wilt thou that I should do

unto thee?” who—as if he had made it strange that such a question should

be asked, or as if he had said, “Lord, dost thou see that I am blind,

and yet ask me what thou shalt do for me?”—my answer is plain in my

misery, “Lord that I may receive my sight.” I needed not to make the

application.’

[Sidenote: De Foe, _Appeal to Honour and Justice_, p. 11.]

DE FOE then adds:—‘From this time, as I learned afterwards, this noble

person made it his business to have my case represented to Her Majesty,

and methods taken for my deliverance.’ But the bigots who had caused a

malicious prosecution succeeded in delaying the successful issue of the

Secretary’s efforts during four months. With HARLEY the sufferer had had

no previous acquaintance. The one designation under which he ever

afterwards spoke of him was ‘my first benefactor.’ And the gratitude was

lifelong.

In part, HARLEY owed his new office to the personal credit which he had

won with the Queen during his Speakership; and in part, also, to the

friendship of MARLBOROUGH. On receiving the news of his appointment the

Duke wrote to him, from the Camp:—‘I am sensible of the advantage I

shall reap by it, in having so good a friend near Her Majesty’s person

to present in the truest light my faithful endeavours for her service.’

[Sidenote: Marlborough to Harley; 13 June, 1704.] But their intercourse,

if it ever attained to true cordiality at all, was cordial for a very

short time. Brief confidence was followed by long distrust. HARLEY

strove to strengthen himself by the use of channels of Court influence

which were utterly inimical to the MARLBOROUGH connection. His efforts

to make himself independent of that connection did not, however, lessen

the prodigality of his assurances of friendship and fidelity.

His political position thus became that of a man who was exposed to the

attacks of many bitter enemies among the statesmen with whom he had

begun his career, without being able to rely upon any hearty support

from those with whom he now shared the conduct of affairs. He might

count, indeed, on assailants from the ranks both of the extreme Whigs

and the extreme Tories, whilst from most of his own colleagues of the

intermediate party he would have to meet the greater danger of a

lukewarm defence. In such a position the attack was not likely to be

long waited for.

Easiness of nature, and a tendency to alternate fits of close

application with fits of indolence, always characterised him. And those

qualities had an incidental consequence which opened to his opponents a

tempting opportunity. HARLEY was habitually less careful of official

papers than it behoved a Secretary of State to be.[34] He was also at

all times prone to place a premature and undue confidence in his

dependants. In 1707, William GREGG, one of the clerks in his office,

abused his confidence by secretly copying some letters of the highest

importance and by selling the copies to the Court of France.

[Sidenote: THE CRIME OF WILLIAM GREGG, AND THE USE MADE OF IT BY

HARLEY’S ENEMIES.]

The treachery was discovered by the Secretary himself, and such steps

were taken to lessen the mischief as the case admitted. Much excitement

naturally followed upon the publicity of the crime. The least scrupulous

of HARLEY’S enemies conceived a hope that the traitor who had served the

public enemy for a bribe might also be tempted to ruin his master for

another and greater bribe. Means were found to convey to GREGG strong

assurances of a certain escape, and of a wealthy exile, if he would but

declare that he had copied the despatches, and forwarded the

transcripts, by the Secretary’s direction. Pending the attempt, they

circulated throughout the country a report that such a declaration had

actually been made, and that the Secretary was to be impeached. But the

clerk, instead of betraying his master, exposed his temptors. [Sidenote:

Appendix to Gregg’s Trial, &c., in _State Trials_, vol. xii, pp. 694

seqq.] His first emphatic declaration of HARLEY’S innocence was repeated

immediately before his death in these words:—‘As I shall answer it

before the judgment seat of Christ, the gentleman aforesaid [_i. e._

HARLEY] was not privy to my writing to France, neither directly nor

indirectly.’

HARLEY himself, and also his nearest friends, were wont to speak of this

affair as one that had brought his life into real peril. It is certain

that the incident and its consequences helped materially to make his

continuance in office impossible. But he struggled hard.

Meanwhile, the dissensions in the Ministry were daily increasing.

[Sidenote: DISMISSED FROM OFFICE. Feb., 1708.] They became so bitter as

to lead to personal altercations at the Council Board, even when the

Queen herself was present. On one such occasion (February, 1708)

GODOLPHIN and MARLBOROUGH went together to the Queen a little before the

hour at which a Cabinet Council had been summoned. They told her they

must quit her service, since they saw that she was resolved not to part

with HARLEY. ‘She seemed,’ says Bishop BURNET, ‘not much concerned at

the Lord GODOLPHIN’S offering to lay down; and it was believed to be a

part of HARLEY’S new scheme to remove him. But she was much touched with

the Duke of MARLBOROUGH’S offering to quit, and studied, with some soft

expressions, to divert him from that resolution; but he was firm; and

she did not yield to them.’ [Sidenote: Burnet, _History of his own

Time_, vol. v, pp. 343, 344 (edit. 1823).] So they both went away,

without attending the Council, ‘to the wonder of the whole Court.’

When the Council met, it became part of HARLEY’S duty as Secretary to

deliver to the Queen a memorial relating to the conduct of the war. The

Duke of SOMERSET rose, as the Secretary was about to read it, and with

the words ‘If Your Majesty suffers that fellow’ (pointing to HARLEY) ‘to

treat affairs of the war without the General’s advice, I cannot serve

you,’ abruptly left the Council. [Sidenote: Swift to Archbishop King, 12

Feb. 1708. Comp. Burnet, as above.] ‘The rest,’ according to BURNET,

‘looked so cold and sullen that the Cabinet Council was soon at an end.’

Whilst a result which—for the time—had thus become so plainly

inevitable, remained still doubtful, HARLEY had imposed on himself the

humiliating task of assuring the Duke of MARLBOROUGH of the honesty of

his former professions of attachment. [Sidenote: HARLEY’S DISMISSAL FROM

THE SECRETARYSHIP. Feb., 1708.] ‘I have never writ anything to you,’

said he, ‘but what I really thought and intended.’ And then he went on

to say:—‘I have for near two years seen the storm coming upon me, and

now I find I am to be sacrificed to sly insinuations and groundless

jealousies.’ These words were written in September, 1707. On the 10th of

February in the following year, MARLBOROUGH had, at length, the

satisfaction of writing from St. James’ to a foreign correspondent:—‘Mr.

Secretary HARLEY has this afternoon given up the seals of office to the

Queen. Between ourselves he richly deserves what has befallen him.’[35]

[Sidenote: Marlborough to Count Wratislaw, 10 Feb., 1708.] Among the two

or three friends who went out with HARLEY was Henry ST. JOHN.

For the next two years and a half, HARLEY’S principal occupation was to

prepare the way for a return, in kind, of the defeat thus inflicted upon

him. [Sidenote: THE INTRIGUE AGAINST THE GODOLPHIN MINISTRY. 1708–1710.]

Some of the steps by which he achieved his end are among the most

familiar portions of our political history. But from the necessities of

the case it has been, and probably it must continue to be, one of those

portions in which the basis of truth can scarcely, by any researches

that are now possible, be separated from the large admixture of

falsehood built thereon by party animosities.

His own correspondence shows that strong hopes of success in the effort

were entertained within eight months of his dismissal. It shows also

that the channel employed, unsuccessfully, in 1708, was that which

became an effectual one in 1710.

Early in October, HARLEY received from the Court an unsigned letter in

which these passages occur:—‘The Queen stands her ground and refuses to

enter into any capitulation with the [Whig Lords]. She has not hitherto

consented to offer or hear of any terms. The Lord T[reasure]r desired

she might allow him to treat with ’em, and the Duke of S[OMERSE]T was

employed to persuade her, but she was inflexible. The Lord Treasurer

offered to resign the Staff, but she would neither take the Staff nor

advice from him, and he went to Newmarket without getting any powers or

leave to treat.... [Sidenote: Harley Corresp. in MS. Harl. 7526, f.

237.] Your friend cannot answer for the event.... I will add no more but

that your friend thinks your being here is very necessary, and that Her

Majesty ... would be the better of assistance and good advice.’

It was not, however, until the 8th of August, 1710, that the GODOLPHIN

Ministry was dismissed. Two days afterwards, HARLEY was made Chancellor

of the Exchequer; the Treasury being put into commission.

[Sidenote: THE CHANCELLORSHIP OF THE EXCHEQUER. 1710, August.]

He entered upon that office amidst enormous obstacles. His enemies were

unable to deny that his exertions to overcome the difficulties in his

path were marked by financial ability, and by a large measure of

temporary success. But as little can it be denied that the immediate

triumph laid the groundwork of public troubles to come.

His own account of the situation of affairs, and of the methods taken to

improve it, must, of course, be read with the due allowance. The pith of

it lies in these sentences:—‘The army was in the field. There was no

money in the Treasury. None of the remitters would contract again. The

Bank had recently refused to lend the Lord Treasurer GODOLPHIN a hundred

thousand pounds. The Army and Navy Services were in debt nearly eleven

millions. The Civil List owed £600,000. The annual deficit was, at

least, a hundred and twenty-four thousand pounds. The new Commissioners

of the Treasury, nevertheless, made provision, within a few days of

their appointment, for paying the Army by the greatest remittance that

was ever known. [Sidenote: _Letter to the Queen_, June 9, 1714. (_Parl.

Hist._, vol. vii, App.)] When Parliament met, on the 27th of November,

funds had been prepared for the service of the year, and a plan was

submitted for easing the nation of nine millions of debt.’

HARLEY was scarcely warm in his new office before he made the

acquaintance of SWIFT, then full of ambitious though vague schemes for

the future, and very angry with the leaders of the Whig party for the

coolness with which his proffers, both of counsel and of service, had

lately been received.

[Sidenote: EARLY INTERCOURSE WITH SWIFT. 1710–1711.]

At the time of his introduction to HARLEY, SWIFT’S immediate business in

London consisted in soliciting from the Government a remission of

first-fruits to the clergy of Ireland. His nominal colleagues in that

trust were the Bishops of Ossory and Killaloe, but the whole weight of

the negotiations rested upon SWIFT’S shoulders. His treatment of it soon

displayed his parts. The Minister saw that he was both able and willing

to render efficient political service. To the intercourse so begun we

owe a life-like portraiture of HARLEY, under all his aspects, and in

every mood of mind. Nor is the depicter himself anywhere seen under

stronger light than in those passages of his journal which narrate, from

day to day, the rise and fall of the Government founded on the unstable

alliance between HARLEY and ST. JOHN.

Of their first interview SWIFT notes:—‘I was brought privately to Mr.

HARLEY, who received me with the greatest respect and kindness

imaginable.’ Of the second:—‘We were two hours alone.... He read a

memorial I had drawn up, and put it into his pocket to show the Queen;

told me the measures he would take, ... told me he must bring Mr. ST.

JOHN and me acquainted; and spoke so many things of personal kindness

and esteem for me, that I am inclined half to believe what some friends

have told me, that he would do everything to bring me over.’ [Sidenote:

_Journal to Stella_; in Works, 2nd Edit., vol. ii, pp. 33; 37; 80.] When

the promised interview with Secretary ST. JOHN comes to be diarized in

its turn:—‘He told me,’ says SWIFT, ‘among other things, that Mr. HARLEY

complained he could keep nothing from me, I had the way so much of

getting into him.’ I knew that was a refinement.... It is hard to see

these great men using me like one who was their betters, and the puppies

with you in Ireland hardly regarding me.’ Not many weeks had passed

before SWIFT’S pen was at work in defence of the measures of the

Government with an energy, a practical and versatile ability, of which,

up to that date, there had been scarcely an example, brilliant as was

the roll of contemporary writers who had taken sides in the political

strife. SWIFT’S defects, as well as his merits, armed him for his task.

Nor had he been long engaged upon it before he marked, very distinctly,

the character both of the rewards to which he aspired, and of the

personal independence which he was determined to maintain, in his own

fashion.

One day, as he took his leave of HARLEY, after dining with him, the

Minister placed in his hand a fifty pound note. He returned it angrily.

And he met HARLEY’S next invitation by a refusal. Then comes this entry

in his diary:—‘I was this morning early with Mr. LEWIS, of the

Secretary’s office, and saw a letter Mr. HARLEY had sent to him desiring

to be reconciled; but I was deaf to all entreaties, and have desired

LEWIS to go to him and let him know I expect further satisfaction. If we

let these great Ministers pretend too much there will be no governing

them. He promises to make me easy if I will but come and see him. But I

will not, and he shall do it by message, or I will cast him off.’

[Sidenote: _Journal to Stella_, p. 169.] The desired concession was

made, and in a day or two we find our journalist recording,

characteristically enough, that he ‘sent Mr. HARLEY into the House to

call the Secretary [ST. JOHN], to let him know I would not dine with him

if he dined late.’ And then:—‘I have taken Mr. HARLEY into favour

again.... I will cease to visit him after dinner, for he dines too late

for my head.... [Sidenote: _Ib._, pp. 178; 182.] They call me nothing

but “Jonathan,” and I said I believed they would leave me Jonathan as

they found me, and that I never knew a Ministry do anything for those

whom they make companions of their pleasures.’

SWIFT was one of the first bystanders who took note of the seeds of

dissension which were already growing up between HARLEY and ST. JOHN,

and who foresaw the coming parallel between the fate of the new

Government and that of its predecessor. On the 4th of March, 1711, he

wrote:—‘We must have a Peace, let it be a bad or a good one; though

nobody dares talk of it. The nearer I look upon things the worse I like

them. I believe the Confederacy will soon break to pieces, and our

factions at home increase. The Ministry is upon a very narrow bottom,

and stands like an isthmus between the Whigs on one side, and the

violent Tories on the other. They are able seamen, but the tempest is

too great, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them....

[Sidenote: _Ib._, p. 196.] Your Duchess of SOMERSET, who now has the

key, is a most insinuating woman, and I believe they [the Whigs] will

endeavour to play the same game that has been played against them.’

The game was suddenly interrupted, though only for a while. An attempt

to assassinate HARLEY gave him a renewed hold upon power and popularity.

But its unexpected consequences embittered the jealousies which already

menaced his administration with ruin.

[Sidenote: GUISCARD’S ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE OF HARLEY. 1711, March.]

Antoine de GUISCARD was a French adventurer, whose private life had been

marked by great profligacy. He had taken an obscure part in the

insurrection of the Cevennes—rather as a recruiting agent than as a

combatant. In that character he had met with encouragement to raise a

refugee regiment in England. Hopes had also been held out to him that a

British auxiliary contingent would be landed on the southern coast of

France. In the course, however, of some preliminary inquiries into the

position of the insurrectionists, it was found that such an invasion

would have little chance of any useful result, and the project was

abandoned. Meanwhile, a pension of £400 a year had been bestowed on the

emissary.

But ere long it was discovered that GUISCARD had profited by

opportunities, afforded him in the course of the discussions about the

proposed expedition, to make himself conversant with many particulars of

military and naval affairs, and that it was his habit to send advices

into France. Some of his letters were seized. Their writer was arrested

on the 8th of March, 1711, and was taken, immediately, before a

Committee of the Privy Council.

When examined as to his illicit intercourse with France he persisted in

mere denials. At length, one of his letters was shown to him by HARLEY,

and he was closely pressed as to his motives in writing it. He then

addressed himself to Secretary ST. JOHN, and begged permission to speak

with him apart. The Secretary answered, ‘You are here before the Council

as a criminal. Whatever you may have to say must be said to all of us.’

The man persisted in refusing to reply to any further questions, unless

his request was granted. Seeing that nothing more could then be obtained

from him, the Lord President rose to ring the bell for a messenger, that

the prisoner might be removed in custody.

At that moment the prisoner pulled a penknife from his pocket, turned

towards HARLEY, near to whom he stood, and stabbed him in the breast. He

repeated the stroke, and then rushed towards ST. JOHN. But between the

prisoner and the Secretary there stood a small table, over which he

stumbled. ST. JOHN drew his sword, and, with the words ‘The villain has

killed Mr. HARLEY,’ struck at him, as did also the Duke of ORMOND and

the Duke of NEWCASTLE. Lord POWLETT cried out ‘Do not kill him.’

Presently the assassin was in the hands of several messengers, with

whom, notwithstanding his wounds, he struggled so desperately that more

than one of them received severe injuries. When at length overpowered,

he said to ORMOND, ‘My Lord, why do you not despatch me?’ ‘That,’

replied the Duke, ‘is not the work of gentlemen. ’Tis another man’s

business.’

HARLEY’S wound was so severe that for several days there was a belief

that it would prove mortal. It entailed a lingering illness.[36] Before

his recovery, his assailant died in prison. The coroner’s inquest

ascribed GUISCARD’S death to bruises received from one of the messengers

who strove to bind him, but SWIFT tells us that he died of the

sword-wounds.

[Sidenote: _Journal to Stella_, pp. 202–214.]

That keen observer had seen, long before this attempted assassination,

the latent personal jealousies between HARLEY and ST. JOHN. [Sidenote:

HARLEY BECOMES LORD HIGH TREASURER.] He had recognised in those

jealousies the gravest peril of HARLEY’S government. GUISCARD’S crime

had now made HARLEY the most popular man in the country, and it had

doubled his favour with the Queen. On his recovery, he received the

congratulations of the House of Commons, expressed with more than usual

emphasis. [Sidenote: _Journals of H. of Commons_, 1711. 27 April.] By

the Queen he was raised to the peerage (24 May, 1711) as Earl of OXFORD

and Earl MORTIMER. Five days afterwards (29 May) he was made Lord High

Treasurer. [Sidenote: _Council Register_, Anne, vol. v, p. 249.] His

elevation intensified the jealousy of ST. JOHN into something which

already closely resembled hatred, although years were to elapse before

the mask could be quite thrown aside. It is amusing to read the

philosophical reflection with which the Secretary sent the news to Lord

OSSORY:—‘Our friend Mr. HARLEY is now Earl of OXFORD and High Treasurer.

This great advancement is what the labour he has gone through, the

danger he has run, and the services he has performed, seem to deserve.

[Sidenote: St. John to Lord Ossory; 1711, 12 June (_Corresp._ i, 148).]

But he stands on slippery ground, and envy is always near the great to

fling up their heels on the least trip which they make.’

The Earl of OXFORD had not long obtained the Treasurer’s staff before he

received some characteristic exhortations from the Jacobite section of

his Tory supporters of the use which he ought to make of it. ATTERBURY

came to him, on the part of some of the Treasurer’s ‘particular

friends,’ to acquaint him how uneasy they were that he had neither

dissolved the Parliament, nor removed from office nearly so many Whigs

as those particular friends wished to see removed. ‘I know very well,’

replied the Earl, ‘the men from whom that message comes, and I am also

very sensible of the difficulties I have to struggle with. If, in

addition, I must communicate all my measures, it will be necessary for

me to assure Her Majesty that I can no longer do her any service.’

[Sidenote: OXFORD AND THE OCTOBER CLUB.]

These hot-headed politicians had already formed their famous ‘October

Club.’ They were about a hundred and fifty in number, and for a few

months their proceedings made a great noise. The Treasurer found means

to deal with them in a more effectual fashion than that in which they

had endeavoured to deal with the administration. ‘By silent, quiet

steps, in a little time,’ says a writer who watched the process and

aided it, ‘he so effectually separated these gentlemen, that in less

than six months the name of “October Club” was forgotten in the

world.... [Sidenote: De Foe, _Secret History of the White Staff_.] With

so much address was this attempt overthrown, that he lost not the men,

though he put them by their design.’

Those brief sentences indicate, I think, the fatality of the position in

which OXFORD now placed himself. He had ardently desired to gain the

control of affairs, at a period of exceptional difficulty. And, at the

best, his capacity and energies would have been barely equal to the task

in times of exceptional ease. Some of the very qualities, both of mind

and heart, which made him beloved by those who lived with him, weakened

him as a statesman. He was surrounded by adepts in political intrigue,

some of whom combined with an experience not less than his own, far

greater powers of mind, an unbending will, and an utter unscrupulousness

as to the use of means. He vainly flattered himself that he could beat

these men at their own weapons. His temporary success laid a foundation

for his eventual ruin.

[Sidenote: OXFORD AND THE COURT OF THE STUARTS.]

To gain the aid of the Jacobite Tories in Parliament he held out hopes

which it was never his intention to realise. He carried on an indirect

correspondence with the Stuart Court in a way sufficiently adroit to

induce that Court to instruct its adherents to support the negotiations

for the Peace with France. He would commit himself to nothing until

Peace was made. The conclusion of a Peace was the one measure on which

he was firmly bent. He had contended that the true interests of Britain

demanded the ending of an exhausting war many years before. And whatever

the demerits and shortcomings of the Treaty of Utrecht, it had at least

the merit of making the quiet succession of the House of Hanover

possible.

In March, 1713, the French agent in England, the Abbé GAUTIER, wrote to

the Marquis de TORCY an account of an interview he had obtained with the

Lord Treasurer:—‘M. Vanderberg’ [_i. e._ Lord OXFORD], he says, ‘sent

for me, seven or eight days ago, to tell me something of importance.

Indeed, he opened his mind to me, making me acquainted with his feelings

towards Montgourlin [_i. e._ the Pretender], and the desire he had to do

him service, as soon as the Peace shall be concluded.... It will not be

difficult, because the Queen is of his opinion. But, in the mean time,

it is essential that Montgourlin should make up his mind; that he should

declare that it is not his intention to continue to reside where he now

is. He must say, publicly, and especially before his family, that when

the Peace is made he means to travel in Italy, in Switzerland, in

Bavaria, even in Spain. [Sidenote: Gautier to De Torcy; 1713, March.

[Printed in _Edin. Review_, from notes of Mackintosh.]] This is to be

done, that it may be believed in England that his choice of a residence

is not dictated by a mere desire to be near his relatives, and to be

close at hand should measures have to be taken on an emergency.’

After the communication of this statement to the Pretender he made

repeated attempts to enter into correspondence with Queen ANNE. By

OXFORD these attempts were uniformly and effectually foiled.

To the insincerity of OXFORD’S advances—such as they were—to the

Jacobite emissaries, there can be no witness more competent, none more

unexceptionable, than the Duke of BERWICK. His testimony runs thus:—‘We

wrote,’ he says, ‘to all the Jacobites to support the government; a step

which had no small share in giving to the Court party so large a

majority in the House of Commons that it carried everything its own

way.... After the Peace, the Treasurer spoke with not a whit more of

clearness or precision than before it.... [Sidenote: _Mémoires du

Maréchal Duc de Berwick_ (in Petitot’s _Collection_, tom. lxvi, pp. 219

seqq.)] He was merely keeping us in play; and it was very difficult to

find a remedy. To have broken with him would have spoiled all; for he

had the reins in his hand. He governed the Queen at his will.’

[Sidenote: _Ib._, pp. 224, 225.] In all his advances, adds the Duke, in

another passage, ‘OXFORD’S only motive had been to win over Jacobites to

side with the Tories, and to get a sanction for the Peace.’

Whilst these intrigues were still in action, one, at least, of the

Jacobite agents was clear-sighted enough to detect the secret of the

Treasurer’s scheme. [Sidenote: Original in Nairne MSS., vol. 4.

(Macpherson, _Original Pagers_, vol. ii, p. 269.)] A confidential agent

of the Earl of MIDDLETON, Secretary to the Pretender, wrote in February,

1712—‘[The Earl of OXFORD] is entirely a friend to [the Elector of

HANOVER], notwithstanding the disobliging measures that spark has

taken.... [OXFORD’S] head is set on shewing that he is above resentment,

and that he [the Elector] has been put into a wrong way.’

In matters of Church policy at home the Earl followed like indirect

courses, and with the like result—a momentary success which prepared the

way for final defeat.

[Sidenote: HARLEY’S CONDUCT ON THE CONFORMITY BILL.]

No measure could possibly be more repugnant to OXFORD’S declared

convictions than the famous ‘Bill against Occasional Conformity,’

brought into the House of Lords by the Earl of NOTTINGHAM, at the close

of the year 1711. It was part of a policy to which his very nature was

antagonistic. But he was in vain entreated, by men who had been his

life-long adherents, to oppose it. The passage of that Bill was the

price, and, as it seems, the only price for which NOTTINGHAM and his

band of followers would give their support to the foreign policy of the

Government.

The growth of the internal dissensions in the administration kept pace

with the growth of its external perils. Personal objects of the pettiest

kind were made occasions of quarrel. In the summer of 1712, ST. JOHN,

who had set his heart on the restoration in himself of that family

Earldom of BOLINGBROKE which in the previous year had become extinct on

the death of a distant relative, was made a Viscount. On the

announcement of his creation he burst into open menaces of vengeance

against the Treasurer, and renewed them with greater violence towards

the close of the year, when he found himself excluded from another

coveted dignity. An election of Knights of the Garter made, to use Lord

OXFORD’S own words about it, ‘a new disturbance which is too well

remembered.’ Just as the breach with BOLINGBROKE had become plainly

irreconcilable, the Treasurer found a new and equally bitter enemy in

another old friend. He defeated a rapacious attempt made by Lady MASHAM

on the Treasury. The first offence in that kind would never have been

forgiven. But ere long it was repeated.

In both Houses of Parliament, OXFORD’S veiled and vacillating policy was

fast alienating men who had long supported him, and who to the last

retained more confidence in him than in his brilliant rival. The crisis,

however, was brought about, not by the increased strength of

Parliamentary opposition, but by bed-chamber intrigues, such as those

which he had himself stooped to employ six years before against

GODOLPHIN and MARLBOROUGH.

Meanwhile the Minister played into the hands of his opponents by

exhibiting great irresolution. He dallied and procrastinated with urgent

business. He relaxed in his attention to the Queen. At an unwary moment

he even gave her personal offence, the results of which were none the

less bitter for the absence of design. He showed more concern about

comparatively distant perils than about those which were close at hand.

At the beginning of 1714 the best informed of the Jacobites had become

fully convinced that OXFORD was their enemy. They saw, to repeat the

words of the Duke of BERWICK, that he had been only keeping them in

play. [Sidenote: OXFORD’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE COURT OF HANOVER.] But

at the Court of Hanover he was far from being regarded as an assured

friend. Over-subtlety had been rewarded with almost universal distrust.

[Sidenote: 1714, April.]

When in April of that year he sent to Hanover renewed protestations of

fidelity, expressed in terms of unusual energy, they were looked upon by

some of the Elector’s advisers as mere professions.[37] If now read side

by side with contemporary documents, drawn up by secret emissaries of

the Pretender, they acquire a stamp of sincerity which it is hard to

doubt.

To Baron WASSENAER DUYVENWORDE Lord OXFORD wrote thus:—‘I do in the most

solemn manner assure you that, next to the Queen, I am entirely and

unalterably devoted to the interests of His Electoral Highness of

Hanover.... I am ready to give him all the proofs of my attachment to

his interest, and to set in a true light the state of this country; for

it will be very unfortunate for so great a Prince to be only Prince over

a party, which can never last long in England.’ He then goes on to add

that the one thing which would, under existing circumstances, imperil

the Hanover succession is the sending into England of any member of that

family without the Queen’s consent. Such an act would, in his judgment,

‘change the dispute to the Crown and the Successor, whereas now it is

between the House of Hanover and the Popish Pretender.’

[Sidenote: Oxford to Wassenaer; MS. Sloane, 4107. (B. M.)]

He repeated the advice in another and not less urgent letter, after the

occurrence of the visit made to the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT by the

Hanoverian Resident, to ask for a writ of summons for the Duke of

CAMBRIDGE. But he also advised Queen ANNE to consent to the issue of

such a writ. He was opposed by a majority of his colleagues, under the

leadership of BOLINGBROKE, as well as by the persistent unwillingness of

the Queen herself.

It is instructive to read the comments on the political situation in

England at this moment, of a German diplomatist resident in London (as

Minister from the Elector Palatine) who was devotedly attached to the

Hanoverian succession.

‘Some people,’ wrote Baron von STEINGHENGS to Count von der SCHULENBERG,

on the 12th of May, ‘have been at work for a whole year to deprive the

Lord Treasurer of the conduct of public affairs. I have been aware,

almost from the beginning, of the different channels which have been

made use of to carry this point. But I should never have expected that

they would fire the mine before the end of this session, and I am much

mistaken if the authors have not reason one day to regret their

over-haste. For I do not know my man, if he does not cut out a good deal

of work for them, particularly if a certain intrigue which is on the

tapis succeeds. As for the rest, you may rely upon his sentiments; and

he never succeeded in persuading those who doubted them more than by his

declaration made in a full House on the 16th of last month on the

question of danger to the Protestant succession, having in it given much

greater hold upon himself than there was any need for, if he was not

acting in good faith.... The party of the Hanoverian Tories has visibly

been strengthened by it.’ [Sidenote: Von Steinghengs to Count von der

Schulenberg, May 1⁄12 1714 (in Kemble’s _State Papers_, p. 493).] And to

this the writer adds, in a postscript, ‘It is of extreme importance both

for the Whigs and for the House of Hanover to take steps to keep him

there, and to engage him by some sort of political confidence to be

assured of his fortunes under that House.’ In another letter to the same

correspondent, Baron von STEINGHENGS notes a fact which by many of our

historians has been too much neglected. [Sidenote: Same to same, June 14

(Kemble, p. 507).] ‘To make the English Ministry,’ he wrote, ‘alone

responsible ... for the exorbitant power which the Peace of Utrecht has

given to France is ... to ignore entirely the incredible obstacles which

the enemies of that Ministry threw, both at home and abroad, in the way

of making the Peace such as it might have been.’

But although ‘the mine was fired’ before the end of May, July had nearly

ended before the effectual explosion came. [Sidenote: OXFORD’S DISMISSAL

AND THE QUEEN’S DEATH. 1714, July 27, August 1.] BOLINGBROKE’S triumph

lasted exactly four days. ‘The Earl of OXFORD was removed on Tuesday.

The Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this! And how does Fortune

banter us!... I have lost all by the death of the Queen, but my spirit.’

Such were the words in which BOLINGBROKE announced to SWIFT his

victory,—and its futility. In a few more days the spirit vanished, like

the triumph. The victor was a fugitive.

BOLINGBROKE’S hatred to OXFORD lasted to the close of his life. He

survived his old comrade twenty-seven years. The final year of that long

period brought no relenting thought, no spark of charitable feeling.

[Sidenote: DID OXFORD CONSPIRE TO BRING BACK THE PRETENDER?]

To the question ‘Did Lord OXFORD, during his tenure of office, conspire

to enthrone the Pretender?’ it ought always to have been a sufficient

answer that there was, as yet, not a tittle of _evidence_ of any such

conspiracy on his part. That accusation had never any support beyond

surmise and conjecture. Men who were in possession of every imaginable

resource and appliance to back their search failed to adduce even a

shadow of evidence in proof of the charge they would fain have fastened

upon him. And in 1869 the matter still stands, in the main, where it

stood in 1717.

After many examinations of the most secret correspondence of the Stuarts

and their adherents, and after the publishing of extensive selections

from it—made at intervals which spread over eighty years,—not a scrap of

direct and valid testimony has been found to sustain the charge. Every

passage, save one, which bears at all on OXFORD’S intercourse with

Jacobite emissaries, up to the year 1715, tends to show that what they

asserted about his intentions on the Pretender’s behalf was built on

wishes, hopes, and guesses—on anything rather than knowledge. Every

passage, save one, tends to show that he was using the Jacobites for his

own purposes, without the least idea of aiding theirs. Every passage,

save one, is in entire harmony with the terms of that incompatible

charge by means of which BOLINGBROKE justified to himself his life-long

hostility, when writing the _Letter to Sir William Wyndham_. The

significance of that charge, coming from such a source, can scarcely be

exaggerated. ‘OXFORD would not,’ wrote BOLINGBROKE, ‘or he could not,

act with us, and he resolved that we should not act without him, as long

as he could hinder it.... At the Queen’s death, he hoped ... to deliver

us up, bound as it were, hand and foot, to our adversaries. On the

foundation of this merit he flattered himself that he had gained some of

the Whigs, and softened, at least, the rest of the party to him.

[Sidenote: Bolingbroke, _Letter to Sir W. Wyndham_.] By his secret

negotiations at Hanover, he took it for granted that he was not only

reconciled to that Court, but that he should, under his present

Majesty’s reign, have as much credit as he had enjoyed under that of the

Queen.’

[Sidenote: Gautier to De Torcy; 14 December, 1713. [Printed in _Edinb.

Review_, from the Notes of Sir James Mackintosh, in vol.

lxii, pp. 18, seqq.]]

The solitary passage in the correspondence of the Jacobite agents which

goes directly to the issue is the assertion made by GAUTIER, in a letter

to DE TORCY, that OXFORD said to him, in December, 1713, ‘As long as I

live, England shall not be governed by a German.’ In that notable

statement lies the pith of a mass of letters which report the hopes,

beliefs, conjectures, and imaginings, of their respective writers, as to

what Lord OXFORD would do for the Pretender,—whenever that prince could

be brought to change, or, at least, to disguise his religion.

OXFORD was present, as a Privy Councillor, at the proclamation of King

GEORGE THE FIRST. [Sidenote: OXFORD’S RECEPTION BY GEORGE I.] It was

noted by some of the bystanders that his demeanour was buoyant and

joyous. When the King reached Greenwich, the Earl went thither with more

than usual pomp and retinue. He was received with marked coldness, if

not with open contempt.

There is little need, in a sketch of this kind, to tell, at length, the

story of an impeachment which was stretched over two years, and had no

result save that of breaking down, by two years of imprisonment, the

health of the defeated statesman. Few and brief words on that head will

suffice.

[Sidenote: HIS IMPEACHMENT. 1715–1717.]

Out of twenty-two articles of impeachment, fourteen accuse the Earl of

OXFORD of betrayal of duty, either in the conduct of the negotiations

for Peace, or in instructions given for handling the British

Army—pending those negotiations—in such a way as to injure the common

cause of the Allies, by promoting the conclusion of a treaty ‘on terms

fatal to the interests of the Kingdom.’ [Sidenote: 1715. June 24.] The

fifteenth article charges him with inserting false statements in the

Queen’s Speeches and Messages to Parliament; the sixteenth with

improperly advising the Queen to make a creation of Peers. [Sidenote:

_State Trials_, vol. xv, Coll. 1052, seqq.] Other articles allege

misconduct in the management of an expedition to Canada; the

appropriation of sums of ‘Secret Service Money’ to corrupt purposes; and

treasonable intercourse with ‘Irish Papists.’

Whilst these charges were still in preparation the Venetian Resident in

London wrote a despatch to his Senate in which we have an interesting

glimpse, behind the curtain, at the process:—‘The Whigs,’ he says, ‘seek

to annihilate the Tories utterly, and to place them under the yoke. They

want to impeach even the Duke of SHREWSBURY.’... After enlarging on

nascent dissensions amongst the Whigs themselves, as to the lengths to

which they might safely carry their party resentments, he proceeds to

assert that the more cautious men among them ‘have now, when it is well

nigh too late, become aware that the Tory party, recently dominant, was

a mixed party. [Sidenote: _Correspondence of Joseph Querini_; from

extracts by T. D. Hardy, in _Report on Archives of Venice_, pp. 98, 99.]

Some were in favour of the Pretender; some for the House of Hanover. Had

His Majesty made this distinction on his accession to the Crown he would

have excluded the former, but not the latter. By favouring the Whigs

alone, he lost all the others at once.’ In brief, GEORGE THE FIRST had

made himself exactly what OXFORD had warned him against becoming, the

‘King of a party.’

When the Earl at length appeared before his peers to answer to his

impeachment, he began by denying ‘that at any time or place in the

course of those negotiations,’ now incriminated, ‘he conferred

unlawfully or without due authority with any emissaries of France.’ He

affirmed that he neither promoted nor advised any private, separate, or

unjustifiable negotiation, and that he himself had no knowledge ‘that

any negotiation relating to Peace was carried on without communication

to the Allies.’

On the specific charge that he had traitorously given up Tournay to

France, his defence is twofold:—‘I used my best offices,’ he asserts,

‘to preserve that town and fortress to the States General. I believe

that at this time they are continued to the States General as part of

their barrier.’ And then he adds:—‘But I deny that for a Privy

Councillor and Minister of State to advise the yielding of any town,

fort, or territory, upon the conclusion of a Peace, is, or can be, High

Treason by any law of this realm.’

On the whole matter of the Peace, he asserts that ‘its terms and

preliminaries were communicated to Parliament. They were agreed on with

the concurrence of Parliament. The Definitive Treaty was afterwards

approved of by both Houses. Solemn thanks were rendered to God for it in

all our churches and also in the churches of the United Provinces. Her

Majesty received upon its conclusion the hearty and unfeigned thanks of

her people from all parts of her dominions.’

[Sidenote: _State Trials_, vol. xv, c. 1137 seqq.]

[Sidenote: _Commons’ Journals_, 9 June, 1715.]

It might well have been thought that even in those evil days it would be

difficult to induce a Committee of partisans to report to the House of

Commons that ‘large sums issued for the service of the war were received

by the Earl of OXFORD, and applied to his Lordship’s private use,’

without the possession of some plausible show of proof. There was not so

much as a decent presumption, or colourable inference, to back the

assertion. When the matter came to be probed, it appeared that a royal

gift of £13,000 had been received by the Earl in what were known as ‘tin

tallies,’ and that the sum had been a charge upon the revenues of the

Duchy of Cornwall.

Probably few politicians have owed quite so large a debt of gratitude to

their enemies as that incurred by the Earl of OXFORD. His ministry at

home had been marked by weaknesses which went perilously near the edge

of public calamity. The Peace which was its characteristic achievement

abroad had brought with it many real blessings, but they were won at the

cost of a large sacrifice of national pride, if not also by some

sacrifice of national honour. The wild excesses of his adversaries now

gave back to the obnoxious Minister the strength of his best days.

[Sidenote: OXFORD’S BEHAVIOUR UNDER TRIAL.] When POPE wrote of him, ‘The

utmost weight of ministerial power and popular hatred were almost worth

bearing for the glory of so dauntless a conduct as he has shown under

it,’ the praise came from a pen which is known to have been employed,

now and again, to flatter the great. But it was no flatterer who wrote

to OXFORD himself—‘Your intrepid behaviour under this prosecution

astonishes every one but me, who know you so well, and how little it is

in the power of human actions or events to discompose you. I have seen

your Lordship labouring under great difficulties and exposed to great

dangers, and overcoming both, by the providence of God, and your own

wisdom and courage.’ Those words came from one of the shrewdest and most

acute observers of human character that have ever lived. They were

written after a close and daily intimacy of four eventful years. OXFORD,

in his day of power, had disappointed SWIFT of some cherished hopes,

which now could never be renewed. The praise of SWIFT must have been

sincere. [Sidenote: Swift’s _Correspondence_, in Works, by Scott, vol.

xvi, pp. 232, 233.] When such a writer, at such a time, goes on to

add—‘You suffer for having preserved your country, and for having been

the great instrument, under God, of his present Majesty’s peaceable

accession to the throne;—this I know, and this your enemies know’—the

most prepossessed reader cannot but feel that the absence from the two

and twenty articles of impeachment of any charge of plotting against the

Hanover succession is alike intelligible and significant.

[Sidenote: THE TRIAL. 1717, July.]

When Oxford’s imprisonment could be no longer protracted without a

trial, the two Houses of Parliament were unable to agree as to the mode

of proceeding. It was obvious on all sides that the charge of ‘treason’

would fail. The Lords declared that on the articles imputing treason

judgment must be given, before the articles imputing ‘other high crimes

and misdemeanours’ could be entered upon. They declared that the attempt

of the Commons to mix up the two was ‘a new and unjustifiable

proceeding.’ [Sidenote: _Lords’ Journals_, vol. xx, p. 515, seqq.

_Commons’ Journals_, vol. xviii.] The Commons refused to adduce evidence

on the charge of treason, and to take the issue upon that.

[Sidenote: _State Trials_, vol. xv, 1164, seqq.]

On the first of July, 1717, the Earl was brought to the bar to hear from

the Lord High Steward a declaration that ‘Robert, Earl of OXFORD, is, by

the unanimous vote of all the Lords present, acquitted of the articles

of impeachment exhibited against him, by the House of Commons, for High

Treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours, and that the said

impeachment shall be and is hereby dismissed.’ Then the Steward said,

‘Lieutenant of the Tower, You are now to discharge your prisoner.’

[Sidenote: OXFORD’S RETURN TO THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 1717, July.]

On the third of July, the Earl resumed his seat as a peer of Parliament.

On the fourth, the Commons resolved to address the King, beseeching him

‘to except Robert, Earl of OXFORD, out of the Act of Grace which Your

Majesty has been graciously pleased to promise from the throne, to the

end the Commons may be at liberty to proceed against the said Earl in a

parliamentary way.’ [Sidenote: _Journals_, vol. xviii, p. 617.] No such

proceeding, of course, was taken or intended.

For several years to come Lord OXFORD took part, from time to time, in

the business of Parliament. He served often on Committees in these final

years of his public life, just as he had done during his early years of

apprenticeship in the Lower House. In the Lords, as in the Commons, he

was listened to with especial deference on points of parliamentary law

and privilege.

From time to time, also, the Jacobite agitators, both at home and

abroad, made repeated appeals to him, direct or indirect, for

countenance and help in their schemes. They had, it seems, a confident

hope that the sufferings and the humiliation inflicted on him in the

years 1715–1717 must have so entirely alienated him from the reigning

House, as now, at all events, to have prepared him to be really their

fellow-conspirator, on the first occurrence of a promising opportunity.

[Sidenote: ALLEGED RENEWAL OF CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE STUART AGENTS.]

How far the Earl listened to such suggestions and persuasions is still,

it will be seen, matter of great and curious uncertainty.[38]

[Sidenote: DOMESTIC LIFE OF LORD OXFORD.]

Lord OXFORD’S private life was not less chequered by rapid alternations

of sunshine and of gloom than was his political career. In August, 1713,

he gratified a cherished desire by the marriage of his son Edward, Lord

HARLEY, with the Lady Henrietta CAVENDISH HOLLES, daughter and heiress

of John, Duke of NEWCASTLE (who died in 1711). With what Lord HARLEY had

already derived under the Duke’s will, this marriage brought him an

estate then worth sixteen thousand pounds a year, and destined to

increase enormously in value. Three months afterwards the Earl lost a

dearly loved daughter, the Marchioness of CAERMARTHEN, who died at the

age of twenty-eight. It was of her that SWIFT wrote to him—‘I have sat

down to think of every amiable quality that could enter into the

composition of a lady, and could not single out one which she did not

possess in as high a perfection as human nature is capable of. But as to

your Lordship’s own particular, as it is an unconceivable misfortune to

have lost such a daughter, so it is a possession which few can boast of

to have had such a daughter. I have often said to your Lordship that “I

never knew any one by many degrees so happy in their domestics as you;”

and I affirm that you are so still, though not by so many degrees....

[Sidenote: Swift to Oxford; 21 Nov., 1713. (_Works_, vol. xvi, pp.

78–80.)] You began to be too happy for a mortal; much more happy than is

usual with the dispensations of Providence long to continue.’

Under the sorrows both of public and of private life it was his wont to

find a part of his habitual consolations in the use, as well as in the

increase, of his splendid library. [Sidenote: HISTORY OF THE HARLEIAN

LIBRARY.] He began the work of collection in youth, and to add to his

treasures was one of the matters which, at intervals, occupied his

latest thoughts.

Among the famous Englishmen whose manuscripts passed, either wholly or

partially, into the Harleian Library are to be counted Sir Thomas SMITH;

John FOX, the martyrologist; John STOWE, the historian; Edward, Lord

HERBERT of Cherbury; and Archbishop SANCROFT. Among famous foreigners,

Augustus LOMENIE DE BRIENNE; Peter SÉGUIER, Chancellor of France; and

Gerard John VOSSIUS. Perhaps the most extensive of the prior collections

which it had absorbed, in mass, was the assemblage of manuscripts that

had been gathered by Sir Symonds D’EWES, whose acquisitions included a

rich series of the materials of English history.

The inquiries which led to the purchase of the D’EWES’ Collection were

the occasion of making fully known to Robert HARLEY a model librarian in

the person of Humphrey WANLEY. [Sidenote: HUMPHREY WANLEY; HIS LIFE,

LETTERS, AND JOURNAL.] The latter portion of WANLEY’S life was wholly

devoted to the service of the Harleian Library, and his employment there

was a felicity, both for him and for it. His journal of the incidents

which occurred during the growth of the collection given to his care is

the most curious document in its kind which is known to exist. That

journal illustrates the literary history and the manners of the time,

not less amusingly than it exhibits the personal character of its

writer, and the fidelity with which he worked at his task in life.

WANLEY was the son of a country parson, little known to fame, but

possessing some tincture of learning, and was born at Coventry, on the

21st of March, 1673. In his youth he attracted the favourable notice of

his father’s diocesan, William LLOYD, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry

(and afterwards of Worcester), by whom he was sent to Edmund Hall at

Oxford. That hall he soon exchanged for University College, on the

persuasion of Dr. Arthur CHARLETT, by whose influence he was afterwards

made an Underkeeper of the Bodleian Library. He took no degree, but won

some distinction, whilst at Oxford, by the services which he rendered to

Dr. MILL in collating the text of the New Testament.

On leaving the University, WANLEY went to London, where he became

Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. He

translated OSTERVALD’S _Grounds and Principles of the Christian

Religion_; and compiled a valuable Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon

Manuscripts preserved in the chief libraries of Great Britain. The

last-named labour gave proof of much ability. It was a sample of the

work for which its writer was best fitted.

As Speaker of the House of Commons, HARLEY took a considerable part in

organizing the Cottonian Library, when it became a public institution

under the Act of Parliament. WANLEY proffered to the Speaker, on this

occasion, some advice about the necessary arrangements; became well

acquainted with HARLEY’S bookishness, and saw how eagerly he would

welcome opportunities for the improvement of his own library, as well as

of that newly acquired by the Public.

[Sidenote: THE D’EWES COLLECTIONS AND THEIR HISTORY.]

The Sir Symonds D’EWES of that generation was the grandson of the

diligent antiquary and politician who has been heretofore mentioned in

this volume as the close friend of Sir Robert COTTON, and to whose

labours, in a twofold capacity, students of our history owe a far better

acquaintance with parliamentary debates, in the times both of ELIZABETH

and of CROMWELL, than, but for him, would have been possible. The

grandson of the first Sir Symonds had inherited from his ancestor a

valuable library; but its possession had no great charm for him. He was

willing to part with it, for due consideration, yet aware that he was

under an obligation, moral if not legal, not so to part with his books

as to lead to their dispersion.

On that head, the original collector had thus expressed himself in his

last Will:—‘I bequeath to Adrian D’EWES, my young son yet lying in the

cradle, or to any other of my sons, hereafter to be born, who shall

prove my heir (if God shall vouchsafe unto me a masculine heir by whom

my surname and male line may be continued in the ages to come), my

precious library, in which I have stored up, for divers years past, with

great care, cost, and industry, divers originals and autographs, ... and

such [books] as are unprinted; and it is my inviolable injunction and

behest that he keep it entire, and not sell, divide, or dissipate it.

Neither would I have it locked up from furthering the public good, the

advancing of which I have always endeavoured; but that all lovers of

learning, of known virtue and integrity, might have access to it at

reasonable times, so that they did give sufficient security to restore

safely any original or autograph ... borrowed out of the same, ...

without blotting, erasing, or defraying it. But if God hath decreed now

at last to add an end to my family in the male line, His most holy and

just will be done!’ In that case, the testator proceeds to declare, it

is his desire that the library should pass to his daughter and her

heirs, on like conditions as to its perpetual preservation, so ‘that not

only all lovers of learning ... may have access to it at seasonable

times, but also that all collections which concern mine own family, or

my wife’s, may freely be lent ... to members thereof,’ &c. [Sidenote:

D’Ewes, _Autobiography_, in MS. Harl. (B. M.)] Then the testator adds—in

relation to the last-named clause—an averment that he had ‘only sought

after the very truth, as well in these things as in all other my

elucubrations, whilst I searched amongst the King’s records or public

offices.’

[Sidenote: WANLEY’S ACCOUNT OF THE ACQUISITION OF THE D’EWES LIBRARY.]

It having come to WANLEY’S knowledge or belief, in the year 1703, that

possibly arrangements might be made to obtain this library, for the

Public, from the then possessor, he wrote to HARLEY in these terms:—‘Sir

Symonds D’EWES being pleased to honour me with a peculiar kindness of

esteem, I have taken the liberty of inquiring of him whether he will

part with his library, and I find that he is not unwilling to do so. And

that at a much easier rate than I could think for. I dare say that it

would be a noble addition to the Cotton Library; perhaps the best that

could be had anywhere at present.... If your Honour should judge it

impracticable to persuade Her Majesty to buy them for the Cotton

Library—in whose coffers such a sum as will buy them is scarcely

conceivable—then, Sir, if you shall have a mind of them yourself I will

take care that you shall have them cheaper than any other person

whatsoever. I know that many have their eyes upon this collection.’

[Sidenote: Wanley to Harley; MS. Lansd. 841, fol. 63. (B. M.)] ‘I am

desirous,’ he goes on to say, ‘to have this collection in town for the

public good, and rather in a public place than in private hands; but, of

all private gentlemen’s studies, first in yours. I have not spoken to

anybody as yet, nor will not till I have your answer, that you may not

be forestalled.’

HARLEY welcomed the overture thus made to him, and WANLEY, on his

behalf, entered upon a negotiation which ended in the eventual

acquisition of the whole of the D’EWES Manuscripts for the Harleian

Collection. Soon afterwards, WANLEY became its librarian.

In the course of this employment he watched diligently for other

opportunities of a like sort; established an active correspondence with

booksellers, both at home and abroad; and induced Lord OXFORD to send

agents to the Continent to search for manuscripts. [Sidenote: HISTORY OF

THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY, CONTINUED.] But the Earl had soon to meet an eager

rival in the book-market, in the person of Lord SUNDERLAND, who in

former years had been, by turns, his colleague and his opponent in the

keener strife of politics. In their new rivalry, Lord SUNDERLAND had one

considerable advantage. He cared little about money. If he succeeded in

obtaining what he sought for, he rarely scrutinised the more or less of

its cost. WANLEY was by nature a bargainer. He felt uneasy under the

least suspicion that any bookseller or vendor was getting the better

hand of him in a transaction. And he seems, in time, to have inoculated

Lord OXFORD with a good deal of the same feeling. Some of the entries in

his diary put this love of striking a good bargain in an amusing light.

Thus, for example, in telling of the acquisition of a valuable monastic

chartulary which had belonged to the ‘Bedford Library’ at Cranfield, he

writes thus:—‘The said Chartulary is to be my Lord’s, and he is to

present to that library _St. Chrysostom’s Works_, in Greek and Latin,

printed at Paris, for which my Lord shall be registered a benefactor to

the said library. Moreover, Mr. FRANK will send up a list of his

out-of-course books, out of which my Lord may pick and choose any twenty

of them gratis.... I am also to advise that he is heartily willing and

ready to serve his Lordship in any library matters; ... particularly

with [Sir John] OSBORNE of Chicksand Abbey, where most part of the old

monastical library is said yet to remain.’ [Sidenote: Wanley’s _Diary_,

vol. i, pp. 13, 21. 1720, February.] And again, on another occasion:—‘My

Lord was pleased to tell me that Mr. GIBSON’S last parcel of printed

books were all his own as being gained into [the bargain with] the two

last parcels of manuscripts bought of him.’ [Sidenote: _Ib._, vol. ii,

f. 24.] GIBSON’S protest that he was entitled to an additional thirty

pounds was quite in vain.

Of the innumerable skirmishes between librarian and bookseller which

WANLEY’S pages record with loving detail, two passages may serve as

sufficient samples:—‘VAN HOECK, a Dutchman’ he writes in 1722, ‘brought

to my Lord a small parcel of modern manuscripts, and their lowest

prices,—which proved so abominably wicked that he was sent away with

them immediately.’ And, in February, 1723:—‘BOWYER, the bookseller, came

intreating me to instruct him touching the prices of old editions, and

of other rare and valuable books, pretending that thereby he should be

the better able to bid for them; but, as I rather suppose, to be better

able to exact of gentlemen. I pleaded utter inexperience in the matter,

and, without a quarrel, in my mind rejected this ridiculous attempt with

the scorn it deserved. [Sidenote: Wanley’s _Diary_, vol. i, f. 73,

verso. MS. Lansd., 771. (B. M.)] This may be a fresh instance of the

truth of TULLIE’S paradox, “that all fools are mad.”’

In the year 1720, large additions were made, more especially to the

historical treasures of the Harleian Library, by the purchase of

manuscripts from the several collections of John WARBURTON (Somerset

Herald), of Archdeacon BATTELY, and of Peter SÉGUIER (Chancellor of

France). Another important accession came, in the same year, by the

bequest of Hugh THOMAS. [Sidenote: _Ibid._, pp. 35, 42, 48.] In 1721

purchases were made from the several libraries of Thomas GREY, second

Earl of STAMFORD; of Robert PAYNELL, of Belaugh, in Norfolk; and of John

ROBARTES, first Earl of RADNOR.

Lord OXFORD died on the 21st May, 1724, at the age of sixty-three.

[Sidenote: DEATH OF LORD OXFORD.] WANLEY records the event in these

words: ‘It pleased God to call to His mercy Robert, Earl of OXFORD, the

founder of this Library, who long had been to me a munificent patron.’

[Sidenote: Corresp., in _Works_, vol. xvi, p. 438.]

When condoling with the new Earl upon his father’s death, SWIFT wrote to

him:—‘You no longer wanted his care and tenderness, ... but his

friendship and conversation you will ever want, because they are

qualities so rare in the world, and in which he so much excelled all

others. It has pleased me, in the midst of my grief, to hear that he

preserved the greatness, the calmness, and intrepidity, of his mind to

his last minutes; for it was fit that such a life should terminate with

equal lustre to the whole progress of it.’ It is honourable alike to the

man who was thus generously spoken of, and to the friend who mourned his

loss, that the testimony so borne was a consistent testimony. The

failings of HARLEY were well known to SWIFT. In the days of prosperity

they had been freely blamed; and face to face. When those days were

gone, the good qualities only came to be dwelt upon. To the unforgiving

enemy, as to the bereaved son, SWIFT wrote about the merits of the

friend he had lost. ‘I pass over that paragraph of your letter,’ said

BOLINGBROKE, in reply, ‘which is a kind of an elegy on a departed

minister.’

When the Harleian Library was inherited by the second Earl of OXFORD (of

this family) it included more than six thousand volumes of Manuscripts,

in addition to about fourteen thousand five hundred charters and rolls.

By him it was largely augmented in every department. [Sidenote: INCREASE

OF THE HARLEIAN LIBRARY BY EDWARD, EARL OF OXFORD. 1724–1741.]

[Sidenote: See MS. ADDIT., 5338. (B. M.)] He made his library most

liberally accessible to scholars; and when, by a purchase made in

Holland, he had acquired some leaves of one of the most precious

biblical manuscripts in the world—leaves which had long before been

stolen from the Royal Library at Paris—he sent them back to their proper

repository in a manner so obliging as made it apparent that his sense of

the duties of collectorship was as keen as was his sense of its

delights. At his death, on the 16th of June, 1741, the volumes of

manuscripts had increased to nearly eight thousand. The printed books

were estimated at about fifty thousand volumes, exclusive of an

unexampled series of pamphlets, amounting to nearly 400,000, and

comprising, like the manuscripts, materials for our national history of

inestimable value.

The only daughter and heiress of the second Earl, Margaret, by her

marriage with William, Duke of PORTLAND, carried her share in a remnant

of the fortunes of the several families of CAVENDISH, HOLLES, and

HARLEY, into the family of BENTINCK. The magnificent printed library

which formed part of her inheritance was sold and dispersed. [Sidenote:

Johnson, _Account of the Harleian Library_; _Works_, vol. v, p. 181.] It

was of that collection that JOHNSON said, ‘It excels any library that

was ever yet offered to sale in the value as well as in the number of

the volumes which it contains.’

The Manuscripts were eventually purchased by Parliament for the sum of

ten thousand pounds. [Sidenote: THE PURCHASE OF THE HARLEIAN MSS. FOR

THE NATION.] With reference to this purchase the Duchess of PORTLAND

wrote as follows, in April, 1753, to the Speaker of the House of

Commons:—‘As soon as I was acquainted with the proposal you had made in

the House of Commons, in relation to my Father’s Collection of

Manuscripts I informed my Mother [the then Dowager Countess of OXFORD]

of it, who has given the Duke of PORTLAND and me full power to do

therein as we shall think fit.

‘Though I am told the expense of collecting them was immense, and that,

if they were to be dispersed, they would probably sell for a great deal

of money, yet, as a sum has been named, and as I know it was my Father’s

and is my Mother’s intention that they should be kept together, I will

not bargain with the Publick. I give you this trouble therefore to

acquaint you that I am ready to accept of your proposal upon condition

that this great and valuable Collection shall be kept together in a

proper repository, as an addition to the Cotton Library, and be called

by the name of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts.

‘I hope you do me the justice to believe that I do not consider this as

a sale for an adequate price. [Sidenote: Duchess of Portland to Arthur

Onslow; MS. ADDIT., 17521, f. 30. (B. M.)] But your idea is so right,

and so agreeable to what I know was my Father’s intention, that I have a

particular satisfaction in contributing all I can to facilitate the

success of it.’

If it were possible to give, in few words, any adequate view of the

obligations which English literature, and more especially English

historical literature, owes to the Collectors of the Harleian

Manuscripts, there could be no fitter conclusion to a biographical

notice of Robert HARLEY. Here, however, no such estimate is practicable.

Nor, in truth, can it be needed in order to convince the reader that

‘some tribute of veneration’—to use the apposite words which JOHNSON

prefixed to the Harleian Catalogue—is due to the ardour of the two

HARLEYS for literature; and ‘to that generous and exalted curiosity

which they gratified with incessant searches and immense expense; and to

which they dedicated that time and that superfluity of fortune which

many others, of their rank, employ in the pursuit of contemptible

amusements or the gratification of guilty passions.’

NOTE TO CHAPTER V.

_EXTRACTS FROM THE STUART PAPERS, REFERRING TO INTERCOURSE OF ROBERT

HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD, WITH THE JACOBITES, AFTER THE ACCESSION OF

GEORGE I._

1. [1717?] A document which, could it be recovered, would go far towards

clearing up some of the uncertainties which exist as to Lord Oxford’s

intercourse with the Pretender and his agents, subsequently to the death

of Queen Anne, was seen by Sir James Mackintosh among the Stuart Papers

acquired by George the Fourth. It was afterwards vainly searched for by

Lord Mahon, when engaged upon his _History of England, from the Peace of

Utrecht_. [Sidenote: _Edin. Rev._, vol. lxii, pp. 18, 19.] It is still

known only from the cursory notes made by Mackintosh, and referred to by

a writer in the _Edinburgh Review_ in these words: ‘During Oxford’s

confinement in the Tower there is a communication from him to the

Pretender, preserved among the Stuart Papers, offering his services and

advice; recommending the Bishop of Rochester as the fittest person to

manage the Jacobite affairs,—the writer himself being in custody; and

adding that he should never have thought it safe ‘_to engage again_ with

His Majesty if Bolingbroke himself had been still about him.’

2. 1717. September 29. Bishop ATTERBURY to Lord MAR:—

‘Your accounts of what has been said here concerning some imaginary

differences abroad have not so much foundation as you may suppose. At

least, if they have, I am a stranger to it.... The result of any

discourse I shall have with [the Earl of Oxford?] will be sure to reach

you by his means. [Sidenote: _Stuart Papers_, 1717.] You will, I

suppose, have a full account of affairs here from his and other hands.’

3. [1717?] The same to the same.

[Sidenote: _Ibid._]

‘Distances and other accidents have, for some years, interrupted my

correspondence with [the Earl of Oxford?] but I am willing to renew it,

and to enter into it upon a better foot than it has ever yet stood,

being convinced that my so doing may be of no small consequence to the

service. I have already taken the first step towards it that is proper

in our situation, and will pursue that by others as fast as I can have

opportunity; hoping that the secret will be as inviolably kept on your

side as it shall be on this, so far as the nature of such a transaction

between two persons who must see one another sometimes can pass

unobserved.’

[Sidenote: _Edin. Rev._, as before.]

4. 1721. ‘Among the same papers,’ says the Reviewer quoted on the

previous page, ‘there is a letter from Mrs. Oglethorpe to the Pretender

(Jan. 17, 1721), containing assurances from Lord Oxford of his eternal

respect and good wishes, which from accidental circumstances he had been

unable to convey in the usual manner.’

5. 1722. April 14. THE PRETENDER [to Lord OXFORD?]

‘If you have not heard sooner or oftener from me, it hath not, I can

assure you, been my fault. Neither do I attribute to yours the long

silence you have kept on your side, but to a chain of disappointments

and difficulties which hath been also the only reason of my not finding

all this while a method of conveying my thoughts to you, and receiving

your advice, which I shall ever value as I ought, because I look upon

you not only as an able lawyer but a sincere friend. [Sidenote: _Stuart

Papers_, 1722.] This will, I hope, come soon to your hands, and the

worthy friend by whose canal I send it will accompany it, by my

directions, with all the lights and information he or I can give, and

which it is therefore useless to repeat here.’

6. 1722. April 16. THE PRETENDER to ATTERBURY.

‘I am sensible of the importance of secrecy in such an affair, yet I do

not see how it will be possible to raise a sufficient sum, or to make a

reasonable concert in England, without letting some more persons into

the project. [Sidenote: _Ibid._] You on the place are best judge how

these points are to be compassed, but I cannot but think that [the Earl

of Oxford?] might be of great use on this occasion. [Lord Lansdowne?] is

to write to him on the subject, and I am confident that if you two were

to compare notes together you would be able to contrive and settle

matters on a more sure and solid foundation than they have hitherto

been.’

7. 1722. In a report made to the Earl of Mar by George Kelly, one of his

emissaries employed in England, it is stated that on the delivery, by

Kelly, of Mar’s letter to Atterbury, the prelate asked the messenger if

he had anything to say, in addition to the contents of the letter, and

that he replied (in the jargon of his calling): ‘It is a proposal for

joining stocks with the Earl of Oxford, and taking the management of the

Company’s business into their hands.’ Atterbury, according to this

story, required a day’s deliberation, and then told Kelly that he was

‘resolved to join both heart and hand with the Earl; and not only so,

but in the management and course of the business he would shew him all

the deference and respect that was due to a person who had so justly

filled the stations which he had been in.’ The Bishop, says Kelly, also

added that he was ‘resolved to dedicate the remainder of his days to the

King’s service, and proposed, by this reunion, to repay some part of the

personal debt which he owed to the Earl of Oxford, to whom he would

immediately write upon this subject.’ [Sidenote: _Ibid._] The messenger

goes on to assure Lord Mar that Atterbury ‘is entirely of your opinion

that there is not much good to be expected from the present managers,

and thinks it no great vanity to say that the Earl of Oxford and himself

are the fittest persons for this purpose; but the chief success of their

partnership will depend upon the secrecy of it.’

Of the genuineness of the several letters,—of the credit due to the

emissaries and their reports,—even of the accurate identification, in

some instances, of the ‘Mr. Hackets,’ ‘Houghtons,’ and numerous other

pseudonyms, under which ‘Lord Oxford’ is assumed to be veiled, there

are, as yet, no adequate means of judging.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM.

... ‘He pry’d through Nature’s store,

Whate’er she in th’ ethereal round contains,

Whate’er she hides beneath her verdant floor,

The vegetable and the mineral reigns.

At times, he scann’d the globe,—those small domains

Where restless mortals such a turmoil keep,—

Its seas, its floods, its mountains, and its plains.’—

THOMSON.

_Flemish Exiles in England._—_The Adventures, Mercantile and Colonial

Enterprises, and Vicissitudes of the_ COURTENS.—_William_ COURTEN

_and his Collections.—The Life and Travels of Sir Hans_

SLOANE—_His acquisition of_ COURTEN’S _Museum_.—_Its growth under

the new Possessor._—_History of the Sloane Museum and Library, and

of their purchase by Parliament._

[Sidenote: BOOK I, Chap. VI. THE FOUNDERS OF THE SLOANE MUSEUM.]

The history of the rise and growth of our English trade is, in a

conspicuous degree, a history of the immigration hither of foreign

refugees, and of what was achieved by their energy and industry, when

put forth to the utmost under the stimulus and the stern discipline of

adversity. Other countries, no doubt, have derived much profit from a

similar cause, but none, in Europe, to a like extent. By turns almost

all the chief countries of the Continent have sent us bands of exiles,

who brought with them either special skill in manual arts and

manufactures, or special capabilities for expanding our foreign

commerce. To Flemish refugees, and more particularly to those of them

who were driven hither by Spanish persecution in the sixteenth century,

England owes a large debt in both respects. [Sidenote: FLEMISH EXILES IN

ENGLAND.] Our historians have given more prominence of late years to

this chapter in the national annals than was ever given to it before,

but there is no presumption in saying that not a little of what was

achieved by exiles towards the industrial greatness of the nation has

yet to be told.