favourite subject for collection, not only in the United Kingdom,
but on the Continent and in the United States, where I am told the
finest examples of this fascinating branch of the autograph cult
(Mr. Adrian Joline calls it frankly a hobby) are to be found. Royal
letters and signatures figure conspicuously and plentifully in all
books of facsimiles, but the young collector would do well to study
carefully two volumes devoted exclusively to this particular branch
of calligraphy.[24] Examples of Royal handwriting abound in both the
Record Office and the British Museum, although a good many were either
turned into jelly, burned, or otherwise wasted in consequence of
such regrettable transactions as the "waste-paper" deals between the
officials of Somerset House and Mr. Jay, and those of the new India
Office and the pulping-mills.[25] It is clear that Royal autographs may
be looked for in all sorts of out-of-the-way and unexpected places.
Henry VIII.'s love-letters to Anne Boleyn are said to be hidden away in
the Vatican, and Sir H. Maxwell Lyte found the sign manuals of monarchs
amongst the débris of the Belvoir hay-loft.
In no class of autographs is the rise of prices and increase of value
so remarkable as in those now under discussion. I cannot precisely
ascertain the present worth of the signature of Richard II., with whom
the English series is supposed to commence, but M. Noël Charavay tells
me that a document signed by John II., the first of the French Royal
signers, would fetch £10. Before me lie some interesting details as
to the value of Royal autographs in 1827, and a group of catalogues,
containing a good many desirable items of this kind, issued in London
between 1875 and 1885.
It will be instructive to note the prices which choice specimens
fetched at these comparatively recent periods. In _The Archivist_ of
December, 1889, we are informed that according to the price-currents
of 1827 the autographs of "Elizabeth the adored of her people" are
worth £2 2s., while Charles I., "worshipped as a martyr," commands the
same price. Charles II., with his Queen, Catharine of Braganza, thrown
in, fetches no more than £1 5s. James II. is worth £3 8s., owing to a
limited supply. William III. yields less than half that figure, but a
whole letter of Queen Mary was knocked down for £3 10s.
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF KING GEORGE III. ON THE SUBJECT OF THE DEFENCE
OF ENGLAND IN THE EARLY STAGES OF THE GREAT TERROR OF 1796-1805.
(By permission of Mr. John Lane.)]
The expert of this excellent journal continues: "George I., 'a heavy,
dull German gentleman,' is reckoned worth only £1 1s., and George II.,
I am ashamed to say it, only 14s. Our beloved monarch George III.,
being well remembered, rises to £3 10s. George IV., the most complete
gentleman of his age,[26] rises above all his Royal predecessors
and reaches £4 14s. 6d.; it is also curious to see how so great a
king and so fine a gentleman wrote when he was a boy and to possess
a leaf of his copybook. Here I fain would conclude this estimate of
British rulers, but truth compels me to add that Oliver Cromwell is
deemed worth £5 15s. 6d. French kings are sadly degraded. Five _Grands
Monarques_, among whom are Francis I. and Louis XIV., are estimated at
the average price of 4s. 1½d. each; Henry IV. advanced to 14s., but
Napoleon, in the very teeth of French legitimacy, reaches 20s. higher.
A French Queen, Anne of Austria, is worth 7s., while Josephine, the
shadow of a French empress, is worth more than five times this sum.
A great and wise Emperor of Russia, and the brave King of Prussia,
require the aid of a French prince, an English princess, and seven
English peers to push them up to 16s." These were indeed halcyon days
for the collectors, but at that period they were few and far between.
Mr. William Upcott, the _doyen_ of modern autograph collectors, reigned
almost supreme at "Autograph Cottage," Islington, his only possible
competitors being Mr. Young and Mr. John Dillon.
[Illustration: COMMISSION SIGNED BY OLIVER CROMWELL, OCTOBER 20, 1651.
(In the collection of Sir George White, Bart., of Bristol.)]
[Illustration: SIGNATURE OF LORD PROTECTOR RICHARD CROMWELL TO A
COMMISSION, JANUARY, 1658.]
In the mid "eighteen-seventies" Mr. John Waller, the conscript father
of London autograph-dealers, was about to move from 58, Fleet Street to
Harley House, Artesian Road, Westbourne Grove. A little later the late
Mr. Frederick Barker began to issue catalogues of autograph letters and
historical documents from Rowan Road, Brook Green. He became the
agent of Mr. William Evarts Benjamin, now the _doyen_ of the autograph
merchants in New York, then residing at 744, Broadway. In Mr. Waller's
first catalogues I find the following "Royalties": Charles II. Royal
Sign Manual, 7s. 6d.; letter from Charles II. of Spain to William III.,
4s. 6d.; George Sign Manual when blind, 7s. 6d.; George I. Sign Manual,
1 p. folio, 12s. 6d.; Henry II. of France, fine D.S. with State seal,
12s. 6d.; King of Siam, 7s. 6d.; Papal Bull of Urban VIII., 30s.;
Warrant of Privy Council of Edward VI. with numerous rare signatures,
25s.; Duke of Sussex, interesting letter on the trial of Queen
Caroline, 4s. 6d.; Queen Victoria, two Royal Sign Manuals at 10s. each;
Henry VIII. Royal Sign Manual on "vellum, document of great beauty,"
48s.; Henry VII. Royal Sign Manual on "document of greatest interest,"
70s.; Frederick Prince of Wales, L.S., 10s.; Charles I. when Prince
of Wales, D.S., 34s.; Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette--signatures on
two "important documents," 24s. the pair; Napoleon I. L.S. 2 pp. 4to
to Prince of Neuchatel, Valladolid, January 11, 1809, 25s.; Papal Bull
Alexander III., 1181, 47s. 6d.; Mary II. Royal Sign Manual, 30s.;
Original Orders for Arrest of Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III.), June
13, 1848, 52s. 6d.; Napoleon II. (King of Rome), 4 pp. of an original
historical essay, 48s.; Royal Sign Manual of Philip and Mary, ten
guineas; A.L.S. of Charles II., 1½ pp., Whitehall, September 26, 1660,
_à sa chère sœur_, 73s. 6d. I will not pursue this list further. The
reader can judge of the relative value of Royal autographs in 1827 and
1875-80.
[Illustration: FOURTEEN LINES IN THE WRITING OF NAPOLEON ON MILITARY
ORDER, WITH HIS SIGNATURE, JULY 3, 1803.]
In the price of the autographs of sovereigns of minor importance there
has been no striking rise since 1880. Indeed, I note that on December
17th, 1909, letters and documents signed by Ferdinand, Grand Duke of
Tuscany, Louis XVIII. of France, Mathias de Medicis, also of Tuscany,
and Rudolph II., Emperor of Germany, were knocked down in one lot at
Sotheby's for five shillings. But letters of the Tudor and Stuart
sovereigns are fetching as many pounds in 1910 as they did shillings
eighty years ago. A pardon granted by James II. to Edward Strode, of
Downside, "on account of his entertaining the Duke of Monmouth for one
night immediately after his defeat at Sedgemoor," sold on December 17,
1909, for £57. Mr. Waller in 1876 would assuredly have catalogued it at
57s. or less. Four years ago I purchased for Sir George White, Bart.,
of Bristol, an order, signed by the same sovereign, enjoining the
Duke of Beaufort to burn Keynsham Bridge on the approach of Monmouth
and his followers, at the modest price of 42s. Amongst other letters
or documents belonging to this category figuring in the last sale of
1909 may be mentioned a letter signed by Cromwell addressed to the
Genevan Senate on the recent Protestant massacres in the Alps (July
28, 1655), for which Mr. Sabin gave £31, and two A.L.S.--one of George
IV. and one of William IV., which went to Mr. W. V. Daniell for 12s.
To what indignation would this startling fall in value have moved the
righteous soul of the chronicler of the sale-prices of 1827! MSS. of
"The First Gentleman in Europe" rank no longer amongst the high-priced
autographs, but I shall have more to say of them presently. Experience
has taught me to look in Munich and Paris for bargains in the matter
of seventeenth-century Stuart letters. At Munich I quite lately came
across a fine A.L.S. of Charles I. for £10, and a delightful L.S. of
his eldest son while in exile to the Elector Palatine, with seals and
silken cords intact, for 50s. Good William III. letters now average
£10, but I obtained the following characteristic letter written from
the Camp before Namur for less than half that sum:--
_AU CAMP DEVAND NAMUR, 13 de juillet, 1695._
_A neuf heures du soir._
J'ay receu ce matin vostre lettre de hier du matin a neuf
eures, j'ay donne les ordres pour faire marcher demain a la
pointe du jour le Brigadier St. Paul avec cinq batt; selon la
route que Dopp vous envoyerez pour les Dragons je vous en ay
ecrit hier et attendres vostre reponse. Si vous trouves que
vous n'avez pas besoin de ces batt: vous les pouvez faire halte
en chemain et me les renvoyer. Jusque a present je n'ay point
de nouvelle que Precontal a marche vers le Haynaut aussi tot
que je le sauroi je vous en advertires, ce qui se passeray Dopp
vous le mendra je suis tres touche du malheur du povre fagel
qui nous faira grand faute je ne scai ... s'il en ecchapera, je
suis toujours a vous.
WILLIAM R.
[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH OF HENRY VII., KING OF ENGLAND (1456-1509).
(In the collection of Messrs. Maggs.)]
Letters of the Electress Sophia of Hanover very rarely turn up, and
I consider the following quaint epistle addressed to that astute
"trimmer," the Duke of Leeds, when she was over eighty, a great bargain
at 30s.:--
_HANOVER le 19 Decbre 1710._
_A Monsieur le Duc de Leeds._
MONSIEUR,--Longtems que j'ay le bien de vous connoitre come
il y a par la reputation que vous vous estes acquise dans le
monde, vous devez estre assuré my Lord que les marques de votre
amitié m'ont este fort agreable et que i'ay este bien aise que
vous serés Contant de l'acceuil que j'ais fait au my Lords vos
petits fils lesquels par leur propre merite s'attirent l'estime
de tous ceux qui les voie, et dont vous devez estre fort
content. Je les chargeres fort à leur retour de vous assurer du
cas que je faits de votre amitié et de la reconnaissance avec
la qu'elle je suis Monsieur
Votre tres affectione
a vous servir
SOPHIE ELECTRICE.
Je me souviens fort bien du tems que vous faites le mariage du
Roy Guillaume et des bons bons sentiment que vous tenies en
cœur.
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF KING WILLIAM III. FROM CAMP BEFORE NAMUR, JULY
13, 1795.]
[Illustration: LAST PAGE OF A.L.S. OF EMPRESS CATHERINE OF RUSSIA TO
MRS. DE BIELKE, OF HAMBURG, JULY 28, 1767.]
Letters of Frederick the Great, be they holograph or merely signed,
are cheaper in England than on the Continent. Even the L.S. are often
witty, and I have met with many good specimens at from 10s. to 15s. One
of the greatest treasures in my collection is a superb letter of the
Empress Catharine II. of Russia, dated July 28, 1767, and addressed to
Madame de Bielke, of Hamburg, who gave it to a Foreign Office official,
Sir Charles Flint, from whose descendant it passed into my possession.
It was submitted by M. Noël Charavay[27] to M. Rambaud, ex-Minister of
Public Instruction, Professor at the Sorbonne, who discovered it to
be one of an important series, of which sixteen are published in the
"Collection de la Société impériale d'histoire de Russie." Sir Charles
Flint was an early collector of autographs, and his duties as a King's
Messenger gave him excellent opportunities of picking up treasures
like this. I think it best to give the letter in the original French,
instead of following the modernised version adopted in Paris:--
A MA TERRE DE KOLOMINSKA A SEPT WERSTE DE MOSCOU
_le 28 Juillet 1767_.
MADAME,--Je suis de retour de mon grand voyage depuis six
semaine, et pendant ce tems a peine aije trouvé le moment
pour vous repondre, quoique tout les jours je me disois demain
j'ecrirés et lorsque demain venoit j'avois autant de tracas,
que la veille, et au sortir de la j'etois si fatigué que je
pouvoit dire com̄e le Philosophe marié, A force de penser je
n'ai plus d'idée; en attendant j'ai a repondre a cinq de vos
lettre dans lequelles je trouve repandu un sentimens universel
de votre part de m'obliger; je vous en ai bien de l'obligation
madame, et j'y reconnois parfaitement ce caractere aimable qui
vous a toujours distingué. En revange des nouvelles de l'Europe
dont vous me faite part quelque fois je vous en conterés
d'Asie, j'ai fait 1300 Werstes sur le Volga j'ai descendu
dans les endroits les plus remarquables, j'ai trouvé les deux
bords du Volga d'une beauté au dessus presque de l'expression,
peuplés et cultivés tres honetement, mais l'endroit qui a
le plus attiré mon attention est sans contredit la ville de
Casan; au premier coup d'œil l'on voit que s'est la capitale
d'un grand Royaume; j'y ai trouvé des habitans de huit nations
aussi differentes par leur habillement que par leurs mœurs,
Religions, languages, et idées, cette Ville est tres opulente
et s'est la premiere des nôtres qui a recon̄u que les
batimens de bois sont moins bons que ceux de pierres, qui peut,
en fait a present de cette derniere espeçe, et ceux qui n'ont
pas euë cette facultés ont euë le malheur de perdre les leurs
il y a deux ans par un incendie, j'ai trouvé la moitié de la
ville brulée mais en verité l'on ne s'en aperçevoit pas, tant
cette ville est grande, je fais rebatir la moitié brulés en
pierre et probablement ce sera un quartier très hon̄ete, la
Ville m'a don̄é une mascarade un souper un feu d'artifiçe et
une fete publique pour le peuple ou chaque nation dansoit a sa
façon devant la maison, au j'étois; il y avoit une affluance de
Noblesse d'allentour qui fit qu'il y eut jusqu'a quatre cent
masque de cet état des deux sexe. J'ai trouvé outre cela de
tres belle fabrique et des marchandise de touttes espece. On
avait élevé un arc de triomphe pour mon entrée com̄e je n'en
ai vuë encore, de pareil a aucune solemnellité. Enfin après
sept jours j'ai quité a regret cette ville qui n'a d'autre
defaut que d'être situé a 800 Werste de celleçi et en Asie, en
revange le sol est excellent, les asperges sauvage les serises
les abricots sauvages et les roses y vien̄ent com̄e les
broussailles dans les autres pays, on chauffe les fourneaux
avec du chene et des tilleuls faute d'autre bois. Nous y avons
trouvé une chaleur excessive a la fin de may et l'hiver y dure
moins qu'ici, j'ai été de la jusqu'au confins du Royaume de
Casan et ou celui d'Astracan com̄ençe, j'y ai trouvé les
ruine d'une ville que Tamerlan avoit batis pour son petit fils
il y a encore en entier deux minarets fort haut de pierre de
taille la mosquée et six Voûtes de maison la terre est noire
com̄e du charbon et quand on ensemence l'on na pas besoin
de labourer l'on passe lentement pardessus la semence avec
l'instrument dont on se sert partout a cet usage et dont j'ai
oublié le nom. Ensuite je suis revenue ici et j'ai fait 800
werste en six jours, en tres bon̄e santé, je souhaite Madame
que la votre soi de meme et que vous soyés bien assuré de mon
estime et amitié.
CATERINE.
La plupart de neuf deputés choisis pour travailler a notre
nouveaue Code étant arrivé, l'on com̄ençera après demain avec
beaucoup d'appareil ce grand et memorable ouvrage.
For the following translation I am indebted to Professor Maurice A.
Gerothwohl, Litt.D., of the University of Bristol:--
AT MY ESTATE OF KOLOMINSKA, SEVEN VERSTS FROM MOSCOW.
_July 28, 1767._
MADAM,--It is now six weeks since I returned from my long
journey, and during this time I have been scarcely able to find
a moment in which to reply to you, although I said to myself
daily, "I will write to-morrow"; but, when the morrow came, I
experienced the same trouble as on the previous day, and in the
end I was so tired that I might well have exclaimed with "The
Married Philosopher,"[28] "I have thought so much that I have
no thoughts left." Meanwhile I have to answer five letters of
your own, all of which breathe a general desire on your part
to be of some service to me. I am, indeed, obliged to you for
this, Madam, wherein I readily discern that lovable disposition
which has ever been one of your distinguishing traits.
In return for the European news which you communicate to me
from time to time, here is news from Asia. I did 1,300 versts
on the Volga, landing at the most notable spots. I found both
banks of the Volga beautiful almost beyond expression, and
withal fairly populated and cultivated. But the spot which
attracted most attention on my part is unquestionably the City
of Kazan.[29] You recognise at first sight that you are here
in the capital of a great kingdom. I found there members of
eight nationalities, all equally distinct in dress, customs,
religion, language, and modes of thought. The city is very
prosperous, and the first of our towns to recognise that wooden
are inferior to stone buildings. All who can afford it, now
build houses of the latter type, and those who were precluded
from doing so had the misfortune of seeing their homes wrecked
in a conflagration which occurred some two years since. But
as a matter of fact, we never noticed this, as the city is so
vast. I am having the ruined half of the city rebuilt in stone,
and it will probably present a very respectable appearance.
The city authorities entertained me to a masque, a supper,
fireworks, while for the people there was held a public
festival, at which each nation danced in its own peculiar style
in front of the house in which I was staying. There was a
great influx of the nobility of the neighbourhood, so that the
masks of both sexes belonging to this order numbered no fewer
than four hundred. Apart from all this, I came across fine
factories, and goods of all descriptions. For my entry, they
had erected a triumphal arch such as I had never yet beheld at
any solemnity. Finally, when seven days had elapsed, I left
with some diffidence this town whose only fault is that it is
situated in Asia, and distant from here by some 800 versts.
On the other hand, its soil is most fruitful, wild asparagus,
cherries, apricots, and roses growing there like brushwood in
other lands. They heat their ovens with oak and lime-tree,
there being no other wood available. We found it excessively
hot there at the end of May, and their winter is shorter than
our own. Thence I proceeded to the limits of the Kingdom
of Kazan, and the starting point of the boundaries of the
Astrakhan Kingdom. And here I came across the ruins of a town
built by Tamerlane for his grandson, of which all that survives
in its entirety are a couple of minarets built of freestone, a
mosque, and six vaulted chambers. The soil there is as black as
coal, and when you sow there is no need to till; you need only
pass lightly over the seeds with an instrument used everywhere
for that purpose, the name of which I have forgotten. Following
upon that, I returned here, covering 800 versts in six days,
and feeling none the worse for it. I only hope that your health
is equally satisfactory, and that you entertain no doubts as to
my regard and friendship for you.
CATHARINE.
The majority of the nine deputies who have been appointed
to work at our new Code having now arrived, we shall embark
to-morrow upon that great and epoch-making task with due
solemnity.
What a contrast does the vigorous letter of Catharine "Slay-Czar,"
as Horace Walpole was pleased to call her, present to the following
letter of Louis XVI., written to Lavoisier, the Physicist, while the
premonitory grumblings of the coming storm were still audible!
_VERSAILLES le 15 Mars 1789._
Votre derniere experience, Monsieur, fixe encore toutte mon
admiration. Cette découverte prouve que vous avez aggrandi
la sphère des connoissances utiles. Vos expériences sur le
gaz inflammable prouvent combien vous vous occupiez de cette
science admirable qui, tous les jours, fait de nouveaux
progrès. La Reine et quelques personnes que je desire rendre
témoins de votre découverte, se réuniront dans mon cabinet,
demain a sept heures du soir. Vous me ferez plaisir de m'i
apporter le _traitté des gaz inflammables_. Vous connoissez,
Monsieur, toutte mon amitié pour vous.
LOUIS.
[TRANSLATION].
_VERSAILLES 15 March 1789._
SIR,--My admiration is still wholly riveted upon your latest
experiment. This discovery proves that you have enlarged the
sphere of useful knowledge. Your experiments on inflammable gas
prove to what extent you have cultivated that admirable science
which is daily making further strides. The Queen and a few
persons to whom I am anxious to show your discovery will meet
in my study to-morrow evening, at seven. I shall be pleased if
you will bring with you the _Treatise on inflammable Gas_. You
are not unaware, sir, of the very great friendship which I bear
you.
LOUIS.
The old Princess Amelia, Aunt to George III., the legends of whose
snuff-taking and card-playing still linger at Gunnersbury and in
Cavendish Square, was a wit in her way. Horace Walpole yawned
incontinently at one of her whist parties, and made amends in verse.
This is what she wrote him in return:--
_Princess Amelia to Horace Walpole._
_17 of June._
I wish I had a name that could answer your proud verses. Your
yawning yesterday opend your vein for pleasing me and I return
you my thanks my good Mr. Walpole and remain,
Sincerely your friend,
AMELIA.
At the back, in the handwriting of Walpole, "From Her Royal Highness
Princess Amelia June 17 1786."
[Illustration: ONE OF THE EARLIEST SIGNATURES OF LOUIS XIV. (AGED SIX).]
[Illustration: INTERESTING A.L.S. OF LOUIS XVI. TO THE CHEMIST
LAVOISIER ON THE SUBJECT OF THE DISCOVERY OF INFLAMMABLE GAS,
VERSAILLES, MARCH 15, 1789.]
Few Royal letters interest me more than those of George III., upon
whose worth of character, in my opinion, they throw a strong light.
Five years ago they were comparatively rare, although Farmer George
was his own Secretary, and appears to have been at his desk at all
hours of the day and night from 1760 until his Jubilee in 1809, when
blindness fell upon him, and his signature became an undecipherable
scrawl. His writing was peculiarly neat and legible. Only when under
the influence of illness or strong emotion did he omit to add the hour
and minutes to the day of the week and month. Here is an early letter
written to the future Lord Hood, when the future King William IV. went
to sea as a boy of twelve.[30]
_George III. to Sir Samuel Hood,_
_June 13th, 1779._
SIR SAMUEL HOOD,--This will be delivered to you by Major
General de Budé, whom I have directed to stay a few days at
Portsmouth that he may be able to bring me some accounts how
far the Midshipman takes to his situation, besides I think it
may be of use to Rear Admiral Digby to be thoroughly apprised
with many particulars concerning my Boy that will enable him
to fix the better his mode of treating him. If the fleet sails
in the course of the Week I hope you will find some means of
letting him attend it to St. Hellens; as it will be a very
additional pleasure if he can bring me the news that this noble
Fleet is under way.
GEORGE R.
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF KING GEORGE III. TO SIR SAMUEL HOOD
(AFTERWARDS LORD HOOD), JUNE 13, 1779.]
Nine years later he goes to Cheltenham with the threatenings of his
first attack of mental affliction upon him. He writes thus banteringly
to his daughter the Princess Sophia, who lived down to our own time,
and whom my mother remembered seeing in a sedan chair in Bond Street:--
_CHELTENHAM Aug 4 1788_
MY DEAREST SOPHIA,--The account this day of Mary is so charming
that it has quite put me into spirits, and prepared me for
going tomorrow after dinner to Worcester where I shall remain
till Friday evening that I may attend the three Mornings at the
Cathedral the Musick of my admiration Handel.
Yesterday evening Lady Reed with all her curtsies left this
place, but not without inviting _your Gentleman_ to come as a
_connoisseur_ to assist her Mackaws, Parrots and Paroqueets.
Tell Gooly that she is not forgot for Sestini's songs are
play'd in honour of her on the walks and _dear Mr. Hunt_
enquir'd very kindly of the Colonel after her, I ever remain
My dearest Sophia
Your most affectionate Father,
GEORGE R.
PS.--It is not right to tell stories out of school or I could
mention that the _Gentleman_ is the admiration of all the
Ladies and that on the Walks he is ever talking to some Lady or
other not known by those who have been here some time, indeed,
I believe the knowledge of his coming has brought them from all
parts of the Island.
Lady Reed was one of those persons who followed the Court everywhere--a
peculiarity not wholly extinct. There is a curious caricature of
her making her bow to Royalty on the Weymouth Esplanade, surrounded
by a bevy of spaniels, the companions of the "Mackaws, Parrots and
Paroqueets" mentioned by the King, who evidently understood her. In the
late autumn the King's affliction declared itself, but in the following
April he became convalescent, and the following is one of the first
letters he wrote on his recovery:--
_George III to Lord Sydney._
Though heartily tired of receiving addresses, as I am on
Saturday to receive through the hands of the Lord Mayor of
London and the Sheriffs one from the livery of London, I do
not object to the Laity of the Protestant Dissenters sending
a Deputation with an Address on the same day. Lord Sydney may
therefore authorize Mr. Nepean to give a favourable answer to
the Application of Mr. Boyle French.
G. R.
Windsor,
_April 11, 1789._
Here is a letter of seven years later, when the strained relations of
the "First Gentleman in Europe" and his wife, the Princess Caroline,
became a public scandal:--
_George III. to Caroline, Princess of Wales._
_WINDSOR, 28 Juin 1796_
MADAME MA FILLE,--J'ai reçu hier votre lettre au sujet du bruit
repandu dans le public de Votre repugnance a vous preter à une
parfaite reconcilliation avec Mon Fils le Prince de Galles je
ne disconvient pas (_sic_) que cette opinion commence à prendre
racine, et qu'il n'y a qu'une manière de la détruire c'est que
Mon Fils ayant consenti que la Comtesse de Jersey doit suivant
votre desire quitter Votre Service et ne pas être admise à
Votre Societé privée. Vous devez témoigner votre desir qu'il
revient chez lui, et pour rendre la reconcilliation complette
on doit des deux cote's abstenir de reproches, et ne faire des
confidences à d'autres sur ce sujet. Une conduite si propre
certainement remettra cette Union entre mon Fils et Vous qui
est un des evenemens que j'ai le plus à louer.
Mon fils le Duc de York Vous remettra cette lettre et Vous
assurera de plus de l'amitié sincere avec la quelle je suis
Madame Ma Belle Fille
Votre très affectueux Beau Pere
GEORGE R.
The finest letters of George III. from a moral and patriotic point of
view are unquestionably those written during the "Great Terror," when
for nearly ten years the practical realisation of Napoleon's threatened
invasion of our shores was expected at any moment. Some years ago, at
the cost of £5, I obtained the following letter addressed by the King
to Lord Mulgrave just four days before Trafalgar:--
_KEW, October 17 1805_
The information received by the mail just arrived is so
important that Lord Mulgrave has judged very properly in
instantly communicating it, though at an irregular hour. The
violence of Bonaparte is highly advantageous to the good cause,
and probably has affected a decision in the line to be pursued
by the King of Prussia that will be more efficacious than
the interview with the Emperor of Russia would have produced
without it.
GEORGE R.
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF KING GEORGE III. WRITTEN FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE
BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR.]
Shortly after the death of the late Duke of Cambridge a vast number of
George III.'s letters suddenly flooded the market. The average price
fell from £5 and more to £2 and less. Every autograph dealer in London
had a stock, so there could be no "corner" in "Georges." I contrived to
get thirty or forty--mostly written from Weymouth. It seems that during
the great crisis King George wrote almost daily to "Dear Frederic"
(his son the Duke of York, Commander-in-Chief), and many of these
letters are of the greatest interest. For 10s. I picked up the King's
holograph draft of a plan for mobilising an army of defence between
Dorchester and Weymouth.[31] Between 1789 and 1805 George III. paid
fourteen visits to Weymouth. Many momentous acts of State were carried
out at the Royal Lodge, now transformed, with hardly any structural
change, into the Gloucester Hotel. If it had not been for the death
of the Duke of Gloucester, the King would have received the news of
Trafalgar in the same place where he had talked a few weeks previously
with "Nelson's Hardy." Some day these letters will help materially the
telling of the story of the "Court by the Sea." I thank Thackeray for
the lines which made George III., when old, blind, and forsaken, say:--
"My brain perhaps might be a feeble part,
But yet I think I had an English heart
When all the Kings were prostrate; I alone
Stood face to face against Napoleon,
Nor even could the ruthless Frenchman forge
A fetter for old England and old George."
The letters of the Princess of Wales (1796-1819), the Queen Caroline
of 1820-21, are not very valuable, but they are curious.[32] They
are now quite as valuable as those of her worthless husband and his
successor, of whom I possess several interesting examples, beginning
in the days when he was sailing with Digby and earning the sobriquet
of "Jolly Young Tarry-breeks." At the sale of the library of the
Princess Edward of Saxe-Weimar (June 21, 1904) I purchased three
volumes, bound in green calf, full of Prince William's early notes and
exercises. One of these is docketed by the youthful sailor "Remarks
on Countries, Harbours, Towns, etc. on board the _Prince George_,
Feb 8 1780 William Henry." Some day my friends in the United States
will read a description of New York from the pen of a future King of
England, written a century and a quarter ago, and the romantic story
connected with it. Here is a letter he wrote home to his tutor, Dr.
Majendie, from Sandy Hook. It speaks volumes, at any rate, for his good
intentions:--
DEAR SIR,--I send you enclosed a key of a table of mine that
stands in the long room next to my bed-chamber in London. I
shall beg as a favour you would send me to the West Indies
everything in those drawers and a box with colours and pencils
as Captain Knight is so good as to teach me to draw.
I understand that the convoy does not sail till late, therefore
you will go in the Packet, I suppose: In this case I must
heartily wish you a quick passage, a sight of your family in
London, to whom I beg you will make my best wishes, thank your
Brother in my name for having collected the Poets for me.
The little I have seen of Captain Napier I like very well;
I hope he does the same of me; in the letters you allowed
me the pleasure to write pray give me such advice as you
think necessary I shall hope to receive it from nobody, but
particularly from you I have so long lived with.
I am, Dear Sir,
Your most affectionate and sincere friend,
WILLIAM HENRY.
There is nothing more astonishing than the manner in which the
letters of the late Queen Victoria have got into the autograph market
on either side of the Atlantic. Mr. Joline gives a very startling
instance of this, and I believe all her late Majesty's correspondence
with Mr. Gladstone went to America, and that for a very inadequate
consideration. The examples I give of the writing of living members
of the Royal Family are only fragments reproduced as specimens of
calligraphy. I can never quite understand how the Royal letters came
to figure in dealers' catalogues, notwithstanding in many cases
the confidential nature of their contents. In his "Collections and
Recollections" (1898) Mr. George W. E. Russell gives the following
autograph anecdote:--
"Like many other little boys, Prince Alexander of Battenberg ran
short of pocket-money and wrote an ingenious letter to his august
Grandmother, Queen Victoria, asking for some slight pecuniary
assistance. He received in return a just rebuke, telling him that
little boys should keep within their limits and that he must wait till
his allowance next became due. Shortly afterwards the undefeated little
Prince resumed the correspondence in something like the following form:
'My dear Grandmama, I am sure you will be glad to know that I need not
trouble you for any money just now, for I sold your last letter to
another boy here for thirty shillings.'"
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF QUEEN ALEXANDRA TO MRS. GLADSTONE, DECEMBER 7,
1888.]
[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA'S ORDER ON A LETTER OF SIR HENRY
PONSONBY, APRIL 26, 1894.]
Within the last few years the death of two or three trusted couriers
and upper servants accounts for the sale of a great many papers of this
kind, including whole bundles of telegrams in the handwriting of their
employers. From a similar source came one of the last letters Queen
Victoria ever penned, and a very touching relic it is, showing the
care for others and deep womanly sympathy which characterised the whole
of her life. I have since learned that it is customary to retranscribe
the originals of telegrams penned by illustrious personages. If this is
so the practice is most reprehensible. The telegrams from H.R.H. the
Duke of Connaught to the late Queen Victoria have nothing in them of a
confidential character. The first telegram is reproduced by permission
of the Editor of _The Country Home_; the second runs as follows:--
_The Duke of Connaught at Moscow to Queen Victoria, Balmoral._
_MOSCOW, May 31 1896_
QUEEN, Balmoral, England,--Very deplorable accident occurred at
beginning of yesterday's fête hours before arrival of Emperor
many peasants crushed to death Accident due over eagerness and
entirely fault of people themselves 700,000 people on ground.
Very sad.
ARTHUR.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE LAST LETTERS WRITTEN BY QUEEN VICTORIA,
ADDRESSED TO GENERAL SIR GEORGE WHITE, OF LADYSMITH.]
[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH TELEGRAM FROM THE LATE PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR OF
WALES TO HIS GRANDMOTHER, QUEEN VICTORIA.]
The autograph of the late Prince Albert Victor will some day become
exceedingly rare and costly. The only example I have of his writing
is the telegram he sent to his grandmother, Queen Victoria, at
Darmstadt, from that _caravanserai_ of kings, the Hôtel Bristol, in
the Place Vendôme, Paris. It is not often that Royalty honours one of
those irritating social tortures entitled "An Album of Confessions to
Record Thoughts and Feelings." The late Duke of Coburg (Prince Alfred
of England) fell a victim to the possessor of one thirty-seven years
ago, and the results figured at the modest price of £1 in a London
catalogue:--
CONFESSIONS.
1. Your favourite virtue--Self-denial.
2. Your favourite qualities in man--Decision and hardihood.
3. Your favourite qualities in woman--Dress and paint.
4. Your favourite occupation--Hunting and riding.
5. Your chief characteristic--Good nature.
6. Your idea of happiness--A good wife.
7. Your idea of misery--A mother-in-law.
8. Your favourite colour and flower--White, and lilies of the
valley.
9. If not yourself who would you be?--Some one else.
10. Where would you like to live?--In Rome or Vienna.
11. Your favourite prose authors--White-Melville and Lever.
12. Your favourite poets--Moore and Walter Scott.
13. Your favourite painters and composers--Raphael and
Mendelssohn.
14. Your favourite heroes in real life--Bayard and Leonidas.
15. Your favourite heroines in real life--Joan of Arc and
Boadicea.
16. Your favourite heroes in fiction--"The Claimant" and Lord
Rivers.
17. Your favourite heroines in fiction--Mother Gamp and Mrs.
Brown.
18. Your favourite food and drink--A mutton chop and a glass of
porter.
19. Your favourite names--Cerise, Blanche, Georgiana.
20. Your pet aversion--Flattery.
21. What characters in history do you most dislike?--Gessler
and Gambetta.
22. What is your present state of mind?--Doubtful.
23. For what fault have you most toleration?--Vanity.
24. Your favourite motto--"Honi soit qui mal y pense."
ALFRED.
_ROME, February 16, 1873._
[Illustration: HOLOGRAPH TELEGRAM OF THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT TO QUEEN
VICTORIA, ST. PETERSBURG, MAY 26, 1896.]
[Illustration: ONE PAGE OF A.L.S. OF QUEEN VICTORIA TO HER ELDER
DAUGHTER, AGED SIX, OCTOBER 21, 1846.
(By permission of Harper Brothers.)]
Some years ago, when I first took up autograph collecting as a serious
occupation, I bought from Mr. James Tregaskis, of the "Caxton Head,"
a copy-book of George, Prince of Wales, filled up when he was in his
thirteenth year. Few boys of that age could, in this twentieth century,
emulate the copper-plate of the then industrious Heir Apparent. With
the copybooks went his first cap and frock, both edged with the
daintiest Valenciennes lace. The genuineness of these relics of Royalty
was attested by the Dowager Countess of Effingham, Lady-in-Waiting
to Queen Charlotte, and their subsequent possessor, Mr. F. Madan,
of the Bodleian Library. A little later I purchased the Prince's
"exercise-book" of three years later, which begins with an "Extract
of the First Oration of Cicero against Catiline, spoken before their
Majesties in the Picture Gallery at Windsor, August 12, 1778." At the
same time I acquired the Duke of York's "Translations from Terence." On
the first page, the student of fifteen writes: "Frederick. This volume
begun January 9th, 1778. _Dimidium facti, qui bene cœpit, habet._" It
is sad to think they were within measurable distance of the "Perdita"
entanglement of 1780-81. I was already in a position to satisfy the
curiosity of the expert of 1827 as to a page of the copy-book, "of the
best king that ever lived," but some time later I became the owner
of a whole collection of Royal letters relating to the early married
life of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, and the up-bringing of
their elder children. There was nothing of a confidential nature in
these MSS. Everything tended to demonstrate the beauty and simplicity
of the home-life of the Sovereign at Windsor and Buckingham Palace
in the now far away "eighteen-forties," and the care bestowed on the
up-bringing of his late Majesty King Edward VII. These documents formed
the nucleus of a book, and by the permission of Messrs. Harper &
Brothers several of them are now reproduced. The _édition de luxe_
of this book[33] has been extra-illustrated by two ladies in New York.
I have also treated a copy very elaborately in this way, and I venture
to think it will make history some day. Many of the "unconsidered
trifles" it contains are not likely to be soon met with again, and
the _ensemble_ reconstitutes the Court atmosphere of 1840-45. In the
opening chapters of the "Boyhood of a Great King," I have given a brief
account of the upbringing of five generations of the British Royal
Family. Since then I have come across an interesting bundle of papers
once in possession of the Earl of Holdernesse, for some years governor
of the children of George III. In 1776 the King writes thus to Lord
Holdernesse:--
LORD HOLDERNESSE,--The opinion I have of your being the
most fit Person in all respects to have the direction of
the education of my Sons, which I should imagine the many
interesting Conversations I have had with you this winter
must have thoroughly convinced you, must have prepared you to
expect that the contents of your letter would occasion equal
sorrow and surprise. If you are determined in the plan you now
propose, I have no consolation but in the knowledge of the
rectitude of my intention fully to have supported you and that
your retreat is not in the least owing to any step taken by me.
GEORGE R.
_QUEEN'S HOUSE May 22 1776_
[Illustration: FIRST PAGE OF A.L.S. OF THE DUCHESS OF KENT TO HER
GRANDSON, KING EDWARD VII., AGED EIGHT, AUGUST 26, 1849.
(By permission of Harper Brothers.)]
Three years previously the Earl, during a period of temporary absence,
had received a good many letters from his pupils, in which good
feeling seemingly vies with excellence of calligraphy. Here are some
examples:--
_The Duke of York, aged ten, to his tutor, the Earl of Holdernesse._
_KEW October 25 1773_
MY LORD,--I am glad to here (_sic_) that you are (_sic_) arived
safe at last, and I hope that you will finish your business so
as to return to us by the sixth. The King and Queen were so
good as to send for us on Monday evening quite unexpectedly.
I hope your Lordship will be as good as to continue your good
wishes to me, and I will try to deserve them. We have not had
another letter from Mr. Smelt since you have been gone. The
Bishop[34] and Mr. Jackson[35] send their compliments to your
Lordship.
My dear Lord, I am always your's
FREDERICK.
_Prince William (afterwards Duke of Clarence and King William IV.),
aged eight, to the Earl of Holdernesse [1773]._
MY LORD,--J'ai eté bien aise d'apprendre que vous avez eu un
bon passage et j'espere que tout le reste de votre voyage sera
aussi heureux. Nous avons eu un beau feu d'artifice au lieu
de bal a la naissance de La Reyne. Je presente mes amitiés à
My Lady et a vous My Lord bien des voeux pour votre santé. Je
suis impatient de vous revoir et bien sincerement votre tres
affectionné ami
GUILLAUME
_Prince Edward (afterwards Duke of Kent), aged six, to the Earl of
Holdernesse._
MY LORD,--Comme j'ai surement autant d'amitié pour vous que mon
frère je pense tout ce qu'il vous a ecrit et je n'y ajoute ceci
que pour vous assurer moi meme que je suis aussi veritablement
que lui votre tres affectionné ami
EDOUARD.
[Illustration: FIRST PAGE OF A.L.S. OF QUEEN ADELAIDE TO HER
GREAT-NIECE, THE LATE EMPRESS FREDERICK OF GERMANY, CIRCA 1848.
(By permission of Harper Brothers.)]
[Illustration: PAGE OF REGISTER CONTAINING THE SIGNATURES OF
CONTRACTING PARTIES AND WITNESSES AT THE MARRIAGE OF KING EDWARD VII.
AND QUEEN ALEXANDRA, 1863.]
[Illustration: PAGE FROM THE MS. REMARK-BOOK OF PRINCE WILLIAM HENRY
(AFTERWARDS KING WILLIAM IV.), IN WHICH HE BEGINS TO DESCRIBE NEW YORK,
JANUARY, 1781.]
[Illustration: PAGE OF EXERCISE BOOK OF KING GEORGE IV. AT THE AGE OF
TWELVE.]
[Illustration: DRAWING BY CHARLOTTE, EMPRESS OF MEXICO, DATED LACKEN,
1850.]
[Illustration: A SHEET FROM THE COPY-BOOK OF THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER II.
OF RUSSIA WHEN A BOY.]
In the following year the Prince of Wales, aged twelve, thus addresses
his absent tutor:--
_KEW, July 22 1774._
MY DEAR LORD,--I am glad to hear you are so much better, for
when you come back again into England I hope your health will
be then so strong that you may be then of more use to us
than you would have been otherwise. There is a man come from
Otaheite with Cap^{n} Furneaux. He is about five foot 10 high
almost quite black, his nose is flat like that of the Negroes,
his lips are purple. He came to the King and Queen in the
habit of his Country which is made of the Cloth of which your
Lordship has seen some. In my next letter to you I will give
you a fuller description of him. I beg your Lordship will be so
good as to give my best wishes to my Lady Holdernesse and my
Lady Carmarthen and my compliments to my Lord Carmarthen
My dear Lord,
I am your Faithful Friend
GEORGE P.
The following letter of the Duke of Sussex, aged fourteen, and already
at the University of Göttingen, came from the same source:--
DEAR DUNBAR,--I make a thousand excuses for not having wrote
to you, but my time is so taken up that it is out of my power.
I long very much to see you again. We pass our time very
agreeably here as there are many pretty and agreeable Girls
... and you know the Company of Ladies is very agreeable. I
hope you spend your time with pleasure. Pray write to me where
you are and your Employment at present. I can't stay longer to
write. Adieu!
Your's ever
AUGUSTUS FREDERICK
Göttingen, _Jan. 15 1787_
The Princess Charlotte, for some years heiress to the British Crown,
was apparently as diligent as her uncles and aunts of the previous
generation. The following letter was sold at Sotheby's for a few
shillings. It is difficult to imagine the Queen Caroline of the
pro-Georgian caricaturist playing blindman's buff with her little
daughter! Possibly it afforded her one of the few happy hours of her
_vie orageuse_:--
_The Princess Charlotte, aged 8 years and 6 months, to her Aunt the
Electress Charlotte of Würtemberg._
MY DEAR AUNT,--I am very happy to find by Lady Kingston that
you are so good to love me so much and I assure you I love you
very dearly for I know a great deal about you from Lady Elgin,
who wishes me to resemble you in everything. I am very anxious
to write better that I may let you know how I go on in my
learning. I am very busy and I try to be very good. I hope to
go to Windsor soon and see my Dear Grandpapa and Grandmama. I
love very much to go there and play with my aunts. Mama comes
very often to see me and then we play at merry games--Colin
Maillard.
I am much obliged to you for sending me so many pretty things
and wish you and the Elector[36] were here and would bring my
cousin Princess Theresa with you.
Adieu my dear Aunt and Believe me
Your ever Affectionate and Dutiful Niece
CHARLOTTE
PS.--My duty to the Elector
Shrewsbury Lodge _August 17 1804_
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF QUEEN CHARLOTTE TO MR. PENN, OF PORTLAND,
NOVEMBER 19, 1813.]
The daughters of George III. and Queen Charlotte were all excellent
letter writers, but their ordinary letters fetch absurdly low prices,
although many of them are historically important. Queen Adelaide, the
consort of William IV., was fond of writing texts on cards edged with
filigree to be sold for philanthropic purposes. Her autographs are,
in consequence, exceedingly common. The copy-book, page, and drawing
of the still-living Empress Charlotte of Mexico have a melancholy
interest. Her autograph and that of her ill-fated husband sell well
abroad. The late Comte de Chambord and the late Comte de Paris wrote
better hands as boys than the King of Rome or the Prince Imperial, of
whose autographs I shall speak in connection with Napoleonic MSS. The
rough sketch of soldiers drawn by the Prince Imperial and the artillery
essay written by him at the Royal Military College, Woolwich, certainly
form interesting items in that portion of my autograph collection which
I label the Copy-books of Kings.
While the present volume was going through the press a most important
sale of Royal autographs took place at Sotheby's. At the sale of May
4, 1910, no less a sum than £5,446 6s. was realised for 195 lots.
Amongst the letters of Royal personages then dispersed, an A.L.S. of
Mary Queen of Scots, dated Chatsworth, June 13, 1570, and addressed
to her brother-in-law, Charles IX. of France, fetched £715; a D.S. of
Edward VI., £370; an A.L.S. of Queen Mary I., £205; an A.L.S. of Queen
Elizabeth, £160; 7 A.L.S. of Catherine de Medicis, £145; a L.S. of
Henry VII., £24; a L.S. of Henry VIII., £25; three A.L.S. of Charles
I., £55, £49, and £39 respectively, and three A.L.S. of Charles II.,
£25, £23 10s., and £22 respectively. The account of the expenses
incurred at the "Meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold," signed by
Francis I., was sold for £130.
The following examples of the handwriting of the late Prince Consort,
the late King Edward VII., the late Duke of Coburg, King George V.,
Queen Mary, and the late Empress Frederick of Germany may prove
interesting to my readers, as well as useful to collectors:--
[Illustration: FIRST PAGE OF A.L.S. BY ALBERT, PRINCE CONSORT, TO
GENERAL PEEL, 1858.]
[Illustration: EXERCISE OF THE LATE KING EDWARD VII. WHEN TEN YEARS
OLD, DECEMBER 17, 1851.
(By permission of Harper Brothers.)]
[Illustration: EXERCISE OF THE LATE DUKE OF COBURG (PRINCE ALFRED) AT
THE AGE OF EIGHT.
(By permission of Harper Brothers.)]
[Illustration: ONE PAGE OF A.L.S. OF KING GEORGE V. WHEN DUKE OF YORK
TO THE LATE DUCHESS DOWAGER OF MANCHESTER, FEBRUARY 22 1886.]
[Illustration: ONE PAGE OF A.L.S. OF QUEEN MARY WHILE DUCHESS OF YORK
TO A FRIEND, MAY 24, 1900.]
[Illustration: FIRST PAGE OF A.L.S. OF THE EMPRESS FREDERICK OF GERMANY
TO MR. PROTHERO, FEBRUARY 22, 1889.]
FOOTNOTES:
[24] "The Handwriting of the Kings and Queens of England," by W.
J. Hardy (The Religious Tract Society, London, 1893). "Manuel de
Diplomatique," by A. Giry (Paris, 1894). The latter is a veritable
mine of wealth, and its 1,000 pages abound in all sorts of useful
information concerning Royal and official documents. It may almost be
described as a key to the archives of Europe.
[25] See _ante_, p. 100.
[26] George IV. was alive in 1827.
[27] "L'Amateur d'Autographes," August, 1905, pp. 191-93.
[28] Comedy by Destouches. "The Married Philosopher" was played at the
Comédie Française in 1727.
[29] A Russian city on the left bank of the Kasanka, 460 miles east
of Moscow. Its university and library were already famous at the time
of the Empress's visit. It is fortified by a stone wall six miles in
circumference.
[30] See _post_, p. 143.
[31] This is published in "Dumouriez and the Defence of England against
Napoleon." Others appear in "Napoleon and the Invasion of England"
(1907), and the "War in Wexford" (1910).
[32] Several letters of Queen Caroline in my possession are published
in Mr. Frederic Chapman's "A Queen of Indiscretions" (London, 1907).
In my copy of this interesting book I have inserted a furious exchange
of letters between Prince Leopold (Leopold I. of Belgium) and Lady
Anne Hamilton as to a supposed slight offered by the former to Queen
Caroline in June, 1820.
[33] "The Boyhood of a Great King," by A. M. Broadley. Harper &
Brothers, London and New York, 1906. _Édition de luxe_, 4to size with
additional plates, limited to 125 copies.
[34] Dr. Hurd, afterwards Bishop of Worcester.
[35] Dr. Cyril Jackson, afterwards Dean of Christchurch.
[36] In May, 1797, the Princess Royal of England married Frederick,
Prince of Würtemberg, born in 1754. Later in the year he succeeded to
the dukedom on the death of his father. In April, 1803, a decree of
Napoleon raised him to the rank of Elector. Hence the title given to
her aunt by the young Princess. The Elector subsequently became King of
Würtemberg in virtue of the Treaty of Presbourg (January 7, 1806).
VI
THE AUTOGRAPHS
OF STATECRAFT,
SOCIETY,
AND DIPLOMACY
CHAPTER VI
THE AUTOGRAPHS OF STATECRAFT, SOCIETY, AND DIPLOMACY
=Unpublished letters of the two Pitts, Lord Chesterfield, and
Lord Stanhope=
"As keys do open chests
So letters open breasts."
JAMES HOWELL (1595-1666).
"Letters of affairs from such as manage them, or are privy to them,"
writes Lord Bacon, "are, of all others, the best instructors for
history, and to a diligent reader, the best histories in themselves."
Hence the peculiar and exceptional value of the autographs of
Statecraft and Diplomacy as important sources of reliable information
in dealing with the annals of any given period of national life.
Writers like Frederic Masson have discovered that the faded and
forgotten correspondence of men and women of fashion constitute a
veritable treasury of knowledge concerning the manners and customs of
our ancestors during the past three centuries. Almost all the American
autographs of great value[37] may be classed in this category. It is
obvious that some writers, like Lord Chesterfield, united in their
persons the attributes of statesmen, diplomatists, and men of fashion.
Eighty years ago it is evident the money value of the letters of
celebrated statesmen in no way corresponded with their worth as
potential aids to history-making. The chronicler of 1827 already
alluded to makes no secret of the fact. "Hands which the reins of
empire might have swayed," he frankly confesses, "are hands of very
inferior value on paper. Sir Francis Walsingham, the able and upright
secretary of Queen Elizabeth, must have five other celebrated persons
added to mount up to 9s. The price of the great Sir Robert Walpole,
who discovered the price of more than half the House of Commons, and
made the whole of the Government run smoothly, is 18s. Mr. Pitt, the
Pilot that weathered the storm, and Mr. Perceval, who fell by the ball
of an assassin, join hands to reach 13s.; and Lord Castlereagh, who
once towered high above the heads of the people, now needs the help
of Lord Grenville, and a Lord Chief Justice, to lift him up to a like
sum. The average value of a common Lord Chancellor is about 2s. 6d.
Lenthall, the Speaker of the House of Commons in the Long Parliament,
and Thurloe, the Secretary of Oliver Cromwell, are valued together at
52s. 6d."
I am hardly disposed to altogether credit this statement, as large
sums, comparatively speaking, were paid even then for documents
signed by Thomas More, the Earl of Pembroke (Shakespeare's friend),
and Francis Bacon, who, according to the writer, would be pitilessly
relegated to the half-crown class. In Frederic Barker's catalogue
for 1887 I find a Privy Council letter, signed by Bacon and several
others, priced at £7 7s., and Mr. Waller, ten years before, offers a
2 p. A.L.S. of the younger Pitt for 18s. It was nevertheless a letter
of considerable historical value. In this kind of autographs important
finds may often be made by buying letters written by little known
personages to eminent politicians. In a recent sale at Sotheby's a
dozen letters addressed to William Windham went for 1s. the lot. It is
quite possible they may enshrine some unknown State secret. I lately
saw at the shop of Messrs. Ellis, in New Bond Street, a deed signed
not only by Bacon but his wife, and nearly the whole of his relatives
and connections. It is in an excellent state of preservation, and was
priced at £30.
At the present moment, when the sixth generation of our Royal Family
is represented in the Senior Service, two letters of the elder Pitt,
the Great Commoner, arranging for the entry into the Navy of the first
Prince of the House of Brunswick to join it, cannot but be interesting.
These letters were addressed in 1759 to Lord Holdernesse, and concern
the Duke of York, a younger brother of King George III.[38]
_William Pitt (afterwards Earl of Chatham) to Lord Holdernesse._
_past 5 o'clock_
(1758-9?).
DEAR LORD,--I have the very great satisfaction to acquaint
your Lordship that the King has been graciously pleased to
approve that Prince Edward should go on board the fleet and
enter into the Department of the Navy. His Majesty, at the same
time signifyd his Intentions to the Duke of Newcastle not to
allot any appointments to the Prince on this account. Proper
representations, however will be made for an allowance for
Table at least, which it is hoped will not be without effect.
I am doubly happy, my Dear Lord, at the favourable and speedy
determination of this very important arrangement, and cannot do
sufficient Justice to the Instant and efficacious attentions
paid to the Intentions of Leicester House, which I had the
great honour to be commanded to make known.
I am ever
My dear Lord's
most affectionate Friend
and humble servant
W. PITT
The King reviews the Cavalry Monday next.
_William Pitt (afterwards Earl of Chatham)._
_Monday_ ½ past 4
MY DEAR LORD,--I am able to put your mind entirely at ease as
to some doubts which seemed to have arisen, by acquainting
your Lordship that in consequence of the signification of the
King's pleasure by me, the Lords of the Admiralty have ordered
Captain Howe _to enter Prince Edward in the Ship's books, as a
volunteer for wages and victuals, and his Retinue as part of
the allowed complement of the Ship_. This is the Form and puts
everything out of doubt. The King is pressing for the Departure
of the Expedition, and has named General Bligh to command the
Forces. Lord Ligonier is gone to the General to acquaint him
of the King's pleasure. I conceive Howe will sail by Thursday
at latest if the weather permits. Preparations having been
ordered to be made for the Reception of Prince Edward on
Board of Captain Howe's own ship, Mr. Cleveland informs me
that _everything_ will be provided for His Royal Highness's
accomodation if Bligh accepts (for such is the style of our
army) and the King should approve the Draught of Instructions
to be laid before His Majesty tomorrow, nothing but a wind will
be wanting.
Prince Ferdinand recommends the continuation of attack on their
coasts as _la guerre la plus sensible à la France de l'attaquer
dans ses Foyers_. And yet this great Prince is certainly a
Stranger to the Common Council, Beckford and _the Buchaneers_.
Olmutz may draw into some length; 10,000 men in the Place and
old General Marshall defending it with great vigour. I could
not possibly see General Elliot this morning, being obliged to
go to Kensington, and I am this evening to be at a meeting by
seven. I am,
Ever my dear Lord's
Most Affectionate Friend
W. PITT.
Seven years later, on the afternoon of February 22, 1766, the Premier,
after a tempestuous debate, concluded a letter to his wife in the
country thus:--
Love to the sweet babes, _patriotic_ or not, tho' I hope
impetuous William is not behind in feelings of that kind. Send
the saddle horses if you please, so as to be in town early
tomorrow morning. I propose and hope to execute my journey to
Hayes by 11. Your ever loving husband
W. PITT.
The patriotism of William Pitt the younger, born in the very year
Prince Edward joined Captain Howe's ship as a "volunteer for wages
and victuals," was soon to blossom forth not only in an infantile
drama,[39] but in a poem hitherto unpublished, which I had the good
fortune to obtain through Mr. F. Sabin. It was the joint work of
"impetuous William" and his sister in the spring of 1777, and is in the
handwriting of the former:--
ON POETRY
Ye sacred Imps of thund'ring Jove descend.
Immortal Nine, to me propitious, bend
Inclining downward from Parnassus' brow;
To me, young Bard, some heav'nly fire allow.
From Agannippe's murmur strait repair,
Assist my Labours and attend my Pray'r.
Inspire my Verse. Of Poetry it sings.
Thro' _Her_, the Deeds of Heroes and of Kings,
Renownd in Arms, with Fame immortal stand;
By _Her_, no less, are spread thro' ev'ry Land
Those Patriot names, who in their Country's cause
Triumphant fall, for Liberty and Laws.
Exalted high, the Spartan Hero stands,
Encircled with his far-renowned Bands,
Who e'er devoted for their Country die;
Thro' _Her_ their Fame ascends the starry Sky.
_She_ too perpetuates each horrid Deed,
When Laws are trampled, when their Guardians bleed.
Then shall the Muse, to Infamy prolong
Example dread, and theme of trajick Song,
Nor less immortal than the Chiefs resound
The Poets' names, who spread their deeds around.
Homer shall flourish first in rolls of Fame;
And still shall live the Roman Virgil's name.
With living bays is Lofty Pindar crowned,
In distant ages Horace stands renowned.
These Bards, and more, fair Greece and Rome may boast
And some may flourish on this British coast.
Witness the man, on whom the Muse did smile,
Who sung our parents' Fall, and Satan's Guile.
A second Homer, favour'd by the Nine,
Sweet Spenser, Johnson, Shakespear the Divine,
And He, fair Virtue's Bard, who rapt doth sing
The praise of Freedom, and Laconia's King.
But high o'er Chiefs and Bards supremely great
Shall Publius shine, the Guardian of our State.
Him shall th' immortal Nine themselves record
With deathless Fame, his gen'rous toil reward.
Shall tune the Harp to loftier sounding lays
And thro' the world shall spread his ceaseless praise.
Their hands alone can match the heav'nly String
And with due fire his wond'rous glories sing.
HARRIETT PITT, May 1771, 13 years old.
WILLIAM PITT, 12 years old.
[Illustration: LAST PAGE OF UNPUBLISHED HOLOGRAPH POEM IN HANDWRITING
OF WILLIAM PITT, MAY, 1771.]
[Illustration: LAST WHIP ISSUED BY WILLIAM PITT AND SIGNED BY HIM,
DECEMBER 31, 1805.]
[Illustration: SIGNATURE OF SIR ISAAC HEARD, GARTER, ON CARD OF
ADMISSION TO THE FUNERAL OF WILLIAM PITT 1806.]
Here is a letter written by him thirty-three years later, after his
return to office on the resignation of Addington. It shows conclusively
that his share in helping the Fatherland to weather the storm was
physical as well as moral:--
_William Pitt in Downing Street to Lieut.-Colonel Dillon of Walmer._
_DOWNING STREET, September 1, 1804._
MY DEAR SIR,--As the Harvest is now nearly over, I imagine
this would be a very fitting time for proposing to assemble
your Battalion on permanent duty; and there seems chance
enough of the occasion arriving for actual Service, to make it
desirable that there should be as little delay as possible.
Lord Carrington has gone to Deal Castle to-day, and if you can
contrive to see him tomorrow, or next day, I shall be glad if
you will settle with him the necessary arrangements. I think
the time should not be less than Three weeks, and in that case,
an extra allowance will be made of a guinea pr Man, which
added to the usual pay will amount to 2s pr day for the whole
period. This will enable us to give the men full compensation
for at least six or seven hours a day, on an average; and
will therefore allow of three or four long Field Days in each
week, and only short drills in the remaining days; and such
arrangement would, I think, answer every purpose. I should hope
you might fix the commencement of permanent duty for Monday
fortnight, very soon after which day I hope to come to Walmer
to make some stay. I shall be at Dover on Tuesday next for a
day, but have some business which will carry me from thence
along the Coast, and probably back to town before I reach
Walmer.
Believe me, my dear Sir, yours very sincerely,
W. PITT.
In June, 1909, an extraordinary series of letters by Pitt, Burke, and
others was offered for sale. They were manifestly of supreme importance
to the history of England during one of her most terrible political
crises. I am glad to say certain steps were taken which led to the
issue of the following notice:--
SALE OF AUTOGRAPH LETTERS,
_June 9th and 10th._
* * * * *
WINDHAM CORRESPONDENCE.
_Lots 519 to 550._
* * * * *
Messrs. SOTHEBY, WILKINSON & HODGE
having Sold these Lots privately, by direction
of the Executors, they will not be included in
the Sale on June 10th.[40]
The patriotism of Pitt certainly finds no echo in the following
extraordinary letter of his opponent, Lord Stanhope, which I purchased
in Paris for 15 francs:--
_The Earl of Stanhope to M. Palloy, Entrepreneur de la demolition
de la Bastille, Grenadier Volontier de la 1^{ere} Division de
l'Armée Parisienne, Rue du Fossé St. Bernard, Paris_:--
CHEEVENING HOUSE
near SEVENOAKS KENT
_Aout 25 1790_
MONSIEUR,--Je vous rend bien des Graces pour votre lettre
obligéante du 7^{e} courant. On vous a mal informé quand on
vous a dit que nous avions à notre fête à Londres un Chapiteau
d'une des Colonnes de la Bastille; ce n'était point partie
d'une colonne; mais seulement une vraie pierre de la Bastille,
comme nous nous sommes assurés. Je ne profiterez [_sic_] donc,
par de votre trés obligéante offre, mais je ne vous en suis par
moins obligé. Je me rejouis, chaque jour de la demolition de la
Bastille et de la Liberté des Français
Je suis, Monsieur,
Votre très humble et obeissant serviteur
STANHOPE
à M Palloy
A year or so ago I was lucky enough to secure the official dispatch-box
bearing the Royal cipher and his initials, which Pitt left behind him
at Bath, when returning to Putney a few days before his death. In it
is his last Whip, signed on December 31, 1805. On January 21st he was
dying, and on the 23rd he died. This melancholy document now lies
within the forgotten dispatch-box!
Chesterfield--the "great" Earl of Chesterfield--died when the younger
Pitt was fourteen years old. It is more correct to describe him as a
contemporary of his father, the Great Commoner. He was, as an amusing
and able letter-writer, superior to both, but he loved society and
they did not. In the recent Haber Sale at New York (December 10,
1909) a very fine Chesterfield letter only fetched £3 8s. It is thus
described:--
CHESTERFIELD (PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, FOURTH EARL OF). A.L.S.,
2 pp. 4to, London, June 14, 1746. (Endorsed on the back "_To
Thos. Prior_.") With portrait.
Thomas Prior was the Irish philanthropist, with whom Earl
Chesterfield became acquainted while Viceroy of Ireland.
A remarkable letter proposing schemes for manufactures in
Ireland. He first suggests glass manufacture, and next
writing and printing paper, and states that the specimens
shown him of Irish manufacture impressed him greatly, and
only "_industry is wanting_"; another suggestion is the
manufacture of starch, and he writes that he has been shown
a method of making it from potatoes easily and cheaply,
and while the law in England prevents it being made from
anything else than flour in that country, that law might
not apply in Ireland, and proceeds: "_These are the Jobbs
that I wish the People in Ireland would attend with as much
Industry and Care as they do Jobbs of a very different
Nature._" Many other reflections show sound common sense.
Two years ago I gave £4 each for five unknown and unpublished letters,
written between 1762 and 1771 by Chesterfield to his relative, Mr.
Welbore Ellis Agar ("Gatty"). The specimen I now give of them is
interesting, as it concerns Bath, a city which I regard as the great
source and centre of the lighter and more gossipy letters of the
eighteenth century:--
_BATH, October ye 8th 1771._
DEAR GATTY,--When we parted we agreed to correspond by way of
letter, but we did not as I remember stipulate which should
make the first advance, but as I always sacrificed my Dignity
to my pleasure, I here make the first step though Cozen and
Counsillor to the _King_ and your Unkle, which is a kind of
Deputy Parent. Admire my condescension. To begin, then, with
an account of my Caducity. I made my journey to this place in
two days, which I did not think I could have done, much tired
with it but alive. Since I came I have seen no mortal till last
night, when I went to the Ball with which the new rooms were
opened and when I was there I knew not one creature except
Lord and Lady Vere. The _new rooms_ are really Magnificent
finely finished and furnished, the Dancing-room, which the Lady
Thanet used to call the Posture-room, particularly spacious
and adorned. A large and fine play room, and a convenient Tea
room well contrived, either to drink or part with that liquor.
So much for this and more I cannot tell you, for as for the
people who are not yet many, they are absolute strangers to me,
and I to them. In my review of the fair sex last night I did
not see one tolerably handsome, so that I am in no danger
of falling in love this season, and indeed my heart and mind
are so engrossed by Mr. Agar's fair cousin _Mrs. Mathews_,
that I have no room left for a second choice. I hope that at
her return to England, he will do me what good offices he can
with her; my way is to end my letters abruptly, and without a
well-turned period.
So God bless you
CHESTERFIELD.
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF EARL OF CHESTERFIELD, OCTOBER 8, 1771,
DESCRIBING THE INAUGURAL BALL AT THE NEW BATH ASSEMBLY ROOMS.]
The Mrs. Mathews alluded to in the letter was probably the wife of
Captain Mathews, who afterwards fought a duel with Richard Brinsley
Sheridan.
Here is another Chesterfield letter from a different source:--
_Earl of Chesterfield to Mrs. Montague, May 14, 1771._
Lord Chesterfield presents his respects to Mrs. Montague and
desires her to accept of the enclosed trifle for her poor
women; his charity purse is at present as light as hers can
possibly be, not from being as formerly his Play-purse too
but from the various applications of wretched objects which
humanity cannot withstand.
Of the early nineteenth-century statesmen letter-writers Brougham
was one of the most prolific, but I have already spoken of a curious
"find" of somewhat sensational Brougham correspondence in Paris.[41]
His ordinary letters only fetch from 3s. to 5s. Far more costly are the
letters of Curran, Grattan, and O'Connell. Here is a typical letter of
the "Liberator," written from Bath:--
_Daniel O'Connell to Mr. W. H. Curran._
_BATH, October 14, 1817._
MY DEAR CURRAN,--I have wept over your letter. Oh God your
Father never offended me,--we once differed on the subject of
the details of our Petition, but if my information on facts
respecting that detail was not superior to his, I feel my
inferiority in every other respect too sensibly to dare to
differ with him. As Brutus was called the last of the Romans
so Ireland will weep over him as the last survivor of those
great spirits who _almost_ burst the iron Bondage of Britain
and would have made her free but that the ancient curse has
still bound her and she lingers _yet_ in slavery. How naturally
does the thought fly from his bed of sickness to the sorrows of
Ireland. The Boldest, best, most eloquent, most enthusiastic,
and perhaps more than the most persevering of her Patriots, he
was. Alas he leaves none like or second to him. You will my
friend think I declaim while I only run rapidly through the
thoughts that his illness crowds upon me. You do well, quite
well. It will, in every respect, console you to recollect that
you have done your _duty_. I rejoice with all the joy of my
heart can mingle with his state that you have this precious
opportunity of doing that duty cordially and well. If your
letter afforded me hope that I could see your Father, so as
to be able to converse with him, I would answer your letter
in person, as it is I wait only your reply to go to you. It
would suit most convenient not to leave this before Saturday,
but your reply will command me. The Funeral must be Public.
I will of course attend it. We will arouse everything Irish
in London and pay a tribute to _his_ memory unequalled by
any which London has witnessed. Tell Phillips I only wait a
_reply_ to join you both. Do you think of conveying his remains
to Ireland? this if practicable would be best. Write, or get
Phillips to write, as soon as you receive this. You perceive
that I write in the extreme of haste, but I am for ten thousand
reasons convinced that you should listen to no suggestion of
a private funeral. You would repent it only once, that is all
your life. Would to God I could offer you consolation.
Believe me, my dear friend, to be most faithfully yours,
DANIEL O'CONNELL.
Mr. Gladstone was, like Wellington and Brougham, a writer of
innumerable letters. There was a demand for them once, but at the
present moment, by the irony of fate, an average Gladstone letter
fetches less than one of his wife. Special circumstances, however,
may give them special value. This is exemplified in the case of the
Gladstone-Manning correspondence written from Balmoral, which I found
at Brighton. The introduction of the economical and space-saving
postcard spoiled Gladstone as a letter-writer in his old age. Here is a
typical letter of his, relating to the present of a bust of O'Connell
and interesting at the present political juncture:--
_Mr. Gladstone to Mrs. O'Connell._
_10 DOWNING STREET January 28. 1882._
MY DEAR MADAM,--I accept with many thanks the Bust you have
been so kind to send me. It is a most interesting memorial
of early days, and of a man of powerful mind and will, and
profound attachment to his Country; whose name can never be
forgotten there.
In my early years of Parliamentary life, casual circumstances
brought me into slight personal relations with Mr. O'Connel,
and I have ever retained the lively recollection of his
courtesy and kindness.
I remain, my dear Madam, your very faithful and obedient,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
I must not omit to thank you for the kind terms in which you
speak of my efforts on behalf of Ireland, and I cling in that
confidence to the hope that a happy future is yet in store for
her.
[Illustration: ONE PAGE OF A.L.S. FROM MR. W. E. GLADSTONE AT BALMORAL
TO CARDINAL MANNING, N.D.]
Four years ago I saw ten letters of the late Lord Beaconsfield
catalogued at £70. Personally I regard him as almost the last of
the now extinct race of letter-writers, for the epistolary art has
succumbed beyond hope of recovery to the combined influences of the
telegraph, the telephone, the type-writer and the halfpenny newspaper.
A "newspaper" letter, as Mrs. Montagu, Lord Lyttelton, and Lord Bath
used to call them, would be as ridiculous as a conversation on _les
belles lettres_. How Lord Beaconsfield's life is ever to be written
with any hope of completeness, I cannot imagine. _Hundreds_ of his
letters have been sold since his death, and a specimen of average
interest can now be obtained for 20s. or less. I have gradually
acquired thirty or forty and am certain that sooner or later a rise in
price is inevitable. People will soon discover that in the fragmentary
and wholly unsatisfactory published collections of Beaconsfield's
letters _the originals have been ruthlessly mangled or transformed_.
I shall only include two examples in this book, beginning with a very
early one from the inevitable Bath:--
_Benjamin Disraeli to his Sister._
(Franked by E. Lytton Bulwer.)
_BATH, Thursday [Jany 24 1833]_
MY DEAREST,--You ought to have rec^{d} my letter on Sunday and
I should have answered your's immediately, but it is almost
impossible to get a frank out of Bulwer and I thought my father
w^{d} go quite mad if he received an unprivileged letter under
present circumstances. We quit this place tomorrow and sh^{d}
have done so to-day, but dine with a Mr. Murray here. I like
Bath very much. At a public ball I met the Horfords, Hawksleys
etc. Bulwer and myself went in very late and got quite mobbed.
I have nearly finished Iskander, a very pretty thing indeed,
and have printed the 1st Vol of Alroy.
I have answered the agric. affair which was forwarded to me
from London.
Directly I am in town I will write about the bills.
The Horfords (father and brother here) asked us to dine, but
were engaged.
Met the Bayntums, but not Clementina. Rather think I may to day.
yrs ever
B. D.
Let me have a letter in Duke S^{t}. Bulwer is getting on
immensely and I sh^{d} not be surprised if we shortly see him
in a _most eminent_ position, but this not to be spoken of. Met
Ensor.
Omitting many letters of piquant interest I come to one written in the
autumn of 1851, in which the rising statesman deals somewhat severely
with his old friend, _The Times_. It runs as follows:--
_HUGHENDEN, Sept 19 1851_
MY DEAR SA,--Your mischance was very vexatious, but I was glad
to hear that you had arrived all safe in such kind quarters.
I see Jem on Tuesday, who passed a longish morning here.
At Monday I was at Aylesbury where I was obliged to dine with
the old society--Lowndes, Stone, Howard Wyse, Bernard, Hale,
Isham, and Young of Quainton and 3 clergymen supported me,
and Lowndes of Chesham in the chair. I made a good speech
on a difficult subject, and the meeting seemed in heart.
I saw to-day in _The Times_ two columns of incoherent and
contradictory nonsense w^{h} made me blush, tho' I ought to be
hardened by this time on such subjects. I have seen no other
papers. They can't be worse, and perhaps may in some degree
neutralise the nonsense of _The Times_. I am only afraid the
world will think it all Delphi and diplomatic, and that the
wordy obscurity was intentional, whereas I flattered myself I
was as terse and simple as suited a farmer's table.
I am rather improving and getting on a little.
I hope you will enjoy yourself very much.
We went over to Cliefden the other day--there is one bed of
flowers, called the scarlet ribbon--4,000 geraniums--the
Duchess's[42] own design, very new and wonderful, winding over
a lawn like a sea-serpent, but the plantation in sad order. The
gardener has £10 per week to pay everything in his department,
as the Duchess will not spend more on a place which yields
nothing. My kind remembrances to Mrs. Peacock.
Affec^{ly} yrs.
D.
[Illustration: ONE PAGE OF A.L.S. OF MR. DISRAELI (AFTERWARDS LORD
BEACONSFIELD) ON CHURCH MATTERS, N.D.]
I venture to think that in the near future the letters of Benjamin
Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, will be found as essential to the
annals of the Victorian era, as those of Pitt, Windham, and Burke are
to those of the reign of George III.
FOOTNOTES:
[37] See _post_, Chapter XI.
[38] See _ante_, p. 156.
[39] Copious extracts from the future Prime Minister's juvenile
dramatic production will be given in Dr. J. Holland Rose's forthcoming
"Life of Pitt."
[40] A large number of unpublished letters of William Pitt and his
contemporaries will also appear in Dr. Holland Rose's forthcoming "Life
of Pitt."
[41] See _ante_, pp. 98-99.
[42] The late Duchess of Cleveland, one of Queen Victoria's bridesmaids.
VII
THE
LITERARY
AUTOGRAPHS
OF THREE
CENTURIES
CHAPTER VII
THE LITERARY AUTOGRAPHS OF THREE CENTURIES
=From the days of Shakespeare and Spenser to those of
Thackeray, Dickens, Tennyson, and Meredith--The value of
literary autographs and MSS.=
In a man's letters, you know, Madame, his soul lies naked--his
letters are only the mirror of his heart.--DR. JOHNSON to MRS.
THRALE.
Political interest is ephemeral, but literary interest is
eternal.--ADRIAN H. JOLINE, "Meditations of an Autograph
Collector."
By a felicitous coincidence two literary autographs of more than
ordinary interest have come to light at the moment I was preparing
to write the present chapter. The first is the discovery in the
Record Office by Dr. Wallace of the signed deposition of Shakespeare
in an early seventeenth-century lawsuit, under the circumstances
picturesquely set forth in the issue of _Harper's Monthly Magazine_
for March, 1910. Without conceding to Dr. Wallace's "find" the supreme
importance claimed for it by this able and patient examiner of ancient
MSS., there can be no doubt that it deals a fatal and final blow to the
Baconian theory. On the very day I read Dr. Wallace's article, Mr. J.
H. Stonehouse[43] showed me several fictitious Shakespeare signatures
fabricated by W. H. Ireland nearly forty years after the appearance of
"Vortigern," for the avowed purpose of demonstrating his ability to
imitate them. I cannot help thinking that Dr. Wallace's article lends
increased interest to the letter of the Shakespearean actor, Dowton,
which has already been alluded to in these pages.[44] In the elaborate
essay in which the fifth Shakespeare signature has been enshrined will
be found reproductions of the other four.[45]
[Illustration: THE SIGNATURE OF SHAKESPEARE ON THE LAST PAGE OF HIS
WILL.]
Mr. Adrian Joline's theory as to the "eternity of interest" in literary
autographs receives support from the exceptionally high prices they
have commanded from the early days of the collection of MSS., when the
signatures of kings and statesmen were almost at a discount. "I shall
now," writes the chronicler of autograph prices in 1827, "set poetry,
philosophy, history, and works of imagination against sceptres, swords,
robes, and big-wigs.... Addison is worth £2 15s., Pope £3 5s., and
Swift £3. Thomson has sold for £5 10s. and Burns for £3 10s. Churchill,
the abuser of his compatriots, is valued at £1 18s. In philosophy Dr.
Franklin reaches £1 17s.; in history, Hume is valued at £1 18s. and
Gibbon at only 8s. The sturdy moralist Johnson ranks at £1 16s., the
graceful trifler Sterne at £2 2s., Smollett at £2 10s., and Richardson
at £1. Scott only yields 8s." In the half-century which intervened
between 1827 and 1877 the prices of literary autographs had risen by
leaps and bounds. In his catalogue of 1876 Mr. Waller asked £8 10s.
for a short Latin essay of Thomas Gray, while Longfellow is priced
at £1 18s., George Borrow at £3 3s., and Wordsworth at £1 1s. A fine
letter of Schiller's is priced at £2 5s. In the next catalogue (1878)
I find the following: Gibbon (a fine A.L.S.) £4 4s.; Voltaire (a 2
pp. A.L.S.) £3 15s.; Rousseau, a series of letters, including one
of the philosopher, £3 10s.; five verses by Scott, £4 4s.; William
Cowper, A.L.S., £3 7s. 6d.; Gray, a bundle of printed matter including
one hundred lines of MS., £6 6s. In the late Mr. Frederick Barker's
catalogues of the same period we have Edmund Burke (A.L.S.), £3 3s.;
Thomas Hood (A.L.S.), £2 2s.; Voltaire (A.L.S.), £4 4s.; Horace Walpole
(A.L.S.), £3 5s.; and a love-letter from John Keats to Fanny Brawne,
£28.
In cataloguing the last-named item Mr. Barker says "that one of these
celebrated letters realised by auction a short time since no less
than £47." He also prices two A.L.S. of Robert Burns at £35 and £32
respectively. It will be remembered that in 1827 the price for a Burns
letter was £3 10s. only. For a letter of Schiller (4 pp., 8vo, 1801)
Mr. Barker asks £7 7s. In several catalogues of this period I find
Keats letters averaging £20 to £30. The interesting catalogue issued by
Mr. Barker in 1891 is remarkable for its wealth of literary _rariora_.
Autograph letters are priced in it as follows: Schiller, £10 10s.;
Burns, £25; Wordsworth, £3 3s.; Thackeray, £25. The last-named letter
is worth describing. It was addressed to Miss Holmes, with a postscript
on the inside of the envelope, and on the third sheet a clever sketch
of Thackeray and Bulwer Lytton standing behind a lady seated at a
piano. The letter itself runs thus:--
There is a comfortable Hotel in this street, kept by a
respectable family man, the charges are Beds gratis,
Breakfasts, thank you, dinner and tea, ditto, servants
included in these charges. Get a cab from the station, and
come straightway to No. 13. I dine out with the Dean of St.
Paul's (you have heard of a large meeting house we have between
Ludgate Hill and Cheapside, with a round roof?). Some night we
will have a select T party, but _not_ whilst you are staying
here. When you are in your lodgings. Why I will ask Sir Edward
George Earle Lytton, Bulwer Lytton himself. Bulwer's boots are
very fine in the accompanying masterly design (refer to the
sketch), remark the traces of emotion on the cheeks of the
other author (the notorious W. M. T.), I have caricatured Dr.
Newman (with an immense nose) and the Cardinal too, you ought
to know that.
This letter would be now worth quite £50, and some of the fine
illustrated Thackeray letters now in possession of Mr. Frank Sabin
would probably be cheap at £100 each. Mr. Sabin's collection of the
Thackerayana is probably unrivalled both as regards the United Kingdom
and America.[46]
In Mr. Barker's 1891 catalogue there are four letters of Shelley,
priced at £18 18s., £19 19s., £10 10s., and £9 9s. respectively. There
is also a Schiller at £25, and an Alexander Pope covering one page 8vo
only at £8. Darwin is already at £1 10s., Disraeli at 18s., and the
Dickens letters average about £2. A letter of Dr. Priestley, worth
perhaps 5s. in 1827, is now offered at £2 2s.
[Illustration: DEED CONTAINING THE SIGNATURE OF FRANCIS BACON, LORD
VERULAM, AND NEARLY ALL THE MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY, TEMP. JAMES I.
(In the collection of Messrs. Ellis.)]
I am permitted by Mr. F. Sabin to reproduce a very early literary
letter addressed in 1690 by John Evelyn to Samuel Pepys. It must not be
forgotten that Evelyn was one of the earliest collectors of MSS.
DEPFD, 25--7:--90.
'Tis now (methinks) so very long since I saw or heard from my
Ex^{t} Friend: that I cannot but enquire after his Health: If he
aske what I am doing all this while? _Sarcinam compono_, I am
making up my fardle, that I may march the freer: for the meane
time--
Do you expect a more proper Conjuncture than this approaching
Session, to do yourself Right--by publishing that which all
good men (who love and honour you) cannot but rejoice to see?
you owe it to God, to your Country & to yr Selfe, and therefore
I hope you seriously think of & resolve upon it.
I am just now making a step to Wotton to Visite my good Brother
there, Importunately desiring to see me: himselfe succumbing
apace to Age and its Accidents: I think not of staying above a
week or ten daies, & within a little after my returne be almost
ready to remove our small family neerer you for the winter, In
which I promise myselfe the Hapynesse of a Conversation the
most Gratefull to
S^{r}
Your Most Humble
Faithfull Servant
J EVELYN
I rent this page from the other before I was aware, and now tis
to full to begin againe for good man̄ers.
Give my most Humble Service to Dr. Gule.
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF JOHN EVELYN TO SAMUEL PEPYS, DEPTFORD,
SEPTEMBER 25, 1700.
(In the collection of Mr. Frank Sabin.)]
Milton, to a certain extent, was a contemporary of both Pepys and
Evelyn, but he had been dead sixteen years at the date of the letter
now quoted. The value of Milton's autographs is fully discussed by
Dr. Scott in the pages of _The Archivist_.[47] When the subject first
attracted my attention early in 1904 much excitement was caused by
the appearance in Sotheby's Salerooms of what was alleged to be 32 pp.
of the MS. of "Paradise Lost." The value of the document was warmly
discussed at the time and sensational bidding was anticipated. It
was bought in, but I believe it was ultimately sold to an American
collector for £5,000 or thereabouts. Mr. Quaritch now possesses a
very fine Milton deed, which is priced at £420, and is dated November
27, 1623. It is signed by John Milton, as one of the witnesses to the
Marriage Covenant between Edward Phillips of London and Anne, daughter
of John Milton, Citizen and Scrivener of London.
[Illustration: EARLY SIGNATURE OF JOHN MILTON ON DOCUMENTS NOW IN
POSSESSION OF MR. QUARITCH.]
Letters of Dryden and Cowley have fetched very high prices,[48] and the
autograph of Edmund Waller is also rare, but Alexander Pope's letters
are abundant, although they are much less valuable than those of Swift.
A good letter of Pope can be obtained for from £7 to £10. The late Mr.
Frederick Barker told me he was once asked as an autographic expert
to advise a well-known nobleman, Lord H., who said he had a bundle of
letters written by _one of the Popes_ in his possession and desired
to ascertain their value, but as they were merely signed "A Pope" he
did not know which of the Holy Fathers was responsible for them! Mr.
Barker of course identified the "bard of Twickenham" as their author.
They were bound up under his supervision, and fetched over £200, but
still the owner was not quite satisfied! Of the four Pope letters in my
collection, only one has ever been published, and that but partially.
It is of such manifest historical interest that I do not apologise
for reproducing it in its entirety:--
_Alexander Pope at Twickenham to Ralph Allen, Esq., Widcombe, Bath._
(_November 2. 1738._)
DEAR SIR,--I trouble you with my answers to the Inclosed wch
I beg you to give to Mr Lyttelton as I wd do him all ye Good
I can, wh the Virtues I know him possest of, deserve; and
therefore I wd Present him with so Honest a Man as you, and
you with so Honest a man as he: The Matter concerning Urns I
wd gladly leave in yr Care, and I desire four small ones with
their Pedestals, may be made, and two of a size larger. I'l
send those sizes to you and I send a Draft of ye two sorts,
4 of one and 2 of ye other. I am going to insert in the body
of my Works, my two last Poems in Quarto. I always Profit
myself of ye opinion of ye publick to correct myself on such
occasions. And sometimes the Merits of particular Men, whose
names I have made free with for examples either of Good or of
Bad, determine me to alteration. I have found the Virtue in you
more than I certainly knew before till I had made experiment
of it, I mean Humility! I must therefore in justice to my own
conscience of it bear testimony to it and change the epithet I
first gave you of _Low-born_, to _Humble_. I shall take care
to do you the justice to tell everybody this change was not
made at yours, or at any friends request for you: but my own
knowledge (of) you merited it. I receive daily fresh proofs of
your kind remembrance of me. The Bristol waters, the Guinea
Hens, the Oyl and Wine (two Scripture benedictions) all came
safe except ye wine, wch was turned on one side, and spilt at
ye Corks. However tis no loss to _me_ for that sort I dare not
drink on acct of ye Bile, but my friends may and that is the
same thing as if I did. Adieu! Is Mr Hook with you? I wish I
were, for a month at least; for less I wd not come. Pray advise
him not to be so modest. I hope he sees Mr. Lyttelton. I must
expect your good offices with Mrs. Allen, so let her know I
honour a good woman much but a good Wife more.
I am ever, yours faithfully,
A. POPE
Twitnam. _Nov 2 (1738)._
My other three Pope letters are unknown. They are addressed to Mr.
Bethel on Tower Hill, London, Mr. Charles Ford in Park Place, and
Mr. Jonathan Richardson, of Queen Square, London. The last-named was
catalogued last year as written to _Samuel_ Richardson. I gave £5 for
it. Mr. Barker valued it at £8 in 1891. It provides an antidote to the
unkind things Pope wrote about "Sulphureous" Bath on other occasions:--
_BATH. November 14. 1742._
DE SIR,--The whole purpose of this is only to tell you that
the length of my stay at this distance from you, has not made
me unmindful of you; and that I think you have regard enough
for me to be pleased to hear, I have been, and am, better than
usual. In about a fortnight or three weeks I hope to find you
as little altered as possible at yr age, as when I left you, as
I am at mine. God send you all Ease, philosophical and physical.
I am your sincerely-affectionate friend and servant,
A. POPE
My services to yr Son.
The letters of Horace Walpole, who generally wrote for posterity, are
valuable,[49] but by no means as costly as those of Thomas Gray. Mr.
Quaritch lately showed a group of holograph letters, illustrating the
"quadruple alliance" of Gray, Walpole, West, and Ashton, which began
at Eton. It included two fairly long letters of Gray and Walpole. I
consider the collection very cheap at £55. Here is a characteristic
unpublished note written by Horace Walpole to Hannah More, while the
latter was staying with the Garricks in the Adelphi:--
_Horace Walpole to Hannah More._
_March 11._
I heard at Mrs. Ord's last night that you are not well. I
wou'd fain flatter myself that you had only a pain in your
apprehension of the coaches full of mob that were crowding the
streets, but as I do not take for granted whatever will excuse
me from caring, as people that are indifferent readily do, I
beg to hear from yourself how you are. I do not mean from your
own hand, but lips--send me an exact message, and if it is a
good one it will give real pleasure to yours most sincerely,
H. WALPOLE.
PS.--Mrs. Prospero, who is my Miranda, was there last night
with a true blue embroidered favour, that cast a ten times more
important colour on her accents and made her as potent in her
own eyes as Sycorax.
To Miss More at the Adelphi.
[Illustration: PAGE OF DR. JOHNSON'S DIARY RECORDING HIS IMPRESSIONS OF
STONEHENGE, ETC., 1783.]
The value of Johnson's letters has varied very little during the
past quarter of a century, an A.L.S. of exceptional interest often
bringing £40 or £50. Possibly his historic letters to Macpherson
and Chesterfield or his ultimatum to Mrs. Thrale would now fetch
considerably more. In the Haber Sale at New York a 2 pp. 4to A.L.S.
dated April 13, 1779, to Cadell brought £17. I possess several Johnson
letters, many of them unpublished and written during the last year of
his life. The following A.L.S. to Mr. Ryland was seemingly unknown to
Dr. Birkbeck Hill:--
_To Mr. Ryland, Merchant in London._
DEAR SIR,--I have slackened in my diligence of correspondence,
certainly not by ingratitude or less delight to hear from my
friends, and as little would I have it imputed to idleness,
or amusement of any other kind. The truth is that I care not
much to think on my own state. I have for some time past grown
worse, the water makes slow advances, and my breath though
not so much obstructed as in some former periods of my disorder
is very short. I am not however heartless. The water has, since
its first great effusion, invaded me thrice, and thrice has
retreated. Accept my sincere thanks for your care in laying
down the stone[50] w^{h} you and young Mr. Ryland have done. I
doubt not of finding [it] well done, if ever I can make my mind
firm enough to visit it. I am now contriving to return, and
hope to be yet no disgrace to our monthly meeting[51] when I
shall be with you, as my resolution is not very steady and as
chance must have some part in the opportunity, I cannot tell.
Do not omit to write, for your letters are a great part of my
comfort.
I am,
Dear Sir
Your most humble servant
SAM JOHNSON
Pray write.
Lichfield, _Oct. 30, 1784_.
[Illustration: THE TWO LAST PAGES OF THE MS. JOURNAL OF MRS. THRALE'S
TOUR IN WALES, JULY-SEPTEMBER, 1774, DESCRIBING THE DINNER AT BURKE'S.]
Six months before his death he writes thus to Mr. Nicoll on the subject
of Cook's voyages:--
To Mr. Nicoll,
Bookseller,
In the Strand, London.
You were pleased to promise me that when the great Voyage
should be published, you would send it to me. I am now at
Pembroke College, Oxford, and if you can conveniently enclose
it in a parcel, or send it any other way, I shall think the
perusal of it a great favour.
I am,
Sir
Your most humble servant
SAM JOHNSON
_June 8 1784_
Curiously enough, one of the last subjects upon which Johnson
concentrated his waning energies in 1783-84 was that of the
possibilities of the balloon, which he persistently called "ballon."[52]
* * * * *
For some years I have been an assiduous collector of the letters and
MSS. of George Crabbe. I now possess his two historic letters to
Edmund Burke. It was in the earliest of these (once the property of
Sir Theodore Martin) that he made his despairing appeal for pecuniary
aid to save him from suicide or starvation. Fifty-one years later,
George Crabbe, Rector of Trowbridge, lay a-dying. He receives in his
sick-chamber the following letter from John Forster:--
_John Forster to George Crabbe._
[Letter franked by Edward Lytton Bulwer.]
4 BURTON ST.
BURTON CRESCENT, LONDON
_Jany 20 '32_
REVD. SIR,--I beg, very respectfully to submit to your
inspection the enclosed paper.[53] May I venture to
hope that your sympathy with the cause of the world of
letters--independently of considerations unfortunately still
more urgent, will induce you to lend the favour of your
distinguished name to a project now become necessary to rescue
Mr. Leigh Hunt from a hard crisis in his fortune
With the greatest respect,
I am, Sir,
Your very ob^{dt}. servant
JOHN FORSTER.
After Crabbe's death the following almost illegible draft of a reply
was found amongst his papers:--
It w^{d} ill become me who have been so greatly [much] indebted
to the kindness of my Friends, that [I should refuse to do what
I could] disregard [not respond to] the application you are
so good as to make on behalf of Mr. Leigh Hunt. My influence
I fear is small [living] residing as, I do, where little
except Cloth is made, little except Newspapers read. This is,
however, not without exceptions. [It is] I consider it as doing
myself Honour to join [however feebly] my [name with those
endeavouring] attempt to serve [a distinguished member of] a
man for whose welfare [those] such distinguished persons are
interested [whose names are connected] to the [printed copy]
paper [of the paper] printed [destined] for general Circulation
I am Sir ----
History had repeated itself, only the rôles were reversed. In 1832 the
benefactor was Crabbe, and the distressed man of letters Hunt!
I have elected to speak of Burke amongst the writers, although
he can claim a high place amongst the statesmen. His letters are
always valuable, although the price fetched for two exceptionally
fine specimens at the Haber Sale (New York, December 10, 1909) was
disappointing. A long letter, written in his twentieth year, brought
only £4 8s.; a splendid letter from Bath a short time before his death
was sold for £6 8s. The following letter from Edmund Burke to Mrs.
Montagu (one of many I have the good fortune to possess) has a distinct
vein of American interest:--
WESTMINSTER,
_MAY 4 1776, Friday._
DEAR MADAM,--I was in hopes, that I might have sent you,
together with my acknowledgement for your kindness, the only
reward you desire for acts of friendship, an account of the
full effect of them. Mrs. James's letter was undoubtedly
what it ought to be on application from you. We have nothing
to complain of Mrs. J. in point of civility but there is no
further result of your indisposition. As yet indeed we do not
despair. But to give the application its full effect on him, if
in answer to Mrs. J. you keep the matter in some degree alive,
I do not question but that it will succeed at last. Almost all
the others are secure.
I cannot at all express how much obliged I am for the extremely
friendly manner in which you take up my friends Mr. Burke's
case. He is himself as sensible, as he is worthy of your
goodness. It is something to be distinguished by the regards of
those who regard but few. But to have a distinguished part in
the mind where all have their places is much more flattering.
We have now almost finished our tedious Sessions; and I hope
to make you my acknowledgement when you return, somewhat
more at leisure. The news from America is not very pleasing.
Indeed I know of no News but that of Peace which can be so,
to any well-disposed mind. General Howe has been driven from
Boston, partly by scarcity, partly by a sharp Cannonade and
Bombardment. He therefore made his disposition so well that
they had not induced his return soon enough to give him any
disturbance. He has collected everything with him and he has
retired to the only place we have now on that extensive coast,
Halifax, where, I doubt, for some little time at least he will
not be much better commanded in point of provision though he
will be practically out of reach of an enemy. Mrs. Burke joins
me with all the rest of the family in faithful pledge to you,
in the best compliments to yourself and to your most agreeable
Miss Gregory.
I am, with the most sincere regard and highest esteem
Dear Madam,
Your sincere friend
and very obliged and humble servant,
EDM. BURKE.
Passing to the nineteenth century, which was to witness the eclipse of
the art of letter-writing as well as the disappearance of the frank,
we come to the age of Keats, Shelley, Byron and Lamb. It was at
the beginning of this eventful epoch that Goethe wrote the lines to
Blücher, which form one of the shortest autographs I possess, but not
the least curious or valuable:--
In Harren
und Krieg
in Sturz
und Sieg
bewust und gros
So riss er uns
Von Feinden los
[Illustration: HOLOGRAPH LINES BY GOETHE ON BLÜCHER, CIRCA 1812-13.]
My friend, Mr. G. L. de St. M. Watson, gives me a forcible metrical
translation:
In warring or tarrying,
In victory or woe,
He towers; and through him
We're freed from the foe.
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF JOHN KEATS (THREE PAGES) TO J. H. REYNOLDS,
FEBRUARY 28, 1820.]
Goethe was an enthusiastic collector of MSS. as well as a poet. Of the
autograph cult he wrote:--
As I personally possess a considerable collection of autographs
and often take occasion to examine and reflect upon them,
it seems to me that every one who directs his thoughts to
this subject may succeed in taking several steps in the
right direction, which may lead to his own improvement and
satisfaction, if not to the instruction of others.
The value of Keats, Shelley, Byron and Scott letters I have already
spoken of. In the Haber Sale a Keats letter brought £500! Letters of
Charles Lamb range from £4 to £10 or more in price. I purchased the
following note to Hone for £2 2s. and believe I secured a bargain:--
_To Mr. Hone._
45 LUDGATE HILL
DEAR SIR,--I was not very well or in spirits when your pleasing
note reached me or should have noticed sooner. Our Hebrew
Brethren seem to appreciate the good news of this life in more
liberal latitude than we to judge from frequent graces. One
I think you must have omitted "After concluding a bargain."
Their distinction of "fruits growing upon trees" and "upon the
ground" I can understand. A sow makes quite a different grunt
_her grace_ from eating chestnuts and pignuts. The last is a
little above Ela with this and wishing grace be with you,
Yours
C. LAMB
_9 Nov. 1821._
[Illustration: LETTER OF LORD TENNYSON TO MR. MOXON.]
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF LORD BYRON TO MR. PERRY, MARCH 1, 1812.]
Of the literary autograph letters and MSS. of the Victorian era the
highest prices are obtained for those of Alfred Tennyson and George
Meredith. In a catalogue lately issued by Messrs. Sotheran[54]
the author's copy of Tennyson's "Ode on the Death of the Duke of
Wellington," with thirty lines of MS. additions and a large number of
alterations and corrections, is priced at £120. The MS. draft of his
famous dedication to Queen Victoria published in 1853, and consisting
of eight four-line verses, is considered a little more valuable. An
ordinary 8vo letter of one page frequently fetches as much as £2 or
£3. George Meredith's MSS. have been lately sold for several hundred
pounds, and an ordinary letter would be cheap at anything between £2
and £3. Through the kindness of my friend Mr. Clement Shorter I am able
to give a specimen of Meredith's handwriting.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATED LETTER OF W. M. THACKERAY FROM GLASGOW.
(In the collection of Mr. Frank Sabin.)]
[Illustration: LINES FROM THE "ILIAD." SPECIMEN OF THE MS. OF THE
LATE MR. GEORGE MEREDITH.
(By kind permission of Mr. Clement K. Shorter.)]
W. M. Thackeray and Charles Dickens were both voluminous
letter-writers. The letters of the former now command higher prices
than those of any Victorian writer. He also frequently illustrated his
witty notes with amusing sketches in pen and ink and other oddities.
One of these (from the splendid collection of Mr. Sabin) forms one of
the illustrations of this volume. Into another he introduces a typical
Scotch "sandwich-man" carrying on his back the advertisement of the
Thackeray Lectures at Merchants' Hall, Glasgow. From my own collection
I give a very interesting example of Thackeray's wit, in the shape of
a letter addressed to Count d'Orsay, on the subject of the proposed
publication of a sacred picture by the famous dandy. On the back of the
circular announcing its appearance he wrote:--
MY DEAR COUNT,--This note has just come to hand, and you see I
take the freedom with you of speaking the truth. I dont like
this announcement at all. Our Saviour and the Count d'Orsay
ought not to appear in those big letters. It somehow looks
as if you and our Lord were on a par, and put forth as equal
attractions by the publisher. Dont mind my saying this, for
I'm sure this sort of announcement (merely on account of the
unfortunate typography) is likely to shock many honest folks.
Yours always faithfully
W M THACKERAY.
In the earlier part of his career, Thackeray wrote a running hand very
different to the upright calligraphy of his later life.
[Illustration: A.L.S. OF W. M. THACKERAY TO COUNT D'ORSAY ON FLY-LEAF
OF CIRCULAR ANNOUNCING THE PUBLICATION OF A PICTURE, N.D.]
Early Dickens letters of any length are eagerly sought for, and sell
for nearly three times as much as those written between 1850 and his
death. I am able to give illustrations of some exceptionally early
Thackeray and Dickens letters, which came into the possession of Mr.
George Gregory, of Bath, through whose hands the Autograph Album of the
first Mrs. Sheridan recently passed. The earliest Dickens letter, of
the fifteen autographs in my collection, was written when he was in his
twenty-ninth year. It is interesting as containing a frank exposition
of his political creed:--
_Charles Dickens at Broadstairs to Frederick Dickens, Commissariat,
Treasury, Whitehall._