BOOK III. Classics. The number of articles was 4313, and the Dispersed Pri- total proceeds £4001. Chapter XXIII. vate Libraries. Library of Ralph Sheldon of Weston. Of the noble Library of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, something has already been said in recording the acquisition by the British nation of his collection of MSS., but the history of its formation might fill a chapter by itself, and a not uninteresting one, for which Wanley has left us useful materials. In point of mere extent it may be stated to have numbered about 26,000 volumes, (on the binding of only a portion of which Lord Oxford is said to have expended £18,000); besides about 350,000 pamphlets, a more remarkable collection than had ever before been amassed. I pass on, however, to collections of less importance, but of which no notice has yet been taken. Ralph Sheldon of Weston in Warwickshire, the kind and patient friend of Anthony Wood, and a fine specimen of the "old English gentleman," began to set up "a standing Library in his house at Weston," by way of compensation for the loss of his wife, who died in 1663. He bought many books in Italy, and on his return acquired the genealogical collections belonging to John Vincent, son of Augustine Vincent, "to the number of 240 MSS. at least." Wood classified the Library. It was rich in Missals and other Service books, and in Topography. It included a good series of Hearne's publications, and a noble dramatic collection. Most of the books bore, in the owner's characteristically bold handwriting, the motto, "In Posterum." It is said that the collection remained intact at Weston until 1781, the BOOK III. Chapter XXIII. vate Libraries. date of the sale of a considerable portion (at all events) of its contents. But a large number of books Dispersed Priwhich once belonged to it, are in the Library of Lord Willoughby de Broke, at Compton Verney, and there is some reason to infer that these were in their present locality prior to the date of the sale by Christie. At this sale occurred, Lot "422, A large collection of scarce old plays in fifty-six volumes, quarto." The booksellers' "private auction" trickery was then in full vogue. To one of the fraternity this lot was knocked down at five guineas; it passed to another for eighteen pounds, and was sold on the spot to Henderson, the actor, for thirty guineas. The English Bible of 1537 sold for thirteen shillings; two copies of the Common Prayer Book of 1552, for eight shillings, the first folio edition of Shakespeare, "with two other books," for forty-four shillings; the Legenda aurea, of 1503, for ten shillings and six pence. Many of the rare old plays are now in the Bodleian. At what date the curious political Library which had been gathered by William Paterson, in the days of William III., suffered the common fate, I have been unable to discover. Few collections restricted to a single department would have possessed greater interest for Posterity. Paterson was almost the beau-ideal of a 'Projector, or man who spends his life in scattering broad-cast the good seed of which other men, long afterwards and with small thought of their benefactor, are to reap the abundant harvest. Adversity Library of Wil liam Paterson, the financier. BOOK II. Chapter XXIII. vate Libraries. was the ruin of his fortunes, but the making of his Dispersed Pri- mind. His best work did not lie in his books, though these were many and seasonable, but in the influence his combative and versatile, yet kindly and resolute spirit produced on some of the best of the thinkers and workers with whom his adventurous life brought him into contact. account of his his views as to its disposal. It was almost at the close of his career that he thought of converting the Library he had formed for himself into a public Library of Trade and Politics for the City of Westminster. In a proposal drawn up with Paterson's own this view he wrote thus:-"My collection gives some collection and better ideas than what is commonly conceived of the tracts and treatises requisite to the study and knowledge of a matter so deep and extensive as Trade and Revenue, which, notwithstanding the noise of so many pretenders as we have already had, and are still troubled with, may well be reckoned never yet to have been truly methodized or digested: nay, nor perhaps but tolerably considered by any..... To this study of Trade, there is not only requisite as complete a collection as possible of all books, pamphlets or schemes, merely and abstractedly related to Trade, Revenue, Navigation, useful Inventions, and Improvements, whether ancient or modern; but likewise of the best Histories, Voyages, ..... and Accounts .... of Countries, that from thence may be gather'd and understood .... the rise or declension of the Industry of a People, whether Home or Foreign." .... "The books," he adds, "thus proposed for public use, are chiefly in English, but with many Dutch, German, French, and. 1 Spanish volumes." But the scheme miscarried, and the collection was eventually dispersed. The brothers Thomas and Richard Rawlinson were both very eminent collectors in their day, but, perhaps, both were more remarkable for the extent than for the discrimination of their gatherings. The former, when he lived at Gray's Inn, had so filled his Chambers (a set of four,) with books that he was obliged to sleep in a passage. When he removed to the large mansion in Aldersgate Street, which had been the palace of the Bishops of London, and which he shared with his brother, the books still continued to be better lodged than their owner. Dying at the age of fortyfour, a collection which otherwise would probably have become almost gigantic in its bulk was soon dispersed. The Catalogue is in nine parts. The sale of the MSS. alone occupied sixteen days. The amount realized was, I believe, (at the prices, be it remembered, of the year 1734,) between four and five thousand pounds. Richard Rawlinson survived his brother thirty years. His MSS. (as is well-known) are at Oxford; the printed portion of his Library was sold, in 1756, for £1164, and the auction occupied fifty days. Then came a second sale, of more than 20,000 pamphlets, and a third, of prints. This collector was as choice a specimen of the genus 'crotchetty' as could be wished for. He gave a high price for a head, assigned (on somewhat doubtful evidence,) to one of the Jacobite 1 Harleian MS. 4654. [Partially printed in Mr. Bannister's Life of Paterson, 1858, 399,400.] BOOK III. Chapter XXIII. Dispersed Private Libraries. Collections of linson. BOOK III. conspirators, and alleged by the vendor to have been Dispersed Pri- "blown off, from the top of Temple Bar." At one time, Chapter XXIII. vate Libraries. Library of Richard Mead, M.D. he made large bequests to the Society of Antiquaries, conditioned to become void, if that Society should ever increase its number of members beyond a hundred and fifty. At another time, he revoked these bequests, avowedly because the Antiquaries had selected a Scotchman for their Secretary, and added a codicil expressly excluding every man from all participation in his gifts to Oxford, who had the ill-fortune to be a Fellow of that Society. Of 'Benefactors' of this stamp, Richard Rawlinson has been by no means the last. Of the now dispersed collections that intervened between those which have been indicated, and the palmy days of the Bibliomania and the "Roxburghe Revels," the most prominent were those of Mead (1754); of West (1773); of Askew (1775); of Crofts (1783); of Farmer (1798); of Steevens (1800); and of Reed (1807). But of these my notices must be very brief. Of Richard Mead it was said by Johnson (in a sentence which bears its true mint-mark, yet is without any tincture of pedantry), "He lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man." It might have been added that few men have been so happy in diffusing the sunshine around them. He came of a good Buckinghamshire stock. His father's career has in it much that is memorable. But of Matthew Mead it is enough say that Cromwell selected him for a cure of souls, which came into his gift, at Shadwell; and that long afterwards, when the degradations of the days of to |