CHAPTER XXIV. NOTICES OF SOME EXISTING BRITISH PRIVATE LIBRARIES. All that a University or final Highest School can do for us is still but what the first School began doing, -teach us to read. We learn to read in various languages, in various sciences: we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of Books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves. It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done their best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection of Books. CARLYLE, The Hero as Man of Letters. BOOK III. Chapter XXIV. Libraries. THE Library at Bridgewater House is, I believe, one of the oldest of existing family Libraries in England. British Private Lord Chancellor Ellesmere was its chief founder, with the advantage of possessing what remained of a collection then already ancient; and his example was followed by the first and second Earls of Bridgewater, his immediate successors in his large possessions. For many generations it was kept at Ashridge, the noble old mansion of the thirteenth century which the Chancellor had enlarged and adorned. The distinction of demolishing the mansion, and of almost demolishing the Library (by leaving it in utter neglect, excluded even from air and BOOK III. Chapter XXIV. Libraries. light), was reserved for the "Canal" Duke, who died British Private in 1803. The remains of the Library, still the finest Elizabethan collection which has survived, were arranged by the late Rev. H. J. Todd, with all the assiduity that could be induced by love of the task, and by of the Licensers of Plays added to the Bridgewater Library, in 1853. his eminent attainments. Amongst the MSS. the following are especially worthy of notice: (1) Chaucer's Poems, of the 15th century, on vellum, finely illuminated; (2) Gower's Poems, also on vellum, illuminated; and the presentation copy from the author to King Henry IV. It appears to have belonged to Henry VII., prior to his elevation to the throne (the name Rychemond appears on one of the flyleaves); and was given by Thomas Lord Fairfax to Sir Thomas Gower, in 1656. By the first Duke of Sutherland (better known, perhaps, by his former title of Marquis of Stafford) some valuable additions were made to the rescued Library. Others still more important were made by the next inheritor, the late Earl of Ellesmere; who also commissioned Mr. Payne Collier to prepare and print a Catalogue of the older portions of the collection. Of the many acquisitions made by Lord Ellesmere, The Collection none more eminently deserves to be particularized than the purchase in 1853 of several hundreds of MS. plays from the official collection of the Licenser. This remarkable series extended from 1737, the date of the remodelling of the Censorship of plays (as a branch of the Lord Chamberlain's department), to 1824, the date of the death of Mr. Larpent, by whom his predecessor's MSS. had been purchased and, together with his own, THE BRIDGEWATER LIBRARY. 141 carefully preserved and arranged. They were sold by BOOK III. Chapter XXIV. Libraries. the widow of that gentleman, in 1825, for £180; and British Private almost thirty years afterwards were, with great good feeling, offered to the British Museum at the price they had cost. But the offer met with the too frequent reception of like offers, both before and since. The purchase was very politely "declined." When the offer came to Lord Ellesmere, it was differently entertained; and the old Bridgewater Library, already so rich in the Dramatic literature of the sixteenth century, received such a store of that of the eighteenth and early portion of the nineteenth centuries, as can never again be met with. For, in addition to the plays themselves, with their very curious annotations and "amendments," the series comprised the Licenser's correspondence with the authors, and with the other persons interested. 1 1 The Library of the Duke of Devonshire is partly at Chatsworth, and partly at Devonshire House. As it includes the old library of the Cavendish family, its first origin is probably nearly coeval with that of the Bridgewater collection. It is rich in Caxtons, and amongst them can boast that matchless copy of the first book printed in the English language which had belonged to Queen Elizabeth Gray, Consort of Edward IV., and was one of the gems of the Roxburghe Library. There is a fine series of the first editions both of the ancient Classics, and of the master-pieces of modern literature, 1 Todd, Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer, 96, 128; Collier, Preface to the Bridgewater Catalogue; Repertorium Bibliographicum, 359-373; Athenum, for 1854, 21. Library of the Devonshire. BOOK 111. Chapter XXIV. Libraries. many of which were obtained at the sale of the choice. British Private collection formed by Bishop Dampier. Had the late Duke's liberal offer for the whole of the Library of Count Mac-Carthy been accepted, the Devonshire collection would have rivalled even that of Lord Spencer. The illuminated Amongst the many choice MSS. with miniatures that adorn this Library is one bearing the curious title, Le Mystère de la Vengeance de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ, which is described by those who have seen it as superb in its kind. There is also a Missal containing two autographs of King Henry VII., by whom it was given to his daughter Margaret, Queen of Scots, on her marriage. Queen Margaret gave it to her daughter, Margaret Douglas, and by her it was given to an Archbishop of St. Andrews. But in Dr. Waagen's opinion all the other MSS. are eclipsed in interest by a Benedictionale inscribed with some Latin verses, written in gold uncials, from which we learn that the volume was written and illuminated, by one Godemar, for Ethelwold, who was Bishop of Winchester from the year 970 to 984. Waagen thinks it superior, both for the splendour of the miniatures and for the rich ornamentation of the borders, to all the other Anglo-Saxon MSS. he has seen: and he regards it as in itself a sufficient proof that works were in that age produced by English artists which, in most respects, are equal to the contemporary productions of the artists of France, Germany, or the Netherlands.1 1 Repertorium Bibliographicum, 249-256; Waagen, Treasures of Art, iii. 361-363. LIBRARY OF THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. 143 BOOK III. Chapter XXIV. Libraries. The Blenheim The choice Library now at Blenheim was originally gathered at Sunderland House (formerly Clarendon British Private House) in London, by Charles fifth Lord Spencer (of Wormleighton) and third Earl of Sunderland. That eminent Whig Statesman enjoyed many mundane felicities. in the course of his stirring carreer, but, for his family, they were all of inferior importance to the fortunate. second marriage which he contracted with Anne Churchill, daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough. The old Duchess survived her son-in-law nearly a quarter of a century, and her tenacity of life had the curious effect of making her grandson forfeit his large paternal property, when he became second Duke of Marlborough, without acquiring the ownership of Blenheim, for which he had to wait nearly eleven years more. Even then, he but inherited what had been previously settled upon him by Act of Parliament; Duchess Sarah bequeathing to his younger brother, John (father of the first Earl Spencer), all her personal property, together with estates in eleven English counties.1 Evelyn watched the early growth of this Library with the keen interest in such matters to which succeeding bibliographers owe so many curious facts. In The Duchess' own account of her views in making this vast bequest is thoroughly characteristic of the writer: "I have made," she says, "a settlement of a very great estate that is in my own power, upon my grandson, John Spencer, and his sons; but they are all to forfeit it, if any of them shall ever accept any employment, military or civil, or any pension, from any King or Queen of this realm, and the estate is to go to others in the entail. This, I think, ought to please every body; for it will secure my heirs in being very considerable men. None of them can put on a fool's coat; and take posts from soldiers of experience and service, who never did any thing but kill pheasants and partridges."—Opinions of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, p. 15; as quoted by Dibdin, Edes Althorpianæ, Ivii. |