Wanley’s account of the acquisition of the D’Ewes Library.
It having come to Wanley’s knowledge or belief, in the year 1703, that possibly arrangements might be made to obtain this library, for the Public, from the then possessor, he wrote to Harley in these terms:—‘Sir Symonds D’Ewes being pleased to honour me with a peculiar kindness of esteem, I have taken the liberty of inquiring of him whether he will part with his library, and I find that he is not unwilling to do so. And that at a much easier rate than I could think for. I dare say that it would be a noble addition to the Cotton Library; perhaps the best that could be had anywhere at present.... If your Honour should judge it impracticable to persuade Her Majesty to buy them for the Cotton Library—in whose coffers such a sum as will buy them is scarcely conceivable—then, Sir, if you shall have a mind of them yourself I will take care that you shall have them cheaper than any other person whatsoever. I know that many have their eyes upon this collection.’ |Wanley to Harley; MS. Lansd. 841, fol. 63. (B. M.)| ‘I am desirous,’ he goes on to say, ‘to have this collection in town for the public good, and rather in a public place than in private hands; but, of all private gentlemen’s studies, first in yours. I have not spoken to anybody as yet, nor will not till I have your answer, that you may not be forestalled.’
Harley welcomed the overture thus made to him, and Wanley, on his behalf, entered upon a negotiation which ended in the eventual acquisition of the whole of the D’Ewes Manuscripts for the Harleian Collection. Soon afterwards, Wanley became its librarian.
In the course of this employment he watched diligently for other opportunities of a like sort; established an active correspondence with booksellers, both at home and abroad; and induced Lord Oxford to send agents to the Continent to search for manuscripts. |History of the Harleian Library, continued.| But the Earl had soon to meet an eager rival in the book-market, in the person of Lord Sunderland, who in former years had been, by turns, his colleague and his opponent in the keener strife of politics. In their new rivalry, Lord Sunderland had one considerable advantage. He cared little about money. If he succeeded in obtaining what he sought for, he rarely scrutinised the more or less of its cost. Wanley was by nature a bargainer. He felt uneasy under the least suspicion that any bookseller or vendor was getting the better hand of him in a transaction. And he seems, in time, to have inoculated Lord Oxford with a good deal of the same feeling. Some of the entries in his diary put this love of striking a good bargain in an amusing light.
Thus, for example, in telling of the acquisition of a valuable monastic chartulary which had belonged to the ‘Bedford Library’ at Cranfield, he writes thus:—‘The said Chartulary is to be my Lord’s, and he is to present to that library St. Chrysostom’s Works, in Greek and Latin, printed at Paris, for which my Lord shall be registered a benefactor to the said library. Moreover, Mr. Frank will send up a list of his out-of-course books, out of which my Lord may pick and choose any twenty of them gratis.... I am also to advise that he is heartily willing and ready to serve his Lordship in any library matters; ... particularly with [Sir John] Osborne of Chicksand Abbey, where most part of the old monastical library is said yet to remain.’ |Wanley’s Diary, vol. i, pp. 13, 21. 1720, February.| And again, on another occasion:—‘My Lord was pleased to tell me that Mr. Gibson’s last parcel of printed books were all his own as being gained into [the bargain with] the two last parcels of manuscripts bought of him.’ |Ib., vol. ii, f. 24.| Gibson’s protest that he was entitled to an additional thirty pounds was quite in vain.
Of the innumerable skirmishes between librarian and bookseller which Wanley’s pages record with loving detail, two passages may serve as sufficient samples:—‘Van Hoeck, a Dutchman’ he writes in 1722, ‘brought to my Lord a small parcel of modern manuscripts, and their lowest prices,—which proved so abominably wicked that he was sent away with them immediately.’ And, in February, 1723:—‘Bowyer, the bookseller, came intreating me to instruct him touching the prices of old editions, and of other rare and valuable books, pretending that thereby he should be the better able to bid for them; but, as I rather suppose, to be better able to exact of gentlemen. I pleaded utter inexperience in the matter, and, without a quarrel, in my mind rejected this ridiculous attempt with the scorn it deserved. |Wanley’s Diary, vol. i, f. 73, verso. MS. Lansd., 771. (B. M.)| This may be a fresh instance of the truth of Tullie’s paradox, “that all fools are mad.”’
In the year 1720, large additions were made, more especially to the historical treasures of the Harleian Library, by the purchase of manuscripts from the several collections of John Warburton (Somerset Herald), of Archdeacon Battely, and of Peter Séguier (Chancellor of France). Another important accession came, in the same year, by the bequest of Hugh Thomas. |Ibid., pp. 35, 42, 48.| In 1721 purchases were made from the several libraries of Thomas Grey, second Earl of Stamford; of Robert Paynell, of Belaugh, in Norfolk; and of John Robartes, first Earl of Radnor.
Lord Oxford died on the 21st May, 1724, at the age of sixty-three. |Death of Lord Oxford.| Wanley records the event in these words: ‘It pleased God to call to His mercy Robert, Earl of Oxford, the founder of this Library, who long had been to me a munificent patron.’
Corresp., in Works, vol. xvi, p. 438.
When condoling with the new Earl upon his father’s death, Swift wrote to him:—‘You no longer wanted his care and tenderness, ... but his friendship and conversation you will ever want, because they are qualities so rare in the world, and in which he so much excelled all others. It has pleased me, in the midst of my grief, to hear that he preserved the greatness, the calmness, and intrepidity, of his mind to his last minutes; for it was fit that such a life should terminate with equal lustre to the whole progress of it.’ It is honourable alike to the man who was thus generously spoken of, and to the friend who mourned his loss, that the testimony so borne was a consistent testimony. The failings of Harley were well known to Swift. In the days of prosperity they had been freely blamed; and face to face. When those days were gone, the good qualities only came to be dwelt upon. To the unforgiving enemy, as to the bereaved son, Swift wrote about the merits of the friend he had lost. ‘I pass over that paragraph of your letter,’ said Bolingbroke, in reply, ‘which is a kind of an elegy on a departed minister.’