When the Harleian Library was inherited by the second Earl of Oxford (of this family) it included more than six thousand volumes of Manuscripts, in addition to about fourteen thousand five hundred charters and rolls. By him it was largely augmented in every department. |Increase of the Harleian Library by Edward, Earl of Oxford. 1724–1741.| |See MS. Addit., 5338. (B. M.)| He made his library most liberally accessible to scholars; and when, by a purchase made in Holland, he had acquired some leaves of one of the most precious biblical manuscripts in the world—leaves which had long before been stolen from the Royal Library at Paris—he sent them back to their proper repository in a manner so obliging as made it apparent that his sense of the duties of collectorship was as keen as was his sense of its delights. At his death, on the 16th of June, 1741, the volumes of manuscripts had increased to nearly eight thousand. The printed books were estimated at about fifty thousand volumes, exclusive of an unexampled series of pamphlets, amounting to nearly 400,000, and comprising, like the manuscripts, materials for our national history of inestimable value.
The only daughter and heiress of the second Earl, Margaret, by her marriage with William, Duke of Portland, carried her share in a remnant of the fortunes of the several families of Cavendish, Holles, and Harley, into the family of Bentinck. The magnificent printed library which formed part of her inheritance was sold and dispersed. |Johnson, Account of the Harleian Library; Works, vol. v, p. 181.| It was of that collection that Johnson said, ‘It excels any library that was ever yet offered to sale in the value as well as in the number of the volumes which it contains.’
The Manuscripts were eventually purchased by Parliament for the sum of ten thousand pounds. |The purchase of the Harleian MSS. for the Nation.| With reference to this purchase the Duchess of Portland wrote as follows, in April, 1753, to the Speaker of the House of Commons:—‘As soon as I was acquainted with the proposal you had made in the House of Commons, in relation to my Father’s Collection of Manuscripts I informed my Mother [the then Dowager Countess of Oxford] of it, who has given the Duke of Portland and me full power to do therein as we shall think fit.
‘Though I am told the expense of collecting them was immense, and that, if they were to be dispersed, they would probably sell for a great deal of money, yet, as a sum has been named, and as I know it was my Father’s and is my Mother’s intention that they should be kept together, I will not bargain with the Publick. I give you this trouble therefore to acquaint you that I am ready to accept of your proposal upon condition that this great and valuable Collection shall be kept together in a proper repository, as an addition to the Cotton Library, and be called by the name of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts.
‘I hope you do me the justice to believe that I do not consider this as a sale for an adequate price. |Duchess of Portland to Arthur Onslow; MS. Addit., 17521, f. 30. (B. M.)| But your idea is so right, and so agreeable to what I know was my Father’s intention, that I have a particular satisfaction in contributing all I can to facilitate the success of it.’
If it were possible to give, in few words, any adequate view of the obligations which English literature, and more especially English historical literature, owes to the Collectors of the Harleian Manuscripts, there could be no fitter conclusion to a biographical notice of Robert Harley. Here, however, no such estimate is practicable. Nor, in truth, can it be needed in order to convince the reader that ‘some tribute of veneration’—to use the apposite words which Johnson prefixed to the Harleian Catalogue—is due to the ardour of the two Harleys for literature; and ‘to that generous and exalted curiosity which they gratified with incessant searches and immense expense; and to which they dedicated that time and that superfluity of fortune which many others, of their rank, employ in the pursuit of contemptible amusements or the gratification of guilty passions.’
Note to Chapter V.
EXTRACTS FROM THE STUART PAPERS, REFERRING TO INTERCOURSE OF ROBERT HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD, WITH THE JACOBITES, AFTER THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I.
1. [1717?] A document which, could it be recovered, would go far towards clearing up some of the uncertainties which exist as to Lord Oxford’s intercourse with the Pretender and his agents, subsequently to the death of Queen Anne, was seen by Sir James Mackintosh among the Stuart Papers acquired by George the Fourth. It was afterwards vainly searched for by Lord Mahon, when engaged upon his History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht. |Edin. Rev., vol. lxii, pp. 18, 19.| It is still known only from the cursory notes made by Mackintosh, and referred to by a writer in the Edinburgh Review in these words: ‘During Oxford’s confinement in the Tower there is a communication from him to the Pretender, preserved among the Stuart Papers, offering his services and advice; recommending the Bishop of Rochester as the fittest person to manage the Jacobite affairs,—the writer himself being in custody; and adding that he should never have thought it safe ‘to engage again with His Majesty if Bolingbroke himself had been still about him.’
2. 1717. September 29. Bishop Atterbury to Lord Mar:—