[22]. Bishop Horsley certainly forgot the ever-memorable words which he had so often read—Matt. v, 44—when he, a prelate, signed himself ‘Misogallus.’
[23]. Morton died at eighty-three; Planta, at eighty-four; Ellis, at ninety-two. Morton, as we have seen, was known to Sir Hans Sloane. Sloane was already a noted man in the days of Charles the Second; and he also lived to be ninety-two. The joint lives of Sloane, Morton, and Ellis extended over nearly two hundred and ten years.
[24]. I do not make this statement without ample warrant. When preparing, under Lord Romilly’s direction, my humble contribution of the lost Liber de Hyda to the series of Chronicles and Memorials, I had competent occasion to test the Monasticon of 1813–1824, and found it to teem with errors and oversights in that part of it which I had then to do with. I had had other occasions to study it somewhat closely twenty years before, and with like result. At the interval of twenty years, one could hardly stumble twice upon exceptionally ill-edited portions of such a book. For the new ‘Dugdale,’ thus truthfully characterised, subscribers paid a hundred and thirty pounds for small paper, two hundred and sixty pounds for large paper, copies; and the number of subscribers was considerable. So much for the ‘We must retrench’ of the publishers.
[25]. After stating that Mr. Ellis had made needless proclamation at Paris of the object of his journey, Sir Harris Nicolas proceeds thus:—‘Not contented with this injudicious and useless development of the objects in view, the learned gentleman himself pompously announced wherever he went that he was the “Chief Librarian of the British Museum,” sent specially to treat for these manuscripts, thus making a public affair of what should have been kept private. The effect of this folly may easily be imagined. Long before the “Chief Librarian” reached Pomard, the French newspapers expressed their indignation that historical muniments should be sold to the British Government, inferring that England must be anxious to possess the records in question, when the purchase of them was made an official business.
‘The effect of all this parade upon the owner of the manuscripts was a natural one; he fancied he had erred in his estimate of their value, and that, as they seemed to be objects of national importance to another Government, he resolved to make that Government pay at a much higher rate, for what they manifested such extraordinary anxiety to obtain, than a private individual. On the “Chief Librarian’s” arrival at Pomard, he discovered that the Baron could speak little English; and the Baron, as he has since asserted, discovered that the “Chief Librarian” could speak less French; hence it was with great difficulty that the latter could understand that the Baron had become so enlightened about his treasures as to expect, not merely double the price he originally asked for them, but as our Government had interfered on the subject, he wished it to advance one step further, by inducing his Most Christian Majesty to raise his Barony into a Comté. Such terms were out of the question; and after spending two or three hours only in examining the Collection, but which required at least as many weeks, the “Chief Librarian” returned to England re infecta, and made his report to the Trustees, who refused to purchase the Collection, but offered to buy a few documents, which the owner, of course, declined. Thus, highly valuable documents are lost to the Museum and to the country, in consequence, solely and entirely, of the absurd measures adopted for their acquisition.’—Nicolas, Observations on the State of Historical Literature in England, pp. 78–80. My long and observant acquaintance with Sir H. Nicolas justifies me in adding to this extract—in which there are such obvious exaggerations of statement—that I am convinced he was writing from insufficient and inaccurate information. He was incapable of wilful misstatement.
[26]. I was myself present at an interview (in Lambeth), when the most urgent influence was used with Mr. Hawes to induce him to attack Mr. Panizzi’s original appointment as an ‘Assistant-Librarian’; and I heard him express a strong approval of it, on the ground of the obvious qualifications and abilities of the individual officer—though himself sharing the opinion that in such appointments Englishmen should have the preference.
[27]. It was in the old rooms in the Court-yard of Montagu House that Charles Lamb enjoyed the last, I think, of his ‘dinings-out.’ A few days after his final visit (November, 1834) the hand of Death was already upon him. Cary, before writing the well-known epitaph, wrote some other graceful and touching lines on his old friend. They were occasioned by finding, in a volume lent to Lamb by Cary, Lamb’s bookmark, against a page which told of the death of Sydney. They begin thus:—
‘So should it be, my gentle friend,
Thy leaf last closed at Sydney’s end;
Thou too, like Sydney, wouldst have given