In the earliest years of the Royal Collectorship part of the Library was kept in the old palace at Kew, which has long since disappeared, the site of it being now a gorgeous flower-bed. Afterwards, and on the acquisition for the Queen, of Buckingham House,[[13]] the chief part of the Collection was removed to Pimlico, and arranged in the handsome rooms of which a view appears, by way of vignette, on the title-pages of the sumptuously printed catalogue prepared by Barnard. It was at Buckingham House that Johnson’s well-known conversation with the King took place, in February, 1767.
When Johnson first began to use the Royal Collection it was still in its infancy. He was surprised both at its extent and at the number of rare and choice books which it already included. He had seen Barnard’s assiduity, and had helped him occasionally in his book-researches, long prior to the tour of 1768. But it astonished him to see that the King, within six or seven years, had gathered so fine a Library as that which he saw in 1767. He became a frequent visitor. The King, hearing of the circumstance, desired his librarian to let him know when the literary autocrat came again.
The interview at Buckingham House between George III and Dr. Johnson.
The King’s first questions were about the doings at Oxford, whence, he had been told, Johnson had recently returned. The Doctor expressed his inability to bestow much commendation on the diligence then exhibited by the resident scholars of the University in the way of any conspicuous additions to literature. |1767, February.| Presently, the King put to him the question, ‘And what are you about yourself?’ ‘I think,’ was the answer—given in a tone more modest than the strict sense of the words may import—‘that I have already done my part as a writer.’ To which the King rejoined, ‘I should think so too, had you not written so well.’ After this happy retort, the King turned the conversation on some recent theological controversies. About that between Warburton and Lowth he made another neat though obvious remark—‘When it comes to calling names, argument, truly, is pretty well at an end.’ They then passed in review many of the periodical publications of the day, in the course of which His Majesty displayed considerable knowledge of the chief books of that class, both English and French. |Croker’s Boswell, pp. 184–186.| He showed his characteristic and kingly attention to minutiæ by an observation which he made when Johnson had praised an improved arrangement of the contents of the Philosophical Transactions—oblivious, at the moment, that he had himself suggested the change. ‘They have to thank Dr. Johnson for that,’ said the King.
Another remark made by George the Third during this conversation deserves to be remembered. ‘I wish,’ said he, ‘that we could have a really well-executed body of British Biography.’ This was a desideratum in the seventh year of the old King, and it is a desideratum still in the thirty-fourth year of his granddaughter. The reign of Queen Victoria was comparatively young when the late Mr. Murray first announced, not without some flourish of trumpets, a forthcoming attempt at such a labour, but the little that was said as to the precise plan and scope of the work then contemplated, gave small promise of an adequate performance; and hitherto there has been no performance at all.
The King’s conversation with Dr. Beattie;
Six years after the interview with Johnson, another literary conversation, of which we have a record, was held in the Royal Library. But on this occasion the scene was Kew. Dr. Beattie’s fame is now a thing of the past. There is still, however, some living interest in the account of the talk between the author of The Minstrel and his sovereign, held in 1773, |1773. August.| about liturgies, |Forbes, Life of Beattie, vol. i, pp. 347–354.| about prayers occasional and prayers ex tempore, and about the methods of education adopted in the Scottish universities.
The King’s least favourable—but not least characteristic—appearance, as a talker on literary subjects, is made in that conversation with Miss Burney, |and with Miss Burney.| in which he uttered his often-quoted remark on Shakespeare:—‘Was there ever such stuff as great part of Shakespeare—only one must not say so?’ |1785. December.| The sense of the humorous seems in George III to have been wholly lacking. And some part of the sadness of his life has probably a vital connexion with that deficiency.
In the last-mentioned conversation, the King evinced considerable acquaintance with French literature. He shared, to some extent, the then very general admiration for Rousseau, on whom he had bestowed more than one act of kindness during the brief English exile of the author of Emile. |D’Arblay, Diary, vol. ii, pp. 395–398.| He shared, also, the common impression as to the absence of gratitude in the brilliant Frenchman’s character. When Miss Burney told him that his own portrait had been seen to occupy the most conspicuous place in Rousseau’s living-room after his return to France, the King was both surprised and touched.
Next after the large and choice acquisitions made for the King’s Library on the Continent, some of its most conspicuous and valuable literary treasures were acquired at the several sales, in London, of the Libraries of James West (1773), of John Ratcliffe (1776), and of Richard Farmer (1798). It was at the first of these sales that George the Third laid the foundation of his unequalled series of the productions of the father of English printing.