Agréez, &c., &c.,
Brunet.”
The fac-similes which are placed at the end of the work were executed by John Harris, L’incomparabile Harris, as Panizzi was in the habit of styling him. As a fac-similist he stood alone. So correct and so wonderful were his productions, that Panizzi himself adopted the safe plan of writing, in pencil, on the margin of them, “This is by J. H.—A. P.” He eventually lost his sight, and died very poor. Some of the leaves supplied by him are so perfectly done that, after a few years, he himself experienced some difficulty in distinguishing his own work from the original. On one occasion a question arose as to the completeness of a certain copy of a rare book in the Museum Library; it was brought to light and carefully examined by Panizzi, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Watts. After a fruitless search, page by page, a consultation ended in a summons to Harris himself to point out the leaves that he had supplied. It was only after a very close examination that the artist was able to detect his own handiwork. This circumstance induced Panizzi to to initial all such fac-similes. The reader is recommended to examine a book in the National Library,—a copy of Magna Charta, as a specimen of his skill.
Mr. Grenville employed Harris largely. On one occasion he supplied a few missing leaves to a rare book, and after it was shown to connoisseurs, the venerable gentleman presented him with the book.
So much for Panizzi’s literary abilities and his discernment and success in this sphere of his many and arduous labours, in which he exhibited the same powers of mind and application as in all the varied occupations of his busy life. Enough has, however, been said to show how, amongst all his other multifarious and unceasing occupations, he found time to dedicate his mind to literature, and literature of a class to demand the greatest application and labour of the brain.
CHAPTER XI
Minor Incidents; Holland House; Sydney Smith; Ecclesiastical Commission Act (1836); Joseph Parkes; Count d’Orsay; Lord Melbourne; Mrs. Norton; Dr. Hampden’s Case; Watts’ Portrait of Panizzi; Lord Holland; Hardy’s Life of Lord Langdale.