I have delayed contradicting the stories told about the Royal Library in the Quarterly Review of last December, and repeated in the Illustrated Boswell, and, I am sorry to say, still more gravely and circumstantially reproduced by the Editor of "NOTES AND QUERIES." I have delayed, I say, until I was enabled to satisfy myself more completely as to one of the allegations of your Note. I can now venture to assure you that the whole story of the projected sale to Russia is absolutely unfounded; and that the Princess Lieven, whose supposed agency is the gist of the story, never heard a syllable about it, till my inquiry brought it to her notice, and that she has given it the most absolute contradiction. As there never was any such proposition, I need not say that the interference against it attributed to Mr. Heber and Lord Sidmouth is equally unfounded. The real history of the affair is this:—Mr. Nash, the architect, had rendered himself very agreeable to George IV. by his alterations and additions to the Pavilion at Brighton, and he managed to obtain (somewhat irregularly, I believe) the job of altering old Buckingham House, which was originally intended, or at least proposed, to be only an extensive repair and more commodious arrangement of the existing edifice. Under that notion, Mr. Nash had little difficulty in persuading the king that the space occupied by so large a library could not be spared for that purpose, if the house was to be arranged as a palace both for private residence and for purposes of state; and as there was a very great jealousy in Parliament of the expense of Buckingham House, he was afraid to propose the erection of an additional building to receive the books. It was then that the scheme was hit on, I know not exactly by whom (but I believe by Mr. Nash), of giving the books to the British Museum. The principal part of the library occupied three large rooms, two oblong and one an octagon. The former were to have been absorbed into the living apartments, and the octagon was to be preserved as a chapel, which it was proposed to adorn with the seven cartoons of Raphael from Hampton Court. All these, and several other schemes, vanished before Mr. Nash's larger views and increased favour, which led by degrees to the total destruction of the old house, and the erection of an entirely new palace, which however retains strong evidence of the occasional and piecemeal principle on which it was begun. But in the meanwhile the library was gone. I know that some members of the government were very averse to this disposal of the library: they thought, and strongly represented, that a royal residence should, not be without a library; and that this particular collection, made especially ad hoc, should not have been, on any pretence, and above all on one so occasional and trivial, diverted from its original destination. It is very possible that Mr. Heber may have expressed this opinion; and I think I may say that Lord Sidmouth certainly did so: but, on the other hand, some of the king's advisers were not sorry to see the collection added to the Museum pro bono publico; and so the affair concluded,—very unsatisfactorily, as I thought and think, as regards the crown, to whom this library ought to have been an heirloom; and indeed I doubt whether it was not so in point of law. It is likely enough that the gift of the library may have been partly prompted by a hope of putting the public in better humour as to the expenses of Buckingham House; but the idea of a sale to Russia never, I am sure, entered the head of any of the parties.
C.
THE "EISELL" CONTROVERSY.
(Vol. iv., pp. 64. 135.)
I can easily suppose, after the space you have given to J. S. W. (Vol. iv., p. 64.) to sum up on the long-protracted controversy of the Eisell interpretation, that you will scarcely permit it to be renewed. J. S. W.'s judgment, though given with much amenity and fulness, I cannot think satisfactory, as towards its close he evidently sinks into the advocate.
Theobald, a most admirable annotator, has narrowed the controversy very properly, to the consideration whether Hamlet was here proposing possibilities or impossibilities. J. S. W. dwells on the whole of the dialogue between Hamlet and Laertes as a rant; and sinks all the lines and passages that would bring it down to sanity. But this seems to line singularly unjust. Imprimis, Hamlet is not enraged like Laertes, "who hath a dear sister lost," and is a very choleric, impetuous, and arrogant young gentleman. It is this quality which irritates Hamlet, who is otherwise in the whole of this scene in a particularly moralising and philosophic mood, and is by no means "splenetic and rash." Hamlet, a prince, is openly cursed by Laertes: he is even seized by him, and he still only remonstrates. There is anything but rant in what he (Hamlet) says; he uses the most homely phrases; so homely that there is something very like scorn in them:
—— "What wilt thou do for her?"
is the quietude of contempt for Laertes' insulting rant; and so, if my memory deceive me not, the elder Kean gave it; "Do for her" being put in contrast with Laertes' braggadocio say. Then come the possibilities:
"Woul't weep, fight, fast, tear thyself,"
(All, be it noted, common lover's tricks),
"Would drink up eisell, eat a crocodile,