Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/39

1 2 S. IX. JULY 9, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 25 fact that the collection was situated, at Islington, and accessible, may have been then a determining factor in the refusal, but we know that Madden advocated the purchase, and Sir Henry Ellis, after frequent visits, purchased, on June 3, 1842, for 20, a quarto volume containing 59 letters from Frederic II. (This item is detailed at the top of p. 64 of the pri- vately printed 1836 catalogue.) The pur- chase, made for Mr. Hebeler, then Prussian Consul-General, was forwarded to Berlin. Upcott's expectations are also reflected j in his correspondence with Robert Nasmyth. On May 22, 1837, having sent him a copy j of the privately printed (1836) catalogue, i he writes : My catalogue is printed with a hope to secure the collection in some public Library. To this hour nothing is done and I cast my eyes on my ; volumes daily, almost in despair. Then anon j my prospect brightens a Letter or a visitor ! comes looks slightly at some one portion and gives one hopes of a purchase. But try and look at the last printed Report respecting the British Museum in the Advocates Library wherein is given certain evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons relative to my collection with an intention of placing it in ! the British Museum. But the Officers and Trustees seem to have no more souls for purchasing than : an oyster. The following is Upcott's offer to the Trustees of the Museum made subsequently to the letter and more comprehensive. This draft with letters quoted have been j in the A. A. collection for some years : To the Governors and Trustees of the British Museum. Feb. 22, 1838 (presented the 23rd). My Lords and Gentlemen, Having been many years much employed in j forming a collection of 1,050 drawings, chiefly by John Buckler, P.S.A., and his son, as well as portraits and views amounting- to 1,250, illustrative of the history of the City of Oxford, its universities and the county, and having now | completed an arrangement of them in eight ! yols. folio, they form a series very highly interesting to the topography of this country. This collection, which is well known to the officers of the British Mus., who can give to your Honble. Board many particulars of the excellence of the whole, I am very desirous to see placed in our National Liby., and beg to offer it to the consideration of the Governors and Trustees, should they be disposed to enter into a treaty for the purchase of it. Added to this is a topographical col. for the county of Northampton similar in many respects to the above, the drawings being made expressly for the late Mr. John Townley amounting to about 1 1 hundred irrespective of engravings. A MS. catalogue of the Oxfordshire portion made out by myself is now submitted for yr in- spection. I beg also to offer to the Governors and Trustees my extensive and unique collection of State Papers, Manuscripts, Autographs, original corre- spondence, &c., described in a privately printed catalogue which I have now the honor to lay before you. It consists of about 32 thousand letters, one half of which are bound suitably to the subject and are illustrated with [several] hundred portraits of fine impressions. This series as well as the preceding has been partially examined by Sir H. Ellis and Sir Fred. Madden and is well known to many of the most leading literary gentlemen of the country all of whom have expressed a very warm desire that the whole may be deposited in the Brit. Mus. as the most fitting Library to receive so valuable a series of original matter as may be found in the highly curious documents above mentioned. The second proposition I have the honor to make to the honorable Board is, an extra- ordinary set of catalogues amounting to about 5,000, comprising the whole of the celebrated col(lection) of Mr. G. Baker of St. Paul's Ch. yard relating to coins, pictures, Books, works of art and whatever has appeared remarkable since the commencement of public sales in England in the year 1676, acknowledged to be the most extraordinary formed by any individual mostly priced and [completed with] purchasers names, in very beautiful condition. Many of them being quite unique and printed on large paper expressly for himself and which wd be of the greatest importance as books of reference for the various departments of the Brit. Mus. They have likewise been acknowledged to be the most remarkable col. in the kingdom, vide Dibdin's Bibliomania, page 504. It is not for me to say too much of the rarity, the beauty, the condition as well as the utility of the three collections I now ,pffer to the Governors and Trustees of our Nat. Library. If you, my Lords and Gentlemen, feel disposed to purchase the whole or any one of the three series I am perfectly ready and willing to submit them to inspection of such competent judges as may be appointed to fix a value. It would be to me a proud moment to see the whole placed where it would be of utility to the public, and an honorable pledge of five and twenty years' labour on my part. I am perfectly aware that the acquisition of these objects will require an application to government for the necessary pounds. I beg to state that if the sum should be considered much, I am quite ready to accept an annuity, if such an arrangement would be more agreeable to the wishes of the Trustees. In transcribing this draft I have been exact, although obviously the particularized recommendation of the collection of sale catalogues is intended for the whole and not the George Baker section only. The Phillipps ofter is presented in his few letters to Sir Henry Ellis here transcribed. The last has no direct bearing on the subject of this note, but its interest may be considered sufficient to justify inclusion.