Oldys states that Harley recommended
Queen Anne to purchase the manuscripts for a public library, as the
richest collection in England next to Sir Robert Cotton's, but that the
Queen said, 'It was no virtue for her, a woman, to prefer as she did
arts to arms; but while the blood and honour of the nation was at stake
in her wars, she could not, till she had secured her living subjects an
honourable peace, bestow their money on dead letters.' 'Whereupon,' adds
Oldys, 'the Earl stretched his own purse, and gave six thousand pounds
for the library.' The manuscripts, together with a list of them, which
is believed to have been made by D'Ewes himself, now form part of the
Harleian Collection in the British Museum. The manuscript of an
Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, compiled by D'Ewes in conjunction with Francis
Junius, and several of his diaries are also preserved there. His great
work was the _Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen
Elizabeth_, which was not published until 1682.

SIR KENELM DIGBY, 1603-1665

The celebrated scholar and collector, Sir Kenelm Digby, was born at
Gayhurst, near Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, in 1603. He was the son
of Sir Everard Digby, who was executed in 1606 for the part he took in
the Gunpowder Plot. Sir Kenelm, who was the author of several remarkable
works, is described by Lord Clarendon as a man of 'very extraordinary
person and presence, with a wonderful graceful behaviour and a flowing
courtesy and civility.' He was knighted in 1623. Digby possessed a very
fine library, which he formed during his residence in Paris, and he had
many of the volumes bound there by Le Gascon and other eminent binders.
An earlier library which he collected is said to have been burnt by the
Roundheads during the Civil War.[46] When he died in 1665, his library,
which was still in France, was claimed as the property of the French
king, by virtue of the _droit d'aubaine_, and it is said to have been
purchased for ten thousand crowns by the Earl of Bristol, who died in
1676, and whose books, conjointly with those of another collector, were
sold in London in April 1680. A priced catalogue of the sale is
preserved in the British Museum; and it is stated in it that the books
principally belonged 'to the library of the Right Honourable George,
late Earl of Bristol, a great part of which were the Curiosities
collected by the learned Sir Kenelme Digby.' It is evident, however,
that a considerab