ralty, a post he held
until the formation of the Duke of Portland's administration in April
1807, when he finally retired from office, and devoted the remaining
forty years of his life to literature, and to the collection of the
splendid library, which is now one of the great glories of the British
Museum. From an early age Mr. Grenville was animated by an ardent love
for books, and took a great interest in the development of the National
Library, of which he was for many years a Trustee. He died at Hamilton
Place, Piccadilly, on the 17th of December 1846, at the age of
ninety-one. Mr. Grenville had originally bequeathed his library to his
great-nephew the Duke of Buckingham, but the circumstance that it was
principally purchased from the profits of the sinecure office which he
had held for so many years, led him to the conclusion that it was 'a
debt and a duty' that the collection so acquired should be devoted to
the use of the public. In the autumn of 1845, in the course of a
conversation with his friend Mr. Panizzi, afterwards Sir Anthony
Panizzi, then Keeper of Printed Books in the British Museum, he informed
him of his intention; and after his death it was found that he had
revoked the bequest to the Duke of Buckingham, and left his noble
collection to the nation. A full and interesting description of the
printed books in the library by Sir Anthony Panizzi is to be found in
the Report on the accessions to the Museum for the year 1847, and we
cannot do better than give the account of them in the words of the
famous librarian, who had himself much to do with the acquisition of
this magnificent gift:--

'With exception of the Collection of His Majesty George the Third, the
Library of the British Museum has never received an accession so
important in every respect as the Collection of the Right Honourable
Thomas Grenville.... Formed and preserved with the exquisite taste of an
accomplished bibliographer, with the learning of a profound and elegant
scholar, and the splendid liberality of a gentleman in affluent
circumstances, who employed in adding to his library whatever his
generous heart allowed him to spare from silently relieving those whose
wants he alone knew, this addition to the National Library places it in
some respects above all libraries known, in others it leaves it inferior
only to the Royal Library at Paris. An idea may be formed of the
literary value of Mr. Grenville's Library by referring to its pecuni