ffered to the nation
at a sum far below their value. A similar offer of the great collections
formed by Sir Hans Sloane, including some 50,000 printed books, together
with the need for taking better care of what remained of the Cotton
manuscripts, vested in trustees for public use in 1702 and partially
destroyed by fire in 1731, led to the foundation of the British Museum
in 1753, and this on its opening in 1757 was almost immediately enriched
by George II.'s gift of the old royal library, formed by the kings and
queens of England from Henry VII. to Charles II., and by Henry, prince
of Wales, son of James I., who had bought the books belonging to
Archbishop Cranmer and Lords Arundel and Lumley. A few notable
book-buyers could not afford to bequeath their treasures to libraries,
e.g. Richard Smith, the secondary of the Poultry Compter (d. 1675), at
whose book-sale (1682) a dozen Caxtons sold for from 2 S. to 18 S.
apiece, Dr Francis Bernard (d. 1698), Narcissus Luttrell(d. 1732) and Dr
Richard Mead (d. 1754). At the opposite end of the scale, in the earls
of Sunderland (d. 1722) and Pembroke (d. 1733), we have early examples
of the attempts, seldom successful, of book-loving peers to make their
libraries into permanent heirlooms. But as has been said, the drift up
to 1760 was all towards public ownership, and the libraries were for the
most part general in character, though the interest in typographical
antiquities was already well marked.

When George III. came to the throne he found himself bookless, and the
magnificent library of over 80,000 books and pamphlets and 440
manuscripts which he accumulated shows on a large scale the catholic and
literary spirit of the book-lovers of his day. As befitted the library
of an English king it was rich in English classics as well as in those
of Greece and Rome, and the typographical first-fruits of Mainz, Rome
and Venice were balanced by numerous works from the first presses of
Westminster, London and Oxford. This noble library passed in 1823 to the
British Museum, which had already received the much smaller but
carefully chosen collection of the Rev. C.M. Cracherode (d. 1799), and
in 1846 was further enriched by the wonderful library formed by Thomas
Grenville, the last of its great book-loving benefactors, who died in
that year, aged ninety-one. A few less wealthy men had kept up the old
public-spirited tradition during George III.'s reign, Garrick
bequeathing his fine collecti