With the exception of singularly fortunate adventures in the procuring of old
books, the duke's life passed on in an almost unvaried tenor, in the pursuits just
alluded to. At his seat of Fleurs in Scotland, where he spent but a small portion of his time, he had a proportionately small library; but at his house in St James's Square, London, where he chiefly resided, he, in time, amassed the
most valuable private library in the country. In 1796, he was appointed groom of the stable, and initiated a privy councillor, and in 1801 was honoured with the garter, which he was permitted to bear along with the thistle, a mark of
honour conferred on no other subject since 1712, when the duke of Hamilton had the same distinction from queen Anne.[1] For upwards of forty years, he continued his book-collecting habits without intermission, being much aided during a great part of the time by Mr G. Nichol, bookseller to the king, whose services towards the excellent library collected by George III., and afterwards given by George IV. to the nation, were also very eminent. At length, on the
19th of March, 1804, the duke died of inflammation in the liver, at his house in London, in the 64th year of his age. He was buried at Bowden, near Melrose.
His library, at his death, consisted of upwards of ten thousand distinct articles, many of them of the greatest rarity and of high value, though it was understood that in many cases he had purchased them at comparatively low prices. It would be vain, to pretend that his grace had made or could make a good use of such a vast mass of literature, much of it of an obsolete kind; yet, neither can there be any doubt that he read much of what he purchased, and seemed, upon the whole, to aim rather at gratifying an innate taste for letters, and a devout and worshipful regard for their brightest ornaments, than either for the pride of possessing so many curiosities, or the usual antiquarian appreciation of minute peculiarities in the externe of books.
Early English literature and the Table Ronde had been the chief objects of his research. Of the former he possessed not only the rarest, but, in point of condition, the most beautiful specimens in existence. He idolized the talents of Shakspeare and Cervantes, and collected every thing that could illustrate their works. Fifteen different editions of Shakspeare's complete works, with seventy-five separate plays in different editions, and fourteen distinct works respecting this great dramatic author, are to be found in the catalogue. In the poetical department of early English literature, he had a great collection; in which the most curious article was a very large assortment of ancient ballads and fugitive pieces of poetry in three volumes folio, which had been first formed for the library of the earl of Oxford, afterwards enlarged by major Pearson and Mr Isaac Reid, then increased to a great extent by the duke himself, and which brought, at the sale, no less than four hundred and seventy-seven pounds, fifteen shillings. The duke had also collected many ancient manuscripts, some of them splendidly illuminated; and it is mentioned, that he read these with great facility, as was testified by various remarks which he wrote upon them with his own hand. He had the largest and finest collection of the books printed by Caxton, in England. At his death he was in full pursuit of the English dramatic authors; and when the large collection he possessed is taken into account, along with the comparative briefness of the time during which he had directed his attention this way, his industry seems prodigious. He had an uncommon quantity of books and tracts relative to criminals, detections of witches, and other impostors. Mr Nichol, in the preface to the catalogue, says, "he had a particular pleasure
- ↑ No man could have borne these honours with more grace than the duke of Roxburgh, whose "lofty presence and felicitous address," according to Sir Walter Scott, "recalled the ideas of a court in which lord Chesterfield might have acted as master of the ceremonies."
