Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 42.djvu/309

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Osborne
303
Osborne

mass of them, including diaries, correspondence, and account-books, were purchased in 1869 for the British Museum, along with the papers of Sidney Godolphin, first earl of Godolphin [q. v.], and of many of Danby's descendants. The collection fills fifty-six volumes (Addit. MSS. 28040-95). Some valuable autograph documents, dealing with Danby's negotiations with Montagu, belong to Mr. J. Eliot Hodgkin, F.S.A., of Childwall, Richmond, and are being calendared for publication by the Historical Manuscripts Commission.

Danby married in 1654 Lady Bridget, second daughter of Montague Bertie, lord Willoughby de Eresby, earl of Lindsay. Of a penurious disposition, she was credited with exerting a sinister influence over her husband and children, and subjecting them to much petty tyranny. In December 1699 she was nearly killed in a carriage accident on the journey from Wimbledon, but, according to Sir John Vanbrugh, 'beyond expectation recovered to plague her husband, her son, and many others, some time longer' (Manchester, Court and Society, ii. 56, 60). She died on 26 Jan. 1704. Two of the duke's three sons died before him. Edward (1655 ?-1689), styled from 1674 Viscount Latimer, was a gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II, took up arms in 1688 to support the revolution, and died without issue in January 1688-9. He married Elizabeth, daughter of Simon Bennett of Beachampton, Buckinghamshire. She was buried in Westminster Abbey on 5 May 1680. The duke's successor, Peregrine Osborne, second duke of Leeds (1659-1734), the third but only surviving son, is separately noticed. Of the duke's five married daughters, Anne (1657-1722) married (1) Robert Cooke, and (2) Horace Walpole, and died without issue; Bridget (1661-1718) married (1) Charles, earl of Plymouth, and (2) Dr. Philip Bisse [q. v.], bishop of St. David's; Catherine (b. 1662) married James Herbert of Kingsey, a relative of the Earl of Pembroke; Martha (b. 1668) married (1) Edward Baynton, and (2) Charles Granville, earl of Bath; Sophia (b. 1664) married (1) Donat, lord O'Brien, grandson of Henry O'Brien, earl of Thomond, and (2) William Fermor, earl of Leominster.

A portrait, by Van Vaart, at Hornby Castle, the property of the Duke of Leeds, is engraved in Lodge's 'Portraits' (vii. 19). Another portrait, by Sir Peter Lely, was engraved by A. Blooteling. There is a fine engraving ad vivum, by R. White, and a drawing, also by White, is in the print-room at the British Museum. A portrait by an unknown artist belongs to the Earl of Derby.

[Lives of Eminent British Statesmen in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, v. 199-375 (by T. P. Courtenay); Lodge's Portraits, vii. 19 sq.; Memoirs of the Earl of Danby, 1710; Sir John Reresby's Memoirs; Dalrymple's Memorials; Clarendon's Life; Luttrell's Brief Relation; Burnet's Own Time; Cokayne's Complete Peerage; Doyle's Official Baronage; Macaulay's Hist.; Hist. MSS. Comra. 11th Rep. pt. vii. pp. 1-43 (Duke of Leeds' MSS. at Hornby Castle), 11th Rep. pt. ii. (House of Lords MSS. 1678-1688); Brit. Mus. Addit. MSS. 28040-95 (Leeds and Godolphin papers) ; Roxburghe Ballads, vol. iv.; Bagford Ballads, vol. ii. ; Wentworth Papers ; Temple's Memoirs.]

OSBORNE, THOMAS (d. 1767), bookseller, was the son of Thomas Osborne, stationer and citizen, to whom Nichols refers (Lit. Anecd. iii. 601), though he does not connect him with his better known son. Thomas Osborne the elder established the business in Gray's Inn, and died early in 1743. By his will, proved 7 March 1743 (Prer. Court of Canterbury, 76 Anstis), he left his stock, copyrights, &c, to his son Thomas, together with the house in which the son lived in Fulwood's Rents, and his interest in a house in Bury Street, St. James's. He was evidently a man of means, owning various houses and the ferry at Chelsea. From this will we learn that the son already (1742) had a daughter Mary, named after his wife. Two other booksellers named John Osborne died respectively in 1739 and 1775 (Nichols, Lit. Anecd. iii. 601), but nothing is known as to their relationship to the subject of this article.

In 1729 the first of a long series of trade catalogues of books was issued from Osborne's shop in Gray's Inn Gateway. In 1738 Osborne bought from his sister Elizabeth Golding the lease of the ground chambers in Nos. 1 and 2 Page's Buildings, Field Court, Gray's Inn (Notes and Queries, 7th ser. xii. 205), and in 1739-40 he offered to sell books for the Society for the Encouragement of Learning at 15 per cent, clear of all charges, if he could be the only bookseller concerned (Addit. MS. 6190, ff. 61, 68). In 1740 Rivington and Osborne proposed that their particular friend Samuel Richardson [q. v.] should write a small volume of letters in a common style, and this was the origin of 'Pamela,' Richardson's first novel (Aaron Hill, Works, ii. 298).

Osborne bought the great library of the Earl of Oxford in 1742 for 13,000l., and he consulted Dr. Birch and other learned persons as to the best way of disposing of it (Letters of Eminent Literary Persons, p. 368). The 'Catalogus Bibliothecæ Harleianæ' in five volumes appeared in 1743-5. Dr. Johnson wrote the preface, Maittaire the Latin dedi-