410
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io*s.m. MAY 27.1905.
had taken the trouble to read the preface
of the catalogue, he would not have told
us that his discovery reveals the name
of the owner of the MSS., for the name,
correctly spelt, occurs therein in full.
Again, if he had turned up the Catalogue
of the British Museum Library in voce
Van Sypesteyn, he would have found there
several works, mostly on historical subjects,
of which ancestors, sons, and one grandson
of M. van Sypesteyn are the authors. From
this he would certainly have come to the
conclusion that the Van Sypesteyn family
were not absolutely ignorant of the value
of the MSS. they possessed. Moreover, had
he taken the trouble to write one line to the
Koyal Library at the Hague, or even to the
State archives there, it would have procured
him reliable evidence which would have im-
mediately blown the cobwebs of Mr. Turner's
idle gossip into the air.
As it is, I think I have a right to claim a small space in 'N. & Q' to prove how un- founded the fables are which I have alluded to, and to vindicate the honour of my direct maternal ancestors. I shall be as short as I possibly can.
The Sypesteyn family had not only been known in the Netherlands for about five centuries when the sale took place, but had always held there a conspicuous position, and several members of it filled during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth cen- turies most important State offices. It is useless to go into details concerning the most prominent members of the family (several pedigrees, some of them printed as much as two hundred years back, can be founc in books of reference in the British Museum) but a few facts relating to that branch oi the family which owned the MSS. bear on the question.
My grandfather, who sold the MSS., wai born about 1780 (being from home, I write from memory and cannot give precise dates although the facts which I mention are abso lutely reliable and can be proved), and his direct male ancestors for four generation, are known to have been not only very wealthy men and influential politicians o valiant soldiers, but (and this is the point also ardent and intelligent collectors of MSS and works of art. His great-grandfather, t< mention one instance, also named Corneli Ascanius van Sypesteyn, Burgomaster o Haarlem and deputy to the States-Genera] &c., left, when he died in 1745, a unique collection of pictures, prints, woodcuts, and etchings. Being much more valuable than MSS. in those days, they were sold by public
,uction, as the settling of heirlooms on the
,ldest son is contrary to the Netherlands
aw. His son, however, bought in a great
Dart of them. The catalogue of this sale is
o be found in the majority of ancient public
ibraries in Holland. He and his ancestors
owned a large town mansion in Haarlem,
and had been lords of the castle and town
of Hillegom, about seven miles out of the
ity of Haarlem, since the middle of the
sixteenth century.
My grandfather certainly lost the greater 3art of his fortune during and on account of the Napoleonic struggle (a very different
- hing from alienating State papers at that
period in order to make a paltry profit, as Hie version of Mr. Turner's fable will have it), and I dare say that the wish to give his sons not only an education, but also a start !n life becoming their position, prompted
- iim when he resolved to part with his
Jierished and valuable treasures, the sale of which proved such a failure.
As, however, since the restoration of the house of Orange in 1813 he had held a lucra- tive State appointment, and had two of his sons (one of whom during that period was page of honour to King William I. of the Netherlands) at the Royal Military Academy, it is evident that to describe him as "a man of small means " conveys an inadequate im- pression of his position. If I add, to mention nothing more, that we possess several auto- graph and most intimate letters from mem- bers of the royal family, two of them, which of course interest me most, congratulating him on the birth of my mother in 1819, it will make it all the more clear that Mr. Turner was misinformed.
M. van Sypesteyn's grandfather was the founder of the Hollandsche Maatschappy van Wetenschappen (Holland Academy ^ of Science) about 1770 an academy which owns a magnificent hall at Haarlem, vied with the Royal Society of England in the eighteenth century, and has published in different European languages most note- worthy papers, while to this day the greatest English scientists consider it an honour to belong to it.
Can the thought for a moment be enter- tained that such people should be hoarding vast collections of stolen documents and State papers in their garrets of which they did not know either the value or the con- tents? To suggest it is as untrue as it is preposterous.
Again, a son, who held for some time a commission in the army, was afterwards chamberlain to the king and keeper of the
