sir william musgrave and british biography

SIR WILLIAM MUSGRAVE AND BRITISH
BIOGRAPHY
ANTONY GRIFFITHS
T H E Gentleman^s Magazine carried for 3 January 1800 the following obituary: 'At his
house in Park-place, St. James's, Sir W[il]ia]m Musgrave, bart. V.P.R.S. and F.A.S., a
trustee of the British Museum, formerly a commissioner of his Majesty's customs, and
afterwards an auditor of the public accompts; in both which situations he had exerted
himself with ability and attention. Nor was he less conversant in the several branches of
Hterature and science; and, though for many years suffering great infirmities of body, his
mind continued unshaken; and, with the practice of the philosophy he had acquired, he
united these talents and manners that rendered his society coveted, and will occasion his
death to be generally lamented. His large collection of engraved portraits was advertised
for sale by auction just before his death.'^ This obituary is unenthusiastic and fairly
uninformative, as if the writer knew little about his subject. This was almost certainly
the case, for Musgrave was far from a public figure. He never became the subject of an
entry in the Dictionary of National Biography, and the few printed accounts of his life
suggest that there was little more to it than that of a successful civil servant with scholarsinterests. William Betham, in his Baronetage of England, gives the information that his
baronetage was inherited, and that he was 'baptised at Aspatria 8 October 1735, entered
the Middle Temple 7 April 1753, called to the bar 1758 (and subsequently a bencher
25 May 1789, Reader, and in 1795 Treasurer of the Middle Temple); appointed a
commissioner for customs 15 May 1763; FRS 1774; FAS 1777; vice-president of the
Royal Society 1780; trustee of the British Museum 1783; vice-president of the
Antiquarian Society January 1786; a commissioner for auditing the public accounts Tulv
1785"
Musgrave's own publications are almost non-existent. The General Catalogue of the
British Library credits him with one book, A Collection of all the Statutes now in force
relating to the Revenue and officers of the Customs, a large quarto of 1586 pages plus 209
pages of index, published in two volumes in 1780, in which all the statutes from the
Middle Ages to the present are reprinted verbatim in chronological order, with no
commentary, and no mention of Musgrave's name anywhere.^ As a member of the
Society of Antiquaries, he contributed only one paper read on 16 February 1797, a copy
of an original manuscript entitled ' Instructions for every centioner to observe duringe
the continuance of the Frenche Fleet uppon this cost untill knowlege shal be had of ther
171
disperccment, given by Sir George Carye, Captain, this fyrst of September 1586'. This
was of topical interest when given during the invasion scare of 1797, but less so when
eventually published in Archaeologia in 1800.* As a member of the Royal Society, he
never contributed to its Philosophical Transactions.^
Although crippled by ill-health** and an excessive modesty, Musgrave was,
nevertheless, one of the foremost antiquarians of his day, and compiled pioneering
collections, which all focused on his central interest in British biography. These were
made freely available to his contemporaries, and served as the basis for much scholarship
of the time. Sections of his library retain their importance to the present day. His
interests covered printed books, prints, autographs, and manuscripts. It is the purpose
of this paper to gather information together about these collections, and hence to
establish the comprehensive and indeed professional way in which Musgrave went about
his amateur interest.
The chief surviving parts of his collection are now in the British Library, and it is
therefore Musgrave's life as a Trustee of the British Museum that is the starting point
of this enquiry. He was elected Trustee on 23 January 1783 in the place of the late
Charles Gray; the other Trustee elected on the same day was Sir William Hamilton.'' On
11 lune the following year the Rev. Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode joined them on the
board. Musgrave was assiduous in his attendance both at the General Meetings, and at
the more frequent Committees when the real business of the Trustees was done. The
minutes are unfortunately too brief to reveal what particular contributions he made to
their deliberations; we know only the decisions that were finally taken. Thus he was
present when it was agreed that 'such historical books as are not in the house be bought
at reasonable prices at Mr Gulston's sale', but whether he spoke in favour we do not
know. The only Trustee of the period who clearly did concern himself actively in the
day-to-day activities of the Museum was Sir Joseph Banks.
The first record of Sir William Musgrave as donor to the Museum occurs in#'i79O,
when he was thanked on 13 August for presenting 400 books; no indication is given as
to what they were.^ On 11 January 1799 he presented two French copper coins 'of the
type now in circulation'; five months later on 7 June, Planta, the principal librarian, was
instructed to pay him £9 6s for a choice copy of Harding's Shakespeare illustrated by
engravings which he had purchased for the use of the Museum. At the same time,
Musgrave presented 'several catalogues of painted portraits in many of the public
buildings and capital mansions of England and Scotland together with a writ of privy seal
of King Charles I'.
On II May 1799 the death of Cracherode was announced to the Trustees, and the
news of the bequest of his library and collection of prints and drawings. They then
resolved that' the present Committee Room be properly fitted up and secured with wire
book cases for the reception of the books and prints' of the bequest, and on 13 July
decided that 'six cabinets of the construction recommended by Sir William Musgrave for
the securing properly Mr Cracherode's collection of prints be put in hand immediately'.
Musgrave made a further gift on 4 October 1799 of'a large collection of manuscripts
172
Fig. I. Sir William Musgrave; portrait by Lemuel Francis Abbott
173
relating to the court and public affairs of this kingdom'. This can readily be identified
with Add. MSS. 5750-5756, seven volumes which contain a collection of original
warrants, the contents of which are fully listed in the manuscript catalogue of Additional
Manuscripts. This gift was soon subsumed in the bequest received at the beginning of
1800. The relevant passage in Musgrave's will, dated 6 July 1799, reads thus: ' I do give
and bequeath to the Trustees for the time being of the British Museum upon trust
nevertheless to and for the use of the public my collection of autographs and my
manuscript obituary with its supplement consisting of twenty-three volumes which are
in a mahogany cabinet in the little parlour in Park Place. Also I give and bequeath unto
the said Trustees of the Museum any of my printed books of which there shall not be
a copy in that repository at the time of my decease and which the said Trustees shall
think worthy of being placed therein together with all my other printed books which are
or shall be lettered on the backs with the word '*biography". The said printed books to
be selected and removed within three months next after my decease
'.^
On 10 March the Trustees authorized Sir Joseph Banks and Planta to select the
printed books, and on 10 May they reported that thirty-three volumes of manuscripts
and 1500 volumes of printed books had been removed to the British Museum. Thanks
were duly returned to the executor. Sir Thomas Musgrave, and the Museum secretary
was ordered to wait upon him with the same. Unfortunately no list was taken at the time
of the books, which were then scattered in the placing through the collection. Many of
them can still be easily recognized from the bold stamped signature or a smaller stamped
monogram, while others have his crest on the binding (figs. 2, 3).
The easiest starting point is with the manuscripts, which are the core of his working
materials. The manuscript obituary in twenty-three volumes, mentioned in the will, is
Add. MSS. 5727-5749, fourteen volumes with nine supplementary volumes, titled by
Musgrave 'A General Nomenclator and Obituary, with referrence to the Books where
the Persons are mentioned and where some Account of their Character is to be found'.
These, like most of Musgrave's manuscripts, consist of folders of cheap blue paper, onto
which innumerable thin horizontal slips of paper bearing names and references have
been pasted (fig. 4). As the title makes clear, these only give references to printed sources,
all of which of course were in Musgrave's library. They are in effect a gigantic index to
all existing biographical literature, and include references to obituary notices extracted
from the London Gazette^ the Gentleman''s Magazine as well as dozens of other sources.
This explains why they have preserved their value to the present day and were thought
worth publishing by the Harleian Society in six volumes from 1899 to 1901.^*^ To see the
original slips, all drawn up or annotated in Musgrave's handwriting, is to realize the
monumental task he set himself, and the immense labour involved. The pubhshed
version confined itself to references to Britons, and omitted the vast number of foreigners
that Musgrave included.
Planta and Banks reported that they had removed thirty-three volumes of manuscripts.
The additional ten volumes are almost certainly the two-volume collection of autographs
mentioned in the will (Add. MSS. 5726 A and 5726 B, to which can be added 5726 C-D
174
8
Fig. 2. Musgrave's crest. C. J. H. Davenport, English Heraldic Book-stamps (London, 1909), vol.
ii, p. 300 (detail)
Fig. J. Musgrave's signature and monogram stamps. io6i.d.2o, verso of title-page (detail)
containing the letters from which many had been cut), and the eight volumes of
Biographical Adversaria catalogued as Add. MSS. 5718-5724. These last, although not
in the will, must have been considered as supplementing the General Obituary. Whereas
the Obituary is only an index, these volumes contain slips arranged alphabetically
containing biographical information of all kinds: some are cuttings from Granger's
Biographical History of England and other printed sources, others are manuscript notes,
yet others are references to portraits either in Musgrave's own collection or in other
collections. The title page explains their history and purpose: 'Biographical Adversaria
175
Fig. 4. A typical page from Musgrave's 'Obituary'. Add. MS. 5727, f 17
176
collected originally with a view to assist the Revd. Mr Granger in compiling his history;
and to promote a continuation of that work, to which are added numerous lists ot painted
and engraved portraits, with the places where they are to be found. Besides the
biographical notices to be found in these volumes, there are in my ms. Obituary a great
number of referrences to a variety of books giving an account of persons of whom there
are engraved portraits, [below] I look upon Anecdotes as debts due to the public which
every man, when he has that kind of " cash " by him, ought to pay: see Ld Orrery's letter
to Dr Birch i6 Novr. 1741. Mss Brit. Mus. no. 4303.'^^
The Department of Manuscripts also contains five other volumes which are recorded
as coming from the Musgrave bequest. These are Add. MSS. 5726 E and 5726 F, which
in turn contain respectively six and five small books 'wherein are entered catalogues of
portraits in various private collections in England' made either by Musgrave himself or
friends and correspondents. Closely connected are Add. MSS. 6391-6393, which also
contain, bound together in alphabetical order by house within each county, lists of
'portraits of distinguished persons preserved in public buildings and family mansions'.
Many of these had been commissioned by Musgrave, and had been sent to him at his
request. These last three volumes were perhaps the 'several catalogues of painted
portraits in many of the public buildings and capital mansions of Great Britain' that he
had presented in June 1799.^^
All this material bequeathed to the British Museum was only a part of tbe working
papers that Musgrave had compiled. Another group of papers, mis-described as a
'collection of material for a history of engraved portraits, mounted in 65 quarto sections,
containing probably not less than 30,000 entries', was sold at auction on 14 August
1863 in a single lot (no. 1015) by Puttick and Simpson. For the price of one pound it was
acquired by Boone for the Department of Manuscripts. The two key documents in the
lot were A catalogue of the printed books of Sir William Musgrave (Add. MSS. 25403,
25404), and the General catalogue of engraved portraits both British and Foreign (Add.
MSS. 25393-25395). The first of these is divided into two: the first 'methodical' part
gives a classification of the whole library by subject-matter, the second 'alphabetical'
part gives a complete listing by author together with press-marks.^^ The engraved
portrait catalogue gives a straightforward alphabetical listing of British and foreign
portraits by sitter, with the size, painter and engraver/publisher of each (fig. 5).
In the same way as there are supplementary volumes on painted portraits in the 1800
bequest, there are supplementary volumes on engraved portraits in the 1863 purchase.
Among these are catalogues of engraved portraits in the British Museum in 1779, in the
Royal collection in 1780, and in the Portland collection and at Bulstrode, also in 1780
(Add. MSS. 25398, 25399); dictionaries of portrait engravers and painters (Add. MSS.
25400-25402); and indices of' foreigners who are entitled to a place in the appendix to
the series of British portraits either as having been admitted Knights of the Garter or
Fellows of the Royal Society, or residing here as ministers from foreign courts' (Add.
MSS. 25396, 25397). The last Musgrave manuscript now in the British Library is the
'Catalogue of English portraits from Egbert to George I I T arranged on the plan of
177
Granger (Add. MS. 6795). This lists the arrangement by names of Musgrave's own print
collection, and was purchased in December 1825 from the dealer Richardson, who, as we
shall see, had acquired Musgrave's portrait prints en bloc in 1799.
All Musgrave's manuscripts, if placed together, would occupy a shelf many yards in
length. Enumerating them all not merely gives an idea of the labour involved but
demonstrates how closely they interlink, and as such become a scholarly working tool of
some considerable power and one quite unequalled in its field at the time. If we start with
the name of someone in whose biography we are interested, we can begin with the
Obituary. This will give us any published source, and the library catalogue will tell us
its press-mark. If there is an engraved portrait of that individual, the fact is recorded with
a cross-reference of the form ' M S ' . By consulting the catalogue of portraits, we can find
details of the known portraits, with the names of the painter/designer and
engraver/printseller. From here one can move on to the artist and engraver, and find out
more about their careers, as well as a listing of all the portrait prints for which they had
been responsible.
Further information is to be found in the Biographical Adversaria^ and in the form of
annotations to his copies of standard works such as Granger and Walpole. These are
often of considerable interest, for Musgrave's reading of such periodicals as the London
Gazette in the course of compiling the Obituaries yielded a harvest of important
information. Thus, Musgrave was the first to discover the advertisements of the
mezzotint publishers Browne and Tompson, which he noted in the margins of his copy
of Walpole (561*.a.13).^^
Musgrave's collections of materials were not confined to these manuscripts. His
library and print collection were equally important, and he expended quite as mueh
labour in building them up. The next step must therefore be to examine them more
closely, beginning with the library. The books were shelved on a conventional pressmark system (so Granger is G 7 7 to 10) on twenty-three presses eaeh of which contained
up to eight shelves. In the first part of the catalogue the titles are methodically arranged
in twelve classes by subject-matter:^'^ class I = theology, II = history. III = philosophy,
IV ^ natural history, V ^ medicine, VI ^ mathematics, VII = arts, VIII = trades,
IX = philology, X = polygraphy [i.e. novels, belles-lettres], XI = poetry, XII = bibliography and iconography. Dictionaries are tacked on at the end. Each class is further
sub-divided by Arabic rather than Roman numerals. Thus, theology is divided so that
I = Holy Scripture, 2 = liturgies, 3 = divinity, 4 — sermons, 5 = magic. History is
separated into two, general and particular (the latter then being separated by country:
England, France, Germany etc.), and each of these sub-divisions in turn is divided so
that I = chronology, 2 = biography, 3 = genealogy, 4 = topography, 5 = polity, 6 =
law, 7 = revenue, 8 — commerce. Further notes explain that, for example, biography
includes martyrology, memoirs and diaries, while genealogy contains heraldry, peerages,
baronetages, knighthoods, tournaments, processions, family-pedigrees and epitaphs.
This schema is followed by a four-page 'index to the contents of the classes and sections'
which leads directly to the relevant pages in the catalogue.
178
An examination of the list of titles shows that the library was, as might be expected,
partly a general library, with much contemporary literature and poetry, partly a
professional library, with works on the revenue and excise, but mostly a scholarly library,
concentrating on biography. The interesting point here is that, in the class listing,
biographical works are widely scattered throughout the sections, rather than all being
concentrated in Class II, division 2. Placing depended more on the area in which the
subject was most prominent. To circumvent this, ff. 93-176 of the methodical catalogue
contain a separate listing of all the biographical works, arranged alphabetically by name
of the subject. The bulk of these books were small pamphlets containing the sermon
preached on the occasion of the subject's funeral. These are invariably mostly devoted
to theological discussion of the text chosen for the sermon, but always add, towards the
end, a page or two about the deceased, his qualities and his career. Of this curious, and
obscure class of literature, Musgrave had an astonishing collection, which he mostly kept
together in his presses E and F. This passed (so far as one can tell) more or less complete
to the British Museum. It is now housed in the Arch Room, in presses 1415-1419, where
it occupies some 115 feet of shelving, containing over 2000 books.^^
Other aspects of the methodical catalogue of the library are also of interest. Despite
the allowance in the schema for the coverage of the history of countries besides Britain,
the catalogue shows that there were fourteen pages of British biography, a few for
American, and nothing whatever for the whole of the Continent. Published series of
portrait prints of famous men were kept together at press G, shelves 6 and 7. In Class
XII, division 7, Musgrave kept his collection of print dealers' catalogues; these are not
to be confused with auction catalogues, since they were fixed price lists of prints offered
for sale beginning at a certain time on a certain day. These works are now so rare as to
be almost unknown, and it is unfortunate that Planta and Banks did not think them worth
bringing to the Museum.^^ These served as one of the bases for the slips in Musgrave's
portrait catalogue.
We know from Add. MS. 6795 that Musgrave's print collection was organized in a
similar way: the sitters were grouped together into periods by reigning monarchs, and
then divided into several classes according to rank or occupation. We have already
described the various manuscripts which Musgrave devoted to portrait prints. What
follows is an attempt to work out how these relate to each other, and to the two major
catalogues of portrait prints that were published during Musgrave's lifetime. The first
of these was the Reverend James Granger's Biographical History of England, from Egbert
the Great to the Revolution: consisting of characters disposed in different classes, and adapted
to a methodical catalogue of engraved British heads. Intended as an essay towards reducing
our biography to system, and a help to the knowledge of portraits. Interspersed with variety
of anecdotes, and memoirs of a great number of persons, not to be found in any other
biographical work. With a preface, shewing the utility of a collection of engraved portraits
to supply the defect, and answer the various purposes of medals. This great work was
published in two quarto volumes, each in two parts, in London in 1769, with a third
supplementary volume appearing five years later in 1774; a second octavo edition in four
179
volumes followed in 1775. Musgrave's interleaved copy of the first edition is now in the
British Library (614.k.21-4),^*^ and is copiously annotated by him.^"
Granger supplied lists of portrait engravings under the name of each sitter, but, to
make the work more interesting to a wider public, added short, but very well-composed
biographies. The sitters are grouped into classes:'*^** I = royalty, II = officers of state,
III = peers, IV = clergymen, V = commoners in the public service, VI = lawyers,
VII = military and naval personnel, VIII = knights and gentlemen, IX ^ authors,
X = painters 'and all of inferior professions', XI = ladies, XII = lower orders
'remarkable from only one circumstance in their lives'. These persons were then
arranged according to the reign in which they had fiourished. Granger supplied an index
of names of sitters at the end of his book, and Musgrave added in his copy:
' Memorandum : I have in my collection one portrait at least of every person whose name
is crossed in the following index.' There are very few indeed that are not so marked.
One shortcoming of Granger was that he stopped short at the Revolution of 1689, and
an intended continuation was prevented by his premature death in 1776. A more general
problem was that the biographies were not arranged in alphabetical order within the
classes and reigns. At the same time, the narratives became so dominant that it was
difficult to locate the lines describing the prints, and thus the catalogue became less
usable as a working tool. Moreover the twelve classes overlapped, and some of the reigns
were so short that the placing of names under them became very arbitrary. These
problems were resolved by a second great work: Henry Bromley's A catalogue of engraved
British portraits, which appeared in London in 1793. This omitted the biographies
altogether; the classes were simplified and reduced to ten, and the reigns grouped
together to make nine periods averaging about twenty-five years apiece.
It is from various letters, annotations and acknowledgements that we can piece
together the evidence which reveals that Musgrave played a crucial role in the study of
British portrait prints, and hence of British printmaking in general, by effectively
sponsoring both these publications. This involves a short digression into the subject of
portrait print collecting in this country. The traditional British love of portraits had
ensured that the portrait print was a mainstay of the publishing market from its
beginnings at the end of the sixteenth century. If the prints went on being published,
someone must have been buying them, but there is very little evidence of significant
collecting of these prints as a genre until the late seventeenth century. The pioneers seem
to have been John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, and they were followed by Ralph Thoresby
in Leeds and John Nickolls the Quaker in the early eighteenth century. It was NickoUs's
collection that served as the basis for the first book to be published on the subject: Joseph
Ames's A catalogue of English heads: or, an account of about two thousand prints, describing
what is peculiar on each ... and some remarkable particulars relating to their lives,, 1748. This
was dedicated to James West, who, with Horace Walpole, was the leading collector of the
1740S.
Musgrave must have begun his collection in the mid 1750s, and one of the foundations
of his collection was the acquisition at some uncertain date of Thoresby's. At this stage
180
portrait print collecting was still an unusual if not eccentric pastime. Walpole and West
were both antiquarians rather than print collectors as such, and saw their collections as
appendages to their collections of manuscripts and historical relics. Walpole himself had
begun publishing his Anecdotes of Painting in England, based on Vertue's manuscripts,
in 1762, and his Catalogue of Engravers who have been born or resided in England appeared
in 1765. He was understandably startled to find that Granger's publication in 1769
suddenly made portrait print collecting immensely fashionable, so much so that within
a few years it became by far the most popular of all kinds of print collecting in this
country.
The first reference to Granger's project appears in Walpole's correspondence in 1764.
His friend, and fellow-collector, William Cole had written offering Walpole a copy of the
alphabetical index he had compiled to Ames's Heads. Walpole replied on 7 February: ' I
am sorry I did not save your trouble of cataloguing Ames's Heads, by telling you that
another person has actually done it and designs to publish a new edition ranged in a
different method. I don't know the gentleman's name, but he is a friend of Sir William
Musgrave, from whom I had this information some months ago.'^^ On 3 April following
Musgrave himself wrote to Walpole: 'Sir William Musgrave presents his compliments
to Mr Walpole and has taken the liberty to send him a short specimen of the intended
catalogue of English heads. Sir Wm. relies upon Mr Walpole's usual goodness to excuse
his giving him so much trouble - but Mr Granger (who is engaged in this undertaking)
is now in town and would think himself very unhappy if he should be obliged to return
without putting himself and his work under Mr Walpole's protection and receiving from
him that assistance and advice which he could not hope for in a like degree from any
other quarter.'^^ It is worth remembering that at this time Musgrave was only twentynine years old.
The progress of the project can be followed in Walpole's correspondence, and in the
published letters of Granger himself These make it clear that it was Musgrave who dealt
with the publisher Thomas Davies, who wrote to Granger in 1768: ' I yesterday waited
on Sir William Musgrave; he is extremely pleased with our agreement respecting your
book. He is a hearty well-wisher to it, and speaks of you with great affection; there are
few such young men as Sir William.'^^ When the book finally emerged in 1769, its
dedicatee was Walpole, and Musgrave was given handsome acknowledgement: ' I am at
a loss to express my gratitude to Sir William Musgrave, who upon every occasion assisted
me with his advice, supplied me with books, and favoured me with the use of two large
volumes of English heads, collected by the late Mr Thoresby of Leeds.' This suggests
that at this point Musgrave did not yet possess a very large collection himself, and that
most of it was still in Thoresby's albums. The new pattern of arrangement by class and
reign, which Granger adopts, was derived from Walpole: ' I must also acknowledge
myself greatly indebted to Mr Walpole in my accounts of artists; and for the first hint
of the plan of this work, communicated to me by a gentleman who had seen the fine
collection at Strawberry Hill.'^^ This gentleman was most likely Musgrave.
Musgrave's high regard for Granger is attested in numerous annotations that he made
181
Fig. 5. A typical page from Musgrave's
'General catalogue of engraved portraits'. Add.
_MS. 25393, f- 7
in his copy of the Biographical History. In a footnote to the preface Granger apologizes
for putting his own portrait at the front of the work: 'He has nothing to allege in his
excuse, but that it was placed there at the repeated request of a person of distinction, to
whom he had many obligations.' Musgrave has underlined 'repeated request' and added
in the lower margin:' Sir Wm. Musgrave, who was at the expence of the original drawing
from which the print was engraved, and who can attest the truth of this assertion as well
as the author's modesty and worth on every occasion.' Elsewhere in the preface Granger
hopes that his publication will 'bring to light many portraits that have hitherto remained
in obscurity'. Here Musgrave has added: 'This modest and true observation is an answer
and reproof to those hasty collectors who (to my astonishment) have thought it matter
182
General Catalogue
1 AG
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Fig. 6. The specimen page of the proposed
printed version of the 'General catalogue'.
Add. MS. 25393, f- 3
of surprize and even of triumph that they were in possession of prints omitted by the
author. To those who know the difficulty of forming material for an entire new work of
any kind, the surprize will rather be that there are so few omissions.^
Evidence of another kind for this regard lies in Musgrave's portrait painted by Lemuel
Francis Abbott, at some time in the 1780s (see fig. i)."^^ Here he chose to be portrayed
with one elbow on a portfolio from which emerges the engraved portrait of Granger
referred to above. In his right hand is a plan of Germantown, outside Philadelphia,
which was the scene in 1777 of a successful action by his brother. Sir Thomas Musgrave,
against much larger American forces. The portrait thus combines references to his
scholarly interests, his friendships and his family's achievements.
Granger's sudden early death in 1776 prevented the planned continuation of his
catalogue beyond 1689. We know from the title page of Musgrave's Biographical
183
Adversaria that they were 'collected originally with a view to assist the Revd. James
Granger in compiling his history, and to promote a continuation of that work'. It may
have been this event that induced Musgrave himself to begin work on compiling
information on portrait prints on his own account. His 'General catalogue of engraved
portraits', which is dated 1777, includes slips for all the portrait prints of which he had
report, whether British or foreign, and whether or not they were in his own collection.
To these he has added 'the prices at which they have been usually marked by the
printsellers in their catalogues', whieh strongly suggests that it was compiled in the first
place from the dealers' priced catalogues referred to above. The lists of prints in the
British Museum, the Royal Collection and the Bulstrode and Portland collections, made
in 1779-80, were part of the exercise in expanding these lists.
The 1777 General Catalogue lists prints in a single alphabetical order of sitter. Tipped
in to the front of this is a single sheet, with a printed version of the first page of
manuscript, annotated at the top in Sir William's hand: 'Specimen of the manner in
which the catalogue is to be printed' (fig. 6). This sheet permits the conclusion that at
this stage, either in the late 1770s or early 1780s, Musgrave was intending to produce his
own published catalogue which in scope would go far beyond Granger. The reason that
this project was never completed must have been that it was over-ambitious. The list of
names rarely included dates or profession, and so Musgrave had to add these in pencil
before the specimen page could be set up. He would have become acutely aware of the
enormous labour that the complete project would require, and doubtless was worried by
the certainty of being grossly incomplete in his listing of foreign portraits for which he
had no source on which he could base himself But half of his labour was not wasted, for
his information was taken over into Bromley's Gatalogue of engraved British portraits,
published in 1793."^ The preface (p. vii) carries this acknowledgement: 'To Sir William
Musgrave, Bart. I am particularly indebted, for the very great assistance which he has
long suffered me to derive from his numerous and well-arranged collection, for the whole
plan of this work, with the general enumeration of the prints, and the short biographical
notices down to the late reign - given me, in the most liberal manner, to use at my
discretion.' This statement presents a problem: Bromley's catalogue was not
alphabetically arranged, as had been Musgrave's list; rather it introduced a new and
superior classification to Granger's. How then could Bromley state that Musgrave had
been responsible for 'the whole plan of the work'?
The answer to this question is contained in the manuscript index, acquired from
Richardson in 1825, of Musgrave's own collection. This is only a list of names, not
prints, but they are precisely in Bromley's order, that is alphabetically within his new
periods and classes. Even the hsts of names are virtually identical. It seems certain that
Bromley based himself on Musgrave, rather than vice versa. Musgrave's lists contain a
number of names which he has later struck out in pencil; none of these names is to be
found in Bromley's listing. I therefore take it that Bromley's work was very literally
based on Musgrave's.^^ His book is, in origin, the material in the 1777 catalogue recast
in the order of the manuscript collection index. To all this would then have been added
184
any further prints and information that Bromley found in his later researches, which, to
give him due credit, were undoubtedly very extensive.
By 1793 Musgrave's collection of portrait prints must have become one of the best in
England. His marked copy of Granger and list of names included shows its great
extent. ^^ Its quality is attested by annotations in his copy of Granger. One of these is
particularly revealing. On p. 431, Granger states in a footnote: 'It may not be improper
here to inform some of my readers, that a proof-print is one of the Rrst that are taken
from a copper-plate. It is generally known by the blackness of the impression ...'. To this
Musgrave has added a correction: 'Rather by the strength and clearness of the
impression especially in the nicer touches and chiaro scuro. A copper plate after it has
been retouched often makes the blackest impression.' Anyone who could so precisely
point out the main trap lying in front of the print collector must have been a fine
connoisseur.
Yet, despite bequeathing his books and manuscripts to the British Museum, Musgrave
sold this great collection shortly before his death. There is no evidence to show why he
did so, but the probable explanation lies in the bequest of Cracherode's collection to the
British Museum in May 1799. They had been fellow trustees for fifteen years, and it was
Musgrave who took charge of designing the cases to house the portfohos of prints when
they arrived in the Museum. He would therefore have known very well that Cracherode,
besides his magnificent library of classic and early editions, had a superb collection of old
master prints and drawings as well as portrait prints, both British and foreign.
Unfortunately, the Craeherode collection has now been dispersed within the Department
of Prints and Drawings and the only evidence for its exact contents and arrangement lies
in a summary listing made in 1804. This shows that only two portfolios were arranged
by period; the rest were kept by artist or engraver. Thus the collection was of a rather
different approach, and probably narrower in range, but certainly of high quality.
Cracherode himself was even more retiring than Musgrave, but it is certain that he was
already interested in British portrait prints in 1769 when Granger's book was
pubhshed. ^^
Musgrave's will was dated two months later, on 6 July 1799, and bequeathed to his
brother Thomas Musgrave and cousin James Musgrave ' my select collection of engraved
British portraits at present contained in nine cabinets or presses upon trust as soon as
conveniently may be after my decease unless previously disposed of in my lifetime to
make sale thereof by public auction or private contract for the best price or prices in
money that can be gotten for the same'. In fact, as foreshadowed in the will, Musgrave
did dispose of his collection before his death. A first sale took place on 22 February 1798
and the two days following under the direction of Mr King. The Catalogue of the genuine
duplicates of an eminent collector of British portraits hsted 338 lots on twenty-seven pages
arranged alphabetically by sitter. The introduction noted that 'upon many of the prints
are critical and explanatory notes, too numerous to be inserted in the catalogue but which
render them peculiarly interesting to collectors'. The total raised was £317 7s. A second
sale was held on 29 April 1799 and the following day by William Richardson at 31,
185
Strand.'*** As the title page explained, this was a Gatalogue of a very large collection of
foreigners who have been in England., ranged alphabetically; the 200 lots occupy only
fourteen pages of text.
Both these sales predated the signing of Musgrave's will. The main collection
appeared at auction on 3 January 1800 under the aegis of William Richardson, the
printseller and auctioneer at the corner of York Buildings, Strand: A catalogue of a
genuine and extensive collection of English portraits consisting of the royal families., peers,
gentry, clergy
This catalogue was of a quite different order of magnitude and
complexity; it is 323 pages long, cost the purchaser five shillings, and the sale itself lasted
for twenty-one days with n o to 120 lots being sold each day. It included 'sixty solander
portfohos, uniformly lettered, and print-presses with sliding shelves'.^^
The British Library has recently acquired Richardson's own copy of this catalogue
C.191.a.36, interleaved and marked with the purchasers' names and prices. Tipped in are
two letters to Richardson from Musgrave. The earlier of these is dated 8 July 1799 (that
is two days after he had signed his will): ' Sir, I find it very inconvenient to restrain
myself from treating with others for the sale of my prints any longer, so must desire that
you will in the course of this week inform me whether you can depend upon a full supply
of money to make prompt payment on the delivery of the prints in case we shall upon
further conversation agree on the price. I am. Sir, etc' The second letter is dated
20 July: ' Messrs Drummonds having informed me that you have paid to them £2000 on
my account, inclosed I send you the key of the nine cabinets containing my entire
collection of engraved British portraits that you may remove them from my house into
your possession as early as convenient. I am Sir, etc'
Musgrave was evidently in a fearful hurry to clear up his affairs. The period between
July and February the following year allowed Richardson to prepare his sale catalogue,
which does not follow Musgrave's own arrangement: the classes are retained, but the
periods are suppressed in favour of a single alphabetical sequence. His marked copy gives
fascinating calculations of the expenses and profit of the transaction. The expenses of the
sale were as follows:
Catalogues
£39
Handbills etc.
is 6d
Advertisements etc.
£95 2s
King's Duty
£195 6s ir|d
Returned Mr Sykes for port
£3 ios
Richardson totalled this as £235 2s iifd, to which must be added £2000 spent on the
purchase of the collection. The proceeds of the sale were £5000 6s. Thus Richardson's
profit was £2765 3s Ojd, a return of over 100% in seven months.^'^
Together with the Obituary, Musgrave bequeathed to the British Museum his
collection of autograph signatures. This is bound in two volumes, each of which is
arranged alphabetically, and shows small rectangles of the cut-out signatures pasted
down in rows, like a stamp collection, on to blue paper.^^ The first volume contains
186
mainly historical autographs; the second more recent ones. Musgrave must have
continued this to the end of his life, for some signatures are dated 1799. The existence
of A. N. L. Munby's superb study on autograph collecting^* saves me from any
obligation to place Musgrave in the history of this field. It suffices to say that he is shown
to be one of the earlier collectors of the genre, most of whom turn out also to have been
interested in portrait prints. Thus the names of Ralph Thoresby, James Bindley, and
C. M. Cracherode (whose collection is also now in the British Library) appear in
Munby's pages. He remarks that the vogue for Grangerizing books increased the
popularity of autographs as much as of portraits, as both were equally suitable objects
for insertion into texts.
There is thus a well-established hnk between the two activities. Both share a common
denominator in a concern for the fabric of British history. To see what someone looked
like and a specimen of their handwriting is part of any interest in what they did. Even
modern biographers feel it necessary to provide a reproduction of a portrait of their
subject, and often reproduce a letter or manuscript as well. It is interesting to observe
that it was in the second half of the eighteenth century that this interest first became
widespread, and in the first half of the nineteenth that it reached its apogee. It is difficult
not to connect this with the contemporary rise of Britain's power and status in world
affairs, whereby the persons concerned in it were imbued with a significance beyond the
merely antiquarian.
I am greatly indebted to Philip Harris and Mervyn
Jannetta of the British Library for their corrections
and observations on an earlier draft of this article. It
was the latter's acquisition of the annotated copy of
the 1800 auction catalogue that prompted this
article, and 1 am grateful to him for showing it to me
and for his encouragement.
1 Gentleman's Magazine., lxx (1800), p. 87.
2 Quoted from Percy Musgrave, Collectanea Musgraviana : Notes on the ancient family of Musgrave
of Musgrave, tVestmorland (Leeds, 1911), p. 45,
which gives much more information on the
family.
3 A few letters from Musgrave to William Eden on
customs business are to be found in Add. MS.
34419. One dated 7 June 1785 shows his mastery
of the subject and the quality of his advice on
which Eden evidently depended.
4 Archaeologia, xiii (1800), pp. 100-2. The text is
simply a reprint of Carey with three explanatory
footnotes.
5 Warren R. Dawson, The Banks Letters (London,
1958), p. 629, does however calendar one most
surprising letter from Musgrave to Banks on 19
Nov. 1789: 'Sends the title of his paper on the
Elephant and asks B[anks] if he thinks fit, to
communicate it to [the] R[oyal] S[ociety] [Note
by B[anks], "Far too bawdy for reading or
printing".]'
6 A sad witness of this is his copy of William
Meyrick, The new family herbal, or domestic
physician (Birmingham, 1790) (BL press-mark
546.h.22). This contains a very large number of
annotations in Musgrave's handwriting with
recipes for medicaments using the herbs
described by Meyrick. In a letter to Eden
of 1783 he is already asking for a new official
position 'which is really become necessary
on acco[un]t of my health' (Add. MS. 34419,
f.
202).
7 Two letters from Musgrave to Sir Joseph Banks
of I and 6 Jan. 1781 soliciting his support for this
appointment are to be found in Add. MS. 33977,
ff. 127 and 129.
8 Mervyn Jannetta has, however, identified an
inscription added by a clerk or secretary that
may well have been placed in all the books from
this gift (an example is io6i.d.2o).
9 P.R.O., Prob. 11/1335, ff- 362-367.
10 Edited by Sir J. G. Armytage, Harleian Society,
vols. xliv-xlix (London, 1899-1901).
11 This is evidence that Musgrave had worked in
187
the Department of Manuscripts; the complete
reference is to Add. MS. 4303, f. 98, where it
refers to Lord Orrery's intention to publish some
of his family papers relating to the Interregnum
period. In 1779 Musgrave compiled the earliest
catalogue of any part of the British Museum
print collection that I know (see below).
12 These notebooks have recently been described
and indexed by Arlene Meyer, 'Sir William
Musgrave's "Lists" of portraits; with an account of head-hunting in the eighteenth century', Walpole Society, liv (1988; pub. 1992), pp.
454-502.
13 Mervyn Jannetta points out that this catalogue
would enable the Musgrave provenance of many
books now in the British Library to be recovered.
He checked seventeen titles taken at random,
and found that thirteen could be confirmed as
ex-Musgrave, while the other four were certainly
not Musgrave.
14 Cf. Antony Griffiths, 'Early mezzotint publishing in England II - Peter Lely, Tompson
and Browne', Print Quarterly, vii (1990), pp.
130-4515 On this subject Philip Harris refers me to
Edward Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries (London,
1859), vol. ii, pp. 759ff.
16 Whether all the books on these shelves came
from Musgrave is uncertain as some lack his
stamp. But, if they appear in the manuscript
catalogue, there is a strong likelihood that they
were his.
17 The Department of Prints and Drawings in the
British Museum does however possess many
such catalogues, given in 1850 by the dealer
William Smith.
18 Mervyn Jannetta points out that the set includes
the supplementary volume of 1775 (6i4.k.25),
but that this is not interleaved nor annotated.
The British Museum stamp on it suggests that it
may well be the deposit copy.
19 It might be worth remarking that Granger had
nothing to do with 'grangerizing', a practice that
long pre-dated his book. His text was, however,
soon used as the basis for extra-illustration, most
famously by Richard Bull (whose thirty-sixvolume copy is now in the Huntington Library,
ex-Bute), and thus lent its name to the pastime.
A few copies of the first edition were printed on
one side of the paper only, and it is sometimes
said that this was to allow prints to be pasted in,
but Walpole's letter to Cole of 27 May 1769
makes it clear that they were intended for
annotation.
20 The idea of grouping prints into classes by types
of subject-matter is already to be found in
George Vertue's catalogue of Hollar's work (A
description of the works of the ingenious delineator
and engraver Wenceslaus Hollar, 1759), and
doubtless could be traced back further.
21 W. S. Lewis (ed.), Horace Walpole's Correspondence (Yale Ed.), i (1937), P- 5722 Ibid., vol. xl (1980), pp. 312-13.
23 J. P. Malcolm (ed.). Letters between the Rev.
James Granger... and many of the eminent literary
men of his time (London, 1805), pp. 15 and 22.
24 Granger, 2nd ed., 1775, pp. xi-xii. Granger
continues: 'That this acknowledgement was not
made before, is entirely owing to an oversight.'
25 Sold at Sotheby's 8 Mar. 1989, lot 46, for
^(^6500, and acquired by the British Library. It
measures 47 x 33I inches, and descended in the
family until recent years.
26 Musgrave's copy unfortunately is not to be
found in the British Library, though Cracherode's annotated copy is in the Department of
Prints and Drawings of the British Museum.
The D.N.B. states that 'Henry Bromley' was a
pseudonym for one Anthony Wilson. But a letter
dated 29 Mar. 1939 in the correspondence of the
Department of Prints and Drawings of the
British Museum from H. A. Bromley, his greatgrandson, makes it clear that this is incorrect.
Bromley (1750-1827) was the fourth son of
Thomas Bromley of Standishgate, Wigan, and
worked as a tax lawyer in London.
27 The fact that Musgrave's library catalogue was
arranged on the same principle of numbered
classes and sub-divisions makes this conclusion
entirely plausible.
28 It is odd that there is no listing of all the prints
that he owned. The 1800 auction catalogue
supplies the gap to some extent, but there must
surely once have existed a separate catalogue of
the print collection, which is now lost.
2g See J. P. Malcolm (ed.), Letters between the Rev.
James Granger ... and many of the most eminent
literary men of his time (London, 1805), p. 26, a
letter to Granger from his publisher Thomas
Davies on 16 May 1769, the publication day of
the Biographical History: 'A clergyman of
distinguished learning and aimable virtues [Mr
Cracherode] praised your work very much.'
30 Richardson was, with Thane, the leading
188
foreign portraits in his General catalogue of
specialist dealer in portrait prints at the period.
engraved portraits; on the other, the section on
The link between him and Musgrave was
foreign biography in his library was empty.
probably established through the series of 310
Portraits illustrating Granger's Biographical His- 32Word of this seems to have spread. The
anonymous author of Chalcographimania (Lontory of England which was published in parts,
don, 1814), pp. 46-7, wrote: 'It gave me great
beginning in 1792 and ending in 1812 (a copy of
pleasure to find R-ch-rds-n was the auctioneer
this rare work is in the British Library, 134.c.9).
selected to catalogue and dispose of the collecIts purpose was to reproduce excessively rare
tions of Sir William Musgrave and Mr Tighe,
portrait prints, so that collectors should be able
as they no doubt proved extremely lucrative to
to include an image in their series. The plate of
the vender.'
Constantia Lucy, Lady Colerane, published on
30 June 1794, was 'engraved from a rare print in 33 Add. MSS. 5726 A-B. The following two
the collection of Sir William Musgrave Bart.'
volumes (5726 C-D) contain fragments of letters
31 It should be noted that these three catalogues
from which many of the autographs had been
include no foreign portraits at all. It does not
cut.
follow that he never collected any, for they could 34 The cult of the autograph letter in England
have been sold and never auctioned. The case is
(London, 1962).
unclear: on the one hand, Musgrave included
189