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Of Suppressors And Dilapidators Of Manuscripts
by
Suppressed books become as rare as manuscripts. In some researches relating to the history of the Mar-prelate faction, that ardent conspiracy against the established hierarchy, and of which the very name is but imperfectly to be traced in our history, I discovered that the books and manuscripts of the Mar-prelates have been too cautiously suppressed, or too completely destroyed; while those on the other side have been as carefully preserved. In our national collection, the British Museum, we find a great deal against Mar-prelate, but not Mar-prelate himself.
I have written the history of this conspiracy in the third, volume of “Quarrels of Authors.”
[Footnote 1:
It is now about thirty-seven years ago since I first published this anecdote; at the same time I received information that our female historian and dilapidator had acted in this manner more than once. At that distance of time this rumour, so notorious at the British Museum, it was impossible to authenticate. The Rev. William Graham, the surviving husband of Mrs. Macaulay, intemperately called on Dr. Morton, in a very advanced period of life, to declare that “it appeared to him that the note does not contain any evidence that the leaves were torn out by Mrs. Macaulay.” It was more apparent to the unprejudiced that the doctor must have singularly lost the use of his memory, when he could not explain his own official note, which, perhaps, at the time he was compelled to insert. Dr. Morton was not unfriendly to Mrs. Macaulay’s political party; he was the editor of Whitelocke’s “Diary of his Embassy to the Queen of Sweden,” and has, I believe, largely castrated the work. The original lies at the British Museum. ]
[Footnote 2:
There was one passage he recollected:–
Just left my bed
A lifeless trunk, and scarce a dreaming head!
]
[Footnote 3:
I have seen a transcript, by the favour of a gentleman who sent it to me, of Gray’s “Directions for Heading History.” It had its merit, at a time when our best histories had not been published, but it is entirely superseded by the admirable “Methode” of Lenglet du Fresnoy. ]