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James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps and the British Museum Library

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James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps and the British Museum Library JAMES ORCHARD HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS AND THE BRITISH MUSEUM LIBRARY MARVIN SPEVACK IN an address on the Halliwell-Phillipps collection delivered before the Pennsylvania Library Club, at the Friends' Library, Philadelphia, on Monday, 14 January 1895, Albert H. Smyth, Professor of the English Language and Literature, Central High School, Philadelphia, no librarian and therefore 'rather reminiscent than doctrinaire', raised the curtain thus: For several years I have been as regular in my summer visits to the British Museum as the birds that haunt the convenient corners of its Grecian front. From the day that I first walked vv'ith Richard Garnett, wittiest and most learned of librarians, in the gallery of the great reading-room and looked down upon the scholars who had come from the corners of the earth, I was made free ofthe learned society that makes ofthe library in Bloomsbury a great literary club. Lucy Toulmin Smith, the learned and industrious editor ofthe York Plays; Dr. Brinsley Nicholson, gentle and scholarly Shakespearian, now, alas, gone from us forever; P. A. Daniel, the best Elizabethan since Dyce, and many a foreign spirit, met every afternoon in the Museum restaurant, where we ate the worst meal in the United Kingdom and released our tongues after the forenoon's enforced silence.^ Since the reference must be to Richard Garnett, the younger, who became Reading Room Superintendent in 1875, and the scholars mentioned were generally active in the last quarter ofthe nineteenth century, it is perhaps not surprising for Smyth to say a little later on that 'no one ever saw Halliwell-Phillipps at the British Museum'. Halliwell- Phillipps's wife, Henrietta, suffered a riding accident in 1872, began losing her senses in 1874, and died in 1879. ^^ this period the normally prolific Halliwell-Phillipps produced very little: he even aborted his Illustrations ofthe Life of Shakespeare. In 1877-8 he built what he was fond of referring to as the ' quaint wigwam' at Hollingbury Copse, near Brighton, where shortly thereafter he moved himself and his collection. It is, however, quite amazing for Smyth, in the very next sentence, to somehow connect Halliwell- Phillipps's absence with 'an order... issued [on 10 February 1845] by Sir Henry Ellis then chief librarian, forbidding [him] access to the library, and this order was never rescinded.' There is little point in going to lengths to correct this error or to attempt to dispute his assertion about the cuisine of the Museum restaurant. Memory illuminates but - we must not forget - it may also dazzle. We know relatively little about how many 237 hours Halliwell-Phillipps spent in the library or, if at all, in the restaurant. We know only a little about what books he may have asked for or read. (Indeed, is it not a catastrophe for scholarship that book application slips have not been preserved?) But that, for some fifty years, he did 'enter' the British Museum Library - that is, made use of it as reader and author, as library critic, and as bookman - is beyond question. I. HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS AS AUTHOR AND READER We may not know exactly how much use - how often and to what extent - Halliwell- Phillipps made of the library as reader. But we do have some specific information about his relevant activities in the library. They began early. In 1837-8, at the age of seventeen, he produced a manuscript entitled 'Collections on the history of the Mathematics. Principally from Books and Manuscripts in the British Museum' - a handwritten work of 142 leaves, 26 cm. high and written on both sides, in which he transcribed bibliographical and other information, added comments, and closed with an index of names (see fig. 2). This work, of course, presupposes not merely the presence in the library of a minor (eighteen was the customary minimum age for admission) but also permission from official sources: in this case Sir Frederic Madden himself. Keeper ofthe Department of Manuscripts, was referee. An entry in the commonplace book he kept while at Trinity College, Cambridge, reflects his pride: ' In the spring of 1837 I obtained admission into the library of Sion-College and was a regular attendant there until I got a ticket for the reading-room of the Museum-library which far exceeds the former both in the quantity and quantity [sic] of its volumes.'^ Halliwell-Phillipps's activities were as intense as they were precocious. In a later report (and in another context) to the Standing Committee ofthe Museum on 6 March 1845 Madden declared that 'in the course of a twelvemonth', in 1840, Halliwell-Phillipps 'came to the Reading Room 756 days and consulted no less than i6js MSS., having had on the ioth of June J7 MSS. in one day!'^ In another instance, the Standing Committee was informed by Antonio Panizzi, then Keeper ofthe Department of Printed Books, on 25 July 1840 'respecting the number of Books required by Mr. Halliwell and the manner in which they were left in the Reading Room.'"* The matter was referred to Sir Henry Ellis, the Principal Librarian, who, on 10 October 1840, 'stated in a letter to the Secretary dated 8th October that he had seen Mr. Halliwell in the Reading Room, and believed that no more cause of difference would arise respecting the return of his books.'^ And, of course, in the tradition of readers before and after him, Halliwell-Phillipps was active for others who were not able to visit the library themselves. No lesser than Sir Thomas Phillipps, his father-in-law-to-be, asked him on 31 March 1842 to 'spare me a day at the Brit. Museum'^ and thanked him promptly on 3 April 1842 for what must have been Halliwell-Phillipps's speedy response.^ By the time the library was presented with and acknowledged receipt of his 'Collections', now Add. MS. 14061, on 8 April 1843, he was well known in other ways as well to the highest officers ofthe library. Like Ellis and Madden, the young Halliwell- 238 Drav/a fro i on STOti"; by VV I, Fig. I. A lithograph 'drawn from life' of Halliwell-Phiilipps in his early twenties. His publisher, John Russell Smith, had ioo printed on India paper and in his catalogue of 1843 offered them for 2s 6d each. 239 Phillipps was also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society, among others. In the early 1840s he corresponded with them fairly regularly on professional matters. For by that time - when he was between twenty and twenty-three (fig. i) - he was busily productive and apparently knowledgeable in at least one of the ways of scholarly interaction: he was a keen distributor of his works. From Ellis he received 'many thanks' for a copy of his 'interesting little Volume of Old Letters illustrative of Science', with the comment 'You work very hard' (29 January 1841);^ for the 'obliging Present' ofthe romance. Torrent of Portugal (1842), with the florid comment: 'You are one ofthe most industrious labourers in the Vineyard of Archaeology whom I know' (2 September 1842);^ for the 'kind Present' of The Manuscript Rarities ofthe University of Cambridge (1841), with the flattering comment: 'I find much that is new to me in the work, and am going carefully through it. The bookish world is under many obligations to you, as well as Your sincere friend Henry Ellis' (25 September 1841);^^ and for numerous other works received between 1839 and 1844. Eflis also congratulated Halliwell-Phillipps on his marriage in 1842 and added, with a flourish, 'Should any thing occur in which I can feel at liberty to aid your wishes, at any time, you may always rest assured of my kindness' (24 August 1842).^^ Egerton MSS. 2842 and 2843 contain ten letters from Halliwell-Phillipps to Madden between 24 April 1839 and 8 April 1843 which cover a range of scholarly concerns of special interest to Madden: in a note from the Reading Room, comments on a translation in St John's College, Cambridge, of Harley MS. 694, which might be Wyclifl^s (24 April 1839);^^ a request for 'further particulars' about Latin translations of Welsh romances and whether Madden intended to edit them (2 August 1839);^^ thanks for information and 'valuable advice' on various projects Halliwell-Phillipps was engaged in and even the loan of a transcription of Torrent of Portugal', as well as the customary requests for permissions and copying, exchanges of opinion, offers of assistance ('I shall feel proud of being of any service...in the libraries here [in Oxford] ifl can' (11 August 1841)),^* and, de rigueur, the presentation to the library of recently published works. Not completely customary perhaps - and however the motivation may be interpreted - was Halliwell-Phillipps's adding to his assertion that 'every one knows that you are better acquainted with the early romances than any one in the world' a request for permission to pubhsh Torrent of Portugal with the dedication 'To Sir Frederic Madden, K. H. Keeper of the Manuscripts in the British Museum, etc. etc. etc. this volume is, with his kind permission, most respectfully inscribed' (16 July 1842)/^ Madden did not object. And in addition to the dedication, the preface concludes with Halliwell-Phillipps's 'best thanks' to Madden, ' who most liberally lent me his own transcription of the romance, made in the autumn of 1835', not failing to mention, 'I ought to add that when I made my transcript, I was not aware that a copy had previously been made by a gentleman, whose very superior knowledge both of the language and the subject would have produced an edition of this romance much more satisfactory than the present one.
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