The Manuscripts were eventually purchased by Parliament for the sum of ten thousand pounds. [Sidenote: THE PURCHASE OF THE HARLEIAN MSS. FOR THE NATION.] With reference to this purchase the Duchess of PORTLAND wrote as follows, in April, 1753, to the Speaker of the House of Commons:—‘As soon as I was acquainted with the proposal you had made in the House of Commons, in relation to my Father’s Collection of Manuscripts I informed my Mother [the then Dowager Countess of OXFORD] of it, who has given the Duke of PORTLAND and me full power to do therein as we shall think fit. ‘Though I am told the expense of collecting them was immense, and that, if they were to be dispersed, they would probably sell for a great deal of money, yet, as a sum has been named, and as I know it was my Father’s and is my Mother’s intention that they should be kept together, I will not bargain with the Publick. I give you this trouble therefore to acquaint you that I am ready to accept of your proposal upon condition that this great and valuable Collection shall be kept together in a proper repository, as an addition to the Cotton Library, and be called by the name of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts. ‘I hope you do me the justice to believe that I do not consider this as a sale for an adequate price. [Sidenote: Duchess of Portland to Arthur Onslow; MS. ADDIT., 17521, f. 30. (B. M.)] But your idea is so right, and so agreeable to what I know was my Father’s intention, that I have a particular satisfaction in contributing all I can to facilitate the success of it.’ If it were possible to give, in few words, any adequate view of the obligations which English literature, and more especially English historical literature, owes to the Collectors of the Harleian Manuscripts, there could be no fitter conclusion to a biographical notice of Robert HARLEY. Here, however, no such estimate is practicable. Nor, in truth, can it be needed in order to convince the reader that ‘some tribute of veneration’—to use the apposite words which JOHNSON prefixed to the Harleian Catalogue—is due to the ardour of the two HARLEYS for literature; and ‘to that generous and exalted curiosity which they gratified with incessant searches and immense expense; and to which they dedicated that time and that superfluity of fortune which many others, of their rank, employ in the pursuit of contemptible amusements or the gratification of guilty passions.’ NOTE TO CHAPTER V. _EXTRACTS FROM THE STUART PAPERS, REFERRING TO INTERCOURSE OF ROBERT HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD, WITH THE JACOBITES, AFTER THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I._