"The secret history," says the reviewer, "was this: King George IV., having some pressing call for money, did not decline a proposition for selling the library to the Emperor of Russia. Mr. _Heber_, having ascertained that the books were actually booked for the Baltic, went to Lord _Sidmouth_, then Home Secretary, and stated the case; observing what a shame it would be that such a collection should go out of the country: to which Lord Sidmouth replied: 'Mr. Heber, it shall not!'--and it did not. On the remonstrance of Lord Sidmouth, of whose manly and straightforward character George IV. was very properly in awe, the last of the _grands monarques presented_ the books to the British Museum, _on the condition_ that the value of the rubles they were to have fetched should be somehow or other made good to him by ministers in pounds sterling. This was done out of the surplus of certain funds furnished by France for the compensation of losses by the Revolution. But his ministers, on a hint from the House of Commons that it was necessary to refund those monies, had recourse, we are told, to the droits of the Admiralty." So that the books were not given, but paid for, out of public monies: which ministers could not have made the object of a bargain, had they been the king's, and not the nation's. And the inscription in the Museum--like many others--"lifts its head and lies," _i. e._ unless the _Quarterly Review_ has been inventing a story, instead of telling a true bit of secret history, decidedly worth noting if true. V. [We believe the Quarterly Reviewer has been misinformed as to the facts connected with the transfer of the Royal Library to the British Museum. We have reason to know that George IV., being unwilling to continue the expense of maintaining the Library, which he claimed to treat, not as a heirloom of the crown, but as his own private inheritance, entertained a proposal for its purchase from the Russian Government. This having come to the knowledge of Lord Liverpool (through Dibdin, from Lady Spencer, to whom it had been mentioned by the Princess Lieven), the projected sale was, on the remonstrance of the Minister, abandoned, and the Library presented to the nation. The King thus got rid of the annual expenses; and although we do not believe that any bargain was made upon the subject, it is not unlikely that the Ministry felt that this surrender of the Library to the country gave the King some claim to assistance towards the liquidation of his debts, and that such assistance was accordingly furnished. Even if this were so, though the result might be the same, the transaction is a very different one from the direct bargain and sale described in the _Quarterly Review_.]