Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/250

310 in Hanover Square, London, on the 23d April, 1740. He was the eldest son of Robert, the second duke, by Essex Mostyn, daughter of Sir Roger Mostyn, of Mostyn, in Kentshire, baronet. In 1755, he succeeded his father in the dukedom, to which was attached the British peerage of earl and baron Ker of Wakefield; and he appears to have soon after proceeded upon his travels on the continent. It is stated that, while in Germany, he formed an attachment to Christiana Sophia Albertina, eldest daughter of the duke of Mecklenburg Strelitz, and that their nuptials would have taken place, had not her sister Charlotte, just at that time, been espoused by the king of Great Britain. Etiquette then interfered, to prevent what would otherwise have been an equal and proper match, it being deemed improper that the elder should become the subject of the younger sister. Both parties, however, evinced the strength, of their attachment, by devoting their after-lives to celibacy. It seems to .have been to this event that Sir Walter Scott alludes, when he says of the duke: "Youthful misfortunes, of a kind against which neither wealth nor rank possess a talisman, cast an early shade of gloom over his prospects, and gave to one splendidly endowed with the means of enjoying society, that degree of reserved melancholy, which prefers retirement to the splendid scenes of gayety." To whatever extent George III. might be the innocent cause of his grace's misfortune, it does not appear to have, in the least, marred a strong friendship which existed between them "a tie of rare occurrence," Sir Walter Scott justly observes, "between prince and subject." In 1767, his grace was appointed a lord of the bed-chamber, and next year was invested with the order of the thistle. The former honour gave him a title to be much about the court; but he never farther engaged himself in a public career.

The taste which his grace imbibed to so extraordinary an extent for book-collecting, is stated by Sir Walter to have originated in an accidental circumstance. "Lord Oxford and lord Sunderland, both famous collectors of the time, dined one day at the house of the second duke of Roxburgh, when their conversation happened to turn upon the editio princeps of Boccaccio, printed at Venice in 1471, and so rare that its very existence was doubted of. The duke was himself no collector, but it happened that a copy of this very book had passed under his eye, and been offered to him for sale at a hundred guineas, then thought an immense price. It was, therefore, with complete assurance that he undertook to produce to the connoisseurs a copy of the treasure in question, and did so at the time appointed, with no small triumph. His son, then marquis of Beaumont, never forgot the little scene upon this occasion, and used to ascribe to it the strong passion which he ever afterwards felt for rare books and editions, and which rendered him one of the most assiduous and judicious collectors that ever formed a sumptuous library."

There can be no doubt, at the same time, that the duke chanced to possess that perseverance of character and genuine literary taste, without which such an impulse as this must have been of no avail. "Sylvan amusements," says Sir Walter, "occupied the more active part of his time when in Scotland; and in book-collecting, while residing in London, he displayed a degree of patience which has rarely been equalled, and never excelled. It could scarcely be said, whether the duke of Roxburgh's assiduity and eagerness were most remarkable, when he lay for hours together, though the snow was falling at the time, beside some lovely spring in the Cheviot hills, where he expected the precarious chance of shooting a wild goose, when the dawning should break; or when he toiled for hours, nay, for days, collecting and verifying his edition of the Black Acts, or Caxton's Boke of Troy."