With the purchase of this rich medley of books begins Wanley’s term of office as librarian to Lord Oxford, which continued till his death in 1726.  By his knowledge and literary acumen the librarian supplied what was lacking in his patron, for like Sir Robert Cotton, Harley, despite his love of books, was by no means a scholar or man of letters.  Even the insignificant pamphlets, once ascribed to his pen, have since been proved to be the work of others.  His verses, some of which were printed in the sixteenth volume of Swift’s works, were condemned by Macaulay as being “more execrable than the bellman’s.”  But with Wanley at his side he surpassed even Cotton as a collector, for the librarian possessed an intimate acquaintanceship with the contents of every foreign library of note, and Harley was always ready to spend in princely fashion whenever Wanley considered that a manuscript was worth buying.  On the sumptuous bindings with which he adorned these acquisitions he expended as much as 18,000 pounds.  His principal binders were Thomas Elliott and Christopher Chapman, of Duck Lane, who called forth some severe remarks in Wanley’s Diary, on the subject of their negligence and extravagant prices.  On inspecting Mr. Elliott’s bill he finds him “exceeding dear in all the works of Morocco, Turkey, and Russia leather, besides those of velvet,” and he is constantly reprimanding both book-binders for their “negligence in executing my Lord’s work.”

Perhaps the best-merited praise that has ever been bestowed on the founder of this celebrated library is Macaulay’s tribute to his “sincere kindness for men of genius.”  And, however much the first Earl of Oxford may have transgressed politically (he is accused of having been unscrupulous, weak, and incapable as a minister), his services to literature in the protection which he accorded to the learned, have won for him a high place in the estimation of his countrymen.  Even as a politician he acquired some literary fame, as being the first minister who employed the Press for ministerial purposes; and it redounds to his honour that, amid the cares and passions of public life, and aims more or less worthy of a statesman, he occupied his scanty leisure with the altogether laudable endeavour to gather together under his own roof for the benefit of students and scholars as much as possible of the lore and erudition of past ages.

The correspondence between Harley and Defoe, preserved at Welbeck Abbey, and now published by the Historical MSS.  Commission, reveals the intimate relations which existed for public purposes between these two remarkable men.