Note 8 — EDITORIAL POSTSCRIPT:

George Thomason. It was in 1640 that this bookseller commenced systematically to preserve a copy of every pamphlet, broadside, and printed book connected with the political disturbances. Until after the Restoration in 1660, he continued his valuable collection, so far as possible without omission, but not without danger and interruption. In his will he speaks of it as “not to be paralleled,” and it was intact at Oxford when he died in 1666. Charles II. had too many feminine claimants on his money and time to allow him to purchase the invaluable series of printed documents, as it had been desired that he should do. The sum of £4,000 was refused for this collection of 30,000 pamphlets, bound in 2,000 volumes; but, after several changes of ownership, they were ultimately purchased by King George the Third, for only three or four hundred pounds, and were presented by him to the nation. They are in the British Museum, known as the King’s Pamphlets, and the Antidote against Melancholy is among the small quartos. See Isaac D’Israeli’s Amenities of Literature, for an interesting account of the difficulties and perils attending their collection: article Pamphlets, pp. 685-691, edition 1868.