'But, Sir, I fancy you will rather chuse to provide Cabinets for medalls, & leave others to fill them; if so, surely Mr Charleton might be solicited to bestow his Collection on our University, I understand from severall that he in inclinable to do it, but that he’s not willing that his rarities should be an accession to anothers Donation, & called by another mans name, as there’s no Reason it should.
Could not some such Proposals as these be made to him, that if he pleased the Anatomy school shall be adorned and wainscoted, & if it will not be large enough to hold all, that it shall either be made bigger, or a part of the Galleries shall be taken in and made fit for this Purpose.
That all the the Curiosities now in the said Anatomy School or in the Studies belonging to the Library, and all the Coins given by Arch Bishop Laud & other Benefactors, being some thousands in number, and among which are many every way valuable, shall be brought & placed amongst his, and the whole for ever be called the Musaeum Charltonianum? Sir with submission I speak it, why should we lose the most considerable Study in England for want of asking, and especially when there may be some hopes of success? If it should be objected that they cost him a great deal of money, it may be said, that then he will ha[ve] the Honor of being the more noble Benefactor and wil doubtless reap more solid pleasure, in seeing those Curiosities of Art & Nature preserv’d together, in his own Countrey, with daily Additions, to have his Name for ever beloved & honored, Orations & set speeches & praiers made for him alive, that Statues & Inscriptions will be erected to his Memory when dead, rather than sell them to another Nation, or be torn in pieces by a greedy Executor.
...
I my self have now in my Eye above three hundred coins, which will come for less than a penny apiece, and I am told that there is a Pertinax in Great Brass among them, which is more than I can buy them all for. The intrinsic value of the Gold and silver shoul be looked after, for that may perhaps make ‘’em worth the money, not to mention the Beauty & rarity of them.'
(Wanley 1989, pp. 39-40, letter 24; Burnett 2020b, p. 427-8, 1245)
