530 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 136. 



assistance he afforded me out of his own library, 

 and procured of his friends, towards completing my 

 Life of Sir Walter Raleigh; and his opinion of the 

 further encouragement I therein deserved may 

 appear in the letters he honoured me with upon 

 that occasion. But as to money, the five guineas 

 more he gave me upon my presenting him with the 

 Life, and the History of the World annexed to it, 

 in 1736, was all that I ever received from him in 

 five years. In the latter end of the year 1737 I 

 published my British Librarian; and when his 

 lordship understood how unproportionate the ad- 

 vantages it produced were to the time and labour 

 bestowed ujjon it, he said he would find me em- 



f)loyment better worth my while. Also, when he 

 leard that I was making interest with Sir Kobert 

 Walpole, through the means of Commissioner Hill, 

 to present him with an abstract of some ancient 

 deeds I had relating to his ancestors, and which I 

 have still, his lordship induced me to decline that 

 application, saying, though he could not do as grand 

 things as Sir liobert, he would do that which might 

 be as agreeable to me, if I would disengage myself 

 from all other persons and pursuits. I had then 

 also had, for several years, some dependence upon 

 a nobleman, who might have served me in the 

 government, and had, upon certain motives, settled 

 an annuity upon me of twenty pounds a year. 

 This I resigned to the said nobleman for an in- 

 competent consideration, and signed a general re- 

 lease to him, in May, 1738, that I might be wholly 

 independent, and absolutely at my Lord Oxford's 

 command. I was likewise then under an engage- 

 ment with the undertakers of the Supplement to 

 JBayWs Dictionary. I refused to digest the mate- 

 rials I then had for this work under an hundred 

 pounds a year, till it was finished ; but complied 

 to take forty shillings a sheet for what I should 

 ■write, at such intervals as my business would per- 

 mit : for this clause I was obliged to insert, in the 

 articles then executed between them and myself, 

 in March the year aforesaid ; whereby I reserved 

 myself free for his lordship's service. And though 

 I proposed, their said offer would be more profit- 

 able to me than my own, yet my lord's employ- 

 ment of me, from that time, grew so constant, that 

 I never finished above three or four lives for that 

 work, to the time of his death. All these ad- 

 vantages did I thus relinquish, and all other de- 

 pendence, to serve his lordship. And now was I 

 employed at auctions, sales, and in writing at 

 home, in transcribing my own collections or others 

 for his lordship, till the latter part of the year 

 1 739 ; for which services I received of him about 

 150 pounds. In November the same year I first 

 entered his library of manuscripts, whereunto I 

 came daily, sorted and methodised his vast collec- 

 tion of letters, to be bound in many volumes ; 

 made abstracts of them, a i c! tables to each volume ; 

 besides working at home, mornings and evenings, 



for the said library. Then, indeed, his lerdship, 

 considering what beneficial prospects and posses- 

 sions I had given up, to serve him, and what com- 

 munications I voluntarily made to his library 

 almost every day, by purchases which I never 

 charged, and presents out of whatever was most 

 worthy of publication among my own collections, 

 of which he also chose what he pleased, whenever 

 he came to my chambers, wbich I have since 

 greatly wanted, I did thenceforward receive of 

 him two hundred pounds a-year, for the short re- 

 mainder of his life. Notwithstanding this allow- 

 ance, he would often declare in company before 

 me, and in the hearing of those now alive, that he 

 wished I had been some years sooner known to him 

 than I was; because I should have saved him 

 many hundred pounds. 



" The sum of this case is, that for the profit of 

 about 500^. I devoted the best part of ten years' 

 service to, and in his lordship's library ; impove- 

 rished my own stores to enrich the same ; disabled 

 myself in my studies, and the advantages they 

 might have produced from the publick ; deserted 

 the pursuits which might have obtained me a per- 

 manent accommodation ; and procured the pre- 

 judice and misconceit of his lordship's surviving 

 relations. But the profits I received were cer- 

 tainly too inconsiderable to raise any envy or ill 

 will ; tho' they might probably be conceived 

 much greater than they were. No, it was what 

 his lordship made me more happy in, than his 

 money, which has been the cause of my greatest 

 unhappiness with them ; his favour, his friendly 

 reception and treatment of me ; his many visits 

 at my chambers ; his many invitations by letters, 

 and otherwise, to dine with him, and pass whole 

 evenings with him ; for no other end, but such 

 intelligence and communications, as might answer 

 the inquiries wherein he wanted to be satisfied, in 

 relation to matters of literature, all for the benefit 

 of his library. Had I declined those invitations, 

 I must, with great ingratitude, have created his 

 displeasure ; and my acceptance of them has dis- 

 pleased others. Some survivors would surely, iu 

 respect to the memory of such a noble and honour- 

 able person, not totally disregard what he had so 

 distinguished ; but think a man worthy of being 

 recommended to some provision, whom he, after a 

 very deliberate experience, had seen reason so de- 

 cently to provide for. I look upon most places of 

 attendance at Court to be an idle, loytering, 

 empty course of life ; in which a man is obliged 

 to dress expensively, keep frothy, vain, or vicious 

 company, and to have the salary more backwardly 

 paid than in other places. Therefore I should pre- 

 fer some office in the Revenue, rather than to be 

 upon the Civil List. 



" Any clerkship, that must double a man down 

 to a desk for a set of hours, morning and after- 

 noon, he should be inured to from his youth, to be 



