18 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 



He yet followed, in some measure, his former 

 studies of philosophy and chemistry. 



But what he chiefly applied himself to, were 

 such books as tended to make him an able 

 divine; and his kind patron would not suffer 

 him to be destitute of the necessary means ; but 

 gave him, at diflerent times, the Polyglot Bible 

 and Lexicons, St. Austin's and St. Chrysostom's 

 works. Crab's Councils^ and the Centuriators, 

 and such books as it was not easy for him to 

 purchase, or come to the use of. 



In the year 1669, he was incorporated Master 

 of Arts at Oxford, in company with several from 

 Cambridge, who went thither to the opening of 

 Sheldon's Theatre, when there was a great re- 

 sort to that University. In this year he took a 

 great deal of pains with the Pagan Theology ; 

 and this seems to be the time when he finished 

 his comment upon Genesis, and that part of 

 Exodus which precedes the giving of the Law 

 by Moses; and also those large excerpts, or 

 rather abridgements, of the Greek historians, 

 which he wrote in another volume. Both are 

 in short-hand ; the comment considerably long, 

 and particular; by which it appears, that he 

 was tolerably skilled in the Hebrew tongue, 

 though probably no great master of it. 



At length he pur^sued his studies with such close 

 application, and at such unseasonable hours, 



