LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SHARP. 137 



the parochial churches and chapels, whether 

 under ordinary or peculiar jurisdiction within 

 his diocese; the value of the benefices, what 

 rights were lost, and what preserved ; in what 

 hands the patronages were, and the impropria- 

 tions and appropriations, and whatever else 

 could be learnt of them useful to be known. 

 This notitia of his diocese, as he called it, he 

 distributed into four volumes folio, according 

 to the division of the four Archdeaconries. — 

 These were left at his death by his executors to 

 the use of his successors*. 



* He was greatly assisted in all these collections by some 

 MSS, lent him by Mr. Torr at that time, and which, by a 

 composition with Mr. Torr's widow some years after, came 

 entirely into his own possession. Concerning these MSS. 

 there is a passage in the preface to the History and Antiquities 

 of York, in these words : 



" This almost invaluable treasure was given to the Dean and 

 Chapter's Library by the executors to the last will of the late 

 Archbishop Sharp. No doubt the worthy sons of that very 

 eminent Prelate imagined they had an unquestionable right 

 to make this present. I shall not enter further into this affair, 

 which by the good Archbishop's death, and other persons con- 

 cerned, is now rendered inscrutable. 



*' Yet this I may venture to say, that there never was a 

 quantum meruit paid to the Author's relict or his heir for them." 

 See Mr. Drake's preface. 



This ingenious writer seems not to have been aware that his 

 worthy father, Mr. Francis Drake, Vicar of Pontefract, in 

 whose neighbourhood, at Sugdal, Mr. Torr died, in July 1699, 

 came soon after that gentleman's decease to the Archbishop, 



