loo LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SANCROFT. 



not; there being no orders left (as is alleged) for disposing of 

 them that way. 



" This, I confess, has an ill glance on your aflfairs. Yet I 

 cannot but hope all will succeed well, though a generous and 

 public spirit (such as our most honoured Lord's was,) is a 

 blessing but rarely dispensed to the world ; and, I doubt, never 

 entailed on any family, notwithstanding the faAvning flights of 

 panegyrics and epistles dedicatory. 



'^ I have one thing more to tell you, which must be whispered 

 into the ears of your worthy society, and in my opinion (con- 

 sidering what may possibly be the event of it) ought to be 

 reckoned one of your indiscoverable secrets. It is this : — When 

 the world began its storm against his Grace, about seven years 

 since, he actually assigned over all his books to his nephew, 

 (his steward,) and the legal right was in him, then, when you 

 received that part of them which is in your possession. This 

 my Lord never told me till I was last at Fresingfield : and he 

 w^as very intent upon having a written instrument, signed by 

 his nephew, making them over from him to me, for the use and 

 benefit of our College. Clerks were not at hand : but I drew 

 up one, and his Grace was pleased to contrive another form ; 

 and we were once at work to finish one, out of both, which 

 might come up to that exactness and extent of expression 

 which his Grace always used. But this seeming to be owing 

 only to an opinion that Mr. March, of Lambeth, (with whom 

 the steward had lodged the books,) would not readily deliver 

 the books to me, without such a Avriting ; and the wording it 

 so nicely, as my Lord seemed to wish, being somevv'hat trouble- 

 some to him, in that weak condition in which he then was, the 

 steward interposed, assuring us that the books would be forth- 

 with delivered to me, upon any short note under his hand, 

 which he gave me accordingly, and it had its eifect. 



*' Now this, I conceive, gives you title enough to what you 

 are already possessed of. But, if confidence in his executors^ 



