-1808.] ( 
147) 
Extradis from the Port-folio of a Man of Letters. 
Se 
-_DR. RICHARD HOLDSWORTH. 
R. Holdsworth was a native of New- 
castle-upon-Tyne, and was suc- 
cessively a fellow and master of St. John’s, 
Cambridge; which latter he soon resign- 
ed, being elected master of Emanuel. He 
was afierwards made a professor of 
Gresham college, and succeeded to the 
archdeaconry of Huntingdon in 1633, 
upon the death of Dr. Owen Gwynn, 
master of St. John’s. His next promo- 
tion was to the deanery of Worcester. 
Dr. Holdsworth was a man possessed of 
every virtue, and an unsullied reputation. 
During the rehellion, he was. plundered 
and imprisoned for four years. Being 
the most celebrated preachier of his time, 
he was so dreaded by the parliament,. 
that the Committee of Safety declared, 
that if he was permitted to preach, he 
would undo all that they had done. He 
attended the King in the Isle of Wight; 
and his Majesty, when at Holmby-house, 
requested that Holdsworth might be per- 
mitted to come'to him, but this was de- 
nied. Aiter the execution of Charles, 
he tost all relish for life, and contracted a 
disorder from excessive grief, which scon 
brought him to the grave. He died in 
August 1649, the king having fallen in 
the preceding January. 
PROCTORS, TAXORS, AND SCRUTATORS. 
The election tu these offices in the 
University of Cambridge was confined to 
particular colleges unul the year 1661, 
when Magdaien, Sidney, and Emanuel, 
petitioned the King that this privilege 
might be extended to them, which the 
King, after some deliberation, grauted, 
sending letters to the University to tha 
purport. 
WILLIAM WORTS, ESQ. 
This public-spirited benefactor to the 
University, besides several other be- 
quests, by his will, gave annual pensions 
of 1001]. per annum each to two young 
batchelors of arts, who were to be sent 
abroad soon after they took their de- 
grees, and continue abroad for three 
years, but upon the condition that they 
take different roads, and they should 
also be oblived to write once a month to 
the vice-chancellor in Latin, in which 
letters they are to give an account to the 
University of the religion, learning, laws, 
politics, customs, manners, and rarities, 
natural and artificial, in the countries 
through which they travel; such gra- 
_ duates to ke chosen out of diiferent 
“> 
colleges, and two presented each year 
from two Colleges, in the same order as 
the proctors are. 
DR. LAZARUS SEAMAN. 
Dr. Seaman was born at Leicester, and 
educated at Emanuel College; but as his 
circumstances were very narrow, he was 
soon obliged to leave the University, and 
teach school tora liveliaood. A sermoh 
which he accidentally preached at St. 
Martin’s, Ludgate, procured him that 
lecture, and he was afterwards made 
master of Peter-house by the Parliament, 
in which situation he acquitted hiuself 
with much honour. He was an excellent 
casuist, a dexterous expositor, and a judi- 
cious and moving preacher, He lost the 
mastership for his non-conformity, and 
died in 1675, much regretted. 
THOMAS COXETAR. 
Thomas Coxeter was born of an an- 
cient and respectable family at Lechlade, 
in Gloucestershire, in 1689, and educated 
at Trinity College, Gxford, where he wore 
a civilian’s gown; and about 1710 aban- 
doning the civil and every other profes- 
sion, came to London. Here continuing 
without any settled purpose, he became 
acquainted with booksellers and authors, 
and amassed materials for a biography of 
our poets. He hada curious collection 
of old plays, and was the first who 
formed a scheme adopted by Dodsley, of 
publishing a collection of them. In 1744, 
he circulated proposals for printing a new 
edition of the plays of May, with notes 
and a life; and took that opportunity to 
complain of Doddsley’s invasion of his 
plan, and of the new edition, which he 
calls a spurious one, ef Sackville’s Gor- 
boduc, by Spence, 1736, on which ac- 
couats he intended to add a pure correct 
edition of that play, with Sackviile’s other 
poetical works, and aglossary, In 1747 
he was appointed secretary to a Society 
for the encouragement of an Essay to-= 
wards a coinplete English History, uncer 
the auspices of which appeared the first 
volume of Carte’s History of England. He 
died of a tever on Laster-day, the 19th 
of April, 1747, aged 59. Warton calls 
him a faithful aad industrious collector 
in old’ English literature. 
Boswell says, “ Johnson told me, that 
a Mr. Coxeter, whom he knew, had col- 
lected, I think, about five hundred vo- 
lumes of poets, whose works were most 
known; but that upon his death, Tho- 
mas Osborne bought them, and. they 
were 
