of day, all great characters, both Cantabrigians and Oxonians, are already published to the world, either in his books, or various others: so that the collection, unless the same characters are reprinted here, must be made up of second rate persons, and the refuse of authorship. However, as I have begun, and made so large a progress in this undertaking, it is death to think of leaving it off, though from the former considerations so little credit is to be expected from it.

W. COLE, May 17, 1777."

Dr. Johnson very justly observes in the Rambler, No. 71.. "It is lamented by Hearne, the learned Antiquary of Oxford, that the general forgetfulness of the fragility of life has remarkably infected the students of monuments and records. As their employment consists first in collecting, and afterwards in arranging and abstracting what libraries afford them, they ought to amass no more than they can digest; but when they have undertaken a work, they go on searching and transcribing, call for new supplies, when they are already overburthened, and at last leave their work unfinished. It is, says he, the business of a good Antiquary, as of a good man, to have mortality always before him." However reasonable the observation may be, (continues Cole) there may be many palliatives in favour of the dilatory Antiquary. It is to be presumed he would make his work as perfect as he could; collect all the materials necessary for that purpose: in the mean time years slide from under us, and we leave our collections to others to piece together, who have not had the drudgery to collect, but have all ready to their hands. This is exactly my own case in respect to this Work, and the History of the County. I hope my industry will fall into the hands of a judicious brother Antiquary, who will make a proper use of them, when I am no more.

W. C. May 28, 1778."

1. Dr. Philemon Holland, 11 April 1636.

"In consideration of the learning and worthy parts of DR. PHILEMON HOLLAND, and in consideration of his want of means to relieve him, now in his old age, I have given leave that he shall receive such charitable benevolence as the Master and Fellows in every College shall be pleased to bestow upon him.

H. S. Procanc.

"Dr. Holland is 84 years old: Pupil to Dr. Whitgift, Fellow of a College, Master of the King's Free School in Coventry for 20 years; and commenced Doctor 40 years since. He translated diverse books, and for 60 years kept good hospitality, Sit tota Coventria testis, and by age being disabled to travel abroad and practice, and confined to his chamber, he is impoverished, and indebted, having had a great charge of children."

MS. Hen. Smyth, S. T. P. Procan. et Coll. Mag. Præf. manu propriâ.

"He (P. H.) wrote the Lepanto battle finely. Mem. to get it of his son." H. S. ibid.

"Of him, (P. H.) see Fuller's Worthies in Warwickshire, p. 127, 128.

"The author of Heroologia (his son, I presume) was of Warwickshire. See that hook, p. 220.

"Hen. Smyth was Vice-Chancellor, ann. 1625, 1626, and 1635." Baker's MSS. Harl. MSS. 7038, f. 216.

2. Edward Benlowes, of St. John's.

"In a tract, called Apocalypsis, or the Revelation of certain notorious Advancers of Heresie, printed at the end of Alex. Ross's view of all Religions, 2d. edit. 1658, 8vo. Lond. is a vindication, by the translator from the Latin, to the excellently learned Edward Benlowes of Brenthall, Esq.' in which are these expressions -' But your excessive benefactorship to the Library of St. John's College in Cambridge (whereof I have sometimes had the honor to be an unworthy member) I cannot pass over, as a thing which

which will stand upon the file of memory, as long as learning shall find professors, or children; and that which encreases the glory of your munificence is, that that Library may boast that it is furnished with the works of its own sons." The translator is one Jo. Davies.

V. Ant. Wood's Life, p. 94. edit. 1772. I will just take notice of the ignorance of the Editors of this edition of Anthony's life, who were Joe Pote, a bookseller at Eton, near Windsor, &c. who at p. 356 says, that in 1687, when King James was at Oxford, one day after dinner, "he went, with many of his guard, to Mr. Walker's Chapel, where he heard verses Now Obadiah Walker, the learned Master of the University College, being a Roman Catholick, had a chapel of his own, in his lodgings, where no doubt his Majesty went to hear vespers. This is not corrected in the Errata: and the book being printed at Oxford, and some of that Learned Body being concerned in the edition, which is a very trumpery performance, it is hardly conceivable that they could be such blunderers.

Benefactor to St. John's College Library. Vol. 57, p. 352. "See an account of him in Wood's Fasti Oxon. vol. ii. p. 204. p. m. Bp. Kennet's Regr, and Chron. p. 300.-Ath. Oxon. vol. i. 491.-vol. ii. p. 901.

Amongst Dr. Sam. Ward's MS. papers there is an answer, Ad quæsita a D. Bendlosse, which shews him (Bendlosse) to have been then a Papist: and his chief objection is taken from our want of a Judge of Controversies and divisions among ourselves. B.

"Gul. Bendlowes, Essex, admissus discipulus (Coll. Jo.) pro fundatrice, Nov. 10, 1558. B. Grandfather to him.-Edw. Bendlowes, Coll. Jo. Conv. 1. admissus in matriculam Acad. Cantabr. Apr. 8, 1620. Reg. Acad. Cantab. B. V. Fuller's History of Cambridge, p. 89.

"Mr. Sam. Butler, in his character of A small Poet, printed in the second volume of Mr. Butler's Genuine Remains, p. 119, which were published in two vols. 8vo. 1759, by Mr. Thyer, keeper of the public Library at Manchester, thus severely handles Mr. Benlowes:-There was one that lined a hat-ease with a paper of Benlowes' poetry; Prynne bought it by chance, and put

a new demi-castor into it. The first time he wore it, he felt only a singing in his head, which within two days turned to a vertigo. He was let blood in the ear by one of the state physicians, and recovered but before he went abroad he writ a poem of Rocks and Seas in a stile so proper and natural, that it was hard to determine which was ruggeder. There is no feat of activity, nor gambol of wit, that ever was performed by man, from him that vaults on Pegasus, to him that tumbles through the hoop of an anagram, but Benlows has got the mastery of it, whether it be high-rope wit, or low-rope wit. He has all sorts of echoes, rebuses, chronograms, &c. besides carwitches, cleriches, and quibbles. As for altars and pyramids in poetry, he has outdone all men that way, for he has made a gridiron and a frying-pan in verse, that, besides the likeness in shape, the very tone and sound of the word did perfectly represent the noise that is made by these utensils, such as the old poet called Sartago loquendi. When he was a captain, he made all the furniture of his horse, from the bit to the crupper, in the beaten poetry, every verse being fitted to the proportion of the thing, with a moral allusion of the sense to the thing: as the bridle of moderation, the saddle of content, and the crupper of constancy: so that the same thing was to the epigram and emblem, even as a mule is both horse and ass.

"There was a tobacco man, that wrapped Spanish tobacco in a paper of verses, which Benlowes had written against the Pope, which, by a natural antipathy that his wit has to any thing that is catholic, spoiled the tobacco; for it presently turned mundungus. This author will take an English word, and, like the Frenchman, that swallowed water and spit it out wine, with little heaving and straining, would turn it immediately into Latin: as plunderat ille domos-mille Hocopokianay, and a thousand such."

"But the cream of the jest is, that Mr. Thyer, the annotator and publisher of these Remains, having never heard of such a person as Mr. Benlowes, unluckily gives us the following note upon this passage:

"As I never heard of any poet of this name, I take it for granted, that this is a cant word for some one that he did not chuse to name; and I think it not improbable that the person meant

epigram on R. Winterton's Metamorphosis of Hippocrates his Aphorismes, 1633.

"The said Dr. Winterton in 1632 dedicated his translation of Drexelius upon Eternity to him, to the Right Worshipful and truly religious Esq. Mr. E. Benlowes of Brent Hall in Essex. He was bred and brought up in the Roman Catholic religion, and sent beyond seas to be confirmed in it; but was yet brought home again by divine providence, and restored to his mother the Church of England, and was singled out of his kindred to be a most zealous Protestant. He was born to good fortunes, and yet not given to pleasures: wedded to his books and devotions; spending what some call idle time in the best company, for the edifying himself or others: taking more care to lay out his money for the good of others, than others in laying up money for themselves. In short, a Gentleman, whose conversation is in heaven, his discourse on things above, and his thoughts are eternity. He was as remark able for those christian virtues, piety and temperance, charity and bounty: for many poor scholars, godly and devout ministers in the University, and abroad, of several Colleges, felt the effects of his bounty; besides those, many excellent books, together with other rare monuments, purchased at a great price, which, without any solicitation, out of meer affection you bore to St. John's College in Cambridge, where you were sometimes a student, you have bestowed on their Library.

"In 1633 Phineas Fletcher dedicated his Purple Island to him; before which book are many verses by E. B. to the author, between which two there was a most firm friendship.

"Vide Anecdotes of British Topography, p. 431, where said to be of Oxon. Vide Mr. Granger on English engraved Heads, vol. ii. p. 64."

3. John Baret.

"An Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, containing four sundry Tongues; namely, English, Latin, Greek, and French. Lond. 1580. fo. Lat. ded. to Wm. Cecil Lord Burghleigh, with