may say, not one complete good scholar, if we except the wisdom and learning of our Lord, who was God as well as Man.

But I shall tire out your patience in impertinencies and excursions, and therefore subscribe with all respect, and in all sincerity,

Your most faithful humble servant,

SINCE my last to you, I have been detained here by a fit of the stone, cholic, or both, which weakened me much, otherwise I had seen London, and answered your's of the 4th instant much sooner: wherein I wonder to find you concerned at my devoting some part of my life to rural employs, since they are both innocent and pleasant; but more that you should call this an abdication of Letters, whereas the study of Geoponics, has always been of esteem in the world, and the writings of Virgil, Constantine, Theophrastus, Varro, Columella, and Palladius, as classical learning as any we have amongst us,

friend

which if improved by practice (as your poor hopes to do, at least in some measure) it still enhances their value. Yet I would not have you think I have done this wholly out of choice neither, but for want of sufficient encouragement for other undertakings, and I am sure you must yield that it is better to do what I am about, than to do nothing at all. I am heartily glad to hear Mr. Cook has given the finishing stroke to your fine chapel; that your press is so near its perfection; that my countryman Dr. Wallis still contributes so much to the advancement of learning, and of the honour of the University; and that my Friend Dr. Charlett has a hand in all this. Dear Sir, I am,

Your most faithful friend

and humble Serv.

ROB. PLOT.*

* Robert Plot was horn of a respectable family settled so early as in the reign of Edward IV. at Stockbury, in Kent. His father Robert Plot, Esq. purchased the manor of Sutton Barnes, whither he removed, and where our author was born in the year 1641. He was educated at the free school of Wye, and afterwards entered at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he took his degrees, and then removed to University College, where his friend Dr. Arthur Charlett was elected Master. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1682 constituted one of their Secretaries. Although an able scholar and an excellent antiquary, his chief study was in natural history. Of his abilities in this pursuit he has left us two

valuable specimens in his account of Oxfordshire and Staffordshire, and it was his intention to have published a complete Natural History of England and Wales, had his time and health permitted so laborious an undertaking. His friend Dr. Charlett also much wished him to undertake an edition of Pliny's Natural History, and a select volume of MSS. from the Museum, works which he says would have been" agreeable enough to him, but," he continues, "where can they possibly be well done but at Oxford, which I have now left, and cannot returne without a family, which here is no charge to me, but would be a great one there. What may be done in the spring towards a Nat. Hist. of Middx. and Kent, I cannot yet fully resolve you, but believe that if Mr. Harrington can make good what he seems not to doubt, those will be the provinces I shall endeavour to adorne." (Original Letter to Dr. Charlett, MSS. Ballard, xiv. 25. in the Bodleian.)

In the year 1693, he was appointed first keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, at Oxford, by the founder, and soon after was nominated Professor of Chemistry to the University, which place he filled with great honour, till 1690. He was also Secretary to the Earl Marshal, Historiographer Royal, and Mowbray Herald Extraordinary, as well as Register of the Court of Honour.

He died of the stone, April 30, 1696, at his house in Borden, and was buried in the church of that village, leaving

Dr. Bernard,* to London, gives me the opportunity of writing by him. The news of his neice's

two sons, Robert and Ralph Sherwood. For a list of his works see the Biographia, 3368. Hasted's History of Kent, ii. 565, and Wood's Ath. Oxon. ii. 1121.

*For a full account of this learned astronomer, linguist, and critic, Edward Bernard, see the Biographia Britannica, edit. Kippis, ii. 263. The voyage to Holland here alluded to was the third this excellent man had undertaken for the service of literature, and was effected at a time when he was "almost worn out with infirmities," and afflicted with that painful disorder the stone. His object was to be present at the sale of James Golius's Manuscripts, many of which he purchased for his friend Dr. Narcissus Marsh, Archbishop of Dublin, who afterwards gave them to the University of Oxford, with many others of great value. Dr. Bernard just lived to complete his arduous voyage, dying soon after his return to Oxford, Jan. 12, 1696-7, before he was quite fiftynine years of age. He was buried with great respect in the chapel of St. John's College, of which society he had been a fellow, and the following inscription was, at his own desire, placed on a neat monument of white marble, with a heart carved in the centre:

HABEMUS COR BERNARDI:

E.B. S.T.P. Ob. Jan. 12. 1696.

From this circumstance it is very probable that the celebrated Dr. Richard Rawlinson conceived a singular design of actually bequeathing his heart to the same College, which is enclosed in a very handsome urn of black marble, close to Dr. Bernard's monument, with this inscription:

Ubi Thesaurus ibi cor.

Ric. Rawlinson, LL.D. R. et Ant. SS.

Olim hujus Collegii superioris ordinis Commensalis.
Obiit vi. Apr. MDCCLV. Etat. LXV,

marriage, and his journey to London, and intended voyage for Holland, I presume you will hear from him. And since he will go (which I should not encourage) I wish him a happy success in it, and a safe return. The business of this letter (besides that of my respects to you) is to desire the favour of you, (when you go to Sir John Cotton's Library) to consult that piece of Cyprian called Expositio Bissexti (which I published) sub Caligula C. 22, whether you can therein find any one of our present numeral figures, 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. called Ciphræ Barbarica, in contradistinction to the numeri Romani, I. II. III. &c. In the copy that I had, to print by, they did occur (as I remember) twice or thrice; but I suspect they are not so in your copy. If they be (unless inserted by a later hand) either your copy is not so ancient as Archbishop Usher took it to be, or else the use of those figures is older than we are aware. Likewise, whether the notes of Parenthesis () be used: and

Whatever were Dr. Rawlinson's eccentricities, his liberality to the University of Oxford generally, and to St. John's College particularly, demands the strongest gratitude from every partaker of his munificent benefactions. Nor are the friends. of literature under small obligations to him for his indefatigable attention to the collection of old MSS. many of which he preserved from destruction by constantly purchasing all that were offered for sale. He finally bequeathed the whole of his noble collection to the place of his education.