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 at the presentation of Browne Willis, esq., and so lost fifteen years of the best part of my life for disquisitions of this sort, and never having a relish to recommence this work when I retired into my native county again in 1767, when I made of an old dilapidated cottage at Milton near Cambridge, a decent gentleman's house, laying out upon the premises at least 600l., the annual rent being only 17l. per annum, hired of the college, and no lease till my time; yet after six years' occupancy Cooke, the snotty-nosed head of it, soon after his election, had the rascality, with Paddon, a dirty wretch, and bursar suitable to him, to alter my lease, and put new terms in it. But from such a scoundrel, and I am warranted to call him no other, and would call him so to his face the first time I see him, with the addition of a liar and mischief-maker through life, no other than dirty treatment can be expected. I write this 9 June 1782' (Addit. MS. 5817, f. 194).

As late as 1778 Cole was perplexed as to the disposal of his manuscripts. 'To give them to King's College,' he wrote, 'would be to throw them into a horsepond,' the members of that society being 'generally so conceited of their Latin and Greek that all other studies are barbarous.' At one time he thought of Eton College and of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, but eventually he resolved to bequeath his collections to the British Museum on condition that they should not be opened until twenty years after his death. Accordingly they did not become accessible to the public until 1803. Vol. xvii. never reached the Museum; it is conjectured to have contained a 'History of Queens' College.' The multifarious contents of Cole's collections are described in great detail in the ' Index to the Additional MSS., with those of the Egerton Collection, acquired in the years 1783-1835,' London, 1849, folio. There are also three thick volumes of Cole's own indexes in the reading-room of the Museum (Addit. MSS. 5799, 5800, 5801). The most important sections of the manuscripts are: 1. 'Parochial Antiquities of Cambridgeshire, illustrated with drawings of Churches, Monuments, Arms, &c.' 2. 'Collections for an Athenæ Cantabrigienses, alphabetically arranged,' Addit. MSS. 5862-85, 5954, 5955. These collections, though they have proved very serviceable to biographers, consist for the most part only of references to printed works, and do not contain connected narratives of the lives of Cambridge authors. Some extracts, relating for the most part to persons with whom Cole was personally acquainted, are printed in Brydges's 'Restituta.' 3. 'History of King's College, Cambridge,' 4 vols., Addit. MSS. 5814-17. 4. 'Collections relating to the University of Cambridge.' 5. 'Extraneous Parochial Antiquities, or an account of various Churches in different Counties in England, with drawings,' Addit. MSS. 5806, 5811, 5836. 6. 'Topographical, Genealogical, and Miscellaneous Collections.' 7. 'Parochial Antiquities for the County of Bucks, with drawings,' Addit. MSS. 5821, 5839, 5840. 8. 'Parochial Antiquities for the County of Huntingdon, with drawings,' Addit. MSS. 5837, 5838, 5847. 9. Transcript of Baker's 'History of St. John's College, Cambridge,' with additions, Addit, MS. 5850. 10. Literary correspondence, chiefly in Addit. MS. 5824.

[Cole's MSS. passim; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 657-701; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit.; Cambridge Antiquarian Communications, i. 49, 65; Gent. Mag. lii. 599, lxxvi. 693; Warburton's Memoirs of Horace Walpole, ii. 359; Horace Walpole's Letters (Cunningham); Cooper's Athenæ Cantab. vol. i. preface; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iv. 406; Dyer's Hist. of Cambridge, i. 13, 14, ii. 198; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. x. 22; Granger's Letters, p. 320; Baker's St. John's (Mayor), ii. 1142; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vi. 428, 3rd ser. i. 487, viii. 379; D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors (1812), i. 236, 271, 272; Charity Reports, xxxi. 55; Ellis's Original Letters, 3rd ser. iv. 388; Camden's Britannia, Cambs. (Gough), ii. 143*; Lipscomb's Buckinghamshire, ii. 39, iii. 214, iv. 24; Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits.]

 COLE, WILLIAM (1753–1806), classical scholar, was born on 8 Dec. 1753 at Mersham in Kent, and received in early life great assistance from a friend of his mother, John Chapman, archdeacon of Sudbury (1704-1784) [q. v.] Chapman sent him first to Ashford school, and afterwards to a private seminary at Bierton, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. In 1766 he was admitted at Eton on the foundation, and in 1773 was made scholar of King's College, Cambridge, and fellow in 1776, proceeding B.A. in 1778, and M.A. in 1781. In 1777 he relurned to Eton as a master, but, having ruptured a blood-vessel while an undergraduate, found himself not strong enough for the post, and resigned it in 1780 on being appointed tutor to George, marquis of Blandford, and Lord Henry Spencer, the sons of the Duke of Marlborough, to whom he became chaplain. To the Marquis of Blandford he dedicated his 'Oratio de Ridiculo,' to which the first of Sir William Browne's medals was awarded; he printed it along with some Latin verse 1780. In 1781 he was inducted to the first portion of the rectory of Waddesdon, Buckinghamshire, on the presentation of the Duke