Page:Sir Thomas Browne's works, volume 1 (1835).djvu/116

 C SUPPLEMENTARY MEMOIR. In the same year he subscribed towards building a new library in Trinity College, Cambridge, at the instance of the masters and seniors of that College, who, in their letter 8 urged the following argument ; " We doubt not but that God will bless the rest of your substance the better for what you shall conferr towards this ; and we shall pray that he may, &c. &c." In the same MS. I also find the acknowledgement of £ 12 subscribed "towards the building of a new school in the Col- ledge near Winton," — where his education commenced. Ken- net 9 has preserved another instance of his public spirit ; he contributed £130 to the repairs of Christ Church, Oxford. It was probably about 1680 that Sir Thomas completed his Repertorium, or Account of the Tombs and Monuments in the Cathedral Church of Norwich, by continuing it up to the time. The basis of the work was a sketch hastily drawn up, 20 years previously, on the information of " an understand- ing singing man, 91 years old j" 1 not under the impulse of an antiquarian taste, (which he has himself informed us he did not possess, 2 ) but in order to preserve some remembrance of the many monumental antiquities, which blind and barbarous zeal had mutilated or destroyed. The reckless character of these ravages has been exhibited in a description made on the spot, and at the moment, by one who suffered, in his per- son, property, and health, from a lawless rabble, — perpetrat- ing, in the sacred name of liberty, the most outrageous deeds of despotism. Bp. Hall, in his Hard Measure, has given a most touching account of the brutal treatment which he ex- perienced from the republicans of his day, — treatment which acquired a deeper degradation and a fouler stain from the very elevation and purity of his own character : Browne at- tended him for many years, and even to his dying hour; a fact which the editor of the volume containing the account to which I advert, 3 has noticed in these quaint and simple terms. " After his prevailing infirmities had wasted all the strengths 8 " Preserved in the Bodleian Library, MS. Rawlinson. 391." 9 Rennet's Register, p. 345. 1 Corresp. p. 467. 2 Vol. iii, p. 452. 3 The Shaking of the Olive Tree. The Remaining Works of that incomparable prelate, Joseph Hall, D.D. late Lord Bishop of Norwich. With some Specialties of Divine Providence in his Life, noted by his own hand. Together with his Hard Measure, written also by himself, 4to. Lond. 1660. Curll, in publishing the Reper- torium, has most appropriately though inaccurately prefixed the following quotation