In an old common-place book, of date _circ._ 1612, in Lincoln College
library, is found this version of the lines:--
Immodest death! that never wouldst confer,
Dispute, nor parlé, with our Treasurer,
Had he bene thou, or of thy fatall tribe,
He would have saved thy life and ta'ne a bribe.
He that so often, both with golde and witt,
Had injurde law, and almost conquerde it;
He that could strengthen causes, and was able
To starve a sutor at the Counsell-table;
At length, not having evidence to show,
Was faine, good lord, to take his death: 'twas so.
=Robert Sanderson= (1587-166[2/3]).
[927]Dr. Robert Sanderson[BD], lord bishop of Lincoln, would confesse
to his intimate friends, that 'he studied and mastered only Tully's
Offices[LXXX.], Tho. Aquinas's Secunda Secundae and Aristotle's
Rhetorique, and that all other bookes he read but cursorily': but
he had forgott, by his favour, to speake of Aristot. Organon, etc.
(Logique bookes), els he could never have compiled his owne excellent
Logique,--from Seth Ward, bishop of Sarum, and <John> Pierson, bishop
of Chester, his great friends. And bishop Ward sayd that he[928] would
doe the like were he to begin the world again.
[LXXX.] <Samuel> Harsenet, archbishop of Yorke, alwayes carried it in
his bosome.
He was a lover of musique, and was wont to play on his base violl,
and also to sing to it. He was a lover of heraldry, and gave it in
chardge in his articles of enquiry; but the clergie-men made him such
a lamentable imperfect returne that it signified nothing. The very
Parliamentarians reverenced him for his learning and his vertue, so
that he alwayes kept his living, quod N.B. (the information in the
Oxon. Antiq.[BE] was false).
He had no great memorie, I am certaine not a sure one; when I was a
fresh-man and heard him read his first lecture, he was out in the
Lord's Prayer. He alwayes read his sermons and lectures. Had his
memorie been greater his judgement had been lesse: they are like two
well-bucketts.
In his Logique, he recommends disputation to young men, as the best
exercise for young witts. Under his picture, before his booke, is
'Aetat. 76, 1662.'
_Notes._