The Bishop’s chief house at Buckden, in the County of Huntingdon, the usual residence of his predecessors,—­for it stands about the midst of his Diocese,—­having been at his consecration a great part of it demolished, and what was left standing under a visible decay, was by him undertaken to be erected and repaired:  and it was performed with great speed, care, and charge.  And to this may be added, that the King having by an Injunction commended to the care of the Bishops, Deans, and Prebends of all Cathedral Churches, “the repair of them, their houses, and augmentation of small Vicarages;” he, when he was repairing Buckden, did also augment the last, as fast as fines were paid for renewing leases so fast, that a friend, taking notice of his bounty, was so bold as to advise him to remember, “he was under his first-fruits, and that he was old, and had a wife and children yet but meanly provided for, especially if his dignity were considered.”  To whom he made a mild and thankful answer, saying, “It would not become a Christian Bishop to suffer those houses built by his predecessors to be ruined for want of repair; and less justifiable to suffer any of those, that were called to so high a calling as to sacrifice at God’s altar, to eat the bread of sorrow constantly, when he had a power by a small augmentation, to turn it into the bread of cheerfulness:  and wished, that as this was, so it were also in his power to make all mankind happy, for he desired nothing more.  And for his wife and children, he hoped to leave them a competence, and in the hands of a God that would provide for all that kept innocence, and trusted his providence and protection, which he had always found enough to make and keep him happy.”

[Sidenote:  His favourite books]

There was in his Diocese a Minister of almost his age, that had been of Lincoln College when he left it, who visited him often, and always welcome, because he was a man of innocence and openheartedness.  This Minister asked the Bishop what books he studied most, when he laid the foundation of his great and clear learning.  To which his answer was, “that he declined reading many; but what he did read were well chosen, and read so often, that he became Very familiar with them;” and said, “they were chiefly three, Aristotle’s Rhetoric, Aquinas’s Secunda Secundit, and Tully, but chiefly his offices, which he had not read over less than twenty times, and could at this age say without book.”  And told him also, “the learned Civilian Doctor Zouch—­who died lately—­had writ Elementa Jurisprudentiae, which was a book that he could also say without book; and that no wise man could read it too often, or love or commend too much;” and told him, “these had been his toil:  but for himself he always had a natural love to genealogies and Heraldry; and that when his thoughts were harassed with any perplexed studies, he left off, and turned to them as a recreation; and that his very recreation had made him so perfect in them, that he could, in a very short time, give an account of the descent, arms, and antiquity of any family of the Nobility or gentry of this nation.”