Respecting the library at Guildhall, Stow, after relating how the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector, borrowed the books and never returned them, writes:—­“This library was built by the executors of Richard Whittington and by William Burie; the arms of Whittington are placed on the one side in the stone work, and two letters, to wit W and B, for William Burie, on the other side; it is now lofted through, and made a storehouse for clothes."[7]

Whittington appears to have died childless, and in the interesting picture of his deathbed, copied by Mr. Lysons from an illumination in the ordinances of his college, his executors are seen around his bed.  His will was proved in 1423 by John Coventry, John White, William Grove and John Carpenter.  The College of St. Spirit and St. Mary consisted of a master, four fellows (masters of arts), clerks, conducts, chorists, &c.  It was dissolved by Edward VI.; but the memory of it remains in the name College Hill, Upper Thames Street.  God’s House or Hospital for thirteen poor men was moved to Highgate in 1808.

By his will Whittington directed that the inmates of his college should pray for the souls of himself and his wife Alice, of Sir William Whittington, and his wife Dame Joan, of Hugh Fitzwarren and his wife Dame Malde, as well as for the souls of Richard II. and Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, “special lords and promoters of the said Whittington.”

Whittington’s epitaph is preserved by Stow and is in Latin; yet the author of a Life of Whittington (1811) makes the following misstatement:—­

“Record, however, has handed down to us the original epitaph, as it was cut on the monument of Sir Richard, by order of his executors; and, exclusive of its connection with the subject of these pages, it may be subjoined as a curious specimen of the poetry of an age which was comparatively with the present so entirely involved in the darkness of superstition and ignorance.”

      “Beneath this stone lies Whittington,
        Sir Richard rightly named;
      Who three times Lord Mayor served in London,
        In which he ne’er was blamed.

      He rose from indigence to wealth
        By industry and that;
      For lo! he scorned to gain by stealth
        What he got by a cat.

      Let none who reads this verse despair
        Of providences ways;
      Who trust in him he’ll make his care,
        And prosper all their days.

      Then sing a requiem to departed merit,
      And rest in peace till death demands his spirit.”—­

     Life of Sir R. Whittington, by the author of Memoirs of George
     Barnwell, 1811, p. 106.

* * * * *

     LIST OF VERSIONS, EDITIONS, &c.

     1604-5, Feb. 8.  Play licensed, see ante, p. vii.

     1605, July 16.  Ballad licensed, see ante, p. vii.