I am at work on the Life of Sir Thomas Wyat, but it does not please me; nor will it be entertaining, though you have contributed so many materials towards it.  You must take one trouble more it is to inquire and search for a book that I want to see.  It is the Pilgrim; was written by William Thomas, who was executed in Queen Mary’s time; but the book was printed under, and dedicated to, Edward VI.  I have only an imperfect memorandum of it, and cannot possibly recall to mind from whence I made it.  All I think I remember is, that the book was in the King’s library.  I have sent to the Museum to inquire after it; but I cannot find it mentioned in Ames’s History of English Printers.  Be so good as to ask all your antiquarian friends if they know such a work.

Amidst all your kindness, you have added one very disagreeable paragraph:—­I mean, you doubt about coming here in September.  Fear of a sore throat would be a reason for your never coming.  It is one of the distempers in the world the least to be foreseen, and September, a dry month, one of the least likely months to bring it.  I do not like your recurring to so very ill-founded an excuse, and positively will not accept it, unless you wish I should not be so much as I an, dear Sir, Your most faithful humble servant, H. W.

Letter 46 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.  Strawberry Hill, Aug. 25, 1772. (page 71)

Dear sir, I thank you for your notices, dear Sir, and will deliver you from the trouble of any further pursuit of the Peleryne of Thomas.  I have discovered him among the Cottonian MSS. in the Museum, and am to see him.

If Dr. Browne is returned to Cambridge, may I beg you to give him a thousand thanks for the present he left at my house, a goarstone and a seal, that belonged to Mr. Gray.  I shall lay them up in my cabinet at Strawberry among my most valuables.  Dr. Browne, however, was not quite kind to me; for he left no direction where to find him in town, so that I could not wait upon him, nor invite him to Strawberry Hill, as I much wished to do, Do not these words, “invite him to Strawberry,” make Your ears tingle?  September is at hand, and You must have no sore throat.  The new chapel in the garden is almost finished, and you must come to the dedication.

I have seen Lincoln and York, and to say the truth, prefer the former in some respects.  In truth, I was scandalized in the latter.  William of Hatfield’s tomb and figure is thrown aside into a hole:  and yet the chapter possess an estate that his mother gave them.  I have charged Mr. Mason(79) with my anathema, unless they do justice.  I saw Roche Abbey, too; which is hid in such a venerable chasm, that you might lie concealed there even from a ’squire parson of the parish.  Lord Scarborough, to whom it belongs, and who lives at next door, neglects it as much as if he was afraid of ghosts.  I believe Montesino’s cave lay in just such a solemn thicket, which is now so overgrown, that, when one finds the spot, one can scarce find the ruins.