quary; with John Murray, the bibliophile; and with the ‘biblioclast,’ John Bagford [q. v.] Michael Maittaire [q. v.] dedicated his ‘Juvenal’ to him in 1716. Rawlinson frequently lent manuscripts to and otherwise benefited Thomas Hearne, who speaks of him warmly as a fellow Jacobite, a staunch friend, a strenuous upholder of the church, ‘contra fanaticorum rabiem,’ and as the most judicious and industrious of collectors. Hearne's ‘Aluredi Beverlacensis Annales’ (1716) was printed from a manuscript in Rawlinson's collection. Rawlinson married, on 22 Sept. 1724, his servant, Amy Frewin, formerly a maid at a coffee-house in Aldersgate Street, and died without issue at London House on 6 Aug. 1725 (Hist. Regist. Chron. Diary, p. 36). He was buried in St. Botolph's, Aldersgate Street.
Rawlinson's collection of printed books, ‘the largest at that time known to be offered to the public’ (Nichols), was sold in sixteen parts, the first sale beginning on 7 March 1722, the sixteenth and last on 4 March 1734, and each occupying between fifteen and thirty days. Of these sales the first six were arranged for by Thomas himself (though the sixth actually took place after his death), the remainder by his brother Richard. At the last sale (besides eight hundred printed books) were sold Rawlinson's manuscripts, 1,020 in number. The auctioneer was Thomas Ballard; the catalogues, which were compiled in heterogeneous fashion, are now very rare. The Bodleian Library, however, possesses them all, the majority being marked in manuscript with the prices realised, and a few with the purchasers' names as well. A list of these catalogues is given in the ‘Bibliotheca Heberiana.’ In choice Elzevirs and Aldine editions of the classics, Rawlinson's ‘C. & P.’ (collated and perfect) may still often be traced. His collection of Caxtons (which are not noted by Blades) was also superb. Rawlinson's pictures, including a crayon portrait of the collector by his brother Richard, were sold by Ballard at the Two Golden Balls, Hart Street, Covent Garden, on 4 and 5 April 1734. Of the Rawlinson catalogues the enthusiastic Dibdin writes that if ‘all these bibliothecal corps had only been consolidated into one compact, wedge-like phalanx’ (by which he means one thick octavo volume), we should be better able to do homage to the ‘towering spirit’ of this ‘leviathan of book-collectors.’ Addison, who had an antipathy for bibliomaniacs, is supposed to have had Rawlinson in view when (in Tatler, No. 158) he drew his celebrated portrait of ‘Tom Folio,’ a ‘learned idiot—an universal scholar so far as the title-pages of all authors;’ who thinks he gives you an account of an author when he tells you the name of his editor and the year in which his book was printed.
[Rawlinson MS. (Bodl. Libr. J. 4to, 4 pp. 147 b–55); Foster's Alumni Oxoniens. 1500–1714; Hist. Register, 1724 and 1725; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. vol. v. passim, and Lit. Illustr. vol. iii.; Curll's Miscellanea, 1727, i. 67; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Wheatley and Cunningham's London, i. 24, 221; Hearne's Collectanea, ed. Doble (Oxford Hist. Soc.), vols. ii. and iii. passim; Aubrey's Lives, 1813, ii. 93; Gough's British Topogr.; Maittaire's Annales Typographicæ, pp. 128, 374; Roberts's Book-hunter in London, pp. 39, 40; Dibdin's Bibl. 1842, pp. 343–6, containing a full list of the Rawlinson catalogues as derived from Heber; Didot's Nouvelle Biographie Générale.]
RAWLINSON, Sir WILLIAM (1640–1703), serjeant-at-law, second son of William Rawlinson, of Graithwaite and Rusland Hall, Lancashire, was born at Graythwaite on 16 June 1640. The father had been captain in a troop of volunteers in the parliamentary cause during the civil wars, doing good service at Marston Moor and Ribble Bridge. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Anthony Sawrey of Plumpton (Foster, Lancashire Pedigrees). William was admitted from Hawkshead School a pensioner of Christ's College, Cambridge, on 13 April 1655, aged 15; entered Gray's Inn on 20 Feb. 1656–7, and in 1667 was called to the bar. He obtained a fair practice as a chancery lawyer (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. pt. ii. passim). In Easter term 1686 he obtained the dignity of the coif, and at the revolution of 1688 was appointed one of the three commissioners for the great seal. He helped to draft the amendments to the act which authorised the commissioners to execute the office of lord chancellor (March 1688–9) (ib. 12th Rep. vi. 67, 13th Rep. vii. 100), and was knighted by William at Hampton Court on 5 March 1688–9 (Luttrell, Relation, i. 506). In November 1690 he appeared before the House of Lords to give evidence against the bill for reformation of the abuses of the court of chancery, ‘a chair being allowed’ him on account of his infirmities (Hist. MSS. Comm. 13th Rep. v. 130; Luttrell, Relation, ii. 128).
Rawlinson acted as commissioner of the seal for three years, but in March 1693 Sir John Somers became sole keeper, and Somers successfully opposed the king's proposal to appoint Rawlinson chief baron of the exchequer in succession to Sir Robert Atkyns, on the ground that he was ignorant of common law. Rawlinson accordingly returned to the bar, where, as late as October 1697, he
