A Y L O F F E. 417 cation at Weftminflcr-fchool ; admitted of Lincoln's Inn 1724, and in the fame year was entered a gentleman-com- moner at St. John's College, Oxford, which college he quit- ted about 1728; elected F. A. S. February 10, 1731, one of the firft council under their charter 1751, vice prefulent 17 . . ; and F. R. S. June 3, 1731. He prevailed on Mr. Kirby, painter in Ipfwich, to make drawings of a great num- ber of monuments and buildings in Suffolk, of which twelve were engraved, with a defcription, 1748 ; and others remain unpubliflied. He had at that time an intention to write a hiftory of the county ; and had drawn up propofals for that purpofe; but, being difappointed of the materials which he had reafon to expect for fo laborious a work, they were never publifhed. On the building of Weftminfter- Bridge, he was appointed fecretary to the commiHioners 1736-7 ; and ori the eftablifhment of the Paper-office on the refpec/table foot- ing it at prefent is, by the removal of the ftate- papers front the old gate at Whitehall to new apartments at the Trea- fury, he was nominated the firfl in the commiflion for the care and prefervation of them. In 1757, he circulated
- ' Propofals for printing by fubfcription, Encyclopedia ; or,
c a rational Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Trade. By " feveral eminent hands. Methodized, digefted, and now < publifhing at Paris, by M. Diderot, fellow of the Royal
- ' Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres in RufTia ; and, as
" to the mathematical part, by M. D'Alembert, member o ' the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris and Berlin, and
- fellow of the Royal Society. Tranflated from the French,
- ' with additions and improvements:" Irt which was to b*
included a great variety of new articles, tending to explain and illuftrate the antiquities, hiftory ecclefiaftical, civil, and military ; laws, cuftoms, manufactures, commerce, curiofi- ties, &c. of Great Britain and Ireland : by Sir Jofeph Ayloffej bart. fellow of the Royal Society, and of the Society of Anti- quaries of London, and author of ic The Univerfal Librarian." Of this work a Profpe&us was publifhed in one large (beet, dated December 14, 1751 ; and the firft number of the woik itfelf June 1 1, 1752. This number being badly received by the public, the further profecution of the bufinefs feemed to have been dropped. See fome account of it in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1752, p. 46. It was propofed to have been finifhed by Chriftmas 1756, in ten quarto volumes, price nine guineas ; the laft two to contain upwards of 600 plates. In 1772 he publimed, in 410, " Calendars of the Ancient Charters, &c. and of the Welch and Scottifh Rolls VOL. I. Ee " no-,T
