travels remains to attest his interest in pictures, inscriptions, and epitaphs. He returned to England in April 1726, in consequence of the death of his brother Thomas, and brought with him many manuscripts, coins, medals, and miscellaneous curiosities. Settling in London, he was admitted F.S.A. on 24 May 1727. In the following year he was consecrated a bishop among the nonjurors by Bishops Gandy, Doughty, and Blackbourne in Gandy's chapel on 25 March (Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. i. 225), and on 2 April signed a declaration, together with his three consecrators, against the ritual ‘usages’ advocated by Collier and others (Rawlinson MS. D. 835, fol. 28); but he always concealed his episcopal and even his clerical character; and, although some sermons remain in his handwriting, there is no evidence as to the place or time of their delivery. He, however, officiated in reading prayers at St. Andrew's, Holborn, on 25 June 1738, when Matthias Earbery, the nonjuror, returned thanks for deliverance from enemies (ib. D. 848, f. 108). He resided at first in Gray's Inn, living, it is said, in a garret there, but some time after his brother's death he removed to London House in Aldersgate. Following his brother's example, he filled it from ground floor to garrets with vast accumulations of printed books and manuscripts, many of which he had saved from destruction as waste paper. He also collected pictures, coins, marbles, music, and miscellaneous antiquities. Of many charters, coins, and portraits he had accurate engravings executed, and many of the plates are still preserved. While publishing little original matter, he edited many works of others. He led a quiet and retired life, practising great frugality, which exposed him to the ridicule of those who had no sympathy with his tastes or with his political views. A humorous Latin epitaph, describing him as a doctor of laws who knew no law, and as one who saw Holland, Italy, and France, but was never himself seen there, was written by Dr. Samuel Drake. It is said to have been fixed over his door in Gray's Inn, but it was also printed and circulated in 1733 in coffee-houses, and sent to Rawlinson by post. Copies of it, dated 1730, are in Rawlinson MS. D. 1191, and it is printed in Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes’ (v. 704). Rawlinson himself attributed it chiefly to Blackbourne, his fellow nonjuror, and he has preserved several declarations by persons who had seen a manuscript copy of it in Blackbourne's handwriting. To the epitaph there remains in manuscript a somewhat dignified reply by Rawlinson, in which he vindicates himself from the charges of ignorance, misanthropy, and miserliness, and says, apparently alluding to his episcopal office, that he had been ‘over-prevailed on’ to accept some posts by which he suffered himself ‘to be more public’ than he cared to be. Although he never appears to have taken part in any Jacobite movements, his strong attachment to the cause of the exiled family was no secret, and he is said to have purchased in 1722 at a high price the head of the executed Jacobite, Christopher Layer [q. v.], when blown down from Temple Bar, and to have directed that it should be buried with him in his right hand. But this provision, if made, was not carried out. A violent and abusive attack upon Rawlinson (in which he is called ‘a mitred nonjuror’ and ‘a pardoned rebel’) appeared in the ‘Evening Advertiser’ of 19 Nov. 1754 (cf. Nichols, Lit. Anecd. ix. 617–19).
Rawlinson died at Islington on 6 April 1755, and was buried in St. Giles's Church, Oxford. His will was printed by his direction immediately afterwards, together with a deed of trust for the foundation of a professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, for which he assigned certain rent-charges in Lancashire, including payments from the rectories of Ulverstone and Pennington. This deed is dated 11 Aug. 1750. The will is dated 2 June 1752, with four codicils, the last dated 14 Feb. 1755. To the Bodleian Library (to which during his life he had been a constant donor) he left his manuscripts, and all his curiosities, seals, and impressions of seals (chiefly from the collection of Charles Christian), his deeds, some of his printed books, and some articles which were in the custody of his brother Constantine, who was then living at Venice. Among the manuscripts are his valuable collections for a continuation of Wood's ‘Athenæ,’ in connection with which he circulated, about 1740, a printed sheet of queries. All Hearne's collections are included, with his diaries; the latter were bought by Rawlinson of the widow of Bishop Hilkiah Bedford for 105l. To St. John's College he bequeathed his heart, which is preserved in a marble urn in the chapel, some of his printed books, coins, and a set of medals of Louis XIV and XV, a cabinet which had belonged to Hearne, and a large residue of his estate. To the College of Surgeons he gave some skeletons and preservations in spirits. He also provided a salary for the keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. But all his endowments were clogged with eccentric restrictions, which have only in recent years been statutably removed. The recipients were never to be natives of Scotland, Ireland, or
