was doubtless this employment which gave him the capacity for such rude labour as index-making. Soon afterwards he entered the shop of Mr. Rivington, bookseller, of St. Paul's Churchyard, and subsequently obtained an engagement at a very modest salary as assistant in the cataloguing department under the principal librarian of the British Museum. This was the turning-point of his laborious and useful career. His value was soon recognised by a small increase in his weekly stipend, and he was able to occupy some of his leisure in arranging private libraries. These additions to his income, added to some assistance from Mr. Eamer, enabled him to send for his father, whom he maintained in comfort till his death, in November 1783. Ayscough's excellent catalogue of the undescribed manuscripts in the British Museum was commenced in April 1780 and published in 1782 by leave of the trustees, but as a private venture of the compiler. The plan of the book was original, and the publication reflects credit upon the enterprise of Ayscough, who claims (Preface, p. x) that no work of like extent was ever completed in so short a time. He acknowledges the help received from previous catalogues and occasionally from frequenters of the reading room, but to all intents and purposes the two quarto volumes were the work of Ayscough's unaided efforts. He states that the catalogue was drawn up on 20,000 separate slips of paper. Each manuscript was specially examined. The classification is ample, and two indexes, the first of the numbers of the manuscripts and pages of the catalogue where they are described, and the second of all names mentioned in the two volumes, render the book of easy reference. In 1783 he issued anonymously a small pamphlet in reply to the ‘Letters of an American Farmer,’ printed the year before by Mr. Hector St. John [Crevecœur], a French settler. Ayscough contended that the writer was neither a farmer nor a native of America, and that his sole purpose was to encourage foreigners to emigrate to that country, called by a reviewer in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1783, liii. 1036) ‘an insidious and fatal tendency, which this writer, as an Englishman, is highly laudable for endeavouring to detect and counteract.’
After wearily waiting for fifteen years, during which time he had vainly applied for five different vacancies, about 1785 Ayscough was appointed an assistant librarian at the museum. He had long desired to take holy orders, and in spite of some difficulties, the exact nature of which cannot be traced, was at length enabled to accomplish his desire. The precise period of the event is uncertain. Nichols places it soon after 1785, and a notice of the death of the father (Gentleman's Magazine, liii. 982) supports this view; but he styles himself ‘clerk’ on the title of his ‘Catalogue’ (1782), and a letter of the father, dated 13 Jan. 1781 (Nichols's Illustrations, iii. 571), styles the son ‘Rev.’ He was ordained to the curacy of Normanton-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire, and afterwards appointed assistant curate of the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. Here his regular attendance to his duties and excellent character gained him the friendship of Dr. Buckner, afterwards bishop of Chichester, Mr. Southgate, Dr. Willis, and other eminent persons. A general index to the ‘Annual Register’ (1758–80), which came out in 1783, is ascribed to Ayscough without sufficient evidence. In 1786 the conductors of the ‘Monthly Review’ brought out an index to the first seventy volumes of that periodical, compiled by Ayscough, the first volume consisting of the articles, &c., classified under subjects with a full index, and the second forming an alphabetical index to passages in the body of the ‘Review.’ A continuation extending to the eighty-first volume, and issued in 1796, was from the same hand. His publications so far had been of a private nature; his next appearance was in connection with his official position. The catalogue of books in the British Museum, printed in 1787, 2 vols. folio, was compiled by Dr. P. H. Maty, S. Harper, and Ayscough; one-third of the work is due to the latter. On 12 March 1789 he was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
All students of the history of the eighteenth century are grateful to Ayscough for his share in indexing the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (1731–86), consisting of the two volumes printed in 1789, the first of which includes an index of the essays, dissertations, and historical passages in one alphabet, and the second being divided into four parts, is devoted respectively to poetry, names of persons, plates, and books noticed. Useful as it is, the index is not by any means perfect. The lists of persons in each volume of the periodical had unfortunately never been furnished with christian names, and where more than one reference occurred no sort of distinction was introduced. This method was continued by Ayscough in his general index, so that in the case of common names, such as Smith or Williams, there are hundreds of references, making the task of hunting up any particular fact almost hopeless. In the continuation on the same plan, published in 1821, the evil is made worse by the increase of the materials, so
