that there are no less than 2,411 entries under Smith without further particulars. It has been calculated that, owing to the time taken up in referring back to each volume, it would occupy eighty hours of hard work to look through all the Smiths in search of one particular individual of that name (see Wheatley's What is an Index? p. 46). Until Ayscough brought out his ‘Index’ in 1790 there was no concordance to Shakespeare. This was a speculation on the part of the publisher, John Stockdale, who paid two hundred guineas for the index, which was specially designed to accompany his edition of the ‘Dramatic Works,’ in 2 vols. roy. 8vo. In this excellent compilation the words are arranged alphabetically with the lines in which they occur, then the name of the play, and in five separate columns the act, scene, page, column, and line. The last three particulars of course refer only to the edition of 1790, but the index may be made to serve any other text. Francis Twiss compiled a ‘Verbal Index’ in 1805, not so useful as that of Ayscough, and both were superseded by Mrs. Cowden Clarke's valuable ‘Concordance’ (1845). All three are devoted to the plays alone, and require to be supplemented by Mrs. Furness's ‘Concordance to Shakespeare's Poems’ (1874). There is still no complete concordance to the entire works.
Ayscough was chosen to deliver the Fairchild lectures, established in 1729 by Thomas Fairchild, gardener, of Shoreditch, who bequeathed a sum of money for a sermon on each Whit-Tuesday on the ‘Wonderful Works of God in the Creation.’ The first sermon was delivered by Ayscough in 1790 before the Royal Society at Shoreditch Church, and he completed the series of fifteen sermons in 1804. They were to have been printed after his death, but never appeared.
Dr. Birch had left for press among his papers at the Museum a collection of historical letters written during the reigns of James and Charles, which Ayscough proposed to publish if he could find two hundred subscribers at a couple of guineas apiece. But it was left to Mr. R. F. Williams to carry the scheme into effect in 1849, when the documents were printed under the title of ‘The Court and Times of James I and Charles I,’ 4 vols. 8vo. An important work which still remains in manuscript is Ayscough's catalogue of the ancient rolls and charters in the British Museum, forming three large folio volumes, with two indexes, the first to names of places and some other matters, and the second to names of persons. A table of contents records the number of charters, rolls, and seals at 16,000. The preparation of the catalogue occupied from 8 May 1787 to 18 Aug. 1792, with a few additions subsequently made. It is still used for reference. Ayscough's last work at the Museum consisted in arranging the books in classes and cataloguing the King's Tracts.
About a year before his death he was presented to the small vicarage of Cudham in Kent by Lord Chancellor Eldon. Although from his official position he was permitted non-residence, he conscientiously fulfilled his religious duties, making the journey of seventeen miles each Saturday, and returning on the Monday. He never passed the workhouse without calling to read prayers or to preach. He took great pains to excel as a preacher. In the national library may be seen a copy of Letsome's ‘Preacher's Assistant’ (1753, 2 parts, 8vo) marked with those sermons which might be consulted at the Museum, and with twenty-one leaves of manuscript additions not taken notice of by Letsome. Ayscough's salary had been recently increased, which, added to his clerical preferment, placed him in a position of comparative comfort; but his bountiful disposition led him to spend all his modest income, and he scarcely left sufficient to meet the claims upon his executors. In 1802 he edited, with John Caley, a volume of the patent rolls in the Tower, but does not seem to have been concerned in the ‘Taxatio Ecclesiastica Nicholai IV’ (1802) also published by the Record Commission, and sometimes ascribed to him. He died of dropsy in the chest, at his apartments in the Museum, on 30 Oct. 1804, and was buried in the cemetery of St. George's, Bloomsbury, behind the Foundling Hospital.
Ayscough has been termed the ‘Prince of Index-makers,’ and if the title conveys any idea of the extent and usefulness of his labours he well deserves it. Besides the many works already spoken of, he compiled the indices to Bridges' ‘Northampton’ (which took him nine months), to Manning's ‘Surrey,’ and, according to Nichols, the indices to the ‘New Review,’ edited by Dr. Maty. His life of indexing produced him altogether about 1,300l., not to be compared with the vast sums gained by those fortunate persons who jobbed the indices to the journals of parliament, but sufficiently handsome when one remembers the usual rate of pay for such work. Ayscough was no mere drudge, but did his laborious tasks with careful skill and loving diligence, and the variety of his services is not to be exceeded in the annals of literary hewing and delving. In spite of imperfect education and a youth of toil, he attained by his own exertions a very extensive knowledge of history, an-
