726 he again came home, in consequence of the death of his
brother, which took place in the preceding year. During his travels he
kept a series of note-books, some of which are preserved among his
miscellaneous manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. In 1728 he was
consecrated bishop by the nonjuring bishops Gandy, Doughty and
Blackbourne in Gandy's chapel, but he appears to have been always
desirous of concealing both his clerical and episcopal character, for in
a letter written in 1736 to Mr. T. Rawlins of Pophills, Warwickshire, he
requests him not to address him as 'Rev.'[70] Dr. Rawlinson was elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1714, and a Fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries in 1727, but later he quarrelled with both these Societies,
and stipulated in his will that the recipients of his bequests should
not be Fellows. He was also a Governor of Bridewell, Bethlehem, and St.
Bartholomew's Hospitals.

Dr. Rawlinson lived for some time in Gray's Inn, but shortly after the
death of his brother Thomas he took up his abode in the rooms which had
been occupied by him in London House in Aldersgate Street. He died at
Islington on the 6th of April 1755, and was buried, in accordance with a
direction in a codicil to his will, in St. Giles's Church, Oxford. His
heart, which he bequeathed as a token of affection to St. John's
College, Oxford, is preserved in a marble urn in the chapel of that
College, inscribed with the text 'Ubi thesaurus, ibi cor,' and with his
name and the date of his death. It is said that Rawlinson also left
instructions that a head, which he believed to be that of Counsellor
Christopher Layer, the Jacobite conspirator, who was executed in 1723,
should be buried with him, placed in his right hand; but this
injunction, if really made, does not appear to have been complied
with.[71]

[Illustration: DR. RICHARD RAWLINSON.]

Rawlinson devoted himself to antiquarian pursuits, and, like his brother
Thomas, was an enthusiastic collector of manuscripts and books. The
Rev. W.D. Macray, in his _Annals of the Bodleian Library_, says that his
collections were 'formed abroad and at home, the choice of
book-auctions, the pickings of chandlers' and grocers' waste-paper,
everything, especially, in the shape of a MS., from early copies of
Classics and Fathers to the well-nigh most recent log-books of sailors'
voyages. Not a sale of MSS. occurred, apparently, in London, during his
time, at which he was not an omnigenou