Note 201 — SCENE V.

This was Dr Matthew Sutcliff, Dean of Exeter, in the reign of King James I.; a person who had been one of the opponents of Parsons the Jesuit, in defence of the Reformed Religion. In the year 1616 he procured an Act of Parliament for incorporating himself and other divines to be provost and fellows of a college then founded at Chelsea, for promoting the study of polemic divinity, and vindicating the doctrines of the Reformation against all Popish writers. To carry this design into execution, he settled on the college four farms in Devonshire, of the value of £300 per annum, and the benefit of an extent on a statute, acknowledged by Sir Lewis Stukely, for £4000. By the Act of Parliament, the college was empowered to bring a stream of water from the river Lee for the use of the city of London a scheme similar to that then lately executed by Sir Hugh Middleton. This foundation, although patronised both by King James and his sons, Prince Henry and Charles I., yet fell to decay. One range of building only, scarce an eighth of the intended edifice, was erected by Dr Sutcliff, at the expense of £3000. After lingering some time, suits were commenced about the title to the very ground on which the college stood, and by a decree of the Court of Chancery, in the time of Lord Coventry, three of the four farms were returned to Dr Sutcliff's heir. See "The Glory of Chelsey Colledge Revived," by John Darly, 4o, 1662. Sutcliff's wit seems almost to have been proverbial. Beaumont, in his letter to Ben Jonson, says—