'[Richardson] wrote, immediately after he had recd my Letter of Jan. 1 last to a Friend at Leedes, in order to get the best information he could of Mr Thoresby’s Museum, & how it was to be disposed of, but his two Sons, who are both Clergymen, & settled in the South, were then come to no resolution about them. He wrote a second and third time, but could get no satisfactory account to send me. He had orders from a Gentleman in Cheshire to have bought a great many of his printed Bookes; but a few dayes agoe he had a Letter from Leedes, which brings him an account that Mr Thoresby’s eldest son (who, he perceives, has the disposall of the Museum & Bookes) was then at Leedes, and had packt up all, in order to remove them into the South, but whether to London or to his living, he can not informe me. The most valuable part of his Collection, (viz.) His Medals & Bookes, belong’d to Tho., Ld Fairfax, wch Mr Thoresby’s father purchased, who was then a curiouse person, & made considerable additions to it before it came into the hands of his son. The Dr tells me I shall find every thing that is valuable in his Museum printed either in the Philo. Tran. or else in his Ducatus Leodiensis. It is very probable, he says, I may still get a sight of his Collection.' (Hearne 1885, vol. 9, pp. 104-5; Burnett 2020b, p. 875)
