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BOUND COPY IN MARBLED CARD – NEW ENDPAPERS NEAT HAND-WRITTEN TITLE TO FRONT BOARD. THE FIRST LETTER THAT SPRAT WROTE TO THE EARL OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX. 20 PAGES IN VERY GOOD CONDITION. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX LORD CHAMBERLAIN OF HIS MAJESTIES HOUSEHOLD CONCERNING HIS SITTING IN THE LATE ECCLESIASTIAL COMMISSION. In 1669 Sprat became canon of Westminster Abbey and in 1670 rector of Uffington Lincolnshire. He was chaplain to Charles II in 1676 curate and lecturer at St. Margaret’s Westminster in 1679 canon of Windsor in 1681 dean of Westminster in 1683 and bishop of Rochester in 1684. He was a member of James II’s ecclesiastical commission and in 1688 he read the Declaration of Indulgence to empty benches in Westminster Abbey. The suggestion was that he was playing at being Vicar of Bray. Although he opposed the motion of 1689 declaring the throne vacant he assisted at the coronation of William and Mary. As dean of Westminster he directed Christopher Wren’s restoration of the abbey.