About the same time that Mr. Pegge paid these visits at Eccleshall-castle, he adopted an expedient to change the scene, likewise, by a journey to London (between Easter and Whitsuntide); where, for a few years, he was entertained by his old Friend and Fellow-collegian the Rev. Dr. John Taylor, F. S. A. Chancellor of Lincoln, &c. (the learned Editor of Demosthenes and Lysias), then one of the Residentiaries of St. Paul's.
After Dr. Taylor's death (1766), the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. John Green, another old College-acquaintance, became Mr. Pegge's London-host for a few years, till Archbishop Cornwallis began to reside at Lambeth. This event superseded the visits to Bishop Green, as Mr. Pegge soon afterwards received a very friendly invitation from his Grace; to whom, from that time, he annually paid his respects at Lambeth-palace, for a month in the Spring, till the Archbishop's decease, which took place about Easter 1783.
All these were delectable visits to a man of Mr. Pegge's turn of mind, whose conversation was adapted to every company, and who enjoyed the world with greater relish from not living in it every day. The society with which he intermixed, in such excursions, changed his ideas, and relieved him from the tædium of a life of much reading and retirement; as, in the course of these journeys, he often had opportunities of meeting old Friends, and of making new literary acquaintance.
On some of these occasions he passed for a week into Kent, among such of his old Associates as were then living, till the death of his much-honoured Friend, and former Parishioner, the elder Thomas Knight, Esq. of Godmersham, in 1781[23]. We ought on no account to omit the mention of some extra-visits which Mr. Pegge occasionally made to Bishop Green, at Buckden, to which we are indebted for the Life of that excellent Prelate Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln;—a work upon which we shall only observe here, that it is Dr. Pegge's chef-d'œuvre, and merits from the world much obligation. To these interviews with Bishop Green, we may also attribute those ample Collections, which Dr. Pegge left among his MSS. towards a History of the Bishops of Lincoln, and of that Cathedral in general, &c. &c.
With the decease of Archbishop Cornwallis (1783), Mr. Pegge's excursions to London terminated. His old familiar Friends, and principal acquaintance there, were gathered to their fathers; and he felt that the lot of a long life had fallen upon him, having survived not only the first, but the second class of his numerous distant connexions.
While on one of these visits at Lambeth, the late Gustavus Brander, Esq. F. S. A. who entertained an uncommon partiality for Mr. Pegge, persuaded him, very much against his inclination, to sit for a Drawing, from which an octavo Print of him might be engraved by Basire. The Work went on so slowly, that the Plate was not finished till 1785, when Mr. Pegge's current age was 81. Being a private Print, it was at first only intended for, and distributed among, the particular Friends of Mr. Brander and Mr. Pegge. This Print, however, now carries with it something of a publication; for a considerable number of the impressions were dispersed after Mr. Brander's death, when his Library, &c. were sold by auction; and the Print is often found prefixed to copies of "The Forme of Cury," a work which will hereafter be specified among Mr. Pegge's literary labours[24].
The remainder of Mr. Pegge's life after the year 1783 was, in a great measure, reduced to a state of quietude; but not without an extensive correspondence with the world in the line of Antiquarian researches: for he afterwards contributed largely to the Archæologia, and the Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, &c. &c. as may appear to those who will take the trouble to compare the dates of his Writings, which will hereafter be enumerated, with the time of which we are speaking.
The only periodical variation in life, which attended Mr. Pegge after the Archbishop's death, consisted of Summer visits at Eccleshall-castle to the present Bishop (James) Cornwallis, who (if we may be allowed the word) adopted Mr. Pegge as his guest so long as he was able to undertake such journeys.
We have already seen an instance of his Lordship's kindness in the case of the intended Residentiaryship; and have, moreover, good reasons to believe that, had the late Archdeacon of Derby (Dr. Henry Egerton) died at an earlier stage of Mr. Pegge's life, he would have succeeded to that dignity.