Appearing in Paris one day at a dinner in his hunting suit of green and gold, and booted and spurred, a French abbé asked who he was, and, on being told his name, and looking at his attire, inquired if he was Robinson Crusoe. His house at Whitehall he sold to Lord Lincoln, and he afterwards lived at Prospect Place, Chelsea. He bought the gardens once belonging to Lord Ranelagh, and, with other shareholders, erected the Rotunda in 1741–42. This place of amusement lasted for quite forty years; the site of it is in the gardens of Chelsea Hospital. At the Coronation of George III. Sir Thomas, probably from his great height and majestic presence, was chosen to represent the mock Duke of Normandy and Acquitaine, the kings of England still pretending to own those provinces. In 1769 he sold the estate of Rokeby, Yorks, to John Saurey Morritt, the father of Sir Walter Scott’s friend. The Rokeby estate had been in the possession of the Robinsons 160 years. On March 3, 1777, Sir Thomas Robinson died at his house in Prospect Place, Chelsea, at the age of seventy-six. SANDLEFORD PRIORY, BERKS. Sandleford Priory was founded for Austin Canons by Geoffrey, 4th Count of Perche, and his wife, Matilda of Saxony, grand-daughter of Henry II. of England, and niece of King Richard Cœur de Lion, and King John, before the year 1205. The town and manor of Newbury, in Berkshire, were bestowed on the first Count of Perche, who accompanied the Conqueror to England. The Priory was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist. A dispute arising between the Prior and Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury and Dean of Windsor about 1480, the religious forsook the house, and King Edward IV. allowed the Priory to be annexed to the Chapel of St. George’s, Windsor. In the Ayscough Register, folio 50, will be found an account of irregular and scandalous behaviour of the Prior of that period, which probably was the cause of the disruption. The Priory now formed a parcel of the properties of the Dean and Canons of Windsor, and it is stated by the commissioners of Henry VIII. (_vide_ c. 3, Henry VIII.) to be worth £10 annually.