He inherited a good business, but instead of devoting his energies to its development, launched into various speculations, including one to extract gold from the dross of coals.
At last, when complete ruin confronted the family, Samuel hired himself to manage a mill in the neighbourhood and laboured as a miller to keep his father and sister.
Soon afterwards Ayscough joined the shop of John Rivington, bookseller, of St Paul's Churchyard, and then obtained an engagement at a modest salary as an assistant in the cataloguing department of the British Museum, under the principal librarian.
[1] Ayscough's assiduous catalogue of undescribed manuscripts in the British Museum began in April 1780 and was published in 1782 by leave of the trustees, but as a private venture by the compiler.
The plan of the book was original and its publication reflects credit on the enterprise of Ayscough, who claims that no work of like extent was ever completed in so short a time.
[2] He acknowledges help received from previous catalogues and occasionally from frequenters of the reading room, but to all intents the two quarto volumes were Ayscough's unaided efforts.
In 1783, Ayscough issued anonymously a pamphlet in reply to the Letters of an American Farmer printed the year before by J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, a French settler.
Here his regular attendance to his duties and character gained him the friendship of John Buckner (afterwards Bishop of Chichester), Richard Southgate, Dr Willis, and others.
The catalogue of books in the British Museum, printed in 1787 in two folio volumes, was compiled by Ayscough along with Paul Henry Maty and S. Harper.
This method was continued by Ayscough in his general index, so that in the case of common names, such as Smith or Williams, there are hundreds of such mixed references.
This was a speculation on the part of the publisher, John Stockdale, who paid 200 guineas for the index, which was designed to accompany his two-volume edition of the Dramatic Works.
[1] Thomas Birch had left for press among his papers at the Museum a collection of historical letters from the reigns of James VI and I and Charles I, which Ayscough sought to publish, if he could find 200 subscribers at a couple of guineas apiece.
It was left to R. F. Williams to carry the scheme into effect in 1849, when the documents were printed in four volumes under the title The Court and Times of James I and Charles I.
[1] About a year before his death, Samuel Ayscough was presented to the small vicarage of Cudham in Kent by John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon.
[1] Besides the many works already mentioned, Ayscough compiled indexes to John Bridges' Northamptonshire, which took him nine months, to Owen Manning and William Bray's Surrey, and according to Nichols, to the New Review, edited by Paul Henry Maty.
[7] A friend tells a story of a young lady reproved for her want of attention when being shown the "curiosities" by Ayscough, "than whom perhaps a kinder hearted, better humoured man never existed," and "who, although an old bachelor, was a great admirer of beauty.