good vicarage, the bishopric of Gloucester (to which he had been appointed in 1672), the rectory of Harlington, and a stall in St. Paul's Cathedral. While he was vicar, in 1665, the plague raged at its highest in Cripplegate, and "one is hardly surprised that he retired from his parish during that time." Thomas Luckeyne, a curate, was left in charge; and on the death of the parish clerk, the vicar, in a letter from his country house, commissioned Luckeyne "to see the place of clerke well and sufficiently supplied in every respect, and to take the clerke's dues for his paines.'

Bishop Pritchett died in 1681, and was succeeded in the vicarage by Edward Fowler, D.D., who, like his predecessor, seems not to have thought it contrary to his profession to undertake more duties than he could perform in person, as we find him for twenty-three years vicar of St. Giles' (no sinecure assuredly, if properly attended to), and during the greater part of that time also bishop of Gloucester (1691-1714).* He appears, however, to have been well liked by his parishioners, though he did not always succeed at first in carrying what he proposed. See the following extracts from the records of the parish :

1700. It was ordered that the chancel of the church be put in good repair at the charge of the parish, in acknowledgment of the bounty and kindness of the vicar, the Bishop of Gloucester, who hath for a long time provided a lecturer at his own charge.

Oct. 30, 1706.-The Bishop requesting this vestry to choose a lecturer for this parish, and recommending for their choice Mr Thomas Sawyer, they debated the same for some time, and then dispersed themselves without coming to any resolution thereon.

Sept. 15, 1708.-The Right Rev. Father in God Edward, Lord Bishop of Gloucester, Vicar of St. Giles, Cripplegate, representing at this vestry his having provided and paid a lecturer at his own charge for five and twenty years last past, his being disabled by reason of age and sickness to preach himselfe in a morning any longer, his being at the charge of a person to preach for him, and that his family is large, and the profits and income of his vicarage very much decreased, and having requested the said vestry to ease him in his said charge by choosing Mr Thomas Sawyer lecturer, It was agreed and ordered by a great majority of the persons then present, that as well for the consideration afore mentioned, as also of the several favours and kindnesses in many respects granted to this parish by his Lordship, since he hath been vicar thereof, that the said Mr Tho Sawyer should be and he is chosen lecturer to preach the afternoon sermon of a Sabbath day during the life of his Lordshipp, if the said Mr Sawyer shall think fit, and shall so long live. GLOUCESTRENSIS.

1649.-IN MEMORIAM: WILLIAM HELLIER BAILY.-We regret

For the inscription on his monument in St. Mary's Church, Hendon, Middlesex, see ante, vol. iii., p. 225.-ED.

to announce the death of Mr. William Hellier Baily, acting palæontologist to the Irish branch of the Geological Survey, which took place on the 6th inst. [August, 1888] at Rathmines, near Dublin. Born in Bristol on July 7th, 1819, Baily began life in a lawyer's office in his native town; but before long the genius which he had inherited (belonging as he did to a gifted family, not the least of whom was his uncle, the famous sculptor) asserted itself, and his abilities as a draughtsman procured him an appointment at the age of nineteen to the Bristol Museum, where he continued until in 1844 he was appointed by the late Sir Henry de la Beche to the Geological Survey of England, first as a draughtsman, but shortly afterwards to the post of assistant naturalist under the late Edward Forbes, and subsequently under Prof. Huxley. In 1857 Baily was transferred to the Irish branch of the Survey, to act as palæontologist, and this office he held until his death. On the foundation of the post of demonstrator in paleontology in the Royal College of Science, Dublin, he was in addition appointed to that position. His field excursions were looked forward to by his class with eagerness; and as he wandered along some illustrative section, describing its points of interest to his audience, one could not fail to perceive that the mentor who excelled in riveting the close and willing attention of his class must indeed be a master-hand at treating his subject, as not a plant met with but had a history, not a shell on the sea-shore but Baily would dilate on and explain, until the student would upbraid himself for having so often passed them unheeded. He was a diligent contributor to the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, of the Linnean and Geological Societies of London, and Royal Geological Society of Dublin, as well as to those of societies of kindred nature both on the Continent and in America. At the meetings of the British Association he was also well known. In the preparation of many of his contributions his abilities as a draughtsman were conspicuous, and the early memoirs of the Geological Survey, executed in conjunction with the late Mr. Bode, are illustrated with plates of fossils in a manner which exemplifies what such figures ought to be, and so is his principal and best-known work, viz., Characteristic British Fossils. Almost to the day of his death he pursued his favourite subject, and during his last illness compiled some reports on palæontological work for the official memoirs, which will not be less interesting or exhaustive than his previous productions of this description.-Athenæum, August 25, 1888.

1560.-GLOUCESTER ASSIZES, 1658: "BENEFIT OF CLERGY."(See No. 1404.) In Mercurius Politicus, with reference to assizes at Gloucester, July 29th, 1658, it is stated that "one of those who were burnt in the hand was put by twice for not reading, but was, through the mercy of the judge, at last admitted." Curiously enough I can supply another contemporary account, probably of this

very case. In the Bodleian Library there is an old quarto, mentioned in Wood's Athene Oxonienses (ed. Bliss), iii. 754, and entitled A true Accompt of the Proceedings of the Right Honourable Lord Glynne, the Lord Ch. Justice of England, and the Honourable Baron Rog. Hill, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, in their Summer Circuit in the Counties of Berks, Oxon, &c., London, 1658.* This "account" is in doggrel verse, and in one part it states that at Gloucester, before the chief justice, one Ellis was convicted of stealing bacon. It then states that the judge gave him as his "neck verse "" the 60th Psalm, but

upon which—

"this Psalm He could not read or scan,"

"the Ordinary,

To save the felon from the tree,"

cried out that he was judge in that matter

"To certify that you may know,

Whether that Ellis read or no."

But it seems that this interruption was treated as a contempt of court, for

"The Ordinary, full seventy years old,
Committed was to Gaoler's fold;

For those rash words he then did speak,

The Judge said-'Jayler, do him take.""

After this, Ellis asking for another chance for his life, the judge gave him a "psalm of mercy;" and the account proceeds

"Then Ellis psalm of mercy had,

Which made him jocund and full glad;

He then did strain his very throat

To read, though he read all by rote;

For it appeared unto me

He could not read his A.B.C.,

Yet Ordinary did yield to it,

To save him from Death's second writ."

His privilege of clergy being thus allowed, Ellis
66 was burned in his hand right well,
And thief was saved, though his hand did smell;"
and we are told-

"The Ordinary was released that day,

Who for the Baron still doth pray."

This account, wretched doggrel as it is, nevertheless gives us a very graphic view of the proceedings at the assizes in our old

"The reader," Wood writes, "must know that this being writ in drolling verse by on that called himself Joh. Lineall, the lord Glynne was so far from having any knowledge of it, or consenting to its writing, that there was great enquiry after the author to have him punished for his abuses of, and smart reflections on, him."-ED.

e

Booth Hall two hundred years ago, and of the state of our criminal law and practice at that time. Here is a poor wretch convicted and liable to be hanged for stealing bacon. Though grossly illiterate, he claims "benefit of clergy," upon the old fiction that if he could read he must be "a clerk" in holy orders, and as such that the Church may claim jurisdiction over him to the exclusion of the civil power. He could not read, as very few persons in his condition could do at that time, and the judge is apparently about to sentence him to be hanged, when the chaplain interposes, and, as having the duty of examining him, claims the right to decide whether he is "clericus" or no. This right was probably a disputed one between Church and State at that time, for the judge resents the claim, and commits, or, as it would seem, threatens to commit, the chaplain for his interference. This, however, probably saved the fellow's life, for another-possibly an easier verse, and one which persons in his condition may have thought it prudent to learn "by heart"-being tendered to him, he manages to get through it somehow, and is pardoned (for this time only) on condition of being burned in the hand. Then the hot brand is produced (for it was a real branding then) and applied in open court to the quivering flesh, more, as it would seem, to the physical than the moral disgust of the spectators. It seems strange that such a fiction as allowing a peasant to claim benefit of clergy, and such a barbarous punishment as burning the man's hand with a hot iron, should have prevailed under the government of Cromwell and William III., and with such enlightened judges on the bench as Hale and Holt, and others of undoubted humanity. Stranger still that it should have survived until abolished by statute so late as the reign of George IV.; though it is true that some time before its abolition another fiction had been introduced, and a cold or lukewarm iron was substituted for the hot one. But that it was common at the time of Ellis's trial is shown not only by the above account, where it is spoken of as a matter of course, but also from a report of "Proceedings at the Assizes for the County of Gloucester, holden the 27th July, 1659, Baron Hill sitting upon Life and Death." From this we learn that at one assize in the very next year no less than seventeen were burned in the hand "for great offences," besides sixteen who were condemned to be hanged, and eight to be whipped! It seems clear that "the quality of mercy" was not overstrained in the middle of the seventeenth century. Let us take heed lest future times should regard our preference for flogging and capital punishment over preventive and reformatory measures in much the same light as we look upon the judicial barbarities of our predecessors.

J. J. P.

1651.-A SPECIMEN OF THE GLOUCESTERSHIRE DIALECT.-The following communication which has appeared in the appendix to vol. i.

of the Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Club, is here reprinted at the suggestion of a friend, and "is especially valuable from its retaining in its purity a specimen of that noble and classical language formerly spoken in the Vale of Gloucestershire, ere the inexorable rod of a ruthless host of English schoolmasters had swept it from our country :"

Mr.

Gloucester, March 22nd, 1851.

Knowing what a condesendin good sort o genelman you be un as wat tha calls feel natral istory is a gettin very poplar I teeks the liberty a sendin ya 2 or 3 little hannigotes a hannimals as I ha ad from time ta time in my passesshun un hopes thayl proove uz emusin uz instructiv, uz we sais in our nayberhood, to your club. I kips a public at Kingshome un as my customers princeply drops in ov a evnin bein a hous o call for jurnemen taylors un uther rispectuble treedsmen, in consekence my mornins beent verry much okkypied, un as I hallis ad a turn for observetion I a payd a good deal o tention ta what e calls dimestic hannymals un when you a yeerd my story I thinks youl say as how verry few peaple a livd on such hintimit terms we um, un consekently knauws moor about um, un so without furder preefece I shull enterr on my nurretion. About 12 mos ago I ad 2 pigs brothers un sisters thay was about 2 mos auwld when I had um fust un thay yused to run about o the kitchin un pic up tha crums ur watever else tha cud find in tha sheep o grub tul tha got 2 sassy, for my missis got az fond on um az if tha wus er auwn blessed babbies un let um do jest as a d got a minded un atween um bwoth we ad a verry nice time on it. If the missis wus a peerin tha teeters ur shellin a few peese tha rind un shells at last wuzent good enuf for um but thay must teek thair chaice afore we cud put by our whack out on um un thayd teek 1 anothers part so as we dussent saay as the ouse wus our auwn tul as I was obleeged ta shet 1 on um up in tha sty We called one on um Jo un tother Sally. I thinks as jo wus tha sensyblest o tha 2 but Sally wus tha most mischieviousest un uz wee kep um seppereet why I shul giv you a count on um sepereetly Jo kep a good deel ta do about bein shet up ut fust un yewsted ta cry un whine for all tha wurld like a babby wenever a seed tha missis un I thawt as her ad a pretty ny broke er hart cos I oodn't let her go un let un out but at last a got a kyind a reconciled like un begun ta look out fur other emusement un what dy think a went un dun-why a begun bird ketchin. I ad a dyuse of a lot a robbins in tha garden un tha yusted ta cum un get at tha grains un uther hodments uz I yewsed ta put fur tha pig. I a sin 3 ur 4 ut a time a different parts a tha sty ut a time 1 a tha trauw, unother a top a tha raylins un tother a jiggin about a feared a tother 2, we a bit uf a fite atwizt un casionully. Wen Jo ad ad anuf ad yused ta lay down of is side jest uz eny uthur genelmen mit do with is cheek jest a restin a tha side a tha trauw fur a piller un watch tha robbins.