of those whom I have known and who are gone from us, of whom I could more heartily say-" Sit anima mea cum illo.”

CLERICUS.

1698.-LINES ON PAINSWICK CHURCH BELLS.-In a 4to volume by the late Mr. W. H. Hyett, F.R.S., of Painswick House, entitled Flowers of the South from the Hortus Siccus of an old Collector (London, 1869), p. 114, these lines "on hearing the Painswick Bells ring out the old year in the night of December 31st, 1854," have been inserted, with the date of "January 1, 1855":

Say why those solemn rounds of chime

Peal from the midnight bell?

They chaunt-the Choristers of Time-
Another year's Farewell.

All else is mute. Above the tower
The Stars intently glisten,

In the scar'd silence of the hour
They almost seem to listen.

Or is it that Heaven's watch they keep
On Time's recurring waves,
To register the hosts they sweep
Into these silent graves?

If so, good Sexton, every year
Still let these chimes be going,
To ring into the drowsy ear

What the bright stars are doing.
And tell us all within the sound,
That it may be our doom
Before another year comes round
To sink into the tomb.

Mr. Hyett (who has given likewise a Latin version of the fore going lines) has remarked that "the twelve bells in the parish church of Painswick are probably unsurpassed in harmony and beauty of tone by those of any other church in England." We hope soon to give a full description of them.

The first edition of the work from which the above lines have been taken, was "anonymously printed for sale at the bazaar in Clifton for the benefit of the Ragged Schools of Bristol, 1852." As stated in the preface to the reprint of 1869, "some of the following trifles served their purpose in 1852. That impression being exhausted, they were lately prepared, to reprint, with additions, for a similar object-an object which, for the present, is suspended. Still, being so prepared, I am unwilling to let them die, and they will be ready for the occasion, if it recur, when I am passed away." And, to quote the words of a postscript, "one word more in explanation of this reprint. Assuredly at my time of life

I should not have undertaken it, had not my kind friend and neighbour John Bellows, of Gloucester, been willing to pass it through his press, and thus to spare me the inconvenience of correction and revision, through a stranger, at a distance. Nor must I omit to thank him for the pains and skill which he has brought to bear on his share of the task." The book (pp. xviii. 130) is undoubtedly an excellent specimen of typography, and a credit to the Gloucester press. Авива.

1699. SIR GEORGE SNIGGE'S MONUMENT IN ST. STEPHEN'S, BRISTOL. The old and very interesting monument in memory of Sir George Snigge at the eastern end of the south aisle of St. Stephen's Church, which had been going into decay for the past half-century, was recently restored at the instance of a descendant of the deceased and the churchwardens, and now forms one of the most prominent and conspicuous objects in the building. Sir George Snigge was recorder of Bristol from 1592 to 1604, M.P. for Bristol in 1597, 1601, and 1603, a serjeant-at-law, and one of the barons of the Exchequer. The Churches of Bristol (published nearly 50 years ago at the old Bristol Mirror Office) refers to this monument, and states it to be possessed of peculiar interest, Sir George Snigge having been a man celebrated during a long life for his ability and integrity. His death occurred in 1617, in his 73rd year. His body lay in state for six weeks at the Merchant Tailors' Hall, and he was buried at the eastern end of the church, where the communion-table now stands, that being the spot where the monument was first placed. It was removed during the re-pewing of the church in 1733. About a century since it was restored by Mr. Thomas Hodges, his grandson; but the volume referred to states that since that time no interest had been manifested in its preservation, it being then in a dilapidated state and crumbling into dust. Sir George Snigge is represented reclining at full length in his robes of state, beneath a sculptured canopy of various devices; his head is raised and supported by his left hand, while the other contains a scroll. The appearance of the figure from the opposite end of the aisle is very effective. The remains of his father, who was an alderman of the city, and those of his mother, also repose in the church, and there are notices of the residence of his ancestors in the city for nearly two centuries before the date of his death. His eldest son, Sir George Snigge, is buried in the crypt of St. John the Baptist's, Bristol, having been drowned in December, 1610, whilst attempting to cross the ferry at Rownham on horseback late at night, on his way to Sir Hugh Smythe's at Ashton. So much of the Latin inscription* on the monument in St. Stephen's church as could be deciphered has been restored, but owing to the vandalism committed some

See Barrett's History of Bristol, pp. 514, 515. The inscription will appear in a subsequent article, with the other inscriptions in St. Stephen's Church.-ED.

years ago, when a coating of a pigment, pronounced to be a mixture of varnish and grease, was placed upon it, the beauty and details of the monument were greatly damaged.-Bristol Times and Mirror, Jan. 12, 1889.

His

Sir George Snigge belonged to a Bristol family, several of whom had filled the offices of sheriff and mayor of the city. father, George Snigge, was sheriff in 1556, and mayor in 1574-5; and his mother was Margery, daughter of Taylor. He was born about 1545, and was called to the bar of the Middle Temple on June 17, 1575, was nominated reader in 1590 and 1598, and in May, 1602, was elected treasurer of the society. He became recorder of his native city, was raised in 1604 to the degree of the coif, and on June 28 of that year was placed in the court of Exchequer as an additional or fifth baron. (Rot. Pat. Jac. p. 7.) It is curious that there are two grants to him of this office, one as "baron of the Exchequer," and the other as "baron of the coif of the Exchequer" (Cal. State Papers [1603-1610], 125, 156), an example of the change that was then taking place in the court, rendering it neccessary to appoint a cursitor baron. In May, 1608, he was appointed a Welsh judge in addition. (Ib., 429.) After sitting on the judicial bench for nearly thirteen years, he died November 11, 1617. By his wife Alice, daughter of William Young, of Ogborne, Wiltshire, he had nine children. (Barrett's Bristol, p. 514; MSS. Coll. Arms, G, 77.)-Foss's Dictionary of the Judges of England, p. 617. BRISTOLIENSIS.

1700.-SIR CHARLES WHEATSTONE, F.R.S., ETC., 1802-1875.— From a sketch of the life of this eminent man in the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1876-77, we learn that Sir Charles, born in February, 1802, was the second child of a family of two sons and two daughters, his father being a musical instrument maker in Gloucester. In 1806 his parents removed to London, where the father established himself in business, which he carried on for some years at 128, Pall Mall, and also gave instruction on the flute and flageolet. Charles Wheatstone's instruction commenced at an early age, for he was sent to a village school near Gloucester before he was brought to London, at which time he was able to read "verses out of the Bible." He was then sent to a school at Kennington, kept by a Mrs. Castlemaine, who was astonished at the progress made by him while under her care. This progress and his love of learning had great allies in the naturally nervous and timid nature of the child. At this school he acquired the character of being unsociable from his disinclination to join in the sports of his schoolfellows, whilst timidity and nervousness were at the bottom of it. Later on he was sent to pursue his studies at an establishment which appears to have been unworthy of the pupil, for in addition to youthful disputes with his teacher over what he was taught, which he considered inaccurate

and deficient, he became utterly disgusted with the school, and ran away. Those who in after life have known the extremely hesitating and cautious nature of Wheatstone can well estimate how great must have been the effort in the child to make up his mind to such a step. The history of his escape is not romantic; he got as far as Windsor, and was brought back again. About the year 1816 he was placed with his uncle and namesake, who carried on business as a music-seller at 436, Strand. The novel employment may have interested the lad for a short time; but this did not last, and the uncle complained that he neglected work to pore over books. Another unbusinesslike habit was to shut himself up in an attic, and to be happy if only not disturbed. Seeing the evident bent of his son's mind, and despairing of success in opposing it, the father sensibly encouraged him in the pursuit of his studies, took him away from his uncle, and procured him the loan of books from the Society of Arts in the Adelphi. In 1819, when Wheatstone was seventeen years old, he exhibited in Pall Mall some highly interesting practical experiments in acoustics. Then he opened a museum at the lower great room, Spring Gardens, where he showed the most novel and startling phenomena. Among these were his "Central Diaphonic Orchestra," by which he obtained a great augmentation of the tones of musical instruments in richness and power, and an "Edephone," an equivalent substitute for a band of wind instruments when played in his diaphonic orchestra. But the prettiest experiment was the "Acoucryptophone" (he was very partial to hard words), or Enchanted Lyre. This was included in the Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington in 1876 (No. 701a in the catalogue). It consists of a hollow box of the shape of an elegant antique lyre. This was suspended from a wire passing through the ceiling of the room and hanging upon the sounding: board of a piano or other musical instrument in some upper storey.. When the instrument was struck the vibrations passed down the wire and became audible in the lyre. The instrument was not heard, and the deception was complete. In 1829 the house in the Strand was pulled down for alterations in the neighbourhood, and with this Wheatstone's connection with the music shop virtually ceased. In 1831 he summoned courage to read a paper on "Transmission of Sound through Solids" before the Royal Institution. In it he showed the transmission of sound through wires and rods, and probably introduced to a more scientific audience than before his "Enchanted Lyre." At the autumn meeting of the British Institution in the same year he gave an interesting experimental proof of Bernoulli's theory of the vibrations of air in musical instruments. From this date Wheatstone's life became that of an earnest and unassuming, quiet and hardworking, man of science. To his unconquerable repugnance to public speaking is perhaps in no small degree due the fact that he cultivated so assiduously

actual experimental inquiry. Had he been eloquent, he might, and probably would, have gone the road of many clever men, and have degenerated into a mere lecturer. As it was, he clung to the last to actual experiment upon any subject in which he was interested. In 1834 he was appointed to the professorship of Experimental Philosophy at King's College, where he delivered some lectures on "Sound." He, however, soon gave up the lecturing, and, becoming engrossed in electrical matters, virtually held his post rather nominally than really. The first invention after his appointment to the professorship was his beautiful rotating mirror, by which he determined the time the electric impulse, discharged from a Leyden jar, took to reach a point mile distant along a copper wire, and to jump across a small space of air. The determination of the velocity of electricity naturally turned his attention to the subject of utilising travelling electricity as a means of communication. In 1816 Mr. Francis Ronalds had invented an impracticable anachronism, in the form of a telegraph with frictional electricity, which he offered to the Government, who replied through the Secretary of the Admiralty that "telegraphs of any kind are now wholly useless, and no other than the one now in use will be adopted." Had the reply simply been that telegraphs of the kind suggested would be wholly useless, and that if nothing better were forthcoming the one in use would of necessity be retained, it would have been nearer the mark than this unhappy generalisation. Two men, however, began to take up the work on a rational basis at the same time. One was Wheatstone, led to it as a direct outcome of his velocity experiment; the other was Mr. W. F. Cooke, afterwards Sir William Fothergill Cooke, Assoc. Inst. C.E., a young military man, who, returning from India on leave of absence, passed through Germany and saw such an invention in action. Wheatstone was plodding quietly on, very scientifically, whilst Cooke, more practical, was casting about him how to turn the idea into money. At this stage mutual friends brought them together, and they combined their ideas in the form of a patent. Το Wheatstone and Cooke the world owes the fact that the electric telegraph became a practical reality at an early date, whereas without the scientific and inventive ability of the one, and the sound. business judgment of the other, telegraphy might, and in all probability would, have taken long years before it attained the thoroughly useful form with which they endowed it. In 1836 Wheatstone began to direct his attention to the subject of a submarine telegraph, but his plans were not matured until 1840. He then gave evidence before the Railway Committee of the House of Commons on the practicability of establishing a submarine line from Dover to Calais. In the autumn of the same year he prepared detailed drawings of the machinery and methods for making the cable, and the processes of laying, jointing, and underrunning. In 1844 he carried out an experiment