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and owes its decorations to the piety of a merchant, whose tomb without an inscription stands in the centre. It is an altar tomb, with his mark several times repeated. The ceiling is of the same design as the rest of the ailes, but is painted in chequers black, white, and red, and is more perfect. Much painted glass in fragments remain in the window, with the mark of the founder.

A large altar-tomb on the north side of the chancel is said to belong to the Duke of Buckingham, beheaded in pursuance of the sentence of Richard III. so laconically given by Shakspeare,

Off with his head-so much for Buckingham!

The south chancel has a modern altar screen, and was formerly used for the sacrament. In this chancel or chapel are the monuments of the Eyre family; and in the east window are fragments of painted glass, with the before-mentioned merchant's mark.

Some old stalls with misereres remain in the chancel. The font is mean. The pulpit is old, but the ancient and curious reading-desk of wood sustained on a pillar is tastelessly

thrown aside.

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in which they were exhibited were completed. This explains the charge in the preceding account, "of a little cord for the veil."*

The next parochial document appertaining to the Church of St. Eustace, which I shall notice, is headed as follows:

"The account of Thomas Boles and John Collyn, wardens of the churche of Tavistock ffrom the thirde day of Maye in the yere of our Lorde Godd one thowsande ffyve hundred ffower schore and eight, until the third day of May in the yere of our Lorde Godd one thousande ffyve hundred ffower schore and nyne, that is to weete for one whole yere." From which I extract the following items:

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Receipts for the buryalle and belle.† "Imprimis, the same accomptants doe charge themselves with the receipt of ivd. ffor the greate bell, upon the death of Margarett the daughter of Roger Dollyn.

"Item. Receaved upon the deathe of Agnes Drake, for all the bells and her grave, viis. ivd.

"Receaved for all the bells upon the death of Ewesties (Eustace) Collyn, viiid.

"Received of the p'shers (parishioners) of Tavistock towardes a rate made for the settinge fourthe of souldyers for the guardinge of the Queen's ma'tie's p'son, and towardes the mayntenaunce of the churche this yere, as appeareth by a book of p'ticulars thereof, xxxli. xs. ivd."

A large portion of this charge was doubtless for the musters of 1588, the year of the Armada.

"Item. Gave Mr. Bickell, Mr. Battishill, Mr. Knightes, and other preachers who preached at s'vall times in this p'ishe churche this yere [1588] ivs. viiid.-Item. Paide for wyne and breade this yere for the comunyon table lixs. iiid.-Item, paide John Drake the schole master, for teachinge in the gramer schole this yere, xiili.-Item, paid to Nicholas Watts for wages for teachinge of the little children this yere, iiijli.-Item, paide at the muster in August last past, xls.-Iteni, paide by Mr.Ffytz his comaundement the xvi. of June, 1588, unto a collector having the Queene's greate seale to collect with, vid.Item, paide for a rope for one of the bells, xviijd.-Item, paide in August for the expenses of the soldiers at Plympton, viis.—

* "Sold, a rod of iron, which the curtain run upon before the rood. A.D. 1549, 3d Edward VI."-Fuller's Hist. of Waltham Abbey.

This shews that the expressions used by Shakspeare in his Hamlet, "the bringing home of bell and burial," were in the current form of his day.-Vide Hamlet, Act

v. scene 1st.

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Item, paid to John Burges, for his paynes in goinge with the Thrum [the town drum] vid. -Item, paide the 6th of August and the 8th of August last past, to Mr. Ffytz of the moneyes collected at the last rate xviili.

Item, paide the 18th of August last, to Richard Drake, towards the charge of the tynners, vili.-Item, paide James the cutler for makinge cleane strappynge and other trymmynge for the corselett and other armour of the parishe, and for a new daggar, vis.—Item, paide for a new girdell, xvid.-Item, paide for a booke of articles at the firste visitac'on, and for other ffees then, xxiid.-Item, for writing the presentments at the visita'on, and lyninge in thereof, xiid.-Item, paide for the expences of the wardens, sydemen, clarckes, and others of the p'ishe at dynner that day, vis. vid. Item, paide Thomas Watts for amendinge of the Bible and the Bookes of Co'mon Prayer, beinge toren in dyvers places, iis. iid.-Item, paide for the expences of the constable, Mr. Mohan, and of John Collyn, one of the wardens, and of Stephen Hamblyn, and of the constable's man at Plympton, beinge there at the assessinge of the subsidie, the xth of September, 1588, iiis. id.-Item, paide to one that collected with the broade seale, the twentieth of October last, vid.

"Item, paide to three Iryshemen, which hadd a lycense from the Earell [Earl] of Bath, vid.

"To a poore man of Saynt Sidwell's, which had a testymonyall, vid.

"To a poore man that collected for the hospitall of Saynt Leonard's, vid.

"Paide the paver for amendinge the pavement by the conduytts and the street by the higher churche bowe, xxvii.

"William Gaye for killing of eight ffoxest this yere, viiis.

"Item, paid for a chayne and settinge in thereof, for the fastenynge of the dictionarrie in the schole howse, ixd.

"Item, paide Walter Burges for one planke and nayles, amendinge of the Widdow Nicholls and Walter Poynter's wyfe's seate, and other seates, viid. Item, paide him for coveringe of sixe graves in the churche this yere, xviiid. Item, paid him for washinge of the church clothes, viiid.

[May,

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"Briefs in our parish as follow:

"29th April, 1660. Collected for a company going to New England, taken by the Ostenders, 6s. 6d.

"September 16th, 1666. Collected towards the reliefe of the present poore distressed people of the towne and university of Cambridge.

"October 11th, 1666. Collected towards the reliefe of the poore inhabitants of London, who have lately suffered by the lamentable fire, 111. 5s. 94d.

"Feb. 21st, 1668. Collected the day above written of the towne and parishe of Tavistocke towards the reliefe and redemption of severall persons now slaves to the Turkes in Algiers and Sallay and other places, 11. 2s. 1d.

"1670. 21st, 22d, 23d, 24th November. Collected towards the redemption of the pre sent captives in Turkey, in the town and parish of Tavistock." The list consists of upwards of seven hundred contributors.§ Amount of contribution, 16l. Os. 94d.

"12th July, 1674. Collected then the summe of 1l. 3s. 44d, for the fire of St. Martin's in the feilds, in the county of Middlesex.

"9th May, 1675. Collected then for John Forslett, of Milbrooke, in the county of Cornwall, a poor captive in Ffez under the Turks, 17.10s. 14d.

24th April, 1675. For the fire at Redburne, in the county of Hertford, 6s. 6d.

"March 19th, 1675. To a petition for John Lawes, a captive in Tituan, 9s. 3d.

"13th September, 1677. For the fire at St. Saviour's, and St.Thomas, in the county of Surrey, 27s. 9d.

"27th October. For James Cole of Totnes, a captive in Argier, 17s. 74d.

"1680, August. Another general collection for redemption of the present captives in Turkey, amounting to 6l. 18s. 5d.

"1681, November. Another, towards 'the

Of recusants refusing to attend the common prayer.

The reward for the destruction of a fox was increased about a century after this time, more than threefold, as appears from the following entry: "May 19, 1673. This day it was agreed by the masters and inhabitants of the towne and parishe of Tavystocke, that whosoever shall kill any ffox within the said parish, shall receive for his or their paynes in so doing the sum of three shillings and four pence."— Churchwarden's Book, 1660

to 1740.

This is an amusing charge, and shows the scarcity of lexicographic tomes in that day. The reader will remember to have seen in many parish churches the black letter Acts and Monuments of the Martyrs, similarly attached pro bono publico " to a chayne." Erasmus's paraphrase on the Gospels remains at the present time thus secured in Tavistock Church, the original cost of which, according to an item in another account, was 15s.

§ At the head of this list is the Honourable Lady Marie Howard, 10s., George Howard, esq. 6s., eight of their servants, 9s.

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present subsistence and relief of the distressed Protestants of Ffrance, 6l. 12s. 34d.'

"27th September, 1683. Paid and layd out to one Ms. Mary Danevaux fowre shillings for her charge in going to her friends, having a greate loss among nine fammilyes in the town of Mumby in the county of Lincola, having seen her petition under the hands and seals of the justices of peace of that county, Somerset, and Devon, to testifie it. The sum is 14007. she lost by a breache of the tyde storme that violently destroyed heare houses and goods, and her husbande was lost in saving those goods.

These captives in Turkey, which appear to have been very numerous, were prisoners to the rovers of Barbary, whose piratical depredations on the seas, in the reign of Charles II., were repressed with considerable difficulty by the outfit of several naval armaments against them.

The Register of marriages, births, baptisms, and deaths, is not extant at Tavistock earlier than the year 1660; but the Rev. Mr. Carpenter, of South Sydenham, or Sydenham Damerell, in that neighbourhood, showed me the register of his church, beginning A.D. 1539. I apprehend this is as early a register as any extant, for in the year 1538, says Stow, "in the moneth of September, Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy Seale, Vicegerent to the King's Highness, sent forth intimations to all bishops and curates through the realme, charging them to see that in everie parish church, the Bible of the largest volume printed in English, were placed for all men to reade on, (secured no doubt like the Dictionary of the Grammar School at Tavistock, and the Martyrology, in many churches, by chayne,') and that a book or Register were also provided and kept in every parish church, wherein shall be written every wedding, christning, and burying, within the same parish for ever."*

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The various heads of the Sydenham Register are preceded by certain texts of Scripture, as the baptismal entries, by "whosever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire," &c. &c.

The overthrow of the episcopal church, by the fanatics and puritans, who acted so prominent a part in the political revolution, during the reign of the unfortunate Charles, placed the

* Stow's Annales, Edit. 1592, 4to. p.

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parochial clergy at the mercy of a crew of hypocrites, and high pretenders to religion, who violated its first principle, common charity. In the British Museum is preserved a register of all the church livings in several of the principal counties of England, made about the year 1654, for the use of the Commissioners under an Act for ejecting scandalous and inefficient ministers. In this document we find the living of Tavistock valued at 240l. per annum. The Earl of Bedford its patron. Glebe 71. per annum ; and 50l. annum, lately added to the incumbent's pension by the Earl of Bedford, which before had been but 197.† per annum.

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The incumbent was Mr. Thomas Lewknor, who had the good chance to be noted in the report as a preaching minister;" others, not so fortunate, were marked out for expulsion, on a system which lay open a wide field for the exercise of private animosity and party malignity, and which discarded the Scripture maxim, that the gifted as well as the ungifted, if sincere in their duty, are members of the same body in the church, and "that there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit." On such grounds as the following were the ministers of the church marked for proscription" conceived to be insufficient by most of the inhabitants;" " an old man; he preacheth and expoundeth once every Lord's day." "A preaching minister; he hath spoken scandalously of the proceedings of the Parliament." "Preaches once every Lord's day; very diligent, but insufficient, having a natural imperfection in his speech." "A very ho nest man, but grown old and weak, and hath not a good delivery." "A frequenter of alehouses, and one that stands in opposition against the Par liament." "Hath been in Prince Rupert's army." Formerly in arms against the Parliament." "Reputed. unclean and scandalous." "Disabled by reason of age and a cold palsy."

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Preacheth not four times a-year, and frequently useth the Book of Common Prayer." For a parochial minister to continue to use the Book of Common Prayer was a high offence. The substitute for that, our sublime

† 11. per annum, was the pension charged on the Earl of Bedford, by the original grant of the Abbey lands at the suppression.

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national ritual, was a sort of manual, directing the ministers in the use of their extemporaneous effusions, and called "the Directory." As the reign of the Directory was short, and the tract itself (a quarto) now, I believe, very rare, I may be permitted to subjoin its title,

[May,

By this pole star of British sentiment, I profess to be guided in my humble course, and in obedience to its leading, would denounce to public vigilance and to public censure, a bold bad band of men, who, with Hannibal, but in a spirit the reverse of his, have vowed on their unhallowed altars, eternal warfare against the laws, reli

“A Directory for the publique worship of God, throughout the three kingdoms of Eng-gion, and institutions of their country. land, Scotland, and Ireland, together with an ordinance of Parliament, for the taking away the Book of Common Prayer, and for establishing and observing of this present Directory throughout the kingdom of England and dominion of Wales.

"Die Jovis, 13 Martii, 1644. "Ordered by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament, that this Ordinance and Directory be forthwith printed and published.

"H. Elsynge, Cler. Parl. D. Com. "Joh. Brown, Cleric. Parliamentorum. "London, printed for the Company of Stationers, 1645."

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(To be continued.)

Mr. URBAN,

CALM

May 22. MALM is my Soul, nor apt to rise in wrath;" but when I witness mere declamation, uttered by one who has the will, and received with ignorant acclamation by those who have the power, to effect the most mischievous alterations in the law, I experience a deep sense of self abasement at my inability to defend the right, against that perverted eloquence which advocates the wrong; and therefore nothing but a sense of duty and a hope to stimulate some abler champion to the righteous contest, would induce me to raise my warning voice on the occasion.

It is possible that much of what I have to say may not accord with your sentiments; but while I trust to your candour and impartiality for making allowance for mere difference of opinion, it gives me pleasure to advert to one essential point on which we agree, and that is the confirmed English feel ing, which amid all the chances and changes attending political events, has pervaded your Journal, and which will mainly account for its enjoying to a green old age of one hundred years a continued and honourable influence with that intelligent and important middle class of English society, which controls all beneath, and influences all above it.

Un-English in their hearts, un-English in their thoughts, and consequently un-English in their designs; having Bentham for their oracle, and Carlile for their agent-" Condorcet filtered through the dregs of Paine”—they contemplate an entire revolution in the national jurisprudence. Unskilled in the depths of English law, and only acquainted with the Napoleon revolu tionary code, and the superficial texture of Genevan legislation, they hate with a perfect hatred the magnificent structure of the constitutional and protecting law of Britain, adapting itself, as it has ever done, to the growing exigencies of the subjects of its care.

Emerging from the woods of Saxony, established by Alfred, improved by Edward the Confessor, unconquered at the Conquest, triumphantly confirmed by Magna Charta, and ripening through successive ages, the substance of English law, the growth, like English oak, of a thousand would years, present too obstinate a resistance to any open projects which these cold-blooded theorists might plan for its destruction. It has therefore been their policy to proceed by sapping, and unfortunately they have found instruments to their hearts' content.

A speech of six hours duration, and not understood by any six persons who heard it, effected two mighty jobs in the shape of royal commissions, for the reform of law in all its branches. The Commissioners, however, proceeded slowly, selon les regles, furnishing a report for each year's salary, and all being Englishmen, and some of them good lawyers, they professed to adhere to established principles, and to leave certain landmarks undisturbed. Had their scheme, therefore, been suffered to proceed without interference, the result, some ten years hence, might have issued in a few improvements in the detail of practise, such as would in better times have been imperceptibly effected by the authority of the Judges, or by short Acts of Parliament, with

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out having recourse to speeches or commissions.

This course, however, proving too tedious for the sanguine hopes of the codeificators alluded to, a speech of three hours succeeded; which, although only one half the length of its precursor, is calculated to do twice the mischief.

This speech comprised two objects, one being the establishment of some nondescript tribunal of arbitration and conciliation, passing all understanding, and the other assuming the more tangible proposition of establishing local jurisdictions for determining all questions not exceeding 501. in value, and to be decided by a barrister, appointed in each county, at a salary of 1500l. per ann.* * with a suitable establishment of offices and clerks.

This suggestion is ingeniously calculated to conciliate the support of Government, as it will afford the means of conferring snug births on some fifty young gentlemen of the same breed and breeding as the Commissioners of Bankrupt, selected with the same regard to family merit. A considerable body of clerks and subordinate officers will extend the claims of inferior patronage, and largely add to the noble army of pensioners.

In these local courts of extended conscience, into which a defendant may be dragged from Exeter to York, the contending parties must appear in person, and are to be allowed no aid from counsel or attorney; thus assuming that each party is equally competent to state his case; that no relative disabilities attend sex, age, infirmity, or imbecility, or that the Judge should supply them all, and which I hope he will do better than in the case of a learned Judge in a forty shilling Court with which I am acquainted, where it is the Judge's practice instantly and intuitively to favour one party while he bullies the other, though it must be admitted to the credit of his impartiality, that it appears entirely matter of chance which side he espouses,

* Some criterion to judge of the exorbitancy of this salary, is afforded by the fact that the salary of a very learned and most respectable Barrister, who acts as Assessor for the County Palatine Court at Preston, and devotes the whole of his time to its important duties, is no more than 400l. per

annum.

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and that he occasionally changes sides with equal impetuosity. The result of this is, that the Judge always gains the cause, and justice seldom.

Our Saxon legislators, more intimately acquainted with the obliquities of the human mind, wisely ordained that one man's oath should never prevail to his own advantage: they also knew that no single judge could be safely intrusted with a conclusive decision of a case. They therefore multiplied the barriers of judges, appeals, juries, and compurgators, in aid of poor human nature. They knew the force of local prejudices and associations; and devised the circuits, determining that no Judge of Assize should go, in that capacity, into his native county, the neglect of which latter caution has frequently afforded matter for regret, but the occasional inconvenience will be perpetuated by the establishment of local resident Judges, from whose decision there is to be no appeal.t

In fact, in these well-named Courts of Conscience, the largest conscience usually succeeds; and it not unfrequently happens, that under the influence of a very extensive conscience; parties are summoned and constrained to pay debts which they never incurred, for goods they never received.

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Hitherto the grievance has not exceeded forty shillings, and many are the daily victims to this maximum of the rights of conscience, but the public will feel more severely the application of the same principle to 50l., and I do not hesitate to affirm, that a bold largeconscienced plaintiff may plunder with impunity to right and left, and the timid and the simple be his constant prey.

Thus we are at once to surrender to the extent of debts and claims of 50%., our hitherto unimpeached administration of public justice, by Judges and Juries, in favour of a single provincial Judge, the relation, dependent, or

A futile attempt was made in argument to compare the proposed local court of an assistant Barrister with the antient County Court; but there does not exist the least particle of resemblance between them. Indeed if there did, the powers of the County Court might be called into action at a much cheaper rate, as it is only dormant, and not extinct, and some evidence of its inefficiency may be collected from the fact of its having fallen into desuetude.

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