Polton was son of Thomas and Edith Polton, whose brass is at Wandborough, Wilts, and built the north aisle of St. Aldate's, Oxford. See Haines's Manual of Monumental Brasses, pt. ii., pp. 168, 223.

Aylworth was the king's professor of physic for fifteen years, and physician to Queen Elizabeth, and died in 1619, æt. 72. See Wood's Fasti Oxonienses (ed. Bliss), pt. i., col. 222; also Haines's Manual, pt. ii., p. 171. EDITOR.

1697.-CHARLES BARING, D.D., LORD BISHOP OF GLOUCESTER AND BRISTOL 1856-1861.-Bishop Baring was fourth and youngest son of Sir Thomas Baring, Bart., and was born January 11, 1807. Having entered Christ Church, Oxford, he took a double-first in 1829, graduating B.A. in that year, and M.A. in 1832. After leaving the university he held a curacy in Oxford, and subsequently the incumbencies of All Souls', Langham Place, Marylebone, and of Limpsfield, Surrey. He was consecrated for the see of Gloucester and Bristol in 1856, on the death of Bishop Monk; and thence, on the death of Bishop Villiers, in 1861, he was translated to the see of Durham. Bishop Baring was "an uncompromising Evangelical." On one occasion, when his disposition to check innovation raised some clamour, a large number of the most influential laymen in his diocese united in presenting him with an address expressive of their high sense of the wisdom, piety, and assiduity with which he discharged the duties of his episcopate. In 1877 another address was presented to him by one hundred and sixty of the leading laity of his diocese, including the Duke of Northumberland, Earl Percy, the Marquis of Londonderry, Earl Grey, Lord Decies, and Sir George Grey. He was invited by them to sit for his portrait, which was to be placed in Auckland Castle as "a memorial of a prelate whose usefulness in his day and generation has been surpassed by none." This intended honour was, however, declined. The magnitude of his labours during his seventeen years' administration of the see of Durham may be gathered from the facts hereafter mentioned. "In the matter of church extension, he caused to be erected 119 new churches, at a cost of £363,830, and affording accommodation for 40,530 worshippers. Besides these, 129 churches were enlarged and restored at an expenditure of £179,870, and a further outlay was incurred of £18,534 for burial grounds. Not content with securing increased church accommodation, Dr. Baring aimed at supplying, as far as it was possible, adequate clerical assistance to labour in the vast field under his supervision. With this object he formed new parishes, the clergy were increased by 186, and 392 deacons were ordained. No fewer than 183 schools for elementary education were erected or enlarged in the diocese during Dr. Baring's episcopacy, at a cost of £137,831." (Standard.) From these figures, better than by any written eulogy, his character

may be judged, for the work there summarised represents an amount of labour, devotion, and energy which shows that by his death the Church of England lost one of her most faithful members. He died on Tuesday morning, September 16, 1879, at Wimbledon, where he had resided since his resignation of the see of Durham in the preceding December. In his resignation circular he wrote as follows:-"The rapid advance during the past three months of infirmities which sometimes accompany old age, pressed upon me the conclusion that the interests of the diocese demand that my place should be occupied by a younger and more active successor."

Bishop Baring married, first, June 10, 1830, Mary Ursula, only daughter of Colonel Charles Staly, H.E.L.C.S., who died June 16, 1840; and secondly, April 14, 1846, Caroline, daughter of Thomas Read Kemp, Esq., M.P., of Dale Park, Sussex; and he left issue by both marriages.

During the five years that he held the bishopric of Gloucester and Bristol he was much respected for his straightforward independent conduct, though at times he showed a little more impatience than might be looked for from a prelate. He was singularly unaffected, and astonished people by dispensing with a carriage even when he had a couple of miles to walk in the way of duty. He carried his own carpet bag when it was not too heavy, and was once met by several of his clergy on the Dursley platform, where they found his lordship seated on a porter's truck quietly eating his luncheon from a packet of sandwiches.

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Archdeacon Sir George Prevost, Bart., wrote thus to the Guardian:-In your notice of the death of Bishop Baring, you speak of him, on the authority of the Standard, as an uncompromising Evangelical." No one can question the truth of this description, and when he was the bishop of this diocese many of us were disposed to regret that he was so exclusive in his appointments to benefices in his gift. But, whenever any accusation was brought against any person or any institution, his love of truth and justice was always paramount, as we found, to mention one instance, when vague and unfounded accusations were brought against the Training College at Fishponds. And however decided his own views or his own tastes about ritual may have been, I always found him anxious to follow the customs of the church in which he was officiating, even at the sacrifice of his own feelings. And, as one of his clergy whose sympathies and convictions on certain subjects were known to be entirely at variance with those of Bishop Baring, I feel myself called upon to bear witness to his exceeding kindness to me, and to his uniform readiness to encourage and support me in all my work, both as rural dean and parish priest. And, I should say, no man could be as much with him as I was at that time without being fully convinced of his strict conscientiousness and of the depth and reality of his piety. There are few, indeed,

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 foregoing 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. ABHBA.

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.

Sir George Snigge belonged to a Bristol family, several of whom had filled the offices of sheriff and mayor of the city. His 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