many justly admired, that either a bishop could be so small in person, or a child so great in clothes; though since all is unriddled; for it was fashionable in that church* (a thing rather deserving to be remembered than fit to be done) in the depth of Popery, that the choristers chose a boy of their society to be a bishop among them from St. Nicholas's till Innocents' day at night, who did officiate in all things bishop-like, (the saying of mass alone excepted), and held the state of a bishop, answerably habited, amongst his fellows the counterfeit prebends. One of these, chancing to die in the time of his mock-episcopacy, was buried with crozier and mitre, as is aforesaid. Thus superstition can dispense with that which religion cannot, making piety pageantry, and subjecting what is sacred to lusory representations.† As for civil buildings in this county, none are such giants as to exceed the standard of structures in other counties. Longleat, the house of Sir James Thynne, was the biggest, and Wilton is the stateliest and pleasantest for gardens, fountains, and other accommodations.

Nor must the industry of the citizens of Salisbury be forgotten, who have derived the river into every street therein; so that Salisbury is a heap of islets thrown together. This mindeth me of an epitaph made on Mr. Francis Hide, a native of this city, who died secretary unto the English lieger in Venice:

"Born in the English Venice, thou didst die,

Dear friend, in the Italian Salisbury."

The truth is, that the strength of this city consisted in the weakness thereof, incapable of being garrisoned, which made it, in our modern wars, to escape better than many other places of the same proportion.

THE WONDERS.

STONE-HENGE.

After so many wild and wide conjectures of the cause, time, and authors hereof, why, when, and by whom this monument was erected, a posthume book comes lagging at last, called "Stone-henge Restored,"§ and yet goeth before all the rest. It is questionable whether it more modestly propoundeth, or more substantially proveth, this to be a Roman work, or temple dedicated to Coelus or Cœlum (son to Ether and Dies), who was senior to all the gods of the heathens.

That it is a Roman design, he proveth by the order, as also by the scheme thereof, consisting of four equilateral triangles,

* See Gregory's Opera Posthuma, p. 95, &c.

An engraving of the figure of the Boy Bishop in Salisbury cathedral is given in Gough's Sepulchral Monuments," vol. ii.; but more correctly in Britton's History of Salisbury Cathedral.-Ed.

Longford Castle, Wardour Castle, Fonthill, Stourhead, Charlton House, Tottenham Park, Corsham House, and Bowood, are all houses built on a scale of great magnificence. Ed.

§ Written by Inigo Jones.-F.

inscribed within the circumference of a circle, an architectonical scheme used by the Romans.* Besides, the portico, or entrance thereof, is made double, as in the Roman ancient structures of great magnificence. Not to say that the architraves therein are all set without mortar, according to the Roman architecture, wherein it was ordinary to have saxa nullo fulta glutino.

No less persuasive are his arguments to prove a temple dedicated to Coelum; first, from the situation thereof, standing in a plain, in a free and open air, remote from any village, without woods about it. Secondly, from its aspect, being sub dio, and built without a roof. Thirdly, from the circular form thereof, being the proper figure of the temple of Cœlus. Not to mention his other arguments, in which the reader may better satisfy himself from the original author, than my second-hand relation thereof.t

KNOT GRASS.

This is called in Latin gramen caninum supinum longissimum, and groweth nine miles from Salisbury, at master Tucker's at Maddington. It is a peculiar kind; and of the ninety species of grasses in England, is the most marvellous. It groweth ordinarily fifteen feet in length; yea, I read of one four-andtwenty foot long, which may be true, because, as there are giants amongst men, so there are giants amongst giants, which even exceed them in proportion.

The place whereon it groweth is low (lying some winters under water) having hills round about it, and a spacious sheepcommon adjoining; the soil whereof by every hasty shower is brought down into this little meadow, which makes it so incredibly fruitful. This grass being built so many stories high, from knot to knot, lieth matted on the ground, whence it is cut up with sickles, and bound into sheaves. It is both hay and provender, the joint-like knots whereof will fat swine.

Some conceive that the seed thereof, transplanted, would prosper plentifully (though not to the same degree of length) in other places; from whose judgment other husbandmen dissent, conceiving it so peculiar to this place, that ground and grass must be removed both together. Or else it must be set in a paralleled position, for all the particular advantages aforesaid, which England will hardly afford. So that Nature may seem mutually to have made this plant and this place one for another.

* Vitruvius, lib. v.

"Among the WONDERS of the county," says Mr. Britton, "it is really wonderful that the great temple, or assemblage of stones, &c. at Avebury, escaped Fuller's notice. It was of much greater magnitude, of superior importance, and consequently more entitled to notice than Stonehenge. Dr. Stukeley has devoted a folio volume to its illustration. It was certainly the most stupendous and extensive work of art in this island, and was probably the largest Druidical temple in Europe. Stukeley's Accouut of Stonhenge, fol., is more accurate than Inigo Jones's."-Ed.

PROVERBS.

"It is done secundùm usum Sarum."]

This proverb, coming out of the church, hath since enlarged itself into a civil use. It began on this occasion. Many offices or forms of service were used in several churches in England; as the office of York, Hereford, Bangor, &c.; which caused a deal of confusion in God's worship, until Osmond bishop of Sarum, about the year of our Lord 1090, made that ordinal, or office, which was generally received all over England; so that churches thenceforward easily understood one another, all speaking the same words in their Liturgy.

It is now applied to those persons which do, and actions which are formally and solemnly done, in so regular a way, by authentic precedents, and patterns of unquestionable authority, that no just exception can be taken thereat.

PRINCES.

MARGARET PLANTAGENET, daughter to George duke of Clarence and Isabel Nevile eldest daughter and co-heir of Richard Nevile earl of Warwick, was born August 14, 1473, at Farley castle in this county.* Reader, I pray thee, let her pass for a princess, because daughter to a duke, niece to two kings (Edward the Fourth and Richard the Third), mother to cardinal Reginald Pole; but chiefly because she was the last liver of all that royal race, which from their birth wore the names of Plantagenet. By Sir Richard Pole, a knight of Wales, and cousingerman to king Henry the Seventh, she had divers children, whereof Henry lord Montague was the eldest; he was accused of treason, and this lady his mother charged to be privy thereunto, by king Henry the Eighth, who (as his father was something too slow) was somewhat too quick in discovering treasons, as soon as (if not before) they were. On the scaffold, as she stood, she would not gratify the executioner with a prostrate posture of her body.

Some beheld this her action as an argument of an erected soul, disdaining pulingly to submit to an infamous death, showing her mind free, though her body might be forced, and that also it was a demonstration of her innocence. But others condemned it as a needless and unseasonable animosity in her, who, though supposed innocent before man for this fact, must grant herself guilty before God, whose justice was the supreme judge condemning her. Besides, it was indiscreet to contend, where it was impossible to prevail, there being no guard against the edge of such an axe, but patience; and it is ill for a soul to go reeking with anger out of this world.

Here happened an unequal contest betwixt weakness and

* Dugdale, in his Illustrations of Warwickshire, p. 335.

strength, age and youth, nakedness and weapons, nobility and baseness, a princess and an executioner, who at last dragging her by the hair (grey with age) maytruly be said to have taken off her head, seeing she would neither give it him, nor forgive him the doing thereof. Thus died this lady Margaret, heir to the name and stout nature of Margaret duchess of Burgundy, her aunt and god-mother, whose spirits were better proportioned to her extraction than estate; for, though by special patent she was created countess of Salisbury, she was restored but to a small part of the inheritance she was born unto. She suffered in the twenty-third year of the reign of king Henry the Eighth.

JANE SEYMOUR, daughter to Sir John Seymour, knight, (honourably descended from the lords Beauchamps), was (as byall concurring probabilities is collected) born at Wulf-hall in this county, and after was married to king Henry the Eighth.

It is currently traditioned, that at her first coming to court, queen Anne Boleyn, espying a jewel pendant about her neck, snatched thereat (desirous to see, the other unwilling to show it,) and casually hurt her hand with her own violence; but it grieved her heart more, when she perceived it the king's pic ture by himself bestowed upon her, who from this day forward dated her own declining, and the other's ascending, in her husband's affection.

It appeareth plainly by a passage in the act of parliament, that the king was not only invited to his marriage by his own affections, but by the humble petition and intercession of most of the nobles of his realm, moved thereunto, as well by the conveniency of her years, as in respect that by her excellent beauty and pureness of flesh and blood (I speak the very words of the act itself) she was apt (God willing) to conceive issue. And so it proved accordingly.

This queen died some days after the birth of prince Edward her son, on whom this epitaph;

Phonix Jana jacet, nato Phænice; dolendum

Sæcula Phanices nulla tulisse duas.
"Soon as her Phoenix bud was blown,
Root-Phoenix Jane did wither:

Sad, that no age a brace had shown
Of Phoenixes together."

Of all the wives of king Henry, she only had the happiness to die in his full favour, the 14th of October, 1337; and is buried in the choir of Windsor chapel; the king continuing in real mourning for her, even all the festival of Christmas.

SAINTS.

ADELME, Son to Kenred, nephew to Ina king of the West

Saxons,* was bred in foreign parts; and, returning home, was abbot of Malmsbury thirty years, a person memorable on several accounts: 1. He was the first Englishman who ever wrote in Latin. 2. He was the first that ever brought poetry into England. 3. The first bishop of the see of Sherborne.

Bede giveth him a large commendation for his learning; the rather, because he wrote a book for the reducing the Britons to observe Easter according to the church of Rome.

Impudent monks have much abused his memory with shameless lies, and amongst the rest with a wooden miracle; that a carpenter having cut a beam for his church too short, he,by his prayers, stretched it out to the full proportion. To this I may add another lie as clear as the sun itself, on whose rays (they report) he hung his vestment, which miraculously supported it, to the admiration of the beholders.§

Coming to Rome, to be consecrated bishop of Sherborne, he reproved Pope Sergius his fatherhood, for being a father indeed to a base child, then newly born; and, returning home, he lived in great esteem until the day of his death, which happened anno Domini 709.

His corpse being brought to Malmesbury, was there enshrined, and had in great veneration; who having his longest abode whilst living, and last when dead, in this county, is probably presumed

a native thereof.

EDITH, natural daughter of king Edgar, by the lady Wolfhil, was abbess of Wilton, wherein she demeaned herself with such devotion, that her memory obtained the reputation of saintship. And yet an author telleth us, that, being more curious in her attire than beseemed her profession, bishop Ethelwold sharply reproved her, who answered him roundly, "That God regardeth the heart more than the garment, and that sins might be covered as well under rags as robes."||

One reporteth, that, after the slaughter of her brother Edward, holy Dunstan had a design to make her queen of England¶ (the veil of her head, it seems, would not hinder the crown), so to defeat Ethelred the lawful heir, had she not declined the proffer, partly on pious, partly politic, dissuasions. She died anno Domini 984; and is buried in the church of Dioness at Wilton, of her own building. She is commonly called "Saint Edith the younger," to distinguish her from Saint Edith her aunt, of whom before.

MARTYRS.

It plainly appeareth that, about the year of our Lord 1503,