First, anno 1293, he was consecrated bishop of Saint Asaph; and deserved right well of that see, by his manifold benefactions, appropriating some churches to his chapter.

As for a portion of tithes in the parish of Corwen, appropriated to the fabric of the church, he reduced it to its former estate ;* the first and last instance (for precedent I dare not call it) which I have met with, of a church legally appropriated, which reverted to its presentative propriety. Had king Henry the Eighth, at the dissolution of the abbeys, followed this example, the church had been richer by many pounds; the exchequer not poorer by a penny. I find also, that he asked leave of king Edward the First to make a will,+ which may seem very strange, whether it was a court compliment, or "ex gratiâ cautelâ,” or because Welch bishops in that age might not testamentize without royal assent. By his will he bequeathed much of plate, rich vests and books, to the canons of that church and his chaplains, dying anno Domini 1313.

SINCE THE REFORMATION.

GODFREY GOODMAN was born of wealthy parentage in this county; bred under his uncle (of whom hereafter) in Westminster school; then in Trinity College, in Cambridge, where he commenced doctor of divinity; successively preferred prebendary of Windsor, dean of Rochester, and bishop of Gloucester. He might have been joined to the prelates before (though he lived long since) the Reformation, because he agreed with them in judgment, dying a professed Romanist, as appeareth by his will. Yet the adversaries of our hierarchy have no cause to triumph thereat, who slanderously charge Popish compliance on all his order, being able to produce, of two hundred bishops since queen Elizabeth, but this only instance, and him a person of no great eminency; not only disavowed by his fellow prelates, but imprisoned in the late Convocation for his erroneous opinions.

Indeed, in his discourse, he would be constantly complaining of our first reformers; and I heard him once say, in some passion, "that bishop Ridley was a very odd man;" to whom one presently returned, "He was an odd man indeed, my lord; for all the Popish party in England could not match him with his equal in learning and religion." To give Goodman his due, he was a harmless man, hurtful to none but himself, pitiful to the poor, hospitable to his neighbours, against the ruining of any of an opposite judgment, and gave the most he left to pious uses. He was no contemptible historian; but I confess an undermatch to doctor Hackwell. But I remember the ring bequeathed to me in his will, with the posy thereof, Requiem defunctis; and therefore I will no longer be troublesome to his memory, who + Idem, ibid.

Bishop Godwin, ut prius.
Gabriel Goodman.

was made bishop 1624, and some seven years since deceased in Westminster, almost 80 years of age.

WRITERS SINCE THE REFORMATION.

WILLIAM SALESBURY was born in this county, where his family flourisheth at this day. This gentleman, out of a love to his native language, amor patriæ ratione valentior omni, composed a short English and Welch dictionary, first privately presented to and approved by king Henry the Eighth (being a Tuthar by his father's side of Welch extraction), and then publicly printed, anno Domini 1547.

Some captious spirits will quarrel the usefulness thereof, seeing the Welch did not want, and the English did not wish, a book of that nature. But let them know that it is useful for both nations; to the English for attaining, to the Welch for retaining, that language.

Attaining. For, being an original tongue, an antiquary is lame without it (which I find by my own defect) to understand the (few of many) remaining monuments of that nation.

Retaining. That tongue, as well as others, by disuse being subject not only to corruption but oblivion, by the confession of the natives of that country. Indeed all dictionaries of languages are very useful: words bringing matter to the tongue, and, as Plato well observed, ὄνομα ἔτι ὄργανον διδασκαλικὸν, (ε name or word is an instrument of instruction*), and ushereth knowledge into our understanding.

However, seeing nothing can be begun and finished at once, Salesbury's book (as the first of this kind) did rather essay than effect the work, and since hath been completed by others. died about the year 1560.

He

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC SINCE THE REFORMATION, Sir THOMAS, son of Richard EXMEW, was born at Rythin in this county. Being bred in London a goldsmith, he thrived therein so well, that, anno 1517, he was lord mayor thereof. Besides other benefactions in his own country, and to Saint Mary Magdalen in Milk-street, London (where he lies buried), he made the water conduit by London-wall at Moorgate.+ Apisov per vowp (so Pindar begins his poems), water is a creature of absolute and common concernment, without which we should be burnt with the thirst, and buried with the filth, of our own bodies.

GABRIEL GOODMAN, son of Edward Goodman, Esq. was born at Rythin in this county; afterwards doctor of divinity in Saint John's College in Cambridge, and dean of Westminster, where he was fixed for full forty years; though, by his own † Stow's Survey of London, p. 578.

In Cratylo.

parts and his friends' power, he might have been what he would have been in the church of England. Abigail said of her husband, "Nabal is his name, and folly is with him." But it may be said of this worthy dean, Goodman was his name, and goodness was in his nature, as by the ensuing testimonies will appear.

1. The Bible was translated into Welch on his cost, as by a note in the preface thereof doth appear.

2. He founded a school-house, with a competent salary, in the town of his nativity; as also erected and endowed an almshouse therein for twelve poor people.

3. He repaired the house for the minister (there called the Warden) of Rythin, furnishing it with plate and other utensils, which were to descend to his successors.

4. He purchased a fair house with land thereunto at Chiswick in Middlesex, where with his own hands he set a fair row of elms, now grown up to great beauty and height, for a retiring place for the masters and scholars at Westminster in the heat of summer, or any time of infection. If these lands at this day be not so profitably employed, as they were by the donor piously intended, it is safer to bemoan the sad effect, than accuse the causers thereof.

There needs no other testimony of his honesty and ability, than that our English Nestor, the lord treasurer Cecil, made him one of the executors of his will, to dispose of great sums to charitable uses; which trust he most faithfully discharged. He died in the year 1601; and is buried in the collegiate church of Westminster, whereof he so well deserved, as of all England, Mr. Camden performing his perambulation about it on his

expences.

Sir HUGH MIDDLETON, son of Richard Middleton, was born at Denbigh in this county, and bred in London. This is that worthy knight, who hath deserved well of London, and, in it, of all England. If those be recounted amongst David's Worthies, who, breaking through "the army of the Philistines,"* fetched water from the well of Bethlehem, to satisfy the longing of David (founded more on fancy than necessity), how meritorious a work did this worthy man perform, who, to quench the thirst of thousands in the populous city of London, fetched water on his own cost, more than twenty-four miles,† encountering all the way with an army of oppositions, grappling with hills, struggling with rocks, fighting with forests, till, in defiance of diffi culties, he had brought his project to perfection. But oh, what an injury was it unto him, that a potent person and idle spectator

2 Samuel xxiii. 16.

By an accurate mensuration, the course of the New River is thirty-eight miles, three quarters, and sixteen poles in length; and the cost to the original proprietors was half a million sterling.-ED.

should strike in (reader, I could heartily wish it were a falsehood what I report), and by his greatness possess a moiety of the profit, which the unwearied endeavours of the foresaid knight had purchased to himself!

THE FAREWELL.

I heartily wish this county may find many like Robert earl of Leicester (by his bounty much advancing the building of a new church in Denbigh), who may willingly contribute their charity for the repairing of all decayed churches therein. Yea, may it be happy in faithful and able ministers, that by their pains they may be built up in the faith of the Lord.

"The property of the New River (says Mr. Nelson, in his History of Islington,') is divided into seventy-two shares, which division took place soon after the commencement of the undertaking: thirty-six of these were originally vested in Sir Hugh Middleton, the first projector, who having impoverished himself and his family by a concern which has proved so beneficial to the public as to render his name ever honoured and respected, was obliged to part with his property in the undertaking, which was divided among various persons. These shares are called the Adventurers' shares. The moiety of the undertaking, which was vested in the Crown, was by king Charles the First, on account of the then unpromising aspect of the Company's affairs, re-granted to Sir Hugh Middleton, bart., his heirs and assigns, on condition that they should for ever pay to the king's receiver-general, or into the receipt of the Exchequer, for his Majesty's use, the yearly rent of 500/., which is still paid, and almost entirely out of the king's shares: but, the Crown never having had any hand in the management of the concern, the holders of these shares are still excluded from the direction. Though king James became a proprie. tor of one half of the concern, Middleton, to prevent the direction of its affairs from falling into the hands of courtiers, precluded him from having any share in the management, and only allowed him a person to be present at the several meetings, to prevent any injustice to his royal principal. By this preclusion of the holders of the king's shares from the government of the Company, exclusive of their being encumbered with the aforesaid annuity, they are of course not quite so valuable as those of the Adventurers." Notwithstanding the difficulties which the first projectors had to encounter, and the losses thereby sustained, the undertaking has of late years proved extremely profitable to the shareholders.-ED.

FLINTSHIRE.

FLINTSHIRE taketh its name from Flint, formerly an eminent place therein. But why Flint was so named will deservedly bear an inquiry, the rather because I am informed there is scarce a flint-stone to be found in the whole shire.

An eminent antiquary well known in these parts (reader, I must carry my author at my back, when I write that which otherwise will not be believed) hath informed me, it was first called Flit-town, because the people flitted or removed their habitations from a small village hard by, to and under a castle built there by king Edward the First. Afterwards it was called Flint-town, or Flint, to make it more solid in the pronunciation. Now although sometimes liquids are melted out of a word to supple it to turn the better on the tongue's end; it will hardly be precidented that ever the sturdy letter N was on that or any account interjected into the middle of an original word. But it is infidelity not to believe what is thus traditioned

unto us.

It hath the sea on the north, Shropshire on the south, Cheshire on the east, and Denbighshire on the west thereof; the smallest county in Wales, whereof the natives render this reason, "that it was not handsomely in the power of king Edward the First (who made it a shire) to enlarge the limits thereof; for the English shires, Shropshire and Cheshire, he would not discompose; and on the Welch side he could not well extend it without prejudice to the Lord Marchers, who had potestatem vitæ et necis in the adjacent territories; the king being unwilling to resume, and they more unwilling to resign, their respective territories."

If any ask why so small a parcel of ground was made a shire, let them know that every foot therein in content was ten in concernment, because it was the passage into North Wales. Indeed it may seem strange that Flint, the shire-town, is no market town, no nor Saint Asaph (a city, quâ sedes episcopi) till made so very late. But this is the reason, partly the vicinity of Chester, the market general of these parts; partly that every village hath a market in itself, as affording all necessary commodities. Nor must we forget that this county was parcel of the Pala

• Mr. John Jones.