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bishop adds, after giving this extract- What share this sermon had in his promotion I know not, but on the 26th June, 1669, he was admitted canon.' Further on, the future Provost of Oriel records the honours of his ancestor in these words:-"He was elected provost of his College by the unanimous suffrage of the Society on the 24th August, 1681, and continued there till his death, August 24, 1689, having presided over the College exactly eight years, and (if his epitaph is to be credited) with the greatest prudence and dignity.'

I gather from the interesting family relic, of which a fac-simile is here given, that this last expression of the epitaph is intended to be more than ordinarily significant. In what degree the Provost of King's was related to the distinguished personage whose autograph lies before me, I have not been able to discover; but a 'kinsman,' in any sense, of Monk, duke of Albemarle, was no doubt a right worshipful person in his day.

A silver-gilt cup, presented to this Dr. Copleston, as vice-chancellor of Cambridge, by King Charles II., is still preserved in the family. It seems, from the specimens given in the Bishop's MS. memoir, and which are also to be found, I believe, in the Musa Cantabrigienses of that date, that the Provost of King's wrote Latin verses as well as sermons; but I shall not withhold any special gratification from my readers though I produce none of them. It is quite certain that if his descendant, the Provost of Oriel, had not, as an

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undergraduate, written much better, he would not have gained his university prize. With the following amusing extract I will close my notice—perhaps already too extended-of Mr. Copleston's ancestral record:

'The next occasion on which he appeared in print among the academical versifiers was the death of King Charles the Second, and the accession of King James, when the University of Cambridge lamented and rejoiced most dutifully in the same breath. The title of the volume composed on this occasion was 'Mæstissimæ ac lætissimæ Academiæ Cant: Affectus, Decedente Carolo II., Succedente Jacobo II. Regibus Augustissimis Serenissimis, Clementissimis.''

Such was Mr. Copleston's scrupulous exactness in his genealogical researches, that much as he desired to arrive at the conclusion, he would not, upon grounds of probability only, link on the first name in his scheme to the last name of the Dorsetshire branch of Copleston, as given in the Herald's Visitation for 1623, but contents himself with saying-That he (i. e. the first Copleston upon his scheme) was connected with the main family some way or other I have no doubt, as well from the tradition of the family, the same spelling of the name, the bearing of the same coat of arms, as from the circumstance that I am morally certain none of the name ever existed who were not descended from that family.'

Upon the authority of the antiquarian, Lyson,*

*See his Britannia, cc. 174 and 175.

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who expressly asserts what before seemed doubtful, I have not hesitated to supply the wanting link in the person of John Copleston, of Nash, in the county of Dorset, a royalist who forfeited his estates as a delinquent, circa 1643. From him the line goes back unbroken to the head of the main Devonshire stock, Copleston of Copleston.

It is hoped that these notices of a subject, in which the bishop was at this time so much interested, will not be deemed impertinent, and yet I have a few words more before concluding this genealogical episode. The ancient honours and possessions of the family of Copleston have for generations passed away-the greatest wreck having taken place so far back as the reign of Elizabeth, when Christopher Copleston slew his nephew in a fit of rage, and then procured a pardon from the crown at the cost of some thirteen manors.* To this personage his posterity are clearly nothing indebted, unless it be for a safe obscurity, in which they are free to solace themselves with the old distich that marks their Saxon origin

Crocker, Cruwys, and Copleston,

When the Conqueror came, were at home.

1804. The pursuits of the genealogist and the antiquary are so nearly allied, that we can account at once for the close juxtaposition of the two following entries in the diary:-'January 19. Re

* A copy of the original pardon, granted ivo Eliz., is amongst the papers collected by the bishop, whose own Branch, I wish to observe, comes off from the main line far above the worthy to whom this document relates.

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