if adopted, the number of correspondents would have been soon diminished. In particular the highly laughable anecdotes of Dr. Battie would not have appeared *, for unless I am much mistaken you had them from one of the most learned men of the age, who would have been averse to the subscribing of his name to them. It is an absq. sign. paper, but I think I have heard the writer relate them. The hand-writing of my serious and funny friend is well known to me; but I conclude the MS. has been committed to the flames weeks ago.

My father having left a note of reference to the seal and arms of Bishop Wellys at the beginning of his Register, I searched for it whilst I was at Rochester; and it appearing to me to be very curious, though perhaps not singular as to the arrangement of the several bearings, I desired Mr. Fountaine to ask Mr. Tracy to favour me with a delineation; he readily complied with the request, and to his accurate drawing has subjoined a description of the arms of other persons of the name of Welles. The original is, you observe, within the initial letter of Registrum, and the illumination is neatly executed. From the form of the cross it may be inferred that St. Andrew is the Saint to whom the episcopal portrait beneath is represented as offering his devotion. If you turn to the memorials you will find that Brown, the predecessor of Wellys, was extremely solicitous to have his name and arms perpetuated in the Cathedrals of Rochester and Norwich, and that no traces of them are discernible in either of the Churches. His successor has been more fortunate, by taking care to have them delineated in a register, though fabricated of materials less durable than stone or brass. I am, Sir,

"Your faithful and humble servant,

5. Mr. DENNE to Mr. GoUGH.

S. DENNE."

"DEAR SIR, Wilmington, Dec. 15, 1789. "The public prints must have apprised you of the death of George Lynch, the oldest friend I hadt. With anxiety I have observed for two or three years that he did not wear well, being subject to fits of the gout that were not of a salutary kind; and Ï am apt to believe that during the summer he felt such a change in himself as portended a suspicion that his days would be soon numbered. This I collect from his solicitude to have a monument finished which he was preparing as a memorial of the departed branches of the family; but this satisfaction was denied bim, and his intention must be executed by his two surviving sisters, my sister Denne and Mrs. Herring.

"Pleased was I to find that Bishop Yorke had complimented *See Gent. Mag. vol. LVIII. p. 4.

See a biographical notice of the Rev. George Lynch in the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. IX. P. 558.

Fisher* with the Vicarage of Linton, which, from its nearness to Duxford, must be a desirable living to him. What may be the situation of Duxford, and the sort of house appertaining to it, I am not aware; but Linton in my eye was the prettiest village I ever saw in Cambridgeshire.

66

It had almost escaped my memory to apprise you that Delineator Clarke† is a clerk in the Ordnance-office at Chatham, and an occasional contributor to Mr. Urban's Miscellany. He is Indagator Roffensis, who subscribed the description of Woldham Church in the Magazine for July ; and in the next letter offered his conjectures touching the 'No Chalice' on the monument in the Chapel at Greatham, co. Durham. I remain, "Dear Sir, yours truly,

S. DENNE."

6. "DEAR SIR, Wilmington, Dec. 3, 1790. "Inclosed is a revised and enlarged edition of my Remarks on Stone Seats or Stalls §; whether the additions will entitle this paper to a second reading at a meeting of our brethren at Somerset-place Mr. Director is a competent judge. There is an inaccuracy of expression in Mr. Wells's || observations, which, as it did not affect the principal question, I have not noticed; it occurs in the passages cited below ¶, where he repeatedly styles the Deacon and Subdeacon Priests. At this impropriety I am the more surprised, because I understood from you that our departed member was of the Romish persuasion; but I conclude from this instance, and from the errors into which he had fallen in his illustration drawn from Westminster Abbey, that he wrote his letter in haste, and that he did not examine with attention the canopies, bench, and royal monuments in the Confessor's Chapel. At page 6 he has referred in a note to the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LVI. p. 649, for a short description of the triple seat in the Church of Hastings; but he has not referred to p. 751, where the subject is further considered, and from which paper he has copied several sentences. This inclines me to believe that he was the communicator of it under the signature of O, though he might have his reasons for not acknowledging it. "Mr. Boys's Collections for the History of Sandwich, part ii. will ere long make their appearance, every sheet being worked off except what Mr. Latham, of Dartford, terms the Fauna; and

*The Rev. Edmund Fisher, M. A.

+ Charles Clarke, Esq. F. S. A. See Index to Archæologia, p. 15. See Gent. Mag. vol. LIX. p. 589.

See the Archæologia, vol. X. pp. 298-324.

David Wells, Esq. F. S. A. of Burbach.

"It is clear stone seats were originally designed for the three officiating Priests at the solemn Mass and Vespers, and these Priests were of three different dignities, to wit, the Celebrant, Deacon, and Subdeacon, p. 5; which remark serves further to confirm what has been advanced concerning the office of the three Priests, p. 6."

1

he being a very intelligent naturalist, this was submitted to his correction, and he has, I think, returned it. The delay has been owing to Mr. Boys's choosing the book should pass under a press that was near him rather than send it to a London printer, because he could upon more easy terms have the proof sheets; and as often as Messrs. Simmons and Kirby were busy about newspapers and catalogues, the Kentish Almanack Companion, and Lady's Diary, Sandwich was dispatched to Coventry.

"The next time I write to Master Colman *, I shall hint to him that he is not the first man of his county who has governed the old House, having discovered, what had escaped the researches of the indefatigable historian thereof, that Dr. John Porie, who was said to be of Norfolk, was really a native of Thrapston in Northamptonshire, and that he did not allow Archbishop Parker the option of a legacy. He appears, however, to have been a benefactor to the church and poor of the parish where he was born; and his Grace was not mistaken in his opinion that his friend was not in affluent circumstances, though the world reputed him to be rich.

"In a catalogue of books as advertised for sale by Bristow, a bookseller at Canterbury, there is notice of there being among them the valuable library of a gentleman who lately left this county; for county perhaps might be read with propriety country, as I rather suspect the valuable library of the Historian of Kent is alluded to, and to him the motto in his third volume is truly applicable, Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes. A stranger in a foreign land is he, as it is generally believed, likely to remain for ever and aye, because he has deviated from the Poet's rule in the preceding verse, ' Quod verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum.'

"I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely,

S. DENNE."

7. "DEAR SIR, Wilmington, Feb. 24, 1791. "Should the surmises concerning the figures in the window of Brereton chancel + be novel at Somerset-place, the recital of them may afford a quarter of an hour's amusement to the Society; but if any other F. A.S. has anticipated them, the encoring them even with variations may be rather tiresome, St. Thomas à Becket and his Prince being a very hackneyed theme.

"With regard to the conjectures about the coat of arms of an unknown Knight of the Garter, after consulting Ashmole and Anstis, you may be competent to decide upon their validity; and if any doubts still remain with you, I am persuaded that our intelligent and communicative brother of the Heralds'-office, who is eke one of your fellow-council, will at once obviate them. Much do I wish to discover whom the figure alluded to was designed to represent. Mr. Walpole, in Anecdotes of Painting, * Dr. Colman, Master of Bene't-college, Cambridge. + Printed in the Archeologia, vol. X. p. 334-344.

Mr. Brooke.

does not notice the portrait of any Talbot; and if this should be a portrait of the renowned Sir John Talbot, it may be an unique. It is well executed; and of the group of numberless heads of persons supposed to be spectators of the ceremony of the inauguration of the Virgin Mary, there are four beautiful faces just behind the chairs of state in which are seated the Father and Son; and at the footstool of the throne, on the left side, is a man kneeling, with his arms and legs bare, and in tattered garFor whom it was meant I have not the faintest idea. "Your sincere friend,

ments.

S. DENNE."

8. "DEAR SIR,

Wilmington, July 26, 1792. "At our last interview you hinted that there was not now so many papers as heretofore for communication to our brethren in Somerset-place; and you expressed a wish to receive assistance from myself and friends. By the favour of Mr. Clarke, of Gravesend, a letter from whom was inserted in the last volume of Archæologia, I send you a drawing of a single stone seat with a piscina in the chancel of Chalk Church; and the latter object is the more curious and interesting because it is in such a state of preservation as to point out clearly the purpose for which it was constructed. Mr. Clarke has also promised to illustrate it by proper authorities, and to thus effectually subvert the general idea hitherto prevailing of these being a receptacle for holy water in the chancel. It is to be presumed that he will at the same time take an opportunity to support the opinion he first suggested in the Gentleman's Magazine, under the signature of Indagator, concerning the original use of stone stalls, in which I do not yet see sufficient grounds to concur with him; and it is in consequence of a description of the stalls in Cotterstock Church in Northamptonshire, in Bridges's History, vol. II. p. 435, which seems to add weight to the notion I have formed, that I give you the trouble of a few lines, apprehending that you may be able to procure from one of your many correspondents a drawing of these four seats, which according to Bridges rise one above the other.

"Mr. Clarke is desired by me to make use of his pencil should he discover in Chalk Church any other striking objects. The front of the porch is indeed remarkable for its capricious and ludicrous embellishments; but there being an engraving of them in the Bibliotheca Britannica, No. VI. part I. I have hinted my doubt, whether a new drawing would meet with the Society's particular attention. His delineation of the Stall and Piscina, or, to write more correctly, Fenestella with a Piscina, is fit for a quarto volume; and I have recommended to him to let that be the size of any other drawing he may consent to have exhibited, as thinking you are more in want of pieces for Archæologia than for Vetusta Monumenta.

"In a dearth of papers for the amusement of F. S. A. further remarks on Fonts may not be unacceptable; and I have it therefore in my thoughts to transmit some when the meetings of the Society shall be renewed. I have applied for a description of the Font in Canterbury Cathedral, and by means of that compared with the engraving of that in the original edition of Somner's Antiquities, as eke with Richard Culmer's, alias Blue Dick, the Iconoclast's 'Dean and Chapter news from Canterbury,' I am persuaded I shall clearly show that Batteley was mistaken in his averment, that after the Restoration Bishop Warner caused a new Font, more costly and beautiful than the former, to be set up at his own charge.' As Batteley did not choose to be at the expense of a plate, he ought certainly to have favoured his readers with a circumstantial detail of the figures exhibited; and indeed this is wanting, notwithstanding the plates given by Somner and by Gostling in the 'Walk about Canterbury,' they presenting the same view of the Font, and but a little more than a fourth part of it.

"The chancel of Maidstone Church is repairing. It has been covered with a new roof; and, should a new pavement be laid, I hope that accidentally by design an opportunity will be taken to discover whether the ashes of old Courtenay are deposited under the stone laid there for a memorial of him. On the digging for a vault in March last in the Church-yard very near to the east end of the chancel, some massy foundations were removed; and it is reasonably supposed that they were a part of those of the old Church, which it was not necessary to take away on the erection of the present building, supposing it to be placed upon a different site. And in the Church-yard of Bromley, on opening the ground to lay a foundation for a north aile, just below the surface was found a stone coffin; but whether there was an antiquary present to examine it with attention I have not heard.

"Mr. Tracy, of Brompton, near Chatham, whose name, as delineator, is subscribed to several plates in Mr. Thorpe's Antiquities, in acknowledging the receipt of my articles in the last volume of Archæologia, which I had transmitted to him as a sinall recompense for civilities he had showed me, thus expresses himself:

"The accounts hitherto published of William de Tracy, whom you mention in your remarks on the portraits at Brereton, are very erroneous (see note t). That Baron was living 6 Richard I. and died before the first of John, from whom Henry de Tracy, nick-named Le Bossu, his son, through the interest of Geffery Fitz-Piers, Earl of Essex, obtained possession of his land, and paid a relief for fifty Knights' fees.' From a paragraph in Mr. Thorpe's Antiquities, p. 131, it appears that my correspondent is well versed in the genealogy of a family to which he bears a relationship by consanguinity. I am, dear Sir,

Your faithful and obliged servant,

S. DENNE.