and put up since the Restoration. Vide p. 219 of Vol. 27." He then goes on with his description of the Cathedral, affording a characteristic sketch of a Whig prelate from the point of view of an eighteenth or rather perhaps seventeenth-century Tory.

Our Ladie's Chapel behind the Choir is made use of for six o'clock Prayers in the Morning: on the south Side in this Chapel and just behind the High Altar lies a very ancient grey marble Slab, disrobed of its Brasses and Inscription; but has the Impression in the Stone of the Figure of a Bishop with his Mitre and Crosier, long before the Erection of this Episcopal See. At the upper End of the north Isle on the south Side just by the High Altar, is an old and ordinary Monument of Stone, Altar Fashion, in which they tell you that the Emperor Henry the 4th lies intombed and opposite to it under the north Wall in an Arch, lies a very antique Stone, no Doubt, designed for one of the oldest Abbats of this Church.

The Altar Piece is of a fine Piece of Tapestry, having a Scripture History represented on it: By it on the north Side or Corner, Bishop Stratford has a very neat white marble mural Monument, and his Bust in white Marble on the Top of it. Just within the Altar Rails on the north Side on a small square Peice of white Marble is inscribed

S. P. Ep'us Cest: 1752

This is designed for Samuel Peploe late Bishop of Chester, who died there in 1752, and who is to have a Monument erected for him, as the Verger informed me, against the Pillar in the S.E. Corner by the High-Altar, near Bishop Hall's Monument. The Occasion of Bishop Peploe's Rise in the Church was Party Merit he being Vicar of Preston in Lancashire in 1715 when the Pretender's Friends were Masters of that Town, and when he could not be persuaded to pray publicly for him, but couragiously prayed for King George; who afterwards rewarded his Zeal in his Cause with the Wardenship of Manchester College and this Bishopric. The Bishop lived constantly in his Diocese and rarely went to Parliament; and being a married Man and having a Family, he set his Heart upon raising a Fortune for them; and consequently lived in a mean unhospitable Manner and let his Episcopal House run to such Decay, that the present Bishop found it absolutely necessary to pull it quite down and rebuild it. Bishop Peploe left his Son the Chancellor a great temporal Estate, and heaped the cheif spiritual Preferments upon

U

him that were in his Disposal: his Dauter Mary had also a good Fortune and is now married to Mr. Joddrell of Cheshire.

Cole then supplies a contrasting sketch of Dean Arderne, who has been mentioned above in the account of Tarporley. His monument states that "tho' he bore more than a common Affection to his private Relations, yet gave he the Substance of his bequeathable Estate to this Cathedral. Which Gift, his Will was should be mentioned; that clergymen may consider, whether it be not a sort of Sacrilege, to sweep away all from the Church and Charity into the Possession of their LayKindred, who are not needy." Thus £300 a year in lands in Tarporley came to the Cathedral, and one turn in five of the presentation to the rectory of Tarporley. The Dean, "being a Cambridge man and a Writer . . . and being moreover a Person, whose Character pleases me," says Cole, "I shall put down in this Place what occurs to me concerning him," and proceeds as follows:

James Arderne descended from a very antient Family in Cheshire, was born in that County and after having run thro' his Schole Discipline and Studies, was admitted a Member of Christ's College in Cambridge, into the Matricula of which University he was entered on July 9, 1653: at St. John Baptist's 1656, he took his Degree of Bachelor of Arts and proceeded Master at the usual Time: and being a Person of good Parts and of great Ingenuity, he was admitted as a Member of a Club or Society in 1659 who used to meet every Night at the then Turk's Head in New-Palace Yard in Westminster, where many Virtuosi of the Common-Wealth Stamp would commonly repair and where James Harrington, the famous Author of the Oceana was wont to preside; and it was observed that their Discourses upon Government were the most ingenious of any at that Time, when, as to all human Foresight, there seemed no Possibility of Monarchy ever being established again in this Kingdom. However upon the happy Restoration he took Orders and on 5 April 1666 was presented to the Donative or Curacy of St. Botolph Aldgate in London, which he held till his Promotion to the Deanry of Chester, when he privately resigned it to Dr. Ric. Hollingworth. In the years 1673 and 1674 he was a Fellow-Commoner in

Brazen-Nose College in Oxford, partly for the Sake of the public Library, and partly for the Conversation of the Divines and others of the University of Oxford, where he had been formerly in 1658, incorporated Master of Arts, as he was also in 1673 Doctor of Divinity, both which [Degrees] he had regularly taken in his own University. He was Chaplain in Ordinary to King Charles the 2d. who promoted him to the Deanry of Chester, where he was installed in July 1682. On the Death of Bishop Cartwright in April 1689, it was commonly reported that King James the 2d. did then nominate the Dean to succeed him in the Bishopric of Chester: but whether that be true or not; certain it is, that King William gaining his Point in establishing himself King of these Realms on the Exclusion of his Father-in-Law and own Uncle, he appointed another Person to that See. In 1688 he made his Will, by which he left the Substance of his bequeathable Estate to the Cathedral of Chester, in order to Provide and maintain a public Library in that Church, for the Use of the City and Clergy there, together with all his Books and a Turn of Presentation to the Rectory of Torporley in Cheshire, where his Estate lay, to the Dean and Chapter. At length, after he had run, as Anthony Wood expresses it, with the Humour of King James the 2d. and on that Account suffered several Indignities and Affronts from the Vulgar of, and near Chester, when that King withdrew himself into France in 1688, he gave Way to Fate on 18 of September [Mr. Willis says 18 August] 1691; whereupon his Body was buried in the Cathedral of Chester, on the south Side near the Bishop's Throne.

He then gives the inscription on the tomb of Elizabeth Gastrell, 1747 (Ormerod, i. 295), and continues:

This year 1755 the Dean and Chapter have erected on the south Side of the Cathedral Yard several convenient Linen Warehouses, for the Use of the Irish Traders in that Commodity, who come over at Midsummer and Michaelmass to vend their Manufactures: tho' many People disliked it and tho't it below their Dignity to accommodate Tradesmen so near their Cathedral Church.

The Walls round the City of Chester are very perfect and were designed so conveniently, as that the Inhabitants can walk upon them; which renders their City much more convenient, airy and pleasant to them: and the Piazza's or Rows, as they call them, within the City, by means whereof the Citizens walk in their streets under shelter in the worst of Weather, make this City have a more singular Appearance than any I ever yet saw tho'

it must be confessed that the Convenience of walking dry is more than counterballanced by the necessary Gloominess of their forward Apartments, and by the continual ascending and descending the Steps which are made to get into them. For my own Part, when I was at Chester, I was too lame, being just got up after a broken Leg: so could neither walk about the City, or stay so long in the Cathedral as my Inclinations would have led me to have done otherwise: however I could not resist taking Notice of the two former Inscriptions there, they being of a Turn so peculiar and singular in this Age.

The City is very large and populous and almost equally divided by two principal Streets which cross one another in the middle: and bating the Rows, which certainly are no Ornament, however useful they may be, it is well built and shows a great number of handsome Houses, and the Streets are better paved than in any great Town I have been in: which makes some Sort of Amends for the Vileness of their Pavements which lead to it from every Quarter.

I was told St. John's Church was more worth looking into than the Cathedral, but as moving about, otherwise than in a Coach, was very inconvenient to me, so I was deprived of the Pleasure of seeing that old Collegiate Church; as also the Castle and magnificent Hall in it, which I was told, almost vies with Westminster Hall for Vastness and Capacity.

The pen-portrait of the then Dean of Chester has been omitted here, and it must suffice to allude to the letters between the friends Allen and Cole contained in the "Collections." The index recently compiled by Mr. George J. Gray gives every facility for studying them.

LANCASHIRE RECUSANTS AND

QUAKERS

HE following lists afford some details of the religious conditions in Lancashire and Cheshire. in the time of Charles II, and may be regarded as supplementary to Mr. Irvine's account of the Chester diocesan records of the same period. Something was shown of the Nonconformists' grievances in the extracts from Sir Roger Bradshaigh's Letter Book, in the last volume of Transactions.

RECUSANTS IN WEST DERBY HUNDRED

At the general gaol delivery at Lancaster Castle on 6th September, 18 Charles II (1666), it was presented that the following persons, though all of sixteen years of age and upwards on 1st December 1665, "did not repair" to their parish church or other place of Common Prayer, but had obstinately forborne to do so for three months or more.1 It will be noticed that the names, about 500 in all, belong to West Derby hundred, though there is not a single Liverpool one among them; but the assize roll contains nothing to show why the other hundreds, which could have trebled this list, were not reported upon. Perhaps the churchwardens and others had been remiss, or perhaps their lists had been recorded on earlier rolls. A some

1 Pal. of Lancaster Assize Roll, 41, m. 8.