violence of party, may have preferred against this prelate in his life, impartial posterity has regarded him with the highest admiration; almost superior to the age in which he lived, he possessed all the noble qualities that distinguished it, and seems to have been exempt from its defects.

TILLOTSON.

It appears, from the series of portraits preserved in the great dining room at Lambeth palace, that Archbishop Tillotson was the first to wear a wig: which however, resembled his natural hair, and was worn without powder. It has been said of Dr. Barrow that he wrote longer sermons than any man of his time; of Archbishop Tillotson, it may be said that he wrote a greater number. The latter was appointed Clerk of the closet to king William, in 1689, and afterwards dean of St. Pauls. There is a curious letter of his, to Lady Russell, in which he says “After I had kissed the king's hand for "the deanery of St. Pauls, I gave his majesty 66 my most humble thanks, and told him, that now he had set me at ease for the remainder "of my life. He replied, 'no such matter, I

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assure you,' and spoke plainly about a great place, which I dread to think of, and said it "was necessary for his service, and he must

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placed me.

difficulty.

"charge it on my conscience. Just as he said "this, he was called to supper, and I had only "time to say that when his majesty was at leisure, I did believe I could satisfy him that it "would be most for his service that I should " continue in the station in which he had now This hath brought me into a real For on the one hand it is hard to "decline his majesty's commands, and much "harder yet to stand out against so much good"ness as his majesty is pleased to hold towards "me. This I owe to the bishop of Salisbury, 86 one of the best and worst friends I know: best "for his singular good opinion of me, and the "worst for desiring the king to this method, "which I knew he did; as if I and his lordship "had concerted the matter, how to finish this "foolish piece of dissimulation in running away "from a bishopric to catch an archbishopric." He was nominated to the see of Canterbury, April 15, 1691.

RICHARD KEDERMINSTER,

This amiable aud learned man was the last abbot but one, who presided over the monastery of Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire, to which office he was elected in 1488. His wise government, and the protection he afforded to virtue

and literaturc, rendered this society so flourishing, that it was equal to a little university. In the year 1500, he travelled to Rome, and became afterwards a celebrated preacher. On the privileges of the clergy being attacked in 1515 he preached a remarkable sermon to prove that it was against the law of God, who, by his prophet David, says, "touch not mine anointed, "and do my prophets no harm." He wrote a valuable history of the foundation of his monastery, and another of the lives of the abbots, beginning with Germanus, in the seventh year of king Edgar, A. D. 988, and continued it to his own times. These important documents, after the dissolution of religious houses, fell into the hands of Judge Moreton, and were consumed by the fire of London, at his house in Serjeant's Inn. A fair copy of them is however, said to have been in the possession of bishop Fell about 1630. It is possible that this may have been preserved, and it would he highly gratifying to know where records so valuable are deposited. Peunant mentions several other registers of this house, which probably exist to this day. Richard Kederminster beautified the abbey church, and inclosed it with a wall towards the town, and there he was buried in [531.