greatly lengthened by names from the lists of the dead and the living."

The tone of the present work will be found to differ in some respects from that of the Volume which I published twenty years ago. In reference to much contained in that book, I must say in the words of Sir Thomas Browne, written under somewhat similar circumstances:-"It was set down many years past, and was the sense of my conception at that time, not an immutable law unto my advancing judgment at all times; and therefore there might be many things therein plausible unto my past apprehension, which are not agreeable unto my present self. [Preface to Religio Medici.]

Should the perusal of these pages afford my readers anything like the pleasure and interest which I have found in their preparation, my labours will not have been in vain.

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INTRODUCTION.

THE writer's previous work—" Good and Great Men of Gloucestershire -has long been out of print, and copies of it are now rare. It has, therefore, been thought that the present volume may be rendered more complete and interesting if introduced by a summary of the contents of the former one. In attempting this, little can be done beyond an enumeration of the subjects of the several parts of which it consists, and a brief indication of the chief facts which are narrated.

A short introduction on the Geography and History of the County, is followed by Thirty-one Biographical Sketches entitled and arranged as follows:

I. KING LUCIUS, the First Christian Prince of Britain. The various accounts of this ancient British chief, as supplied by old writers, are briefly given. He lived in the latter half of the second century; and is said to have died at Gloucester and been buried in the church of St. Mary de Lode. At the west end of the north aisle of the Cathedral a beautifully illuminated window has been erccted to his memory by William Viner Ellis, Esq.

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II. SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON, the Model Merchant. The story of Whittington and his cat, as "rescued from the region of fable, and placed in its proper position in the History of this County," by Canon Lysons, is summarised. 'Dick," the son of Sir William de Whittington, appears to have been born at Pauntley, in the reign of Edward III. His mother had been previously the wife of Sir Thomas de Berkeley, of Cubberley, where she was buried in 1373.

III.—WILLIAM TYNDALE, the Bible Translator. The birthplace of this noble man is somewhat uncertain. He was born in 1484, but whether at North Nibley, or at Hunts Court, Stinchcombe, or in the parish of Slimbridge, cannot be decided. Educated at Oxford, he afterwards spent some time at Cambridge, and in 1519 became tutor and chaplain in the family of Sir John Walsh, of Little Sodbury. Here he resolved upon that great work which has rendered his name immortal. His translation of the Scriptures, the foundation of

all subsequent versions, was accomplished amidst difficulties and persecutions, eventually costing him his life. He was martyred at Vilvoorde, near Brussels, October 6, 1536. A noble monument erected to his memory on Nibley Knoll, was inaugurated November 6th, 1966.

IV. JAMES BAYNHAM, the Martyred Bible Reader. Baynham was a son of Sir Alexander Baynham, of Westbury-on-Severn. He was educated for the law, and practiced in London, in the reign of Henry VIII. Having excited the suspicions of the Papists he was arrested in 1531, and after suffering cruel tortures professed to abjure his opinions, and escaped with a heavy fine and a humiliating penance, in February, 1532. Bitterly repenting of this recantation he again avowed his faith, and suffered death at the stake, in Smithfield, April 30th. Sir William Tracy, of Toddington, who was animated by the same principles, was his contemporary. He escaped martyrdom, but after his death was tried and condemned in Bishop Stokesley's court, and his body was dragged from its grave and left without Christian burial!

V.-BISHOP HOOPER, the Protestant Martyr. Born in 1495, Hooper went to Merton College, Oxford, at the time when both Erasmus and Tyndale were at that University. He seems to have left shortly after Tyndale had been driven away in 1517. He subsequently entered the monastery of Black Friars at Gloucester, where he stayed till its dissolution. His Protestant opinions subjecting him to persecution he sought refuge on the Continent. In the reign of Edward VI. he returned to England, and in 1550 was nominated Bishop of Gloucester. On the accession of Mary, in 1553, he was cast into prison. After seventeen months' cruel confinement he was sentenced to death, and being brought from London to Gloucester, was burnt on Saturday, February 9th, 1555, in St. Mary's Square, where a fine monument, bearing his statue, was dedicated to his memory on February 9th, 1863.

VI. THOMAS DROWRY, and other Martyrs. The martyrdom of Hooper was followed by that of others. Drowry, a blind boy of Gloucester, was one of these victims. He and Thomas Croker, a bricklayer, were burnt at Gloucester, on the 5th May, 1556. John Horne, a carpenter, and a woman whose name is unknown, were burnt at Wotton-under-Edge, September 25th, of the same year. John Piggot suffered death about the same time at Little Sodbury, and Edward Horne, at Newent, on 15th November, 1558. John Coberley, of Cheltenham, was burnt, with two others, near Salisbury in March, 1556.

VII.—WILLIAM SARTON, and other Martyrs. A marble tablet in Highbury Chapel, St. Michael's Hill, Bristol, is inscribed to the memory of five martyrs who, during the reign of Queen Mary, were burnt to death on the spot where the Chapel now stands. In addition