A Religious Census of Derbyshire, 1676. 
By Rev. J. CHARLES Cox. 
; sg} is a manuscript folio volume of exceptional worth 
and of excellent penmanship. It is a Return of 
the population of the province of Canterbury, over sixteen 
years of age, for the year 1676, divided into three classes : 
* Conformists, Papists, and Nonconformists.” The Return was 
drawn up by order of Henry Compton, Bishop of London, and 
was obtained from the clergy at the archidiaconal visitations. 
The returns are divided into parishes, and in some dioceses 
grouped under Archdeaconries or Rural Deaneries. The Returns 
do not appear to be absolutely complete for each diocese, for 
occasionally certain parishes are missing, and of the diocese of 
Bristol and of Bath and Wells no details are supplied, but 
merely the totals under the hands of their respective bishops. 
The totals for the then diocese of Coventry and Lichfield are : 
Conformists, 155,720; Papists, 1,949; Nonconformists, 5,042. 
It is remarkable to note, small though it seems, how far larger 
the proportion of Roman Catholics was to the population in 
this diocese than elsewhere. London alone exceeds it with 2,069, 
but then the Conformists of that diocese were 263,000. Only one 
other diocese reaches to four figures, namely, Lincoln, with 1,244 
out of a conforming total of 215,000, but few other dioceses 
reached to 500. 
: aE N the invaluable library of the Salt Society, Stafford, 
So far as I am aware, this census, made at a time when materials 
for forming any estimate of the population, putting aside their 
