a ae 
By the late Rev. Edward Wilton, M.A. 65 
This would be either on the day before, or upon the festival of St. 
Paul’s Conversion. The entry is ambiguous, but I think it means 
that the Bishop, strictly speaking, was born on the 25th. This 
will account for the selection of that day, for the distribution of the 
Bishop’s Charities in his native place, to which I shall advert here- 
after. Britton says (I presume from the authority of Ballard’s 
Letters in or from the Bodleian Library,) that the Bishop’s early 
education was carefully conducted by his Father. Herein he may 
be correct; but when he goes on to state that he was sent to Queen’s 
College, Cambridge, he has either been misled by others, or an error 
of the Press has escaped uncorrected. The Bishop was entered 1689 
at Queen’s College, Ozford; a College then selected by Wiltshire 
men, as affording special advantages to natives of that County, in 
appropriated Scholarships, and Fellowships. Here he took his B.A. 
degree 1693; and doubtless prosecuted his favourite studies 
during his entire Undergraduateship, with all the diligence excited 
by the facilities he enjoyed. He made many valuable, and lasting 
Antiquarian acquaintances; as his letters then and after testify; 
particularly that of the celebrated, but somewhat peculiar, and un- 
happily tempered man Anthony 4 Wood. Poor “Tantony” as Tanner 
ealls him, notes in his Diary, “that in 1695 I and Sir Tanner,” [the 
Academical designation of a Bachelor of Arts,] “went together to 
Binsey Chapel; where in the Porch I read, and told him the whole 
history of Saint Frideswide, and the Antiquities of that Chapel; 
thence to Godstow, where I told him the Antiquities of that place, 
and the matter of Lady Edyve and Rosamond; so eat a dish of fish, 
and went, thro’ part of Wolvercote, home.” In one of his Letters, 
written after he was made Bishop, Tanner mentions subscribing at 
London House for Deacon’s orders in Dec. 1694; and his friend 
Wood in his Diary, under date Jan. 17th 1695, makes this entry; 
“Mr. Thomas Tanner entered his place of Chaplain of All Souls.’ 
This Chaplainship, was, to use a common expression, the making’. of 
Tanner; and there is very little room left for doubt as to the manner 
in which this deserving young scholar gained his first preferment; 
leading eventually to a Mitre,and the distinctions therewith connected. 
At that date, 1695, James, the good Earl of Abingdon as he is called 
VOL, XII,—NO, XXXVII. Fe 
