By the late Rev. Edward Wilton, M.A. 71 
Oxford, fell into, and lay under water, 20 hours, and received great 
damage. Among them, (and this helps to explain the voluminous 
character of the MSS. bequeathed by Tanner to the Bodleian,) were 
near 300 Volumes of MSS.; purchased of Mr. Bateman, a book- 
seller, who bought them of Archbishop Sancroft’s nephew. They 
were, in all, 7 Cart loads.” Long before this, in 1693, Tanner, in 
one of his Letters, speaks of 100 sheets of MS. History of Wilts; 
also of the corrections and additions he had made for a new edition 
of the “ Notitia,” which he adds, will swell it to a folio of 200 pages. 
No doubt his personal collections were very extensive. A cata- 
logue of them will soon be published, and by examining it, we can 
easily discover what additions to Wiltshire Topography may be 
obtained from Tanner papers deposited in the Bodleian. Perhaps 
our expectations, in this respect, may be disappointed. We know 
that Tanner supplied the Additions to Wilts, in Gibson’s edition of 
Camden’s Britannia, 1695 ; and we may, I think, conclude, that those 
Additions contained all that he himself thought worth publishing. 
Tradition says, that during the Bishop’s brief episcopate, he visited, 
more than once or twice, the place of his birth; “in coach with 
purple lined, and mitres on the sides,” and that upon these occasions, 
he was the Guest of the Barnes family; [in 1716, William Barnes 
had married Sarah Tanner, the Bishop’s sister ;] and at one of these 
visits we may suppose, the Tablet was erected, in Market Lavington 
Church, to the memory of his parents. There is however on it no 
record of the fact, that very soon after the death of Sarah Willoughby, 
his father the Vicar of Market Lavington had married at Cheverell 
Magna, Sep. 2nd, 1716, Margaret Gardham, by licence. The marriage 
is recorded both in the Great Cheverell and in the Market Lavington 
Registers. The Tablet erected by the Bishop is of wood; the 
ground gold; the letters black ; surrounded by a carved border of 
foliage in full bloom; fruit, ripe; cherubs, full orbed; the whole, 
in appearance, falling perhaps far short of what one might expect as 
a testimony of a dignitary’s filial affection. 
The Epitaph is as follows :— 
_ Under the Pew below, lie interred the Bodies of the Rev. Thomas Tanner, 
Clerk, 46 years the diligent, pious, resident minister of this Parish; who died 
