Rectors. 25 



period than any of his predecessors for 500 years past. He is now 

 the oldest, and amongst the most respected, of Wiltshire Incumbents. 

 A few particulars may therefore be introduced concerning hira. 



Mr. Methuen is a younger son of Paul Cobb Methuen, Esq., of 

 Corsham, and brother to the first Baron Methuen. He was ordained 

 Deacon in September, 1804, by Bishop Beadon, of Bath and Wells, 

 and in due course was admitted into Priest's orders at Lambeth, by 

 Archbishop Manners Sutton. The first curacy which he held was 

 that of Ickham, in Kent, under the Archdeacon of Canterbury, 

 the Rector in 1805. In 1806, he removed to the curacy of Newn- 

 ton, near Tetbury, and was afterwards for a short time curate of 

 Henbury, near Bristol. He was inducted to the Rectory of All 

 Cannings, in September, 1809, by Dr. Bridges, Rector of Willough- 

 by, Warwickshire. The circumstances attending his appointment 

 to the living were remarkable ; and we are gratified at being 

 allowed to state, in his own words, what they were. It would 

 appear that Mr. Methuen's father had been much pressed in 1806, 

 to purchase the next presentation to the living of All Cannings, 

 but he declined so to do. In the autumn of 1809, when on a visit 

 to Mr. Estcourt, of Estcourt House, Mr. Methuen writes : — " Mr. 

 Estcourt's eldest son rode over to breakfast, and said to me, ' the 

 All Cannings Rectory is likely soon to be vacant, and I much want 

 your father to purchase it for you.' Thus meeting Mr. Thomas 

 Estcourt, and my old Rector and friend the Rev. Edmund Estcourt, 

 his brother, taking the matter in hand and corresponding at once, 

 two posts were saved." Again, writes Mr. Methuen, " as my 

 father was then at Buxton, about two miles from the residence of 

 Mr. Philip Gell, the patron, much time was saved in the negotia- 

 tions respecting the purchase of the next presentation." Mr. 

 Methuen dwells on these details, because he reverently acknow- 

 ledges the providential appointment of these circumstances in his 

 case, inasmuch as the decease of the then Rector, Mr. Nicholas 

 Heath, took place a day or two after the negotiations with the 

 patron on his behalf were brought to a termination, and he was 

 called at once to occupy the important post in the duties of which 

 he has now been engaged for well nigh sixty years. 



