By T. H. Baker. 297 
Latin : a rare inventor of machines, and my singular good friend, was born here 
in the Vicaridge house, his father being vicar here and Rector of Kilmington.’ 
In his Natural History of Wiltshire he says :— 
“Mr. Francis Potter, Rector of Kilmanton, did sett a hive of bees in one of 
the lances of a paire of scales in a little closet, and found that in summer dayes 
they gathered about half-a-pound a day ; and one day, which he conceived was a 
honey-dew, they gathered three pounds wanting a quarter. The hive would be 
something lighter in the morning than at night. He also tooke five live bees 
and put them in paper, which he did cutt like a grate and weighed them, and 
in an hower or two they would wast the weight of three or four wheat-corns. 
He bids me observe their thighs in a microscope. A plaster of honey effectually 
helpeth a bruise.” 
Anthony Wood also says :— 
“Twas pity that such a delicate inventive witt should be staked in an obscure 
corner, from whence men rarely emerge to higher preferment, but contract a moss 
on them, like an old pale in an orchard, for want of ingenious conversation, which 
is a great want even to the deepest thinking men. Mr. Potter was born 1594, 
and died about 1678. His book was published at Oxford in 4to, 1642.” 
(See Wiltshire Collections, Aubrey and Jackson, p. 389.) 
Pepys mentions it in his Memoirs (Feb. 18th, 1665-6, and 4th 
and 10th Noy., 1666) :— 
“It pleased him mightily, he liked it all along, but the close most excellent, 
and whether right or wrong, mighty ingenious.” 
Mr. Potter also left behind him a remedy for the gout (See 
Aubrey, Natural History of Wiltshire, p. 73) :— 
* For the gowte. Take the leaves of the wild vine (Bryony, Vitis alba), bruise 
them and boyle them and apply it to the place grieved, lapd in a colewort leafe. 
This cured an old man of 84 years of age at Kilmanton, in 1669, and he was well 
since to June, 1670; which account I had from Mr. Francis Potter, the Rector 
there.” 
He has also left us an account of the murder of the Hartgills, 
which puts rather a different light on the affair from that of the 
generally-received version (See Wiltshire Collections, p, 393) :— 
“Tt is to be remembered that in those dayes there were animosities, they 
termed it feuds, between Lords and Lords, and Gentlemen and Knights, in all 
counties; and in Queen Marie’s time there was a great feud between this Lord 
and William Herbert, the first Earl of Pembroke, of that family, who was 
altogether a stranger in the West, and from a private gentleman of no estate, 
