THOMAS GERARD OF TRENT. 69 



are both referred to as a " Particular Description." They 

 both take the places described not by the local divisions of 

 hundreds, but by following the courses of the rivers and 

 streams. They both have identical and unusual terms and 

 epithets ; also peculiar expressions and descriptions. Both 

 books are full of heraldry. Each author committed the same 

 error in making Francis Goodwin Bishop of Worcester instead 

 of Hereford, 1617-34. The Dorset Survey mentions the 

 Earldom of Bristol, which was conferred in 1622 ; and this 

 date is only eleven years before that of the Somerset Survey. 

 By every test the two books are found to have been 

 composed by the same person. 



(4.) 



According to the evidence already given, the author lived 

 in Somersetshire ; so it is not to be expected that he would 

 give the same personal clues to his identity in the Dorset 

 Survey. The selection of a member of the Coker family 

 seems to rest on the account of their ancestral home at Map- 

 powder, where the author restrains his eulogy on the ancient 

 and respected family by remarking " that it befits me not, 

 being a member of the House, to speak of it." But Thomas 

 Gerard, being a son-in-law, might well consider himself a 

 member of the family ; and that he was proud of the alliance 

 is very evident by his causing an heraldic tree of the Coker 

 arms to be painted on one side of the arch in Trent Church to 

 match his own on the other. 



There is another personal reference under Tincleton : 

 " Walter Wells left only one daughter, temp. Ed. IV., married 

 unto my predecessor John Gerard." The Episcopal register 

 (of Bristol), under a list headed Incumbents or Lessees, gives : 

 " John. Gerarde d. 1576. A vacancy till 1579, during which 

 John Coker often occurs." This is the basis for the theory 

 that John Gerard, who married Miss Wells before 1483, was a 

 clergyman ! and incumbent of Tincleton, where he survived 



