254 THE ANTIQUITIES 



the pulpit with no small petulance and exultation ; and began his 

 sermon from Psalm xx. 8. " They are brought down and fallen ; 

 " but we are risen and stand upright." This person lived to be re- 

 stored in 1 660, and continued vicar for eighteen years ; but was so 

 impoverished by his misfortunes, that he left the vicarage-house 

 and premises in a very abject and dilapidated state. 



July 1678. Richard Bitfield, who left eighty pounds by will, 

 the interest to be applied to apprentice out poor children : but 

 this money, lent on private security, was in danger of being lost, 

 and the bequest remained in an unsettled state for near twenty 

 years, till 1700 ; so that little or no advantage was derived from 

 it. About the year 1759 it was again in the utmost danger by the 

 failure of a borrower ; but, by prudent management, has since been 

 raised to one hundred pounds stock in the three per cents reduced. 

 The trustees are the vicar and the renters or owners of Temple, 

 Priory, Grange, Blackmore, and Oakhanger-house, for the time being. 

 This gentleman seemed inclined to have put the vicarial premises 

 in a comfortable state ; and began, by building a solid stone wall 

 round the front-court, and another in the lower yard, between 

 that and the neighbouring garden ; but was interrupted by death 

 from fulfilling his laudable intentions. 



April 1680, Barnabas Long became vicar. 



June 1681. This living was now in such low estimation in 

 Magdalen-college, that it descended to a junior fellow, Gilbert 

 White, M.A. 1 who was instituted to it in the thirty-first year of 

 his age. At his first coming he ceiled the chancel, and also floored 

 and wainscoted the parlour and hall, which before were paved 

 with stone, and had naked walls ; he enlarged the kitchen and 

 brewhouse, and dug a cellar and well : he also built a large new 

 barn in the lower yard, removed the hovels in the front court, 

 which he laid out in walks and borders ; and entirely planned 

 the back garden, before a rude field with a stone-pit in the midst 

 of it. By his will he gave and bequeathed " the sum of forty 



and Godalming, and also for preaching at Godalming. He continued six months 

 in prison, and sometimes said that this was one of the most comfortable parts of his 

 life, through the kindness of friends whom God raised up to administer relief to him 

 in his troubles." It appears that Bishop Morley was very kind to him, and certainly 

 Ferrol was no bigot, as ' ' his custom was to go to the public church as his people 

 also did". After some changes of residence he finally "retired to Lymington, in 

 Hampshire, where he was not idle, but preached frequently . . . till by a gentle 

 decay, the candle of life burning down to the socket, he expired, not with a stink, 

 but a sweet savour ... in the Both year of his age." /te//.] 



1 The author's grandfather and godfather. 



