LIFE OF WALTON. 



at ten and four every day, read Common Prayer in the church, which 

 for the purpose he had both repaired and adorned : besides which, he, 

 at the hour of six in the morning, constantly read mattins, either in 

 the church or an oratory in their common dwelling, the, manor-house. 



These were but the ordinary exercises of devotion. The account 

 of their severities in watching is to come; for we are told that, aftA 

 these early prayers were ended, many of the family were accustomed 

 to spend some hours in singing hymns or anthems, sometimes in 

 church, and often to an organ in the oratory. Farther, those that 

 slept were oftentimes, by the ringing of a watch-bell in the night, 

 summoned to the church or oratory ; or, in extreme cold nights, to a 

 parlour in the house that had a fire in it ; where they betook them- 

 selves to prayers and lauding God, and reading those psalms that had 

 not been read in the day, for, it seems, their rule required, that 

 among them the whole psalter should be gone through once in every 

 twenty-four hours: and when any grew faint, the bell was rung, 

 sometimes after midnight, and, at the call thereof, the weary were 

 relieved by others, who continued this exercise until morning. And 

 this course of piety, accompanied with great liberality to the poor, 

 was maintained till the death of Mr. Farrar, in 1639. 



The recreations of this society were suited to the different sexes : 

 for the males, running, vaulting, and shooting at butts with the long 

 bow ; for the females, walking, gardening, embroidery, and other 

 needle-works: and for both, music, vocal and instrumental; reading 

 Voyages, Travels, and Descriptions of Countries, Histories, and the 

 Book of Martyrs. Moreover, they had attained to great proficiency 

 in the art of binding and gilding Books; and with singular ingenuity 

 and industry, compiled a kind of Harmony of sundry parts of the 

 holy scriptures, by cutting out from different copies the parallel pas- 

 sages, pasting them in their order on blank pajK-r. and afterwards 

 binding them with suitable cuts in a volume. > And that their bene- 



(1) They made three such books: one they presented to king Charles the 

 First, another to Charles the Second, one of which is now in the 

 library of St. John's College, Oxford; a third was in the custody of the 

 family in 1740. 



This is the account which the authors of the Supplement to the IHogra- 

 phla Britannica, wherever they got it, give of these books [art. MAPI. K- 

 TOFT]; but one, more accurate, is to be found at the end of Hearne's 

 t nil Vindlcuf, which makes them seven in number : the third in order, 

 was by the compilers called " The whole law of God;" but Hearne, in 

 loc. cit. has given the title in terms that more fully declare its contents. 

 The book consists of sundry chapters of the Pentateuch, and other parts of 

 the Bible of the last translation, pasted down on leaves equal in size to the 

 largest Atlas ; together with such commentaries thereon as they could find 

 in the printed works of Mr. Farrar's friend, Dr. Thomas Jackson, and other 

 expositors: to these were added and pasted in the margin, from a small 

 impression of the New Testament all such passages in St. Paul's Epistles 

 as tend to the explanation ot the law, and particularly of the types : and 

 for the better illustration of the whole, were inserted ruts taken out of 

 printed books, and otherwise collected, referring to the subject matter of 

 the book amounting in number to upwards of twelve hundred. This 

 stupendous work was, in the month of March, 1776, purchased by the Rev. 

 Mr. Bourdillon, minister of the French proteslant church in Spitalfields, 

 at a sale of the library of the Rev. Mr. De Missy ; and is now, January, 

 1784, in his possession. At the same auction, was also sold to a bookseller, 



