174] A TOPOGRAPHICAL, &c. 



and Britons did, tind the Saxons and English were too much in- 

 clined to, for which St. Edmund's Well, without St. Clements, 

 near Oxford, and St. Laurence's at Peterborough, were famous here- 

 tofore; I doe not find but they were forbid in those times, as well 

 as now, this superstitious devotion being call'd (in English) well- 

 worship, and was strictly prohibited by our Anglican councills, as 

 long ago as king Edgar ; and in the reign of Canutus ; not long 

 after again in a councill at London, under St. Anselm, archbishop' 

 of Cant. ann. 1102; as it was also particularly at those two wells, 

 near Oxford, and at Peterborough, by Oliver Sutton, bishop of 

 Lincoln." 



Dr. Darwin relates that a complete cylinder of bark, an inch in 

 length, was cut from the branch of a pear tree against a wall in 

 Mr. Howard's garden at Lichfield, about five years after the cir- 

 cumcised part was not above half the diameter of the branch above 

 and below it, yet the branch had been full of fruit every year since, 

 when the other branches bore only sparingly; the leaves of the 

 wounded branch were smaller and paler, and the fruit less, but ripe 

 sooner than on the rest of the tree : another branch had the bark 

 taken oft' not quite all round with similar effect. 



The following instance of longevity was transmitted by a -gentle-- 

 man who was a neighbour to the individual referred to, who died a 

 few years ago at the age of 115 years. The industry of his early 

 years acquired a competence with which he purchased a small farm 

 called Lapley Hayes, near Wednesfield. His name was William 

 Hyven : he lived on this farm a great many years, and at the age 

 of 105 married a third wife, and in defence of his marriage used the 

 words of St. Paul : " It is better to marry than to burn." He was 

 rather under the middle size, but robust and strong, of a lively dis- 

 position, and retentive memory, which he retained to the last ; he 

 took for breakfast a gruel of oatmeal and leeks> the latter in plenty, 

 as he considered them as conducing to health ; he was an early 

 riser, but observed no rigid discipline of abstinence, not rejecting 

 that stimulus by which mirth aud vivacity are augmented, nor in- 

 deed at times refusing larger potations to dispel the cares attendant 

 on mortality. He died at Little Bloxwich at the age above men- 

 tioned, and was buried in Wednesfield chapel-yard. 



