PREBENDARY niNGESTON-KAKDOLPH's KEGISTEKS. 309 



light the history of these times ? Not until justice has been done 

 to the materials that lie ready for the historical prophet who can 

 believe that the Spirit of Truth can make these dry bones live. 

 The highest praise is due to Prebendary Hingeston-Eandolph for 

 the diligence, the perseverance, the determination, and the care 

 with which, sustained by his own conviction of their value, he 

 has made these records available to students of Cornish and 

 Devonshire Church life. 



Of the last of these great movements before the Eeformation 

 these Eegisters do not tell the tale. If the series should lengthen 

 only a little it will bring the record down to the great 

 Perpendicular time, when suddenly, at the same moment, the 

 Parish Churches of the land are in the hands of the builder for 

 enlargement, for the doubling of their area, for the adding of an 

 aisle north or south, for erection of those triumphs of artistic 

 skill, the beautiful rood screens, which gave to village life an 

 inspiration, and to the widened village Church a new evidence 

 that there were still worthy objects on which to spend gifts 

 worthy of them. It is passing strange to discover in these 

 apparently dry pages the very form and pressure of the times 

 they deal with. " Defects " of birth bear witness to a low code 

 of morals. "Dispensations" bear witness to a compassion that 

 prevails over them. Quarrels abound; bloodshed is common even 

 in Churches. But there are reconciliations too, and the tendency 

 is ever in the direction of healing and restoration. It is a comfort- 

 ing record in spite of all, though sometimes the comfort seems long 

 in coming. There is a song popular in Devonshire, coming down 

 from these middle ages; it is called Widecombe Fair, and it 

 illustrates the pathos which a string of names, ending with 

 Uncle Tom Cobley, can bear witness to when judiciously repeated. 

 That same Widecombe has another string of names — for there a 

 batch of Devonians — and with them Sampson Trewen, Thomas 

 Deynsell, John Caru, John Hunte, Thomas Webbe, and William 

 Hogg, all of Cornwall — were handed over by the Bishop to the 

 secular arm, on the third of June, 1413. Prebendary Hingeston- 

 Eandolph' s pages are full of things hke these. It will be time 

 well spent by those who have love for the past and leisure to 

 devote to it to work these rich mines ; there is a wealth of 

 knowledge in them, even for "streamers." 



