188 



Calne. 



in the year 1878. The name of Robert Long occurs in 1417, four 



hundred and seventy-one years ago. Of by far the greater part of the 



Members for Calne nothing is now known beyond the mere names. 



One, however, I may mention, which has left a mark of a certain 



kind in English history ; that of John Pym, the rampant Republican 



in the reign of Charles I. It may be interesting to know how he 



eame to represent Calne. It was thus. He was a native of 



Somersetshire, but at a very early age had some situation in the 



Office of the Exchequer. He became .Receiver-General of the 



King's revenues in Co. Wilts, and had, oddly enough, to look after 



the King's interests in Bowood, which then belonged to the Crown. 



There is among the public records an order to him to have the pales 



of the park heightened for the safety of the red deer : and there 



are other orders signed by him and by Sir John Ernie, as Chancellor 



of the Exchequer, addressed to the park keepers, about timber, &c. 



These are dated in 1620, the very year in which he was returned as 



one of the Members for Calne. 



Coming down to more modern times Calne is able to shew as 



respectable a list of names as any place in England. To give you now 



the biographies of the most remarkable among them is of course 



out of the question. In the famous days of Pitt and Fox, we find 



Mr. Calcraft, Dunning (afterwards Lord Ashburton), Col. Barre, 



Townsend, all frequent and able debaters: and Joseph Jekyll, the 



barrister, author of many witticisms, and the reputed author of 



probably many more, who was pilloried in a once famous but now 



rather forgotten satirical book, called " The Rolliad " 



" Jekyll, the man of law, the scribbler's pride, 

 Calne to the Senate sent when Townseeid died." 



In 1802 you had Lord Henry Petty, afterwards your venerable 

 neighbour, whom we must now call our old Marquis of Lansdowne, 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer at the age of twenty-three years ; Mr. 

 Abercrombie, Speaker of the House ; then the eminent historian 

 (though Lord Brougham did call him a romancer), Thomas Babington 

 Macaulay ; 1 Sir Fenwick Williams, the heroic defender of Kara. 



1 The late Lord Malmesbury, in the Memoirs of his own Times, mentions 

 a letter from Lord Lansdowne, who brought Macaulay forward, in which Lord 



