38 



The Society* 8 MSS. — Chiseldon and Dray cot. 



nave, lias been erected on the new site, and the old chancel remains 

 as a mortuary chapel for the old churchyard, the chancel arch 

 having been provided with doors, and a pent form of porch erected 

 to shelter it, whilst the long-disused thirteenth century opening in 

 the gable over the chancel arch has been re-fitted with a bell, and 

 so brought again into use. 



Cfjmliran w\\ g ragcot. 



|I|i|pANY writers have had occasion to record and lament the 

 immense destruction of MSS. consequent on the sup- 

 pression of the religious houses. They were so much 

 useless parchment in the eyes of our practical fellow-countrymen, I 

 or positively pernicious, for the religious sentiment which required I 

 the destruction of Church windows exquisitely glazed with sainted I 

 figures condemned equally the painfully illuminated pages of the j| 

 missal. Very little that was ancient, accordingly, escaped, except! 

 the deeds, or the cartularies in which deeds were registered, whereon h 

 titles to fat acres depended. 



We continue to be a practical people still. The missals and thef 

 glass would, as the tide of re-action is now setting, be doubtless I 

 spared ; but nothing of them, to speak of, is left to spare.! 

 Nothing genuinely ancient is left us, untampered with, but bits! 

 of parchment, with writing, that had, or that the men of thef 

 Reformation thought had, a pecuniary value. The men off 

 to-day, moreover, know, that thanks to modern conveyancing! 



