168 The Htory of a Prehendal Stall at Sarum. 



The successor of Archdeacon Ward bore, indeed, an honoured 

 name, Isaac Walton — not, of course, our old friend " Piscator n — ■ 

 who was not in holy orders, but his son. He held at one time the 

 Vicarage of Boscomb, once the home of Richard Hooker, and 

 afterwards was appointed by Bishop Seth Ward to the Rectory of 

 Poulshot. In due time he became a canon residentiary, and there 

 are several volumes in the Muniment Room which well attest the 

 diligence with which he arranged and indexed the various registers, 

 and other documents, belonging to the dean and chapter. But the 

 main interest that attaches to his name is of another character. The 

 good Bishop Ken, who, for conscience-sake suffered himself to be 

 deprived of his see of Bath and Wells, was his uncle — his mother 

 having been the sister of the bishop — and it was in the quiet par- 

 sonage at Poulshot, as well, possibly, in the residence-house at 

 Salisbury, that no less than at Longleat, Bishop Ken often found a 

 peaceful shelter. We can well picture him at his nephew's, often 

 singing a verse or two of one or other of those hymns, which now 

 for two hundred years have been the heritage of the christian world. 

 And who would not fain sing in spirit, with that uncle and nephew, 

 the verse in which he so beautifully describes the true lowliness of a 

 holy man, raised by a consciousness of coming glory to strivings to 

 glorify God :-—» 



" Give me a place at some saint's feet, 

 Or some fallen angel's vacant seat, 

 I'll try to sing as loud as they 

 Who dwell in realms of brighter day." 



Of those who have held the stall of Netheravon for the last two 

 hundred years I have little time to speak. Amongst them have 

 been William Coxe, Archdeacon of Wilts and Rector of Bemerton 

 (the home of George Herbert), who was the cotemporary and friend 

 of the poet Bowles; and Liscombb Clark, Archdeacon of Sarum 

 and Treasurer of the cathedral ; and Francis Lear, who ultimately 

 became dean ; and John Watts, my immediate predecessor, a 

 true,simple-hearted christian, always <e active in good works," Good 

 men they were, though perhaps not among those whom the world 



