By the late Eev. Edward Wilton, M.A. 



65 



This would be either on the day before, or upon the festival of St. 

 Paul's Conversion. The entry is ambiguous, but I think it means 

 that the Bishop, strictly speaking*, was born on the 25th. This 

 will account for the selection of that day, for the distribution of the 

 Bishop's Charities in his native place, to which I shall advert here- 

 after. Britton says (I presume from the authority of Ballard's 

 Letters in or from the Bodleian Library,) that the Bishop's early 

 education was carefully conducted by his Father. Herein he may 

 be correct; but when he goes on to state that he was sent to (Queen's 

 College, Cambridge, he has either been misled by others, or an error 

 of the Press has escaped uncorrected. The Bishop was entered 1689 

 at Queen's College, Oxford-, a College then selected by Wiltshire 

 men, as affording special advantages to natives of that County, in 

 appropriated Scholarships, and Fellowships. Here he took his B.A. 

 degree 1693; and doubtless prosecuted his favourite studies 

 during his entire Undergraduateship, with all the diligence excited 

 by the facilities he enjoyed. He made many valuable, and lasting 

 Antiquarian acquaintances; as his letters then and after testify; 

 particularly that of the celebrated, but somewhat peculiar, and un- 

 happily tempered man Anthony a Wood. Poor "Tantony " as Tanner 

 calls him, notes in his Diary, "that in 1695 I and Sir Tanner," [the 

 Academical designation of a Bachelor of Arts,] "went together to 

 Binsey Chapel; where in the Porch I read, and told him the whole 

 history of Saint Frideswide, and the Antiquities of that Chapel; 

 thence to Godstow, where I told him the Antiquities of that place, 

 and the matter of Lady Edyve and Rosamond; so eat a dish of fish, 

 and went, thro'' part of Wolvercote, home." In one of his Letters, 

 written after he was made Bishop, Tanner mentions subscribing at 

 London House for Deacon's orders in Dec. 1694; and his friend 

 Wood in his Diary, under date Jan. 17th 1695, makes this entry; 

 "Mr. Thomas Tanner entered his place of Chaplain of All Souls." 

 This Chaplainship, was, to use a common expression, the making of 

 Tanner; and there is very little room left for doubt as to the maimer 

 in which this deserving young scholar gained his first preferment; 

 leading eventually to a Mitre, and the distinctions therewith connected. 

 At that date, 1695, James, the good Earl of Abingdon as he is called 



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