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



71 



Oxford, fell into, and lay under water, 20 hours, and received great 

 damage. Among* them, (and this helps to explain the voluminous 

 character of the MSS. bequeathed by Tanner to the Bodleian,) were 

 near 300 Volumes of MSS.; purchased of Mr. Bateman, a book- 

 seller, who bought them of Archbishop Sancroft's nephew. They 

 were, in all, 7 Cart loads." Long before this, in 1693, Tanner, in 

 one of his Letters, speaks of 100 sheets of MS. History of "Wilts ; 

 also of the corrections and additions he had made for a new edition 

 of the " Notitia," which he adds, will swell it to a folio of 200 pages. 



No doubt his personal collections were very extensive. A cata- 

 logue of them will soon be published, and by examining it, we can 

 easily discover what additions to Wiltshire Topography may be 

 obtained from Tanner papers deposited in the Bodleian. Perhaps 

 our expectations, in this respect, may be disappointed. We know 

 that Tanner supplied the Additions to Wilts, in Gibson's edition of 

 Camden's Britannia, 1695 ; and we may, I think, conclude, that those 

 Additions contained all that he himself thought worth publishing. 

 Tradition says, that during the Bishop's brief episcopate, he visited, 

 more than once or twice, the place of his birth ; " in coach with 

 purple lined, and mitres on the sides," and that upon these occasions, 

 he was the Guest of the Barnes family; [in 1716, William Barnes 

 had married Sarah Tanner, the Bishop's sister ;] and at one of these 

 visits we may suppose, the Tablet was erected, in Market Lavington 

 Church, to the memory of his parents. There is however on it no 

 record of the fact, that very soon after the death of Sarah Willoughby, 

 his father the Vicar of Market Lavington had married at Cheverell 

 Magna, Sep. 2nd, 1716, Margaret Gardham, by licence. The marriage 

 is recorded both in the Great Cheverell and in the Market Lavington 

 Registers . The Tablet erected by the Bishop is of wood ; the 

 ground gold ; the letters black ; surrounded by a carved border of 

 foliage in full bloom ; fruit, ripe ; cherubs, full orbed ; the whole, 

 in appearance, falling perhaps far short of what one might expect as 

 a testimony of a dignitary's filial affection. 



The Epitaph is as follows : — 



" Under the Pew below, lie interred the Codies of the Rev. Thomas Tanner, 

 Clerk, 46 years the diligent, pious, resident minister of this Parish ; who died 



