71 Bishop Tanner, Ids Family and Writings. 



Wray, it may have been the seal of Tanner's friend, Ray, the natu- 

 ralist, which having been perhaps used by Tanner in some emergency 

 for fastening a letter, has led to the mistake. 



There is a whole length portrait of the Bishop in All Souls Hall : 

 and an engraving from it forms the frontispiece to the " Notitia 

 Monastica." There is a smaller one by Reading, in the corner of 

 which is represented an ancient lamp given by the Bishop to the Royal 

 Society of Antiquaries, and now in their museum. The Bishop's 

 countenance confirms to my own mind, the opinion which I confess 

 myself to have formed of his character, as good, kind, peaceable 

 and studious. His handwriting was small and delicate. 



His intercourse with the literary men, and especially with most of 

 the Antiquaries of his day, is a sufficient indication of his tastes 

 from his youth up ; for in letters to and from his father, we see how 

 curious he was about names of places, sources of streams, matters of 

 natural history, and parochial research. And the testimonies borne 

 to his literary attachments and services, have been full, decided, un- 

 disputed, up to the present time. Aubrey's opinion of him has 

 been already quoted ; Ray availed himself of Tanner's information ; 

 Gibson, afterwards Bishop of London, Rawlinson, Lloyd, all seem 

 to have looked up to him as their best authority; Hearne's MS. 

 treasures passed to the Bodleian, through Tanner's hands ; Wood 

 (though with all the reluctance of a man resisting separation from 

 his worldly delights, even when death-smitten, and with a degree of 

 suspicion whether Tanner would revise with kind feeling, much that 

 he had written in bitterness and prejudice,) yet could find no one 

 more fit to be entrusted with his Papers : and in our days, the Modern 

 Historian of South Wilts, speaking of helps to Topographical Inves- 

 tigations mentions " the Notitia," and says of it, " That is an host." 

 The second edition of that work was brought out by the Bishop's 

 brother, John Tanner, a person, in every thing connected with 

 archseology,not inferior to him. 1 



1 The following account of John Tanner is from Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, 

 vol. YIII 402. 



"John Tanner 3rd Son of Thos. Tanner of M. Layington Wilts, born 1684, 

 educated at Queen's, Oxon. M.A. 1707. Through his Brother's Interest (then 



