in the wall (most commonly on the south side) rising by degrees, and sometimes only three seats, the first being for the bishop, the second for the priest, and the third for the deacon. Anciently the bishops visited their churches in person. This I had from Mr. Dugdale; as also that in many churches where stalls are, as at cathedrals, (which I mistook for chauntries) and in collegiate churches. This searching after antiquities is a wearisome task. I wish I had gone through all the church-monuments. The Records at London I can search gratis. Though of all studies, I take the least delight in this, yet methinks I am carried on with a kind of œstrum; for nobody else hereabout hardly cares for it, but rather makes a scorn of it. But methinks it shows a kind of gratitude and good nature, to revive the memories and memorials of the pious and charitable benefactors long since dead and gone. Eston Pierse, HYDRIOTAPHIA. URN BURIAL; OR, A DISCOURSE OF THE SEPULCHRAL URNS LATELY FOUND IN NORFOLK. TENTH EDITION. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 1658, THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY. TO MY WORTHY AND HONOURED FRIEND, THOMAS LE GROS, OF CROSTWICK, ESQUIRE.1 W HEN the funeral pyre was out, and the last valediction over, men took a lasting adieu of their interred friends, little expecting the curiosity of future ages should comment upon their ashes; and, having no old experience of the duration of their relicks, held no opinion of such after-considerations. But who knows the fate of his bones, or how often he is to be buried? Who hath the oracle of his ashes, or whither they are to be scattered? The relicks of many lie like the ruins of Pompey's,* in all parts of the earth; * Pompeios juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum terrâ tegit Libyos. 1 Le Gros, &c.] Descended from an ancient family of the name (Le Gross, or Groos), settled at Sloly, near Crostwick, so early as the reign of Stephen, and who became possessed of the manor and hall of Crostwick, in the 38th of Henry VIII. His grandfather, Sir Thomas, was knighted by James I. at the Charter-house, in 1603. The property descended to his nephew, Charles Harman, who took the name of Le Gros, but sold the estate to the Walpole family in 1720. L |