genius: "Roger Starr, baptised Dec. 17, 1604.
He clymed up a ladder to the top of the
house, 23 Oct. 1606, being seven weeks and
odd days less than two years old." At Sea
Saltor, in Kent, a memorandum of another feat
not to be forgotten by posterity was attached
by the clergyman to an entry of baptism in
seventeen 'thirty-four: "Mrs. Wigmore made
the Punch."

We turn from births to burials. In the register
of burials at Bishopwearmouth, is one at
midwinter, more than two centuries ago, of "John,
a child from the Pannes, foresworne of his
Father, forsaken of his Mother;" and at Hart, in
Durham, about the same time, an old woman's
burial is thus recorded: "Old Mother Midnight,
of Elwick, buried." Much later, not a hundred
years ago, in seventeen 'sixty-eight, there is
an entry as uncivilised, in the register of
Spronton, Leicestershire: "A Tom Bedlam
buried."

At Ashborn, in sixteen 'fifty, is this entry:
"Buried Emma wife of Thomas Toplis who
was found delivered of a child after she had layne
2 houres in her grave." At Clovelly, ninety
years ago, the books were kept by a sentimental
clergyman, who made several entries after this
manner: "Christian Meek, truly deserving of
that name." Sometimes, there was censure, as of
a man at Misterton "who was bought off by his
Father after enlisting, and had the meanness
and ingratitude to suffer the said Father to be
subsisted many years by the parish." Sometimes
there was satire, as in the case of the
clergyman at Buxted, in the year of the
great fire of London, who records the burial
of "Richard Bassett, the old clarke of this
Parish, who had continued in the offices of
clarke and sexton for the space of 43 years,
whose melody warbled forth as if he had been
thumped on ihe back with a stone." From
different registers we take these entries,
representing names of persons buried: The Old Girl
from the Workhouse—Old Meg—Old Plod—
Bacchus, alias Hogtub, alias Fat Jack, alias John
from Lord Clive at Claremont (Esher, 1772),
Old Half-head—Barberry an Old Maid—Mother
Gammon—Old Father Beadle. At Teddington,
we read of the burial of "James Parsons,
who had often eat a shoulder of mutton or a
peck of hasty pudding at a time, which caused
his death."

In the way of marriages, the registers contain
but one record of the performance of the
old unregistered ceremony of public espousal
before marriage. In that case espousal preceded
marriage by three years. Before seventeen
'fifty-four there were the Fleet marriages,
and marriages contrary to law, nevertheless
held to be valid, in divers lawless churches.
One of them was St. James's, Duke's-place,
where there were sometimes thirty or forty
clandestine marriages in a day. In the first
register book of that church, forty thousand
weddings are entered. Its exemption from
ecclesiastical control arose in the claim of
superior rights by the Lord Mayor and citizens
of London, as lords of the manor and patrons of
the church. Some of the Fleet marriage entries
are curious. On one day, " Edward—- and
Elizabeth—- were married, and would not
let me know their names, ye man said he was a
weaver, and liv'd in Bandyleg-walk, in the
Borough." Some were entered as "quarrelsome
people," others as "abusive with a Witness,"
or "exceeding vile in their behaviour." The
Fleet parson's fee was four or five shillings, the
clerk's was a shilling or two, and out of this a
gratuity was paid to the person who brought
the job. The fees were not always easy to get.
"Had a noise for foure hours about the money,"
is one entry. Value was taken for the fee
sometimes, by bride or bridegroom. Of one couple
it is registered, "N.B. Stole a silver spoon."
Of another, "Stole my clothes-brush." It was a
popular superstition that if a woman were married
without clothes on her back, her husband would
not become answerable for her debts. This
accounts for another sort of entry: "The woman
ran across Ludgate-hill in her shift. 10s. 6d."
The Fleet parson charged extra for marrying
under such conditions. In a regular Wiltshire
parish register, we find, as part of a record
of marriage, "The aforesaid Ann Sellwood was
married in her smock, without any clothes or
headgear on." The most famous of the Fleet
parsons, Parson Gaynham, after having married
thirty-six thousand people, was himself, at the
age of eighty, married to his servant maid. In
the register of Everton, Notts, is a rhyme
showing the right seasons for marrying:

              Advent marriage doth deny
              But Hilary gives the liberty
              Septuagesima says thee nay
              Eight days from Easter says you may
              Rogation bids thee to remain
              But Trinity sets thee free again.

Miscellaneous entries of many kinds occur in
the old parish registers. Entries of licenses to
eat flesh in Lent, of battles and great public
events, of the parson's paying his butcher's bill,
or his wrath at somebody, as "Mary Snelson is
starke nought, stinking nought. Blot not this
out;" of great storms, plague, or other events.
At Loughborough, in Leicestershire, one June
over three hundred years ago, the appearance of
plague in the parish is thus registered: "The
Swat, called New Acquaintance, alias Stoupe,
Knave, and Know thy Master—began the 24th
of this month." Touching for the king's evil, is
often mentioned. In the twenty years before
sixteen 'eighty-two, nearly a hundred thousand
scrofulous persons were so touched by his majesty. A
Derbyshire register records the dry summer in
sixteen 'fifteen, when in that parish there fell
only two showers, at intervals of six weeks,
between Lady-day and the fourth of August. It
had been preceded by what the register of
Youlgrave, Derbyshire, calls "the greatest snow
which ever fell upon the earth within man's
memory." That fall began on the sixteenth of
January, and increased until the twelfth of
March, when men walked on the snow over the