1€78. trust for the defendant during her life.' Mrs. Tradescant was found drowned in the pond in her husband's garden, April 3, Ashmole considerably increased the museum and added to it his library, and, having afterwards bequeathed it to the University of Oxford, it unjustly bears the name of the Ashmolean Museum." It may be added that when Ashmole sent the collection of rarities which he had received from the Tradescants to Oxford, he carefully removed everything which was likely to connect their name with the museum. Their portraits, however, are there. Dr. Pulteney informs his readers that they may see a curious account of the remains of the Tradescants' garden in Lambeth as it existed in 1749, and was visited by Sir William Watson, who described it in the 46th vol. of the "Philosophical Transactions." The widow of the younger Tradescant erected a curious and handsome monument to the memory of the father and son in Lambeth churchyard, which has been restored by subscription within the past few years. The Tradescants, as we have before observed, introduced several new plants into England. Amongst these a species of spiderwort was thus called Tradescant's Spiderwort. It has since been formed into the type of a genus (Commelinacea) with the name Tradescantia, and has a large number of species. The learned Dr. Ducarel published in 1773 "A letter to William Watson, M.D., upon the early cultivation of botany in England, and some particulars about John Tradescant," but I have not at present seen this work. With this account of the Tradescants I had intended to close the present paper, but I must follow Dr. Pulteney in his passing mention of a work which more properly belongs to the History of Medicine, but is familiarly called "Culpepper's Herbal," a book which was first printed in 1652, "and continued for more than a century to be the manual of good ladies in the country." "To do the author justice," adds Dr. Pulteney, "his descriptions of common plants were drawn up with a clearness and distinction that would not have disgraced a better pen." Nicolas Culpepper, "student in physic and astrology," as he styles himself, was a declared enemy of the Royal College of Physicians, and published numerous quack books which were formerly in great request. His above-mentioned "Herbal," or as the title-page calls it "The English Physician," passed through no less than eight or nine editions before the close of the seventeenth century, and was quite a household book even for fifty years later. RECENT HYMNS AND HYMNISTS. No. III-HENRY ALFORD. PART II. BY THE EDITOR. THE life of Henry Alford divides itself almost naturally into three parts,—his early years up to his ordination; his work as Vicar of Wymeswold, from 1835 to 1853; and his more public career as author and preacher from the date when he entered on the incumbency of Quebec Chapel, down to the day when as Dean of Canterbury he breathed his last, just as he was at the zenith of his fame and the highest point of his usefulness. The earlier period of his career we attempted briefly to describe in our first paper; and we will now proceed to sketch with, of necessity, almost equal brevity, the second part of his life-work, which proved indeed to be, as it were, a seed-time for the great harvest which he was permitted, perhaps more easily than most men, to reap almost before middle age, during his London and Canterbury life. At Wymeswold we see the country parson entering on his cure with an income of the type with which unfortunately too many of our rural clergy are acquainted— barely £110 a year, and a house which he aptly described as being unfit for a pupil, much less for a wife. At the same time Henry Alford was not the man to spend his days in bemoaning things as they were; his appetite for work of every sort soon led him to remedy this and all other drawbacks, and soon after his marriage—which took place at Currie Rivell Church, on March 10, 1835,—we find him laying plans for his future home. One of his last efforts before his wedding seems to have been an attempt to leave his old parish of Ampton, the scene of his first and only curacy, better provided with what may be termed the necessaries of worship than he found it, for in writing to his cousin about their approaching union he tells her that he was finishing a new barrel to the organ for Ampton Church, which he did not like to leave unfinished. At this time his literary efforts received warm praise in several quarters; and a letter from William Wordsworth, and the reviews of his poems in the Edinburgh and Blackwood, gave him lively satisfaction. Thus stimulated he gave to writing all the time he could snatch from the tuition of his pupils, and from his parochial work, and laid the foundations of those habits of literary industry which he maintained to the last, as was clearly shown in later years by his devotion of odd half-hours, and of his dressing-time, to the translation of Homer's "Odyssey." But his parochial work at Wymeswold was not allowed to suffer. His earliest task was to complete a small hymn-book for the congregation and to improve the choir, while he preached three sermons every Sunday in the parish church. At the same time he was a believer in holidays, and year after year we generally find him indulging in the luxury of an English or Continental tour, on which, until her family duties increased, his wife accompanied him. however, we pass on from the early period of his career we will give an illustration of his first hymns in his Baptismal Hymn now so generally used and associated in his "Year of Praise" with Tallis's well-known tune, "The Ordinal:" "In token that thou shalt not fear Christ crucified to own, We print the cross upon thee here, "In token that thou shalt not blush "In token that thou shalt not flinch Firm at thy post remain ; "In token that thou too shalt tread "Thus outwardly and visibly We seal thee for His own; And may the brow that wears His cross Before, This hymn has almost rivalled in popularity his "Come, ye thankful people, come," now inseparably associated with our harvest festivals; and well indeed would it be for the Church if her baptismal office were more frequently celebrated in the face of the congregation with such hymns as this to remind sponsors and friends of the true meaning of the first Christian sacrament. Another hymn of this early time, bearing the date 1832, is his Epiphany hymn, "Thou that art the Father's Word," in which he beautifully sums up the Saviour's attributes :— It was, however, in the writing of sonnets more than of hymns that he filled up his leisure time in the years immediately after his marriage, such an occupation serving as a relief to the harder work of parish and pupils. Very early in his ministerial career, and indeed when his age alone would have precluded him. from undertaking the duties of a bishop, Alford was called upon to say the momentous "Nolo Episcopari" in all its reality, as although the question was, as we have already said, decided for him by the fact that he was within two years of the canonical age, he still regarded its repetition as a possibility, as the see of New Zealand, which was then mentioned to him, was not yet formed. The appointment was, as the reader will remember, afterwards given to Mr. Selwyn, who as the Primate of the New Zealand Church has earned a name which can never lose its lustre in the history of the Anglican communion. As events proved, it was perhaps providential for the vicar of Wymeswold that he was prevented by a natural barrier from undertaking a duty into which, with all his energy, he would doubtless have thrown himself most heartily, but which would have proved beyond his physical strength-for there are but few men to whom it is given, as it was to Bishop Selwyn, to be efficient alike as the captain of a ship and as the chief of a missionary diocese. But again in later years a similar request was once more made to Alford, as it was also to Keble, and the bishopric of Fredericton was offered to him and declined. His was indeed scarcely the stuff out of which a colonial bishop could have been moulded, for although he was devoted to his garden and to mechanical employments, he altogether lacked the physique so essential to foreign life. Thus that his career should lie in the Church at home was practically decided for him, and we find him turning his intellectual powers to account, first with his pupils, and secondly by commencing, as years passed on, what he afterwards described as his life's work-the edition of the Greek Testament on which his fame as a scholar mainly rests. His contributions to current literature, and chiefly to Dearden's Miscellany, were numerous, but while noticeable for their freshness of style and their "nature-tints," there was nothing in them to call for special comment. In the year 1840, memorable to him in his family circle from the birth of his son Ambrose, whose early death eleven years later was the deepest sorrow of his life, he was chosen to preach the sermon at the primary visitation of Bishop Davys; and in his discourse we find a clear statement of those views of toleration "towards them that are without," on which he acted in later life, when his position gave an importance to his words and deeds which did not attach to them in earlier years. He held very closely to the principle of the direct responsibility of the parochial clergy, not only towards their immediate flocks, but even to those who hold aloof from the Church services; and in this sermon he urged his brethren to use conciliatory language to all such persons, and "above all to retain a hold upon them by being constant comforters in their hours of distresses, and attendants by their beds of sickness and death." Shortly after the delivery of this sermon its writer had |