months after fixed his residence at Newcastle-uponTyne, where he appears to have lived for the remainder of his life. He died there on May 26th, 1673, and was buried in All-Hallows Church. THOMAS TOLLER. Richard Clifton, clerk, was Thomas named, in 1593, one of the two supervisors Toller. of the will of Richard Jessop, of Heyton, near Babworth, gentleman, whose younger brother, Francis Jessop, appears to have been the person of that name, whom we find fighting by the side of Clifton in the controversies which so much disturbed the harmony of the English emigrants at Amsterdam. And with Clifton was joined another clergyman, Thomas Toller, then a young man who may reasonably be presumed to have been residing in that neighbourhood, though no institution of him to any Nottinghamshire benefice has been found; and if so then he is doubtless to be counted among the preachers of Basset-Lawe who contributed to raise that spirit of opposition to the ecclesiastical arrangements of the country which led ultimately to the emigration for it is certain that he was, during a pretty long life, one of the most zealous Puritan ministers of the time, strong in his opposition to the ceremonies, though not going the extreme length of separation. His field of pastoral and ministerial labour was for the greater part of his life the large and populous parish of Sheffield. He was presented to this cure, in 1597 or 1598, by his friends the family of Jessop, and there he spent the remaining years of his life, dying in 1644. Dr. Calamy, the biographer of the latest generation of the genuine Puritan ministers, refers to him as having been an instrument of much good in that large and populous town. We have a curious remain of his, in a kind of ecclesiastical survey of the deanery of Doncaster, with notes of the character of some of the incumbents, and especially with respect to their leaning to or against the ceremonies.30 What his own leaning was and the leaning of his coadjutor in the work, Mr. Richard Clark, the vicar of Braithwell, is sufficiently apparent in the document itself. There were eighteen out of about seventy ministers who were more or less disaffected to the ceremonies. The date appears to be about the year 1612. ROBERT GIFFORD is the name of another minister spoken of by Bradford as having been Robert Gifford. 30 This curious paper may be seen among Birch's Manuscripts in the British Museum. Additional 4293, No. 21. "hotly persecuted by the Prelates," 31 and who may therefore be presumed to be one of those who contributed to produce the strong Puritan feeling which pervaded these parts of the kingdom. He is classed by Toller in the paper before spoken of among those ministers who "seemed weary of the ceremonies." His benefice was Laughton-en-le-Morthen, in Yorkshire, but adjoining to the parish of Worksop. In him the spirit of nonconformity was not so powerful as to urge him to separation, but, like his neighbour Bernard of Worksop, he so far conformed as to retain possession of his benefice, which he kept till his death in 1649. He was a Master of Arts, and held this living nearly half a century. His monumental inscription yet remains in the church at Laughton. One of this family, Emmanuel Gifford, was of the bedchamber to King James the First: another was the Major-General John Gifford of the Parliament army and a daughter of the family married Francis Vincent a near kinsman of Philip Vincent, the author of the Relation of the Pequot war, 1638. : One other minister who must have contributed to this alienation of men's minds from the Reformed 31 Young, p. 422. Hugh Church of England as by law established, remains to be mentioned. His name was HUGH BROMHEAD, a native of these regions, being of the family of the name which was seated at North Wheatley. He is not one of whom Bradford speaks; but we have his own testimony in a letter still existing preserved in the British Museum. He was not, like Bernard, Toller, and Gifford, content with a qualified conformity, but, imitating Smith and Clifton, he went the whole length of Separation and was not inferior to Smith himself in hostility to the established church. In his judgment it was Babylon, the mother of all abominations, the habitation of devils, and the hold of all foul spirits, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." But I will do him the justice to place in the Appendix the whole of the letter in which these expressions are contained. It will be found to give in a concise form, a good account of the principles and the practices of the Nottinghamshire Separatists, perhaps as plain and good an account as can anywhere be found. At the same time while we may condemn a certain harshness of expression which may have been learned in the Marprelate school, it is impossible not to admire the depth of a religious spirit which is apparent in it, and an heroic devotion to what was deemed a sacred duty, which no one who peruses it can doubt to be sincere. Can we wonder, however, that the manifestations of feeling or opinion by divines of this taste and spirit, whether assumed or the result of deep and earnest feeling, should call forth countermanifestations, equally unjustifiable (the principle in both cases was the same: the difference in the application arising only in the difference of the power) or can we hesitate to admit that if for no other reason, yet out of regard for the maintenance of the public peace, it was highly proper that some restraint should be imposed upon them. Liberty of conscience and liberty of railing, are surely two quite different things; but the punishment in those days of even the most atrocious libellers was far too severe. Bromhead was amongst the early emigrants to Holland, perhaps going in company with Smith. He settled at Amsterdam, and we have it upon his own authority, that he was a member of Smith's church. He was no member of the Scrooby or Leyden church, where, under the influence of Robinson, a better spirit and feeling prevailed. The distinction of |