arrogant young man. In 1601 he entered into orders; and shortly afterwards excited the displeasure of Dr. Abbot, the Vice Chancellor, by his opposition to the tenets of the Puritans, which about that time began to have many supporters in the University. His first preferment was to the living of Stamford, in Northamptonshire, in 1607. The following year he obtained the advowson of North Kilworth, in Leicestershire. He was no sooner invested with these livings, than he put the parsonage houses in repair, and gave 12 poor persons a regular allowance; and the same. conduct he is said to have pursued during all his subsequent preferments. In 1617 he accompanied King James to Scotland, on his ill-timed expedition for the purpose of uniting the two kingdoms into one religious community: but the design of the Monarch failed; and the laurels he expected to gather, were withered by the breath of contempt and obloquy.

As a detail of the honors which, at different periods, were conferred on the Archbishop, would degrade this biographical sketch to a mere register of preferments, we shall pass over the intermediate space, and enter upon the year 1630, when the University of Oxford elected him their chancellor; and it may be said with justice, that this venerable seat of learning never had a more zealous and liberal patron. He enlarged and orna mented St. John's College, and erected the elegant building at the end of the divinity school, founded an Arabic lecture, and presented the University with a large collection of coins and manu◄ scripts. In 1633 he succeeded Archbishop Abbot in the See of Canterbury, and instantly began his unpopular work of establish ing uniformity in religious worship. The regulations which he endeavoured to carry into effect, were not more illiberal than unwise, since the severity of the restrictions caused many aliens to leave the kingdom, to the great detriment of the manufac tures.

The Archbishop has been accused of a covert attachment to Popery, though probably on insufficient evidence. That his creed bordered on infallibility is most true; yet his conference with the Jesuit, Fisher, is a proof of his general regard to the doctrines

Ꮋ Ꮞ

doctrines of the church of England. The severe prosecutions thatwere carried on in the Star Chamber against Prynne, Bastwick, and Burton, were chiefly through his instigation; and his vindication of the proceedings of this chamber, as well as the rigorous measures pursued in the High-Commission Courts by his direction, fully demonstrate his love of arbitrary principles.

On the breaking out of the disturbances which afterwards unhappily ripened into civil war, his palace at Lambeth was. assaulted by the London apprentices; but having obtained notice of their intention, he previously retired to Whitehall, and by that means avoided the fury of the rioters. In 1640 he was impeached by the House of Commons of high treason, and, at its request, committed by the Lords to the Tower: but his trial did not take place till three years afterwards, when his defence was acknowledged to be satisfactory even by Prynne, his most virulent adversary. Though no charge of treason could be proved against him, his enemies had resolved on his destruction; and the Parliament, to conciliate the favor of the Scots, who were his most determined foes, passed a bill of attainder, which the Lords were compelled to confirm by the threats of the Earl of Pembroke, and the clamours of those who had espoused his opinions.

The Archbishop was beheaded on Tower-hill, the 10th of January, 1644, in the seventy-first year of his age. His behaviour on the scaffold was firm and dignified: and the composure with which he resigned himself to his fate, proves that the deprivation of his interest in this sublunary world had ceased to affect him.

WILLIAM, of READING, Archbishop of Bourdeaux in the reign of Henry the Third; JOHN BLAGRAVE, an eminent mathematician; and SIR JOHN HOLT, lord chief justice of England, one of the greatest men the profession ever produced, are among the number of those celebrated characters whose talents have done honor to their birth-place, and whom the inhabitants of this town are proud to rank with its most distinguished natives.

In

In the vicinity of Reading, near a place called Catsgrove-Lane, is a remarkable stratum of oyster-shells, embedded in a vein of sea sand, at least twenty fathoms beneath the surface of a hill. This stratum is from 12 to 24 inches in thickness. The shells are intermixed with small teeth, apparently of fish, and are continued through the whole circumference of five or six acres of ground. The foundation of the shells is a hard chalk: the superincumbent matter consists of clay of different descriptions, fuller's earth, fine sand, and common earth, disposed at various depths, and unequal in extent. Many of the shells appear like whole oysters, the valves being close shut; yet their cavities contain nothing but a little sand. The Deluge is the grand solver of difficulties; and to this the phænomenon just mentioned has been repeatedly ascribed; yet, however universally the waters may have covered the earth, or, however the solid globe may have dissolved beneath the tremendous conflict of rushing seas and overwhelming oceans, the subsiding of the buoyant atoms, when the voice of DEITY hushed the tumultuous waves to silence, and the liquid mass softly murmured its subjection, must have produced effects very dissimilar from those now under consideration. The descent of bodies would have been proportioned to their specific gravities; the heaviest would have been at the bottom, and the others ranged according to their respective density; but this is not the case, and the true solution is yet undetermined. The causes which operated to place these shells in this particular spot, are, perhaps, never to be completely ascertained. Nature's phænomena are of difficult investigation: and the contracted space to which the life of man is limited, is scarcely sufficient to enable him to register effects, much less to discover the origin and springs of action. The difficulties which attend every attempt to account for the disposition of the materials of which the earth is composed, are perhaps insuperable to human genius, yet this truth should never deter us from striving to obtain knowledge by deductions from credible data.

We have already observed, that the quality of gravitation would produce effects contrary to those immediately before us;

and

and shall now proceed to state the opinion which to us seems most reasonable, respecting the manner in which the shells were thus deposited. We imagine that the island was once buried in the ocean, and that the hills, which now adorn and diversify its surface, were gradually formed by the action and reaction of the tides, conjointly with the effects of winds, waves and tempests. If this conjecture should be the truth, the disposition of the stratum in question may be easily accounted for on general principles; though the particular applications may almost vary to infinity.

Let us suppose that the bed of chalk was the original bottom of the sea, and that the oysters had chosen this spot for their place of congregation; and that such a supposition is reasonable, the beds of oysters existing on the coasts of Britain are sufficient testimony. We know also, that by constant attrition, the waves are surcharged with particles of different substances; these we may naturally conclude, at the moments when the ebb and flow of the sea have induced a calm at the point where the dominion of each has an end, descend by their own weight, and imperceptibly form strata as distinct in quality, and various in extent, as the causes which operated in their formation.

This regular deposition of the waters would admit of light substances becoming the bases of heavier ones, and therefore does not contradict the acknowledged laws of gravity; for the matter first precipitated, could not change places with the atoms still floating, without violence; and even then the effects would only be partial; and exceptions, we all know, can never be admitted to controvert a general rule. By the application of these arguments, we may easily account for the oysters being embedded so far below the summit of the hill. We have rather enlarged our observations on this occasion, as it will be necessary to mention phænomena of a similar description hereafter; and one digression, it was imagined, would preclude the necessity of repetition.

The country in the vicinity of Reading is embellished with many elegant mansions; yet, as a particular description would not correspond with our limits, we must content ourselves with a

brief sketch of the most remarkable. Nearly opposite the town, on the north bank of the Thames, in Oxfordshire, is CAVER◆ SHAM, the seat of Marsac, Esq. This estate originally belonged to the Craven family, but was afterwards purchased by General Cadogan, the friend and companion of the great Duke of Marlborough. The house was erected by the Earl of Cadogan in the reign of George the First; but was afterwards reduced; and has again been altered by the present proprietor. It is an elegant building, with two handsome wings, situated on an eminence, that commands a very extensive and diversified view of Berks and the adjacent counties. On the front is a beautiful lawn, leading to the river. The gardens are pleasingly laid out; and the park, though not large, includes every variety that can regale the taste and gratify the sight. In the old mansion, Anne of Denmark, the Queen of James the First, was splendidly entertained by Lord Knowles, when on her journey to Bath in 1613. When Charles the First was prisoner at Windsor, the Parliament, through the mediation of General Fairfax, permitted him to visit Caversham lodge, where all his children who were in England then resided, in the custody of the Earl of Northumberland.

In the hamlet of WOODLEY is a small but pleasing edifice, belonging to the Honorable Henry Addington. The grounds round it are now laying out with taste; but the want of variety, which arises from its flat situation, will not admit of its being compared with the superior class of buildings which abound in this county.

About two miles west of Reading, in a beautiful woodland country, is the seat of J. BLAGRAVE, Esq. This is a handsome regular structure with wings, seated on a small eminence, near the Bath road, and screened from the north winds by thick woods. The grounds are composed of various shelving lawns, and agreeably diversified by groups and clumps of trees. The park is famous for the production of fine venison.

WHITE KNIGHTS, the seat of the Marquis of Blandford, is about two miles south-east of Reading. The house is a plain, white building, situated near the centre of the grounds, which

are