egress for carriages are a comparatively recent institution, and what is now the carriage road once formed part of a dense shrubbery, to which belonged the acacias, laburnums, and lilacs that still partly screen the house from the street.

Of the rectors of Olney, Dr. Lipscomb mentions nineteen, beginning with Richard de Kenet, who died in 1263. Eight of them rose to high dignities in the Church, one, John de Buckingham (instituted in 1348), becoming Bishop of London. Concerning one of the early rectors, Master Nicholas Bachingdenn, Mr. W. P. Storer relates the following curious circumstance, which, as he observes, affords a strange contrast to the present condition of society: "It appears from the Hundred Rolls that in the fourth year of King Edward I. (1275–76), the Countess of Arundel, to whom the manor then belonged, with ten armed men, seized the men of Master Nicholas de Bachingdenn, rector of the Church of Olney, and imprisoned them, and forcibly took possession of three hundred measures of corn, two horses, two carts bound with iron, five cows, four sheep, two heifers, and ten swine, belonging to the rector-we need not be surprised that it is added 'to his no small loss.' We can hardly suppose that the Countess was personally concerned in such an act of violence, though very likely she was a party to it. Whether the reverend agriculturist obtained any compensation for this lawless deed does not appear."

The last rector was Henry Ainsworth, LL.D., who quitted Olney in 1504, when the living became a vicarage, and from that time to the present there have been twenty-five vicars.

In the time of Charles I., William Worcester, who had been inducted in 1624, was suspended, on account, in all probability, of his Puritan practices and predilections, as appears from the following curious notice of the troubles of a townsman of Olney, extracted from the "Lords' Journal" (February 9, 1640-41):

"Petition of John James of Olney, but then of Earls Barton, against Samuel Clarke and Sir John Lambe (James being defamed went to Clarke as surrogate of the Supreme Court of Northampton): Clarke got defendants to turn witnesses against James, who could not get out of it, though there was

nothing against him. He was taken before the High Commission Court, and had to pay 10 towards Paul's Church (in London), pay the fees, a fine of £16, to the Court: he gave Sir John a beaver, which cost the petitioner £4 more. Afterwards the petitioner was cited to the Ecclesiastical Court of Aylesbury in co. Bucks by the said Sir John Lambe and Dr. Roane for going to hear a sermon from his own parish. church when William Woster the minister there was suspended: the petitioner was excommunicated unlawfully, and when he was absolved they took the fees and £24 more for fees, and forced him to subscribe, to stand up at gloria patri, and to observe other ceremonies of the Church, and afterwards unjustly excommunicated the petitioner for being at his own house with Mr. Woster and one other. All which unjust proceedings of the said Doctor Clarke, Doctor Heath, Sir John Lambe, and Dr. Roane have caused him to sell his inheritance, and to spend above £100, and tended greatly to his undoing." The Lords decided in James's favour, unless cause could be shown to the contrary.

We come now to that succession of eminent evangelical clergymen whose writings and other labours have made the name of Olney so familiar throughout the Christian world. The first of these was Moses Browne (born in 1703), who was inducted into the living in 1753, and had originally been a pen-cutter. He wrote several poetical works, and on the institution of the Gentleman's Magazine, about the year 1730, became a constant subscriber to it, and obtained some of the prizes offered by Mr. Cave for the best poems. The duty of deciding upon the respective merits of these compositions devolved on Dr. Watts, and this led to the acquaintance of Mr. Browne with that celebrated divine. It was not, however, till he attended the services of some of the early evangelical preachers that he began to view the things that concerned his salvation in a clearer light, and that his sentiments and conduct underwent complete revolution. Then it was that in spite of the many difficulties that presented themselves he felt a desire to enter the ministry; and by the persistent efforts of Lady Huntingdon, who began to interest herself in him, at

length obtained ordination. Henceforward he gradually rose until he came to be regarded as one of the leading preachers of the Evangelical party. He commenced his ministry as curate to the celebrated Hervey of Weston Favell; from Weston Favell he removed to Olney, and after residing here ten years, was appointed chaplain of Morden College, Kent, and rector of Sutton, in Lincolnshire. Shortly after his appointment to the college chaplaincy he nominated as his curate at Olney that great and good man, John Newton. Mr. Browne died at Morden College in 1787, at the advanced age of eightyfour. His principal writings are poems on various subjects, Sunday Thoughts" (1752), and a volume of sermons (1754). Several of his sayings are preserved in the works of the Rev. A. Toplady.

On one occasion a friend said to him, "Mr. Browne, you have just as many children as the patriarch Jacob." "True," answered the divine: "and I have also Jacob's God to provide for them." At another time, in conversation with Toplady, he observed, "All the afflictions that a saint is exercised with are neither too numerous nor too sharp. A great deal of rust requires a rough file."

The Vicarage was occupied by Newton from May 1764 to January 1780, nearly sixteen years. The life and writings of this remarkable man will be dealt with in a subsequent sketch; but it must here be observed that the room used by him as a study is the one at the east end of the top of the house, with windows projecting from the roof. Over the mantelpiece may still be seen the wooden panel with the following texts in large lettering which he had painted on it :

"Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable" (Isa. xliii. 4). "But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee" (Deut. xv. 15).

In this room he wrote the Letters of Omicron and Vigil, the Olney Hymns, and that well-known volume of letters entitled "Cardiphonia, or the Utterance of the Heart." A few months after he left Olney, Newton thus humorously speaks of this room in a letter to his friend and spiritual son,

the Rev. Thomas Scott-"Methinks I see you sitting in my old corner in the study. I will warn you of one thing. That room (do not start)-used to be haunted. I cannot say I ever saw or heard anything with my bodily organs, but I have been sure there were evil spirits in it and very near me—a spirit of folly, a spirit of indolence, a spirit of unbelief, and many others-indeed their name is legion. But why should I say they are in your study when they followed me to London, and still pester me here?"

Twelve years after Newton left Olney, sitting in this same room as a visitor, he wrote to a correspondent in London the following words: "The texts over the fireplace are looking me in the face while I write. A thousand thoughts crowd upon me. What I have seen, what I have known of the Lord's goodness, and of my own evil heart, what sorrows and what comforts in this house! All is now past; the remembrance only remains, as of a dream when we awake. long we shall have done with changes."

Ere

The poet Cowper, who had arrived at Olney on the 14th of September 1767, took up his abode for the nonce with Newton, and resided at the Vicarage from October 23 to December 7 of the same year; he was also at the Vicarage during the whole of that long derangement which lasted from April 1773 to the end of May 1774. The kindness of Newton to Cowper during this long and weary period exhibits a beautiful feature in his character. "Upon the whole," he says, "I have not been weary of my cross. Besides the submission I owe to the Lord, I think I can hardly do or suffer too much for such a friend, yet sometimes my heart has been impatient and rebellious."

About twelve months after Newton's departure, the Rev. Thomas Scott, famous afterwards on account of his Commentary, &c., became curate of Olney. Scott was at the Vicarage from spring 1781 to Christmas 1785, about four and a half years, during which period he published one of his chief works, "The Discourse on Repentance." This was written not in Newton's study, but in another room, where were his wife and family, for a separate fire was more than his purse