MR. URBAN,

Dec. 15.

HINTON or Henton Charterhouse

is a village in Somersetshire, five miles south of Bath on the road to Salisbury. It derived its secondary appellation, which distinguishes it from various other places of the same name, from a Priory of Carthusians formerly established there. It has also been sometimes styled Hinton Comitis, having been a manor attached to the Earldom of Salisbury. It was among the lands which William the Conqueror conferred on Edward of Salisbury, who is supposed to have been only Vicecomes or Sheriff of Wilts, but whose grandson Patrick received the title of Earl of Salisbury from the Empress Maud. At the composition of Domesday, Edward de Sarisberi held “Hantone" of the King, having three ploughlands in the demesne; and there were nine serfs, twelve villeins, and fifteen cottagers, with six ploughs; two mills rendering 24s., twelve acres of pasture, and wood one mile long, and half a mile broad.

William de Longespé, the first Earl of that name (and one of the natural children of King Henry the Second by Fair Rosamond), had first placed the society, in 1222, on his manor of Hatherop in Gloucestershire; and had by his will bequeathed them various sacred utensils, a thousand ewes, three hundred rams, forty-eight oxen, and twenty bulls. But his widow Ela, "because (as is stated in her charter) the monks and brethren destined for that place, although they had. continued there many years (that is, apparently, about five), could not find, in the tenements the Earl had given them a place suitable to their rule," was in 1227 induced to remove them

to her park of Hinton. In exchange for the lands in Gloucestershire, she then granted them all her manor of Hinton, with the advowson of the church, and the park; and likewise all her adjoining manor of Norton, with the advowson there; and all GENT. MAG. Suppl. C. PART II.

A

their appurtenances, except such mili

tary

service as was due to her, and the

service of Richard the parker, for the virgate of land he held; which service however should belong to the monks, whether Richard rested his claim upon his office of keeper, or on military tenure. The house of the religious, was to be built in the honour of God and the blessed Virgin, and of St. John the Baptist, and of All Saints, at the place in the park of Hinton which was called Locus Dei; and the habit and rule to be observed was that of the church of Chartreux,-the strictest of all the religious orders. Twelve years after, King Henry the Third, by charhis reign, took under the special proter dated in the twenty-fourth year of

tection and defence of himself and

heirs, the house of the Carthusians at Hinton; and granted to the monks for ever all the privileges and customs which his grandfather King Henry had granted to the Carthusian house he had founded at Witham. That house, which was also in Somersetshire, was the first settlement of the order in England; its dedication is in the same terms as that of Hinton; and its rights and privileges were the same as those possessed by the original establishment at Chartreux. Pope Innocent the Fourth granted a Bull of privileges to Hinton in 1245.

At the Taxation of Pope Nicholas in 1291, the temporalities of this Priory were returned as, in Chynton 4l. 10s. ; in Norton Comitis 121.; in Hinton 241. 15s. making a total of 411. 5s.

Its wealth was increased by a variety of grants from the neighbouring landowners, and the merchants of Bris

* Regarding this Monastery and two others in Somersetshire, there is a privately printed volume, entitled "Monastic Remains of the Religious Houses at Witham, Bruton, and Stavordale, co. Somerset. Collected by Sir Richard Hoare, Bart. anno 1824." Only fifty copies were printed for distribution by the munificent author; and none for sale..

578

tol. King Richard the Second granted the monks a hogshead of wine yearly out of that port; and King Henry the Fifth a charter of freewarren in the manors of Hinton of Norton. Their estates were in 1444 valued at 50l. 16s. 10d. In the 26th Henry VIII. the gross revenues were estimated at 2621. 12s.; the reprisals from which amounted to 13l. 12s. 10d. leaving a net income of nearly 2501.

The Priory was surrendered to the King on the 31st of March, 1540. Edmund Hord, the last Prior, was assigned a pension of 441. ; and twentyone monks were also pensioned, two at 12 marks or 81.; fourteen at 10 marks; and four at three marks or 21. The site of the Priory was granted, about four years after, to John Bartlet, who sold it to Matthew Colthurst. It was afterwards in the Hungerford family, then in the Robinsons, and in the time of Collinson the historian of Somersetshire, the joint property of James Humphrys, esq. and Joseph Frowd, esq. in right of their wives, the daughters of Stocker Robinson, esq.

The old manor-house of Hinton, represented in the first view of the Plate, is supposed to have been built out of the ruins of the Priory.

Hinton Charterhouse, the present mansion, which is about half a mile distant, was the seat of the late James Skurray Day, esq. brother-in-law to the present Lord Ribblesdale, and is now occupied by his mother, Mrs. Day; a description of the house, and the pictures, will be found in the Beauties of England and Wales.

The second view represents the remains of the Priory church. There is another view of this building in the elegant little work entitled "The Antiquarian Itinerary." It shows the east window, composed of three lancet lights, without any tracery above; and another lancet window on the north.

This favoured spot, which the somewhat difficult Carthusians at length chose as the scene of their mortifications, retains its natural beauties. "The

[VOL. C.

environs," says Collinson, "are highly beautiful, being variegated with fine open lawns, hanging woods, and limpid streams. In the vicinity are several large tumuli; and in the ruins of the abbey have been dug up Roman [?] bricks, tesseræ, and other reliques.'

"

Within the monastery of Hinton was for many years resident Thomas Spenser, a learned and pious monk, son of Leonard Spenser of Norwich. He wrote, among other works, "Comment. in Epist. D. Pauli ad Galatas." He died in 1529, and was buried in the Priory church.

In the little work on English Monastic Libraries, by the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A. recently published, oc curs the following list of books, speci fied in an indenture of the year 1343,* as having been lent by the prior and convent of Hinton, to another house. It is curious both on account of its contents, and as showing an unobserved usage of the monasteries:

Two books of Homilies, to be read in the Refectory.

The four Gospels.

The Meditations of Anselm.

The Enchiridion of Saint Sixtus. A treatise by Peter Cluniacensis. Life of John the Almoner. Flores et Magna Glossa Psalterii. The Meditations of St. Bernard. Quendam libellum inter Orosium et Augustinum; et Templum Dei.

Life of Paul the Hermit. Excerpta from the Lives of St. Anthony, St. Hilarion, and St. Sylvester. De orto Pilati.

Libel. de Manipul. flor.

Dialogus SS. Gregorii et Augustini.
1 Legend. totius anni, abbreviat.
Primar. Ecclesiast. et II Primar. Puerorum.
A Breviary.

Liber qui sic incipit, "Qui bene præsunt presbyterii."

Stimulus Amoris, et multa alia edificatoria de manu Domini Will. de Colle.

The engagement to restore these books was formally drawn and sealed.

Of this monastery was Nicholas Hopkins, who was several times consulted as a prophet by the last Stafford Duke

Mr. URBAN,

579

Thetford, Dec. 31.

WITH the termination of the old

WITH

year I transmit a few literary notices relative to Junius, Lachlan M'Lean, Sir Philip Francis, and Lord Temple. But, in the first place, I beg to extract the following passage from Galt's Life of Benjamin West, published in 1820. After noticing the in

many literary characters, that writer adds,

a subject which, from the public exhibition of living individuals so circumstanced, has recently attracted much attention.

"In the floor of the nave are the mutilated portraitures in stone of two females close to each other, and called by the inhabitants the fair maidens of Fosscot, or Fosstoke, a neighbouring hamlet now depopulated. There is a tradition that the persons they represent were twins, whose bodies were at their birth conjoined together; that they arrived at a state of maturity; and that one of them dying, the survivor was constrained to drag about her lifeless companion, till death released her of her horrid burden."

This account (which comes in bad company with the female monk of Hinton,) is perhaps nothing more than a sexton's tale, like that of the lady in Westminster Abbey, who died from a prick of her finger, or numberless others which are rife throughout the country. It may, however, be remarked that the history of these "fair maids of Foxcot" bears a strong resemblance to that of the maids of Biddenden in Kent; whose remembrance is annually renewed by cakes stamped with their figures, which are distributed at Easter. (See Hasted's Kent, and Hone's Every-Day Book for 1827.) The Biddenden maids lived so early as 1100; and, from the mention of a depopulated hamlet, these appear to claim an early æra.-But an examination of the stone figures by a more judicious eye than Collinson's, might tend to show whether the story has any claims to regard. J.G. N.

"An incident of a curious nature has brought him to be a party in some degree with [to] the singular question respecting the mysterious author of the celebrated Letters of Junius. On the morning that the first of these famous invectives appeared, his friend Governor Hamilton happened to call, and inquiring the news, Mr. West informed him of that bold and daring epis tle: ringing for his servant at the same time, he desired the newspaper to be brought in. Hamilton read it over with great atten tion, and when he had done, laid it on his knees, in a manner that particularly attract→ ed the notice of the painter, who was standing at his easel. This Letter,' said Hamilton, in a tone of vehement feeling, is by that damned scoundrel, M'Lean.' What M'Lean?' enquired Mr. West. The surgeon of Otway's regiment; the fellow, who attacked me so vehemently in the Philadelphian newspaper, on account of the part I felt it my duty to take against one of the officers, a captain, for a scandalous breach of the privileges of hospitality, in seducing the wife of a very respectable man. This Letter is by him. I know these very words; I may well remember them,' and he read over several phrases and sentences which M'Lean had employed against him. Mr. West then informed the Governor that M'Lean was in this country, and that he was personally acquainted with him. came over,' said Mr. West,' with Colonel Barry (Barré?), by whom he was introduced to Lord Shelburne, afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne, and is at present private secretary to his Lordship.' Throughout the progress of the controversy with Junius, Hamilton remained firm in his opinion, that the author was no other than the same Lachlan M'Lean; but at the Literary Club the general opinion ascribed the Letters for some time to Samuel Dyer [who died in 1772, before Junius expired; for there are communications from him subsequent to the death of Dyer. Sir James Mackintosh, in the Edinburgh Review, advocated the pretensions of Sam. Dyer, unconscious of the anachronism involved in his argument. See my Letters on the Authorship of Junius's Letters. E.H.B.] The sequel of this anec-.

'He