Any one who has the patience to examine the above list will find many curiosities we might enlarge upon.

Amongst these we should call attention to the names of "birds " as being a designation of many families in the district; for example, we have Blackbird, Bullfinch, Cockerill, Cuckoo, Crow, Dove, Gull, Knott, Owlett, Reeve, Nightingale, Sparrow, and Swan; and no doubt many similar things will strike the reader. In some of these registers we find the notice of the money gathered by briefs. In days gone by the way of gathering money for different charitable purposes, was to read the order commanding the same by lawful authority to be collected in the time of public worship; and we still see that this was authorised to be done during the Offertory Sentences before the Prayer for the Church Militant, in the Communion Service, by the rubric in our Prayer Book. As some of these briefs contain very interesting allusions, we mention them. From registers we have examined, previous to writing this work, we have been struck by the attempt to introduce the Church of England into Poland and Russia, as we have several entries of briefs for helping the churches in Lithuania, and Courland, where Protestant; we have also briefs showing that assistance was given to private persons, and in aid of sufferers by fire. Besides these we have aids towards helping, amongst others, these parishes in Kent :—

Brenchley
Clyffe
Gravesend

Gillingham
Northfleet

Woolwich

Benenden
Tonbridge
Yalding

St. Margaret's Cliffe.

In the last two parishes it is distinctly mentioned the purpose is for rebuilding the church in the register of Cranbook we find that 18. 6d. was raised by brief for rebuilding West Malling church.

:

Besides, we have a record of 2s. 6d. raised in the same way in Snodland, for repairing St. Andrew's Harbour in Scotland; three several sums of 13s. 4d., 13s. 2d., and 25s. for the relief of poor slaves in Algiers; * and assistance given to the French refugees in 1699.

* An interesting witness to Moorish corsairs making themselves felt in England in the seventeenth century.

In Snodland we again find a curious record of some cattle plague :— "Collected here upon the cowkeepers' brief August 1st, 1715, three shillings;" and of other catastrophes the following:

"For sufferers by thunder and hail in the County of Stafford, 12th October, 1720, one shilling.'

"For sufferers from an inundation at Upchurch in the county of Kent, damages £4,290. Paid 4s. 8d."

"For the oyster dredgers of the river Medway the sum of 2s. 6d."

"For Folkestone Fishery, 18. 8d."

Besides we have briefs on behalf of Strasburg in Alsatia, Dutch Berg, Robi and Villarin in the valley of Luzerne for sufferers by inundation.

All these show that collections in church are no new things, as some churls would try to persuade the public, but that the church even in its most sleepy time was aiding those abroad, and at home; as these records stretch from the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century. There is one record in Addington register which is very curious, and we therefore give it particular notice.

"1660. Paid for ye fighting brave 68. Od."

Whether this entry refers to money paid to assist Royalist or Parliamentarian troops, or some foreign wars, it were difficult to determine, as it is just at the end of the Commonwealth.

These briefs, no doubt, would furnish useful jottings for the confirmation and the explanation of history, if examined in the various parts of the country; but unfortunately in many cases the accounts have been lost.

Though not connected directly with the registers, many parishes have very curious old churchwarden accounts, in which we find that money was paid to enable the clergy and churchwardens to attend confirmations and visitations, and to provide the poor with Bibles and prayer books, and also with the ordinary furniture necessary for their homes; and in many cases money was actually paid for the production of so many sparrows' heads, and for the destruction of hawks, weasels, badgers or greys, and other creatures considered vermin.

In concluding this chapter the author would state that, were the curious old records preserved in our parish chests cherished and studied as he has studied them, he has no doubt that much valuable information upon the lives, manners, customs and names of our forefathers would be gathered; enough to fill twenty volumes far more interesting than much of the literature of the present day, and giving some idea as to how deservedly the Church of England has received and maintained the name of the nation, which she bears as her distinction, as one branch of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ.

A

CHAPTER XIII.

KENTISH PROVERBS.

S we have had occasion to mention one of the Kentish sayings, it may be interesting to our readers to examine into those we have collected. There are some that refer to the county.

(a) "Kent is famed for hops, fair maids, and civility."

(b) Alluding to the wealth of the inhabitants, we have :

(c)

"A knight of Cales,

A gentleman of Wales,

And a laird of the North Countree;
But a yeoman of Kent,

With his yearly rent,

Will buy them up all three."

"Kentshire,

Hot as fire."

(d) "As great as the devil and the Earl of Kent." (e) "Kent red veal and white bacon."

Lythe as a lass of Kent."

(g) "St. Tyburn of Kent."

(h)

"Neither in Kent nor Christendom."

(2) "A man of Kent, and a Kentish man.” A man of Kent is one born between the Stour and the Sea; all others are Kentish men. Another opinion says that a Kentish man is one born in Kent, but not of Kentish parents, while a man of Kent is one whose parents as well as himself are Kentish.

(k)

"Essex styles, Kentish miles,
Norfolk wiles, man beguiles'

an allusion to the Kentish labourer's mile being about one and a half.

(7) A Kentish man speaks disdainfully of persons from other counties, as coming "out of the shires," and of "silly Sussex "; while Surrey is a sobriquet for a fool.

This is an allusion to Kent being under the law of gavelkind, by which the son came into his father's property, even though the parent were executed for high treason.