may be to add further proof. That lonely weird hill with human work evidently dating back to a remote past was very impressive.

Among many places and objects seen during the past summer, let me speak of three in England that have a distinctly American connection and interest. Each of them is far out of the busy world of to-day, and each is reached by a delightful ride in a most serviceable motor-carriage. Our first excursion was from Leamington to Sulgrave. No one whom we could find knew anything about Sulgrave, and we had no map. Sulgrave is ignored by small maps as I have found them. Any one who thinks that there is no research involved in such a hunt for historic evidence should inquire and find the way over the five and twenty or thirty miles of country between the two places. We headed for Banbury, somewhere beyond which was our destination, and we reached that interesting old town, perhaps two-thirds of our way, before we gained definite information. Then we had a clue from sign-boards bearing the name, and in good time we reached the end of our journey.

Sulgrave is a small, very secluded, and quiet village. On slightly rising ground stands its little old church, from which gently slopes its one street lined by irregularly placed low gray houses. houses. At the farther end, to the right and back from the street, stands the manor house, long ago the home of the Washingtons. It is irregularly square, with two stories and gables, built of small stones, with quoins of larger stones now gray except on what might be called the front, which is yellowish rough-cast. At the left of this front is a projecting part with a Tudor-arched door, and a gable in the apex of which, dimly seen, are the Washington arms, covered by glass and put out of harm's way and acquisitive reach. proved that there is need enough of precaution. the house is of flat stones, dark and lichenous.

It has been The roof of

an old stone Most of the

Adjoining the house, to the right, enclosed by wall, is a garden with vegetables and flowers. side of the house toward it is mantled with ivy. On the opposite side of the house, and also adjoining it, is a barnyard. The building, indeed, is now a farmhouse, of an estate of one hundred and ninety-three acres. All around, and on two sides reaching the house, are fields; and farther back is rural pros

pect. In the lower story, with windows on the garden side and the front, is a square room with a flat ceiling crossed at right angles by two very dark beams that thus form a cross. On the inner side is a large fireplace; on another is a four-day, square-headed window. It is a simple, good-sized comfortable room, quaint but not fine. Over it is a square chamber, even plainer, with the ceiling rising part way on the slope of the roof, and with a floor of old wide boards, now dark. In this room, we were told, Lawrence, ancestor of George Washington, was born.

The lineage of Lawrence Washington in America was for a long time known distinct to the sea, but the English connection was not found until 1884 or 1885, when Mr. Henry F. Waters, in his important researches, discovered it, a successful close being reached, he tells us, on June 3, 1889.1 The result is the more notable since the name, as he also shows us, is found in nineteen counties that he mentions. From President George Washington the line seems clearly traced through Augustine and Lawrence to John, who came to Virginia in 1633 or 1634, and from him to Lawrence of Sulgrave and Brington, son of Robert, son of Lawrence, grantee of Sulgrave, who died 19th of February, 26th of Elizabeth, 1584. Robert" of Sulgrave Esq.," jointly with Lawrence (son), sold Sulgrave "8 Jac." (1611).

Visiting Sulgrave, we are impressed both by its characteristics and its wide contrast with Mount Vernon, and also by certain transmitted qualities. Sulgrave, in size and style not one of the lordly rural English class, not the seat of high rank and fortune, but the home of a substantial squire, is solid and enduring, centuries old and yet strong enough to last through more. On its low, secluded site, it has none of the lordly, commanding position and aspect of the house that overlooks the broad green slopes and the wide sweep of the Potomac. Yet, if well cared for, its endurance may fully match that of the American mansion. Each of the houses was the home of solid worth and of good old English qualities. At Sulgrave we are impressed by the wonder that from it, secluded and quiet as it is and always must have been, grew the life and the name now a continental household word and a world-wide glory.

1 Henry F. Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, 364.

There is something else to see in this small village. It is the small church, mentioned above, built of small gray stones, with a low and stout tower at its western end, that internally is open to a nave of four bays with aisles, and a chancel. The roofs are of dark, open-timber work. At the eastern end of the south aisle, in the floor, is the Washington memorial, — no modern thing, but old evidence that the Washingtons worshipped there.

In his will, proved January 3, 1620, Robert" of Souldgrave states that he is " to be buried in the South Aisle of the church before my seat where I usually sit, under the same stone that my father lieth buried under." The stone, a large one, now bears a brass with three long lines of inscription in small black letter including the date 1564 (?). Other and important brass plates, the sockets for which are seen, have disappeared. There were six plates let into the stone, one of them with figures of four sons, and another of four daughters. On or about August 10, 1889, two strangers "in gentlemanly attire" visited the church, and then they and most of the brasses disappeared.2 Two thieves escaped. Not all of the barbarians were active during the decline of the Roman Empire.

It may be added that during our long drive of some fiftyfive miles we passed hardly a village, and few houses for a central part of a densely inhabited country, and also few vehicles. The one exceptional place was Banbury, a large and interesting town, with a tall and elegant Gothic cross, restored and in good order. The country traversed is rural, undulating, moderately wooded, with some considerable hills where the winding road has really long ascents and descents. Everywhere is old English rural beauty.

Our next drive to a Washington monument was from Cheltenham, and was even more varied and beautiful. Crossing the northerly part of the Cleve hills, that commands a wide and magnificent view of lowlands and of the Malvern and Welsh hills, all far higher and bolder than our Blue hills, we thence dove into a deep valley and passed through the picturesque and very old English town of Winchcombe, long, stone-built, and gray. Sixteen miles of drive brought us to Broadway, a village with an unusually wide street that 1 Henry F. Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, 377. 2 Ibid. 397.

may have given the name, or that may have come from the Broadways, an old family of this region. The street is lined by stone or rough-cast houses, midway among which is the Lygon Arms, originally the "Whyte Hart," ranking among the very old, quaint, and good English inns. It has two stories, built of cut stone, with four gables, and a Jacobean style of stone doorway dated 1620. In the days of the Pilgrim Fathers it was flourishing, and it is also to-day in the age of the motor, that has revived or maintained not a few of the out-ofthe-way houses; and there is pleasant life in its well-kept, oak-lined, and oak-ceiled rooms, that were probably known to some of the Washingtons. From there we drove a few miles to Wickhamford, which has a Washington monument.

Wickhamford is a small and very retired hamlet of small brick houses, a few of them modern, others old and thatched. At one side stands the manor house of brick, with gables, and now washed a yellowish color. Adjoining it is the churchyard, and in that the church, rough-cast on the outside, which is small, built of smoothly cut stones, now gray, with a small, square west tower, and a south porch, also small, as are the nave and chancel. Internally the nave has a double-pitch framed roof, and the chancel a three-faced plastered ceiling. This is where the Washingtons of the Sulgrave line also worshipped. Along the north side of the chancel are two canopied tombs of a sort that surprise us in out-of-the-way places in England. They are in elaborate Jacobean style. Each has two recumbent figures of members of the Sandys family; their dates are 1629 and 1680. The great object of interest is, however, a large oblong slab of slate, the foot of which touches the eastern wall of the chancel under the altar table. At its top are cut the Washington arms, a suggestion of the American flag, three stars above two bars, or bands. Under these is a long inscription, beginning:

M. S.
PENELOPES

Filiæ perillustris & militari virtute clarissimi

Henrici Washington collonelli

Gulielmo Washington ex agro Northanton.
Milite prognati.

Nineteen lines follow, in the last of which is the date of the lady's death," Feb. 27, 1697." She was unmarried, daughter

of Henry, colonel in the Royalist army, son of Sir William, who was son of Lawrence of Sulgrave, who died on December 13, 1616.1

Here again we find an example of the rural seclusion, as well as good position, in which members of George Washington's family lived in England, and of places with which they were familiar that remain substantially unchanged to our time. It is a pleasure to search old records or printed leaves to learn more about persons and things past; and it is, perhaps, an even greater pleasure to search for and visit the monumental, visible records of the valued past. Many facts are, or only can be, preserved by written or printed statement. It would, however, be a rare written or printed account that would, for instance, give as clear evidence of the life of the early Washingtons as is given by the old house at Sulgrave.

ALBERT MATTHEWS communicated the paper given below: A PROPOSAL FOR THE ENLARGEMENT OF UNIVERSITY LEARNING IN NEW ENGLAND, 1658-1660.

At the present time one's thoughts naturally turn to the College across the Charles, and I venture to communicate two documents which, so far as I have been able to ascertain, have escaped the attention of the historians of the College. In the records of the General Court, under date of October 19, 1658, occurs the following:

The Court, having pervsed & considered of seuerall letters & a comission written & signed to M' Nathaniell Bacon, Herbert Pelham, Rich Saltonstall, Henry Ashurst, Esq, Mr Wm Hooke, M' Jn° Knowles, & M Thomas Allen, ministers of ye gospell, &c, by the counsell, doe approove thereof, and ordered a letter to be wrote to Richard Saltonstall, Esq, from this Court, signifying theire acceptanc & allowance of the councills acts, we are in ye councills booke at large.2

1 Henry F. Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, 385.

2 Massachusetts Colony Records, iv. (part i.) 362. The Rev. Thomas Allen (1608-1673), the Rev. John Knowles (1600-1685), the Rev. William Hooke (1600-1677), Henry Ashurst (1614-1680), Herbert Pelham (1600-1673), and Richard Saltonstall (1610-1694), are too well known to need comment. Nathaniel Bacon (1593-1660) was the son of Edward Bacon and the grandson of Sir Nicholas Bacon. It is perhaps worth while to call attention to an annoying error that has crept into the "Index and Epitome" to the "Dictionary of National Biography." Sir Nicholas Bacon had by his first wife, Jane Fernley, three sons, Nicholas (died 1624), Nathaniel (died 1622), and Edward (died 1618). All