sorry to tell Such ill News but it proves to be y Smallpox wch apeair'd last wedsin Day so that J can't give you aney fauther account of itt till My Next Letter; Young Mr Host have Darnk Tea heare two or three times Which has ben all ye Company we have had: Mr Sharp is not Retrund yet -Wth Dutty to My unckle," &c.

The tenour of all Rebecca Ray's letters indicates the dread that was then caused in East Anglia on account of Smallpox. This condition lasted for nearly a quarter of a century. The scourge which so long afflicted the district can only be compared with The Black Death of four centuries earlier, of which the ravages may be traced in the architectural history of many an ecclesiastical building.

The Marriage Act was that of 26 George II., commonly known as Lord Hardwicke's Act. It relieved England and Wales from the scandal of clandestine marriages-members of the Royal family, the Jewish and the Quaker communities alone excepted. But by requiring solemnisation according to the law and ritual of the Church of England, and invalidating infants' marriages without consent of parents or guardians, such as the Fleet unions, by which heirs or heiresses to noble estates were entrapped into most repulsive alliances, it produced many grievances only gradually removed by amending Acts. It was finally superseded in 1823 by the measure that forms the basis of the present law.

LETTER LXVI

"Friday Feb: 15th 1754.

"DEAR SIR,

"Last night died Bishop Gooch.

He had deferr'd

giving away Rand's livings so long that instruments, &c., could hardly be got ready in the time he was capable of performing the part of a Bishop in the affair, but it was got thro' on Tuesday night (I think).

"I have only time to say thus much, before I go to Croydon, on a little business of my Lord's. If anything particular offers there, you shall hear it from,

"Y'S &C.,

“E. PYLE.”

To the Revd Dr. Kerrich,

To be left at Mrs. Waldegrave,
at Lynn, Norfolk.

B Free

chester.

Thomas Gooch, eldest son of Thomas Gooch of Yarmouth, by Frances, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Lone of Worlingham, Suffolk, was entered of Caius College in 1691, M.A. and Fellow 1698, and, later on, domestic chaplain to Henry Compton, Bishop of London, one of the Seven Bishops, whose funeral sermon he preached at St. Paul's in 1713. He was a chaplain in ordinary to Queen Anne, Rector of St. Clement Eastcheap, with St. Martin Orgar, and Archdeacon of Essex from 1714 to 1737. He was appointed Canon-Residentiary of Chichester in 1719, Lecturer at Gray's Inn, and Canon of Canterbury 17301738. Gooch was elected Master of Caius in 1716, and held that office until his death. He was Vice-Chancellor in 1717, in which year the new building of the Senate House was undertaken partly through his exertions. He was consecrated Bishop of Bristol in 1737, but never visited his diocese, being translated to Norwich in the following year, apparently much to his satisfaction. In a letter to Kerrich, from Westminster, October 28, 1738, he says: "I thank you for your kind Congratulations, which You may be sure are the more acceptable to Me for coming from a Friend & Relation. As my Translation has brought me into my own Country, I shall, as I ought, be well contented to breath my last, where I breath'd my first."

Gooch sat in the chair of Losinga for ten years, during which time he repaired and beautified the palace at great

expense. In 1748 he was again translated, to the See of Ely. In 1751 he succeeded, in accordance with the special remainder, to the baronetcy conferred upon his younger brother William Gooch in 1746, in recognition of his long and eminent services as Governor-General of Virginia. A large neglected marble monument in the north transept of the great church at Yarmouth commemorates Sir William Gooch.

Sir Thomas Gooch was three times married, firstly, to Mary, daughter of William Sherlock, Dean of St. Paul's, and sister of Thomas Sherlock, Bishop of London; secondly, to Harriet, daughter of Sir John Miller of Lavant, Sussex, Bart.; and thirdly, to Mary, daughter of Hatton Compton. His son and successor Thomas, by his first wife, inherited a large fortune in 1761 from Bishop Sherlock. John, his son by the second wife, became Prebendary of Ely and Rector of Fen Ditton, Cambridgeshire.

Sir Thomas Gooch is described as in many ways a typical bishop of the eighteenth century, dignified and charitable, and attentive both to the work of his diocese and to his parliamentary duties to his party, and that he was considerate and courteous is well shown by his letters. Cole has many anecdotes of his adroitness in his own personal advancement, and in the securing of preferment for his younger son he did not leave a very pleasant reputation behind him at Caius. Perhaps his conscience smote him as to this when he caused the words to be penned in his will "if the Fellows will receive me." They swallowed their displeasure, and not only did so receive the remains of the prelate who presided over the ancient house for the long period of forty-eight years, but suffered the erection in the chapel of a monument with an inscription of the usual pompous and laudatory sort. Cole thus sums up Thomas Gooch: "He was a man of as great art, craft, and cunning as any in the age he lived in, as he was as much of a gentleman in his outward appearance, carriage, and behaviour."