doomed to die away from home, but expressed her deep thankfulness that she had settled her affairs before leaving home, and had "nothing to do but to die." After about six weeks, however, she was able to leave Edmonton, and travel as far as London, but remained there seven weeks longer, before she was able to get back to Woodside. The very night she reached Woodside, apparently about the beginning of December, she was taken ill again, and kept her bed for at least seven months, often suffering from acute pain, unable, as she says, "to have the pleasantness of her natural sleep, or to walk about the house, or go abroad in the air, to take a view of the beautiful creation."

It was about this time that Mary Penington had the pleasure of once more welcoming George Fox at her home. It was his latest visit to Buckinghamshire (1681).

He mentions his visiting several meetings in Buckinghamshire, and many Bucks Friends being at a meeting at Warborough, in Oxfordshire. Then he says, "From thence I passed to Ilmore [Ilmer] in the Vale of Buckinghamshire, where we had a glorious meeting, and the day following I returned to Mary Penington's, from whence I visited the men's and women's monthly meetings at Hunger Hill, and some other meetings thereabouts, and then passed to Watford."

It was during this visit of Fox to Buckinghamshire that an incident occurred which is mentioned in Ellwood's Life. Fox was staying at Hunger Hill, on his way to Oxfordshire, and was dressing in the morning, when Ellwood, coming into the room, saw a book lying on the table, and took it up. It bore the title, "The

Christian Quaker Distinguished from the Apostate and Innovator, by William Rogers." Ellwood told Fox that he had been anxious to get this book, having only seen one copy, which he had not had time to read through. He had joined with other Friends in disputing at Devonshire House with this Rogers, a merchant of Bristol, who had, in unison with two North-country Friends, John Wilkinson and John Story, formed a new sect under the arrogant name of Christian Quakers. He noted that Fox's copy of the book had some marginal notes of his own; "For that good man, like Julius Cæsar, willing to improve all parts of his time, did usually, even in his travels, dictate to his amanuensis what he would have committed to writing." Ellwood now asked Fox to lend him the book till his return from Oxfordshire, which he willingly consented to do. On his coming back to Hunger Hill, Ellwood told him that he was engaged in a refutation of the book, and Fox allowed him to retain it a little longer. The reply was published the next year under the title of "An Antidote against the Infection of William Rogers' Book, miscalled 'The Christian Quaker," and Ellwood followed up the attack a year or two later by another called "Rogeromastix; or a Rod for William Rogers."

In 1682 Mary Penington was sufficiently recovered to be able to travel to her daughter's at Worminghurst. She must have reached Sussex as William Penn was preparing for his voyage to the New World. The Friends who accompanied him on that historic voyage of the Welcome seem to have been mostly from Sussex. It has often been suggested that some of the Friends from the

neighbourhood of Chalfont and Rickmansworth accompanied him to Pennsylvania. If so, it was probably at

a later date; but I have as yet obtained no direct evidence bearing on the subject. An American visitor to Jordans writes, "The disappearance of the sect from the neighbourhood is partly accounted for by the fact that so many of them followed Penn to Philadelphia. Their descendants are now living in brick houses, with white shutters, in Locust, Walnut and Pine Streets, in the City of Brotherly Love. The country roads and fields and forests which they left behind were the world,' while the site of what is now the city of a million inhabitants was then the 'wilderness.' Such are some of the changes, inversions, and substitutions for which we are indebted to the 'whirligig of time.'"

The Welcome set sail from Deal on September 1st, 1682, and on the 18th of the same month, Mary Penington passed away at Worminghurst. A few days later her remains-brought from the slopes of the South Downs to the slopes of the Chilterns-were laid beside those of her husband at Jordans.

XXVI.-TWO JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.

Justice Shallow: The Council shall hear it; it is a riot. SHAKESPEARE (Merry Wives of Windsor.)

MOST

OST of the English Nonconformists had enjoyed another season of comparative immunity from persecution during 1679-81. The bigotry of the age had found other victims in the Roman Catholics, who were relentlessly proscribed and punished as the result of the pretended revelations of Titus Oates. The Quakers shared the benefit of the change, except that in some cases they fell under suspicion as being Romanists in disguise, because of their refusing to take the oath of allegiance. Besse records no cases of "sufferings" between 1679 and 1683. But in course of time, a fresh reaction set in, and the discovery of the Rye House Plot in 1683 led to a fresh persecution of Dissenters, in which the Quakers had their full share. It was to be expected that those of Buckinghamshire and the adjoining part of Hertfordshire would be in especial danger, for the leading persons charged with the treason were all well known in the district. Lord William Russell was doubtless a frequent visitor at his father's mansion of Chenies. Algernon Sydney had contested the borough of Amersham four years before. John

Hampden was the heir of the most illustrious name in Buckinghamshire. Lord Essex had his seat at Cashiobury, between Rickmansworth and Watford. Small wonder, then, that the magistrates of Rickmansworth especially should be all on the qui vive for evidences of treason, when his long and loyal descent had not preserved the Earl, their neighbour, from being sent to the Tower.

One of these worthy men, Sir Benjamin Titchborn, living about a mile from Rickmansworth, was one day waited upon by a Quaker "apothecary and barber," named William Ayrs, of Watford, who was accustomed from time to time to come and cut his hair. The good Friend, as he went thus from house to house among the neighbouring gentry, seems to have taken the opportunity of circulating Quaker literature. At any rate, he had several times presented Quaker books to Sir Benjamin, and they had always been kindly received. Accordingly, on the present occasion, he asked his acceptance of one, which Sir Benjamin took as usual, and after Ayrs was gone, began to look over the book. He at once saw, however, that it was something very different from the exhortations or rhapsodies he had read on former occasions. The title was A Caution to Constables and other Inferior Officers concerned in the Execution of the Conventicle Act, with some observations thereupon, humbly offered by way of advice to such well-meaning and moderate Justices of the Peace as would not willingly ruin their peaceable neighbours.-By Thomas Ellwood."

Ellwood very well knew that there were many magis