painting by Sir William Beechey—St. Michael binding Satan. The living is a curacy in the archdeaconry of Stafford and diocese of Lichfield and Coventry, C.V. £4 13s. Endowed with £200 by the Crown, and £13 per annum by private benefaction. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The reputed origin of the town is curious. Wolferus, king of Mercia, embraced Christianity after the death of his father, but relapsed to paganism; in which religion he educated bis two sons, who, however, were converted, and became disciples of St. Chad, a zealous Christian ecclesiastic, Bishop of Lichfield, (afterwards canonized), which so incensed the king that he put them to death. The Saxons, as usual, formed a caern, by heaping stones over the bodies of the two princes, in commemoration of the dreadful act. Wolferus, after some time, was reconverted to Christianity, when he founded a monastery to expiate his crime; and bis queen, Ermilda, the mother of the murdered princes, created a nunnery over their tomb; a town gradually arose in the neighbourhood, which, in commemoration of the event, was called Stone; the female votaries were some time after removed, from the nunnery, which was then converted into a priory, by filling it with canons from Kenilworth Abbey. Stone was the birth-place of the celebrated Earl St. Vincent, and his remains were interred in its church-yard.
Cheadle is a small market town and parish in the south division of the hundred of Totmonslow, county of Stafford, pleasantly situ-
