Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/251

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Certificates of Burials in Woollen.

And again, opposite to the entries of their deaths, we find—"November 11th.—Certified by John Torbuck, Vicar of Ellingham, yt Edward Baily and Nicholas Baily, of Ibsely, were buried in woollen only."

Pope's lines on Mrs. Oldfield need hardly here be quoted. To conclude, of the parish books in the district let me only say that at Fordingbridge may be found an inventory of all the church furniture for 1554; at Christchurch, notes of a Papist buried by women, for no one else would place her in the grave; and entries of lay marriages; at Ibbesley, lists of collections "towards the redemption of the poor slaves out of Turkey," "for the poor French Protestants," "for the redemption of captives," and "for the distressed Protestants beyond the sea,"—all testifying to the social and moral condition of the people, without which it is impossible to give the history of any district or any country.

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