at Oxford, and partly at Cambridge, and proceeded to Doctor in Divinity, as a certain register belonging to this order tells us ; was made guardian of the Franciscan convent at London, Provincial of his order; and Anno. Dom. 1519, being nominated Bishop of St. Asaph, received consecration in the Conventual church of the Franciscans, at Oxford, on the 11th July, the same year. In the year 1526, he and Sir John Baker were sent ambassadors to Denmark; and, in 1530, he was one of the bishops that assisted and directed Queen Catherine in the suit concerning the divorce from King Henry the Eighth. He was esteemed a learned man in his time, and a most zealous favourer and assertor of the Catholic faith and religion; for which, had he lived, he would have suffered much. He has written several sermons, preached to the people, and also " A Treatise against Erasmus's translation of the New Testament," and other things. He departed this sublunary life, at London, in the beginning of August, 1535, where his body was interred in the church of the Franciscans, commonly called Grey Friars, in the said city, now better known by the name of Christ church. Over his grave a tomb was erected with the inscription of the sum of £13. 6s. 8d. which he bequeathed for that purpose. He also gave £40. to pave the choir of the cathedral of St. Asaph, and for other purposes; five marks to the Franciscans at Oxford, to be prayed for; ten marks also for the reparation of their church, and £40. for the building of an aisle adjoining to the said church. For the exhibition of scholars, in Oxford, £40. besides legacies to Ralph Standish, Esq. of Standish, in Lancashire, his near kinsman; to Agnes Worthington, his sister, and to Wm. Standish, his natural brother. According to Parker's Scletos Cantabrigiensis, he was a Doctor in Divinity, of Cambridge. And in the 5th vol. of Leland's Collectanea, and the Notandum, from Wood's Athen. Oxon. part 1, page 573, it appears that about the latter end of the year 1535, Dr. Standish, was succeeded in the see of St. Asaph, by William Barlow, who a little before (in the same year) was sent into Scotland, with a person named Holcroft, about points of religion against the pope; at which time he, the Said Barlow, was styled Prior of Bispham, in Lancashire. He was also sent, soon after, with William Lord Howard, into the same country; at which time he went by the title of Bishop of St. Asaph. In closing the particulars of this order, we shall say a few more M words. That their houses were seized upon by the courtiers of the King, in 1539, the community dissolved, and the friars entirely turned out of house and harbour, to experience the utmost hardships of the beggary by them professed. Indeed all the Franciscan convents in the kingdom were taken into the King's hands, and the body turned out of doors to shift for themselves; and not long after, all their houses and churches were demolished. These schools or seminaries flourished and made a great figure says Mr. Wood, in divinity, of which the Franciscan schools excelled all others. But now these religious houses, heretofore nurseries of learning and virtue, are done away with, and all this body, with the exception of the Franciscan Recollects, of Douay, are extinct here. The Recollects of Douay, begun in 1617, by Father John Gennings, the first provincial superior. It had no other school than that of the studies of the religious of the house, which enjoyed, in that respect, the privileges of the university of Douay. It subsisted in a flourishing condition till the French Revolution put an end to it, in 1793; at which time all the friars that remained in it found means of escaping out of France, in disguise; whereas the remaining members of all the other English establishments, both of men and women, in France, were seized, imprisoned, and treated in the most barbarous manner that wanton cruelty could invent, being shut up, without distinction of age or sex, in churches that had been plundered of every thing; where they remained deprived of all the common necessaries of life, a little scanty food excepted. * Father John Gennings by name, born of a gcod family, and educated in the lower schools in the college of the secular clergy of his nation, at Douay, or Rhemes, in his higher studies in the English college, at Rome, who being made priest, returned missionary into England, where his own brother, Edmund Gennings, had some years before, been drawn, hanged, and quartered, for priesthood. Brother William Staney, was commissary general of the Franciscan province of England. In virtue of this authority, he clothed brother John Gennings in the habit of the order, anno 1614, or in the following year; and observing in him an extraordinary zeal for the restoring of the English Franciscan province, he was transported with joy; and conceiving great hopes of success, from his piety and laborious endeavours, he (the said Staney) delivered (according to Ang. Mason, in Descript. Provin. Angl. Frat. Min.) into his hands the great seal of the province of England, preserved almost by miracle, it having been handed down from one friar of authority successively to another, till it was put into the custody of brother Godfrey Jones, (executed for priesthood in the reign of Q. Elizabeth,) by whom it was delivered to brother William Staney, who last gave it to brother John Gennings, the zealous restorer of the English province, HOUSE OF CORRECTION. "I make no scruple to affirm, that if it were the aim and wish of magistrates to effect the destruction, present and future, of young delinquents, they could not desire a more effectual method than to confine them in our prisons." HOWARD. THIS elegant but massive pile of buildings stands eastward of the town, at the entrance from Chorley, and is built upon the plan laid down by that celebrated philanthropist Mr. John Howard, and was opened for the reception of criminals in the year 1789. It is so appropriately formed that it may, with truth, be called the Preston Bridewell, as the prisoners are obliged to perform manual labour, chiefly in the cleansing and weaving of cotton. Upon entering the first or outer gateway, from the bottom of Church-street, a large plot of ground stands on your right, enclosed by a low wall, going entirely round the chief, or boundary wall, which is three tiers high, enclosing the various buildings of the prison, called the body of the prison, and other necessary apartments. The walk terminates from these aforementioned outer gates, at the porter's lodge, a handsome rusticated stone building, on the ground floor of which are apartments for the use of the turnkey. From each side of this porter's lodge the boundary wall, as mentioned above, turns round eastward, embracing the whole of this extensive prison. There is a fine airy walk inside this prison, leading by the margin of the wall, of four hundred yards round. This length of wall is three tiers high; intersected at each tier with a stone belt. The first ward, after you get through the porter's lodge, contains a small plot of ground, cultivated as a garden, for the use of the governor, and presents an unique appearance; somewhat rural, instead of that doleful appearance which many prisons present to the eye of the visitor, at their first entrance. The house of the governor stands in the centre of two wings, containing eighty-six cells, including the ground and attic ones; the door of each cell possesses iron grating, with a fan-light at the top, part of which answers the purpose of a casement, for ventilation; eighteen of these cells were added to the south-west wing, in the year 1817; within this centre building, the residence of the governor, (Mr. Wm. Liddell,) there are apartments for the use of the magistrates, counsel, and jurors, together with a large sessions-house, well lighted and galleried, in an eliptical form, admirably adapted for the purposes of trying causes at the Quarter Sessions and County Court. On each side of the court, or garden, fronting the governor's residence, two ranges of weaving-shops are erected, equally divided, called wings of weaving-shops, built of brick. The house of Mr. Wm. Liddell comes next under our consideration. This building is lighted by eight square windows in all, to the front; and immediately over three of the front room windows, in the centre, a dial is fixed, of a lozenge form, right under the corniced pediment, crowned by a cupola, wherein a bell is lodged, for the purposes of the place. This part of the prison, including nineteen attic cells, galleried to the front, taking in the north and south-west wings, may be perfectly seen, from the Church-street. The lower cells cannot be perceived, on account of the height of the boundary wall precluding them from the sight. The second ward consists of a chapel, for the performance of divine service, for the prisoners; and there are two hospitals, one for the male, and the other for the female convicts, for their use when in a state of sickness; over this hospital there are two apartments, one for the reception of male convalescents, and another for the females; together with other rooms, appropriated to the use of the cotton business. There are also two ranges, or wings of weaving-shops, appended to the eastern wing of the prison, equally divided on each side. There are sixteen pairs of looms worked by the females, and one hundred and thirty-four by the men; in all one hundred and fifty. These looms are placed inside the weaving-shops, equally proportioned to the number of prisoners occupying each ward. There are in all, five wards for the men, and one for the women, The commodious new prison now completing at Kirkdale, near Liverpool, will, in the end, considerably ease this prison, which has, of late years, been looked upon as the Newgate for Liverpool. The manufacturing business seems to be the predominant labour pursued here in which the various convicts are daily employed. The following is the quantity, description, and cost of a week's diet, allowed to each prisoner in Preston House of Correction, for the quarter ending in January, 1821 :— 7 Loaves of bread, each weighing 20 ounces, and costs s. d. 13s. 9d. for every 100 loaves, will be nearly 1 Pound of beef, costs 4d. per pound....... Pound of stew, costs 2d. per pound....... 2 Pounds of oatmeal, costs 1d. per pound, or 30s. Pound of cheese, costs nearly 6d. per pound Pound of salt, costs 4d. per pound. 0 ...... 0 4 2 Pound of potatoes, costs d. per pound, or 5s. per load of 240lbs. Total per head weekly....... All strong liquors are prohibited within this place. From the system of labour pursued in this prison, it regularly happens when a prisoner leaves this place, after being lawfully discharged, that he has generally to receive from four to six pounds in money, being part of his earnings, which is actually paid to him. By an arrangement made by the magistrates, at the Quarter Sessions, held in 1817, the Leyland hundred has since been added to those of Amounderness and Blackburn, for their prisoners to be tried at the Quarter Sessions. A question was put to Mr. Gurney, by the committee on prisonss "Which is the best conducted prison that you have inspected?" his answer was," The House of Correction, at Preston." Mr. Wm. Liddell made his appearance before the committee on prisons, in the House of Commons, in the month of June, 1819.—Vide reports printed by that committee. Mrs. Fry, (the female Howard,) accompanied by her brother, John Gurney, Esq. of Norwich, and the Rev. R. Carus Wilson, A. M. vicar of Preston, visited this prison, or penitentiary, September 21st, 1818; and expressed her admiration at the cleanliness and discipline observable in this place; |