In this inquiry Mr. Hunter was completely successful. Pursuing the clue given by the mention of relationships in Kent in the various ways which would occur to a person skilled in such investigations, Mr. Hunter fell upon a track in which coincidences between the facts stated in the MS. and those elicited by his own researches followed one another so rapidly as in the end to leave not even the shadow of a doubt that the desired result had been obtained.

We shall briefly indicate the course by which Mr. Hunter arrived at his conclusions. It looks easy enough after the end has been attained, but it will be borne in mind that inquiries of this kind are extremely discursive. The statement of a few leading facts upon the establishment of which the final conclusion is arrived at, gives no idea of the time lost in investigations which are merely tentative. In all such inquiries we are soon reminded of the pretty passages which, after turnings and windings almost ad libitum, are ultimately found to lead to nothing.

Besides cousins of at least seven different names who are alluded to by the Diarist, several of them in connection with Canterbury, Sandwich, and Godmersham, there is one whom he specially commemorates as "my cousin in Kent" (p. 19), and whom he frequently vouches by that designation, or merely as his cousin, as his authority for information which he chronicles. This cousin was evidently the writer's most important connection-the great man of the family. To visit him and his somewhat wayward second wife was the principal object of the Diarist's journeys into Kent. It also appears that this cousin was a man advanced in life,-roughly stated to be 62 years of age in March 1602-3, and that he resided at a place called Bradbourne, in the neighbourhood of Maidstone. This last fact led directly to the identification desired.

Bradbourne was easily found. It has been for centuries a family seat in the parish of East Malling. Hasted has represented the

house in one of his pictorial illustrations pretty much as it yet exists. It has been shorn indeed of many of the noble trees, of the deer, and of some of the other aristocratic adornments with which the county historian surrounded it, but it still stands a stately oldfashioned red-brick mansion, probably of the date of the reign of Queen Anne. Long before that period the same spot was occupied by a previous residence of a county family. From the time of the Protectorate it has belonged to a branch of the old Kentish stock, the Twysdens; and before they purchased it—" in the reign of Queen Elizabeth," as Hasted remarks "it was in the possession of a family named Manningham.”—Manningham! Our diarist slightly alludes to a cousin of that name, "G. Manningham, deceased."2 The clue was vague, but at that little chink there entered light sufficient to guide the researches of an antiquary.

4

The inscriptions on the older monuments in East Malling church are printed in Thorpe's Registrum Roffense. To them Mr. Hunter had recourse, and with good success. Amongst them he found one upon a monument still standing on the north side of the chancel of the church to a Richard Manningham, evidently a person of importance in that neighbourhood. It is not stated in the inscription that he was the owner of Bradbourne, but he lived at the time when our author paid his visits thither, and his age, as given on the monument, although not coincident with that stated by the Diarist, for the monument declares that Richard Manningham died on the 25th April, 1611, in his 72nd year,-was sufficiently near to stimulate to further inquiries. But without following Mr. Hunter step by step it will be enough to state that from the

The inscription is surmounted by a bust of singular coarseness, evidently the work of some country sculptor, and executed in the worst taste and manner.

inscription he went to Doctors' Commons, where, under the vicious system of mismanagement which then prevailed, he was one of the favoured two or three who were permitted to use the testamentary records, whilst all other inquirers were excluded with a most offensive disregard of courtesy. The will of Richard Manningham helped on the inquiry very considerably. It was further advanced by an heraldic Visitation of Kent, and was finally and triumphantly concluded by an inspection of the register-books of the Middle Temple.

Without derogating in the slightest degree from the merit of Mr. Hunter's investigations, or desiring to deprive his memory of one atom of the credit which attaches to it on that account, we prefer to state the facts respecting the Manninghams in words of our own, which will enable us to weave into the narrative some additions to the results of Mr. Hunter's inquiries.

About the middle of the sixteenth century the Manninghams were a numerous family of the middle class,' branches of which were scattered about in various parts of England. The Richard Manningham of the monument at East Malling was born at St. Alban's; Robert Manningham, descended from a stock which removed out of Bedfordshire into Cambridgeshire, lived and died at Fen Drayton in that county; George Manningham dwelt in Kent, and from the marriages of his female descendants in that county there probably sprang the numerous cousinred of the family to which we have already alluded. Their status in Kent before Richard Manningham settled at Bradbourne may be inferred from one fact which appears in the Diary, namely, that George Manningham was bound as surety with William Somner, father of the well known antiquary of

"Honestá natus familia" are the words of the inscription to Richard Manningham, the very words used also as descriptive of the descent of Sir Thomas More on his monument in Chelsea church; familia non celebri sed honestá natus. (Faulkner's Chelsea, i. 207.)

Canterbury, for the father's performance of the duties of the registrarship of the Ecclesiastical Court, in which office he preceded his son.

Richard, Robert, and George Manningham are all stated to have been relations, and probably they all stood about upon a par in worldly circumstances, but Richard pursued a way of life which enabled him to shoot ahead of all the members of his family. Of his youth we have no particulars, but he was well educated even according to present notions. He united an acquaintance with modern languages to the share of classical knowledge taught in our old grammar-schools, and is commemorated as having spoken and written Latin, French, and Dutch, with freedom and elegance, and and as having been able at the age of sixty-two to repeat memoriter almost the whole of the first and second books of the Æneid.

Brought up to some branch of commerce, he was a member of the Mercers' Company of London, and in his business days resided in the metropolis, but age found him with a competency, and brought with it some customary infirmities. He retired from London, purchased the quiet sheltered Bradbourne, and passed the evening of his days in occupations in which literature bore a considerable share.

He was twice married; the first time to a native of Holland, a family connection of the Lady Palavicini, afterwards wife of Sir Oliver Cromwell, the uncle of the future Protector. This marriage was a happy one. The lady survived the purchase of Bradbourne, and was buried in the church of East Malling. Richard Manningham's second match was with a Kentish widow. The traces we find of

her in the Diary do not leave an impression that she added much. to her husband's happiness. She is not alluded to in his will.

1 Diary, pp. 49, 51.

at her

2 The last notice we have of her is under the date of 1595, when her husband, request and for her sake," lent her kinsmen, Arnold Verbeck, Abraham Verbeck, and

We may therefore conclude that she died between 1602 and 1611.' There is no mention of issue by either marriage.

Childless, solitary, and infirm, Richard Manningham was in no degree misanthropic. Out of his abundance he applied considerable sums in charity, and for the benefit of his kindred, and at an early period looked around for a Manningham who might inherit the principal portion of his property and carry on his name. His choice fell upon John Manningham, a son of Robert of Fen Drayton, and his wife Joan, a daughter of John Fisher of Bledlow in the county of Bedford. That person is our Diarist.

Richard Manningham carried out the obligations of this adoption in the most liberal way. It is obvious from the Diary that John Manningham, whom Richard Manningham designated by the several titles of" cousin," "kinsman," and "son in love," received a generous education of the best kind. He was intended for the practice of the law, and on the 16th March, 1597-8, was entered of the Middle Temple, as the son and heir of Robert Manningham of Fen Drayton, gentleman, deceased. John Chapman, probably the same person who is mentioned in the Diary as one of the cousins who lived at Godmersham,2 and John Hoskyns, were the members of the Inn who were his sureties upon his admission.

On the 7th June 1605, having kept his exercises and been on the books for the needful seven years, he was called to the degree of

Goris Besselles, merchant-strangers, 4001. which remained due with all interest upon it up to the 21st January 1611-12, the date of his will. He forgave his debtors the amount, provided they paid 407. a piece to Margarita and Susanna Verbeck, daughters of Arnold, and to the testator's niece Janeken Vermeren, daughter of his first wife's sister, within twelve months after his decease.

The registers of East Malling do not begin until 1640. We beg warmly to acknowledge our obligations to the Rev. W. L. Wigan, the rector, who in the kindest manner searched from 1640 to 1660 for entries relating to the Manninghams, but without finding anything about them.

2 Diary, pp. 108, 111.