[Lignite is a fossil wood carbonized to a certain degree, but retaining
distinctly its woody texture. Dr. MacCulloch, _On Rocks_, p. 636.,
observes: "In its chemical properties, lignite holds a station
intermediate between peat and coal; while among the varieties a
gradation in this respect may be traced; the brown and more organised
kinds approaching very near to peat, while the more compact kinds, such
as jet, approximate to coal."]
_Bishop Bathurst._--I have heard it often asserted that the late Dr.
Bathurst, Bishop of Norwich, was the youngest of _forty-two_ children. Can
this {423} be satisfactorily ascertained? I remember hearing it many years
since during the bishop's lifetime. Such a circumstance is not beyond the
bounds of possibility, if we are to believe the Parish Register of
Bermondsey; for there appears an entry there of the marriage, on Jan. 4,
1624-5, of James Harriott, Esq., one of the _forty_ children of his father.
I myself knew intimately a lady, a clergyman's widow, who was the mother of
twenty-six children (Vol. v., p. 106.; Vol. ix., p. 186.); and I have heard
it said that one of her brothers-in-law was father of twenty-four, and
another of fourteen children. The late Sir Robert Wigram, Bart., had
twenty-four children: he died at the age of eighty-six.