translated to
Hereford from Bangor. He is said to have been a good antiquary. Again, in
the early days of the eighteenth century, was the old contest revived
between citizens and Bishop as to his jurisdiction in respect of the fair
of St. Ethelbert. The episcopal rights remained unaltered, at least in
form, down to 1838, when the privileges were taken away by a special Act
of Parliament, and compensation was made to the Bishop for the profits
arising from the fair privileges, to the amount of 12-1/2 bushels of wheat
or its equivalent in money value, according to the price current. This has
now been transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and the fair
limited to two days' duration.

*Philip Bisse*, A.D. 1712-1721, translated from St. David's, was a man of
great munificence, and of the best intentions, of whom it may be said he
spent "not wisely but too well." He was entirely devoid of any aesthetic
feeling or of architectural fitness, and in the most religious spirit
committed acts of wholesale sacrilege. He employed, it is said, in the
work of restoration in the palace, the stones of the chapter-house, at
that time much injured, but certainly by no means ruined. He built a
hideous structure intended to support the central tower of the cathedral,
and as a crowning act of magnificent liberality, presented the church with
the most dreadful, ponderous, and unsuitable altar-piece that could well
have been devised. In an elaborate epitaph in the cathedral his virtues
are recorded. It was in the time of Bishop Bisse that the meeting of the
three choirs of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester first took place.

*Benjamin Hoadley*, A.D. 1721-1723, translated from Bangor, was again
translated to Salisbury early in 1723. His rule over Hereford was too
short for him to have influenced it for good or evil, and his history
belongs rather to Salisbury and Winchester.

*Hon. Henry Egerton*, A.D. 1723-1746, fifth son of the third Earl of
Bridgewater, was chaplain to George I. He is chiefly to be remembered for
an attempt to destroy the early Norman building adjoining the Bishop's
Palace, and thought to have been the parish church of St. Mary, each of
its two stories containing a chantry founded by Bishop Hugh Foliot.

*Lord James Beauclerk*, A.D. 1746-1787, grandson of Charles II. and Nell
Gwynn, a native of Hereford, was the next Bishop. It was during the last
year of his episcopate on Easter Monday, April 17, 1786, that occ