ce, politics, and adventure are all
represented. The following alphabetic list contains the most
important names, with dates and brief particulars.[5]

_Natives_

_Alphege_ or _Aelfeah_, b. 954, at Weston near Bath; successively
Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop of Canterbury; killed by the
Danes, 1011; canonised.

_Bacon, Roger_, b. about 1214, at or near Ilchester; became a friar
of the Franciscan Order; studied natural philosophy and wrote,
besides other works, the "Opus Majus" (described as "at once the
'Encyclopaedia' and the 'Organon' of the 13th century"); d. 1294.

_Bagehot, Walter_, b. 1826, at Langport; economist and author of "The
English Constitution"; d. 1877.

_Beckington, Thomas_, b. about 1390, at Beckington; successively
Bishop of Salisbury and Bishop of Bath and Wells; d. 1465.

_Blake, Robert_, b. 1599, at Bridgwater; took part in the Great Civil
War on the Parliamentary side, and defended Lyme and Taunton; made
admiral of the fleet, and fought against Holland and Spain; d. 1657.

_Coleridge, Hartley_, b. 1796, at Clevedon; poet and biographical
writer; d. 1849.

_Coryate, Thomas_, b. 1577, at Odcombe; travelled, first on the
Continent (his journal, entitled "Coryat's Crudities," was long the
only handbook for Continental travel), and subsequently in the East;
d. at Surat, 1617.

_Cudivorth, Ralph_, b. 1617, at Aller; Professor of Hebrew and Master
of Christ's College, Cambridge; author of "The True Intellectual
System of the Universe"; one of the "Cambridge Platonists"; d. 1688.

_Dampier, William_, b. 1652, at East Coker; explorer and scientific
observer; author of "A Discourse on the Winds" (said to have value
even now as a text-book); d. 1715.

_Daniell, Samuel_, b. 1562, probably near Taunton; poet and prose
writer (there appears to be no authority for the belief that he
succeeded Spenser as poet-laureate); d. 1619.

_Dunstan_, b. 924, at Glastonbury; successively Abbot of Glastonbury,
Bishop of Worcester and London, and Archbishop of Canterbury; d. 988;
canonised.

_Fielding, Henry_, b. 1707, at Sharpham, near Glastonbury; novelist
(best known work, "Tom Jones"); d. 1754 at Lisbon.

_Hood, Samuel_, b. 1724, at Butleigh; admiral (Nelson wrote of him as
"the best officer, take him altogether, that England has to boast
of"); made a viscount; d. 1816.

_Hooper, John_, b. 1495 (place unknown); Bishop of Gloucester and
Worcester; burnt at the stake, 1555.

_Irving, Henry_ (real