"For though these vacant years may seem to make me guilty of
thy censure, neither will I excuse myself from all blemishe;
yet if thou doe but cast thine eye upon the former pages and
see with what care I have kept the Annalls of mine owne time,
and rectifyed sundry errors of former times, thou wilt begin
to think ther is some reason why he that began to build so
well should not be able to make an ende.

"The truth is that besyde the miserys and distractions of
these ptermitted years which it may be God in his owne
wisdom would not suffer to be kept uppon record, the special
ground of that permission ought to be imputed to Richard
Finch, the p'rishe Clarke, whose office it was by long
pscrition to gather the ephemeris or dyary by the dayly
passages, and to exhibit them once a year to be transcribed
into this registry; and though I have often called upon him
agayne and agayne to remember his chadge, and he always told
me that he had the accompts lying by him, yet at last
p'ceaving his excuses, and revolving upon suspicion of his
words to put him home to a full tryall I found to my great
griefe that all his accompts were written in sand, and his
words committed to the empty winds. God is witness to the
truth of this apologie, and that I made it knowne at some
parish meetings before his own face, who could not deny it,
neither do I write it to blemishe him, but to cleere my own
integritie as far as I may, and to give accompt of this
miscarryage to after ages by the subscription of my
hand[62]."

[Footnote 62: _Social Life as told by Parish Registers_, by T.F.
Thiselton-Dyer, p. 57.]

We may hope that all clerks were not so neglectful as poor Richard
Finch, whose name is thus handed down as an "awful example" to all
careless clerks. The same practice of the parish clerks recording the
particulars of weddings, christenings, and burials seems to have
prevailed at St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, London, in 1542, as the
following order shows:

"They shall every week certify to the curate and the
churchwardens all the names and sir-names of them that be
wedded, christened, and buried in the same parish that week
_sub pena_ of a 1 d. to be paid to the churche."

In this case the curate doubtless entered the items in the register as
they were delivered to him.

At St. M