Tavistock was formerly a corporate town, but like other places, it has seen many changes, and has felt the ups and downs in the fortunes of this world; being, at one remote period, so poor, that it was actually disfranchised at the petition of the inhabitants, because it could not afford to return, and support, members for Parliament. And, as a curious contrast of the poverty of the church at that period, to its opulence in the days of its mitred abbots, I may also state that the late Mr. Bray found a document in the church chest which contained a petition from the vicar to the parish for a pair of shoes. Yet the trade of this place was once so thriving, and its woollen manufacture so famous, that in London none of that description of cloth was held excellent unless it bore the name of Tavistock kersey. And it ought not to be forgotten that here too was a Saxon school, where that ancient language was taught when almost forgotten in every other part of England. And one of the first books ever printed in this kingdom was a Saxon grammar, at the "exempt monastery of Tavystoke."

[Text may be taken from a different source or edition than that listed as the source by Somers Cocks.]