"Under this stone, reader, interred doth lie, Beauty and virtue's true epitomy. At her appearance the noone sun Blushed and shrunk in, 'cause quite undone. In her concentered did all graces dwell; God plucked my rose that he might take a smell. I'll say no more, but weeping, wish I may, Soone with thy dear chaste ashes come to lay." The lady thus extravagantly eulogised, was Frances, the wife of Launcelot Dawes; she died in 1673. Barton school was founded in 1641, by four priests, natives of this parish. [Sidenote: Remarkable epitaph.] [B] BARTON. Near this village is a large stone, called Four-shire stone, from its forming the point of junction of the four counties of Gloucester, Worcester, Warwick, and Oxford. Here once resided an attorney of so pacific a disposition that he usually acted as mediator when disputes arose. This anomalous person, named Dover, instituted the annual festivities termed Cotswold Games, and was for forty years their chief supporter. These diversions were celebrated upon the Cotswold Hills, in Gloucestershire, and prodigious multitudes are said to have resorted to them. They consisted of wrestling, cudgel-playing, leaping, pitching the bar, throwing the sledge, tossing the pike, with various other feats of strength and activity. A castle of boards was erected on this occasion, from which guns were frequently discharged. Dover received permission from James I. to hold these sports, and he appeared at their celebration in the very clothes which that monarch had formerly worn; but it is said there was much more dignity in his form and aspect. John Heywood, the epigramatist, speaking of these games, says-- "He fometh like a bore, the beaste should seem bold, For he is as fierce as a lyon of Cotsolde." [Sidenote: Cotswold games.]