1709. There was published in London: “Nundinæ Sturbrigienses,” a poem in Latin hexameters, of some five hundred lines, by Th. Hill, Coll. Trin. Cant. Soc. It is included in vol. ii. “Musæ Anglicanæ,” editio quinta. Londini, ex officina J. S. R. Tonson and J. Watts, 1741. An * indicates that the poem in question was added to this edition, and not found in former ones. The poem gives a description of the fair as it existed in the reign of Queen Anne. 1710. The question of the preachership of the fair referred to under date 1650, came up this year in strong force. The corporation had usually appointed the minister of Barnwell, but this year they appointed another, a fellow of King’s College. Their right to the nomination was now disputed by the improprietor and minister of Barnwell. The corporation resolved to maintain their nominee, and the opposing parties advertised their intention of standing on what they regarded as their rights. Proceedings were accordingly commenced in the Bishop of Ely’s court. The following year (Sept. 1711) the Vicar of Barnwell published the following:— Whereas ’tis the resolution of the corporation of Cambridge, against the present incumbent of Barnwell, to set up a preacher in Sturbridge Fair; being led thereinto by artificially persuading some of his predecessors into an illegal note, against the patron, his clerks and successors in the said living: and Sturbridge Fair being in the parish of Little St. Andrew’s, Barnwell, and the ministers thereof have (when right and law prevail) time out of mind, without any disturbance (the said corporation of Cambridge finding alwaies a pulpit) performed the service of the two Lord’s-days during the said fair, with their congregation, service-books, vestments, pulpit ornaments, and parish-clerk, in gratitude for the collection that hath been there alwaies made, for the better support of themselves under their small parochial income, till the last year 1710; for which intrusion, then, the unwary usurper was censured in the Bishop’s ecclesiastical court: These do humbly give notice to the gentlemen of the fair, that the pulpit not being allowed this year as usual, and it not being known soon enough to provide one, the service of the Lord’s day, during this present fair, will be performed in the parish-church, morning and evening, by the minister of Barnwell. Will. Piers. Mr. Piers appears to have carried his point, as no mention of a Sturbridge fair preacher subsequently to 1711 occurs in the Corporation books. Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, was, whilst fellow of Emmanuel, preacher at Sturbridge fair.