Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853

Sir G. Browne, Bart. (Vol. vii., p. 528.).—The particulars given by Newbury, while introducing his Query, are extremely vague and inaccurate. In the first place, the individual he styles Sir George Browne, Bart., was in reality simple George Browne, Esq., of Caversham, Oxon, and Wickham, Kent. This gentleman, who would have been a valuable acquisition to any nascent colony, married Elizabeth (not Eleanor), second daughter of Sir Richard Blount, of Maple Durham, and had by her nineteen children, pretty evenly divided as to sex: for I read that of the daughters, three at least died young; other three became nuns and one married – Yates, Esq., a Berkshire gentleman. Of the sons, three, as Newbury relates, fell gloriously fighting for Charles, their sovereign. Neither of these latter were married: indeed, the only sons who ventured at all into the bonds of wedlock were George, the heir, and John, a younger brother. George married Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Francis Englefield, Knt., a Popish recusant, and left two daughters, his co-heiresses. John, his brother, created a baronet May 19th, 1665, married Mrs. Bradley, a widow, and had issue three sons and three daughters. The sons, Anthony, John, and George, inherited the baronetcy in succession, the two former dying bachelors: the third son, Sir George, married his sister-in-law, Gertrude Morley, and left three sons, the first of whom, Sir John, succeeded his father; and with him the baronetcy became dormant, if not indeed extinct.

    T. Hughes.

Chester.

Americanisms, so called (Vol. vi., p. 554.; Vol. vii., p. 51.).—Thurley Bottom, near Great Marlow, dear to "the Fancy," may be added to the list of J. S.'s.

    F. James.

Sir Gilbert Gerard (Vol. v., pp. 511. 571.; Vol. vi., p. 441.).—Sir Gilbert Gerard, Master of the Rolls temp. Queen Elizabeth, died on the 4th of February, and was interred on the 6th of March, 1592 (Old Style), in Ashley Church, in Staffordshire. The style most probably led Dugdale into the error noticed by your learned correspondent Mr. Foss, in his last communication to "N. & Q.," relative to the probate of Sir Gilbert Gerard's will. I beg to forward you an extract taken from the Parish Register of Ashley, which, it will be seen, not only records the burial, but likewise, rather unusually, the precise day of his death, a little more than a month intervening between the two events, which possibly might be accounted for. On a careful examination of Sir Gilbert's tomb, I did not find (which agrees with Dugdale) any epitaph thereon,—a somewhat remarkable circumstance, inasmuch as Sir Thomas Gerard (Sir Gilbert Gerard's eldest son and heir, who was created Baron Gerard, of Gerard's Bromley, where his father had built a splendid mansion, a view of which is in Plot's History of Staffordshire, page 103., not a vestige of which beyond the gateway is now standing) is said by the Staffordshire historians to have erected a monument to the memory of his father at great expense; a drawing of which is given by Garner in his Natural History of Staffordshire, p. 120., with a copious description of the tomb.

Extract. Annus 1592

"4 Die Februarii mortuus est Gilbert Gerard, Miles, et Custos Rotulorium Serenissimæ Reginæ Elizabethæ; et sepultus 6 die Martii sequentis."

    T. W. Jones.

Nantwich.

Tombstone in Churchyard.—Arms: Battle-axe (Vol. vii., pp. 331. 390. 407. 560.).—It appears that I may conclude that 1600 is the oldest legible date on a tombstone inscription. That of 1601 is cut in relief round the edge of a long free-stone slab, raised on a course of two or three bricks, and is in Henllan, near Denbigh.

The battle-axes (three in fesse) are on the wall over it. I am obliged to J. D. S.; but in both my cases the arms appear as connected with Welsh families; but it is the above that I want to identify.

    A. C.

A correspondent asks for instances of dates on tombstones earlier than 1601. I know of one, at Moore Church in the county of Meath, within five miles of Drogheda. It is as early as 1597; the letters, instead of being sunk, are in relief. I subjoin a copy of the inscription:

"here vnder lieth the

body of dame ienet

sarsfeld, lady dowager

of donsany, who died the

xxii of febrvary, an. dni

1597."

    M. E.

Dublin.

Thomas Gage (Vol. vi., p. 291.).—Thomas Gage (formerly a Dominican friar, and author of the English American, 1648—as I saw the work entitled—subsequently a Puritan preacher), is, I imagine, identical with Thomas Gage, minister of the Gospel at Deal in Kent, whom your correspondent A. B. R. inquires about, p. 291. If so, he became chaplain to Lord Fairfax, and, according to Macaulay, was not unlikely to have married some dependent connexion of that family.

    E. C. G.

Marriage in High Life (Vol. vi., p. 359.).—I have often heard a similar story, from an old relation of mine with whom I lived when a girl; and she had heard it from her father,—which would carry the time of its occurrence back to the date 1740, named by your correspondent. My informant's father knew the parties, and I have repeatedly heard the name of the bridegroom; but whether Wilbraham or Swetenham, I do not now remember. Both Wilbrahams and Swetenhams are old Cheshire families, and have intermarried. I am almost certain a Wilbraham was the hero of the story. I have had the house pointed out to me where he lived, and it was not above a couple of hours' drive from Chester, whither we were going in the old-fashioned way of carriage-conveyance. I am sure he was not a peer, though, if a Wilbraham, he might be related to the late (first) Lord Skelmersdale.

There is one other little circumstance, which the reference to those former times has reminded me of,—the pronunciation of the word obliged (as in the Prologue to the Satires, where Pope says:

"By flatterers besieged,
And so obliging that he ne'er obliged),

which the old lady that I have referred to, maintained was the proper pronunciation for obleege, to confer a favour; whereas the harsher sound, to oblige, was discriminatively reserved for the equivalent, to compel. She was a well-educated woman, and had associated with the good society of London in her youth; and she always complained of the want of taste and judgment shown by the younger generation, in pronouncing the same word, with two distinct meanings, alike in both cases.

    E. C. G.

Eulenspiegel (Vol. vii., p. 557.).—The German verses under Mr. Campkin's portrait of Eulenspiegel, rendered into English prose, mean:

"Look here at Eulenspiegel: his portrait makes thee laugh.
What wouldst thou do, if thou couldst see the jester himself?
But Till is a picture and mirror of this world.
He left many a brother behind. We are great fools
In thinking that we are the greatest sages:
Therefore laugh at thyself, as this sheet represents thyself."

From the orthography, I do not think that the lines are much anterior to the beginning of the eighteenth century. The names of the artist will be the safest guides for discovering the date of the print.

    α.

"Wanderings of Memory" (Vol. vii., p. 527.).—The author of Wanderings of Memory, published by subscription at Lincoln in 1815, 12mo. pp. 151., was a young man "in his apprenticeship," of the name of A. G. Jewitt. He dedicates the book to his father, Mr. Arthur Jewitt, Kimberworth School, Yorkshire. Nearly the whole of the embellishments were engraved by a younger brother of the author, "who at the time had not attained his sixteenth year, and who had not the opportunity of profiting by any regular instructions."

There are some good lines in the poem, but not enough to rescue it from that fate which poetical mediocrity is irreversibly doomed to.

    Jas. Crossley.

Miscellaneous

NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC

The reputation which Mr. Finlay has acquired by his History of Greece, and his Greece under the Romans, will unquestionably be increased by his newly published History of the Byzantine Empire from dccxvi. to mlvii. The subject is one of great interest to the scholar; and the manner in which Mr. Finlay has traced the progress of the eastern Roman empire through an eventful period of three centuries and a half, and while doing so enriched his pages with constant reference to the original historians, has certainly enabled him to accomplish the object which he has avowedly had in view, namely, that of making his work serve not only as a popular history, but also as an index for scholars who may be more familiar with classic literature than with the Byzantine writers.

We understand that Her Majesty and Prince Albert, with that appreciation of the beautiful and the useful for which they are distinguished, have shown their opinion of the value of photography by becoming the Patrons of the Photographic Society.

The Camden Society is about to put to press a work which will be of great value to our topographical writers, as well as to historians generally, namely, The Extent of the Estates of the Hospitalers in England, taken under the direction of Prior Philip de Thame, a.d. 1338. The original MS. is at Malta; and though the transcript of it was made by a most competent hand, we have reason to believe that our correspondent at La Valetta (W. W.) would be doing good service both to the Society and to the world of letters, and one which would be most acceptable to the Transcriber, if he could find it convenient to revise the proof sheets with the original document.

Books Received.—Cyclopædia Bibliographica, a Library Manual of Theological and General Literature. Part IX. of this useful Library Companion extends from Göthe to Matthew Henry.—Reynard the Fox, after the German Version of Göthe, with Illustrations, by J. Wolf. Part VI. Contains Chap. VI. The Relapse.—Messrs. Longman have added to their Traveller's Library (in two parts) an interesting and cleverly written account of our Coal Mines, and those who live in them, which gives a graphic picture of the places and persons to whom we are all for so many months indebted for our greatest comfort.—Mr. Bohn continues his good work of supplying excellent books at moderate prices. We are this month indebted to him for publishing in his Scientific Library the third volume of Miss Ross' excellent translation of Humboldt's Personal Narrative of his Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, which is enriched with a very copious index. In his Classical Library he has given us Translations of Terence and Phædrus; and in his Antiquarian Library, the second volume of what, in spite of the laches pointed out by one of our correspondents, we must pronounce a most useful work for the mere English reader, the second volume of Mr. Riley's translation of Roger de Hoveden's Annals of English History, which completes the work. Probably, however, the volume which Mr. Bohn has just published in his Standard Library is the one which will excite most interest. It is issued as a continuation of Coxe's History of the House of Austria, and consists (for the most part) of a translation of Count Hartig's Genesis of the Revolution in Austria.

BOOKS AND ODD VOLUMES WANTED TO PURCHASE

King on Roman Coins.

Lord Lansdowne's Works. Vol. I. Tonson, 1736.

James Baker's Picturesque Guide to the Local Beauties of Wales. Vol. I. 4to. 1794.

Webster's Dictionary. Vol. II. 4to. 1832.