NOTES AND QUERIES: 



A MEDIUM OF INTER-COMMUNICATION 



FOB 



LITERARY MEN, ARTISTS, ANTIQUARIES, GENEALOGISTS, ETC. 



" 'Vtnien found, make a note of." — Captain Cuttle. 



Vol. v.— No. 129.] 



Satueday, April 17. 1852. 



{Price Fourpence. 

 Stamped Edition, ^d. 



By 



^atc^. 



CONTENTS. 

 Notes : — Page 



An Epitaph in St. Giles's, Cripplegate, possibly by 

 Milton, by Thomas H. Gill - - - - 361 



Liability to Error, by Bolton Corney ... 362 



Baxter's Pulpit, by Cuthhert Bede, B.A. 



Popular Stories of the English Peasantry, No. I. 

 T. Sternberg . . - - . 



Folk Lore : — Body and Soul — Giving Cheese at a 

 Birth — Sneezing — Marlborough 5th November Cus- 

 tom — Spectral Coach and Horses ... 



Antiquaries of the Time of Queen Elizabeth 



The Tredescants and Elias Aslimole, by S. W. Singer - 



Minor Notes: — Bothwell's Burial-place — Handel's 

 Organ at the Foundling Hospital — Correction to the 

 " Oxford Manual of Monumental Brasses " — Milton's 

 Rib-bone - - . . . 



- 363 



364 

 365 

 367 



3G8 



Queries : — 



The Danes in England, by J. J. A. Worsaae 

 Minor Queries : — Taylor Family — Analysis — Old 

 Playing Cards — Canongate Marriages — Devil, Proper 

 Name — Hendurucus du Booys ; Helena Leonora de 

 Sieveri — Can a Clergyman marry himself ? Ac. 

 Minor Queries Answered: — Jacobite Toast— Rev. 

 Barnabas Oley — Sweet-singers — " Philip Quarll " — 

 Dedication of Middleton Church — Lunatic Asylum 

 benefited by Dean Swift .... 



Replies : — 



St. Christopher --._.. 

 " Rehetonr " and " Moke," two obscure Words used by 



Wycklyffe, a. d. 1384, by N. L. Beninohel, A.M. 

 Plague Stones --.... 



Rhymes on Places --.-.. 

 Archaic and Provincial Words - _ . . 



London Street Characters ..... 

 Stone Pillar Worship ..... 



On a Passage in Hamlet, Act L Sc. 4. - 

 " The Man in the Almanack," by S. W. Singer - 

 Epigram on Dr. Fell ..... 



Replies to Minor Queries : — Verses in Prose — Stops, 



when first introduced — Rev. Nathaniel Spinckes, &c. 

 Miscellaneous : — 



Notes on Books, &c. ..... 



Books and Odd Volumes wanted - - - 



Notices to Correspondents - . . , 



Advertisements •-.... 



3S2 

 383 

 383 

 383 



AN EPITAPH IN ST. GILEs's, CRIPPLEGATE, POS- 

 SIBLY BY MILTON. 



The chief glory of the church of St. Giles, Crip- 

 plegate, is the possession of Milton's dust. But 

 this does not constitute its only distinction. It 

 boasts a magnificent organ, and the most beautiful 

 epitaph with which I am acquainted. As this last 

 may be as much of a stranger to many of your 

 re.iders as it was to me, and may bestow upon the 

 curio-US in such matters some portion of the plea- 

 sure which its discovery gave me, I venture to 

 crave for it a nook in your columns. Consider- 

 VoL. v.— Xo, 129. "f 



ably to the right of the pulpit, at no great dis- 

 tance, if I recollect aright, to the left of the main 

 entrance, is a monument to William Staples, a 

 citizen of London, who died in 1650, whereon is 

 inscribed the following elegiac couplet : 



" Quod cum coelicolis habitus, pars altera nostri, 

 Non dolct, hie tantum me superesse dolet." 

 Which may be thus Englished : 

 " That Heaven's thy home, I grieve not, soul most dear; 



I grieve but for myself, the lingerer here." 

 Below the inscription are the touching words — 

 " Hoc posuit mcestissima uxor, Sara." 



Putting aside all partiality for one's own dis- 

 covery, I confess that I do not know the fellow of 

 this epitaph. It realises one's ideal of an epitaph, 

 inasmuch as it combines exceeding brevity and 

 beauty of expression with exceeding fulness of 

 thought and feeling. Love, sorrow, and faith, be- 

 reaved affection and trustful piety, find most 

 ample and exquisite utterance in these two lines. 

 It has scarcely won the fame to which it is entitled : 

 I have never met with it in any collection of 

 epitaphs. The authorship would have done no dis- 

 honour to Milton himself, to whose place of sepul- 

 ture it lends, if possible, an additional consecra- 

 tion. Curiously enough, not merely its singular 

 excellence, but also its date, and one or two other 

 circumstances, give some little encouragement to 

 the idea of Miltonic ownership. The monument 

 bears the date of 1650, when Milton was in the 

 fulness of his powers and reputation. He was 

 especially connected with Cripplegate Church ; 

 more than one of his many London abodes were in 

 its neighbourhood. There, in the earlier part of 

 his London life, during his residence in Aldersgate 

 Street, he may have often worshipped ; there his 

 father lay ; there he meant his own sepulchre to 

 be. He who honoured " the religious memory of 

 Mrs. Catharine Thomson, my Christian Friend," 

 with his most glorious sonnet, would not have dis- 

 dained to bestow a couplet upon the grief of 

 another obscure friend. There are, then, certain 

 presumptions in favour of Cripplegate Church 

 containing an epitaph by Milton. But it does not 

 appear in any collection of the works of one who 

 was so careful of his smallest and most juvenile 

 productions. This fact, I must confess, is quite 



