434 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 132. 



before the public «ye, what we had to propcse might 

 not be received in the way which his merits deserved. 



Sir Robert Peel was pre-eminently a patron of 

 English Literature and literary men ; and we hoped, 

 and do still hope, to see a recognition of his great 

 claims in that special character on the part of the men 

 of letters in this country. The most appropriate that 

 occurs to us would be the erection of his bust or statue 

 in the vestibule of that national establishment, in the 

 welfare and management of which he always took so 

 great an interest — we mean the British Museum. 



The minister who, in terms alike honorable to him- 

 self and to the man of letters to whom tlie dignity 

 was offered, tendered a baronetcy to Southey, and 

 conferred upon him a pension of 3001. a year — • who 

 gave the same amount to Wordsworth — who gave to 

 James Montgomery 1501. a year, and to Tytler, to 

 Tennyson, and to M'Culloch, each 200/. a year — who 

 bestowed a pension upon Frances Brown, and gave a 

 100/. a year to the widow of Thomas Hood — who 

 gave the first appointment of his first administration to 

 a son of Allan Cunningham, and placed the sons of 

 Mrs, Hemans in the service of the Crown, — Sir Robert 

 Peel, t!ie man and the minister who could thus recog- 

 nise the claims of Literature*, and not, like ministers 

 of old, stipulate for a return in the political support 

 of those whom he so distinguished, was surely a person 

 whose memory the men of letters in this country should 

 not be slow to honour. 



Let us hope that the moment has arrived when they 

 will do justice to him who was so ready to recognise 

 their claims. Let Lord Mahon or Mr. Hallam, who 

 enjoyed the friendship of Sir Robert Peel, step forward 

 and begin the good work. An appeal from either of 

 them would arouse a host. They would be supported 

 by all who love Literature, from the highest to the 

 humblest. Who can doubt that the author of Conlngshy 

 and the author of Don Carlos would rejoice at the op- 

 portunity, which would thus be afforded them, of unit- 

 ing to do honour to the memory of a political opponent, 

 in that character in which he deservedly won the 



* We have confined our remarks to Sir Robert 

 Peel's patronage of Literature ; but that patronage was 

 as liberally bestowed upon Science and Art. To him 

 Mrs. Somerville and Sir M. Faraday were indebted 

 for their pensions ; and while his friendship with Law- 

 rence, "Wilkie, and Chantrey, and his patronage of Col- 

 lins, Roberts, Stansfield, &c., cannot be forgotten, his 

 prompt and most kind response to poor Haydon's 

 application for assistance, .though addressed to him at 

 a moment when plunged in the fiercest political strug- 

 gle in which he was ever engaged, can never bo for- 

 gotten. 



applause of all men — as the judicious and munificent 



PATRON OF THE LITERATURE OF OUR NATIVE COUNTRY. 



SITTING IN BEDe's chair. 



One of the most interesting antiquities of 

 Jarrow Church, Northumberland, is the chair 

 of the Venerable Bede. It is preserved in the 

 vestry of the church, whither all brides repair as 

 soon as llie marriage service is over, to seat them- 

 selves upon it. This, according to the popular 

 belief, will make them the joyful mothers of 

 children ; and the expectant mothers (as I have 

 been informed) would not consider the marriage 

 ceremony complete, until they had b«en en- 

 throned in the Venerable Bede's chair. The 

 chair is very rude and substantial ; made of oak ; 

 in height, four feet ten inches ; having an upright 

 back, and sides that slope off for the arms. Ac- 

 cording to the barbarous English fashion, it is 

 carved over with the nomenclature of all the vulgar 

 obscurities of the neighbourhood, whose sacrile- 

 gious penknives, together with the wanton depre- 

 dations of relic-hunters, have so " shorn" the chair 

 of its " fair proportions," that soon nothing but 

 its attenuated form, "small by degrees, and beau- 

 tifully less," will be left for the future Childe 

 Harold to address with — 



" Can it be. 

 That this is all remains of thee ? " 



Every foreigner who has visited our churches 

 and catiiedrals cannot fail to remark how the 

 English love of popularity glares forth in its most 

 sickly form in this barbarous custom of writing 

 and carving names upon monuments, or other 

 works of art. Every observant person, too, when 

 he sees John Smith's name and full address, 

 scratched with painful and elaborate accuracy 

 upon the stern but noseless face of some alabaster 

 knight, while he wonders at the gratuitous trouble 

 which John Smith has taken, must deplore the 

 want of education thus so lamentably evinced. 

 Happily, this vulgar taste (so far as our churches 

 are concerned) is now under some control ; but, 

 nevertheless, it is still sad to see — at Lichfield, for 

 example — that control obliged to take the visible 

 shape of railings, to prevent Messrs. Smith, Brown, 

 Jones, and Kobinson from handing their names 

 down to posterity on the life-like marble of Chan- 

 trey's " Sleeping Children." I have heard that 

 this mode of defacing monuments took its rise in 

 the time of the Protectorate ; and I would wish to 

 put this in the form of a Query : Whether it was 

 so, or no ? With the impression that it was the case, 

 I have for many years past examined the dates 

 that accompanied names scratched upon monu- 

 ments, and never found a date earlier than the 

 Protectorate. The subject seems worth the inquiry. 



