Oct. 6. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



271 



" * We thought to find thee combating, 

 With spirit strong and fresh, 

 The world's temptations manifold, 

 The devil and the flesh. 



While the sins of his country are unatoned for. 

 " 'But since thou'st grown less vigilant 

 To purge thy country's sin, 

 Thou shalt bear all the weight thereof, 

 Till thou canst rescue win.' 

 " St. Brahamus bestirred himself 

 (Yea, with unwonted zeal). 

 And it seemed he did a monstrous weight 

 Upon his body feel : 

 " As if the cross of Waltham Cress 

 Were on him suddenly thrown, 

 And Grinstead Abbey's walls and roof 

 Were added thereupon. 

 " And crash came goodly convents 

 And churches fall'n to bits, 

 And buried him deep in his troubled sleep. 

 And fluttered his five wits. 

 " And still the tempest thickened. 

 And higher grew the pile. 

 But ever he'd a wink of the ladye through a chink. 

 And the light of her bright smile. 



St, Brahamus converseth with the ladye de profundis. 

 " St. Brahamus within him groan'd. 

 For he was sore dismayed, 

 And thus to the blessed Margaret 

 His orison he made : 

 " ' Margaret, bright Margaret, 

 What may all this betide? 

 How long must I be buried thus. 

 All sick and squashed inside ? ' 

 " Then said the clerkly Margaret, 

 ' Donee templa refeceris, 

 Atque ordines monasticos; 

 Delicta majorum lues.' 



St. Brahamus maketh a proposition. 

 " ' Margaret, bright Margaret, 

 Don't lay it on so thick, 

 I'll get up a joint-stock company. 

 And I'll do it like a brick. 

 "♦I'll get up a joint-stock company, 

 And found a convent here. 

 And a nunnery fair in Barnwell Town, 

 And I'll be all night there.' 

 " * Now hold thy peace, thou monk unclean. 

 Or thy door I ne'er shall enter ; 

 For a Johnian is ever a Cretan in soul ; 

 Prava bestia, tardus venter. 



TAe Ladye Margaret's prophecy. 

 " * But I'll have monks throughout the land. 

 And veilfed sisters too ; 

 Who shall spend their lives in charity. 

 With nothing else to do. 

 " ' And because this people is gone astray. 

 Like sheep on a precipice, 

 Our friars shall instruct them every one. 

 After his own device.' 



She leaveth a token with St. Brahamus. 

 " So she left him a parchment sealed fair. 

 Which the Bramian Rule did state. 

 Likewise a speech made ready for him. 

 To speak at our debate." 

 No. 310.] 



It is hardly necessary to say that this skit was 

 composed by a Trinity man. Query, Who? 



C. Mansfield Ingleby. 

 Birmingham. 



HAMPDEN S DEATH. 



(Vol.viii., pp.495. 647.) 



The following particulars, although they come 

 rather late, may not prove uninteresting to your 

 Hampden correspondents. 



An account of the patriot's death, as related by 

 Robert, Earl of Essex, said to have been given by 

 an eye-witness, is extracted from the Town and 

 Country Magazine for 1817, p. 27. : 



" ' You know,' said Sir Robert Pye (Hampden's son- 

 in-law), ' it is commonly thought my father-in-law died 

 by a wound he received at Chalgrove Field from the 

 enemy, but you shall hear the exact truth of the matter, 

 as I had it from ray father himself, some time before he 

 expired.' " 



The account then describes the manner in which 

 Hampden loaded his pistols, and concludes with 

 stating, — 



" That on examining Hampden's unloaded pistol, it 

 was found charged up to the top by the attendant whoso 

 duty it was to load the same. And the other pistol being 

 in the like state, occasioned its bursting, and wounding 

 Hampden's arm in such a shocking manner, that he re- 

 ceived his death-wound thereby, and not by any hurt 

 from the enemy." 



Echard the historian fully confirms this state- 

 ment (see his Histo7-y of England, quoted in 

 Noble's Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 98.), asserting that 

 he had been informed on the best authority, that 

 Hampden's death, which took place some days 

 after he was wounded, arose from the bursting of 

 a pistol, which belonged to a case of pistols pre- 

 sented to him by Sir Robert Pye, his son-in-law, 

 adding, that when Sir Robert visited Hampden 

 in his last illness, he exclaimed, " Ah ! Robin, 

 your unhappy pistol has been my ruin." In con- 

 firmation of these statements was found a book 

 from Lord Oxford's collection, communicated to 

 the editor of Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons 

 (vol. i. p. 396.), by the late H. J. Pye, Esq., Poet 

 Laureate, who was lineally descended from Hamp- 

 den in the female line, containing the account 

 which follows : 



" Two of the Harleys, and one of the Foleys, being at 

 supper with Sir Robert Pye, at Farringdon House, Berks, 

 on their way into Herefordshire, that gentleman related 

 the following account of Hampden's death. That at the 

 action of Chalgrove Field his pistol burst, and shattered 

 his hand in a terrible manner. He however rode off and 

 got to his quarters, but finding his wound mortal, sent 

 for Sir Robert Pye, then a colonel in the Parliament 

 army, and who had married his [eldest] daughter, and 

 told him that he looked on him as in some degree ac- 

 cessoi-y to his death, as the pistols were a present from 

 him. Sir Robert assured him that he bought them in 



