JuiiY 3. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



S) 



SIE HENEY WOTTOM'S UETTBR TO MILTON. 



Most lovers of Comus have often read with 

 interest Sir H. Wotton's " Letter to Milton," which 

 is in many editions prefixed. The initials M. B. 

 ?efer to Michael Brainthwaite, who succeeded 

 Wotton at Venice ; and S. refers to the young 

 Lord Scudamore, whose father resided at Paris as 

 ambassador for King Charles L Todd rightly 

 suggests, from an old MS. note, that H. must have 

 been John Hales of Eton (the "memorable"), and 

 not Samuel Hartlib, as Thomas Warton had sup- 

 posed. 



It is strange that I too possess a copy of the 

 third edition of Wotton's Reliquice (London, 

 1672), with many MS. notes in an old and scholar- 

 like hand. 



In said volume, H. is likewise filled up Hales ; 

 and we know that Wotton speaks of Hales as a 

 Bihliotheca Ambulans {Rel, p. 475.) ; that he re- 

 joiced when Archbishop Laud preferred him to a 

 prebendaryship of Windsor (lb. p. 369.) ; that 

 they lived together on most intimate terms ; and 

 fhat, finally, Hales attended Wotton in his dying 

 moments (Walton's Life of Sir H. W. ad calcem). 

 Indeed (unless I mistake) Samuel Hartlib had not 

 settled in England at this time, so that we may 

 put him out of the question for ever. 



To me the mysterious part of Wotton's " Letter 

 to Milton," seems to lie in the initials "R" and 

 " the late R^ poems." And I should be very glad 

 to know how far Thomas Warton's observations 

 upon them could stand the lynx-eyed scrutiny of 

 Me. Ceossley, or some of your other correspon- 

 dents. Why the first R. must necessarily mean 

 John Rouse of the Bodleian (though Milton did 

 honour him at a later period with some Latin verses), 

 or the second R. Thomas Randolph, the adopted 

 Son of Ben. Jonson, I am unable to perceive. 



Warton is wrong in saying that it appears from 

 his monument, which he had seen in Blatherwycke 

 Church, Northamptonshire, that Randolph had 

 died on the 17th of Mai-ch, 1634. His monument 

 contains no date whatsoever. I visited the above- 

 mentioned church on the 17th of June ult., with 

 the express purpose of seeing the last resting- 

 place, or the last memorial, of one who, however 

 unfortunate himself, was, in Warton's note at all 

 events, associated with Milton's Comiis, and send 

 the inscription verbatim. 



Wood tells us that Randolph died in March 

 1634, at the house of William Stafford of Blather- 

 wycke, and that he was buried on the 17th day of 

 the same month " in an ile joining to B. Church, 

 among the Stafford family." In this he is followed 

 by the Biographia Britannica, from whence, as 

 well as from Wood, I learn that the author of the 

 inscription was Randolph's friend Peier Hanstead 

 of Cambridge. The tablet on which it is written 

 is of white marble, erected at the expense of Sir 



Christopher Hatton, and attached to one of the 

 pillars ; and the inscription is given, but not very, 

 accurately, in Bridge's Northamptonshire (vol. ii. 

 p. 280., "Oxford, 1791, foL). I transcribed for 

 myself as follows : 



" Memoriae Sacrum 

 Thome Randolphi (dum inter pauciores) Faelicissimi 

 et facillimi ingenii Juvenis necnon majora promit- 

 tentis si fata virum non invidisscnt saeculo. 

 Here sleepe tbirteene 

 Together in one tombe. 

 And all these greate, yet quarrell not for rome: 

 The Muses and y* Graces teares did meete 

 And grav'd these letters on y" churlish sheete. 

 Who having wept their fountaines drye 

 Through the conduit of the eye, 

 For their freind who here does lye, 

 Crept into his grave and dyed, 

 And soe the Riddle is untyed. 

 For w""" this Church, proud y' the Fates bequeath 

 Unto her ever Iionour'd trust 

 Soe much and that soe pi'ecious dust. 

 Hath crown'd her Temples with an luye wreath, 

 W'oh should have Laurelle beene 

 But y' the grieved plant to see him dead 

 Tooke pet and withered. 



Cujus clnercs brevl hac C^l"* potuit) imortalltatc 

 donat Christopherus Hatton, Miles de Balneo et Mu- 

 saru amator, illius vero (quem deflemus) supplenda 

 carminibus quo; marmoris et aaris scandaium maue- 

 bunt perpetuum." 



R.T. 



Warmington. 



FOLK. rOBE. 



Cure for the Ague. — About a mile from Berk- 

 hampstead, in Hertfordshire, on a spot where two 

 roads cross each other, are a few oak trees called 

 cross oaks. Here aguish patients used to resort, 

 and peg a lock of their hair into one of these oaks, 

 then, by a sudden wrench, transfer the lock from 

 their heads to the tree, and return home with the 

 full conviction that the ague had departed with 

 the severed lock. Persons now living affirm they- 

 have often seen hair thus left pegged into the oak, 

 for one of these trees only was endowed with the 

 healing power. The frequency of failure, how- 

 ever, to cure the disease, and the unpleasantness 

 of the operation, have entirely destroyed the po- 

 pular faith in this remedy; but that expedients 

 quite as absurd and superstitious, and even more 

 disgusting, are still practised to remove diseases, is 

 fully proved by several instances recorded iu 

 "N.&Q." 



And here I must express, what will be con- 

 sidered by some of its readers an extraordinary, 

 opinion, that education alone has not, and will not, 

 expel superstition. It may change Its character, 

 but it will not rid the mind of its baneful in- 



