Jan. 15. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



6d 



Sharpe, in his Peerage (1833), under the title 

 " Stamford," says : 



" * The manner of her departing' in the Toiver, which 

 Mr. Ellis has printed from a MS. so entitled in the 

 Harleian Collection, although less terrible, is scarcely 

 less afTecting than that of her heroic sister," &c. 



Perhaps your correspondent A. S. A. may be 

 enabled to consult this work, and so ascertain 

 further particulars. Bkoctuna. 



Bury, Lancashire. 



HOWLETT THE ENGRAVER^ 



(Vol. i., p. 321.) 



In your first Volume, an inquiry is made for 

 information respecting the above person. As I 

 find on referring to the subsequent volumes of 

 " N. & Q." that the Query never received any 

 reply, I beg to forward a cutting from the Obi- 

 tuary of the New 3fonthly Magazine for June, 

 1828, referring to Howlett; concerning whom, 

 however, I cannot give any further information. 



" MB. BARTHOLOMEW HOWLETT. 



" Lately in Newington, Surrey, aged sixty, Mr. 

 Bartholomew Howlett, antiquarian, draughtsman, and 

 engraver. This artist was a pupil of Mr, Heath, and 

 for many years devoted his talents to the embellish- 

 ment of works on topography and antiquities. His 

 principal publication, and which will carry his name 

 down to posterity with respect as an artist, was A 

 Selection of Vieius in the County of Lincoln ; comprising 

 the Principal Towns and Churches, the Remains of Cas- 

 tles and Religious Houses, and Seats of the Nobility and 

 Gentry ; with Topographical and Historical Accounts of 

 each View. This handsome work was completed in 4to. 

 in 1805. The drawings are chiefly by T. Girtin, 

 Nattes, Nash, Corbould, &c., and the engravings are 

 highly creditable to the burin of Mr. Howlett. Mr. 

 Howlett was much employed by the late Mr. Wilkin- 

 son on his Londina lUustrata ; by Mr. Stevenson in his 

 second edition of Bentham's Ely ; by Mr. Frost, in his 

 recent Notices of Hull ; and in numerous other topo- 

 graphical works. He executed six plans and views 

 for Major Anderson's Account of the Abbey of St. Denis ; 

 and occasionally contributed to the Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine, and engraved several plates for it. In 1817, Mr. 

 Howlett issued proposals for A Topographical Account 

 of Clapham, in the Coujity of Surrey, illustrated by En- 

 gravings. These were to have been executed from 

 drawings by himself, of which he made several, and 

 also formed considerable collections ; but we believe 

 he only published one number, consisting of three 

 plates and no letter-press. We hope the manuscripts 

 he has left may form a groundwork for a future topo- 

 grapher. They form part of the large collections 

 for Surrey, in the hands of Mr. Tytam. In 1826, 

 whilst the Royal Hospital and Collegiate Church of 

 St. Katharine, near the Tower, was pulling down, he 

 made a series of drawings on the spot, which it was 

 his intention to have engraved and published. But 



the greatest effort of his pencil was in the service of 

 his kind patron and friend, John Caley, Esq., F.R. S., 

 F. S. A., keeper of the records in the Augmentation 

 Office. For this gentleman Mr. Howlett made finished 

 drawings from upwards of a thousand original seals of 

 the monastic and religious houses of this kingdom." 



B. Hudson. 

 Congleton, Cheshire. 



CHAUCER. 



(Vol. vi., p. 603.) 



In reference to the question raised by J. N. B., 

 what authority there is for asserting that Chaucer 

 pursued the study of the law at the Temple, I 

 send you the following extract from a sketch of 

 his life by one of his latest biographers, Sir Harris 

 Nicolas : 



" It has been said that Chaucer was originally in- 

 tended for the law, and that, from some cause which 

 has not reached us, and on which it would be idle to 

 speculate, the design was abandoned. The acquaint- 

 ance he possessed with the classics, with divinity, with 

 astronomy, with so much as was then known of che- 

 mistry, and indeed with every other branch of the 

 scholastic learning of the age, proves that his education 

 had been particularly attended to ; and his attainments 

 render it impossible to believe that he quitted college at 

 the early period at which persons destined for a mili- 

 tary life usually began their career. It was not then 

 the custom for men to pursue learning for its own sake ; 

 and the most rational manner of accounting for the 

 extent of Chaucer's acquirements, is to suppose that he 

 was educated for a learned profession. The knowledge 

 he displays of divinity would make it more likely that 

 he was intended for the church than for the bar, were 

 it not that the writings of the Fathers were generally 

 read by all classes of students. One writer says that 

 Chaucer was a member of the Inner Temple, and that 

 while there he was fined two shillings for beating a 

 Franciscan friar in Fleet Streef"; and another (Leland) 

 observes, that after he had travelled in France, ' col- 

 legia leguleiorum frequentavit.' Nothing, however, is 

 positively known of Chaucer until the autumn of 1359, 

 when he himself says he was in the army with which 

 Edward III. invaded France, and that he served for 

 the first time on that occasion." 



The following remarks are from the Life of 

 Chaucer, by William Godwin, Lond. 1803, vol. i. 

 p. 357. : 



" The authority which of late has been principally 

 relied upon with respect to Chaucei-'s legal education is 

 that of Mr. Speght, who, in his Life of Chaucer, says, 

 ' Not many yeeres since, Master Buckley did see a 

 record in the same house [the Inner Temple], where 

 Geoffrey Chaucer was fined two shillings for beating 

 a Franciscane fryar in Fleet-streete.' This certainly 



* " Speght, who states that a Mr. Buckley had seen 

 a record of the Inner Temple to that effect." — Note hy 

 Sir H. N. 



