June 18. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



609 



it will be seen, not only records the burial, but 

 likewise, rather unusually, the precise day of his 

 death, a little more than a month intervening be- 

 tween the two events, which possibly might be 

 accounted for. On a careful examination of Sir 

 Gilbert's tomb, I did not find (which agrees with 

 Dugdale) any epitaph thereon, — a somewhat re- 

 markable circumstance, inasmuch as Sir Thomas 

 Gerard (Sir Gilbert Gerard's eldest son and heir, 

 who was created Baron Gerard, of Gerard's Bromley, 

 whei-e his father had built a splendid mansion, a 

 view of which is in Plot's History of Staffordshire, 

 page 103., not a vestige of which beyond the gate- 

 way is now standing) is said by the Staffordshire 

 historians to have erected a monument to the 

 memory of his father at great expense ; a drawing 

 of which is given by Garner in his Natural History 

 of Staffordshire, p. 120., with a copious description 

 of the tomb. 



Extract. Annus 1592. 

 "4 Die Februarii mortuus est Gilbertus Gerard, 

 Miles, et Custos Rotulorium Serenissimae Reginas 

 Elizabethas ; et sepultus 6 die Martii sequentis." 



T. W. Jones. 

 Nantwich. 



Tombstone in Churchyard. — Arms: Battle-axe 

 (Vol. vii., pp. 331. 390.407. 560.). —It appears 

 that I may conclude that 1600 is the oldest legible 

 date on a tombstone inscription. That of 1601 is cut 

 in relief round the edge of a long free-stone slab, 

 raised on a course of two or three bricks, and is in 

 Henllan, near Denbigh. 



The battle-axes (three In fesse) are on the wall 

 over it. I am obliged to J. D. S. ; but in both my 

 cases the arms appear as connected with Welsh 

 families ; but it is the above that I want to iden- 

 tify. A. C. 



A correspondent asks for instances of dates on 

 tombstones earlier than 1601. I know of one, at 

 Moore Church in the county of Meath, within five 

 miles of Drogheda. It is as early as 1597 ; the 

 letters, instead of being sunk, are in relief. I sub- 

 join a copy of the inscription : 



" HERE VNDER LIETH THE 



BODY OF DAME lENET * 



SARSFELD, LADY DOWAGER 

 OF DONSANY, WHO DIED THE 

 XXII OF FEBRVARY, AN. DKI. 



1597. 



Dublin. 



M. E. 



Thomas Gage (Vol. vi., p. 291.). — Thomas 

 Gage (formerly a Dominican friar, and author of 

 the English American, 1648 — as I saw the work 

 entitled — subsequently a Puritan preacher), is, I 

 imagine, identical with Thomas Gage, minister of 

 the Gospel at Deal in Kent, whom your corre- 

 spondent A. B. R. inquires about, p. 291. If so, 



he became chaplain to Lord Fairfax, and, according 

 to Macaulay, was not unlikely to have married 

 some dependant connexion of that family. 



E. C. G. 



Marriage in High Life (Vol. vi., p. 359.). — I 

 have often heard a similar story, from an old re- 

 lation of mine with whom I lived when a girl ; and 

 she had heard it from her father, — which would 

 carry the time of its occurrence back to the date 

 1740, named by your correspondent. My infor- 

 mant's father knew the parties, and I have re- 

 peatedly heard the name of the bridegroom ; but 

 whether Wilbraham or Swetenham, I do not now 

 remember. Both Wilbrahams and Swetenhams 

 are old Cheshire families, and have intermarried. 

 I am almost certain a Wilbraham was the hero of 

 the story. I have had the house pointed out to 

 me where he lived, and it was not above a couple 

 of hours' drive from Chester, whither we were 

 going in the old-fashioned way of carriage-convey- 

 ance. I am sure he was not a peer, though, if a 

 Wilbraham, he might be related to the late (first) 

 Lord Skelmersdale. 



There is one other little circumstance, which 

 the reference to those former times has reminded 

 me of, — the pronunciation of the word obliged (as 

 in the Prologue to the Satires, where Pope says : 



" By flatterers besieged. 

 And so obliging that he ne'er obliged), 



which the old lady that I have referred to, main- 

 tained was the proper pronunciation for obleege, 

 to confer a favour ; whereas the harsher sound, to 

 oblige, was discriminatively reserved for the equi- 

 valent, to compel. She was a well-educated woman, 

 and had associated with the good society of London 

 in her youth ; and she always complained of the 

 want of taste and judgment shown by the younger 

 generation, in pronouncing the same word, with 

 two distinct meanings, alike in both cases. 



E. C. G. 



Evienspiegel (Vol. vii., p. 557.). — The German 

 verses under Mr. Campkin's portrait of Eulen- 

 spiegel, rendered into English prose, mean : 



" Look here at Eulenspiegel : his portrait makes thee 



laugh. 

 What wouldst thou do, if thou couldst see the jester 



himself? 

 But Till is a picture and mirror of this world. 

 He left many a brother behind. We are great fools 

 In thinking that we are the greatest sages : 

 Therefore laugh at thyself, as this sheet represents 



thyself." 



From the orthography, I do not think that the 

 lines are much anterior to the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century. The names of the artist will 

 be the safest guides for discovering the date of the 

 print. a. 



