Si' 



NOTES AND QUERIES, 



near the city of Waterford ; and I have heard that 

 owing to the frequent mistakes arising from the 

 two ladies being called each " Lady Newport," a 

 case was sent to Dublin for the opinion of the 

 Ulster King of arms. It is said he himself was 

 puzzled ; Sir Simon's lady was not " Lady New- 

 port," for Sir John's lady had a prior and higher 

 claim ; she was not " Lady Simon," for her hus- 

 band was not Lord Simon ; but he ultimately de- 

 cided that the lady was to be called " Lady Sir 

 Simon," and she was never afterwards known by 

 any other title. Y. S. M. 



Gttterfef. 



SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS. 



As recumbent effigies are in vogue, there are 

 some points connected herewith worthy of dis- 

 cussion at the present time in your pages. The 

 ultra-admirers of the mediaeval monuments will not 

 allow the slightest deviation from what they re- 

 gard as the prescriptive model — a figure with the 

 head straight, and the hands raised in prayer. 

 One of their arguments is, that the ancient effigy 

 is alive, while the modern modifications are in a 

 state of death, and consequently repulsive to the 

 feelings of the spectator. In my opinion, how- 

 ever, the vitality of the old ones is very question- 

 able. Let us reflect upon their probable origin. 

 In former times the bodies of ecclesiastics and 

 other personages were laid in state, exposed to 

 public view, and even carried into the churches in 

 that condition : a custom still prevalent abroad. 

 It is reasonable to conjecture that the monuments 

 intended to perpetuate this scene in stone, imi- 

 tating the form of the deceased, with the canopy 

 and bier, and adorned with armorial bearings and 

 other appropriate devices. Images of wax were 

 frequently substituted for the corpse, some of 

 which (among them Queen Elizabeth's) are still 

 preserved in Westminster Abbey ; but the prac- 

 tice was kept up even down to the time of the 

 great Duke of Marlborough. It is recorded in 

 history, that during the progress of the body of 

 our Henry V. from France, a figure of the king, 

 composed of boiled leather, was placed upon the 

 coffin. York Cathedral contains a beautiful ex- 

 ample of a complete monument of this description 

 in the Early English style, which degenerated by 

 degrees into the four-post bed, with its affection- 

 ate couple, of the Elizabethan period. It is ob- 

 viously a fair deduction, from these circum- 

 stances, that the sepulchral effigies are "hearsed 

 in death." 



From Mr. Ruskin's Stones of Venice, it appears 

 that the figures on the Venetian tombs of the 

 Middle Ages are manifestly dead; and such, it 

 may be inferred, is the impression conveyed to his 



highly cultivated mind by the contemplation of 

 those in our own country. 



" In the most elaborate examples," says this ob- 

 servant writer, " the canopy is surmounted by a statue, 

 generally small, representing the dead person in the 

 full strength and pride of life, while the recumbent 

 figure shows him as he lay in death. And at this 

 point the perfect type of the Gothic tomb is reached." 



Describing one at Verona, of the fourteenth 

 century, he observes : 



" The principal aim of the monument is to direct the 

 thoughts to his image as he lies in death, and to the 

 expression of his hope of resurrection." 



And towards the conclusion of his review of their 

 development he writes : 



" This statue in the meantime has been gradually 

 coming back to life through a curious series of transi- 

 tions. The Vendramin monument is one of the last 

 which shows, or pretends to show, the recumbent 

 figure laid in death. A few years later this idea be- 

 came disagreeable to polite minds ; and lo ! the figures 

 which before had been laid at rest upon the tomb 

 pillow, raised themselves on their elbows, and began 

 to look around them. The soul of the sixteenth 

 century dared not contemplate its body in death." 



Flaxman, in his remarks on the monuments of 

 Aylmer de Valence and Edmund Crouchback in 

 Westminster Abbey, admires 



" The solemn repose of the principal figure, represent- 

 ing the deceased in his last prayer for mercy to the 

 throne of grace, the delicacy of thought in the group 

 of angels bearing the soul, and the tender sentiment of 

 concern variously expressed in the relations ranged in 

 order round the basement." 



As, however, a canopy on the former exhibits a 

 living figure of the departed on horseback, such 

 as Mr. Ruskin notices in Italy, and as the angels 

 are said to bear the soul, the knight must cer- 

 tainly have breathed his last. The raised hands 

 are no refutation of the argument, since there are 

 grounds for the assertion that those of the dead 

 bodies laid in state were sometimes tied together 

 to retain them in the suitable position. A few 

 exceptional instances, no doubt, occur of vari- 

 ations in the attitude irreconcileable with death, 

 and equally inconsistent with a reclining posture. 

 It must also be admitted that in brasses and in- 

 cised slabs (which may be regarded in many re- 

 spects as parallel memorials), the eyes are almost 

 invariably unclosed ; yet the fact, neither in this 

 case nor in that of the carved marble, does not by 

 any means certify that the individuals are alive. 



Since then there is so much reason for the sup- 

 position that the generality of our ancestors are 

 sculptured in the sleep of death, the recumbent 

 figure of a Christian clasping the Bible, and 

 slightly turning his head, just passed away into 

 another state of existence (not into purgatory, 



