496 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 60. 



Dams,' is however an excellent one, and it lias been 

 selected accordingly. The other song, ' The Owl is 

 abroad,' is also characteristic, but the words are not 

 Shakm>eaiie's. The last air has been inserted in Dr. 

 Clarke's Beauties of PiirccU, as Piircell's. This is a 

 mistake, which, injustice to Smith, should be rectified." 



Your correspondent also refers to Mr. G. 

 Hogarth's ]\lemoirs of the Musical Drama, as an 

 authority for attributing the song in question to 

 Purcell. ]\Ir. Hogarth's work, I am sorry to say, 

 can never be depended upon as to facts. It is 

 almost entirely made up froui second-hand autho- 

 rities', consequently blunders of the greatest mag- 

 nitude occur in every chapter. It has the merit 

 of being a well-written anil an entertaining book; 

 but here my praise must end. 



A. R. speaks of having referred to Purcell's 

 Tempest. I must beg to correct him in this state- 

 ment, as no complete co])y of that work (my own 

 excepted) is known to exist, Goodeson's (printed 

 at the end of the last century) is the only copy 

 approaching to anything like completeness, and 

 that is very unlike Purcell's T'empest. Did A, II. 

 find m Purcell's Tempest t\\Q mui'ic of the beautiful 

 lyric, " Where the Bee sucks ? " No. Yet Purcell 

 composed music to it. The absence, then, of " Tiie 

 Owl is abroad," is no proof that Purcell did not 

 write music for that song also. 



But, in the present case, A. R. may rest assured 

 that the song about wliich he inquires is the veri- 

 table composition of John Christopher Smith. 



Edwaed F. Rimbaulx. 



OLD ST. PANGEAS CHUKCH. 



Your correspondent Stephen (Vol. ii., p. 407.) 

 asks for inlbruiation respecting the " Gospel Oak 

 Tree at Kentish Town." Permit me to connect 

 with it another Query relative to the foundation 

 of the old St. Pancras Church, as the period of its 

 erection has hitherto baffled research. From the 

 Sul)joiued extracts, it appears to be of consider- 

 able antiquity. The first extract is from a MS. 

 volume which I pmchascd at the sale of the 

 library of the Rev. II. F. Lyte (Lot 2578.), en- 

 titled, — 



" S|jicilegium : or A Brief Account of Matters re- 

 Jating to the ecclesiastical Politic of the British Church, 

 compiled from Histories, Councils, Canons, and Acts 

 of Parliament," A. D. 1674, 



It was apparently written for publication, but 

 is without name or initials. At p. 21. the writer, 

 after giving an account of the foundation of the 

 cathedral church of Canterbury, goes on to say, — 



" Without the w:il!s, betwixt the Cathedral and St. 

 Martin's Church, stood an idol temple, which, wiih 

 the leavQ and goodwill of King Elhelbert, St. Au- 

 gustine purged, and then consecrated it to the memory 

 of St. Pancras the martyr, and after prevailed with the 



king to found a monastery there for the monks, in 

 honour of the two prime apostles, St. Peter and Paul, 

 appointing it to be the burial-place of the Kentish 

 Kings, as also for his successors in that see. The like 

 to this was Pancras Church, near London, otherwise 

 called Kentish Church, which some ignoi-antly imagine 

 was the mother of St. Paul's Church in London. I 

 rather think it might be the burying-place belonging 

 to the church of St. Paul, before Cutliiiert, Archbishop 

 of Canterbury, obtained leave o( the Pope to bury in 

 cities. And in imitation of that at Canterbury, this 

 near London was dedicated to St. Pancras, and called 

 Kentish Church." 



Connected with the Querj of Stephen, it is 

 worthy of notice that St. Augustine held a ct)n- 

 ference with the Cambrian bishops at a place 

 called by Bede, Augustine's Ac, or Oak, on the 

 borders of the Weccii and West Saxons, prob.ably 

 near Austcliffe, in Gloucestershire (Bede's Eccles. 

 Hist. lib. ii. c. 2.) . 



Noi-den, who wrote in the reign of Elizabeth, 

 in his Specidum Britannia:, says that — 



" The church of St. Pancras standeth all alone, as 

 utterly forsaken, old and weather-beaten, which, for the 

 antiquitie thereof, is thought not to yield to Paule's of 

 London." 



which idea is repeated by Weever. And in the 

 year 1749, some unknown poet, soliloqtiising upon 

 the top of Primrose Hill, bursts out into tlie fol- 

 lowing rapturous musing at the sight of " the old 

 weather-beaten church" in the distance: — 

 " The lev'rend spire of ancient Pancras view. 

 To ancient Pancras pay the rev'rence due ; 

 Christ's sacred attar there first Britain saw, 

 And gaz'd. and worshij)p'd, with an holy awe, 

 Whilst pitying heav'n diffus'd a saving ray. 

 And heathen darkness changed to Christian day." 

 Gentleman's May , xiv. 276. 



Perhaps some of the gentlemen now engaged in 

 compiling historical notices of the parish of St. 

 Pancras will be able to dispel the Cimmerian 

 darkness which at present envelopes the conse- 

 cration of the old church. 



Tlie late Mr. Smith, author of NollektJis and his 

 Times, made some collections towards a History 

 of St. Pancras. Query, What has become of them ? 



J. Yeowell. 



Hoxton. 



Old St. Pancras Chnrch (Vol. ii., p. 464.) — 

 In a note in Croker's edition of BoswelFs Johnson 

 (8vo. 1848, p. 840.), Mr. Marklaud says, that the 

 reason assigned bv your correspondent, and in 

 the text of Boswell, for the preference given by 

 the Roman Catholics to this place of burial, rests, 

 as he had learned from unquestionable authority, 

 upon no foundation ; " that mere prejudice exists 

 amongst the Roman Catholics in favour of this 

 church, as is the case with respect to other places 

 of burial in v.arious parts of the kingdom." Mr. 

 Markland derived his information from the late 



