422 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 83. 



youthful wife were sent for to Castleton Hall by 

 the Chethams, by whom they were treated with 

 much kindness ; and the remarkable disparity of 

 years in their marriage hfiving no doubt created 

 great interest, a painter was employed to take 

 their portraits, which are still in existence, with 

 the ages of the parties at the time, and the dates, 

 when taken, painted upon them. 



I paid the son, James Horrocks, more than one 

 visit, and on the last occasion, in coinp:my with 

 James Crossley, Esq., of iVIancliester, the Reve- 

 rend Canon Parkinson, Principal of St. Bees' Col- 

 lege, and one or two otlier gentlemen, I took my 

 son with me. It happened to be the very day on 

 which he completed liis hundredth year, and we 

 foun<l him full of cheerfulness and content, ex- 

 pecting several of his descendants to spend the 

 day with him. I possess a portrait in crayons 

 of this venerable patriarch, taken on that day 

 by a very clever artist, who accompanied us 

 on our visit, and which is an extremely faithful 

 likeness of the original. Should it please Provi- 

 dence to spare my son to attain to his seventieth 

 year, he also will be enabled, in the year 1900, to 

 say that he has seen a man whose lather lived in 

 the time of Oliver Cromwell; thus connecting 

 events, with the intervention of owe life only, com- 

 prehending a period of very nearly two centuries 

 and a half. 



P. S. A very interesting narrative of all the 

 facts of this case was published in the Manchester 

 Guardian a few years iigo, comprising many 

 curious particidars not noticed by myself, a copy 

 of which I shall be glad to send you, if you think 

 it worthy of insertion in " Notes and Queries." 



Thomas Cokseb. 



Stand Rectory. 



[We accept with thanks the offer of our valued cor- 

 respondent.] 



DR. YOUNG S NARCISSA. 



A pamphlet was I'ecently published at Lyons 

 and Paris, by a Monsieur de Tcrrebasse, intending 

 to prove that the daughter-in-law of Dr. Young, 

 so pathetically lamented by him in the Night 

 Thoughts imder the poetical name of " Narcissa," 

 was not clandestinely buried at Montpellier ; that 

 Dr. Young did not steal a grave for her from the 

 Roman Catholics of that city ; and that conse- 

 quently the celebrated and touching episode in 

 Night III. is purely imaginary. This opinion of 

 M. de Terrebasse, first given to the world by him 

 in 1832, and now repeated, has been controverted 

 by the writer of an article in the Gazette Mklicale 

 of Jlontpellier. The tomb, it is said, of Elisabeth 

 Lee, Dr. Young's daughter-in-law, was discovered 

 a few years since at Lyons ; and JL de Terrebasse 

 endeavours to prove, from that circumstance, and 

 from a comparison of fiicts and dales, that this 



Elisabeth Lee was the "Narcissa"of the poet. 

 Not having seen M. de Terrebasse's pamphlet, and 

 being indebted to the Jownal des Savants for this 

 brief account of it, it seems diiEcnlt to discover 

 from it how M. de Terrebasse can pretend so 

 summarily to invalidate the solemn and touching 

 assertions of the poet, which assuredly are any- 

 thing but flights of fancy. 

 " Deny'd the charity of dust to spread 



O'er dust ! a cliarity their dogs enjoy. 



What could I do ? what succour ? what resource ? 



With pious sacrilege a grave I stole; 



With impious piety that grave I wiong'd ; 



Short in my duty, coward in my grief! 



More like her murderer than friend, I crept 



AVith soft suspended step, and muffled deep 



In midnight ilarkness, whisper'd my last sigh." 



Niglit Thoiiglits ; Naiclssa. 



In the notes to an edition of the Night Thoughts, 

 printed in 1798, by C. Whittingham, for T. ilep- 

 tinstall — 



" It appears," it is stated, " by the extract of a letter 

 just printed, that in order to obtain a grave, the Doctor 

 bribed the undLT gardener, who dug the grave, and let 

 him in liy a private door, bearing his beloved daughter, 

 wrapped up in a slieet, upon his slu)ulder. Wiien he 

 had laid her in this hole be sat down, and, as the man 

 expressed it, ' rained tear?.' It appiars also, that 

 some time previous to this event, expecting the cata- 

 strophe, be liad been seen walking solitarily backward 

 in tills garden, as if to find the most solitary spot for 

 his purpose." — See Evang. Mag., Nov. 1797. 



I do not know what authority this letter quoted 

 from the Evang. Mag. may possess. J. M. 



Oxford, May 20. 



iHiitor ^aiti. 



Ciiriovs Epitaph. -'The following lines are on a 

 stone in Killyleagh churchyard. I have a faint 

 recollection of seeing a similarly constructed epi- 

 taph in Harris's History of the County of Down, 

 which was perhaps composed by the same person. 

 Is any of your readers acquainted with any En- 

 glish inscription in the same style ? 

 " INIysta, fidelis, amans, colui, docui, relevavi, 



Numen, oves, inopes, pectore, voce, manu. 

 Laude orl)em, splendore poium, cineresque beatos, 



Fama illustravit, mens colit, urna tenet." 



It will easily be seen that the first, fourth, 

 seventh, and tenth words are to be read in con- 

 nexion, as are those that follow these, and those 

 next in succession. 



The person on whose tomb the lines occur was 

 the Rev. William Richardson, who died in 1G70, 

 having been minister of Killyleagh for twenty-one 

 years. By the way, is not mysta a strange designa- 

 tion for a Presbyterian minister ? I should think 

 it would be now considered as objectionable as 

 sacerdos. E. H. D. D. 



Killyleagh, co. Down. 



