2-4S. VI. 143., Sept. 25. '58.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



247 



theirs ; and also inscriptions on the walls to the 

 late Miss Fox, and to Mr. Allen, a learned 

 friend of theirs, and of whom there is a long ac- 

 count. 



The busts in themselves are good, and by the 

 celebrated sculptor "Westmacott. The taste of 

 the pedestals is by no means fitting for a little 

 Gothic parish church, being both too large and of 

 classical style quite inappropriate. I regretted to 

 hear that a large and most elaborately ornamented 

 sarcophagus put up in memory of the Hewett 

 family in the seventeenth century has been lately 

 demolished, though by the consent of theii posterity 

 as I was told. There remains only a tablet to 

 them. How far this is justifiable it is not for me 

 to discuss, but I think no such destruction ought 

 to take place without good drawings being made 

 of the monument, which must have been ex- 

 tremely curious from the remnants of it which I 

 saw in the churchyard, and which were " going to 

 the parsonage " a workman told me. There were 

 arabesques in the style of Raphael, consisting of 

 death heads, and the insignia of death worked 

 down the sides of the monument, which seems to 

 have been in plaster coloured. 



I have not access at present to Lysons's Bed- 

 fordshire or other works on the topography of the 

 county, so I know not whether this curious work 

 of art has been recorded ; but I think the Hewett 

 posterity are to blame for allowing it to be so de- 

 stroyed. 



There is an epitaph to another Allen in this 

 (•liurch, of which I annex an exact copy, and 

 which is highly diverting. I wonder who wrote 

 it, oi- rather who copied it ? ■♦ 



The late Earl of Upper Ossory lived till 1818. 

 Thomas Allen, his faithful servant, died in 1805. Is 

 it possible that the earl, who was brother to the ac- 

 complished General Fitz-Patrick, and himself a 

 scholar and of very cultivated mind, could have 

 lived close by for so many years and not have 

 seen or heard of his being styled " Crocus Kotu- 

 loram." 



Who have been the clergymen of the parish not 

 to suggest the proper alteration ? 



P.S. I do not think the latter part of the epitaph 

 very clear as to who or what Tom Allen's master 

 Lad dismounted. 



" To the Memory of 

 Thomas Allen, 



" A native of this Parish, who lived above Sixty Years, 

 as Groom to the Earls of Upper Ossory. 



" lie was assiduous, careful, and intelligent, ever atten- 

 tive to the duties of his Situation, affectionately attached 

 to his Masters, an excellent Servant, and an honest 

 Man. 



" In testimony of so much merit, and such long and 

 faithful Service, John Earl of Upper Ossory, Baron Upper 

 Ossory of Ampthill, Lord Lieutenant and Citocus Rotu- 

 LoitAM of the county of Hedford, has caused this tablet and 

 inscription to be (ilaced here. 



" lie died July 2'J"', 1805, in consequence of a blow he 



had received from a horse, his Lord had just dismounted 

 him. Aged 81, and is Buried in this Church Yard. 

 " 1805." 



Pedesteian. 



Tetteuhall, co. Stafford. — I am about to publish 

 a history of the parish of Tettenhall in Seisdon 

 hundred, co. Stafford, with genealogical notices of 

 the families heretofore and now connected with it. 

 I shall be very thankful to any of your readers 

 who will favour me with communications of any 

 unpublished matter, or circumstances of interest 

 relative to my subject, addressed to me, care of 

 Mr. Simpson, Market Place, Wolverhampton. 



I wish to know where the following lines, re- 

 ferring to Tettenhall, are taken from : — 



" Here Hampton's sons in vacant hours repair. 

 Taste rural joys, and breathe a purer air." 



Staffordiensis. 



Lord Wellesleijs Besignation. — The Annual 

 Register for 1812, after mentioning Lord Welles- 

 ley's resignation of the office of Secretary of State 

 for Foreign Affairs, in the early part of the year, 

 proceeds thus : — 



" The motives by which he was induced to resign, as 

 they afterwards appeared in a statement made public by his 

 friends, were such as augured more unfavourably' than 

 even the act itself for the duration of the ministry." — 

 Vol. liv. p. 129. 



What is the statement alluded to in this pas- 

 sage ? Was it merely inserted in the newspapers 

 of the time ? Or was it printed as a separate 

 pamphlet, and has it been preserved in a perma- 

 nent form ? There is no mention of it in Pearce's 

 Life of Lord Wellesley ? L. 



Lynch-law. — Can some one of the numerous 

 readers of " N. & Q." inform me of any work on 

 Lynch-law, its origin, mode of procedure, forms, 

 records, and anecdqtes ; and whether directly or 

 by connivance it has ever been sanctioned by the 

 governing institutions of any country ? or have 

 the actors in these apparently lawless proceedings 

 been in any case tried by a legally constituted 

 tribunal? George Offor. 



Hackney. 



[Lynch-law is peculiar to the United States of Ame- 

 rica ;"and, it is said, derives its name from a Virginian 

 farmer, who was the first to flog a thief without any 

 judiciary appeal. We are disposed, however, to question 

 this vulgar story, and to consider Judge Lynch as a 

 mythical personage. The irregular and summary ad- 

 ministration of justice by the populace originated in the 

 difficulty of adhering to the usual forms of law in the 

 newly-fashioned territories. Until the latter are suffi- 

 ciently peopled to entitle them to be ranked with the 

 states, and to participate in the political immunities of 

 the federal government, the inhabitants are obliged to 

 frame and execute as best they can their own laws; 

 which arc generally borrowed from those of the Union. 



