294 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°d s. VI. 145., Oct. 9. '58. 



five men who have been distinguislied by great 

 powers of kinds so different that they have often 

 been regarded as inimical to each other, and have 

 had schools of votaries who have sneered at each 

 other. Suppose also we demand that the fame of 

 both qualities shall have burnt equally bright, in 

 the eyes of those who are fit to see it, down to our 

 own day. I should be much surprised if any 

 match could be produced to the five mathematical 

 inventors, Archimedes, Galileo, Descartes, Leib- 

 nitz, and Newton. 



Your readers must not be surprised if five-and- 

 twenty years of comparative inquiry into the 

 history of science and letters brings out some 

 opinions which are not quite in accordance with 

 the stock notions of the world at large. Nor must 

 you be surprised if you get long answers, when 

 you admit questions under the name of queries. 



A. De Morgan. 



MILLBROOK CHURCH. 



(2"« S. vi. 246.) 



A Pedestrtan having visited the venerable and 

 picturesque little church of Millbrook, and re- 

 corded in " N. & Q." the destruction of the fine 

 tomb formerly standing there, and erected to the 

 memory of one of theHewets of Ampthilland Mill- 

 brook, I think, perhaps, as it is not mentioned by 

 Lysons, a description of it previous to its late de- 

 molition may be interesting to some of your 

 readers, while a notice in " N. & Q." will rescue 

 from impending oblivion its recent existence. 



The tomb stood in the chancel, and consisted of 

 a very large and elaborately ornamented sarco- 

 phagus of coloured alabaster, supporting the re- 

 cumbent effigies, life-size, of {&s the mural tablet 



informs us) " Wm. Huett, obiit ," in armour, 



and "Maria bis wife, obiit 7th June, 1602," and 

 having, under arched recesses, the figures of two 

 kneeling children. On one side were emblazoned 

 the arms borne (with differences of tincture) by 

 most of the families of the name from the remotest 

 periods ; viz., (in this case), sable, a chev. be- 

 tween three owls argent, scarcely legible except to 

 one acquainted with the cognizances of the family 

 (Harl. MS. 1097, f. 26.; Harl. 1390. f. 15.; Lands. 

 864. p. 30.; Harl. 5186, p. 37. ; Visit. Beds., 1582.), 

 quartered with arms quite undistinguishable ; but 

 probably Button of Ampthill, or Tilston, Che- 

 shire. 



The Puritans had wreaked their vengeance on 

 this memorial of a name, the bearers of which 

 have ever been distinguished for staunch and de- 

 voted loyalty (Robert Hewet of Ampthill, Esq., 

 summoned before Parliament, 23 Dec. 1641, for 

 assembling and training men for the service of 

 Charles Stuart. — Jowiuds of the House of Corn- 

 movs, vol. i. p. 354. Sir John Hewett of Waresly, 



Bart., fined and imprisoned, lb. vol. iii. p. 15., 



I Jan. 10, 1644; 28 Jan. 1644, imprisoned. John 



I Hewet, D.D., beheaded, as says Dugdale, "by 



I that tyrant Oliver Cromwell," after an unfair 



trial, 1658) by wringing off the nose (verily, like 



the ass and the dead lion in the fable) of the 



knight, amputating his limbs, and decapitating the 



unoffending children, to which mutilations tempus 



edax rerum no doubt had contributed somewhat. 



In 1856, the present lamentable rage for "re- 

 storing" edifices, which, alas! has, in this instance, 

 done more mischief to our venerable churches and 

 monuments than the ruthless spite of the Puritans 

 and the inroads of time put together, seized the 

 parishioners of the quiet village of Millbrook, 

 and they too must restore their church ; and, of 

 course, as the building was to be rendered as good 

 as new, the dilapidated memorial, standing conspi- 

 cuously in the newly-painted, swept, garnished, 

 and tricked-out structure, would look as absurd, 

 and be as out of place, as a venerable anchorite in 

 a ball-i-oom. Hence it was held necessary to " re- 

 .store " it too, or remove it. 



To digress for a moment : would not reparation 

 answer, in most cases, all the purposes of restora- 

 tion, be more in keeping and character, and per- 

 mit ancient memorials to remain? 



Pedestrian, doubtless a zealous antiquary 

 and archa;ologist, horrified at the " restoration" of 

 the pretty church, and angered with those who 

 could permit it, vents his spleen by attributing, or 

 rather insinuating, an unjustifiable exercise of 

 power on the part of the Vicar, implying that he is 

 an iconoclast, and suggesting apathy on the part of 

 the Hewett family. The bearers of the name 

 must take the obloquy, but not the Vicar, who, I 

 am sure, will feel hurt at the imputation, and who 

 merits the stigma less than any man I know. 



In 1856, in pursuance of my intention to com- 

 plete a series of pedigrees of the Hewett family, 

 and a history of the house, I wrote to the vicar of 

 Millbrook to inquire respecting this tomb, and to 

 request extracts from parish register-books. He 

 informed me the state of the case, and that he had 

 been searching the books in order to discover 

 some descendants of the Hewets of Ampthill and 

 Millbrook to whom he should apply to restore 

 the tomb, and that he had written to the head of 

 one of the principal families bearing the name, to 

 inquire whether he could guide him to any de- 

 scendants of the family. The Vicar kindly sent 

 me all the extracts from the register-books, and 

 asked me the same question, and hospitably in- 

 vited me to the rectory to consult by what means 

 we could effect an object nearly as interesting to 

 him as to me. I could not point out any descen- 

 dants of that family; but, thinking that some who 

 bear the name might, like myself, take an interest 

 in memorials connected with it, I begged him 

 to postpone the destruction as long as possible, 



