2»* S. IX. May 26. '60.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



397 



LONDON, SAT UnD AY, MAY 2G. 1800. 



N°. 230.— CONTENTS. 



NOTES: — Milton at Chalfont, 897 — Gleanings from the 

 Records of the Treasury. No. 5., 399 — Tyburn Gallows, 

 400 — Longevity in Yorkshire, lb. 



Mif ok Notes : — De Quincey on Johnson — History always 

 reproduces itself — Devil's Own — Proverb — Muffs, a 

 Slang Name, 401. 



QUERIES : — Buffon and Madame de Sevign6— The Weapon 

 Angol, or Angul — David Anderson — Sir Thomas Tas- 

 borowe — Britain 1116 B.C. — "Robin Fletcher and the 

 Sweet Roode of Chester" — Descriptive Catalogue — 

 Singer's Reprints — Facetia — Coach and Horses — Ru- 

 therford family —Pencil Writing— "Gr. : " " Sammlung " 

 Martha Gunn — Laurel Berries — Fellowes' " Visit to the 

 Monastery of La Trappe" — Celtic Surnames — Quakers 

 described —Hymn on Prayer — La Chasse du Sanglier in 

 France— Rev. George Oliver, D.D., 402. 



Qufeies with A'xswees : — Samuel Daniel — Date of the 

 Crucifixion —Rebellion of 1715— Rifliug — Etymology of 

 Rifle — B. Huydecoper, 404. 



REPLIES: — Judges' Black Cap, 405 — Carnival at Milan, 

 lb.— Tart Hall, 406 — Alleged Interpolations in the"Te 

 Deum,"407 — Brass of John Flambard at Harrow, 408 — 

 Sir Walter Raleigh's House — Passage in Menander — 

 Manners of the Last Century— The Sepulchral Effigies at 

 Kirkby Belers and Ashby Folville, co. Leicester — Sir Peter 

 Gleaue — Maria or Maria— Institution by Bishop Bedell 

 — Clifton of Leighton Bromswold — Medals of the Pre- 

 tender— Fletcher Family— Dr. Robert Clayton — Engra- 

 vings by Rembrandt — Letters from Buxton: Robinson's 

 Rats : the Ancient : Bells — Hereditary Alias, &c, 410. 



Notes on Books. 



MILTON AT CHALFONT. 



Finding myself a few weeks ago too late for a 

 train at Uxbridge, and wishing to fill up the in- 

 terval with a visit to any place of interest in the 

 neighbourhood — ancient church or historic man- 

 sion — on consulting a pocket-uiap, the name of 

 Chalfont S. Giles caught my attention, — a place 

 I had long wished to visit ; for in that village is 

 still remaining the house which Ellwood the 

 Quaker selected for Milton's retreat, when the 

 plague of 1665 broke out so fearfully in London. 

 " I took a pretty box for him," says he, " in Giles' 

 Chalfont, a mile from me ; " Ellwood at the time 

 being engaged as tutor in the family of one of his 

 wealthy co-religionists in that parish. And singu- 

 larly pleasant proved my walk of some six, or, 

 may be, seven miles from Uxbridge. True, from 

 the protracted winter, the woods were yet un- 

 adorned with their leafy garniture, but life was 

 stirring in bud and bough; the long pendulous 

 catkins of the hazel waved gaily in the breeze ; in 

 the osier beds, beside the tiny stream that comes 

 down from Chalfont, the bees were revelling in 

 the yellow blossoms — the well-remembered " Sun- 

 day palms" of childhood — "the lime of the sing- 

 ing of birds was come; " thrush and blackbird were 

 calling merrily to each other with clear bold 

 1 illess tree-tops, and the plaintive 

 cry of the newly-yeaned lambs fell not unpleas^ 

 ingly on the ear, while far aloft the lark was 



carolling " from his watch-tower in the skies." 

 Even the few persons I encountered on my way 

 seemed, from their cheerful looks and brisk mo- 

 tions, to have caught the happy infection of the 

 season. Just before reaching the village of Chal- 

 font S. Peter, with its church neatly restored in 

 good brickwork, and where the road winds be- 

 tween the well-wooded domain of Chalfont Hall 

 and its neighbour " the Grove," a noisy colony of 

 rooks were building their nests in jubilant acti- 

 vity, and, as if celebrating the return of spring, — 

 "... cubilibus altis, 

 Nescio qua prater solitum dulcedine lati." 



Indeed all creatures seemed in merry mood to- 

 day, realising, as I thought, the pretty chanson of 

 the old French poet : — 



" Le Temps a quitte son manteau 

 De vert, de froidure, et de pluie ; 

 Et Vest vetu de broderie 

 De soleil hnsant, clair et beau : 

 II n'y a ni bete ni olseau, 

 Qu'en son jargon ne chantent et crie, 

 ' Le Temps a quitte son manteau 

 De vert, de froidure, et de pluie.' " Ronsaid.] 



Soon afterwards the road enters the parish of 

 Chalfort S. Giles, stretching on for some distance 

 between meadows sloping down to the little shal- 

 low stream below, across which at last a foot- 

 bridge leads into the churchyard. The church 

 has few points of interest, and wore an air of 

 neglect, arising possibly from the want, until re- 

 cently, of a resident incumbent. At the extremity 

 of the main street of the secluded, but not pic- 

 turesque, village stands the sometime residence of 

 the grand old poet. It is a small brick-built cot- 

 tage, " semi-detached " it would now be called, 

 for dos a dos there is another cottage, and both, 

 as it. struck me, might have formed originally but 

 a single dwelling-house. The gabled end, with a 

 huge projecting chimney, faces the village street : 

 the house itself fronts a little garden-croft, into 

 which a wicket-gate opens from the road. Lean- 

 ing over this gate I found the present tenant, a 

 labouring man, who admitted me not very wil- 

 lingly. It was hard, he thought, that his house 

 should be constantly beset by wandering tourists, 

 who came to see "the nothing that there was to 

 show." The house fronts the south ; a vine covers 

 its walls : on entering there is, on the left hand of 

 the door towards the street, a kitchen, on the 

 right a parlour. This latter, a very small low 

 room with a single window, remains much as it 

 must have been during the poet's occupancy. 

 The mantel-piece seems of that date, but the 

 hearth is filled up by a modern stove. Beside it 

 is a Square open cupboard, or ambry, with a 

 single shelf for books, on which not improbably 

 once lay the MS. of Paradise Lost. I can ima- 

 gine no person of a cultivated mind so insensible 

 to local associations as not to feel more than or- 

 dinary emotion in looking round this little room. 



