THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY & NATURALIST, 



the little Saxon churchyard. The altar stone placed 

 as a seat under the shade of the tree is not faced, like 

 the one at Shillingstone, Dorset. It has two crosses 

 at each end and one in the middle. The stone is as 

 sound as ever, though many hundred years old. 



GEO. PARKER. 



SIR JOHN MILLAIS, R.A., A 

 SOUTHAMPTONIAN. 



We have stated in one of our previous Notes that 

 Sir John Everett Millais, Bart., R.A., was born in 

 Southampton in a house still standing in Portland- 

 place, near the railway tunnel on'the Dorchester line. 

 His mother was en route horn the Channel Islands to 

 London at the time of his birth. We have heard the 

 authenticity of this as a fact doubted, but the writer in 

 Cassell's Saturday Journal who is interviewing 

 " Representative men at Home " sets the matter at 

 rest by a statement from the mouth of the great 

 painter himself. The point arose upon a suggestion 

 that Sir Everett, as he prefers to be called, and the 

 great Millet the Frenchman whose picture of the 

 " Angelus " was sold the other day for ,22,000 

 odd come from the same stock. " It's a fact," said 

 the painter, in the course of conversation, "for I've 

 verified it myself. Although I was born at South- 

 ampton, my family came from the Channel Islands, 

 and I was taken back there while still a baby. Millet's 

 family, as everybody knows, comes from those parts. 

 He himself was born near there ; and looking back 

 over the old archives (for, owing to the insular char- 

 acter of the inhabitants, you can trace back ante- 

 cedents for ages without difficulty), I have 

 found our ancestors variously spelled Millays and 

 Millayt till you couldn't tell which was which." 

 Sir John told his companion that his earliest recollec- 

 tion he could not have been more than four years 

 old, if that was the making of some drawings of the 

 officers who formed the garrison, their accoutrements, 

 and their horses. These drawings had been shown 

 to them, handed round, and declared to be a fraud so 

 far as the ascription went. No child of that age could, 

 by any possibility, have done them they were the 

 work of a skilled and educated hand ! At last words 

 ran high, wagers were offered and laid, and in the 

 result the officer who introduced the drawings under- 

 took to produce the tiny artist, and let him make 

 similar sketches then and there before a jury of them. 

 That is Sir Everett Millais's earliest recollection 

 how he, still in petticoats, sat gravely sketching the 

 uniformed Gods of War around him, their brave regi- 

 mentals, and their wondering faces. When the 

 artist's mother, a few years later, took him to see Sir 

 Martin Archer Slice, the then President of the Royal 

 Academy, and asked for his advice as to destining her 

 son for a painter, that gentleman shook his head. 

 " You had better, madam, make your son a sweep," 



said he. Mrs. Millais, however, begged him to look 

 at the lad's sketches. The great man did so, and, 

 having assured himself that the boy did the drawings, 

 altered his tone, for he said to the mother " You will 

 be committing a sin if you do not make him an artist ; 

 nature meant him for one." He was an exhibitor at 

 the Royal Academy in 1840, being then only eleven 

 years old. 



ETYMOLOGY OF CARISBROOKE. 



A writer in the Western Antiquary for August last (p. 

 26) says that " the well-known castle of Carisbrooke 

 in the Isle of Wight was a possession of Ailvvin Eston, 

 and took its name from Mortkere, Karlsbroke or 

 Garison. The two parishes of Morcette or Morchard 

 in Devon in like manner took name from Mortkere." 

 This is not very clearly expressed, and, so far as it 

 can be understood, appears rather far fetched. Is 

 " Karlsbroke " a misprint for " Karisbroke ?" Who 

 was this Mortkere, and where can anything be found 

 about him ? And what authority is there for this 

 derivation? It is not the one usually given. Mr. 

 W. T. Stratton, in his " Guide to Carisbrooke Castle " 

 (4th edition, Newport, I.W., 1885) adduces the name 

 written in the days of the early Norman kings 

 " Karebroc " as proof of the early Keltic formation of 

 the camp, " ' caer ' in the ancient British tongue 

 meaning a wall, fort or city, and ' bwr ' or ' burh ' 

 an embankment of earth ; although possibly it may 

 have been only known as the ' Caer,' and the ' broc ' 

 have been added by the Saxons to describe its position 

 by a stream ; this, however, is not likely, because 

 their usual affix under such circumstances would be 

 ' burn,' as applied to similar streams in the neigh- 

 bourhood." In Jenkinson's " Practical Guide to the 

 Isle of Wight " (sd edition, London: E. Stanford, 

 1883) we read " Two derivations have been given : 

 i, ' caer,' Celtic for stronghold, and brook, referring 

 to the stream which flows through the valley. 

 Taylor altogether ignores this etymology. Asser 

 writes the word Gwiti-gara-burg, i.e. ' the burg of 

 the men of Wight.' ' It will easily be seen/ adds 

 Taylor, ' how the omission of the first part of the 

 name (Gwiti), and the corruption of the last part 

 (burg) into brook have reduced it to its .present 

 form.'" But is it not rather probable that the place 

 took its name from the Saxon chief Whitgar or 

 Wihtgar, to whom, with his brother Stuf, the Isle of 

 Wight was given by Cerdic, A. D. 534 (Ethelwerd's 

 Chronicle)? At any rate we elsewhere (A. D. 530) 

 find the name Whit-garas-byrg (Anglo-Saxon 

 Chronicle), which reads uncommonly like " Whitgar'd 

 town or castle." Then, still following the Anglo- 

 Saxon Chronicle, we read that in 544 " Whitgar died, 

 and they buried him in Wiht-gara-byrg." (I quote 

 from Giles's edition, Bonn's Antiquarian Library, 

 1847.) Asser, too, in his " Life of Alfred," traces 

 Alfred's connection with " Stuf and Whitgar, two 



