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THE HAMPSHIRE ANTIQUARY <S> NATURALIST. 



The old church had some relics which have quite 

 disappeared. The font has, after a good many ad- 

 ventures, been turned into a piscina in a London 

 church. There were two Latin inscriptions of great 

 length on the south wall. I wish some one had 

 copied them. They are quite gone. There was a 

 stone on the chancel floor to the memory of Eliza- 

 beth, wife of Dr. Abraham Alleyne, rector of this 

 parish, who died in 1685. That was taken to form a 

 basis for the churchyard gates, and the inscription is 

 now all but trodden out. I could make out the 

 " Elizabethae " the last time I saw it. Abraham 

 Alleyne was an interesting man. Some day I may 

 have more to say about him. A few marble tablets 

 have been removed to the walls of the tower of the 

 new church. Ages hence no one will know that they 

 do not tell strict truth when two of them begin " In a 

 vault beneath this seat." One ot these is to Stephen 

 Unwin, who was rector here for fifty years. He was, 

 if I recollect aright, the brother of Morley and uncle 

 of William Unwin, the two friends of Cowper. After 

 him came one Thomas Dampier, who was, however, 

 a year or two later made Bishop of Ely, but who pro- 

 cured the living for his brother John, and he also was 

 rector for near upon half a century. One of the 

 tablets is to him. 



Mr. Dampier is said to have been the fattest man 

 in the county. One day he came in from hunting. 

 " Thompthon," said he, " what have you got for my 

 dinner?'' " A goose, your reverence." " Bring him 

 up, I'll goothe him." He did. He picked every bone. 

 A lady still living remembers him, and told me the 

 following anecdote of him : A child was brought to 

 be baptised, the son of the village doctor. This child 

 has come to be a somewhat well known man, an able 

 Professor of to-day at Oxford. "Name thith child, 1 ' 

 said the rector. "James Edwin Thorold," replied 

 the sponsor. " What ? " ejaculated the amazed rector. 

 The sponsor repeated the former answer. " Bleth 

 my thoul, what a lot of nameth ! Thay it oneth more." 

 The sponsor did so, and the child was duly baptized. 



To a third of these mural monuments a curious 

 romance attaches. The space still open to me will 

 not allow me to relate it this week. Let me mention 

 instead that in the churchyard lie buried the father 

 and mother of Richard Cobden, ot whom I have heard 

 old people who remembered them speak with much 

 affection and respect. In the same churchyard is 

 buried also John Lord, the author of Lord's Cricket 

 Ground. He left Marylebone in 1830, I believe, and 

 came down to end his days in the house in which I 

 began to write these Meon papers. He died suddenly 

 on the i5th of January, 1832. Let us hope that the 

 Marylebone Club, for which he did so much, will 

 always keep in order the stone which covers him. A 

 coat of paint even now would not hurt it. 



Another object of interest is the marriage register 

 of Wm. Howley, Rector of Ropley, a village some 

 seven miles off. Why he came here to be married I 

 know not, perhaps it was because his wife was below 



him in social position. She could not write her 

 name, and a cross stands for her signature. They 

 became the parents of him who was called " the last 

 Prince Archbishop," a man of real dignity, and ot 

 vast munificence. Merit or good fortune, or both, 

 thus raised the son of a peasant girl to an exalted 

 position, and he showed himself as worthy to fill it as 

 if he could have traced his lineage back to the Con- 

 quest. 



On the " Amens Plenty " in Eastmeon church a 

 letter appeared in the correspondence columns a fort- 

 night ago stating that the " s " is a later addition. I 

 never observed that, and think the writer must be 

 mistaken. I have received many letters suggesting 

 interpretations, one from a lady in the neighbour- 

 hood, which I transcribe : " A record of Lord 

 Hopton's march from Winchester to take Arundel 

 was discovered at Eastmeon not long ago, when four 

 bodies were found buried in an upright posture (like 

 Ben Jonson's in Westminster Abbey) under a stone 

 bearing the mysterious legend, ' Amens Plenty.' Let 

 the imagination conceive that four ' Psalm-singing 

 knaves ' were killed here, and buried in grim jest as 

 a quartette sing Amens plenty without interruption." 

 It is not entirely satisfactory. Might it not mean, 

 assuming the correctness of the fact ot the burial, that 

 somebody meant " Amen is plenty " for such fellows 

 as these ? None of the other solutions commend 

 themselves to me. 



WEATHER REPORT FOR THE WEEK. 

 From the meterological register made at the Ordnance 

 Survey Office, Southampton, under the direction of Col. Sir 

 Chas. Wilson. K.C.B., K.C.M.G., F.R.S., R.E. Lat. 50 

 54*50" N. ; long. i24'o" W. ; height above sea, 84 feet. 

 Observers Sergt. T. Chambers, R.E., and Mr. J.T. Cook. 



Black bulb in vacuo. 



