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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. SEPT. 19, MOB.

this ground are John Astin of Portsmouth, 1667, and Mary Wheeler, 1670. The names are apparently of the seventeenth century.

F. H. S. Romsey.

I think most of the graves in the York Friends' burial-grounds both old and new have a low stone coping round them, and many of them have a narrow stone laid flat across the head of the grave the simplest memorial in the world. On this the Christian name and surname are cut, and possibly also the age and date. I think many graves in the disused ground have merely initials on the curb. Some of the headstones are old much older, I think, than the fifties. All the graves are flat. I recollect once searching as a child for names on stones in the ancient burial-ground on Bishophill, when the door was unlocked, and I stole inside trembling. It was said to be haunted, and was the most depressing place imaginable within its high wall in Jail Lane. There was no jail there then, and the neighbourhood was being altered ; but the memory of that dreary " Garden of Peace " is a sad one to me. * SAX-DANE.

SHERIFFS OF LONDON (10 S. x. 167). In Smith's ' Obituary ' occurs the death, 18 Feb., 1674/5, of " - - Phillips, Judge of ye Sheriffs Court in London." This possibly may be the James Phillips who was Sheriff 1653-4.

As to Sir Charles Doe, Sheriff 1664-5, the administration of the goods of Sir Charles Doe, Kt., of Hitcham, Bucks, was granted 16 Nov., 1671, to his son John Doe, Esq., the relict Dame Judith renouncing ; another grant 26 Nov., 1687, to William Doe, son of the deceased, the said John Doe being now also deceased. The will of Dame Judith Doe was proved 1692 in P.C.C.

Daniel Forth, Sheriff 1670-71. In the elaborate pedigree of this family in Muskett's ' Suffolk Manorial Families ' (vol. i. p. 320) it is stated that he was " living 1693."

Samuel Shute, Sheriff 1681-2, was buried at St. Peter's, Cornhill, 12 Nov., 1685, his will being proved 15 Dec. following.

Sir John Sweetapple, Sheriff 1694-5, whose bank stopped payment in March, 1700/1, was committed to the Mint Sanc- tuary, Southwark, where he died, j>robably, not long afterwards.

Sir William Cole, Sheriff 1695-6, is pre- sumably the same as " Sir William Coles, Essex," whose will was proved Sept., 1717, in the P.C.C. (168 Whitfield), the will of

" Dame Elizabeth Coles " being proved there in 1723.

Sir John Torriano, Sheriff 1754-5, became insolvent 1756. His will was proved 1778 in P.C.C. His widow died at Camber well, 1 March, 1789. G. E. C.

NOTES ON BOOKS. &o.

Giles and Phineas Fletcher : Poetical Works. Edited by' Frederick S. Boas. Vol. I. (Cambridge, University Press.)

A HANDY edition of the poetical works of Giles and Phineas Fletcher has long been a desideratum of English scholarship, and we rejoice to see that it is to be efficiently supplied by the Cambridge Press, in their series of " English Classics." Hitherto the only complete editions to which students could refer were those of Grosart, whose critical methods, it need hardly be said, do not always inspire com- fort and confidence ; now, thanks to Prof. Boas's editorial care, we shall have a thoroughly trust- worthy text in which to study two poets whose acquaintance all who are interested in our litera- ture will find well worth making. The present volume contains the complete poetical works of Giles Fletcher, and those of Phineas Fletcher which were published prior to 1633. ' The Purple Island * and the rest of the poems issued from that date will be contained in the second volume.

The extant poetical works of Giles Fletcher are of small compass, being represented only by his sacred poem of some 2,000 lines, ' Christs Victorie and Triumph,' and a few occasional verses of no striking excellence. If the youth of the author, however, is taken into account, * Christs Victorie and Triumph ' possesses considerable merits : its versification is smooth and melodious, and its diction graceful ; it has some charming descrip- tive passages ; and its allegorical imagery is often vigorous. The influence of Spenser is everywhere apparent in it, and it is written in an interesting and original adaptation of the Spenserian stanza. We may quote a typical verse to indicate its characteristics :

But now the second Morning, from her bowre, Began to glister in her beanies, and nowe The roses of the day began to flowre In th' easterne garden ; for heav'ns smiling browe Halfe insolent for joy beguiine to showe : The early Sunne came lively daimcing out, And the bragge lambes ranne wantoning about, That heav'n and earth might seem in tryumph both

to shout.

Genuine poetical feeling and a true literary gift are discernible throughout the work, though they are frequently lost in conceits and extravagances after the manner of Du Bartas.

Most of the qualities of Giles Fletcher's verse are to be found in the more varied and extensive pro- ductions of his brother Phineas. In the present volume we are given his ' Locustae, vel Pietas Jesuitica,' and ' The Locusts, or Apollyonists,' an uncompromising attack on Roman Catholicism, the first part in Latin verse and the second in English, and his " piscatorial " play ' Sicelides.' The latter is one of the most agreeable of Phineas's composi-