Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/350

 286

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. n. OCT. s, 1904.

strategic entry in his copy of Junius) the secret name. Doubtless the Duke of Bucking- ham took part in the family deliberation, and, as he knew the secret independently, the packet was destroyed.

The Kev. Mackenzie Walcott's statement that a portrait of Richard, Earl Temple, was at Boconnoc, reminds me that the steward in showing me the family portraits in early days particularized one as of special interest, he knew not why.

For more the unfamiliar reader can refer to 7 th and 8 th S. In my opinion, the evidences already adduced are conclusive enough to set the long-standing question at rest.

H. H. DRAKE.

LINK WITH THE PAST. In the Manchester Guardian of 16 September is a note in regard to

"the anniversary of that great event in railway history the opening of the Manchester and Liver- pool line on September 15, 1830, which began in such excitement and ended in such gloom. Mr. Huskisson, M.P. for Liverpool, who rode in the festal train that conveyed the Duke of Wellington, was killed by another train while speaking to the Duke. There is an old lady still living at Harrow who travelled in the train that ran over Mr. Hus- kisson. That by itself is astonishing enough, but one can make it sound more astonishing by enu- merating the head masters of Harrow during Mrs. Rotch's residence there. They are G. Butler, Dean of Peterborough ; G. T. Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury; Christopher Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln ; C. J. Vaughan, Master of the Temple : H. M. Butler, Master of Trinity; J. E. C. Welldon, Bishop of Calcutta ; and the present Head Master, Dr. J. Wood."

A. F. R.

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD. The following cutting from the Standard of 23 September may prove interesting to many of your readers, and is a record of a custom of hoar antiquity now revived :

" The urn containing the ashes of Sir Edwin Arnold was yesterday conveyed to Oxford by his eon, and placed in the chapel of University College. An arched niche of alabaster had been prepared. in the wall, in which the urn, a replica of an Etruscan urn now in the British Museum, was half sunk. Beneath it is a tablet of black marble, edged with alabaster, upon which is the following inscription : 'In Memory of Sir Edwin Arnold, M.A., K.C.I.E., C.b.l., some time member of this College, and Principal of the Deccan College, Poonah. Born, June 10, 1832 ; died, March 24, 1904 ; whose ashes are here deposited. Newdigate Prizeman in 1853, he found in his sympathy with Eastern religious thought inspiration for his great poetical gifts.'"

There is a slight error in the date of his .Newdigate 'The Feast of Belshazzar' which I heard him recite in the Sheldonian Iheatre in 1852, and not in 1853. In the latter year he recited a complimentary copy

of English verse at the installation of the Earl of Derby as Chancellor.

I knew him very well at that time, and remember well his skill as a raconteur. The works of Edgar Allan Poe were at that time becoming known in England, and he used to recite to us such stories as the * Murders in the Rue Morgue,' the 'Mystery of Marie Roget,' and the ' Descent into the Maelstrom.'

Urns, instead of being ornamental on monuments, as in former years, are now made useful as cinerary. Sir Thomas Browne thus alludes to the custom in his fine treatise on 1 Urn-Burial':

"To be knay'd out of our Graves, to have our Sculls made drinking Bowls, and our Bones turned into Pipes to delight and sport our Enemies are Tragical abominations escaped in burning Burials." Chap. iii.

And now the skull of the stately writer rests in the Norwich Museum in a casket made of crystal glass with silver-gilt mountings (see 9** S. ix. 85 for a description).

The following beautiful lines from Pro- pertius may, with some slight alterations, be applicable :

Hie carmen media dignum me scribe columna, Sed breve, quod currens vector ab urbe legat ;

Hie Tiburtina jacet aurea Cynthia terra. Accessit ripse laus, Aniene, tuse. Lib. v. 83.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A. Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

PREHISTORIC CROCODILE. The Spalding Free Press for 25 August contained the fol- lowing :

"Another Find at Fletton. Another of those remarkable discoveries which have rendered the clay fields of Greater Peterborough so famous in geological circles was made a few days ago in the deep Oxford clay at Messrs. Beeby's brickyards at Yaxley. Some twenty feet or more from the surface, men came across the huge head of a prehistoric monster of the alligator type. The jaws, some two feet in length, were broken off below the cavity of the eye, and were firmly welded together by untold years of pressure. It appeared that the remains were those of an enormous specimen of crocodile of the Steneosaurus family. The find has been taken care of by Lieut. Beeby, who is making a study of fossilised remains found in the clay of Fletton and district."

This seems to be a similar find to the one at Whitby in 1758, of which I gave an account at 9 th S. xii. 195.

CHAS. F. FORSHAW, LL.D. Baltimore House, Bradford.

HAWKER OF MORWENSTOW. All admirers of the poetry of Robert Stephen Hawker, the Cornish poet, will be glad to know that at length a worthy memorial has been erected to him in the ancient church of Morwenstow, where he ministered for so many years. The