Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/282

 230

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io- s. m. MARCH 25, iocs.

Thomas Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells. An account of this Martin Browne is given in Young's 'Annals of the Barber-Surgeons of London,' p. 546, whence it appears that he died 16 April, 1655, and that at the date of his will (dated 20 Aug., 1654, and proved 24 April, 1655) his wife Margaret and his daughter Rebecca, the wife of Humphry Winch, were both alive. As Martin Browne's father-in-law is spoken of in the ' Visitation ' as "of Chalkhill," it may be of use to add that a Chalkhill House is marked on the Ordnance Survey map of Middlesex, situate south of Kingsbury Green and north-east of Wembley Park.

In saying that a John Chalkhill was "buried in Winchester Cathedral in May, 1679," MR. GOODWIN repeats a small error, for which it seems that Sir John Hawkins was originally responsible. The error occurs also in Mr. F. Somner Merry weather's articles (Gentleman's Magazine, 1860, vol. viii. N.S., 278, 388), to which MR. GOODWIN referred at 8 th S. xii. 441. The John Chalkhill in ques- tion was really buried, not in the cathedral (the registers of which I have examined), but in the cloisters of Winchester College, of which college he was a Fellow from 2 Octo- ber, 1633, until his death. He was elected a scholar of the college on 15 August, 1610, as aged eleven at Michaelmas last, and thence migrated in October, 1616, as aged seventeen, to New College, Oxford, with a Fellowship there, which he held down to his return to Winchester in 1633. He became vicar of Downton, Wilts, a Winchester College living, in 1637, but vacated this vicarage in 1641, when he obtained the rectory of Ashley, Hants, probably by an exchange with Samuel Cox. See the 'Composition Books' at the Record Office. He apparently remained rector of Ashley until his death, as a few days later, on 28 May, 1679, Thomas Cholwell, M.A., was instituted rector. See the ' Bishop's Certificate,' also at the Record Office. In the 'Register of the University of Oxford ' (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), II. ii. 354, John Chalkhill is described as of "Lond., gen. f."; and in the original registers at Winchester College he was entered, on his admission as scholar, as of St. Mary, Oxford, and on his admission as Fellow, as of St. Mary Arches, London. This last description has enabled me, I think, to ascertain his father's name ; for the register of St. Mary-le-Bow records the christenings, on 1 December, 1598, of John Chalkhill, son of Humphry, and on 17 February, 1599/1600, of Mary Chalkhill, daughter of Humphry. It seems, therefore, that MR. GOODWIN is right in now withdrawing his former suggestion

that he was the son of "Ion Chalkill" ; and also that an answer in the negative must be given to Mr. Kirby's inquiry (' Winchester bcholars,' p. 164) as to whether he was son of " John Chalkhill, the poet." I do not know whether his father was the Humphry Chalkhill who was member of the Merchant Taylors' Company in 1603 (Clode's ' Memorials ' of that Company, p. 593), or the Humphry Chalkhill whose sons George and Thomas were christened at St. Mary Aldermary in 1604 and 1605 (' Harl. Soc. Registers,' vol. v. pp. 68, 69). My search in the Bow Church register was limited to the j'ears 1598 and 1599.

John Chalkhill, the Wykehamist, was buried " in materialls.of sheep's wooll only," on 27 May, 1679 (College Register of Burials) ; and the following epitaph in white paint (recently renewed) on a black marble tablet, with an ornamented border of alabaster, still adorns the south wall of the college cloisters :

H.S.E.

loan: Chalkhill A.M. Istius Collegij annos 46 socius,

Vir quoad vixit,

Solitudme et Silentio

Temperantia et Castitate

Orationibua et Eleemosynis

Contemplatione et Sanctimonia

Ascetis vel Primitivis Par ;

Qui cum a Parvulo

In Regnum Coelorum vim fecisset

Octagenarius tandem rapuit

20 die Maij 1679.

A charming translation of this beautiful epitaph* was supplied by the late Lionel Johnson in an article on the cloister epitaphs which appeared in The Wykehamist for March, 1890, No. 252 :

Here rests John Chalkhill, years two score

A Fellow here, till life was o'er :

Long life, of chaste and sober mood,

Of silence and of solitude;

Of plenteous alms, of plenteous prayer,

Of sanctity, and inward care :

So lived the Church's early fold ;

So saintly anchorites of old.

A little child, he did begin

The Heaven of Heavens by storm to win :

At eighty years he entered in.

In the same article Lionel Johnson, after stating that " the songs in Walton's ' Com- pleat Angler ' are largely ascribed to " this John Chalkhill, "as well as the longer poem, ' Thealma and Clearchus,' " pointed out the " grave difficulties " in the way of such ascription being regarded as satisfactory,

from ' Inscriptiones Wiccamicas,' p. 24; but the inscription, as now repainted, certainly has quod instead of " quoad " (1. 4) and, if I remember rightly, viam instead of " vim " (I. 11).
 * I follow Lionel Johnson's reading of it, copied