Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/189

 ii s. iv. SEPT. 2, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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(West side :)

Oh let one wish, go where I will, be mine, To turn my back and wander home to die,

'Mong nearest friends my latest breath resign, And in the churchyard with my kindred lie.

Clare.

(North side:)

The grave its mortal dust may keep

Where tombs and ashes lie ; Death only shall Time's harvest reap,

For genius cannot die. Clare.

(East side :)

The bard his glory ne'er receives

Where Summer's common flowers are seen,

But Winter finds it, when she leaves A laurel only green.

And time from that eternal tree

Shall weave a wreath to honour thee.

Clare.

At the same time a coped memorial stone was placed over Clare's grave in Helpston Churchyard. It contains the following inscription :

Sacred to the memory of

John Clare,

the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet,

Born July 13, 1793. Died May 20, 1864.

A poet is born, not made.

Bury St. Edmunds. On 2 November, 1909, Lady Evelyn Guinness unveiled a memorial to " Ouida," at a point where three roads intersect, on the outskirts of the town, and a short distance from the house in which the novelist was born. It was erected by voluntary subscriptions collected by The Daily Mirror, and is executed in stone from the designs of Mr. Ernest G Gillick of Chelsea. At the base are drinking troughs for animals. The memorial is in the form of a rectangular fountain basin from the centre of which rises a pier flankec by two figures in bronze, symbolic o: Courage and Sympathy. The principa face of the pier is occupied by a bronze relief portrait of " Ouida " and the arms of Bury St. Edmunds. It also contains the following inscription, written by Lore Curzon :

OUIDA

Louise de la Rame Born at Bury St. Edmunds

1 January, 1839 Died at Viareggio, Italy

25 January, 1908 Her friends have erected this fountain in the place of her birth.

Here may God's creatures

whom she loved Assuage her tender soul as they drink.

At the back is the following :

This memorial was

erected from funds

subscribed by

readers of the

' Daily Mirror '

and by friends

and admirers in all

parts of the world.

Whitby. On a bold promontory on the-

bbey Plain a cross was erected to the-

nemory of the Saxon poet Caedmon in 1898'.

!anon Rawnsley was the prime mover in?

he matter, and the cross was unveiled by

Mr. Alfred Austin, the Poet Laureate, on

21 September, 1898. It stands 20 feet

ligh, and was designed by Mr. C. C. Hodges

>f Hexham. On the front of the shaft are

anels containing figures of Christ in the

ict of blessing, David playing upon the harp,

he Abbess Hilda, and Csedmon inspired

,o sing while in the stable.

" The obverse shows a double vine, symbolical >f Christ, in the loops of which are four great icholars trained at Whitby in Csedmon's time, whilst underneath are the first nine lines of the poet's Hymn of the Creation. The two sides of
 * he cross contain respectively a conventionalized

English wild rose, with birds and animals, andi an apple tree, emblematical of Eden, conven- tionalized also, with other birds and animals- somewhat after the manner of the treatment of i>he sides of the Bewcastle and Ruth well Crosses- The head of the cross contains the Agnus Dei y and the symbols of the four Evangelists on the one side, and on the other, bosses and knotwork.'

On the front at the base is this inscription :

To the glory

of God and in

Memory of

Caedmon

the Father

of English

Sacred Song,

fell asleep hard by 680.

Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. In 1799 Mr. Granville Penn, grandson of the cele- brated William Penn, erected a memorial to the poet Gray in a field about a hundred yards from Stoke Poges Church. It forms the termination of one of the views from Stoke House, and consists of a large sar- cophagus supported on a tall square pedestal. On three sides are inscribed selections from the * Elegy ' and the ' Ode to Eton College ' i. and on the fourth is the following :

This monument in honour of

Thomas Gray ;

was erected A.D. 1799

among the scenery

celebrated by that great

Lyric and Elegiac Poet.

He died in 1771,