Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/561

 ii s.v. JUNE is, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

431

LOXDOX, SATURDAY, JUNE 1-J,

CONTENTS. No. 129.

NOTES : Charles Dickens, 461 Monuments in Old City Church : St. George, Botolph Lane, 463 Omar Khayyam's 'Rubaiyat,' 464 "Hit": Tense in Chaucer, 465 Place- Name Elvet The 'Poem' by John Kay George III. and Handel's Music, 466 Folk-lore Note from Philadelphia- Bag- Envelopes, 467.

QUERIES : MS. of Bishop Henry King's Poems Ireland's Stolen Shire Hamilton Hill. Lines. The Original (?) St. Peter's, Bengeworth " Spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar " Authors Wanted Missing Line Wanted Quick- silver as a Charm, 463 Byde Family' William Tell ' Rich Hewet Pierre Loti Guidarello Guidarelli Battle of Bosworth The " Roving Englishman " Duppa's or Dapper's Hill, Croydon, 469 Church Ales : Church- wardens' Accounts, 470.

REPLIES: Dickens's Railway Accident, 470 Relics of London's Past Neolithic Remains, 471 Paganel as a Christian Name " Hush, ye pretty warbling choir," 472 Robin Hood Society Sanctuary Seats " J'ai vu Carcassonne "Families : Duration in Male Line, 473 The Thames Massacre of St. Bartholomew : Medal, 474 ' The Gentile Powers ' Logic David Lloyd, Win- chester Scholar, 475 Trtissel Family Robert Drewrie, Priest executed at Tyburn Missing Words Wanted Urban V.'s Family Name, 476 Anns of the Ghibellines Author Wanted Lured from Paradise The Lady Mary Grey and Thomas Keyes Henry Blake Punch and Judy The Nonsense Club, 477 Municipal Records Printed, 478.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' The Cambridge Manuals of Science and Literature' 'A Chronicle of the Popes.'

Notices to Correspondents.

Jlofes.

CHARLES DICKEXS. FEBRUARY TTH, 1812 JUNE OTH, 1870.

(See ante, pp. 81, 101, 121, 141, 161, 182 203, 223, 243, 262, 284, 301, 323, 344 362, 383, 404, 421, 442.)

AT a few minutes before half -past nine on the morning of Tuesday, the 14th of June, 1870, a passer-by would have seen a hearse and three plain mourning coaches enter Dean's Yard, Westminster. The hearse contained the body of Charles Dickens, which, on being taken out, was carried through the cloisters to the nave, where it was met by Dean Stanley ; the two Canons in residence, Canon Jennings and Canon Nepean ; and three of the Minor Canons. The choir were not present. The mourners who followed were, according to The Times of the loth, Mr. Charles Dickens, jun., Mr. Henry Dickens, Miss Dickens, Mrs. Charles Collins, Miss Hogarth, Mrs. Austin (Dickens's sister), Mrs. Charles Dickens, jun., Mr. John

Forster, Mr. Frank Beard, Mr. Charles Collins, Mr. Ouvry, Mr. Wilkie Collins, and Mr. Edmund Dickens. Fourteen mourners are mentioned, but the names of only thirteen appear. The Times states :

"The service was most impressively read by the Dean, all but the lesson, which was read by the Senior Canon. There was no anthem, no chanted psalm, no hymn, not even an intoned response or 'Amen,' but the organ was played at intervals.''

Forster says :

" The solemnity had not lost by its simplicity. Nothing so grand or so touching could have accom- panied it as the stillness and the silence of the vast cathedral."

Later in the day the news began to spread that Dickens had been laid to rest in the Abbey, when crowds of unbidden mourners went to take a last fond look. This con- tinued throughout the following day, and the Dean, always full of consideration, kept the grave open until the Thursday, and on the Sunday in his memorial sermon, pointing to the flowers that had been newly thrown, said :

" The spot would thenceforward be sjyi'acred one with both the New World and the Old, as that of the representative of the literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our English tongue."

Of those who occupied the three mourning coaches but few remain. Happily Miss Georgina Hogarth, Dickens's dear sister-in- law, " the best and truest friend man ever had," is still with us, as well as his daughter Kate (now Mrs. Perugini, the artist), and his son Mr. Henry Fielding Dickens, so well known to us all. .

The eldest son Charles died in 1896, and on the early morning of the day on which his funeral took place at Mortlake, Thursday, the 23rd of July, Mary Dickens died at Moor- side, Farnham Common. One regrets that Forster has not told us more about her; indeed, he might have given us much more of the home life at Gadshill, with which he must have been familiar. In the letters of Charles Dickens edited jointly by her and her aunt there are many references to " Mamie " and to her health, which fre- quently caused her father anxiety ; yet she was able to preside over his household :

" My eldest daughter is a capital housekeeper, heads the table gracefully, delegates certain appropriate duties to her sister and her aunt, and they are all three devotedly attached."

She is buried at Sevenoaks.

With the exception of that portion of the press representing the Dissenters, there was, I believe I am right in saying, nothing but universal praise of Dickens. Dissenters