Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/612

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [us. v. JU.VK 29. 1912.

The words of Milton indicate that in the course of his seven years at Cambridge he had attended the great fair held on Stur- bridge Green, within the confinss of the town of Cambridge. Thomas Fuller writes of this fair :

" This Sturbridge Fair is so called of Stur, a little rivulet, on both sides whereof it is kept, on the east of Cambridge ; whereof this original is reported: A clothier of Kendal .... casually wetting his cloth in that water on his passage to London, exposed it there to sale, on cheap terms, .as the worse for the wetting, and yet, it seems, saved by the bargain. Next year he returned again, with some other of his townsmen, proffering lrier and dearer cloth to be sold ; so that within a few years hither came a confluence of buyers, .sellers, and lookers-on, which are the three principles of a fair. .. .It is at this day the most .plentiful of wares in all England, most fairs in other places being but markets in comparison thereof, being an amphibion, as well going on ground as swimming by water, by the benefit of a navigable river." ' History of Cambridge.'

The Rev. John Brown, in his ' Life of John Bunyan ' (p. 270), suggests that from this fair Bunyan derived ideas for his de- scription -of Vanity Fair in the first part of 1 Pilgrim's Progress.' Bunyan writes :

" And moreover, at this Fair there is at all "times to be seen Jugglings, Cheats, Games, Plays, Fools, Apes, Knaves, and liogues, and that of every kind."

Further evidence of the interest of Milton in the kind of entertainment provided at Sturbridge is given by the following refer- ence to puppet-shows in the ' Areopagitica ' : " He had bin else a meer artificiall Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions." Similar evidence is furnished by the "* Authoris pro Se Defensio,' in a passage, .apparently not referred to by Masson in his ' Life of Milton,' which contains ou* only liint of the sights Milton saw during the month he spent at Venice. It is as follows :

" Et ego. quid, inquam, mine memorem tot .argyrtas, tot empiricos, tot seplasiarios, tot circulatores, quos Romae aut Venetiis iisdem pene -verbis suas pyxides et pharmaca vendentes, proeteriens audivi."

ALLAN H. GILBERT.

Ithaca, New York.

EPITAPHIANA.

EPITAPHS : " ADMIRAL CHRIST." (See 9 S. vi. 46.) Numerous as are the instances of this epitaph which your correspondents in past years have recorded, none go back earlier than that said to be on a tombstone of 1696, at St. Dunstan's, Stepney. I have, however, copied one of 1692 from a stone outside the east wall of the parish church at

Hambleton, on the Lancashire coast. It commemorates William Norris of Liverpool, and runs thus :

Though Boreas' blasts and Neptune's waves

Have tost me to and fro, Yet, spite of both, by God's decree

. I harbour here below. Here at anchor I do lie

With many of our fleet ; Yet once again I must set sail

My General, Christ, to meet.

COURTNEY KENNY,

Cambridge.

TIPPER EPITAPH. Perhaps it may be worth adding to your list of epitaphs the following from Newhaven Churchyard :

To the memory of

Thomas Tipper who departed this life May ye 14

1786 Aged 54 years.

Reader with kind regards this grave survey Nor heedless pass where Tippers ashes lay Honest he was ingenuous blunt and kind And dated do what few dare do speak his mind Philosophy & history well he knew Was versed in physick & in surgery too The best old Stingo he both brewed and sold Nor did one knavish act to get his gold He played through life a varied comic part And knew immortal Hudibras by heart Reader in real truth such was the man Be better wiser laugh more if you can.

There is no need to add any comments on this. C. C. S.

EPITAPH ON A RAILWAY ENGINEER. The following may be acceptable as a pendant to the Alston epitaph on a cordwainer, pp. 210 and 372 ante ; it is in Tissington's 'Epi- taphs,' 1857, and there entitled :

" On a railway engineer in Bromsgrove Church- yard, Worcestershire, dated 1846." My engine now is cold and still, No water does my boiler fill ; My coke affords its flame no more, My days of usefulness are o'er ; My wheels deny their wonted speed, No more my guiding hand they need. My whistle, too, has lost its tone, Its shrill and thrilling sounds are gone ; My valves are now thrown open wide, My flanges all refuse to guide ; My clacks, also ! though once so strong, Refuse to aid the busy throng ; No more I feel each urging breath, My steam is now condensed in death. Life's railway 's o'er each station past, In death I 'm stopp'd, and rest at last. Farewell, dear friends, and cease to weep ; In Christ I 'm safe in Him I sleep.

W. B. H.

EPITAPH ON A BLACKSMITH. The epitaph on a shoemaker quoted from Alston, Cumber- land (ante, pp. 210, 372), reminds me of a similar one on a blacksmith. It is easy to