Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/561

 us. vi. DEC. 14, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

461

LONDON. SATURDAY, DECEMBER U, 1913.

CONTEXTS. No. loo.

NOTES : Gray and the Antrobus Family, 161 Hugh Peters, 463 The Records of the City Livery Companies 464 The Burial-Place of Jan Zizka, 465 York, 1517 and 1540 Eliott, Defender of Gibraltar, in Aix-la-Chapelle The Curfew Bell William Gibson, Miniature Painter The Byzantine Emperors of Constantinople A Dutch Tile, 466.

QUERIES : Leake : Farington of Worden A Wrestling Match in Fiction Baron de Noiial de la Loigrie, 467 Burke Quotation Campden House ' The Letter H to his Little Brother Vowels ' Paget Family Author Wanted Died in his Coffin " Dander "Completion of Poem Sought Holywood Premonstratensian Chartulary, 463 The Murder of Sarah Stout at Hertford G. Hubbard Ivory Seal Found in New Guinea " Hubberdayn's Coffer " Zinck : Zincke Prisoners taken at Worcester "I was well, I would be better"; I am here" Jenner Family Jenner and Parkhurst Patron Saints Ships Torpedoed Prophecy concerning Hagia Sophia, 469 W. Kelly, 470.

REPLIES : " Notch "Fielding's Parson Thwacknm, 470 Westenhanger in Kent, 471 The Whitened Doorstep, 472 Oliveretto Chained Books Portrait by James Godby "Pepper for Dirige" "The Orange Bond" of Holland, 473 Employment of Counsel in Trials for High Treason "Sex horas somno "Charter of Henry IL Wood's 'Athenae Oxonienses ' -Churchyard Inscriptions Burial at Midnight Red Riding-Hood, 474 Bearer of Coat Sought Jeffrey Hudson and Crofts Duel Miss Coghlan of Bath Chancellors of York Minster Royal Tunbridge Wells, 475 Parody of Dryden by O'Connell Milton's ' Lycidas 'Francis Wilkinson of Lincoln's Inn Botany Rev. M. Feilde Abp. Laud's Relations Rev. J. PeWingall Knightley Christopher Dominick, M.D. Tobacco in the Seventeenth Century, 477.

NOTES ON BOOKS :' George Palmer Putnam '' War- wickshire Place- Names ''The Place-Names of Oxford- shire" 'The Nineteenth Century ' ' The Burlington.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

CRAY AND THE ANTROBUS FAMILY.

THE question of the relationship of Gray to the members of his mother's family has always been a puzzle to his editors and bio- graphers. In his will, which is dated 2 July, 1770, and was proved 12 Aug., 1771, he bequeathed his freehold estate and house in the parish of St. Michael, Cornhill, to Mary Antrobus, his " second cousin by the mother's side," and various securities to Mrs. Dorothy Comyns, also " his second cousin by the mother's side." Gray's mother was Dorothy Antrobus, who, at the time of Philip Gray's marriage to her, was carrying on business as a milliner in Cornhill in partnership with her sister Mary. Dorothy Antrobus had also two brothers, Robert and William, and as Robert died a bachelor, the two ladies who were legatees in Gray's will must have been either the daughters or the granddaughters of his brother William. In the former case they

would have been Gray's first cousins ; in the latter, his first cousins once removed. It is difficult in these circumstances to see how they could have been his second cousins. Of the two brothers, it may be said that, from information given him by the Provost of Eton, the late Dr. John Bradshaw was able to state that Robert entered Eton College as a pupil in 1692, and William was admitted 15 Feb., 1705. He was therefore in all probability twelve or thirteen years younger than his brother. According to the ' GraduatiCantabrigienses,' Robert Antrobus graduated at Peterhouse in 1701, and William Antrobus at King's in 1713. In the ' Alumni Etonenses ' the entry in 1709 opposite William Antrobus is " A.B. 1713, A.M. 1717, was for many years an Assistant of Eton School, where he was tutor to the poet Gray, to whom he was uncle. He became Rector of Everdon in North- amptonshire, and died in 1742."' In Baker's ' Northamptonshire ' I find he was " in- stituted as Rector of Everdon on 21 Dec., 1726," and that he " died 22 May, 1742." Robert died in January, 1729, and a tablet was erected to his memory in Burnham Church by his brother-in-law, Jonathan Rogers (' The Poetical Works of Gray,' ed. by John Bradshaw, 1891, p. xxiv, note). The Rev. D. C. Tovey, whose loss we have had recently to lament, has an instructive note on this subject in the third volume of his new edition of Gray's ' Letters,' p. 199. He says :

" As I am informed by the Rev. H. Longden, of Heyford Rectory, Weedon, to whom the Rev. F. Churchill kindly wrote for me, William An- trobus. .. .had three children christened at Everdon

Robert, chr. 27 Oct., 1731.

Mary, chr. 4 Dec., 1732.

Dorothy, chr. 20 Dec., 1734.

It does not appear when William Antrobus came to reside at Everdon, but he was presumably resident there during these years. He died 22 May, and was buried at Everdon 28 May, 1742."

So from this information Mr. Tovey assumed that " these three children were assuredly Gray's first cousins, and Mary and Dorothy, as certainly, the persons men- tioned in the will." Still, Mr. Tovey did not seem quite sure upon the subject, for in Appendix VII. of the same volume (p. 351) he gives expression to the doubts that assailed him, though he hoped to solve the mystery with the kind assistance of Dr. Walker of Peterhouse, when he wrote more on the biography of the poet in the Cam- bridge ' History of Literature.' This hope, unfortunately, is incapable of realization.