Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/293

 12 S. VIII. MARCH 19, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 239^ M.P.'s family, and should be glad if any correspondent could help me. Search has been made in London without success. Perhaps some Cheshire genealogist could supply the information required. JAMES SETON- ANDERSON. 39 Carlisle Eoad, Hove, Sussex. A COACHMAN'S EPITAPH (12 S. viii. 148, 196). On p. 267 of her ' Friends round the Wrekin,' Lady C. Milnes Gaskell records an epitaph in somewhat similar style on a tombstone in Ludlow churchyard to one John Abingdon, who drove the Lucllow coach. The inscription runs thus : His labour done, no more to town His onward course he bends, His team's unshut, his whips laid up, And here his journey ends. Death locked his wheels and gave him rest, And never more to move, Till Christ shall call him with the blest To heavenly realms above. ERNEST H. H. SHORTING. Broseley, Shropshire. YEW-TREES IN CHURCHYARDS (12 S. viii. 15). For the last service of the bow in war at Leipsic in 1813 see 10 S. i. 225. R B. Upton. AUTHORS WANTED. (12 S. viii. 192.) 2 . The lines In the golden glade the chestnuts are fallen all, &c. are from the Poet Laureate's ' North Wind in October' (' Shorter Poems,' v. 16). C. C. B. 0n The Life, Correspondence and Collections of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. By Mary F. S. HerveV. (Cambridge University Press, 31. 3s. net.) A GREAT gentleman if he is not at the same time a political or military leader, or a great genius offers both a very attractive and a very difficult subject for biography. He affects his contemporaries not in their fortunes or their necessary external affairs, but in their outlook 111 their estimate of themselves and of other men, and in their view of what are the summits of life, its most impressive occasions, its most desirable enjoyments, and the suitable behaviour of a person therein. All this than which nothing in life while we live it. is more real vanishes away it drops into the past. One may describe a peat gentleman by his qualities stateliness, say, honesty, courage and kindness but his peculiar effect upon the world around him was too inti- mate to be caught in history ; and so we are left ilmost without the means of making his portrait live. He is apt to appear too solemn, too mag- ufacent, too important a figure for the part he played or the tasks he achieved, and while no one in the present' is more secure of his dignity than,-- he, no one, when he once belongs to the past, demands greater skill from his biographer, lest he- should be forced over the perilous line between^ the sublime and the ridiculous. This life of that Earl of Arundel who was a- close friend of the two first Stuarts, escapes the peril partly through the Earl's rather numerous misfortunes and partly through the tact and thoroughness of the writer. Miss Hervey, whose services to the history of art it would be super- fluous to recount, died a year ago, just as the first proofs of this book were coining to her hands. It is the fruit of nine years of study, and of diligent research among sources, as well as of long labour in writing pursued, towards the end, in the teeth of illness and suffering. Although she has not been able altogether to overcome the difficulty mentioned above, or to give to her portrait much of the force of life, her sympathy and knowledge are so penetrative and so evident to the reader that she has done more even in this respect for the " Father of Vertu in England " than te accomplished in most easier biographies. Arundel's life alike in prosperity and ad- versity has the comeliness of a work of art. " Le Cousin Pons," and the lovers of " vertu " whom he represents, amuse one with the incon- gruity between themselves and the objects of their love. Incongruous in a different way are such lovers of art as abounded among the princes of, say, Renaissance Italy where men's lives were as vicious and corrupt as their outward sur- roundings were beautiful and finely ordered. But Arundel, in his person, in his character and in his course of life had all the dignity, grace and severe charm of artistic work belonging to the true, central tradition. He was the grandson of Thomas Howard,. fourth Duke of Norfolk who was executed in 1572 for his share in the Ridolfi plot, and son of ' t hilip, Earl of Arundel, for many years and until 1 his death a prisoner in the Tower on account of his adherence to the Roman Catholic religion and! supposed sympathy with the enemies of Eliza- beth. Born in 1585 his youth was passed in comparative poverty and obscurity. The acces- sion of James I. at length made it possible for him to take his natural place at Court. The ducal title was never restored to him ?, but he was appointed Earl Marshal ; he and his. family occupied their hereditary station as. second only to royalty, and he played his proper - part in the ceremonial life of the Court, in the - convoying of queens and princesses, and in acting as ambassador extraordinary. He passes through all with gravity and some touch of " severity ; though his letters to his family reveal i a tender heart beneath his stem exterior. He acquits himself well ; but he never had the good,' fortune of such an opportunity for showing quick wit and determination as was granted to his; wife in the Foscarini affair at Venice. Aletheia* Talbot was grand-daughter of " Bess of Hard- wick," and very true rang the metal in her on that occasion. It is a fine story .J *>. The most interesting chapter, so far as the famous collections are concerned, is that on the research in the Levant. Arundel had engaged the Rev. William Petty as his agent and the man proved the most energetic, acute and successful of searchers. The abortive negotiations for the