Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/209

 .L MAR. 12, '98.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

201

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 1898.

CONTENTS. -No. 11.

SOTES : Smollett, 201 Ancient Zodiacs, 202 The Battle of Towton, 203 " Selion" The Nightingale's Song, 204 Vampires" On" or " Upon " Mr. Bumble on Literature Yorkshire Schools, 205 Winchester Cathedral Birth of Edward VI. Bootle in Cumberland " To Sue" Th6- roigne de Mericourt, 206.

^UEKIBS : " Dag daw "Sculptors J. Randall" High- landry" K. Gervas Eev. K. Johnson Saragossa Sea The Fir-cone in Heraldry Winchester Josiah Childs " Buried, a Stranger," 207 Wordsworth and Burns ' The People's Journal ' Poem Wanted Sepoy Mutiny Dedica- tion of Churches Branwell ' Secret History of the Court ' Dame Elizabeth Holford Kev. J. Lewis, 208 Challowe Great Events from Little Causes, 209.

REPLIES : General Wade, 209 Houses without Staircases Through-Stone, 210" Dressed up to the nines " Bal- brennie Dr. Whalley Old English Letters, 211 Maginn ' ' Crozzil " Cope and Mitre Bibliography French Prisoners of War Willow Pattern Plate Rhyme- Eye House Plot Col. Ferribosco, 212 Registering Births and Deaths Augustine Skottowe Shakspeare's Grand- father, 213" Random of a shot" Short A v. Italian A Painting of Napoleon " Sybrit," 214" Scalinga," 215 "Hear, hear ! " Ocneria dispar " Winged Skye" Oath of Allegiance Chester Apprentices Kerruish Motto of Cambridge University, 216 Todmorden Rotten Row, Nottingham M'Lennan's 'Kinship in Ancient Greece ' " Dewark," 217' The Rodiad,' 218.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Lang's ' Highlands of Scotland' in 1750 ' Dickens's ' To be Read at Dusk 'Lewis Carroll's Three Sonnets ' ' The Stamp Collector'' Clergy Direc- tory' Magazines and Reviews Cassell's ' Gazetteer.'

SMOLLETT, HIS DEATH AND BURIAL.

IT may be stated with perfect truth that hitherto Smollett's biographers have been satisfied that the novelist lies interred at Leghorn, even though there are good grounds for disputing the correctness of such an assertion. The monument to his memory in the burial-ground at Leghorn still bore in 1882 the following inscription : " Memorise | Tobise Smollett | quiLiburni | animamefflavit I 16 Sep., 1773, quidarn | ex suis valde arnicis misleading date is readily accounted for, insomuch as Smollett's admirers were doubt- lessly guided by an entry in the con- sular register of burials at Leghorn, which simply records that "D r Smollett died y e 16 September, 1773, and was buried the fol- lowing day by James Haggarth," an entry, however, which was made subsequently to that of a burial in 1777, and is considered to be a forgery so far as the chaplain is con- cerned, who in every other instance signed his name "Jas. Haggarth." The doctor's biographer in the "Great Writers" series was content to state that his subject died at the village of Monte Novo (Monte Nero?) some time in September, 1771, and that his grave is in the ola English cemetery at Leg- horn ; and in the recent more important biography death and burial at Leghorn are established chiefly on the authority of the
 * civibus | hunc tumulum | fecerunt." The

Westminster Journal, &c., of 26 Oct., 1771. There is no reliable evidence whatever that during the last years of his life Smollett, who was in the most needy circumstances and in a deplorable state of health, lived at Monte Nero, a fashionable resort which he visited occasionally only, or at Leghorn, an unattractive seaport town ; it is more pro- bable that his home was within easy reach of Pisa (distant some twelve miles from Leg- horn), a noted sanatorium in his day, and a seat of learning where he had sympathetic friends amongst the professors. It is certain, from contemporary evidence, that the novelist- died " at a country house near Leghorn, on 17 Sept., 1771," as reported by Sir Horace Mann, British Minister at Florence, in a P.S. in his own hand, in a despatch written by a scribe and addressed to the Earl of Rochford, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; but presumably the death did not take place very near to Leghorn, seeing that in none of his correspondence, whether with his chief at Florence or with the Foreign Office, does Sir John Dick, British Consul at Leghorn, make any allusion to the event, which he naturally would have done had interment taken place within the walls of the town of his official residence ; and, moreover, a correct entry in its proper place would have been made in the ' Register of Burials.' The novelist's own cousin, James Smollett, of Bonhill, when raising the column on the banks of the Leven to the memory of his distinguished kinsman, failed to give the date or place of death, and supplies no nearer clue to locality of interment than is to be found in these words : " Prope Liburni Portum In Italia Jacet Sepultus." Dr. Armstrong's epitaph in Latin, in twenty-eight lines, given in Scots Magazine, October, 1773, as being on " Dr. Smollett's monument near Leghorn," is re- ferred to by, amongst others, Sir Walter Scott, who was equally misled as to date of death and place of burial :

"Abbotsford, 1 June, 1821 the world lost

Tobias Smollett on 21 October, 1771. Smollett's grave at Leghorn is distinguished bya plain monu- ment erected by his widow, to whichDr. Armstrong, his constant and faithful friend, supplied the in- spirited inscription."

I have failed to discover that such a tomb- stone has ever existed, unless it was identical with a tomb described in a communica- tion made to the Gentleman's Magazine (vol. Ixxxviii.), May, 1818, which, it may be assumed, settles the point that the doctor's remains are not at Leghorn. " The tomb of Dr. Smollett," says that correspondent, "which is situated on the banks of the Arno between Leghorn and Pisa, is now so covered with