Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 11.djvu/469

 9*8. XL JUNE 13, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

461

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 13, IOCS.

CONTENTS. -No. 285.

NOTES :-Nas-by Revisited, !*! A Sermon in Proverbs, 462 Dr. Ililley, 4^3 Offspring Blackall, 4(54 " Hot Waters "Upright Burial " Tannier" Legend of St. Luke Wykes Pedigree, 465 " A leap in the dark " " Red up," 46-i.

QUERIES : Lady Hester Stanhope Latin Quotations- Fasting Spittle, 4t)6 Reynolds's Portraits of Domenico Ang lo and his Wife Gwynn Askew=Spraclinge Birch-sap Wine Owl Animals in People's Insides, 467 'Parallels between the Constitutions of Hungary and Eiifcliiid 'Newgate Sessions Miss Gunning, Duchess of Hamilton Authors Wanted Stevens, 468 Everard de Montgomerie Springs and Wells Moravia and Campbell Families -Crakanthorp : " Vildeson," 469.

REPLIES : Shakespeare's Geography, 469-" Folks," 470 Penreth " Arciere" " Beautiful city of Prague " Reynolds Portrait, 471 Long Melford Church Army Doctors, 472 Hymn by Dean Vaughan " Devonshire Dumpling"" Surizian " Kay Banter' Henry II. and Lincoln, 473 Skulls Collingwood " Peeler " Russell Family "That immortal lie" Pre-Reformation Practices, 474 Milton's 'Nativity Hymn ' Mourning Sunday "The sleep of the just," 475 Duncalfe Shy- lock Sharpe, Phillips, and Coleridge-" Different than " Carbonari, 476 Kurish German Arms of Married Women Britannia Theatre, Hoxton, 477 London Apprentices : their Dress. 478.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Lucas's ' Works of Charles and Mary Lamb ' Garnett and Gosse's ' English Literature' Fronde's 'My Relations with Carlyle' "Fireside Dickens."

Notices to Correspondents.

NASEBY REVISITED. IN 1879 (see 5 th S. xii. 81) the KEY. JOHN PICKFORD published a delightful, and by me highly prized account of a visit he had recently paid to Naseby battle-field. In alluding to the obelisk set up by the Fitz- Geralds in 1823 to commemorate the battle, he mentions the fact that

" upon the sides of it the British holiday-makers have everywhere inscribed and scratched their names, as they invariably do on all public monu- ments to which access is permitted." On the occasion of a recent visit to Naseby I also noted this fact, and likewise that the wicket gate which leads from the road to the enclosure in which the obelisk stands was literally covered with pencil signatures. Not only were the names of these "British holiday-makers" inscribed on the obelisk itself, but the tablet affixed thereto contain- ing the inscription had also been utilized for this nefarious habit. On almost every avail- able inch of space some signature or initials were scratched. I think a little barbed wire on the railings might prevent a continuance

of this practice. The tablet contains the following inscription :

To Commemorate That great and decisive Battle

Fought in this Field

On the xiv day of June MDCXLV,

Between the Royalist Army

Commanded by His Majesty

King Charles the First, And the Parliament Forces Headed by the Generals Fairfax and Cromwell, Which terminated fatally

For the Royal Cause, Led to the subversion of the Throne,

The Altar, and the Constitution

And for many years plunged this Nation

Into the horrors of anarchy

And civil war :

Leaving a useful lesson to British Kings

Never to exceed the bounds

Of their just prerogative,

And to British subjects,

Never to swerve from the allegiance

Due to their legitimate Monarch.

This Pillar was erected By John and Mary Frances Fitzgerald Lord and Lady of the Manor of Naseby :

A.D. MDOCCXXIII.

It may not be generally known that the John and Mary Frances FitzGerald mentioned in the above inscription were the father and mother of Edward FitzGerald, that glorious letter-writer and translator of 'TheRubaiyat' of Omar Khayyam. Those who are conversant with FitzGerald's 'Letters and Literary Remains' (edited by Mr. W. Aldis Wright) will remember his allusion to this obelisk, "planted by my papa on the wrong site," and aptly dubbed by Listen an "obstacle," because it misled people, amongst its victims being Carlyle and Dr. Arnold. A good many letters passed between Carlyle and FitzGerald concerning a scheme they had jointly planned of erecting a second memorial in the centre of the battle-field. But the estate eventually passed into other hands, and the obstacles in the way of this laudable intention proved in the end to be insurmountable. An alternative idea of removing the existing "obstacle" memorial to the centre of Broad- moor, where the heat of the battle raged, was, as the two friends agreed, "entirely inadmissible."

"There are," says Carlyle, "two modern Books about Naseby and its Battle : both of them without value." On this point my opinion differs from that of the Sage of Chelsea, for I have several times found both these books of the greatest use when visiting the village of Naseby. 'The History and Antiquities of Naseby,' by the Rev. John Mastin (1792), is absolutely indispensable to every one who wishes to gain information