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 s. xii. AUG. is, 1903.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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and were imprudent enough to call after the retreating besiegers that their defeat would have been more serious if the garrison's stock of gunpowder in the magazine had not given out.

In conclusion, it should be stated that Hungarian history knows nothing about a Council of Jews in 1650 at "Ageda," orNagy- Ida, or anywhere else within the kingdom, and Samuel Brett's account of it was evi- dently intended for a pious fraud.

L. L. K.

THE UNITED STATES AND ST. MAR- GARET'S, WESTMINSTER. (See ante, pp. 1, 63.)

MOST of the memorials in this church are of much interest, and although the career of Sir Walter Raleigh marked him out as very fitting for recognition at the hands of the American people, yet I am not quite sure that another great Englishman to whom a memorial has been placed in this building by the munificence of our kin across the sea does not stand on a higher plane, for there are few persons in the English-speaking world who do not reverence John Milton as one of the brightest among our many sons of genius, and, great as the claims of Raleigh undoubtedly were, greater are those of the immortal author of ' Paradise Lost.' Of course, no real comparison can be drawn between them, as both are men of whom succeeding generations have been proud, and both deserved well of posterity deserved more, I fear, than either of them got. It may be well, at starting, to point out why St. Margaret's Church was particu- larly suitable for a memorial of some description to keep in mind the worth of this famous man. Irrespective of his celebrity (after the Lord Protector, he surely ranked as one of the foremost men of the period), he was a parishioner of St. Margaret's, as he resided in one of those substantial brick - built houses which formerly stood in that historical part of Old Westminster known as Petty France, now York Street, from the Christmas quarter of 1651 till the year of the Restoration, 1660. It was a pretty garden-house, next door to Lord Scudamore's, opening into St. James's Park, and had been in the occupation of a Mr. Robert Roane and his wife Martha until our poet purchased for 60. the interest in the lease, and removed hither from his old official residence by Scotland Yard, White- hall. We find his name in the assessment book for raising the Army and Navy Main- tenance Tax in 1655, the item being "Mr.

John Milton, 2s. Qd. and 4s.," the first being the assessment on his " rent," and the second on his "estate." This house was in our own times known as No. 19, York Street, closely adjacent to the Niagara Hall, but had been quite demolished by the middle of the year 1882. It was here that Milton performed the work devolving upon him as Cromwell's Latin Secretary ; it was here that his great and unspeakable calamity total blindness fell upon him ; and it was here that he resided when he married his second wife, Katharine, the daughter of Capt. Woodcock, of Hackney. In the parish register for 1656 is to be seen the record of the pub- lication of the banns : "John Milton, of this parish, Esq., and Mrs. Katherin Woodcocke, of the parish of Aldermanbury, spinster, pub- lished October 22, 27, November 3." The banns were published simultaneously at St. Mary's, Aldermanbury ; and on 12 November Milton was married before Alderman Dethicke, J.P., probably in the Guildhall, London, as per Masson's 'Life of Milton,' first edition, 1877, vol. y. p. 282. One daughter was the issue of this marriage, the birth appearing in the register under the heading " Births : dayes of entrance," thus : " 1657, Oct. 19, Katherin Milton, d. to John, Esq., by Katherin." In days gone by people seem to have had a propensity for scribbling on all registers, and some one has added the words, " This is Milton, Oliver's Secretary." Shortlived, in- deed, was the happiness of the poet, for both mother and child died soon after, and both were buried in St. Margaret's Church. The burial entries read :

1657, Feb. 10, Mrs. Katherin Milton.

1657, March 20, Mrs. Katherin Milton. C.

The C. of the second entry means child, and the date according to the present calendar is 1658.

Undoubtedly in this church Milton, "Prince of Poets," frequently worshipped, so that it will be seen that a memorial was in no way out of order, but a thing to be devoutly wished for. The lack of imposing monuments to Milton in England has been frequently commented on, and in 1886, in an article from the pen of Archdeacon Farrar on 'The Share of America in Westminster Abbey,' subsequently published in Harper's Magazine, these words were used :

" There are, perhaps, fewer memorials of Milton than of any Englishman of the same transcendent greatness. I am extremely desirous to erect a worthy window in his honour in the church of St. Margaret, close beside the Abbey. Our register contains the record of his marriage to Catherine Woodcock, his second wife, in 1656, and also records in the following year her death and that of her