Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/366

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. MAY 5, im

Westminster School at about eighteen years of age, years before any serious poetic work was thought of. The John Gilpin to whose memory the stone was placed in St. Mar- garet's Churchyard was a Devonshire man, a native of Teignmouth, who carried on a licensed victualler's business at the " Mitre and Dove " Tavern at the junction of King Street and Great George Street, Westminster, a house demolished only within the last six or eight months to make way for the Parliament Street improvement. He was well known as a highly respected resident in the parish, and died on 27 February, 1838, nearly thirty-eight years after Cowper had passed to his rest, and fifty-six years after the ' Diverting His- tory of John Gilpin ' had appeared. Of course Cowper might have seen the name displayed at the hostelry referred to, although one can but think that his appearances at Westminster were very few during the time of Mr. Gil pin's occupancy thereof, and, besides, it would seem that all these speculations are wide of the mark, as, according to the poet's autobio- graphical notes, the matter is positively set at rest beyond any possibility of dispute. Mr. Poole embodied these facts, which he addressed to the editor of the Morning Adver- tiser in November, 1875, thinking that, as Mr. Gilpin had been one of the "trade," it would be of interest, his letter being signed "An Old Fellow-Parishioner of John Gilpin." When the churchyard was laid out and made presentable in 1881, this and all the other stones were turned over face downward so that the inscriptions should be preserved, and it is still there, covered up as the Chan- cellor of the Diocese of London decreed when he authorized the faculty to issue.

W. E. HARLAND-OXLEY. 14, Artillery Buildings, Victoria Street, S. W.

J. O. on p. 308 represents the initials of Jonathan Oldbuck, one of the names which Alexander Gardyne, of Hackney, used in 1 N. & Q.' ; he also wrote under his own initials. RALPH THOMAS.

The following appears in the Athenaeum of 21 April :

yet from certain remarks in his letters and lines in his poerns we learn his fondness for it. In 1786, writing to his cousin, he refers to his late malady. He says : ' I find writing, and especially poetry, my best remedy. Perhaps, had I understood music, I had never written verse, but had lived on fiddle strings instead. It is better, however, as it is.' In ' The Task ' there is further and stronger evidence of his love for the art. The poem was published a year after the great Handel commemoration at Westminster Abbey in 1784. Cowper was un- doubtedly sincere in his religious opinions, though
 * k Cowper had not much to say about music, and

some of them certainly appear narrow-minded, as,
 * or instance, his denunciation of oratorios. In ' The

Task ' he speaks of the ten thousand who sit Patiently present at a sacred song, Commemoration-mad ; content to hear (0 wonderful effect of music's power !) Messiah's eulogy for Handel's sake. But though the glorification of Handel by such means met with his strong disapproval, he thus speaks of the great composer :

Remember Handel ? Who that was not born Deaf as the dead to harmony forgets, Or can, the more than Homer of his age ? The comparison of Handel with Homer, the blind musician with the blind poet, has in it an appro- priate touch of pathos."

N. S. S. [Further communications are in reserve.]

WELSH MANUSCRIPT PEDIGREES (9 th S. iv. 412, 483 ; v 109). After an unsuccessful endeavour to discover the name of Peter Ellis in the Hanmer register, my attention was directed to the following entry in Mr. A. N. Palmer's * History of Wrexham Parish Church':

Croes Newydd, son of Robert Ellice of the same, who, after serving under Gustavus Adolphus, was, during the Civil wars of England, a colonel in the Royal Army. He rebuilt Croes Newydd (near Wrexham). He was still living in 1710, when he again filled the office of Churchwarden."
 * t Churchwarden, 1686-7, Peter Ellice, Esq., of

In reply to inquiry Mr. Palmer kindly examined his valuable collection of pedigrees. He says :

"I have a pedigree of the Ellices or Ellises of Alltrey, Wern, Pickhill, and elsewhere, but I do not find a Peter Ellis among them ; but Mr. Peter Ellis of Wrexham, buried there 13 Dec., 1&37, 'learned in the Iau 7 es,' was at once thought of. Most fortunately I have a copy of his pedigree drawn up by him in 1636. Herein he mentions no wife, so I suppose he was unmarried. He was the son of Ellis ap Richard ap Ellis of Hope. I am now inclined to believe that the Col. Robert who raised a troop of horse for Charles I. was, as another pedigree asserts, his nephew, son of Griffith ap Ellice ap Richard. This Col. Robert of Croes Newydd, who died before 1661, was succeeded by Peter Ellice, J.P. (presumably his son), who was in 1693 steward of Sir John Wynn's manor of Valle Crucis, and he it was who rebuilt Croes Newyda and was buried at Marchwiel, 26 May, 1719."

I was at first somewhat sceptical as to the identity of the elder Peter Ellice with the object of our search from the fact that the term Maelorensis is applied to him. Mr. Palmer, however, justly says :

"Maelorensis seems to me a quite natural appella- tion to be given outside Maelor to a famous lawyer practising within it. Now Welsh Maelor, in which Peter Ellice lived, is universally called ' Bromfield, and the name Maelor is restricted to English Maelor or Maelor Saesneg."