Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/249

 viii. SEPT. 21, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

241

imply that they were in various places. A poet of our own, in alluding to the counting of his vast host by Xerxes at daybreak, speaks of " ships by thousands," but the Greek poet is much more likely to have exaggerated than diminished them. It is difficult, then, to see on what grounds (unless it be a simple slip) the writer of the article on Salamis, in Haydn's ' Dictionary of Dates,' estimates the number of the Persian ships at two thousand.

W. T. LYNN.

"BYRON'S TOMB." In the churchyard at Harrow, under the elms commemorated by Byron, stands a plain brick tomb, sealed by a flat slab of grey, weather-beaten stone. This tomb, which contains the ashes of both John and William Peachey, is now enshrined in a sort of iron cage, which protects it from " relic " hunters and other thoughtless per- sons, who would in time have obliterated every word inscribed upon it, and might even have carried away the tomb itself. To Har- rovians this unpretentious grave has long been known as " Byron's tomb." In a letter to Mr. John Murray, dated 26 May, 1822, Byron says :

" There is a spot in the churchyard near the foot- path, on the brow of the hill looking towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name Peachie or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours when a boy. This was my favourite spot."

I do not know exactly at what period the iron cage was put round it. In a sketch of this tomb made circa 1849 these railings do not appear. I may be mistaken, but I do not think that any railings surrounded the grave when I visited Harrow in 1872. I have lately endeavoured to trace the entire in- scription on the surface of the stone a diffi- cult matter, as most of the letters have dis- appeared. Thanks to the courtesy of the Rev. F. W. Joyce, the present vicar of Harrow, who has copied for me all that remains of the inscription, I am enabled to make a perma- nent record in * N. & Q.,' which cannot fail to interest the admirers of Byron all over the world. I am especially anxious to do this because the vicar informs me that people are continually writing to him for informa- tion on this point, thus involving much extra correspondence.

e the remains of n Peachey Esq re

late of the

8* Christopher

West Indies

arted this life

the 21 st 178

year of his

Beneath is inscribed :

William

died October 8 A.D. aged 73

The church register records, among the burials of 1780, "October 29, John Peachey, of London, in Woollen."

The tombstone inscription in Byron's time probably read thus :

Here

lie the remains of

John Peachey Esq re

late of the Island of

S* Christopher in the

West Indies, who

departed this life

October the 21st, 1780,

in the year of his life.

Mr. John Peachev was not of sufficient im- portance to have his death recorded in the 'Annual Register,' where, as a matter of course, I searched for it in vain. No one of [ess importance than " Miss Nelthprpe, sister to Sir John, Bart.," finds a record in October, 1780. But mark the irony of fate ! There were 20,517 persons buried between 14 Dec., 1779, and 12 Dec., 1780. Of all that number tionest John Peachey, though unrecorded by bis contemporaries, is probably the only one whose name will never die !

RICHARD EDGCUMBE.

Edgbarrow, Crowthorne, Berks.

EASTERN AND WESTERN FABLES. Every Western fable seems to have its Eastern counterpart. The following, though some- what lengthy, and if it have not already appeared, is worthy of insertion. It is from a review of " Oriental Historical Manuscripts in the Tamil Language, translated, with Annotations, by William Taylor, Missionary. In Two Vols. Vol. II. Madras, 1835 " (Asiatic Journal, N.S., No. 85, January, 1837, vol. xxii., January- April, pp. 23, 24) :

" One of the anecdotes of Ranga Kistna Naicker, ' The Affair of the Mogul's Slipper,' is worth citing: in those days was accustomed to send his slipper as a farmana (or royal mandate) to the dependent states (this Pandiya-desam alone excepted) on an elephant, in charge of two nabobs, at the head of a large body of troops, the slipper being fanned by chowries, screened by umbrellas, and accompanied by banners, kettledrums, &c. The king of each country was expected to meet the symbol at the head of their [sic] retainers, escort it to their court, place it on their thrones, and dp homage before it, at the same time delivering their quota of tribute to the Mogul's sirdars. Upon an occasion the slipper- bearing nabobs set their faces from the Deccan to Pandiya-desam, and halted on the bor- ders, whence they sent chobdars with an inayitthu- nameh (authoritative message) to Trichinopoly to inform Raja Ranga Kistna Naicker of the arrival of the imperial mandate. The king, being young,
 * The Tamil author states that the Padshah (Mogul)