Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/16

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NOTES 'AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix, JAN. 4, 1902.

WE must request correspondents desiring infor mation on family matters of only private interest to affix their names and addresses to their queries, in order that the answers may be addressed to them direct.

EPITAPH AT CLIFFE, co. KENT. Close to the footpath leading through the church- yard, and within a few feet of the entrance porch on the south side of the grand old parish church of Cliffe, near Rochester (otherwise of late years incorrectly called Cliffe- at -Hoo), co. Kent, is a somewhat plain table monument or altar tomb in stone of three female members of the family of Soinner, which formerly ranked as farmers, residing in the parish. On the north, south, and west sides of this monument, which was apparently erected in 1672 (about which date the burial register is unfortunately defective for some years), are inscriptions, evidently composed by an illiterate person, and dis- played and cut in a rude and unworkmanlike manner, which, owing to time and weather causing decay and a scaling off of the stone, have hitherto been deemed illegible, many unsuccessful attempts being made to read them. _ Having, however, long been collecting materials, chiefly from original sources, for (inter multa alia) a history of that and the adjoining, and also very interesting, parish of Cooling, in both of which the county family whose head and representative I had then recently become have for upwards of 200 years past been lords and extensive land- owners ; and as the inscription on that side ot the tomb which faces the church was believed to be curious, I, in the summer of

'00, took much pains and spent considerable time in endeavouring to make out the same and with the following result-although it must be understood that several of the words are doubtful :

" Passengers . weepe . heere . lies . a wife who

he v r ed i fT a v n or H, x ? pt ?] ni r i J "e? :

her. lite. one. that. was. all. the. good God I

Twlthall 'ah ' I h0l V Pe J Ce ' f ' W0 n -jSnd

the SV ^'f ned u the ' light ' and died I the. light. that. mother. to. | one too dear

' d

rim W Th 6 f 1S a PP aren % in capitals of one hnif/ J W * ther mscri Ptions, which are shorter and of no particular interest, I read with more ease and certainty. My chief

W OM 1 ? 8erting f ^ he J>pal onein J*. & Q. is to ascertain whether any reader,

having met with the same in MS., as copied long since and when fairly legible, can supply a correct transcript. That such inscription has appeared anywhere in print I do not suppose, although something similar might be met with elsewhere. W. I. R. V.

TONTINE. My grandfather invested in a tontine for his five children (1001. each) as they were born. My mother was the last of the children, and that money should be mine. The tontine started about 1817, and would be worth something now, as she has been dead twenty-four years. The family lived in Westmorland. Who would be likely to know of this tontine, and where would it be registered 1 J. C. C.

WEEKS'S MUSEUM. I find on a clock of some merit in design arid workmanship the following inscription : " Weeks' Museum, Tichborne Street." Can any reader tell me if this was a museum or merely a shop, and who Weeks was ? I should like to know the period when he flourished.

W. H. QUAKRELL.

[Three clockmakers named Weeks or Weekes were admitted members of the Clockmakers' Com- pany between 1654 and 1713. See Britten's 'Old Clocks and Watches,' 1899.]

HENRY CRISPE, Common Serjeant of London, 1678, till his death in October, 1700. What is known of his parentage and family 1 He was a barrister of the Inner Temple, and, I believe, M.P. for Lancaster 1685-7.

W. D. PINK.

BEAU BRUMMEL AND BARBEY D'AUREVILLY. I should be very glad if any reader of 'N. & Q.' could tell me whether there exists any English translation of Barbey d'Aure- villy's ' Du Dandysme et de G. Brummel.' I find that this book was originally published in 1845 at Caen, in an edition of only thirty copies. The third edition, publisher! in 1879 by Lemerre at Paris, contains two portraits, one of Brummel and one of Barbey, both at the age of twenty. Is there any account in English of the reason why the French writer produced his extraordinary account of the English Beau? I am acquainted with most of the English literature dealing with Brum- mel, but I should be glad to know anything of the history of Barbey's work.

CHARLES HIATT.

KNOCKER FAMILY. I should be glad to learn anything about Arthur Knocker, gent., whose daughter was wife of Francis Thynne, ot Kempsford, co. Gloucester, second son of Mr John Thynne, of Longleat, temp. Eliza- beth. A monument or gravestone in Kemps-