Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/142

 NOTES BY THE WAY.

��Cowper's seat in Olney Church.

��Memorials of the poet.

��Tablet in Edmonton

Church

described by

Mr. John T.

Page.

��The eighth volume of the Sixth Series contains notes in reference to the removal of the old pulpit and the gallery which contained Cowper's seat from the Church at Olney. A. J. M. states on the 7th of July, 1883, that Cowper's pew used to face the pulpit ;

" but about eighty years ago some earlier Scott, some mute inglorious Gilbert, removed it, and placed it where it now is, on the south side of the chancel arch. The same ' restorer ' broke up the carved chancel screen with axes and hammers ; but he did not destroy it, he made out of it the sides of a curious low octagon platform, on which he placed the pulpit, and a small lectern, and an armchair for the minister, all which things are about to be carted away. The pulpit is, I believe, the same in which John Newton and other famous divines used to preach, Sir Gilbert's own great-grandfather for one, the man to whom Cardinal Newman has said that he ' owes his own soul.' "

On the 26th of July, 1890, Mr. Lovell supplies the following ' Memorials of the Poet ' :

" In the vestry of the church of St. Peter, Berkhampstead, is a flat stone with the following inscription :

Beneath this stone lyes the Body of Catherine Donne who dyed May the xxix. in the year of our Lord MD.CC.XXXIII. Aged LVIII.

Here also lyes interred the Body of Ann Cowper her daughter, and late wife of John Cowper, D.D., Rector of this Parish who dyed November the xm. MD.CC.XXXVII. As also the bodys of Spencer, John, Ann, Theodora, Judith, and Thomas, the children of the said John and Ann Cowper, who all dyed Infants."

The first note in the number for May 9th, 1891, is on ' The Rest- ing-Place of Charles and Mary Lamb,' by Mr. John T. Page, and gives the inscriptions placed on the memorial tablet to William Cowper and Charles Lamb in the church at Edmonton. The monument was erected by Joshua W. Butterworth to commemorate the visit of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society on the 26th of July, 1888. Mr. Page describes the tablet as having " two inscribed white marble panels surrounded by a graceful design in freestone, the arches of which are supported by veined marble pilasters. In the upper portion of each panel is carved a portrait in bas-relief, the one on the right showing the head of Cowper, in his well-known calico cap, while on the left panel the features of Lamb are characteristically depicted." The inscription to Cowper includes three verses from ' John Gilpin.'

On the 12th of December, 1891, Mr. Thomas Wright states that he is engaged in collecting the correspondence of the poet with a view to publication. " The work is fast approaching com- pletion, and stands before me at the present moment in ten bulky volumes." Mr. Wright states that he has altogether about four hundred letters that are either not in Southey, or of which Southey gives only scraps. In his collection Mr. Wright had the advantage of making use of the material collected by the late Mr. Bruce.

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