Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/71



CHAPTER I.

MY FATHER AND MOTHER—GEORGE BENTLEY.

first of my gleanings from 'N. & Q.' (to use the form by which Notes and Queries is familiarly known) is a short note by my father:

REV. JOHN RIPPON AND 'THE CRUCIFIXION.'

The oratorio of 'The Crucifixion ' was not composed by the late Rev. John Rippon, D.D., but by his nephew John Rippon.

John Rippon, D.D., was pastor of the Baptist Church meeting at Carter Lane Chapel. The chapel was pulled down in 1830 in order to improve the approaches to London Bridge, and a fresh building erected in New Park Street, Southwark. During the sixty-three years Rippon was pastor he had no assistant until within a few months of his death, when the Rev. Charles Room, who had married Rippon's grand-niece, Eliza Scott, became assistant minister. Previous to this, when the Doctor was unable to preach and some young minister was occupying the pulpit, he would sit in his pew and make remarks on the sermon, which were frequently more quaint than complimentary. Rippon died on the 17th of December, 1836, and on Christmas Eve was buried at Bunhill Fields, my father being among the mourners who followed in the long procession from New Park Street Chapel. It was fitting that of he should be interred in Bunhill Fields, as he had for many years been preparing a record of the worthies there buried, though the work was never published. Mr. Daniel Hipwell printed in 'N. & Q.' on September 22nd, 1894, from a MS. in his possession, a petition Dr. Rippon presented to the Court of Common Council on the 11th of October, 1827, for permission to dedicate the work to the Corporation. It was in six large quarto manuscript volumes in alphabetical order. On the 24th of November Mr. Hipwell stated that "Dr. Rippon's MS. collections in eleven volumes, relating to the Dissenters' burial-ground at Bunhill Fields, are preserved in the British Museum and form Add. MSS. 28,513- 28,523 ; while his transcript, in six volumes, of the register of