object of her adoration passed to St. Petersburgh, and another chair was found to occupy its place. Whether it was the subject of the present illustration, is not a question-the drawing from which it is made is dated June 29, 1807, and it was purchased by some duped English nobleman, for a large amount, it is said two hundred pounds! RIGHT OF WAY.-In many rural districts it is a popular opinion the passage of a corpse along a private road constitutes a right of way? I am unable to find any law bearing on the subject, and am anxious for some information on the subject, my own opinion being that the law would never sanction so serious a wrong as the above might prove in some cases, and which malice might so easily cause, since few men would commit the public indecency of staying a funeral procession and insist upon toll. Llangollen, Oct. 1. G. The opinion here expressed is a popular error, and I am not aware that any person has ever attempted to moot the question in a court of law. The owner of an estate, a few miles hence, has to my own knowledge refused to allow a corpse to be borne along a private way or road upon his land supposing that it would create a public right of way, although by the owner's consent, I once saw a corpse carried along the same road, being the nearest way to the church; possibly from some such reasons has arisen the error that it becomes thereby a public way. Ipswich, Oct. 3. W. P. H. The popular opinion is a delusion. Blackstone, vol. ii. p. 36, observes, "Right of way may be grounded on a special permission, as when the owner of the land grants to another a liberty of passing over his grounds to go to church, to market, or the like, in which case, the gift or grant is particular, and confined to the grantee alone." No right of way could arise, supposing permission to have been granted from necessity of the case, as that permission would cease with the necessity. some and was buried there. It is certainly very curious, and The lines are not particularly commendable for their On a stone inserted in the chancel wall of St. Nicholas' Church, Ipswich, is another quaint inscription, a strange specimen of "an epitaph professional," seemingly composed by the bold mariner himself, by whom possibly directions were given in his will to ensure its due appearance in public. The rhyme is evidently spun out with considerable difficulty, and there is a taint of the familiarly blasphemous in its composition which I find generally among the monumental records of the sailors on this coast. Though Boreas' blasts and Neptune's waves, Yet at last by God's desire I harbour here below. LINCOLN GREEN. Churchyard, is repeated with slight verbal alterations Physic was my faith, Our old poets formerly penned quaint acrostics for the most part in praise of the charms of some inexorably hard-hearted Chloe, or in place of sonnets on scornful mistress's eyebrows, but as epitaphial encomiums they are rarely found. On the tomb of one Richard Swift, in the small parish church of Blakenham Magna, near Ipswich, is the following eulogium on one who lived in the early part of the seventeenth century, set up as a sign. Learning it was still there, she directed her ambassador Count Woronzow, to obtain the sign-board for her; but the Count, on application found that Boniface was simply a tenant, and in the disposition or removal of the sign-board he had not the slightest control; on applying to the owner of the house, there was no desire to part In the crypt of Glasgow Cathedral, is this inscription— with the Czar's Head, till the Empress's representative proposed such terms as entirely quieted all argument, he proposed in lieu of the old sign, to replace it by a new one, paying all the charges, and a further sum of Five Hundred pounds. The old Czar's Head was soon shipped to St. Petersburgh. He took my soul to rest. Our life's a flying shadow-God's the pole, here. It is certainly very car w similar communications from dents. lot particularly commendable ir iz r correctness; and the word ust, I apprehend, be a clerical h, although it does not imper: 2 ce, helps us directly to its mean ow that this narrow earthe, ne whose name and worth en marble falls to dust: oad for wise and just, 18se and Sweden Theis rudence with their peace. at Home, to his faith giv arth, devout to Hear'n. nt he some storms endured, orte his soul secured. 1 should'st forget his name, pitaph of Fame. in the chancel wall of St. Ni is another quaint ins "an epitaph professional "se bold mariner himself, by wat given in his will to exp c. The rhyme is evident ifficulty, and there is a th ous in its composition i he monumental records d tes, p. 64, from Llarga h slight verbal aler he subscription-T chard Hislop of Is is the followingrtion, y faith, devotion, no good. hysician, ay was best; pain l to rest. al, is this inscripti God's the pole, our soul. r sun is set resurrection get J.LE was SIR R. ADAIR, THE ROLLIAD, AND THE ANTI-JACOBIN. the Empress Catherine to give up Ockzakow, which Endued with no small amount of ability and vivacity, he lost no time on his introduction into public life, which took place at an early age under the patronage of his powerful relatives the noble houses of Bedford and Albemarle, and Mr. Fox, in bringing his talents to their service. Besides writing some spirited political pamphlets, he contributed to the "Political Eclogues" appended to the "Rolliad," the poetical piece entitled Margaret Nicholson," in which "Mr. Wilkes and Lord Hawkesbury alternately congratulate each other on his Majesty's late happy escape." Its object was to insinuate that Pitt and his ministerial colleagues had, for their own purposes, elevated the attempt to assassinate the King into undue importance. It thus 66 commences: The Session up; the India-Bench appeased, Begs Lady Chatham's blessing on her boy; etc. Hark! 'tis the dismal sound that echoes on thy roofs, Lines written by a Traveller at Czarco-zelo under the Bust The GRECIAN Orator of old, Repress'd Ambition's frantic scheme, And Rome's or Athens' honoured name Who now, in this presumptuous hour, What chosen name to Tully's join'd, Ockzakow has now fallen into the possession of the Allies. The Court party delighted in stigmatizing Fox as the modern Catiline. "But the part which he took in parliaSome years after, considerable attention was attracted to Mr. Adair by the accusation brought against him ment subsequent to 1793," says Sir N. Wraxall, in his in Burke's famous pamphlet, entitled "Observations him on the French Revolution, soon changed the Empress's Posthumous Memoirs, "and the eulogiums lavished by on the Conduct of the Minority," of having been sent tone. She caused the bust to be removed; and when reby Fox in 1790 to St. Petersburgh, to counteract the mea-proached with such a change in her conduct, she replied, sures of Pitt, who, in conjunction with Prussia and C'étoit Monsieur Fox de Quatre-vingt-onze que j'ai placé Holland, had prepared a powerful armament to compel dans mon cabinet.” having prevented war on that occasion. But if war had then taken place with England for one act of violence comparatively trivial, Russia, in all probability, would not have ventured upon a second and still greater aggression, involving the existence of a nation, with the certainty of a second war. Nothing, after all, might have saved Poland from the combination then on foot against her; but it is certain that Mr. Pitt, from recent experience, had little encouragement to make the attempt." In 1796, appeared "Part of a Letter from Robert Adair, Esq., to the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox; occasioned by Mr. Burke's mention of Lord Keppel in a recent publication." This, which is by no means a contemptible composition, was intended as a vindication of the writer's uncle, Admiral Lord Keppel and Fox; with characteristic delineations of Sir G. Saville, the Marquis of Rockingham, Lord North, and Byng; on all of whom he passes great compliments. The " ANTI-JACOBIN," ever ready to attack Fox and his party, thus satirizes the author: Or is it he, the youth, whose daring soul And loads the blunderbuss with BEDFORD'S brains. And again in the following "free translation, or rather perhaps imitation, of the twentieth Ode of the second Book of Horace," which, according to a memorandum of Canning's, was written by George Ellis. A BIT OF AN ODE TO MR. FOX. On grey goose quills sublime I'll soar That scare the vulgar reader: With style well form'd from BURKE'S best books- A bold and free Seceder. I whom, dear Fox, you condescendt That Stygian Gallery I'll quit,+ Half dead with rage and fasting. My cropp'd head waves with sudden plumes,|| * Non usitatâ nec tenui ferar I mount, I mount into the sky, Fresh missions of the Fox and Goose Though PITT in all miscarries. To waste one pitying thought on me, As to "unPLUMB a RUSSELL."*** He is again alluded to by the "ANTI-JACOBIN" in Rogero's song in the inimitable burlesque play, (written by Canning, Frere, Gifford, and Ellis) entitled "The Rovers." There first for thee my passion grew, These and similar attacks were, however, regarded by Mr. Adair as but fair retaliation for his own upon Pitt and his colleagues, and as he good-naturedly mentioned to the writer of the present sketch, who, when preparing a new edition of the "POETRY OF THE ANTIJACOBIN,' was kindly furnished by him with clues to many allusions in that witty work, "only gave him an importance to which his merits did not entitle him." These were however sufficiently great to induce his old antagonist, Canning, and successive ministers, to select him as Ambassador to various continental Courts, at all of which he acquitted himself so satisfactorily as to earn for him the dignity of knighthood, the title of K.C.B., and the highest diplomatic pension of 20007. per annum. C. EDMONDS. Deep buried in entangled brushwood and heath, about a mile and a half from Penzance in Cornwall, are the ruins of Madron Well chapel, which though a good example of the well chapel, and in repute at the time of the Civil War, it is but little known, or, in fact noticed. Doubtless it cannot claim so high an antiquity as most of its fellow ruins, yet there are one or two points for which it should not be wholly passed by. The well, not very long since superstitiously used for healing some disease, but now dry, is in the south-west corner, and contrary to the usual custom, the only entrance is on the north side, usually assigned to Satanic influence. Opposite to the door, are the remains of a window; a low seat, with a slight moulding runs nearly round the building. The altar, a fine smooth slab of granite, supported on three or four huge masses of the same stone; has on its face a square sink nine inches on each side, and about an inch deep. The altar is one foot, three inches high, five feet, seven inches long, and two feet, nine inches in width. This is not, I believe, the largest of our Cornish Well chapels; the highest part of the ruined walls is not more than five feet; the thickness around the well is three feet, in other parts, two feet. Qu. Are there any other instances of the entrance to these chapels being on the north side? And again, was the square cut in the altar-slab, intended for the socket of a cross? Under the south side of the Chancel in the church at St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall, is a small dungeon, it opens down from a seat, and seems tolerably secure from discovery. There are legends of bones and a huge skull being found there, which perhaps we should receive cautiously; it struck me as having been most likely a priest's hiding-place. Was it so? Torrington Square, Nov. 7. T. H. PATTISON. BELL AND MONUMENTAL INSCRIPTIONS. Mottoes on Bells are occasionally in Current Notes, but I do not recollect that you have given one that pleasantly expresses a quaint, but pious sentiment which I read some years since on one of the bells in the beautiful tower of Repton Church, Derbyshire,— I sweetly toling men do call, To taste on meats thatt feeds the soule. 1622. JANE THACKER. GODFREY THACKER. The following verse, on a mural tablet in the church of Leigh Delamere, Wiltshire, may be considered curious from the perpetuation of provincialisms so richly crowded into the third line. Death in a very good old age, The monument commemorates Alice, wife of John J. BARNARD DAVIS. The Epitaph noticed in Current Notes, p. 82, as being in Kensal Green Cemetery, is also in the abbey churchyard of Great Malvern, with some words different, and the grammar betokening an older date. For Epitaph Collectors, there is one in St. Philip's churchyard, Birmingham, which might be classed among the ludicrous. It is written, I should think, by an IrishI forget the first two lines, they are however a lament for his wife, and he concludes by thus apostrophising Death. man. O Cruel Death! thou should'st have taken both, if either; which would have been much more pleasant to the survivor. M. J. DR. JOHNSON justly observes: The business of life is to go forward, he who sees evil in prospect, meets it in his way but he who catches it by retrospection, turns WIGS. Why is it that Wigs once so generally worn, back to find it. That which is feared, may sometimes are now fallen into disuse? be avoided; but that which is regretted to-day, may be regretted to morrow. We should, to be useful, decidedly condemn the indulgence of brooding over circumstances and events that thought cannot mend, because it unstrings the mind; and that once done, it is surprising with what rapidity all its peace unravels itself; and how much it loses of the power of judging rightly on the mixed condition of human affairs. N VESPERO SICILIANO. The massacre of the French, called Vespero Siciliano, did not take place on Easter-day, as stated in a note in Current Notes, p. 74, but, according to Giannone, on the Tuesday after-nel terzo giorno di Pasqua, March 31, 1282; or, according to Muratori, on the Monday after-nel lunedì di Pasqua di Resurrezione, the 30th day of the said month and year; he, however, adds-scrivono altri, nel Martedì, the 31st of the said month. Bossi assigns to it the last date, sayingnel giorno 31 di Marzo dell' anno 1282.‡ Bristol, November 9. F. S. DONATO. A CHRIST CROSS RHYME. Christ his Cross shall be my speed! I may chant the psalm and pray. With that bright Child in her hands. HORN BOOK. The two horn books, erroneously noticed at p. 77., as belonging to Sir Thomas Phillipps, are the property of Mr J. O. Westwood, who also possesses a third, more modern, like the old ones in general form and appearance, but with simply a marbled paper back. In reference to the earlier specimens, Mr. Westwood further intimates I have compared mine with the one in the possession of Thomas Longman, Esq., Paternoster-row, with which they agree in size, and almost in type; but his specimen has on the back only St. George and the Dragon, whereas mine have respectively the figure of the reigning monarch with his initials printed in gold on the back from a rude woodblock, thus enabling us to determine the precise date of the two specimens, as well as to afford an approximate date to that belonging to Mr. Longman, to which an incorrect period had been assigned. Storia de Napoli. Tomo III, Lib. xx., Cap. 5., p. 44. Annali d'Italia, Napoli, 1753, 4to., Tomo VII., p. 367. Storia d'Italia Antica e Moderna, Tomo XV., Lib. v., Cap. x., p. 289. FASTRADANA, WIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE. In the Illustrated London News, Nov. 10, p. 565, is a facsimile of a curious inscription to the memory of Fastradana, the third wife of Charlemagne, which I read thus Fastradana pia Caroli conjunx vocitata, Quem numerum metro claudere musa vetat. O king of heaven, with respect to her deeds, although she turn to ashes here, may her soul be heir to that country, which knows no sorrow. Virgo, de fœmina conjugata. Encomium Emma Reginæ, p. 172. Du Cange. Cinerescere, in cinerem redigi. Tertull. Apol., cap. 40. Ibid. Hawkshead, Nov. 12. D. B. H. The society of polished men, like smooth iron roads, renders the journey of life more easy and agreeable; but that of unpolished men, like rough roads, makes all its ruts and inequalities painfully felt. Margaret, Countess of Blessington. MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE AT FINHAVEN. About a quarter of a mile eastward of the ruins of the Castle of Finhaven, on a rising ground at the junction of the rivers Lemno and Southesk, and at the foot of the famous vitrified fort, stood formerly the original parish church of Finhaven or Aikenhatt, in Forfarshire. It is supposed to have been dedicated to the Nine Maidens, whose festival is held on June 19, and the foundation appears to have been of a very early date, as it was rebuilt in 1380, and granted in free gift to the Cathedral of Brechin, by Sir Alexander Lindsay of Glenesk, father of the first Earl of Crawford. Tradition with its busy tongue, has hinted that Lindsay was induced to this bestowal on the church, in the hope of obtaining her propitiatory prayers for some rash acts committed by him, and that he imposed a further penance Land; certain it is, that while on his onward course on himself by undertaking a pilgrimage to the Holy thither he died apud insulam de Candey.' 6 The old church is mentioned in 1576, but being situated in a corner of the parish, a new church in a few years after appears to have been erected for greater convenience, at the village of Oathlaw, being near to the centre of the parochial bounds; and the old church demolished. It would seem to have been but a small building, having an aisle on the south side, and the floor paved with square glazed tiles of the three primary colours, red, blue, and yellow, similar to those used in the principal Cathedrals of the middle ages. The land |