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The Duke of Somerset appears to have been the first to set the example of presenting his portrait for the decoration of the room in which they met; and Kneller, from his celebrity and position as an artist, was the painter employed. Dryden had already written

Such are thy pictures, Kneller! such thy skill,
That Nature seems obedient to thy will,

Comes out, and meets thy pencil in the draught, Lives there, and wants but words to speak the thought. A particular size on this occasion was adopted, the canvas being thirty inches by twenty inches; this has since been designated "a Kit Katt," a term that retains its distinction among painters.

Horace Walpole observes, while enumerating the paintings by Sir Godfrey Kneller, "The Kit Catt Club, generally mentioned as a set of Wits, in reality the patriots that saved Britain, were Kneller's last works in the reign of King William III., and his last public work." They were in fact Statesmen especially devoted to the supporting of the principles established by the Revolution in 1688, and to the exclusion of the Stuart family. Tonson must have been early in the programme of its formation, since these personages, to whom he officiated as Secretary, held their meetings contiguous to his house of business, at a pastry-cook's in Shire Lane, named Christopher Catt, who excelled in making mutton-pies, which were regularly a part of the entertainment

Immortal made, as Kit Catt by his pies. When originally constituted is not stated, and but one of the engraved portraits, that of Charles Dartiquenave,* has the date of painting attached so early as 1702; showing that the Duke of Somerset's, and others undated, had a doubtless priority in time, while the portrait of Thomas Hawkins, one of the Commissioners of the Salt Duties in the reign of Queen Anne, bears date 1715; and those of Richard Lumley, Earl of Scarborough, and William Pulteney, subsequently Earl of Bath, were not painted till 1717. These dates go far in support of the supposition that the Kit Catt Club continned beyond the accession of King George the First; and that these persons became members as vacancies by death occurred in the Club.

Their predilection for the House of Hanover appears to have given the Tory party, on the accession of Queen Anne, much annoyance and trouble, and as the members were too reputable to be attacked, William Shippen, a Tory satirist, in his Faction Displayed, 1704, contrived to vent his scurrility on their secretary in the following lines,

*Pope has eternised this gentleman as a bon vivant, and he is consequently little known to posterity, but for his love of good eating and proficiency in the culinary science. Thus, in his Imitation of the First Satire of Horace, book 11., he notices

Each mortal has his pleasure; none deny
Scarsdale his bottle, Darty, his ham pye.
And again, in the couplet-

Hard task to hit the palate of such guests,
When Oldfield loves what Dartineuf detests.

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Now the Assembly to adjourn prepared,
When Bibliopolo from behind appeared,
As well described by th' old satiric bard,
With leering look, bull-faced, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, with Judas colour'd hair,
And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air;
Sweating and puffing, for a while he stood,
And then broke forth in this insulting mood-
I am the touchstone of all modern wit;
Without my stamp in vain your poets write;
Those only purchase ever-living fame,
That in my Miscellany plant their name.
Nor therefore think that I can bring no aid
Because I follow a mechanick trade-

I'll print your pamphlets, and your rumours spread.
I am the founder of your loved Kit Catt,
A club that gave direction to the State:
'Twas there we first instructed all our youth
To talk profane, and laugh at sacred truth.
We taught them how to toast, to rhyme, and bite,
To sleep away the day, and drink away the night.
Some this fantastic speech approved, some sneer'd,
The wight grew choleric and disappear'd.

The portraits were subsequently engraved in mezzotinto, by John Faber, Junior, and published in 1735, with a title page designed and drawn by Hubert Gravelot. The earliest date on the plates is 1731, Faber being then living "at the Green door in Craven Buildings, Drury Lane;" the latest in 1735, when he was residing "at the Golden head on the South side of Bloomsbury Square." The volume has the imprint on the title-Sold by J. Tonson in the Strand, and J. Faber, at the Golden Head in Bloomsbury Square.

Faber, in the dedication, inscribes the volume to His Grace the Duke of Somerset, "As this Collection of Prints owes its very Being to your Grace's liberality in setting the example to the other members of the Kit

Some little bickering and hard words passed occasionally between Dryden and his publisher, Jacob Tonson, the latter of whom, in the requirement of a stipulated number of tion would flow as freely as water from a spring. On one lines for a certain sum, appeared to consider that versificaoccasion, Dryden was behind hand in the supply, and Tonson having refused to advance a sum of money, on account of the work upon which he was employed, the poet dispatched a second message, part of which was the following triplet

With leering look, bull-fac'd and freckled fair, With two left legs, with Judas colour'd hair, And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air; adding, Tell the dog, that he who wrote these lines, can write more! They had the desired effect, and the money required was immediately advanced; but Tonson is supposed to have shewn Dryden's lines in his manuscript, and hence their notoriety. Pope in his Dunciad also alludes to this awkwardness in Tonson's gait, describing him as 'leftlegged Jacob.'

Catt-Club of honouring Mr.Tonson with their Pictures, and as your Grace has ever been eminently distinguished by that noble Principle, for the support of which that Association was known to have been formed, the Love of your Country, and the Constitutional Liberty thereof; but more especially as the Arts and Sciences have always found in your Grace a most illustrious and indulgent Patron."

The portraits of the members of the Kit Catt Club have this order in Faber's volume.

The title page, engraved by Faber, 1735.
1. Sir Godfrey Kneller, Se Ipse pinx.
2. Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset.
3. Charles Lenox, Duke of Richmond.
4. Charles Fitz Roy, Duke of Grafton.
5. William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire.

John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough.
6. John Montagu, Duke of Montagu. Painted 1709.
7. Evelyn Pierpoint, Duke of Kingston. 1709.
8. Thomas Holles Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, and
Henry Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, folded plate.
9. Charles Montague, Duke of Manchester.
10. Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Duke of Dorset.
11. Thomas Wharton, Marquis of Wharton.
12. Theophilus Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon.
13. Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset.

14. Algernon Capel, Earl of Essex. Painted 1705.
15. Charles Howard. Earl of Carlisle.
16. Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington.

on each picture: the above dates are those denoted on Faber's plates.

Three of these paintings, Nos. 12, 27 and 39, present the face only of each individual; it is no aspersion of the artist to doubt the reason why these pictures were not finished, as evidently they paid him for nothing beyond the first sitting.

On the dissolution of the Kit Catt Club the paintings became the property of Jacob Tonson, their secretary, who built a new room for their reception at his villa, at Barn Elms, in Surrey, about six miles from London. Eventually the portraits were inherited by William Baker, Esq. M.P. for Herts., whose father, Sir William Baker, many years an alderman of the ward of Bassishaw, in the city of London, married the eldest daughter of the second Jacob Tonson.

Jacob Tonson, the third bookseller of the name, served the office of High Sheriff for the county of Surrey in 1750; and in 1759 paid the customary fine for being excused to serve as Sheriff of London and Middlesex. He conducted his business with great liberality in the saine shop which had been so many years possessed by his father and great uncle, opposite Catherine Street, in the Strand; but some years before his death moved to a new house he had built on the other side, now No. 345, near Catherine Street, where he died without issue, March 31, 1767. The house was then Mr. Hodsoll's, the banker, and here remained a large depositary of Pope's and other letters, the correspondence of

17. James Berkeley, Earl of Berkeley. Painted 1717. the Tonsons, to which latterly no particular attention

18. Francis Godolphin, Earl of Godolphin.

19. Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax.

20. James Stanhope, Earl Stanhope.

21. Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington. 22. Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham.

23. Charles Mohun, Lord Mohun. Painted 1707.

24. Charles Cornwallis, Lord Cornwallis.

25. John Vaughan, Earl of Carberry.

26. John Somers, Baron of Evesham.

27. Richard Boyle, Viscount Shannon. 28. Sir Robert Walpole.

29. Sir John Vanbrugh.

30. Sir Samuel Garth, M.D.

31. Sir Richard Steele, Knt.

32. John Tidcomb, Esq.

33. William Pulteney, Esq. Painted 1717.

34. Joseph Addison, Esq.

35. George Stepney, Esq.

36. Abraham Stanyan, Esq.

37. John Dormer, Esq.

38. Edmund Duneh, Esq.

39. William Walsh, Esq.

40. William Congreve, Esq. Painted 1709.
Charles Dartiquenave, Esq. Painted 1702.
41. Thomas Hopkins, Esq. Painted 1715.
42. Arthur Maynwaring, Esq.

43. Mr. Jacob Tonson, holding in right hand a folio
volume inscribed-Milton's Paradise Lost.
when each was painted is possibly marked

The

year

being paid, the whole disappeared, and was destroyed, it was said, by the servants.

LANSDOWNE COLLECTION OF MANUSCRIPTS.

When and upon what valuation were the Lansdowne Manuscripts purchased for the British Museum? Liverpool, July 5.

M.

At the close of the year 1807, Mr. Planta, then Principal Librarian, estimated their value in the following sums: Burleigh and Cecil Papers, 120 volumes and parcels

at 101.

1200

Sir Julius Caesar's Papers, 50 vols., at 101.
Abbey Cartularies and Registers, 27 vols., at 107.
Miscellaneous Manuscripts, 150 vols, at 57.

500

270

750

Others, 985 vols., at 21.

1970

Royal Letters, forty numbers, at 51
Chinese Drawings, 8 vols., at 107.

200

80

4970

Two other parties valued them, and upon an average of these three valuations, they were purchased by Parliament for 4,9251.

The Petty papers, amounting to fifteen volumes, were reserved by the Family.

* In May, 1767, George Vandergucht, at the Golden Head, in Great Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, announced by advertisement, for sale :

A few sets of the first impressions of the KITT CATT CLUB, done by Faber, from the original pictures painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, being Portraits of the Great Men in the Reigns of King William and Queen Anne.

THE COWS IN THE GREEN PARK.

The cows in the Green Park were once a greater nuisance than those in Hyde Park are now deemed, but the interests of certain officials predominate beyond the consideration of public convenience. Their withdrawal from the Green Park was effected by the poet Rogers, with no little tact; and the mode of his so doing was thus narrated by himself to a friend, who was standing one fine spring morning at his drawing-room window overlooking the Green Park. Talking with him of old times, Rogers, like a poct of Memory, lamented the days which were past, but one change alone he did not regret the cows had gone.

I procured, said the poet, the removal of the cows, and in this way. Duncannon, when at the Woods, was standing where you are now standing. I brought him to the spot. Now, I said, I want these cows turned out. Are they not pastoral and pretty? said Duncannon; you like a Cuyp with cows-you like a Sidney Cooper with them. True, I replied, and I love cream and milk, and even buttermilk, and I like cows in Devonshire and Alderney; but I do not like cows in the Green Park. Observe, I said, the particular liking which cows exhibit for unnecessarily manuring gravel walks. Three cows full of the pasture passed as I spoke, and illustrated my argument; and then two ladies in flowered muslins passed by, picking their way along the path made so provokingly dirty at that very moment by these very cows. Enough, said his Lordship, the cows shall go! And the cows went-there are no cows now to be seen. What a beautiful Park!

LETTER OF SIR DAVID WILKIE, R.A.
Frankfort Castle, King's County,
Ireland, Sept. 9, 1835.

Sir, The esteemed letter of my friend Mr. J. Stark, Norwich, 25th August, I have just now only received on my return from the west of Ireland, and as he has requested, I take the liberty of writing to you as Chairman of the Committee of the Subscribers to the proposed Portrait of Mr. Turner, the ex-mayor of Norwich, and in doing so beg to assure you, that I feel most highly honored by the proposal made to me, that I should paint the picture, which I should have been most happy to have undertaken, but at present I am so circumstanced with the Pictures actually in hand for the next two years, that I could not hope to begin the Picture within such time as would be satisfactory to the subscribers, and must therefore with every feeling of respect, and with best thanks for the handsome compliment paid to me on the proposal from the Committee, request that you will assure them that I am under the reluctant necessity of declining to undertake the Commission. Requesting you will excuse the delay my absence from London has occasioned,

I have the honor to be,

Sir, your very faithful and obliged Servant,
DAVID WILKIE.

Henry Raven Priest, Esq.

Translation of Rev. William Hildyard's Tetrastich, Current Notes, No. 78, p. 41.

TO VICTORIA.

Pride of our Isle! Shoot of a Royal Stem!
Thou noblest Prize to us all price above,
O'er loyal hearts long wear thy Diadem,

Blest in thy Consort's and thy Children's Love! The following unpublished lines on the same subject, were written in June, 1837.

AUGUSTISSIME MAJESTATI
BRITANNIARUM REGINE POTENTISSIMÆ
VICTORIE.

Regia Guelphi, tuæ spes optatissima Gentis !
O! Patriæ vivax Gloria, Guelphi, tume!
O! CIVI ORTA!* diu regnes, VICTORIA, Victrix,
Hostibus et terror Sceptra Britanna geras.
Et plus quam Patriis Solium virtutibus ornes;
Ornes Maternis, ulteriusque tuis.

Utque piæ quondam Decus et Tutamen' Elisæ
Patria debuerat, debeat omne tibi.
Auspice te fugiat Discordia et optet honeste
Quærere laudandas Exagitator opes.
Plebs Legum monitus servet. Sic gaudia læto
Auspice te populo Copia Paxque ferant.
Et colus et fusus vigeant cum pectine crebro,
Stamineumque manus plurima denset opus.
Vector securus pandat sua carbasa ventis,

Et scateant toto vela Britanna mari.
Et qua terra patet pateant Commercia nostra,
Et premat externa navita merce ratem.
Ruricolis cumulentur opes, et aratra nitescant;
Rideat et Cereris munere cultus ager.
Ingenuas artes servet Themis integra; fraudes
Causidici pereant, et Fora lite vacent.
Religio vigeat, custos fidissima veri,

Religio Angliaci gloria magna soli.

Cui cecidere Duces, maduerunt sanguine campi,
Martyriique pii sæva tulere Patres.
Tartareaque tegat, Fæcis pertæsa Latinæ,

Cæca Superstitio nube pudore caput.
Nomen amet Gens fida tuum sine fine, tuasque
Eximias Laudes tempus ad astra vehat.
Norint arma Getæ, norint et Seres et Indi,
Norint Gætuli, Sarmaticusque sinus,
Et qua præcipitant septemplicis ostia Nili,
Et qua exusta Rubro tunditur ora mari.
Omne triumphatum littus tibi Nominis Omen
Experietur, ubi Sol regit orbe diem.
Teque adeo-Omnipotens! nostris, precor, annue votis,
Fac, Deus! eveniat serius iste dies
Teque adeo, postquam Numen revocaverit ad se,
Sanguinis excipiat maximus ordo tui!
Hawkshead, 1837.

* CIVI ORTA, anagram: VICTORIA.

D. B. H.

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ANGELS VISITS.-In Current Notes, April 1856, p. 40, is a query regarding the author of the oft-quoted lineLike angels' visits, few and far between.

The querist is referred to Campbell's Pleasures of Hope, who is supposed to have borrowed the idea from Blair, author of the inimitable poem, entitled " "The Grave," first published in 1743; but it would seem to have had a much earlier origin. In Hanna's Memoirs of Chalmers, 12mo edition, vol. i. p. 420, is inserted a letter from James Montgomery, the Sheffield poet, referring to a visit made to him in 1817, by the celebrated Scottish divine, Dr. Chalmers, in which he statesAn Angel's visit, short and bright' it was to me; and then subjoined is the following foot note

I have borrowed this phrase neither from Blair nor Campbell, but from John Norris, of the Seventeenth Century:

July 1.

How fading are the joys we dote upon !
Like apparitions seen and gone;
But those which soonest take their flight,
Are the most exquisite and strong;
Like Angels' visits, short and bright,
Mortality's too weak to bear them long.
DAVID GALLOWAY.

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My great great-grandfather was an Englishman, of what family I know not, who settled at Jedburgh, of which town, the family at that time spelling the name Hasswell, were Provosts.

My father was the youngest of a family consisting of five sons and one daughter. The two eldest sons died early in life. The third brother, James, settled at Alnwick, as a medical man, and was surgeon to the Duke of Northumberland; he died unmarried. John, the fourth brother, distinguished himself under Lord Cochrane, and died a post-captain-married, but had no

children.

I with my four sons are now the only representatives of the Jedburgh Hasswells; all the other male branches of the family being dead. Vienna, July 4. J. HASWELL.

TOMB OF Q. KATHARINE PARR.

The tomb of this Queen is now about to be restored; can any of your Correspondents inform me where there is any drawing or engraving of it, or furnish me with any particulars relating to her funeral, beyond those narrated in the ninth volume of the Archæologia?

I should also be extremely obliged for an account of any relics or authenticated portraits, which may have come under the notice of some of your readers, or any historical facts which have not already been referred to in Miss Strickland's Life of Katharine Parr. July 8.

E. D.

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Hospital of St. Anne.

The forms of arms and armour in the olden day were in all countries very much the same, the fashions taking their rise in Italy, and passing through Germany and France into Britain. All the splendid suits in use in our island were procured from Italy and Germany; and as Milan in the former held the first rank, Nuremberg on the Maine and Heilbroun on the Necker were most celebrated in the latter. The excellence of Milan steel is fully recorded in history, and in the sixteenth century there existed armourers of such celebrity that their names have been most honourably transmitted as artists and manufacturers of the highest the First of France, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth. eminence. Filippo Negroli, who made arms for Francis Giovanni and Antonio Biancardi, Bernardino Civo, Antonio Federigo, and Lucio Piccini, who were employed by the Farnezzi and the Gonzaghi families; and also Romero, who worked for Alfonso Estense the Second.

Hieronymo Spacini, another Milanese artist, deserves especial notice. Skelton, in his Arms and Armour, plate 53, figures the richly wrought target of the Emperor Charles the Fifth; on it is recorded an event of the year 1547, so that its manufacture was after that period, but below the centre ornament is engraved the name-HIER. SPACINVS. MEDIO. BON. FACIEBAT.

ral use it was requisite to have swords of good temper, Grose observes, when defensive armour came into geneotherwise they would not only have been incapable of piercing or dividing the armour, but also liable to break, hence the art of tempering steel became in great request, and the names of celebrated swordsmiths and armourers were deemed worthy of being recorded in history; those of Luno, the Vulcan of the north; Galan, and the more modern Andrea Ferrara have been transmitted to us.*

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So early as the thirteenth century, Passau on the Danube was celebrated for its sword cutlery, called wolfs-klingen, or wolf-blades.

Whence the steel of which the sword of Coucy, Earl of Ulster, was made is not mentioned, but Fuller tells us that in the presence of John, King of England, and Philippe Auguste of France, he with one blow of his sword cut through a helmet of steel, and struck the weapon so deeply into the post upon which it was placed that no one but him

self was able to withdraw it.'

The steel of Bordeaux is frequently mentioned by Frois*Military Antiquities, Treatise on Ancient Armour, 1801, 4to. Vol. II. p. 262.

sart as all sufficient for armour. The Chronicle of Bertrand du Guesclin also attests evidence of its use for swords:

Un escuier y vint qui au comte lança D'une épée de Bordeaux, qui moult cher li cousta. An esquire came there, who dealt on the Count a blow With a sword of Bordeaux which cost him very dear.

Of Andrea Ferara, or of Ferrara, no certain facts are known to the writer. The claymores, or straight broadswords, the blades of which bear that name stamped into the steel, are what are termed sheephead handles, from their form and supposed resemblance to the skull of that animal. Skelton, in his Illustrations of the Arms and Armour in the Meyrick Collection, in plate 65, figure 16, depicts what is there designated a Scottish basket hilted claymore, that had been presented by Sir Walter Scott; the blade stamped with the name of ANDREA FERARA, the hilt apparently of the time of James the First.

Arthur Wilson, in his account of that monarch's reign, says that Lodowick Stuart, Earl of Richmond, sometimes in a blue coat with a basket hilt sword,' paid court to Frances Howard, Countess of Hertford, during the lifetime of her husband, who died in 1621. Dr. Meyrick seems to consider this description erroneous, and observes, until some portrait shall prove the fact, there may be doubts whether the Spanish shell-guard might not be intended by this expression;' but it should be remembered Wilson was a contemporary, and wrote possibly of what he had seen.

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In the same plate, fig. 12, is a sword, found on Nasebyfield after the battle in 1645. The hilt resembling the Scottish broadsword, but the blade too much oxydized to discover the maker's name. Sir William Waller, in a letter dated Gloucester, April 12, 1643, applied to the Parliament for two hundred horsemen's swords, of Kennet's making, at Hounslow.'

In Scottish collections, and in various parts of Scotland, the Andrea Ferara claymores are occasionally seen, and are highly prized. The people's attachment to the fortunes of the Stuart family, ever a cause of misfortune to themselves and their country, even now induces these swords to be displayed and venerated as relics of the Scottish rebellions and raids in 1715 and 1745, but this is erroneous; the Highlanders had no means of obtaining blades for effective service but from abroad, and it is believed that in the wars between England and Scotland, long before the time of Mary, or her Solomon of a son, James the Sixth, the Scots obtained their choicest weapons by way of France. One of Andrea Ferara's make, dug or ploughed up on the plain of Philiphaugh, where Montrose was defeated, is now at Bowhill, in the possession of the Duke of Buccleuch; and another, that was doubtless sufficiently operative in the memorable fight of Killikrankie, is possessed by John Spottiswood of that ilk.

Dr. Meyrick, in the preface to Shelton's Ancient Arms and Armour, 1830, Vol. I. p. xxi. notices-Hyderabad steel is highly renowned, and so high is the value of well tempered weapons, that Sir Gore Ouseley states, the Nawaub of Oude in 1794, gave the enormous sum of twenty-four thousand pounds for a scymitar. The same writer assured Dr. Meyrick that the Naib or deputy of the Nawaub of Oude when he was in India, at the close of the last century, refused ten thousand pounds for an Andrea Ferara straight blade, because it had cut off the heads of several buffaloes. These Notes have been hastily embodied as a reply to

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Under this stone lyethe buryed the body of Henry Hatche, merchant adventurer, late of this Toune and Lybertye of Faversham, Jurat, and one of the Barons of the fyve ports, whyche was duryng his lyffe a greate benefactor to thys churche, and to the towne. Whych Henry depted the Xth day of May, in the yere of our lorde god a MCCCCCXXXIIJ, and also here lyethe the body of Julian the wyfe of the said Henry Hatche, which Julian departed the day of in the year of our Lord god a MCCCCC [lxxiv ;] on whose soules Jesu have mercy. Amen. Under a double canopy the figures of Henry Hatche and Julian his wife are represented.* There are no family arms, but he bears those of the Cinque Ports, the Merchant adventurers, also his merchant's mark or rebus, and the representation of a dolphin swimming, probably in allusion to his maritime pursuits. Jacob, in his account of the Charitable Benefactions to the town of Faversham,† states that this Henry Hatch, by will dated May 6, 1533, gave after the decease of his wife Julian, several estates in Kent and Sussex, to the Mayor, Jurats and Commonalty of Faobtain licence of mortmain, and appropriate the rents versham, and their successors for ever, requiring them to and profits thereof to the use and maintenance of the haven and creek of the said town, the highways of and within the town, and of the ornaments of the parish church of the said town.

Shortly after Hatch's deccase, the corporation, at a cost of two hundred pounds, obtained the licence so directed, and presently after as his heirs at law commenced a suit against the widow, but which terminated in her favour. Some few years after this Julian Hatch failing to induce the corporation to grant to her relation a lease of the said estates, at forty pounds per annum, for twenty-one years, to commence from the time of her decease, commenced a suit against the corporation to deprive them of this donation, and to support this iniquitous proceeding, produced and enrolled in the ecclesiastical court a forged will of her late husband. The suit lasted a great number of years, but the determination of the corporation established the legality of their claim, and the estates fell to the town uses upon the decease of Julian Hatch, in 1574, when the yearly

*Weever, Funeral Monuments, 1631, fol. p. 276, with his usual want of correctness, curtly states the purport of the inscription to be-Here lyeth Henry Hatcher, merchant adventurer, and Jone his wife, 1500.

History of Faversham, 1774, pp. 131-133.

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