Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/613

This page needs to be proofread.

ii s.v.. JUNE 29, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.


505


read from the path by the churchyard of Bourne, Lincolnshire, as follows :

My sledge and hammer lie reclin'd, My bellows, too, have lost their wind ; My fire 's extinct, my forge decay'd, And in the Dust my Vice is laid ; My coal is spent, my iron 's gone, My Nails are drove, my work is done ; My fire-dried corpse lies here at rest, My soul like smoke is soaring to be blest.

GEORGE WHERRY. Cambridge.

EPITAPHS IN THE CATHEDRAL AT Aix -EN- PROVENCE. Although I do not spend as much time among the tombs as does your useful correspondent COL. PARRY, I like to visit cemeteries when I am in foreign lands, and am touched when I find any memorial of a countryman. I noted the following in the north aisle of the nave of the cathedral at Aix-en-Provence :

D.O.M.

Sub hoc marmore conditae jacent donee in immortalitate reparatae resurgant

mortales exuviae perillustris ac praenobilis viri

D. Joannis Webb Angli e comitatu Dorcestriensi Baronetti, Domini de Canford, Pool, &c. qui orthodoxse fidei zelo et constant ia

et pietate singular! Catholicorum Angloruin exemplum fuit

afflictorumque solamen pompfe osor, et pauperum pater

Obijt XVII Oct. A.D. MDCCXLV ^TTATIS LXXV

Requiescat in pace

Conjugi optimo posuit uxor mcestissima Helena Filia Hon blis D Baronetti Moore

Hard by was another tablet commemorat- ing three children of English parentage, but I did not see it until too late to make a copy of the inscription a fact which I greatly regret. As far as I can decipher the wild jottings in my pocket-book, the tablet was erected about 1738 by William Digby and Elizabeth Dolben his wife to their three sons, John, James, and Gilbert, whose ages were thus indicated :

(Annos Sr Natus

I learn from Burke nothing that is definitely helpful, but he inclines me to the belief that William, (afterwards) fifth Baron Digby, was father of the boys. ST. SWITHIX.

CHIS WICK CHURCHYARD. ( See ante , p. 347. ) MR. MACARTHTJR'S interesting note as to these memorials is well timed. It may draw attention to the state of most of them. Before long some of these records of the past will be wholly obliterated : Lord Macartney's tomb especially stands sadly in need of


repair, and the inscription will soon vanish. MR. MACARTHUR omits to mention the memorials of Philip James de Louther- bourgh, R.A. ; William Sharp, the eminent line engraver ; and James Fit tier, the " Marine Engraver to his late Majesty George the Third." I wrote recently to the Royal Academy about the last, as I thought a few shillings might be spent on keeping in order the grave of an Associate, but my suggestion received a very decided negative.

W. H, QUAHRELL.


FRANCIS PALACKY, HISTORIAN AND STATES- MAN. In view of the forthcoming unveiling of a memorial at Prague to a brilliant member of the galaxy of Bohemian patriots; a colleague of Jungmann, Dobrovsky, Safarik r and other workers in the Bohemian and Slav cause, a few notes on Palacky may not be out of place. Undoubtedly Palacky deserves wider recognition among Western scholars. His long and active life (1798- 1876) covers the Bohemian Renaissance almost from the days of the enlightened Emperor Joseph II. to our own. He was bom at Hodslavic, and belonged to a family who were members of the Bohemian Brethren, consistent though secret adherents of Protestantism during the Jesuit regime succeeding the White Mountain disaster. The future historian studied at Kunwald and the Pressburg lyceum, then became archivist to the Counts Stemberg, founded and edited the Casopis Ceskeho Musea (journal of the Bohemian Museum, a still nourishing periodical of high merit), assisted in establishing the literary and scientific society Matice Ceska, and worked as Secre- tary to the Bohemian Society of Sciences. Palacky's great political labours and travels,. in which his colleague was his son-in-law Rieger, another noted man of letters, do- not claim attention here.

Palacky's magnum opus is the ' History of the Bohemian Nation in Bohemia and Moravia,' begun in the thirties, and com- pleted shortly before his death. He was the author of German as well as Bohemian historical works, especially relating to the Hussite wars and the times of King George of Podebrad. He took part in the contro- versy over the manuscripts discovered ( ? ) by Hanka. The ancient language, lite- rature, and laws of Bohemia were the subjects of extensive studies, and a list of Palacky's books and articles would occupy considerable space. His countrymen hon- oured him with the title of otec vlasti