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terred, agreeably to his defire, in the parish church of St. Matthew, London. The only furviving fons of Sir Hugh were, as before obferved, William, Henry, and Simon, and of these three branches 1 fhall give the best account I can in their order. The defcent from the daughters it will be next to impoffible to trace.

First Branch. William, the eldeft furviving fon and heir of Sir Hugh, was the immediate fucceffor to the title. Concerning the defcent, however, of this branch of the family, the materials of information are few and féanty; nor have I been able to learn in whofe perfon the iffue male of this branch failed, nor why, on fuch failure, the baronetage, instead of reverting to Henry's branch, the next in fucceffion, became extint, According to your correfpondent R. G. Sir William's eldest daughter (which imports that he had more than one, and seems to exclude the idea of his having any fon) married Mr. John Greene, and died in child-bed, Dec. 1675, in her 43d year, leaving iffue 2 fons, Giles and William, and 2 daughters Elizabeth and Catharine; one of thefe daughters, he believes, married Mr. North, a brewer, and had iffue a fon and 2 daughters t. In Almon's New Baronetage (Vol. II. p. 305) it is faid, that Sir William, the fon of Sir Hugh, had a grandjon, Sir Wil. liam (meaning, I apprehend, from the title, in the male line) and that the grand. fon died without male iffue, but in what year he fo died is not ftated. If I understand thefe accounts rightly, one of them must be wrong, and I incline to fufpe&t the latter. Probably the Sir Wil.. liam here mentioned is confounded with him who died in 1718, the defcendant of Sir Thomas Middleton, Sir Hugh's elder brother. (This interefting Letter ball be concluded in our next.)

Mr. URBAN, Swaffham, May 17.
HE inclofed impreffion is taken

of copper, found in 1763 at Brancaffer, a place of high antiquity. It is thin, and has not in its execution the spirit of the Roman workmanship: and it having been gilt (part of which gilding is fill remaining) may be no proof of its being antique: however, it is fubmit

* I have not feen the patent of creation, and fpeak therefore upon a prefumption that the limitations were, either to the heirs male, general, or in tail, and not to the eldeji fon and bis heirs, in tale male.

† Are any of these now living, and where?

ted, with deference, for the opinion of your learned readers, whether it is a Roman enfign, and what the figure oc ornament on the breast of the bird is intended to reprefent STEP. NEWMAN. June 22.

Mr. URBAN,

IN
N the Archeologia, vol. X. p. 125,
Mr. Gibfon obferves, that in the
key-ftones of the windows of Whitby
abbey he remarked a cavity, increasing
internally, which manifefted that these
ones had been raifed by the machine
called a Lewis, and fuppofed to have
been invented during the reign of Louis
XIV.; and he concludes with a with
that this matter might be more closely
inveftigated.

As every minute fact may tend to throw fome light upon a difcuffion of this nature, I fhall take the liberty of mentioning, that when the Roman battle, which is fo accurately defcribed in the Archæologia, vol. IX. was difcovered at Wroxeter, in Shropshire, I obferved a fimilar cavity in feveral of the ftones of which that Atructure was compofed.

The gentlemen, whofe obfervations on fonts in churches appear in the Archæologia, vol. X Nos. 24 and 25, having omitted all mention of two paf fages in the Iter Italicum of Father Mabillon, which appear to be material for the elucidation of the antient ceremonies of baptifm, it may not be improper to lay before your readers an abridged tranflation of them.

The learned Father, at p. 73 of his first volume, exhibits two engravings of a tomb found in the neighbourhood of Naples, which reprefent baptifm by immerfion and fuperfufion. In the fr of thefe engravings, a king and a queen appear in the open air between two buildings in a large cauldron, which receives them up to the middle; they are in the attitude of prayer, while a perfon in the drefs of a warrior is pouring wa

one of them. In the fecond engraving a font is reprefented of a fimilar form, but of fmaller dimenfions, near which four perfons are kneeling, and the fame warrior is employed in pouring upon one of their heads a liquid, which feems to be oil, out of a fmaller veffel. Mathe length of their beards, are manibillon obferves, that the figures, from feftly Lombards or Greeks; the Romans not being accuflomed to wear their beards and it is remarkable, that I do not choofe to call it an eagle.

the

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the figure who confers the facrament of baptifm is reprefented without a beard in both the engravings; from whence one might conclude, that the fubject of the fculpture was the baptifm of a newly-converted Lombard, In p. 81, a fi. milar fubject, with the like ceremomies, is mentioned to be painted in the church of St. Laurence at Rome.

From these paffages the following particulars may be collected: 1. that the baptifmal fonts were moveable, and not fixed; 2. that they were originally placed in the open air at the door of the church; 3. that they were not fo large as to receive the whole body, for which reafon, ut nulla pars bomines expers effet facri lavari, water was poured on the upper parts by the adminiftrator; 4 that oil was ufed in this ceremony, as appears from Du Pin's account of St. Athanafius; 5. that this facrament might be administered by a layman. SCIOLUS.

I

Mr. URBAN,

May 5.

WAS greatly pleased with the plate and account of Stepney church given by Mr. Malcolm in p. 401; though I could with a fuller account had been given. I obferved yesterday by the fide of the large window, which is near the great porch, a ftone fixed in the wall, upon which is carved a figure of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Jefus, and a figure kneeling before them. The three figures are extremely defaced. Over the porch, represented in Mr. M's plate, is a crucifix, with the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalen, as I fuppole; but the top of the porch is built against fome part of it, which makes it impoffible to judge pofitively who the two figures are.

Near the oppofite porch is a ftone brought by Captain Thomas Hughes from Carthage, upon which is the following infcription:

Of Carthage walls I was a ftone
O'h Mortals read with pitty
Time confumes all, it, fpaireft none
Man Mountain Town nor Citty
Therefore O'h Mortals now bethink
You where unto, you must
Since now fuch ftately Buildings
Lie Buried in the dust.

THOMAS HUGHES. 1663

There are feverat very old tomb. Rones, upon one of which I faw the erroneous date of 1113. M. S.

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of the ftate of the things to be seen at Barber-furgeons hall, in Monkwellftreet; for fomebody had fent you a lift of curiofities there, copied from a book almost a century old. In that inftance, I lamented that fome of our Antiquaries were more difpofed to pick up unauthentic information from obfolete books, than to take the trouble of repairing to a place fairly within reach, and there making ufe of their own eyes. An article in your last Magazine, p. 401, now obliges me to go a step further, and to beg of gentlemen not only to repair to places within diftance, and to use their eyes, but to use them to fome purpofe; to examine things attentively, and not in a tranfient or superficial way. Mr. Malcolin accompanies his view of Stepney church with two or three remarks on that ftructure. He fays, that “over the porch, on the fide reprefented in the engraving (he means the South Porch), is an old bas-relief," which he conjectures to be a figure of the Virgin Mary feated on clouds. Now I thought that this bas-relief repre fented quite another thing. Mr. Malcolm's conjecture, however, led me to look once again at the flone in question, and I found it correfpondent with the recollection I had of it. This bas relief exhibits the Crucifixion; and under the arms of the crofs ftand two figures, which, I fuppofe, are intended for the Virgin and St. John. I doubt not of Mr. Malcolm's candour; he will be ready to own that his conjecture was formed on a very hally furvey of the bas-relief; and let this be a caution to him how he embarks in a detail again. Mr. Malcolm gave you a general view of the building; I have drawings of three of the windows of Stepney church, which I fend you herewith; if you fhad think proper to caufe them to be engraved, they are much at your fervice (fee plate 1.). Fig. 1. exhibits the great Eaft window, drawn from the outfida of the church: the altar-piece blocks it up within the church: it is filled up. with pafter as high as the lowest feries of arches. Fig. 2. is a window, not inelegant in its form, on the North fide of the church. It is different from

any other in the whole edifice. Fig. 3.

is a window on the South fide of the church, fimilar to feveral others in it.

What a pity is it that Mr. Brooke, of the Heralds College, has not continued his narrative of interefting objects which he law in and about London!

D. N.

Mr.

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Windows at Stepney p.592.

Mr. URBAN, Wyke, June 24. the inclofed drawings and notes, in

I their prefent or any other form you think more proper, are worthy a place in the Gentleman's Magazine, they are at your fervice (fee pl. 1.). The draw. ings, you may be affured, are exact reprefentations. In excufe for their numerous defects, I have only to add, they are done by one who was never inftru&ted even in the first principles of that most beautiful art.

Yours, &c. S.

In the North aile of the cathedral of Chichester are the mutilated remains of a pavement of painted tiles; but, as vaults and memorials for the dead increafe, they are deftroyed and loft. There remain at prefent about feventy in number, fcattered in different parts of the aile; the figures of none of them differ but little from the nine inclofed fpecimens (they are the fame patterns with fmall variations); the fize five inches and a quarter fquare, of a deep. brick-red colour, the enamel or painted figures a dirty white inclining to yellow, except one tile (fig. 9), which is fix inches and a quarter fquare, the fame colour-ground as the others, but the outlines of the figures are drawn in black lines, and the enamel or paint a bright yellow, which in fome places is worn to a dirty yellow-white; a proof the original colour of the figures on all the tiles was a bright yellow.

St. James's hofpital, Chichefter, founded for leprous perfons, ftands in an open, airy fituation, half a mile without the Eaft gate, and quite at the extent of the Eaftern fuburbs, which formerly, we may fuppofe, did not extend fo far as they do at prefent. Tanner fays, it feems to have been as old as Richard the First or King John's time, was dedicated to St. James and Mary Magdalen, valued, the 26th of Henry VIII, at 41. 145. 10d. per annum in the whole, and at 41. 3s. 94. clear. In the enquiry into the hofpitals and their ftate, in the year 1686, it was reported to maintain a mafter and one poor perfon, in which flate it now remains; and the prefent mafter is the Rev. Henry Peckham. If we may judge by its ruins, it was a very plain building; it now ferves as a cottage for a poor family.

In the back-ground is feen Bow, or Four Barrow Hill, fo called from four

* I have been informed the prefent revenue of the hofpital is about 251. a year; ach to the Mafter, and 51. to a poor perfon.

CENT. MAG. July, 1792.

large barrows which are placed on the ridge of a high hill, not more than fixty

I

yards over, running out in a promontory beyond the other Downs, commanding a most beautiful and extenfive profpect Eaftward to Beachy-head; Southward, the fea, with the ifles of Hayling, Thorney, and White; Weft, the Dor fet, Wiltshire, and Hampshire hills; North, through different breaks of the hills, is difcovered Leeth-hill, in Surrey, and the hills in the North of Hamphire; at five miles South-eaft from the hills lies Chichester, and its beautiful fpire South-weft; and at a greater diftance is Spithead and Portfmouth, with the fhips of war laid up in Stokes-bay, completing this enchanting fcene. know of few places more defirable for the Northern nations to depofit their dead on. The barrows form nearly a right-line, running North and South, two barrows at each end, and are each of them furrounded by a trench of. 18 feet in width, are of a bell fhape, and concave on the top. The fecond barrow at the South end is the only one that remains perfect, is 51 feet high from the middle of the trench, and appears to be finished with greater care and exactnefs than the others, fo that the mouldering hand of Time has not robbed it of the beauty of its workmanship and fhape. The other three, man has affifted in their deftruction, they having been opened, one not many years fince, in which, as I have been informed, were found bones mixed with afhes. The Southernmost barrow ftands 57 feet within an intrenchment, with a ditch inwards, which appears to be carried round the top of the hill in an irregular form, but tending to circular. Between the first and fecond South barrows is a fmall circular hollow of 15 feet diameter, with a narrow raifed rim, not more than a foot in heighth. On the North fide of the fecond South barrow is another hollow of the fame form, and 18 feet in diameter; and, at equal distances between the two North barrows, is a third, of 15 feet diameter.

It I may be permitted to hazard a conjecture, to which I am led by the following circumfiances, viz. the name tradition fixes on the barrows, the kings graves, the name of the bottom directly under, called by fome Kingfley, i. e. Kings Field, by others Kill-king Bottom (where fome years ago was held a large fair, but now difufed, and remarkable for nothing but the beauty of its re

tired

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