Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/150

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144


NOTES AND QUERIES. [9- s. in. FEB. 25, '99.


Sacred To the memory of

THOS STANLEY

late acting Colynnel of the

69 th Regiment who departed this

life April 1835. Aged 27 years

Sacred

To the memory of

ELIZABETH MADDEN

Relict of the late Corporal JOHN

MADDEN, 86 th Regiment

who departed this life 18 th

August 1831. Aged 32 years

Erected by Corprl PATRICK MADDEN

Sacred To the memory of JOSEPH JONES

of the 47 th Regiment who departed this life on the 30 th

May Anno Domini 1842 As man throughout for shelter sought In vain from place to place did roam Until from heaven he was taught To plan to build to fix his home.

OXON.

THE 'GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.' Many have been the laudatory comments on the thousandth number of Blackwood's, but I have been sorry to observe that there was no reference whatever to an older friend, viz., the Gentleman's Magazine. What was the reason for the neglect? Perhaps a few remarks about the magazine will not now be uninteresting.

Edward Cave, to whom the literary world is much indebted, was born at Newton, Warwickshire, on 27 February, 1691. Educated at Kugby School, he came to London, and apprenticed himself to a printer. Having contrived by multifarious work to save money sufficient to start a small printing office in the hall over St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, he realized the project he had long entertained by establish- ing the Gentleman's Magazine. The first number appeared in January, 1731, and it immediately attracted the attention of the public. As the magazine became a great success it is not unreasonable to state that to Edward Cave (under the pseudonym oi Sylvanus Urban) alone must be concedec the honour of having been the originator oi this form of literature. Consideration for the space of 'N. & Q.' precludes me from enumerating the names of the persons whc wrote and toiled for Sylvanus Urban, bui it is only right to direct attention to the fact that the illustrious Samuel Johnson was for some time editor of the Gentleman's Maga zine, to which his essays added dignity anc lustre. It may not be out of place t mention that a woodcut of St. John's Gate has appeared on the cover of each number


rom No. 1 to No. 2018 (issued for February, 899). January, 1731, to February, 1899, or or the long period of 168 years. Johnson, ixcited no doubt by his remembrance of lie once magnificent priory of the heroic mights of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, uppressed at the Dissolution, remarked when le first saw St. John's Gate that he " beheld t with reverence." Cave died at the old gate- louse on 17 January, 1754 ; and one of his ast acts was to press fondly the hand of his great friend, the main prop and stay of the Gentleman's Magazine Dr. Samuel Johnson. Johnson always spoke of Cave with affection, and wrote his life, in 1754, in complimentary terms.

Urban, whom neither toil profound Fatigues, nor calumnies o'erthrow ; The wreath thy learned brows around Still grows, and will for ever grow.

HENKY GERALD HOPE. Clapham, S.W.

MONTAIGNE AND EAST ANGLIA. In ' Pantagruel,' book iii. cap. 24, Rabelais wrote (Sir Thomas Urquhart's translation) :

"I have seen the experience of it in a very curious gentleman of the country of Estangourre." And in a foot-note Estangourre is explained as being put

"corruptly for East- Angle (East England), one of the kingdoms in the heptarchy of England, under the Saxon kings."

The notes give no suggestion as to who this gentleman of East Anglia may have been, and it occurs to me that it may have been the father of Michael, Lord of Montaigne.

Rabelais died in 1553, cet. seventy, arid Montaigne's father died about 1569. The two men, therefore, were contemporaries, and in the comparatively small world of the Paris of that time they can hardly have failed to be more or less acquainted with each other.

Montaigne (the younger) was about twenty years of age when Rabelais died, and about thirty-six years of age when his father died. And not long after his father's death he wrote thus (Florio's translation) in book ii. cap. 16 of the ' Essays ' :

"And my ancestors have here-to-fore been sur- named Higham or Eyquem, a surname which also belongs to a house well known in England." And a connexion between the family of Higham or Hygham and East Anglia is established by the following references to the name in the Paston Letters :

Letter from Sir John Fastolfe, 15 Oct., 1450 :

"And as for Hygham Place to be sold, as ye avysen me to bye it ",