R MMR. URBAN, London, March 18. YOUR remarks in your March number upon the supposition recently announced that Horace Walpole, with the help of Mason, wrote the Letters of Junius, (which letters Coleridge says ought to be contemplated by critics under the character of a Politi. cal Satire,) led me to peruse again the Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, and "The Postscript," both of which it has frequently been said were written by Walpole and Mason. These two poems have left a very strong impression on my mind that precisely the same talents and accomplishments which produced them might have produced the LetSE ters of Junius; and further, that there is no likelihood from any internal evidence that Mason could by himself have supplied the banter and the ridicule of the Heroic Epistle.* edition of the "Works of Thomas The This, to say the least, is a very unusual style; and, if the letter as edited, was exactly copied from the original manuscript, this "&c." would go far to convince me that the letter was concerted between Walpole and Mason for some purpose connected with the poem to which it relates. But in the excellent and interesting Underneath are deposited the bodies of JOHN LAUGHARNE, Gent. who died 24th March, 1682, aged 60. And of ANNE LLOYD, wife of the said John Laugharne, who died the 29th of April, 1717, aged 74, who was also married to Thomas Davies of Newton, Gent. Also here lieth the body of ANNE, the abovenamed daughter of John Laugharne, and Anne his wife, who died the 22nd day of March, 1758, aged 58 years. Here lieth the body of MATTHEW PRYCE, Esq. second son of Sir Vaughan Pryce of Newton Hall, in the county of Montgomery, Bart. who died March 14th, Anno Domini 1721, ætatis suæ 20. Sors tua mortalis, non est mortale quod optas. Underneath are deposited the bodies of ANNE, first wife of Sir SACKVILLE CROW, Bart. who died 13th of Dec. 1679, aged 38, and of SACKVILLE CROW, Esq. eldest son of Sir S. Crow, who died 15th Feb. 1700, aged 28. Underneath are deposited the bodies of Sir SACKVILLE CROW, Bart, who died 21st June, 1706, aged 69; and of FRANCIS CORNWALLIS of Albermarlis, Esq. son-in-law of the said Sir S. Crow, who died the 19th of August, 1728, aged 35, and of ELIZABETH MAUDE of Westmead, widow of Sir Robert Maude, Bart. Elizabeth Maude died March 27, 1779, aged 82. This Matron's wish, through all her lengthen'd days, To aid pale want, and blunt affliction's dart, As oft withdrawing from the great and gay, She sought the cot where meek misfortune lay, And would have kept each generous deed unknown, Elizabeth Letitia Jane Vaughan. I am informed that Sir John Powell bought the lordship of Laugharne of Sir Sackville Crow, who, with his family, is commemorated in the above. The north transept of the church, in which a female effigy of the 14th century is placed, is called Palmer's not Powell's aisle, as I from memory erroneously stated. Gent. Mag. vol. XII. N. S. p. 594. If any of Mr. Urban's correspondents could supply the pedigree of Sir John Powell's ancestors and descendants, they would oblige the writer. * Yet Mason was the author of the Archæological Epistle to Dean Milles, a poem in which banter and ridicule abound.-Rev. during a retreat, as it is reported by tradition, of several months." The same historian traced other memorials of the King at Whalley abbey, and the neighbouring halls of Bracewell and Waddington. It was from the lastmentioned place that he was trepanned and arrested, as related by the historical writer whose work was published in 1839, by the Camden Society, under the title of Warkworth's Chronicle: "Also the same yere, Kynge Herry was takene bysyde a howse of religione (i. e. Whalley) in Lancashyre, by the mene of a blacke monke of Abyngtone, in a wode called Cletherwode (Clitheroe), bysyde Bungerly hyppyng-stones (a ford across the river Ribble), by Thomas Talbott, sonne and heyre to Sere Edmunde Talbot of Basshalle, and Jhon Talbott his cosyne of Colebry (Salebury), with other moo; which disseyvide (was deceived), beynge at his dynere at Wadyngtone halle, and caryed to Londone on horsebake, his legs bownde to the styropes." This occurrence is stated* to have taken place on the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul, June 29, 1465. The Talbots, who took an active part in the King's capture, were connected by marriage with Sir John Tempest, the owner of Bracewell and Waddington; and the latter was a participant with them in the rewards bestowed on the capture by King Edward. The loyalty of Sir Ralph Pudsay, however, the master of Bolton hall, remains unimpeached in these treacherous performances. It appears that the principal companions of Henry's seclusion, and of his capture, were Dr. Manning, Dean of Windsor, Dr. Bedle, and " young Ellerton :" who were conveyed to the Tower of London with him, the cavalcade, on approaching London, being met at Esyldon (Islington) by the King-making Earl of Warwick, who there formally arrested Henry of Lancaster," and forthwith his gilt spurs were taken from his feete." Some interesting relics were left by the unfortunate monarch at Bolton, which will be seen represented in the Gentleman's Magazine for June 1785, as well as in Dr. Whitaker's History of Craven. "They consist of a pair of boots, a pair of gloves, and a spoon. The boots are of fine brown Spanish leather. lined with deer's skin, tanned with the fur on, and about the ancles is a kind of wadding under the lining, to keep out wet. They have been fastened by buttons (twenty-four in number) from the ancle to the knee; the feet are remarkably small (little more than eight inches long), the toes round, and the soles, where they join to the heel, contracted to less than an inch diame ter. The gloves are of the same material, and have the same lining; they reach, like women's gloves, to the elbow, but have been occasionally turned down, with the deer's skin outward. The hands are exactly proportioned to the feet, and not larger than those of a middle-sized woman: (Dr. Whitaker adds the remark that) in peace as well as war, required perin an age when the habits of the great, petual exertions of bodily strength, this unhappy prince must have been equally contemptible, from corporeal and from mental imbecility." The manor house, understood to have been built in the fourteenth century, has undergone various alterations in subsequent times, and to a considerable extent within the last forty years. Happily, the old hall, wherein the wearied King is, in the accompanying plate, represented to be seated, has been the least subjected to the changes that have taken place. We are happy to add that, from an unlooked for and most authentic source, this brief narrative will (in the chitectural and historical account of ensuing month) be followed by an arthe mansion, with details of the family, which for many centuries has possessed it; and, as it will be drawn up with peculiar care, we trust it will be found both interesting and instructive. * MS. Arundel, Coll. Arm. No. 5, fol. 170, v°. + See the notes to Warkworth's Chronicle, p. 41; Devon's Issue Rolls of the Exchequer, p. 489; Baines's History of Lancashire, i. 481. Stowe's Chronicle, p. 419. |