the hospital, and the doing away with any gifts to the poor of the place, in direct opposition to the intention and wish of the founder, have excited strong objections, and fifteen out of thirtyone trustees oppose the new project. It would certainly be a VERY great pity for a town which has usually borne a high character for humanity-by a deliberate act, and that in a main point of trust, to throw it off. An avowed desire to make this "a second Eton or Rugby," if not late in the day, might be honourable enough in itself, but is not fit to be gratified in a mixed charity at the expense of the poor of an increasing population.

A petition has been presented against the proposed act from the town by Sir Joshua Walmsley, and another is stated (March 31) to be in course of signature. On an interview with Lord Brougham, that distinguished nobleman assured the petitioners that the matter would be fully considered, with a special reversion to the will of the founder.

The present head master, Dr. Brereton, who has held the office since 1811, is considered a kindly and generous man. The late Rev. Dr. Abbott, an elegant scholar and author of a "Flora Bedfordiensis," and the present Dean of Manchester, have been second masters here. The last was also chaplain

to the county jail, and had the very small living of Elstow, and was respected in each of these offices, as afterwards at Covent Garden.

Nearly in front of the school buildings an edifice has been lately erected, with a portico in front supported by four fluted columns, termed the Bedford Rooms, adapted for public meetings, &c. and a very convenient addition to the town.

The Jail is now being enlarged and rendered more convenient, though the building was pretty good before; and it is to be hoped that the dietary is now established on an humane basis. The Infirmary, made "general" about twenty years ago, with the yet further addition of a fever hospital last year, and the Lunatic Asylum, lately enlarged at an expense of 5,000l., are objects of particular credit in this small county.

The

The Ouse, which flows hence to Lynn, making 45 miles by its meanderings out of 18 through this county, averages 10 feet in depth, and commands a good water traffic. Railway lately opened to Bletchley, by which the North Western Company undertakes to convey passengers to and from London, without extra fare for the 17 miles, has considerably increased the prosperity and convenience

of the town.

J. D. PARRY.

WE are indebted to our excellent contemporary The Builder for the accompanying view of this very remarkable church, as it appears after the recent repairs effected under the direction of Messrs. Wyatt and Brandon. The particulars of these repairs have already been minutely described in the statement of the person who performed them, inserted in our Magazine for February, p. 194.

Among the notices which occur in old historians of our earliest churches in the Anglo-Saxon times there are many which speak of churches built of wood: and this little church of Greensted, being the only wooden church now existing in the country, has been GENT. MAG. VOL. XXXI.

taken as the type of such Anglo-Saxon churches. This, however, has evidently been one of those numerous cases in which antiquaries have been too ready to generalise from isolated examples; and it happens fortunately in correction of the misapprehension that there is abundant historical evidence to show that this very small and very rude structure was not originally erected as a church, but that it was a more hasty and imperfect erection, which obtained its title to respect and preservation from an incidental occurrence, which the religious feeling of the times regarded as highly memorable and important.

It is quite certain that these wooden 4 H

walls were existing in the year of our Lord 1012. They were either then put together on the occasion which will be presently described, or more probably they were already erected for some humble agricultural purpose; for we cannot suppose that in the eleventh century either the churches or the houses of the Anglo-Saxons were built of cleft logs of timber, and without windows.

The circumstances which gave rise to the veneration with which this humble shrine was regarded, were as follow: "In the year 1010, and the 30th of King Ethelred, [the body of] Saint Edmund, by reason of the invasion of Turchil earl of the Danes, was removed by Ailwin the monk to London; but in the third year after it was carried back to Beodricesworth (now Bury St. Edmund's): a certain sick person at Stapleford gave houseroom to the body of the Saint on the return from London, and, for the cure he received (in consequence of his pious hospitality), he gave to Saint Edmund his manor of Stapleford." This was the manor afterwards called Stapleford Abbat's, as may be seen in Morant's History of the county, vol. i. p. 175.

Again, another MS. of the abbey of St. Edmund states, that the body was lodged at Aungre, where a wooden chapel still remains in his memory.‡

Now, as Mr. Letheuillier states, the

*This historical evidence is duly stated in the description (written by Mr. Smart Letheuillier) which is attached to a view of Greensted church taken in 1748, and published by the Society of Antiquaries in the second volume of the Vetusta Monumenta; and it is repeated in later works, as the Beauties of England and Wales, &c. Yet a century after, in the year 1848, we find a Mr. Burkitt coming forward and parading the result as a grand discovery before the "British Archæological Association."

+ “Languidus quidam apud Stapleford hospitio recepit corpus Sancti Edmundi in redeundo de Londoniis, et pro sanitate recepta dedit Sancto Edmundo manerium suum de Stapleford." Leland's Collectanea, i. 247, and Dugdale's Monasticon, edit. 1655, vol. i. p. 293. Also Vita et Passio Sti. Edmundi, a MS. in the Lambeth Library, quoted by Mr. Smart Letheuillier.

"Idem apud Aungre hospitabatur, ubi in ejus memoria lignea capella per

ancient road from London into Suffolk lay through Old Ford (over the river Lea), Abridge, Stapleford (over the Rodon), Greensted, Dunmow, and Clare; and he cites Newcourt to show that Greensted has been constantly called Greensted juxta Ongar, to distinguish it from another place of the same name near Colchester, and that it is probable that the parish of Chipping Ongar was first formed out of Greensted in the reign of Henry II. when the church at the former place was built by Richard de Lucy.

Indeed, in the reign of Edward VI. the near contiguity of the two churches was made an excuse for "dissolving” the church of Chipping Ongar, the distance being stated as "but a quarter of a mile," and Greensted was then constituted the parish church for both places; but this consolidation was again reversed in the following reign.

There can therefore be no question of the identity of the "wooden chapel" mentioned by the monkish historian as existing at Aungre, with the body or nave of Greensted church. Ongar, as a road-side place, became a town of importance, and from its market acquired the name of Chipping or Chepen Ongar (the next parish being called High Ongar); therefore the monks of Bury who might visit the wooden chapel on their road to the metropolis might well say the wooden chapel was at Ongar, as it was in fact just without

the town.

As for Stapleford, it is five or six doubtful whether the reception said miles nearer London, and it may be to have been given to the Saint's body by the lord of that manor was at the same halt on its homeward journey as when it rested in the wooden chapel. It is possible that the Saxon, whose name is not preserved, was lord both of Stapleford and of Aungre, and that it was a distant portion of his estate which he afterwards gave to the church of Bedricesworth, and which thus became the manor of Stapleford Abbatis. Or the Saint's body may actually have rested within the Saxon's manor-house at Stapleford, and the wooden chapel at Greensted may be a

manet usque hodie." Registrum Cœnobii Sancti Edmundi.

distinct though neighbouring memorial of the same memorable journey.

*

Having thus placed, as we conceive, the historical records of this wooden church in their true light, we have only to add a very few words on its construction, in addition to what was stated in our February Magazine. For this purpose we are glad to have the judicious assistance of the Editor of "The Builder." He states that the inclosing walls of this building are apparently of oak, and not of chesnut, as has been supposed by some. They are about 6 feet high, including the cill and plate, and are formed of rough half trees, averaging about 12 inches by 6 inches (the greatest length on the base line being 18 inches by 9 inches, and the least 8 inches by 6 inches). Mr. Suckling does not believe them to have been "half trees," but that "they had a portion of the centre, or heart, cut out, probably to furnish beams for the construction of the roof and cills; the outsides or slabs thus left being placed on the cills." The Editor of "The Builder" sees no evidence of this, for the timbers were evidently left rough, and the dimensions prove them to have been, as nearly as may be, "half trees." These uprights were laid on an oak cill, 8 inches by 8 inches, and tenoned into a groove 1-inch deep, and secured with oak pins. The cill on the south side was laid on the actual earth; that on the north side had, in two places, some rough flints, without any mortar, driven under. The roof plates averaged 7 inches by 7 inches, and had a groove corresponding with the cill, into which the uprights were tenoned and pinned. The plates were also of oak, but they and the cills were very roughly hewn, in some parts being 10 inches by 10 inches, and in others 6 inches by 6

inches or 7 inches.

There were twenty-five planks or uprights on the north side, and twentyone on the south side. The uprights

in the north side were the least decayed. Those on the south side required an average of 5 inches of rotten wood to be removed, those on the north about 1 inch only; and the heights of the uprights, as now refixed, measuring between plate and cill, are, on the north side, 4 feet 8 inches, on

* Collections for the History of Essex.

the south side, 4 feet 4 inches, the cills being bedded on a few courses of brickwork in cement to keep them clear of damp. The uprights were tongued together at the junction with oak strips, and a most effectual method it proved of keeping out the wet; for, although the interior was plastered, there was no evidence, in any part, of wet having driven in at the featheredge junction of the uprights, -a strange contrast to many of our modern churches, where, with all the adjuncts of stone and mortar, it is found no easy matter to keep out the driving weather from the south-west.

The eastern wall of the building was removed in order to its prolongation by the addition of a chancel; this chancel is described by Mr. Suckling as being of red brick, in the style of the latter days of Henry VII.: it has been considerably lengthened in the recent repair. The western wall of the old wooden frame is represented in the Vetusta Monumenta as being formed of upright logs running up in single pieces into a gable, and consequently much higher than the side walls; and as having a hole rudely cut through for a doorway to communicate with the wooden bell-tower: this wall we presume remains unaltered, though not particularly described by recent visitors. The ground-plan to which Mr. Suckling refers seems to have been accidentally omitted when his Essex Collections were published in Weale's Quarterly Papers on Architecture.

MR. URBAN,

" near Cork.

I HAVE just read, with great pleasure, Mr. Britton's book on the author

ship of Junius,* and rejoice that the

task of elucidation has fallen to the hands of one so eminently qualified by his previous literary pursuits, recondite experience, and habits of research. He has brought before the world a mass of evidence mostly circumstantial-in this case it could be no other-that carries conviction with it; and if we cannot say "causa finita est," we can only imagine the possibility of any future discovery wholly

*Reviewed in our Magazine for August last.-Edit.

the result of chance, and beyond calculation, or even probability.

Mr. Britton observes that little is known of Mr. William Greatrakes, who is supposed, and I believe justly, to have been the amanuensis employed by the author of Junius, and the person who actually communicated with Woodfall: I regret it is not in my power to add much to that little but, having been in the habit, from my earliest years, of hearing much of his family, and somewhat of himself, I am induced to offer you the following particulars relating to him.

The family of Mr. Greatrakes, originally English, and of some antiquity, seems to have settled in Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth, and to have acquired a good estate in the counties of Cork and Waterford, in which latter, and a few miles below Lismore, on the north bank of the Blackwater, the most beautiful of our rivers, yet stands the old manor house of Affane. On this spot was fought, in the feudal times, a battle between the Earls of Ormond and Desmond, chiefs of the two great rival families of Butlers and FitzGeralds, in which the latter were defeated, and their leader grievously wounded. Whilst he was borne off the field on a litter, by some soldiers of the victorious party, one of them tauntingly asked, "Where now is the great Earl of Desmond ?" "Still on the necks of the Butlers," was the reply of the warrior, whose high spirit even defeat and captivity could not quell.

In the manor house of Affane resided, circa 1600, William Greatrakes, who was father of another William, married to a daughter of Sir Edward Harris, Knt. one of the judges of the King's Bench, and of an old Devon family. Of this marriage were two sons. The elder was the celebrated Valentine Greatrakes, about whom so much has been written and said. I shall here only remark that his posterity in the male line soon became extinct, and that he is now represented through the female, by Mr. Power, of Affane, a scion of the ancient and noble family of "Le Poer," whose chief is the Marquess of Waterford. The younger son was William, also styled "of Affane," a captain in the army, married to Jane, daughter of Mr. Taylor of Ballynecourty, in the

same county, and was grandfather of Allen Greatrakes, married to Frances, daughter of a Mr. Supple-of the family of "Supple's Court," now represented by Sir A. De C. Brooke, Bart. Of this marriage, William Greatrakes, the subject of the present notice, was the eldest son, born about 1728, in his father's house at Mountlahan, in the county of Cork. In due time he was placed at Midleton School, then the most eminent in the south of Ireland, from which he entered Trinity College, Dublin; where he could not have remained long, as we find he was admitted as a student of the Middle Temple in March, 1750, where he stayed until 1761, in which year he returned to Ireland, and was called to the bar. After practising a few years, he relinquished that profession, and adopted that of the army. It was soon after that, being quartered in Ireland, "He signalised himself again as a barrister, by undertaking the defence of a friendless soldier upon trial for a capital offence. This circumstance led to an acquaintance with the judge; that to an introduction to the then Lord Lieutenant, and so on finally to an intimacy with Lord Shelburne, in whose house he was an inmate during the letters of Junius. He became a half-pay officer, and retired about 1779 to a small property of his own in the neighbourhood of Youghal. Here he was engaged in continual writing and much correspondence with Lord Shelburne." With this eminent statesman he continued on terms of intimacy until the time of his death in 1781, when, being on his way from Ireland to London, he was taken suddenly ill in the town of Hungerford, and there dying, was buried in the church-yard of that place, where a monument was erected to his memory, bearing the inscription quoted by Mr. Britton, and terminating with the wellknown motto of Junius, "Stat nominis umbra." This, joined to other circumstances of his later years, seem to point him out as one who was in some way connected with the Letters of Junius. Indeed, the universal belief amongst the family and friends of Mr. Greatrakes, that he was the author of Junius, though in itself erroneous, yet affords a strong argument in favour of Mr. Britton's theory, and, until the