Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Review

A correspondent, C. E. has communicated a rough sketch of the upper part of a monumental effigy, which he describes as remaining in the church of Northop, in the county of Flint. He says it is considered to be a memorial of Edwin ap Gronow, Lord of Tegeugh, a district in North Wales, who died in the eleventh century. The figure represented in the sketch is, however, evidently of the thirteenth century: slight and imperfect as the drawing is, it expresses sufficient to enable us to make the above conclusion. The raised lines near the shoulder which C. E. would persuade us indicate a strigil of the Roman form, appear to represent the guige, or shield-strap for slinging the shield round the neck,

"Et l'escu par le guige pend."* The shield in the monument described is probably thrown behind the shoulder. The protuberance under the head of the figure is a portion of the helmet or crest, much deformed either by the draftsman or by casual mutilation, and is by no means a staff of office, in that absurd and unusual position. That the tomb in Northop Church represents a Welsh chieftain and officer of the royal household, who, according to the laws of Howel Dha, supported the feet of his sovereign, and tickled them with a strigil, and who, instead of a sceptre, governed the vassals of his own demesne with a good oak cudgel or shillelah, is really too large a dose for our antiquarian credulity. If our correspondent believes these suggestions himself, all the excuse we can form for such extravagant imaginings is, that it has been the error in several instances of the ex

plorators of Welsh antiquities to place their sepulchral monuments too high in the chronological roll. Thus, even the figures in St. David's Cathedral, supposed by the late eminent antiquary, Sir R. C. Hoare, to represent Giraldus Cambrensis, and his contemporary Rhys, Prince of South Wales (see the plates illustrating Sir R. C. Hoare's translation of the Itinerary of Archbishop Baldwin through Wales, by Giraldus Cambrensis), are of the fourteenth, instead of the close of the twelfth and opening of the thirteenth century. C. E. may rest assured that no effigies of knights in chain-mail will be found associated with instruments of the classic period throughout the principality of Wales.

A CLEMENTINE remarks, on the paper

*Romance de Perceval, Glossaire de la langue Romane.

by Mr. Cooper, on the ancient modes of election of public officers within the university and town of Cambridge (p. 385), that the writer has fallen into an error as to the mode of electing churchwardens in the parish of St. Clement's, one of the two parishes in which alone, as Mr. Cooper truly says, a peculiar system still prevails. He states the election to be in the vicar and five questmen. This is incorrect. The custom is as follows :-The parishioners, being assembled in vestry, all retire into the body of the church but the churchwardens of the previous year, who nominate and call in from the body of the parishioners on the outside two individuals; those on the outside, in like manner, choose and send in two others. The four thus selected nominate and call in two more, and these six delegates choose both churchwardens. This usage has existed from the earliest times, undisturbed, till last Easter Monday, when an attempt was made to introduce the more general mode of election; but this is, I learn, to be made the subject of legal consideration.

Chelsea Bun-House. We are informed that David Loudon (see p. 467) was the recent keeper of this house, since the family of Hand, and not before them. From a supplementary article in the Mirror, we glean the following statistics of Bunmaking: "During the prosperous times of the late Mrs. Margaret Hand, upwards

of 2501. have been taken on a Good Friday for buns, the making of which commenced more than three weeks before the day of sale, in order to prepare the necessary quantity; they were kept moist, and re-baked before being sold. During the palmy days of Ranelagh, the Bun-House enjoyed a great share of prosperity, which fell off upon the close of that establishment, and it continued to decline under the management of the late occupier; notwithstanding, it appears that he sold, on last Good Friday, April 18, 1839, upwards of 24,000 buns, which were compounded of eight sacks of fine flour, butter, sugar, [spice?] and new milk, the sale of which produced upwards of 1007."

Any gentleman in possession of unpublished matter relating to Sir Walter Raleigh, will confer an obligation on a gentleman engaged in writing a biography of that eminent man, by forwarding them to "E. R. MORAN, ESQ. 127, STRAND." Any documents which their owners may desire to have back again, shall be taken care of, and speedily returned.

Erratum.-P. 444, line 11 from foot, for George Ward, esq. read Wood.

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