ing in the Exchequer, several items of the charges *. The cloister alone is, however, named as the work of Chambre; and is it likely that a Chapel so elegant and beautiful should have been omitted, had it been constructed under the Dean's direction? But this being evidence rather of a negative kind, it is next to be observed that there is proof strongly implied, if not expressed, that the Chapel was built by the Earl of Rivers, who was beheaded in 1483. This does not rest merely upon the ipse dixit of Stow, but may be collected from the Earl's will. The will at least shows, that there was then subsisting a Chapel, called La Piew, unless my memory deceives me; and it is not by any means probable that that Chapel should have been taken down and re-edified by Chambre.

"Let us next turn to what may be deemed the internal proofs, the supposed similarity in the style of architecture. The form of what you term the Tudor arch has weight with you; and certainly the screen and the door, so accurately drawn by your pencil, exhibit that flat kind of arch; but, judging from Carter's view of the Chapel, every arch within the Chapel is much more pointed; and I am rather inclined to believe on this score, that the screen might be raised under the direction of Chambre, and not any other part of the Chapel.

"But the difference in the decorations of Chambre's cloister and of the contiguous Chapel, ought to be particularly noticed. On the key stones of the former there are pomegranates and roses slipt, wreaths of pomegranates, roses, and thistles, a shield with royal arms, capital letters, and portraits. Whereas, as you observe, all the shields of the principal key-stones of the Chapel are like the one at Windsor (Archæologia, vol. XII. p. 415).

Concerning the title La Piew, which has been so long our crux, I have now a few more words to offer. To my information of the conjecture of Secretary Wrighte, that it meant our Lady of Fear, your reply, if I mistake not, was, that you should have acceded to it, had you not previously adopted that of Puis, a well. I perceived he was sanguine, very sanguine, and as I really think, on competent grounds, that he had brought forward a successful etymology. He, it is true, had relied only on the English edition of Le Bruyn's Voyage to the Levant; but if La Peur be the word in the original, as it probably is, that indisputably signifies fear; and as in French the final r is seldom pronounced, it is easy to account for the omission of it in a MS. where the Chapel of La Pieu is mentioned. He recommends it to you to consult the travels of Le Bruyn and Thevenot; and indeed all books of travels through the Holy Land in which

* At the second sale of Mr. Ord's MSS. Jan. 29, 1830, appeared the Compotus Nicholai de Tickhull, containing minute accounts of the works and repairs at the Palace of Westminster and the Tower of London, in the 5th Edward II. It was sold for £.73. 10s.; and is now in the large collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bart. F. S. A.

notice is taken of the various sacred edifices that have an allusion to the acts, sufferings, and deliverances of our Blessed Lord and the Virgin Mary. That the Chapel of our Lady la Peur, or of Fear, near the Mountain of Precipitation, in the way from Nazareth to Akari, was probably the origin of all the chapels dedicated to Mary under that appellation. It was the word all that struck me, as only one Chapel so denominated has been hitherto noticed in England, nor could Mr. Wrighte refer me to any Chapel so called in Italy or in France. Should you in your reading meet with any edifice so called, I am persuaded you will not fail to notice and to note it.

"With respect to your innuendo, that La Pieu might mean La Puis, a well, I suspended my opinion till you had surveyed the Chapel and its appendages; but since you have not discovered any well within the Chapel, and are fully satisfied that the supposed lavatory apartment could not originally have had a direct communication with the Chapel; and as there is not any legendary vestige of a Holy-well within the precincts of St. Stephen's College, like the Holy-well in Shoreditch, or the Holywell of Clerkenwell, or the still more wonder-working well that had the imaginary St. Winifred for its Patroness, I am rather apt to suspect that your surmise, however ingenious and plausible, may, if weighed in the true matter-of-fact antiquarian balance, be found wanting.

"There is in Wood's Athen. Oxon. vol. I. p. 682, a memoir of Dean Chambers, and in Newcourt's Repert. vol. I. p. 747, it is, in part at least, re-printed with a correction.

"I am, yours truly,

93. Mr. CLARKE to Mr. DENNE.

S. DENNE."

"DEAR SIR, Oct. 2, 1798. "The objection I offered to Mr. Wrighte's etymological idea was, that the word Peur, so written, was not in the French contemporary with the appellation of our Chapel, it being derived from the Latin Pavor. By Ivenville it is written Poour; Lacombe, from two authors, Paour; Kelham, Poeur, Poieu, and Pavur, and Paiou. I will add, that I suspect when the French Le Bruyer is consulted, it will be found, should Crainte not be preferred, not N. Dame de la Peur, but N. D. de Peur, as N. D. de Pitie de recouverance, de consolation, de grace, &c. for the reason I will refer to the better writers on the French language. For the final r, in this particular word, I am led to suppose it pronounced. Were a French gentleman long since applied to for the sound he gave it, I might expect his Peor or Peaor, in our own letters. Of seventy-one Churches of our Lady in Rome, in which there is a S'ta Maria del Pozzo, not one is dedicated to her as under the impression of fear; nor in all the variety of patterns seen during about two years past has such a

title occurred to me any more than to yourself or the Vicar of St. Nicholas. In Moreri, article Nazareth, the Church of the Precipitation is passed by, as it is in Sandys's Travels; nor did St. Lewis visit it, although he did those of the Virgin, with great solemnity and devotion. I am, therefore, disposed to entertain some doubt on the repute of the thing at home; and whether it was ever repeated in Westminster, or at all in Europe.

"To my own notion of a well in old French, so like our Westminster term, notwithstanding its probability, from their being as common nearly in the cloister as in the court of a private dwelling, I am willing enough to part with it, and assign my lavatory to some other purpose; and seek again, within the limits of the probability marked out by the terms, Notre Dame de le Pew, our Lady in the Piew, Pue, &c."

94. Mr. DENNE to Mr. GOUGH.

"DEAR SIR, Wilmington, Sept. 24, 1798. "Mr. Nichols has doubtless apprised you of his having delivered into my hands your three well filled sheets, for which be pleased to accept my hearty thanks and a brief reply. By Mr. Nichols it may be presumed, that you are likewise informed of my having received a large packet from my indefatigable correspondent at Gravesend, and that I promised I would give you some account of its contents, if possible, before my next excursion to Maidstone. The inclosed two sheets will show you what has been drawn and written by Mr. Clarke concerning the Chapel of La Pieu or Pieur, and my comments upon the same; but when the drawings and explanations will reach Enfield I am not warranted to make report.

"I remain, dear Sir, yours truly, S. DENNE."

95. "DEAR SIR,

Wilmington, Nov. 2, 1798. "In pursuance of my promise, you now receive more Bene't Anas, some from a letter written by Sharpe, and some from a very long epistle from Denne to Crayford. Their friendship began at Canterbury-school; and their correspondence, whilst the former was an academic, and the latter still a disciple of Master Monins, for though they were of the same year at Bene't, my brother, by residing as a Non Ens, passed one year more in College as Under-graduate. Crayford was a young man of exemplary morals, and a hard Student; of sound judgment, but had not brilliant parts. He died of the small-pox, Dec. 20, 1748, in my nonentity term; and I was by that means deprived of his advice at a very critical period. The poor man who dated

* See some of these hereafter.

Ca

his epistle from Chichester* had the pen of a ready writer, and was a lively correspondent; but to repeat a few Latin words quoted by himself, Quantum mutatus ab illo,' for since he was seized with the ague of the mind, it is with reluctance that he takes a pen in hand even to subscribe his name, and rarely will he cast his eye over a page in a book. On his tranquil days he is, however, very conversible, intelligent, cheerful, and fortunately his memory is not much impaired. To be sure, like most people who are not on the bright side of seventy, old tales please him most; and this is the more to be expected in him as he has been for twenty-one years sequestered from the world. From his report of the initiatory Sermon delivered by the Bursar at Whitehall Chapel, you will perceive that he had a knack for that kind of exercise, which was more commonly practised in days of yore than in modern times; and I have not a doubt but that I should discover, were I to pump him, which I probably may in some future interview, that he has a perfect recollection of the substance of the Sermon alluded to; for not long since, having met with the syllabus of an excellent discourse delivered by Dean Lynch at Rochester Cathedral in 1744, when he was visiting my father, I found, upon striking the key, that my brother could repeat what he had communicated to his friend above half a century ago. The purchase of two lottery tickets towards defraying the charge of erecting a new college in the air was a quaint conceit in the quasi delineator of the plan: and was, strictly speaking, a new anecdote to me, though you who are a closer investigator may have picked it up. Hereafter I may take an opportunity of inquiring of my brother what was the event; though, from nothing having generally transpired, I see no reason that 'blank, blank,' were not the words sounded in Guildhall. Had they been 'ten thousand pounds principal money,' there certainly would not have been occasion to suspend the work, because a succession of wars had lowered the stock appropriated for this purpose; and such was the reason Master Colinan gave me for his being the Head of nothing but the old House. Crayford, of this old House, being mentioned in the first page of this sheet and purporting to put into the packet an excellent letter, as well in composition as in penmanship, from the disconsolate parent on the irreparable loss she sustained by his premature decease, you may possibly have a wish to know something more of the family. The father was Recorder of Canterbury and Faversham, a lawyer deservedly eminent for his talents, natural and acquired, but carried off in the prime of life by a violent fever. He left a widow and three sons, with rather a scanty provision. Robert, above-mentioned; William, who became a seaman in the royal navy, and died of the small-pox a midshipman on board the Burford Man, very much esteemed by the Captain and the other officers; and Edward, still living at Canterbury, of which city * Mr. Denne's brother; see the "Literary Anecdotes," vol. III. p. 527.

he was for a few years an Alderman, but in a pet threw aside his scarlet gown. He was a practitioner at Sittingbourne in medicine, chirurgery, and midwifery, but having acquired a competency declined business. The Crayfords were long a family of repute in East Kent, and had once more landed property than appertained to their descendants. Mrs. Crayford's maiden name was Cumberland; her father was a most respectable divine, and Rector of St. Andrew's in Canterbury, of which you know our friend Duncombe was incumbent by favour of Archbishop Herring. The Rev. Robert Cumberland was a Minor Canon of Canterbury, and Rector of Hastingleigh.

"Thanks to you for your list of the Treasurers of the Exchequer, of which, perhaps, some use may be made in the purposed Memoir of the Chapel of La Piew. Since I wrote last, I have not had any letter from Mr. Clarke, and am therefore not apprised whether he has by himself repeated his visit to the the cloister constructed by Chambre, or rather Chambers, for so he wrote his name (vide Fuller's Church History, cent. xvi. book VII. p. 422.) Browne Willis has not cited his voucher for his assertion that this Dean of St. Stephen's was buried in that chapel.

"At my request Mr. Ellis has transmitted to me from Mr. Cherry, Henshall's two publications*, and I thought myself warranted in applying for the loan of them, as on a short interview I had with Mr. Cherry in one of his trips through Rochester, he mentioned these tracts, and with expressions of applause. When in town in May, I saw the Specimens and Parts' in Rivington's shop; and as the title-page held forth that it contained a History of the County of Kent, I was nearly tempted to become a purchaser without examination. I do not, however, regret my having prudently determined to wait till I had some advice whether the book were worth ten shillings; and I must own, from your silence concerning it, I began to have my doubts increased. The only notes I have taken from the book have a reference to the number of churches recorded in Domesday, in which I presume he may be correct; but I cannot accede to the opinion of the fanciful compiler, that ecclesiastics were meant by Pervi, a word that so frequently follows Ecclesia. As to the author's reciprocal illustration of the Saxon and English languages, I am much mistaken if he has not a host of critics to contend with; and I utterly disapprove of blending political subjects of the present day and personal remarks with antiquarian and literary topics. The Diversions of Purley, and the merits or demerits of Επεα πτερόεντα, are surely quite foreign to the trial of Horne Tooke at the Old Bailey; and why need

"Specimens and Parts of the History of South Britain ;" and "The Saxon and English Languages reciprocally illustrative of each other." The latter is ably and severely criticised by Mr. Gough in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LXVIII. p. 861.