dead. That laudable and decent awe which formerly fanctified and protected the fepulchre, is extinct. We are too wife, too philofophic, to feel any of that reverence for the duft of our forefathers, with which even the iron breaft of the ferocious favage is attempered. Denizens of a refined ftate, inhabitants of an enlightened age, we are, in this particular, inferior to the barbarian who eats the flesh of his enemy. The magnificent monuments defigned to perpe tuate the remembrance of our ancestors' virtues, and to fecure their remains inviolate, are now deemed incumbrances and deformities. The facrilegious chifels are applied; the venerable ftructures are demolished, and the veftiges of mortality expofed to the curiofity and pillage of the idle. If a monument is re-erected, it is only for the purpose of concealing the denudation of a wall, and perhaps diftant from the original fite. If the bones are re-committed to the earth, it is done by the canine fpecies, amid the rubbish in the field. Thefe acts proceed from enlarged notions, and furnish inftances of modern refinement! It is not fophiftry, cafuiftry, fashion, tafte, intereft, or oftentation, no, not even charity, that either can or will extenuate this increafing and profane enormity. Mr. URBAN, H ARNGRIMO. Hurf, Nov. 27. [AVING read two letters in the Gentleman's Magazine for August laft, respecting Mr. Locke's tomb and monument, I have taken the earliest opportunity to look at them, and have the fatisfaction to inform you, that they were both repaired eight years ago, and are now quite perfect. It is not my intention to make any comment upon the letters of your correfpondents, or the hints which they have given; but I must beg you to allow this a place in your next, as I wish your readers to know, that to the memory of fo great a man as Mr. Locke all proper veneration has been paid. RICHARD PALMER. ΤΗ Nov. 28. that it teaches the right of a people to encounter oppreffion by a firm, a manly, and a rational refiftance. In this happy country, an attachment to the Conftitu tion, which has been tranfmitted to us by the wife, the glorious, and the fuccefsful exertions of our ancestors, fhould be impreffed on the minds and the hearts of the rifing generation, as the most effectual means of preferving to future generations thofe privileges which conftitute the freedom and the happiness of Britons. I am forry, however, to obferve, from the late Address of the Sudents of the Diffenting College in Hackney to Dr. Priestley, that this is not the plan of education at the above feminary. From the ftyle of that Address, inftead of peaceable and orderly citi zens, inflead of loyal fubjects, we are led to fear that the young men who have thus food forward are difpofed to become the violators of law, the enemies of a Conflitution which they should be ready to defend at the risk of their lives: and the answer of the Rev. Doctor is admirably calculated to confirm and ftrengthen fuch difpofitions. I was originally, Mr. Urban, a wellwifher to this inftitution; but, after this fpecimen of its effects, it cannot be expected to receive the countenance and fupport of thofe who with pofterity to` enjoy the fame advantages as the prefent age is (I hope) in fecure poffeffion of. No man, whether of the Church of England, or a moderate Diffenter, would furely wish to encourage a fytiem of education which bids fair, if fuffici ently extended, to facrifice all the bene. fits produced by the Revolution in 1683 at the fhrine of new Revolutions. J. M. *See this Addrefs in p. 1023. Mr. URBAN, Greenwich, Nov. 3. compliance with the delire of A N Confiant Reader, p. 850, I fit down to inform him, that a 74 gun fhip requires 3,000 loads of timber, each load containing 50 cubical feet. 1,500 wellgrown trees, of two loads each, muft have near 14 acres to stand upon at 20 feet afunder, or only nine acres at a rod or pole of 16 feet afunder." I prefume that, in Mr. Young's Annals of Agriculture, vol. V. p. 411, forty acres was an error of the prefs for fourteen acres. Mr. URBAN, HE generality of your readers will agree with me in thinking, that a fyftem of education is extremely defective that does not inculcate a reverence to the laws of that fociety whereof we 3,000 loads of rough oak, at 2s. per are members, and a decent respect to foot, or 51. per load, will coft 1,500l. the ruling powers; at the fame time A NEW CORRESPONDENT, R. L. The defcription of CLOMINES, intended for p. 1001, fhall appear next month. Mr. 1791.] PLAT Godstow Nunnery, and the Tomb of Rofamund. Mr. URBAN, OЯober 31. OLATE I. copied from an impreffion in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Price, keeper of the Bodleian library at Oxford, reprefents a view of the ru ins of Godftow nunnery; but when firft engraved it is difficult to say. A and B are the arches of the principal entrance, ftill remaining, though the room over them, and the round tower at the fide, have long fince been demolished. C is a tower, the infide or Weft view of which was taken by Meff. Bucks, 1729, and by Mr. Grofe, N.E. 1761; one was given by T. Hearne, Spicil. ad Neubrig. 1718, another by Green. D and E may have been doors commu. nicating with the church, whofe fite is marked F, and its altar G. HHH are the apartments of the nunnery with the cloifter; perhaps Godftow house, burnt 1645, after being quitted by the royalifts (Gent. Mag. LVI. 486). K, the outer wall, in part remaining, without the tower; the door N is topped up. M is the chapel wherein Rofamund was buried, having a wooden roof. The E window is truly reprefented. It is equally divided by a wooden fcreen, ftill in part remaining; and arch-work correfponding with it is painted on the walls of the chancel, on the North wall of which is painted, in black letter, the infcription given by Hearne in Spicile gio ad Neubrigienfem, p. 731; over where once flood an altar-tomb, inferibed, as is pretended, with the fame lines: Hic jacet in tumba Rofa mundi non Rofa munda, Non redolet fed olet quæ redolere folet. [The role of the world] but not the cleane Bower [Is now here graven) to whom beauty was lent [In this grave full] darke now is her botore [That by her life was sweete and re Dolent. But now that thee is from this life blent. Though her were sweete now foully doth the Blinke 985 ried, fays Hoveden, extra ecclefiam cum of St. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, and buceteris; or, as Higden fays, in capitulo monialium, in the nuns' chapterhouse, Allen, of Gloucefter-hall, defcribes the which was probably this chapel. Mr. pieces, as having "on it interchangetomb, when taken up and broken in able weavings, drawn out and decked with rofes, red and green, and the picture of the cup, out of which she drank carved in the ftone." I confefs myself the poifon given her by the Queen, ftrongly inclined to believe this intended for a cross fleuri, fuch as was frequent on the coffin-lids of ecclefiaftics, thereon. and the cup for a chalice, as often found Leland defcribes munde's tumbe at Godftowe nunnery, "Rofataken up a late," as "a ftone with this infcription, Tumba Rosamunda" (Fragment of his Itinerary, in Mon. Angl. I. 528); and Hearne supposes "a fair large ftone, in form of a coffin, agree infcription, Tumba Rofamunda, was put able to those times, on which was this only the fite or bafe of an altar-tomb in on her." At prefent, however, remains the North wall of the chapel, which the infcription over it marks out for hers. This Hearne (Spicil. p. 778), as having "ftill This is the chapel defcribed by remains of old painting in the walls of the chancel." He adds, "there is an old ftone lying in the chancel of the chapel have been the altar-piece. The figure we are fpeaking of, which is faid to of it confirms the tradition." cow-houfe, no traces of this altar ftone chapel having been converted into a are difcernible. Mr. Grofe, who drew the ruins, 1761, fays, "On the infide of the South wall was newly wrote the following epitaph, being a copy of that and which contains a quibble on her faid to have been placed on her tomb, fore]. The wails of this building apname. Hic jacet in tumba*, &c. [as bepear to have been formerly painted." Mr. Hearne, lb. p. 779, mentions feveral other ftones taken up within the precincts of the nunnery, and a piece of A mirrour good for sil men that on her an old flat one, without letters, in a thinke.] garden, on the ground of which tood the kitchen and other outhoufes, as it The words in hooks are not now le feems, on the Weft fide of the remains gible. of the tower. On the North fide of the chapel was the entrance by a porch. The body of Rofamund was removed from the middle of the choir of the church here by order GENT. MAG. November, 1791. He faw an old stone epitaph in the choir of the church before the 986 Godftow Nunnery, and the Tomb of Rofamund. coffin, about two yards and an half [Nov. by, probably the bridge over the Ifrs If by any thing here faid your corre- Mr. URBAN, Nov. 1. it; and it is commonly faid that Rofa-EN of attentive observation and mund's coffin was dug up in the fame. In digging a navigation canal, Weft of the river, within thefe few years, feveral fione coffins have been found without the circuit of the prefent walls to the Eaft, probably about the fite of the old church: fome had bones, and all were deftroyed except one in the Museum of Mr. Fletcher, at Oxford, on the lid of which is, if I mistake not, a crofs and a falchion; but of this I hope fome of your correspondents there will fend you a drawing. Mr. Hearne calls the chapel I have been defcribing" a small room, on the floor of which lay two ftone coffins, and on the wall juft above them were written the verfes, in Latin and English, which are commonly handed about in memory of Rofamund. It is reported that one of thefe coffins was that in which Rofamund herself was laid, and the other that which was prepared for her keeper." But this he justly looked on as no more than vulgar fiction, and afcribed the two coffins to two nuns or two other perfons. Mr. Grofe was fhewn in this chapel "a large ftone coffin, pretended to be that from which Rofamund's bones were taken: it feemed to be contrived for two bodies, having been divided in the middle by a ridge of stone running from head to foot." It was gone and forgotten 1791. I fend you his drawing which he gave me of this fingular instance of a double coffin, and which I hope you will engrave of the original fize. [See Plate II.] I fhall conclude this paper with a word on the crofs, faid by Leland to have been erected on the bridge hard Appendix to Leland's Itin. II. 133. ferious minds remark and lament, that the great mafs of the Commons of England have loft their SIMPLICITY of character, which was all that remained to keep alive and defend principles of religion and morality in their minds. It is no difficult matter to affign the reafon of this lofs; and it may not be in the power of all the affociations in fupport of religion and virtue to make it up. The rapid extenfion of knowledge, falfely fo called, is the great fource of this corruption. Far be it from me to wish to enflave the minds of my countrymen in the fetters of ignorance and fuperftition; but there is a fort of knowledge worse than ignorance; and when fyftems and fentiments are propagated that debauch and corrupt the mind, it were better to keep the mind within the humble circle of its own original ideas, however imperfect or mistaken. Sunday fchools, catachetical lectures, and the most impreffive addresses from the pulpit, may keep parents and children from idleness a fhort time, or awaken reflexion for the moment; but fuch temporary restraint and fudden conviction are not likely to maintain a permanent effect. The firft corruption of ruftic fimplicity was the increased communication with the capital, and the influx of modern manners.When my Lord, and the Efquire, and the Rector, left off keeping Christmas at the old manfion, the country felt the want of antient hofpitality and affability; the fick poor man loft the foftering hand of his richer neighbour or mafter, and the friendly advice of the worthy juftice, or pious pafBut when they brought down a tor. |