cut beneath, which was executed from a reduced drawing made from an impression taken from the brass itself; so that all the forms of the letters, and variety of the contractions, are represented with perfect accuracy.* The outer circle, when divested of its contractions, and spelt agreeably to the present system, will run thus: Lo all that ere I spent, that sometime had I; The The Drawing was made by Mr. Thomas Fisher, whose talents for sorrect delineation, have been eminently displayed by his print of the Roman Pavement, lately discovered in Leadenhall-Street; and by his perfect fac-similes of the abstruse inscriptions from ancient Babylon, made by order of the Directors of the East India Company, and engraved at their expense: the Cut was executed by the ingenious Mr. R. T. Austin. The inner circle expresses the same sentiments in Latin, but more concisely; when read at length it is as follows: Quod Expendi habui, Quod Donavi habeo, Quod Servavi perdidi. The word Ecce, in the centre, should be rendered, Thus it is! Another brass, in the chancel, represented a Merchant and his wife: the latter was dressed in a close-bodied mantle, with a cloak descending to the feet, and rising in a square hood above her head: beneath their feet was this inscription: Hic jacent Jobes Atkyn Glover qui obijt . XM. die Decembr. Anno. dui Millmo CCCC. XLIX. Et dna - On a slab in the nave, were brasses of a male and female; the former in the habit of a Merchant; with the following epitaph in four lines: lilim Wictor. and his Wyf Grace. As thu them bought with thi blode ful dere The JX day of Marche, past this present lyfe Df xpist whos grace be their preseruatyfe. Many of the bodies of those that were slain in the two battles of St. Alban's, were, buried in this Church and Church-yard. Among those interred in the Church, was Sir Bertin Entwysel, Knt. of Lancashire, who was wounded in the first battle, and died a few days afterwards. Leland says, "he was beryed under the plase of the Lectorium in the quyre, whereas a memoriall of him ther yet remeyneth." This memoriall' was a brass figure of a Knight in armour, a fragment of which was preserved in the late vestry: the form of the handle of the sword which the Knight is represented G 3 represented as wearing, is exactly similar to that of a real sword said to have belonged to Entwysel, found in digging up the foundations of the chancel during the last repairs. Of those who were killed in the same battle, and interred here, were the Ralphs Babthorpe, father and son, of Bapthorpe, in Yorkshire. Their epitaph, both in Latin and English, is recorded by Weever and Chauncy: the English part was a translation of the Latin, and ran thus: Behold where two RAULPH BABTHORPS, both the Sonne and Father lie, To Henry Sixth, the Father, Squire, the Sone, he Sewer was, Among the other inscriptions of the fifteenth century, was one in commemoration of Edmund Westby, Esq. who died in September, 1475 he was Hundredor and Bailiff of the Liberty of St. Alban; and in his house, Henry the Sixth is said to have remained during the time of the first battle. In the chancel is a handsome monument in memory of LIEUTENANT COLONEL WILLIAM DOBYNS, who was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Berwick upon Tweed by Queen Anne, and, after retiring from the military service, at an advanced age, became Justice of the Peace for Middlesex and Hertfordshire, and for the Liberty of St. Alban. He died in January, 1738-9, at the age of eighty-eight. Another handsome monument in the chancel, with a very florid Latin epitaph, records the memory of ROBERT RUMNEY, D. D. who was Vicar of this Church upwards of twenty-eight years, and of whom some curious circumstances are related in the first article (Mirza to Selim) of the second volume of Dr. Cotton's Various Pieces: he died at the age of fifty-eight, in December, 1743. Against the west wall, at the end of the nave, is a tablet to commemorate the virtues of ROBERT CLAVERING, M. B. Scholar of Christ Church, Oxon, who died in June, 1747, aged twenty-nine. Beneath a Latin epitaph, epitaph, giving him an exalted character, are the following lines, written by Dr. Cotton. Oh! come who know the childless parent's sigh, Kiss'd the stern mandate, bow'd his head, and dy'd. Another monument, against the west wall, displays the bust of EDWARD STRONG, of New Barns, in this parish, Citizen and Mason of London, who, "equally with its ingenious architect, Sir Christopher Wren, and its truly pious diocesan, Bishop Compton, shared the felicity of seeing both the beginning and the finishing of that stupendous fabric," the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, (to the laying of the last stone,) about which he was employed as Mason: he died at the age of seventy-one, in February, 1723. The Church-yard is extremely spacious, and contains numerous monuments; and among them, one with this inscription: "Here are deposited the remains of ANNE, HANNAH, and NATHANIEL COTTON:" this is the only memorial for Dr. Cotton, the ingenious author of Visions in Verse, the Fire-side, and other small pieces, all of which are strongly conducive to promote the interests of virtue and religion: they were buried respectively, the fourteenth of April, 1749; nineteenth of May, 1772; and the eighth of August, 1788. The principal Charitable Foundation at St. Alban's is locally named the BUILDINGS, and consists of nine alms-houses, forming three sides of an oblong square, with a palisade in front, near the entrance of the town from Hertford: each house has a detached garden, and contains four apartments. These were built and endowed G 4 dowed by Saralı, Duchess of Marlborough, for the comfortable support and maintenance of thirty-six poor persons; one half to be poor men, and the other half poor women. The present allow. ance to the alms-people is 121. per annum each. The entire management of this establishment is vested in the proprietor of the manor of Sandridge, which having been the property of the late Earl Spencer, his widow, the Dowager Countess Spencer, has now the superintendence. Not far distant from the above, and near the north-west side of St. Peter's Church, in Bow-gate, is Pember ton's About the year 1755, Sarah, Duchess Dowager of Marlborough, purchased of the heirs of the family of Robotham, the Manor of Newland Squillers, within the Parish of St. Peter, of which the ManorHouse stood at the extremity of the Borough, by the side of the road leading to Hatfield and Hertford. This house having been long abandoned by the family, had been let as a Boy's Boarding-School; and about the years 1715 to 1718, it was a very reputable school among the Dissenters, where the celebrated Dr. Doddridge, Dr. Aikin, and others, ministers, and other persons of that profession, received the rudiments of their education. The Duchess pulled down the house, and erected the present Buildings, or Alms-House, on the site; which Alms-House, and the grounds laid to the same, together with certain estates in Crowhurst, and other places in the counties of Surrey, Sussex, and Kent, late the property of Edward Gibbon, one of the South-Sea Directors, and certain other estates in Marston Jabbett, in the county of Warwick,late the property of Robert Surman, Deputy-Cashier of the South-Sea Company, the Duchess, by deed inrolled in Chancery, dated 2nd of June, 1736, conveyed to Daniel, Earl of Winchelsea and Nottingham, the Right Hon. Sir Thomas Reeve, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and others, in trust, for the maintenance of the almsmen and alms-women, but subject to the sole management of the said Duchess during her life, and after her decease, of the person who shall be in possession of her estate in the adjoining parish of Sandridge, (who is at present her great great grandson, Earl Spencer.) She also directed 201. per annum to be paid to the Rector of the Abbey Church, or to the Vicar of the Parish Church of St. Peter, for the time being, for overlooking the poor that shall be placed in the said Alms-House.", |