Notes on three Monumental Drawings from Sir Edward Dering's Collections in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries

( 219 NOTES ON THREE MONUMENTAL DRAWINGS FROM SIR EDWARD DERING'S COLLECTIONS IN THE LIBRARY OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES. BY MRS. ESDAILE. IN the year 1628 Sir Edward Dering, recently appointed Lieutenant of Dover Castle and engaged in courting a third wife, was still busily pursuing the antiquarian studies of his Cambridge days. The churches in and around Dover offered an admirable field for his researches, and the results are referred to with enthusiasm in the first volume of Archceologia Cantiana. Mr. Lambert Larking's interest.did not lie in the direction of later sculpture; his first concern was with the famous Surrenden Charters, but in the article in question he mentions incidentally " a collection of tracings of brasses and monuments in Kent Churches, many of the originals of which are no longer in existence," and in a footnote records the fact that Mr. Herbert Smith had copied them with a view to future publication. On p. 178 his second art.icle, dealing with four brasses, appeared; but though the Surrenden .collections, among them, unhappily, the original drawings, were subsequently scattered to the winds, Smith's facsimiles passed into the hands of Sir A. W. Franks, and ultimately into the Library of the Society of Antiquaries. Mr. Larking, it may be added, ascribed the originals to John Philipot, Somerset Herald, the Historian of Kent, whose List of the Constables of Dover Castle and Wardens of the Cinque Ports (1627), and Collection of Monuments and .Arms in Churches of Kent (Harl. MS., 3917) are valuable additions to the literature of the County. The scientific study of English seventeenth century sculpture wa􀁬 undreamt of in the fifties, and Mr. Larking cannot be blamed for not. perceiving the importance of some 220 THREE MONUMENTAL DRAWINGS FROM of the drawings. Of the originals of the three here published by permission of the Society of Antiquaries two now exist in part only, while the third has totally vanished ; yet they were masterpieces, and all, it seems certain, by English artists of distinction. I. THE MONUMENT TO HENRY ' EARL OF NORTHAMPTON ' ORIGINALLY IN THE ClI.A:eEL OF DOVER CASTLE, NOW A.T THE TRINITY HOSPITAL, GREENWIOR (Dering ff 39, 40). " 1615. Agreid with Mr. Grefen for to mak a Tombe for my Lord of N orthamton and to set it up in Dover Castell for the wich I had 500 £ well payed I made Mr. Isak James a partner with me in cortisay be case he was my master 3 years that was 2 years of my prentes, and on year journiman." 1 So runs the second earliest entry in Stone's Notebook, and as the single earlier monument recorded, at Kilkenny, was, we know, "destroyed by the usurpers," 1 the entry has long been recognized as important. It tells us who Stone's master was; it concerns his earliest existing work; and if Dering's drawing shows us for the first time what that work was really like, the original Agreement, which I am here privileged to publish, shows how James and Stone carried out their instructions. But before discussing that document it may be well to state what is known of Stone's master. Isaac James was a pupil of Richard Stevens (1514-92), a refugee sculptor who came to England in 1541, settled in Southwark, was patronized by many great men, and was engaged on the monument of Sir Christopher Hatton in Old St. Paul's at the time of his death, as his will shows us. That James was his pupil is expressly stated in Gent's Mag., 1818, II, p. 592, and though the source of the statement is still untraced, it may be accepted without question, since no antiquary would invent an almost unknown pupil for a master equally obscure. In 1599 James, already settled in St. Martin's Lane, was the partner of one Bartholomew Atye2 on the 1 Notebooks of Nichol,as Stone, Walpole Society, VII, p. 38, 2 Essex Archceol. Trans., 1923, p. 57. MONUMENT OF HENRY HOW ARD, EARL OF NORTHAMPTON. PLAT􀀈: I. COMPLETED IN 1616, AS IT STOOD IN THE CHAPEL OF DOVER CASTLE. SIR EDWARD DERING'S COLLECTIONS. 221 Denny monument at Waltham Abbey, in such poor condition to-day as to be of little value for stylistic details ; it is, however, noteworthy for its use of an unexpected technique recalling that of the chryselephantine statues of antiquity in that the faces and hands are of alabaster, the effigies of stone. So far as I know, this technique is only to be seen otherwise in the tomb of Sir George St. Paule (1613) at Snarford, Lincolnshire, and that on the kneeling figure of the child, but the whole work so strongly recalls the Denny monument that we may attribute it to the same sculptors ; while a reference in the Denny agreement suggests that the lost monument to Humphrey Cooke in Old St. Martinin- the-Fields was also theirs. The design of the Denny monument and the carving of the effigies were presumably Atye's, since James was the junior partner; this appears from Stone's Notebooks, where the carving of effigies by assistants occurs in three cases only, while on that of Thomas Sutton at the Charterhouse, the joint work of Nicholas Johnson, Edmund Kinsman and Stone, the latter did "all the carven work about the tomb," the effigy being obviously executed by the senior partner, Nicholas Johnson. A priori then, the effigy of Lord Northampton would be by the senior partner James, the accessories by Stone, and it is significant that its nearest parallel is that of Viscount Montague at Easebourne, which is certainly from James's master's studio, though not by Stevens himself, since it was ordered in Montague's will, which was only proved after Stevens' death. But an assistant often carried on a studio after his master's death; the first Earl of Southampton was the father-in-law both of the third Earl of Sussex, for whose tomb at Boreham Stevens was paid in 1587-9, and of the first Viscount Montague; their tombs at Easebourne and Titchfield are closely related to that at Boreham, the lettering and style identical, though Montague's is the only one with a kneeling effigy. When we find a precisely similar effigy on the Northampton tomb executed by Isaac James, the pupil of Stevens who presumably carried on his studio for a time, since the other known pupil, Epiphanius Evesham, 18A 222 THREE MONUMENTAL DRAWINGS FROM was not twenty-one at Stevens' death, the link between the works becomes closer than ever. \Ve now come to the agreement, here first printed by the kindness of its owner. Articles Indented made and agreed uppon the Sixteenth day of :ffebruary Anno dni 1614 and in the Tenth yeare of the Raigne of our soveraigne Lord King James of England :ffraunce and Ireland defende' of the faith &c. and of Scotland the Eight and :ffortith. Betweene Isaack Jemes of the pishe of St Martin in the fields in the Countie of Midd Tombe=maker and Nicholas Stone of the same pishe of St Martin in the fields Tombe=maker of the one pty. And John Griffith of Graies Inne in the County of Midd aforesaid gent one of the executors of the last Will and Testam􀂑-of the Right Hono : ble Henry late Earle of North.ton Lord privie seale and Lord Warden of the Cinque ports deceased of the other pty WITNESSING as followeth Viz. THE SAID Isaack Jemes and Nicholas Stone do8 Covenant graunt and agree for themselves their executors adminstators and assignes and every of them to and wth the said John Griffith his executors administators or assignes or some of them at their proper Costs and Charges shall and will for and in consideracon of the some of :ffive hundred pounds of lawfull money of England to them to be payd in manner and forme hereafter in these pnts following, make Build erect sett up and finishe at or in the Chappell of the Castle of Dover in the Countie of Kent, One faire and stately Tombe or Monumt for the said late Right Hono􀂒Ie Henery Earle of North.ton All wch Tombe or Monum􀂓 shall consist and be wrought of white Marble and Touchstone excepting the lower stepp or foundacon of the said Tombe to consist and be of hard stone of Kent. WHICH Tombe shalbe in heigth from the ground uppwards fourteene feete and one half foote a,nd tenne feet in length belowe and seaven feet aboue, and in breadth at the ground below six feet & viij inches and in breadth aboue three feet and viij inches And shall and will sett in the said Tombe eight pillars of white Marble vj inches square a peece to be in heigth wth head and foote three feet vj inches a peece, And shall and will make and sett one Coffin of touch stone six feet long and xxij inches broad uppon two pedistalls of white Marble and to stand uppon a ledger of touch. The said ledger to be eight feet in length and fouer SIR EDWARD DERING'S COLLECTIONS. 223 feet broad And under the ledger shalbe six tables of touch stone vizt three of a side, each of them to be xvj inches square, to be cased in white Marble And at each end of the said Tomb shall and will make one suche Coate of Armes wth supporters and Helmett & Crest Manteling and Garters and all things else belonging to the said severall Armes and shall make them two feet in heigth and in breadth according to clere proporcon. And the lowest Moulding to stand uppon (a) stepp of white Marble to be of touchstone. And shall sett at the fower Corners of the Tombe the pictures of the fower Cardinali Vertues vizt at each corner one, to containe in heigth wth the pedistall under them five feet and a half a peece (And) at the topp of the pillers (1) shalbe eight arches vizt three of each side and one at each end wth Architrave frize and Cornishe and wth tables for inscriptions at each end and in the frize, as is showed forth by the Modell thereof. And on top of the Cornishe shalbe one frize of touchstone seaven inches in height and six feet in length & three feet in breadth, And shall sett uppon the said frize the picture or similitude of the said Right Hono?16 Henry Earle of Nortnton kneeling in Armoure, & his Robes wth Coller and garter and George, to be in heigth wth ye cushion from the frize fower feet and vj inches And at each corner of the said frize shalbe made sitting the similitude of a little boy houlding an Escutcheon, each of them to be in heigth from ye cornishe two feet And shall engraive & guild all such inscriptions as shalbe delivered unto them the said Tombe=makers and well and substantially shall & will guild adorne beautifie polish & glaze y0 said Tombe or monumt in and by all things according to the said Modell thereof, and sett up & finishe the same at ye place aforesaid at or before the feast day of St Michaell the Arch Angell wch shalbe in the yeare of Or Lord god One thousand six hundred and sixteene according to the true intent & meaning of theise pfits wthout fraud or delay. IN Considfoon of all wch worke to be substantially well & workmanlike done and finished according to the tenor of theise pfits The said John Griffith by direction of the Right Honoble Thomas Earle of Arundell & Surey and likewise of tts [? tts] : the overseers of the last will and Testa.mt of ye said Earle, for himselfe his executors audmtrators & assignes doe Covenant pmise & graunt to and wth ye said Isaack Jemes and Nicholas Stone and either of them their 18B 224 THREE MONUMENTAL DRAWINGS FROM executors admtors & assignes and every of them by theise pnts well and truely to pay or cause to be paid into them the said Isaack Jemes & Nicholas Stone their executors admstrators or assignes at or in the Hall of Graies Inne the full some of ffive Hundred pounds of lawfull money of England in manner and forme following that is to say one hundred pounds thereof in or uppon the Twelveth day of May now now next coming after the date of these pfits One Hundred pounds more in or uppon the feast day of All Saynts then next following One hundred pounds more in or uppon the feast day of St John the Baptist wch shalbe in the yeare of or Lord era(n According to the computacon of ye Church of England One thousand six hundred & sixteen, and Two Hundred pounds mor resedue and in full paymt of ye said ffive Hundred pounds wth. in One Moneth at ye furthest next after the said Tombe or Monum\ shalbe fully & wholly finished according to the aforesaid Modell and to the tenor and the meaning of theise pfi ts IN WITNESS whereof the pties abouesaid to theise pfits interchangeably have putt their hands and seales the day and yeare [blocked by seals] Signed Isack J ems Nicholas Stone (verso) Sealed and delivered in ye psence of Thomas Forster John ,J aggard Wilfr. Kettlewell Rees Gray and W: [P1]owell sen. Seals (a) left (b) right I J ( An ) N' h S ( An eagle with wings)' ( saac ames) acorn IC olas tone extende d proper These seals are those of signet rings : neither sculptor bad the right to arms, and while James uses an acorn, Stone uses an eagle with wings extended proper. The monument was duly erected, and the Chapel seems to have been in good condition when Somner's Roman Ports was written in the 1660's; but by 1696 it had become ruinous, and the tomb was carefully removed by the Mercers' Company to the Chapel of another of Northampton's foundations, Trinity Hospital, Greenwich. As the descriptions SIR EDWARD DERING'S COLLECTIONS. 225 of Hasted and Lysons prove, it was undamaged; but in 1812 the chapel was rebuilt and the monument destroyed, only the effigy and a few fragments surviving.1 When he was Master of the Hospital, Edward Tatham attempted a restoration based as we now see on the available descriptions which is reproduced on Plate II of the Stone Notebooks with the editorial warning that "without knowledge of the data upon which he made the drawing it is impossible to judge how far his details are correct" ; his variations from the Dering drawing prove that the attempt at restoration was merely an artistic experiment based on Lysons and Hasted. Where, in the original, naked cherubs, the " little boys " of the Agreement, held up the escutcheons of Howard, Brotherton, Warren and Mowbray, Tatham drapes them ; heads adorned the cornice below the slab instead of Tatham's brackets ; the cherub heads below had wings folded on the breast and not outspread, and were sepa.rated bysmall lozenges above the arches, which are bolder and less :flat than Tatham conceived them. The sarcophagus is different ; Fortitude and Truth, not Temperance, were neighbours; above all, the sword of Lord Northampton does not project outside his cloak as Tatham shows it. The fourth Virtue, which does not appear in the Dering drawing, was presumably Charity. In the year 1886 these Virtues, painted bronze colour, stood in the garden of the Hospital; the cherubs adorned a rockery, and two of their four shields of arms were placed respectively on the wall over the entrance gate and on the Warden's staircase ; canopy and sarcophagus were totally lost. It is these accessory figures which would naturally be by Stone, the junior partner, and their types and rather crude workmanship recall the figures in similar positions on his later Digges monument at Chilham, which is further confirmation of the theory already put forward that the junior partner did the decorative work, the senior the effigy ; it was an act of quite unusual courtesy on Stone's part to assign the most important part of a commission offered to himself to his old master. 1 For its present state see Walpole Society, VII, Pl. II. 226 THREE MONUMENTAL DRAWINGS FROM But the history of the monument is a sorry one. It was Northampton's own wish to be buried at Dover: "My bodye I appoynte to be buryed in the auncient Chappell within the Castle of Dover and a Tombe there to be made for me at the chardge of mine executors," says his will (P.C.C. Lawe, 53), and he not only left £3 a, year to keep in repair the aisle of the Chapel but £2 a year to a member of the garrison to keep the tomb itself in repair ; a similar benefaction, for keeping the noble tomb of his parents Lord and Lady Surrey at Framlingham in repair, has had happier results; he had erected it, and probably established a tradition of respect which has preserved one of the finest tombs in England for posterity. Yet it was this same Earl of Northampton who, as Newcourt tells us, "out of the Ruins of S. Mary Rouncivall built his House [and] remov'd the Bones of such as lay buried in that Chappell" to St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Griffith was obviously deputed by his fellow executors to attend to the matter; he wrote the inscriptions (that over the single arch at the end, under the kneeling figure of the Earl, Vita labor fnit, mors qities, was presumably illegible in Hasted's time and is only recorded in Dering's drawing) and presumably chose the sculptors. How faithfully they carried out their agreement the drawing shows; how accurately Dering, or Philipot, copied the inscriptions their text, in spite of the omission of a clause, proves ; that the scholarly scribe who drew up the Agreement wrote J emes for Ja mes is a phonetic spelling ; we find James himself signing as J ems. Of the witnesses there is nothing to be said ; probably they were Gri:ffith's clerks. That payment, first and last, was to be made " in the Hall of Graies Inn " shows that Griffith kept in close touch with James and Stone, and adds a picturesque scene to its eventful history. It must have been Griffith too who placed "in a window neare this tombe these Armes," which a.ppear on Dering's f. 40 after the inscription and are a duplicate of that with " Coate of Armes wth supporters and Helmett & Crest l\fanteling and Garters " which once adorned the monument ; the inscription it.self is transcribed as follows : MONUMENT OF SIR THOMAS WALLER, FORMERLY IN THE CHAPEL OF DOVER CASTLE. PLATE IT. SIR EDWARD DERING's COLLECTIONS. 227 Henricus Howardus Henrici Comitis Surrire Filius, Thomre secundi Ducis Norfolcire Nepos, Baro Howard de Marnhill, privati sigilli custos [Here Drake1 inserts Castri Doverensis constabularius Quinq. Portuum Custos] Cancellarius et Admirallus, Jacobo magnre Britannire Regi ab intimis consilijs, ordinis periscelidis eques auratus, et Academire cantabrigienl'lis Cancellarius, inter Nobilss literatissimus, in spem resurgendi in Christo hie conditur. Obijt xv die Junij M. DC. xiiii. upon ye like peece of touch on ye further side is engraven as followeth. Inclytus his comes tria Hospitalia fundavit, et latifundijs dotavit, unum Greenwici in Cantio, in quo 20. Egeni et prrefectus, alterum Clun in comitatu Salopire in quo 12 egeni cum Prrefecto, tertium ad castrum Rising in comitatu Norfolcire in quo 12 paupercula cum gubernatrice in ppetuum alantur att ye heade of ye tombe or coffin but on high aboue itt this Johanne Gri:ffitha huic Comiti ab epistolis curante positum. II. THE MONUMENT OF Sm THOMAS W .ALLER, FORMERLY IN THE CH.APEL OF DOVER CASTLE (Dering, ff 42-4). "Nobill0 Heroi Thomre Wallero." This splendid tomb, now utterly lost, represents Sir Thomas in armour, his head resting on his helmet, recumbent on a rolled mat under an arch adorned with low reliefs of arms, three coats of arms behind ; above an escutcheon surmounted by a skull, winged and crowned ; bosses adorn the spandrels ; and to right and left are figures of Fame with a trumpet and Immortality with a palm and Crown of Life. The desire expressed by Waller in his will (P.C.C., Capell, 123) to be buried without "funerall shewe" was not held by his executors to exclude a monument ; in that will Waller describes himself as " Cheife Butler of England and of Wales, Lieutenant of his mates Castle of Dover and the Cinque portes." 1 Hundred of Blaclcheath, p. 91. Reference kindly sent by Mr. Ralph Griffin. 18c 228 THREE MONUMENTAL "DRAWINGS FROM The inscriptions, given on ff. 42, 44 of the Dering volume, are as follows : (f. 44.) Nobiliss0 Heroi Thomre Wallero Equiti aurato olim arcis huius Dubrensis sub-prreside celeberr0 • Justo Qui in mundo dignus pylio ut canescerat revo. Et qua non dignus mundus iniquus erat. Conditur hie Thomas Wallerus Nobilis Heros. Corpore non anima, quae data, nata Deo. F.G. Inclyte, cui vivo requistem fata negarunt Tam Phoebo similis Waller in orbe fuit Inclyte, mens coelo, requiescant membra sepulchro, Virtutem experta est hospita terra tuam. Talis erat virtus, tanta comitate refulgens, Invidus ut nusquam perspiciendus erat. T.G. (f. 42 inscription (a).) Hue, oculos Hue mentem Lector ut qure singula in amieo desiderares Fortunre, corporis, animi, bona, Hie sepulta lugeas. Ex antiquis in hoe provincia familijs Wallerorum et Chutorum natus, Margaretre pire pudiere, pulcher = rimre fororis Dni Dacres maritus : illoq coniugio spei speciei plurimre sobolis pater, undiq usq ad supremum diem, faelix. Hie iaeet Thomas Wallerus Vel potius W alleri Corpus Agile, eminens, robustum venustum nuper. Eheu domus admiranda divre animre, Cui prudens simplicitas, Benigna frugalitas, Gravitas, Suavitas, Probitas, Pietas, Quando ullum invenietis parem 1 SIR EDWARD DERING'S COLLECTIONS. 229 Juvenis. admodum pro Deo et religione, pro principe et patria pugnans fortitudinem vulneribus et equestri dignitate decoratam insignivit domum redux iustitiam etiam ad.hue inculpatam, reliquasq, virtutes vere suas, per omnia generose praecipua mandanda munia tarn in pago, quam in portubus sub illustriss? et nobiliss? · Henrico Howardo Northamptoniensi comite, et Edwardo Barone Wottono, quandiu vixit fooliciter exercuit, tandemq opes haud spernandas, prudenter, innocenter partas, temperanter eleganter dispensatas, posteris reliquit, obijtAnno Dni 1613 4 die mens: Julij et vixit annos. 44. una cum domestico dignissi et Christianissimi vixi[t] exemplo Cuius optime merita quando vicini incoloo vel mortui, vel mortali silebunt : illius cura Basilica hoe pre refecta, arx hrec prudenter re edificata, Saxa et parietes loquentur. (memorire sacrum mrestissima coniux adhuc vidua posuit) (1617) / amicitiam I iactans I D.D. semp moorens inscripsit Waller then was especially connected with Lord Northampton and restored both Church and Castle ; but how these inscriptions were fitted on to the monument it is difficult to say; the two sentences in brackets look as though they were separately inserted. Who was the artist 1 A Southwark alabasterer, certainly, but not Isaac Jan:ies, the pupil, as we have seen, of Richard Stevens, but long before this working in his own studio· in St. Martin's Lane ; not, I think, William Cure, whose own works, as we shall see (p. 234), are of another order. There remains the studio founded by Gerard Johnson I in 1567 and carried on after his death by his sons Nicholas and Gerard II, the latter the author of Shakespeare's monument, the locUB classicUB for whose work is the series of illustrated articles by the late Lady Victoria Manners in the Art Journal for 1903 ; to these must be added the following documented 230 THREE MONUMENTAL DRAWINGS FROM works, three Gage tombs at Firle, Sussex1 ; the design and effigy of the Sutton monument at the Charterhouse (p. 2212 , and the tomb of Bishop Montagu in partnership with William Cure IP ; a series of works noted in Sir Sidney Lee's ]ife of Shakespeare (Cd. 2, p. 298), are also certainly by Gerard I or Nicholas. Such details as that here present on the Waller drawing, a " pety stall [pedestal] with a deathes head and an hower glasse "4 above the escutcheon, are especially characteristic. Allegorical figures of a precisely similar character occur on the Hart monument (1613) at Lullingstone, Kent,5 which after careful study impressed me as by Nicholas Johnson ; it seems probable indeed that Edward Marshall, who uses these larger allegorical figures with considerable effect, as on the Stanley monument at Chelsea, borrowed them from him, and may have been his pupil. Be this as it may, the whole style of this lost Waller tomb is that of Johnson, and almost every detail can be matched in authentic works of the school; the neglect and ruin which overtook the Church of St. Mary's, Dover Castle, after Waller himse1f had restored it, involved no more melancholy ]oss than that of this fine and interesting work. III. THE MONUMENT OF Sm MOYLE FINOH, EASTWELL, KENT (Dering, ff. 9, 10). In the volume entitled The Finch Family (1933) Mr. Brian I'anson makes the interesting statement that the Lord Nottingham ofl 7 56 removed the canopy of this fine work as unsafe, in order to ensure the safety of the effigies, which are among the finest in England. Anyone who, like myself in 1933, saw its present condition, noted the bases of the pillars, and recalled the fact that in October, 1637 Nicholas Stone mentions a commission for" the tombe of Ser Hanegs [Heneage], Finch Mr Recorder of London and received 1 SUBsex Notea and Queries, 1928, p. 176. 2 Noteboolcs of Nicholas Stone, Plate III and text. 3 Dingley, History in Marble, under Bath. ' Art Journal, 1903, p. 336. 5 Reproduced in Walpole Soc., XXI, Plate XXI. c􀀃. MONUMENT OF SIR MOYLE FINCH, ERECTED 1623-8. IN ITS ORIGINAL STATE AT EASTWELL, KENT. PLATE III. The canopy is now completely lost. SIR EDWARD DERING'S COLLECTIONS. 231 £10 in pres. Rest due to me the tombe bing sett up and finished 40£,"1 might be forgiven for assuming that the larger work was Stone's in view of his canopied tombs at South Carlton and Great Brington2 , especially as the character of the effigies is not inconsistent with his authorship, and the two Finch tombs are in the same chapel. There is, however, a very real difficulty. In the case of the Bacon monuments at Redgrave, Stone, when compiling his Notebook; enters them all together regardless of dates, beginning with the earliest, obviously because it was the most important ;3 would he, when recording the bust of Sir Heneage Finch, forget that he had executed an earlier, larger and more important work in the same chapel 1 I doubt it. As the canopy had disappeared when Hasted wrote, the indisputable statement that it rested on six columns seemed likely to remain the beginning and end of our knowledge of it; thanks to the Dering-Philipot drawing (f. 9) however, we are able for the first time since its removal nearly two centuries ago to envisage the work as it was, and to assert that it has nothing to do with Nicholas Stone. The six columns whose traces may be seen to-day supported a vast superstructure whose weight accounts for Lord Nottingham's anxiety for the safety of the effigies below. On the pediment of a large escutcheon stood an enormous griffin passant; heavy shell niches flanked it-one only is visible, but there were clearly two ; against them sat two cherubs, emblems of mortality, one with a spade, one with a torch reversed. The heavy cornice bore inlaid marble panels ; the tester was enriched with elaborate strapwork; and from its centre hung a flying cherub holding a scroll. Below this massive structure lie the effigies, Sir Moyle Finch (d. 1614) in armour, his lady in the robes and coronet of her rank ; there are no effigies of the children, whose names are still legible round the base. Now Lady Finch became Viscountess Maidstone in her own right in 1 Stone's Account Book, Walpole Soc., VII, p. 88. 2 Ibid., Plate XVI, XXXIII. 3 Ibid., pp. 52, 53. 232 THREE MONUMENTAL DRAWINGS FROM 1623, and was created Countess of Winchelsea by Charles I in 1628 ; therefore the monument, erected by herself, was put up between 1623 and 1628; it is, I repeat, inconceivable that Stone, while recording the commission for the monument of the fourth son, which consists only of bust and pedestal and a shield on the wall above, could have forgotten its neighbour, so much more costly and important, in the same cliapel. Who then was the author 1 In view of the number of sculptors of the age whose names are recorded but whose works are unknown it may seem rash to express an opinion ; but the effigies are superb, and the lost canopy was clearly sumptuous, and we are justified in postulating a :firstrate man. The niches, the cherub :figures, the strapwork and the inlaid panels definitely suggest a Southwark origin ; Stevens was long since dead; so, apparently was Nicholas Johnson, since the Manners family, who had employed the Johnson family on the monuments of the third, fourth and fifth Earls of Rutland at Bottesford, went to another sculptor, Maximilian Colt as the style proves, for tha.t of the sixth Earl, erected in or after 1624 by that nobleman himself. But the type of strapwork and the flying cherub are alike found on one of the most famous works from another Southwark studio, that of the Cures. True, the cherubs once pendant from the ceilings of the wings of the monument of Mary, Queen of Scots in Westminster Abbey are missing, but they are there in The History and Antiquities of St. Peter's, Westminster though not in Dart, and the great iron staples which supported them are still visible. In one other work only have I come across a similar cherub, and that is at Edington, Wiltshire, where Gerard Christmas had adopted it, obviously from the Mary, Queen of Scots. The latter work was designed and partly executed by Cornelius Cure,1 appointed Master Mason to the Crown on June 28th, 1596, in succession to Edward Young.2 On April 5th, 1605, he laid down his office, and a new Patent was issued to himself 1 The English-born son of William Cure I (d. 1579). 2 Patent Roll 0., 66, 1667 : S. P. D. Eliz., Vol. 259, No. 29, is a copy. SIR EDWARD DERING'S COLLECTIONS. 233 and his son for their joint lives. Like the other holders of the office they were Englishmen born, though the grandfather, William Cure I, was a Flemish refugee, who settled in Southwark in 1541 and, as has just been discovered, apprenticed his son Cornelius to a Marbler; on the union of that Company with the Masons in 1584 he was admitted a Mason, rose to the head of his profession, and died intestate in 1607, his estate being administered by hi$ son William, who finished the Mary, Queen of Scots, and whose other documented works already alluded to (p. 230), the Aston tomb at Cranford1 and that of Bishop Montague at Bath2 afford valuable evidence of his style. He was buried at St. Thomas Apostle, Southwark, August 4th, 1632 ;3 his successor, appointed on October 6th, was Nicholas Stone; and it can hardly be without significance that in that very month (he does not note the day) Stone received the corn􀂶 mission for the monument of Sir Heneage Finch. Dering's notes on the inscriptions (ff. 9, 10) are fortunately full: "In y0 private chappell this monument for sr Moyle Finch Knt. and Baronett, and his Lady Elisabeth Countesse of Winchelsey." Then follow the names of the children, "Robert Finch, Ann Finch, Katharen Finch, Elizabeth Finch", "Theophilus Finch 1, Henry Finch 2, Thomas Finch 3, Heneage Finch 4, Francis Finch 5, William Finch 6, Robert Finch 7, Elizt Finch 1, Elizth Finch 2, Katharen Finch 3, Ann Finch 4." 4 On the panel below the griffin passant was another inscription beginning Hie jacet; the rest I am unable to supply, as the words are mere scribble in the drawing. Dering goes on : These are y0 two severall inscriptions upon ye two severall sides of the last monument Moilo Finch equitis aurati et Baronetto, :filio Thome Finch equitis aurati ex Catharina filia et cohaerede Thome Moyle parft 1 Gent',s Mag., February 1800: agreement dated January 4th, 1612. 2 Dingley's History in Ma1·ble : agreement dated November 25th, 1619. His partner in this work was Nicholas Johnson, as already mentioned. 3 Registers of St. Thomas Apostle, Southwark, Builder, 1863, p. 238. 4 The first four in aitu on the monument, the complete list below, 234 THREE MONUMENTAL DRAWINGS. dignitate, viro animi corporis et fortunae totibus ornatissimo maxilo (sic) charissimo et desideratissimo A.mantissima coniux quacil numerosa1 prole ex ea ortus coniunctissime vixit Elisabetha Thome Heneage equestri dignitate viri et Elisabethe Regine a sacris consilijs et procamerarij filia et haeres2 nunc vidua in honorem vicecomitissa de Maydeston sibi et haeredib masculis de corpore suo coila, in coniugalis fidei et amoris testimoniii. hoe monumentil q et sibi destinavit gemens posuit. Illustri prognatus stirpe ipse illustrior, magnanimj veritatis amantissimus, Justitire cultor, pacti servantissimus. In magnis opibus mundi spretor maximus virtutis arma non voluptatis ratus, moribus incorruptis, vitre integerrimus. qd dictaret Ratio et mens recti conscia sequi paratus: Impterritus minis, Pius et egenis ferre opem promptissimus. Assertor verre , fidei constantissimus. In Sacrosanctis scriptis versatissimus, cuius Cor peritus Christi amor possederat. Terrre huic cadauer diuidens, animam polo, ad Christum migravit 18. decembr Anno. 1614. But, after all, it is the artistic side of the matter that is important, and we may now recapitulate. Certain stylistic details of Sir Moyle's monument as recorded in the DeringPhilipot drawing point to the studio of William Cure II; two months after that sculptor's death a commission for a monument to Finch's son, to be erected in the same church, goes to bis official successor. Is it not reasonable to conclude that the Finch family would have employed Cure, had he been alive, but that on hearing of his death they applied to Stone 1 Cure's work grows freer, his treatment looser, in all his documented tombs, the Mary, the Aston and the Montague, the date of which is 1619; therefore his style might well be more fluid still between 1623 and 1628, the date, as we have seen, of the Finch monument, so that the high quality of the effigies need in no way surprise us. But without Dering's drawing we could hardly have guessed at the author of a work which, in losing its canopy, has lost much of its individuality, though even in its present form it remains a noble and important monument. 1 Transcribed monerosa. 2 Here a word sticom = (?), perhaps another misreading.