R. G.
ENIGMATICAL EPITAPH.
In the church of Middleton Tyas, in the North Riding of the county, there is the following extraordinary inscription on the monument of a learned incumbent of that parish:—
"This Monument rescues from oblivion the Remains of the Rev. John Mawer, D.D., late Vicar of this Parish, who died Nov. 18th, 1763, aged 60. The doctor was descended from the royal family of Mawer, and was inferior to none of his illustrious ancestors in personal merit, being the greatest linguist this nation ever produced. He was able to write and speak twenty-two languages, and particularly excelled in the Eastern tongues, in which he proposed to his Royal Highness Frederick Prince of Wales, to whom he was firmly attached, to propagate the Christian religion in the Abyssinian empire,—a great and noble design, which was frustrated by the death of that amiable prince."
Whitaker, after giving the epitaph verbatim in his History of Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 234., says:
"This extraordinary personage, who may seem to have been qualified for the office of universal interpreter to all the nations upon earth, appears, notwithstanding, to have been unaware that the Christian religion, in however degraded a form, has long been professed in Abyssinia. With respect to the royal line of Mawer I was long distressed, till, by great good fortune, I discovered that it was no other than that of old King Coyl."
As I happen to feel an interest in the subject which disinclines me to rest satisfied with the foregoing hasty—not to say flippant explanation of the learned historian, I am anxious to inquire whether or not any reader of the "Notes and Queries" can throw light on the history, and especially the genealogy, of this worthy and amiable divine? While I have reason to believe that Dr. Mawer was about the last person in the world to have composed the foregoing eulogy on his own character, I cannot believe that the allusion to illustrious ancestors "is merely a joke," as Whitaker seems to imply; while it is quite certain that there is nothing in the inscription to justify the inference that the deceased had been "unaware that the Christian religion" had "long been professed in Abyssinia:" indeed, an inference quite the reverse would be quite as legitimate.
J. H.
Rotherfield, Feb. 23. 1851.