Objections have been made to the expression "make hopes;" but the poet himself in King Henry VIII. has "more than I dare make faults," and repeats the phrase in one of his sonnets: surely there is nothing more singular in it than in the common French idiom, "faire des espérances."
S. W. Singer.
GEORGE HERBERT AND THE CHURCH AT LEIGHTON BROMSWOLD.
(Vol. iii., p. 85.)
I have great pleasure in laying before your readers the following particulars, which I collected on a journey to Leighton Bromswold, undertaken for the purpose of satisfying the Query of E. H. If they will turn to A Priest to the Temple, ch. xiii., they will find the points to which, with others, my attention was more especially directed.
Leighton Church consists of a western tower, nave, north and south porches and transepts, and chancel. There are no aisles. As Prebendary of the Prebend of Leighton Ecclesia in Lincoln Cathedral, George Herbert was entitled to an estate in the parish, and it was no doubt a portion of the increase of this property that he devoted to the repairing and beautifying of the House of God, then "lying desolate," and unfit for the celebration of divine service. Good Izaak Walton, writing evidently upon hearsay information, and not of his own personal knowledge, was in error if he supposed, as from his language he appears to have done, that George Herbert almost rebuilt the church from the foundation, and he must be held to be incorrect in describing that part of it which stood as "so decayed, so little, and so useless." There are portions remaining earlier than George Herbert's time, whose work may be readily distinguished by at least four centuries; whilst at one end the porches, and at the other the piscina, of Early English date, the windows, which are of different styles, and the buttresses, afford sufficient proofs that the existing walls are the original, and that in size the church has remained unaltered for ages. As George Herbert new roofed the sacred edifice throughout, we may infer this was the chief structural repair necessary. He also erected the present tower, the font, put four windows in the chancel, and reseated the parts then used by the congregation.
Except a western organ gallery erected in 1840, two pews underneath it, and one elsewhere, these parts, the nave and transepts, remain, in all probability, exactly as George Herbert left them. The seats are all uniform, of oak, and of the good old open fashion made in the style of the seventeenth century. They are so arranged, both in the nave and in the transepts, that no person in service time turns his back either upon the altar or upon the minister. (See "Notes and Queries," Vol. ii., p. 397.) The pulpit against the north, and the reading-desk, with clerk's seat attached, against the south side of the chancel-arch, are both of the same height, and exactly similar in every respect; both have sounding-boards. The font is placed at the west end of the nave, and, together with its cover, is part of George Herbert's work; it stands on a single step, and a drain carries off the water, as in ancient examples. The shallowness of the basin surprised me. A vestry, corresponding in style to the seats, is formed by a wooden inclosure in the south transept, which contains "a strong and decent chest." Until the erection of the gallery, the tower was open to the nave.
The chancel, which is raised one step above the nave, is now partly filled with high pews, but, as arranged by the pious prebendary, it is believed to have contained only one low bench on either side. The communion table, which is elevated by three steps above the level of the chancel, is modern, as are also the rails. There is a double Early English piscina in the south wall, and an ambry in the north. A plain cross of the seventeenth century crowns the eastern gable of the chancel externally.
No doubt there were originally "fit and proper