Willelmi, Chaucer clare poeta, tui,

Nam tua, non solum, compressit opuscula formis,

Has quoque sed laudes jussit hic esse tuas.'

"The epitaph, touching evidence of Caxton's affection for the poet, has disappeared. In a few years the tomb itself will have submitted to inevitable fate. What better mode of keeping alive the memory of both Chaucer and Caxton, or of doing honour to the pious printer, than by showing that even after the lapse of centuries his wishes for the preservation of Chaucer's memory in that place are not forgotten? If the fund is more than sufficient for the purpose, the surplus might be invested on trust to perform the wish of Caxton, by keeping Chaucer's monument in repair for ever."—Gentleman's Magazine, August, p. 167.

Here we leave the matter for the present not, however, without the hope that the present age will do honour to the memories of two of our Illustrious Dead, and that few months will witness both a Caxton Memorial in the shape of a collective edition of his original writings, and the Restoration of the Monument of the Father of English Poetry.

Notes.

COLLAR OF SS.
(Vol. ii., pp. 89. 475.)

No less than nine long months have elapsed since you adopted my suggestion of limiting your columns, on the disputed question relative to the collar of SS., to a record of the names of those persons who, either on the monumental effigies or brasses, or in their portraits or otherwise, are represented as wearing that ornament; together with a short statement of the position held by each of these individuals in the court of the then reigning monarch, seeming to warrant the assumption. How is it that the invitation has not produced more than a single response? Is it that the combatants are more fond of discussing the probabilities of a disputed point, than of seeking for facts to aid in its illustration? I hope that this is not so, in an age that prides itself in its antiquarian and historical investigations; and I trust that, now the dismissal of the parliament has relieved many from onerous duties, your pages may benefit, not only on this but on other important subjects, by the vacational leisure of your learned contributors.

That I may not myself be chargeable with a continuance of the silence of which I complain, I now offer to you no less than eleven of the earliest names, principally taken from Boutell's Monumental Brasses, but some suggested in your own pages, on whose monuments or otherwise the collar occurs. To most of these I have added a few particulars seeming to warrant the assumption; and I doubt not that some of your correspondents will supply you with similar hints as to those of whom I have as yet been unable to trace anything applicable to the subject of enquiry.

1. The first of these is in 1382, seventeen years before the accession of Henry IV. It appears on the brass of Sir Thomas Burton, in Little Castreton Church, in Rutlandshire. This knight, we find, received letters of protection on accompanying the Duke of Lancaster to France in 1369, when Edward III. revived his claim to that kingdom. [1] Being thus one of the retainers of the duke, the assumption of his collar of livery may be at once accounted for.