—Though not a lawyer, I venture to express the opinion that, if preferred, burial may take place in unconsecrated ground. The law exacts the registering of the death, and inhibits a clergyman from officiating except within the consecrated boundary. Indeed the burying-ground of dissenters is not consecrated according to law, although it may have to be licensed. But, supposing a person to have the fancy to lie "in some loved spot, far away from other graves," there seems to be no legal difficulty. In the shrubbery of Brush House, the residence of my friend and neighbour John Booth, Esq., M.D., there is a mausoleum over the remains of his uncle, from whom he inherited the property.
"Here," says Hunter, in his History of Hallamshire, "Mr. Booth spent the latter part of an active life in mathematical and philosophical studies; and, indulging a natural (?) and patriarchal desire, prepared his own sepulchre amidst the shades his own hand had formed, in which his remains are now reposing."
Was not Mrs. Van Butchell preserved many years after death in a glass case by her husband?
Lines on English History (Vol. iii., p. 168.).
—The lines on English History, beginning
"William the Norman conquers England's State," &c.
were not from the pen of any Catholic gentleman of the name of Chaloner, but were composed by a Protestant. Some of the lines were subsequently altered by a Catholic lady, the late Mrs. Cholmely, of Brandsby Hall, near York, and I believe the whole verses were printed at her private expense. The line on Mary of England was, in the original, anything but complimentary to the memory of that queen. Mrs. Cholmely's daughter, the late Mrs. Charlton, of Hesleyside in Northumberland, had the verses printed again at Newcastle, about twenty-five years ago. I have no doubt that I could procure a copy for AN ENGLISH MOTHER.
EDWARD CHARLTON.
Newcastle-on-Tyne.