In the same year Mr. Jewitt deciphered the name on another garland to be Ann Howard, who died at the age of twenty-one, the date being April 12th, 1747. This was accompanied with "six lines of poetry, now perfectly illegible." No traces of the inscription are now left. As far as is at present known, this is the oldest of the five. The most recent appears to have been one made to commemorate the memory of Rebecca Sheldon, aged nineteen, who, according to the Parish Register, was buried on October 16th, 1825. Dr. Cox, however, was informed "that the most modern of these garlands was to a maiden of the name of Blackwell; and that an old man, who had died in 1869 at about the age of eighty, had carried it before the coffin". The Burial Register is destitute of any entry in corroboration, nor is there now any local tradition relating to it. It may be noted that for a man to carry the garland was a very exceptional circumstance.

Matlock is the next on our list. Six garlands are carefully preserved in a cupboard in the vestry of the church; and, through the kindness of the rector (the Rev. J. W. Kewley), I am enabled to exhibit an excellent photograph of them. They possess several local peculiarities in four, a second hoop has not been used, so that the form of the garland is more conical than usual; some possess small fan-like ornaments; in several the framework is covered with paper cut into shreds; and the suspended articles project below the base. Except that in one the roses are formed of yellow paper, all the decorations are white; but the style of ornamentation varies in each-one being covered with rosettes of small size, another with large ones, while several have but few.

Two other specimens that formerly belonged to this church were added to Mr. T. Bateman's museum in 1859, but after his death were lost sight of altogether. The curator (Mr. E. Howorth) of the Public Museum at Sheffield, to which Mr. Bateman's collection was lent in 1876 (and purchased by the Corporation in 1893), informs me that neither of the garlands could be found when the

1 Cox's Churches of Derbyshire, ii, 52.

transference from Lomberdale House was effected. Fortunately they were seen by Mr. Jewitt in 1860, and facsimiles of his drawings serve to illustrate his article in the Reliquary. That of the more perfect one possesses several of the local peculiarities already described, especially as to the projection of the gloves.

According to Mr. J. J. Briggs, one formerly "hung in the church of West Hallam . . . bearing the following beautiful motto:

"For violets which the sweetest showers
Can ne'er bring back again."

(Reliquary, i, 126.)

As in the Ashford inscription, so here, the village poet was content to quote lines that were deemed appropriate from any available source. The ballad from which the above are taken (and slightly altered), is the well-known "Friar of Orders Grey," written by Dr. T. Percy (compiled from ancient ballads), and first published in Reliques of English Poetry in 1765, in which the following verse will be found:

A more beautiful and apposite quotation might have been taken from the speech of Laertes at the burial of his sister Ophelia

According to Rhodes (Peak Scenery, ed. of 1824, 181), there were in Hathersage Church "several of these memorials of early dissolution, but only one of a recent date; the others were covered with dust, and the hand of time had destroyed their freshness." (In his Sacred Archæology, Mr. E. Walcott notes that "at Hathersage, Derby, brides still wear a wedding chaplet." In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Margaret, Westminster, is the entry: “1534. "1534. Payd for the hire of Seynt Mar

garett's serkelett, xvjd."; and the inventories of that church frequently mention a "serclet for maidens when they be maried". Thus Chaucer :

"A coroune on hire hed they han ydressed."

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At Glossop, Rhodes observed the remains of some hanging up "near the entrance into the chancel," and he associated them with rush-bearing; but there is a greater probability they were ordinary funeral ones: indeed, Mr. Jewitt affirms garlands were formerly suspended in the church;" and adds, "it is said that on one occasion, when the young men of the village determined to do the highest honour to the remains of a maiden who was loved by all, they expended no less a sum than thirty pounds in forming a garland of ribbands, artificial flowers, and costly materials of every kind."

We have the testimony of Anna Seward, who was born. at Eyam, that in the church of that village

"The low beams with paper garlands hung

In memory of some village youth or maid."

We may accept the statement as to the garland being used for "some village youth" as a possible poetic license. No garlands have been preserved in Eyam church, but W. Wood, the historian of the village, informed Mr. Jewitt that, about 1830, "several faded garlands were taken down and destroyed"; and about ten years later a similar garland and two baskets of flowers" were thrown in the grave on to the coffin" of a young woman under twenty. The same informant mentioned having seen another garland "carried before a young woman from Grindleford-bridge some 40 years ago" (circ. 1820). "About fifty years ago" (circ. 1810), according to Mr. Briggs, "several existed in the parish church of Alvaston." Dr. Cox describes one that remained in the church of

1 Hist. of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, p. 112.

2 Peak Scenery, p. 202.

3 In an engraving of the interior of Great Musgrove Church, Westmoreland, many garlands are depicted as suspended from the walls, etc They are reported to be some that were borne at the time of the rushbearing festivals, but none appear to be similar to funeral ones (Gent.'s Mag. December, 1843).

South Winfield, and "was carried at the funeral of Ann Kendall, who died on the 14th of May, 1745." It is affirmed she died broken-hearted," and that “before her death, by her own desire, the 109th Psalm was read to her, and this is still known in the village as Miss Kendall's Psalm."

The vicar (Rev. F. W. Christian) informs me this garland is still preserved in the church, and "is decorated with rosettes and other ornaments of white paper.'

Although none have been preserved in St. Helen's Church, Darley Dale, Mr. J. S. Luxmoore was informed by a former inhabitant of Ashford that he had seen eleven there, about thirty years ago, prior to the church being

restored.

(Since the paper was read, the following has appeared in the Darley Parish Magazine: "Previous to the restoration of Darley Church in 1854, several funeral garlands were hung from the gallery which then existed in the south transept; and that the last occasion on which the custom was observed in this parish was at the funeral of Hannah, only daughter of Mr. Daniel Dakeyne, who died at the age of 16, and was buried March 27th, 1792.") From the same source I learn that, some years since, there were three or four in Longstone Church.

Within present memory one or more were formerly preserved in the small chapel of Peak Forest. Previous to its being pulled down, Dr. Cox "noticed against the south wall a relic of this old custom, in a wreath of divers coloured everlasting flowers, to which was attached the funeral card of an undertaker, bearing date 1872 (Notes and Queries, 5th Ser., vi, 317).

There are records of similar garlands having formerly been preserved in the churches of Ashover, Hope, Fairfield, Tissington, Bolsover and Heanor, and probably this was the case with the majority of Derbyshire churches. At the present date, only those of Ashford, Matlock and South Winfield are known to possess any.

It will be evident from what has been stated that the custom prevailed to a considerable extent in this county, and in several instances down to a comparatively late period.

That the construction of these garlands varied considerably at different times and in different places is certain; but a statement that appeared in the Gent.'s Mag. of 1747, that one of filagree work of gold and silver wire "in resemblance of myrtle," had been disinterred in the churchyard of Bromley in Kent, in the year 1733, is open to much doubt as to whether it was a funeral garland of the kind now under notice. It has been accepted as the same by some authors (inciuding the Rev. Dr. Geo. Oliver) as a practice that was customary in the parish of Clee in Lincolnshire (Ibid,, 1829, i, 1416, cf. Antiquarian Repertory, iv, 663-4). Occasionally, as at Astley Abbots, near Bridgnorth, the framework was made of wire instead of wood (Shropshire Folk-Lore, by Miss C. S. Burne, 311).

Although the flowers were customarily made of paper, "dy'd horn, or silk," is stated to have been also employed (Gent.'s Mag., 1747, 264). The streamers were sometimes made of ordinary silk ribbon.

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Again, Washington Irving, in his Sketch-Book (art. Rural Funerals"), quotes the following from an old poem, entitled "Corydon's Doleful Knell ":

In the description of a garland in the Comical Pilgrim's Pilgrimage, circ. 1723, it is stated that from it " hung down two black ribbons, signifying our mortal state, and two white ones as an emblem of purity and innocence."

The garland preserved at Minsterley, near Shrewsbury, was adorned with "lilies and roses (two sizes), made of pink and white paper" (Journal of the B. A. A., xxxi, 193). Dr. Oliver was of opinion that the decorations were "variously disposed according to the rank or situation of the deceased;" but an examination of various garlands has failed to corroborate his statement.

Although white was the prevailing colour of the