There was one of the
Hon. George Montague, Master of the Hospital, who died in the year
1681; and there was the monument with kneeling figures of one Cutting
and his wife, with his coat of arms. The seats of the stalls are
curiously carved, as is so often found, with grotesque figures--human
birds, monkeys, lions, boys riding hogs, angels playing bagpipes,
beasts with human heads, pelicans feeding their young, and the devil
with hoof and horns carrying off a brace of souls. There was more than
the customary wealth epitaphs. Thus, on the tablet to the memory of
the daughter of one of the Brothers was written:
'Thus we by want, more than by having, learn
The worth of things in which we claim concern.'
On that of William Cutting, a benefactor to Gonville and Caius,
Cambridge, is written:
'Not dead, if good deedes could keep men alive,
Nor all dead since good deedes do men revive.
Gunville and Kaies his good deedes maie record,
And will (no doubt) him praise therefor afford.'
On the tablet of Charles Stamford, clergyman:
'Mille modis morimur mortaies, nascimur uno:
Sunt hominum morbi milie sed una salus.'
And to the memory of Robert Beadles, free-mason, one of His Majesty's
gunners of the Tower, who died in the year 1683:
'He now rests quiet, in his grave secure;
Where still the noise of guns he can endure;
His martial soul is doubtless now at rest,
Who in his lifetime was so oft oppressed
With care and fears, and strange cross acts of late,
But now is happy and in glorious state.
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