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THE CHRONICLE-1865.

FEB. 2nd. Mrs Green, of Whaplode, destroyed herself by cutting her throat. It was elicited at the inquest, that the poor woman had been subject to cruel treatment from her husband. The deceased and her family frequently lived on bread steeped in warm water, and an insufficiency of this, whilst the husband spent his earnings in drink and luxuries at the public house. Within a few days he had sold the children's tame rabbits, and his wife's gleaned corn for drink. Verdict "temporary insanity". 9th thern

The Directors of the Great NorRailway, have determined to recommend to the proprietors to declare a dividend for the last half-year, at the rate of 81. 15s. per cent. per annum, on the original stock of the company.

14th. The annual meeting of subscribers to the Training College, Peterborough, was held in the College Dining Hall. The chair was taken by H. P. Gates, Esq. The report was read by the Rev. Lord Alwyne Compton. Arrangements were made to liquidate the debt against the College, during the coming year.

17th. The Bishop of Peterborough has instituted the Rev. Edward James, M.A., to the Rectory of Peakirk, vacant by the resignation of his father, the Rev. John James, D.D., on the presentation of the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough.

24th Mr.J.Arnold, druggist, of London, whose will has just been proved (personalty sworn under 60,000l.), was a native of Whissendine. His freehold estate at Peterborough he hasdevised to his nephew, Edward Arnold.

28th At a general meeting of the shareholders of the Peterborough new Cattle Market, the report for the past year was read, and adopted, and the retiring Directors re-elected. It was also agreed that a sum not exceeding 2,500l. should be borrowed to carry out the works to completion. The report stated that the long-pending question as to the value of the site had been satisfactorily arranged with the trustees of the Milton Estate, and that the Directors had been put into possession; also that the necessary works would be proceeded with, without further delay, a contract having been entered into with Mr. J. J. Fast, of Melton Mowbray, for 4,1911. 19s., for all the work except the ironmonger's, which will be executed by Messrs. Amies, Barford, and Co. for 1,6477. 16s. The total amount of receipts for calls had been 7,3981. Os. Od. Interest at bank, 2201. 14s. 10d. The amount still due on call, not paid up was 2,6021. The payments comprised parliamentary and solicitors' expenses, 4981. 7s.; purchase of

land from Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Bristow, 6201.; compensation to Mr. Brainsby, 3251.; deposited with London and Westminster Bank for purchase of Milton property, 4,6001.; architect, on account, 100%. ; interest to shareholders, 1481. 10s.; sundry expenses, 17s. 2d. Total present expenditure and liabilities, 6,2927. 14s. 2d.

MARCH 2nd. The remains of the 20th Lord Willoughby de Eresby were interred in the family vault, in Edenham, where were deposited, only four weeks previous, those of his wife, to whom he had been married for the long period of 57 years. The plate on the coffin lid was engraved with the following inscription :-" Peter Robert Drummond, Lord Willoughby de Eresby, and Baron Gwydyr, Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England. Born 19th March, 1782. Died 22nd Feb. 1865." The deceased Lord was of St. John's College, Cambridge, having been admitted a Fellow Commoner, Feb 4th, 1800, and took the degree of M.A. in 1801 He represented Boston in Parliament, having been returned in 1807, 1812, & 1818.

Mr. W. Bate, J.P., of Werrington, was committed for trial at the next Peterboro.' quarter sessions, to be held on the 6th of April, for writing and publishing libels, against the character of the Rev. Joseph Pratt, the rector of Paston. Mr. Bate was liberated on bail; himself in 400l., and two sureties in 2001. each.

7th. An amateur theatrical entertainment, in aid of the funds of the 6th Northamptonshire Rifle Volunteers, was given (and likewise on the previous evening), at the Wentworth rooms, Peterborough, which was well patronized. The result was an addition of some 70l. to the rifle fund.

8th. A testimonial, in the shape of a handsome marble clock and bronze figure of Ulysses, was presented to Mr. John Beecroft, of Eye, by the inhabitants, in appeciation of his kindness and attention to the sick and poor of that parish.

Marriages.

MAR. 16th. At St. Marylebone Church, London, by the Very Rev. the Dean of Peterborough, assisted by the Rev. M. Anstis, Vicar of Cubbington, the Rev. Edmund Davys, Vicar of Peterborough, to Miss Elizabeth Berry, of the same city.

18th. At St. George's, Hanover Square, London, the Hon. G. W. Fitzwilliam, of Milton, near Peterborough, to Miss Alice Anson, daughter of the late General Anson, and sister to the Marchioness of Bristol. (March 23rd. A public dinner was held at the Angel Hotel, Peterborough, to celebrate the auspicious event.)

Printed at the Office of E. T. HAMBLIN, Machine Printer, Narrow Street Peterborough.

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There is no position in life in which affectation can be said to be in the least becoming, or commendable-however much it may appear to be sanctioned by fashionable pride or heedless folly. There is not one rational feeling of which the human heart is capable that can possibly be excited by the indulgence of such an intensely odious practice. It generally evokes the laugh of contempt, or produces a feeling very near akin to disgust, in the contemplative mind, whenever it is observed that persons are endeavouring to deform nature by either speaking or moving in an affected manner.

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If there be one thing more than another by which an affected jackanapes can stir up our contempt for him, it is by the silly, mincing way, in which he chooses to talk. The style of conversation (if we may call it conversation) which he adopts, and which he appears to relish so much, to us is perfectly nauseous. If some young men-we ought rather to call them "fellahs who take such a pride in screwing their words into all manner of shapes, could only feel how disgusting they appear, in the eyes of all sensible persons, who have learnt to "speak the English language with propriety," we think they would soon drop it. With many, however, it appears to have become such a confirmed habit, that we apprehend there would be much difficulty in teaching them to talk in a plain, straight-forward, and manly way. We know some young people, of both sexes, to whom we have great difficulty in preventing ourselves from saying, "Do, my dear fellah,' or my dear little mincing Miss, do, pray, try to talk in your natural tone, unless you wish to be utterly ridiculous!"

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In the lower order of ladies' boarding schools, and, indeed, too much everywhere, now-a-days, this same sickening, mincing, affected tone, is apparent. There are different phases of affectation, and with what impatience do we listen to that young man who is continually interlarding his frivolous discourse with absurd interjections-bordering on the profane! With what feelings of mingled pity and contempt, do we note the poverty of mind of another young "swell," who flourishes a silver-headed cane with such a dashing air! This same specimen of animated mortality has, however, amongst his own associates, the reputation of being a "dashing " young man. "Pares cum paribus facillime congregantur," said the Latins, which being interpreted, means "Birds of a feather flock together," and we cannot help wishing that this was strictly true, so little do we desire to have our eyes and ears offended by these dashing "pares" or "birds" we have alluded to. There is another young man who sports a tortoise-shell snuff-box, and who measures the pavement with all the exactitude of a first-class dancing master, who makes us

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feel poorly every time we see him. There is another, who may have a face or he may not, whose dress and antics baffle all description! Do, good people, take pattern by the majority of those with whom you may accidentally come in contact, and strive to act like rational beings.

How distressing it is, too, to see a female, enriched with all that nature from her ample stores can give, turning and twisting her neck into such postures as can only serve to remind one of the pillory, and distorting those features, originally intended "for softness and sweet attractive grace,” into an unsightly grin, without any possible cause of alarm or indisposition! We really hope, should these observations meet the eye of any coxcomb, or mincing miss, that they will not be entirely useless.

Affectation is nothing less than a compound of pride, folly, and ignorance. To account for such a ridiculous infatuation is scarcely possible; but to try, to root out a habit so hateful, and so prevalent, does not seem to us to be an unimportant task. It shows such a littleness of mind that we feel called upon to raise our voice against it, by throwing out a few hints as to its composition and appearance, which from the great variety of shrugs, attitudes, gestures, grimaces, contortions, and excuses, attendant upon this deforming folly, must show that its constituent parts and ingredients are in direct opposition to the construction and dictates of nature.

Read what a well-meaning poet once wrote on this subject—

"I hate the face, however fair,

That carries an affected air.

The lisping tongue, the shape constrain'd,

The studied look, the passion feign'd,

Are fopperies which only tend

To injure what they strive to mend."

April, 1865.

QUEEN KATHARINE OF ARRAGON;

Her residence at Kimbolton, and her burial at Peterborough.
Continued from page 191.

The accounts we have of the religious observances after the royal procession reached Peterborough Abbey, are meagre in the extreme. The abbot (John Chambers), surrounded by his brethren, received the body at the western entrance of the abbey. The hearse was admitted within the edifice, and brought sufficiently near the place of interment, which was between two pillars on the north side of the choir, near the great altar.

After the interment, the hearse was placed over the tomb covered with its rich pall, and for sometime after it was surrounded with tapers. Relating to this matter, the following tradition is preserved, that, "the day before the lady Anne Boleyn was beheaded, the tapers that stood about Queen Katharine's sepulchre, kindled of themselves; and after matins were done to Deo gratias, the said tapers quenched of themselves; and that the king had sent thirty men to the abbey, where Queen Katharine was buried, and it was true of this light continuing from day to day." Whoever performed the trick was never discovered, neither was the person who abstracted the rich pall that covered the queen's hearse, and substituted a mean one, which likewise vanished during the civil war in 1643. Cromwell's soldiers did more than steal the substituted pall, they injured considerably the noble West Front of the

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Cathedral, likewise the curious altar-piece and the beautiful cloisters. demolished Queen Katharine's tomb, broke down the rails which enclosed the place, overthrew the hearse, and displaced the gravestone that lay over her body, and nothing was left remaining of that regal tomb. Nor to the present day, does any fitting memorial mark the spot where the royal body was interred.

In 1780-1, the cathedral underwent considerable repair, and was repaved with Yorkshire flags. On this occasion (Feb. 6th, 1781) the coffin of the queen was exposed to view. It was found to be strongly fastened, and no one attempted to open it. However, one of the workmen, induced through curiosity, made a hole in the coffin, sufficiently large to admit his hand. This circumstance came to the knowledge of Lady Charlotte Madan's † maid, who at once hastened to the spot. The man was in the act, as she came up, of thrusting his hand into the coffin; he did so, and drew out a fragment of crimson brocaded damask, whereby was ascertained the material of the queen's funeral robes. The lady's maid received from the hands of the workman the piece of material which he had taken from the queen's coffin, and to use her own words, it felt "cold and damp." It is very possible that further acts of desecration of the dead might have taken place had not the Precentor (Rev. Mr. Fowler) interfered.

The room at Kimbolton in which Katharine passed away, a room on the grand floor looking into the deer-park and across the moats towards the castle hill and the keeper's lodge, still bears her name. The boudoir which she occupied, on the walls of which she hung her pictures and tapestries, adjoins it. A travelling chest in which she kept her clothes and jewels, and which has her cypher on the lid, remains at the foot of the grand staircase. A secret passage leading from the white drawing-room into the chapel, is said to have been the means by which she eluded the observation, and escaped from the presence of her husband's spies; a tradition which is in keeping with all that we know from Sir Edmund Bedingfield reports of her reserved and secluded ways of life while there. Though all the fronts of Kimbolton castle were renewed by Sir John Vanbrugh, and the white drawing-room was added by that nimble wit and heavy builder to the pile, the wing which Katharine occupied is still the same in block, as when the Mandevilles raised it in an angle of the cross roads, from Buckden to Huntingdon, from St. Neot's to Oundle; the same as when Katharine, tiring of the close gardens and damp ponds of Buckden, chose it for her last home, in preference to either Somersham or Fotheringay. That wing is of hoar antiquity. fancy is required to animate once more the silent rooms. The corridor along which Bastien and Antonio helped their royal mistress into chapel, the gallery in which she sat to hear Atequa chant masses and complines, still, after a

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A stone near the west end was removed from the floor of the nave, at this time, bearing the following curious Epitaph to a midwife, named Jane Parker Valentine, who died September 19th, 1693; and we have been informed that Wm. Hopkinson, Esq., of Stamford, who was some short time afterwards a King's Scholar, had read these lines:"Here lieth a midwife brought to bed, Deliveresse, delivered,

Her body being church'd here,

Her Soul thanks gives in yonder Sphere."

+ Her ladyship was the sister of Lord Cornwallis, and her husband, Dr. Madan, was at this time Prebendary of Peterborough Cathedral.

This fragment of damask is still preserved by the descendants of Lady Madan's maid, being regarded by them as a relic of the utmost value.

lapse of 300 years, whisper to the imagination of her presence. From a window of her boudoir, you may see the gates at which Lady Willoughby, splashed and fainting, knocked on the winter night, and through which her tears and eloquence forced a way to the bedside of her dying friend. There is the chamber into which the Spanish ambassador, Eustachio Chappuis, was introduced by Bedingfield, in time to see the aunt of an emperor expire. On the walls hang the portraits of the time, which are said to have belonged to her; portraits which may have been brought by her from Buckden, and left with her travelling trunk by Rich, and the royal officers. These pictures are on panel; some of them by Holbein; those which are known, being her nearest friends or associates. One is of her mother, Isabel the catholic. Two One is of the Archduke Philip, husband of There are portraits of Sir John Cheeke, William first Lord Paget, and Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. One of the known pictures is the Count of Nassau. One of the females is believed to

are of her nephew, Charles V. her unhappy sister, crazy Jane.

be a portrait of herself. Pictures of Katharine are extremely rare; but the small painting at Kimbolton castle, agrees with the contemporary notices of her eyes, her hair, and face. This collection of Queen Katharine's kinsmen and associates, has been at Kimbolton time out of mind; and until recently hung in the queen's boudoir.

There hangs, too, about the castle a further and final hint of her having been there in the flesh :-the reported haunting of her ghost. Kimbolton may be considered a secluded spot. Even after the corn counties have been opened up by train, telegraph, and mail, the castle is 8 miles from a post town, 9 miles from a railway line, no less than 30 miles from Peterborough, the city in which Katharine was buried, now the nearest station at which an express from London to York, finds it worth while to stop.

In lieu of the popular portrait of Katharine, the Duke of Manchester sketches her thus-"A girl full of sun and life, eager to love and to be loved, enamoured of state and pomp, who liked a good dinner, a new gown, above all a young husband; one who had her quarrels, her debts, her feminine fibs, and her little deceptions, even with those who were most near and dear to her; a creature to be kissed and petted, to be adored, chidden, and ill-used, all of which Katharine was in the flesh."

Enoch Arden,

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And plays upon them old familiar jokes;

They still are cherish'd, and their visits come

Too speedily to an end.

Another race

(All wanting something) crowding round him stand:

paren) One, by good fortune, gets a painted horse,

And then a kiss for knowing what to say.
He hears them prate and sing at early dawn;

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