THE SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS OF MILL YARD, WHITECHAPEL. The recent correspondence on Caroline Non-conformity (v. s. Execution of Nonconformist Minister,' ante p. 16 and references there given) may well receive as sequel a few notes on the sect to which John James belonged, and on the traditions about him still lingering among them.

Among other places, the trial and execution of John James may be found recounted in The Sabbath Memorial, 1 July, 1882, and the twelve months following. It was issued at the instance of Mr. William Mead Jones, a well-known Whitechapel man who devoted much of his time and means to the zealous advocacy of the claim of the Seventh Day Baptist Church (in Mill Yard, Whitechapel) that Saturday should be regarded as the true and universal Sabbath. It is insisted that John James became Pastor of the congregation formed in 1654 by 142 persons, and that the Meeting House was transferred to Mill Yard after the execution of John James at Tyburn, in Dec., 1661, with all the revolting barbarities of the period. Fifty years ago communicants of the tabernacle of Mill Yard, Goodman's Fields (on the eastern side of what is now Leman Street, Whitechapel) used to tell that John James's wife had been suppliant to the exalted personage who bears the his

toric reputation of never having said a silly thing or ever done a wise one; and that when she threw herself imploringly at His Majesty's feet in the Park, the intermittently Gracious Sovereign turned coldly, away, saying "Oh, Master James! A sweet gentleman!"--and so sent the preacher to his doom. The story goes that the executioner, with more heart than his King but not less greedy, offered to spare John James as much as possible " if he were paid twenty pounds.

The subsequent history of the Seventh Day Baptists is very obscure; little is known but that they held together in Mill Yard, and occasionally included scholars and even gentle-folk. But the community became well-known in Victorian times, because Mr. W. H. Black, F.S.A., was for many years and until his death in April, 1872, at the age of 74, Minister there, and was prominent-if sometimes erratic-in most of East. London's progressive concerns, socially, religiously and politically. Apart from his other activities, he was an antiquary of note, and collected much Cromwellian literature, along with De Kewer Williams and other lights of Independency. His marriage accentuated the peculiarity of his theological views, and gave some family rights among the Seventh Day Baptists in the Chapel at Mill Yard, and soon he was Pastor of the little sect and investigating the Trust of the Church there worshipping.

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A memorial to the Charity Commissioners. in Feb., 1855, sufficiently indicates what the Mill Yard Church had come to be. It sets that this Congregation of Dissenting Protestants that keep and observe the Seventh Day Sabbath (commonly called Saturday) "" was founded in Mill Yard in or about 1693; that in 1855 it had existed in uninterrupted succession in Whitechapel for about 200 years; and that William Henry Black, of Mill Yard, Goodman's Fields, had been duly and unanimously chosen to the Offices of Morning and Afternoon Preacher of the Congregation in the year 1840, and was (after the manner of these Protestant Dissenters) ordained Elder in the same year.

Harriot Slater Black, W. H. Black's wife, was a duly recognised member of the Congregation, and was lineally descended from some of the original Founders of this Meeting-place and of its Trust Estates. Her ancestor, Thomas Slater, was one of the original contributors to the building, and

one of the first Trustees appointed in 1700, and one of the legatees or devisees of the Estates given for the endowment of the place by Joseph Davis, senior, his particular friend and the Treasurer of the Congregation, who was followed in the same office by his son, his grandson, and his great grandsons. Joseph Davis, sen., linen draper, of Little Tower Hill was-as his tomb testified in Mill Yard-“ a faithful witness in the Cause of Christ by near ten years Imprisonment in Oxford Castle, having overcome by the Blood of the Lamb and the Holy Word and testimony: who departed this life the 16th February, 1707, in the blessed hopes of a Joyful Resurrection in the Kingdom of Glory, in the 79th year of his Age." The Rev. William Slater mentioned was, from 1777, a Trustee of the Estates, and from 1785" the Minister, Teacher and Preacher " of the Congregation until his death in 1819. He was the father of Mistress W. H. Black. It was claimed in this petition to the Charity Commissioners that a large sum of money was due to Mr. W. H. Black from the Acting-Trustees and that "owing to the abusive treatment which he hath received, and the arbitrary and capricious behaviour of the persons calling themselves Trustees, and their Agents, he hath not been able so much as to obtain payment of his salary and the expenses of the said Congregation and Meeting House at Mill Yard excepting through his Solicitors, for nine years past. It was not until June, 1870, that the settlement of Vice-Chancellor Stuart ended the litigation respecting the property of the Oxford prisoner of 1670.

The contention which thus arose was one that greatly interested the East End of London-Jews and Gentiles for many years, for Mr. Black was-as has been said- -a man of distinction in many phases of public life, and was able to be vocal on many platforms. He was also useful to the local and other newspapers. In November, 1869, he wrote that the Charity Commissioners had treated with contempt and insult the successive endeavours of Mill Yard to obtain justice and equity for more than ten years. past "This month completes the sixtieth year of persecution and oppresgion endurad by Mill Yard from the malice of one apostate member of the Congregation and from his unscrupulous companions and followers." And elsewhere he wrote of the "pious founders of a Charity

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ENGLISH GRAVES AT IQUIQUE. Below I give a few of the inscriptions that I have seen in one of the graveyards of Iquique, a port of the nitrate desert Tarapacá, formerly part of southern Peru, but seized by Chile in 1879. Many English subjects lie in this burial-ground, but it is difficult to trace the original sites of many of the older graves, even of those that had memorial stones, owing to the native custom of making clean sweeps, over a large area, of gravestones which mark underground burials, in order to clear spaces for the erection of above-ground sepulchres; and also there is a horrible custom of renting graves (nichos temporales) in which the dead may rest and have a memorial slab as long as the rent is paid, but in default the grave is emptied, and re-let, and the evicted body put into the repulsive fosa común (public pit) for those "whom nobody owns. "" The cemetery, however, is peaceful enough, with little to be heard save the not unbefitting scream of sea-birds, and the sough of the Pacific. owe a debt of acknowledgment to my friend Mr. William L. Jervis, of Iquique, for his kind help in copying the inscriptions:—

I

Bobbitt. Richard Warner Bobbitt, of the barque Kirklock of Liverpool, who was drowned in the Bay whilst fishing. (? date). Comley.-Harry T. J. Comley, 2nd mate, barque Condor. Killed by accident, Octr. 12, 1898.

Emmett.-William Emmett, Chief Officer ss. Quilpué, P.S.N.C. Died in Hospital Septr. 27th, 1907. Aged 35 years.

There is a brass memorial tablet to this officer in the English church in Iquique. Forman.-James Forman, aged 54. Third Officer ship Annie Thomas, killed by accident, Iquique, 6th February, 1899.

Frome.-Captain James Frome of the British bark Windrush, who died suddenly 3rd November, 1909, Erected by his brother shipmates.

Jones.-William J. Jones, 1st mate, British bark Olenafton. Died of an accident at Punta de Lobos, Iquique, 28th Decr. 1899.

Kennedy.-Ewen Kennedy, who died here on 23rd May, 1909, aged 29 years.

An ardent amateur naturalist, born in Edinburgh. His collections were sent home, and a privately-printed memoir of him was published. The birds and small mammals of this vast desert, extending from 180 to 270 S. Lat., have received but scant attention | from English naturalists.

Lyons.-Rufus Dixon Lyons, who died on board the ship Cosmopolis in Iquique, 12th May, 1873. Aged 42.

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North.-In loving remembrance of Louisa Blanche infant daughter of John S (? T.), aud Jane North, who departed this life on the 30th July, 1880, aged two years. And of Maria Isabel, died October 26th, 1880, aged five years. These were children of Colonel John Thomas North, known as The Nitrate King." This grave was in an abandoned state when I found it, but on my calling attention to this, the firm that succeeded to North's business at once repaired it. Palmer.-Thomas F. Palmer, aged 18 years, apprentice British ship Pengwern. Drowned December 1899.

,Price.-John H. Price, Master Mariner of Fishguard, Died February 19th, 1908.

Pym.-John Hampden Pym, of Kensington, London, died at Iquique, 26th Septr. 1873. Age 33.

Roberts.-Captain John Roberts of Nevin, North Wales, Master ship Trowbridge. Died Septr. 1890. Aged 40 years.

124. An Ivory Statu turn'd into a virgin. . Pygmalion hauing fram'd by curious art An ivory statue, gaue to it his heart; He Loues, he sighes, he kisses, giues it rings

And it embraceing thinkes it pleasure
brings :

To venus temple h' at last himself betakes
A wife like to his statue suplicates:
Venus grants his request, his statue lives
And 'twene her armes, he mariage pleasures
giues.

125. Myrrha in Love with her father
Detested Myrrah doth her father Love
No sutors art can her affection moue;
She burnes in lust, desires to embrace
Her father, and posesse her mothers place,
Dispareing though for to obtaine this thing,
One night she hang'd her in a silken string,
Her watchfull nurse hearing a noyse came

in

He's all her joy, with him she sports all day,

And in the Shades, passes the time away. 129. Hippomenes overcomes Atalanta in running.

Faire and swift Atalanta signes the man
To be her husband, that out run her can,
If lose the prize, his life is forfited.
So many strive, yet she's unvanquished.
Fauour'd Hippomenes, whom venus would
Should winn the prize, three Apples all of
Gold

From her receiu'd: he doth fore scoenis trull

This frute; whilst she it gaines, he winns ye gole.

130. Hippomenes turn'd into a lyon & Atalanta into a lionesse. Hippomenes failing to fume the fanes Of Venus for her Guift, she him disdaines, And sturring up unwonted lust, the whiles He with Atlanta Cybles fane defiles. The Goddesse angry, strainge doth it

expresse

He's made a lyon, she a Lyonesse,
And by the mother of the Gods they are
Designed still to draw her sacred carre.
121. The Latin head-line

is Raptus Ganymedis;' the scribe is familiar with the word rape (see 12 S. xi. 526), but knows that it is not the exact equivalent, and prefers to coin the noun rapt": such enterprise is extremely characteristic of young Milton. Ganymed is so spelt in P. R.' ii. 353.—Ib. 4. gird: This seems to be the English girden, to pierce, strike, etc. : here it must mean move, direct his flight, akin to our colloquial strike for a destina

tion. It is used of a horse's sudden start in

North's Plutarch.' Sylla was on horseback and "his Page gave his horse such a lash with his whippe, that he made him so to gird forward,

So to the Coast of Jordan he directs His easie steps; girded with snaky wiles, Where he might likeliest find this new declar'd, 'P.R.' i. 119/121.

Directed would here make good sense. Griding is metathesis of girding (Skeat): cf. "The griding sword." ' P. L.' vi. 329.

122. For the Hyacinth incident cf. 'D. F. I.' 11. 23-27.

123. 8. The Cerastes hornd" appear in 'P. L.' x. 525.

124. This stanza was first published in my original letter. The graceful beauty of the lines drew instant and generous recognition from Mr. Bayfield, who said (Times Literary Supplement, Feb. 2, 1922):

For delicacy of finish these lines, with their inexhaustible variety of rythmical cadence, would, I suppose, be difficult to surpass. They are the work of an absolute master of the art of versification, and of themselves support strongly Mr. Candy's assignment of the whole to Milton. We may note in passing the unusual (but Miltonic) rhythm,

Venus grants his request, and compare, from Samson, Unive Universally crown'd with praises

*

The repetition of the phrase curious art" (12 S. xi. 509) another familiar Milton feature.

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highest

frame by illustrates

accent, as in óbscure wing."' P.L.' ii. 132. 127. 6. eyes-dropping-teares: an extremely Miltonic composition to express tears as they drop from the eyes.”—Ib. 8: unwombs th' inccstious frute. cf. "Unhous'd thy virgin soul 'D.F.I.' 21; the parallel is so striking that it seems to enforce conviction.