TO-DAY IN HISTORY

Southland Times, Issue 20527, 2 July 1928, Page 6

TO-DAY IN HISTORY

JULY 2 Born: Archbishop Cranmer, at Aslacton, Notts, 1489; Frederick Theophilus Klopstock, German poet, at Quedlinburg, Saxony, 1724; Henry, third Marquis of Lansdowne, statesman, 1780; Josepji John Gurney, Quaker philanthropist, at Earlham Hall, near Norwich, 1788; Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, commanded the British fleet at the battle of Coronel, 1862. Died: Henry I, Emperor of Germany (the Fowler), 936; Jean Jacques Roeseau, at Ermenonville, 1778; Dionysius Diderot, philosophical writer, at Pari*, 1784; Dr. Hahnemann, originator of homoepathy, at Paris, 1843; Sir Robert Peel, statesman, at London, 1850; William Berry, writer on heraldry, at Brixton, 1851; Joseph Chamberlain, statesman, 1914. Events: Act of Union passed 1800; Italian battle for the Carso opened, 1915; Germans declare a submarine blockade of the east coast of the United States, 1918.

On July 2, 1591, Robert Scarlett, sexton of Peterborough Cathedral, died at the age of 98 years, having buried two generations of his fellow creatures. A portrait of him was hung in the went end of the Cathedral Writing of that portrait Dr Dibdin, who copied it, said: “Old Scarlett’s jacket and trunk-hose are of brownish red, his stockings blue, his shops black, tied with blue ribands and the soles of his shoes red. The cap upon his head is red, and bo also is the ground of the coat armour.” The following verses below the portrait are characteristic of the age:

You see old Scartett’s picture stands on hie; But at your feet here doth his body lye. His gravestone doth his age and death time show, His office by heis token you may know. Second to none for strength and sturdy lymm. A scare-babe mighty voice with visage grim; He had interd two queenes within this place And this townes householders in his life’s space Twice over, but at length his own time

came, What he for others did, for him the same

Was done: No doubt his soule doth live for aye, In heaven, though here hie body clad in clay.

The first of the queens Scarlett buried was Catherine, the divorced wife of Henry VIII who died at Kimbolton Castle, in 1535, and the second was Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded at Fotheringay in 1587 and first interred at Peterborough, though subsequently her remains were taken to Westminster Abbey. Sir Christopher George Francis Maurice Cradock was born at Richmond in 1862. He served with distinction in the Sudan in 1891 and in China, 1900, being promoted captain for gallantry at Taku. He attained rear-admiral's rank in 1910 and was given command of the Atlantic Fleet in 1911. Early in the war ho went into the Pacific with the old armoured cruisers Good Hope (flagship) and Monmouth, the light cruiser Glasgow and the armed merchant ship Otranto, to seek von Spec’s squadron which was being driven south by the Japanese. The battleship Canopus had been sent to reinforce him, but it was 200 miles away when the two fleets met. Cradock has been blamed for not declining battle until the Canopus arrived, but he could not avoid it because the German vessels were faster than his principal ships. Outgunned and outpaced he fought and the Good Hope and Monmouth were sunk, the Germans suffering only trifling damage. The Glasgow escaped to take part in the battle of the Falkland Islands a little later when Admiral Sturdee avenged Cradock by sinking or chasing ashore the whole of von Spee’s fleet. KLOPSTOCK. The German poet Klopstock enjoyed a great celebrity in his own day, not less on account of his “Odes,” many of which are excellent, than for that more ambitious sacred poem called “The Messiah, ’ upon which the fabric of his fame was first built. This celebrated epic was written in hexameters, a species of verse little employed by his predecessors, but not uncongenial to German rhyme. Glopstock formed himself on Milton and Young, and is styled in his own country “the Milton of Germany.” His ode “To Young” as the composition of a .stranger, will be interesting to English readers and serves very well as a clue to his genius. TO YOUNG—I7S2. Die aged prophet; 10, thy crown of palms Has long been springing, and the tear of joy Quivers on angel-lid* Astart to welcome thee. Why linger? Hast thou not already built Above the clouds thy lasting monument? Over thy night-thoughtstoo, The pale free-thinkers watch, And feel there’s phophecy amid the song, When of the dead-awakening trump it epeaks. Of coming final doom, And the wise will of heaven. Die: thou hast taught me that the name of deatn Is to the just a glorious sound of joy; But by my teacher still, Become my genius there. As proof of the wide spread fame which Klopstock acquired in his own country, we briefly subjoin the account of his funeral, in the words of Mr Taylor’s “Historical Survey of German Poetry”—“Klopstock died in 1803, and was buried with great solemnity on March 22. eight days after his decease. The cities of Hamburg and Altons concurred to vote him a public mourning; and residents of Denmark, France, Austria, Russia and Prussia joined in the funeral procession. Thirty six carriages brought the Senate and magistracy, all the bells tolling; a military procession contributed to the dignity and order of the scene; vast bands of mu«ic, aided by the voices of the theatre, performed appropriate symphonies, or accompanied passages of the poet’s works. The coffin having been placed over the grave, the preacher, Meyer, lifted the lid, and deposited in it a copy of ‘The Messiah’; laurel* were then heaped upon it; and the death oi Martha from the fourteenth book, was recited with chaunt. The ceremony concluded with the dead mass of Mozart.”