152
NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. XL FEB. 20,
1600. " Near to the confluence of the Lugg an
Wye to the east, a hill, called Marcley Hill, in th
year 1575, rose as it were from sleep, and for thre
days moved on its vast body, with an horribli
noise, driving everything before it to an highe
ground, to the great astonishment of the be
holders, by that sort of earthquake, I suppose
which naturalists call Brasmatia." Camden
' Silures.'
Philemon Holland in his translation o Camden appears to have altered the date to 1571. This error was copied by later waiters upon the phenomenon. In Gough's edition of Camden the date appears correctly
1622. But, Marcely, griev'd that he, (the neerest of the
rest,
And of the mountain kind) not bidden was a guest Unto this nuptiall feast, so hardly it doth take, (As, meaning for the same his station to forsake) "Inrag'd and rnad with griefe, himself in two did
rive : The trees and hedges neere, before him up doth
drive, And dropping headlong downe three daies together
fall : Which, bellowing as he went, the rockes did so
aphall, That they him passage made, who coats and
chappels crusht, So violentlie he into his valley rusht.
Michael Drayton, ' Polyolbion,' book vii.
1643. " A prodigious earthquake hapned in the^east parts of Herefordshire, near a little town call'd Kynaston. . . . At six o'clock in the evening, the earth began to open, and a Hill with a rock under it (making at first a great bellowing noise, which was heard a great way off) lifted itself up to a great height, and began to travel, bearing along with it the Trees that grew upon it, the sheepfolds and Flocks of sheep abiding there at the same time. In the place from whence it was first mov'd it left a gaping distance forty foot broad, and four score ells long ; the whole Field was about 20 acres. Passing along, it overthrew a chapel standing in the way, rernov'd a yew tree planted m the churchyard from the west into the east : with the like force it thrust before it High- ways, Sheepfolds, Hedges and Trees, making
- ll l e(1 ground P asture and again turning pasture
into Tillage. Having walk'd in this sort from Saturday in the evening till Monday noon, it then stood still." Sir R. Baker, ' Chronicle.'
The innuenca of Baker's ' Chronicle ' in the seventeenth century was very great Scholars thought little of it then, and they think far less of it now; but the half- aducated country squires of the seventeenth century drew all they knew of history from its pages. It has one claim to distinction in that it gave for the first time the correct date of the poet Gower's death. Thomas Llount and Bishop Xicholson attacked the
TTil division of Marcle
-ill, m an earthquake of late time, which most of all was m these parts of the island "
book, but it attained robust growth. Mac-
aulay's famous reference to it will be re-
membered :
" An esquire passed among his neighbours for a great scholar if ' Hudibras ' and Baker's ' Chronicle,' Tarleton's jests, and'The Seven Cham- pions of Christendom ' lay in his hall window among the fishing rods and fowling pieces." ' State of England in 1685.'
Macaulay based his information for this passage upon The Spectator essays cclxix. and cccxxix. Fielding in ' Joseph Andrews 7 makes Baker's ' Chronicle ' a volume in Sir Thomas Booby's country house. Baker revelled in recording the marvellous. His account of the Marcle Hill landslip occurs at the end of his chapter on Queen Elizabeth. He gives the date wrongly by four years.
1662. " Marcley Hill in the year 1575, after shaking and roaring for the space of three days, to the great horror, fright, and astonishment of the neighbouring inhabitants, began to move about 6 a clock on Sunday evening, and continued moving or walking till 2 a clock on Monday morn- "ng : it then stood still and moved no more. . . . It overthrew Kinnaston chapel that stood in its way, removed an yew tree growing in the chapel yard, from the East to West, throwing down with violence and overturning the Causeys, Trees, and louses that stood in the way of its progress." Fuller's ' Worthies.'
1697. A long paragraph, which is evidently i blending of what appears in Fuller's Worthies ' and in Baker's ' Chronicle,' is , ound in Turner's
" Compleat History of the most remarkable >rovidences, both of judgment and mercy, which lapned in this present age .... to which is added whatever is curious in the works of nature and art> he whole digested into one volume, being a work et on foot thirty years ago by the Rev. Mr. Pool,. a.nd since undertaken and finished by William Turner, M.A., Vicar of Walberton in Sussex. London, John Dunton, 1697."
mention this book because I think it is y no means so well known as it deserves o be by all lovers of the curious. It con- ains a vast number of odd scraps of infor- nation. My copy is from the library of he late Rev. W. E. Buckley of Middleton Cheney, who made a few notes in. it. 1708.
nor advise, nor reprehend the choice )f Marcle Hill : the apple no where finds ^. kinder mold : yet tis unsafe to trust )eceitful ground. Who knows but that once- more
his mount may journey, and his present site Forsaking, to thy neighbours' bounds transfer The goodly plants, affording matter strange For law debates ? If therefore thou incline To deck this rise with fruits of various tastes, Fail not by frequent vows t' implore success, Thus piteous Heav'n may fix the wandering glebe* John Philips, ' Cider,' book i.
