Writers in Churches in Nottinghamshire #2: John Oldham at Holme Pierrepont

This memorial to the poet John Oldham (1653–83), reminiscent of Grinling Gibbons, is one of the first features to greet the visitor to St Edmund church at Holme Pierrepont.

 The Latin inscripton reads:

'M. S.
OLDHAMI poetæ quo nemo
sacro fvrore plenior, nemo rebvs
svblimior avt verbis felicivs
avdax! Cvjvs famam omni ævo
propria ſatis conſecrabvnt carmina
qvem inter primos Honoratiſsimi
GVILIELMI comitis de KINGSTON
amplexvs Variolis correptvm hev!
nimis immatvra mors rapvit et
in cæleſtem tranſtvlit chorvm
Natvs SHIPTON, in agro GLOU
CESTRENSI. in avla Sancti
EDMUNDI OXONIÆ gradvatvs
Obiit 19 April anni Dom
1683 ÆSTATIS 30.'

Essentially, the translation of the above is that the memorial is dedicated to the daring poet Oldham from Shipton, Gloucestershire, a graduate of St Edmunds Hall, Oxford, who was highly esteemed by William, Earl of Kingston, but who died of smallpox on 19 April, 1683, at the age of 30.

A guest of the Earl of Kingston's at Holme Pierrepont Hall, Oldfield died here.

Dryden wrote a poem, 'To the Memory of Mr. Oldman', in 1684:

'Farewell, too little, and too lately known,
Whom I began to think and call my own:
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mold with mine.
One common note on either lyre did strike,
And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.
To the same goal did both our studies drive;
The last set out the soonest did arrive.
Thus Nisus fell upon the slippery place,
While his young friend performed and won the race.
O early ripe! to thy abundant store
What could advancing age have added more?
It might (what nature never gives the young)
Have taught the numbers of thy native tongue.
But satire needs not those, and wit will shine
Through the harsh cadence of a rugged line.
A noble error, and but seldom made,
When poets are by too much force betrayed.
Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime,
Still showed a quickness; and maturing time
But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme.
Once more, hail and farewell; farewell, thou young,
But ah too short, Marcellus of our tongue;
Thy brows with ivy, and with laurels bound;
But fate and gloomy night encompass thee around.'

(I visited this church because of the Diocese of Southwell & Nottingham's Open Churches Weekends (Saturday and Sunday 14 and 15 July and 21 and 22 July 2012). Details of participating churches and opening times are listed here.)

Thomas Fuller and John Dryden in Northampton and Aldwincle, Northamptonshire

Northampton Public Library in Abington Street, by Herbert Norman in 1910, bears the statue of Northamptonshire son John Dryden.

There is also a statue of Dryden on Northampton's Guildhall, but then there is also a statue of another Northampton son on the facade of Northampton Public Library:

Thomas Fuller (1608–61), like Dryden, was born in the village of Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire. He was the son of the rector of St Peter's, and went on to be the rector of Broadwinsor, Dorset, and an author later admired by Charles Lamb and Coleridge. His writing was noted for its jokes and puns, and Leslie Stephens remarked on his 'fantastic caprices'. He is remembered most for Worthies of England, published the year after his death.

The tower window in St Peter's, Aldwincle, is dedicated to Fuller:

'In memory of Thomas Fuller, D. D. Church historian: he was born and baptized in this parish A. D. 1608. A scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven: Matt xiii: 52.'

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John Dryden, Aldwincle and Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire

John Milton in London

At the side of St Mary-le-Bow church, in Bow Courtyard, is an interesting plaque with three separate inscriptions. The first is in gold cursive lettering and is John Dryden's 'Epigram on Milton', which appeared on the frontispiece of Tonson's fourth edition of Paradise Lost in 1688. The three poets referred to are Homer, Dante and Milton.

'Three Poets, in Three distant ages born
GREECE, ITALY, and ENGLAND did adorn.
The First in Loftiness of Thought surpassed;
The next in Majesty, – in both the Last.
The force of Nature could no farther go
To make a third – She join'd the former Two.

JOHN MILTON
was BORN in BREAD-STREET, on FRIDAY, THE 9th
day of DECEMBER, 1608, and was BAPTISED
in the PARISH-CHURCH of ALL-HALLOWS
BREAD-STREET on TUESDAY, the 20TH
day of DECEMBER, 1608.

THIS TABLET WAS PLACED ON THE CHURCH OF ALL HALLOWS, BREAD STREET EARLY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, AS A MEMORIAL OF THE EVENT THEREIN RECORDED AND WAS REMOVED IN THE YEAR 1876, WHEN THAT CHURCH WAS PULLED DOWN AND THE PARISH UNITED FOR ECCLESIASTICAL PURPOSES WITH THE PARISH OF ST. MARY- LE-BOW.'

And across Bow Courtyard is John Milton Passage.

Just round the corner, on Bread Street, is this plaque:

'THE POET AND
STATESMAN
JOHN MILTON
WAS BORN 1608
IN BREAD STREET'

St Giles without Cripplegate, where Milton was buried in 1674. Here, there is a statue of Milton, with busts of Daniel Defoe (who was baptized here), John Bunyan (who attended this church), and John Foxe, but unfortunately the church was closed at the time of my visit.

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John Milton's Cottage in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire

John Dryden, Aldwincle and Titchmarsh, Northamptonshire

In 1609 John Pickering married Susannah Dryden, and some years later Erasmus, Susannah's brother, married Mary Pickering, John's cousin. The poet John Dryden (1613-1700) was the eldest child of the marriage between Erasmus and Mary, and he was born in Aldwincle near Thrapston, in the rectory opposite a now redundant church (All Saints), where his maternal grandfather was rector.

John Dryden spent his younger years in neighboring Titchmarsh, and his parents are buried in the parish church of St Mary the Virgin there.

In the north transept is a monument dated 1722, painted by John Dryden's cousin Elizabeth Creed, to John's parents, although it bears a representation of John Dryden's head - labeled 'The Poet', at the top - and the information in the monument relates much more to John than to his parents:

'[Erasmus and Mary] had 14 children, the eldest of whom was John Driden Esc. the celebrated poet and laureat of his time, his bright parts & learning are best seen in his own excellent writings on various subjects. We boast that he was bred & had his first learning here, where he has often made us happie with his kind visits and most delightfull conversation. He married the lady Elizabeth Howard daughter to Henry Earl of Barkshire by whom he had 3 sons, Charls, John and Erasmus Henry, and after 70 od years when nature could be no longer suported, he recieved the notice of his approaching disolution with sweet submission and entier resignation to the divine will. And he took so tender and obliging a farewell of his friends as none but he him self could have expressed (of which sorrowfull number I was one). His body was honourably interred in West Minster Abbey among the greatest wits of divers ages. His sons were all fine genius accomplished gentlemen: they died in their youth un married.' Sr Erasmus Henry the youngest lived till the ancient honour of the family descended on him.'

Samuel Pepys was a friend of Elizabeth's husband John Creed, and visited Titchmarsh in 1668, on the occasion of their wedding.

Elizabeth was the daughter of Sir Gilbert Pickering (1613-68), who was Lord Chamberlain to Oliver Cromwell.