THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
245
a carriage. He died 10th of November, 1750, aged 29 years. Mr. G. E. Crick
showed a post-horn, mounted in silver, and engraved "Maldon Post-horn,"
which was used by Bright when a post-boy, before he developed his extraordinary
adiposity. Mr. Walter Crouch exhibited a large folio mezzotint engraved portrait
of Bright, and also a folio engraving entitled "The Surprising Bett Decided."
This recorded a wager between a Mr. Codd and a Mr. Hance, and was decided
when, on the 1st day of December, 1750. "in the house of the Widowe Day,
the Black Bull in Maldon, aforesaid, seven men were actually with great ease
button'd within the waistcoat of Mr. Bright, deceas'd, late shopkeeper of the
same town." "If," said the Mayor, "the members did not believe the evidence
of the old print, why, here is the identical waistcoat" ; and amid much laughter
he produced a garment of faded green baize of enormous size—sufficiently large
to enclose any seven persons present—with arm-holes, at a rough guess, about
11/2 feet in diameter.10
Owing to the exigencies of the tide, for the water excursion on the morrow it
was necessary with most of the party to act upon the primary monition of the
proverb—"early to bed"—in order that the second—"early to rise"—might be
followed, for on
Saturday, September 15TH,
" Come all ye learned Botanists and hearken to my tale,
And list ye Entomologists, nor let your courage fail ;
Come all ye Archaeologists, who doat on Samian ware,
Or by the Neolithic flint and 'scraper' loudly sware;
Come all ye Ornithologists, and ye who dig for bones,
And read the story of the earth from records writ on stones ;
Come with your nets and microscopes, the while I sing to you,
The Song of Maldon and the 'Rose,' and what befell her crew."
F. C. Gould—"The New Song of Maldon."
The company assembled before eight o'clock at the "Hythe," on the banks of
the Blackwater at the lower part of the town, hard by St. Mary's Church. A
few minutes were allowed for the inspection of this ancient (but recently "res-
tored "11) building, which is said to have been founded by Ingelricus (a Saxon
nobleman), and Edward his brother, and given by them as an endowment of St.
Martin's-le-Grand, London, in 1056, a grant confirmed by William the Conqueror
in 1068. During the restoration the rood staircase was disclosed, also three
niches on the north wall, and a small lancet window in the tower. The tower,
with its massive flying buttresses and western doorway (temp. Edward III.), is
well worthy of attention ; the tower was anciently a sea-mark, and the hexagonal
lanthorn of the Beacon still remains. The upper part of the tower fell down in
1628, and was rebuilt in Tudor red-brick, a royal brief for subscriptions having
been granted by Charles I. The lower part is Norman, with many Roman tiles
built into the fabric. The church forms the central object in the view of the
town, given on a former page.
Some interest was shown in Mr. A. J. Furbank's exhibition of a living
specimen of the "Death's-head moth," which he had found in the High Street,
and which repeatedly gave evidence of possession of power to emit a "squeak,"
not commonly attributed to the moth tribes (see ante page 188).
At this early hour the prospects of a fine day were dubious, a thick fog
obscuring the distant reaches of the river and the low marsh-land around. But
10 The descendants of the parties to this curious wager are now living in Maldon, viz., the
great-great-grandson of Bright, and the grandsons of Codd and Hance—all in good positions."
11 "Restoration means desecration, and a monument 'restored' is a monument destroyed. —
The late Rev. Thomas Hugo, M.A., F.S.A.