Tedious brief tales of Granta and GramaryeGray, Arthur
General
Tedious brief tales of Granta and Gramarye
Gray, Arthur
Ghost stories, English; Jesus College (University of Cambridge) -- Fiction; Short stories, English
to add his marginal notes to the text of Matthew Makepeace. Its cover
is unworn, its pages as clean as on the day when it first saw light.
This only: on a loose scrap of paper, contained between its pages, I
have discovered a name written in Greek characters and a short Greek
quotation.
Let me get done with this dull book as fast as I can. It is, of course,
written in Latin, and its style does not suggest that the author had
a facile Latinity. The extensive list of authors cited indicates that
he had read widely, but digested little of what he read, in Patristic
and Rabbinical literature. The purpose of the book is to discredit the
claim of the Roman Church to the possession of supernatural gifts. The
subjects dealt with are naturally the Roman sacraments and hagiology.
The learned author arrives at the conclusion, on grounds which I
have not had the patience to investigate, that the human exercise of
miraculous powers ceased at the precise date, A.D. 430.
Of the writer, Doctor Makepeace, I can find little more information
than is supplied in the History of Jesus College, written by John
Sherman in the reign of Charles II. This work, composed in the fulsome
Latin which was esteemed elegant in the seventeenth century, gives
brief biographical notes of each of the Fellows from the date of the
foundation of the College. There are various manuscript versions of the
History, some ampler than others, and if you wish to read the original
Latin, of which I subjoin a translation, you must search out the single
copy which contains the full note of his life and work. It may be
rendered:
“Matthew Makepeace, S.T.P., of the county of Northumberland, succeeded
to a fellowship in 1565: a most learned investigator of theological
matters (_rei theologicae indagator_), especially of the writings of
the Fathers: a chastiser of the Pope (_Papomastix_): he illuminated by
his knowledge the College and the University, most fearlessly attacking
the unclean practices of the Babylonian harlot. He had one much-loved
pupil, Marmaduke Dacre, first-born son of the lord baron Dacre, of the
county of Cumberland. The same having disappeared from the College in
a fashion as yet unknown (_modo adhuc inscibili_) the old man, seized
with a phrenetic malady, gradually declined (_contabuit_), often
asserting that he was that same pupil whom he had lost. Dying at the
age of sixty years, he was buried in the chapel, September 8th, 1604.”
To the information given by Sherman I can only add the evidence of a
blue flagstone--unhappily removed in the course of chapel restoration,
in 1863--which lay in the floor of the south transept. Its simple
inscription was: “_Matthaeus Makepeace, S.T.P., decessit, 1604_.”
With the evidence as to the date of the death of Dr. Makepeace,
furnished by Sherman and the old gravestone, it is difficult to
reconcile a curious entry in the register of burials in All Saints’
Parish Churchyard. The entry is dated April 13, 1654, and it runs:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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