Notes and Queries, Number 41, August 10, 1850 by Various
page 43 of 63 (68%)
page 43 of 63 (68%)
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that Long Meg of Westminster is a fictitious personage. I believe her to
have been as much a real wonton as Moll Cutpurse was a century later. If the large stone shown as Long Meg's grave had been anywhere else within the walls of Westminster Abbey than where it is, I should have had great dockets about the Westminster tradition. But Long Meg, there is reason to believe from the numerous allusions to her in the Elizabethan dramatists, was a heroine after the Reformation, and her burial, therefore, in the cloisters, where few people of wealth or good reputation were buried between 1538 and 1638, seems to me a common occurrence. Had Islip or Esteney buried her among the abbots in the cloister, I could then have joined in DR. RIMBAULT'S surprise. I have altered the passage, however, to "marking, the grave, _it is said_." This will meet, I trust, DR. RIMBAULT'S objection, though I have Gifford to support me in the passage as it at present stands: "There is a penny story-book of this tremendous virago [Westminster Meg], who performed many wonderful exploits about the time that Jack the Giant Killer flourished. She was buried, as all the world knows, in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, where a huge stone is still pointed out to the Whitsuntide visitors as her gravestone." --Gifford's _Ben Jonson_, viii. 78. Let me add, that I am much obliged to DR. RIMBAULT, as well as to other correspondents, for corrections and still more valuable additions to my book, printed in "NOTES AND QUERIES." PETER CUNNINGHAM |
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