In the church of Middleton Tyas, in the North Riding of the county, there
is the following extraordinary inscription on the monument of a learned
incumbent of that parish:--
"This Monument rescues from oblivion the Remains of the Rev. John
Mawer, D.D., late Vicar of this Parish, who died Nov. 18th, 1763, aged
60. The doctor was descended from the royal family of Mawer, and was
inferior to none of his illustrious ancestors in personal merit, being
the greatest linguist this nation ever produced. He was able to write
and speak twenty-two languages, and particularly excelled in the
Eastern tongues, in which he proposed to his Royal Highness Frederick
Prince of Wales, to whom he was firmly attached, to propagate the
Christian religion in the Abyssinian empire,--a great and noble design,
which was frustrated by the death of that amiable prince."
Whitaker, after giving the epitaph verbatim in his _History of
Richmondshire_, vol. i. p. 234., says:
"This extraordinary personage, who may seem to have been qualified for
the office of universal interpreter to all the nations upon earth,
appears, {185} notwithstanding, to have been unaware that the Christian
religion, in however degraded a form, has long been professed in
Abyssinia. With respect to the royal line of Mawer I was long
distressed, till, by great good fortune, I discovered that it was no
other than that of old King Coyl."
As I happen to feel an interest in the subject which disinclines me to rest
satisfied with the foregoing hasty--not to say flippant explanation of the
learned historian, I am anxious to inquire whether or not any reader of the
"NOTES AND QUERIES" can throw light on the history, and especially the
genealogy, of this worthy and amiable divine? While I have reason to
believe that Dr. Mawer was about the last person in the world to have
composed the foregoing eulogy on his own character, I cannot believe that
the allusion to illustrious ancestors "is merely a joke," as Whitaker seems
to imply; while it is quite certain that there is nothing in the
inscription to justify the inference that the deceased had been "unaware
that the Christian religion" had "long been professed in Abyssinia:"
indeed, an inference quite the reverse would be quite as legitimate.