“Emori nolo; sed me esse mortuum nihil Æstimo.”—Epicharmus. The Rev. Hugh Pigot, Rector of Stretham, author of “Suffolk Superstitions” and “The History of Hadleigh,” died in October. Mr. William Pettit Griffith, architect, died in October. The son of an architect of repute, he was born in 1815, and, adopting his father’s profession, followed it for more than half a century. Devoting much of his leisure to archÆology, he became a member of several societies of antiquaries, and wrote “Grecian Architecture,” “A Natural System of Architecture,” “MediÆval Architecture,” “Ancient and Gothic Churches,” besides many papers published in archÆological journals and magazines, especially the serial of the Surrey ArchÆological Society. He designed various schools and other minor public buildings, and restored St. John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, and parts of the church of St. Sepulchre, Holborn. Mr. Octavian Blewitt, K.L., F.R.G.S., many years secretary of the Royal Literary Fund, died recently, aged 81. In early life Mr. Blewitt travelled much in Italy, Egypt, Greece, Turkey, and other countries, and on his return to England was, in 1839, elected to the post of secretary to the Royal Literary Fund. In this capacity Mr. Blewitt spent many years in arranging the papers, literary, financial, and historical, which constituted the records of the association. Mr. Blewitt was the author of several well-known works, including “The Panorama of Torquay,” published in 1828, and afterwards reprinted in an enlarged edition as “A Descriptive and Historical Sketch of the District comprised between the Dart and Teign,” also the “Handbook for Central Italy and Rome,” and the “Handbook for Southern Italy and Naples,” being two of the series of Murray’s Hand-books. Signor Luigi Bonfatti, the archivist and librarian of Gubbio, in Umbria, died suddenly at the end of October. “Every seeker into the strange and eventful history of what is now but the time-worn relic of a mediÆval city,” writes Mr. W. Mercer, “has lost in him a guide, philosopher, and friend. Only a week before his death he climbed with me the picturesque tower of the Palazzo Pubblico, that often served as a prison-house for captives taken in battle. His pen, fertile with a knowledge of the local antiquities, may be traced in numerous brochures and collected records of recent date. He strove to pierce the shadows that cluster round the memory of Maestro Giorgio and others who made Gubbio famous for his porcelain manufacture, marvels truly of the potter’s art that are scattered far and wide. One small plate only is left to witness in the Municipio to the brilliant reverberi that distinguished the work of artists whose successors from time to time have vainly imagined that they also have caught the secret of the changing colours under flashes |