Rambles in an Old City Part 14

_Conventual Remains_.-_St. Andrew's Hall_.-_The Festival_.-_Music_: _Dr.

Hook_, _Dr. Crotch_.-_Churches_.-_Biographical Sketches_: _Archbishop Parker_, _Sir J. E. Smith_, _Taylor_, _Hooker_, _Lindley_, _Joseph John Gurney_.

The sketch of the Cathedral has embraced so much of the early history of the various religious "orders," as to render but little necessary respecting the origin of the "freres," or friars, whose settlements, in the city and neighbourhood, once occupied such important place in its limits and history.

The Black Friars, or Preachers, White Friars, or Carmelites, Grey Friars, or Minors, and the Austin Friars, all had at one period, from the thirteenth century to the era of the Reformation, large establishments within its precincts; besides which, there was a nunnery, and divers hospitals, as they were called, such as the Chapel of the Lady in the Fields, Norman's Spital, and Hildebrand's Hospital; and hermitages without number lurked about the corners of its churchyards, or perched themselves above the gateways of its walls. The greater portion of these have left but a name, or a few scattered fragments, behind to mark their site; but one magnificent relic of the Black Friars monastery, comprising the whole of the nave and chancel of their beautiful church, yet stands in an almost perfect state of preservation,-a n.o.ble witness of the wealth and taste of the poor "mendicant" followers of Friar Dominick,-which was rescued from destruction at the period of the general "dissolution," by the zeal and practical expediency of munic.i.p.al authorities. Of the two friaries that have ceased to exist even in outline, it may suffice to record, that the Carmelites numbered among them the eminent writer, "John Bale, the antiquary," as he is wont to be called; the Austin Friars seem to have possessed few particular claims for notice, save their less rigorous injunctions for fasting, but the Friars Minors were the great rivals of the Preachers, and both together, the sore troublers of the peace of the "Regulars," who looked upon the growing power of this "_secular_" priesthood with a jealousy and hatred to be conceived only by those who appreciate duly the "loaves and fishes." As a sample of the feeling existing, the account of Matthew Paris, the monk of St. Albans, may fairly be cited. He says, "The 'friars preachers' having obtained privileges from Pope Gregory IX. and Innocent IV. being rejoiced and magnified, they talked malapertly to the prelates of churches, bishops and archdeacons, presiding in their synods; and where many persons of note were a.s.sembled, showed openly the privileges indulged to them, proudly requiring that the same may be recited, and that they may be received with veneration by the churches; and intruding themselves oft-times impertinently, they asked many persons, even the religious, 'Are you confessed?' And if they were answered 'Yes,' 'By whom?' 'By my priest.' 'And what idiot is he? He never learned divinity, never studied the devices, never learned to resolve one question; they are blind leaders of the blind; come to us, who know how to distinguish one leprosy from another, to whom the secrets of G.o.d are manifest.' Many therefore, especially n.o.bles, despising their own priests, confessed to these men, whereby the dignity of the ordinaries was not a little debased."

Another says: "Now they have created two new fraternities, to which they have so generally received people of both s.e.xes, that scarce one of either remains, whose name is not written in one of them, who, therefore, all a.s.sembling in their churches, we cannot have our own parishioners, especially on solemn days, to be present at divine service, &c.; whence it is come to pa.s.s that we, being deprived of the due t.i.thes and oblations, cannot live unless we should turn to some manual labour. What else remaineth therefore? except that we should demolish our churches, in which nothing else remaineth for service or ornament but a bell and an old image, covered with soot.' But these preachers and minors, who begun from cells and cottages, have erected royal houses and palaces, supported on high pillars, and distinguished into various offices, the expenses whereof ought to have been bestowed upon the poor; these, while they have nothing, possess all things; but we, who are said to have something, are beggars." Alas! how many a poor curate of this nineteenth century, upon 30 a-year, might subscribe to a like pitiful complaint.

Another accusation against these mendicant friars, in their days of maturity, was that they used to steal children under fourteen years of age, or receive them without the consent of their friends, and refuse to restore them, embezzling or conveying them away to "other cloisters,"

where they could not be found. A statute of Henry IV. subjected these friars to punishment for this offence; and the provincials of the four orders were sworn before the parliament, for themselves and successors, to be obedient to this statute.

Kirkpatrick, from whom the above is quoted, says elsewhere, that in 1242, a great controversy arose between the friars minors and preachers, about the greatest worthiness, most decent habit, the strictest, humblest, and holiest life; for the preachers challenged pre-eminence in these-the minors contradicted, and great scandal arose. And because they were learned men, it was the more dangerous to the church.

"These are they," says he, "who in sumptuous edifices, and lofty walls, expose to view inestimable treasures, impudently transgressing the limits of poverty, and the fundamentals of their profession; who diligently apply themselves to lords and rich persons, that they may gape after wealth; extorting confessions and clandestine wills, commending themselves and their order only, and extolling them above all others. So that no Christian now believes he can be saved, unless he be governed by the councils of the preachers and minors. In obtaining privileges, they are solicitors; in the courts of kings and potentates, they are councillors, gentlemen of the chamber, treasurers, match-makers, matrimony-brokers; executioners of papal extortions; in their sermons, either flatterers or stinging backbiters, discoverers of confession, or impudent rebukers."

Making all due allowance for the party feeling of the historian, thus commemorating the factions of the "Mother Church," enough may be seen of the truth, to form a general idea of the condition of the brotherhoods, one of whose "palaces, supported by high pillars," is now left us as a subject for our investigation.

The order of Black Friars owe their origin to the famous Dominick, notorious for his zeal in the persecution of the Albigenses. He figures also in the "Golden Legend," as a miraculously endowed infant; his G.o.d-mother perceiving on his forehead a star, which made the whole world light. The common seal of the Black Friars, still preserved, commemorates another miracle concerning him: "Being grown to man's estate, he became a great preacher against heretics; and once upon a time, he put his authorities against them in writing, and gave the schedule into the hands of a heretic, that he might ponder over its contents. The same night, a party being met at a fire, the man produced the schedule, upon which he was persuaded to cast it into the flames, to test its truth; which doing, the schedule sprung back again, after a few minutes, unburnt; the experiment was repeated thrice, with the same results; but the heretics refused to be convinced, and pledged themselves not to reveal the matter;-but one of them, it seems, afterwards did so."

Many other marvellous tales are extant of holy St. Dominick, but we hasten on to take a look at the church of his followers. The present building bears date of the fifteenth century, and would seem to have been materially enriched by the famous Sir Thomas Erpingham, who takes such prominent place in the city, and church walls, and gateways, his arms figuring here in the stone-work between every two of the upper story of windows. In its primitive condition the church boasted of three chapels, one of them subterranean, three altars, two lights, and an image of St.

Peter of Malayn; the choir was decorated with panel paintings, which found their way at the Reformation to the parlour of some private dwelling-house close by, whose walls they yet adorn. Two guilds were held there, the guild of St. William and the Holy Rood. In 1538, when the axes and hammers of King Henry were busy over the face of the land, and bonfires of libraries were being made in the precincts of every monastery, the house and church of the Black Friars was saved.

Deputations to his majesty from the corporation of the city, successfully negotiated the transfer of the building to its possession, on consideration of the sum of eighty-one pounds being paid into the Royal Treasury. Mention is made in old records of a handsome library belonging to this as well as the Carmelite Monastery; their fate perhaps may be conjectured by that of many others of the time. Bale mentions the fact of a merchant buying the contents of two n.o.ble libraries for forty shillings, to be used as waste paper, and ten years were occupied in thus consuming them. The chancel of the church has retained its character as a place of worship almost unvaryingly until the present day, at one time being leased to the Dutch, and in later times used as a chapel by the inmates of the workhouse; occasionally, however, it has served the purpose of a playhouse; as we find on record, injuries sustained by the breaking down of part.i.tions at the performance of "interludes" in it upon Sundays, in the thirty-eighth of Henry the Eighth. The king's players we also find similarly occupying the nave or hall in Edward the Sixth's reign, during Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday before Christmas. The cloisters and other portions of the monastery were in the reign of Anne, upon the first establishment of workhouses for the poor, appropriated to that purpose, the groined roofings to this day forming the ceilings of pauper kitchens and outhouses. The sole trace of ecclesiastical furniture lingering in the nave is a stone altar in one corner, much more noted as the place of gathering in after-times for the brethren of the St. George's Guild than for any religious a.s.sociations in the minds of the people. A gallery, now hidden by the gigantic orchestra built over it, savours also strongly of the primitive dedication of the building, else it has retained little more than its architectural beauties of outline to testify its original consecration. And now to trace its history, since, wrested from the mendicants, and deprived of its rights as a cemetery for the wealthy and beneficent dead, it first became the banquet chamber for munic.i.p.al feasts, its walls shone gorgeously with tapestry hangings, and its tables groaned beneath the weight of luscious dainties. The kitchens and monster chimneys, with their long rows of spit-hooks and fire-places, that now stand gaping in silent desolation at the empty larders and boiling-houses in out-of-the-way corners of the premises, look like giant ghosts of ancient civic gastronomy, lurking about in dark places, mocking the shadowy forms of latter-day epicurism, that may be satisfied with the achievements to be performed by modern "ranges," on ever so improved a scale. But the glories of the St.

George's feast are likewise departed from it; the corn-merchants, to whom its limits were awhile devoted, have built unto themselves an exchange; the a.s.sizes, once held in it, have been transferred to the little castellated encrustation that has grown out of one side of the real castle mound, and reft of all regular employment, the Hall now stands at the mercy of the city mayor, by him to be lent to whom he wills, for any or every purpose his judgment may deem consistent with propriety; hence the same walls echo one day the eloquent pleadings of a league advocate, the next to the cries of the distressed agriculturist; now to the advantages of temperance or peace societies, and the musical streams of eloquence that an Elihu Burritt can send forth, or witness the fires of enthusiasm a Father Matthew can elicit. Another week shall see it thronged with eager listeners to the reports of missionary societies, Church, London, or Baptist; the next with ready auditors to the claims of the Jews and the heathen calls for Bibles; interspersed among them shall be lectures on every branch of art and science, and every fashionable or unfashionable doctrine under the sun that can find advocates, down to Mormonism or Bloomerism itself. But prior to all in its claims upon the services of the magnificent old structure stands _music_-why else are its proportions hid by the unsightly tiers of benches that, empty, make one long for magic power to waft them all away, but which, once tenanted by their legitimate occupants, banish every murmur from one's heart and mind?

Thanks to the enterprise and spirit of the lovers of harmony, this is not seldom; concerts for the rich and concerts for the poor, for the hundreds and the "millions," have risen up to meet the calls of humanity for heart-culture by other inspirations than may be got from alphabets and primers, or intellectual disquisitions. And, triennially, arrive the great epochs of the city's glory, when she a.s.serts her claims upon the world of music, to be cla.s.sed high among the nursing mother of genius, and foster-parents of art. Then is the hour of triumph for the Black Friars' solemn and grand old nave, when its roofs and pillars tremble at the thunders of the Messiah's "Hallelujah," and resound to the electrifying crash, uttering "Wonderful;" or when they echo the sweet melodies of Haydn, Mozart, and Spohr; the refined harmonies of a Mendellsohn's "Elijah," the magic strains of his "Loreley," or reflect the wondrous landscape painting of the mystic Beethoven. Nor was the day a small one when its orchestra gave utterance to the outpourings of a genius cradled and nurtured in its bosom, whose work is acknowledged to be great and good, _albeit_ "a prophet" is not without honour save in his own country. And all praise be given as due to the generous help yielded to the son of the stranger as to the son of the soil. The world may yet live to be grateful to the city that in one year brought before it two such conceptions and creations as "Israel Restored" and "Jerusalem." And so would we take our farewell of the old "Hall," while our eyes are yet dazzled with the bright glitter of its thronged benches, galleries, and aisles, and our ears and hearts vibrating to the mighty "concert of sweet sounds" and peals of harmony poured forth from the almost matchless orchestra and benches of choristers, that lend their powers to complete the glories of the great "Festival."

The festival suggests thoughts on music, its history and progress, and of the minds that have fostered and directed its growth in this particular region, so successfully as to have gained for the "Old City" its present high position in the musical world.

Music and devotion have gone hand-in-hand from the era of the earliest singing men and singing women of Israel, and the timbrel of Miriam; the Jewish temple echoed the lofty strains of "David's harp" and the songs of the "Chief Musician;" from the pagan worship of the Greeks sprung the Ambrosian chant, and the Christian Church has been the birthplace and nursery of the grandest conceptions that have flowed from the pen of inspired genius in every later age. The _antiphonal_ singing of the earliest choirs, where a phrase of melody, after being sung by one portion of the choristers, was echoed by others at certain distances, at a higher or lower pitch, gave rise to the modern fugue. The Pope from his throne lent his aid to improve the ecclesiastical chant, and gave it his name.

The oratorio was the Phnix that arose from the ashes of the "mystery,"

the ma.s.ses of Palestrina, Handel, Haydn, and Mozart, and Hummel were responses to the calls of the church. The Reformation made no effort to sever music from the services of religion; Luther was an enthusiastic lover of harmony, and himself a composer of psalmody. The annihilations of the works of art, that banished painting and defaced sculpture, could not blot out music from the worship of the church. The "Te Deum" and "Jubilate" outlived the persecution of bishops and clergy, and the nasal whine of the Puritan conventicle was in itself a recognition of the true power and place of that n.o.blest of nature's gifts and sciences.

The quiet "Friends" nominally banish it from their form of worship; can any that have heard the flowing melodies that clothe their exhortations and prayers, say that it is so? Can any one that ever heard the voice of Elizabeth Fry doubt that poetry and music are innate gifts, that, once possessed, no human laws can sever from the utterances of a devotional spirit? No marvel is it, therefore, that a Cathedral city at all times is more or less the cradle of musical genius, or that scarce a record of a great master-spirit of harmony exists, but the office of "Kapellmeister," or "Organist," is attached to his name.

The Organ, that almost inseparable a.s.sociate of ecclesiastical music, seems to have been an instrument of great antiquity; that one of the Constantines presented one to King Pepin in 757, appears to be an established fact, and that during the tenth century the use of the organ became general in Germany, Italy, and England. In Mason's "Essay on Church Music" is a homely translation of some lines written by Wolstan, a monk of that period, descriptive of the instrument then known under that name.

"Twelve pair of bellows ranged in stately row Are joined above, and fourteen more below; These the full force of seventy men require, Who ceaseless toil, and plenteously perspire: Each aiding each, till all the winds be prest In the close confines of the inc.u.mbent chest, On which four hundred pipes in order rise, To bellow forth the blast that chest supplies."

It is presumed that the seventy men did not continue to blow throughout the performance on this monster engine, but laid in a stock of wind, which was gradually expended as the organist played; the keys were five or six inches broad, and must have been played upon by blows of the fist; the compa.s.s did not then exceed more than two octaves; half notes were not introduced until the beginning of the twelfth century, stops, not until the sixteenth; from which we may infer, that a real genuine organ, deserving the name, could not have been manufactured many years prior to the Reformation; but from the date of its first introduction may be ascribed the first attempts at the invention of harmony.

It is curious, however, in these days of penny concerts and music for the million, to look back to that time when the only probable entertainments of a secular character in which music bore a part, were such as could be furnished by the _hautboys_, sackbuts, and _recorders_ of half-a-dozen "waytes," as we find to have been the case in this city in the sixteenth century, when permission was first granted these performers to play comedies, interludes, plays and tragedies. Will Kempe mentions these same _waytes_ with great praise, and their renown may be inferred from the fact of their being solicited by Sir Francis Drake "to accompany him on his intended voyage" in 1589, upon which occasion the city provided them with new instruments, new cloaks, and a waggon to convey their chattels. The inventory of musical instruments in the possession of the city in 1622, forms a rather striking contrast to a "band" of the nineteenth century, consisting as it did of only four "sackbuts," four "hautboys" (one broken), two tenor cornets, one tenor "recorder," two counter tenor "recorders," five "chaynes," and five "flagges."

In the seventeenth century, when the country was deluged with civil war, and overrun with Royalist and Puritan soldiers, music declined, and we read little concerning it, here or elsewhere, until that age of strife and commotion had pa.s.sed away.

In 1709, one of the city "waytes" advertised himself as teacher of the violin and hautboy, and in 1734 there appeared another advertis.e.m.e.nt of a concert to be given, tickets 2_s._ 6_d._, country dancing to be given gratis after the concert, doors to be open at four o'clock, the performance to commence at six, "_by reason of the country dancing_."

In the course of the sixteenth century, the psalmody of the Protestant Church was brought nearly to its present state, and towards the end of that and commencement of the next century, shone that constellation of English musicians, whose inimitable madrigals are still the delight of every lover of vocal harmony. A madrigal differs from a glee, inasmuch as each of its parts should be sung by several voices; its name originated in Italy, and was applied to compositions in four, five, or six vocal parts, adapted to words of a tender character; neither madrigal nor glee should be accompanied by instruments.

In the Elizabethan age to sing in parts was an accomplishment held to be indispensable in a well-educated lady or gentleman; and at a social meeting, when the madrigal books were laid on the table, every body was expected to take part in the harmony; any person declining from inability, was regarded with contempt, as rude and ill-bred.

The rapid improvement of music in all its branches during the last century has been promoted mainly by the various societies, clubs, and other a.s.sociations that have sprung up in the metropolis and many large cities, among which Norwich stands prominently; these have formed a bond of union between professional musicians and amateurs, mutually advantageous, by establishing among them a combination of talent and taste, that tends materially to cultivate the art to which they are attached. Norwich has produced many great minds, that have done much towards this work. In the last century the musical world were astonished by the wonderful precocity of the two young children, Hook and Crotch; the name of the former as notorious perhaps as much through the literary fame of his son Theodore, as for his own musical attainments.

It is said that young Hook was able to play pieces at four years of age, and at six to perform a concerto at a concert, and to have composed the music for an opera with thirty-six airs, before he was eight years old.

In the course of his life he is said to have written two thousand four hundred songs, one hundred and forty complete works or operas, one oratorio, and many odes and anthems. He died in 1813, leaving two sons, Dr. James Hook, the Dean of Worcester, who died 1828, and Theodore Edward Hook, the author.

William Crotch, whose name has attained a wider celebrity, was also a native of the city, the son of a carpenter. His early displays of musical talent exceed in wonder even those of his fellow-citizen and co-temporary, Hook; and many curious anecdotes are related of its manifestation during his infancy. His father seems to have been a self-taught musician, who without any scientific knowledge had built himself an organ, upon which he had learned to play a few common tunes, such as "G.o.d save the King," and "Let Ambition fire the mind." About Christmas 1776, his child William, then only a year and a half old, was observed frequently to leave his food or play, to listen to his father, and would even then touch the key note of the tunes he wished to be played. Not long afterwards, a musical lady came to try the organ, and after her visit he seems to have made his first attempt to play a tune-her playing excited him to a painful degree, his mother describing him as so peevish that she could "do nothing with him." Music had charms, however, to soothe his baby breast, and he consoled himself by picking out the air of "G.o.d save the King," which in addition to being his father's most frequent performance, had been also frequently sung as a lullaby by his maternal nurse. At this time he was _two years and three weeks old_, truly an infant prodigy! The report of his precocity gained little credence, until accident confirmed what had previously been deemed the exaggerations of parental fondness.

His father's employer, pa.s.sing the house at a time when the elder Crotch was absent from work on the plea of indisposition, heard the organ, and fancied that his workman was idle instead of ill; to convince himself, he went in, and found little Master William performing, and his brother blowing the bellows. The marvel spread, and attracted such crowds of auditors, that from that time the hours of his performance were obliged to be limited. As he grew older his musical attainments rapidly increased, while at the same time he discovered symptoms of a genius for drawing, almost equal to that which he had already displayed for music.

When he was twelve years old he did the duty of organist at several chapels in Cambridge, whence he removed to Oxford, with a view to entering the church; but he afterwards resumed the musical profession, and was appointed organist of Christ Church, in 1790. In 1797, he became professor of music in that university; and in 1799, obtained the degree of doctor of music. On the establishment of the Royal Academy, in 1823, he was nominated Princ.i.p.al of that inst.i.tution, but retired from the office before his death. Dr. Crotch's great work is the oratorio of "Palestine," the poetry of which is the prize poem of Bishop Heber. He was also the author of several anthems, and other pieces of sacred music.

His death occurred suddenly, at the dinner-table, on the 29th of September, 1847, in the seventy-third year of his age, at the residence of his son, the Rev. W. R. Crotch, Master of the Grammar School at Taunton, where he had spent the later years of his life.

There are two points worthy of notice connected with the name and works of this great man. The country has raised no monument in any of its cathedrals or churches to his memory, and his greatest work, "Palestine,"

is an oratorio almost entirely neglected. May it not be possible for the "Old City" that gave him birth to set an example to the rest of the musical world, by attention to these facts?

Most of the leading minds whose zeal and energy directed the earlier movements of the various musical societies in this district, are yet among the living, and the natural dictates of refinement cause us to shrink from any attempts at their biographies; it is, therefore, with the deference due to real genius, which needs no praise, that we pa.s.s in silence over the names of the most earnest promoters of the growth and cultivation of music, especially as developed in the workings of the Festival Committee, and its important adjunct, the Choral Society. The names and fame of Sir George Smart and Mr. Edward Taylor, professor of music at Gresham College, are already too much the property of the world at large to be reckoned among those whose privacy might be invaded by comment in these pages; but there are many more, who with them, may from the centre of that magnificent hall, and the midst of the greatest triumphs of music that have ever been achieved by its almost unrivalled choruses and orchestra, feel that "for their monument we must look around."

And now it might seem but just and right that among the lions of the "Old City" we should find a place for the manifold ecclesiastical structures still surviving the downfall of "superst.i.tion," and retaining their legitimate right, as houses of worship. To do justice to the antiquities or beauties that abound among them is a task beyond our powers, or the limit of such a work as this; their traceries, their curiously cut flint work, old carvings, rood lofts, chambers of sanctuary within, and heaped-up grave-yards without, verily burying the pathways of the streets, they line in such close succession-their monuments and epitaphs, quaint, grim, chaste, and uncouth; their steeples, spires, and towers, round, square, b.u.t.tressed and bare-their bells musical and grand, cracked and jangling-their roofs slated, tiled, leaded, patched, perfect, or crumbling-their names and saintships a labyrinth of mystery in themselves-would it not fill a volume alone to chronicle even their leading features, to say nought of the changes they have undergone, the barter among goods and chattels, the chopping and changing, and ma.s.sacres in the painted gla.s.s departments,-part of an Abraham and his a.s.s left in a St. Andrews, the other portions transported to the windows of St.

Stephens; of the ghostly outlines left of old bra.s.ses torn up and melted down by Puritan soldiers and coppersmiths-or the legends that hang about their shrines and mutilated images? We dare not venture upon the well-beaten track of archaeologians, topographers, and tourists; our glance must be cursory and superficial, content to ascertain by its sweeping survey that treasures of knowledge and stores of information await the patient and diligent investigations of more learned and scientific enquirers.

A visit to St. Stephens rewards the archaeologist by a sight of a few old stalls and a font of early date, while the historian a.s.sociates with it the memory of the celebrated Parker, second Archbishop of Canterbury, who was a native of Norwich, and some say of this parish, but at any rate was singing pupil of the priest and clerk of this church. Parker's life occupies an important position in history. The son of "a calenderer of stuffs," in this city, he was at a very early age left fatherless, and dependent upon a mother's guidance and direction for his education. Her superintending care provided him with a variety of masters for the several branches of learning-reading, writing, singing, and grammar-each being acquired under a separate teacher. He afterwards entered Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, whence he was invited to the magnificent foundation of Cardinal Wolsey's (now Christ Church) College, Oxford, but preferring to remain at Cambridge, he declined. In 1553, he was made chaplain to Queen Anne Boleyn, and received from her a special commission to superintend the education of her daughter Elizabeth. He was made chaplain to King Henry VIII., after the death of Anne Boleyn, and continued the same office in his successor's reign; added to which, he was Rector of Stoke in Ess.e.x, Prebend of Ely Cathedral, and successively Rector of Ashen in Ess.e.x, and Birlingham All Saints, in Norfolk. He was chosen Master of Corpus Christi College in 1544, and Vice-Chancellor of the University. Happening to be in Norfolk during the celebrated "Kett's rebellion," he had the courage to go to the rebels' camp and preach to them out of the oak of Reformation, exhorting them to moderation, temperance, and submission, which expedition, as we have seen elsewhere, had well nigh terminated fatally.

In 15501, he was put in the commission for correcting and punishing the new sect of Anabaptists, then sprung up. In Mary's reign he was deprived of most of his dignities, upon the plea of his being married, and retired into Norfolk amongst his friends; but upon the succession of his old pupil, Elizabeth, he was exalted to the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury. Her Majesty made several visits to his house at Canterbury.

His efforts to suppress the vague prophecies that were continually being set up in the various dioceses, and exciting the minds of the people, made him many enemies among the Puritans, but he still enjoyed the favour of the Queen. He died in 1576, leaving, amongst numerous charitable bequests, a legacy to be applied to keeping his parents' monument, in St.

Clement's church-yard, in repair.

St. Peter's Mancroft, the brightest star in the constellation of churches that illumine the "Old City," has beauties and curiosities of almost every variety and character to offer for investigation; but perhaps none so loudly appeal to the senses of the citizens at large as the eloquent "changes" rung upon its magnificent set of bells, whenever occasion offers for a display of the fulness and richness of their tone; and, possibly, their melody is never more appreciated than when it comes forth in the softened echo of the beautiful m.u.f.fled peal.

Touching the presence of bells in the church, we have noticed elsewhere that they were introduced among the incrustations of Pagan worship that grew up around the early Christian forms, and owed their origin to the superst.i.tion that the sound of metal preserved the soul from the danger of evil spirits; but there are other curious facts connected with their history. The Roman Catholic baptised the bell, using holy water, incense and prayers in the ceremony and according to the missal of Salisbury, there were G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers, who gave them names.

A strange allegorical signification of bells after their baptism was written by Durandus, the great Catholic authority, for the mysterious services of the church. "The bell," he says, "denotes the preacher's mouth, the hardness of the metal implies the fort.i.tude of his mind; the clapper striking both sides, his tongue publishing both testaments, and that the preacher should on one side correct the vice in himself, and on the other reprove it in his hearers; the band that ties the clapper denotes the moderation of the tongue; the wood on which the bell hangs signifies the wood of the cross; the iron that ties it to the wood denotes the charity of the preacher; the bell-rope denotes the humility of the preacher's life," &c. &c. The description goes on yet further into detail; but the a.n.a.logies between the subjects and their allegorical representations are so undiscernible, as to make it a somewhat tedious task to follow it throughout.

But St. Peter's has manifold attractions beyond its bells. It has bra.s.ses and effigies, and monuments of every variety, commemorating the pious deeds of clergy and laity, warriors and comedians. Its vestry has pictures and tapestry and quaint alabaster carvings; little chapels jutting out from the nave like transepts, perpetuate the memory of old benefactors; and beneath its pavement lie the remains of the great philosopher Sir Thomas Browne, whose words of rebuke to the sepulchral ambition of the nameless tenants of monuments that make no record of those that lie beneath, involuntarily arise to the mind while contemplating the spot chosen for his last resting place. "Had they made so good a provision for their names as they have done for their relics, they had not so grossly erred in the act of perpetuation; but to subsist in bones, to be but pyramidically extant, is a fallacy of duration." And again, "to live indeed is to be again ourselves, which being not only our hope, but an evidence in n.o.ble believers; 'tis all one to lie in St.

Innocent's church-yard or the sands of Egypt. Ready to be anything in the ecstacy of being ever, as content with six foot as the moles of Adria.n.u.s."

Happy philosophy, that could permit him calmly to contemplate the vicissitudes to which his bones might be subjected, even to the legitimate possibility of the sanctuary chosen for their resting-place being actually invaded by the blows of the workmen's pickaxe, as veritably did occur some few years since, when the curious of the present generation were thus accidentally afforded an opportunity of cultivating a personal acquaintance with the anatomical outlines and phrenological developments of one whose intellectual offspring had been canonized, and enshrined among the household G.o.ds of the learned and the great for more than a century.

The very slight sketches of eminent characters that are suitable for so light and general a book as this, may perhaps be legitimately introduced in the course of a tour among the churches, their _parochial headships_ affording the best facilities for arrangement; but it seems almost sacrilege to hash up into abridgements or synopses, biographies so fraught with national and European interest, as are many of those whose birth-place has been the Old City of Norwich, yet more is impossible within the compa.s.s of the _Rambler's_ pen; and to adopt the alternative of omitting all mention of such names, would be to blot out some of the brightest pages from the annals of its history.

Among them, and perhaps the highest upon the pinnacle of fame, is that of Sir James Edward Smith, the Linnaeus of our country, the concentration of whose "life and Correspondence" into two bulky volumes, evinces wondrous powers of discriminating selection, and condensation, in the biographer who has undertaken the important and onerous task. What, then, can be effected in the hasty notices of a mere rambler's gleanings? Little more, if so much, as a bare outline of the leading features in the life of this brilliant ornament of our city and country, but enough, we trust, to lead any who have not already acquired a more intimate knowledge of his personal history, to feel earnest to repair the omission. He was a native of the parish of St. Peter's Mancroft; and of his education, it is worthy of note, that he never left the parental roof to enter either a public or private boarding-school: he is one of the many favourable testimonies to the advantages of a strictly domestic education, conducted by aid of the most efficient masters, under the immediate superintendence of parental care. About the age of eighteen, he devoted himself to the study of botany as a science, and says himself, "the only book he could then procure was 'Berkenhout,' Hudson's 'Flora' having become extremely scarce." He received "Berkenhout" on the 9th of January, 1778, and on the 11th began to examine the _Ule curopaeus_ (common furze), and then first comprehended the nature of systematic arrangement, little aware that, at _that instant_, the world was losing the great genius who was to be to him so important a future guide, and whose vacant place in the world of science he was destined so ably to fill. Linnaeus died that night, January 11th, 1778.

In 1780 Mr. Smith went to Edinburgh, and from thence to London, with a view to study for the medical profession. During his stay there, he became intimate with Sir Joseph Banks, an eminent patron of natural science, through whom he heard that the library and museum of Linnaeus were for sale, and immediately he entered into negotiations with Dr.

Acrel, of Upsal, concerning it, which ended in his becoming the purchaser of the whole collection at the price of nine hundred guineas. From London he went to Leyden, and graduated as a physician at the university there. From thence he proceeded on a tour, visiting most of the cla.s.sical spots and celebrated places in Italy and France, and upon his return to London devoted himself almost exclusively to pursuits connected with his favourite science, botany. By the a.s.sistance of his personal friend, the Bishop of Carlisle, one among the many great minds with whom he held constant communion, he set about establishing the Linnaean Society. Its first meeting was held in April, 1788, when an introductory address, "On the Rise and Progress of Natural History," was read by Sir James, then Dr. Smith, which paper formed the first article in the "Transactions of the Linnaean Society," a work which has since extended itself to twenty quarto volumes. In 1792 Dr. Smith was invited to give instructions in botany to the queen and princesses at Frogmore; and in 1814, received the honour of knighthood from the Prince Regent.

Ill health caused Sir James to return to his native county to recruit his strength, and there he continued to pursue his literary avocations in comparative privacy. His "English Botany" is a work consisting of thirty-six octavo volumes, and contains 2592 figures of British plants.