Rambles in an Old City Part 6

_He tells you himself_ that no man knew it, even when he could not have been long buried; as you may see in the last chapter of Deuteronomy; from whence, Sir, you may infer, that if it was a secret so early, 'tis certainly so still. Your humble servant, H. C."

Another rich specimen runs-

Lynn, May 18, 1709.

"Mr. Crossgrove,

Did the Apostles use notes when they preached? I have sent this Query twice before, and if I do not find it answered in your next paper, I shall conclude you either cannot or durst not answer it.

Yours unknown, &c."

Answer

"Sir,

I have a bushel of letters by me that came all to the same tune with this of yours, viz. _You cannot or durst not answer it_; but sometimes they see I dare do it, tho' I neglect other letters more pertinent through want of room: I have a dozen letters come in a week, all post haste for an answer, and seldom room to insert more than one at a time, so that many must of necessity lye by. But now for your dreadful puzzling question, Did the Apostles use notes? and to this I answer positively _No_, nor Bibles neither to hide their notes in; take notice of that; nor had they pulpits to stand in as ever I heard of, and we may observe from their sermons they took no texts: and what then? What would you infer from all this? The Apostles also never studied their sermons, for they had an extraordinary gift of preaching, as well as of speaking. But I shall say no more to your designing question than this-That those divines who read their sermons know how to improve their time much better than in getting them like schoolboys by heart; and that a good polite discourse well read, is more worthy than a Bundle of what comes uppermost tumbled out Head and Heels.

Yours, H. C."

Well done, Mr. Crossgrove! say we.

In 1714, a "Courant" was established, small folio size: at the end of one occurs this notice-

"Note. An Accident happening, the reader is desired to pardon all _literal_ errors, as it is not corrected."

Papers of somewhat later date afford samples almost as quaint:-Advertis.e.m.e.nt. "James Hardy acquaints his friends, that he has lately had a large quant.i.ty of preserves. I shall be very happy to supply any gentleman with coals." "Notice is hereby given that on Thursday and Friday next, being sixth and seventh of June, 1734, a coach and horses will set out for London, from Mr. Thomas Bateman's, St. Giles, and perform the same in three days. Note, the coach will go either by Newmarket or Ipswich, as the pa.s.sengers shall agree." They certainly had _one_ advantage over railway travellers of the present day-that they could choose their own route.

Another specimen runs-"Whereas Mrs. Cooke at the pastry shop near the three steps has charged Mrs. Havers with embezzling to the quant.i.ty of two yards of padashway, out of her suit of clothes turned upside down two years since, and made at first for a much less person; the clothes having been viewed by several mantua makers, the same appears to be a most malicious slander," &c.

Specimens might be multiplied, but these may suffice to place beside the elaborate and ornate productions of this present year 1853, to see what a century has done in orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody.

It must have been rather more than twenty years after the first establishment of a local newspaper, that the Rev. Francis Blomefield, the great historian of the county, first commenced printing his elaborate "Topographical Essay," a work of five volumes folio, the materials for which he is said to have begun to collect when only fifteen years of age.

Many beyond the limits of the locality more especially intended to profit by this laborious undertaking, may feel interested in the facts connected with its progress, contributing so much as they do to give a correct idea of the difficulties attending the path of an author little more than a century ago.

Blomefield was rector of the parish of Fersfield, in which also he was born; in the summer months he was in the habit of making excursions in search of materials for his work, and to test the accuracy of information he had gained, by a method he had adopted, in furtherance of his object, of distributing "queries," to be filled up with answers concerning any historical or antiquarian subjects that may be known to the parties applied to. In reference to this plan, he says himself, in a letter to a friend, "It is impossible to tell you what great helps have come in by my queries: sometimes having twenty or thirty sheets, besides books, letters, records and papers for a single hundred;" (alluding to the divisions of the county into hundreds).

It was after one of his collating rambles that he finally determined to issue proposals for printing his work; and meeting with much encouragement, he speedily looked about for a suitable printing establishment. In a letter to Mr. Chase, a printer who lived next door to "John o' all sorts," c.o.c.key Lane, Norwich, on the 1st of July, 1733, he says, "I have endeavoured to procure a set of Saxon types, but cannot do it; and upon looking over my book find a good number of Greek inscriptions, some Hebrew words, and some Gothic. So that I must print it in London; it being impossible to have those types any where in the country (!). I wish heartily I could have done it with you; for I like your terms, and could have been glad to have corrected the press myself, which I then could easily have done."

Eventually he decided upon printing the work upon his own premises, and engaged a good workman, at a salary of 40 a year, bought a press for 7, and fitted up a printing office with all the requisite materials. The account in the papers of the "Archaeological Society," goes on to say, "At that time, distance and difficulties of intercourse made any want of punctuality most annoying, and the plan of printing at home involved the necessity of a great variety of type and other materials. Meanwhile type founders, stationers, and engravers, were but too much given to weary him with delay, or to disgust him with fraud. Beginning a correspondence with frankness and civility, he often had to continue it, urging and reiterating entreaties of attention-alternately coaxing compliance with 'half a piece' to drink his health and success to his work, or with 'promise of making amends,' or a 'fowl at Christmas,' or rebuking with reluctant severity, resulting more from devotedness to his object, than anger or bitterness. A facetious engraver, who was introduced to him, and invited to his house to a.s.sist him, after remaining there three weeks, agreed for a large portion of the work, and cut several of the things, all which he ran away with. Other vexations sprang out of the patronage and a.s.sistance he most valued; but, after many interruptions, the first edition of a part of the book was brought out in 1736."

In the midst of his labours, however, he was cut off by that virulent enemy, the small pox, on the 15th January, 1751, at the age of forty-six.

His work was continued by the Rev. Charles Parkens, of whom a curious anecdote is related;-its accuracy we do not pretend to vouch; the tale runs that Mr. Parkens had a tame magpie, which had access to her master's study, and seeing him busily employed in folding and unfolding the packets that lay before him on his desk, she thought it no harm to be busy too, until from time to time she flew away _with the __whole borough of Yarmouth_. Many of the parcels, it is added, were recovered, but others irrecoverably lost.

"I know not how the truth may be, But tell the tale as 'twas told to me."

With this cursory glance at the work of the great historian of the district, we close our chapter on the subjects suggested by the "Old Market-place." The sketches have been necessarily superficial, but they afford proof that its chronicles include a variety of matter and incident that may interest almost every cla.s.s of mind.

CHAPTER V.

GUILDHALL.

THE GUILDHALL.-_Visit to its dungeons_.-_Bilney_.-_St. Barbara's chapel_.-_Legend of St. Barbara_.-_a.s.size court_.-_Old doc.u.ment_.-_Trial by Jury_.-_Council chamber_.-_Old record room_.-_Guilds_.-_St. George's company_.-_History of St. George_.-_Legend of St. Margaret_.

Our rambles have now brought us to the threshold of that quaint, but beautiful old "studwork" chamber, the guildhall; the seat of civic honour, power, and glory, with its many appendages of courts and cells, the witnesses of those multiplied alternations of tragedy, comedy, and melodrama, that may be looked for to have been enacted during centuries, beneath a roof covering a council chamber, an a.s.size court, and a prison.

Once again, we avow that we aim not to be complete topographers, or guides to all the strange old carvings, and grotesque remains of ancient sculpture, that may be found in such rich abundance around the pathways of a venerable city, neither do we profess to furnish all the historic details that may be gleaned concerning these relics of antiquity; are they not chronicled elsewhere, in many mighty tomes, readable and unreadable, in "guides," and "tours," and manifold "directories?" We look and think, and odd a.s.sociations weave our thinkings sometimes, perhaps, into a queer mottled garb, though we would solemnly aver the woof through which the shuttle of our fancy plays is every fibre of it truth.

Such a preface is needed to our sketch of this fine old ornament of the city's market-place, lest disappointment should attend the hopes of the inquisitive investigator of sights and relics.

The guildhall, once like the munic.i.p.al body it represents, was but a tiny little thing compared with what it since has grown, and when bailiffs and burgesses were the only distinctive t.i.tles and offices, a simple chamber thatched, and commonly used to collect the market dues, sufficed for the seat of civic government; but when, in the reign of the third Henry, the citizens received from him a charter for a mayor and sheriffs, they took off the thatched roof of their little toll-booth, and built upon it, and round about it, s.p.a.cious rooms and courts, to accommodate and do honour to their newly acquired munic.i.p.al dignitaries; for which purpose a warrant was obtained, to press all carpenters, builders, and bricklayers, into active service, from eight o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night, as long as occasion might require; and by such compulsory process, the design was completed some fifty years from the date of its commencement. The tower, wherein was the treasury, fell down in Bluff King Harry's reign, whose matrimonial exploits have given him notoriety, in addition to the grand event of history, the Reformation, with which they bore so intimate a connection. Decay, renovation, change, and reformation, have been so busy with this seat of government, from the era of its infancy until the present time, that no small degree of ingenuity must be needed to unravel the twistings and turnings, and comprehend the inharmonious groupings that have sprung up about it, the divers offsprings of various ages, that mark the progress and growth of the munic.i.p.al const.i.tution.

Without doubt, the first claim to antiquity is justly a.s.signed to the lower dungeons and cells, some of which still serve as _lock ups_ for offenders awaiting magisterial examination; and a remarkably unpleasant situation must the individual find himself in, who is there for ever so brief a s.p.a.ce in "durance vile;" the convicted transgressor certainly makes an exchange for the better, when he reaches his ultimate destination, the city prison cell; dark, damp, underground coal-cellars, may be deemed _fair_ ill.u.s.trations of the accommodation there offered to those whom the "_law deems innocent_", as it professes to do all unconvicted persons. One degree darker, and more horrible, are the _dungeons_, which receive no light whatever, save from a jet of gas without the gratings of the doors; into these refractory guests are stowed, that their rebellious sounds may not disturb the ears of any pa.s.sers-by above ground.

"Deeper, and deeper still," down beneath the very foundations of the building, at the foot of a dark narrow winding stair, fast crumbling to decay, is yet another dungeon, long since closed for any practical purposes; the eye of curiosity alone happily is permitted to penetrate its depths. Dark and damp, however, as it is, it would seem preferable to the dismal "_lock ups_," a light, of modern introduction, from the street above, giving it a less intensely black look. Here it was that poor old Bilney spent his last hours of life; and the groined and vaulted roof, constructed upon the plan of so many of the cellars of that period of civil and domestic architecture, gives to the place a strangely ecclesiastical look in these days, and imagination has little difficulty in calling up the priest of the subterranean temple, who has been pictured to our eyes as there testing the powers of his endurance, by holding his finger in the lighted flame of the candle, to satisfy his friends that he should not shrink from the bodily pangs that were on the morrow to earn for him the crown of martyrdom. Solemn and sad are the memories cl.u.s.tered around these dreary tombs of liberty, nor is their atmosphere tempting to linger in, even upon a visit of curiosity.

The winding stair from _the dungeon_ leads into what is now a porch-way, but which must once have been the site of the old chapel, built for the use of the prisoners. This chapel was dedicated to St. Barbara, the prisoner's saint, who, according to the legend of the Romish church, "was imprisoned by her father, in a high strong tower, to the end that no man should behold her," and therefore St. Barbara is always represented with a tower. She is commemorated on the fourth of December, as St. Barbara, the Virgin and Martyr. Here, were formerly kept all the goods and chattels appertaining to the mayorality and civic feasts, in addition to the services belonging to the chapel itself; but about the era of the Reformation the chapel was pulled down, to make way for secular offices.

How busy those good reformers were in abolishing every place dedicated to worship, that their judgment deemed supernumerary! When the treasury tower fell in, it crushed a prison, known by the name of "_Little Ease_;"

the full details of whose attractions we are left in ignorance of. Upon the first floor, near the site of the chapel, was once the large chamber, where the sealing of the cloths manufactured in the city was carried on, since converted into an a.s.size court, where the notorious lawmongers of this city, with their brother dignitaries of the bar, join forces to promote the ends of justice, their clients, and their own. There is a queer old doc.u.ment extant, wherein the number of learned gentlemen permitted to follow the profession of the law in this city was limited, "because," as the preamble states, "when there were no more than six or eight attorneys at the most coming to the king's courts, great tranquillity reigned in the city and county, and little trouble or vexation was made by untrue and foreign suits; and now, so it is, that in the said city and county there be fourscore attornies, or more, the more part having nothing to live upon but only his gain by the practice of attorneyship, and also the more part of them not being of sufficient knowledge to be an attorney, &c. &c., whereby proceed many suits more of evil will and malice than of the truth of the thing, to the manifold vexations, and no little damage of the inhabitants of the said city and county." Wherefore it was enacted, that there should be but six attorneys in the county, and two in the city, for the future. When this admirable statute was repealed, we know not, but conceive it must have been long, long ago, for so many bra.s.s-plate signs to have sprung up in evidence of a numerous progeny taking place of the solitary two. Whether the repeal was a _reform_ calculated to benefit the city, experience best can prove; but if the character of the "common folk" in these parts is faithfully given by the author of "English Worthies," we may presume them to have been considerably inconvenienced by the scarcity of tools with which to play their favourite game. He says, "that the common folks of Norfolk are possessed of such skill in the law, that they are said to study the law at the plough's tail, and some would persuade us that they will enter an action for their neighbour's horse only looking over the fence."

In later times, evidences of the law mania exist in manifold forms; and the fact of individuals consulting a lawyer before calling in a doctor, in physical ailments, is by no means an uncommon occurrence among a certain cla.s.s. Some men think and judge with their lawyer's heads, who, in return, of course, in justice live upon their purses.

Some few amusing facts connected with the boasted English privilege of "Trial by Jury," may serve to ill.u.s.trate the growth of "purity" in our courts of law. The jurisdiction exercised over jurors by the "Star-chamber" is a notorious matter of history; but the curious and graphic description of the nature and const.i.tution of a jury in the thirteenth century, as given by Sir Francis Palgrave, in his "Tale of the Merchant and Friar," may not be quite so familiar, and is far too good to be omitted.

"A trial was about to commence. 'Sheriff, is your inquest in court?'

said the Mayor. 'Yes, my lord,' replied the sheriff, 'and, I am proud to say, it will be an excellent jury for the crown. I myself have picked and chosen every man upon the panel. I have spoken to them all; and there is not one whom I have not examined carefully, not only as to his knowledge of the offences of which the prisoner stands charged, but of all the circ.u.mstances from which his guilt can be collected, suspected, or inferred. All the jurors were acquainted with him; eight out of the twelve have often been heard to declare upon their oath, that they were sure one day he would come to the gallows; and the remainder are fully of opinion that he deserves the halter. My lord, I should ill have performed my duty, if I should have allowed my bailiffs to summon the jury at hap-hazard, and without previously ascertaining the extent of their testimony. Some perhaps know more, and some less; but the least informed of them have taken great pains to go up and down every corner of Westminster, they and their wives, and to know all that they could hear concerning his past and present life and conversation. Never had any culprit a chance of a fairer trial.'"

An extract from the archives of the Record room, gives another specimen of the mode of dealing with jurymen, if they proved refractory or obstinate. It bears the date of the 8th year of King Henry VIII., and is to the purport that the jury that "acquitted Walter, James, and John Doo, Benet Bullok, and Edmund Stuttlie, notwithstanding that they had good and substantial evidence given against the said felons, at the last gaol delivery of Norwich; as the chief Justice of the King's Bench, the Lord Edmund Howard, and William Ellis, one of the justices of the peace there, openly declared before the lords, in the presence of the said jury; for the which perjury so by them committed, it is by the lords' most honourable council adjudged and decreed, that the said jury shall do the penance following, that is to say, they shall be committed to the Fleet, there to remain till to-morrow, and that then, at six of the clock, they shall be brought by the warden of the Fleet into Westminster Hall, with papers on their heads, whereon shall be written in great letters, 'these men be wilfully perjured;' and with the same papers on their heads they shall be led thrice about the hall of Westminster aforesaid, and then to be led by the warden of the Fleet to the Fleet again, there to remain till Monday; and on Monday, in the morning, to be had into Cheapside, and there shall go about the cross in Chepe thrice, and then they shall return to the Fleet, and there to remain till Tuesday, and then to be brought again before the lords, to be bound by recognizances to do the same penance at home, in their county at Norwich; and that a precept shall be directed to the mayor and sheriffs of the city of Norwich aforesaid, to see the said parties do the said penance in the said city, upon Sat.u.r.day, the 22d day of this present month of November, openly in the market-place there, with papers on their heads, whereupon shall be written the same words above written."

The old mode of trial by ordeal, consisting as it did of an appeal to Heaven for judgment, either directly by miraculous interference, as in the ordeals of fire and water, or indirectly, in the ordeals of single combat, might well have had their charms in the memory of culprit and jurors both, when such a subst.i.tute alone was offered by the courts of justice that had superseded them. There are, however, two extremes that may be gone to about every thing; and we believe a little wholesome penance might, even in the nineteenth century, not come amiss to stir up the wits of many a sleepy juror. Certes, they often richly merit it.

From the a.s.size court we bend our steps upward, to the region where we may feel at no loss in our search for objects of genuine antiquity, and find ourselves in the _Council Chamber_; and here we arrive at the very pinnacle of magisterial dignity-the zenith of munic.i.p.al glory-the seat of mayoralty and aldmermanship and common councilship, once broadly separate and distinct in their grades of rank and power, in very truth an upper and a lower house, a peerage and a commons-a.s.sembling themselves in chambers becomingly graduated in their degrees of splendour-but now, alas! in these degenerate days of reformation and democratic sovereignty, as some might please to call them, all merged into one conglomerated body corporate-shall we add, of _order Gothic composite_?

The old chamber looks as if it had seen better days; two or three patched-up windows of variegated colours, still retaining many quaint and curious devices, bear witness of the taste and liberality of our forefathers; and imagination, by the aid of history's pen, can fill up the unsophisticated plain gla.s.s lights at the side, with the old subjects that once occupied their s.p.a.ce, but which have fallen a sacrifice to the despoiler's barbarous hand;-one of the unjust judge, who, being flayed alive, was succeeded in office by his son, and the picture, so they tell us, was elucidated by some very characteristic specimens of antique poetry-to wit, the first two lines of general advice, addressed to all who may ever be in a position to profit by it,-

"Let alle men se, stedfast you be, Justice do ye, or else like you fle;"

and an additional verse to the unfortunate son who succeeded him in office:-

"You that sittyst now in place, See hange before thy face Thyn own Fader's skyn, For falsehood; this ded he wyn."

Another equally original specimen of the judgment of Solomon is thus explained:-

"The trewe and counterfeit to trye, She had rather lose her Ryght- Saying, the Soulders ware redy To clyve, with all their myght."

These, as I said, have disappeared; but we were unwilling in our sketch to lose sight altogether of such very interesting reliques of our ancestor's skill, in conveying moral lessons by the light of their window-panes, as were to be found here a century or two ago. Those good old folks did not seem to be wanting in a certain kind of wit; here, as in many other parts of the city, we have traces of their love of a fair rebus-without a slight knowledge of which propensity, we might look long ere we could understand the hieroglyphical appearance of a barrel set on end, with N. E. C. written above-history, however, elucidates the mystery, by explaining it as the rebus of one THOS. NECTON, who aided by his wealth the filling in of one of the little gothic windows with stained gla.s.s. The curiously carved old desk in the centre was once the reading-desk in fair St. Barbara's chapel down below,-could it speak, we wonder whether it would glory in its _elevation_. But now we really can resist no longer a good hearty laugh at those comical little unmakeoutable animals, seated so demurely all round the room, on the tops of the high-backed benches, with their queer little faces struggling to keep down a grin. Whatever were they put there for? Was it to chronicle up in their little wooden pates the doings and undoings, the sayings and unsayings, that they have been looking at, and listening to, so patiently and wonderingly, for these four centuries past? What would we give to hear them tell the tale of all they have seen and heard go on, since first the royal charter granted to our citizens the long-sought privilege of a real _bona fide_ mayor! how, at first this dignitary used to sit in solemn majesty upon his throne of state, surrounded by his aristocracy of chosen peers, deliberating gravely on the affairs of their little state; how, reverently and orderly the subordinate commons used to come into their presence at their bidding, and do as they were told by the supreme authorities; and how, as time and years pa.s.sed, the heads of these same commons began to lift themselves a little and a little higher, till they really seemed as much _real men_ as those who occupied the chairs of state; how, when at last their struggles had gained the great munic.i.p.al reform, some sixteen years ago, they took their seats in the very midst of the aldermanic autocrats, with all the coolness of precocious intellect, usurping dignities reserved for high-sounding names or well-lined purses. Could they not tell a few more tales of how the ethereal blue and whites,-remembering the day when their opponents, clad in purple, numbered nine out of twelve of the industrious nominees who were to choose their fellow-workers in the field of city usefulness, had traded with their talents till they had gained nine and thirty more purples to sit by their side, and smile at the twelve blue-looking occupants of the opposition benches,-did, in later times, effectually turn the tables on the oppressors' heads, and sit above them in triumph, looking down on fallen greatness; how this revolution had scarce become familiar to their little sapiencies, when from the very centre of the rival factions sprang another party; and the dogs, and dragons, and what-nots, felt ready to jump from their seats, when their ears heard a city youth avow himself an independent man, neither a _blue_ nor _purple_-a man of _principle_-didn't they wonder what it meant, and whether he really had enough of it to buy up both the other bidders in this marketable borough, or whether it would pay the interest of all the sums that they had severally spent in the good city's cause, and how they longed to laugh outright when he avowed that honesty and truth were all the _princ.i.p.al_ he traded with, and how they began by-and-bye to think there might be something in it, and to comprehend a little of the theory, but somehow the working of it seemed to puzzle and perplex them, it seemed to be so complicated by the interference of expediency. But it will not do to tarry longer, conjecturing what might be the confessions of the little carved images; who does not, or has not read the brilliant comedies that have been, and are yet being, enacted perpetually within this chamber?

But there are more objects of interest to be examined within its walls; and among them pre-eminently stands forth the sword of Admiral Don Xavier Francisco Winthuysen, transmitted by Horatio Nelson to the mayor of the city, from the Irresistible, off Lisbon, Feb. 26th, A.D. 1797. The sword, with its white vellum sheath ornamented with silver, is enclosed in a gla.s.s case, with the original letter from Admiral Nelson, relating the particulars of its capture. In these days of railways and universal travelling, the trophy might prudently, we conceive, hold less conspicuous place. No great stretch of the bounds of probability might suggest the chance of some relative or descendant of Don Xavier Francisco standing face to face with the uncomfortable memento of past misfortunes.