Antiquarian Correspondence.

Sin scire labores,Quære, age: quærenti pagina nostra patet.

All communications must be accompanied by the name and address of the sender, not necessarily for publication.

A BISHOP ON ARCHÆOLOGY.

Sir,—At the reopening of a church in Northamptonshire recently, the Bishop of Peterborough is reported to have observed that churches were not architectural museums merely designed for the recreation and instruction of persons of an architectural turn of mind, but places designed for worship and the comfort of those who attended them, and that whatever interfered with such objects should be removed. I wonder what the members of the Archæological Institute and Association, to say nothing of fellows of the Society of Antiquaries, will think of such a remark.

W. E.

GUERIN, COUNT OF MONTGLAVE.

Sir,—In the preface of Mr. Charles Tomlin’s “Chess Manual,” particulars are given of a game of chess, said to have been played between Charlemagne and Guérin, a powerful noble of Aquitaine, the stakes to be Guérin’s possessions against the kingdom of France. The Emperor lost, but it was at last arranged that, in lieu of France, Guérin was to receive the Countship of Montglave, or Lyons, if he could wrest the place from the Saracens, who then held it. This, with the aid of his knights and followers, he is said to have done, taking prisoners Gasier, the Sultan, and his only daughter, Mabiletta, whom he afterwards married on her becoming a Christian. They had four sons. A romance recounting the adventures and victories of these four sons was printed by M. Michel le Noir, 1515, under the title of “L’Histoire de Guérin de Montglave,” since which date, and under the same title, the story has been reproduced in prose and verse by several authors, but in none are any details respecting their father, Guérin, given, although frequent mention of both Mabiletta and the Count are made, representing him as the great friend, as well as one of the chief captains of Charlemagne. Can any of your readers inform me where particulars respecting this Guérin, the game of chess, and his victory over the Saracens, &c., are to be found?—Yours faithfully,

Wm. C. Lukis de Guerin.

98, Sandgate-road, Folkestone.

EXTINCT MAGAZINES.

(See vol. v. p. 273.)

Sir,—In accordance with the promise appended to my query at the preceding reference, I send you, as a first instalment, a few hurriedly written particulars of a magazine which, if I am not misinformed, died at its initial number. Like many another publication, doomed to an ephemeral existence, it deserved other and better treatment.

TheBorder Miscellany, or, as it is printed on the illustrated cover,Thompson’s Border Miscellany, was published at Berwick-on-Tweed, March, 1852, price sixpence, and though consisting of only forty-eight pages, octavo, it contains several exceedingly interesting items, among which I would reckon an “Unpublished Letter of Sir Walter Scott,” “Atoms of Information,” and the article of rather more than eight pages, entitled “The Tweed and its Tributaries,” by a disciple of Isaak Walton. The extracts from the Books of Council and Session, under the heading, “Memoranda Scotica,” are also interesting, especially to those who may have the genealogy of the Oliphants and other Scottish families at heart.

The story with which theMiscellanyopens, “Florrette; or, Henri Quatre’s First Love,” adapted from the German of Zschokke, by Bon Gualtier, is, in my humble estimation, a piece of dull, uninteresting reading. The poetry, literary notices, and some other odds and ends, do not call for special recognition.

Here is the motto of this short-lived magazine:—

“L’Envoy.For us and our Miscellany,Here, stooping to your clemency,We beg your hearing patiently.Shakespeare(New Edition).”

On the back cover the following note of warning appeared:—

“Publishers are warned that the articles in this Miscellany are copyright. When short extracts from any of the papers are quoted, it will be obliging if the name of the Miscellany be prefixed.”

Who the editor of this venture was I know not, though I am aware that it was published by W. Thompson, at the time and place already mentioned. Perhaps some of your readers can throw light on the matter.

P. J. Mullin.

Leith, N.B.

PORTREEVE.

Sir,—Should any of your readers feel further interest in this subject, I would beg to refer them to your September number for my defence against Mr. Round’s repeated attacks, and contrast my paper with the misrepresentations which are now made of it in his note for this month. I would fain assume that these misrepresentations are not intentional, and that they may rather be attributed to that “lamentable confusion—truly distressing confusion,” which another contributor to your pages has described as characteristic of a former paper by Mr. Round, and which, indeed, seems to pervade all his papers. That these misrepresentations, however, exist will not for a moment be doubted by anyone who may make the comparison above suggested, and their existence, from whatever cause arising, must for the future preclude my bestowing any further notice of anything emanating from Mr. Round.

It seems almost unnecessary to specify any of the misrepresentations in question, but as something of the kind may be expected, and for the satisfaction of those who may not have seen my paper, or have an opportunity of easily referring to it, I will just cite one or two examples out of the numerous ones with which Mr. Round’s note abounds.

First, then, as regards the term “port or gate.” In employing the term port or gate as I did in my first paper, it was in the full assurance that these words are here absolutelysynonymous, and that I was strictly correct in thus using the wordportwhere it occurs in the Laws of Athelstan. On this point, however, Mr. Round thought fit to assail me, asserting that my “rendering outside the port or gate” was a mere “gloss” ofmy ownon the word “port.” In consequence of this strange and somewhat unintelligible charge I was led to look into the question more closely, and found, though previously unaware of the fact, that I was entirely supported in my view and use of the words both by Camden and by Sharon Turner. In my next paper I accordingly quoted from Camden that at “Portgate,” on the Roman Wall, there was formerlya gate, as “the word in both languages” (Roman and Saxon) “fairly evinces.” On this passage, which it will be seen completely establishes my case, Mr. Round “evinces”hissense of fairness by suppressing all allusion to it. Again, it was pointed out that Sharon Turner distinctly uses the words assynonymouswhere he speaks of “theport-gerefaorthe gerefa of thegate.” Nothing can be clearer or stronger than this, yet all notice of this is also suppressed, and Mr. Round, even after this has been pointed out to him, does not scruple to misrepresent me by repeating his assertion, and still arguing that in thus rendering the words “port or gate,” the words “or gate” are a mere “gloss” ofmy own. What opprobrium he intends to convey by the word “gloss” it is difficult to say, but, whatever it may be, your readers will now see that it applies quite as strongly to such high authorities as Camden and Sharon Turner as it does to me.

Further on, Mr. Round states that he has proved by demonstration that the markets were not held at the gates. I remarked in my paper that he might have spared himself the pains of proving what no one ever doubted, “the well-known fact that the forum was situated in the centre of a Roman town or city”; but I also pointed out what Mr. Round appears still to be ignorant of, thatlarge transactions were conducted at the gates, the levying of tolls and the sale and purchase of merchandise, and thus “the wordport, originally restricted tothe gateswhere such extensive transactions were carried on, would at no distant period become applied,” in the way described, “to the town itself” (p. 114).

This latter passage, and all allusion to it, Mr. Round also suppresses, satisfying his sense of fair and reasonable argument in this case by merely harping again on the statement that “I provedby demonstration that the markets were never held at the gate,” which, in fact, no one at all conversant with the subject ever thought they were.

Apart, then, from what has here been thus briefly exposed, the character of Mr. Round’s papers is otherwise such as would deter me from giving any further time to their discussion.

A profuse rush of words—“verba et voces prætereaque nihil”—which seem to shun all approach to logical sequence, will not in the present day be accepted in place of the legitimate rules of reasoning, neither will they justify a writer who indulges in them in dispensing with the ordinary rules of courtesy.

James Hurly Pring, M.D.

Taunton, October, 1884.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

TheEditor declines to pledge himself for the safety or return of MSS. voluntarily tendered to him by strangers.

Mus Rusticus.—You will find a good description of a Lord Mayor’s Show in the reign of James I. in F. W. Fairholt’s “History of Lord Mayors’ Pageants,” privately printed by the Percy Society in 1843.

1. The Lay of St. Aloys. By Thomas Ingoldsby. Eyre & Spottiswoode. 1884.

2. The Aberdeen Printers. (1620-1736.) By J. P. Edmond. Aberdeen: Edmond & Spark. 1884.

3. The Lauderdale Papers. Vol. i. Edited by Osmund Airy. Camden Society. 1884.

4. Some Observations upon the Law of Ancient Demesne. By Pym Yeatman, Barrister-at-Law. Mitchel & Hughes. 1884.

5. Some Account of a Roman Garrison at Greta Bridge. By the Rev. J. Hirst. Reprinted from the Journal of the Yorkshire Archæological Association. 1884.

6. Birmingham, Aston, and Edgbaston, as seen in Domesday Book; and the Saxons in Warwickshire. By J. A. Langford, LL.D. (Privately printed.)

7. Pottery and Porcelain. By F. Litchfield. Bickers & Son. 1884.

8. Doctor Johnson: His Life, Works, and Table Talk. (Centenary Edition.) T. Fisher Unwin. 1884.

9. Records of Chesterfield. By Pym Yeatman, Esq. Chesterfield: Wilfred Edmunds. 1884.

10. Phallicism: Celestial and Terrestrial. By Hargrave Jennings. Geo. Redway. 1884.

Works of Hogarth (set of original Engravings, elephant folio, without text), bound. Apply by letter to W. D., 56, Paragon-road, Hackney, N.E.

Original water-colour portrait of Jeremy Bentham, price 2 guineas. Apply to the Editor of this Magazine.

A large collection of Franks, Peers’ and Commoners’. Apply to E. Walford, 2, Hyde Park Mansions, N.W.

Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer, several copies of No. 2 (February, 1882) are wanted, in order to complete sets. Copies of the current number will be given in exchange at the office.

Dodd’s Church History, 8vo., vols. i. ii. and v.; Waagen’s Art and Artists in England, vol. i.; East Anglian, vol. i., Nos. 26 and 29. The Family Topographer, by Samuel Tymms, vols. iii. and iv.; Notes and Queries, the third Index. Johnson’s “Lives of the Poets” (Ingram and Cooke’s edition), vol. iii. A New Display of the Beauties of England, vol. i., 1774. Chambers’ Cyclopædia of English Literature, vol. i. Address, E. Walford, 2, Hyde Park Mansions, Edgeware-road, N.W.

THE OLD PALACE, RICHMOND. From “Greater London.” (See post. p. 281.)THE OLD PALACE, RICHMOND.From “Greater London.” (See post. p. 281.)

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By the Editor.

IF there be truth in the old saying,Inter arma silent leges, it is not less true thatinter arma silent Musæ. When the attention of the public is taken up with “wars and rumours of wars,” abroad or at home, and when at home political parties have broken out into open strife, there is no chance for the Muses or their votaries to get a hearing. To no other cause can I ascribe the fact that my countrymen and countrywomen made no response, or next to none, when they were lately asked by the Mayor of Lichfield, Dr. Johnson’s native city, whether the centenary of his death should be celebrated, and if so, then how?

For the last three months and more the English world has been so occupied with theprosandconsof Mr. Gladstone’s Franchise Bill, that to the above appeal society has turned a deaf ear. I regret it, but I am scarcely surprised. We have not forgotten to observe the centenary of Robert Raikes, as the reputed founder of Sunday-schools; it is not so very long since the centenary of Robert Burns was celebrated, not by the Scottish people only, but by Englishmen, at the Crystal Palace and elsewhere; but, shame to write and to say it, there is no response when Englishmen are asked to commemorate the author of the first really good English Dictionary, the author of the best collection of Lives of our English Poets, the man who almost in defiance of the law, and at the risk of a prosecution, first really called into existence the practice of reporting the Debates of Parliament;the greatest practical philosopher and teacher of the last century; the man who first raised and ennobled the profession of the pen; and the man who twice at least stood up, as few have stood up, on behalf of that profession, firstly, when he flung back with contempt the tardily offered favour and “patronage” of Lord Chesterfield, and, secondly, when he knocked down the insolent publisher, Thomas Osborne, in his own shop, with one of his own folio volumes. Is not such a man, I ask, deserving of a Centenary celebration from his brethren of the pen, or, let me say, rather from his sons and disciples?

But to be serious. There can be little doubt that if all that he said, and wrote, and did, be fairly considered, few men can claim credit for having lived more useful lives than Dr. Johnson. Long before the end of that life arrived, King George III. had spontaneously borne testimony to his merits by the gift, rare at that time, of a literary pension, adding a graceful compliment: “I should perhaps have thought that you had written enough, if you had not written so well.” Born in humble, though not needy circumstances, unable to complete his education and to obtain an Oxford degree by theres angusta domi, he came to London to fight the battle of life, his only weapon being his pen, and he won the day against all difficulties, the cold indifference of the rich, the jealousies of his equals and contemporaries, and the heart-breaking and niggardly doles of the London publishers. Undaunted by these and other difficulties, he showed Edmund Cave how his new venture, theGentleman’s Magazine, might come to deserve its name on other grounds than that alleged at first, viz., that it was not fit for any lady to read it. He raised, by his essays and biographical sketches, the whole style and character of that which in the middle of the last century was one of the leading organs of the time, when the daily papers as yet were not, and the country gentleman’s household had to depend for the news of the day on the “news-letter” written specially for their amusement and information. Till Johnson took the matter in hand, and set himself to supply the want by a new method which his native wit suggested, the country knew not one iota of the speeches delivered in the Houses of Parliament; the legislation of the country was carried on in the dark, so far as concerned the people at large. If he had done nothing else than this, Dr. Johnson would deserve, at the very least, the honour of a statue on the Thames Embankment, or of a scholarship bearing his name at Pembroke College, Oxford, the scene of his early struggles.

I am not intending to write a life of Dr. Johnson. That has been done with wondrous fidelity and graphic skill by hisfidus Achates, James Boswell; and Sir John Hawkins and Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi, in their supplemental Memoirs and Recollections of him, have thrown most interesting and valuable side-lights on his character. Boswell’s “Life of Dr. Johnson,” as every reader of English literature knows, was largely amplified, and most cruelly distorted, by John Wilson Croker, who, though himself a Tory of Tories, seems to have been unable to comprehend the character of the man who hated a Whig almost as much as he hated a Scotchman; and Mr. Croker was almost as cruelly punished for his offence by Macaulay, who cut his book into shreds in theEdinburgh Review. Still, in spite of its glaring sins, not certainly of omission, but of commission, Croker’s edition of Boswell will always be a work of value, for he entered on his task before the last of Dr. Johnson’s friends and acquaintances had passed away. Amongst these were Lord Stowell, who figures in Boswell as “Dr. Scott of Doctors’ Commons;” Mr. John Sidney Hawkins, and Miss Letitia Hawkins, the son and daughter of Sir John Hawkins; Mr. Fitzherbert (afterwards Lord St. Helen’s); Miss Monckton, the Lady Cork of the Regency, a “Queen of Society” under George IV. and William IV., and who lived into the reign of Victoria. He knew also Mrs. Thrale’s daughter, the venerable Lady Keith; and last, not least, the still more venerable Dr. Routh, President of Magdalen College, who had seen Dr. Johnson in the flesh at Oxford, and who lived to December, 1854. From these and from other sources he gathered much material which had not been available to Boswell, and had he been content with facts instead of probabilities and possibilities, he would doubtless have been proof and unassailable to Macaulay’s pen. For instance, there is not the shadow of a ground for supposing (as he does) that Dr. Johnson was “out in ’45” with the adherents of Charles Edward, except the fact that in that year his pen was idle; and he is still less justified in supposing that Dr. Johnson was a Roman Catholic because he advocated theprincipleof pilgrimages, and prayers for the dead, and confession, as natural and right in themselves, and as distinct from their abuses; because there is not a single Roman Catholic tenet, except that of the divinely-appointed Primacy of the See of St. Peter, which has not at one time or another been supported and defended by some Protestant writer.

Dr. Johnson, it must be owned even by his adversaries, has left his mark upon the literature of his country. Gibbon’s style is mostornate, but it is cumbrous and unnatural, and the author of the “Decline and Fall” has found no one to copy him. It was otherwise with Johnson. He was fond of Ciceronian Latin, and his English smacked as strongly of the Ciceronian flavour as did Dr. Pusey’s style of the Augustinian. For myself, I infinitely prefer the short and simple words which come from the Anglo-Saxon mint to what is now sneeringly called “Johnsonese.” But I cannot shut my eyes to that “union of perspicuity and splendour,” that nervous vigour, that “expansion and harmony” which mark the stately flow of Johnson when he is at his best. Towards the end of every unmutilated edition of Boswell’s “Life” is given a list of those who in earnest or in jest have set themselves to imitate the burly Doctor’s style. Foremost amongst these are the historians Robertson and Gibbon, the Rev. Dr. Nares, George Colman, Professor Young, of Glasgow, the Rev. Dr. Knox, the popularity of whose writings is ascribed to this very feature, and some of the best contributors to the old EdinburghMirror. There is no doubt also that Dr. Johnson’s style was very largely but almost insensibly copied and reproduced in the sermons, charges, and essays of most Bishops and dignitaries of the Established Church for some sixty or seventy years after his death. In fact, Dr. Johnson may be said in a very great degree to have “tuned their pulpits.” It is only of later years, concurrently with the study of German and of Anglo-Saxon literature in this country, that a simpler and less stilted style has prevailed. And this is no small testimony to the great powers of the “learned lexicographer.”

The value of his Dictionary has, of course, declined since the study of Etymology has been raised to the dignity of a science; for Dr. Johnson knew little or nothing of those primitive languages from which all the European languages are derived, and of which they are at the root only variations and dialects. His Dictionary, therefore, must be judged by the standard of a century ago, not by that of the Victorian Era. Were Dr. Johnson now alive, he would be among the first to say to Professor Skeat, to Max Müller, and our other lexicographers, “agnosco procerem,” and to own that since his own day in this branch of learning, at least, we have made giant strides.

As the last and only surviving Editor of theGentleman’s Magazinein its former shape, when it dealt with the intelligence and the literature of the age, and was a recognised organ of the educated world, I feel that it is my duty at this moment to put in a few words on behalf ofa man whose literary merits have never been sufficiently acknowledged. With all his ruggedness and even “bearishness” of manner, what a contrast does he present to us, as he lives in Boswell, to the cross, crabbed, snappish, and selfish “philosopher of Chelsea,” who equalled him in nothing but in plodding industry, and surpassed him,me judice, in bearishness alone! And how few of the present generation are there who might not learn lessons of improvement, both moral and intellectual, by a careful and patient study of the “wit and wisdom” of Samuel Johnson!

E. Walford.

PART II.

(Continued from p.218.)

AFEW miles lower down, passing through Sowerby Bridge, commercially thriving but poetically poor, we come again to green fields and remnants of ancient forest, and notice on the left hand Wood Hall, where the boy Laurence Sterne, of “Tristram Shandy” fame, spent his early years. The Heath Grammar School, where he was educated, is half an hour’s walk beyond the ridge of the hill in the direction of Halifax. Formerly a rustic bridge, little better than a plank, spanned the river near Wood Hall, and it was along this plank, there is little doubt, that Lucy Gray’s footprints were tracked after she had slipped into the water. We have now reached a point where the scenery, if less wild than the glens and gorges near the border hills of Lancashire and Yorkshire, is scarcely less beautiful, and what it loses in ruggedness of natural contour it gains in historic associations and legendary romance. Copley Hall, in the eleventh century the residence of the knightly family of Copley, has long ago been turned into cottages, but the name survives in the pretty modern village and prettier church, and antiquaries love to dwell on the old stories connected with the spot, and tell how Adam de Copley fell fighting for William the Conqueror at the siege of York; how his grandson, another Adam de Copley, became rector of his parish church at Halifax; and how a third Sir Adam, for this was a favourite name, carried away a sister from Kirklees Nunnery, and afterwards joined the Crusaders and died in Palestine. This fair nun, alas! was immured in a tower seven stories high, and mysterious lights were long seen to burn in the ladye’s chamber, the ruins of which are said to have been visiblesome years ago. Elland, anciently and more correctly Ealand, with its fine old fane and relics of mediæval times, where the Ealands and the Saviles lived in barbaric splendour, was the scene of many a thrilling legend and bloody fray, notably the tragedy, or rather chain of tragedies, which ended in the murder of Sir John Ealand and his little boy as they were crossing the weir-stones on Palm Sunday on their way to matins at Saint Mary’s. By this deed, which took place in the fourteenth century, a feud that had lasted two generations was brought to an end, as was likewise the family name of Ealand, the male line of which became extinct on the death of Sir John’s only boy, the child who shared his father’s fate on the weir-stones. A few miles beyond Ealand, on the hill slope above the Calder, stand the stately groves of Kirklees Priory, so well known, as we have seen, to the gay Sir Adam de Copley. At Kirklees, as many readers are aware, died the most chivalrous of bandits, Robin Hood. His grave, overshadowed by majestic beeches, is not far from the ruins of the Nunnery, but in unconsecrated ground, though it is said there used to be a cross to mark the spot. Calder dale was a favourite haunt of the merry men, and many the fat buck they have run down in this valley. Robin Hood has left his name in several places hereabouts, and the peasantry still love to repeat the traditionary stories of his gallantry and daring. Pinder Green, near Wakefield, as we read in ballad line, was the scene of an encounter between Robin and the Jolly Pinder. But we have not left the ruins of the Priory. I suppose that all lovers of Brontëan literature know that the scene of “Shirley” is laid close to Kirklees, which place figures indeed in the novel as Nunnely. Any one acquainted with the locality will recognise Kirklees very thinly disguised under this name: “The village of Nunnely has been alluded to: its old church, its forest, its monastic ruins. It had also its Hall, called the Priory—an older, a larger, a more lordly abode than any Briarfield or Whinbury owned; and, what is more, it had its man of title—its baronet, which neither Briarfield nor Whinbury could boast.” In another chapter Kirklees is thus spoken of: “Kind gentleman as the baronet is, he asked the tutor too; but the tutor would much sooner have made an appointment with the ghost of the Earl of Huntingdon to meet him, and a shadowy ring of his merry men, under the canopy of the thickest, blackest, oldest oak in Nunnely Forest. Yes, he would rather have appointed tryst with a phantom abbess, or mist-pale nun, among the wet and weedy relics of that ruined sanctuary of theirs, mouldering in the core of the wood.”

The scenery now begins to lose those romantic features down to this point so noticeable in this valley. Larger towns and numerous manufacturing villages disturb the once pastoral quietude. Keeping to the bank of the river we pass Mirfield, and shortly reach Dewsbury, where Paulinus, the first Archbishop of York, preached in the early part of the seventh century—“Paulinus hic prædicavit et celebravit,A.D.627.” Some years ago there was an old cross commemorating this event. And here in the Calder, I doubt not, the great Apostle of the North baptized hundreds of converts. The ancient Saxon parish of Dewsbury contained an area of 400 square miles. Travel we on and we come to Wakefield, in the meadows close to which was fought one of the most sanguinary battles in the Wars of the Roses. On Wakefield bridge, which spans the Calder, there is a lovely little chapelle, recently restored, thought to have been originally erected in the reign of Edward III., and said to have been rebuilt by Edward IV. to commemorate the death of his father, the Duke of York, and the young Earl of Rutland, the beautiful boy so ruthlessly slain there by Lord Clifford. The Calder, flowing on past the villages of Heath and Stanley, eventually loses itself in the Aire at Castleford. Hence the distich:

“Castleford lasses must needs be fair,Since they wash themselves both in Calder and Aire.”

Near the border hills, some of the tributary brooks that join the Calder are streams of rare beauty, and flow through regions of sylvan wildness, than which there are none finer in Derbyshire or Devon. If the traveller had to turn aside and wander up one of these glens he would soon leave behind him the din of trade, and find himself in ravine-like woodland solitudes. One of the loveliest and loneliest of these brooks is Turvin, born on the bleak summit of Blackstone Edge, and which precipitates itself in narrow winding channels through many a clough and forest dell. When the shadows of the gloaming steal over the world, it is an eerie sight to watch the mists of autumn as they creep up the gorge and curl round the rocks, and the spectator may almost realise that he is gazing upon some weird and enchanted land. About the middle of last century this glen was the haunt of a gang of coiners who for many years succeeded in eluding and defying the officers of the law. That these daring men carried on their nefarious practices was a fact well known to everybody in the locality, and it is to be feared they were secretly encouraged, as they were assuredly screened, by their neighbours andrelatives. Something like a feeling of awe, tradition says, was felt by the cottagers on the distant hills, when they heard in the stillness of night the stroke of the sledge-hammer as the coiners plied, almost defiantly plied, their desperate work. At last some of the ringleaders were captured, tried, and hung. The rest of the gang still at large took their revenge by murdering the excise officer who had been instrumental in bringing the culprits to justice. Other captures were made and more murder followed. But in the end, after a twenty years’ lease of successful defiance, this band of reckless coiners was broken up.

Speaking of Blackstone Edge and the glens leading therefrom down to Calder dale, we are reminded of the impression this mountain with its wild passes and rugged roads had on Taylor, the Water Poet, who crossed over in 1639, and this is what he says: “When I left Halifax I rode over such ways as were past comparison or amendment, for when I went down the lofty mountain called Blackstone Edge, I thought myself in the land of break-necke, it was so steep and tedious.” Over this mountain, but in the opposite direction, wearily paced De Foe when on his way to take refuge in Halifax, perhaps resting a little while by the riverside before he climbed the steep ascent of Skircote. Whilst staying in Halifax he is said to have written part of “Robinson Crusoe.”

Fair features in woman are not irremediably spoiled by accident of cut and scar, or through waste of fever and pain: the lovely lines survive, and the soul beneath breathes unspeakable subtle beauty in smile of the eye and play of emotion on the eloquent face. Such is it with fair Calder dale—a region of poetry and romance, of legendary rock and historic hall, of mountain and glen, of shaw and burn, of daisied meadow and ferny dell. From the spot where I write, looking out at the antique lattice, I see the long sweep of the valley with its wide openings and gorge-like ravines stretching through the heart and the solitude of the everlasting hills, and though smoke blackens and mill mars the landscape, there is a loveliness about the contour of high heath-clad cliff, about the green waving woods musical with bird carol and summer breeze, about the sun-bright waters winding and narrowing miles away to a silver streak, which the accidents of trade and material civilisation have very far from irretrievably ruined.

By Mrs. C. G. Boger.

PART III.—HIS BURIAL-PLACE AT GLASTONBURY.

(Concluded from p. 19.)

“Not great Arthur’s tomb, nor holy Joseph’s graveFrom sacrilege had power their sacred bones to save;He who that God in man to his sepulchre brought,Or he which for the faith twelve famous battles fought.”Drayton’sPolyolbion.

WITH Arthur perished the bright gleam of hope for the British race, but the Saxons did not as yet advance farther westward, and it was not till the seventh century that Gladerhaf became Somerset. That he was buried at Glastonbury men knew, but the exact spot remained a secret from all, and so the record of Arthur’s life and labours became a myth on which the earliest and latest British poets alike have loved to dwell and idealise, till men scarce believed that he had any existence save in the realms of romance. Long years passed away. “The old order had changed and yielded place to new” more than once. The Britons had been avenged, for the Saxons had passed under the power of the Dane, and then rose again only to submit to the Norman. Yet the Saxons were never so crushed as the Britons had been, for the Teutons have a staying power and a power of combination that seem to have been denied to the Kelts. Only in Wales did the ancient race preserve their individuality. But a weird and troubled rule was that of the Norman father fighting against son, and brother against brother; and now it was in the year 1177 that Henry II., when on his journey to Ireland, to receive the submission of the princes of that country, passed through Pembroke, and was there entertained by some of the Welsh chieftains. Whilst there, “it chanced to him to heare sung to the harpe certaine ditties of the worthy exploits and actes of this Arthur by one of the Welsh bards, as they were termed, whose custom was to record and sing at their feasts the noble deeds of their ancestors, wherein mention was made of his death and place of buriall, designing it to be in the monks’ burial ground at Glastonbury, and that betwixt two pyramids there standing.”[79]

King Henry made this known to his cousin Henry of Blois, who was at once Abbot of Glastonbury and Bishop of Winchester, but nosteps seem to have been taken in his time to ascertain its truth; and it was not till after his death that, in the reign of Richard, Henry de Soliaco, nephew of the late king and Abbot of Glastonbury, instituted a search, the result of which has been described by Giraldus Cambrensis, the historian of his time, who was present when the grave was opened.

“At the depth of seven feet was a huge broad stone, whereon a leaden cross was fastened: on that part that lay downward, in rude and barbarous letters (as rudely set and contrived) this inscription was written upon that side of the lead that was towards the stone:

‘Hic jacet sepultus Rex Arturius in Insula Avalonia.’

And digging nine foot deeper his body was discovered in the trunk of a tree, the bones of great bignesse, and in his scull perceived ten wounds, the last very great and plainly seene. His Queen Guinivere, that had been neare kinswoman to Cador, Duke of Cornwall, a lady of passing beauty, likewise lay by him, whose tresses of hair finely platted, and in colour like the gold, seemed perfect and whole untill it was touched, but then, bewraying what all beauties are, shewed itself to be duste.”

The cross of lead with the inscription, as it was found and taken off the stone, was kept in the Treasury, or Revester, of Glastonbury Church till the suppression thereof in the reign of Henry VIII.

The bones of King Arthur and Queen Guinivere his wife were translated into the great church, and “there in a faire Tombe of Marble his body was laid, and his Queen’s at his feete, which noble monument among the fatall overthrowes of infinite more were altogether raced” [razed].[80]

I scarcely know anything more pathetic than the old chronicler’s account of that tress of golden hair, the sole remains of the beauty that had captivated the heart of the great king and made his noblest knight to fall, and then the seeing it at a touch fall into dust. She who had mourned her sin at Amesbury, at last, by the loving hands of those who had witnessed her penitence, was borne to rest beside her rightful lord; and the golden tresses which, when she had last seen him in life, swept the dust at his feet, now, after more than six hundred years had passed away, faded into dust again when they hadfulfilled their mission of testifying to the main facts of the Legend of Arthur.

Nearly a hundred years again had passed, when in the year 1276 King Edward I. and his Queen Eleanor kept the Festival of Easter at Glastonbury. It was during the abbacy of John of Taunton, a great benefactor to the Church in buildings, books for the library, and vestments, that this visit took place. So great were the privileges of this place that even the king himself was laid under some restraint while abiding in it. His deputy high marshal was not allowed to exercise his office; the king’s judges were held to have no authority; and even a man who had incurred the penalty oflæsa majestaswas not allowed to be punished. The mausoleum of black marble was opened for their inspection; the king’s bones were seen of gigantic proportion, the thigh bone the width of three fingers longer than that of the tallest monk present. The tomb was ordered to be placed in front of the high altar; the skulls of the king and queen to remain outside for the adoration of the people.

Leland, who saw the tomb, says: “At the head of Arthur’s tombe lay Henricus Abbas (Henry of Blois?)[81]and a crucifix; at the feet lay a figure of Arthur; a cross on the tomb, and two lions at the head and two at the feet.”

And here the hero’s bones rested till the Tyrant King scattered all such precious relics to the winds. His body hasnotbeen allowed to rest in peace, but his “name liveth for evermore.” Nor is Arthur’s fame confined to England alone, for amongst the figures that keep watch and ward round Maximilian’s tomb at Innspruck is one of the patriot king, and an exquisite photograph of him in armour, as he is there portrayed, faces the writer as this attempt to show the connection of Arthur’s most heroic deeds with her own native county is being penned.

It only remains to add that the authorities for the above remarks are, Gildas, Geoffry of Monmouth, William of Malmesbury, Giraldus Cambrensis, Mallory’s “King Arthur,” Leland, Drayton’s “Polyolbion,” Speed, and Camden, “The Greatest of the Plantagenets,” and “Our Ancient Monuments and the Land around Them,” by C. P. Haines-Jackson, and lastly oral legend.

By Cornelius Walford, F.S.S.,Barrister-at-Law.

PART IV.

(Continued from p. 235.)

ChapterXXXVI.—Gilds of Norfolk—(Continued).

NORWICH.—The Gilds existing in this important city in 1388-9 were:—

Fraternity of St. Katerine, commenced in 1307.—All the members of the Gild were to go in procession on the day of St. Katherine, and make offerings; penalty on absent members. On the day following, mass, &c. Burial services to be attended and offerings made—the duties of the lettered and of the unlettered bretheren and sisteren specifically defined. Bretheren dying within eight miles of the city to be brought in for burial, or at least the usual services done. Poor bretheren to be helped; and causes of quarrel to be laid before the Gild. Fine on refusal to take office. A liveryhood to be worn, and all the members to dine together on the Gild-day. Admission of new members only by common consent. Goods of the Gild enumerated.

The Tailors’ Gild, founded 1350.—The Gild to meet together, and the next day a mass of requiem. The bretheren to obey summons of Alderman to audit accounts; fine if absent. Meeting after Easter to choose officers, &c. Payments to be made to sexton and clerk; help to the poor and maimed. Burial services and offerings, to extend to those dying within seven miles of the city. Service for those dying abroad. Oath to be taken by Gild-members. Alderman to be chosen. At meetings a candle to be kept alight, and a prayer said. A summoner to be chosen, and requited by quittance of the usual payments. A fee of 1d. to be paid to the Bedel on entrance to the Gild. The Gild had no land, but was maintained by the charges levied under the Ordinances.

Gild of St. Mary, commenced in 1360.—It was of the Religious type. The bretheren and sisteren of the Gild, as long as there should be twelve of them living, were to provide a candle and torches, to be used on certain festivals named “in wyrschipe of crist and his moder.” There is a note of the masters of the Gild and of the property in hand.

Fraternity of St. Trinity, in the Cathedral, begun in 1364.—A solemn service to be held on the eve of the Feast of the Trinity. A mass of requiem shall be had, and offerings made. Burial services and offerings. Help to poor bretheren. Fines for absence from meetings of Gild. Goods of the Gild.

The Carpenters’ Gild(founded 1375), in honour of the Holy Trinity.—A yearly meeting to be held, which shall begin with prayers. A yearly procession and offerings; burial services and offerings, to extend to all bretheren dying within seven miles of the town; service for those dying abroad. Help to those fallen into poverty or mishap, if not brought about through folly or riotous living. Fine for non-fulfilment of Ordinances unless there be good excuse. Neither the King’s right nor the law to be encroached upon. The Gild appears to have been entitled to gifts by certain masons—probably of another Gild.

Gild of the Peltyers[Furriers], founded 1376.—Two candles, dressed with flowers, were to be yearly offered at St. William’s tomb, by a procession of a boy and two good men. Only three excuses were to be allowed for non-attendance at mass, viz., being in “ye kyngges seruise, er for stronge sekenesse, or twenty myle duellynge fro yis syte,” unless it were otherwise willed. No Ordinance to prejudice the King’s right, or the law. On the morrow of the Gild-day the Gild to hear a mass in requiem; after the mass to go to an inn, audit accounts and choose officers. The officers to be chosen by picked men. Bretheren or sisteren fallen into trouble or misease, to have weekly help; but not so if brought on by their own folly. Fine on refusal to take office. Burial services and offerings, extending to deaths within seven miles of the city. An annual feast to be held. Fine for not attending meetings. Admission of new-comers to be regulated by “ye Alderman and xij bretheryn.” The common bellman to summon the bretheren to meet on the morrow of the Gild-day. The Gild (it was declared) had no land, but was maintained by charges levied, and by legacies, and other gifts.

The Poor Men’s Gild, founded 1380, “in honor of oure lord Jhesu crist, and of oure lady seinte marie, and in wursship of seyn Austyn.”—A light to be found in honour of St. Austin; mass and offerings at the same time. Help to those fallen poor, sick, or in other mischance. All dying within seven miles of the city to have burial services.

Gild of St. Botulph, founded 1384.—The meeting of the fraternity to be held on the Sunday next after the Epiphany; next day theywere to have a mass of requiem. Burials to be attended by the bretheren, and offerings made. Help to the poor bretheren and sisteren was to be made by the members at the rate of “a ferthyng in ye woke.” The goods of the Gild are enumerated.

Fraternity of St. Christopher, founded 1384.—Prayer to be said at every meeting for the Church, peace, Pope, Cardinals, “ye patriak of Jerhusalem,” “for ye holy londe and ye holy crosse, yat godd for his myght and his mercy bryng it oute of hethen power into reule of holy chirche,” archbishops, bishops, parsons, king, queen, dukes, earls, barons, bachelors, knights, squires, citizens, burgesses, franklins, tillers, craftsmen, widows, maidens, wives, commonalities, ship-men, pilgrims, unbelievers, our fathers’ and mothers’ souls, and for all of this Gild. The Gild-day was to be on the Sunday before the Feast of St. Christopher. No Ordinance shall be against the common law. There was to be a yearly mass of requiem, and offerings; also offerings at burials; and two poor men to carry torches. Poor bretheren were to be helped. This was evidently a Gild of a higher order than many in this city.

Gild of St. George, founded 1385.—The day of St. George was always to be kept, and offerings made on that day; next day a mass of requiem. Burial services to be attended by the bretheren, and offerings made. Weekly help to poor bretheren. Goods of the Gild enumerated.

The Saddlers’ and Spurriers’ Gild, founded 1385.—The Ordinances to be kept so long as twelve of the Gild lived. Two torches to be kept burning at the elevation of the host at high mass. The Gild meeting to be held on the first Sunday after Trinity, and the members to have a livery. All to meet the evening before to pray for their own souls. Next morning mass shall be heard, and offerings made, and all shall go in procession to the Nunnery of Carrow. On death within the city all shall be at the dirge, and two poor men with them. The same at interment; and offerings and gifts to be made. Service with the bretheren on death within three miles of the city; and service on death of one dwelling beyond, at Carrow.

Brotherhood of Barbers.—Torches and other lights, &c., shall be offered on Midsummer-day. Torches were to be kept burning during high mass. The Gild appears to have been dedicated to “seynt John the Babtis.”

Oxenburghe(Oxburgh; Oxborough).—There were eight Gilds in this town (now village) at the same date, of which the following may be taken as a type:—

Gild of St. John Baptist, founded 1307.—The officers, bretheren, and sisteren shall come to evensong on the day of St. John the Baptist, and make offerings. Help to those “in trouble” was to be given at the rate of one farthing a day; one halfpenny on Sunday. Prayers for the dead.

Gild of St. Peter, founded 1378.—The members of the Gild to assemble at evensong on St. Peter’s Day, and make offerings. Help to those in trouble—rate not distinctly specified. Fine for betraying the affairs of the Gild.

Wygnale(Wyggenale, nowWiggenshall).—The Gilds existing in this town or village, which was located near King’s Lynn and appears to have been of some importance, were:

Gild of the Assumption, founded 1384.—Latin prayers to be said out of the Church offices. English prayer of the Gild for the Church; for the King, Queen, and Baronage; for the Pope and the Patriarch; for the Holy Land; for the fruit of the earth; for ship-men and travellers; for the founders of the Gild; and for the souls of the dead and living. Search to be made for anyone dying suddenly, by water or by land: and he shall have burial services. Any one belying another shall be fined.

Gild of the Holy Trinity.—Latin prayers shall be said out of church offices. Burials at the cost of the Gild. Drowned men shall be searched for.

Gild de Cranbone, founded 1387.—Latin prayers to be said out of Church offices. English prayer of the Gild for the Church, Pope, Cardinals, Patriarch, Archbishop of Canterbury, and other Bishops; King and Queen, and the commoners of the realm. Burials at cost of Gild. Every quarrel to be brought before two bretheren. Two meetings shall be held every year.

Gild of St. Trinity, founded 1387.—Four meetings shall be held every year, at which payments to be made for lights.

Gild of St. Peter.—Two meetings shall be held every year. All shall go to church with a garland of oak leaves. Service for the dead, and offerings. Bread to be given, and masses sung for the souls of the dead. Men dying by water or land to be searched for and buried. Meat and drink to be given at yearly meeting. The funds of the Gild then (1388) consisted of 11s.

Great Yarmouth.—King John in his Charter to this borough, granted 1209, gave the privilege of a Merchant Gild to be held in this town. We have not met with any very early records of it. But in the 6th Elizabeth (1563) there are notices, which, however, onlygo to show the nature of the annual entertainment given. A few items will prove instructive:

February 28.—“Order’d that the merchant’s dinner, or feast of late called the Trinity Brotherhood, shall be rected and heyned this present year to come, and so forth to continue until further orders be taken.” Certain persons were named to order the feast and estimate the cost, &c.

March 18.—“Imprimis, every brother to pay for hym and hys wyffe, whether they came or not, 2s. 8d. Every brother and syster extraordinary, 1s. If they wyl be bretherene, to pay bretherene lyke.”

“The order of the drynkyn and dynner in the evening prayer, viz., spice cake, good bere.”

“Sunday soper.—Good brothe with boyled mete. Rostyd mutton, capon, lambe tarte.”

“Monday dynner.—Fromety, rosted bysse, grene gese, lamb.”

“Note, that six persons to every mese; two grene gese to every mese, and a capon to mese. The person appointed to heyn the feast refusing, to pay £10 to his successor to buy things necessary.”

Manship in his “History of Yarmouth” says that this regulation continued till the year 1569, when, by reason of the excessive charge, but more especially the great disorders of the common people, &c., it was agreed by an Act of the Assembly in the 11th Elizabeth, that from henceforth the heynors who shall yearly be appointed to heyn the feast called Trinity Brotherhood, shall be at their choice to heyn the said feast in reasonable order, or else to pay 4 nobles (26s. 8d.) apiece for the use of the town; which sum was paid yearly for many years afterwards, but at last entirely dropt.

Swinden (“History of Yarmouth”) says that in 33 Henry VIII. (1542) at an assembly holden in the common hall, on the Tuesday next after the feast of St. Faith, the following order was made: “That every as well of the four and twenties as of the eight and forties should pay yearly towards the finding of the Trinity mass priest at the Guild-day, 4d.”

Manship gives the following additional particulars regarding the old Guild-hall in Yarmouth: “There is a very fair building commonlycalled the Guild-hall, near unto the church, containing in length from east to west within the walls 76 feet, and in breadth 22 feet, which being much ruinated, was in the year of our Lord God 1544 (in the 33 Henry VIII.) by the town very substantially repaired and amended, and the walls new buttressed and supported, and the roof, which is a very fair one, sometime belonging to Mettingham College [near Bungay], upon the suppression thereof, was brought to Yarmouth, and placed upon the said Hall, and covered with lead very neatly. In this hall in times past, viz., within my remembrance [he wrote probably about the end of the reign of Elizabeth], was yearly holden on Trinity Sunday a Solemn Feast for the whole Brotherhood and Fellowship of the Society, called the Blessed Trinity, which by our Charter of King John in the year 1207, was granted unto us by the name of the Merchants Guild, whereunto every one of this Common Council, at his first admission and oath taken, doth still acknowledge himself a brother of that Society. Which said feast was for the most part yearly holden at the costs of four of that Brotherhood successively according to their course of incoming, maintained; over whom the senior bailiff for the year presiding was and is nominated Alderman. The Hall aforesaid being at that time richly hanged and adorned with cloth of arras, tapestry, and other costly furniture, not sparing any dainty fare which might be had for money.”

“At which Feast all private quarrels and emulations were heard and ended in the glory of God and mutual love amongst neighbours: for which cause, in the primitive time of the Church, such Gilds or Fraternities were by the laws Ecclesiastical ordained, and by the laws civil, among all Christian common-weals, used, practised, and confirmed.”

(To be continued.)

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