[114]History of Freebridge, p, 258.
[116]A single jail, in Alfred’s golden reign,Could half the nation’s criminals contain.Fair Justice then, without constraint ador’d,Held high the steady scale, but deep’d the Sword:No spies were paid, no special Juries known;Blest age! but ah! how different from our own!
Johnson’s London.
[123]See Hughes’s Letters; also Petit. Andr. History of England. 1. 233.
[126]Particularly as an Hebrician, according to the learned Hugh Broughton.
[128a]One Brook, now a dashing orator at or about Burnham, and who also holds forth sometimes at Lynn, is said to have used the same experiment, and boasted of it,—and also of having doomed and consigned a certain neighbouring minister toeternal torment, for presuming, forsooth, to differ from his creed. Master B. is classed among the evangelicals, and seems to be very much in their spirit.
[128b]How well he used them upon the poor popish prisoners in the Tower, whom he there most unmercifully flogged, or rather racked and tortured, we have seen above (p. 93) from the testimony of Dr. Milner. Some of the numerous puritan sufferers of that time might, probably, share from him the same fate; which may account for what Fuller calls his beingfoully belibelledby them, in return. After such treatment it would be very natural for them to think that they had some right as well as reason to complain: and it might also be natural for him, as well as for Fuller, to give those complaints the name oflibels.
[131]Parkin, 308.
[132]See Parkin, and Norfolk Tour, 131.
[134]Walter Coney, Alderman, and four-times mayor of Lynn, in the fifteenth century, who is supposed to have lived in the corner house at the bottom of High Street, on the east, fronting the Church.—Further accounts of the above three families may be found in Blomefield and Parkin’s History of Norfolk.—☞ To what was before said ofTerrington(Section XIII) it may be here added, that the impropriation of the great tithes was given by James I. as an augmentation to Lady Margaret’s professorship of divinity at Cambridge; and that this revenue, or income has so much increased of late years, as to render that chair the most lucrative piece of preferment now in the gift of the University.—Here it may be also noted, in addition to what was before said ofWalpole(Section XI.) that in the year 1727, a person digging there in his garden found, about three feet beneath the surface, numerous roman bricks, and an aqueduct formed of earthen pipes, which were twenty inches long, three inches and three quarters in the bore, and half an inch thick; the one end diminishing, so as to be inserted in the wider end of the other. Twenty-six were taken up whole, and distributed among several antiquaries.—See Beauties of England, v. 11, 289.
[137]See Beauties of England, vol. XI, and Kent’s View of Agriculture of Norfolk, p. 40, 41.
[139]Kent’s General View—and Beauties of England, as before.
[140a]Kent’s General View—Beauties of England, as before.
[140b]Ibid.
[146]Brancaster was one of those forts erected by the Romans along the Icenian coast, to guard the country against the incursions of the piratical Saxons, who used to infest this coast long before they obtained any footing in the country, and while it formed a part of the Roman Empire. From their frequent hostile visits, this coast was calledthe Saxon shore. The forts along the coast (the chief of which was Brancaster,—to which Rising might be a kind of appendage,) were garrisoned by a strong body of cavalry, called theDalmatian horse, whose superior, or commander in chief, was denominated theCount of the Saxon store; and sometimesBranodunensis, fromBranodunum, the Roman or Latin name of Brancaster.—Brancaster is now an obscure village, exhibiting no vestige of its ancient dignity, except some entrenchments, or earthworks, the remains of a Roman Camp, including, as Camden says, some eight acres; which the neighbours call Caster—all whose dimensions, according to his annotator, agree with the Roman models, in Cesar’s Commentaries.—See Gibson’s Camden, 391, 398.
[148]See Norfolk Tour, and Parkin.
[149]Beauties of England. 7, 505.
[158]OtherwiseTitherington Hall.
[168]See Beauties of England, volume Xl.
[169]Norfolk Tour.
[171]Beauties of England as before.
[177a]The following lines of his, quoted by Lord Teignmouth in his Life of Sir William Jones, is supposed to be expressive of the manner in which he distributed, or employed his time.
“Six hours in sleep, in Law’s grave study Six,Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.”
“Six hours in sleep, in Law’s grave study Six,Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix.”
For which Sir William Jones is said to have substituted the following,
“Six hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,Ten to the world allot, andallto heaven.”
“Six hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,Ten to the world allot, andallto heaven.”
[177b]The worshipful kindred ofJohn Reeves, andJohn Bowles; alias the pretendedAntijacobins, who have been of late years such monstrous benefactors to this country, and to the world.
[178]A curious circumstance that attended Sir E. Coke’s second marriage ought not to pass here unnoticed.—That marriage was solemnized in a private house, without banns or licence, in consequence of which the married couple and the officiating clergyman, together with Lord Burleigh, who was one of the company, were prosecuted in the archbishop’s Court; but upon their submission, they escaped excommunication, and the consequent penalties, because, says the record, “they had offended not out of contumacy, butthrough ignorance of the Law in that point.”—So then the Lord Chief Justice of England, even Sir Edward Coke, transgressed the lawthrough ignorance.
[179]Which must have been about as reasonable as the old woman’s advice to leave off thinking,for fear of thinking wrong.
[189]For the sympathies of his nature and qualities of his heart, see his Letter to Simon Taylor, in Flower’s Pol. Rev. Mar. 1807, p. xxxvi.
[192]See the Memoirs of Dr. Priestly, Vol. 1. and also the London Magazine, for November, 1783.
[196]The late Mr. Carr, a merchant of Lynn, used to say, that his father once killed six Bustards at one shot.—They were probably much more numerous then, than they are now.—A respectable gentleman of Lynn, however, assures this writer that not many years ago, he saw no less than eight or ten of them together, in the neighbourhood of Stanhoe.
[199]The fen-fowlers, with their long guns, make terrible havock among them, killing sometimes between 20 and 30 at one shot; and ofCootstwice that number; which however, is nothing like the number ofStarlingswhich they have sometimes slaughtered:—a person of veracity, who has lived long in the fens, assures this writer, that he knew, an instance, near Coningsby, in Lincolnshire, of 36 dozens of Starlings being killed at a single shot, by oneThomas Hall.
[200]Just after their arrival in October, the Woodcocks are said to be sometimes exceedingly abundant here.
[201]So called, probably, from the river on whose banks it stands, and which, it seems, was formerly calledEy: so that Sechey may signify, Sech on the Ey, or on the banks of the river so called.—SeeParkin.
[203]Anciently it was calledDownham-hithe, i.e. Downham-port. Gibson’s Camden.
[204]See Norfolk Tour, last Edition, p. 365. Also Description of England and Wades, volume 6, p. 251.
[207a]For a further account of Swaffham, see Norfolk Tour: also Beauties of England, volume, xi.
[207b]Beauties of England as before.
[209]Ten single threads of cotton to each of those 18 lamps, make in all 180: now a street lamp in London, is said to contain 28 single threads, and if we divide 180 by 28, we shall have 63/7:hence the oil consumed in the Hunston Light-house, is less than that consumed by 7 London street lamps.—The advantages derived from Mr. Walker’s plan, are, 1. The strength of light may be proportioned to the distance at which it may be necessary to be seen. 2. It may be maintained at a less expence than where the light is equally diffused all round the compass. 3. It requires little attendance. 4. It always appears of the same magnitude—provided, as was above hinted, the glass be kept clean, and the lamps in a proper trim—circumstances that must be attended to, and not neglected.—Here it may be further observed that the improvement of light-houses is not the only subject that has undergone Mr. W.’s close and successful investigation. Many papers written by him, have appeared in Nicholson’s Philosophical Journal, and Tilloch’s Philosophical Magazine, giving an account of divers useful inventions of his, and new discoveries is physics, chiefly under the following heads.—1. On a method of using candles, so as to produce no smoke, nor require snuffing.—2. A method of obviating the effects of thick wires in transit telescopes. 3. On the Plumb line and Spirit level. 4. On the vibrations of pendulums in vacuo. 5. On a standard of light, by which we may compare the strength of any other light. 6. Description of an apparatus for conducting sound, and holding conversations at a distance. 7. Description of a new reflecting quadrant. 8 On the best method of ascertaining the dip of the horizon at sea. 9. On the methods of observing the longitude at sea. 10. On the phenomenon of the horizontal moon. 11. Description of a new cometarium. 12. On transit instruments. 13. On vision. 14. Description of a new optical instrument called a Phantasmascope. 15. Observations on vision, when objects are seen through a mist. 16. On the power of the eye, by which it is adjusted to see objects distinctly at different distances. 17. On the apparent magnitudes of the same object seen under different circumstances. 18. On deal pendulum rods. 19. On the human eye: in which many errors of former writers on vision are pointed out, and the true theory explained.
[211]It was not till after the erection of these, that the Corporation of the Trinity House had some Light-houses constructed on similar principles, which are now in use, and well approved.
[215]Catus Dicianus, as was observed before, was the Roman Procurator over the province of theIceniin the reign of Claudius, and perhaps in that of Nero; and seems to have been, not only the chief cause of Boadicea’s revolt, by his brutal treatment of her and her daughters, but also the principal director of the canals, embankments and other works and improvements then carried on in and about the fens.—See above, Part I. Chap. 2. Section 1.
[217a]“TheTriads of the Isle of Britain, are some of the most curious and valuable fragments preserved in the Welsh language. They relate to persons and events, from the earliest times to the beginning of the seventh century.”—Owen’s preface to the Works ofLlywarch Hen.
[217b]Supposed to be theAristobulusof the New Testament.
[217c]See British Archæology, lately published: also Owen’s Cambrian Biography.
[218]Annal. I. 13. C. 22.
[219]Before the introduction of Christianity, the prevailing and established religion of Britain and of Gaul, was Bardism, or Druidism, as it is more commonly called, of which very different accounts have been given by different authors. According to our best informed antiquaries and most competent judges, it was of very remote if not of patriarchal origin, and exhibited for no short period a most strikingly rational and venerable appearance. It taught the existence, unity, spirituality, and benevolence of the Supreme Being; also the doctrine of a future state, of providence, and the immortality of the soul: but it taught withal the transmigration of the soul, and even the final salvation of the whole human race, with other tenets equally grating to an orthodox ear. Its fundamental object and principle were a diligent search after truth, and a rigid adherence to justice and peace. The religious Functionaries never bore arms, nor engaged in any party disputes. They were employed as heralds in war, and so sacred were their persons considered, in the office of mediators, that they passed unmolested through hostile countries, and even appeared in the midst of battle, to arrest the arm of slaughter, while they executed their missions. So far they appear singularly dignified and respectable; but this did not always continue—like the priests of other professions, they, in time, departed from their original principles, and introduced various degrading changes, especially among the Gauls. In Britain the system was preserved in greater purity: hence the first families of Gaul sent their children hither for education, as Cesar testifies.
We have often heard Druidism represented as a monstrous and shocking system: but if it was so, it must have been in its corrupt, and not in its original state. Even christianity itself, in a corrupt state, becomes an object equally monstrous and shocking; but that can furnish no argument against genuine christianity, or the religion of the New Testament. As to thehuman victimswhich the Druids are said to have offered, they were, it seems, chieflymalefactors: in that view we may be said to have our human victims too, and that in far greater numbers probably, than those of the Druids. Our executions are very frequent, and the victims we thus offer up are more numerous than in any other country we know of. These victims we offer up to law and justice, but they are very few compared with the myriads upon myriads we have offered on the altar of injustice, persecution, ambition, and folly.
[220]Badeslade, §. 3. page 15.—Colonizing was an essential branch of the Roman policy in conquered countries, and it is likely that such an important undertaking as that of recovering and improving these fertile parts, would be by them committed to colonists, such as they might introduce from Belgium, who must from their habits and employment at home, be peculiarly rated for the task.—Circumstances also lead us to think, that the work was begun here, which being nighest the inhabited parts, seems to have been the right end, where common sense would dictate that it should commence.
[221]Salen. Village au bord d’un Marais. Sal, bord; Len, marais.Mullet,Memoires Sur la langue Celtique. Tom. 1. p. 136.
[222a]Ey, is also said to have been another of its names.
[222b]See Gough’s Edition of Camden’s Britannia.
[225]Henry of Huntingdon, William of Malmsbury, Dugdale, &c.
[229]The Saxons, as before hinted, were long distinguished from other nations for their piratical propensities, and predatory adventures, as well as for the success that generally attended their favourite operations. It was no wonder, therefore, if their neighbours would by degrees become attached to similar pursuits: and that it did so happen is undeniable. “In the ninth century (says a respectable historian) it was an established custom in the North, that all thesons of kingsexcept the eldest, should be furnished with ships properly equipped, in order to carry on the dangerous, but not dishonourable profession of piracy.”—So reputable was the pursuit, that parents were even anxious to compel their children into that desperate and detestable occupation. By an extraordinary enthusiasm for which, they would not suffer their children to inherit the wealth which they had gained by it. It was their practice to command their gold, silver, and other property to be buried with them, [see Turner’s History of the Anglo Saxons, and Edinburgh Review No. 6. p. 368]—Here it may not be improper to observe, that what determined the Saxons to piratical enterprises was a most daring, singular, and memorable achievement of a numerous body of their neighbours and allies the Francs, whom the emperor Probus had transported from their own country, on the borders of the Rhine, to the distant shores of the Euxine, with a view of weakening the strength of that warlike nation, which was so very formidable to the neighbouring Roman provinces. These exiles, though removed to a country not inferior to their own, could not bear the idea of seeing their native land no more. There is what may be called a law of nature, which attaches us to the region where we first drew our breath, or spent our childish and youthful days, and which makes it often most painful to think of being for ever separated from it. So it seems to have been with those exiled Francs. Unable to bear the thought of a perpetual separation from their kindred and native country, they seized the earliest opportunity of abandoning their appointed settlement, and regaining what appeared to them the sweetest blessings of life. “They possessed themselves of many ships, and formed the astonishing plan of sailing back to the Rhine. Who were their pilots, or how they conceived, on their untutored minds, the possibility of a project so intricate, and, for such barbarians, so sublime, has not been revealed to us. Its novelty and magnanimity ensured it success. They ravaged Asia and Greece; not for safety merely, but revenge and plunder were also their objects. Landing in Sicily, they attacked and ravaged Syracuse with great slaughter. They carried their triumphant hostility to several districts of Africa, and sailing adventurously to Europe, they concluded their insulting and prosperous voyage by reaching in safety their native shores.”—This amazing enterprise discovered to them and their neighbours, that from the Roman colonies a rich harvest of spoil might be gleaned by those who would seek for it at sea. They had desolated every province almost with impunity; they had plunder to display, which must have fired the avarice of every needy spectator; they had acquired skill, which they who joined them might soon inherit; and perhaps the same adventurers, embarking again with new followers, evinced by fresh booty the practicability of similar attempts.—The Saxons, then inhabiting the parts about the Elbe and Heiligoland, are supposed to be among the first to emulate the exploits of the returned exiles.—Thus originated that system of piracy by which the northern nations were so long distinguished, and for which the Saxons were for many ages deservedly infamous. They became by degrees so powerful and formidable by sea, like the modern English, that some of the competitors for the Roman imperial dignity actually formed alliances with them, in order to insure their own success.—Like ourselves, and perhaps with equal justice, they seemed to aim at the sovereignty of the ocean: but among all their deeds of infamy, it is doubtful if any one of them ever exceeded in baseness and atrocity our own late memorable expedition to Copenhagen, though conducted by such as made pretension even to piety and evangelism, which indeed but rendered it the more detestable.—In vain we look to Algiers and Tunis for more flagitious or fouler deeds. [SeeHellfried’s Outlines of a Political survey of the English Attack on Denmark—and for an account of the expedition of the Francs, and the Saxon and northern piracies, seeTurner, as before.]
[231]Gildas Epistle. § xxiii.
[232]Henry the Lion, the prime actor in these brutal proceedings, was another time affronted by the inhabitants ofBardewic, one of the largest cities of Germany, for which he stormed it, and, except nine churches, left not one stone on another. No wonder that he is said to have been universally dreaded. He afterward quarrelled with the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, but there he was overmatched, and expelled from Germany. He then took refuge with his wife Matilda, at the court of our Henry II, his father-in-law. He was afterward restored to his hereditary domains only, Brunswick and Lunenburgh, to which august and illustrious house he belonged. [Nugent—Petit Andrews.]
[233]See Nugent’s Hist. of Vandalia: also Monthly Review 35. 174.
[234a]Gildas, as before, xxiv, xxv.
[234b]They are mentioned in Domesday, and by many of our topographical writers, without attempting to account for their origin. Their condition seemed as abject as that of our modern West India Negroes. We seldom hear of them after the bloody contest between the rival houses of York and Lancaster, which proved to them, it seems, a most beneficial contest, as it occasioned their emancipation, in order the more easily to recruit the contending armies. As the lust of Henry VIII. proved favourable to the success of the reformation, so the ambition of those rival houses, proved, it seems, no less so to the manumission of these poor slaves.
[236]That this country, in the time of the Romans, contained many populous, flourishing, and well-built towns, is allowed on all hands; and that they were mostly overthrown and destroyed by the invading Saxons, is confirmed by the testimony of Gildas; it may therefore very naturally be concluded, that the original Lynn was involved in the common fate of its neighbours.—See Gildas, No. xxiv.
[238a]Parkin, pp. 69. 115.
[238b]William of Newburgh.—Gibson’s Camden—Parkin 116.
[239a]Parkin, 237.
[239b]Ibid. 69.
[240]Of those Salt-works the present writer regrets his inability to give the reader a more particular and satisfactory account; but as he has hitherto met with nothing that gives him any further light upon the subject, it must be here dismissed: but it shall be again resumed, in case any new discovery should be made before the work is completed. Our topographical writers, as well as our old records, only allege the existence of numerous salt-works in these parts, without attempting a description of them, or of the process therein pursued, or even so much as giving any hints, or intimations, to assist and direct our inquiries.
[242]Beauties of England, 2. 149.
[244]Canute, one of the greatest and wisest of our kings, next toAlfred, had a mighty veneration for relics, and even employed agents in foreign countries to purchase and collect them for him. One of these, an archbishop of Canterbury, calledAgelnoth, being at Rome, in 1021, purchased, of the Pope, an arm of St. Austin, bishop of Hippo, for an hundred talents, or 6000 pound weight of silver, and one talent, or sixty pound weight of gold. A prodigious sum! greater (saysGranger) than the finest statue of antiquity would then have sold for. It may enable us, as another historian observes, to form some idea of the unconscionable knavery of the sellers, and the astonishing folly and superstition of the purchasers of those commodities. Enormous sums were then expended in the purchase of relics, and the roads between England and Rome were so crowded with pilgrims, that the very tolls which they paid were objects of importance to the princes through whose territories they passed: few Englishmen, asHenryexpresses it, imagined they could get to heaven without paying this compliment to St. Peter, who kept the keys of the celestial regions.—Such was the wisdom, and such the piety and christianity of the people of this country in former times, and for many ages.—Even Alfred, according toRapin, was much attached to relics, and received, with no small satisfaction and gratitude, those sent him as presents from the Pope, and from Abel Patriarch of Jerusalem. His foibles, however, were greatly overbalanced by his great qualities, good deeds, and shining virtues.
[246]Or rather Abingdon, in Berks, according to bishop Gibson.
[247a]Even nowadays, many of our gentry and wealthy people, are very strict in requiring their domestics and dependents regularly to attend at some place of worship, while they themselves live in the entire neglect of it! so that they too may be said to perform religious exercisesby proxy.
[247b]Petit Andrews.
[249]We regret that theabolitionof slavery wasnotamong them.
[250]The reign of Alfred, however, was certainly distinguished by numerous and important national benefits: war and internal disorder were made entirely to cease; learning, and the useful arts, revived and flourished; wholesome and important regulations were adopted and introduced, whose salutary effects are still felt; trade and commerce were much encouraged and extended: in all which, and especially the latter, Lynn, as may be presumed; must have been greatly interested. Alfred employed skilful and adventurous mariners, to explore the most distant northern regions, and (by means ofOfthere, supposed to be a banished Norwegian chief,) actually gained intelligence of theDwina, on whose banksArchangelstands; a river not again spoken of in England, till 1553, whenRichard Chancellerfound his way to the White Sea. What follows is still more surprising: by means of a correspondence which Alfred engaged in with Abel, patriarch of Jerusalem, he heard of a sect of christians who lived in penury on the south eastern coast of Asia, the present Coromandel; and he chose a spirited priest, namedSighelm, to go and relieve those his oppressed brethren. By what track or route this gallant adventurer proceeded, any further than Rome, we know not. It is certain that he reached the end of his journey, delivered the royal presents, and brought back from India many curious jewels, some of which were to be seen in the days of William of Malmsbury, at Sherborne Cathedral, of which see Alfred had made the fortunate and intrepid Sighelm bishop, after his return. Others of these jewels are believed still to exist in an old crown, kept in the tower of London.—After such enterprizes, to celebrate this great prince as theinventor of horn-lanthorns, may be deemed ridiculous; yet nothing can less merit ridicule: there were then no Clocks in England; Alfred contrived wax tapers of a proper length, to last one, two, or more hours; and to prevent the winds from deranging his plans, he defended the taper, with thin, clear,horn. Such were the improved Englishtime keepersof the 9th century: the merit of which improvement, is due to Alfred; a merit not inferior, probably, to that of theHarrisonsandArnoldsof modern times.—See Petit Andrews Hist. Gr. Britain.
[252]It is curious and ludicrous enough to think of the difficulties that puzzled our celebrated missionary, after his arrival here, and of which he wrote to Rome for the solution. Of what sort they were, the reader will be able to judge from the followingqueuesandanswers; the former by the said missionary,saintAustin, and the latter by his infallible holy master,saintGregory:
“Query. 1. Are cousin germans allowed to marry?Answer. This indulgence was formerly granted by the Roman law; but experience having shewn that no posterity can come from such marriages, they are prohibited.Query. 2. Is it lawful to baptize a woman with child?Answer. No inconvenience can arise from the practice.Query. 3. How soon after the birth may a child be baptized?Answer. Immediately if necessary.Query. 4. How soon may the husband return to the wife after her delivery?Answer. Not till after the child is weaned.Query. 5. How soon after sexual intercourse, is it lawful for a husband to enter the church?Answer. Not till he has purged himself by prayer and ablution.”
“Query. 1. Are cousin germans allowed to marry?Answer. This indulgence was formerly granted by the Roman law; but experience having shewn that no posterity can come from such marriages, they are prohibited.Query. 2. Is it lawful to baptize a woman with child?Answer. No inconvenience can arise from the practice.Query. 3. How soon after the birth may a child be baptized?Answer. Immediately if necessary.Query. 4. How soon may the husband return to the wife after her delivery?Answer. Not till after the child is weaned.Query. 5. How soon after sexual intercourse, is it lawful for a husband to enter the church?Answer. Not till he has purged himself by prayer and ablution.”
These nice and delicate queries, with more of the same sort, were accompanied by others concerning episcopal duties.—With the solution of these problems, the pope sent Austin thepall, (a piece of white woollen cloth, to be thrown over the shoulders, as a badge of archiepiscopal dignity;) sundry other ecclesiastical vestments and utensils, and instructions to erect twelve sees within his province, and particularly to appoint one atYork, which, if the country should become christian, he was to convert into a province, with its suffragan bishops.—Thus did Austin become the first archbishop of Canterbury, and thus originated our ecclesiastical establishment, the renowned Church of England. [Aikin’s Biogr. vol. 1.]—Among other counsels which Austin received from the pontiff on the above occasion, was an exhortation “not to be elated with vanity on account of themiracleswhich he had been enabled to perform in confirmation of his ministry, but to remember that this power was given, not for his own sake, but for the sake of those whose salvation he was appointed to procure.”—Thus we have it from very high authority, thatthe first archbishop of Canterbury was a worker of miracles.
[253]The other orders were the middle and inferior thanes: the former are said to be the lesser barons, or lords of manors; and the latter made up the lowest degree of freeholders. Dyde Hist. Tewksbury. 141.—All others in the Anglo-Saxon community below these thanes, who were the nobles of those times, are sometimes comprized under the heads of untitled freemen, and slaves—the latter, constituting the great mass of the inhabitants, were the property of their lords, like the present Russian or Bohemian peasantry.
[254a]Petit Andrews, 1. 83.
[254b]Henry, and Petit Andrews.
[257a]Dyde’s History of Tewksbury, 139, 40, 41.
[257b]See Parkin.
[257c]“Directly opposite the Irish coast, (saysWilliam of Malmsbury) there is a seaport town, calledBristol, the inhabitants of which frequently sail into Ireland, to sell there people whom they had bought up throughout all England. They expose to sale maidens in a state of pregnancy, with whom they had made a sort of mock-marriages. There you might see with grief, fastened together by ropes, whole rows of wretched beings, of both sexes, of elegant forms, and in the very bloom of youth, (a sight sufficient to excite pity, even in barbarians,) daily offered for sale to the first purchaser. Accursed deed! Infamous disgrace! that men, acting in a manner which brutal instinct alone would have forbidden, should sell into slavery their relations, nay even their offspring!”—Life of Wolstan,bishop of Worcester, B. ii, C. 20.—[see Edinburgh Review, July, 1808.]
[259]Petit Andrews Hist. of Great Britain, 1. 84. Another historian informs us, that the great lords and abbots, among the Anglo-Saxons, possessed a criminal jurisdiction within their territories, and could punish or protect without appeal. This power, he says, was in some measure restrained by the established administration of justice, by the courts of decennary, the hundred, and the county. In the Anglo-Saxon courts, the accused was allowed to clear himself by his own oath, and the concurring oaths of his friends. These were called compurgators, and sometimes amounted to 300. The practices also of single combat, and the ordeal, were allowed in doubtful cases; and absurd as they may appear, the result was deemed complete evidence, for or against the accused, or suspected person.—The punishment of crimes was not less singular than the general proofs of guilt. A fine was the customary mode of commuting the punishment of the blackest offences; and as fines were a source of revenue, they were fixed with the nicest care, on a graduated scale, corresponding to the magnitude of the crime. Thus a wound of an inch long, under the hair, was compounded for with one shilling; a wound of the like size in the face, with two shillings; and thirty shillings was the compensation for the loss of an ear; and so on in proportion.—Mavor, 1. 77.
[260]See Andrews.
[263]Dr. Henry, and Petit Andrews.
[268a]Dr. Henry—Petit Andrews.—Another modern historian informs us that the Saxon pound, as likewise that which was coined for some centuries after the conquest, was near three times the weight of our present money. There was (as he says) forty eight shillings in the pound, and a Saxon shilling was nearly a fifth heavier than ours. Dr. Mayor’s Hist. Engl. 1. 78.
[268b]The princessGitha, daughter, or near relation to king Canute, and wife of Earl Goodwin, is said to have made a vast fortune by dealing in slaves; a traffic which then shockingly disgraced this country, as indeed it has done in our own time.Bristolwas then, whatLiverpoolhas recently been, the chief port to cherish and carry on this detestable commerce. This northern coast also, from Scotland to the Humber, was distinguished on the same account. We are told, by William of Malmsbury, that the Northumbrians used to sell their nearest relations for their own advantage; and Dr. Henry says, that English Slaves were then, like cattle, exposed to sale in all the markets of Europe. Many of the Slave-merchants of that period wereJews, who found a good market for theirEnglish and christian Slavesamong the Saracens in Spa in andAfrica. At Rome also, we read of English slaves being exposed for sale, as early as the 7th century. It is, moreover, highly probable that Lynn, and other neighbouring ports were long concerned in the same odious employment. Even as late as the reign of kingJohn, the Irish used to import many slaves from Bristol. To add to the brutality of this vile proceeding, the Sellers always took care that the females should be in a condition which might enable them to demand a higher price from the purchasers. What put an end, at last, to this horrid traffick, is said to have been, not the virtue of the English, but the compunction of the Irish, who were shocked at it, under the idea that certain national misfortunes which had befallen them were divine judgments, for having been concerned in so iniquitous a business.—Our unfeeling advocates for the slave trade, who have so long dishonoured this nation, and are still in no small numbers among us, are little aware, that time was, when their own ancestors were in a similar situation with the present inhabitants of Africa; being liable, like them, to be bought and sold into slavery; and that other nations actually traded here for Slaves, as we have so long done in modern times to the coast ofGuinea.—If they cannot put themselves in the place of the poor negroes, and feel for them, they ought, at least, to do so in regard to their own ancestors, and so learn some degree of justice and humanity, if nothing else can teach them.
[269]He might have said,somewhat lessthan a shilling an acre, if, as some have asserted, the hide comprehended 120 acres.
[270]Henry iv. 237, 8, 9.
[274]Henry iv. 234.
[275]As a proof of the salubrity of Croyland, and the temperance of its monks in those days, it has been remarked, that when Turketul, who had been chancellor of England, and one of the greatest warriors and statesmen of his time, retired from the world, and became abbot of Croyland, he found five aged monks there, to whom he paid particular attention. The eldest of them died in 973, in his 169th year: the second died within the same year, at the age of 142: the third died the neat year, aged 115; the other two are thought to have been about the same age as the last. Their names wereClarenbald,Swarling,Turgar,Brune, andAjo.—Croyland is not now remarkable for its salubrity, or the longevity of its inhabitants.
[276]Andrews—Mavor—Henry.
[278]Henry iv. 313.
[279]I. Walingford, apud Gale, t. 1. p. 536: quoted by Henry. 4. 324.
[282]Henry, iv. 299.
[283]Henry, iv. 329.
[285]Seven, however, was not invariably their number, they were sometimes more and sometimes less.
[288a]Some, indeed, have seemed rather to doubt if its origin here was as early as the days of Edward, as Ingulphus, a contemporary writer, makes no mention of it. Malmsbury, however, who lived not long after, affirms it; and the Confessor seems as likely as any to have taken the lead in such a business and become our first practitioner.
[288b]Owing partly, as it is supposed, to the aguishness of the air, and partly to other causes, not peculiar to these parts.
[289]He was also Duke of Wessex, and Earl or Governor of Sussex, Surrey, Kent, and Essex.
[290]Carto 1. 416.
[296]Flower’s Political Review, vol. 1. 299.
[297]We are apt to deem it a grievous hardship upon the good people of England, under the Norman princes, to be deprived of the administration of justice in their own mother tongue, or to have their legal proceedings all transacted in a strange language, without considering, that the Welsh, the Irish, and the Scotch Highlanders, are to this day used by our own government in the same manner; in which nevertheless, we seem to perceive no great or very material harm, hardship, or impropriety:—so loth do we often appear to place ourselves in the situation of our neighbours, and to use them as we would wish to be used by them.—England must have made a queerish appearance whenlawwas administered inFrench, andreligioninLatin, and the people knew no language but English.
[299a]“Ailredas well asMalmsburyobserve, that the Confessor cured a young married woman, reduced by the Evil to a deplorable condition, by stroking the place affected with his hand; upon which she grew sensibly better, the humour dispersed, the scar wore off, and in a week’s time the cure was perfected!!”—Carte 1. 357.
[299b]That Francis touched for the evil is said to be averred by Servetus, in his 1st edition of Ptolemy’s Geography. Of its success, indeed, we are told that he appeared far from being a believer, but it was not the only instance of his unbelief or incredulity. He often disbelieved what others firmly credited; for which the bloody reformer Calvin made him pay very dearly, at last, without the gates of Geneva.
[300a]Nor does it appear that it belonged exclusively to certainchristianpotentates; for, long before there were any such, it had been ascribed to the pagan emperors Vespasian and Hadrian, who are said, by their touch, to have restored sight to the blind; and the fact seems as well established as any of the accounts of cures effected by the touch of our christian and English monarchs.
[300b]See Occasional Thoughts on the Power of curing the King’s Evil,ascribed to the Kings of England—superadded to Werenfel’s Dissertation upon superstition in natural things. Lond. 1748.
[301a]Carte, 1. 357.
[301b]Carte adds, that archbp.Bradwardine, Lord ChancellorFortescue, and other grave authors, give the like testimony in behalf of the cure, as well as the practice, by that prince’s successors:—[Richard I, John, Henry III, and the three Edwards, we may suppose.] Carte, as before.
[302a]Occasional Thoughts, as before, 58.
[302b]Ibid.
[303]Though some, perhaps, would choose to ascribe that gift, virtue, or power, rather to thethrone, as theinfallibility of the popehas, by one of our old satirists, been ascribed to thepapal chair, in some such lines as the following,
If the devil himself should get there,Although he be full of all evil,Yet such is the virtue in Peter’s old chair,He would be an infallible devil.
If the devil himself should get there,Although he be full of all evil,Yet such is the virtue in Peter’s old chair,He would be an infallible devil.
[304]Occasional Thoughts, as before, p. 60—also New. An. Reg. 13, [180]—It does not appear, who among Henry’s bishops, or ecclesiastics drew up this new office for his use: but we find that it went in the manner and form following—First,the king,kneeling,shall say, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”And as soon as he hath said that,he shall say, Give the blessing.The chaplain kneeling before the king,and having a stole about his neck,shall answer and say, “The Lord be in your heart, and in your lips, to confess all your sins. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”Or else he shall say, “Christ hear us. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”Then by and by the king shall say, “I confess to God, to the blessed virginMary, to all the saints, and to you, that I have sinned in thought, word, and deed, through my fault: I pray holyMaryand all the saints of God to pray for me.”The chaplain shall answer and say, “Almighty God have mercy on you, and pardon you all your sins, deliver you from all evil, and confirm you in good, and bring you to everlasting life. Amen. The almighty and merciful Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sins, time for repentance and amendment of life, with the grace and comfort of his holy spirit. Amen.”This done the chaplain shall say, The Lord be with you.The king shell answer, And with thy spirit.The chaplain, Part of the Gospel according to St. Mark.The king shall answer, Glory to thee O Lord.The chaplain reads the gospel, “Last he appeared to those eleven as they sat at the table: and he exprobated their incredulity and hardness of heart, because they did not believe them that had seen him risen again. And he said to them: going into the whole world, preach the Gospel to all creatures. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. And them that believe these signs shall follow: in my name, shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues. Serpents shall they take up, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall impose hands upon the sick and they shall be whole.”Which last clause, (They shall impose&c.)the chaplain repeats as long as the king is handling the sick person.And in the time of repeating the aforesaid words(they shall impose &c.)the clerk of the closet shall kneel before the king,having the sick person on the right hand,and the sick persons shall also kneel before the king;and the king shall lay his hand upon the sore of the sick person.This done the chaplain shall make an end of the Gospel. “And so our Lord Jesus, after he spake unto them, was assumpted into heaven, and sate on the right hand of God. But they going forth preached every where; our Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs which followed.”Whilst this is reading,the chirurgeon shall lead away the sick person from the king.And after the Gospel the chaplain shall say, The Lord be with you.The king shall answer, And with thy spirit.The chaplain, The beginning of the Gospel according to St. John.The king, Glory to thee O Lord.The chaplain then shall say the Gospel following, [i.e.the first words of John’s Gospel,ending at verse 9th.] It was the true light which lightneth every man that cometh into this world.Which last clause, (It was the true light, &c.)shall be restated so long as the king shall be crossing the sort of the sick person,with an angel of gold noble,and the sick person to have the same angel hang’d about his neck,and to wear it until he be full whole.This done,the chirurgion shall lead away the sick person as he did before,and then the chaplain shall make an end of the gospel[i.e. read on from verse the 9th, where he left off before, to the end of verse 14.]Then the chaplain shall say, The Lords name be praised.The King shall answer, Now and for ever.Then shall the chaplain say this collect following,praying for the sick person or persons: O Lord hear my prayer.The king shall answer. And let my cry come unto thee.The chaplain, Let us pray. “Almighty and everlasting God, the eternal health of them that believe; graciously hear us for thy servants for whom we implore the aid of thy mercy, that their health being restored to them, they may give thee thanks in thy church, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
This prayer following is to be said secretly,after the sick persons be departed from the king,at his pleasure.—“Almighty God, Ruler and Lord, by whose goodness the blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and all sick persons are healed of their infirmities: By whom also alone the gift of healing is given to mankind and so great a grace, through thine unspeakable goodness toward this realm, is granted unto the kings thereof, that by the sole imposition of their hands, a most grievous and filthy disease should be cured: Mercifully grant that we may give thee thanks therefore, and for this thy singular benefit conferred on us, not to ourselves, but to thy name let us daily give glory; and let us always so exercise ourselves in piety, that we may labour not only diligently to conserve, but every day more and more to encrease thy grace bestowed upon us: And grant that on whose bodies soever we have imposed hands in thy name, through this thy virtue working in them, and through our ministry, may be restored to their former health, and being confirmed therein, may perpetually with us give thanks to thee the chief physician and healer of all diseases; and that henceforth they may so lead their lives, as not their bodies only from sickness, but their souls also from sin may be perfectly purged and cured: through our Lord Jesus Christ thy son, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God world without end. Amen.”
The reader will readily perceive that the above office, or formulary was entirely ofpopishmanufacture; the king and whole nation being then papists; but it probably differed not much, if at all, from those used afterwards by ourprotestantprinces, except in the article ofinvokingtheVirgin Maryand theSaints; in which also consists, seemingly, the chief difference between theRomishandEnglish Liturgies: in other respects the resemblance is great and striking; which is not much to be wondered at, as the model of the latter is pretty well known to have been taken from the former.
[306]Seward’s Anecdotes, 1, 38.
[308]Occasional Thoughts, as before, 61.
[309]So little did those reformers know of thespiritof christianity; and yet they are still held up, by a numerous and powerful religious party among us, as patterns of orthodoxy and pure religion: as if those men, who knew the least of the spirit of Christ, and the principles of common justice, were most likely to know most of the doctrines and precepts of the gospel, and be of all men the fittest to follow; or as if that religion should be the most orthodox, pure, and estimable, that shews the least of the spirit of the New Testament, and even allows of intolerance, persecution, and murder.
[310a]Her conduct, in torturing and burning those whom the deemedheretics, cannot well be thought more diabolical or execrable than that of her successorsElizabethandJames, toward those whom they viewed in a similar light: the latterburnsthem, asMarydid, and no less cruelly and unjustly; and the former imprisoned, tortured, hanged, embowelled, and quartered them. This was the good queen Bess. Her whole bench of bishops, all of the right reformed andevangelicalstamp, applauded her deeds.
[310b]That part of the ceremony, however, appears to have been expunged in the next reign, and discontinued afterwards till that of James II. without any diminution of the effect. See Oc. Thoughts, as before, 62.
[310c]Carte, 1, 357.
[312a]Carte, 1, 358, note.
[312b]Athenæum No. 4.
[317a]This proclamation therefore must have been published and affixed in some open place at Lynn.
[317b]See theAthenæumNo, 4, p. 360.
[319]See theAthenæumfor April and May 1809.
[320]Athenæum as before.
[324]Would not the case have been the same with their descendants of the present generation, had our three last monarchs thought proper to continue the practice, or the present sovereign chose to revive it?—How strikingly was the easy faith of the nation exemplified in the implicit credit it gave to a late premier’s possessing extraordinary and plenary ability to heal all the national or political maladies of Britain, of Europe, and of the world? And had he pretended to a power to cure the scrofula, or any other bodily complaint, with histouch, would it not have been readily believed by all his numerous admirers, and by the greatest part of our countrymen? And would not numerous witnesses have soon appeared, ready to attest the reality and completeness of his cures?—Circumstances seem evidently to favour these conclusions: nor will the story of theDumb Doctor, still fresh in every body’s memory, (not to mention other cases) allow of our making here an exception in favour of the inhabitants of Lynn.
For the sake of those readers who live at a distance from Lynn, the affair here last alluded to may require some explanation. Be it known therefore, that the empirical Adventurer, called theDumb Doctor, made his appearance at Lynn about four and twenty years ago; and for a good while after spent most of his time between this town and Wisbeach. It was given out that he had been deaf and dumb from his birth, and that he was a native of New England, or some part of North America, where he had, somehow, (miraculously, or at least in some very extraordinary and wonderful manner no doubt) acquired very deep knowledge and skill in the healing art; and after having performed great and astonishing cures in his own country, had actually crossed the wide Atlantic out of pure kindness and compassion to the sick and infirm folk of this kingdom, most of whose complaints he might be expected capable of removing.—The tale very generally took with our good townsmen, and numbers of ailing people, gentle and simple, well-bred and ill-bred, from all quarters, flocked to the impostor for relief. Not a few of them also declared that they had actually derived great benefit from his prescriptions.—Thus he went on very prosperously, till an old acquaintance of his unluckily came to town, blew him up, and blasted all his hopes. He then suddenly decamped, and was never since seen or heard of in these parts.—It seems he had belonged so a company of strolling players, from which honourable fraternity he had been on some occasion expelled: upon which he took up the medical profession, pretending to be deaf and dumb, and a native of North America, as was before stated.—This may serve to shew that with all our skepticism and infidelity, and our large stock of fancied light and discernment, learning and refinement, we are by no means so far removed from the easy faith and blind credulity of our ancestors, or become such complete proofs against the wiles of imposture, or the specious arts of daring deceivers, as might be supposed, from our confident, loud, and boisterous boastings.
[328]Sullivan’s Lectures on the Feudal System, and Laws of England, p. 180.
[329a]Blackstone ii. 51, and iv. 411.
[329b]See Caste 1. 423.
[330]Sullivan’s Lectures, No. xvii, xviii, and xxviii.
[331]Leckie’s Historical Survey of the foreign affairs of Great Britain, Part I, page 57, &c.
[333]Leckie, as before, p. 66.
[334]Blackstone iv. 408. Neal Hist. Pur. I. 1.
[335]Blackstone iv. 409.—OurGame Lawsare not only exceedingly detested, by those of the middle as well as lower orders, throughout the country, (which constitute the major part of the nation,) but seem also to be among the most grievous and disgraceful of all our present laws. In no view can they be deemed respectable or defensible. Nor is the conduct of our magistrates perhaps ever more unseemly or disreputable than in the unfeeling, cruel, and relentless rigour with which they put these vile laws in execution. In nothing probably more than in this does our present state resemble that of France before the revolution. The Game Laws there were then intolerably severe and grievous, and enforced by the magistrates with unrelenting and diabolical rigour; so that they used to fill even the very Gallies with their hapless victims: all which recoiled with vengeance upon them and their abettors, the privileged orders, in the dreadful change which ensued. Those laws no longer exist in that country: but a recent traveller, (Pinkney,) informs us, “that though there are now no game laws in France, there is a decency and moderation in the lower orders, which answer the same purpose. No one presumes to shoot game, except on land of which he is the proprietor or tenant.”—No where in England are these laws supposed to be more grievously felt than in Norfolk; of which a popular and respectable author of the present day speaks as follows—“What is denominatedGameis very plentiful is this county. The arable lands affording both food and cover, and the gentry, being particularly attached to the amusement of sporting, have recourse to the strong arm of the law for its preservation. This tenacity on the part of the landholders, producing covetous desires in the tenants, is a strong inducement to poaching, and the source of numberless disagreements, which too frequently terminate in suits at law. Hence they are oppressive to one party and disgraceful to the other. The various statutes, called ‘the Game Laws,’ are justly deemed the opprobrium of the English code; and in no county perhaps are those statutes acted upon with greater rigor than they usually are in Norfolk. The endless litigations upon this despicable point have lately become the subject of theatrical ridicule; and this county has on the occasion been made thebuttof dramatic satire. “Searchum, get warrants immediately, for seizing guns, nets, and snares; let every dog in the parish be collected for hanging to-morrow morning. Give them a taste forNorfolk discipline.” Happy would it be for the country, if ridicule, as reason has hitherto failed, should be able to induce the legislature to abrogate laws, which, as they were made to support an assumed claim, can only be continued in force to protect an usurped right.” [Beauties of England v. xi. p. 90, &c.]
It is most disgusting to men of sound and liberal minds to hear with what complacency, selfgratulation, as well as selfimportance, the magistrates, at the convivial meetings of the gentry, will be sometimes expatiating on the rigour of their proceedings against the transgressors of the game laws, and describing how effectually they curb and keep in awe the farmers, and trounce to their utter undoing some of the most active among the lower order of poachers. Such a conduct is nothing less than a publishing of their own shame, and a boasting of their own misdoings; and had they expanded and reflecting minds, or any minds at all, they would blush for such a conduct, and carefully and studiously refrain from it, as well as from all manner of excess in their proceedings against poachers, many of whom with their luckless families have been utterly ruined by them. Some of those ill-fated culprits have perished in prison, after long and rigorous confinement: one of whom, namedSaunders, died miserably in goal, after asix yearsincarceration, who probably was as well bred as some of his relentless judges; on which occasion the following lines were composed:
“Epitaph on Nathaniel Saunders,gentleman:“Nat! thou’st escap’d just in the nick of time!Thine was a barbarous and a bloody crime!How long confin’d?—six years—that’s only fair;What was his crime? the scoundrel kill’d a hare!”
“Epitaph on Nathaniel Saunders,gentleman:
“Nat! thou’st escap’d just in the nick of time!Thine was a barbarous and a bloody crime!How long confin’d?—six years—that’s only fair;What was his crime? the scoundrel kill’d a hare!”
[338a]Blackstone, iv. 410.
[338b]Ibid, 411.
[340]Not a few of the most high-spirited and warlike withdrew into foreign parts; some sailed to the Mediterranean, and found at Constantinople a ready protector in the emperor of the east, who united them to the Barangi, or battle-ax guards, as some of their countrymen had been long before. [See Andrews, vol. 1.]