SHREWSBURY,
of well-known Cake notoriety. We took passage at 5.10 p. m. this same Sunday evening; and while the sun was high above the horizon, at 7 o'clock, we were safely landed at Station Hotel. Soon after supper, as English people call it, we were out for a tramp. There's always an indescribable impatience in the tourist to see the place. There's a great deal of the can't-comfortably-wait condition, and it generally has soon to be gratified. We were early in love with the town. How comfortably we had been let down from Chester, and how unharmed we felt! The quaintness discovered in the narrow streets and the ancient buildings made it a second Chester; but we thought we saw in the mansions more of stateliness, costliness, and evidences of a substantial English aristocracy. The better class of houses were like the first-class three-story brick mansions at Salem and Newburyport, making one feel at home. Here and there were newer buildings of modern style, which made a worthy connecting link between the old dispensation and the new; for there were buildings as modern as are anywhere built, and some as ancient as are to be found anywhere, almost equalling those so justly adored at Chester. Shrewsbury is the shire town of Shropshire, and has a population of 23,406. It has the remains of an ancient castle, and some of the old walls of the city are yet standing. The River Severn, a sluggish and muddy stream, some three hundred feet wide, divides the town. The older portion is connected by two bridges, and also by a cheap rope-ferry, with the other side, on which are rural residences and public-entertainment grounds.
When we speak of the River Severn our interest is intensified by the thought of a great historic fact. In 1428, by order of Clement VIII., the body of Wycliffe, which since 1415 had been buried in a dunghill, to which it had been consigned by order of the Council of Constance, was exhumed and burned to ashes, and these were thrown into the little River Swift, a tributary of the Avon. This gave birth to the fine old verse:—
The Avon to the Severn runs,
The Severn to the sea;
And Wycliffe's dust shall spread abroad
Wide as the waters be.
The river curves, and partly encircles the city; and on its banks we found the public park, and near it St. Chad's circular stone church, with its large square tower above a portico, crowned with a belfry, under which are great clock dials. The park is simply an ordinarily well-kept grass ground, of perhaps one third the size of Boston Common. It has three or four superb avenues of old lime-trees, and Quarry Walk is one of the finest in Europe. Tradition has it that all of these linden-trees were set out by one man, more than a century and a half ago. The ruins of Battlefield Church, now little appreciated, roofless and dilapidated, are four miles away. This is famous as being the place where Sir John Falstaff "fought an hour by Shrewsbury Clock."
The town was an important one as early as the twelfth century, and prominent at times as being the place of royal residence. Parliaments were held here in 1283 and in 1398. In 1403—ninety years before the discovery of America by Columbus—the famous Battle of Hotspur was fought near here, in which that distinguished soldier was killed. In 1277 it was the temporary residence of Edward I., and to this place he removed the King's Bench and Court of Exchequer during the Wars of the Roses. The inhabitants took part with the House of York, and it was the asylum of the queen of Edward IV. after having given birth to the princes Edward and Richard, the two children who are supposed to have been murdered in the Tower of London by Richard III. As will be seen, the place is intimately connected with historic facts. Remembrance of this contributes a charm not well expressed in words. As we walked over these streets, through which distinguished personages have walked, and by houses which intelligent people have occupied for a thousand years,—as we thought of many generations who here lived, labored, and died, their dust now mingling with the soil of its ancient burial-grounds, or resting in the tombs of its venerable churches, within sound of the same vesper bells to which we were listening at the close of this pleasant Sunday evening,—as these reflections took possession of our minds, the quiet sanctity of the Puritan New England Sunday was about us, and we felt that we were in a befitting place to end a day so well and interestingly begun at Chester.
Sunday night is passed, and Monday, May 5, is at hand. As usual we are impatient for more experiences. Our thoughts are mingled with regrets, tinted with righteous indignation, that American tourists so neglect these places, and hurry to others of more metropolitan renown, but of less real interest to any one who would see England in her best estate. Their loss—a great one—is nobody's gain. A fine walk this of to-day, through street after street of good business activity.
Now was the time to attend to another duty. In passing a store we saw a notice, high up on a building, that here were made the original Shrewsbury cakes. We found that the recipe had been in use for over one hundred years, dating from 1760; that for as long a time the cakes had been there manufactured, and were now enjoying an enviable reputation the world over; and also that it was not an uncommon occurrence to send them by express to the United States. They are put up in round, blue, paper-covered, pasteboard boxes, about six inches in diameter and four inches deep, the cakes being of a nature that will bear transportation. We are soon in possession of them, but examination does not make us over-enthusiastic. If at home we should be even less so. They are thin cakes, say less than a quarter of an inch thick, and five inches in diameter,—apparently made without spice, but very sweet, fat, and crisp. As nearly as we could judge they are composed simply of flour, sugar, eggs, and butter, the latter in generous proportions. There's a deal in a name, and in the reputation gained through the sluggish lapse of a century's advertising and vigilant attention to business. Our young saleswoman is quite pert in her independence, and scorns the idea of selling or even hinting at a recipe for their manufacture; and we go away consoling ourselves with the idea that we have many times eaten similar things at home, and shall again, and animated by the conviction that,
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
It may be our judgment is at fault, and that they are in possession of a precious as well as a remunerative secret.
Continuing our walk, we met with St. Mary's Church, which has every requirement of a cathedral except a bishop. Had we not seen churches of the kind before, we should have gone deeply into enthusiasm now; for here was a grand structure, thoroughly antique, with nave, choir, transepts, chapels, ancient monuments, and fine windows,—one very large, as good as any in all England, and six hundred years old. It is an inclination of the tourist to ejaculate at every new place, "This is the most interesting we have seen." We are at a loss to know why St. Mary's is not oftener spoken of as among the favored few, for it is all of that.
Shrewsbury, grand old town, full of interest, and antiquities we have not time to name, is itself a museum of antiquity. We know much more than we did when we first surveyed it, but travel and observation have not at all dimmed our admiration. At 11.10 a. m. we move on to our next place, which was the prototype of, and gave its name to, the Heart of our Massachusetts Commonwealth,