Leaving the learned to fight the dusty battle of Rufus and De Blois, we make our way to the iron gate, and each deposit the silver obolus to admit us to the realms of the departed. Here a group of visitors is waiting, and we look up at the interesting Norman work in the south transept. There are good reasons for supposing that the transepts were not built continuously—a change of plan can be traced—and it would seem that there was at one time an intention of placing a couple of towers at the end of each transept. The great central tower also was erected later—after Walkelin’s death.
Isaak Walton.
Just before me stands an old oak settle, perhaps nearly coeval with the transept. How many generations of monks have sat on it and warmed their withered hands over a pan of charcoal! I could almost imagine that on certain days their ghosts may perambulate their old haunts, and seat themselves here again. In the centre of the transept lies Bishop Wilberforce. On the east side is Prior Silkstede’s Chapel, as it is called. It is now a vestry, and here Isaak Walton is literally trodden under foot. In answer to my inquiries, the verger pulled up the matting and showed his slab inscribed with Bishop Ken’s[77] verses. They are not worthy of the author of the morning and evening hymns. They inform us that he lived—
“Full ninety years and past
But now he hath begun
That which will ne’er be done.
Crowned with eternal Blisse
We wish our souls with his.”
Isaak was an erect, hale old man to the last. He was a theologian, and we hear that to atone for long neglect, a statue to him is about to be placed on the screen, beside the saintly Fishermen.
“I wish that Andrews, Bishop of Winchester, had been buried here,” said Mr. Hertford, “and that we had an epitaph on him by Milton. The elegiacs he wrote on his death were as beautiful as ‘Lycidas.’”