One of the most rational pleasures of the intellectual mind is to escape from the present to the past. The contemplation of antiquity is replete with melancholy interest. The eye wanders with delight over the crumbling ruins of ancient magnificence; the heart is touched with some sublime emotion; and we ask which is the' most praiseworthy—the superstition that raised these holy temples, or the piety (?) that suffers them to fall to decay? This corner is one of my periodical resting-places after a day's solitary ramble; for I have many such, in order to brush lip old recollections, and lay in fresh mental fuel for a winter evening's fireside.'Tis a miracle that this antique fabric should have escaped demolition. Look at St. Saviour's! *
* The ancient grave-yard of St. Saviour's contains the
sacred dust of Massinger. All that the Parish Register
records of him is, “March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip
Massinger, a Stranger.” John Fletcher, the eminent dramatic
poet, who died of the Plague, August 19,1625, was buried in
the church.
With all due respect for Uncle Timothy's opinion, we think
he is a little too hard upon the citizens, who are not the
only Vandals in matters of antiquity. The mitre has done its
part in the work of demolition. Who destroyed the ancient
palace of the Bishops of Ely, (where “Old John of Gaunt,
time-honour'd Lancaster,” breathed his last, in 1398,) with
its beautiful Chapel and magnificent Gothic Hall? The site
of its once pleasant garden in Holborn, from whence Richard
Duke of Gloucester requested a dish of strawberries from the
Bishop on the morning he sent Lord Hastings to execution, is
now a rookery of mean hovels. And the Hospital of Saint
Catherine, and its Collegiate Church,—where are they? Not
one stone lies upon another of those unrivalled Gothic
temples of piety and holiness, founded by the pious Queen
Matilda. And the ancient Church of St. Bartholomew, where
once reposed the ashes of Miles Coverdale, and which the
Great Fire of London spared, is now razed to the ground!
De Gustibusf Alderman Newman, who had scraped together out
of the grocery line six hundred thousand pounds, enjoyed no
greater luxury during the last three years of his life than
to repair daily to the shop, and, precisely as the clock
struck two (the good old-fashioned hour of city dining), eat
his mutton with his successors. The late Thomas Rippon,
Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, was a similar oddity.
Onee only, in a service of fifty years, did he venture to
ask for a fortnight's holiday. He left town, but after a
three days' unhappy ramble through beautiful green fields,
he grew moping and melancholy, and prematurely returned to
the blissful regions of Threadneedle Street to die at his
desk!
In the contemplation of that impressive scene—amidst the everlasting freshness of nature and the decay of time—I have been taught more rightly to estimate the works of man and his Creator,—the one, like himself, stately in pride and beauty, but which pass away as a shadow, and are seen no more; the other, the type of divinity, infinite, immutable, and eternal.”
“But surely—may I call you Uncle Timothy?” Uncle Timothy good-humouredly nodded assent. “Surely, Uncle Timothy, the restoration of the Ladye Chapel and Crosby Hall speak something for the good taste of the citizens.”
“Modestly argued, Eugenio!”
“An accident, my young friend, a mere accident, forced upon the Vandals. Talk of antiquity to a Guildhall Magnifico I * Sirs, I once mentioned the 'London Stone' to one of these blue-gown gentry, and his one idea immediately reverted to the well-known refectory of that venerable name, where he stuffs himself to repletion and scarletifies his nasal promontory, without a thought of Wat Tyler, * the Lord of the Circle! An acquaintance of mine, one Deputy Dewlap, after dining with the Patten-makers on the 9th of November, was attacked with a violent fit of indigestion.
* Small was the people's gain by the insurrection of Wat
Tyler. The elements of discord, once put in motion, spread
abroad with wild fury, till, with the ignoble blood of base
hinds, mingled the bravest and best in the land. The people
returned to their subjection wondering and dispirited. For
whose advantage had all these excesses been committed? Was
their position raised? Were their grievances redressed,
their wants alleviated? Did their yoke press lighter? Were
they nearer the attainment of their (perhaps ''reasonable)
wishes, by nobility and prelates cruelly slaughtered,
palaces burned down, and the learning and works of art that
humanise and soften rugged natures piled in one vast,-
indiscriminate ruin? If aught was won by these monstrous
disorders, they were not the winners. The little aristocrats
of cities, who have thrown their small weight into popular
insurrections, may have had their vanity gratified and their
maws temporarily crammed; but the masses, who do the rough
work of resistance for their more cunning masters, are
invariably the sufferers and dupes. Hard knocks and hanging
have hitherto been their reward; and when these shall grow
out of fashion, doubtless some equally agreeable substitute
will be found. “It is not an obvious way (says Wyndham) for
making the liquor more clear, to give a shake to the cask,
and to bring up as much as possible from the parts nearest
to the bottom.”
His lady sent for the family doctor,—a humorist, gentlemen. 'Ah!' * cried Mr. Galen, 'the old complaint, a coagulation in the lungs. Let me feel your pulse. In a high fever! Show me your tongue. Ay, as white as a curd. Open your mouth, wider, Mr. Deputy—you caw open it wide enough sometimes!—wider still. Good heavens! what do. I see here?'—'Oh! my stars!' screamed the Deputy's wife, 'What, my dear doctor, do you—see?'—'Why, madam, I see the leg of a turkey, and a tureen of oyster-sauce!' 'Ha! ha! ha!—gluttons all; gluttons all!'
