But the modern inhabitants of Bury do not come up to the high literary standard of their predecessors, such as Richard D’Aunger Vyle, tutor to Edward III.; Jocelin of Brakeland, whose chronicle of the monastery is referred to as vividly personifying the religious life of the middle ages; and John Lydgate, who took charge of the School of Rhetoric in the town, and wrote numerous poems, such as the Storie of Thebes, The Troy Book, and London Lickpenny, one of our earliest satires. Nor must we forget Richard Byfield, one of Tyndal’s friends, who was formerly Chamberlain for the Monastery. Richard de Bury, Chancellor to Edward III., and author of the Philobiblion, deserves honourable mention here as a native of the town. Fielding, in his Amelia, sends one of his characters to Bury for recovery of health, and describes it as a gay and busy town. Mrs. Inchbald, whose history reads like a romance, was born in a small farm-house at Standingfield, close by Bury St. Edmunds. The mother, Mrs. Simpson, had a strong taste for the theatre, and her family loved acting quite as much as she did. They all diligently attended the Bury Theatre—even the rehearsals. The actors and actresses were looked up to, almost worshipped, and when the theatre was closed the chief amusement of the family consisted in reading aloud the scenes which had been enjoyed so heartily. The unmarried son left the farm for the stage, and Elizabeth longed to do the same. Before reaching the age of thirteen, she frequently declared that she would rather die than live any longer without seeing the world. When a few years older, and ripe in maiden charms, she made her way to London, married an actor, and became an actress; wrote her simple story which yet finds readers, and died in the sixty-eighth year of her age, after she had burnt her memoirs, which would have been well worth reading, and for which she had been offered a thousand guineas. Another well-known name connected with Bury was that of Calamy, the elder, a rigid Presbyterian, who, about 1630, was one of the town lecturers at Bury. Subsequently he became Rector of Aldersmanbury, London, and one of the Assembly of Divines, and frequently preached before Parliament. He lived to see London in ashes, the sight of which broke his heart. His son Edmund was born at Bury, became a distinguished preacher, was ejected, and formed a congregation in Currier’s Hall, near Cripplegate, London. His son, who was likewise a leading London preacher, was the editor of the Abridgement of Mr. Baxter’s History of His Life and Times, and left behind him An Historical Account of My Own Life, a valuable contribution to the annals of his times published in 1829.
There is an anecdote of Rowland Hill, the eccentric preacher, in connection with Bury, too good to be omitted. He had come to preach at the Congregational Chapel, and, there being no railway then, had travelled in his own carriage, and with his own horses. Very properly he was anxious about the accommodation provided for the latter. The minister, Mr. Dewhirst, told him that he need be under no apprehension on that score, as he had a horse-dealer, a member of his church, who would look after them. “What!” said Rowland Hill, in astonishment, “a horse-dealer a member of a Christian Church! who ever heard of such a thing?” Evidently at that time horse-dealers had a somewhat doubtful reputation. Is it not delightful to think how much honester they are now?
Politically Bury St. Edmunds is extinct. It returned two members since 1292. Formerly the constituency consisted only of the Corporation. In 1832 it was enlarged so as to embrace the resident Freemen and the ten-pound householders, and it was the custom for the Duke of Grafton and the Marquis of Bristol each to return a member. Field-Marshal Conway, the friend of Horace Walpole, was the most distinguished man Bury St. Edmunds ever returned to Parliament. It is an anomaly that gives Bury the right to return the one member left it by recent legislation. But we rejoice in anomalies. For instance, look at Ireland. Ireland is inferior to the great metropolis, either in regard to population or property, but Ireland rejoices in nearly double the number of legislators it sends to the Imperial Parliament.
V.
IPSWICH: THE PRIDE OF THE ORWELL.
Lying in a valley surrounded by hills, up which the town is gradually climbing, and watered by the picturesque Orwell, which elevates the town to the dignity of a port, and within little more than an hour and a half’s run from London by the Great Eastern Railway, Ipswich may claim to be a place well worth visiting, while to the trader it is known and appreciated as a busy and thriving town. When I first knew it—at a time a little antecedent to the advent of the illustrious Mr. Pickwick—it was not much of a place to look at. With the exception of the space opposite the Town Hall, a handsome building all of the modern time, the people seemed sadly hampered for want of room. In this respect the place has been wonderfully improved of late, as much as any town in Her Majesty’s dominions; not even Birmingham more. It was one of the first places to have an Arboretum, which is well kept up for the health and comfort of its people. Then by the river a pleasant promenade has been formed, where, when the tide comes up from Harwich, bringing with it a faint touch of the briny, you may fancy that you are by the side of the sea itself. That River Orwell is a sight in itself, and is utilised by the young and vigorous as regards boating and bathing in a way conducive to the development of health and muscle alike. The corn market at Ipswich is one of the most important in the kingdom, and the public buildings are numerous, and boast not a little of architectural skill, as, for instance, the Grammar School, the theatre, Tacket Street Chapel—one of the oldest representatives of Nonconformity in the place—the pile of buildings forming the offices of The East Anglian Daily Times—the most successful of the East Anglian dailies, which would be a credit even to the metropolis. One of the handsomest piles of buildings in the town is that occupied by the Museum, the Schools of Art and Science, and the Victorin Free Library. Since their completion in 1881, the whole of the valuable books and archælogical treasures belonging to the Corporation have been classified and attractively arranged for inspection by visitors. The old Judge’s chambers have now been turned into a club, which supplies a want felt in such a place. I think Ipswich was one of the first towns to start a Mechanics’ Institute, still in vigorous existence; while all over Europe you may meet with agricultural machines that had their birth in the great works of Ransomes, Sims, and Jefferies—names dear to the farmer all the land over. Ipswich is now also becoming celebrated for its boots and shoes, while its tasteful shops indicate a considerable amount of intelligence and wealth as existing among its people to the present day.
Ipswich contains no less than thirteen churches, built, for the most part, in the Perpendicular style of architecture. Portions of some, however, are of earlier date. The oak door at St. Mary at the Elms, for instance, is in the Norman style, but slightly enriched, and therefore probably of the older or primary Norman. The Town Hall stands upon the Cornhill, upon the site of St. Mildred’s Church, many centuries disused. There also stood an ancient Hall of Pleas; and a Sociary or Seating Room of the Corpus Christi Guilds was erected there in Henry VIII.’s time. The mansions of Ipswich merchants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, still to be found ornamenting the parish of St. Clement’s, are worthy of close inspection, as they attest the wealth and importance of those who once inhabited them. Very many of the houses bear dates, and have fine ornamental exteriors. Many of the fine carved corner posts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries still remain. A gateway, an interesting relic of the great Cardinal Wolsey, who was a native of Ipswich, stands abutting upon College Street, and near the East end of St. Peter’s Church. It is of brick and small, and was probably not the chief place of egress attached to the building, which was undoubtedly built in a style of magnificence, and in accordance with the fine taste in architecture which the Cardinal was known to have possessed. Over the doorway are the arms of Henry VIII., and on each side of the Royal coat is a trefoil-headed niche, though now containing no figures. The place was erected in 1528. In the early part of the present century Ipswich was evidently a declining town. In 1813 its population was only 13,670, when Windham, the great statesman, who visited the place, speaks of it in very favourable terms as a town, picturesque and pleasant. At this present time the town has a population of 57,260. One of the most eminent men born in Ipswich was Firmin, the London draper, who was a philanthropist of the noblest character, and who did much for the poor both at Ipswich and in London. He was a Unitarian when to be anything but orthodox was considered in all circles as a matter of serious censure, and yet he was a friend of a Liberal Bishop. He is buried in Christ Church, Newgate Street, close to the great school for which he did so much, and to the funds of which he was such a liberal contributor. In every way he is to be considered a credit to his native town, and as one of the foremost men of the age in which he lived, and which he so greatly adorned. He set a good example that many of our merchant princes have not been slow to imitate. Had he been orthodox his fame would have been greater still.
One of the oldest houses in Ipswich is that known as Christ Church, the dwelling place of the Fonnereaus for many generations. It is one of the oldest houses in England, and has been inhabited for 350 years. There is not a better example of Elizabethan building to be met with anywhere. More than once has Royalty been hospitably entertained there. The most celebrated Royal visitor was Queen Elizabeth, who made a tour of the Eastern Counties in 1589, and rode through Essex and Suffolk with a crowd of attendant cavaliers. Her Majesty reached Ipswich in August, and was entertained there four days. Local tradition says that the bed Her Majesty slept in may be seen to this day in the haunted chamber of the old mansion. Long before the house was built, there was on the spot the convent and priory of Christ Church, tenanted by monks, known as Black Canons of St. Augustine, who took an active part in the business of the town, and to whom King John granted a charter for a market, which became a very popular one. As regards the park, the legend is that the bowling-green on the summit, now surrounded by a double avenue of magnificent limes, was one of those places selected by the Druids for purposes of worship. It is certain that the Danes, who were much given to sailing up and down the Orwell, on plunder bent, chose this very spot as the site of what may be called a hall of justice. There is reason to believe that on this very green Charles II. played bowls. There was a celebrated Lord Rochester who visited the house, and found the park-keeper driving two donkeys for the purpose of keeping the turf in good order. Further tradition says that in order not to hurt the turf the donkeys wore boots, which induced the facetious Earl to observe that Ipswich was “a town without people, that there was a river without water, and that asses wore boots.” Christ Church is now on sale. Ultimately it is to be hoped it will be purchased by the Corporation for a people’s palace and park.
In the old times Ipswich must have been a much more picturesque place than it is to-day. All its old records are religiously preserved by a worthy townsman, Mr. John Glyde, in his Illustrations of Old Ipswich, a handsome work, which is a credit to the town, and which ought to find a place in the library of East Anglians wealthy enough to purchase it. He writes lovingly of its gates and walls indicating the lamentable state of insecurity by which our forefathers were embarrassed in those good old times, when the Curfew Bell tolled every evening at eight o’clock. “There is, perhaps,” says an antiquarian writer, “no house in the kingdom which, for its size, is more curiously or quaintly ornamented than the ancient house still standing in the Butter Market.” The tradition is that Charles II. was hidden for awhile in that house after his defeat at Worcester. Be that as it may, the Ipswich traders, like John Gilpin, were men of credit and renown, and Fuller, in the seventeenth century, spoke of the number of wealthy merchant houses in Ipswich. It was in the reign of Elizabeth, remarks Mr. Glyde, that Ipswich seems to have attained the zenith of its fame. There is scarcely a branch of foreign commerce carried on at the present time, with the exception of trade with China, that was not prosecuted with more or less entirety in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. At that time Ipswich was much richer in shipping than Yarmouth, Southampton, or Lynn. Foreign weavers discovered the advantage of using English wool, and the gold of Flanders found its way into the pockets of English traders. The town still boasts a memorial of Cardinal Wolsey’s munificent liberality. One of its representatives was no less a distinguished person than Bacon—
The wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind.
Cavendish, the explorer of the world, was one of the personages at one time often to be seen in its streets—streets along which had ridden in triumph Queens Mary and Elizabeth, to say nothing of the Saxon Queen, who at one time resided in the town. But if Ipswich knows no longer the grandeur and pageantry of the past, if its Black Friars are vanished, it is still the abiding place of that new and better spirit to which Cromwell appealed, and not in vain, when he sought to make this England of ours great and free.