(The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe. Vol. i. p. 200.)
The “geolwe lind” was sung of in many a battle-piece. Again, as Kemble notices (The Saxons in England, vol. i., Appendix A, p. 480), we read in the Cod. Dip., No. 1317, of a marked linden-tree. (See, also, same volume, book i., chap. ii., p. 53, foot-note.) Then, too, we have the Old-English word lindecole, the tree being noted for making good charcoal, as both it and the dog-wood are to this day. Any “Anglo-Saxon” dictionary will correct this notion, and names of places, similarly compounded, are common throughout England.
[109]The entry in Domesday (facsimile of the part relating to Hampshire, photo-zincographed at the Ordnance Survey, 1861, p. iv. a) is as follows:—“In Bovere Hundredo. Ipse Rex tenet Linhest. Jacuit in Ambresberie de firmâ Regis. Tunc, se defendebat pro ij hidis. Modo, Herbertus forestarius ex his ij hidis unam virgatam (tenet), et pro tanto geldat; aliæ sunt in forestâ. Ibi modo nichil, nisi ij bordarii. Valet x solidos. Tempore Regis Edwardi valuit vi. libras.” It is worth noticing that Lyndhurst is here put by itself, and not with Brockenhurst and Minestead, and other neighbouring places under “In Novâ Forestâ et circa eam;” a clear proof, which might be gathered from other entries, that the survey was not completed.
[110]Blount’s Fragmenta Antiquitatis. Ed. Beckwith, p. 183. 1815. Here the place is called Lindeshull.
[111]Let me especially call attention to the exquisite carving of some thorns and convolvuluses in the chancel. It is a sad pity that this part of the church should be disfigured by glaring theatrical candlesticks and coarse gaudy Birmingham candelabra.
[112]I have only seen but the slightest portion of this fresco, so that it is impossible to properly judge of even the merits of this part. No criticism is true which does not consider a work of Art as a whole. At present, the angel with outstretched hands, full of nervous power and feeling, seems to me very admirable, though the position and meaning of the cloaked and clinging figure below is, at the first glance, difficult to make out; but this will doubtless, as the picture proceeds, become clear. The richness, however, of the colouring can even now be seen under the enormous disadvantage of being placed beneath the strong white glare of light which pours in from the east window. Further, Mr. Leighton must be praised for his boldness in breaking through the old conventionalities of Art, and giving us here the owl as a symbol of sloth, and the wretchedness it produces.
[113]Herbert’s Memoirs of Charles I., p. 95.
[114]William of Malmesbury: Gesta Regum Anglorum. Ed. Hardy, tom. ii., lib. iv., sect. 333, p. 508.
[115]Vitalis: Historia Eccl., pars. iii., lib. x., cap. xii., in Migne: Patrologiæ Cursus, tom. clxxxviii. pp. 751, 752; where occurs (pp. 750, 751) a most remarkable sermon, on the wrongs and woes of England, preached at St. Peter’s Abbey, Shrewsbury, on St. Peter’s Day, by Fulchered, first abbot of Shrewsbury, a man evidently of high purpose, ending with these ominous words:—“The bow of God’s vengeance is bent against the wicked. The arrow, swift to wound, is already drawn out of the quiver. Soon will the blow be struck; but the man who is wise to amend will avoid it.” Surely this is more than a general denunciation. On the very next day William the Red falls.
[116]Malmesbury, as before quoted, p. 509. Vitalis, however, in Migne, as before, p. 751, says there were some others.