The Pleasures of England / Lectures given in Oxford

by John Ruskin

Many of my hearers can imagine far better than I, the look that London must have had in Alfred's and Canute's days.[³] I have not, indeed, the least idea myself what its buildings were like, but certainly the groups of its shipping must have been superb; small, but entirely seaworthy vessels, manned by the best seamen in the then world. Of course, now, at Chatham and Portsmouth we have our ironclads,—extremely beautiful and beautifully manageable things, no doubt—to set against this Saxon and Danish shipping; but the Saxon war-ships lay here at London shore—bright with banner and shield and dragon prow,—instead of these you may be happier, but are not handsomer, in having, now, the coal-barge, the penny steamer, and the wherry full of shop boys and girls. I dwell however for a moment only on the naval aspect of the tidal waters in the days of Alfred, because I can refer you for all detail on this part of our subject to the wonderful opening chapter of Dean Stanley's History of Westminster Abbey, where you will find the origin of the name of London given as "The City of Ships." He does not, however, tell you, that there were built, then and there, the biggest war-ships in the world. I have often said to friends who praised my own books that I would rather have written that chapter than any one of them; yet if I had been able to write the historical part of it, the conclusions drawn would have been extremely different. The Dean indeed describes with a poet's joy the River of wells, which rose from those "once consecrated springs which now lie choked in Holywell and Clerkenwell, and the rivulet of Ulebrig which crossed the Strand under the Ivy bridge"; but it is only in the spirit of a modern citizen of Belgravia that he exults in the fact that "the great arteries of our crowded streets, the vast sewers which cleanse our habitations, are fed by the life-blood of those old and living streams; that underneath our tread the Tyburn, and the Holborn, and the Fleet, and the Wall Brook, are still pursuing their ceaseless course, still ministering to the good of man, though in a far different fashion than when Druids drank of their sacred springs, and Saxons were baptized in their rushing waters, ages ago."

Whatever sympathy you may feel with these eloquent expressions of that entire complacency in the present, past, and future, which peculiarly animates Dean Stanley's writings, I must, in this case, pray you to observe that the transmutation of holy wells into sewers has, at least, destroyed the charm and utility of the Thames as a salmon stream, and I must ask you to read with attention the succeeding portions of the chapter which record the legends of the river fisheries in their relation to the first Abbey of Westminster; dedicated by its builders to St. Peter, not merely in his office of cornerstone of the Church, nor even figuratively as a fisher of men, but directly as a fisher of fish:—and which maintained themselves, you will see, in actual ceremony down to 1382, when a fisherman still annually took his place beside the Prior, after having brought in a salmon for St. Peter, which was carried in state down the middle of the refectory.

But as I refer to this page for the exact word, my eye is caught by one of the sentences of Londonian[⁴] thought which constantly pervert the well-meant books of pious England. "We see also," says the Dean, "the union of innocent fiction with worldly craft, which marks so many of the legends both of Pagan and Christian times." I might simply reply to this insinuation that times which have no legends differ from the legendary ones merely by uniting guilty, instead of innocent, fiction, with worldly craft; but I must farther advise you that the legends of these passionate times are in no wise, and in no sense, fiction at all; but the true record of impressions made on the minds of persons in a state of eager spiritual excitement, brought into bright focus by acting steadily and frankly under its impulses. I could tell you a great deal more about such things than you would believe, and therefore, a great deal more than it would do you the least good to hear;—but this much any who care to use their common sense modestly, cannot but admit, that unless they choose to try the rough life of the Christian ages, they cannot understand its practical consequences. You have all been taught by Lord Macaulay and his school that because you have Carpets instead of rushes for your feet; and Feather-beds instead of fern for your backs; and Kickshaws instead of beef for your eating; and Drains instead of Holy Wells for your drinking;—that, therefore, you are the Cream of Creation, and every one of you a seven-headed Solomon. Stay in those pleasant circumstances and convictions if you please; but don't accuse your roughly bred and fed fathers of telling lies about the aspect the earth and sky bore to them,—till you have trodden the earth as they, barefoot, and seen the heavens as they, face to face. If you care to see and to know for yourselves, you may do it with little pains; you need not do any great thing, you needn't keep one eye open and the other shut for ten years over a microscope, nor fight your way through icebergs and darkness to knowledge of the celestial pole. Simply, do as much as king after king of the Saxons did,—put rough shoes on your feet and a rough cloak on your shoulders, and walk to Rome and back. Sleep by the roadside, when it is fine,—in the first outhouse you can find, when it is wet; and live on bread and water, with an onion or two, all the way; and if the experiences which you will have to relate on your return do not, as may well be, deserve the name of spiritual; at all events you will not be disposed to let other people regard them either as Poetry or Fiction.

With this warning, presently to be at greater length insisted on, I trace for you, in Dean Stanley's words, which cannot be bettered except in the collection of their more earnest passages from among his interludes of graceful but dangerous qualification,—I trace, with only such omission, the story he has told us of the foundation of that Abbey, which, he tells you, was the Mother of London, and has ever been the shrine and the throne of English faith and truth.

"The gradual formation of a monastic body, indicated in the charters of Offa and Edgar, marks the spread of the Benedictine order throughout England, under the influence of Dunstan. The 'terror' of the spot, which had still been its chief characteristic in the charter of the wild Offa, had, in the days of the more peaceful Edgar, given way to a dubious 'renown.' Twelve monks is the number traditionally said to have been established by Dunstan. A few acres further up the river formed their chief property, and their monastic character was sufficiently recognized to have given to the old locality of the 'terrible place' the name of the 'Western Monastery,' or 'Minster of the West.'"

The Benedictines then—twelve Benedictine monks—thus begin the building of existent Christian London. You know I told you the Benedictines are the Doing people, as the disciples of St. Augustine the Sentimental people. The Benedictines find no terror in their own thoughts—face the terror of places—change it into beauty of places,—make this terrible place, a Motherly Place—Mother of London.

This first Westminster, however, the Dean goes on to say, "seems to have been overrun by the Danes," and it would have had no further history but for the combination of circumstances which directed hither the notice of Edward the Confessor.

I haven't time to read you all the combination of circumstances. The last clinching circumstance was this—

"There was in the neighbourhood of Worcester, 'far from men in the wilderness, on the slope of a wood, in a cave deep down in the grey rock,' a holy hermit 'of great age, living on fruits and roots.' One night when, after reading in the Scriptures 'how hard are the pains of hell, and how the enduring life of Heaven is sweet and to be desired,' he could neither sleep nor repose, St. Peter appeared to him, 'bright and beautiful, like to a clerk,' and warned him to tell the King that he was released from his vow; that on that very day his messengers would return from Rome;" (that is the combination of circumstances—bringing Pope's order to build a church to release the King from his vow of pilgrimage); "that 'at Thorney, two leagues from the city,' was the spot marked out where, in an ancient church, 'situated low,' he was to establish a perfect Benedictine monastery, which should be 'the gate of heaven, the ladder of prayer, whence those who serve St. Peter there, shall by him be admitted into Paradise.' The hermit writes the account of the vision on parchment, seals it with wax, and brings it to the King, who compares it with the answer of the messengers, just arrived from Rome, and determines on carrying out the design as the Apostle had ordered.