Loitering in Pleasant Paths

by Marion Harland

We paused long at one small faded portrait, far inferior in artistic merit to those about it—the first picture we had seen of Lady Jane Grey. She has a sickly, chalky complexion that might match an American school-girl’s. This may have been caused by the severity of her home discipline and Master Roger Ascham’s much Latin and more Greek. She toiled for him cheerfully, she says, “since he was the first person who ever spake kindly to her.” She was the mistress of five languages and a frightful number of arts and sciences, and married a sour-tempered man, chosen by her father and his, when she was seventeen years old. The lineaments are unformed and redeemed from plainness by large brown eyes. They have an appealing, hunted look that was not all in our fancy. A “slip of a girl” compassionate mothers would name her; frightened at life, or what it was made to be to her by her natural guardians.

Across the gallery are two portraits of Marie Stuart, one of which was painted over the other upon the same canvas. This was discovered by an artist, who then obtained permission from the owners to copy and erase the upper painting. He succeeded in both tasks. The outermost portrait wears a projecting headdress, all buckram, lace, and pearls, and a more ornate robe than the other. A casual glance would incline one to the belief that the faces are likewise dissimilar, but examination shows that they are alike in line and color, the difference in expression being the work of the tawdry coiffure. The lower likeness is so lovely in its thoughtful sweetness as to kindle indignation with astonishment that it should have been so foolishly disfigured. The story is a strange one, but true.

We recognized Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester’s picture, from its resemblance to the effigy upon his tomb, and liked it less than that. The opened eyes are fine in shape and color, but sleepy and sinister, the complexion more sanguine than suits a carpet-knight. There is more of the hunting-squire than the polished courtier in it. Close by is the pleasing face of the royal coquette’s later favorite, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. Another profile of Wolsey is not far off. A nobler trio are Erasmus, Hugo Grotius and Thomas Cranmer pendent upon the same side of the gallery.

I once read in a provincial journal a burlesque list of the curiosities in Barnum’s Museum. One item was, “a cup of cream from the milky way—slightly curdled.” Another—“a block from the marble hall the Bohemian girl dreamed she dwelt in.” The nonsense recurred to me when we bent over a glass containing Guy Fawkes’ lantern, “slightly” rusted. In fact, it is riddled by rust, and so far as apparent antiquity goes, might have belonged to Diogenes. The various parts—candle-holder, iron cylinder and cover, lie apart, and with them certificates to the genuineness of the relic. There is the original letter of warning to Lord Mounteagle not to go to the House at the opening of Parliament, “since God and man have conspired to punish the wickedness of the times.” “Parliament shall receive a terrible blow and yet shall not see who hurt them,” is the sentence that led to the search in the cellar and the capture of Fawkes.

Queen Elizabeth’s fruit-plates are upon exhibition here. They are very like the little wooden plaques we now paint for card-receivers and hang about our rooms. The edges are carved and painted, and in the centre of each are four lines of rhyme, usually a caustic fling at matrimony and married people.

The wealth of the Bodleian Library consists in its collection of valuable old books and MSS. In the number and rarity of the latter it disputes the palm with the British Museum. I should not know where to stop were I to begin the enumeration of treasures over which we hung in breathless delight, each one brought forward seeming more wonderful than the last. The illuminated volumes,—written and painted upon such parchment as one must see to believe in, so fine is its texture and so clear the page,—are enough to make a bibliomaniac of the soberest book-lover. A thousand years have not sufficed to dim tints and gilding. Queen Elizabeth, as Princess, “did” Solomon’s Proverbs upon vellum in letters of various styles, all daintily neat. In looking at her Latin exercises and counting up Lady Jane Grey’s acquirements, we cease to boast of the superior educational advantages of the girl of the period. It is experiences such as were ours that morning in the Bodleian Library and during our three days in Oxford that are pin-pricks to the balloon of national and intellectual conceit, not the survey of foreign governments and the study of foreign laws and manner. If the patient and candid sight-seer do not come home a humbler and a wiser man, he had best never stir again beyond the corporate limits of his own little Utica, and pursue contentedly the rôle of the marble in a peck-measure.

Before seeing the “Martyrs’ Monument,” we went to St. Mary’s Church in which Cranmer recanted his recantation. The places of pulpit and reading-desk have been changed since the Archbishop was brought forth from prison and bidden by Dr. Cole, an eminent Oxford divine, make public confession of his faith before the waiting congregation. The church was packed with soldiers, ecclesiastics and the populace. All had heard that the deposed prelate had been persuaded by argument and soothing wiles and the cruel bondage of the fear of death to return to the bosom of Holy Mother Church. Cole had said mass and preached the sermon.

“Dr. Cranmer will now read his confession,” he said and sat down.

“I will make profession of my faith,” said Cranmer, “and with a good will, too!”

We saw the site of the old pulpit in which he arose in saying this; the walls that had given back the tones of a voice that trembled no longer as he proclaimed his late recantation null and void, “inasmuch as he had been wrought upon by the fear of burning to sign them. He believed in the Bible and all the doctrines taught therein which he had wickedly renounced. As for the Pope, he did refuse him and denounce him as the enemy of Heaven.”