Having finished our explorings among these hollow portions of the walls, the winding stairs lead on to the giddy heights of the ramparts, where a scene awaits the adventurer’s eye, that may well repay a steady effort to conquer the propensity to walk over the unprotected side towards the court within. And here we pause to take a survey of the picture as it lies out before us; houses, slated, tiled,
thatched and leaded, with their forests of chimneypots, the growth and accumulations of centuries; high pinnacles of brick, sending forth their volumes of smoke from huge factories, telling their tales of human skill and genius triumphing over the powers of earth, air, and water, bringing into subjection the sinews of rock and veins of ore, and training them, by the aid of invisible and subtle fluids, to yield obedience to the will of man, and minister to the wants and luxuries of his being; windmills spreading out their giant arms to stay the very winds of heaven in their path till they have done their work; waters checked in their onward course till their rebellious force has been turned to profit; all speak of matter visible and invisible, made subject to spirit power, and ministering to the will and wants of man. Tales, too, of human toil and suffering, of wasting labour, spent in the service of luxury and indolence, burthen the air breathed forth from groaning engine-houses, and rising up from hidden nests of poverty that lie sheltered beneath the eaves of rich men’s habitations, whose fair frontings to modern streets or road-ways, too often form but outer coatings of decency to masses of corruption hidden away in close yards, courts, and alleys, at their back—church towers, and spires, and turrets in manifold variety and abundance; and prominent among the host, stands out in all the glory of hale
old age, fine old St Peter’s, looking down from his proud eminence in solemn dignity, and smiling at all the feeble efforts of the mushrooms clinging to his very base to hide his fair proportions; far and wide may we look to find his peer, even among such gems of beauty as the patron saints so lavishly have scattered among the lanes and thoroughfares of this very garden of churches. Such are the city features of the panoramic see; turning to another point of view, away, beyond the foreground of the sheep and cattle pens that bespeak the conversion of the ancient inner ballium into a modern market-place for live stock, and across the deep running channel laden with crafts not yet wholly superseded in their labours by steam—that infant Hercules, whose leading-strings are compassing the surface of the globe—we catch a glance of the hanging woods of the fairest village our Norfolk scenery may boast, whose Richmond-like gardens skirting the pathway of the winding river, and meadow lands beyond, dotted here and there by the alder cars that once gave a name to the Benedictine convent close by, form a landscape of mingled animation and quiet rural beauty, not often to be equalled in the suburbs of a manufacturing city. No marvel why gala spots for pleasure-loving citizens should be found interspersed among the more refined parterres of the wealthy upon the shores; no marvel that a summer’s
evening should witness crowds of holiday-seeking folks, thronging to taste the sweets of fresh air, and rest from labour, in the midst of so fair a scene.
No marvel that a water frolic becomes dignified into a regatta there, that for once, within the circuit of the year, the great and small, the proud and humble, rich and poor, can mingle, to look together upon a common object of amusement—that fashion and poverty can meet in the field of pleasure—St. Giles and St. James acknowledge the existence, nor frown at the presence of each other. And who does not rejoice in the festivity, almost the sole remnant of national sport left us in this iron-working age? Who that can spare an hour from the counter or the loom, or desk—from scribbling six-and-eight-penny opinions, or scratching hieroglyphical prescriptions for aqua pura draughts, does not contrive to find some mode of transit by earth, air, or water to the scene of mirth. Even a soaking shower is unavailing to damp the ardour of the multitude, and not unseldom lends fresh stimulus to fun and laughter among the merry-hearted denizens of smoke-dried city streets and lanes. But we must not linger in their midst—the gay pleasure-boats, with their shining sails, tacking and bending to the breeze, the swift skullers in the gay uniforms, the eager faces that line the course, the signal guns and flags of victory, the music, and the mirth—all tell that the
spirit of enjoyment is not yet quite gone out from among us. We must now pass to other, and far different objects, and from the present, travel back to the past, whose page of history unfolds itself in the nearer object that meets our eye, the whitened sides of the “Lollard’s pit,” where martyrs of old poured forth their dying prayers; and yielded up their bodies to be burned as witness of their faith—where Bilney listened to the words of his murderers, beseeching him to release them before the people from all blame, that they might not suffer loss of popularity or alms—and where he turned and said: “I pray you, good people, be never worse to these men for my sake, as though they should be the authors of my death. It is not they;”—then was bound to the stake and slowly burned, in the presence of the multitudes that clothed the natural amphitheatre around. The heights above are crowned by the ruins of the old priory of St. Leonards, on the one side, and on the other by a few fragments of St. Michael’s chapel, whose vestiges, under a name assigned to them through their later notoriety, as the stronghold of the rebel Kett, yet linger as landmarks on the early pathway of national progress and reform.
There sat the “King of Norfolk,” as he was styled, and held his councils of state under the old oak, which bore thenceforth the title of the “oak of
the Reformation;”—there morning and evening service were daily read to the rebel forces, and the Litany and Te Deum were listened to with solemn earnestness. There Parker, the future archbishop of Canterbury, ventured into the midst of the rebel camp, and, under the shade of the oak, sent forth the voice of exhortation to the discontented, but to little effect. Enclosed lands, commons stolen from the public, and other grievances suffered by the poor from the hands of the rich, lay at the hearts of the people, and the prelate’s errand of peace had well nigh terminated ill, but for the power of music—the solemn Te Deum burst forth from the voice of the rebel’s chaplain, and swelled by many “singing voices” into a loud strain of sweet harmony, fell upon the ear of the multitude, like oil upon the raging waters, and by its sweetness shed peace for the time on all around. In this rebellion fell the gallant Earl of Sheffield, in his zeal to aid the efforts of the Earl of Warwick to quell the outburst of the people’s will; while beside him figured Dudley, the hero of Kenilworth, and cruel husband of the hapless Amy Robsart. The popular prophecy—
The country gnoffes, Hob, Dick, and Hick,
With clubs and clouted shoon,
Shall fill the vale of Duffendale
With slaughtered bodies soon—
was fulfilled, and besiegers and besieged were among