One cannot travel over this country and not think of the time when William the Conqueror, by his hostility to the inhabiting Saxons, caused destruction and ruin to prevail. History says:—
He wasted the land between York and Durham, so that for threescore miles there was left in manner, no habitation for the people, by reason whereof it laid waste and desert for nine or ten years. The goodlie cities, with the towers and steeples set upon a statelie height, and reaching as it were into the air; the beautiful fields and pastures watered with the course of sweet and pleasant rivers; if a stranger should then have beheld, and also knowne what they were before, he would have lamented.
We do not stop here, but can hardly fail to think of the Conquerer himself. As he lay in the agonies of death he cried out:—
Laden with many and grievous sins, O Christ, I tremble, and being ready to be taken by Thy will into the terrible presence of God, I am ignorant what I should do, for I have been brought up in feats of arms even from a child. I am greatly polluted with the effect of much blood. A royal diadem that never any of my predecessors did bear I have gotten; and although manly greediness on my triumph doth rejoice, yet inwardly a careful fear pricketh and biteth me when I consider that in all these cruel rashness hath raged.
But we must leave these intervening lands and speak of the famed city itself.
YORK.
This is Old York, while our New Amsterdam that was, Manhattan Island, is the New one. It is the capital of Yorkshire, and situated on both sides of the River Ouse, at its junction with the River Foss, and is 175 miles from London. Its population is 43,709. The river is crossed by a fine stone bridge, while there are also several others of less repute. The city is very compactly built. It is but three miles in circuit, and was once entirely, and is now partly, surrounded by walls originally erected by the Romans. It was entered by gates, four of which remain as they were centuries ago. The streets are not very wide, but are well paved and very neat, and the city presents a solid and substantial appearance. It has a good commercial or trade aspect in the market parts, and in the other portions has a homelike atmosphere, and a very large number of hotels, for the place is one of resort for fashionable winter life. It is the emporium of style for the northern part of England, and in this respect is hardly inferior to London. The buildings are mainly of brick, three or four stories high.
Its history reaches far back into antiquity. During the Roman dominion, York was the seat of the general government, and was important while London was yet rude and semi-barbaric. Are we fully prepared to realize that the Roman Emperor Septimus Severus lived here, and here died in the year 212, or but 179 years after the death of Christ? Here also died in 306, Constantius Cholorus, the father of Constantine the Great. 1577 years are gone since the death of the distinguished individual named! In the war with William the Conqueror, the citizens joined with the Scots and Danes for his repulsion, but on their defeat they razed their homes and city to the ground. It was rebuilt, and was destroyed by fire in 1137. During the great massacre of the Jews, which took place in England after the coronation of Richard I., several hundred Jewish inhabitants of York, having in vain attempted to defend themselves in the castle, slew their wives and children, set fire to their houses, and themselves perished in the flames. Lord Fairfax captured the place from the Royalists in 1644, and in 1688 James II., for its arbitrary measures in opposition to the crown, took away its charter, and its fortunes and conditions then varied for more than two thousand years. Indeed, its soil is classic ground. Here the Emperor Hadrian, one of imperial Rome's distinguished ones, dwelt, more kingly and regal than has since lived any king. Over these roads Severus, the great Emperor, has passed, and on Stiver's Hill, west of the city, the funeral obsequies over his mortal remains took place. Here Constantine, the first great Christian of many who came out of paganism, also dwelt. Everywhere there is a classic renown. Do we, as we are walking here on this fine summer day, comprehend the scheme? The birds in these trees sing as sweetly as in olden time; the sheep graze quietly on the outlying plains as they did a thousand years ago. The shadows, made by passing clouds, chase each other across our path as others did over theirs. Here are the same sun and similar clouds, and birds and trees, but the seasons of a thousand and a half of years intervene. Millions of beings have lived and died. Their dust has mingled with parent soil; it has been caught up, and transformed into plant and flower and tree; and, passing through fruit, or flesh of animal, into humanity, has gone back again and become mingled, and out into life yet again, and its history has been repeated in new organizations and bodies and forms.
We talk not of transmigration of soul, but we may say that the process has developed a better phase of humanity; and these last productions are more imperial and royal than Hadrian, Septimus, or Constantine; than William the Conqueror, Edward the Confessor, than Cromwell, Jeffries, or Laud. Upward and onward has been the march. The millennium has come in this way, and humanity has marched with steady tread towards it. Queen Victoria and Dean Stanley and John Bright and Gladstone are the blossoms, or a flowering-out,—a grand fruitage. In them, also, are the seed and germs of a yet greater progress, and another day is to gather fruit from these later trees, the leaves of which "are for the healing of the nations."