Wenlock, Bridgenorth, Ross, and Monmouth with its ancient massive gate, bridge, and market-place, are full of beautiful remains; and Worcester brings many a remembrance of the historic past before our minds while we gaze on Mr Rimmer's drawings of the Corn-market, Friar Street, and the Close of the beautiful cathedral, where Henry II. and his queen were crowned, and King John is buried. In old Worcester, the days of the Great Rebellion seem quite modern, and Charles II. and his unlucky brother, men of only the recent past. A beautiful and impressive drawing is that of the New Inn, Gloucester, that hostelry of a strange history, for it was designed to accommodate the pilgrims who used to go in crowds to the shrine raised in the Abbey Church of Gloucester over the remains of the murdered King Edward II. The vast old hostelry is enormously strong and massive, and covers an immense area. It is fully half of timber, principally chestnut-wood. Tewkesbury, Exeter, and Glastonbury are full of beautiful remains, finely rendered in this book. The Abbot's Kitchen at Glastonbury is one of the relics of the past best known in all England; here St Patrick passed the last years of his life, and here King Arthur is said to have been buried.
At Winchester are found grand examples of the domestic architecture of the fifteenth century, in addition to the superb ecclesiastical edifices of the city; Cardinal Beaufort's Tower, and St Cross, whose noble gateway, approached from the Southampton Road, is seen through great elms and walnut-trees, where the long lines of quaint high chimneys form with the church and the foliage an exquisitely picturesque combination. We pass on in the artist's company to Guildford, where the gateway of Esher Palace still remains to remind us of Wolsey's residence there after his downfall; to Salisbury, which differs from other old cities in having nothing Roman, Saxon, or Norman about it, but being purely English and unique; to Canterbury, with its wonderful wealth of antiquities, ecclesiastical, domestic, and military, all preserved with jealous care; to Rochester, with its grand and gloomy castle, and the noble cathedral, around which there hangs an atmosphere of romance; to Rye, with its ancient grass-grown streets, gabled houses, and church clock, said to be the oldest in England; to St Albans, which has just been raised by the Queen to the dignity of a city; and from whose abbey the first books printed in England were issued; to Banbury, with its Old Parliament House, where Cromwell's fateful parliament sat, and the Roebuck Inn, which contains a room accounted the most beautiful Elizabethan apartment of the early style in existence. This was Oliver's council-chamber, after the taking of Banbury Castle.
After visiting Ely, Ipswich, Norwich, Lady Jane Grey's house at Leicester, and the crumbling ruins which only remain of the Abbey, we are bidden to the Fen counties, whose picturesqueness few are aware of, though their architectural beauties, especially those of Lincolnshire, are well known; and we are shewn among many other curious things the market-place at Oakham, all roofed and shingled with solid old oak. There is a singular custom at Oakham: every peer of the realm on first passing through the town has either to pay a fine or to present the town with a shoe from his horse; the shoe is then nailed up on the castle gate, or in some conspicuous part of the building. Queen Elizabeth has left a memento of this nature at Oakham, as also have George IV. and Queen Victoria. These shoes are often gilt, and stamped with the name and arms of the donor.
The county of Nottingham is also amply illustrated; and we find a drawing of the famous Saracen's Head Inn at Southwell, which dates from the time of Henry IV., and where Charles I. gave himself up to the Scotch commissioners. The beautiful Minster, and the splendid ruins of the palace, once the residence of the archbishops of York, and many an old house and quiet glimpse of the home-life of the long past, are to be seen at Southwell, the place which monarchs and nobles vied with each other to endow and adorn. Warwickshire is but little noticed in this book beyond the inevitable Warwick Castle and Kenilworth; and yet how rich the land of the elm is in village, street, and homestead antiquity.
We would have welcomed further details of Coventry, that most interesting ancient city, the scene of the first days of the triumph of Henry VII., and of one term of the dreary imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots; the city of the wonderful church of St Michael, which may truly be called a dream—a poem in stone. York, Beverley, Durham, Lancaster, and Carlisle, all these the artist-author sets before us with their treasures of architecture and illustration of the social life of the past. Perhaps we linger longest over the noble views of Durham Castle, and the majestic cathedral with its three grand towers, which occupies one of the finest sites in England, and with the wooded bluff beneath it, is reflected in the broad bosom of the Wear. The author leads us so far north as Carlisle, but has not much to point to there of great antiquity. The Border city had to fight too hard for ages for her mere existence, to have means or leisure for the beautifying or refining arts. Her name is otherwise writ in history.
We are grateful to Mr Rimmer for this work, which will, we hope, give the impulse to much more literature of a similar order. There is a great need of closely studied and well-written histories of the old cities and towns of the United Kingdom, which, if not conceived merely in the dry antiquarian, nor yet in the simply picturesque artistic spirit, would induce readers to recognise, and lead them to explore the archæological treasures of their own countries, which may be reached with ease, and might, with the assistance of books of this kind, be studied with equal pleasure and profit.
[JAPANESE FANS.]
During the past few years, Japanese fans have become so popular in this country, that a few brief remarks respecting them and the manner in which they are manufactured—culled from the published Report by Her Majesty's Consul on the trade of Hiogo and Osaka—may perhaps prove acceptable to our readers.
Osaka, we learn, is the principal city for the manufacture of the ogi or folding fans, which are those almost exclusively exported, all descriptions of the bamboo kind being made there; the figures, writing, &c. required for their adornment are executed at Kioto. The prices vary from a few pence up to six pounds sterling per hundred, and occasionally even higher prices are given, though the bulk consists of the cheaper sorts. The superior kinds of fans, it may be mentioned parenthetically, which are termed uchiwa by the Japanese, are manufactured at Kioto, and are extensively used by the better classes of the natives.