"THE FACE IN THE STRAW."—FROM ABBOT'S "ANTHOLOGIA," 1613
Having thus spoken, he raised his hands, and made the sign of the cross upon his forehead and breast, saying, "In nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti! Jesus Maria! Maria, mater gratiæ! Mater misericordiæ! Tu me ab hoste protege, et hora mortis suscipe!" Then he said, "In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum, quia tu redemisti me, Domine, Deus veritatis!" Then, again crossing himself, he said, "Per crucis hoc signum fugiat procul omne malignum! Infige crucem tuam, Domine, in corde meo;" and again, "Jesus Maria! Maria, mater gratiæ!" In the midst of these prayers the ladder was drawn away, and, by the express command of the King, he remained hanging from the gallows until he was quite dead.
The "face in the straw" was a miracle said to be performed at Garnet's death.
The original fabricator of the miracle of the straw was one John Wilkinson, a young Roman Catholic, who at the time of Garnet's trial and execution was about to pass over into France, to commence his studies at the Jesuits' College at St. Omer's. Some time after his arrival there, Wilkinson was attacked by a dangerous disease, from which there was no hope of his recovery; and while in this state he gave utterance to the story, which Endæmon-Joannes relates in his own words, as follows:—"The day before Father Garnet's execution my mind was suddenly impressed (as by some external impulse) with a strong desire to witness his death, and bring home with me some relic of him. I had at that time conceived so certain a persuasion that my design would be gratified, that I did not for a moment doubt that I should witness some immediate testimony from God in favour of the innocence of his saint; though as often as the idea occurred to my mind, I endeavoured to drive it away, that I might not vainly appear to tempt Providence by looking for a miracle where it was not necessarily to be expected. Early the next morning I betook myself to the place of execution, and, arriving there before any other person, stationed myself close to the scaffold, though I was afterwards somewhat forced from my position as the crowd increased." Having then described the details of the execution, he proceeds thus:—"Garnet's limbs having been divided into four parts, and placed, together with the head, in a basket, in order that they might be exhibited, according to law, in some conspicuous place, the crowd began to disperse. I then again approached close to the scaffold, and stood between the cart and place of execution; and as I lingered in that situation, still burning with the desire of bearing away some relic, that miraculous ear of straw, since so highly celebrated, came, I know not how, into my hand. A considerable quantity of dry straw had been thrown with Garnet's head and quarters into the basket, but whether this ear came into my hand from the scaffold or from the basket I cannot venture to affirm; this only I can truly say, that a straw of this kind was thrown towards me before it had touched the ground. This straw I afterwards delivered to Mrs. N——, a matron of singular Catholic piety, who inclosed it in a bottle, which being rather shorter than the straw, it became slightly bent. A few days afterwards Mrs. N—— showed the straw in a bottle to a certain noble person, her intimate acquaintance, who, looking at it attentively, at length said, 'I can see nothing in it but a man's face.' Mrs. N—— and myself being astonished at this unexpected exclamation, again and again examined the ear of the straw, and distinctly perceived in it a human countenance, which others also, coming in as casual spectators, or expressly called by us as witnesses, likewise beheld at that time. This is, as God knoweth, the true history of Father Garnet's straw." The engraving upon the preceding page is taken from Abbot's "Anthologia," published in 1613, in which a full account of the "miracle" is given.
At 65, St. Paul's Churchyard, north-west corner, lived the worthy predecessor of Messrs. Grant and Griffith, Goldsmith's friend and employer, Mr. John Newbery, that good-natured man with the red-pimpled face, who, as the philanthropic bookseller, figures pleasantly in the "Vicar of Wakefield;" always in haste to be gone, he was ever on business of the utmost importance, and was at that time actually compiling materials for the history of one Thomas Trip. "The friend of all mankind," Dr. Primrose calls him. "The honestest man in the nation," as Goldsmith said of him in a doggerel riddle which he wrote. Newbery's nephew printed the "Vicar of Wakefield" for Goldsmith, and the elder Newbery published the "Traveller," the corner-stone of Goldsmith's fame. It was the elder Newbery who unearthed the poet at his miserable lodgings in Green Arbour Court, and employed him to write his "Citizens of the World," at a guinea each, for his daily newspaper, the Public Ledger (1760). The Newberys seem to have been worthy, prudent tradesmen, constantly vexed and irritated at Goldsmith's extravagance, carelessness, and ceaseless cry for money; and so it went on till the hare-brained, delightful fellow died, when Francis Newbery wrote a violent defence of the fever medicine, an excess of which had killed Goldsmith.
The office of the Registrar of the High Court of Admiralty occupied the site of the old cathedral bakehouse. Paul's Chain is so called from a chain that used to be drawn across the carriage-way of the churchyard, to preserve silence during divine service. The northern barrier of St. Paul's is of wood. Opposite the Chain, in 1660 (the Restoration), lived that king of writing and arithmetic masters, the man whose name has grown into a proverb—Edward Cocker—who wrote "The Pen's Transcendancy," an extraordinary proof of true eye and clever hand.
In the Chapter House of St. Paul's, which Mr. Peter Cunningham not too severely calls "a shabby, dingy-looking building," on the north side of the churchyard, was performed the unjust ceremony of degrading Samuel Johnson, the chaplain to William Lord Russell, the martyr of the party of liberty. The divines present, in compassion, and with a prescient eye for the future, purposely omitted to strip off his cassock, which rendered the ceremony imperfect, and afterwards saved the worthy man his benefice.
St. Paul's Coffee House stood at the corner of the archway of Doctors' Commons, on the site of "Paul's Brew House" and the "Paul's Head" tavern. Here, in 1721, the books of the great collector, Dr. Rawlinson, were sold, "after dinner;" and they sold well.