Hungerford Chapel—Devizes.
Nobody is in haste in Devizes, and the pilgrim who seeks for peace could not do better than to tarry here. The city bell which officially strikes the hours is subdued and pensive, and although reinforced with chimes, it seems ever to speak under its breath. The church-bell, however, rings long and vigorously and with much melodious clangour,—as though the local sinners were more than commonly hard of hearing. Near to the church of St. John, are some quaint almshouses, but not much seems to be known of their history. One of them was founded as a hospital for lepers, before A.D. 1207, and it is thought that one of them was built of stone which remained after the erection of the church. Those almshouses are now governed by the Mayor and Corporation of Devizes, but perhaps formerly they were under the direct control of the Crown. [See Tanner's Nolitia.] There are seven endowments, one dating back to 1641, and the houses are to this day occupied by widows, recommended by the churchwardens of St. Mary's and St. John's. An old inhabitant of Devizes, named Bancroft, left a sum of money to insure for himself a singular memorial service,—that the bells of St. John's church should be solemnly tolled on the day of his birth, and rung merrily on that of his death; and that service is duly performed every year. Devizes is a fit place for the survival of ancient customs, and these serve very pleasantly to mark its peculiar and interesting character. The Town Crier, who is a member of the Corporation, walks abroad arrayed in a helmet and a uniform of brilliant scarlet,—glories that are worn by no other Crier in the kingdom, excepting that of York.
As I was gazing at the old church, surrounded with many ponderous tombstones and gray and cheerless in the gloaming, an old man approached me and civilly began a conversation about the antiquity of the building and the eloquence of its rector. When I told him that I had walked to Bromham to attend the service there, and to see the cottage and grave of Moore, he presently furnished to me that little touch of personal testimony which is always so interesting and significant in such circumstances. "I remember Tom Moore," he said; "I saw him when he was alive. I worked for him once in his house, and I did some work once on his tomb. He was a little man. He spoke to us very pleasantly. I don't think he was a preacher. He never preached that I heard tell of. He was a poet, I believe. He was very much liked here. I never heard a word against him. I am seventy-nine years old the thirteenth of December, and that'll soon be here. I've had three wives in my time, and my third is still living. It's a fine old church, and there's figures in it of bishops, and kings, and queens."
Most observers have remarked the odd way, garrulous, and sometimes unconsciously humorous, in which senile persons prattle their incongruous and sporadic recollections. But—"How pregnant sometimes his replies are!" Another resident of Devizes, with whom I conversed, likewise remembered the poet, and spoke of him with affectionate respect. "My sister, when she was a child," he said, "was often at Moore's house, and he was fond of her. Yes, his name is widely remembered and honoured here. But I think that many of the people hereabout, the farmers, admired him chiefly because they thought that he wrote Moore's Almanac. They used to say to him: 'Mister Moore, please tell us what the weather's going to be.'"
From Devizes to the village of Bromham, a distance of about four miles, the walk is delightful. Much of the path is between green hedges and is embowered by elms. The exit from the town is by Northgate and along the Chippenham road—which, like all the roads in this neighbourhood, is smooth, hard, and white. A little way out of Devizes, going northwest, this road makes a deep cut in the chalk-stone and so winds downhill into the level plain. At intervals you come upon sweetly pretty specimens of the English thatch-roof cottage. Hay-fields, pastures, and market-gardens extend on every hand. Eastward, far off, are visible the hills of Westbury, upon which, here and there, the copses are lovely, and upon one of which, cut in the turf, is the figure of a colossal white horse, said to have been put there by the Saxons, to commemorate a victory by King Alfred.[12] Soon the road winds over a hill and you pass through the little red village of Rowde, with its gray church tower. The walk may be shortened by a cut across the fields, and this indeed is found the prettiest part of the journey,—for now the path lies through gardens, and through the centre or along the margin of the wheat, which waves in the strong wind and sparkles in the bright sunshine and is everywhere tenderly touched with the scarlet of the poppy and with hues of other wild-flowers, making you think of Shakespeare's
"Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,
With hemlock, harlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,
Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow
In our sustaining corn."