Part 2

Colchester contains a population of 34,549, and is connected by railway with most of the towns of the district. By means of its river Colne it is also a port, and has fine oyster beds, where the “Colchester Natives” are reared, which are celebrated all the world over. Its oyster feast is one of the most famous institutions of the place, though who was the Mayor who founded the feast is lost in the mists of antiquity. After the oyster-spatting season is over, that is about the middle of September, the Corporation holds a meeting on board a boat in the river, and proclaims the fishery to be open. The fishing is a source of profit to the Corporation. In the warm seasons—that was before 1870 (immense numbers of oysters were produced in 1865)—they realised as much as £18,318, the price being £4 a bushel. Since then, from the greater scarcity of oysters, and the enlarged market for them due to railway facilities, prices have been £12 and £14 for the same quantity, and it is at that price, I believe, they are now sold. The Colne fishery is about four miles and a half in extent; it contains the best fattening grounds in the kingdom, and the River Colne itself is one of the best spatting grounds in the district producing native oysters. We call them native, because so many oysters come from Holland and elsewhere, and are merely fattened in English waters. In London, when you buy a native, you are not sure that you get the genuine article. At the Colchester feast the Mayor treats you to the native in all its primitive beauty and simplicity. I own the oyster is not lovely to look at, and the sight of a hall filled with rows of tables, on which were placed plates containing a dozen for each guest, with glasses of stout or bottles of Chablis or Sauterne, lacks somewhat of the warmth of colour to which we are more or less accustomed in our civic feasts in town. It must also be remembered that these entertainments take place by night, when the gas sparkles in a hundred chandeliers. At Colchester the hour of the feast is 2 p.m., and oysters and stout, place them how you will, cannot be made to look picturesque. At one time these Colchester feasts were confined to the members of the Corporation and the officials. That custom has been changed for a better one, and many of the principal citizens and others are bidden to the feast. Strangers are also invited, and I have to thank more than one worthy Mayor for favouring me with an invitation. It is the privilege of the Mayor of Colchester for the time being to provide for all the expenses of the feast except a portion of the oysters, which are found by the Fishery Board, and the Mayor sends out all the invitations. The feast always takes place about October 22nd. Those who do not care for oysters had better stop away, as little else besides oysters and brown bread and butter is provided. Only a few ham sandwiches were added, but the oyster was, as it deserved to be, the staple of the feast; and I fancy most of us managed to consume about a couple of dozen each. It may be that others exceeded that moderate allowance, but in neither eating nor drinking was there any sign of excess. There was a time when oysters and stout were connected with Bacchanalian orgies. That time, happily, has long passed, and instead we listened to oratory as we smoked the meditative cigar or the Lilliputian cigarette, or gazed with an admiring eye on the tasteful way in which the hall had been prepared for the occasion. Music also lent its charms. Colchester is a garrison town, and at present the Royal Munster Fusiliers hold the fort. It was their band that played on the occasion, with great applause. It was not pleasant to turn out of the hall, which had begun to grow additionally cheerful in consequence of the gas, and to make one’s way along the wet and deserted streets of the ancient town. I need not add that I was all the better for what I had eaten and heard. There are delicate questions, worthy of any abler intellect than mine to settle, as to the proper way of eating an oyster. According to some theories, you should take the Great Eastern to Burnham, get on board a fishing-smack, and gulp down the delicious bivalve as he comes fresh and juicy from his watery bed. Others there are who contend for the same operation on the River Colne; and I have met with low-minded people who say that no oyster eats so pleasantly as that purchased at a common street stall, as the vendor has less capital than the regular dealer, and thus lays in a fresher stock as he requires them. If I consult my old friend Sir Henry Thompson, the great authority in such matters, I read, “Oysters are in fact the first dish of dinner and not its precursor; the preface and not the possibly obtrusive advertisement.” “It is,” he remarks, “a single service of exquisite quality served with attendant graces.” Sir Henry evidently has never been to a Colchester oyster feast, or he would have had a word to say in its favour. “It is not worth going to,” said a gentleman to me one day. Yet when I entered the hall shortly after he was the first to come and shake hands with me, and on that dull, rainy day he had travelled many miles to be at the oyster feast. The fact is, in dull days one is glad of any excuse for going out and having a chat with one’s friends, and it does one good to hear bishops and Dissenting ministers, as they did at Colchester, talk in favour of Christian unity, or the local M.P.’s talk of national ditto, or the mayors of the leading Essex towns vindicate that local self-government which we all hold to be an important element in the preservation and expansion of our national life.

III. A QUIET SUFFOLK TOWN.

ONE of the oldest towns in Suffolk is Hadleigh. You take the train at Liverpool-street; at Bentley change on to a branch line, and in twenty minutes you are there. If we are to believe the annalist Asser, its origin is to be traced as far back as Alfred the Great’s time, or the latter half of the ninth century. Asser relates that the Danish Chief Guthrum, after having been defeated by King Alfred, embraced Christianity, was appointed governor of East Anglia; that he divided, cultivated, and inhabited the district, and that when he died he was buried in the royal town called Headlega. Be that as it may, in the ancient church of Hadleigh, according to popular belief, there still remains his tomb. The principal event in connection with Hadleigh is that there Dr. Taylor was burnt to death by the Roman Catholics. The little town, says Fox, first heard of the pure Gospel of Christ from the lips of the Rev. Thomas Bilney, who preached there with great earnestness, and whose work was greatly blessed, numbers of men and women becoming convinced of the errors and idolatries of Popery, and gladly embracing the Christian faith. After the martyrdom of Bilney, Dr. Rowland Taylor was appointed vicar. He possessed the friendship of Cranmer, and it was through him that he obtained his living. In Queen Mary’s time the Church was no place for such as he. He was hauled up before Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. The Bishop, with other bishops, sent him back to Hadleigh to burn to death. “On his way Dr. Taylor was very joyful; he spoke many things to the sheriff and yeomen of the guard that conducted him, and often moved them to weep by his earnest calling upon them to repent and turn to the true religion.” At Hadleigh he was burnt, much to the sorrow of his flock, who revered and loved him. A very modest monument marks the site of the scene of the martyrdom and the triumph, as it then seemed, of Popery and arbitrary power. On the monument, which stands on a grass plot guarded by rails, is an inscription to the memory of Dr. Taylor, ending as follows:

Triumphant Saint, he braved and kissed the rod, And soared on seraph wing to meet his God.

The lines were the composition of Dr. Nathan Drake, a doctor of medicine, much given to literature, and the author of many books—now rarely seen and never read—who lived and died at Hadleigh. In the church also, the great ornament to the town is a memorial of Dr. Taylor, and in the vestry of the Congregational chapel, just opposite the church, is a rude engraving of the martyrdom, which ought to be reproduced.

Dissent does not fare badly in the town. The Congregational body rejoices in two ministers, and the chapel, a very handsome one, is well attended. It will seat a thousand hearers. The Salvation Army have just commenced preaching in the town, and, as usual, they have drawn some of the people away. The Primitive Methodists and the Baptists have also places of worship at Hadleigh. The parish church can hold 1,200 people, but I do not hear that it is better attended than the Congregational chapel. Congregationalism has a long history in Hadleigh. One of its most successful preachers was the Rev. Isaac Toms, who held his ministry there for fifty-seven years. “His memory,” writes the Rev. Hugh Pigot, formerly curate of Hadleigh, “is mentioned with respect as that of a kind and gentlemanly old man, who, while maintaining his own views, did yet regularly attend the week-day services at the Church.” He was born in London, 1710, and his first engagement is said to have been with a city knight, of Hackney, with whom be continued as chaplain and tutor till 1742. He refused, from conscientious scruples, to accept preferment in the Established Church when offered him by his patron. He is said to have been eminent for his attainments as a scholar, and to have enjoyed the friendship of such men as Dr. Doddridge and Dr. Watts. In the vestry there is preserved a letter written by him to Washington’s private secretary during the American War. Dissent has grown in the place since his day. In a return made to Bishop Secker by Dr. Tanner, and preserved in the Rectory, there is to be found the following:—About 100 Presbyterians of no note; Robert Randall, a wool-comber, and his three children, and Birch, shopkeeper, Anabaptist; no Anabaptist teacher, no Methodist, no Moravian; one Presbyterian Meeting-house, one Presbyterian teacher—viz., Isaac Toms; the said house and teacher generally thought to be duly licensed and qualified according to law. Their number not increased at all of late years. The parish remarkably happy in regard to Dissenters, their number very trifling in proportion to the whole number of inhabitants, which, A.D. 1754, was computed in the town, 2,092; in the hamlet, 168—2,260. As we have seen, Popery had done to death vicar and curate, yet in 1754 we find Dr. Tanner thus writes concerning it: “Eight poor Papists—James Nowland (a taylor) and his daughter, Widow Rand and her daughter, Widow Hoggar, the wife of Ralph Adams, a sadler, and Barry, a taylor, all quiet people. No person lately perverted to Popery; no Popish place of worship; no Popish priest doth reside in or resort to this parish; no Popish school; no confirmation or visitation hath been lately held by a Popish bishop.” Queen Mary, and Bonner, and Gardiner, had all laboured in vain. Compulsory establishment of religion never succeeds in the long run.

In the churchyard of Hadleigh there are no monuments which require description. There is, however a curious inscription on a headstone on the south-east side leading to the market-place regarding the name and fame of one John Turner, a blacksmith, who died 1715.

My sledge and hammer lie declined, My bellows have quite lost their wind; My fire’s extinct, my forge decayed, My vice is in the dust all laid; My coal is spent, my iron gone, My nails are drove, my work is done; My fire-dried corpse lies here at rest, My soul smoke-like is soaring to be blest.

Hadleigh has seen better days. At one time it flourished by reason of its cloth trade; then it took to making silk, and up to recent times it did a great trade in malt.

I would not live in Hadleigh all my life, but it is certainly a quiet corner into which to creep, and houses are to be had a bargain, considering, after all, how near it is to town. I can’t find that Hadleigh has given birth to any great men. It may be that they may come in time. One distinguished personage born there, Bishop Overall, was one of the translators of the Bible, and wrote that part of the Church Catechism which treats of the Sacraments. Another, William Alabaster, wrote a play called _Roxana_, which was so pathetic when acted at Trinity College, Cambridge, that it drove a young woman quite out of her wits. No wonder our Puritan forefathers had a horror of the stage.

One of the most eminent men born in Hadleigh, was Dr. Reeve, whose monument is in the Octagon chapel, Norwich, written by the earliest of English German scholars. William Taylor still records his worth and fame, a student at the University of Edinburgh, he became intimate with Francis Horner, and helped to write in the early numbers of the _Edinburgh Review_. In 1802, he was elected a member of the far famed Speculative Society. In London, where he went to continue his professional studies, he frequently met Coleridge, and the elder Disraeli at dinner. In the spring of 1805, while travelling on the continent—a place then rarely visited by the English, he saw Napoleon on the morrow of Austerlitz—was introduced to Haydn—was present when Beethoven conducted Fidelio—heard Humboldt relate his travels—and Fichte explain his philosophy. Thus, as life opened around with him, with the most brilliant prospects, he died at his father’s house Hadleigh, in September, 1814. It was his son, who for a while was the editor of the _Edinburgh_.

In modern history, Hadleigh may claim to have made its mark. It was there that the Oxford movement commenced, when in 1833 the Rev. James Rose, the rector, assembled at the parsonage (the present handsome building evidently has been built since then) the men who were to become famous as Tractarians. They had met there to consider how to save the Church. Lord Grey had bidden the Bishops to put their houses in order—ten Irish Bishoprics had been suppressed—a mob at Bristol had burnt the Bishop’s palace. The Church seemed powerless and effete. The friends who met at the Hadleigh Rectory resolved to commence the Oxford Tracts. Mr. Rose was the person of most authority. As Dean Church writes: “As far as could be seen at the time, he was the most accomplished divine and teacher in the English Church. He was a really learned man. He had intellect and energy, and literary skill to use his learning. He was a man of singularly elevated and religious character; he had something of the eye and temper of a statesman.” “The Oxford movement owed to him,” again writes Dean Church, “not only its first impulse, but all that was best and most hopeful in it, and when it lost him it lost its wisest and ablest guide and inspirer.” He and Mr. Palmer, and Mr. A. Perceval, formed, as it were, the right wing of the little council. Their Oxford allies were Mr. Froude, Mr. Keble, and Mr. Newman. From this meeting resulted the _Tracts for the Times_, and the agitation connected with them. Now that the tumult of the strife is over, it is evident that they gave new life to the Church; that they saved it—for a time.

The world of art also is indebted to Hadleigh. It was the birthplace of Thomas Woolner, the great sculptor. “There is” wrote a critic in _The Century_, “no living artist, whose work a man of letters approaches with more instructive interest than that of Mr. Woolner, himself, almost as eminent as a poet as a sculptor. His place in literature as the author of _My Beautiful Lady_, and _Pygmalion_, has long been decided, and needs no re-illustration. But after all the profession of Mr. Woolner’s life has been sculpture. Thomas Woolner, was born at Hadleigh, on the 17th December, 1825. At the age of thirteen he began life as the pupil of Mr. Behmes, sculptor in ordinary to the Queen. There may be persons living at Hadleigh, who remember the boy sculptor, and who could possibly give interesting facts respecting his early proclivities.” Alas, Hadleigh seems to have preserved no memory of him whatever. A lady resident in the town writes me, “I have heard that my grandfather, of Shelley Hall, once lent money to Thomas Woolner’s father. I have asked several of the inhabitants if they remember Thomas Woolner, but I have not been successful in getting information at present.”

IV. A GRAND MEDIÆVAL TOWN.

ON one of the hottest of our summer days I chanced to fall into conversation with an elderly decayed tradesman, living in a house erected for such as he. “Are you comfortable?” I said.

“Well,” was the reply, “we do our best to make ourselves as comfortable as we can.”

I was struck with the good sense of his answer. Ah, thought I, as we parted, how much happier we would all be if we did as the decayed tradesman did. The conversation took place opposite the grand Abbey-gate of the ancient town of Bury St. Edmunds. No Englishman should wander off to the Continent until he has first visited Bury St. Edmunds, a town full of busy life, peopled with more than 16,000 inhabitants, which rejoices in a rich historic past, and which, especially if you are there on a market-day, strikes the stranger as a place of immense activity and bustle. It is eighty-three miles from Liverpool-street, and you can see all its lions—and they are very numerous—in a day. On the eastern ridge of it—as Carlyle wrote in _Past and Present_—still runs, long, black, and massive, a range of monastic ruins. Its chief claim to fame is that it was the burial place of the young Saxon king known as Edmund, who, in 870, was cruelly murdered by the Danes at Hoxne, not far off. After the lapse of many years, the body was brought to Bury, where it was placed in the renowned Abbey, which owes much of its greatness to Edward the Confessor, and which for more than six hundred years remained one of the chief ecclesiastical centres of mediæval England. Piety, wealth, and superstition did much for the place. Its churchyard is one of the most picturesque in all the land. Its churches are marvels of beauty, and one of them contains the tomb of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, and third daughter of Henry VII. of England. Bury is famous as being the spot where the Barons met before enforcing the signature of Magna Charta by King John, who, on his return from France in 1214, met the nobles at Bury, and confirmed on oath a charter restoring the laws enacted by Edward the Confessor, and abolishing the arbitrary Norman code. You have to pay sixpence to visit the Abbey grounds, which are left in good order, and which ought to be thrown open to the public; but many people will not grudge the money when they come to the spot where is an inscription denoting that Cardinal Langton and the Barons swore at the altar that they would obtain from King John the satisfaction of Magna Charta, and another, close by, giving the names and titles of the twenty-five Barons who thus met. A few yards off are the ruins of the refectory where was held the Parliament which decided on the impeachment of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Many Parliaments were held at Bury; many kings and queens and mighty personages came there. It had its martyrs—like Coping, who was hanged for not believing the Prayer-book, and Lawes, an innocent clergyman, who, with forty others, was condemned and executed for witchcraft. The Jews, also, were very badly treated when, as usual, they were charged with the murder of a Christian child. The house where the chief Jew lived is still to be seen near the Market Place. It is now utilised by the police, who will shortly be removed to a finer building which is being erected in the neighbourhood.

According to Carlyle, Bury St. Edmunds “is still a prosperous, rising town; beautifully diversifying with its clean brick houses, ancient clean streets, the general grassy face of Suffolk looking out right pleasantly from its hill-slope towards the rising sun.” The earliest reliable records tell of its foundation about 631 by Siegbert, King of the East Anglians. Many of the monks of the Abbey did good service to literature,—such as John Lydgate, who conducted a school of rhetoric there. In its Grammar School many distinguished men were educated,—such as Archbishop Sancroft, John Gauden (Bishop of Worcester), John Warren (Bishop of Bangor), Thomas Thurlow (Bishop of Durham), Tomline (Bishop of Winchester), Blomfield (Bishop of London), Lord Cranworth, Lord Keeper Guildford, Sir Thomas Hanmer (Speaker of the House of Commons and the first editor of Shakespeare), Baron Alderson, and Chief Baron Reynolds. One of its masters, the late Dr. Donaldson, was referred to on one occasion as one of the most learned men in Europe. There are many scholastic establishments in the town. One of the most successful in our time is the East Anglian School, founded by the Wesleyans, and carried on by them in a handsome block of buildings occupying a commanding site.

As was to be expected, the town is Churchy, and its politics are Conservative. The Salvationists, I am told, are doing well, and I have boyish memories of a fat man of the name of Elven, who was rather a leading man among the Suffolk Baptists; but what I was chiefly impressed with was his size. The family of the late Crabbe Robinson, one of the first of “our foreign correspondents,” was long distinguished in Bury St. Edmunds. One of his brothers was Mayor several times. They were all connected with the Presbyterian church in the place; one of Lady Howley’s, kept alive by a scanty endowment—not much matter as things are. The present worthy minister is a vegetarian, and has a large garden in which he grows his vegetables. If he is succeeded by a flesh-eating parson, I fear at the present price of butcher’s meat the latter will have rather a hard time of it. It is interesting to note that the celebrated Ouida was born in Bury St. Edmunds, and that Robertson, of Brighton, commenced his career here as an articled clerk to a local solicitor.