Part 130
The more eminent fame of the patron of Beverley is posthumous. In 937, when England was invaded by the Norwegians, Danes, Picts, and certain chiefs of the Scottish isles, under Analaf the Dane, king Athelstan, marching with his army through Yorkshire to oppose them, met certain pilgrims returning from Beverley, who “informed him of the great miracles frequently done there, by the intercession of St. John.” Whereupon the king, with his army, went to Beverley, and entering into the church there performed his devotions before St. John’s tomb; and, earnestly begging his intercession, rose up before the clergy, and vowed, that if victory were vouched to him by the saint’s intercession, he would enrich that church with many privileges and plentiful revenues. “In token of which,” said he, “I leave this my knife upon the altar, which at my return I will redeem with an ample discharge of my vow.” Then he caused an ensign, duly blessed, to be taken out of the church, and carried before him. And at the sea-coast “he received a certain hope of victory by a vision, in which St. John of Beverley, appearing to him, commanded him to passe over the water, and fight the enemy, promising him the upper hand.” Athelstan was suddenly surprised by Analaf; but a sword fell “as from heaven” into the king’s scabbard, and he “not only drove Analafe out of his camp, but courageously sett upon the enemy, with whose blood he made his sword drunk, which he had received from heaven.” This battle, which was fought at Dunbar, was the bloodiest since the coming of the Saxons. The victory was entirely for the English: five kings were slain, and among them the Scottish king Constantine. Athelstan, returning in triumph, passed by the church of St. John at Beverley, where he redeemed his knife. He bestowed large possessions on the church, with privilege of sanctuary a mile round; ordaining that whoever should infringe it should forfeit eight pounds to the church; if within the three crosses, at the entrance of the town, twenty-four pounds; if within the church-yard, seventy-two pounds; but, if in sight of the relics, the penalty was the same that was due to the most enormous capital crime. A testimony of this privilege of sanctuary at Beverley was a chair of stone, thus inscribed:--“This stone chair is called Freed-stoole, or the Chaire of Peace: to which any offender flying shall enjoy entire security.” In the charter of the privilege, “King Athelstan,” saith mine author, “expressed it elegantly, in this distich:--
As free make I thee, As heart may think or eye may see.”[409]
Moreover, respecting the great victory of Athelstan, an ancient biographer of the saints[410] relates, that the king prayed that through the intercession of St. John of Beverley he might show some evident sign, whereby both future and present ages might know, that the Scots ought, of right, to be subject to the English. And thereupon, saith this writer, “the king with his sword smote upon a hard rock by Dunbar, and to this day it is hollowed an ell deep by that stroke.”[411] This, saith another author, was near Dunbar castle; and “king Edward the first, when there was question before pope Boniface of his right and prerogative over Scotland, brought this historie for the maintenance and strength of his cause.”[412]
The monastery of St. John at Beverley having been destroyed by the Danes, king Athelstan founded in that place a church and college of canons, of which church St. Thomas à Becket was some time provost.[413] In 1037, the bones of St. John were “translated” into the church by Alfric, archbishop of York, and the feast of his translation ordained to be kept at York on the 25th of October.[414] “On the 24th of September, 1664, upon opening a grave in the church of Beverley a vault was discovered of free-stone, fifteen feet long and two broad; in which there was a sheet of lead, with an inscription, signifying that the church of Beverley having been burnt in the year 1188, search had been made for the relics of St. John, anno 1197, and that his bones were found in the east part of the sepulchre and there replaced. Upon this sheet lay a box of lead, in which were several pieces of bones, mixed with a little dust, and yielding a sweet smell: all these were reinterred in the middle alley of the church.”[415] Another writer[416] states the exhumation to have taken place “on the _thirteenth_ of September, not the _twenty-fourth_;” and he adds, “that these relics had been hid in the beginning of the reign of king Edward VI.”
It must not be omitted, that the alleged successful intercession of St. John of Beverley in behalf of the English against the Scotch, is said to have been paralleled by patronage as fatal to the French. The memorable battle of Agincourt was fought in the year 1415, on the anniversary of the translation of St. John of Beverley, and Henry V. ascribed the decisive victory to the saint’s intercession. In a provincial synod, under Henry Chicheley, archbishop of Canterbury, is a decree, at the instance of that king, “whereby it appeares, that this most holy bishop, St. John of Beverley, hath been an ayde to the kings of England in the necessitie of their warres, not only in auncient, but allsoe in these later ages.”[417] In consequence of this ascription, his festivals were ordained to be celebrated annually through the whole kingdom of England. The anniversary of his death has ceased to be remembered from the time of the Reformation; but that of his translation is accidentally kept as a holiday by the shoemakers, in honour of their patron, St. Crispin, whose feast falls on the same day.
*
[406] Alban Butler.
[407] Father Cressy.
[408] Capgrave: in bishop Patrick’s Devotions of the Roman Church.
[409] Father Cressy.
[410] Capgrave.
[411] Bishop Patrick’s Devotions of the Roman Church.
[412] Father Porter’s Lives.
[413] Britannia Sancta.
[414] Alban Butler.
[415] Britannia Sancta.
[416] Alban Butler.
[417] Father Porter.
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BEVERLEY THE STRONG MAN.
In March 1784, a porter of amazing strength, named Beverley, was detected in stealing pimento on board a ship in the river Thames. A number of men were scarcely able to secure him; and when they did, they were under the necessity of tying him down in a cart, to convey him to prison. The keeper of the Poultry Counter would not take him in; they were therefore obliged to apply for an order to carry him to Newgate. Beverley was supposed to have been the strongest man of his time in England.[418]
[418] Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1784.
* * * * *
~Garrick Plays.~
No. XXXIX.
[From the “Ambitious Statesman,” a Tragedy, by John Crowne, 1679.]
_Vendome, returning from the wars, hears news, that Louize is false to him._
_Ven. (solus.)_ Wherere I go, I meet a wandering rumour, Louize is the Dauphin’s secret mistress. I heard it in the army, but the sound Was then as feeble as the distant murmurs Of a great river mingling with the sea; But now I am come near this river’s fall, Tis louder than the cataracts of Nile. If this be true, Doomsday is near, and all the heavens are falling.-- I know not what to think of it, for every where I meet a choking dust, such as is made After removing all a palace furniture: If she be gone, the world in my esteem Is all bare walls; nothing remains in it But dust and feathers, like a Turkish inn, And the foul steps where plunderers have been.--
_Valediction._
_Vendome (to his faithless Mistress.)_ Madam, I’m well assur’d, you will not send One poor thought after me, much less a messenger, To know the truth; but if you do, he’ll find, In some unfinish’d part of the creation, Where Night and Chaos never were disturb’d, But bed-rid lie in some dark rocky desart, There will he find a thing--whether a man, Or the collected shadows of the desart Condens’d into a shade, he’ll hardly know; This figure he will find walking alone, Poring one while on some sad book at noon By taper-light, for never day shone there: Sometimes laid grovelling on the barren earth, Moist with his tears, for never dew fell there: And when night comes, not known from day by darkness, But by some faithful messenger of time, He’ll find him stretcht upon a bed of stone, Cut from the bowels of some rocky cave, Offering himself either to Sleep or Death; And neither will accept the dismal wretch: At length a Slumber, in its infant arms, Takes up his heavy soul, but wanting strength To bear it, quickly lets it fall again; At which the wretch starts up, and walks about All night, and all the time it should be day; Till quite forgetting, quite forgot of every thing But Sorrow, pines away, and in small time Of the only man that durst inhabit there, Becomes the only Ghost that dares walk there.
_Incredulity to Virtue._
_Vendome._ Perhaps there never were such things as Virtues, But only in men’s fancies, like the Phœnix; Or if they once have been, they’re now but names Of natures lost, which came into the world, But could not live, nor propagate their kind.
_Faithless Beauty._
_Louize._ Dare you approach? _Vendome._ Yes, but with fear, for sure you’re not Woman. A Comet glitter’d in the air o’ late, And kept some weeks the frighted kingdom waking. Long hair it had, like you; a shining aspect; Its beauty smiled, at the same time it frighten’d; And every horror in it had a grace.
* * * * *
[From “Belphegor,” a Comedy, by John Wilson, 1690.]
_Doria Palace described._
That thou’d’st been with us at Duke Doria’s garden! The pretty contest between art and nature; To see the wilderness, grots, arbours, ponds; And in the midst, over a stately fountain, The Neptune of the Ligurian sea-- Andrew Doria--the man who first Taught Genoa not to serve: then to behold The curious waterworks and wanton streams Wind here and there, as if they had forgot Their errand to the sea. And then again, within That vast prodigious cage, in which the groves Of myrtle, orange, jessamine, beguile The winged quire with a native warble, And pride of their restraint. Then, up and down, An antiquated marble, or broken statue, Majestic ev’n in ruin. And such a glorious palace: Such pictures, carving, furniture! my words Cannot reach half the splendour. And, after all, To see the sea, fond of the goodly sight, One while glide amorous, and lick her walls, As who would say Come Follow; but, repuls’d, Rally its whole artillery of waves, And crowd into a storm!
* * * * *
[From the “Floating Island,” a Comedy, by the Rev. W. Strode, acted by the Students of Christ-Church, Oxford, 1639.]
_Song._
Once Venus’ cheeks, that shamed the morn, Their hue let fall; Her lips, that winter had out-born, In June look’d pale: Her heat grew cold, her nectar dry; No juice she had but in her eye, The wonted fire and flames to mortify. When was this so dismal sight?-- When Adonis bade good night.
C. L.
* * * * *
PLAYERS--GHOST LAYERS.
_For the Table Book._
CHRISTIAN MALFORD, WILTS.
It required a large portion of courage to venture abroad after sunset at Christian Malford, for somebody’s apparition presented itself to the walker’s imagination. Spritely gossips met near their wells with their crooked sticks and buckets, to devise means for laying the disturbed returners and their once native associates; but a party of strolling players did more towards sending the spectres to the “tomb of all the Capulets,” than the divinations of feminine power.
Application being made to the magistrate, who was not exempt from the superstitious and revered infection, that plays might be performed in the malthouse, said to be so daringly haunted, a timely caution was given as to “Beelzebub and his imps,” and permission was granted, and bills were circulated by the magnanimous manager himself. He was a polite man, a famous anecdote retailer, retainer, and detailer, an excellent spouter, and a passable singer. His dress and address were eccentric. The hessians he wore, by fit necessity, were of the buskin order; and, as bread was then dear, a sixpenny loaf might have supplied the absence of calves. His pigtail-wig, hat, and all his apparel indeed, served, when on the dramatic floor, most aptly the variations required in his wardrobe.
I remember, when the “Miller of Mansfield” was played, the bell rang, the baize was drawn up by a stable-halter, the fiddler began to scrape a ditty by way of overture; but, before the miller could appear, a smockfrock was called for, from one of the frocked rustics in the gallery, (the back seats of the scaffolding.) This call was generously obeyed. A youth pulled off his upper-all, proudly observing, that “the player should have it, because his was a sacred persuasion.” The miller appeared, and the play proceeded, with often repeated praises of the frock. On another night, “Richard” was personated by a red-haired woman, an active stroller of the company. Her manner of enacting the deformed and ambitious Glo’ster so charmed the village censors, that for three weeks successively nothing else would please but “Richard.” Nor was the effect less operative in the field, (not of Bosworth)--Virgil’s “Bucolics and Georgics” were travestied. Reaphooks, sithes, pitchforks, and spades were set in contact in the daytime, to the great amusement and terror of quiet people.--The funds of the company being exhausted, the Thespians tramped off rather suddenly, leaving other bills than playbills behind them. Ever after this the ghosts of the malthouse disappeared, the rustics of the valley crying, as they triumphantly passed, “Off with his head!” and others, replying in the words of Hamlet, “Oh! what a falling _off_ is here!”
ΠΡΙ.
_Oct. 1827._
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EX-THESPIANISM.
_For the Table Book._
I am the son of a respectable attorney, who sent me, when very young, to an excellent school, at which I conducted myself much to the satisfaction of my superiors. It was customary for the scholars to enact a play at Christmas, to which the friends of the master were invited. On one of these occasions, when I was now nearly head-boy, I was called upon to perform the part of Charles Surface, in the admirable comedy of the School for Scandal. I studied the character, and played it with great applause, and shortly afterwards left the school, and was sent by my father to Boulogne to finish my education.
There were then at that place a number of English gentlemen, who were endeavouring to establish a company of amateurs. On their request I joined them, and made my first appearance upon a regular stage in the character of Shylock. It was a decided hit! I was received throughout with “unbounded applause,” and the next day was highly gratified by reading “honourable mention” of my performance in the newspapers. I repeated this and other characters several times with undiminished success; but, in the very zenith of my popularity, I was recalled to England by my father, who, having heard of my operations, began to fear (what afterwards proved to be the case) that I should be induced to adopt that as a profession, which I had hitherto considered merely as an amusement.
Soon after my return home my father articled me to himself, but it was impossible for me to forget my success at Boulogne, and my inclination for the stage ripened into a determination to become an actor. I secretly applied to Mr. Sims, of the Harp, who procured me an engagement in a sharing company in the west of England, where I was to do the “low comic business” and “second tragedy.” I spent some of the money that I had saved in buying wigs and a few other stage-requisites, and left my paternal roof with three pounds in my pocket.
My exchequer not being in a state to afford me the luxury of riding, I was compelled to walk the last thirty miles of my journey. Upon my arrival at ----, my first care was to inquire for the theatre, when I was directed to a barn, which had been dignified by that appellation. I was received with all possible civility by the company, which consisted of the manager, his wife, and three gentlemen. I was informed by the manager that Jane Shore was the play for that evening, and that he should expect me to perform the part of Belmont, and also that of Bombastes Furioso in the afterpiece. The wardrobe of the theatre was unable to afford me a dress superior to my own for the part of Belmont, I therefore played that character “accoutred as I was,” viz. in a blue coat, buff waistcoat, striped trowsers, and Wellington’s. The audience was very select, consisting only of ten persons, who seemed totally indifferent to the performance, for they never once, in the course of the evening, gave any indication of pleasure, or the reverse, but witnessed our efforts to amuse with the most provoking apathy. Between the pieces I was much surprised by one of the gentlemen requesting the loan of my hat for a few minutes, as he was about to sing a song, and he assured me that there was no hat in the company, save mine, which was worthy to appear before the audience. At the conclusion of the performance we shared the receipts, which, after deducting the expenses of the house, amounted to one shilling and sixpence each. We continued to act for some time, sharing (three nights a week) from about one shilling and sixpence to two shillings each, which sum did not at all equal my sanguine expectations. Frequently have I performed kings and princes after having breakfasted upon a turnip.
I soon found that this mode of living did not suit me, for I was becoming exceedingly spare. I therefore resolved to quit the company, and return to London. Having informed the manager of my intention, I departed, and arrived in the metropolis with twopence in my pocket. I proceeded to my father’s house, where I was received with kindness, and where I still continue. I have relinquished all my pretensions to the sock, having learned from experience that which it was not in the power of reason to convince me of.
GILBERTUS.
* * * * *
SILCHESTER, HANTS.
_For the Table Book._
Every thing in this world is subject to change, and the strongest buildings to decay. The ancient Vindonum of the Romans, from whence Constantius issued several of his edicts, does not form an exception to this rule. From being a principal Roman station, it is now a heap of ruins.
Silchester is situated about eleven miles from Reading, on the side of a hill, or rather on a level spot between two, and commands most beautiful views: from its being surrounded by woodland, a stranger would be unaware of his approach to it, until he arrived at the spot. The circumference of the walls is about two miles; they possess four gates, east, north, west, and south, and are in some places twelve or fourteen feet high, and four or five feet in width; there are many fine trees (as was observed by Leland in his time) growing out of them: the wall was surrounded by a deep and broad ditch, which is now in some places nearly filled up by the ruins of the wall, and beyond which is “the external vallum, very perfect and easily to be traced out round the whole city; its highest parts, even in the present state, are at least fifteen feet perpendicular from the bottom of the ditch. A straight line, drawn from the top of this bank to the wall on the north-east side, measured thirty-four yards, its full breadth.”[419]
Between the outside of the walls and the furthest vallum was the Pomœrium, which is defined by Livy to be that space of ground both within and without the walls, which the augurs, at the first building of cities, solemnly consecrated, and on which no edifices were suffered to be raised.[420] Plutarch is of a different opinion, and ascribes the derivation of Pomœrium to _pone mœnia_, and states that it signifies the line marked out for the wall at the first foundation of a city.[421]
About a hundred and fifty yards from the north-east angle of the wall is a Roman amphitheatre, the form of which is similar to that near Dorchester, with high and steep banks, now covered with a grove of trees, and has two entrances. The elevation of the amphitheatre consists of a mixture of clay and gravel: the seats were ranged in five rows one above the other; the slope between each measuring about six feet: each bank progressively rises, (and increases proportionably in width,) to a considerable height in the centre. The area of the amphitheatre is about twenty-five yards in diameter, as near as I could guess; it is commonly covered with water, and is become a complete marsh, having a drain across the centre, and is filled up with rushes. I was informed by the woman who showed it, that some gentlemen a short time since procured a shovel, and found a fine gravel bottom at about a foot deep.
The only buildings within the walls are the farm-house and the parish church, which is an ancient structure, built of brick and flint, in the form of the letter T. The interior of the church is plain and neat; the font is of an octagonal form, of plain stone; the pulpit is also octagonal, made of oak, and is remarkably neat; over it is a handsome carved oak sounding-board, surmounted by a dove, with an olive-branch in its mouth, and round the board, at the lower part, in seven compartments, is the following inscription:--“The Gyift of James Hore, Gent. 1639.” The ascent to the pulpit is from the minister’s reading-desk, which also serves for a seat for his family. The chancel is separated from the body of the church by a handsome carved screen, in excellent preservation. In the south wall of the church, under a low pointed arch, is the recumbent figure of a female, carved in stone, of a very remote date, with the feet resting against an animal, (probably a dog,) the head of which is much damaged: there is also an angel’s head, which has been broken off from some part of the monument, and is of course loose; from what part it came I was unable to discover.
In the chancel affixed to the north wall is the following inscription on a handsome white marble monument; it is surmounted by a crown of glory, and at the bottom is a death’s head:--
Vive ut Vivas. Hic juxta situs est JOHANNIS PARIS, D.D. Collegii Trinitatis apud Cantabrigiensis Socius Senior & hujus Ecclesiæ Rector: de quo nisi opera loquantur Siletur. O I[422]
There are also monuments of the Baynards, the Cusanzes, and the Blewets, which families were owners of the manor from the time of the conquest for some generations.
On the south side of the city is a small postern under the wall, called by the common people “Onion’s hole,” and is so designated from a traditional account of a giant of that name; the coins which have been discovered are called from the cause “Onion’s pennies.”
A fair field is here open for the researches of the antiquarian; and it is much to be regretted that a good account of the place is not yet published. “The History and Antiquities of Silchester,” whence I have cited, is a pamphlet of thirty-two pages, and affords but little information. Hoping to see justice done to the place, I beg to subscribe myself, &c.
J. R. J.
[419] The History and Antiquities of Silchester, p. 12.