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 BRIEF ROMANCES 
 
 FROM 
 
 BRISTOL HISTORY, 
 
 WITH A 
 
 FEW OTHER PAPERS FROM THE SAME PEN. 
 
 BEING CUTTINGS PROM THE COLUMNS OP THE "BRISTOL TIMES," 
 
 " FELIX FARLEY'S BRISTOL JOURNAL," AND THE " BRISTOL 
 
 TIMES AND MIRROR," DURING A SERIES OF YEARS 
 
 EXTENDING FROM 1839 TO 1883, 
 
 CT. 
 
 BEISTOL : 
 
 WILLIAM GEORGE AND SON. 
 LONDON : HAMILTON, ADAMS AND CO. 
 
 1884.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Dedication ... ... ... ... ... ... T. 
 
 Preface ... ... ... ... ... ... vi. 
 
 Chronicles of the Black Canons of St. Augustine's : 
 
 The Hunting Monks ... ... ... ... 1 
 
 The False Almoner ... ... ... ... 5 
 
 An Unexpected Witness ... ... ... 6 
 
 The Irreverent Monks ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 The Old Abbot 9 
 
 The Abbot's Tree ... ... ... ... 10 
 
 The Murder of the Abbot's Steward ... ... 16 
 
 An old Town and Gown Row : Wrestling Mayors and 
 
 Fighting Abbots ... ... ... ... 20 
 
 The Last of the Abbots ... ... ... ... 22 
 
 Cany nge's Wife and the Elixir ... ... ... ... 25 
 
 Choice ... ... ... ... ... 28 
 
 Reverie ... ... ... ... ... 32 
 
 The Boatwomen of Redclifle ... ... ... ... 38 
 
 Cecilia de la Warre : a Story of old All Saints ... ... 41 
 
 The Castle and the Church : the Two Prophecies ... ... 48 
 
 A Tooth for a Tooth ... ... ... ... ... 51 
 
 The Silver Cradle ... ... ... ... ... 55 
 
 A Bristol Blanket ... ... ... ... ... 58 
 
 The Judgment Vault of St. Augustine's : a Tale of the 
 
 Reformation in Bristol ... ... ... ... 62 
 
 Pitch and Pay : a Story of the Plague in Bristol in 1645 ... 89 
 Lord Berkeley's Vow ... ... ... ... ... 97 
 
 The Queen and the Washerwomen : a Legend of Brandon 
 
 Hill 103 
 
 Fine Feathers : a Moral on Milliners' Bills ... ... 107 
 
 The Governor's Gratitude : another Legend of Brandon Hill 110 
 The Earliest Water-cure Establishment .. .. 117 
 
 2017277
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Alderman in Pledge ... ... ... ... 122 
 
 The Baker's Dream : a legend of the Hot wells ... ... 124 
 
 Buried without his Shirt ... ... ... ... 128 
 
 The Lady in White ... ... ... 133 
 
 Canynge's Brewer ... ... ... ... ... 137 
 
 Miles Callowhill : a Story of Bristol in the time of Prince 
 
 Eupert ... ... ... ... ... ... 141 
 
 Duck-hunting Magistrates : a civic sketch of Bristol in 1247 146 
 
 Colston and the Widow ... ... ... ... 149 
 
 Good Value for a Dinner .. ... ... ... 153 
 
 Billy Miller and his Clerk : a page of Bristol History 
 
 enlarged ... ... ... ... ... 157 
 
 The Armourer and the Monk : a Legend of St. Augustine's 163 
 
 The Miniature ... ... ... ... ... 170 
 
 The Bristol Alderman and his Step-daughter ... ... 178 
 
 Edward Colston's Apocryphal Love Story ... ... 182 
 
 Attorney Fane ... ... ... ... ... 190 
 
 A Queer Inscription : Richard Baggs ... ... ... 192 
 
 Jenny Rudge : a Story of old Durdham Down ... ... 197 
 
 The Mystery of College Green... ... ... ... 202 
 
 A FEW OTHER PAPERS FROM THE SAME PEN. 
 
 A Paper on Penny Readings, by one who broke down ... 209 
 
 An Extraordinary Cellar of Wine ... ... ... 215 
 
 The Bachelors of Frenchay ... ... ... ... 219 
 
 Two Bristol Mediciners and Memorialists ... ... 226 
 
 William Barrett, the Bristol Historian ... ... ... 233 
 
 The Two Bristol Candidates ... ... ... ... 236 
 
 Young Ladies' Fortunes ... ... ... ... 239 
 
 Tombs and Tablets in Bristol ... ... ... ... 242 
 
 Meditations amongst the Newton Tombs ... ... 249 
 
 Sir Charles Wetherell, Knight and erst Recorder of Bristol 253 
 
 The Crystal Cage : the Troubles of the Crystal Palace of 18J1 259
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO THOMAS DAVID TAYLOR. 
 
 MY DEAR TAYLOR, 
 
 Several, though not the larger number, of the papers 
 here printed together were published in the Times and 
 Mirror during the period in which we were partners in 
 that Journal. This gives me an opportunity, of which I 
 very gladly avail myself, to express my sincere regard for 
 one with whom I was intimately associated in business for 
 eighteen years. I therefore dedicate the little Volume to 
 you. I am well aware of the trifling character of the 
 offering; but it will serve if for nothing else for a 
 token that I look back with pleasant memories on the 
 years in which we were united in the same undertaking 
 and the warm personal friendship which survives that 
 union. 
 
 JOSEPH LEECH.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 SINCE my retirement from the active duties of journalism, 
 I have been asked by several old friends and readers to 
 print in a collected form some of the " unconsidered trifles" 
 which I wrote in the Bristol Times, Felix Farley's Journal, 
 and the Mirror, during the forty-four years I was con- 
 nected with these newspapers in their separate and 
 combined character.* As I feel the kindness conveyed in 
 the request, and it needs very little labour to comply 
 with it, I have devoted a small portion of the leisure I 
 have now (I may say for the first time in my life) at my 
 command, to putting together this little book. I am very 
 conscious that the effusions here printed have neither 
 importance nor interest sufficient to justify their being 
 again brought to light from the quiet oblivion into which 
 they had subsided : but as I am assured there are still 
 some, who read them when first written with a little 
 favour, that would like to see them again, I have taken 
 up the editorial scissors (long laid aside save for a work 
 of this kind), and going through the old files, have 
 cut from their columns a few of the contributions for 
 which I am answerable. For though the little volume 
 contains a good many items, it still (as may be supposed) 
 includes only a small portion of the work done by the 
 same hand during a period extending from 1839 to 1883. 
 
 If I have been misled by personal partiality into 
 reproducing trifles which, having served their ephemeral 
 
 * Felix Farley's Journal (established in 1714) was incorporated 
 with the Bristol Times in April, 1853, and the Bristol Times and 
 Journal with the Bristol Mirror in January, 1865.
 
 purpose as the light literary garniture of a local news- 
 paper, might better have been allowed to lie undisturbed 
 in the columns where they originally appeared no great 
 harm is done. The author has pleasantly enough employed 
 several spare hours in the occupation of collecting and 
 revising some old work, much of which he had almost 
 forgotten : so that if the very limited edition now printed 
 be left on hand as a penalty for self-complacency, he will 
 yet be compensated in other ways for the little trouble 
 the task has been to him. 
 
 In classifying the greater number of these sketches 
 under the heading of " Brief Romances from Bristol 
 History," I have tried to call attention to the many 
 picturesque, curious, and often quaint, entries to be met 
 with in the chronicles of our old city. Not a few of these 
 entries are quite fragmentary or legendary, and most of 
 them so short as to be merely suggestive. Of this vague 
 characteristic advantage has been taken to weave upon 
 them little fanciful stories intended to be illustrative of 
 the events, as also of the conditions, of the place and 
 period to which they refer. If nothing else conje of 
 apocryphal sketches founded upon the local passages and 
 shadowy traditions cited, it is hoped they will induce 
 Bristolians to study more learnedly though not perhaps 
 more lovingly than the writer has done the romantic 
 aspect of the past and early history of their old town. 
 
 J. L. 
 
 Burwalls, Leigh Woods. 
 August, 1884.
 
 Ckoniclcs of ikck Canons ot j&t 
 
 THE HUNTING MONKS. 
 
 In the three sketches below given I have endeavoured to realise a veritable 
 passage in the conventual annals, and whirh is quoted from the original 
 records by Barrett, in the following words : " A.D. 1320. The Bishop 
 of Worcester, at a visitation oi the Monastery of Saint Augustin, 
 ordered all the hounds kept by the monks to be removed, the almoner, 
 frier Henry de Gloucester, to be displaced, and inquiry to be made 
 concerning frier John de Scheftesbury, accused of incontinence with 
 certain women unknown, and concerning William Barry, for sowing 
 dissension among the brethren." 
 
 "Jacob's Wells" and "Clifton Wood" no longer suggest, 
 when named, even a notion of what they really were at the 
 beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Cathedral was a 
 monastery standing in the neighbourhood of Bristol, with sylvan 
 solitudes and wild downs stretching away up the high ground to 
 the west of the religious house, and affording opportunities for 
 sport to all who were so inclined and privileged to indulge in it. 
 Clifton Wood still retains in its title the tradition of what all 
 Clifton then was, namely, a wood or chase. Jacob's Wells bubbled 
 up amongst tangled brakes and large trees, and a bridle path 
 conducted the traveller over ferny commons and through forest 
 glades from Westbury to the Monastery. The little sylvan road 
 also led across Brandon-hill, and, by an easy descent, to the 
 Norman gateway of the residential quarter of the Abbey. 
 
 Early on a fine summer morning, three horsemen rode over the 
 hill by this same pathway, and paused for a moment to glance 
 down on the tower of St. Augustine's. The first, who was a 
 grave-looking man, wearing a small velvet cap and long cloak of 
 dark cloth with sleeves, seemed in the light of master towards the 
 other two, who always addressed him with an air of deference. 
 
 As they reined up their horses on this commanding spot, their 
 attention was suddenly arrested by the sight and sounds from 
 below. A number of fellows in hunting dresses were seen issuing, 
 each with a leash of staghounds, from out the Norman gateway, 
 which led from the cloisters and domestic buildings of the estab- 
 lishment, and filling the green in front with their sylvan shouts. 
 Presently, too, appeared, mounted on a well-caparisoned strong 
 horse, Henry de Gloucester, the almoner, with baldric and bugle : 
 on the latter the jolly monk blew some long and merry notes o*
 
 venerie, which awakened many a sleeper in the neighbourhood, 
 no doubt to grumble at the noisy matins of the frolicksome monks 
 of St. Augustine. Father Henry was followed by others of the 
 holy brotherhood, each as well mounted as the sporting almoner, 
 and all as jovial and noisy. The tower and battlements of the 
 monastery echoed again and again to the horns, winding all the 
 variety of hunting sounds, by way of practice, from the recheat 
 to the mort note, while the cry of the hounds and the voices of 
 the woodsmen, as they got them together, made the old College 
 appear more like the dwelling of a bold baron than the religious 
 house of holy men. 
 
 " What can all this mean ? " said the grave stranger on the hill, 
 as he viewed the exciting scene below at that early hour the 
 old green covered with dogs and huntsmen, startling the early 
 echoes with their sporting cries. " Are these the matins of the 
 black monks of St. Augustine's " ? 
 
 " Book and beads, your Grace," said one of his attendants, " seem 
 to be less used here than the bugle and the wood-knife ; but, I 
 suppose, it is a peculiar mode of mortifying the flesh which they 
 have." 
 
 " What wind Father John de Scheftesbury seems to have," 
 interposed the other horseman, as that worthy Friar blew a note so 
 long and loud that even the strangers' horses, though fatigued with 
 travel, pricked up their ears to the enlivening sound. 
 
 There was little more time for conversation, for the sporting 
 monks, hounds, huntsmen, and all, were now ascending Brandon- 
 hill by the very same road which the travellers were about to take. 
 
 " I must see more of these holy men in their sylvan character," 
 said the elder stranger, " and for this purpose, do you, Alfred and 
 John, proceed with your horses to the monastery, and announce my 
 intention to be there in the course of the day, while I accompany 
 these Friars in their sports, that I may know more of their shameful 
 irregularities, of which 1 now find the complaints were not un- 
 founded." 
 
 The attendants did as they were ordered, and the elder stranger 
 rode forward to meet the merry cavalcade, which appeared in the 
 height of spirits and expectation. 
 
 " Well, old grey beard," cried Friar John of Scheftesbury, as he 
 descried the stranger ; " art thou for a morning's meal of hunting, 
 or is there aught of mettle in that di-ooping palfrey of thine to run 
 in the wake of as sweet-toned and true a pack as ever brushed dew 
 from greensward ! " 
 
 " I thought I should have been in time for matins at the 
 monastery," replied the stranger. 
 
 " Come and have them on the downs, greybeard," replied the 
 Friar ; " you will have the benefit of clergy there, and I would 
 as soon confess you beneath the frondent boughs of a spreading 
 oak as under the gloomy arches of our old monastery." 
 
 " But sylvcK habent awes, reverend father," said the stranger, 
 " and there may bo more auditors than either imagine " 
 
 " And more spectators, too," replied the Friar, doffing his hunting 
 beaver with great gallantry towards a cottage maiden, who was
 
 attracted to the door by the sight of the sporting monks. " What 
 do you think of those eyes in yonder damsel's head, old reverence ? " 
 demanded he. 
 
 " One of my age or your calling should never think of them 
 at all," answered the stranger. "What would the Bishop of 
 Worcester think of such things ?" 
 
 " What the Bishop of Worcester might think of such things, I 
 don't pretend to say ; but what I think of the Bishop of Worcester, 
 I will tell you he is an old driveller." 
 
 " The Bishop of Worcester is obliged to you for your flattering 
 opinion." 
 
 By this time they had reached the Down, and the view was one 
 of overpowering beauty and interest : the finely-wooded plain, 
 presenting here and there most picturesque openings and glades 
 amongst fine and patriarchal oaks, which interlaced their dense 
 and massive arms in each other. The sun had risen above the 
 eastern hills, and flung its blaze of orient light over the broad 
 expanse of the Severn, which glistened in the distance to the 
 hunter's eyes like a sea of molten silver, through many a vista 
 in that magnificent scene ; on the boughs of the old trees the 
 mellow thrush and lively linnet were trolling out their clear 
 morning song, and the eglantine and other sweet smelling shrubs, 
 entangled amongst the brushwood, sent forth their morning incense 
 of refreshing fragrance. The stranger looked round and round, 
 wrapt in admiration of all he saw and felt, and drinking in with 
 the balmy atmosphere of the morning draughts of deep unspeak- 
 able pleasure, until the very senses themselves seemed to reel with 
 the intensity of their own enjoyment. Neither were the monastic 
 sportsmen themselves (often as they had wound their horns and 
 careered their steeds amid the scene) insensible to the almost new 
 glories in which nature seemed arrayed on this morning. " Well, 
 old worthy," shouted Friar John, " is not this as fair a place for 
 matins as our old grey monastery ?" 
 
 "I believe it is," said the stranger, seriously; "the heart of 
 man should not be least thankful in the place where God seems to 
 have been most bountiful. Beneath the most sublime pile, amid 
 the most solemn ceremonial, I have not felt as I now feel, while 
 nature seems to rejoice in light and loveliness around." 
 
 " And there's an anthem for you, old moralizer," cried Henry de 
 Gloucester, as with a burst of tongue, deep and sonorous, the 
 hounds opened on a noble stag, which bounded from the thicket. 
 The view-holloa rose from all sides, and note on note followed, as 
 each jolly monk wound his horn in "musical conjunction." The 
 stranger had no option, for his palfrey, pricking up its ears, forgot 
 all its fatigues, and dashed forward with the crowd. 
 
 " Well rode, old moralizer," shouted the almoner, as the stranger 
 swept by him, the long skirt of his sad-coloured cloak floating in 
 the morning breeze. 
 
 " Tantivy ! there goes Beelzebub ! " laughed Father John ; 
 " and if we don't make haste, he's sure to make his breakfast on 
 the buck." The run was not very long before the noble animal 
 stood at bay, but with such expert woodsmen the final struggle waa
 
 short, and the stag, ham-strung by the dexterous hand of Friar 
 John, was soon dispatched. 
 
 "Now," said tho jocose Friar, wiping his wood-blade, "I am 
 ready to confess you, Father Greybeard, according to promise." 
 
 " Then let us move to yonder oak," said the stranger ; " and I 
 will avail myself of your ghostly services." 
 
 "And now, son," said the Friar, with mock gravity, when they 
 had reached the spot, " let us know your nam& before your sins." 
 
 " My name," answered.the stranger, " is Arnold " 
 
 " Arnold what ? " 
 
 " Bishop " 
 
 " Bishop ? " echoed the Friar 
 
 " Of Worcester" continued the prelate, while the friar stood pale 
 and astonished, with his mouth and eyes wide open, " and I 
 charge you, Friar John of Scheftesbury, with levity, licentiousness, 
 irreverence, and blasphemy, and do degrade you from the place you 
 have disgraced, in common with others of this abandoned brother- 
 hood. I also command you, on pain of further and severe 
 punishment, not to return within the bounds of your monastery 
 for three days, nor communicate the secret of my identity." 
 
 Tho Bishop pointed, as he spoke with a commanding air of 
 authority, in the direction of "Westbury, and Friar John directed 
 his course towards that village, without once turning to look 
 back on the stern countenance of the prelate. 
 
 At noon, on the same day, the brotherhood of Saint Augustine's, 
 all dressed in the pride of their orders, entered from the chapter- 
 room with the Bishop, for the purpose of hearing the charge from 
 one who had been, all unknown to them, the hunting companion 
 of many during the morning. When the last echoes of the Te Deum 
 had died away, the prelate, casting a penetrating glance on all 
 around, said, in a voice of deep command, " I have paid this visita- 
 tion for the purpose of inquiring into certain rumours concerning 
 the economy and discipline of this house both, I am assured, most 
 shamefully loose which have reached me. I have heard that the 
 monastery of Saint Augustine's more resembles a kennel and a 
 place of riot than a religious house. Is that true, Brother Henry 
 of Gloucester ? " 
 
 " May it please your reverend Grace," said the almoner, stepping 
 forward, with a look of feigned humility, " it is not ! " 
 
 " Do not the dogs eat of the crumbs of your refectory, which 
 should feed the children of the poor ? " demanded the Bishop. 
 
 Friar Henry answered in the negative. "I demand again," 
 said the prelate, in a voice of thunder, " are there not unclean 
 hounds harboured in this house ?" 
 
 The imperturbable almoner answered " No." 
 
 " Your own tongue shall confess the falsehood," said the Bishop ; 
 " you shall precede me and open every door in the monastery, until 
 these creatures are unkenneled." 
 
 Surprised and appalled at this extraordinary scene, the brother- 
 hood followed the Bishop and almoner, and saw one door opened 
 after another, but no hounds appeared. " He is not likely to find 
 them," whispered Friar Thomas to his companion, " unless the
 
 almoner is fool enough to snow the place." Friar Thomas -was 
 right : the last door was opened to no purpose, and the almoner, 
 confident in the ingenious construction of his kennel, turned round 
 to repeat his assurances. 
 
 " Hold your false tongue," cried the Bishop : " your trick of 
 concealment shall not avail you ; from the mouths of the hrutes 
 themselves you shall hear the proofs of your own mendacity." 
 
 Then turning to one of his attendants of the morning, he said, 
 " Alfred, wind me one of your notes of wood-trickery on this very 
 spot, and let these had men see the fruits of their own false- 
 hoods." 
 
 The group were then standing in the midst of the cloister, and 
 the man thus addressed, taking from heneath his cloak a hunting 
 horn, wound a long and sonorous note, until the ancient monastery 
 echoed again and again with the sound ; hardly, however, had it 
 ceased, when it was answered by the full, deep, and simultaneous 
 cry of a neighbouring pack of hounds, while the abashed and 
 convicted brotherhood stood staring in conscious guilt at each other. 
 
 " Now," said the prelate, looking round on the monks, " you see 
 your hunting companion of this morning has not taken lessons in 
 venerie for nothing. You may conceal your dogs from my eyes, 
 but not their voices from my ears." 
 
 THE FALSE ALMONER. 
 
 [The visitor, the Bishop of Worcester, ordered the almoner, Friar Henry, 
 of Gloucester, to be displaced.] 
 
 It is the dole hour, and a number of pilgrims and mendicants 
 have collected at the usual place for receiving the alms allotted by 
 the Abbey to poor applicants. Friar Henry, however, has not yet 
 arrived ; an hour passes, still he does not make his appearance, and 
 the hungry claimants grow a little discontented and begin to 
 murmur, when the sliding doors of the window, through which 
 the dole is handed out to them, are drawn back, and the voice of 
 Friar John is heard calling to them as " a lazy pack, not keep him 
 all day with their beggarly doles." 
 
 " You might as well, holy father, give that which you give 
 graciously," said an applicant in palmer's dress. 
 
 " For this saucy answer you may feed on your own staff," 
 answered the almoner, "for a morsel you shall not have here 
 to-day fall back." 
 
 The repulsed pilgrim did as he was bid ; but though standing 
 aloof, he seemed to watch the portions given and the persons who 
 received : the former were very small in many instances, and the 
 latter were not a few of them vagabonds, idlers from the city a 
 class of persons for whom the alms of the Abbey were never 
 intended. Any poor wanderer that presumed to be a little more 
 importunate or pressing for his or her turn were told to get
 
 away, as saucy varlets, about their business, and refused the dole 
 altogether. 
 
 At length the almoner's eye caught that of the palmer watching 
 him. " John," cried he in a passion to the porter, "take yonder 
 fellow by the shoulder and thrust him outside the gate, and teach 
 him to bring his evil eye to bsar upon somebody else." 
 
 The Abbey porter, who was a fit coadjutor of the unworthy 
 almoner, was proceeding to execute his commands, when the 
 palmer darted a quick glance at him. "Stand aloof, minion," 
 cried he, " or rather execute my orders. Throw open that gate, 
 and let those poor people, who have been kept waiting or thrust 
 out, be admitted ; and you, unfaithful steward (addressing the 
 almoner), quit that post for ever, of which you have proved 
 yourself so unworthy, and let me never see your head again under 
 the roof of this monastery. This is the sentence of your Visitor, 
 Arnold, Bishop of Worcester." 
 
 Friar Henry wanted no confirmation of the fact : abashed he 
 retired from the spot, while the Bishop took his place amid a 
 murmur of thanks and blessings from the poor, who never before 
 were so plentifully helped as on that morning, when the dole was 
 delivered by a Bishop who saw and acted for himself. 
 
 AN UNEXPECTED WITNESS. 
 
 [And he caused inquiry to be made concerning the conduct of Friar John 
 of Sheftesbury, accused of incontinence with several women unknown. 
 Ibid.] 
 
 Wearied with a day's visitation of more than ordinary anxiety, 
 the Bishop was refreshing himself with a quiet and contemplative 
 walk amongst the elms in front of the Abbey, when a young 
 woman, advancing from behind the trunk of one of the largest of 
 the trees, suddenly accosted him, imploring justice and protection 
 at his hands. 
 
 Arnold promised both, if in his power, and invited her at once 
 to tell her story. It was a short but unhappy one. She was the 
 victim of her own credulity, and of the arts of one of the monks 
 of the adjoining Abbey, who, after having induced her to leave 
 her father's roof, had now deserted her to want impudently 
 to her own face denying any knowledge of her, and threatening, 
 should she attempt to carry her complaint to the old Abbot, to 
 have her thrust from the place, or ducked in the pond as an 
 impostor. 
 
 An indignant flush rose to the Bishop's forehead as he demanded 
 the name of the unworthy brother. 
 
 " Friar John, called of Scheftesbury, lordly father," replied the
 
 " Enough," said the Bishop. " An hour before noon to-morrow 
 be at the Abbey gateway yonder, ready to answer my summons, 
 if called. But say, what is your name ?" 
 
 " Maria Ceste, my lord." 
 
 " Then, be in readiness at the time and place I mention," and 
 so speaking the Bishop entered the monastery. 
 
 " Brethren," spoke the Bishop next morning as he took his Beat 
 in the chapter-room, " I grieve that there are still greater and 
 more sinful irregularities amongst the members of this house than 
 I yesterday investigated and endeavoured to correct. The awful 
 sin of incontinence, I am told, attaches to some of your Order 
 aye, to some who are now present and before me," and he fixed 
 his eye with a marked directness on Friar John de Scheftesbury. 
 
 " If your lordship refer to me," said Friar John with the coolest 
 audacity, " and your glance would seem to say so much, I can 
 only declare that your poor servant is as innocent as the un weaned 
 child. If I have enemies and accusers confront me with them, 
 and I will soon prove their falsehood." 
 
 " I take you at your word," replied the Bishop, and he whispered 
 to an attendant, who returned accompanied by a woman, that on 
 a sign from the Bishop threw back the hood of her mantle, which 
 hid her face. 
 
 "Maria " involuntarily exclaimed the Friar, forgetting fora 
 moment his self-possession in his surprise then recovering himself, 
 but not before he had betrayed his knowledge of the unhappy 
 woman, he added, " My lord, I know not the woman, but as an 
 impostor who once threatened me with a false accusation." 
 
 " Fallen brother," said the Bishop solemnly, " add not mendacity 
 to your other crimes ; but, removed from the scene of your 
 wickedness, try to atone in prayer and penance for your past life. 
 This house no longer affords shelter to a polluted head." 
 
 THE IRREVERENT MONKS. 
 
 [In 1278, Godfrey Bishop of Worcester, iu his visitation to the Abbey of 
 St Augustine, Bristol, found it as well in spiritual as temporal matters 
 greatly decayed ; and ordered that in future they do not, as bees, fly 
 out of the choir as soon as service is ended, but devoutly wait as 
 became holy and settled persons, not as vagrants and vagabonds ; and 
 returning to God, give thanks for their benefactors, and so receiving at 
 last the fruits of their religion, to which they have specially devoted 
 themselves. Barrett, on the authority of the Annal. Wygorn.] 
 
 It was a bright and clear November morning, the winter sun 
 was streaming through the stained windows on the assembled 
 monks, who chaunted the Litany in the choir of the Abbey of St. 
 Augustine. But however solemn the sounds might have seemed 
 to those who passed by, the sight was not an edifying one to
 
 persons who witnessed it within. Of all the cowled and cassocked 
 worshippers hardly one seemed to feel that he was in the presence 
 of the Most High. They lolled and lounged about, and some chatted 
 to each other in an under tone, while the rest chaunted. The old 
 Abbot sat listlessly in his throne and mumbled his part, but none 
 appeared to care for him : indifference and irreverence everywhere 
 exhibited themselves, and spoke of discipline relaxed and duties 
 slurred over. 
 
 "Who. ..is. ..that. ..grim. ..face ..by. ..the ..door... ?" asked one 
 brother of another, moulding his question to the music of the 
 chaunt, singing it in fact in his neighbour's ear. 
 
 " Sancte Raphael I...do. ..not. .know. ..him, " chaunted his 
 neighbour, blending the Litany of the Saints and their loose gossip 
 together. " Omnes sancti angeli et archangeli, but. ..his. ..face ...is 
 ...sour. ..enough. ..to. ..turn. ..milk," he continued. " He... keeps .. 
 his. ..eye. ..on. ..you. ..and. ..me. ..orate pro nobis," added the first 
 speaker. And he was right enough ; the stranger, who wore the 
 costume of a Benedictine, and was standing near the entrance to 
 the choir, joining in the worship, was at the same time closely 
 observing the loose and irreverent manner in which the service 
 of God was being celebrated. 
 
 At length the prayers, such as they were, concluded ; the Abbot 
 rose in his throne, and pronounced in a feeble voice the blessing, 
 " Benedicat vos Omnipotent Deus, Pater et Filius et Sanctus 
 Spiritus." The monks did not wait for the last word, but shouting 
 out "Amen" were rushing across the nave in a tumultuous body 
 towards the south portal leading to the Refectory, when a loud 
 and distinct voice commanded them to remain. 
 
 There was something so authoritative in the tone that, though 
 unused for a long time to care for any one, they involuntarily stood 
 still, and turned towards the stone pulpit from which the voice pro- 
 ceeded, and where they now beheld the strange Benedictine, his 
 hands uplifted and his eyes flashing with indignation, as he looked 
 down upon the disgraceful scene, more worthy the public room of 
 a hostelry than the holy precincts of an abbey church. " For 
 shame ! for shame ! " cried he ; " but that I behold it with mine 
 own eyes, I could not have believed that God's worship had been 
 so irksome to you that you should thus as bees fly out of the choir, 
 when service is ended, with such noisy and profane haste ! Had 
 you acted up to your calling and consistent with your characters, 
 you would have devoutly waited in your stalls as became holy and 
 settled persons, to give God praise for his benefits in a few 
 moments of private prayer, and not departed with riot and noise 
 like vagrants and vagabonds, as though Satan and not the Most 
 High had made your choir his residence ? " 
 
 There was now no mistaking who the stranger was. The culprit 
 monks felt, as it were, in spite of themselves fascinated and fastened 
 to the paved aisles, under the severe eye and commanding brow of 
 Godfrey of Worcester. A muttered word that "it was the 
 Visitor " ran through the brotherhood, and they hung their heads 
 to receive in silence the indignant rebuke of a Bishop who was 
 known " to see things for himself."
 
 9 
 THE OLD ABBOT. 
 
 [In the year 1282 the Bishop of Worcester visited the Monastery, and 
 stopped there three days : he found all well, only that the old Abbot 
 lived out of the Monastery, in a manor of his, to the loss of the convent. 
 Barrett, Article on the Abbey.] 
 
 " Where is your Abbot ? " inquired the Visitor, as Prior Henry 
 received him on dismounting from his palfrey in the Monastery 
 yard. 
 
 " I will send for him," said the Prior, "and he will doubtless 
 return to await your Lordship's pleasure by sunset." 
 
 "That is not an answer, 1 ' said the Bishop, in a severe tone. 
 " I asked you, brother, where your Abbot was, and I expect to be 
 informed directly ! " 
 
 "Then," replied the Prior, ''he is at his country-house at 
 
 Leigh " 
 
 . " And has been there ?" interrogated the Bishop 
 
 " For some time," continued the Prior, like a man who reluc- 
 tantly gave evidence against his superior. 
 
 " That is sufficient," added the Bishop ; " send not for him. I 
 will visit the good father in his rustic retirement." 
 
 Three days after this, about noon, the old Abbot was seated at a 
 table under the shadow of the ancient porch of his country-house 
 at Leigh. Before him was such fare as Abbots in those days 
 indulged in, and to which he was applying himself with a 
 diligence which showed that the affairs of the fraternity of St. 
 Augustine's were not troubling him much. He paused, however, 
 as now and again the breeze bore to his ears the sound of horses' 
 feet approaching along the bridle path. 
 
 Having convinced himself, as the sounds drew nearer and nearer, 
 of the approach of strangers, he blew a silver whistle which was 
 pendant from his neck " Jasper," said he to the old man who 
 answered the summons, '! hear visitors coming: remove these 
 things from the porch, and prepare a refection for the strangers in 
 the hall. 1 ' However, before Jasper could comply with these orders, 
 two horsemen made their appearance, and saluted the Abbot, who 
 mumbled a hasty benediction, manifestly a little confused at being 
 discovered by strangers thus indulging at noon-day. 
 
 " Father," said the elder of the two, pointing to the table, 
 '' when the shepherd is thus enjoying his ease at a distance from 
 the fold, who is to look after the flock ? " 
 
 " When I know by what authority a stranger thus rudely 
 questions me," replied the Abbot, whose flagging spirit and 
 waning dignity were roused by this home observation from one he 
 did not recognize, " I may possibly be inclined to reply, but not 
 till then?" 
 
 " By the authority of a Visitor," answered the horseman. 
 
 " Godfrey of Worcester ? " inquired the Abbot. 
 
 " The same."
 
 10 
 
 "Then if Godfrey of Worcester," continued the old Monk, "he 
 what men represent him to he, he will not hastily judge an old 
 man who, as his eyes grow dim and his hearing dull, prefers to the 
 cloistered shade the sunlight of the country and the song of birds, 
 and gratefully feels God's beneficence through every sense better 
 than if he were shut in between tall Gothic walls and gloomy 
 arches. Besides, I wot that though the shepherd be absent, you 
 have not found the sheep unruly." 
 
 " True," said the Bishop ; " but to this the house is beholden to 
 a faithful Prior, and not to the watchful diligence of a resident 
 Abbot." 
 
 "Then, my Lord, on the brow of that faithful Prior let my 
 mitre be placed. I seek not to retain a charge for which declining 
 years have disqualified me. Let Prior Henry assume the honor as 
 he has the care. I ask but to be allowed to end my days in this 
 quiet retreat, satisfied if some summer's evening I fall asleep for 
 ever to this world under the shadow of this peaceful porch, the 
 last sound in my ears that of the singing birds, the last light in my 
 eyes that of the setting sun." 
 
 " Such was the very proposition I had come out to make to 
 thee," said Bishop Godfiey. " The requirements of the good house 
 of St. Augustine demand that the staff should be in younger and 
 more muscular hands than yours ; and next to wielding it well, I 
 believe is the merit of yielding it gracefully." 
 
 THE ABBOT'S TREE. 
 
 MR. EDITOR. Your last week's paper contained the following 
 paragraph : 
 
 "THE ABBOT'S TREE. COLLEGE GREEN. The stroller through College 
 Green, at this period of the year, has probably been struck with the 
 advance which one of the old trees there has made over its surrounding 
 neighbours in greenness. The tree we allude to is situate at the west 
 end, towards the entrance to College-street, and is always in leaf a con- 
 siderable time before the others. There is a fanciful tradition relative to 
 it amongst the old people round about the neighbourhood, who call it 
 " The A bbot's Tree ; " and the story is that an abbot of the adjoining 
 monastery of St. Augustine's, who was wont to roam about the pleasant 
 green in the cool of the evening, and had become quite attached to the 
 locality from the many pleasant hours he had sauntered there, ordered 
 that his body should be buried in his beloved haunt ; and that, in com- 
 pliance with his wish, this spot was selected for his sepulture. A tree, so 
 the tradition runs, was afterwards placed above his remains ; and so had 
 the fat abbot, as Jack Falstaff said, " larded the lean earth," that the 
 vegetation of the tree is on this account inure quick and luxurious than 
 that of any of the others around it. To those who, noticing the age 
 of the tree, may think this an anacronism, we have only to say, that 
 like the successor ot Joseph of Arimathea's thorn at Glastonbury, 'tis a 
 lineal descendant of the old stock." 
 
 Many years ago I resided in College-green, and with me lived 
 a brother (since dead), who was something of an antiquarian, at
 
 11 
 
 least sufficient to give him a love of our old locality. He was fond 
 of loitering about the Green under the old trees (and at that time, I 
 should tell you, the Green presented more the secluded air of a 
 Cathedral close than its shopped sides now assume) : In mid-day 
 he would be found musing amongst the cloisters, or, if service was 
 going on, seated in the corner of the south transept listening to 
 the organ, feeding his fancy with pictures of monastic days and 
 ancient times. In this manner he wasted his prime, reading every- 
 thing he could lay hold of about the Abbey and the Abbots, and 
 spending his days, as it were, under the shadow of the Cathedral, 
 notwithstanding my repeated remonstrances and assurances that 
 he could never by such pursuits hope to gain anything higher than 
 the office of sub-sacristan : however, poor fellow, he died before 
 this was vacant, and was by his own request buried within the 
 precincts he -was so fond of. 
 
 He used to amuse himself by writing a good deal, too, for he 
 left behind in his desk a quantity of manuscripts. He had several 
 sketches begun, but few or none of them finished. Amongst them, 
 however, was one, of which the paragraph in your paper of 
 Saturday last reminded me, and which, as some little illustration 
 of the tradition to which you refer, I beg to place at your service. 
 
 THE ABBOT'S TREE. 
 (A Tradition of old St. Augustine's Abbey, Bristol.} 
 
 Towards the close of the thirteenth century, the death of 
 Abbot William de Keynsham caused a vacancy in the Monastery 
 of St. Augustine, Bristol, and great were the arts and intrigues 
 resorted to by two of the brotherhood, each using every effort to 
 get himself elected. So much, indeed, was the matter debated, 
 that the citizens appeared to take an interest in it hardly inferior 
 to that experienced within the Abbey, and on the morning of 
 election the number who crowded to the great church, and even 
 penetrated to the passages leading to the cloisters and chapter- 
 house, was almost incredible. 
 
 At about eleven, the Prior and a body of Canons issued from the 
 late Abbot's house, and proceeded to the chapter-room, under the 
 covered cloister way, through a line of inquisitive spectators. As 
 soon as they had taken their seats, the license of their royal patron, 
 authorising them to choose an Abbot in the room of William de 
 Keynsham deceased, was placed in the hands of the Precentor : a 
 text of scripture was then read and expounded : the exposition 
 was short, but though short, still too long for the impatience of 
 the Chapter, who were in a hurry to go to work : after this a 
 hymn> de Sancto Spiritit, was sung, and all present having no right 
 in the election of an Abbot being solemnly ordered to withdraw, 
 the letter of license was read, and the election by scrutiny pro- 
 ceeded with. The votes of ail having been taken, the three 
 scrutators retired to a corner of the chapter-room to write down 
 and reckon the votes, which were given privately on pieces of 
 paper. This was an anxious moment for the two most sanguine 
 expectants, as well as for the Canons themselves, and the people,
 
 12 
 
 who without the great church awaited the announcement, were 
 also affected by the lively excitement of suspense. 
 
 At length it went round with a buzz amongst the assembly 
 outside that the scrutiny was over, and presently the door of the 
 chapter-house was thrown open, and the Canons appeared, four of 
 their number bearing aloft in their arms the jolly person of fat 
 Friar John, while the rest chaunted in solemn measure the Te 
 Deum Latulamus, and in this order they entered the church by the 
 west passage (a way having been made for them through the dense 
 crowd) to the high altar, upon which they deposited their heavy 
 burden, saying over him the usual prayer on such occasions. 
 
 This concluded, the Precentor came forth from the choir, and 
 mounting the stone pulpit proclaimed to the laity and clergy, with 
 which the nave was crowded, the result of their choice in the 
 following foim : 
 
 " Whereas the Monastery of St. Augustine has become vacant by the 
 recent death of Win. de Keynsham, the last Abbot, who has been ecclesi- 
 astically interred, and all those who could be present, and have right of 
 electing a future Abbot, having come together this day, and agreed that 
 the said election should be made by scrutiny, it has been clearly found 
 that the best and major part of the whole said convent have agreed upon 
 Friar John Strete, a provident aud discreet person, competently learned, 
 eminent for bis morals and conversation in life, a priest in orders, 
 expressly professing the rule of St. Augustine, and the order of canons 
 regular in said monastery, of ripe age, begot in lawful matrimony, 
 prudent in all temporal and spiritual matters, whom nothing prevents of 
 canonical institution. Therefore, I, Simon Dunster, precentor of the said 
 monastery, on behalf of myself and tne whole convent, by the power 
 given me by the whole convent, invoking the grace of the Holy Spirit, 
 have elected, and do hereby proclaim the election of our said brother, 
 John Strete, for Abbot of the monastery aforesaid." 
 
 This announcement made, the Precentor descended from the 
 pulpit, and the canons, issuing from the choir, conducted their 
 newly-elected head to the abbot's house, while a buzz of surprise 
 seemed to break involuntarily forth from the congregated crowd of 
 laity and clergy in the nave ; for Friar John was neither of those 
 between whom the public generally had divided the chances of 
 success, and ihe last person on whom any one but those immedi- 
 ately in the secret dreamed the election would fall. But no one 
 was more astonished than Friar John himself. When he awoke 
 that morning he had no more notion that before the evening he 
 would be Abbot of St. Augustine's than he had that he would be 
 King of England ; and when he heard his own name announced 
 by the scrutators in the chaptei-room, for a moment he fancied it 
 was a solemn joke. In fact, Prior John was as unfit for the 
 situation as the situation was unexpected by him. He was the 
 easiest, laziest, quietest, fattest member of the monastery ; he had 
 no care for learning, but a most serious love of eating : his delight 
 was, having made a good dinner, to stroll leisurely about the 
 green, or take a seat on the porter's bench, by the Abbey gatehouse, 
 and gossip with that functionary until, gradually closing his eyes, 
 he fell asleep in the sun. 
 
 Yet strange as it may appear, these were the very qualities which 
 made Friar John the Abbot of St. Augustine's. The Monastery, 
 perhaps, was never in so lax and indolent a state. Discipline there
 
 13 
 
 was little or none ; learning was a shadow within its walls ; its 
 religious services were slurred over or discontinued ; and, to use 
 the words of the Bishop of Worcester, so remiss and regardless of 
 all due observance and decency had they hecome, that when prayers 
 were over they flew like bees out of the choir, instead of devoutly 
 waiting, as it became holy and settled persons, to offer a few words 
 of mental thanksgiving to Heaven. They kept a pack of hounds 
 for their especial sport ; and the solemn repose of the monastery 
 was often disturbed by the noise and barking of these animals. 
 Then the brotherhood were scandalized by the reputed irregu- 
 larities of some of its members, and especially of one John de 
 Scheftesbury, whose gallantries were notorious through the city. 
 Besides this, there was a system of domestic plunder carried on 
 amongst the officers and servants of the establishment ; Henry, of 
 the granary, Hugh, the seller of corn, and others, afterwards 
 removed from their offices by the Bishop of Worcester, carrying 
 on their knaveries in the most unblushing and open manner. 
 
 All these and others feared nothing more than the election of an 
 active person, who might be inclined to examine into their acts 
 and correct their dishonest and indecent practices, so unbecoming 
 the members of a religious house; so they srcivtly conspired to 
 elect to the place of Abbot not either of those who expected it, but 
 the laziest, most easy-tempered, inactive and ignorant member of 
 the brotherhood ; and upon Friar John Strete this enviable distinc- 
 tion fell. 
 
 But Friar John did not think if he could be said to make the 
 mental exertion of thinking at all the distinction one so much to 
 be coveted. The Abbacy of even St. Augustine's Monastery 
 must be attended with some care and some little trouble, and he 
 sighed when he recollected the sleepy luxury of his indolent life 
 hitherto his long afternoon naps on the porter's bench, and his 
 loiterings in the Green lest his new honour should interfere with 
 his personal laziness. But then the picture had its bright side, 
 too, and when the new Abbot recollected an extraordinary stock of 
 fine Rhenish wine which the old one had left behind him, and the 
 soft apartments and delicious pasties that appertained to the office, 
 he was comforted, and the only effect the honour had upon him was 
 that it made him take a stoop of wine the more on his going that 
 evening to bed. 
 
 Things went on within the Monastery under their new head in 
 the same glorious state of indolence and abuse as under the old ; 
 and Abbot John enjoyed his fat ease much in the same way as 
 when he was Friar John : he was still to be seen in his favourite 
 haunt in the Green, or dozing away the afternoon in the sun by 
 the Abbey gatehouse, sometimes gossiping to a few of the old 
 citizens who were wont to find their way up to this pleasant locality 
 in the afternoon sometimes talking to groups of children, of whom 
 he was rather fond, and for whom he often ordered some scraps of 
 pasty from the Refectory ; for Abbot John, though so lazy and 
 mightily loving his own case, was not deficient in a kind of 
 sleepy good nature. 
 
 But alas ! the quiet life of the indolent Abbot, and the corruption
 
 14. 
 
 of the Abbey, were destined to be disturbed much sooner than 
 either dreamt of or desired. 
 
 The report of the laxity and laziness of the House reached the 
 Bishop of Worcester (in whose diocese it then was), and being an 
 active and energetic man, he paid it a visit without any previous 
 notice or intimation given. He arrived at the Abbey gate incog., 
 and in the course of the day, when the Abbot, 
 
 "As was his custom in the afternoon," 
 
 adopted his usual seat on the porter's bench, a stranger took the 
 liberty of seating himself beside him and interrupting his siesta 
 by asking him various questions about the order and discipline of 
 the House. 
 
 Abbot John was not annoyed at the impertinence of the unknown, 
 but he wanted to sleep, so he cut short further interrogatories by 
 saying, " Friend, I cavil not with thy curiosity, but thou hast 
 chosen a bad season for gratifying it ; for it is our custom to in- 
 dulge in a short repose at this period of the day ; so get thee to the 
 buttery, and bid them from me find employment for thy teeth, 
 for thy tongue goeth marvellously more trippingly than suiteth 
 mine ease at the present." The stranger did as he was told. 
 
 " What's thy name and thy calling, fellow ?" demanded the 
 almoner, Friar Luke ; " for thou makest thy request with as much 
 confidence as if thou fanciest we cared here for thee or the Abbot's 
 command ?" 
 
 "My name is Arnold," replied the stranger," and my calling 
 that of Bishop of Worcester; and before I return I will have 
 taught thee and thy other graceless brothers to have more respect 
 to the rules of thy order and the commands of thy Abbot. And to 
 begin, I order thee to eat pulse and drink water (for thine im- 
 pertinence) every Wednesday for the next twelve .... 
 
 For four or five days after this occurrence the fat Abbot was 
 missed from his favourite haunts ; he was to be seen neither in his 
 rustic seat at the West end of the Green, nor at his chosen lounge 
 on the porter's bench by the gatehouse. It was noised abroad too 
 that the Bishop ef Worcester had arrived at the Monastery, and 
 had discovered a world and all of abuses, wickedness, and wanton- 
 ness, within its walls that great changes were taking place, the 
 drones being ejected, and discipline enforced. This was perfectly 
 true, the poor Abbot himself being made the instrument of the 
 Bishop's reforms. He was, in fact, as he expressed it himself, worn 
 off his legs : the Bishop had him up early in the morning, round 
 the Monastery and at matins, at an hour when before he had no 
 notion of stirring out of bed : a dozen times in the day he panted 
 for rest, but the indefatigable Arnold would give him none : ho 
 had him at business in the chapter-room when he wished to be at 
 lunch in the refectory, and at prayers in the choir when he sighed 
 to be asleep on the porter's bench. At length, the Bishop con- 
 vinced himself thut the Abbot's besetting faults were more those of 
 omission than commission, and that he erred and allowed others to 
 err through unconquerable indolence. It was ascertained, too, 
 that he was not sufficiently instructed to propound the Word of 
 God in common, so others were appointed to this duty in his stead,
 
 15 
 
 This arrangement, which rather humoured the laziness than 
 hurt the pride of the Abbot, together with others by which the 
 management of the temporal affairs were devolved upon his 
 chaplain, left Abbot John at leisure once more to enjoy his meat 
 and his drink, his sleepy seat at the gatehouse, and his lazy loiter 
 about the Green, and he fully availed himself of his recovered 
 idleness. He lived ten years after the memorable visitation, and 
 grew in size and (if possible) in indolence; was popularly known 
 amongst the people and children without the monastery as the " Fat 
 Abbot," and playfully named by his monastic brethren John 
 le Or os 
 
 At the termination of the ten years, however, one whole day 
 passed over without the fat Abbot making his appearance, either 
 at the gate-house or in the Green ; and as the day was a glorious 
 sunny one just of that description on which the Abbot delighted 
 to bask himself the circumstance was the more alarming. A 
 second and a third passed, and the Abbot was still missing from 
 his usual haunts ; and the old citizens returned without their 
 evening's gossip, and the children without their pieces of pasty ; 
 and then it was seen how even the negative qualities of an easy 
 temper and constitutional indolence may gain upon people, and all 
 were sorry when they heard the fat Abbot, with whose well-known 
 figure and accustomed habits they had been so long familiar, was 
 yery sick. 
 
 The fourth day his death was announced, or rather he slept out 
 of life, as the Sub-Prior said, having only spoken once during his 
 illness, and that was to request that his b )dy would be interred, 
 not within the monastic gloom of the Abbey, but on the site of 
 the rustic chair at the west end of the Green (where he loved to 
 sit), under the blessed canopy of heaven and the light covering 
 of the verdant sod. 
 
 At the end of a week, during which his remains lay in state, his 
 wish was complied with, and the Green was crowded to witness the 
 singular sepulture. The procession issued from the north porch 
 of tha Abbey, chaunting a solemn hymn, and the remains of the 
 fat Abbot were lowered into the earth. "When the mould was 
 thrown back upon the coffin, a young tree was planted above it, 
 the fittest type, after all, of the fleeting succession of frail humanity. 
 
 " Like leaves on trees the race of men is found, 
 Now green in youth, now withered on the ground." 
 As the tree grew it inclosed the coffin in its roots, and drew such 
 sustentation and nourishment from the decaying body of the fat 
 Abbot, that, enriched by his remains, it soon surpassed all its 
 sylvan neighbours, and became 
 
 " In cold a shelter, aud in heat a shade " 
 
 to future generations ; always showing its leaves the first of the 
 trees in the Green, and being at this moment a triumphant monu- 
 ment of the vegetative properties of a fat Abbot before the Refor- 
 mation, as well as a proof of what landscape gardening has lost by 
 the suppression of the monasteries.
 
 16 
 THE MURDER OF THE ABBOT'S STEWARD. 
 
 Almondsbury and Leigh both belonged to the Abbey of Saint Augustine s, 
 and in both the brotherhood had pleasant country houses. The former, 
 which is a rich living, was attached to the bishopric on the suppression 
 of the monastery, and was held almost invariably by the prelates of 
 Bristol until the death of Dr. Monk, after which an independent 
 appointment to the parish was made. The Rev Murray Browne was 
 the first for a very long time who not a bishop held the living. It was 
 the favourite rural retreat of the earlier Abbots, who were no doubt 
 attracted to it by its beauty and the richness of the soil. The record 
 which suggested this story is found in the " Annal Wygorn, " and is 
 quoted by Barrett, from whom I copy it (p. 267). It is as follows : 
 
 " James Barry, Abbot : be obtained the Royal Assent the 16th December 
 following, nat. 22nd of Edward I. He governed twelve years, and died 
 the 12th of November, 1306, and was buried under a marble on the south 
 side of the rood altar. In 1299, going to Almondsbury late in the 
 evening, many armed men entered suddenly, and broke in, and took 
 away what the Abbot had there for his household, and killed his 
 steward." 
 
 The evening was closing, and Abbot Barry walked restlessly up 
 and down the large hall in his house, which was afterwards the 
 Bishop's Palace, and burnt \>y the Bristol mob. The good man 
 seemed much disturbed, as he muttered from time to time, " It is 
 a hard necessity : but in thi.s case leniency were a crime." At 
 length the door, towards which he frequently looked, as be made 
 his perturbed promenade of the apartment, opened, and a monk 
 entered. The man approached the Abbot hesitatingly, and with a 
 downcast look, for a moment or two neither spoke, but at 
 length the Abbot said (and as he spoke distress and emotion were 
 manifest in his tones), "Unhappy brother ! with prayer and penance 
 I have sought the guidance of heaven in this painful matter painful 
 to me were you only a comparative stranger coming recently 
 under my rule ; but doubly painful when the culprit was the 
 companion of my boyhood and the friend of my youth. Still, I 
 have a duty to perform to this house and the cause of religion, 
 which puts aside all human feeling, and God and my conscience 
 tell me I have no other course but to forbid your further stay in 
 our monastery. Go hence, and go in peace, if your crime, which 
 may still be forgiven when fully repented of, can permit you to 
 have peace." 
 
 " Surely, surely," said the monk, casting himself on his knees, 
 and passionately laying hold on the Abbot's cassock, " you would 
 not act with such cruelty, and cast me forth, on the world upon a 
 false charge ?" 
 
 "Not false, not false," replied the Abbot. " Add not untruth 
 to incontinency. Confronted with the wretched woman, the 
 partner of your guilt, you could not deny it " 
 
 " Then by our early friendship, I implore you to forgive me. 
 Exercise that clemency which is a divine attribute " 
 
 " And sacrifice justice and duty," interrupted the Abbot ; " No, 
 if you were my own brother, I could not overlook it. The state 
 of this house its general laxity, and the dissoluteness of some of 
 its members, demand an example, and I must make one. John
 
 17 
 
 Selwyn, you are no longer a Black Canon of the order of Saint 
 Victor : depart hence ! " 
 
 "Depart hence?" exclaimed the monk, repeating the words 
 with something like a shriek, and rising from his knees; "If I 
 must depart I must ; but William Barry, as man or abbot, you 
 will rue this tyranny. Bear in mind that I have said it." 
 
 Sternly the Abbot answered, " John Selwyn, I weep for your sin 
 and mourn over your fall, but I care not for your menace. Let me 
 never see your face again until you have by penance and mortifica- 
 tion earned the pardon of heaven !" and the Abbot turned away, 
 while the monk slowly left the room. 
 
 " Here they come," said one of two men, who stood at the time 
 on the hill which overlooked the church and the abbatical country 
 house of Almondsbury, and (further oft') the broad waters of the 
 Severn. Both men gazed in the direction of Bristol, and approach- 
 ing by that road beheld a cavalcade of some six persons, whose 
 appearance was perfectly pacific. First, on a jennet, rode Abbot 
 Barry, in such travelling dress as became the churchman of his 
 day ; by his side was the Sub-Prior of St. Augustine's ; a little in 
 his rear rode his steward, and three lay servants of the monastery 
 with sumpter mules followed. 
 
 As the party drew near, one of the two men by whom they were 
 first descried disappeared amongst some trees, and left his com- 
 panion, who instantly squatted on the road, and assumed the 
 posture and appearance of a mendicant pilgrim. 
 
 "How glorious, brother!" exclaimed the Abbot to the Sub- 
 Prior, as they cleared the curve in the road, and the magnificent 
 prospect from Almondsbury-hill, which to this day makes the 
 traveller loiter and look about him, broke upon their view. The 
 works of man decay and change, but the course of time makes few 
 alterations in the face of nature. In the landscape as it then was 
 and now is, little difference could be discerned. Nothing, it is 
 true, of the abbatical residence, but the site is known ; the old 
 church, however, still stands almost as it then stood : the eye over- 
 looks the same expanse of rich land stretching down to the river, 
 and that noble river, as it then glistened in the setting sun, offered 
 the same glorious object to the eye as it now does on many an 
 autumn evening. 
 
 The Abbot reined in his jennet, and gazed rapturously and 
 thoughtfully round him. "Pleasant as our good house of St. 
 Augustine at Bristol is, brother," said he, after a pause, to the 
 Sub-Prior, " I never behold this landscape that I do not wish that 
 choir, and cloisters, and refectory were all transferred to the spot 
 on which we stand, if it were only to behold such sunsets as these. 
 Our vesper bell would sound sweetly to the boatmen on yonder 
 Severn, and our lauds be heard by the early rising shepherd." 
 
 " Charity, holy father!" said the mendicant, whining his petition 
 from the road side. 
 
 The Abbot waved his hand in benediction, and ordered the 
 steward to let the man have a dole from the baskets of the sumpter 
 mule.
 
 18 
 
 " Rather let me have a night's lodging, holy father," implored 
 the man ; " I am foot weary, and the evening is so far advanced 
 that I cannot reach other shelter ere it be dark." 
 
 His prayer was granted, and he followed the cavalcade as it 
 wound down the hill to the Ahhot's Lodge. After his household 
 had retired to rest, the Abbot still stood in the deep recess of the 
 oriel window that looked towards the Severn. The landscape, 
 which the setting sun had gilded, was now silvered over with 
 moonlight, and the Abbot, whose eye for the picturesque and 
 poetical a long conventual life had not dimmed, contemplated the 
 scene with silent prayerful rapture. There were circumstances, 
 too, which rendered him, perhaps, still more susceptible to the 
 grateful influence of the hour in that particular place. Though 
 now a mitred Abbot, reigning over a house of large power and 
 possessions, he saw on the other side of that river, which slept in 
 the moonlight like a broad sheet of silver, the scene of his lowly 
 and humble home ; and if for a moment he felt the flush of 
 exultation in the elevation he had achieved, there was also a cast of 
 sadness when he thought of the cause which sent him forth from 
 his rustic home. If, as it was said, it was the death of a loved 
 wife that first induced him to seek in a cloister the peace which the 
 world cannot give, he had often perhaps since felt that, though 
 lord of an abbey, surrounded by serfs and vassals, there was in the 
 domestic love of a Severn-side shepherd's home, a warmth and 
 charm that no solitary grandeur could give. But he had long 
 trained himself to dismiss these thoughts as quickly as they rose, 
 and he now tried to fix his attention upon a subject which more 
 concerned his duty and circumstances as superior of the brotherhood 
 of the Black Canons of the order of St. Victor. Sundry irregularities, 
 glanced at in his parting and painful interview with John Sehvyn 
 (known to his monastic brethren as John of the Granary), had 
 recently come to light. Discipline had been relaxed during the 
 reigns of one or two feeble predecessors, and to enforce order and 
 morality he had been obliged to make some severe examples, such 
 as that just referred to, when he had been compelled to send forth 
 one whom he had known from boyhood a disgraced outcast. But 
 these examples had not deterred from similar errors other members 
 of the brotherhood : new cases had come under his notice, and he 
 began to think that while their house was so close to the crowd and 
 vices and luxuries of a great town, which offered not merely 
 temptations but facilities for irregularity on the part of the weaker 
 brethren, neither the piety nor reputation of the monastery could 
 be preserved. What he said to the Sub-Prior, about wishing that 
 the Abbey of St. Augustine's stood on the hill of Almondsbury, 
 was therefore only the inkling of a plan he had some time 
 meditated for having the monastery transferred to the latter place, 
 or Leigh. 
 
 His thoughts, however, were cut short by hearing some one 
 stealthily enter the room, and on turning round he saw his steward, 
 whose face wore a ghastly whiteness. " Holy father," gasped he, 
 in a whisper, " armed burglars are in possession of the house, 
 Hark !"
 
 19 
 
 The crash, as of a door broken through, was heard, and the 
 Abbot, whose monastic life had not extinguished in his heart the 
 early courage of the Severn-side shepherd, acting on the impulse of 
 native spirit, was about to rush forward in the direction of the noise, 
 when the steward begged him to be cautious. " Your own sacred 
 life, holy father, I believe, is the object of this outrage ; for, passing 
 along the corridor, I looked in to seek the aid of the pilgrim, to 
 whom you this evening afforded a shelter, and found his cell empty ; 
 and am now convinced, upon recollecting his voice, that in the 
 disguised mendicant, you have afforded the shelter of this roof to 
 the expelled brother John of the Granary, who left the monastery 
 with a menace against your life." 
 
 " Then I will confront him," he dauntlessly exclaimed, " for in 
 what better cause could Abbot lose bis life than in enforcing the 
 discipline of God's house r" 
 
 Hardly had he uttered the word, when a loud noise was heard 
 from the domestics' quarter, and presently, in an affrighted band 
 and crying for help, the terrified servants burst into the room, 
 pursued by several fierce armed ruffians. 
 
 His steward was struck down by the Abbot's side, and by the 
 hand of the outcast monk. With sinews that had not grown old, 
 and a courage which a life of religious discipline appeared to have 
 only elevated and inspired, the Abbot sprung at the ringleader, and 
 flung him violently to the ground, when the servants, fired by their 
 lord's example, closed with the others, and a terrific hand to hand 
 struggle commenced. In mortal grip-and-grip midnight conflicts 
 of this kind few are the wor is spoken ; a muttered malediction, as, 
 locked in one another's hold, servants and robbers exerted every 
 sinew, the one for life and the other for mastery, was the only 
 sound heard. The shadow in which they fought prevented the 
 ruffians from making efficient use of their arms, and sometimes when 
 they struck out, their own comrades, in the confusion of the melee, 
 received the blows. But list ! some one of the servants, disentang- 
 ling himself from the conflict, has reached the alarm bell, and over 
 the midnight, landscape its loud and hurried tones are heard. 
 Eapid and ringing, it swings its voice far around in the silence of 
 the scene to the banks of the Severn. The folded sheep start up 
 and listen trembling to the sounds ; and the wakeful shepherd with 
 his dog on watch hear it, while it arouses the peasants slumbering in 
 the hamlets around ; but to none was it more distinct or heard with 
 such different feelings as by those who maintained a life and death 
 struggle in that old abbatical parlour. Tho robbers knew that, 
 in a few minutes, it would draw a band of peasants from the adjoin- 
 ing cottages to the rescue, and, making a terrific effort, they threw 
 off their antagonists and escaped from the house. 
 
 When the peasants arrived, they found the Abbot surrounded by 
 his domestics, and, all kneeling, were giving thanks to G^d for their 
 deliverance. On raising the body of the steward, it was found that 
 life was extinct, and his remains were next day interred close by the 
 priests' door of Almondsbury Church.
 
 20 
 
 AN OLD TOWN AND GOWN ROW, WRESTLING 
 MAYORS, AND FIGHTING ABBOTS, 
 
 1527 This yeare, at St. James's tide, as the Mavor (Thomas Brooke) and 
 his brethren came from wrastling. Mayors Kalendar. 
 
 It was during the abbacy of Somerset (1527), the disputes between the 
 canons of Saint Augustine and the townspeople of Bristol were renewed. 
 Two of the choristers of the Abbey refusine to p<y the King's silver, 
 distresses were levied on them. The Abbot, taking part with his 
 servants, arrested the officers who exercised their functions within his 
 jurisdiction. The Mayor and Commonalty retaliated, and imprisoned 
 the retainers of the Abbey. The Abbot, with a powerful body, at- 
 tempted to rescue his men, but suffered a repulse. Britton's Brist. 
 Cath.,p. 22. 
 
 " Hurrah for the Mayor ! well done, Worshipful Master Brooke," 
 shouted out the crowd assembled on the Marsh, to witness the usual 
 evening's amusements, which took place there when the Com- 
 monalty of Bristol and its Municipal Chiefs met to recreate them- 
 selves with manly sports, after the day's husiness. 
 
 These exclamations were an outburst of admiration on the part 
 of the spectators, as they saw their stalwart Mayor, after a keen 
 struggle of some minutes, with toe and wrist, suddenly take his 
 antagonist, one William Herbert, a noted Welsh wrestler, and 
 capsize him with one of those feats of strength which has since 
 been called a cross-buttock. Cheer followed upon cheer, as the 
 athletic honour of Bristol was so featly and gallantly asserted over 
 Welsh braggadocia. And hurrah for the Mayor, sav we. Hurrah 
 for the time when civic Magnates, instead of stuffing themselves 
 with venison pasties and Rhenish wines, which they learnt to do 
 in an age or two afterwards, turned out in the evening for healthy 
 exercise, and the Mayor and the senior Alderman tried a fall 
 together and bore no malice afterwards. 
 
 " Now," said Master Brooke, wiping his forehead with a handker- 
 chief, and good humouredly regarding his discomfited antagonist 
 as he rose from the ground : "Now, I think I may have a pull at 
 the tankard." And, gracious me ! did not his Worship have a 
 pull ! It was a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether, as 
 the Senior Alderman thought, who was waiting for the reversion ot 
 the tankard, and who fancied his Worship would never take the 
 vessel from his mouth. But his Worship was as thirsty as he was 
 strong ; so, having finished the liquor, he turned the tankard over, 
 and, laughing at the Alderman, whose face grew long and lugu- 
 brious to find there was not a mouthful left for him, said " there 
 was a hole in the vessel, and he could not help it leaking." 
 
 " But what is the matter with these white- faced fellows ? " asked 
 his Worship, glancing at two of the city officers, who had just 
 arrived with their noses bloody and their doublets torn, and 
 looking as scared as the man who drew Priam's curtain at the dead 
 of night. 
 
 Their story was quickly told : they were two of a party that had 
 gone to levy distresses on a couple of the choristers of St. Augustine's
 
 21 
 
 Abbey, who had refused to pay the King's silver. On their seizing 
 the singing-men, however, Abbot Somerset made his appearance, 
 in a towering rage, that his ecclesiastical jurisdiction should be 
 invaded by the civic power, and, calling his retainers together, 
 rescued the choristers ; and, on the officers resisting, seized some of 
 them, and thrust them into the Abbey dungeon, while the only 
 two that escaped rushed off to the wrestling ground, and informed 
 the Mayor of this overt act of war between Church and State. 
 
 Talk of Church-rate contests in modern times, the scene that 
 followed the intelligence of the two discomfited officers eclipsed 
 anything we know aught of. The authority of the monasteries 
 and the monks was just at this time beginning to wane. Cardinal 
 Wolsey was meditating a scheme (as we learn from the letter of 
 Fox, Bishop of Winchester), to reform or remodel these dissolute 
 and drowsy establishments, and the people were beginning to know 
 and canvass their proceedings. The civic bodies especially whose 
 commercial members possessed far more intelligence than the rural 
 population did not scruple to contest many points of local right 
 and jurisdiction with them ; and about the same time that the 
 occurrence here referred to took place, the Mayor and Commonalty 
 of Bristol successfully defied and resisted the claim of the Prior of 
 St. John of Jerusalem in England to retain, against the civil 
 officers, the privilege of sanctuary in Temple Street. 
 
 Abbot Somerset knew a little of the growing free temper of the 
 times, and this knowledge made him the more irate at what he 
 called the encroachment of the lay-bailiffs upon the Abbey grounds, 
 even though in pursuit of church defaulters. So he thought he'd 
 stop it put an end to civil impertinence once and for all. Abbot 
 Somerset was pluck to the backbone, but he met his match in 
 Mayor Brooke. " What," cried his Worship, drawing on his 
 doublet, and tightening the points of his hose, " after our hard 
 wrestling match to be beaten by shaved heads our officers 
 ducked and imprisoned. Oh, since that is the game two can play 
 at it ! Come along, my masters ! " 
 
 And Mayor Brooke, and the Aldermen, and the Councilmen, and 
 the crowd, who then as now loved a row, hurried from the Marsh 
 across the drawbridge, and away to the Abbey gate, up to a fight 
 on anything. The movement was so sudden, that the porters and 
 some other retainers, who were loitering by the great Norman 
 entrance, had not time to secure their retreat or the gateway, when 
 Mayor Brooke had bound one of them, and the Aldermen seized a 
 couple more, and dragged the fellows off with them, as hostages 
 for their imprisoned officers. The cries of the captives soon alarmed 
 the Abbey, and out came Abbot Somerset, with a strong force of 
 followers. " Stop," you cowardly kidnappers you greasy, bullying 
 burgesses ! " cried the Abbot. " Brooke, you great bear, I'fl 
 teach you to respect the rights of the Church." 
 
 The Mayor and his party made a stand. " Since T am a bear, 
 then come and bait me," cried his Worship. The Abbot took him 
 at his word, and was at grips with the worthy Chief Magistrate in 
 a moment, while the others on b^th sides went hard at it. It was 
 a stiff tussle between the Mayor and the Abbot, for the head of St.
 
 2? 
 
 Augustine's was then as stalwart as the present Chief of the 
 Chapter,* but the layman was in better wind, and after two or three 
 minutes' struggle, the venison pasties and the want of exercise began 
 to tell upon the Very Rev. the Abbot. In brief, his reverence was 
 blown, and his followers, oeeing him give up the contest, fought 
 
 ghy the game was over, red won, black lost, and with a cheer the 
 
 laymen made good their retreat to the city, carrying with them the 
 Abbey retainers, whom the Abbot was unable to rescue. 
 
 It was one of the earliest fights in Bristol between Church and 
 State the sacerdotal and the civic in which the latter won the 
 day. Thanks to a bustling Mayor and a Town Council, who took 
 more exercise than turtle. 
 
 The sequel and upshot of this pugnacious civic and ecclesiastical 
 passage of arms is told as follows in Britton's history, and in the 
 same page from which the passage given at top is taken : 
 
 After spending large sums in legal proceedings, the dispute went to 
 arbitration, when it was decided that the choristers should pay their 
 taxes, that the prisoners of each party should be released, that the Mayor 
 and Council should attend Divine service in the College as usual, and 
 that the Abbot and iiis successors, in token of submission for contempt, 
 should thenceforth, upon every Easter Day, in th afternoon, and Easter 
 Monday, in the forenoon, meet or wait for them at the door of the 
 Grammar School at Froom Gate, and accompany them to College. 
 
 It was humiliating enough, I dare say, for a proud, plucky 
 Churchman, like Abbot Somerset, to thus knock under. But he 
 could not help himself. The times and intelligence were against 
 him. The same old battle of civil freedom against sacerdotal 
 assumption has been often since fought with varying effect and in 
 diflerent tempers ; but let us drink a health to the stout Bristol 
 Mayor, who was amongst the first to take a fall out of a powerful 
 priest, and have the best in a stand-up contest with monks and 
 monkery. 
 
 THE LAST OF THE ABBOTS. 
 
 Morgan Guilliam, ap Guilliam, elected 1537, being the last Abbot ; he 
 surrendered his monastery into King Henry VIII. 's hands the 9th of 
 December. 1539, and obtained a pension of 80 per annum for life. In 
 Fuller and Speed's History he is charged with keeping six lewd women, 
 but it is thought without very good evidence. These and worse crimes 
 were imputed to the Monks, as a strong and plausible excuse for 
 dissolving their houses. The following account appears entered in the 
 book of pensions on the date of the King's commission, which has this 
 entry, dated December 9th, 31st Henry VIII., 1539 
 
 First, To Morgan Guilliam, late Abbot there, with the mansion place 
 of Lee [that is Abbot's Leigh], the garden, orchard, and dove house 
 to the same adjoining and yielding ; and also 20 loads of fyer wood 
 yearly, to be perceyved and taken out of the wood of the same 
 manor by the assignment of the King's Highness's surveyor or 
 
 Dean Elliot, a specimen in younger days of a nne muscular Churchman.
 
 23 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 1) 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 t> 
 
 
 
 
 
 keeper there, during his life, without anything yielding or paying 
 lor the same ... ... ... . ... 80 
 
 Item to Humfrey Hicman, late Prior there 
 
 John Restal 
 
 John Careve 
 
 Nicholas Corbett 
 
 Henry Pavye 
 
 William Wrington 
 
 William Underwood 
 
 Richard Hill 
 
 Richard Orrell ... 
 
 Richard Sterley ... 
 
 Richard Hughes ... 
 
 Sum ... ...151 6 8 
 
 Dull and dreary dawned the December morning over the ancient 
 house of St. Augustine, for this was to be the day of its dissolution. 
 Before noon its brotherhood were to be dispersed upon the world, 
 and to turn their backs for ever on groined roofs and Gothic walls 
 which had afforded shelter for centuries to a religious fraternity. 
 The whole abbey wore the appearance of its impending doom. No 
 grateful odour proceeded from the great kitchen ; the buttery- 
 hatch was opened for the last time to admit their meagre breakfast ; 
 the refectory was cold, and the wood-fire in its spacious hearth 
 was quenched ; the almoner's place was empty, though one poor 
 pilgrim, uninformed of the fact, had attended for his dole ; the 
 dormitory no longer presented its orderly appearance, but was 
 strewed with scrip and sac in which the brotherhood had put away 
 their few articles of apparel previous to departure, while over court 
 and cloister reign jd an air of silence and sadness, which was quite 
 depressing. Nevertheless, the brotherhood were in their choir. It 
 was the last tince their voices were to be raised together in prayer 
 under the cope of their ancient church, and never before perhaps 
 was there a morning service in that place whereat there was so 
 much of feeling and of touching reverence. Every heart was 
 subdued and every voice affected by the impression that they were 
 then worshipping for the last time within those old walls, and there 
 was a plaintive and tremulous pathos in every tone as the solemn 
 melody of the " Veni Creator Spiritus" rose from that little con- 
 gregation. They had been dominant and over-bearing and 
 irreverent at times in their prosperity and power ; but now all 
 subdued and bumbled in their adversity, there was something of 
 heroic and holy submission to the will of Heaven and the hand of 
 Man in their resignation, which seemed to gild the last hour of 
 their brotherhood, and disarm that exultation which one might 
 otherwise feel in their doom. 
 
 The service ended silently and sorrowfully the brotherhood filed 
 from the choir, each turning to take a last look of the familiar 
 retrospect of pillar and aisle and arch, as he passed out at the 
 southern portal, which led to the domestic offices. 
 
 At noon, with scrip and sack buckled on their shoulders, and 
 prepared each for his own road, the brotherhood awaited in the 
 cloisters the arrival of the commissioners into whose hands the 
 Abbot was to deliver up the keys of the abbey, its possessions and 
 appurtenancea. Nor had they to bide long the King's servants
 
 2? 
 
 Augustine's was then as stalwart as the present Chief of the 
 Chapter,* but the layman was in hetter wind, and after two or three 
 minutes' (struggle, the venison pasties and the want of exercise began 
 to tell upon the Very Rev. the Abbot. In brief, his reverence was 
 blown, and his followers, oeeing him give up the contest, fought 
 8 hy the game was over, red won, black lost, and with a cheer the 
 laymen made good their retreat to the city, carrying with them the 
 Abbey retainers, whom the Abbot was unable to rescue. 
 
 It was one of the earliest fights in Bristol between Church and 
 State the sacerdotal and the civic in which the latter won the 
 day. Thanks to a bustling Mayor and a Town Council, who took 
 more exercise than turtle. 
 
 The sequel and upshot of this pugnacious civic and ecclesiastical 
 passage of arms is told as follows in Britton's history, and in the 
 same page from which the passage given at top is taken : 
 
 After spending large sums in legal proceedings, the dispute went to 
 arbitration, when it was decided that the choristers should pay then- 
 taxes, that the prisoners of each party should be released, that the Mayor 
 and Council should attend Divine service in the College as usual, and 
 that the Abbot and iris successors, in token of submission for contempt, 
 should thenceforth, upon every Easter Day, in the afternoon, and Easter 
 Monday, in the forenoon, meet or wait for them at the door of the 
 Grammar School at Froom Gate, and accompany them to College. 
 
 It was humiliating enough, I dare say, for a proud, plucky 
 Churchman, like Abbot Somerset, to thus knock under. But he 
 could not help himself. The times and intelligence were against 
 him. The same old battle of civil freedom against sacerdotal 
 assumption has been often since fought with varying effect and in 
 diflerent tempers ; but let us drink a health to the stout Bristol 
 Mayor, who was amongst the first to take a fall out of a powerful 
 priest, and have the best in a stand-up contest with monks and 
 monkery. 
 
 THE LAST OF THE ABBOTS. 
 
 Morgan Guilliam, ap Guilliam, elected 1537, being the last Abbot ; he 
 surrendered his monastery into King Henry VIII. 's hands the 9th of 
 December, 1539, and obtained a pension of 80 per annum for life. In 
 Fuller and Speed's History he is charged with keeping six lewd women, 
 hut it is thought without very good evidence. These and worse crimes 
 were imputed to the Monks, as a strong and plausible excuse for 
 dissolving their houses. The following account appears entered in the 
 book of pensions on the date of the King's commission, which has this 
 entry, dated December 9th, 31st Henry VIII., 1539 
 
 First. To Morgan Guilliam, late Abbot there, with the mansion place 
 of Lee [that is Abbot's Leigh], the garden, orchard, and dove house 
 to the same adjoining and yielding ; and also 2U loads of fyer wood 
 yearly, to be perceyved and taken out of the wood of the same 
 manor by the assignment of the King's Highness's surveyor or 
 
 1 Dean Elliot, a specimen in younger days of a fine muscular Churchman.
 
 keeper there, during his life, without anything yielding or paying 
 lor the same ... ... . ... 80 
 
 Item to Humfrey Hicman, late Prior there 
 
 John Restal 
 
 John Careve 
 
 Nicholas Corbett 
 
 Henry Pavye 
 
 William Wrington 
 
 William Underwood 
 
 Richard Hill 
 
 Richard Orrell ... 
 
 Richard Sterley ... 
 
 Richard Hughes... 
 
 Sum 
 
 
 
 8 
 6 13 
 6 13 
 6 
 
 ...151 6 8 
 
 Dull and dreary dawned the December morning over the ancient 
 house of St. Augustine, for this was to be the day of its dissolution. 
 Before noon its brotherhood were to be dispersed upon the world, 
 and to turn their backs for ever on groined roofs and Gothic walla 
 which had afforded shelter for centuries to a religious fraternity. 
 The whole abbey wore the appearance of its impending doom. No 
 grateful odour proceeded from the great kitchen ; the buttery- 
 hatch was opened for the last time to admit their meagre breakfast ; 
 the refectory was cold, and the wood-fire in its spacious hearth, 
 was quenched ; the almoner's place was empty, though one poor 
 pilgrim, uninformed of the fact, had attended for his dole ; the 
 dormitory no longer presented its orderly appearance, but was 
 strewed with scrip and sac in which the brotherhood had put away 
 their few articles of apparel previous to departure, while over court 
 and cloister reign jd an air of silence and sadness, which was quite 
 depressing. Nevertheless, the brotherhood were in their choir. It 
 was the last tiire their voices were to be raised together in prayer 
 under the cope of their ancient church, and never before perhaps 
 was there a morning service in that place whereat there was so 
 much of feeling and of touching reverence. Every heart was 
 subdued and every voice affected by the impression that they were 
 then worshipping for the last time within those old walls, and there 
 was a plaintive and tremulous pathos in every tone as the solemn 
 melody of the " Veni Creator Spiritus" rose from that little con- 
 gregation. They had been dominant and over-bearing and 
 irreverent at times in their prosperity and power ; but now all 
 subdued and humbled in their adversity, there was something of 
 heroic and holy submission to the will of Heaven and the hand of 
 Man in their resignation, which seemed to gild the last hour of 
 their brotherhood, and disarm that exultation which one might 
 otherwise feel in their doom. 
 
 The service ended silently and sorrowfully the brotherhood filed 
 from the choir, each turning to take a last look of the familiar 
 retrospect of pillar and aisle and arch, as he passed out at the 
 southern portal which led to the domestic offices. 
 
 At noon, with scrip and sack buckled on their shoulders, and 
 prepared each for his own road, the brotherhood awaited in the 
 cloisters the arrival of the commissioners into whose hands the 
 Abbot was to deliver up the keys of the abbey, its possessions and 
 appurtenances. Nor had they to bide long the King's servants
 
 24 
 
 made their appearance while the abbey bell was still tolling the 
 appointed hour. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the Abbot, with a melancholy dignity which 
 seemed to suit the occasion, " into your hands, as the commissioners 
 of my liege Lord the King, I deliver these keys. This is the last 
 official act and deed of Morgan Gwilliam ap Gwilliam, the last 
 Abbot of St Augustine's. You have my benediction and my 
 forgiveness, though you might have permitted an old man to lay 
 down his mitre from a brow unstigmatised by scandal ! '' 
 
 As the retiring brotherhood passed out through the great gate- 
 way, a crowd had collected to witness their departure ; but no 
 expression of obloquy or commiseration escaped trom their lips ; 
 silently and almost sadly they saw them pass, or bowed their heads 
 as the old Abbot motioned his benediction towards them. The 
 spectators watched them till they were out of view, and then were 
 about to disperse, when a grave man amongst those nearest to the 
 giteway. said, still looking in the direction the monks had taken, 
 " Farewell, fosterers of a false system ! The day is gloomy, and 
 there is that to excite pity in the breaking up of an old house, and 
 the desolation and solitude which even now seem to settle on these 
 ancient walls ; but this dark day is after all but the dawn of a new 
 and noble intelligence, and these altars are only quenched for a 
 moment to be relumed with a purer and a brighter flame." 
 
 The speaker delivered these words with a prophetic confidence, 
 and his speech was listened to by those around with the same 
 serious silence as that with which they had seen the monks depart. 
 
 The Abbot alone, of all the brotherhood, rode. At a short 
 distance from the abbey, and removed from view, they took an 
 affecting leave of one another, and then dispersed each to his own 
 destination. Abbot Gwilliam took the road to Leigh, the retire- 
 ment allotted to him by the King's commissioners. From the top 
 of Itownham Hill, overlooking the ferry, he paused to glance back 
 on the Old Abbey precincts, when suddenly he heard its well 
 known peal break out in merry chimes. It was the celebration, and 
 he knew it, of their expulsion. He did not wait to listen longer, 
 and turned not again until the mansion place of Lee, its orchard, 
 garden, and dove-cot broke upon his view. And in this quaint 
 retirement the last of the Abbots of St. Augustine " fell asleep," 
 about a year subsequently to the suppression of his house ; and 
 with him ended the local order, as it does " The Chronicles, of the 
 Black Canons of St. Victor."
 
 Csnpges* TOc anfr t|e (fclfeir. 
 
 [Thomas Norton, the alchymist, was born at Bristol, and was amongst the 
 men of note in Edward the Fourth's time. Fuller in his " Worthies," 
 says of this Thumas Norton, " that he boasted himself to be so great a 
 proficient in chemistry, that he learned it to perfection in 40 days, when 
 he was twenty-eight years old, and complaineth that a merchant s wife 
 in Bristol stoie from him the Elixir of Health, suspected to be the wife 
 of William Cannings, of Bristol (contemporary with Norton) who 
 started up into such great wealth and so suddenly, the clearest evidence 
 of this conjecture." It is said that Norton, in his foolish and infatuated 
 pursuit of the Philosopher's stone, ruined himself and those who trusted 
 him with their money, and died in poverty in 1477. 
 
 For the retirement of William Canynges, the completer, if not 
 the founder of Redcliff Church, a curious reason is assigned in the 
 Kecords of Bristol namely, that he took upon himself the profes- 
 sion of the priesthood to avoid taking a second wife, which King 
 Edward the Fourth would have fain compelled him to do. 
 
 I should be sorry wantonly to destroy or dissipate the beautiful 
 romance which hangs over this passage in the history of the peerless 
 Canynges, and which is a precedent as it stands to all widowers. 
 To espouse a monastic life rather than enter on a second marriage 
 merely from the love he bore the memory of his first affianced, is a 
 degree of conjugal devotion we never witness in these days. Truth 
 must, nevertheless, be told ; and I have it from a MS. under the 
 fist of the famous Tom Rowley, that it was not so much love for his 
 first wife as fear of a second, that made Master Canynges fly for 
 refuge to the friendly sanctuary of Westbury College. 
 
 In fact, the first Mistress Canynges was of so quick a temper, 
 and led her husband a life of such domestic unrest, that there was 
 nothing he more dreaded than getting another of the same nature 
 and tendency, and he willingly surrendered the gain and ambition 
 of a merchant's lite and the excitement of civic honours, and entered 
 into a convent sooner than run a second risk. 
 
 In the recorded list of the great merchant's ships, there is one 
 called the Mary Canynges, of 400 tons, named after his wife, and 
 another, the Mary Batt, of 220, named after a young lady who was 
 his first love, but refused his first, and, unfortunately, his only 
 offer. This was a circumstance known but to Canynges and the 
 maiden herself, but both lived to regret a rupture caused by 
 coquetry on the one hand, and precipitancy on the other. In 
 saying "no" to the first proposition of the rich merchant, Mistress 
 Batt fully expected he would have given her another opportunity 
 of saying " yes " to his second, as her negative was only meant to 
 punish what she thought too apparent a confidence on his part. 
 She liked him, but fancied he relied too much on his riches in 
 paying his addresses, and she wished, as the saying is, " to take him
 
 26 
 
 down a peg." He, however, was unfortunately only too prompt in 
 taking " no " for answer. He had no notion that his addresses 
 would be so received ; his pride was hurt, and, in his surprise and 
 mortification, he did that which many do, and most regret offered 
 for another, and was accepted. 
 
 If his object were to mortify Mistress Batt, he succeeded ; and 
 perhaps the young lady deserved it for her foolishness : but the 
 unfortunate part of it was that, in punishing her he punished 
 himself also. She lost a good husband, and he got a quick-tempered 
 wife a brief history, from which a moral may be drawn a 
 warning to young ladies not to say " no " when they don't mean 
 it, and to young gentlemen not to be above trying again ; for two 
 negatives, in affairs of the heart, as in English, sometimes lead to 
 an affirmative. 
 
 William Canynges was not long married before he made two 
 discoveries neither of them very satisfactory namely, that had 
 he asked Mistress Batt a second time she would have had him, and 
 that it would have greatly conduced to his comfort had he never 
 asked his present wife even once. Amongst other qualifications, 
 Mrs. Canynges might be called a blue-stocking or anything syn- 
 onymous to a term unknown in her time. She did not, it is trite, 
 spend all her days devouring three-volume novels, because there 
 were no novels in her days to devour, but those which went with 
 the pandects of Justinian, and were too tough for a lady's taste ; 
 but she was a devout believer and amateur in alchymy, a science at 
 that period earnestly studied and ardently believed in by numbers. 
 
 As if to feed this infatuation, not far from Canynges' house lived 
 Thomas Norton, who had a name all over the city for rare subtlety 
 in such matters, and was frequently a visitor at the house of his 
 rich neighbour, who took pleasure in his company, not on account of 
 his alchymy but for his general intelligence. Norton, unlike many 
 of the quacks of the crucible in his time, believed what he taught : 
 and, such was his enthusiasm, that at moments he almost succeeded 
 in infecting Canynges with a credulity in the alkahest or universal 
 menstruum, the universal solvent, the philosopher's stone, or the 
 elixir of life. Indeed, he so far prevailed upon the sound-headed 
 merchant as to induce him to lend him money to enable him to carry 
 out his experiments. And let us not wonder at this : for how many 
 so-called sensible men have, in our own days, advanced their hard- 
 earned savings, the painful accumulations of an age of industry, on 
 projects hardly more sane or less illusory than the philosopher's 
 stone. A man might, with as much pretence to common sense, 
 have believed in the universal solvent as in the universal solvency 
 of the railway schemes and bubble companies that crowded the 
 kingdom in the course of '45. 
 
 Nevertheless, William Canynges grew rich : and as he grew rich 
 rose in beauty the structure of St. Mary Redcliff. The citizens, 
 who knew of his intimacy with Thomas Norton, said it was all 
 attributable to the alchymist that he waxed affluent so fast, and some 
 kindly hinted that he only built the church to conceal his commerce 
 with the devil. Thomas Norton, in the meantime, throve by the 
 illusion, for people thought that if he could communicate the golden
 
 27 
 
 secret to Master Canynges, he could communicate it to them, and 
 paid him accordingly. 
 
 " You grow wea.thy as a Prince, good Master Canynges," said 
 his next richest and most envious neighbour, one morning accosting 
 him on Redcliff Wharf. "Is it true that you have discovered the 
 grand secret ?" " Yes," was Canynges' quick reply; "the grand 
 secret of growing rich is to he honest, to he industrious, and avoid 
 envy, and, ahove all, to give to God a portion of your gains. Look 
 yonder," said he, and he pointed to the rising fabric of St. Mary 
 Redcliff, around whose scaffolded walls hundreds of workmen were 
 employed as busily as a hive of bees. " Every stone in that has 
 been to me a philosopher's stone, and with every course of masonry 
 in that fabric have risen my fortunes. The blessing of Heaven is 
 the grand secret, and the blessing of Heaven will only rest upon 
 him who does his duty upon earth. If you would be rich then, as 
 I am, trouble not your head with dreams of alchymy, but go and do 
 likewise ; build, repair, or restore a church, and you will be sure to 
 find the philosopher's stone amongst the materials of your pious 
 munificence! " 
 
 Such was the speech of the great and generous merchant of St. 
 Mary Redcliff. It was lately found in the muniment chest of the 
 church, having escaped the research of Chatterton, and is about 
 being published for general circulation by the Canynges' Society. 
 
 While the good merchant was engaged in his great work of 
 church building, his wife was not less intent on alchymy : not being 
 content with merely listening to the heated recitals of Norton, but 
 frequently following him to his laboratory, where amid the works 
 of Geber, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and 
 others, he toiled and toiled in the vain effort of discovering the 
 elixir. It was this secret that inflamed the curiosity and cupidity 
 of Mistress Canynges. The wealth of her husband left nothing to 
 desire in the shape of gold, and there was nothing that gold could 
 purchase for her, but a good temper, that he did not buy. The 
 philosopher's stone was, therefore, to her an object of secondary 
 interest ; it was the elixir that was to keep age and disease away 
 that she so earnestly desired, and it was upon this Thomas Norton 
 was most earnestly intent. He would, therefore, have willingly 
 dispensed with her company, as he had no wish to share the secret 
 with her ; but the wife of his rich patron was not to be dis- 
 courteously treated, even though wicked people spoke maliciously, 
 and wags talked of " the horns of the altar" the rich merchant was 
 raising. 
 
 Norton's notion of the elixir was to find out all the specifics that 
 were known, thinking that if a specific could be found for every 
 disease a compound of them all would prove a specific for the cure 
 of all diseases, not knowing or thinking that there were many 
 ingredients of which the character or virtues are neutralized or de- 
 stroyed by composition. Nevertheless, he laboured on, and Mistress 
 Canynges was more than ever the companion of his labours, until 
 at length he announced the completion of his great work, and 
 emptied into a bottle his precious elixir ! 
 
 Brief was his triumph, however, for on visiting his laboratory
 
 28 
 
 next morning it was gone. He immediately rushed to his neigh- 
 bour's, and charged Mistress Canynges with being the purloiner of 
 the super-precious discovery. She alone knew where it was she 
 had been with himself the last in the laboratory. But Mistress 
 Canynges having had the resolution to commit the theft, had the 
 fortitude to keep her own secret . 
 
 Much as the ill-fated Norton and his fellow-citizens lamented 
 the loss of this rich treasure at the critical moment of its completion, 
 poor Master Canynges, if he did not deplore the course events had 
 taken, was most to be pitied in the matter. Many a time, when his 
 wife's temper appeared intolerable, did he console himself with the 
 hardly confessed thought that she could not live for ever, and 
 might afford him an opportunity of carrying out his favourite 
 fancy of a monastic retirement in the evening of life ; but if she 
 had now got possession of the Elixir there was no hope for him 
 she had an immortality of ill temper before her, to teaze him and a 
 hundred husbands more. 
 
 The works of St. Mary Redcliff are suspended the bells are 
 tolling from the unfinished tower, and William Canynges walks 
 chief mourner in a procession that paces slowly across the church- 
 yard. The elixir has failed to keep Mistress Canynges alive, and 
 hear the story of her death as told by two spectators who stood by 
 the south porch. 
 
 " Afraid, ' said one, " that he would not leave her money enough 
 to last out the long life she thought was before her. she tried to 
 induce her husband to abandon the great work of building this 
 church, that he might have the more to leave her. He refused for a 
 time, but there is no knowing how far her tears, temper, and 
 entreaties, might have succeeded, had not the excess of her passion 
 suddenly brought on a fit. She had recourse to her elixir : there 
 was the bottle, but St. Mary, whom she would have deprived of a 
 blessed fabric, had dried up the contents." 
 
 CANYNGE'S CHOICE. 
 A Story of Bristol in the time of Edward IV. 
 
 1466-7, This Mayor (William Cannings) having buried his wyfe, whom 
 he dearly loved, was moved by King Edward to marry another wyfe, 
 whom he had ordained ; but Mr Cannynge, as soon as he had discharged 
 his year of Mayoralty, to prevent it took on him the order of priesthood, 
 and sung his first mass on Whitsunday, at the Ladye Chappie at 
 Redcliffe, and was afterwards Dean of Westbury, which college by 
 Richard Duke of York and Edward Earl of Rutland was founded, and 
 a Dean and Canons placed therein." From a private Manuscript quoted 
 by Barrett. 
 
 ' 1466, To ROWLEY. Lyfe ys a sheelde where ne tyncture of joie or tene 
 haveth preheminence. Kynge Edwarde yesterdaie dyd feeste at mie 
 rudde house, goeynge ynne the boate uponne the tyde. Cannynge quod
 
 29 
 
 he, I haveth a wife for thee of noble bouse. Mie liege, quod I, I am 
 o"lde and need not a wyfe. Bie cure Ladie, quod be, you moste have 
 one. I saide ne more, bethynkynge ytt a jeste, butte I now unkeven 
 ytte ys a trouthe : come to mee and arede mee, for I wylle ne be wedded 
 for anie kynge, W. C." From the Rowley Manuscripts. 
 
 The gay, daring, splendid, but dissolute Edward, had been 
 staying in Bristol for two days, and the whole central city during 
 that period had been literally echoing and alive night and day with 
 banquetting and riot, the king and his courtiers being both equally 
 energetic in these dissipations. But on the morning from which this 
 sketch is drawn, the noise and festive rejoicing had in a great 
 measure converged to the Redcliff side of the river, as it was known 
 that the monarch meant that day to visit the Mayor, William 
 Canynge (then for the sixth time filling the curule chair of Bristol), 
 at his mansion, by the new and splendid church which remains to 
 this day a monument of its founder's munificence. 
 
 Edward held Court at the Castle, and it was announced to be his 
 intention to proceed by water to a point nearest to the Mayor's 
 residence at Redcliff, which he meant to honour with his presence 
 about noon. At an early hour the royal barge, splendidly decorated 
 with the regal arms and the white ross of York blazoned on a 
 gorgeous silk flag which fluttered from the stern, was seen moored 
 by the water-gate of the Castle, and close by were a number of 
 boats less splendid, though still of goodly show, meant to convey 
 his courtiers and guards. The good folks of Bristol were then as 
 now fond of a sight ; and as the river pageant was expected to be 
 " a brave and dainty one," to use the parlance of the times, the 
 banks all along at either side were occupied by crowds, amongst 
 whom might be seen substantial burghers and their well-dressed 
 wives and daughters, for full two hours before the time appointed 
 for the royal passage. 
 
 Noon had now arrived, but Edward still lingered in the Castle. 
 It was said that the fair Rodal was in the royal presence ; and as 
 his attendants knew it was not his humour to be disturbed when 
 such held audience, none cared to announce that the barge and 
 courtiers waited. At length the King came forth and entered the 
 royal boat, amidst the cheers that broke from the thousands piled 
 up on the banks at either side, and a burst of martial music, which 
 continued and kept time with the rowers as the pageant floated 
 down on the ebbing tide. 
 
 " Hastings," said Edward to that nobleman, who stood by the 
 monarch's seat in the barge, " is this Master Canynge, to whose 
 house we are now proceeding, married ? " 
 
 " He is a widower, sire," replied Hastings ; " though' his wealth 
 would be a dower for the fairest dame at Court." 
 
 " And from the Court he shall have a wife, by our Lady ! " 
 exclaimed the King. " We are just now in want of a husband for 
 one who grows troublesome : the fair Mistress Rodal waxes im- 
 portunate and inconvenient, and we have resolved to apportion her 
 to some loving spouse ; and here comes Master Canynge oppor- 
 tunely to our hand." 
 
 " But, sire, the Mistress Rodal's name, in connection with 
 gallantry and her gracious sovereign, is matter of some notoriety. 1 '
 
 30 
 
 " And if so," interrupted Edward, " is not a king's discarded 
 mistress a mate for a wealthy burgher, any day ?" 
 
 Hastings did not dispute the point, and in a few minutes more 
 the pageant arrived alongside the temporary wharf which had been 
 prepared for the King's reception at Kedcliff. Rich carpets were 
 strewn along the path to which Edward had to pass to his charger, 
 which was in waiting ; and as he rode from the river bank to the 
 Mayor's residence, the bells of St. Mary's then n structure 
 glistening in all the richness and glory of new carved freestone 
 rang merrily out, and the men of Redcliff made the welkin echo 
 with their cheers, as the tall and handsome form of Edward (by 
 whose side rode Canynge, bareheaded,) caught the eyes of the 
 admiring thousands. 
 
 Nor did the gala rejoicings cease when Edward, conducted by 
 Master Canynge to " his rude house," disappeared from the view 
 of those without ; for the peals kept up their music, the people 
 feasted by the liberality of the Mayor, and flags and streamers 
 floated, not merely from every point of the church, but from the 
 sharp gables and the bay windows of the houses on that side of 
 the Avon. 
 
 The banquet which Canynge had prepared for his sovereign was 
 worthy the wealth, state, and station of the entertainer ; and the 
 King and his courtiers seemed to enjoy it with all the wild and 
 hilarous temper of the times. Canynge, too, entered into the 
 excitement of the hour in what would be termed, in these days, a 
 boisterous spirit of hospitality. He challenged the courtiers and 
 the company to empty bumper after bumper to the royal health ; 
 and his voice was ever and anon heard calling to his attendants 
 to place fresh beakers of wine and confections on the board. 
 But there were moments when his eye caught sight of the church 
 yonder through the oriel window of the grand banqueting hall in 
 which they were, and then a sad melancholy cast of thought would 
 for a moment overshadow his face. It might seem to the casual 
 observer that the sight of that splendid and solemn pile, raised by 
 his own piety to the service of Heaven, awakened in a heart, 
 naturally religious, feelings and emotions superior to the scene of 
 splendid riot in which they were then engaged. But had one gone 
 deeper into his thoughts, they would find that the recollection 
 of his beloved wife, who rested in " cold obstruction's apathy," 
 beneath the groined roof of that glorious fabric, it was that created 
 Canynge's momentary sadness in the midst of so murh festivity. 
 But these feelings were quickly mastered ; and so well did the 
 widower Mayor play the host, that it was night ere the King and 
 Court rose to depart ; and then Edward thanked his entertainer for 
 the brave and goodly feast and carouse he had given them. 
 
 Edward, aa he re-embarked to return to the Castle, commanded 
 Canynge to enter the royal barge with him a sign of kingly 
 favour to which he could not say nay. 
 
 As the barges glided along the river, a glare of torches, held by 
 innumerable hands on either bank, lit up the water with a thousand 
 reflections, and the music of the returning revellers sounded more 
 brilliant and louder than ever. Canynge's eye, however, turned
 
 31 
 
 to the splendid church of St. Mary, which looked down upon them 
 in solemn tranquillity from the eminence on their right. The moon 
 hathed it, spire and battlement and pointed porch, with a soft light, 
 and it really seemed, in its holy beauty and mellowed majesty, to, 
 as it were, rebuke the evanescent frivolity and fleeting character of 
 the royal pageant. 
 
 So at least it appeared to the reflecting and serious-minded 
 Canynge, whose thoughts now passed from the royal barge and the 
 royal revellers, and the glancing torches, and the music and the 
 cheering on the banks, to the interior of that solemn pile and to the 
 canopied recess upon which the moonbeams, streaming in through 
 the deep mullioned windows, were now resting, and which contained 
 the remains of all that he held dear the first love and only wife of 
 his heart. From the church his eyes turned to the calm night sky 
 and stars above him, and associating the spirit of her whom he had 
 lost with the pure lights that shone serenely above him, his feelings 
 involuntarily relieved themselves in a deep sigh. 
 
 The King heard it. " What ! sad-hearted after such a day, 
 Master Canynge," exclaimed the dissolute Edward, in a tone of 
 noisy badinage ; " thou must marry, and I have a wife for thee of 
 noble house. It suiteth not thee to be alone, and one of our brave 
 Court dames will make thee sing instead of sigh.' 1 
 
 The King could not have chosen a moment when his words would 
 have more jarred upon Canynge's feelings. What ! take a fine 
 lady from a aissolute Court to supply the place in his heart which 
 the very recollection of his sainted Mary, like a holy shadow, still 
 filled. " My Liege," said he, in a tone of deep melancholy, " 1 am 
 old, and need not a wife ; I have been before mated, my Liege, and 
 the memory of her whom I have lost will suffice to fill this poor 
 heart until we meet in Heaven " 
 
 Edward paused, as if touched all thoughtless though he was 
 with the solemn and mournful tone of the speaker. However, the 
 recollection of Mistress Rodal, whom he had to provide with a 
 husband, recurred to his mind, and Edward added in a voice which, 
 coupled with the knowledge that the King was an imperious match- 
 maker, alarmed Canynge, " By our lady, Master Canynge, but 
 you must have one. If thou dost not know what is good for thee, 
 we do." 
 
 Canynge saw it was necessary to parley with the gay tyrant ; 
 so affecting to defer to the King's judgment, he yet excused himself 
 from an immediate compliance, by pleading the cares of office. 
 
 "Then when thy year is out thou shalt wed," observed the King, 
 thinking he had gained his point. " As soon as ever," he added, 
 laughing, " thou dost doff those gold links around thy neck, thou 
 shalt don the pleasanter chains of Hymen." 
 
 The barge bad now reached the Castle, and Canynge, with a 
 fresh commendation from the King on his hospitality, and a joke 
 about his future young wife, was dismissed from further attendance. 
 
 " No ; Mary," exclaimed the Bristol merchant, as returning home 
 full of sad thoughts, he paused by the still moonlight pile of 
 Kedcliff, "no second wife shall ever rest on this bosom where thy 
 sweet head has been so often pillowed no not for all the kings in
 
 34 
 
 same chimes broke out from many church towers to celebrate the 
 marriage of Bristol's first citizen ; and, as hand in hand he led 
 her from St. Mary's fane between the two lines of spectators and 
 neighbours that formed a lane from the south porch to the 
 churchyard gate, he heard with natural pride blessings breathe from 
 every lip on him and her. After years of happiness she followed 
 her children to the grave, and left him, a solitary man, to choose 
 between the cloister and an infamous marriage which a dissolute 
 King would have forced upon him. 
 
 In a tomb, in the south transept of the church where they were 
 both made one, the ashes of the faithful wife lay, and in that 
 tomb with her was buried all of earthly love or interest which the 
 merchant priest ever entertained. To that tomb, now that those 
 bells awoke in his heart the echoes of the marriage anniversary, his 
 thoughts turned ; and, oh ! what an interval of domestic happiness 
 and domestic incident lay between that long-removed wedding 
 morning and the present moment, when, having bid farewell to the 
 world, he stood, a widowed, childless priest, within the walls of a 
 Benedictine Convent. 
 
 Gaily and merrily, to a young bridal pair and company, as 
 marriage bells may sound, it is only in after years, when the bright 
 couple of the sunny morning, touched with grey, are descending 
 life's hill calmly together after intervening joys and trials, that 
 these chimes, sounding as of old, and accidentally breaking upon 
 the ear on the well remembered anniversary, have the touching 
 effect with which time and interposing circumstances can alone 
 invest them. What a host of events there were crowded in the 
 space that lay between the bridal morning, to which Canynges's 
 memory reverted, and that moment ! In the happy and profuse 
 household which he had given up for a monk's cell, and to which, 
 almost under the shadow of the great church he had brought home 
 his bride, two sons had been born to him, and the train of joyous 
 domestics made merry at their christenings. From that same 
 house he had three times gone forth a mourner, in after years, and 
 followed, first his sons, and then his wife to the grave. Had all 
 these whom death had taken from him been spared, had his house- 
 hold still remained unbroken, would his choice have been a convent, 
 and would he have turned his back upon the duties which, as a 
 father and a husband, he owed society and his family ? 
 
 This was a question which Canynges, in the reverie which those 
 anniversary chimes evoked, unconsciously asked himself. The 
 scene out upon which his eye glanced suggested an answer. 
 Beautiful as was the wooded landscape, the few objects of human 
 life in the village at his feet and the valley that stretched out 
 before him, which attracted his attention, spoke of want and 
 suffering, and vice and ignorance. The long wars of the Roses 
 that even then were not finished, had impoverished the land, had 
 called the tiller from the soil to follow the pennon of his lord ; and 
 instead of the peaceful shepherd's pipe, the blast of war had 
 been blown in every county. The one absorbing subject of that 
 exterminating feud had banished all ideas of paternal government 
 and prudent policy ; and while the embattled hosts of York and
 
 3.5 
 
 Lancaster were encountering each other, the peasantry and common 
 people were falling lack into barbarism, and feeling the acute 
 privation ever attendant y<on such a lawless state. From his 
 elevated promenade Cany:- b 'es could see for himself in the ill-tilled 
 field, the crumbling hovel, .ind the ragged half-starved rustic, the 
 signs of all this sad and sorrowful conflict ; and suddenly, as if 
 some momentary light flashed upon his mind, his conscience asked 
 him if he was doing his laty in flying within a convent walls, 
 when such a wid< ork lay outside them. He had already 
 
 said to himself, Ai ' ad his family survived they would have 
 claims upon him, whi ;a would have rendered his retirement im- 
 possible ; but was not there still the human family remaining, 
 with claims upon his and every Christian man's exertion ? And 
 he asked himself whether a life of usefulness consisted in exertion 
 for the physical and moral amelioration of the dwellers in those 
 hovels upon which he looked down, P ~d of the poor denizens in the 
 crowded lanes and alleys of the rich city in which he had made his 
 fortune, and to which he had bidden iarewell, or in a life of dreamy 
 inaction within convent walls, where the day's routine was only 
 varied by matins, and lauds, and compline. 
 
 Canynges felt uncomfortable under this self-questioning ; if he 
 did not stand convicted within himself of something like selfishness 
 in making choice of a dreamy and devotional ease, while from poverty 
 and sin and suffering and ignorance without there came the call for 
 benevolent action, and a field for untiring disinterested beneficent 
 work held out employment for him and for all, and seemed to invite 
 and beckon him away from his monastic privacy and inexertion. 
 
 As he was still debating these things most painfully in his 
 mind, his friend and confessor, Bishop Carpenter, the rebuilder of 
 "Wcstbury convent, whose name is so intimately associated with 
 that of the merchant prince and priest, approached Canynges 
 unobserved, and awoke him from his reverie by the question " What 
 mean these musings, brother ? "* 
 
 Canynges, without any reserve, communicated to his personal 
 confidant and spiritual director his thoughts and doubts. 
 
 " A device of the devil, brother," answered Carpenter, when the 
 other had opened his mind to him, " one of the traps which the 
 wily tempter has been setting for your soul. Satan fashions his 
 lures according to the dispositions and the tendencies of those upon 
 whom he would practise ; and while he holds out pleasure for lovers 
 of such, he would draw you back, my friend, into the world with 
 temptation in the guise of benevolence. To wile you once more 
 
 * At this time (1447) William Canynges was a prosperous merchant with 
 a large and still increasing income at his command ; and there can be no 
 doubt, from the close intimacy which for many years had existed between 
 him and his Confessor, the Bishop, th it he greatly assisted by his liberality 
 in the work of re-erection. The architectural peculiarities of Westbury 
 College, and much of its church, belong to the period to which these re- 
 marks refer ; and I presume that after the prelate had commenced the 
 buildings.his friend Canynges supplied him with ample funds for their com- 
 pletion In this way the names of both individuals are connected with the 
 College for the rirst time, both being regarded as the founders of the estab- 
 lishment by those who prefer the general statement of a fact to an investi- 
 gation of its truth, Pryce's Canynges Family.
 
 36 
 
 into the crowded streets, the "busy quays, the company of buyers 
 and sellers, the convivial feastings, the worldly throng and hurry 
 of yon great city, whose hum almost reaches us here, he knows it 
 will not do to hold out riches or pleasure to William Canynges ; 
 but he would deceive you in the form of an angel of light, and in 
 that form he beckons you to come down from these holy walls, to 
 turn your back upon the house of prayer and to go once more into 
 the world, under a pretence of benevolence and philanthropy. But 
 do not be deceived ; put the devil from you, though he accost you 
 with so fair a face. Stand behind me, Satan vade retro, Sathanas. 
 Amen." 
 
 " I am rebuked," said the merchant priest in a tone of humility ; 
 for proud and authoritative though he was as the great citizen, to 
 his spiritual director he was abjectly submissive. " I will go," he 
 said, "to my cell, and pray against temptation." 
 
 " Go, in nomine Dei," said the Bishop; and Canynges walked 
 slowly away, while Carpenter, with somewhat of a sinister 
 expression, followed the retiring form of the merchant-priest, as, 
 with drooped head he directed his steps to that part of the convent 
 which he occupied. 
 
 " Ha !" said the Bishop, " we must keep those practical notions 
 out of his head. The shrewd citizen and active layman sometimes 
 break through the priestly penitent ; and under that monk's 
 cassock beats at times again the heart of the man of business. Go 
 forth, forsooth, into the world ! to become a soother of physical 
 suffering, a social missionary, a sanitary preacher, and spend the 
 inheritance of the church elsewhere a scanty account of his 
 benefactions poor Westbury Convent would then have to record. 
 He has helped me to raise these battlements and he shall help me 
 to endow them. I have set my heart upon it, and William 
 Canynges shall escape from this house only when, with torch and 
 chaunt, we bear his body across the neighbouring Down to his 
 resting-place within the walls of Bristol, and under the vaulted 
 cope of Redcliffe. No, no ; the Church cannot part with him to 
 society. Tae Church has its business, let trie world attend to its 
 own affairs and reforms. ' Let the dead bury the dead.' " * 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 But a few years after the scene above described, and as a dim 
 November day, A..D. 1474, was darkening into night, William 
 Canynges, stretched on a pallet, in a cell at Westbury, was 
 " enacting that great event" through which we shall all have to 
 pass. At his bedside stood his friend and confessor, Bishop 
 Carpenter, feeble with years, comforting the dying merchant- 
 priest in accents so low and faltering, that they plainly said the 
 
 * Mendicant friars benefited by Canynges' death, as they had done 
 during his life ; but to the really deserving poor he bequeathed little to 
 command a blessing. His benevolence reached the latter through his 
 almoner ; but the former were the objects of his own personal care, for 
 they kept his conscience, <tnd ministered to the supposed security of his 
 soul. By them he was pompously buried because he paid them well to 
 do it, and they panegyrised him afterwards in proportion to the value of 
 his bequests. Pryce.
 
 37 
 
 confessor would not long remain behind the penitent. The 
 deepening twilight struggled through the window ; and on a little 
 bracket stood a hand-lamp that flickered its ray across the pale, 
 thin, resigned, hut feeble features of the dying dean. Now and 
 again his eyes opened languidly, and closed again, and his lips 
 moved, as though they would join the muttered prayers of the 
 Bishop by his side. At length the eyes closed and the lips did not 
 move for some minutes, and the Bishop stooped his cheek close to 
 the nostrils of his friend, to see whether he still breathed. Faintly 
 the almost cold breath told that life still remained, and Carpenter 
 paused in his devotions for a while, when Canynges, with something 
 more of animation than he had shown during the day, suddenly 
 opened his eyes, with a surprised look, as though he wondered to 
 find himself still in this upper world. 
 
 " In this brief trance or sleep," said he, " T have been down to 
 the verge of the dark valley, whereon rests the shadow of death ; 
 and as these eyes looked into that dim passage, which my spirit 
 will presently have to traverse, I thought I met at the vestibule of 
 the gloomy way one who asked me what 1 had left behind me in 
 the world I was quitting to make my brother man remember me 
 as a benefactor and a brother ; and the thoughts of that 
 conversation which we had on the sunny morning when I told you 
 of the inward call I thought I had to work without rather than 
 ponder and pray within, recurred ; and then I recollected what I 
 had done for this College and St Mary's fane in yonder city, and 
 comforted myself to think that, when centuries had passed, those 
 aisles would still resound with offices and obiit for me. But the 
 Questioner said to me, ' Do not build upon this, for, ere another 
 hundred years roll by. mass, and cbiit, and office will be no longer 
 heard within those walls, which, nevertheless, you have done well 
 in raising ; since, for centuries to come, God, who is a Spirit, will 
 he worshipped in spirit and in truth within them, and the name of 
 William Canynges be preserved by an enlightened people, and 
 not by a venal priesthood.' " The penitent again closed his eyes, 
 as closed the day, and with night commenced the passage of his 
 spirit through the dark valley. 
 
 Two fair churches still stand to keep the merchant-priest in our 
 memory ; and had not his confessor interrupted his reverie on that 
 summer morning, perhaps Bristol would now have to connect his 
 name, like that of Coluton, with some noble charity, and the 7th, 
 like the 13th of November, be one of Bristol's great anniversaries. 
 But the priests got the submissive penitent into their hands, and 
 thus not a single charity, deserving the name of such, remains 
 through the benevolence of him who was five times Chief 
 Magistrate of the city where he made a fortune, and in whoaa 
 middle age he formed so prominent a figure. * 
 
 * The motives which prompted Canynges' retreat may be fairly illus- 
 trated by a letter of Sir Hugh Fenn. who was Canynges' contemporary, 
 and who wrote to Sir John Faatolf praying that certain law business of 
 his might he concluded, that he might " have the better leisure to dispose 
 himself godly, and beset his lands and goods to the pleasure of God and 
 the weal of his soul, that all men may say he died a wise iiiua and, a
 
 at lekltl 
 
 In one of the windows' of the north transept (Saint Mary Redcliff ) are 
 some fragments of ancient stained glass, which appear nearly coeval 
 with the Church. On one piece six women in a boat are represented, 
 possibly alluding to a particular event connected with the Church or 
 Parish. Descriptive History of Rristol. 
 
 1551. The pestilence [the sweating plague or sickness] reigned in the city 
 of Bristol very sore for the time it lasted ; for it swept away many 
 hundreds every week : the which endured from Easter until Michael- 
 mas. Outlines of Bristol History. 
 
 Amongst the religious houses in Bristol suppressed at the time of the 
 Reformation wa* the convent of Saint Mary Magdalene, which occupied 
 the site of the King David Inn and adjoining prernisf s, St. Michael's- 
 hill The foundress of it was Eva, niece of William the Conqueror. 
 The last Prioress of it was Eleanor Graunte. 
 
 It was a fine bright April day, in the year 1551 ; yet a gloom 
 pervaded the citizens of Bristol. This feeling of depression was 
 most observable in the neighbourhood of the Bridge, which was 
 then covered with houses with a Mariner's Chapel in the centre. 
 This Chapel was crowded with worshippers on the morning in 
 question ; for although the Roman Catholic religion was no longer 
 that of the realm, the instinct of the people, as in former times, 
 was to fly to the nearest altars when any calamity occurred. 
 Indeed, the Reformed Faith could hardly yet bo said in reality to 
 be established in the minds of the masses, as any one would have 
 said who entered the Mariner's Chapel on this occasion, and saw 
 the worshippers mingling old and new forms in their devotions. 
 But those devotions, of however composite a character, were 
 sincere ; as most people are sincere in their prayers when danger 
 is at hand and affliction has befallen them. 
 
 In the present instance the dreaded plague which had caused 
 such death and mourning in other places had appeared amongst 
 them. Two cases of that awful malady had occurred that very 
 morning in Redcliff-strcet, not far from Redcliff gate. They were 
 both fatal, and already there was a manifest reluctance and fear on 
 the part of the inhabitants of the northern side of the city to cross 
 the Bridge towards the quarter where the pestilence had shown 
 itself. For this reason, though the Mariner's Chapel was thronged, 
 it was almost wholly by the dwellers on the Bridge, and from 
 Thomas and Redcliff-streets ; as the citizens on the north bank of 
 the river, cherishing the popular impression that running water 
 was a preventative against the passage of infectious disease, hoped 
 they would still be safe if they could avoid contact with the people 
 in the infected quarter. During the day several other cases, all in 
 
 worshipful." From such simple inducements we believe that Canynges 
 withdrew himself from the little world in which his lot was cast, to the 
 lesser and stiller world of the cloister, and there, in the spirit of the 
 beautiful adage that " repose is the milk of old age," we may picture that 
 he dozed and dreamed till, in the expressive phraseology of his time, his 
 spirit passed a placid exhalation into the deeps of eternity. Lucas's 
 Illustration of the History of Bristol.
 
 39 
 
 Redcliff-street, occurred, so that public terror becoming greater and 
 greater as the hours passed, the Magistrates, to appease the growing 
 panic in the centre of the city, consented to place a guard on the 
 Bridge to prevent intercourse between the two quarters. 
 
 Still the pestilence rtged, but for some time it was confined to 
 the Somersetshire side of the town. The country people as usual 
 kept aloof from the infected district, so that the unhappy Redcliff 
 folks not only suffered from the terrible malady, but from the want 
 of fresh vegetables and other provisions, for which they depended 
 on the farmers and peasantry, none being disposed to run the risk 
 of contagion by carrying these things across the Bridge, even for 
 the sake of higher prices. 
 
 A few years before this, in the previous reign, when the ancient 
 religious houses, conventual and monastic, were dissolved by Henry 
 VIII., the Nunnery of St. Mary Magdalene, on St. Michael' s-hill, 
 shared the fate of the rest. At the time of its suppression there 
 was not a very large number in the establishment. The elder ones 
 for the most part retired to France, while six of the younger 
 sisters, chiefly the daughters of Bristol merchants, determined to 
 live together in their native city in privacy and devotion. Strongly 
 attached to their own faith they mourned over its fall, and the hard 
 fortune that had come to their institution. This was an active 
 controversial period ; theological disputes were rife all around, and 
 it was hard to avoid joining in them. Even the six retired nuns 
 were tempted through curiosity to read some of the Essays put 
 forth by the disputants. One of the printed brochures bore upon 
 their own case. It was called " Nuns do not serve God by shutting 
 themselves up from serving society." The ground taken was that 
 while work was to be done, the poor to be looked after, and the sick 
 to be succoured, those who had health and strength, and who 
 immured themselves in a convent, doing nothing for their afflicted 
 neighbours, were neglecting the work which God had meant them 
 to do. One of the six was of a more thoughtful and inquiring 
 mind than the others ; and the arguments put forth in the pamphlet 
 carried conviction with them. She, as it were, felt that the 
 sisterhood had been all these years living under a mistake had 
 neglected their true mission so that the fourth morning after the 
 breaking out of the plague in Redcliff parish she proposed to the 
 other five, who with her inhabited a house within a walled garden 
 in Baldwin-street, that they should go over and assist the poor 
 plague-stricken people of Redcliff. At first her proposition was 
 met with surprise almost amounting to horror ; it was so opposed 
 to their secluded habits. Since they had taken the veil none of 
 them had mixed in the world's business or gone abroad amongst the 
 habitations of men ; but the arguments and entreaties of their more 
 energetic sister prevailed, and woke up in them that wish which is 
 to be found (often, it is true, slumbering, but still existing) in most 
 persons who are not radically bad, to be doing something that is 
 not selfish to be up and discharging at some time of their life 
 their duty to God and their neighbour. 
 
 The obstacles which still remained to the free passage across the 
 Bridge would be an impediment to the charitable purpose of
 
 40 
 
 carrying vegetable provisions and medicine from the centre of the 
 city. The citizens on the north side of the Avon might object to 
 their going to and fro, lest they should carry the infection with 
 them. The ground opposite Redcliff-backs, now occupied by 
 Queen-square and the Grove, was then known as the Marsh (Marsh- 
 street preserves for us the tradition), as the tide at certain seasons 
 used to rise and partially cover it. It was at all events uninhabited. 
 So here, in an old shed, the nuns established a depot for food and 
 clothes, and other things the charitable might give them, and hiring 
 a boat they passed over to, or returned from, the infected quarter 
 as often as they had need, working the little craft themselves, as no 
 boatman cared to commit himself to the perilous labour. This 
 arrangement was the best for many reasons. It afforded the nuns 
 that comparative privacy which their former habits made it at first 
 rather difficult for them to break through ; while it rendered those 
 who brought them help less reluctant to approach them, on account 
 of the popular notion that the passage across the river in some 
 deerree purified them from the infection. 
 
 Thus for a fortnight, during which the plague was kept, or kept 
 itself, to th^ Eedcliff quarter, the good Magdalenes were of the 
 greatest service. Their kindness, devotion and care were feH in 
 every street and court where the awful scourge prevailed. They 
 felt almost for the first time in their lives the luxury of doing good. 
 Now, indeed, they could not help feeling within themselves that 
 they were discharging far better the irission of Christian women 
 than when mewed in the shady cloisters on St. Michael's-hill, 
 they spent the day and night in barren mortifications or formal 
 services. Their courage and activity rose with their sense of 
 usefulness, and often in the deserted streets, where braziers of 
 charcoal and pitch burned all day and night to purify the infected 
 air. the only persons seen moving about were the six sisters, whose 
 praise was in every one's mouth. 
 
 At length the plague, which was not to be kept back by any 
 police regulations, showed itself on the other side of the city, too, 
 ard caused desolation within its walls until Michaelmas. The 
 Magdalene nuns now, therefore, guve themselves up to the work 
 generally, and organized bands of nurses, without any regard to 
 religious distinctions, a"l labouring with that Christian devotion 
 which never pauses to inquire the doctrines of those who are in 
 distress. But the strength of the Magdnlenes was over-taxed. 
 They fell one after the other in a nobler field than ever was occupied 
 by serried ranks, until just before Michaelmas the last and bravest 
 of the sisters succumbed to the pestilence. But though they had 
 fallen they were not forgotten. The following year a new painted 
 window was being placed in the north transept of St. Mary Redcliff, 
 and the parishioners, to show their grateful sense of the good sisters 
 who so kindly came to their aid in their distress, commemorated 
 the charitable heroism of the six nuns by having thorn painted in 
 their boat, and on their benevolent mission from the Marsh. 
 
 I do not know whether the ancient piece of glass has been 
 removed in recent alterations, but ten years ago it was plain enough, 
 and frequency pointed out to the visitor to the church.
 
 foiiia fa h Mam : 
 
 A STORY OF OLD ALL SAINTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Rogers, in his " History of the Callendars," enlarges a tradition, 
 which, it would seem, he found amongst the old papers of All Saints' 
 Church, and which is very briefly glanced at by another local 
 authority. Under any fonr, the story possesses romantic interest. 
 In Mr. Rogers's work, it is very evident his Own imagination is em- 
 ployed to fill up the legendary outlines which, as well as we can 
 collect them from the account, are given below : we may, however, 
 observe that they seem to refer to that delicate and debateable 
 period in the primitive history of the Catholic Church in England, 
 when the Pope of Rome was insidiously but successfully pushing 
 his authority over the Anglican Establishment, which, in the earlier 
 period of its history, he did not possess. Amongst other innova- 
 tions which the foreign Pontiff introduced was a prohibition, or at 
 first at least a strong discouragement, of married priests. We need 
 hardly state that, down to a certain time, the Catholic sacerdotal 
 office in England did not necessitate celibacy ; it was the policy, 
 however, of Rome to make the priests in this land more entirely 
 the servants of the Papal see, by leaving them no ties as husbands 
 and fathers, and therefore allowing them to have no great interest, 
 as ordinary citizens, in the Stute in which they lived. It took some 
 time and the exercise of a great deal of authority on the part of 
 Rome to work out this great change. Those of the priests who 
 were married did not like the slur which the new order of things 
 cast upon their condition, while m my of the younger men in holy 
 orders, several of whom perhaps had formed attachments if not 
 engagements, saw with annoyance a bar raised between them and 
 the domestic happiness to which they aspired. Thus there was at 
 first a good deal of difficulty in carrying out the rule of celibacy. 
 The superior and unmarried clergy urged and, where they could, 
 enforced the rule ; but for a time several of the young men, coun- 
 tenanced by the parish priests who were married, defied the Papal 
 injunction and took wives as previously, thus offending the stricter 
 advocates of the Pope's supremacy. The contest, however, was 
 comparatively short-lived, find in the end Rome, as we know, 
 carried implicitly the rule of celibncy. 
 
 As we said, it must have been during the period of the married 
 and single controversy that Vho incident of Cecilia de la Warre 
 and the Archdeacon of Llandaff (preserved, it would seem from Mr. 
 Rogers's book, amongst the chronicles of All Saints, Bristol) took 
 place. Cecilia, as well as we can gather, came of a high Bristol 
 family, whose property lay between Newgate and Broadmead ; and
 
 42 
 
 there, probably, the family residence also stood, just under the 
 shadow of the city walls. The Archdeacon of Llandaff was a young 
 priest, who had his early education amongst the Callendar 
 brothers, the Prior of which would seem to have been the friend 
 and confessor of Cecilia. Rogers introduces her to our notice as 
 calling one morning on the holy father, when he had retired for 
 study and meditation. " She was tall and beautiful," says the 
 historian of the Callendars, " and had not seen more than thirty 
 summers. Her hair was braided with a rich chaplet of diamonds 
 and pyoarls ; one long cluster of raven ringlets dropped over her 
 left shoulder.; her dress, though not studied, was of the most costly 
 character ; and she drew near rather as one accustomed to command, 
 than as a meek maiden about to seek the counsel of her spiritual 
 adviser. She presented a striking contrast to the simple, lowly, 
 and humble-minded sisters belonging to the priory. An acute ob- 
 server would have little difficulty in detecting in that bright eye 
 and curled lip a haughtiness of spirit that would ill brook being 
 thwarted. It was manifest, however, that on this occasion there 
 was some uncontrollable timidity mingled with her usual high 
 bearing ; one might have seen in her a laboured attempt at uncon- 
 cern, made by a mind deeply sensible that it was bent on doing 
 what was wrong." The purport of her business, it is further 
 intimated, was to consult him on the delicate subject of marriage, 
 which the Superior was only too happy to advise her upon, until 
 he learned that the young Archdeacon of Llandaff was the object 
 of her passion, and that their nuptials were actually determined 
 upon, and then the Prior lectured her severely on the scandal of 
 such a proceeding ; but Cecilia is said to have turned upon him like 
 a beautiful tigress, and defiantly told him the only thing she 
 thought she ought to be ashamed of was " stooping to consult the 
 poor dotard chief of a paltry brotherhood." 
 
 Though it is not very clear what her subsequent proceeding was, 
 we may presume that she carried out her threat. But that she did 
 not forget to pay off old scores with the Prior of the brotherhood of 
 the Calendars for opposing her passion, we may infer from a deed 
 which was preserved in tho archives of the church, at least in Mr. 
 Rogers's time, and which forbade the clergy to participate in any 
 of the property which she or her husband left behind to one 
 William de Novo Burgo. 
 
 This introduction will furnish the key to the following sketch. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Cecilia de la Warre was an heiress, and an heiress in those days 
 as in ours was an object of admiration. She might have been 
 married over and over again. She was handsome and rich. The 
 young merchant, as he went out for a walk in the neighbourhood of 
 Bristol, could not pass through Newgate or ^Elle Gate without 
 being reminded that the owner of those fertile crofts was still with- 
 out a husband ; and though the distinction between burghers and 
 the gentry in that day forbade the former aspiring to matrimonial 
 connections with tho latter, there were plenty of young gallants of 
 the aristocracy who would be only too happy to share the heart and
 
 43 
 
 lands of the heiress of the De la "Warres. You may he sure that 
 she never wanted a young squire to attend her through tho streets, 
 to wait upon her at the jousts and sports, to he her partner in the 
 dance, or kneel next her pries dieu at mass. But somehow none of 
 those made an impression upon her. Tilt, or ride, or shoot 
 as well at the hutts as they might, they awoke no tender passion 
 in her, and when any of them, deeply impressed with their own 
 eligibility, ventured to offer her their hands, they received a very 
 plain arid mortifying answer that they were not wanted ; for Cecilia 
 de la Warre was "a headlong, headstrong, downright she," and 
 spoke her mind plainly. 
 
 " What can she mean?" said the city gossips ; "if she ever in- 
 tends to marry, it is time she thought seriously of it ; " and then 
 they proceeded to count up her years on their fingers. One old 
 lady remembered when Cecilia's father and mother were married, 
 another had a distinct recollection when Cecilia herself was horn ; 
 and as female chronology, when applied to other people, never 
 under-rates ages, they made hers already exceed the third decade. 
 Now, for my part, I think the thirtieth year is as eligible a time 
 as any other for young ladies to get married. They have then, if 
 ever they mean to have, acquired all their wisdom and the contents 
 of the cookery book ; they have got decision of character to rear a 
 family and are skilled in preserves. However, there is a popular 
 impression that when Indies attain to thirty, if they have not by that 
 time possessed themselves of a husband, they should be prompt in 
 their acceptance of the first suitable oifer made them. It is a season, 
 too, when any jokes about being old maids, which marvellously 
 amuse girls of twenty, are no longer relished. But Cecilia seemed 
 to have none of those apprehensions or cares, and as everybody 
 knew she might at any moment throw her glove at a good match, 
 the gossips more than over repeated their question, " What can she 
 mean?" " .She will take the vow and the veil," said one. "She 
 will do nothing of the kind," said another. " She is not made of 
 the stuff to put under lock and key, and see only as much of men 
 and the world as may he viewed through a convent grating," said 
 a third. 
 
 " Yet she is always at All Saints'," said a fourth ; '' matins, 
 nones, lauds, and vespers ; you may go there any time and be sure 
 to find her on a rush-bottomed chair at the corner of the chancel." 
 
 This was quite true, and it set the good ladies wondering still more ; 
 for Cecilia, though so regular an attendant at church, was in other 
 respects no devotee. But the guess of a fifth gossip seemed to give 
 some clue to this apparent inconsistency on the part of the hand- 
 some heiress. 
 
 " I Jut did you notice," asked the interlocutor, " that the whole 
 month when Henry de Keynsham was not on duty and away at 
 Llandaff, that Cecilia hardly entered the Callendaries once a day ?" 
 When one good lady starts an interesting and exciting surmise of 
 this kind, it is astonishing with what avidity a roomful of gossips 
 will run after it, and not the less greedily because there happens to 
 he just the slightest tinge of scandal about it ; for though matrimony 
 was not then, quite impossible for priests, the question, as we before
 
 44 
 
 remarked, was in that uncertain and debateable state, that a 
 prudent or scrupulous young lady, who had not the original or 
 daring disposition of Cecilia de la Wane, would have avoided the 
 dilemma. But she was no ordinary woman, and Henry de 
 Keynsham was a handsome man and eloquent preacher, and both 
 were, in no small degree, superior to the prejudices of the times. 
 Still the priest was, of the two, the party most reluctant to face the 
 semi-scandal of the act ; and for this reason, though he saw plainly 
 enough Cecilia was in love with him', he refused to act upon the 
 many plain hints which she gave him. He never preached that 
 those large dark eyes were not looking at him in the pulpit ; he 
 never in the middle of the day sat down to read in the library that 
 Cecilia was not also seized with a studious fit ; for the Callendaries 
 library was open to the public quite as much as King-street in our 
 day. Then she always wanted his assistance to make clear some 
 passage, and as she held the tome before him, and stooped over his 
 shoulder to point him out the obscure sentence, her soft jet locks 
 touched his pale cheek, and both realised that glowing picture of 
 the poet 
 
 " A fair Corinthian maid, 
 
 Gracefully o'er some volume bending ; 
 
 While, by her side, the > outhful Sage 
 
 Held back her ring'e^s, lest, descending, 
 
 They should o'er-shadow all the page." 
 
 Nevertheless, Henry de Keynsham hesitated, and feared to act 
 upon the hint, though his colour came and went and his heart 
 beat as he felt her soft warm breath on his forehead. For, priest 
 though he was, he was flesh and blood and not stone. Ci cilia 
 sometimes quitted the library provoked with "the man's stupidity,'' 
 but relenting, she retraced her steps up the stcne staircase to bid 
 him to supper that evening, for she had a famous menage and kept 
 a good cook in the old family mansion in the green croft outside 
 the Newgate. Henry went and supped, but even the spiced wine 
 furnished from the old cellars of the De la Warres did not overcome 
 his reluctance to brave the unpopularity of the union, though the 
 priests' marriage was not strictly illegal : so Cecilia retired to rest, 
 and woke next morning more mortified and annoyed than ever. 
 Oh ! you young ladies who can cock your cap, without fear of the 
 Church's displeasure, at the handsome new curate, the soft tones of 
 whose first sermon are still ringing in your ears; and oh! you hand- 
 some young curates, who can accept a pretty face and a good fortune, 
 when both are within your reach, without any dread of being cited 
 before the Arches' Court do you not feel for the bitter perplexity 
 of these two young people, whom an ambitious, tyrannical old Pope 
 with his innovating injunctions to celibacy is keeping apart, when 
 they might be so happy together, and all the better members of 
 society and the Church, too, as witness onr worthy parson with his 
 dear little wife and interesting large family ? 
 
 Cecilia de la Warre, however, was not a woman to be stopped by 
 a Pontiff's order or a young man's shyness. I know nothing that 
 is more annoying to a young lady than for a gentleman, whom she 
 knows to be ia love with her, to be slow and shy in coming to the
 
 45 
 
 point ; for which freason I think there are cases in which the 
 institution of ' ' asking '' should be reversed, so that the dis- 
 crimination of the fair one, surmounting all mock modesty, should 
 aid the ingenuous gentleman in his distressing diffidence by a broad 
 hint. 
 
 Cecilia de la Warre practically came to the same conclusion. 
 She determined to tell the young clerk she loved him, and wished 
 to invest him with her heart and all her broad lands. It was a 
 hard necessity after all for a young lady : and did ever good 
 looking unmarried curate before require such a palpable reminder, 
 su.-h a leading question, from a handsome woman, when siuh a 
 woman had a good fortune ? However, having resolved, as she 
 mentally termed it, to take the plunge, she wisely made up her 
 mind to do it boldly, frankly outright, without any beating about 
 the bush or " making two bites of a cherry. ' " Heniy," she said 
 one evening as they walked side by side in the clipped yew-hedged 
 green alley, " so L must at last tell you what 1 have long showed 
 you and you ought to have saved me the trouble, to say notiiing of 
 the indelicacy, of telling you, that I love you, and am willing, nay 
 shall be happy, to marry you, and make you master of my heart 
 and all my estate !" 
 
 " But the Church's order of celibacy," replied the young clerk, 
 speaking as though he had been turning over the same thing in his 
 mind while they walked the yew alley, " the Church and the new 
 rule of celibacy." 
 
 Cecilia's eyes shot fire. " The Pope the Italian Bishop, you 
 mean, and not the Church forbids it. The Church did not forbid it 
 all these years that priesis have been marrying and been given in 
 marriage. The rule is an innovation, which ought to have been 
 indignantly spurned, and not tamely accepted. Surely, if I have 
 the courage to reject the despotic order, you, with your mind and 
 learning, should know how to despise it." 
 
 " But deprivation might follow upon my doing so." 
 
 " And let it : I have lands and property as rich and large as 
 those of your whole brotherhood ; and what is there in the office 
 of a priest to make you regret it or fear deprivation?" 
 
 "0 ! Cecilia," replied Henry, mournfully, " do not doubt that I 
 love you and ardently return your love, because I hesitate ; but it 
 there be nothing desirable in the office of a priest, to worldly pride 
 and worldly tastes there is a charm in that of the preacher. I 
 could retire for the love I bear you to live on herbs far from splendid 
 and unlettered ease ; but to resign my pulpit my pride that to 
 me would be (I confess) a sore deprivation. O you know not, Cecilia, 
 the throb of pleasure the feeling of triumph (perhaps it is a sinful 
 one) which a man experiences when he sees the upturned faces 
 flushing and the eyes kindling under the influence of his eloquence; 
 the exultation the preacher experiences when words glowing from 
 the brain and warm from the heart pass in thrilling tones over a 
 whole congregation, a church full of people, and move them as the 
 passing breeze moves a field of corn. O ! Cecilia, it may be pride 
 nay, it is pride but yet it is a pride that is strong upon me. I 
 feei it when I am composing my discourses, and putting together
 
 46 
 
 earnest and eloquent sermons ; I feel it when I am delivering these 
 sermons from the pulpit, and it wrings my heart to think that I 
 shall be for ever silent that I shall never raise my voice again 
 beneath the vaulted cope of a church to stir and move a 
 congregation !" 
 
 Cecilia de la Warre looked half sad, and yet half pleased, on the 
 flushed and excited countenance of the young pulpit orator, and 
 then said, " It is ambition, then, -which is with you the rival of my 
 love. I am satisfied, since it is not fear or superstition. But if 
 Cecilia de la Warre, whose ancestors raised the sacred towers of 
 St Anne's in the Wood and founded more than one religious house 
 within yon city walls, have any power or influence with the Church, 
 you shnll still be her husband and the popular Archdeacon of 
 Llandaff. Let those who have no wealth or influence succumb to 
 the new orders of the Italian priest ; I still believe a large gilt and 
 good promises may palliate even those in whose hands such matters 
 rest. The Prior of the Callendaries is my oldest friend, and the 
 friend of my family, and shall be my agent in obtaining liberty for 
 you to continue to preach and to become the husband of Cecilia de 
 la Warre," 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The reader knows, from the introduction, the tenor of the 
 interview between the heiress of the De la Warres and the prior of 
 the Callendaries, who, contrary to her expectation, instead of 
 assisting her in her cherished project, severely rebuked her passion, 
 and forbade her to think of a marriage, which, he said, must 
 " bring scandal on the Church." Cecilia quitted the house of the 
 Callendaries, anger kindled in her eyes and her pulse throbbing 
 with vexation. " He shall, nevertheless, be mine." she said. " That 
 old dotard is wroth at my charming from a hive of priestly drones 
 the only sweet, honey-sucking, musical bee amongst them He is 
 frightened at the notion of All-hallows being deserted by the crowds 
 who now throng to hear my eloquent lover. Well, if they will 
 silence his voice it will be their loss, not mine. I will have the 
 more of his company and the more of his wisdom and eloquence 
 at home." 
 
 She kept her word. A few months after this, Cecilia de la Warre 
 brought home her bridegroom ; for, considering it was the spirited 
 and determined young heiress who married the dreamy preacher 
 rather than the preacher her, such might be the form of expression 
 used. They were united by one of the married priests of the diocese 
 of Llandaff, in which all the rigours of the papal order of celibacy 
 were not yet enforced. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Away from their native haunts there are some animals that will 
 pine to death ; and it is asserted that the actor who retires into 
 private life ever after sighs and grieves for the st ge and the 
 footlights. It was probably under the same condition of being that 
 the want of excitement and action soon made the young preacher 
 of the Callendaries and Archdeacon of Llandaff droop in the rich 
 retirement and unintellectual ease of his married position. He
 
 47 
 
 had nothing to do no sermons to write or preach, and the hooks 
 which he chiefly read to store his mind with figures for the pulpit, 
 hud now little charm for him. His loving and high-spirited wife 
 saw the effect which idleness was having upon him the lethargy 
 that came over him ; and with many a secret and muttered 
 malediction against the spiritual tyranny that could drive an 
 eloquent preacher from the church, because he had hecome a 
 respectable married man, she devised excuses for travel and 
 amusement, hoping to awaken him from las torpor. But all 
 would not do. One hour in the pulpit of the (Jallendaries, with a 
 pregnant text to preach from, would have roused him up better than 
 a hundred journeys or a thousand fetes. So he sickened and grew 
 daily worse, until the Prior of All Saints' visited him, and so 
 worked upon the dying man that he began to look upon Cecilia 
 with strangeness and something like dislike, as though she were 
 the cause of his committing sin, and suffering for it. The daughter 
 of the Ue la Warres, who loved her husband with passionate love, 
 saw this change in his manner, and it awakened her suspicions. 
 So approaching the sick chamber of Henry one day with light step 
 and stealthy tread, she overheard the Prior trying to induce the 
 sinking man to " renounce this nugatory and adulterous marriage 
 ere his death ;" and then all the pent-up fire of her nature broke 
 out. " Begone, tempter, from these walls," she cried, " since it is 
 part of your so-called pious offices to make him perjure himself in 
 his last moments. It you have no better consolation to give, never 
 darken this door again : for far better he should die without 
 shaveling and priest by his bedside, and with the justice and mercy 
 of Heaven to depend upon, than that his lips should be taught to 
 utter a great wrong to a loving wife." And Cecilia, taking the 
 abashed Prior by the shoulder, thrust him forth from the room. 
 
 That same night the deposed Archdeacon breathed his last in 
 the arms of his wife ; and, in the delirium of fever, his imagination 
 wandered back to the days of his eloquent preaching, for, fancying 
 he was again in the pulpit of All Saints', he died with a wild but 
 brilliant passage of sacred rhetoric on his lips. 
 
 When Cecilia de la Warre, who lived to be an old woman, was 
 approaching her end, the priests drew near to beg for the Church 
 some of the broad lands she was leaving for ever ; but the dying 
 woman rose in her bed and reminded them of the debt of 
 unthankfulness she owed them, adding that she bequeathed all her 
 chattels and estates to William de Novo Burgo, on the strict 
 condition that church or priest should never be a mark or an acre 
 the richer of it. 
 
 And her determination, is it not written in the chronicles of the 
 Callendaries ?
 
 Castle anbr tlje 
 
 THE TWO PROPHECIES 
 
 " I saw a vision in my sleep, 
 That ga/e my spirit power to sweep 
 Adown the gulf of time." 
 
 It is stated that St. James's Church and Bristol Castle were b'ailt by the 
 same person in the twelfth century namely, Robert the Red, Etrl of 
 G oucesoer thut the material for both wis brought from Caen in 
 Normandy, and that every tenth stone of those imported was set aside 
 for the sacred building. 
 
 In the " Outlines of the History of Bristol." it is stated that the first 
 printing press introduced into the West of England was employed in 
 the C i.stle of Bristol. 
 
 The masons working on the scaffolding that surrounded the new 
 donjon tower of the Castle could see, almost within a stone's 
 throw of them to the north their fellow-builders plying their task 
 diligently around the rising fabric of St James's Priory ; they 
 could also see the Abbot of Tewkesbury, under whose ecclesiastical 
 control the new religious house was to be placed, accompanied by 
 some monks, inspecting the progress of the work. But they did 
 not then see all ; they did not see how angry the priest was at some 
 delay caused by an insufficient supply of stone, owing to the 
 appointed " tithe" of that material having been partly withheld 
 for the previous two days, because Earl Robert wished to expedite 
 the last stage of the keep, and had therefore the daily supply to the 
 Church slackened, only, however, to be fully made up, after the 
 immediate pressure for the feudal edifice had passed over. 
 
 But the haughty ecclesiastic could brook no delay. The Baron 
 had compacted to contribute every tenth stone to the church, and 
 for no lay purpose or convenience must the growth of the sacred 
 structure be retarded. The Abbot, his breast filled with the 
 dominant feeliags of a churchman, stalked through the green fields 
 that in his day sloped down from the site of the new Priory to the 
 sedgy banks of the Frome, which then a pleasant bright stream 
 ran murmuring to meet the Avon, its margin grown with water 
 lilies and bull-rushes. Here the Abbot entered a boat, and was 
 ferried to the opposite side, where he continued his course by a 
 pathway, which led through the broad mead or meadow (at present 
 only known as the site of a crowded street), up the slope to the 
 eminence then being first crowned with the new feudal building. 
 The Abbot was in too excited a state to pause to contemplate the 
 busy scene before him, as the embrasured walls and high central 
 tower or keep of the Castle rose to his view. Blinded with his 
 own special cause of indignation, he had no eye for the growing 
 greatness of a place, which was then little more than a collection
 
 49 
 
 of rude structures, but was destined, before another century or 
 two, to become "a city of trade and wealth manifold," whose 
 sacred buildings were to be enriched by the munificence of its 
 merchants. No ; Abbot John hastened on, and never slackened 
 pace until, striding across the planks that formed a temporary pas- 
 sage over the moat until the drawbridge could be erected, he 
 entered the Court yard and coufronted the proud Red Earl, who 
 with his seneschal and steward by his side was watching and 
 directing the busy scene around him. 
 
 Earl Robert, or the Red Earl, as he was called, was the imper- 
 sonation of an Anglo-Norman peer ; his figure strongly built ; his 
 head firmly set on his shoulders ; his face determined, yet thought- 
 ful : he had a short red moustache, and hair of the same colour ; 
 his dress was of a quiet hue, though of rich material : his cloak, 
 as well as his cap, being of a dark green Genoa velvet : a gold 
 buckle, with a precious stone in it, was the sole ornament of the 
 latter. He saluted the Abbot with courtesy mingled with a de- 
 ference due and paid at that time to the ecclesiastical character, 
 though he perhaps suspended the full obeisance which he might 
 have otherwise offered to his priestly visitor, until he should learn 
 the cause of the haste and displeasure that were manifest in the 
 countenance of the angry priest. 
 
 " Sir Earl," demanded the Abbot, " I come to know why the 
 work of God's House should be delayed for man's convenience : 
 why for two days your servants have dared to withhold from St. 
 James's Priory the tithe of stone, which you had undertaken to 
 pay towards that sacred structure ? " 
 
 From the heightened colouTj the dilated nostril, and the kindling 
 eye of the Red Earl, it was manifest he was an ill subject to brook 
 from human being such terms ; and that nothing, save the habitual 
 deference paid to the priestly character, restrained him from an 
 answer of the fiercest kind seconded by personal chastisement. 
 As it was, he merely answered, " The stone, Father Abbot, was 
 withheld by my orders, but only for a day or so. When the present 
 stage of this tower is completed, I design to show my reverence for 
 the Church by my increased expedition in supplying your Priory." 
 
 This did not appease the Abbot ; the subdued words of the Earl 
 only inflamed his haughtiness. " I tell you, Sir Earl," said he, " it 
 is not fitting that the work of the Church should pause for a 
 moment for any Earl's house or castle ; your donjon keep rises 
 like the tower of Babel in impious presumption against the face of 
 heaven, while the building of yonder Priory lags for a day or 
 awaits an Earl's or Baron's convenience." 
 
 " You are scant of courtesy, Sir Priest," answered the Earl ; his 
 eye almost flashing fire at being thus bearded in his own Castle 
 yard in the face of his workmen and servants. 
 
 " I should be scant in my duty to that Church of which I am an 
 unworthy son," retorted the Abbot, " did I not rebuke your dis- 
 obedience, as I would rebuke the disobedience of king as well as 
 courtier ! And hear me tell you, by the authority which I hold as 
 God's servant, and in the spirit of prophecy which now stirs within 
 me, that when this proud fortress is levelled with the ground, and
 
 not a stone of it shall stand, yonder humble church, from -which 
 you have held back its daily tithe of stone, that you might hasten 
 the growth of that frowning keep (and the Abbot pointed as he 
 spoke to the tower upon which the masons were working) shall 
 stand in strong preservation, its bells sending forth its summons to 
 prayer and God's service being celebrated within its walls." 
 
 The colour passed from the cheek of the Earl, but his anger was 
 like the white heat of iron from the forge fire, it was hotter than 
 in its red glow ; his eye wore an expression which none had ever 
 seen it wear before, and there was a terrible depth in his tone as he 
 answered, " You have prophesied, overbearing priest : now hear 
 me prophesy, too ! When that power arises in this island which 
 shall be able to raze the feudal fortress of the Baron, it will not 
 brook to be dictated to by a shorn priest. Should yon church out- 
 live this castle, it will only be because the priests who serve in it 
 shall have ceased to mock, with their overgrown pride and inso- 
 lence, the humility and charity of Him whose Gospel they profess 
 to preach. Nor shall these walls fall until, Sir Priest, they have 
 helped in the work of your humiliation. This is my prophecy:" 
 and, so speaking, the Red Earl stalked off, leaving the Abbot to 
 return in fierce dudgeon to his priory. 
 
 Both the Earl and Priest prophesied rightly. In 1654 an order 
 was received from Oliver Cromwell, commanding the authorities 
 of Bristol to demolish the castle, which had stood from Norman 
 times. The Protector's precept enjoined all the " commonalty " of 
 Bristol to assist in the work, the popular power being thus literally 
 employed to destroy the frowning monument of feudal domination. 
 Not a trace ot the great castle built by the Red Earl Robert re- 
 mains, while the church of St. James, built with stone from the 
 same quarry, stands ; and so far the Abbot prophesied truly. But, 
 before the castle fell, the power of Popery went down in Great 
 Britain ; the march of intelligence and freedom kept together, and 
 the same people who would not submit any longer to be deprived of 
 their just civil rights by the Barons were equally resolute in vin- 
 dicating their religious freedom against the spiritual tyranny of 
 Rome. Before the castle fell a reformed clergy officiated in the 
 priory church of St. James, and possibly the printing press of the 
 castle helped to disseminate copies of those English Scriptures, the 
 free perusal of which aided in tho overthrow of the Papal authority, 
 and thus was the Baron's prophecy also accomplished. The dust 
 of the Red Earl, the builder of the castle, and the founder of the 
 priory, is said to repose in a tomb of green jasper in the church of 
 St. James.
 
 i- tatty for a totty. 
 
 A STORY OF BRISTOL IN THE TIME OF KING JOHN. 
 
 1220, The King compelled the Jews to pay great part of his charge into 
 Ireland. The burgesses of Bristol contributed 1000 marks. A Jew, 
 named Abraham, and who is said to have resided without the walls, on 
 that part of the Frome called the Broad Weir, though cruelly tormented, 
 refused to ransom himself. The King ordered that he should every 
 day lose a tooth till he paid ten thousand marks. He lost one per 
 day for seven days, and then, having but one left, paid the money. 
 
 " Rebecca, child, what noise is that ?" inquired old Abraham of 
 his daughter, as pretty a maid as ever tripped through Jewrie Lane. 
 The old man was at the moment in a back room, furnished in 
 curious and quaint fashion, and was engaged in looking over some 
 rich and beautifully -set gems. 
 
 The girl did not answer, but seemed to be engaged in earnest 
 remonstrance with persons at the door. " We must see him," said 
 some rough voices ; "so stand back, little maiden, and let us pass." 
 Abraham came forth from his sanctum. " What means this, my 
 worthy men," said he, terror in his face, and addressing a body of 
 halberdiers who had now forced their way in through the outer 
 bulk or shop. 
 
 " A writ from the King," said the leader of the party; " you are 
 assessed in 10,000 marks' contribution towards his Majesty's Irish 
 charges, and we require instant payment." 
 
 " Ten thousand devils ten thousand angels, I mean," exclaimed 
 the Jew ; " does the King think I am Croesus, and not poor Moses 
 Abraham of Bristol, that he requires a royal ransom from me ? 
 To save my head, I could not find a fiftieth part of the money." 
 
 " But you must find it, if you mean to save your head, old 
 Pagan," retorted the Captain of the Guard; "my orders are to 
 commit you to prison, and detain you there until you find the gold." 
 
 " I am ready to go," doggedly, if not resignedly, said the Jew, 
 delivering himself up to the men. 
 
 " Take him not away," cried the young girl, throwing herself at 
 the feet of the commander of the party. " Do not, I beseech you : he 
 is not rich ; at least he is not so rich as you imagine. A tenth part of 
 the money shall be forthcoming if you will permit him to remain." 
 
 " A tenth part," cried her father, in fright. " What dost thou 
 mean, wench, to talk folly like that ; a fiftieth, a hundredth part, I 
 could not find, to ransom my whole tribe." 
 
 " Come along, come along," said the officer, taking old Moses 
 into custody : " we shall find a way to make you get the money." 
 And they carried off the old usurer of the Weir; his daughter, 
 having first locked the door, following, with tears in her eyes, and 
 beseeching her father, in whispers, to buy off the bitter persecution. 
 As they passed along, folks ran to their doors and jeered the old 
 man, for he was not popular, but pity for his handsome and kind 
 daughter mitigated the public dislike. They entered the city by 
 Newgate, and in the prison, close to that gate old Abraham was 
 confined. As soon as it was told the Royal Commissioners that the
 
 52 
 
 Jew refused his contribution, or, it might better be called imposition, 
 it was ordered that the public executioner should daily draw a tooth 
 from his held, until he relented. 
 
 Moses Abraham, on learning the sentence, prepared to submit, 
 though his daughter besought him to save himself the pain and 
 agony by paying the money. 
 
 " Pay the money part with my gold. Oh, the agony of parting 
 with a thousand teeth would not so affect me," cried the old man. 
 "The teeth came they grew; I worked not for them ; they were 
 none of my making; but my dear loved marks, my golden rolls, 
 they were all of my gathering. I saw them increase with more 
 joy than I beheld thy beauty expand, foolish child. Thinkest thou, 
 then, that I will deliver them up to save those wretched morsels of 
 bone, that, in a few years, will fall of themselves or rot in the grave ? 
 No ; no." So saying, he submitted himself to the first act of 
 dental surgery. 
 
 The implement which the executioner used was none of the 
 smallest or best ; so poor Abraham had a hard trial of it. Tug, 
 tug : out at length it came. 
 
 The old man spat a mouthful of blood on the ground, and glanced 
 at the molar between the rude forceps. 
 
 " Wilt thou pay ? " demanded the officer. 
 
 " I will not I cannot," answered the old man. 
 
 " Then to-morrow we will visit thee again," was the reply. 
 
 To-morrow came, and another tooth went : still Abraham pre- 
 ferred losing the bone counters to his gold coins. He was known 
 in Jewrie Lane (the ancient name of the present Quay Street, and 
 then the abode of the Israelitish community in Bristol) to be a 
 man of immense wealth, and the chief men of his nation, and the 
 rabbi, called on him and begged him to yield : but no : he never 
 worked for his teeth as he had done for his money, and could he 
 now part with it? no, no. So his friends gathered their gaberdines 
 around them, and wended their way back, and left him to his fate. 
 Still there was one who lingered to console the daughter, if he 
 could not move the father, and that was Jonathan Jacobs, a young, 
 handsome, ingenious Jew, who was a devoted lover of Rebecca's, 
 but whom old Abraham, because he was poor, could not abide. 
 Suffering though he was from the repeated operations, as soon as the 
 father heard the young people whispering in the adjoining room, 
 he called Rebecca peremptorily to him. "Disobedient," he cried, 
 " wouldest thou join thyself to my enemies, and trust to Gentile 
 bars and bolts to enable thee to make love to that pauper within 
 my hearing?" 
 
 A tear and a sigh were all the answers the Jewish maiden made 
 to this bitter upbraiding. 
 
 A third, a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth visit to the prison were 
 made by the King's officers, and each time they carried away a 
 tooth from the old man's head : still he held out, and even ventured 
 on a bitter jest when they had taken his sixth molar. " That is 
 good eastern ivory," said he to the officers, " and I hope will suffice 
 to pay some of the King's Irish charges." 
 
 Two more teeth only remained, and it was thought that the
 
 58 
 
 King would never obtain the ten thousand marks, unless he had 
 recourse to other torture. On the seventh day the seventh tooth 
 was taken, and having but one more to lose, he begged the guards 
 to save themselves tho trouble of another walk on the morrow, and 
 have both out at once. The executioner, however, excused himself, 
 saying the prisoner need be in no hurry ; the teeth took their time 
 to come, and must take their time to go. 
 
 Next morning the authorities entered the old man's cell, and 
 several of the chief citizens were there also to see Moses Abraham 
 lose his last grinder, for he had made many of them feel his teeth 
 in times gone by, when they wanted money and he made them pay 
 heavily for the accommodation. What, however, was their wonder 
 when, on making his appearance in the ante-room where the 
 operation was each day performed, the old man expressed his 
 readiness to pay the fine! "What!" cried they all, " part with 
 seven teeth, and yet pay to save the eighth ! Had you done this a 
 week ago you would have been wiser." 
 
 But Moses replied not, save to tender the money, which was 
 accepted, and he was released. 
 
 " I suppose," said he, or rather mumbled he, when he reached 
 home, "thou, wench, thinkest me a fool for my pains ; but hear me. 
 Be sure it was not to save this wretched morsel of discoloured bone 
 that I consented to part with my gold : but I had a vision, clear as 
 Pharaoh's when he saw the fat and lean kine ; and last night as I 
 slept in my cell, I dreamt that under this tooth, the last in my head, 
 was a great treasure, and, if I retained it, I should one day receive 
 that, compared with which, ten thousand marks were but as a trifle: 
 and so distinct was my dream that I believed it, and paid the ransom. 
 How the vision is to come about I know not, but still believe it." 
 
 The ten thousand marks, immense as the sum was, were far from 
 being the greater part of the Jew's treasure. In the vaults under 
 his secluded and dim oriental-fashioned house on the Weir, was a 
 still larger amount stowed away. So that Jonathan Jacobs, who 
 hoped that poverty would compel the determined old man to with- 
 draw his stern prohibition on his daughter against countenancing 
 his suit, was disappointed. " Get thee away," cried the old man, 
 in fierce anger, " thou shalt not have my Rebecca ; thou shalt not." 
 
 " At least," said the young man, " give me reason to hope that 
 you will relent, if I can find wealth to satisfy thee. Place any 
 condition on thy consent, but give me grounds to hope for it." 
 
 " Then thou shalt have a condition," answered the old man, with 
 bitterness, and smiling savagely as he thought ho pronounced an 
 impossibility ; " when thou Sliest my mouth again with good teeth, 
 thou shalt have my daughter!" 
 
 Jonathan passed forth chapfallen and mournfully from the old 
 man's presence, and the latter chuckled and laughed in triumph, 
 saying, at the same time, "Thou hast got thy condition, be happy." 
 
 Six months passed, and Jonathan Jacobs had not once shown 
 himself at the Jew's house on the Weir; at length one morning, as 
 the old man was about to go forth on some business, Jonathan 
 presented himself before him. " Well," demanded Moses, with a
 
 sardonic grin, " hast thou brought my teeth with thee ? I swear 
 by the beard of Father Abraham thou shalt have the maiden, if 
 thou hast grown a new crop of grinders for me," and the old man 
 laughed at his own cruel raillery. 
 
 "Thou swearest," said the young man, "and wilt keep thine 
 oath ! " And so saying, he drew from his pocket a most splendid 
 set of white, enamelled, incorruptible, artificial teeth set in gold 
 palate, and with the means of fixing them to the last remaining 
 tooth in the old Jew's head. 
 
 Moses Abraham's countenance fell. He never dreamt of such 
 a fulfilment of what he considered an impossible condition : but 
 he had given his promise and his oath, and he knew not how to 
 break either. He instinctively opened his mouth, and Jonathan 
 popped the splendid set into it they fitted him better than his own : 
 " they beat nature " (as the Yankees say). The old Jew glancing 
 in a polished steel mirror, wondered to see himself look young 
 again : a row of ivory decorated his gums bare but a moment before ; 
 and his sunken and leathern jaws were suddenly rounded and filled 
 out as if by a miracle. " Wonderful ! " he exclaimed, and started 
 to hear how plainly he articulated. 
 
 The fact was, Jonathan Jacobs was the most ingenious and 
 cleverest artificer in all Jewrie Lane, and at that time the only 
 artists in gold and silver and ivory belonged to this ancient and 
 persecuted race. When Moses Abraham, then, in mockery proposed 
 this task to him, he, after an hour's reflection, determined to turn 
 the jest, if possible, into earnest, and the result of six months' 
 patient experiment, diligence, and trial, was the triumphant con- 
 struction of the first set of false teeth ever made. 
 
 Old Abraham recollected his dream. Here, then, was the 
 realisation of it. A gold mine was under that old molar of his, to 
 which the set was attached. A treasure was yet to be had from 
 this wonderful invention. 
 
 "Thou shalt have my daughter, ' ' he said ; "but thou must become 
 my partner." 
 
 " The dew of Hermon is not pleasanter to me than thy proposal," 
 answered the intended son-in-law. 
 
 in less than a mouth, Jonathan Jacobs and Rebecca Abraham 
 were united under a canopy of crimson and gold in the old house 
 on the Broad Weir, and, in a few days after, a new sign was put up 
 in Jewrie Lane" ABRAHAM AND JACOBS, Dentists." The forfeited 
 ten thousand marks were doubled in a few years. From all parts 
 of the land, toothless Lords and Dowagers crowded to Bristol, and 
 stopped the way in Jewrie Lane with their carriages, all coming to 
 have the decay of nature remedied. " Abraham and Jacobs' 
 Indestructible Enamel Teeth" were the wonder of England, and 
 divided with Magna Charta, for a time, the town-talk of every city. 
 Orders came so fast, they could with difficulty execute them ; and 
 Dukes and Duchesses were content to make appointments with the 
 renowned Dentists for months yet to come. Since then the pro- 
 fession of Dental Surgery has been almost wholly in the hands of 
 the Jews, who owe many a fortune to that love which, in the case 
 of Jonathan, was like necessity namely, " The mother of invention,"
 
 In the reign of Henry VII. , there occurs in the annals of the city this 
 simple entry : " Maud Easterfleld gave a ring to the image of our 
 Lady, in the north porch of Saint Mary Redcliff." 
 
 There is something very suggestive in such solitary scraps of 
 local history. One "wonders what they mean : like the appearance 
 of footsteps in sandstone, they set us thinking what kind of persons 
 or creatures had left these tracks on past ages, and under what 
 circumstances they happened to be made. The ring that Maud 
 Easterfield gave to our Lady's imare was the fulfilment, no doubt, 
 of some vow, public or private the result of a secret bargaining 
 with our Lady that, if something would come to pass, a handsome 
 jewel should reward the favour ; for it was and still is a notion 
 amongst our good Catholic neighbours that beatified beings are 
 not quite above a little pious bribe of this kind. 
 
 But what was the object of Maud Easterfield's vow ? That's the 
 rub ; and, being left to conjecture, not a few have guessed that a 
 lover was in the case. Her young betrothed hero, of course, went 
 to the wars, and was cutting off Pagans' heads while his affianced 
 bride was weeping and praying at home in her bower for him ; 
 and, when not weeping or praying, looking out from her high lat- 
 tice on all the country round to see if she could catch a glimpse of 
 his waving plume or pennon, as he returned to fling himself at her 
 feet. This was the most obvious, and, at the same time, the most 
 pleasing and romantic view to take of the case, and I should have 
 been glad to have rested satisfied with the assurance that the 
 ring was the fulfilment of a promise made by Maud, during the 
 absence of her lover, that if he returned safe to old Bristol and led 
 her to the altar of that great church and there made her happy, the 
 image of our Lady in the north porch, to which Maud had so often 
 bent the knee as she passed in, should have a very handsome ring, 
 set with emeralds, diamonds, and garnets. Well, I have looked 
 into the matter, and am compelled to say, as a rigid antiquarian 
 and a strict historian, that the conjecture of the lover must be given 
 up. Maud Easterfield was a married woman, and as men cease to 
 be lovers when they become husbands, and it would be highly im- 
 proper for Mrs. Easterfield to make any other man the subject 
 of vows, we may rest assured the ring had reference to a different 
 matter. We find John Easterfield Mayor about this time, and 
 there was but one drawback to the civic enjoyment which 
 his Worship experienced in entering upon his office there was 
 no little Easterfield, though they had been five or six years 
 married. John Easterfield made no allusion to the subject, 
 as he was very fond of his wife, and knew it pained her. 
 Nevertheless, he was himself not without some little regrets 
 on the point, especially when, in the freedom of the civic feast the
 
 56 
 
 cup went round, and they drank to one another's wives and children, 
 and slyly poked a joke at his Worship about his little family. He 
 succeeded in laughing with his waggish friends, though he by no 
 means secretly realised the fun. Maud, however, could not even 
 muster a laugh upon the point, though she had plenty of good cries 
 to herself about it ever since the first year of their marriage, when 
 she fruitlessly spent some weeks in making tiny articles of dress 
 that it seems were never wanted. She had a sister-in-law, too, 
 the wife of her husband's brother, Harry Easterfield, whose name 
 you will also find during this reign in Barrett's roll of Mayors : 
 this lady was blessed with a large family, and as if to aggravate 
 poor Maud, actually had twins the year before the latter became 
 Mrs. Mayoress. As usual, there was no love lost between the two 
 sisters-in-law, for the prolific Mrs. Harry held her head high above 
 the less fortunate Maud, and having found out that it wrung the 
 heart of the latter to see children, she took every opportunity of 
 bringing all her babies to visit their aunt, while she herself looked 
 upon the possessions of John Easterfield already as good as settled 
 upon his nephews and nieces. Nevertheless poor Maud still kept 
 the baby-linen and bassinet that she had provided the first year of 
 their nuptials, hoping that they might yet be wanted, and that that 
 odious Mrs. Harry would not be able to come surrounded by her 
 chickens and crow over her in cruel exultation. Bristol had not 
 then the benefit of a bambino that little silver baby which the Pope 
 keeps in his own possession, save when as a particular favour he 
 lends it to devout sons of the Church, like Lord Fielding and others 
 who may be in want of an heir ; but Maud was a pious daughter 
 of the Church and daily she walked in through the north porch of 
 Kedcliff to say her prayers, not forgetting to include in her secret 
 petitions what was next her heart. Passing in one day she fancied 
 she noticed the image of our Lady smile, so taking this as a good 
 omen, she vowed that it should have a ring of pure gold if a certain 
 occurrence I will not particularise took place in the course of the 
 next year. 
 
 In three months after this John Easterfield was proclaimed Mayor 
 of Bristol. Redcliff bells clanging and banging, and all the bells 
 of the old town doing the same, announced the great fact to his 
 fellow-citizens. Maud as she knelt at her prayers heard, too, the 
 tintinnabular uproar, which told the tpwns-folk in general that 
 they had got a new Mayor, and herself in particular that she should 
 have the usual guinea for a new muff, for this was invariably in 
 olden time the perquisite of Mistress Mayoress. 
 
 The third or fourth civic feast that was held after John Easter- 
 field's acceptance of the golden chain, his brother Aldermen, when 
 the arrak punch got into their heads, joked him upon the old sub- 
 ject, and one of them having heard from his wife the secret of 
 Mistress Maud's still retaining the unused bassinet, vowed that if 
 there should be any occasion for this piece of infantine furniture 
 during the civic year, the chamber would present him with a silver 
 one. This proposition, which was the origin of a custom still pre- 
 served by all municipalities throughout the kingdom, when their 
 Chief Magistrate is so fortunate as to have during his twelvemonth
 
 57 
 
 of servitude an additional olive-branch to embower his nursery, 
 was loudly cheered and heartily endorsed by all the Aldermen 
 present. John Easterfield thanked them, and assured them that 
 should occasion offer he would not fail to remind them of their 
 generous promise. The rogue ! I suspect he was better informed 
 than the whole bench of Aldermen on a subject, which the institu- 
 tion of the guinea muff for Mistress Mayoress kept a secret from 
 the rest of the city. It was afterwards noticed that he joined this 
 time in the joke less artificially, more jovially than ever before ; I 
 fancy upon the principle that " those who win may laugh ; " for 
 only a few months more passed by when, one morning, tantarara 
 went the bells of St. Mary Redcliff, ringing out as it were peals of 
 jocund laughter, and the good citizens as they passed over the 
 bridge, or walked along Redcliff Street, looked up at St. Mary's 
 tower and wondered what it all meant : and the tradesmen came 
 to their shop doors and asked what could be the matter, such a 
 metallic clangour as there came thundering down from that beau- 
 tiful tower. Then somebody, noticing a bustle about the Mayor's 
 door, went to inquire if there was a new prince born. " No," says 
 his Worship, who came out at the moment, his face beaming with 
 joy, " only a little baby Mayor ; I am just going to remind the 
 bench of Aldermen that they had better send at once and have the 
 young gentleman measured for a silver cradle, as he is growing so 
 fast that every hour they defer it will add to the expense." 
 
 "Hurrah," cried the crowd: "hurrah!" and the bells went 
 louder and wilder than ever, so that even Mrs. Harry Easterfield 
 came out to know what it was all about, and, having learned the 
 cause, retired discomfited, saying, "Who would have thought it ?" 
 
 From that day to this, I believe, there has not been a single in- 
 stance on record where the silver cradle has been claimed in Bristol ; 
 though not very long ago in Cork the Council voted one of those 
 pieces of family plate to their Chief Magistrate ; and some years 
 since the Mayor of Liverpool was presented with one likewise. 
 And though the guinea is no longer paid for the Mayoress's muff 
 according to ancient custom, let us hope the cradle will be claimed 
 in the next Mayoralty, when I have no doubt the Councillors will 
 most cheerfully contribute towards the testimonial.
 
 "We are reminded by a local Chronicler of the great debt of grati- 
 tude which we owe a Bristol citizen for the happy invention which 
 enables us to enjoy our winter's snooze with so much comfort. 
 " Blessed is the memory of the man," said Sancho Pancha, " who 
 first invented sleep ; " and if so, adds our annalist, blessed from a 
 parity of reasoning is also the memory of him who first invented 
 blankets without which our slumbers would not be half so sound 
 or snug as they are during at least six months of the year. 
 
 We are very fond of boasting of our Canynges and our Colstons, 
 but, after all, give me the man who made the fortunate discovery 
 of that soft woollen coverlid beneath which virtuous bosoms beat 
 and rosy dreams are indulged in. How often do we descant on the 
 genius of the friar who first taught us to make that villainous 
 combustible called gunpowder ; but, though many are the speeches I 
 have listened to in Bristol upon past worthies, I never yet heard a 
 single oration delivered on our local platforms in praise of the im- 
 mortal inventor of blankets. Yet all the world over, from the 
 Queen in her gorgeous fourposter to the squaw in her Indian wig- 
 wam, who is there that has not reason to thank that glorious old 
 Bristol citizen, who, in the middle of the 14th century, devised, in 
 a happy moment of domestic inspiration, that famous piece of 
 drapery, which, originally invented within the walls of our ancient 
 city, has since made the fortunes of the weavers of Witney ? Talk 
 of practical philanthropy ; it is certainly a glorious quality, and on 
 the 13th of November we still celebrate the virtue with our purses 
 and parts of speech ; but is there anything in the world that more 
 practically represents charity than a good double-milled blanket, 
 which can still cover the widow and the orphan when all without 
 look coldly upon them ? 
 
 Let us. then, I say, have a Blanket day as well as a Colston day. 
 Let the Town Council appoint a commission to search out amongst 
 our archives that auspicious date on which Edward Blanket entered 
 the world, and was born on the right side of that same article. 
 After he became a great man, and had amassed a large fortune by 
 his glorious discovery, he represented our city in 1362. This is a 
 point to start with. Let us trace back through municipal records 
 and parish registers until we find out his natal day, and let us 
 thereupon establish a commemorative anniversary, renowning it by 
 a dinner, illustrating it by orations, and finally winding up the 
 evening by a distribution of blankets to the poor ! Let us have a 
 procession to and a service in St. Stephen's Church, where the 
 woollen philanthropist and his wife are supposed to rest ; and, in- 
 stead of silken banners being carried before us, as is the case with 
 the Dolphin and the Grateful, let a broad spick arid span new
 
 blanket, with a bright border, be mounted on a flag-staff, and borne 
 proudly in front of the array. I shall not pay the poor compliment 
 to our local clergy to suggest a text or supply a discourse for the 
 occasion, but there are passages enough appropriate to that ever- 
 useful article, which so far materially represents charity that it 
 covers, if not a multitude of sins, at least a multitude of sinners. 
 Come, then, let my fellow-citizens unite with me in renowning an 
 ancient Worthy, and doing honour to the old town : for a traitor 
 to Bristol I hold is he who throws a wet blanket upon my novel 
 but most laudable suggestion. 
 
 That 14th century I consider was in the history of Bristol an 
 epoch most remarkable in the matter of physical comforts, for we 
 find in our civic rolls the mimes of Turtle and Blanket associated. 
 The flippant satirist said of the two Herveys 
 
 The one invented sauce for fish] 
 The other Meditations : 
 
 but who that has ever tasted a spoonful of the rich and verdant 
 luxury which our six or seven times Mayor Roger Turtle concocted 
 and christened, that has not felt their heart and mouth overflow 
 with gratitude to the man. Facile princeps, however : first far away 
 in the roll of merit amongst the benefactors of his kind stands 
 Edward Blanket, who ought to have a statue in College Green, 
 with one of his own wares rolled like a martial cloak around him. 
 
 And how came the excellent Edward to hit upon this happy dis- 
 covery ? you will say. N ecessity was in this, as in many other cases, 
 the mother of invention. Bristol, as the venerable Barrett and the 
 brusque George Pryce inform us, was in the 14th century the seat 
 of the woollen manufacturers, and this, when Leeds, like Eclipse's 
 competitors, was nowhere, and Trowbridge and both Bradfords 
 might be looked for in vain on the maps of England. Our weavers 
 were then the big wigs of the city, who had their mansions and 
 their looms in Temple and Thomas Streets, and their Guild-halls 
 and their great feast days everything in fact calculated to make 
 them proud and prosperous ; still, of course, there were degrees of 
 wealth and success amongst the favoured craft, and Edward Blanket 
 was for some years but a struggling member of the woollen fra- 
 ternity. When others drank their spiced wine, he had to be content 
 with very thin potations, and when their wives flaunted about and 
 went to Temple Church in rich apparel, Mistress Blanket had to be 
 satisfied with very modest garments indeed. In short, her excellent 
 husband, though a hard-working meritorious tradesman, found it 
 difficult to make both ends meet. Capital then as now carried the 
 day, and Edward Blanket did not rejoice in a very abundant sup- 
 ply of that potent aid to commerce. The Curtises and the Hannys, 
 the Tillys and the Turpines, with their showy dames, held their 
 heads very high, when Blanket and his wife, very much against 
 their inclination, were prevented raising their's above a modest 
 level. 
 
 " Well, well, my dear," said the weaver, one night after they had 
 talked over for a long time their hard struggles to make a do of it, 
 " we shall never mend matters by sitting up and fretting over them ; 
 so let us retire to rest, for the fire is out and the night is cold."
 
 60 
 
 " Cold," cried Mistress Blanket as she laid herself down by her 
 husband's side, " it is perishingly pitilessly cold cold as when the 
 world is against one, and there is nothing to be got by weaving on 
 a small scale." 
 
 "Go to sleep, love," said Mr. Blanket, " and cease to murmur." 
 
 But it was all very well to say " Go to sleep," when there were 
 no warming pans in use, and the wood was burnt out, and hard 
 unyielding coverings of camlet were all their bedclothes. Mrs. 
 Blanket shivered from her teeth to her toes : when Mr. B. suddenly 
 bethought him that there was a piece of soft, unfinished, loosely 
 woven, and untrimmed woollen cloth in the room, which he had 
 taken home to make some experiment with. He leaped out of bed, 
 threw back the hard camlet, and covering himself and his better- 
 half with the soft woolly cloth, they were both sound and luxuriously 
 asleep ere the Warder cried another quarter-of-an-hour from the 
 tower of Temple gate. 
 
 Shakespeare said a good many years afterwards, "there was a 
 tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood led on to fortune." 
 At the same moment Mr. and Mrs. Blanket awoke in the morning, 
 and nearly in the same breath both exclaimed, " What a delicious 
 covering." But Edward Blanket carried it beyond an exclamation. 
 " My dearest dame," said he, "trouble yourself no longer about 
 the world. I'll toss it in my blanket, for I shall have the honour 
 of giving a name to the article that will make my fortune and 
 carry down my name to all future ages. Let others devote them- 
 selves to making cloth to keep them warm by day ; be it my business 
 henceforth to manufacture only that which will keep folks warm 
 by night " 
 
 Before noon the two looms of Edward Blanket were set to make 
 the article which to this day is called after him. A rapid custom 
 followed ; orders in abundance crowded in, and the two looms were 
 soon multiplied by six. The King heard of the invention in his 
 palace, and bespoke a pair for every one of the royal beds ; the 
 nobles throughout all the west of England sent their servants to 
 purchase his wares; the Welsh gave over sleeping under their goafs- 
 skins, and sent across the channel to buy the newly-discovered 
 drapery in Bristol. For awhile indeed the kingdom rang with the 
 praise of blankets, and people went to bed an hour earlier through- 
 out all Britain, the better to enjoy the soft woolly warmth they 
 imparted. 
 
 Thus our hero rose as rapidly in wealth, reputation, and honour, 
 as though he were tossed in one of his own blankets, and never 
 once descended until he was pitched into Parliament. But even a 
 blanket-maker must die, and so did the worthy Edward and his 
 wife. Beneath an arch of the wall of the north aisle of St. Stephen's 
 Church the sexton will show you a tomb of the " pure decorated 
 style of English architecture, and adorned with small sculptured 
 figures within canopied recesses " (I quote George Pryce). On the 
 top are two figures, male and female, lying on their backs, precisely 
 in the same position as that occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Blanket on 
 the cold but ever-memorable and auspicious night when the happy 
 thought, to which they owed all their future greatness, struck him,
 
 61 
 
 
 
 It is probably owing to the premature death of the sculptor that the 
 incident itself was not fully embodied in marble, by the addition of 
 a covering to the recumbent figures ; or it may be that the artist 
 meant to convey the idea only of the moment immediately preceding 
 that when Master Edward leapt out of bed to get the woolly piece 
 of woven cloth which led to his wealth and renown. But, however 
 the case may be, this, we are told, is the tomb of Edward Blanket 
 and his excellent wife, the former having liberally founded a 
 chantry in the church of St. Stephen's from the profits of his 
 woolly wares.* 
 
 * It is a curious coincidence that on the gate of the building next to the 
 porch, on your right hand as you leave the church after looking at the 
 tomb, are the words, in large letters, " Blanket Warehouse." Edward 
 Blanket I hope, unlike some of his survivors, was too sensible a man to 
 be ashamed of "the shop ; " So that his spirit, I trust, will take no 
 offence at his works following him so closely ts the grave.
 
 Q$t lub-pwnt iault at j&t. 
 
 A TALE OF THE REFORMATION IN BRISTOL. 
 
 This little story is founded on the following extracts from the 
 History of Bristol : 
 
 1744. The Library in the Bishop's Palace repaired, and partly rebuilt by 
 Bishop Butler. Whilst these repairs were in progress, a parcel of plate 
 fell through the floor in a corner of one of the rooms, and discovered a 
 room underneath containing a great many human bones, and instru- 
 ments of iron, supposed to have been designed for torture. A private 
 passage, too, was found, of a construction coeval with the edifice, an 
 arched way, just large enough for one person, in the thickness of the 
 wall, one end terminating in the dungeon, the other in an apartment of 
 the house, which seemed to have been used as a court, Both entrances 
 of this mural passage were so concealed as to make it appear one solid 
 thick wall. 
 
 REIGN OF MARY. Mr. Alderman Haythorne's MS. says, "The Sheriff, 
 Mr. John Griffith, was a very forward man in apprehending the 
 Martyrs, and with David Harris (Mayor in 1550,) and Dalby the 
 Chancellor, deserves to be enrolled. Three suffered in Bristol, and more 
 had done, had not Queen Elizabeth's coming to the crown hindered ; 
 which brought back again from banishment Wr. Pacey, and Mr. 
 Huntingdon : the latter, after his return, preaching at the Cross in 
 College Green, charged those men there present with ill-using both those 
 that suffered and those that escaped in these or like words. " Oh, 
 cruelty without mercy, that a man should act, so laboriously, that which, 
 without hasty repentance, shall hasten his damnation. Know you not 
 who made the strict search for Mr. Pacey, whom, if God had not hid, 
 as Jeremiah, you had burned, stump and all he being lame ? Yet you 
 had no pity ; and you know who went to Red land, to buy green wood, 
 for the execution of those blessed saints that suffered, when near home, 
 at the Back or Key, ye might have had dry. Take heed ! a little sorrow 
 will not serve. God may call you into unquenchable fire, worse than 
 the soultering of green wood." 
 
 1557. May 7. Richard Sharp, a weaver, and Thomas Hales, a shoemaker, 
 were burned at St. Michael's Hill for religion. August 13. Thomas 
 Benion, a shearman, for denying the sacrament of the altar to be the 
 very body and blood of Christ really and substantially. Another MS. 
 adds that a young man (a carpenter), and Edward Sharp, a Wiltshire 
 man, aged threescore, were also burnt. Bishop Hollyman refusing to 
 officiate, the burnings were superintended by W. Dalby, the Chancellor 
 of the Diocese. The same executions are thus narrated in Mr. Alderman 
 Haythorne's MS : "Three men suffered as martyrs. 1st, Richard Sharp, 
 a weaver, of Temple parish, who being examined by Dalby, the 
 Chancellor, March 9th, 1556' [67], and by him persuaded to recant, he 
 did so ; of which he sorely and openly repented, and shortly after was 
 brought to the flames. 2nd, Thomas Hale, who shook hands with the 
 said Richard Sharp at the fire. May 7, 1557 He was a shoemaker. He 
 was by David Harris, Alderman, and John Stone, one of the Common 
 Council, [Mayor in 1562 and 15(58] caused to rise out of his bed, and 
 committed to the watch, and by them charged to convey him to New- 
 gate, and shortly after [ward] he suffered. 3rd, Thomas Benion, who 
 was burned August 27, 1557. More were questioned, but escaped." 
 About twelve o'clock on the night of the 3rd of August, 1 557, 
 when there was nothing to break the silence which reigned in St. 
 James's churchyard but the solemn chaunt of the midnight service
 
 from the church, a tall figure, muffled in a long cloak, emerged from 
 one of the narrow streets in the rear of the old grey buildings, and 
 as he passed, paused for a moment at the porch as if to listen ; then 
 raising his hands towards heaven, the mysterious stranger exclaimed 
 in a low but fervent voice, "How long, Lord, holy and true! how 
 long shall persecuting Rome prevail over thine own land, and 
 Jezebel sit a queen, and see no sorrow, and persecute, and get drunk 
 in the blood of thy saints ? But he now hunted as a thief shall one 
 day proclaim their shame and their sorceries in the market-place. 
 Yet there is one whom I would save ; I can recognise a brother's 
 voice in this midnight chaunt ; him I would rescue from this pestilent 
 Gomorrah." 
 
 The stranger then crossed the churchyard with a quick step, and 
 stood before a low humble-looking house, on which a dim street 
 lamp flickered its scanty light ; then looking cautiously round, he 
 gave three distinct taps at the door, which was opened by a young 
 and handsome female, who scarcely suppressed an exclamation of 
 surprise on seeing him. As he entered, and before the maiden had 
 closed the door, another person, muffled like himself, appeared from 
 a recess in a neighbouring house, and passed on. " Who could 
 that have been, Maria, my child ? " said the stranger to the young 
 girl, as she fastened the bolt, " I thought him not unlike that liege- 
 man of the arch-fiend the Chancellor Dalby." 
 
 " Pray Heaven it was not," said the young woman, growing 
 deadly pale ; "where Dalby prowls at night, death is likely to follow 
 in the morning." 
 
 " Terrify not thyself, my child," replied the other, " One watches 
 over His faithful people who can protect them from Dalby's master; 
 but there is need of care, lest it might have been that bloody 
 persecutor ; for when Bishop Hollyman and his fat inferiors are 
 snoring, Hke so many swine, in St. Augustine's, the Chancellor is 
 abroad in the city, scaring even the night owl with his ill-omened 
 presence. But where is your father ? " 
 
 The young woman led the stranger into a small but comfortably- 
 furnished back room, where, seated by a chamber lamp, and reading 
 out of a large book for two or three others, was an elderly man. 
 He seemed surprised on seeing the stranger. " Master Hunt- 
 ingdon," said he, " do I again behold you in the flesh ? We heard 
 that after you had escaped from the hell-hounds at Redland, they 
 captured you at Gloucester. You seem soiled and wearied with 
 travel : Maria, my child, prepare some refreshment for this holy 
 man." The old man continued to read from the Bible, which lay 
 before him, while Maria busied herself in preparing a slight supper 
 for Master Huntingdon (for the stranger was indeed that renowned 
 and intrepid champion of the Reformers' faith). One of the inmates 
 of the room was a young man of a manly and generous expression 
 of countenance, and as his eyes followed the movements of Maria, 
 a close observer could see that he took more than an ordinary in- 
 terest in the young woman. 
 
 " Any new intelligence of that bloody woman, Mary, friend 
 Hale?" inquired Huntingdon, when he had finished his simple repast, 
 " she is still spared, I see, to harass the Lord's servants."
 
 64 
 
 " Yes," said Hale, " and there are few nights that the wolf Dalby 
 does not take some lamb from out our little fold." 
 
 "Hush!" interposed Maria, looking alarmed, "I hear footsteps 
 abroad; I have heard them twice since Master Huntingdon sat 
 down to supper. Hark ! do you not hear them again ? " 
 
 Breathless, and with hearts heating with alarm like persons after 
 whom the blood-hounds were still in pursuit, the members of that 
 humble family listened (the sense of hearing sharpened by terror) 
 to faint footsteps that seemed to retire as they tell upon the ear. 
 At length the sound died away altogether, and the family comforted 
 themselves with the hope that it was some casual passenger. 
 
 Huntingdon having offered up a fervent and eloquent prayer for 
 the peace of the Church and fall of Babylon, when the people 
 should rejoice over her destruction, and .Heaven avenge them on 
 her, the family prepared for rest. Before retiring, however, for the 
 night, they took leave affectionately of each other, with the fervency 
 of persons who felt that before morning they might be called to bear 
 witness for the faith. As the young man to whom I alluded, took 
 leave in his turn of Maria, there was much tenderness in his manner. 
 In reply to something which he whispered in her ear, she replied, 
 " Tush, Allen ! is this a time to think or talk of such trifles, when 
 God's people are in tribulation, and we live in fear and trembling, 
 and hourly dread of the rack and the stake !" 
 
 " I see," said the young man, with a melancholy and hurt 
 expression of countenance, "' I see that a Protestant maiden still 
 cherishes an affection for the son of an oppressor of her father and 
 her faith. Keenly as I feel it, I regret not so much that the youth 
 Harris holds a higher place in your heart than I do, as that one 
 who enjoys the light should think of mating with one in dark- 
 ness. It is as though a daughter of Judah should bestow her love 
 on the son of her Chaldean oppressor, at a time when her suffering 
 tribe hung their harps in silence and sorrow by the waters of 
 Babylon." 
 
 " Enough of this theme, Allen," said the maiden ; " I tell you I 
 think not so sanguinely of one so highly raised above me." 
 
 Hale and his family had retired to rest about an hour, when a 
 man knocked loudly at the door of Alderman Harris, in Small 
 Street. This unseasonable summons was answered by the porter, 
 who demanded, in a rough and irritable tone, the business of so 
 untimely a visitor. " Here is somebody," grumbled he, as he 
 slowly undid the bolts, " who cannot burn a heretic without knocking 
 up my master to blow the bellows ; but the Alderman has grown of 
 late so fond of these fires, it will be quite a pleasure for him to go 
 to a hotter place." 
 
 " Open, thou lazy varlet, for the Chancellor Dalby," exclaimed an 
 authoritative voice from without, with an impatient tone, that soon 
 made the bolts fly back with a strange expedition. 
 
 " I want you, worthy Alderman," said Dalby, entering, and 
 addressing the civic magnate, who had now made his appearance, 
 " to assist me to catch that heretical fox Huntingdon, whom I have 
 this night traced to his hiding hole. Master Stone, like a zealous 
 Catholic, has gone before to summon the watch,"
 
 65 
 
 As this charitable pair passed on towards their prey, some person 
 ran rapidly by them, not deigning to answer even Daley's summons 
 to stand. The circumstance induced Dalby, who was suspicious, 
 to hasten their steps ; and as they entered the churchyard they 
 were joined by Master Stone and the watch. 
 
 About this time, and ere the Chancellor and his friends had 
 arrived at their destination, the unconscious sleepers in Hale's 
 humble dwelling were startled from their slumbers by a sharp 
 knocking at the lower window. It was not necessary to continue 
 this noise in order to awaken them, for they lived in such constant 
 terror or apprehension, a very slight sound sufficed to break their 
 slumbers. "Who is that, and what is your business?" timidly 
 demanded a gentle voice from the upper window. 
 
 " It is I, Henry Harris, Maria." " Shame, Henry, 1 ' said the 
 young maiden, in a reproachful tone, "have I not forbidden you 
 again to see me, until ," and she closed the window. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, Maria," exclaimed the young man, in a 
 voice of painful earnestness, " trifle not now ; I come not to see 
 you alone, but to save you all to save Master Huntingdon, whose 
 name I now overheard the Chancellor Dalby mention to my father 
 be quick : I can even now hear their steps approaching." 
 
 The door was instantly opened. " Haste, Master Huntingdon," 
 exclaimed young Harris, in breathless anxiety as he entered the 
 house ; " there is still time for you before the watch comes up." 
 
 " I stir not," said the preacher, sternly and inexorably, " I will 
 even, upon this spot, abide the issue ; I will meet that ban dog of 
 the devil, Dalby, face to face, and defy him even at the stake." 
 
 " Madness !" exclaimed the youth ; " if you are determined to 
 sacrifice yourself, would you offer up this family with you ? If you 
 are discovered here, they must suffer for harbouring you." 
 
 " Do, Master Huntingdon," enjoined Maria, " save yourself, if 
 not us." 
 
 " I yield, then," said the preacher, and accompanied by Henry 
 Harris, he approached the front door to depart ; but just as he had 
 his hand on the bolt to withdraw it, the door quivered with the 
 sudden and loud knocking of persons without, who demanded 
 instant admission. 
 
 " We have lost time, we dallied too long," cried the youth, look- 
 ing round in perplexity ; " but the back way still affords a chance 
 of escape." 
 
 "Trouble not yourself, young man," firmly observed the 
 preacher, " I will meet my enemies and my death here ;" but he 
 was not permitted to indulge in his resolution, for young Harris 
 drew him almost forcibly out through a back casement, as Dalby 
 and his myrmidons entered at the front. The fugitives had gone 
 but a few steps, however, when they were met by a part of the 
 watch, who had been sent round by Dalby to guard the rear. With 
 that readiness of mind, peculiar to youth and courage, no sooner 
 did Henry Harris see this new difficulty than he suddenly and 
 violently seized the preacher by the hood of his cloak, and dragged 
 him straight towards the watch, while he cried " I have caught 
 the old heretic at last ; make way, the prize is mine, with the
 
 66 
 
 blessing of the holy Church and of Chancellor Dalby ; guard you, 
 however, the rear, -while I take the prisoner to the front ; the house 
 is yet full of such heretics, and this is but one egg from the 
 cockatrice's nest !" By this ruse the youth was allowed to pass by 
 the watch, and thus carry Huntingdon out of danger. 
 
 In the meantime Dalby, enraged at being foiled, and finding the 
 bird flown, heaped curses and abuse on the heads of the unhappy 
 inmates of the house ; and, looking around for some cause or pretext 
 of accusation, at length alighted on the Bible which old Hale had 
 been reading. 
 
 As this obnoxious object met his view, his cruel eye twinkled 
 with satanic triumph. " Ha!" exclaimed he, exultingly, "you too 
 have dared, in the teeth of an order issued by the Church, to keep 
 this pestilent manual in your house ; you too, forsooth, would have 
 an oracle of your own, and consult it and put what interpretation 
 you pleased on its answer ; you too, old man, are one of those self- 
 sufficient champions, who would try with your puny hands to shake 
 the eternal gates of a Church built on the rock of Peter." 
 
 " God, cruel and unrighteous servant of a persecuting power," 
 intrepidly exclaimed the old Protestant, " will shiver those boasted 
 gates. The ocean of blood which your Church has spilt will sweep 
 away its sandy foundation ; you, who have fired so many faggots 
 will live to see your idols smouldering in their own ruins! " 
 
 " Bear witness, masters," shouted Dalby, turning round to his 
 two civic assistants, Stone and Harris, while his face was nearly 
 bursting with rage. " Bear testimony to those blasphemies. Watch, 
 seize this hoary -headed malignant." 
 
 As they approached her father, Maria threw herself in their way, 
 and Allen seemed disposed to dispute the matter with them. "Do 
 those young vipers intend to defend the old serpent ?" demanded 
 Dalby. " Take them all, watch, as participea criminis.'' 
 
 " Do take ug both," implored Maria. " If my father is to go to a 
 dungeon or the stake, separate not his daughter from him. I would 
 rather bear him company through the darkness of the valley of the 
 shadow of death, than remain in the warm sunshine of life without 
 him." 
 
 " You may have more of your wish, maiden, than you fancy," 
 said Dalby, coolly, as he ordered the guard to bind Allen and the 
 old man together ; " I will take care this girl does-not escape." 
 
 " Can we not bring our Bible ? " enquired old Hale, looking 
 wistfully back as he crossed the threshold. 
 
 "Only that it may be burned with you," was the reply. 
 
 About two hours after midnight the heavy gratings of Newgate 
 closed behind the old man, his daughter and Allen, and when their 
 persecutor Dalby was crossing the College-green towards the 
 postern-gate of Saint Augustine's, the three Protestant captives 
 were singing the songs of Zion in their damp and dark dungeon. 
 
 As the night passed in silence and slow progress over the dreary 
 prison of the poor captives, they endeavoured to enliven its 
 watches in affectionately comforting each other, and praisine: their 
 common Lord. " It boots little," said Hale, addressing Maria, " to 
 an old man, whether his bones bleach in a dungeon or the grave,
 
 or are scattered in ashes by the wind, when his soul is sure of an 
 inheritance of which the cruelty of man cannot rob him ; but it 
 grieves me to think that so young a frame and so tender as yours 
 should be subject to the searching damps of so cold a place ; and yet, 
 but for the safety of a soul, more precious than the body, believe 
 me, I would not link an unprotected orphan to me in suffering and 
 privations, and persecutions. No, Maria ; I am infirm but not 
 selfish." 
 
 " Talk not thus, father," exclaimed the girl, " separated from you 
 I could not live ; it is sorrow to see you here, but it is joy to be 
 with you. And why call me an orphan ?" 
 
 The old man seemed perplexed with the question. He paused 
 for a moment and then said hesitatingly. " You are you would be 
 an orphan, if your only protector was removed, one who feels for 
 you the force of even a parent's love." 
 
 A key now grated in the lock of their lonely cell, and the gaoler 
 entered to inform them that a guard from St. Augustine's was in 
 waiting to conduct them to the monastery. A grey heavy mist of 
 morning hung over the narrow and intricate line of streets, through 
 which the guard conducted them. As they passed in front of the 
 Pithay-gate, they were accosted by a man in a large flowing wig 
 and a black patch over his right eye. He addressed himself to the 
 guard, and demanded, in the name of the city, their business with 
 the prisoners. The guard, in reply, said they were servants of St. 
 Augustine's, whither they were conducting those persons to be 
 tried on the charge of heresy. " Good," said the citizen, approach- 
 ing the three Protestants, " but I must register their names." 
 " Friend," continued he, addressing Hale, then lowering his voice, 
 so as not to be heard by the guards, ' ' be strong, be faithful, and 
 fear not them who cannot injure the soul, though they may burn 
 the body." The old man at once recognised the voice of the 
 intrepid Huntingdon, under the guise of the seeming citizen ; but 
 before he could reply, the latter had disappeared. * 
 
 As they crossed the Green, Hale, looking towards the old pile 
 which rose before them and loomed larger in the haze of the morn- 
 ing, raised his hands to heaven and exclaimed, " Proud and aspiring 
 building, beautiful as thou seemest from without, what rottenness, 
 and cruelty, and sin, dost thou contain ! Yet one day shalt thou be 
 purified of thy corruption : the blackness of religious darkness which 
 pervades cloister and choir shall in one day be dispelled, by the 
 sudden rising of the Gospel sun which now shines only in the 
 habitations of the poor, and the dungeons of martyrs." 
 
 " Cease thy blasphemy, old grey head," interrupted one of the 
 guards, striking him with the end of his partizan. 
 
 On entering the monastery the prisoners, notwithstanding the 
 
 * An incident similar to this actually occurred during the persecution 
 of the Baptists during the reign of Charles II. ; one of their ministers 
 was named Gifford, and he was a most enterprising and adventurous man. 
 When a party of the proscribed sect was passing through Lawford's-gate, 
 a man in a flowing wig and a large patch on his face, addressed a few 
 words to them, and it was not till sometime after they learnt that the 
 person so disguised was their own minister.
 
 <J8 
 
 supplications and tears of Maria to be left with her father, were 
 removed to separate dungeons, where they had no means by which 
 to calculate the progress of time but the indistinct sounds of the 
 different religious services of the day and the silence by which they 
 were succeeded . At length, after a long and weary confinement, the 
 oppressive solitude of which was only broken by the appearance of 
 a domestic of the monastery with a loaf of coarse bread and a 
 pitcher of water, a messenger arrived, as it seemed to Maria, about 
 an hour ere midnight, to summon her before the " holy tribunal" 
 for the trial of all heretics. A handkerchief was bound over her 
 eyes, and the officer led her by the hand, at first, it appeared to her, 
 through some large building ; then she entered a nagged court and 
 felt the cooling night air fall with its refreshing influence on her 
 feverish cheek ; from this she passed again into some building, and 
 began to descend a steep flight of stone steps, up which a cold wind 
 crept, chilling her slight frame. Having reached the bottom her 
 conductor withdrew the handkerchief from her eyes, and the poor 
 bewildered girl was surprised to find herself in a low vaulted 
 apartment, lit by a cresset or rude lamp that hung by an iron 
 chain, rusted by the damp, from the ceiling over a stone table, 
 round which sat several dignitaries of the monastery, dressed in 
 stole and surplice. Opposite this reverend and relentless tribunal 
 stood a band of halberdiers belonging to the monastery, and having 
 in their custody four or five persons, amongst whom Maria 
 recognised her father and Allen. With the agility of an antelope 
 she sprung from the side of the officer under whose surveillance 
 she was, and flung herself on the old man's neck. It was a scene 
 which would have moved any but that sacred and implacable bench. 
 Even some of them showed that their hearts were not of granite ; 
 Bishop Hollyman passed his hand across his brow, and an ascetic- 
 looking monk who sat next him turned his head aside. Dalby, 
 however, proved himself impenetrable to every feeling but one of 
 rigorous, unbending cruelty and bigotry. With a countenance 
 black as night he arose from his place by the table, and calling to 
 the halberdiers to separate the heretics, sternly commanded Maria 
 to be silent, as it was " no time or place for such follies." He then 
 turned to the other members of the " secret court," and requested 
 that the trial should proceed. 
 
 Dalby then recited a long article of accusation against Hale, his 
 daughter, and Allen, for reading the Bible without note or 
 comment ; for harbouring an attainted heretic, in the person of 
 Huntingdon ; for reviling the saints and for denying the sacrament 
 of the altar to be the very body and blood of Christ really and 
 substantially. 
 
 When the article had been read, Bishop Hollyman demanded 
 what Hale had to say to the charge of heresy. 
 
 " The charge of heresy, I deny," replied the old man ; 
 " but " 
 
 Hollyman, who seemed to possess more humanity than the rest, 
 here interrupted Hale, and cautioned him against criminating him- 
 self by any admissions. 
 
 " Stop him not, stop him not," exclaimed Dalby ; " suffer the
 
 69 
 
 old fox to walk into the trap, and save us the trouble of catching 
 him." 
 
 The Bishop's pride was hurt by this dictatorial interference of 
 Dalby. 
 
 " If the Chancellor," said he, in a tone of offended dignity, and 
 rising to depart, " will be president in this court, the Bishop had 
 better retire." 
 
 Dalby offered a few words of apology, and Hollyman appeared 
 pacified. 
 
 "Now, old hoary-headed heretic," exclaimed Dalby, " what have 
 you to say for yourself? " 
 
 " Where are my accusers ? " inquired the old man. 
 
 " Where are they ? " inquired the Bishop, glancing round the 
 apartment, " I see none here." 
 
 "I am his accuser," exclaimed Dalby, starting up, "and I 
 include yon maiden in the charge." 
 
 The old Protestant cast a withering look on his persecutor. 
 " Minister worthy of Satan and the system you serve, vampire 
 of Home, will you not be satisfied to drain the contents of those old 
 veins, but would you also feed your diabolical hate on the young 
 warm blood of a gentle and meek creature like this ? Take 
 me grind those aged bones on the rack, but do not sink your 
 soul to deeper perdition by an unnatural act of the enormity of 
 which you are not aware. Does your nature or instinct tell you 
 nothing, or would you murder and persecute when you ought to 
 protect ? " 
 
 " I charge them," interposed Dalby, his countenance almost livid 
 with rage and mortification, at being bearded in his own den, " I 
 charge them first " 
 
 " Save yourself the trouble so far as I am concerned," said the 
 old Confessor. " When the blood hounds of Rome open their 
 mouths for the flesh of an old man it shall not be refused. If this 
 poor frame can bear witness to the faith, I shall glory in it ; I have 
 harboured Huntingdon ; I have read the Scriptures. There is my 
 admission, and now for your torments and your auto da fe." 
 
 As the old man thus expressed himself, his eye kindled and all 
 in the apartment seemed struck with his intrepidity. Dalby, 
 however, nothing could move. Wth a cold satanic scowl on his 
 countenance he said to Hale, " Well, my venerable hero, we will 
 presently see with what ecstasy you will embrace the engine you 
 have called for. Do you recant ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Then bring out the rack. What ho ! there, Claud ! " 
 
 In answer to this summons two savage-looking, gloomy fellows, 
 dressed in black, and with arms bared to the elbow, appeared from 
 an inner appartment, and drew aside a curtain of dark drapery, 
 which hung nearly opposite the Judges, and discovered a grim 
 looking machine, in which the spectator had no difliculty in 
 recognising the rack. 
 
 Maria uttered a half-suppressed shriek on seeing this horrid 
 engine, and the old man's lip quivered for a second, while there 
 appeared an expression of hesitation in his eye ; but the weakness
 
 70 
 
 was momentary, and, ejaculating a short prayer to Heaven, he 
 continued to look at the instrument with courage and composure. 
 
 The two men approached Hale, and were about to proceed with 
 the business of torture, when Maria sprung between them and the 
 old man, and dashed them off with a force which she did not appear 
 to possess. 
 
 " Ha ! " exclaimed Dalby, " that young heretic is possessed of a 
 devil ; had we not better see if Beelzebub may not be exorcised out 
 of her by the rack ? " 
 
 The executioners laid hold on the gentle frame of the young 
 girl, but were stayed by the order of Bishop Hollyman, who 
 addressed himself to Hale. " Old man," said he, " I cannot offer 
 you life if you recant ; but an instantaneous repentance, and 
 retraction of the blasphemies you have uttered against the Pope 
 and the holy Church, may save you the torture." The old man 
 paused for a moment, his lips moved for a few seconds in silent 
 prayer, and he then said, slowly and firmly, " I will bear witness 
 to the truth." 
 
 At a signal from Hollyman Maria was withdrawn, or rather torn 
 from the arms of the old man, whom the tormentors proceeded to 
 place on the rack. When the cords and the thongs were fixed, the 
 Bishop again called on him to recant, but the old man heard or 
 answered him not, for he was engaged in prayer for strength. 
 
 " He is contumacious," said Dalby ;" let the rack reason with 
 him ; " and presently a deep moan (at the sound of which Maria fell 
 with a shriek insensible on the cold floor of the dungeon) showed 
 that the work of torture had commenced on the wasted frame of 
 the old man. 
 
 Again Hollyman called out to him to recant, without receiving 
 any answer ; but on the second application of the torture Hale ex- 
 claimed, in a voice tremulous from pain, " Stop, stop ! " 
 
 The tormentors relaxed their labours for a moment, and Hale 
 continued in an agitated tone, every muscle quivering with agony, 
 " If I recant, will yon burn me, as you did Sharpe, when he re- 
 canted ? " 
 
 The Bishop was about to answer, but Dalby interposed, with a 
 false promise of life for recantation. On another signal from this 
 cruel inquisitor, one of the halberdiers approached to loose the 
 thongs and release Hale. As the man endeavoured to undo the 
 cords, he stooped over the old Protestant and whispered in his ear, 
 " Would you prove a coward to your God now, and deny Him be- 
 fore His enemies, to save your miserable flesh another pang ? " The 
 voice was Huntingdon's. Altered as were his features by art, and 
 strange the guise in which that intrepid man had joined the guard 
 of the monastery, and intruded himself into the very den of the lions 
 that were seeking to devour him, Hale knew the reformed preacher, 
 and drew fresh courage from his exhortation. He looked towards 
 the table where his judges or rather accusers sat, and said " Let the 
 rack do its office again, and punish the flesh that would betray the 
 spirit which will never stoop to your idolatries." Dalby's look was 
 that of a demon as he exclaimed, " Then give him no stint to his 
 wish ; and he may again change his mind."
 
 71 
 
 The tormentors followed the Chancellor's instructions to the letter, 
 but Hale was firm. Once or twice the force of the torture was ac- 
 knowledged by a moan of anguish, but he remained firm. At length, 
 in a weak and almost insensible state, he was released from the rack, 
 and the " sacred tribunal" proceeded to pass sentence on him as a 
 contumacious and confirmed heretic, to be burnt on St. Michael's 
 hill with green wood. 
 
 As the sound of the great bell, reaching even this deep vault, told 
 the hour of midnight, the Bishop rose to depart ; but Daiby, not yet 
 satisfied with his night's work, proposed that they should proceed 
 to try the other prisoners. " No, no," said Hollyman, " we have 
 already had enough of an unpleasant duty ; and besides, my flask 
 of Rhenish and venison pasty must have been awaiting me for the 
 last hour." 
 
 Maria slowly awoke to consciousness as the sound of the retiring 
 steps of the conclave ceased on the stone stairs which led up into 
 light from their subterraneous courts. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 On the morning of the day after these occurrences, a stream of 
 people might be seen passing from every part of the city up Steep 
 Street, and through the Fryers, towards St. Michael's HUl. John's 
 Gate, Frome Gate, and even St. Giles's poured out the population, 
 all hurrying to behold the "burning of a heretic," with a sight- 
 seeing avidity which time has not diminished in their descendants. 
 Long before the appointed hour, that part of the hill appropriated 
 to those revolting tragedies was thronged with persons of all classes, 
 ages, and sexes. The city was nearly deserted. From Broad Street, 
 the person whom business or a better feeling kept at home, could 
 behold the crest of the hill, as it rose above the long line of gabled 
 houses, peopled with thousands, thick as swarms of locusts, from 
 whom, ever and anon, the deep hum of expectation or impatience 
 was borne by the breeze to the ears of the few who still remained 
 in the almost silent city. 
 
 The scene on the hill itself, for nearly two hours before the busi- 
 ness of the day commenced, was so noisy and uproarious, and often 
 so mirthful, that one would suppose a bear was about to be baited 
 instead of a human being burned. Nearly on the summit an open 
 space of some extent was kept by a strong civic guard, which, with 
 difficulty, restrained the crowd from encroaching on the ground 
 set apart for the performance of the frightful drama. In the 
 centre of this space, and about twenty yards apart, stood two grim- 
 looking stakes, to which were attached iron chains ; a heap of 
 green faggots surrounded each, and a rude temporary platform was 
 arranged at no great distance. Though the circle was large, so 
 numerous were the spectators, there were many who could not 
 obtain a sight of the preparations going on ; and those who were 
 more fortunate in securing good places vied and wrangled with 
 each other for " positions of pre-eminency." The loudest and most 
 obstinate in asserting their claims were the women. A slave mer- 
 chant's wife was vehement in her reprobation of the impudence of 
 the age, because an armourer's dame intercepted the view by stand-
 
 72 
 
 ing rather in front. " No wonder," said the former, addressing 
 some person who stood near, and quite loud enough for the object 
 of her anger to hear it, " no wonder there be want in the city, 
 when folks who should stop at home to blow the bellows for their 
 husbands must, forsooth, go out a spectacle seeing ; for my part, I 
 think it worse than heresy." 
 
 The object of this taunt was not slow in retorting. " Lack-a- 
 daisy," exclaimed she, turning round, " hear the daughter of the 
 double stitcher, frnm Defence - lane ; you will not drive me 
 as your husband does his slaves, and you do your husband. I 
 marvel you did not come out in his hose, and leave the hen- 
 pecked loon in that flowered brocade, since slaver's wives will wear 
 brocades." 
 
 This interesting interview might have been prolonged, had not 
 an exclamation from some persons in the crowd of " The proces- 
 sion's coming," called off the attention of the disputants to the all- 
 engrossing business of the day. The announcement, however, was 
 soon discovered to be unfounded ; and when the momentary buzz 
 which it excited had ceased, the attention of the slave-merchant's 
 wife was attracted to another object. Indeed, the sharpness of her 
 antagonist's tongue did not tempt her to return to the charge 
 in that quarter. A group on the opposite side, and so highly 
 favoured as to be permitted to occupy a bench close by the plat- 
 form, next caught her eyes, and seemingly excited her envy also. 
 " Is yonder Alderman Harris's dame ? " inquired her neighbour, a 
 young man in a Genoese velvet cloak, a gay beaver, and a silk 
 doublet. " Yes, charmer," replied the person addressed, " with 
 her son and a hoyden wench, whom his mother expects him to 
 marry, but Henry Harris, they say, is little disposed to be obedient 
 to his parents in that particular." 
 
 While this conversation was proceeding, the object of it, a fine, 
 but proud and somewhat vulgar-looking woman, sat with an air of 
 much complacency, occasionally directing her conversation to her 
 son and the young maiden whom she designed for his wife, and 
 who was the daughter of Master Stone, Harris's co-partner in the 
 work of persecution. The young man's attention, however, was 
 otherwise employed in the close observation of a respectable looking 
 citizen, who occupied a prominent place in the crowd near him, 
 and who wore a flowing wig and a dark patch over his eye. At 
 length the youth, as if satisfied of the truth of his surmises, mut- 
 tered to himself, " It is he ; but what madness for the hunted stag 
 to come amongst the very hounds that are seeking him." Henry 
 Harris then glided quietly amongst the crowd, so as to approach 
 unobserved the seeming citizen, on whose shoulder he gently laid 
 his hand ; the latter started in surprise and alarm, but almost im- 
 mediately recognised the young man, who, pressing through the 
 crowd, signalled to him to follow. When they had reached a 
 clump of scathed pines, which stood apart from the people, " Well, 
 Master Huntingdon," said Henry, " is it not a tempting of your 
 fate to come on such a day as this and to such a scene, when men 
 are so eager for your blood ? " 
 
 " Young man," replied the preacher, " if you still entertain one
 
 feeling for the bad faith, of your father, look around, and tell me 
 what you think of these fiery preparations." 
 
 " You know that, save in name, I have no connection with the 
 Church which persecutes you ; but let me entreat you to quit a 
 place where you are in momentary danger of detection." 
 
 " I wait to see a Christian bear witness to the faith," firmly 
 answered the preacher. " But is the young maiden Maria to be 
 included in this holocaust to unholy Rome ? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid, exclaimed the young man, growing pale ; "it 
 was to speak of her I sought you." 
 
 Just then the great bell of St. Augustine's tolled out with a deep 
 and ominous sound, which every one on the hill understood as the 
 first signal preparatory to the moving of the hideous procession 
 from the monastery. A buzz passed through the crowd, and then 
 it swelled into a loud shout, which reached back almost to the ears 
 of the unhappy victims. " Meet me here at midnight, and we will 
 speak further of her," said the preacher : "now I must witness 
 how the old man and Allen bear evidence to the faith," and he once 
 more mingled with the crowd. 
 
 I must conduct the reader again to the old sombre pile of St. 
 Augustine's, now the scene of such busy preparations for the 
 approaching " Act of Faith." 
 
 Owing to some slight feeling of humanity on the part of Bishop 
 Hollyman, Maria still continued ignorant of the sentence passed 
 on Hale, and in which Allen was subsequently included. Though 
 in suspense and wretchedness, she was still happily unconscious of 
 the horrid fact, the knowledge of which must have been too much 
 for her tender frame and brain. She constantly inquired for her 
 father of those who served her with her daily dole of bread and 
 water, but they were either unable or forbidden by the Bishop to 
 give her information. The noise of preparation, therefore, and 
 even the tolling of the great bell, as it penetrated her solitary 
 dungeon, more perplexed than alarmed her. Sometimes, too, a 
 feeling of apprehension for Henry Harris, who, in rescuing Hunt- 
 ingdon on the night of their arrest, must have risked his own safety, 
 crossed her mind. 
 
 Early on the morning of the day appointed for their painful 
 death, the old man and Allen were on their knees in their cold 
 dungeon, and when Dalby's messenger arrived to tell them that in 
 an hour they must be ready to start on their journey for the stake, 
 he found them still in a praying posture. Something, however, 
 dwelt heavily on the mind of Hale : and when the messenger 
 further inquired if they would have a confessor, he refused, but 
 earnestly entreated that he might be permitted to see the Chan- 
 cellor, even for a few minutes. 
 
 " Ho, ho, my venerable martyr," said Dalby, entering the cell 
 with a diabolical grin of triumph on his face, " so your heretical 
 obstinacy begins to melt before the fire has even touched it. You 
 sent for me ; make haste with your communication, for the crowd 
 on St. Michael's begin to grow impatient, and you are an object 
 of curiosity to thousands to-day." 
 
 Hale, with difficulty, repressed the rebuke which waa rising on
 
 74 
 
 his lips ; " I sent not for you about any matter concerning myself," 
 he replied, " but touching the maiden, Maria." 
 
 " Yes," interrupted Dalby, " the pretty redbreast, whom we en- 
 closed in the same net with you, Master Owl ; or rather I should 
 call her that little heretical cockatrice, which would seduce the son 
 of a good Catholic from his faith and parents." 
 
 " What mean you ? " 
 
 "Do you know that paper ?" said Dalby, his face scarlet with 
 rising choler, and presenting an opened missive to the old man, 
 " it is signed ' Henry Harris', and was found in your dwelling. It 
 is a missive, as you perceive, from that weak and sinning youth to 
 your daughter, and from its contents it is clear that the young 
 harlot has been too successful in tempting this youth to her own 
 heresy by her hellish allurements." 
 
 The old man gazed bewildered on the missive, then said, " If 
 Heaven has opened the youth's eyes, the maiden is only made the 
 instrument of his conversion." 
 
 " Out upon you, old blasphemer," shouted Dalby, " but the young 
 witch shall burn for her sorceries. Though she had the pity of a 
 hundred Bishops to protect her, this evidence will bring her to the 
 Btake." 
 
 " Cruel man," replied Hale, " do not commit an awful sin ; I 
 never besought you for my own life, yet let me beg for hers, were 
 it but for your own sake." 
 
 " Keep your breath to cool your fingers at the stake." 
 
 " Would you burn your own limbs ? Will the maiden find a 
 murderer where she should experience a protector ? " 
 
 " Peace, old fool," retorted Dalby, quitting the room. 
 
 "Stay, stay," exclaimed the old man; but the door closed on 
 him, and his words fell idly on its clenched and iron-covered 
 panels. 
 
 An hour afterwards the tongue of the great bell gave its 
 second signal, and the procession was seen emerging from under 
 the Abbey gateway, which still stands, a beautiful relic of the 
 later style of Norman architecture. The cortege was preceded by 
 a band of halberdiers, who were followed by two officers bearing a 
 standard, on which was inscribed the episcopal arms of St. 
 Augustine's. Next came three men carrying large paste-board 
 figures on poles, supposed to be representations of heretics who 
 had already suffered for their errors ; then appeared a gigantic 
 crucifix, covered by black crape, and supported by a priest. In the 
 rear of this, and each attended by two friars, walked the poor 
 victims, dressed in linen garments on which were painted fiends 
 and flames ; they also wore tall conical paper caps, decorated in like 
 manner. The air of the old man and Allen was dauntless and 
 composed, and though the friars frequently addressed them, they 
 observed strict silence : the Bishop's post was, or ought to have been, 
 next, but Hollyman not relishing the cruel duty, his place was 
 taken by the Chancellor Dalby, who rode a large black horse, richly 
 but gloomily caparisoned. Another guard of halberdiers drew 
 up the rear, and the whole closed with four executioners, dressed 
 in black, and carrying lighted torches.
 
 75 
 
 As the procession, like some great snake uncoiling itself from its 
 den, wound out through the gateway and across the Green, tho bell 
 continued tolling from the square embattled tower above them ; 
 nor did the same monotonous and melancholy sound cease while 
 the horrid cortege, which was accompanied by a crowd of spectators, 
 moved through the narrow and steep line of old streets which then 
 led from the monastery, along Host-street, up Steep-street to St. 
 Michael's hill. On approaching the place of execution, an opening 
 was made by the guard, and the procession passed on into the clear 
 space, finally arranging itself under the platform, which was 
 occupied by the Chancellor Dalby, Harris, Stone, and other civic 
 authorities. Mass was then celebrated, the populace all the time 
 remaining uncovered. This being finished, a priest arose and 
 pronounced absolution on the two condemned heretics should 
 they repent and recant their errors. Hale and Allen, however, 
 continued silent, and engaged in mental prayer. At length the 
 ceremony terminated by Dalby reciting the act of accusation, to 
 which he added the sentence of the "sacred court" that they should 
 be burned alive as contumacious and confirmed heretics. 
 
 An awful pause followed the enunciation of this fearful sentence. 
 During this moment of dead silence a voice was heard clearly and 
 audibly from amongst the crowd, exclaiming, " Be faithful !" Old 
 Hale and Allen, as they held back their arms to be pinioned by the 
 executioners, knew the voice and drew confidence from it. The 
 crowd heard it with surprise, and it startled even the hardened 
 Dalby on his platform ; but none save the two martyrs could 
 guess from whom it proceeded. 
 
 As the executioners led the victims to the stake, several persons, 
 unable any longer to endure the sight, were seen struggling to 
 escape from the crowd. When locked by the chain to the stake, 
 Hale looked with a smile of encouragement towards Allen, and 
 exclaimed, pointing with his pinioned hand as well as he could to 
 the prospect below, "Be of good courage, brother; from this height 
 we will serve as beacon lights to show to the region round about 
 the way of salvation." 
 
 ' ' Peace, blasphemer ! " shouted Dalby from his platform. 
 
 " Minister of Satan," exclaimed the old man, casting a withering 
 glance towards the Chancellor, "for you a fire more lasting is 
 pre ." 
 
 The old man's figure was suddenly lost to view by a dense black 
 cloud of smoke, which rolled curling around him in suffocating 
 volumes ; the executioner, by a signal from Dalby, fired the green 
 faggots and a moment after Allen had shared the same fate. A 
 red flame almost instantly shot up through the smoke, and was 
 followed by a cry of anguish, but from out which of the fires it 
 proceeded no one could say. From several parts of Bristol were 
 seen the two columns of flame, as they shot up fiercely and suddenly 
 towards the sky, amid the assembled thousands on the hill ; but 
 there were few to bless the Chancellor Dalby as he returned in 
 triumph to St. Augustine's after his day's work. 
 
 Agreeably to his appointment with Huntingdon, about half-an 
 hour to midnight, Henry Harris turned his steps towards St.
 
 76 
 
 Michael's-hill. To escape observation he chose the least frequented 
 course; there was, however, little necessity for this precaution, as 
 few at any time cared to be found at that hour iu the neighbourhood 
 of "The Heretics' Ground," and least of all so soon after two had 
 suffered there. Tales were told, and popularly believed, of lights 
 appearing, and strange figures seen, and unearthly wailings heard 
 by persons, who were compelled to pass near that part of the hill 
 at night, when " Acts of Faith " had taken place there during the 
 day : so that those he met, and who were hastening with nervous 
 steps from the gloomy region, only regarded with surprise and some 
 degree of superstitious fear, the individual apparently bound 
 towards a spot which others were so anxious to avoid. 
 
 When the youth had arrived within about two hundred yards of 
 the Heretics' Ground, he was startled to find the popular legend in 
 some measure realised. Near where the stakes stood, and Hale and 
 Allen had suffered that day, two dim and shifting lights barely 
 sufficed to show him several dark figures moving about in grim, 
 spectral-like array. Henry Harris was of a bold disposition, and 
 the truths of the Reformed Faith, which he had secretly received 
 into his bosom, raised him above the superstitions of the day ; yet 
 a feeling of dread and awe crept over his frame. The hour, the 
 place, and the recent appalling associations connected with it, all 
 combined to create such a feeling in one so young and susceptible, 
 and living in an age when legends of ghosts were mixed up with 
 those of romance and chivalry ; he instinctively moved towards the 
 clump of scathed pine trees, which stood close by, and from behind 
 this shelter watched the dark figures as they flitted to and fro, now 
 stooping as if to collect the ashes which lay strewn about the stakes, 
 and then filing off in slow line, while a low, sad, wailing, melancholy 
 sound arose on the night air, and Henry Harris heard the words 
 aa they were borne towards him 
 
 Hear, Lord, from Heaven, thy servants' plaints, 
 Receive the ashes of thy martyr'd saints, 
 
 Receive, receive. 
 Hear thy persecuted people's cry, 
 Stretch out thy hand from Heaven on high, 
 
 And help them, help them, Lord. 
 
 Henry Harris had no longer any doubt that they were beings of 
 flesh and blood. Protected by the superstitious tales told of the 
 " Heretics' Ground," some of the more intrepid but persecuted 
 and scattered members of the Reformed Faith were wont secretly 
 to assemble at midnight on the Hill, after any of the brethren had 
 suffered, and collecting the ashes, commit all that remained of 
 the poor martyr to its mother earth. In this sad business they 
 were now engaged for Hale and Allen, and as the little mourning 
 procession passed they continued to chaunt the same low wailing 
 supplication to Heaven. They stopped before a spot not far from the 
 old church, where the earth had been newly turned up ; a lantern 
 was then held for one of them to read prayers, and, as the light 
 fell on the face of the bookman, Henry Harris had no difficulty in 
 recognising the marked and intrepid features of Huntingdon.
 
 77 
 
 After a short and fervent prayer, two stone urns were lowered into 
 the earth, accompanied by the same sad words and air 
 
 Hear, Lord, from Heaven thy servants' plaints, 
 Receive the ashes of thy martyr'd saints, 
 Receive, receive. 
 
 The effect was profoundly solemn and impressive ; the members 
 of a proscribed and persecuted faith had crept forth from their 
 hiding-places at that late hour, and, in that lonely spot, dared 
 amid the dangers which surrounded them to bestow upon the dust 
 of their martyred brethren the last sad rites of sepulture. It was 
 an heroic and a holy act ; and Henry Harris felt that from that 
 moment forward, the poor hunted-down Lutherans had enlisted all 
 his sympathies on their side. While he continued to regard them 
 with rapt interest, not unmixed with awe, he was suddenly and 
 violently seized by some persons, who demanded his business there, 
 and at that hour. Henry, thinking they were emissaries of Dalby, 
 attempted to shake them off; but a dagger placed so close to his 
 breast that it slightly pricked his skin, showed that resistance was 
 worse than vain it was dangerous. 
 
 " Your name ?" demanded one. 
 
 " Harris ; I came to see Master Huntingdon." 
 
 "Harris !" exclaimed three or four voices at once ; " onr bloody 
 enemy ; we are discovered, betrayed." A whistle, not very loud, 
 but shrill, sounded as a signal to those engaged in the business of 
 interment the lights disappeared and the chaunts ceased. 
 
 " Your career of persecution is over," exclaimed a gruff voice 
 close to his ear ; " when we would sacrifice to the injured spirits of 
 the martyrs, behold a ram caught by its horns in a thicket ; your 
 hands helped to pile the faggot ; your blood will serve to slake the 
 ashes." 
 
 Henry assured them he was not their persecutor he was but the 
 son of him against whom they felt so justly indignant. 
 
 " Yes," exclaimed his captors : " an acorn from the old oak, or, 
 rather, an offshoot from the old upas tree, destined to bear more 
 malignant fruit." 
 
 Huntingdon opportunely arrived to rescue the youth from his 
 captors. " The poor Reformers," said the preacher, as he retired 
 with Harris, " to prevent being surprised in their sad business, 
 must sometimes act, you see, as well as suffer. But what have you 
 learned of the maiden Maria ? They have not determined upon her 
 death ? We are secretly informed that Hollyman will consent that 
 she suffers no more severe punishment than imprisonment ; if so, 
 better that her body undergo restraint than that her soul be in 
 jeopardy. The hour of deliverance for the persecuted and 
 imprisoned is approaching : the woman Mary Tudor is fast going 
 to her long and final account, and Maria's captivity must soon be 
 at an end." 
 
 " I fear me matters are not so well as you suppose," said Harris, 
 who continued with some degree of embarrassment ; ' amongst the 
 papers found by Dalby's searchers in Hale's house was a letter from 
 me to Maria. It contained a confession of my faith and love, and 
 will be exhibited in evidence against her by Dalby, who now
 
 78 
 
 intends to demand her trial. My mother wished me to marry a 
 wife of her own choosing, and being this day apprised of the 
 discovery by the Chancellor, declares she will never be satisfied 
 until the ' young heretic witch ' is brought to the stake : and my 
 mother is of that stamp which will not be easily turned aside from 
 her victim." 
 
 There was a deep sternness in Huntingdon's voice, as he replied, 
 " This, then, young man, is the issue of your thoughtless trifling. 
 Was the season of mourning a fitting time to think of love or of 
 Badness to think of joy. But I will not blame you," he continued, 
 his voice softening as he spoke, " as soon might we expect to stop 
 vegetation in summer as love in youth." 
 
 The preacher passed his hand across his eyes, and a pause of 
 eome seconds, which neither seemed disposed to break, followed. 
 At length Huntingdon, as if awaking from some reverie, suddenly 
 inquired " How shall we act ?" 
 
 " Save the maiden." 
 
 " A bold answer only to be effected by boldness." 
 
 " According to the rules of the Monastery," said Henry Harris, 
 "the travelling monk and Palmer are permitted to try their 
 polemical prowess against contumacious heretics ; in the habit of 
 one or the other I will demand from Bishop Holly man the usual 
 privilege ; and thus gain the cell of Maria, who may escape in my 
 disguise." 
 
 Huntingdon shook his head incredulously. " This is the hasty 
 device of a hot brain," said he, " you cannot catch the foxes of 
 Eome in such a flimsy net. The maiden shall be saved, but as my 
 plan would involve a long loss of freedom, and perhaps peril her 
 soul, it shall be a last resource." 
 
 "Why a last," demanded Henry, "or if your plan involve 
 consequences so serious, why not permit me to try mine ?" 
 
 "Try yours then, young man," said the preacher, "but there is 
 great need of coolness and caution ; you match your young wit 
 against those who are as wily as old serpents." 
 
 Huntingdon having engaged to provide the means of flight, 
 should Maria succeed in escaping from St. Augustine's, Henry 
 Harris departed,having received the reformer's blessing on his efforts. 
 
 CHAPTER IIT. 
 
 Next morning, after the night meeting on St. Michael's-hill 
 between Huntingdon and Henry Harris, an aged Monk, in his long 
 dark cloak and hood, and leaning on a staff, entered under the 
 archway of the gate house of St. Augustine's. He had not 
 proceeded many steps towards the Bishop's Palace, when he was 
 met by Hollyman himself, mounted on a sleek mule, and 
 accompanied by two or three substantial citizens, similarly 
 accommodated, and all evidently bound on a pleasure ride. The 
 Monk lowered his head in obeisance, and approached the Bishop, 
 as he hastily pronounced the benison. 
 
 " Well, brother, your business with "me," impatiently demanded 
 Hollyman, who evidently relished not any interruption to his 
 promised pleasure.
 
 79 
 
 " Permission," replied the Monk, "to combat the heretical devil 
 with which a maiden now confined in your monastery is, I have 
 heard, possessed." 
 
 "Humph," ejaculated Hollyman, " de gustibus non yours is a 
 rare fancy, brother ; but the Chancellor must hear your petition. 
 What, ho, there Robin, porter ! conduct this holy man to master 
 Dalby." 
 
 The monk turned to depart, saying he would wait the Bishop's 
 pleasure ; Dalby, however, coming up at the same moment, he was 
 obliged to prefer his prayer to the latter, who, after having put 
 several questions to him, at length granted his request. 
 
 As the monk accompanied a sergeant of halberdiers to the cell of 
 the maiden, Dalby followed his retiring steps with a Satanic glance 
 of triumph, and at length burst out into a loud discordant laugh, 
 exclaiming, " That simple boy would, forsooth, measure his shallow 
 wit with mine ; ha, ha ; mine is too old an eye to mistake a dove 
 for a pigeon, or his fresh baby face for a monk's, merely because 
 he wears a hood. But I must follow my pretty bird to its cage," 
 said the Chancellor, and he walked off with a gratified air. 
 
 As soon as the halberdier had closed the door of the cell on the 
 pseudo Monk and the poor captive, the former threw back his hood 
 and discovered to Maria the well-known features of Henry Harris. 
 An exclamation of surprise burst from the girl's lips, which, had 
 not the guard been out of hearing, must have led to their dis- 
 covery. Love and pity filled the young man's breast as he beheld 
 the colourless beauty of a cheek upon which captivity had left its 
 trace. He had, not, however, been many moments with her when 
 the blood rallied into every feature, and the expression of her deep 
 hazel eye showed that amid all her sufferings she still retained a 
 tender recollection of him. When he mentioned the object and 
 purpose of his visit, and urged her to assume his disguise without 
 delay, she firmly refused. What ! to leave him there to the mercy 
 of Dalby, a substitute for her : she would never consent to adopt 
 so selfish a course : she could meet persecution, she could endure 
 suffering, she could go to the stake, but she could never consent to 
 escape thus, and leave another leave him behind to suffer." 
 
 It was in vain that the youth assured her that there was no 
 danger to him that he ran no risk, and that he would be liberated 
 almost as soon as discovered. She was still firm ; and it was not 
 until he declared his determination, if she persisted in her refusal, 
 to remain with her also, that she at length reluctantly consented to 
 adopt his disguise. He wrapped her in his long cloak, and having 
 prayed for her deliverance and kissed her cheek, withdrew into a 
 recess of the cell, so as to avoid the notice of the guard. 
 
 With an agitated hand Maria, in her new garb, knocked at the 
 door of the cell, as Henry had instructed her. No answer was 
 turned, and she knocked again and louder than before ; when the key 
 grated in the lock from the outside the door was opened, she 
 passed the sergeant, and Henry, with a silent prayer of thanks, 
 heard the bolt shoot once more into its staple, and he was left alone. 
 
 Leaning on her staff, and shrouded in her long cloak, Maria 
 pursued her course towards the gate house ; her agitation was a
 
 80 
 
 little increased by hearing footsteps following in the rear, but as 
 those after a while did not appear to gain on her, she became 
 reassured. She had now approached within a few yards of the 
 gate house ; the wicket was open, and the fat porter lolling lazily 
 against one side of the archway, looking out upon those who passed 
 and re-passed in the Green on business or pleasure. Maria saw 
 them also through the opened gateway, and this, the first glimpse 
 of freedom, fell with a refreshing influence on eyes whose vision 
 was so long bounded by the narrow limits of a cell. Her step 
 quickened as she neared the gate her fear of failure increasing 
 with her chances of success. She trembled for the loss of liberty, 
 as liberty seemed the more certain. A horseman stood before the 
 gate, and she could recognise in the rider the intrepid Huntingdon ; 
 her heart throbbed with hope as she entered under the archway : 
 she was too much excited to hear the footsteps, which dogged her 
 slowly before, now fast gaining on her, and the next moment, ere 
 she had reached the outer gate, she was in the arms, and once more 
 in the power, of the Chancellor Dalby. 
 
 He had tracked his poor victim from her very cell, and, with the 
 same malignant pleasure that a tiger plays with its prey, permitted 
 her to escape so far. He gratified his cruel disposition by suffering 
 her to raise the cup of liberty to her very lips, and then dashing it 
 down as she believed she was about to taste it. 
 
 After Maria left the cell in her disguise, Henry listened with an 
 anxious ear for every sound, fearing that each moment the door 
 would open, and the maiden, captured in her attempt to escape, be 
 again thrust back into confinement. But the minutes as they 
 passed gave him confidence, for every stir the hand made forward 
 on the dial's face placed an increased distance, he thought, between 
 her and her persecutors. At length a quarter of an hour had passed, 
 and he began to breathe freely ; she must by this time, he said, 
 have escaped far beyond their reach, and Dalby is disappointed of 
 his victim. A feeling of pride and triumph sprung up in the young 
 man's breast as he fancied himself the deliverer, at some personal 
 risk, of one whom he loved. 
 
 He heard footsteps approaching across the flagged pavement 
 which led to the cell : the bolts were withdrawn, and he was 
 confronted by Chancellor Dalby. The latter was unaccompanied 
 by any person. Henry, therefore, concluded that all cause for 
 alarm was past. 
 
 " Ha ! " said Dalby, feigning surprise, " you here." 
 
 " Yes," replied the young man, proud of the act which he had 
 performed, and of having overreached one so crafty as the Chan- 
 cellor. " Here, sir, at your pleasure." 
 
 "And the maiden?" 
 
 " Escaped from her cruel persecutor. You would have racked 
 her tender limbs : now try your infernal engine upon mine they 
 are stronger, and will endure more than hers." 
 
 "I am well minded," said Dalby, with a cold sneer, "to take 
 you, young man, at your word, and give you a taste of what you 
 ask for : but your presumption is already punished, and I have 
 two birds instead of one in^he cage."
 
 81 
 
 " What ! has not the maiden then escaped ? " 
 
 " Did you hope, shallow boy, to overreach me ? Is this grizzled 
 head no sign of wisdom or experience that you fancied the Chan- 
 cellor Dalby might he outdone by a stripling ; that I could mistake 
 your baby face for a monk's under the poor disguise of a black 
 hood ? I did not allow your little heretical leman to fly a few 
 yards without first having secured a string to her leg : and when 
 she fondly thought she was about to spread her wings for flight 
 and freedom, / drew her back once more to her cage. Ha ! ha ! 
 what think you now, young man, of your notable scheme ?" 
 
 Henry seemed stupefied for a moment by this intelligence. He 
 then, without saying a single word, sprung upon Dalby, but the 
 youth had over-calculated his strength ; Dalby dashed him back 
 with infinite ease, and, quitting the cell, told him, as he closed the 
 door, " to try his strength against that." 
 
 The Chancellor's triumph, however, was not yet complete ; he 
 next visited Maria's cell. " I have seen your paramour," said he, 
 as he entered, while the blood rushed into the poor maiden's pale 
 cheek at this rude insult, " and as I knew you were interested in 
 his weal, I called to inform you that he has ample time to digest 
 and consider the pious and instructive homilies which you have 
 preached to him." 
 
 " Oh, sir, blame him not," cried the maiden in a tone of anguish, 
 " for he is not to blame. If fault there be any, it must be mine, 
 and punish me alone." 
 
 " You will find the sacred tribunal ready enough to grant your 
 request," retorted the Chancellor, in that deliberate tone which 
 men, whose hearts are steeled against humanity, can only affect, 
 " and I see not why we should be more lenient to the devil under 
 the guise of a young maiden than in the form of an old man. 
 Oh ! it is such heretics as you the church has to fear. The argu- 
 ments of old men are cold ; but it is the eloquence of young red 
 pouting lips which make apostates. The true faith has more to 
 fear from such fair- faced enemies than even from the old heresiarch 
 Luther himself." 
 
 The maiden answered not this tirade, but raised her eyes meekly 
 towards heaven. Dalby's glance was fixed on her; and as her 
 face met his, he started as though some spectre had suddenly risen 
 before him. He gazed on her pale face for a moment, then passing 
 his hand across his forehead, he muttered to himself, " Psha, what 
 a foolish fancy ! " He left the cell in silence. 
 
 As the Chancellor walked moodily from that part of the monastery 
 where Maria was confined, a stranger approached him unobserved 
 from the chapter-house. On perceiving him, Dalby uncovered and 
 saluted him with a low deferential bend of the body. The stranger 
 had no very imposing appearance ; he was not much Dalby's 
 superior in years ; but in the implacable ascetic cast of his 
 features, and the cold relentless expression of his grey eye, he so 
 far surpassed the Chancellor, that even that functionary looked 
 almost amiable beside him. He was coarsely dressed, a black 
 serge cap confined his grey hairs, and he wore a long cloak of 
 the same material.
 
 82 
 
 " "We are come to visit our faithful fellow servants of the holy 
 church in Bristol," said the stranger, "and to stir up the zeal of 
 our brother Hollyman, of whom we have heard some complaint." 
 Dalby bowed low as he replied, "The church need not fear when so 
 able a champion as Bishop Bonn er is active for her interests." 
 
 Bonner (for it was he) paid a short compliment to Dalby's zeal, 
 and then gave the Chancellor to understand that having heard of 
 Hollyman' s indifference, he had secretly paid a visit to Bristol to 
 see and judge for himself. 
 
 Bonner and Dalby walked forward in silence, the latter con- 
 tinuing uncovered all the time, and seemingly engrossed in deep 
 thoughts. At length the Bishop turning round, said, in a sharp 
 disagreeable tone, " I see by the notice of accusation in the chapter- 
 house, that a young maiden is confined in your monastery, and 
 about to be brought to trial on a charge of heresy. It is well, it is 
 well : those who serve the successors of St. Peter should be, like 
 his sword, inexorable and undistinguishing between the blood of 
 the young and the blood of the old. It is well, it is well : since 
 the heretics will compel us to sacrifice, it is better that the victim 
 we offer be young and fair than old and decrepid and with blemish. 
 It will be the more acceptable " 
 
 Bonner looked with his cold grey eye towards Dalby, expecting 
 the Chancellor's assent to this ruthless speech ; but the latter 
 seemed occupied with some engrossing thought, almost benumbing, 
 that had suddenly got possession of him. 
 
 The Bishop heeded not his companion's abstracted manner, but 
 continued, " I will preside at her trial this night ; and though the 
 young witch were as fair as Susanna, she shall find what it is to 
 have Bonner for her judge." 
 
 Dalby again bowed low, and with the air of one who hardly ap- 
 peared to have heard the Bishop's speech, deferentially inquired 
 the latter's pleasure. " That the heretical maiden," returned Bonner 
 with impatience, " be brought before me for trial this night." 
 
 Dalby hesitated for a moment, and there was perplexity in his 
 manner as he replied, " Had we not better dispose of this case our- 
 selves, and not trouble one whose time is of such value to the 
 Church and his Queen ? " 
 
 " In no duty can I afford myself more satisfaction or the State 
 more service," replied Bonner ; and then waving his hand authori- 
 tatively, he parted from Dalby, and passing the porter walked 
 forth into the Green. 
 
 As the Bishop sauntered slowly towards the chapel of St. Mark, 
 a citizen in a flowing wig, and wearing a black patch on his cheek, 
 accosted him with a low salutation. " Benedicite, friend," said 
 Bonner. " Humph," said the citizen, as he walked on, " those 
 lips were never made for blessing." 
 
 About an hour before midnight, the thoughts of Dalby and 
 Huntingdon were occupied by the same object, but under different 
 circumstances. The Reformed Preacher was at that moment en- 
 gaged in earnest and anxious conversation with two others in a
 
 small apartment of an almost ruinous house under Newgate. On 
 a table which, with a bench or two, was the only furniture in the 
 room, lay a ring, a parchment, and a rosary, which the speakers 
 frequently took in their hands or pointed to as they spoke. " It is 
 t/ie last resource," said Huntingdon, " and though it may prove 
 successful, it is not the less a bitter one." 
 
 " Be guided by one who has been in sorer straits than this, 
 Master Huntingdon," said an old man whose eye was dim, but 
 whose wrinkled features still preserved strong marks of serenity 
 and decision. "Interfere not between the maiden and Him who 
 can save when men most despair. Leave her to Heaven, even to 
 death, but deliver not her soul to the Chancellor Dalby." 
 
 Huntingdon shook his head as he said " Were the maiden my 
 own, I would know how to act, but she has been confided by a 
 dying parent to my trust : and were that mother alive, I cannot 
 think she would permit the faggots to be piled round her child's 
 limbs, while she possessed those tokens the means of saving her." 
 
 "But stay," said the old man, " why act precipitately with a 
 desperate remedy, while other hopes remain ?" 
 
 " I see none," replied Huntingdon, " that would warrant me to 
 delay a moment. With Hollyman there was hope ; even with 
 Dalby there might be hope, but with Bonner there can be none ; 
 when I passed him to-day he looked as he looked when he tore out 
 the poor weaver's beard, and held the man's hand in the lamp.* 
 No, no ; I will not dare to delay my last resource, when the devil 
 no longer acts through deputy but does his work himself." 
 
 No further remonstrance was made by the old man, and 
 Huntingdon proceeded to enclose the ring, rosary, and parchment 
 in a packet, to which he added another small scroll, which he took 
 from his girdle, and on which was written the superscription " Let 
 the receipt of this packet be acknowledged by three strokes from the Tower 
 bell, to be an assurance to the ear of the unknown bearer that his message 
 has not failed." 
 
 A few minutes afterwards the packet was in the hands of a servant 
 of the Monastery, to whom Huntingdon delivered it, with an 
 earnest injunction to have it conveyed with instant diligence to 
 the Chancellor Dalby. 
 
 The messenger directed his steps towards the Chancellor's 
 apartments, and muttered to himself, as he endeavoured to ascertain 
 the contents of the packet by feeling it between his lingers, " Good 
 sooth, yonder master was in a notable hurry to have a rosary and, 
 I'll be sworn, some trumpery conveyed to the Chancellor, who'd 
 sooner see the face of a heretic than a hundred relics." 
 
 " What ho, Maurice, grumbling," said a rough voice, accosting 
 him, " not had your evening's stoup, I suppose ; but come along 
 with me ; the Bishop's buttery is never without something to make 
 
 * We have it on the authority of both Fox and Burnet that Bonner used 
 sometimes to whip the _Protestant prisoners with his own hands, till 
 he was tired with the violence of the exercise ; that he tore out the 
 beard of a weaver, who refused to relinquish his religion, and in order to 
 give the recusant a more sensible idea of burning, held his finger to the 
 candle until the sinews and veins shrunk and bunt !
 
 84 
 
 a servant of St. Augustine's smile. King Henry (Heaven assoil 
 him for it) has spoiled the refectory, but not the buttery ; come 
 along, come along, Maurice. 1 ' 
 
 " Nay, nay, I pray thy pardon, compeer Robin," replied the 
 other ; "I have this packet to deliver from some powder- wig to the 
 Chancellor Dalby ; though I would much sooner my message lay 
 towards the buttery." 
 
 Robin, with the curiosity of persons in his station, felt the packet. 
 " Pooh, man," exclaimed he, " 'tis but a rosary, the message can't 
 be urgent ; and besides, the Chancellor only passed me just now 
 towards the cell of the young heretic. Gadzooks, Maurice, but it 
 is a pity to make a fire of such a pretty piece of wench flesh : but 
 that's no business of ours. Come in, come in, the Chancellor will 
 not thank you for disturbing him now, he has other fish to fry, ha ! 
 ha ! instead of counting an old rosary ; and you know you might 
 as well disturb a tiger when devouring its prey, as the Chancellor 
 when worrying a heretic." 
 
 Maurice suffered himself, under these arguments, to be led by 
 his friend, and both were soon engaged over a bottle of Hollyman's 
 canary, indifferent and oblivious to all the world but themselves. 
 
 Dalby was otherwise occupied at the same moment. As he 
 entered the maiden's cell with a lamp in his hand, the poor girl 
 was not a little amazed to see that a great change had come over 
 the expression of his countenance. It was still as unprepossessing 
 as ever, but, instead of the cold Satanic sneer which dwelt on it 
 before, a haggardness and anxiety marked every feature. 
 " Maiden," exclaimed he, in an excited tone, lowering the lamp to 
 her face and gazing fixedly on her, " who are you ?" 
 
 Maria, unable to bear the light, or look on the strange unearthly 
 expression of her persecutor's countenance, shaded her eyes with 
 her hands and answered not. Dalby, in a tone louder and fiercer 
 than before, demanded, "Who are you, speak ? Are you the daughter 
 of the old man, Hale ? " 
 
 " Where is he ?" inquired the maiden. 
 
 " His soul is with his arch patron, and his ashes on the winds." 
 
 " Monster, fiend," cried Maria, her whole frame trembling with 
 agitation, " have you murdered my father have you violently 
 hastened his quiet passage to the grave ? Fiend, did you think 
 that death delayed too long, that you must anticipate old age and 
 sorrow, which would too soon have done their work on his white 
 hairs ? He was my father, and may the malediction of his child 
 rest upon his murderer!" 
 
 " Thy father ? " 
 
 "Yes, fiend." 
 
 "Where is thy mother?" inquired Dalby, not noticing the 
 maiden's indignation. 
 
 " Died a few months since, and happily before she could feel thy 
 cruelty." 
 
 "It is well," said Dalby, musingly to himself : " I knew it was a 
 foolish fancy : in a world where there are so many faces, some will 
 be alike. " Then, turning towards Maria, he said, " Maiden, recant, 
 and I will save you."
 
 85 
 
 " Where is my father ? " exclaimed the maiden, without answer- 
 ing Dalby. 
 
 " He died a contumacious heretic, as he lived." 
 
 " Then in the same faith will his daughter follow him. I will 
 not receive life from the hands which are stained with the hlood of 
 my parent. When his old limbs did not totter under the burden of 
 your persecutions, young and strong as I am, I should be ashamed 
 to shrink from the load." 
 
 The black cloud again passed over Dalby 's countenance, as he 
 exclaimed, " Then, perverse heretic, meet your fate," and imme- 
 diately quitted the cell. 
 
 Dalby had not long departed when two officers of the monastery 
 entered, and bandaging the eyes of the maiden, conducted her for 
 the second time to the secret tribunal. Bonner, who presided, 
 looked with an unmoved eye towards her, as he sneeringly ob- 
 served, " A fair form to enshrine an heretical heart." On either side 
 of Bonner sat Hollyman and Dalby, far surpassed, however, by the 
 master spirit of persecution, who occupied the supreme place in the 
 secret court. Hollyman seemed the very impersonation of mercy, 
 and Dalby not quite a fiend, compared with the pet Bishop of Mary 
 Tudor. Hollyman evidently did not relish the duty, and the 
 Chancellor was pale, and never once looked towards the maiden. 
 
 " Girl," said Bonner, in his harsh, grating voice, " I have 
 promised to allow you to live if you give up the devil and undergo 
 severe penance for six months. What say you ?" 
 
 " If you mean," replied the maiden, with an undaunted tone, 
 " that I should forego the true faith for a church which has 
 murdered my parent whose altars are red with the blood of the 
 saints whose dungeons are" 
 
 "Gag the she-fiend," cried out Bonner, his eyes glaring and 
 the muscles of his throat swollen with rage ; " gag her, and stop 
 those blasphemies." Then, turning to Maria, he shouted, " Witch, 
 will you recant ?' ' 
 
 " No," replied Maria, calm tranquil resolution depicted on her 
 pale features. 
 
 " Then we'll try the torture. Though hold," said he, as the 
 officious Claude was about to advance, " I will try a way of my 
 own ; I have known those who would not blench under the rack 
 wince from the fire. Maiden, approach." 
 
 Maria approached, and Bonner, laying hold of her arm, thrust 
 her hand into the lamp, which stood before him. Maria, as soon as 
 she felt the flame, drew back with a shriek of pain. " Ha !" 
 exclaimed Bonner, " will you recant ?" 
 
 " No," replied Maria, her lips quivering with the acute anguish 
 which she felt. 
 
 Hollyman rose from his place with a look of indignation and 
 disgust, and even Dalby seemed disposed to help to raise Maria 
 from the ground to which she had fallen ; but Bonner, casting an 
 unfeeling glance towards the poor girl, with a cruel relentless 
 calmness of tone, merely remarked, " Let the last sentence against 
 confirmed heretics be carried into execution by break of day ; for 
 should a weak public witness the sight they might give trouble."
 
 86 
 
 Hollyman and Dalby followed Bonner up the stone stairs of the 
 " Secret Court," the Chancellor turning to cast a meaning and 
 anxious glance back upon the reviving form of Maria. 
 
 While these fearful scenes were taking place in the subterraneous 
 courts of the Monastery, and in the dead hour of the night, 
 Huntingdon, with an anxious step and attentive ear, was pacing 
 the Green without, waiting for the signal which was to announce 
 the receipt of his important packet by one within the ancient walls. 
 But the quarters flew by, and still the old tower above him was 
 silent, though he often turned his ear towards it, fancying, with 
 a quickened sense of hearing, that he could distinguish the creaking 
 of the pullies preparatory to the striking of the three expected 
 strokes. It was only fancy ; and the Reformer resumed his anxious 
 and lone round in silence and disappointment. Still, however, he 
 would stop in his solitary walk again and again, to cast a look at 
 the old square tower which rose like a giant into the star-light 
 above him, expecting every moment to hear it speak to him with 
 its loud solemn voice, and receive the much wished for answer from 
 its iron tongue yet all in vain. While thus waiting he heard the 
 footsteps of the night watch approaching, and retired behind a large 
 elm to escape observation. Just then the bell struck out ; 
 Huntingdon's heart beat loudly within him, but it soon sunk again, 
 for the peal was but that prolonged one which indicated the hour 
 of midnight. Still he continued to listen and watch until a slight 
 grey streak in the eastern sky announced the coming of dawn. 
 " Day approaches," murmured the preacher, " Dalby cannot have 
 received the packet, and I might better lie down between the lion 
 and tiger than enter the building where Bonner and the Chancellor 
 are. To a brother I can only reveal myself with safety, and to 
 him, after years of separation, I can now alone apply. Bonner is 
 an expeditious murderer and there is need of haste.' 1 
 
 The preacher turned from the spot and, passing rapidly through 
 a line of narrow streets, was soon before the small priory which 
 joined the church of St. James, and which, though suppressed by 
 Henry, was now inhabited by a few zealous monks from the parent 
 Abbey of Tewkesbury. Huntingdon having pulled the gate-bell, it 
 was answered by one of the brotherhood. " Henry !" said Hunting- 
 don. The monk drew back, and holding the lanthom which he 
 carried between himself and the speaker, exclaimed, " I know the 
 voice, but that is not the face of my straying brother." Hunting- 
 don pulled the patch from his cheek, and was as instantaneously 
 recognised by the monk, who, in a tone in which natural affection 
 struggled with monastic austerity, upbraided him for his opposition 
 to the true faith, while he enjoined him to escape from danger 
 which he so recklessly dared. 
 
 " Time presses, brother," said Huntingdon, " I want your 
 aid, and will therefore wave all controversy for the present. In 
 yonder monastery a father is perhaps now sitting in judgment on 
 his own child. I would have warned the wretched man, but I fear 
 my message has failed ; to you instant admission will be given, and
 
 87 
 
 as you would not have a horrid sin committed, rush between that 
 cruel Chancellor and his child." 
 
 " What mean you by these appalling words, brother ?" 
 
 " Nay, tarry not for explanation ; Bonner is quick in his bloody 
 work ; the packet will explain all. Dalby's first love, if such a 
 monster may be said to have love, was a Protestant maiden, whom 
 his bigotry forced to take refuge with her child amongst her own 
 people, where she died ; and her last injunction to those to whom she 
 committed her infant was, to keep its existence unknown to its 
 unnatural parent, as she would not have it delivered up to the 
 darkness and bigotry of Ualby. We followed her dying request, 
 and in the family of her humble fosterers the child flourished into 
 womanhood, until the implacable spirit of 
 
 " Hark," interrupted the monk, " there is her death knell. That 
 peal is never heard from St. Augustine's but when a heretic is 
 about to suffer." 
 
 The humane monk stopped not to speak another word, but 
 hurried in his sandalled feet towards the Cathedral, the ominous 
 tolling continuing all the time. As he reached the gateway, a 
 few early stragglers, attracted by the sound, had collected near it : 
 the monk passed them and the surly porter, and reached the 
 cloisters as the horrid procession was being formed in the area under 
 the immediate supervision of Bonner himself, who always took 
 peculiar pleasure in witnessing those cruel scenes. The maiden 
 between two halberdiers, and followed by Dalby, was being 
 brought forward into the centre, when the monk threw himself in 
 their way, having merelybreath from his haste to exclaim, "Stop 
 she is thy child ! " 
 
 Though this did not appear to be addressed to Dalby, it was but 
 the confirmation of the impression which he could not force from 
 his mind. He staggered like one drunk for a moment, and then 
 recovering himself, as one of his unfeeling nature could only do, 
 advanced to Bonner and demanded, as the maiden's father, that 
 she be delivered up to him. 
 
 " Pooh," said Bonner, " let a heretic slip through my fingers, 
 for the wanderings of this mad Monk where are the proofs ? " 
 
 Dalby's parental feelings, dull as they were, were moved by 
 Bonner's reply. He turned upon the Bishop with a countenance of 
 rage and agitation as he exclaimed, " Before you can tear my child 
 from me, you must learn to drag its cub from the lion." 
 
 " The proofs," said Bonner. 
 
 " The packet," said the Monk. 
 
 " Gadzooks," hiccupped Maurice, reeling forth from Hollyman's 
 buttery, " Here's a packet." 
 
 Dalby opened the packet, and the rosary and the ring, which he 
 had given his wife years before, rolled out. 
 
 Bonner had his proofs, and Dalby, armed with a father's 
 authority, committed his daughter to a Convent. 
 
 On the morning of the 17th November, a little more than a year 
 after the incidents related in the foregoing, the honest burghers of
 
 88 
 
 Bristol were surprised by the noisy joy-peals which burst forth 
 from every steeple in the " ancient citie," announcing to a delighted 
 people that the dread and disastrous reign of Mary Tudor had 
 ceased, and the golden days of good Queen Bess commenced. None 
 heard the glad intelligence with greater gratification than the poor 
 hunted down Reformers, who emerged from their hiding places, 
 and followed their own faith without dread of fire or sword. St. 
 Augustine's Monastery changed its tenants, Dalhy fled into exile, 
 and Huntingdon, mid crowds of happy faces, had the pleasure of 
 uniting Maria and Henry Harris beneath the old Cathedral pile. 
 The persecuting Aldermen worshipped the rising sun, and changed 
 their creed with their Queen. 
 
 And the " blood of the Martyrs proved the seed of the Church."
 
 attir fag. 
 
 A TALE OF THE PLAGUE OF BRISTOL IN 1645. 
 
 On the Stoke side of Durdham Down, there is a rustic lane conducting 
 to the residence of Mr. Charles Thomas, and some new villas built on 
 
 Eart of the Sneyd Park Estate, which, with the farm to which it 
 urineily led, was called " Pitch and Pay." There are two or three 
 explanations given of this curious designation, but the one most likely, 
 and received, is that it was so called from there being a wooden 
 bar or stile at the head of the lane next the Down, which the writer 
 remembers, and which, when Bristol was afflicted with the plague in 
 1645, served as a line of separation between the citizens who went out 
 to purchase food there, and the country people, who, owing to the 
 pestilence, would come no nearer to the infected city than this point. 
 It was said that the peasants and farmers brought provisions, and 
 placed them at one side of the bar, refusing to come nearer the 
 townspeople or touch them, and the latter threw over the money to 
 the country folk, who took it up and went their ways. The spot 
 obtained, from this circumstance of their throwing the money over, 
 the name of Pitch and Pay. There is now a lodge at the entrance of 
 the lane, but it is only a few years since the wooden bar, or, at least, a 
 wooden bar or stile, stood there in all its original rusticity. The spot, 
 as the local reader is aware, commands a lovely and expansive view of 
 the Channel and the river banks, with Leigh Court on the opposite side. 
 An old and noted country inn, called " the Ostrich," stood not far from 
 Pitch and Pay, on the site of the present Down House. In the year to 
 which I refer, namely, April, 1645, to February, lb'46, over 3,000 persons 
 die_d of the plague an awful amount, considering the population of 
 Bristol at that time, further thinned by two sieges, the last of which, 
 when the city was taken by Fairfax and Cromwell from Prince Rupert, 
 took place in September, 1645. 
 
 Before the rupture between King Charles I. and his Parliament 
 occurred, and ere any of the animosities, political or religious, 
 attendant upon that disastrous conflict were known, there resided 
 in Corn Street two substantial citizens, both in trade, who were 
 not only near neighbours but attached friends. John Ashurst was 
 a pelterer : he dealt extensively in skins ; William Houghton was 
 a draper, and each was equally prosperous in business. In the 
 early struggle to get on they gave one another a helping hand, and 
 when they attained to comparative affluence together, they moder- 
 ately enjoyed the fruits of their prosperity. Business over for the 
 evening, they would, according to the fashion of the time, play 
 at bowls or archery together on the Marsh or the Butts, or smoke 
 a pipe and take a glass of sack in the bowers of one of the suburban 
 taverns, that then dotted the banks of the river towards the Hot- 
 wells. They both married, but not until they had made a tolerable 
 advance towards middle life were, in fact, old bachelors : they 
 would " get something to fill the mouths before they got the mouths 
 to fill." Houghton was the first to take a wife, who, some twelve- 
 months after their union, made him the happy father of a fine
 
 90 
 
 boy. Ashurst quickly followed the example of his neighbour and 
 crony, and a little girl, in less than a year, made her appearance 
 to confer upon the honest pelterer the honours of paternity. 
 
 The evening companions of the Corn Street tradesmen amused 
 themselves, when they met at bowls or over their pipes in the 
 Hotwells taverns, by suggesting that Dame Fortune herself had 
 regulated this happy distinction of sexes in the two little strangers, 
 that there might be a union in one lucky couple of the wealth of 
 both parents. They joked Houghton and Ashurst upon the 
 circumstance, and said that, according to ; the fashion of allied 
 monarchs, they ought to at once have a betrothal of babies. It 
 seemed as if fate had determined that what was said in fun should 
 become fact and we know many a true word has been spoken in 
 jest. After three or four years, the two tradesmen were left 
 widowers, each the father of only one child. Then, indeed, the 
 friends, who in their bereavement drew closer to one another and 
 became, if possible, more constant companions, began to talk 
 seriously oi the possibility of their respective fortunes being com- 
 bined in one, by the union of the two children when they grew up 
 into manhood and womanhood. The fancy pleased them and they 
 dwelt upon it, as the children played about the room, and amused 
 themselves and their elders. 
 
 But, alas ! the course of baby love, any more than of the passion 
 of adults, never does run smooth. King Charles tell out with his 
 Parliament, and the struggle which rent the kingdom commenced, 
 dividing kindred, neighbours, and families. Houghton and Ashurst 
 held different views in politics, but had it not been for this unhappy 
 civil war would probably never have had the slightest dissension 
 upon the subject. Houghton was of a Republican and Puritan 
 turn of mind ; while Ashurst held by the King, believing him 
 divinely appointed, and all who opposed his views guilty of 
 rebellion. Still, though some warm discussions occasionally took 
 place between them, it was not until the contest was shifted to 
 Bristol itself, that the long friendship of the two tradesmen seemed 
 to be seriously perilled. When Fiennes with the Parliamentarians 
 was admitted to the city, Ashurst opposed, and Houghton sup- 
 ported the application for admission ; and when afterwards 
 Yeamans and Boucher were executed by the Puritans, Ashurst 
 nearly compromised himself with the ruling powers by the manner 
 in which he denounced that bloody act. Indeed, he would 
 probably have fallen under Fiennes' serious displeasure, but for the 
 secret interposition of Houghton, who, however, lost all merit in 
 Ashurst's eyes by defending the act as one of state necessity. 
 " Foul murder a state necessity," exclaimed Ashurst, indignantly; 
 " out on you, William Houghton : we have long been friends, and 
 had dreams of making those ties of friendship closer through our 
 children ; but though we were tied together by our heart-strings, 
 I would snap them asunder, sooner than longer hold the acquain- 
 tance of a man who defends a double murder. We no longer 
 know one another," and he left Houghton's house in a passion. 
 
 Houghton was deeply grieved at the severance, and would have 
 willingly made it up, but Ashurst passed him in the street without
 
 91 
 
 recognition, and when his little daughter Mary was about to rush 
 from the shop to take Master Houghton hy the hand as he walked 
 by, her father called her peremptorily back, adding a bitter 
 remark, that his old friend might "see some state necessity to 
 murder her." Houghton heard the observation and felt it. 
 
 Ashurst's time, however, to show magnanimity was at hand. 
 The Royal troops approached the city, and, after a faint-hearted 
 defence by Fiennes, Prince Rupert's " Hearts of Fame" broke 
 through the defences and became masters of Bristol. The loyal 
 pelterer's joy was at its height, and being naturally the kindest of 
 men, with victory came forgiveness of wrongs real or fancied. 
 He started off at once for Houghton's shop, not to taunt him or 
 triumph over him, but to offer him his hand and assistance, should 
 he require it now that the city was held by his opponents. But 
 he found Houghton in no humour to receive in a right spirit his 
 advances. The Puritan draper was annoyed and mortified beyond 
 measure at the surrendry of the city, and declined Ashurst's 
 proffered friendship, tendered, he asserted, under the proud 
 guise of patronage. Ashurst again held out his hand, but 
 Houghton sullenly left his shop, and shut himself up in his back 
 parlour. 
 
 It would have been better for Ashurst personally had the 
 Royal cause never triumphed in Bristol, for the Royal exchequer 
 was so low that the friends of the King, who had means, were 
 either compelled to lend him money or see his armies want. 
 Ashurst was not a man to hold back his cash when his heart was 
 in a cause, and he made such advances to Charles when he held 
 Bristol, that, when Rupert's troops marched out of the Royal Fort 
 and surrendered the place to Cromwell and Fairfax, the pelterer 
 was so reduced in circumstances that he had not enough to enable 
 him and his little girl to quit the city, as many other loyal families 
 had done, and reside without labour for a little time elsewhere. 
 
 Houghton was more careful of his means, and neither friend nor 
 foe were able to induce him to part with the fortune he had 
 accumulated with such pains. Of Ashurst's losses he was not 
 aware, and having so abruptly refused his good offices when 
 Rupert entered the place, he was (now that the Parliament was 
 again successful) ashamed to call on the loyal pelterer, lest his 
 own bad temper might be retorted on him. Soon after Houghton 
 went to reside on a little property which he had purchased near 
 Shirehampton, the old neighbours having in point of fact seen 
 little of one another for a considerable time. 
 
 At length the awful rumour got afloat that the terrible plague 
 had shown itself in Bristol Bristol already wasted with siege and 
 famine. Like a wildfire the report spread throughout all the 
 adjacent country. The rural population, with a terror increased by 
 ignorance, looked towards the city as a doomed place and refused 
 to approach it, so that the want of provisions was aggravating the 
 devastation of pestilence. Superstition was adding, too, to the 
 real horrors of the stricken town : a cloud, the country people said, 
 could be seen always resting over the place, and the peasants, who 
 climbed the heights of Knowle and Dundry, shuddered as they
 
 92 
 
 looked down upon it and fancied they saw, in the dull smoke that 
 naturally canopied a large collection of houses, a cloud charged 
 with plague and pestilence. 
 
 Houghton, in his comfortable little cottage, with its lawu and 
 orchard, down hy the bunks of the Avon, heard of the sufferings of 
 the citizens, and endeavoured to send in some provisions to friends 
 he knew there, but his messengers, afraid to enter the place, either 
 disposed of them before they got there or brought them back again, 
 and invented stories of the parties to whom he sent them having 
 left or died. On of those to whom he sent was Ashurst ; but 
 Ashurst, they reported, had quitted Bristol on the first appearance 
 of the plague. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Thus stood matters one autumn morning, when a girl, about 
 sixteen years of age, with a face of almost angelic loveliness but 
 worn with lines of early affliction, might be seen crossing the Down 
 towards the rustic gate or stile leading from the open common to 
 the green lane that conducted the traveller, by a short cut, to the 
 little hamlet of Stoke. The girl had walked from the direction of 
 the city, and was only one of a straggling line of persons, all 
 evidently come from the same quarter and bound for the same 
 point. It was a fine morning, and the view of the Channel and the 
 old manor-houses reposing amidst their great trees that dotted 
 the vale that lay between the Down and the river, would have 
 elicited the admiration of any but a careworn and sickly crowd, 
 who had left a plague-stricken city to purchase provisions at the 
 prescribed point, and having purchased them at a price they could 
 ill afford to pay, must again trudge back with weary feet to abodes 
 amidst which the angel of death was busy. Poor Mar}' Ashurst 
 (for it was the pelterer's daughter, now grown up towards woman- 
 hood), as she threw back her hood to feel the morning breeze on 
 her face, had snatched a moment's observation from her own heavy 
 cares to notice that the birds that hopped on the branches of the 
 trees as she passed, were very silent.* " Poor things," she mused 
 to herself, " they say you sympathise with human suffering ; and, 
 if so, God knows there is little matter for joyful song on this earth 
 of sorrow and sin : though we should not repine, for Heaven has 
 given us a Paradise, though man has denied and devastated it." 
 Mary had left that morning, for the first time for some days, the 
 side of her father's sick pallet : for before Ashurst could quit the 
 city the plague appeared, and he was one of those attacked. 
 Nothing but the devotion of his daughter, under Providence, had 
 saved bis life, and though he was one of the few to recover from 
 the attack, he was still so weak that she feared he must sink under 
 the after-consequences. The little money left him had been nearly 
 spent, and they were now residing in poor lodgings in a little house 
 off the Horsefair in St. James's. With the view of getting some 
 
 * It is said, probably it is a mere fancy, that the birds are mute in the 
 neighbourhood of a place where pestilence prevails. It was noticed, 
 even by persons of education, that when the cholera was in the South of 
 Ireland the singing birds were very silent.
 
 fresher provisions, and at a more moderate rate than she could 
 ohtain them in the city, which none of the country people would 
 enter, she got up early and proceeded with her scanty supply of 
 money to Pitch and Pay. Though sore chastened, her young heart 
 was full of religion ; and as she thought of happier days when her 
 loved father, now low on a bed of sickness, was a leading and sub- 
 stantial citizen and, the day's work done, he nursed his little Mary 
 in his arms on the summer's evening by his shop door, she drew a 
 deep sigh, but said, at the same time, "The Lord's will be done; 
 the sorrows of this world are but for a time, the joys of Heaven 
 are eternal." 
 
 The scene by the rustic gate at Pitch and Pay was novel and 
 exciting, and nothing could offer a greater contrast than the 
 appearance of the people on either side of the wooden bar which 
 separated the town from the country folks. Gaunt want and pallid 
 sickness were written on the faces of the former, while health and 
 plenty were legible in ruddy characters on the countenances of the 
 latter. On the country side were baskets of vegetables, fruit, 
 poultry, eggs, butter, household bread, &c., which were being 
 rapidly emptied, and the contents delivered piecemeal under the 
 bar, after being first held up to view by the sellers and the bargain 
 made. The townspeople, in return, threw the money over the bar : 
 the coin was not at once picked up by the peasants and farmers, but 
 allowed to remain on the ground until sprinkled with some disin- 
 fecting fluid, which it was thought would remove any danger, should 
 the money previously have been in the possession of a plague- 
 stricken person. 
 
 Poor Mary was frightened by the crowd, the crush, and confusion 
 near the bar, for great public calamities make people selfish and 
 indifferent to others. When she attempted to get to the stile, 
 some others crowded before her and pushed her back, and as the 
 provisions were being quickly bought up, it is probable she would 
 have returned empty-handed to Bristol, bnt that a youth, little 
 more than her own age, and who from his dress appeared to be the 
 son of a better-class farmer, called out to her, and asked her what 
 she wanted. Mary's wants were small, as was her money. A little 
 fruit, a brown loaf, and a chicken, the luxuries required for her sick 
 father, were all she asked. He held up the articles, and several 
 rushed towards that part of the bar behind which he stood, but he 
 waved them back, and said they were for the young maid with the 
 red hood. Mary asked the price, and the youth demanded less 
 than half the sum she thought she would have to pay. He in- 
 quired her name, and on hearing it would take nothing, telling 
 her to come the next day and he would have a better supply for 
 her. But Mary persisted in paying, threw the money over the bar, 
 and returned with her welcome stock. 
 
 The fruit and the chicken had a visible effect in restoring 
 Ashurst's health ; but next morning, when Mary was about to 
 start again for " Pitch and Pay," she suddenly felt ill, and a cold 
 perspiration breaking out on her body with a sensation of pain 
 under the arm, only too plainly convinced her that the deadly 
 disease had found her out.
 
 94 
 
 Young John Houghton (for the youth who had behaved so 
 liberally to Mary was the draper's son, and had come up with a 
 farm servant to the bar to sell provisions) was early at " Pitch and 
 Pay," and eagerly looking out for Mary's red hood : for he had 
 heard his father speak of his old friend Ashurst, and of their being 
 separated by party feeling, and he was anxious by further inquiry 
 to convince himself if the lovely but care-worn girl was a relation 
 of the Bristol pelterer, his father's old neighbour. Strange to say, 
 however, he did not mention to his father the adventure of the 
 preceding day, perhaps being conscious in his own mind that a 
 good deal of the interest he felt in the matter was inspired by the 
 gentle and touching beauty of the poor girl herself. If he had any 
 doubt upon the subject, it must have been dispelled by the feeling 
 of disappointment which he experienced when, having waited the 
 best part of the morning, no red hood appeared amongst the crowd. 
 Still he would not part with the full basket of ripe fruit, poultry, 
 and vegetables which he had brought with him, and when all the 
 rest had gone, he determined to go into the city though he had 
 not been there since the plague broke out and endeavour to find 
 where the Ashursts lived, for his heart was filled with apprehension 
 lest any ill had befallen Mary. He sent the servant back, for it was 
 vain to hope that the man would accompany him, and warning him 
 not to say where he bad gone, he started for Bristol with some of 
 the best of the provisions. 
 
 As he approached the walls of the plague-stricken city, what a 
 contrast did it present to its former appearance. Keeping the road 
 by Redland, he left on his right the melancholy little town of 
 pest-huts, which had been erected on the eastern side of the Park 
 (now known as Tyndall's Park), for those afflicted with the fearful 
 malady. Young Houghton shuddered as he looked towards the 
 gloomy colony of death, and thought how many were then in the 
 last agonies under those pointed and pitch-covered roofs. Frorae 
 Gate was open, but there was no busy passing to and fro under its 
 portal : a single sentry, with a pale face, paced up and down inside 
 it. Christmas-street appeared quite desolate, and as he passed 
 under St. John's gateway, the view up Broad-street might have 
 been a view in Baalbec or Palmyra in the Desert. Two or three 
 people walking along, with medicated handkerchiefs or disinfecting 
 phials to their noses, were all he saw : no carriages, no vehicles of 
 conveyance or commerce. As he got to the top of the street, a few 
 people were hurrying round the corner of Christ Church, as if 
 flying from something in Wine-street, and on turning into that 
 once thronged and busy thoroughfare, he was horrified to see a 
 large black covered litter, standing before one of the doors, and 
 some person, wrapped in blankets, being brought out of the house 
 and placed in it. There was no mistaking it : it was the " plague 
 litter ;" that which, when it made its appearance in a street, 
 spread panic amongst, and sent the blood from the cheeks of its 
 inhabitants. Houghton drawing in his breath so that he should 
 not inhale the air as he passed this melancholy conveyance, hurried 
 by, and having learnt some particulars as to the Ashursts' probable 
 place of residence from a Mend in Narrow Wine-street, he proceeded
 
 95 
 
 to the Horsefair. He saw three men standing in St. James's 
 Churchyard, and went up to make inquiries ot them, and was 
 horrified to find them standing by a great pit, into which they 
 were shaking quicklime. They were the sexton's assistants, and 
 had already lowered during the day twenty bodies of those who 
 died from the plague into the pit. From them, however, he learnt 
 the exact place of Ashurst's residence, and, walking across the 
 Horsefair, knocked at the door of a small house up a little court. 
 He was kept standing for some time, when an emaciated face, 
 nearly covered with hair, the eyes sunk in the sockets, peered down 
 with an anxious look upon him. "Does Master Ashurst live 
 here?" inquired Houghton. "I am that man," answered the 
 person in the window. "How is your daughter?" "Better," 
 replied her father , "that is," he added, with evident trepidation 
 and alarm, "she will be better by and bye; for God's sake, leave 
 her to my care, I will tend upon her ; but she must die if you bear 
 her off to those sad pest-houses. Poor Mary, she watched over 
 me, I am able to watch over her ; deprive me not of that sad 
 gratification." 
 
 Houghton gathered with horror, from this speech, that the young 
 girl was plague-stricken ; and that her father spoke manifestly 
 under the impression that he was a messenger from the pest-houses 
 come to remove her ; so he immediately relieved the old man's 
 mind. "I am not come from the pest-house," he said, " but from 
 the country ; and bring a few fresh fruits for your daughter and 
 yourself." Ashurst immediately descended and opened the door, 
 and Houghton accompanied him upstairs, and unconsciously 
 followed him into the room where poor Mary lay on a pallet. "It 
 is the kind youth," she said, raising her faint eyes, and recognising 
 Houghton, "who was so generous to me on the Down." The tears 
 came to Houghton's eyes, and he at once opened the basket, and 
 gently placed some grapes between the poor sufferer's lips. 
 " Heaven bless you, good Sir," said the father, as he noticed some 
 signs of improvement in his daughter' s eyes; "she is already better." 
 Mary, indeed, was better ; the crisis had passed, and a favourable 
 turn had come. "I will home," said Houghton, "and get a con- 
 veyance ; this infected atmosphere is not fit for you or her, and my 
 father's house in the country is open to an old friend and his child." 
 " Who are you," asked Ashurst, " if not an angel come from 
 Heaven to us in our distress?" "No angel, but a poor sinning 
 mortal," modestly answered the young man ; "and my name you 
 shall know when I have conveyed you both to a more comfortable 
 home ; " and he hurried from the house, stating that ere three 
 hours had elapsed, he would be with them again. 
 
 About two years after the circumstances noticed above, and when 
 Bristol and the kingdom generally had begun to recover from the 
 wounds and bruises it had received in the sanguinary controversy 
 between King and people, and the citizens had again recourse to 
 their entertainments on the Marsh and the Butts, one summer's 
 evening a group of Corn Street tradesmen were smoking their
 
 pipes, looking at a game of bowls being played, when one of them 
 asked if they had heard the news about Ashurst and Houghton ? 
 " What news ?" cried the company. "Only that the old joke has 
 come true. Will Houghton and John Ashurst's son and daughter 
 were this morning married at Westbury Church, and the old folks, 
 after fighting about King and Parliament, have become friends, 
 and intend to go quietly down to the grave nursing their grand- 
 children." 
 
 " How is it ?" asked several. 
 
 " Ashurst's daughter," said the gossip, " captivated Houghton's 
 son while she was buying a goose from him " 
 
 "And he sold himself to her also that was a pair of geese," 
 said a Corn Street tradesman, who was known to be addicted to 
 bad puns. 
 
 The gossip had not got the story exactly, but it was not far off 
 from the truth. Houghton received his old friend and his daughter 
 with open arms, hospitably entertained them in his cottage at 
 Shirehampton, and laughed heartily, when he " saw (to use his 
 own words), in spite of the quarrels of a couple of old fools, a 
 couple of young ones contrived to make each other happy." 
 
 Two years more after this, a small party might be seen sitting 
 on the bar by " Pitch and Pay," on a fine Sunday afternoon. It 
 consisted of two old men, a young man and young woman, with a 
 baby, and the reader can have little trouble, I think, in recognising 
 the group.
 
 [Another and a different illustration of this curious incident in the 
 annals of the Berkeley family has been written and printed by 
 the writer. The reader of both can accept which ever suggested 
 solution of the strange circumstances he pleases.] 
 
 1532, Jan. 22 Thomas (5) Lord Berkeley died. He was at first buried in 
 Mangotsfield Church, but removed, as he had requested, in eight 
 months, and re-interred in the same tomb with his wife Eleanor, under 
 the arch between the north aisle and the Elder Lady's Chapel, St. 
 Augustine's, Bristol. This Thorn as was the last of the family who was 
 buried in the Monastery. Chronicles of Bristol. 
 
 I do not expect a man and his wife never to fall out, never " to 
 have words," as the phrase is ; for this is supposing a state of 
 human perfection not to be looked for, or a otate of human 
 indifference to which a connubial quarrel daily is preferable. But 
 when they do fall out, I should advise neither of them to make 
 hasty vows, which they will find it very inconvenient or very un- 
 pleasant to carry out, and which, when they become cool, they 
 will contemplate with anything but satisfaction. The fate of 
 Thomas Lord Berkeley should be a warning to us in this particular. 
 
 You may see his tomb, and read his epitaph on it, under one of 
 the low-browed arches which separate the nave or, as I suppose I 
 must now call it, the choir from the Early English Chapel on the 
 north side of Bristol Cathedral. His ashes and those of his beloved 
 Eleanor now repose together, but for eight months after his death 
 they were separated and lay apart, and all because, in his hot 
 anger when they had an altercation, he said hastily what he sor 
 repented at his leisure. 
 
 The Berkeleys have been a bold turbulent lot from the beginning 
 of their history brave as it became old English barons to be a 
 quality they have not yet lost, and, I think and trust, they never 
 will lose ; but as I have intimated they never were persons from 
 whom you would select presidents of the Peace Society ; they had 
 such a trick of quarrelling with their neighbours and amongst 
 themselves. Witness "the Wigs" on Nibley Green, and many 
 another green, where this same Thomas and others did their fair 
 share of fighting. However, with all their faults, they were for 
 the most part affectionate husbands. Overbearing to men, they had 
 a kind way with their wives, and their wives, on this account, had 
 their way very often with them. Thomas and Eleanor were no 
 exception to the general rule ; nevertheless, as it happens in the 
 best-regulated families, they sometimes had words, and their great 
 quarrel came about in this fashion. 
 
 Thomas Lord Berkeley succeeded in the title his brother, the 
 sixth Maurice, who was governor of Calais, and died and was 
 buried there. Both were the sons of the fifth Maurice, who had 
 quarrelled with his elder brother William, as Berkeley brothers 
 have since quarrelled, a lady nearly always being in the case. The 
 elder William Viscount Berkeley, and created Marquis of that ilk, 
 Earl of Nottingham and Earl Marshal of England, was as proud 
 as Lucifer and imperious as the Grand Turk, and never forgave
 
 98 
 
 his younger brother for having, as the term is, "married an 
 inferior.' 1 Yet this inferior was no other than the daughter of a 
 Bristol Alderman of old family, the Meads, of Mead-place, Failand 
 in the parish of Wraxall near Portbury, Somerset, an ancient 
 habitation, 1 believe, still standing, or at least that has stood 
 within a few years. Mead's father or grandfather had been 
 member of Parliament for more than one place, and possessed 
 considerable estates in Gloucestershire, Bedminster, Ashton, 
 Tickenham, &c. So that, on the whole, there was not such 
 extraordinary disparity between the two that need have put the 
 Earl Marshal in a towering passion with his poor brother, 
 seeing that, besides all the substantial advantages to which I have 
 referred, Isabel Mead was an uncommonly pretty woman a young 
 and interesting widow ; and it has always been a weakness of the 
 Berkeleys to be susceptible to the influence of a handsome face. 
 Maurice, as he rode in and out of Bristol to look after the hundred 
 marks per annum allowed his elder brother out of the customs of 
 the port by Edward IV., saw Isabel at her father's window, and 
 then made an excuse to see her in her father's house, and the 
 termination of it was the usual ending of such interviews, the "old, 
 old story," a marriage very quietly celebrated in St. Nicholas Church 
 for Maurice knew what a great Mogul and family Bashaw his 
 elder brother was, and did not care to let him know of his nuptials, 
 until he had contrived somehow or other to soften him beforehand. 
 
 But there are always plenty of people to carry news quickly 
 when it is not desirable it should be known ; and when Maurice, 
 one fine morning, rode into the court-yard of Berkeley Castle, little 
 dreaming of the reception awaiting him, his brother, the Earl 
 Marshal, was there before him, and gave him a salutation anything 
 but fraternal. You may depend upon it, the elder brother did not 
 pick his words, unless it were to find some stronger than others 
 the very hardest in his profuse repertory. The Berkeleys, when 
 in a passion, were never remarkable for their mild language ; and to 
 see that they have not altered in this respect, you have only to read 
 Grantley's book, his "Life and Eecollections," from which it would 
 appear they never lost the trick of boxing and blowing up people. 
 
 If Lord William had stopped to think of the matter for a 
 moment, he would have remembered that he himself owed the best 
 part of his estate, and by no means the worst part of his blood, to 
 a Bristol merchant, a man of business, Fitzhardinge : so that he 
 need not have turned up his nose at trade. But he did. He called 
 poor old Mead a Bristol huckster, a costermonger, a pedlar, and 
 fair Isabel a pedlar's brat, and told Maurice he had disgraced him- 
 self and his family, and all by mixing his blood with the burgher 
 churls language, though in a modified form, which is still 
 occasionally held by some folks, who like to think themselves 
 " county people," to townsmen and men in trade who, in their own 
 way, are as proud and ridiculous to one another. 
 
 The long and short of it was that Lord William then and there 
 told Maurice that, if he could help it, the latter should have neither 
 the Barony nor the broad lands of Berkeley that he would disown, 
 disinherit him ; that there was, in fact, nothing he would not do to
 
 99 
 
 him for the heinous offence of marrying a merchant's daughter. I 
 expect William Earl Marshal had somewhat of the constitutionally 
 choleric temper of William, late Earl Fitzhardinge, and that 
 Maurice had to stand a fraternal lecture from the former very 
 much after the fashion of those which Grantley had to hear from 
 the latter when they fell out ; though I hope Maurice had too much 
 sense to retaliate upon his big brother by writing a book, and 
 sending to the world four volumes of such wretched hodge-podge 
 as '' My Life and Recollections." 
 
 Earl William tried to deprive Maurice of the title, and gave all 
 his lands away from him, so that Maurice would have been at once 
 a beggar and a baron, if it had not been for Merchant Mead's 
 money, and the broad acres it bought for him. Upon these Lord 
 Maurice maintained himself in good state up to the time of his 
 death, when he left the once fair Isabel for the second time a widow, 
 but no longer, I suppose, so very attractive, being sixty-one when 
 her second bereavement took place. She lived to be seventy, ending 
 her days at Coventry, in the 8th year of Harry the Eighth's reign. 
 
 Maurice the 5th was succeeded by Maurice the 6th, his son ; the 
 latter being, I believe, the Berkeley who built the Newton Chapel, 
 on the south side of Bristol Cathedral, and this sixth Maurice, as I 
 said before, dying childless in Calais in 1523, Thomas, the husband 
 of Eleanor, reigned over the tower and town of Berkeley in his 
 stead ; and after this long digression the main thread of my story 
 of "Berkeley's Vow" begins. 
 
 Of course all these incidents of the quarrel between the two 
 brothers William and Maurice being quite fresh in the recollection 
 of the family, with the cause and con sequences, were frequently the 
 subject of domestic discussion. Thomas thought his uncle William 
 wrong, and doubtless Thomas was right in so thinking, for many 
 reasons, and this amongst the rest, that he was in the enjoyment of 
 some considerable property purchased by the trade gains of 
 Merchant Mead ; and the rents when he received them, like 
 Vespasian's penny, smelt nothing the worse on account of the source 
 from which they were derived. The Lady Eleanor was in her 
 heart of hearts probably of the same opinion ; but with a woman's 
 love of argument I will not say contradiction she not un- 
 frequently took the opposite side. She may, too, have entertained 
 a secret sense of superiority over the Bristol merchant's daughter, 
 on account of her own higher birth and purer blood. She declared 
 she could sympathise with Earl William on finding a mere 
 burgher's daughter smuggled by a clandestine marriage into the 
 family. There is a story told of a Bristol lady, the wife of a great 
 West Indian proprietor, who, once desiring to establish balls 
 of an exclusive character in Clifton, mentioned her intention 
 to Sydney Smith, when Canon Residentiary of our Cathedral. 
 " We want to have a local Almack's of our own," she said, " but 
 of course with some difference you know, Mr. Smith." "I under- 
 stand, ma'am," was the Churchman's reply, but, with a sly joke at 
 the article in which her husband dealt, he added, " the difference 
 between raw and refined sugar." I do not think that the art of 
 converting the brown material into lump or crystals was known at
 
 100 
 
 the early period of my story, which was possibly the reason why 
 Lady Eleanor retorted upon her husband that it " was very hard 
 upon a great Baron of Berkeley to see with complacency a hogshead 
 of sugar rolled into his hereditary castle." 
 
 This speech of his wife's Lord Thomas declared was " rubbish, 
 stuff, nonsense, and disgusting pride, which none but a fool and 
 a shallow-pated woman could entertain." The blood of the 
 Baroness was immediately up to boiling pitch. She hinted that 
 her lord was unworthy of his lineage ; that it was a pity he, like 
 his father, had not looked for a bride amongst the hucksters of 
 Bristol, and it was reserved for a Berkeley under the reign of 
 Henry VIII. to defend a mesalliance by one of a family founded 
 before the Tudors were known. 
 
 Lord Thomas blazed up at this persistent contradiction from his 
 own wife. "Henry VII. or Henry VIII.," he exclaimed, scarlet 
 with rage, "though I cannot endow you with common-sense, 
 madam, I will teach you to use more becoming language to your 
 liege lord and husband, and here declare that for eight months I 
 shall not share your bed or society, so that in solitude and in forced 
 celibacy you may have time and opportunity to reflect upon your 
 folly, and to learn that conjugal obedience which a Berkeley, 
 whatever his notions of lineage, has a right to expect from a woman 
 who has the honour to be his wife." 
 
 He had hardly uttered this hasty vow when he regretted it : and 
 Lady Eleanor, who never dreamt of a conjugal altercation coming 
 to this extreme conclusion, turned pale with fright. With all her 
 impetuosity, she wanted neither tenderness nor good sense, and her 
 conscience told her at once that she was in the wrong that she had 
 allowed temper to carry her beyond the bounds of reason, and she 
 burst into tears the woman's true logic. "The quarrels of lovers," 
 says the poet, "is the renewal of love," and the quarrels of 
 husbands and wives often lead to the same conclusion. Lord 
 Thomas would have given a good slice of his broad lands not to 
 have made this rash vow ; but he had made it with a solemn appeal 
 to Heaven and the Virgin, and knew not how to break it without 
 fearing the wrath of both: and the Berkeleys, with all their 
 turbulence and violence, were religious or superstitious, as the 
 world might please to designate the feeling in those or these days. 
 He did not hesitate to say he was sorry and deeply grieved, but 
 how was he to gainsay his rash speech ? Lady Eleanor herself 
 dared not ask him to do so, for she feared to urge him to forswear 
 himself. One escape for the present, however, was open to them. 
 He had vowed not to lie with her for eight months, but he had 
 foVtunately not said when that vow was to be carried into execution 
 when he was to keep it. They would leave it to time or accident, 
 or it may be his father confessor, to suggest or furnish some road 
 out of the difficulty. 
 
 A year passed, and the best part of another year, and, taught by 
 a sad and sore experience, both scrupulously avoided any temptation 
 to contradiction ; and never did man and wife live more 
 harmoniously together. But ever and anon came back to Lord 
 .Thomas his unfortunate and still unfulfilled vow, and with
 
 101 
 
 continued postponement came the fear of punishment for leaving it 
 unperformed, however bitter to both it must have been. 
 
 In the midst of these mental struggles death suddenly interposed. 
 The Lady Eleanor was smitten with a fatal sickness, and, after a 
 few days' suffering, expired. There was loud mourning in Berkeley 
 tower and town for the decease of the kind and loving lady of the 
 Castle. Lord Thomas was disconsolate, and refused to be comforted. 
 For a longer time than usual he retained the remains of the beloved 
 dead before he would consent to have them committed to the tomb. 
 At length a funeral procession, such as had not been seen for 
 generations, passed out under the great frowning portal of the 
 Castle, taking the road to Bristol, and followed by friends, servants, 
 and retainers, and also the bold yeomen of the Vale, by hundreds. 
 After a journey of two days it entered Bristol, the burghers closing 
 their shops, and showing every respect and regard towards a family 
 long associated with their city. A body of the Black Canons of 
 St. Augustine's met the hearse as it entered College green, and 
 preceded it, chaunting the fnneral service, to the old Monastery 
 founded by Fitzhardinge. There, under an arch between the nave 
 and the Elder Lady Chapel, were deposited the remains of Lady 
 Eleanor, and there they still moulder. 
 
 The last to quit the spot was Lord Thomas, and with his deep 
 sorrow was mingled the bitter, upbraiding recollection (and oh, 
 how bitter are such recollections, when too late to be atoned for !) 
 of that hasty quarrel and that hasty vow still unfulfilled, while he 
 asked himself, with something amounting to agony, could the 
 bereavement he had just suffered have been a punishment for 
 evading his own rash though solemn asseveration. 
 
 Lord Thomas returned to Berkeley, an altered and a mournful 
 man. After that the pleasures of the chase, so long his darling 
 pursuit, had little charms for him, and rarely drew him forth from 
 his gloomy seclusion. Only now and again he visited the old 
 Monastery of Bristol, and when the shadows of evening were falling 
 over it, and the monks had retired to their refectory, and aisle and 
 nave and choir were silent, would he kneel by the side of the altar 
 tomb, under the arch of the Lady Chapel, and pray for hours together. 
 At length Lord Thomas's own time came. Just as evening was 
 darkening into night, and the hooting owl had commenced its 
 rounds of old grey tower and turret and battlement, and the thick 
 shadows hardly made the troops of deer in the park discernible, 
 the priest of Berkeley was hastily summoned to the bedside of 
 Lord Thomas. The noble Castellan was dying. He knew it him- 
 self, and could hardly be said to be sorry for it. Ever since he 
 laid the loved remains of Lady Eleanor in the tomb by the north 
 aisle of St. Augustine's Monastery, " life had ne tent o' joy for 
 him," to use the words of Rowley ; and now that he was about to 
 go and meet her in another world, he had no regrets for the 
 grandeur and greatness he was leaving. Only one anxiety pressed 
 upon his mind : the vow unperformed, the hasty, foolish, but still 
 solemn vow unfulfilled. He confided to the Father Confessor his 
 secret, and the uneasiness he felt on that account, and visions of 
 purgatorial pains in consequence of it rose up before him.
 
 102 
 
 The priest of Berkeley was a thoughtful, acute man, and was in 
 early life somewhat noted as a casuist. The vow was a hasty and 
 sinful one, he said : still it was made under such solemn circum- 
 stances that he would not charge himself with the responsibility of 
 declaring it might be overlooked ; for had not the Psalmist said, 
 " He that sweareth unto his neighbour, and disappointeth him not ; 
 though it were to his own hindrance, he shall dwell in the Lord's 
 tabernacle, and rest upon his holy hill." 
 
 "But," groaned the dying Baron, "the season for fulfilling it 
 has long passed. Hasty as I was death was still more so, and took 
 away my Eleanor before I could pluck up heart to separate myself 
 from her even for eight months." 
 
 " Retribue servo tuo," muttered the priest, and then was silent 
 for a few moments, pondering something in his mind. " God is 
 merciful, my son," he said, after awhile ; ' ' and has revealed to me, 
 your confessor, how without pain or grief to yourself or sainted wife 
 the hasty vow may still be performed, the obligation discharged." 
 
 " Then reveal it, reveal it, good Father," hurriedly exclaimed Lord 
 Thomas, " and I will leave such a behest that the altars of Berkeley 
 shall want neither waxlight nor incense to the end of time." 
 
 " You designed, Lord Thomas," continued the priest, not heeding 
 these words, " to have your remains laid with those of Lady 
 Eleanor in the monastery of the Blessed St. Augustine by Bristol, 
 did you not ?" 
 
 " Such was my cherished wish, and such it is still. Say nothing, 
 good Father, to turn me from my purpose; separate us not," 
 entreated Sir Thomas. 
 
 " Not for ever," said the priest. " But for eight months you 
 may lie in another grave, and then be removed to the tomb of your 
 wife, and thus you will have fulfilled your untoward vow and 
 appeased the Virgin's anger." 
 
 A load was removed from Lord Thomas's breast. The priest had 
 shown him a way short and easy out of his difficulties, and he was 
 now prepared to die in peace, having given orders that after his 
 decease they should inter him in Mangotsfield Church, and that at 
 the expiration of eight months, his vow being fulfilled, he should be 
 exhumed, and placed by the side of the Lady Eleanor within the altar 
 tomb beneath the arch at the right side of St. Augustine's Abbey. 
 
 His instructions were carried out. A temporary grave was 
 prepared in Mangotsfield Old Church, where the body lay until 
 the 28th September, in the same year, when the coffin was taken 
 up and conveyed with funeral pomp to Bristol, and there 
 permanently deposited by the side of the Lady Eleanor. 
 
 And thus it was how the double obsequies of Thomas Lord 
 Berkeley came about : the vow made in life was, in fact, fulfilled 
 after death. He was the last of the family buried in the Monastery, 
 which was suppressed by Henry VIII. a few years afterwards. 
 From that September evening, in 1532, the Bristol tomb of the 
 Berkeleys has never been opened to receive one of the race, who 
 since then have, I believe, found a resting-place in the beautiful 
 mortuary chapel of Berkeley Church.
 
 attfr % 
 
 A LEGEND OF BRANDON HILL. 
 
 Every one has heard the local tradition that liberty to dry clothes on the 
 south-eastern slope of Brandon Hill, still enjoyed by the wives and 
 daughters of Bristol freemen, was accorded to them by Queen Elizabeth, 
 on the occasion of her visit to Bristol, as something to compensate them 
 for their ugliness ; as it was thought that, without a little freehold im- 
 munity of this kind, no one would take them in marriage. The tradi- 
 tion is a scandal and libel upon our ancestresses ; and arose, as will be 
 seen by the following, from the blundering attempt of the Mayor of 
 the day, Sir John Young, to play the courtier. 
 
 A loud cheer and the firing off of thirty pieces of cannon announced 
 to the thousands that thronged St. Augustine's Back, on a fine August 
 morning in 1574, that the Virgin Queen, with her courtly train, was 
 issuing from the great gateway of Sir John Young's house (after- 
 wards Colston's Hospital, and now the site of Colston Hall), where 
 she was lodged in fitting state. Hardly had the guns ceased, when 
 all the bells of the neighbouring churches and chiefest the ringing 
 fraternity of St. Stephen's struck out, while all the ships in the 
 harbour displayed their bravest colours. On one side of the Queen 
 rode the Mayor, on the other her favourite, Leicester ; and to any 
 one who saw the brilliant cavalcade approach the little arched 
 wooden bridge which spanned the Frome nearly on the site of the 
 present Drawbridge, nothing could possibly seem more splendid 
 and gay. Yet Elizabeth was not in her sunniest humour that 
 morning. Perhaps she had the vapours : perhaps she was wearied 
 with too much sight-seeing, or perhaps her courtiers had not been 
 fortunate in turning their compliments, or perhaps she was afflicted 
 with any one of the thousand whims which visit lovely woman at 
 least a dozen times a day, without all-enduring man being able 
 even to guess at the cause. But surely her most gracious Majesty 
 would presently brighten up ; for she was on her way to the Marsh 
 Quay, where there were erected a stage and a throne with canopy, 
 for her to see the mimic naval engagement to be fought in the 
 broad part of the river near Gib Taylor (now Prince's-street 
 Bridge), where there was a fort to be stormed and dire deeds of 
 sham battle to be done. But no ; her Majesty, after she mounted 
 the stage and took her seat, was not to be charmed out of her 
 dumps ; though the banks on all sides were crowded with thou- 
 sands, who cheered and waved their beavers ; and the bells of Old 
 Redcliff, which overlooked the scene, sent out their pleasant chimes ; 
 and the ships of war presently came to the scratch, opening on 
 one another with a roar and smell of sulphur that was astounding, 
 bladders of blood being spilt on the decks, as an old chronicler of 
 the spectacle tells us, to make matters look more fearful and 
 sanguinary. 
 Still the Queen would hardly condescend to smile at the warlike
 
 104 
 
 pastimes (which she might have done), even after the fort surren- 
 dered to cries of " God save the Queen," after three assaults. She 
 at last turned to the Mayor, who was standing rather uncomfortably 
 by her side wondering what had occurred to cloud the bright occi- 
 dental star and said with some sharpness, " By the bones of my 
 father, Master Mayor, but I protest I never saw so ugly a collec- 
 tion of women as your worshipful city can assemble on a gala 
 occasion to give welcome to their Sovereign ! " 
 
 Master Young was wide awake for once. "May it please your 
 Majesty (was his answer), for the first time in my life the convic- 
 tion has also been forced upon me this morning. Ignorance is 
 bliss ; we all thought our women fair enough and passable to look 
 upon, until your Majesty, in your radiant beauty, condescended to 
 shed the light of your noble countenance on this our city, and now 
 we know for the first time what beauty is. Would that we had 
 never had so transcendental an ensample shown us ; for now that 
 our eyes have been dazzled by it, we shall never again with satis- 
 faction look upon the lowly features of our maids and matrons." 
 
 " Well turned, Master Mayor," said Elizabeth, not a little 
 pleased with this shovel-full of a compliment, " thou hast moulded 
 a very pretty speech; and shown thyself, at le-ist this morning, a 
 greater proficient at the courtly arts than my Lord of Leicester," 
 and she gave my Lord of Leicester a look which endorsed her 
 words. 
 
 " May it please your Majesty," answered the favourite, " who 
 could better say sweet things than the worthy Master Mayor ; 
 since it is his occupation to sell sugar ? " 
 
 " To a lump of which," retorted the Queen, " he will be happy to 
 help my Lord of Leicester a spoiled and sulky child." 
 
 " But a truce to this cross of words," she added, seeing Leicester 
 inclined to retort, " I commend Master Mayor for his pretty 
 speech ; and only regret that his roads had not been better, so that 
 my frills had been less tossed, and one would have been left for my 
 tire-women to-day, in which it was fitting that a Queen should 
 appear to advantage." 
 
 " Hallo," thought the Mayor, " lies the wind in that point ; so 
 all her ill-humour arose from her frills being tossed : all these black 
 looks this morning have been caused by the crumpling of that 
 quilled and plaited thing around her neck. Well, my name is not 
 John Young if I do not give her Majesty cause to commend me in 
 the matter of frills as well as speeches." So, speaking to himself, 
 his Worship kept his own counsel for the present. 
 
 It was even so, however ; as indeed her Majesty as good as 
 confessed it. No one has ever yet seen a likeness of Queen 
 Elizabeth without her frill ; her Majesty is as inseparable from this 
 piece of finery as Napoleon from his little cocked hat. Without 
 her frill she would not be Elizabeth : she gloried in her frills ; and 
 if, when she found herself in public, she discovered that one of 
 them was limp or out of plaiting, she was sure to lose her temper. 
 She brought with her to Bristol a large stock, but on their being 
 taken fiom the royal baggage that morning, it was discovered that 
 they were all tossed and discomposed by the journey. And did
 
 105 
 
 she not give it to her tire-women, when she learned that there was 
 one hardly fit to wear ! she was cross with her women, cross with 
 her courtiers, cross with herself. The Mayor's compliment, it is 
 true, brought back a smile, hut it was a good deal that would make 
 amends for the want of a properly starched and made-up frill. 
 
 While the royal cavalcade returned to the great house on St. 
 Augustine's-hack after the " warlike pastimes," the Mayor also 
 turned his plans in his mind. 
 
 Next morning, accordingly, after her Majesty had breakfasted, 
 and the magnates were crowding to pay court to her at the great 
 house on the Back, a deputation of poor women were announced 
 by the Chamberlain, " craving her Majesty's permission to make 
 an offering to her most puissant liege." 
 
 Elizabeth was in little better humour than on the previous day, 
 because her frill was in little better order than the one she wore at 
 the sea-fight ; so thinking this was some other show or pageant 
 like that of yesterday, she answered testily, " I am weary of this 
 torn-foolery ; but let the jades approach !" 
 
 Accordingly, though not very courteously invited, they did 
 advance into the royal presence, the two foremost bearing on a tray 
 or stage a pile of what do you think? her Majesty's frills made 
 up in superb condition by the washerwomen of Brandon Hill, 
 which then being a suburb of Bristol, was celebrated as a colony of 
 laundresses, who turned out, got up, their laces and "fine things" 
 in splendid style, chiefly on account of their propinquity to the 
 clear water of Jacob's Wells. Sir John Young, the Mayor, was, 
 of course, in the secret : he got his wife on the previous evening to 
 obtain from the Queen's waiting women some of her spoiled frills ; 
 had them distributed amongst the washerwomen of Brandon Hill 
 and, apprising them of the importance of the duty devolving on 
 them, left them to do their best. Hence the deputation. That 
 they had succeeded could not be doubted by any one who saw the 
 frills. At the sight her Majesty was almost moved to tears she 
 certainly was to grateful smiles. 
 
 The spokeswoman of the deputation was a patriarchess of the 
 washing tub : her red arms and purple elbows showed this. " May 
 it please your most gracious Majesty," she said, " we, your 
 Majesty's most humble and dutiful laundresses, hearing that your 
 High Mightiness was in some straight by reason of the injury that 
 damp and travel had done your frills, have made bold to do up a 
 few for immediate use, that we may at once show your Majesty 
 our dutiful love to the throne and our skill as washerwomen." 
 
 " By the bones of my father, there is sense in this," cried 
 Elizabeth, with manifest pleasure, at seeing her frills again fit to 
 be worn : " I accept this loyal service, and should be happy to 
 requite it (she added, looking towards the Mayor), if these good 
 dames will say how I can serve them." 
 
 The Mayor communicated to the deputation of laundresses her 
 Majesty's gracious intimation. 
 
 There was a pause and whispering amongst the dames of the 
 soap suds ; and then one advanced and said, " If it may please your 
 gracious Majesty, and we do not seem too bold, we have been long
 
 106 
 
 distressed for a drying-ground ; the ranger of Clifton Wood for- 
 bidding us to hang our clothes on the trees of Brandon Hill, which 
 he contends are part of the chase committed to his custody, though 
 we verily believe his chase doth not extend below Jacob's Wells ; 
 still he worries our watchers with his dogs, and tears our clothes. 
 So, then, if it would please your most puissant liege to order that 
 we have indisputable license to use the south-west slope of Brandon 
 Hill as a drying ground for all ages to come, we shall ever pray for 
 health, happiness, and crisp frills for your Majesty." 
 
 Her Majesty intimated to the Mayor that, as their request was 
 not an unreasonable one, he might have the pleasure of informing 
 them it was granted. 
 
 Elated not a little with the success of his essay in courtier-craft, 
 Sir John thought he would improve the occasion, and seize the 
 opportunity for repeating the compliment which told BO well 
 yesterday, forgetting there is a time for everything. So he thus 
 spoke out to the deputation of washerwomen : " Her most gracious 
 Majesty has permitted me to say that your request is complied 
 with ; she concedes the privilege in consideration of the good 
 service you have rendered in the matter of the frills ; and having, 
 in her peerless beauty, pity on your ugliness." 
 
 A laugh, which the royal presence could not repress, broke from 
 the assembled courtiers, and even Elizabeth could not help joining 
 in. " By the bones of my father, Master Mayor," she said, "thou 
 hast wickedly supplemented my words. It is not wise to shoot at 
 the same butt twice, when the first arrow has hit the mark. Thy 
 compliment was well done yesterday it were better had it not 
 been tried to-day." 
 
 The poor Mayor was crestfallen : he saw he had put his foot in 
 it. Even Mayors are not at all times superior to vanity : and his 
 success so far had turned his head, and made him fancy he was 
 born for a courtier : so, in trying to excel, he over-did it. His wife 
 saw this. "John," said she, "thou wilt never make a courtier! " 
 
 "And never again will try," cried the abashed Mayor; "I'll 
 stick to sugar making." 
 
 But the mischief nevertheless was done : for with the privilege 
 of clothes-drying on Brandon Hill was for ever associated the 
 insult to our great grandmothers, and a laundress' right and a libel 
 on our women have gone down together to posterity. That we 
 enjoy the right, you need only look any morning on the south-west 
 slope of St. Brandon's Hill, when you will see hanging out all 
 manner of garments that male lips dare not name that, however, 
 the maids and matrons of Bristol, if they ever deserved, have long 
 outlived all cause for the ugly imputation, I have but to point to 
 
 My better-half, who is overlooking me as I write, adds, " Can't 
 you say my own wife " 
 
 And so let it be my own wife as no bad example ; but won't 
 she, like Katherine, "comb my noddle with a three-legged stool," 
 when she comes to read it in print.
 
 line 
 
 A MORAL ON MILLINERS' BILLS. 
 
 1490. "The King and the Lord Chancellor came to Bristol and lodged 
 at St. Augustine's, and the commons were made to pay twenty shillings 
 for every one that was worth twenty pounds, because their wives went 
 so sumptuously apparelled. The town gave the King five hundred 
 pounds as a benevolence. Local Records. 
 
 " A benevolence ! " Silky, soft words some of our old sovereigns 
 found for hard things, at least things that were by no means 
 pleasant. Few monarchs were fonder of money than Henry the 
 Seventh. He had a miser's love of it, and liked to feel and finger 
 it, and see it growing in his coffers ; and when he wanted " to make 
 up a little amount " (as a modern tradesman would say when 
 sending you in his bill, and wishing to excuse the rather pressing 
 note which accompanies it) his Majesty would make a trip into the 
 provinces, star it in a grand tour like a theatrical planet, and 
 raise a " benevolence " more or less in amount according as he saw 
 the evidences of wealth in the people or the place he visited. For 
 he was not a stupid tyrant, perhaps not a tyrant at all, as we some- 
 times understand tyrants. He did not want to impoverish hia 
 people, for he felt they were his people ; but when he satisfied him- 
 self they could bear some " bleeding," afford a little " fleecing," he 
 fleeced them, only he used his royal shears according to the amount 
 of wool on their backs. He did not clip when the coat was already 
 very close. 
 
 This shears he called his " benevolence " a grim joke, but not 
 intended to be one, and certainly not relished as one by those who 
 suffered. The term was designed to let folks fancy they were 
 making him a present giving of their own freewill to the sovereign 
 that which, however, it would be very unsafe to refuse. It is only 
 a wonder the highwaymen did not adopt the ingenious epithet. It 
 would be a good name for a subscription to a piece of plate, which 
 you could not well withhold without making a man your enemy, 
 all the more unpleasant if he happens to be powerful. I once was 
 rash enough to do this, and never regretted it but once, and that 
 was ever after. 
 
 In the case of Henry VII. and the old Bristol burghers, it was 
 a game of " diamond cut diamond," but the Bristol diamond had 
 the worst of it. The old cunning fox of a king was too much for 
 my ancestors, in spite of their ever- wakeful one eye that strangers 
 seldom could throw dust in. The citizens knew the Monarch's 
 weakness for benevolence, and knew also that he " stuck it on 
 strong," in proportion to the appearance of wealth which the place 
 presented ; so they determined to be beforehand with him, and 
 meet him with as poor a mouth as possible. They prepared an 
 address which address is still extant in the local records
 
 108 
 
 depicting the decadence of their trade, and contrasting their 
 present fallen state with the commerce and "ships manifold " 
 which they once possessed. They resolved to treat his Majesty 
 with a street pageant, and part of the performance was to he the 
 presentation of a memorial, to he read to him by some greybeards, 
 as the procession passed by St. John's Gateway. 
 But, as the poet sings, 
 
 The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 
 Gang aft a-gley ; 
 
 and the ladies of Bristol literally check-mated their husbands. While 
 the latter resolved to put on their saddest looks the former deter- 
 mined to put on their best clothes, and we know when the fair ones 
 determine upon anything, they do it, if they can. At least, good 
 reader, that is your and my experience of the softer sex. It was bad 
 enough to have the Christmas bills to pay for these rich dresses 
 and bright brocades ; but to have the rich dresses and bright 
 brocades quoted in answer to one's plea of poverty was worse. 
 The matter struck shrewd Jasper Chapman in this light the very 
 morning the King was expected, and he saw his wife and daughters 
 as fine as pea-hens, preparing to astonish his Majesty and train 
 with their costly apparel : but when he ventured to remonstrate, 
 they met him with the adage, " A cat may look at the king," ergo, 
 they might and would. " Did he think, then, they were going to 
 sit in their smickets as King Henry passed their casements ? " 
 Jasper was too wise a man to argue against such odds ; so he only 
 shook his head in mournful and mute protest. 
 
 Henry VII. had as critical an eye for a gown as a gold piece, 
 and he chuckled as he rode by and looked up at the windows, rub- 
 bing his royal palms to think what jolly subjects for a benevolence ! 
 We talk of petticoat government, but the government in those 
 days saw something even in a petticoat to invite a tax, and the 
 King fixed the amount in his mind as he rode through Wine Street. 
 The memorial was presented to him, according to programme, as 
 he approached John's-gate; the way to the Monastery (where he 
 was to lodge) being under that ancient city portal, through Knife- 
 smith (now Christmas) Street, Frome-gate, and Host or Horse 
 Street. When they talked about their poverty, it is needless to 
 say his Majesty did not believe a word of it after what he saw. 
 
 Next day the chief burgesses proceeded to the Abbey of St. 
 Augustine's, on a hint from the King. He wanted to see them, 
 but great an honour as such interview was, they would have pre- 
 ferred staying at home. They fancied the desired morning call on 
 his Majesty would be for no good be unattended with profit to 
 them ; and their fears and fancies were well founded. 
 
 When ushered into the august presence, they were politely in- 
 formed their sovereign was short of cash, as many sovereigns and 
 subjects have been, and are again likely to be. His Majesty would 
 not have to ask for it a second time, they said, if they were not so 
 poor ; but trade was bad, money scarce, and credit no better. 
 
 " This won't do, gentlemen," intimated the King, not precisely in 
 these words but words to this eflfect, " Surely you can see nothing 
 green in me ; but if you do, I am not quite so verdant as to imagine
 
 109 
 
 those dames and damsels I saw yesterday glittering like birds of 
 paradise were paupers' wives." 
 
 Jasper Chapman, who was the chief spokesman, thought it ad- 
 visable to give in. If they did not, he suspected, the amount of 
 the benevolence might be raised ; so he bowed low, and embraced 
 the opportunity to groan in spirit when he thought what their 
 wives and daughters' love of finery had brought upon them besides 
 milliners' bills. " Your Majesty's request shall be complied with," 
 he said, " even out of our poverty," and he hinted a wish to know 
 how much was expected. " Five hundred pounds down," said the 
 King, " but if I have to book it, it will be more." He had no need 
 to book it, for the money was paid within an hour. The only 
 return the burgesses had for their "benevolence," which in this 
 case they considered anything but " seasonable," was to be able to 
 blame their wives, which, under the peculiar circumstances of the 
 case, they were on the present occasion allowed to do. 
 
 The income tax is the modern invention nearest of all to the old 
 " benevolence." A short time ago, a professional man, in a city 
 certainly not a hundred miles off, wrote and returned on his paper 
 when sent in these words, " Has no income, and never expects to 
 have any." Unfortunately two of the commissioners had passed 
 his wife the day before, and noted how superbly she was dressed ; 
 they therefore concluded such fine feathers must come out of income 
 or capital, and assessed him in accordance with their ideas as family 
 men upon such subjects. He appealed, and when he came before 
 them, they simply asked him how his wife came to do this out of 
 nothing : he was not prepared at the moment with a satisfactory 
 reply, and in default had to pay. 
 
 The moral of this is that if a man must put on a poor mouth, 
 his wife must not put on a rich garment.
 
 ANOTHER LEGEND OF BRANDON HILL. 
 
 1066. Brictric, at this time governor of the Castle of Bristol, and who 
 held the manor of Thornbury (containing Oldbury-upon-Severn, Cowhill, 
 Kingston, Marlewood, Morton, Hope, Buckover, and Padfleld), had 
 been employed in an embassy to Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, when 
 Matilda, or Maud, the Earl's daughter, settled her affections on him, 
 but was rejected. Being now the wife of the Conqueror, with " a 
 woman's hatred and a woman's vengeance," she excited her husband 
 against him, as a Saxon of power and large possessions, and Brictric 
 was arrested and sent a prisoner to Winchester, where he died soon 
 afterward. Evans's Outlines of Bristol History. 
 
 [The writer of the following, finding there is at present a growing taste 
 for historical romances, flatters himself he has nicely preserved, in this 
 thrilling tale, the archaeological and antiquarian features of the eleventh 
 century. There are some incidental allusions in it that may startle shallow 
 antiquarians, and induce them to charge the writer with anachronisms ; 
 but he gives full notice to all such pretenders that he will not recognise 
 any modern authority, opposed to his own, later than Giraldus Cam- 
 brensis or the Domesday Book.] 
 
 "One kiss more at parting," said a manly voice, and presently an 
 unmistakeably audible smack was heard, and the historian is of 
 opinion that the gallant petitioner was not content with "one 
 more ; " for the sound was repeated. It might have been echo, or 
 it might have been the noise of the warder's halbert knocking 
 against the lanthorn which he held ; for this little incident occurred 
 on the drawbridge of Bristol Castle, the night before Governor 
 Brictric Snaw started upon his Flemish embassy. The lady was 
 Miss Sybil Svein, daughter of Mr. Ethelmund Svein, a highly 
 respectable citizen of Bristol, who thought himself, and with good 
 reason, rather a lucky man, in being about to become the father-in- 
 law of one so well to do in the world as the young Governor of 
 Bristol Castle, and the owner of so many manors. 
 
 The father and the daughter had been spending the evening with 
 the betrothed of the latter in his feudal hall, and this kiss on the 
 drawbridge, as the warder lighted them over the moat, was only a 
 continuation of several similar leave-takings that already occurred 
 within the baronial hall during the evening, somewhat to the 
 embarrassment of Mr. Ethelmund Svein, who, under the circum- 
 stances, could hardly refuse his intended son-in-law this little 
 gratification, yet felt he was somewhat in the way, and would not 
 well have known where to look every time Brictric asked for another 
 pledge of love, only that the governor had a good tap and rather a 
 decent Double Gloucester from his manor of Oldbury. The number 
 of vows, which Brictric swore to Miss Sybil, are not recorded ; but, 
 in answer to a little song, which she sung to the following effect : 
 
 With your gun upon your shoulder, 
 
 And your sword upon your side, 
 You'll be courting some fine lady, 
 
 And be making her your bride
 
 Ill 
 
 he protested most cordially that, if he were offered a lady in 
 Flanders, with her own weight in gold (a good dower considering 
 the Flemish ladies are generally fat), he would not forget his "little 
 Sybil " for her. But Sybil with a tear in her eye, only sang the 
 remainder of the song 
 
 Can you look me in the face 
 And say the same, Jeanot ? 
 
 By the way, anxious as I am to be considered a strict archaeo- 
 logist and antiquarian, I may here observe that there is an 
 impression that this is a modern song ; but, if my critics will only 
 kindly refer to Domesday Book, and can find it there, they will 
 concur with me in claiming for the touching ballad an extraordinary 
 antiquity. 
 
 Ethelmund Svein had a few words with his daughter as they 
 walked together through Defence Lane, Wine Street, and Corn 
 Street, to their residence in Small Street, to which the present 
 Quay then served for a garden, watered by the Frome, then a 
 capital trout stream. Having called to his servant girl, who carried 
 the lanthorn before them (the Health of Towns' Acts not being in 
 force), to walk a little further in advance, so that she should be 
 out of hearing and not annoy them with the clatter of her pattens, 
 " Sybil," said he, " the Governor has a good tap, and his cheese is 
 very fair ; but between you and me, I think he kisses and vows too 
 much to be depended on ; so I should not wonder if he came back 
 with a Flemish wife. I don't want to hurt your feelings, my dear, 
 but it is just as well to be prepared for the worst. I hope you have 
 kept his letters, for he is worth powder and shot,* and I think we'd 
 get stunning damages in an action for Breach of Promise." 
 
 This speech of the old gentleman's was equally unworthy and 
 unwise, for he might have guessed, after a moment's thought, that 
 Sybil could have no love letters of Brictric's, for the best of reasons, 
 that the Governor, like the " best of quality " in those days, could 
 not write. 
 
 Sybil stoutly, like a true girl, told her father that if she had any 
 of her lover's letters she'd make curl papers of them before she lent 
 them for such an ignoble purpose, and further added, that unless 
 papa desired to make himself particularly disagreeable and wanted 
 her to faint in the streets and spoil her best Spitalsfield silk, he 
 had better drop the unpleasant topic. The old gentleman shut up. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Reader, have you ever been in Bruges, once the Flemish capital 
 of Count Baldwyn ? At present it is the best place to sleep in that 
 I know. The drowsy carillons chime all day : there is nobody in 
 the streets. The houses mope over the canals, and there is nothing 
 to disturb the canals but a duck or two. At the time of my story 
 it was a different place : it was full of inhabitants and fashionables, 
 who ate and drank like fighting cocks, and rode and junketted, 
 
 * If any one says powder was not invented at this time, all I can say 
 is that he might as well assert actions for Breach of Promise were not 
 known in the eleventh century.
 
 112 
 
 and indulged in Mag's diversions day and night. Master Brictric 
 was very soon in the middle of the fun, flirting away with 
 Baldwyn's black-eyed daughter in a manner that made everybody 
 jealous, especially William, afterwards, not then, the Conqueror ; 
 for in a quarrel which he had with the young Bristolmanthe latter 
 gave him a taste of his prowess that made William, at least in this 
 instance, the conquered, instead of the conqueror. Poor Sybil ! it 
 was well she did not know how matters were going on in Flanders. 
 She wrote long letters to her lover, who only half spelt through 
 them at first, and then had as many as a dozen in arrear. The 
 poor young man, indeed, was puzzled, as young men sometimes are 
 who, having got engaged to a pretty girl without any money, 
 afterwards see an opportunity of marrying one with a good sum in 
 possession and expectations unbounded. Still, I must say for 
 Brictric that he did not wholly forget his home love ; for had he 
 wholly forgotten her, he would have at once proposed for Maud. 
 Maud, however, daily expected to hoar him make the interesting 
 revelation, and wondered why he delayed. " That's a handsome 
 young fellow," said she one day to her maid, "but he is un- 
 commonly slow in coming to the point." The waiting maid knew 
 little of British customs, and had been made the subject of more 
 than one hoax by Brictric's Bristol valet, who, amongst other 
 things, told her that in England the ladies proposed for the gentle- 
 men, and not the gentlemen for the ladies. She communicated this 
 " curious custom " to her young mistress, who at once determined 
 to profit by the knowledge, so she despatched a note presenting her 
 compliments to Mr. Snaw, and requesting that he would do her the 
 honour to look in as he passed. She was a bold off-hand girl, and 
 knew the best way to do a bold thing was to do it boldly. To use 
 a classic phrase, as old as the days of Europa, " She took the bull 
 by the horns." 
 
 ' ' Young gentleman," said she, archly, when he made his appear- 
 ance, " I beg your pardon for keeping you so long waiting, for I 
 only just learned that you English gallants are so modest, the 
 ladies, if they mean to have you at all, must pop the question to 
 you, instead of your performing that interesting ceremony towards 
 them. Now, to make a long story short, when will it be convenient 
 for you to get married ? Yon know I'm what the world calls a good 
 match. Settlements and all that you need not trouble about the 
 lawyers will manage them only name your day, say the word, 
 and no more nonsense." 
 
 Brictric Snaw, to use plain terms, was knocked all in a heap. 
 His last kiss and last word to Sybil on the drawbridge of Bristol 
 Castle tingled upon his lips. "I am in a fix," thought he; "I 
 have gone too far, and if I seem reluctant to go farther, she will 
 have me chucked into one of those muddy canals, and poor Sybil 
 will never see her Brictric Snaw again." He did not know what 
 to say, and so he said nothing. Maud could not guess what to 
 make of his silence, but seeing him put his hand to his jaw in his 
 perplexity, she asked him if he had the tooth-ache. He replied 
 " No ; but the heart-ache," and taking this as a compliment to 
 her own powers of fascination, she was content for the present,
 
 113 
 
 and told him her papa would be glad to see him that night, to 
 share jiu a barrel of Ostend oysters and a bottle of Guinness's XXX. 
 Brictric, glad to escape, placed his hand to his bosom and made a 
 low bow, but as he was going out at the door, Maud called after 
 him with a roguish sparkle in her eye, " Old fellow, you have 
 forgotten something." 
 
 Brictric turned back for his gingham umbiella. " Pooh," says 
 Maud ; " it was not that I meant," pouting out a pair of lips that 
 would have tempted Cardinal Newman or Saint Anthony. " 'Pon 
 my word," stammered Brictric ; " I did not understand you," taking 
 a kiss very awkwardly. " You take it," cried Maud, quite 
 pettishly, " as if it were physic ; but don't forget the oysters at 
 nine, sharp." 
 
 Brictric, when he returned to his lodgings, told his valet to pack 
 up his things as quickly as possible, as he must be off that night. 
 " I hope they have not put you, Governor, into the County Court," 
 said the man ; " that you leave in such a hurry." " It has more to 
 do with the Count's daughter than the County Court," answered 
 his master ; ' ' but, look sharp ; I hope the washerwoman has sent 
 home all my shirts." 
 
 The fifth morning after this incident, Brictric, the Governor of 
 Bristol, landed at Kownham Ferry and, hailing one of Follwell's 
 flys, surprised them all at the Castle by rattling up to the draw- 
 bridge. " The pass word ?" called out the warder from the nearest 
 tower. "Don't you wish you may get it?" said the Governor's 
 valet, who sat on the box, having on his lap his master's helmet 
 battle-axe and two-handed sword, and, so saying, he put the flat 
 of his thumb to the tip of his nose, and extended his little finger 
 in a derisive manner towards the vigilant officer. 
 
 The warder (the same whose likeness you see in the Bristol arms, 
 up to his middle in a tower, and bio whig a trumpet), called out to 
 the guards to pull up the drawbridge and let the portcullis fall, 
 when Brictric put his head out of the fly, and told him not to make 
 an ass of himself. 
 
 " I'm shot," said the man, as soon as he saw the Governor's 
 face, and overjoyed at the sight, " if here is not master back 
 again." 
 
 It is useless to describe in detail the rejoicings which greeted the 
 Governor's return. The prepositor, or Mayor, and Corporation, 
 bundled off to the Castle as soon as possible, presented him 
 with an address, and remained for luncheon. They also proposed 
 illuminations, but this Brictric very considerately declined owing 
 to the high price of tallow ; still, they had a very pleasant 
 jollification at the Nag's Head, in Wine Street, and, if you can find 
 a Farley's Journal of that date, you may read the speeches made on 
 the occasion. 
 
 But, love, all conquering love ! Where was Sybil Svein all 
 this time ? You may depend upon it she was within the Castle 
 precincts. " I hope you have not been flirting with any of the 
 Flemish girls, Brictric," said she, after the three hund'red and 
 sixty-fifth kiss of welcome. " Not a bit of it," said Brictric, the 
 fibster.
 
 114 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Gracious me, what an uproar the bells are making ! And St. 
 Peter's, which is the chapel of ease to the Castle, is ringing like 
 mad, though St. Leonard's, which no longer stands, is making 
 strenuous efforts to produce as much noise. What is it all about ? 
 What could it be all about but a wedding ? Brictric Snaw and 
 Sybil Svein were married this very morning ; the happy couple, 
 and a large circle of friends, sitting down to a splendid dejeuner 
 prepared in Warren's best style. 
 
 While the Dean, however, is proposing the bride's health, let us 
 just slip back for a moment to Bruges, and see how Baldwin's 
 lovely daughter is bearing the shameful insult offered to her by the 
 fair-haired Bristolian. A woman in a passion is no joke, and 
 Maud was in a towering one. She tore a shot silk, a mousseline- 
 de-laine, and a tarlatan dress, in her first transport of grief, and 
 was preparing to lay violent hands on a new crinoline petticoat, 
 when her old rejected suitor, William of Normandy, looked in. 
 Seeing her in such tantrums he coolly repeated the proverb, "Anger 
 is an enemy to beauty," and added, " Since Mr. Snaw would not 
 take you, perhaps you might do worse than take me." " It is a 
 bargain," said Maud, " on one condition: that you take England, 
 and hand this Bristol fellow over to me to be flayed alive for his 
 insolence." "Settled," says William of Normandy, "and here is 
 my hand to the contract." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A few years after this, if you looked into Bristol Castle you 
 would have seen Brictric's eldest son, "the very image of his 
 father," trundling a hoop in the outer court yard, and the baby in 
 a perambulator pushed along by one of the warriors in chain 
 armour. Their papa and mama were looking out of a port hole in 
 the donjon keep on the little darlings, when a messenger made his 
 appearance to say that a lady staying at the White Lion wished 
 to see the Governor. Sybil's ears pricked up, and Brictric's face 
 fell. The former would have forbidden her husband to attend to so 
 equivocal an invitation, but he took up his helmet hastily and, 
 saying he would be back in a few minutes, proceeded to the ancient 
 hostelry in Broad Street. He was shown up into the Apollo. * 
 
 " Do you remember me ? " asked a lady, rising as he entered. 
 "Oh, don't I?" thought Brictric, while he added aloud, "The 
 Lady Maud." 
 
 " Not the Lady Maud, but the Queen Maud. The Queen of 
 England and wife of William the Conqueror," retorted Maud, her 
 eye flashing fire. Brictric got on his knee to make his obeisance, 
 and muttered something about " Mrs. Snaw being glad to see her 
 Majesty to tea at the Castle." 
 
 " Ingrate," cried Maud, " I am come not for Congou but 
 
 * By the few surviving frequenters of the old White Lion, this capital 
 and comfortable convivial chamber where private dinner parties were 
 accommodated, will be remembered with something between a smile and 
 a sigh.
 
 115 
 
 vengeance vengeance a thousand times sweeter than flowery 
 Pekoe itself sweetened with Finzel's patent crystals. You jilted 
 me. This hand, which holds a sceptre, I offered you." 
 
 " I thought you were joking," interposed Brictric. "I'll make 
 it a bitter joke to you," she retorted, and stamping on the floor, a 
 band of halberdiers entered. " Take this fellow off to Winchester 
 Castle,'' she said, and glancing at him she added, " I'll teach you 
 not ; to refuse a good offer." 
 
 " Will you not allow me," he asked, " to go back and take leave 
 of my wife ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Or pack up a few shirts ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 Just at that moment the laundress of the Lion, who overheard 
 his request and refusal, rushed in and placed a half-dozen clean 
 shirts in his hand. " Let it never be said," she exclaimed, "that 
 the Governor of Bristol wanted a change of linen when a Bristol 
 washerwoman could serve him." 
 
 A. tear of gratitude glistened in Brictric's eye " I shall never 
 forget," he exclaimed, ' this noble conduct of a Bristol washer- 
 woman in the moment of my distress.'' " But," he added, turning 
 up the corner of one of the shirts, on which the name of ' John 
 Brown ' was worked, ' ' am I not making free with another 
 gentleman's linen P" 
 
 " Only a commercial traveller's," said the laundress, " I'll 
 replace them." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Brictric had been sometime a prisoner in Winchester fortress, 
 when the key turned in the lock of his door, and who should enter 
 but William the Conqueror. 
 
 " Hallo, Snaw," said he. 
 
 " Hallo, your Majesty" answered Snaw. 
 
 " You have got into an ugly scrape with my wife, but I wish 
 with all my heart you had married her." 
 
 " Indeed," says Snaw, " that's odd." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," replied the King; " for if you had married 
 her I couldn't ; and a pretty life she leads me. They call me 
 William the Conqueror abroad, but I am William the Conquered 
 at home. However, that's not my business here. The Queen has 
 a strange fancy for having your head cut off, and it is her present 
 intention to carry her laudable purpose into execution on an early 
 day. Now, I don't like this. It is not fair, and the newspapers 
 will be making an awful fuss about it, so I have just looked down 
 to tell you to be off; you will find the door open, so bolt. We'll 
 bury a coflin full of stones, and tell my wife you died in captivity, 
 leaving her a lock of your hair, so that she will be saved the 
 trouble of cutting that off and your head too." 
 
 " That's very handsome of you," answered the poor Governor ; 
 " and I'll make no bones about bolting." 
 
 " Mum's the word," said the King ; " for I don't want Maud to 
 hear of it, as the grey mare is the better horse at home. Go back
 
 116 
 
 to Bristol : keep quiet for a time, bide a little, and better days will 
 come." 
 
 And better days did come. History lies when it says Brictric 
 died in prison. History very often lies, as Niebuhr will tell you. 
 It was Maud who died, and not Brictric, and when the latter 
 recovered his own, his first public act was one of gratitude. He 
 remembered the kindness of the laundress of the Lion, when he 
 wanted a clean shirt. He would have made her lady, but she would 
 not have it : she was a sticker-up for her order, and would not 
 desert the sisterhood of the soap-suds ; she knew the inconvenience 
 they sustained for the want of a drying-ground, so she said the 
 only favour she would ask would be permission for Bristol washer- 
 women, in all future ages, to dry their clothes unmolested on 
 Brandon Hill. "It is granted," exclaimed Brictric Snaw. And 
 so it was. 
 
 I know there is an impression that Queen Elizabeth was the 
 donor of this privilege ; but until it can be proved that the Virgin 
 Queen did grant such a right, I contend that Brictric Snaw is 
 entitled to the honour and gratitude of posterity for the privilege, 
 and if you desire to have my assertion confirmed, you have but to 
 go to Brandon Hill and see for yourselves. The shirts are hanging 
 there at this moment. 
 
 [In printing the foregoing grotesque composition, we beg to say that the 
 same incident in Bristol History, namely, the persecution of Brictric by 
 Maud for having rejected her advances, was (some dozen years ago) 
 turned into a more serious tale under the title of " Brictric Snow : or a 
 Woman's Revenge." The curious romance is also related by Agnes 
 Strickland, in her " Queens of England," just as it occurs in the Bristol 
 Outlines, given above, with this addition, that William of Normandy, 
 who was, before Brictric's embassy, an ineffectual suitor foi Maud, 
 finding that he was, after Brictric's departure, still refused any counte- 
 nance by the beautiful Fleming, entered Bruges one day, and meeting 
 Maud going to church, rolled her in the mud of the streets (with her 
 father's connivance, it is presumed), and threatened to serve her in the 
 same manner every Sunday, unless shn accepted him. This rough wooing, 
 in the way " the lion wooes his bride," so frightened Maud that she 
 accepted him. William, finding he could conquer a woman, was em- 
 boldened next to undertake the conquest of England. EDITOR.]
 
 fclkst Uatodto stablis(rment 
 
 1552. A post was set up in the water of the Frome, at the mouth of the 
 ditch, under the awful frown of the Castle walls Across this post 
 was placed a transverse beam, turning on a swivel, with a chair at one 
 end of it ; in which, when the culprit was properly placed, that end 
 was turned to the stream and let down into it, once, twice, or thrive, 
 according to the tender mercy, gallantry, or auricular sensibility of the 
 operators. 
 
 1718. Edmund Mountjny, Mayor. In this Mayoralty, the Ducking Stool 
 on the Weir was used as a cure for scolding in one particularly in- 
 veteiate instance ; buc the husband of the lady, whose "evil spirit" was 
 so "laid," when the year of civic supremacy expired, brought his action 
 of battery in behalf of his peaceful rib, before >ir Peter King, at the 
 Guildhall, " and the man (says our authority) recovered such damages 
 that the ex-Mayor could not endure the mention of cold duck any 
 more." Evans's History of Bristol 
 
 Bristol had a hydropathic institution in 1718. Nay, even as far 
 back as 1552 mention is made of one; though a circumstance which 
 occurred in the first-named year made the fact particularly notable, 
 and fixed it in folks' memories. It was neither picturesquely nor 
 pleasantly situated, and those who form their idea of it from the 
 great establishments of Malvern and Graffenberg -will be very 
 much mistaken. It stood by no glassy stream or rippling rill. 
 Under the shadow of the old Castle walls, at the mouth of the 
 Castle ditch, where it is fed by the dull waters of the Frome, it was 
 erected, and it went by no more romantic name than "the Ducking 
 Stool." It was a simple contrivance a post, on which was placed 
 a transverse beam, turning on a swivel, with a chair on one end of 
 it. In this chair, the patient, whom they called a culprit, was 
 placed, and then it was turned over the water and let down into it, 
 once, twice, or thrice, according to the nature of the case and the 
 taste or mercy of the operator. The party under treatment was 
 always a woman of voluble talents, for whom the magistrates had 
 the harsh name of " scold ; " and the sousing system was held to be 
 so effectual a remedy for female rhetoric, that there is a record that 
 the people of Edgeware, in Middlesex, were presented in the middle 
 of the sixteenth century for being without the requisite stool : the 
 stocks not being considered a more usual penal appurtenance of a 
 place than the post and transverse beam with the chair on the end 
 of it. 
 
 One feels, however, it was very unfair to apply it exclusively to 
 the female gender. If it was a cure for too glib a tongue, why was 
 it not used against excessive talkers of either sex, whose tongues ran 
 too fast ? I will not say that even public speakers would not be the 
 better of occasional immersion : we should then have more con- 
 densation and brevity in addresses delivered at open meetings. 
 
 I need hardly add that, amidst its numerous philanthropic, 
 charitable, and sanitary institutions, Bristol no longer possesses a
 
 118 
 
 Ducking Stool. The Castle ditch may still be easily defined, but 
 the post, the beam, the chair have disappeared. At what time it 
 ceased to be numbered amongst the curative establishments, I 
 cannot precisely say ; but it is conjectured that it fell into disuse in 
 the year 1718, when Edmund Mountjoy was Mayor, and his Worship 
 got into a scrape by too vigorous a use of the transverse plank and 
 appurtenances. In Mountjoy' s Chief Magistracy (says the local 
 annalist), " the Ducking- stool on the Weir was used as a cure for 
 scolding in one particularly inveterate instance ; but the husband 
 of the lady, whose 'evil spirit' was so 'laid,' when the year of civic 
 supremacy was expired, brought his action of battery in behalf of 
 his peaceful rib before Sir Peter King, at the Guildhall, and the 
 man recovered such damages that the ex-Mayor could not endure 
 the mention of cold duck any more. " 
 
 I should think not. When the Irish Judge Norbury told a tailor, 
 who fell into the canal, that "better he had a hot goose at home than 
 a cold duck there," the subject of the joke did not enjoy it, anymore 
 than the unlucky Mayor is said to have done. There is no mention 
 here made of the name of the last lady under treatment, but I fancy 
 I have seen it stated that tradition said it was a Mrs. Blake, who 
 must have been a person of surpassing fluency, possessing a tongue 
 with a "bitter end" to it, as the Yankees would say. Doubtless 
 her husband had the full benefit of the organ, which a modern 
 writer has called " Woman's Minie Rifle," "the noisy occupant of 
 a small tenement the latch-key that lets out the mind." And 
 certainly it does not want for similes, epithets, and comparisons ; 
 hundreds, from the wise man Solomon to the last-born moralist, 
 having had something to say on the subject. 
 
 The curious part of this business of Mayor Mountjoy's is that 
 his Worship was rumoured to be himself subjected to some such 
 domestic infliction as Mistress Blake's husband had to complain of, 
 though, of course, in a milder and more polished form. When he 
 was elected to the civic dignity, the local jokers said, "the grey 
 mare (Mayor) would be found the best horse;" for while he ruled 
 all the city besides, Mistress Mountjoy ruled him. She certainly 
 was not Tennyson's paragon 
 
 " The queen of marriage a most perfect wife," 
 
 if perfection consisted in concealing her dominion over her worthy 
 husband. Nor did she realise the poet's description of her 
 
 " who ne'er answers till a husband cools, 
 Or, if she rules him, never shows she rules, 
 Charms by accepting, by submitting sways. 
 Yet has her humour most when she obeys." 
 
 On the contrary, Mrs. Monntjoy was demonstrative in her authority. 
 Possibly, if any of her friends said her husband " could not call his 
 soul his own," she would have resented the speech ; and upon one 
 occasion, when u fair neighbour of hers jocosely hinted at her 
 wearing certain inexpressible garments, she was very angry at the 
 bare mention of such unfeminine attire. Nevertheless, no one could 
 be half-an-hour in the company of the estimable couple without 
 seeing Mrs. M. make her "lesser half" look still less a dozen 
 times in the eyes of his acquaintance, Mistress Mountjoy did not
 
 119 
 
 see that all this was very impolitic, both as it affected the sex in 
 general and her own daughters in particular. For she had three 
 rather fine girls, and if they were remaining on hand longer than, 
 considering their personal and pecuniary attractions, might be 
 expected, it was thought to be attributable to the apprehension, on 
 the part of young men, lest they might inherit some of mama's 
 disposition for domestic empire. Any graceless bachelor, in fact, 
 who desired to reflect on the divine institution of marriage, not 
 unfrequently pointed his moral by referring to " Poor Mountjoy," 
 and asking if any man in his senses would voluntarily turn his 
 home into a "House of Bondage," more grievous to be borne than 
 even an Egyptian one, by taking unto himself a female despot like 
 Mrs. M. The author of the " Anatomy of Melancholy," who was 
 a bachelor, says, " The worldly cares, miseries, discontents, that 
 accompany marriage, I pray you learn of them that have experience, 
 for I have none." Nevertheless, after this admission of ignorance 
 natural in a single man, he proceeds to denounce the state as 
 though he had all the knowledge of it to be earned in triple wedlock. 
 " An Irish sea (he says) is not so turbulent and raging as a litigious 
 wife, which made the devil, belike as most interpreters hold, 
 when he had taken away Job's goods, carports et fortunes bonce 
 health, children, friends to persecute him the more, leave him his 
 wicked wife, as Pineda proves out of Tertullian, Cyprian, Austin, 
 Chrysostom, Prosper, Gaudentius, &c. ; to vex him and gaule him 
 worse than all the fiends." Still, harping on the same subject, he 
 
 foes on, with a grim jocosity, to refer to the case of " that 
 yracusian in a tempest, who, when all ponderous things were to be 
 exonerated out of the ship, quia maximum pondus erat, flung his wife 
 into the sea. But this I confess (he adds, thinking possibly that, 
 like a vile, malicious, old bachelor as he was, he had gone too far), 
 is commically spoken, and so, I pray you, take it." He will not 
 accept the responsibility of advising us to throw our wives over- 
 board. But with better right to speak on the subject than old 
 Democritus Secundus, I will say married ladies who openly assert 
 dominion over their husbands prejudice the interests of their un- 
 wedded sisters by giving sceptics as to the bliss of domestic union a 
 peg on which to hang their malevolent diatribes. And this I say 
 for the benefit of all whom it may concern. 
 
 But to return to the subject to ask permission to sit again on 
 the Ducking Stool. This (it is supposed) was the way in which it 
 came to pass, that Mr. Mayor Mountjoy got into a scrape in the 
 matter of Mistress Blake : 
 
 On the morning in question his Worship ventured to hint, in 
 answer to the Mayoress's expressed determination to give evening 
 parties during their year of office, in preference to those " selfish 
 gluttonous affairs, gentlemen's dinners," that the majority of the 
 magistrates and corporation were old men, more or less tried by the 
 gout, who could not dance, and would vote him a mean fellow 
 unless he found them handsomely in turtle as hitherto. 
 
 " A.nd who cares what the old barbarians vote you, Mr. Mount- 
 joy ? " demanded his fair partner. " Am I not (and she laid particular 
 stress upon the word) mistress in my own house, and wUl they
 
 120 
 
 will any one presume to dictate to me what I am to do, and whom 
 I am to have in my own house ? " 
 
 Mrs. Mountjoy paused for an answer, as the newspaper says, 
 but received none. His Worship knew better than to claim the 
 right of reply. As poor Admiral Fitzroy would say, he saw the 
 storm signal the inverted cones up ; so he walked quickly into 
 the hall, took his cane and hat, and went into town by the way of 
 the Hotwells ; sighing, as people took off their hats to him and 
 gave him the whole flag-way, when he reflected that with all this 
 outward show of honour and dignity, he had about as much 
 
 deference paid him in his own house as the, as the but I won't 
 
 finish the sentence, for comparisons are proverbially "odorous." 
 
 In this humour he was " walking slowly and sadly revolving" 
 (like the old priest of Apollo in Homer), by a costennonger's shop 
 when sharp and shrill accents struck upon his ear, almost piercing 
 the tympan with their acute sounds. " You good-for-nothing, 
 faint-hearted wretch," shouted the fair speaker, as she. 'pushed her 
 meek-looking husband into the street, " go cool your legs in the air 
 until you learn to return more quickly when I send ycu on an 
 errand." More, much more, she uttered, but I cannot shock ears 
 polite by repeating it. 
 
 Mr. Mayor Mountjoy paused : a " fellow feeling" hnd made him 
 " wondrous kind " to the unhappy costermonger. and here was an 
 opportunity of punishing in another's his own wife's weakness (or 
 strength, just as you may please to call it). It even flattered his 
 imagination to think that he could vicariously teach his wife a 
 lesson. 
 
 " Officer," said he, calling to one who happened to be passing at 
 the moment, and who came at once to his Worship's signal, 
 " officer, have that demi-rep before me at the Tolzey within the 
 next hour. I will teach her that a man is, or ought to be, master 
 in his own house." 
 
 The officer was a bit of a wag, and, as he knew a thing'or two 
 and heard it hinted more than once, that his Worship did not rule 
 the roost at home, he had some difficulty in preserving that gravity 
 which was quite consistent with the deference due to the chief 
 magistrate of Bristol. Nevertheless, he acted upon the orders he 
 received, and Mrs. Blake duly appeared at the Tolzey in the course 
 of the day, when she fully maintained her reputation for eloquence 
 and candour by giving his Worship " a bit of her mind." " A 
 pretty sort of gentleman he," she openly declared, "to talk of a 
 man being master in his own house, when he dared not even sneeze 
 inside his own hall door without asking permission of his wife." 
 
 " Order ! Silence, silence, woman ! " cried the Mayor's sergeant, 
 so lustily that it was believed he did so to prevent his Worship 
 seeing him laugh. His Worship was in a rage. "To the Ducking 
 Stool with her to the Ducking Stool. Give her three dips, and 
 see if that does not cool her body and quench her tongue of flame ! " 
 he cried. 
 
 And to the Weir Mistress Blake went. It was the last time the 
 public of Bristol had an opportunity of witnessing the transverse 
 beam and chair at work. A vast crowd assembled ; but Mistress
 
 121 
 
 Blake was equal to the occasion. She took to the water like a duck, 
 though she was in no other way entitled to that endearing term. 
 She never cried, never called out, and submitted to her baths in a 
 manner to delight Dr. Gully himself, though certainly the water in 
 which she was immersed was none of the most inviting. The 
 ragamuffins of course had their jokes at her expense, but, as she 
 was being unstrapped from the chair, she declared she would 
 have her's too, and at the expense of " that hen-pecked craven, 
 Mountjoy, who could only have heart to duck another man's wife, 
 and not his own." 
 
 " And if I'm a duck," she added, in retort to the taunts of the 
 crowd, " I'll make him pay for my dripping, if there's law in the 
 land." 
 
 As the chronicles tell us, Mrs. Blake was as good as her word. 
 At the expiration of the civic year, Mrs. B. made her husband 
 enter a suit against his ex- Worship, and, by the instructions of Sir 
 P. King, the jury gave such damages that no other Chief Magis- 
 trate was ever after found bold enough to put the stool into active 
 work : so the institution fell into decay. The chair, the transverse 
 beam, and then the post, disappeared in succession ; the latter 
 having been turned by an enterprising artizan into snuff-boxes, 
 a pinch from which was ever after supposed to possess the charm 
 and virtue of relieving a man from too excessiva a dominion by his 
 wife. 
 
 Of course, until almost the last day of his life, Mr. Alderman 
 Mountjoy never ceased to hear of his judicial mistake. To escape 
 the cruel jokes perpetrated at his expense, he never accepted an 
 invitation to dinner during the season of ducks and green peas. To 
 M'rtte/'-cresses he had a particular objection ; and when he passed a 
 crowd, any gamin, who had the opportunity, never neglected to 
 cry quack. He did not like to enter the market, because the wag- 
 gish old women who regarded him at once as the slave and enemy 
 of their sex seldom failed to ask him to purchase some commodity 
 unpleasantly reminding him of his blunder ; so that Mr. Mount- 
 joy became the victim of chronic melancholy and sank into the 
 grave a lamentable contradiction to his name.
 
 in 
 
 Amongst the old entries in the Chronicles of Bristol is one of the time 
 of the Commonwealth, which states that the Parliamentarian soldiers 
 stationed in the city, unable to obtain their pay, seized upon an Alder- 
 man, and kept him a prisoner in their Guard-house, as a pledge for the 
 money, until the authorities in London sent down a message to them 
 to let their Worshipful captive go. One longs to know more of the 
 incident than our meagre annals give how the illustrious prisoner, for 
 instance, did without his comforts while in durance, and how his turtle- 
 eating brother Aldermen drppt small luxuries in through his prison bars 
 to solace his durance. Times and Aldermen have changed since, 
 a single fat-capon-lined civic dignitary was substantial enough to be 
 considered and seized as a security for the arrears of a regiment's pay. 
 Without, however, entering into an invidious departmeut of the ques- 
 tion, a reader of our local annals begs to offer a poor attempt at realizing 
 the circumstance and situation referred to in this singular recrd, but 
 before doing so, he begs to subjoin the passage from the annals of 
 Bristol, in which the fact is given : 
 
 "1647. Nov. 23, letters were received by the House from Bristol of a 
 mutiny in the garrison, and that the soldiers had secured an Alderman 
 there, till they should have received a month's pay. The House sent a 
 letter to the General to discharge the Alderman, and to prevent the 
 like abuses by the soldiers for the future." 
 
 Alderman Girdle sat down to dinner in his great house in Corn 
 Street. The house was worthy of an Alderman of the olden time, 
 and the joints on the table were worthy of the house, and the 
 fire in the wide fire-place (the fire-place is there still) was an 
 Aldennanic fire logs that defied winter, and the reflections of 
 whose blazes danced in the polished sides of the tall silver tankards. 
 There was something, you may depend on it, uncommonly good in 
 these same tankards. The Alderman tucked a white napkin under 
 his chin, and laid hold of his knife and spoon like a man who meant 
 to dine as Aldermen dined, when their wealth and digestion were 
 alike. He had laid hold on one of the tankards by way of lubricating 
 the passage with a draught of Bristol milk, alias Spanish wine, 
 before beginning with food, when the servant brought in a petition 
 from some " poor caitiff," who stood shivering at the door in the 
 cold November blast, and must starve if his Worship would not 
 help him. Oh ! it was terrible to see how red in the face and the 
 gills the Alderman grew when he learnt that a hungry scoundrel 
 was impudent enough to interrupt him at his dinner with a prayer 
 for food. It was the greatest mercy he did not choke in his passion 
 as he screamed to the servant tj drive the insolent varlet off, but 
 it was not necessary to do this, the shivering empty bellied Lazarus 
 heard the roar of the Civic Dives, and made himself scarce. 
 
 But it was Dives' turn to hear another roar now. It was a deep 
 angry shout which bodes no good, especially when heard in the 
 streets of a city ; it seemed to proceed from crowds gathered round 
 the Iligh Cross, and then it swelled in front of the Tolzey, and soon 
 was heard nearer and nearer until it shook the very windows of the 
 room in which he dined, and even made the Alderman lay down his 
 spoon on the napkin to go to the casement to see hat was the 
 matter. His appearance was the signal for a redoubled roar from 
 a crowd of tumultuous soldiery, who no sooner saw him than they 
 cried out, " Let us take the Alderman as pledge for our pay." 
 
 No sooner said than done. Up the stairs a number of them tore
 
 123 
 
 and bodily seized the Worshipful Girdle, who in vain begged 
 and entreated first for his liberty, and next that they would allow 
 him to eat his dinner before they dragged him off. ' ' What cruelty 
 would force an Alderman from his victuals!" But they would not 
 listen to his prayer, and told him in mockery they would take care 
 the food was not wasted. Nor was it ; the table was cleared even 
 quicker than the Alderman could do it, and shivering Lazarus saw 
 his fat but fasting friend hurried off to the Guard-house in Wine 
 Street, there to remain in pawn until the soldiers' arrears were paid. 
 The soldiers were not only wicked but waggish, for they stuck 
 out in front of the Guard-house, so that all who ran might read, a 
 placard bearing the following inscription in large letters : 
 
 " In Pawn, a BRISTOL ALDERMAN ; if not Redeemed in three days, 
 will be Sold to pay the Expenses of Maintenance." 
 
 Numbers crowded Wine Street that night to read the strange 
 announcement, which could only be put up in a city and at a time 
 where and when, owing to civil strife, law and order were set at 
 defiance. Alderman Girdle was not the most charitable of men 
 or the most popular either, so, though his Aldermanic brethren were 
 scandalized at the outrage and sought to obtain his liberation, the 
 baser sort amused themselves with jokes, evincing more turn for 
 drollery than feeling for the poor Alderman. They carried bags 
 about to the houses and shops affecting to collect alms for the 
 Worshipful Girdle, and declaring that, since he had been taken 
 away without his dinner, the smallest contributions of broken 
 victuals would be accepted in his behalf. The soldiers were equally 
 lawless : they stuck up a lantern during the night in front of the 
 placard, while a sergeant stood at the door of the Guard-house 
 beating a drum at intervals, and saying, " Here you may see, for 
 a penny, that most wonderful of all wonders an Alderman who 
 has gone one whole day without his dinner ! " And people actually 
 paid their penny, and went in to gaze on the Worshipful Girdle, 
 who, with napkin under chin, as he had prepared himself to eat 
 the dinner that he did not eat, presented a very rueful but some- 
 what ridiculous sight. Before midnight, however, the Alderman 
 paid for the privilege of a very handsome supper being introduced 
 into his place of captivity. 
 
 The commandant of the Castle was applied to, but declined to 
 interfere, so that a special message was sent up by the chamber to 
 lay the case before the House of Commons, who immediately sent 
 down a sharp reprimand to the military authorities for allowing 
 such irregularities, and an order for the instant release of the 
 Alderman. A deputation from the Tolzey proceeded to the Guard- 
 house, in Wine Street, and having obtained his liberation, they 
 accompanied him home. As he entered the door of his residence 
 in Corn Street, the same poor wretch that accosted him on the day 
 of his captivity stood shivering by his portals, but Dives was now 
 an altered man. He had tasted the torments of hunger for a day 
 and could feel for others, so he cried out to Lazarus to " go into 
 the larder and have his belly filled." 
 
 MORAL. Aldermen, before sitting down to dinner, remember the 
 fate of the Worshipful Girdle, and don't forget that there may be 
 some starving Lazarus at your door.
 
 A LEGEND OF THE HOTWELLS. 
 
 A.D. 1668. William Gagg, a baker in Castle Street, repeatedly dreamed 
 of the virtues of the Hotwell water in his particular case, and was 
 thereby cured of diabetes." History of Bristol. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gagg sat on a fine summer's evening in the small 
 back parlour behind their shop in Castle Street over a toast and 
 tankard. Mrs. Gagg, fat, fair, and somewhat more than forty, was 
 on very good terms with herself, considerably more so than with 
 her husband, who entertained himself in moaning over his own 
 sufferings and the sins of other people, not forgetting his wife's. 
 The good lady, however, was used to his humour, and to his com- 
 plaint and complainings which were both chronic, as well she 
 might after twenty years in which they had contrived to make 
 their own fortune by making other people's bread. 
 
 " Mistress Gagg," said Mr. Gagg on the evening in question, as 
 that worthy woman returned into the parlour after serving a 
 customer with one of the few remaining loaves of the last batch, 
 " Mistress Gagg, if I died, would you marry again ? " 
 
 Now it so happened that Mrs. Gagg, who was an excellent and 
 a provident woman, had repeatedly asked herself the very same 
 question, that when such a melancholy event as Mr. Gagg alluded 
 to arrived, she might not have to decide in a hurry on so important 
 a point ; but the answer she returned to her own enquiries, though 
 of course well known to herself, she prudently determined not to 
 communicate to a party so interested as William Gagg, who had a 
 strange partiality for those posthumous topics, and on more occa- 
 sions than one expressed himself very strongly on the abstract 
 question of second marriages. 
 
 Mistress Gagg slily cast her eye towards an escritoire under the 
 buffet in the corner of the parlour, where she had a vague idea of 
 having once seen something tied with red tape, which resembled a 
 will, and answered with a sigh and a directness which must have 
 pleased a special pleader, " And if / died, Mr. Gagg, would you 
 marry again ? " 
 
 " If you died," replied Mr. Gagg, with contemptuous incredulity, 
 " whoever thought of your dying p" 
 
 This put Mistress Gagg a little on her mettle to think that her 
 husband should monopolise all the sympathy and uncertainty of 
 life, and she replied with spirit, " Why should not I die as well as 
 other people ; had not I a cough last winter, and a rheumatism in 
 spring ? but some people think they are the only persons who are 
 ever sick, or have a right to die;" and Mistress Gagg sobbed at 
 the idea of being thought by her unfeeling husband beyond the 
 trials or uncertainty of all things human.
 
 125 
 
 Mr. Gagg, who had a mortal apprehension of those sobbings, 
 which too often ended in a stormy fit of hysterics, cut the present 
 paroxysm short by shouting out there was a customer in the shop, 
 and his wife, drying her eyes, was the next moment behind the 
 counter, across which she gossiped with a neighbour on the cruelty 
 of all husbands in general and her own in particular, until the 
 amiable object of their conversation in the back parlour fell fast 
 asleep. The truth was Mistress Gagg conscientiously believed that 
 there was not a more meritorious wife in the precincts of the Castle, 
 yet one who had succeeded in obtaining so small a portion ot her 
 merit, a conclusion in which her gossip, for sundry good reasons, fully 
 agreed. It was surprising indeed what a harmony of opinion these 
 two amiable women enjoyed on the subject of husbands. On the 
 delicate question of second marriages, too, they touched, and had 
 entered considerably into the deserts of a case of this kind which 
 had occurred in the neighbourhood; when the voice of the awaken- 
 ing baker from within interrupted a colloquy so interesting to both, 
 by shouting out that Mistress Gagg had had time to bake and sell 
 a new batch, while she was disposing of a single loaf. 
 
 Mistress Gagg, having the fate of some wives who had been 
 scratched out of husbands' wills before her eyes, returned with 
 exemplary promptitude to the back parlour. 
 "Mistress Gagg," said her husband. 
 " Master Gagg," observed Mistress Gagg in reply. 
 " I had a dream,' 1 said Mr. Gagg. 
 
 " Oh, dear me," ejaculated Mistress Gagg, with lively curiosity, 
 " and what was it about was it about me, my dear ? " 
 
 To this innocent piece of egotism Mr. Gagg retorted in a tone of 
 something like contempt, "About you indeed, who'd take the trouble 
 of dreaming about you ? " 
 
 " Not dream about me," sobbed his wife, " and I dreamt three 
 times about you the night you went out on the fort for Fiennes 
 but see will I do it again ? " 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear," said the husband, a little softened by the 
 contemplation of this trait of conjugal affection, now for the first 
 time communicated, " I dreamt of myself. I dreamt I had drunk 
 of that little well at Rownham, and was cured." 
 " Was that all ?" said the wife. 
 
 " More, I suppose, than you'd wish to see come to pass," growled 
 the husband, walking off to bed, leaving his wife to close the shop 
 at her leisure. 
 
 Between twelve and one o'clock that same night, and while Mrs. 
 Gagg mentally and visionally was in the land of nod, she was dis- 
 turbed from her rosy slumber by her liege lord, who, after having 
 repeatedly called his loving wife without receiving an answer, at 
 length awoke her to a sense of her duty and the possession of the 
 other seven, by a smart and pungent series of pinches, but not 
 until Mrs. Gagg had associated those unpleasant importunities for 
 some time with the subject of her sleeping thoughts. 
 
 " Do you hear, Mrs. Gagg ?" cried her husband, in a voice shrill 
 with vexation. 
 " I feel," said Mrs. Gagg, waking.
 
 126 
 
 "That's a comfort," muttered Mr. Gagg; "I see my tongue 
 would be little use without my fingers." 
 
 " I wish you'd employ one in holding the other," cried Mrs. Gagg, 
 irritated at her husband ; " what's the matter now ? " 
 
 " I had the dream again." 
 
 " And is that the reason I must be tormented out of my rest, 
 because you choose to dream ? " demanded his wife. 
 
 "I dreamt of those waters, I tell you," cried her husband, 
 annoyed to find so little interest taken in his visions. 
 
 " Nothing more natural," said Mrs. Gagg, ' 'than to dream of water 
 after having drunk so much canary ; but go to sleep and dream 
 again the third time is the charm." The baker took his wife's 
 advice, so far as the sleep was concerned, whether to dream or not 
 deponent doth not say. 
 
 With break of day, however, Master Gagg 
 
 " Arose, and donned his clothes," 
 
 and, much to Mistress Gagg's relief, was heard by that excellent 
 lady to leave the house, shutting the hall door behind him. The 
 shops and windows in Castle Street were still closed, and nothing 
 was stirring, from the Castle to the Mint, but a few early sparrows 
 and two scavengers and their brooms, as the baker, a large goblet 
 in his hand, wended his way through the sleeping city to the 
 Hotwells. 
 
 The tide was fast receding when Mr. Gagg reached thelflittle 
 rude spring which, oozing from beneath the cliff, sent its waters 
 trickling over a surface of dark soft mud to the river. The morning 
 was splendid, and the surrounding scenery, then wild and secluded, 
 beautiful as now ; but the water, to one of the baker's ardent palate, 
 looked most uninviting. Still he had dreamt of its virtues and 
 particularly in reference to his own complaint. He took courage 
 and filled the goblet, but having filled, seemed very loth to empty 
 it after having tasted the tepid and mawkish liquid. " It is not 
 pleasant," muttered Mr. Gagg, making wry faces at the rock, " but 
 then it may be good for my complaint," and he tasted it again, but 
 did not like his second trial a bit better than his first. The baker 
 looked round for resolution a magpie chattered above his head, 
 and two cows gazed across on him trom the opposite side of the 
 river, as if curious to know what that solitary man was doing at 
 the dark little puddle at that hour of the morning. Such was the 
 figure which the first visitor at this future fashionable watering- 
 place then presented. Mr. Gagg thought for a moment, then 
 taking a small bottle from his pocket, he poured a little high 
 coloured liquid into the goblet of water ; " A little drop of eau de 
 vie," thought the baker, " cannot hurt its virtues," and raising the 
 goblet to his mouth, he drained it. For six mornings following, 
 at the same hour, Mr. Gagg was seen at the same place with the 
 same goblet and flask, and each morning he grew sensibly better 
 until the seventh, when he announced with great joy and rejoicing 
 a complete cure to his wife, but whether owing to the virtues of the 
 eau de vie or the water the learned for years afterwards disputed, 
 and could not decide. However, there was this benefit from it : 
 with the recovery of his good health Mr. Gagg recovered his good
 
 127 
 
 temper, and none lived merrier after that than the baker of Castle 
 Street and his loving wife. 
 
 A century passed, and round this same spring, where Mr. Gagg 
 had his solitary morning draught, might be seen Bath chairs, 
 fashionable ladies and gentlemen, ennuyeux, aristocratic invalids, 
 and loungers, all drinking the same mawkish water out of tumblers 
 of crystal glass, with seemingly vastly more gusto and pleasure 
 than the Castle Street baker evinced on emptying his first goblet, 
 though in the later cases the lymph wanted even the qualification 
 of Canary 
 
 " or of thee, Cogniac, 
 Sweet Naiad of the Phlegethonic rill." 
 
 In the appearance of the Spring itself a great change had also 
 taken place, and instead of meandering over dark mud from 
 natural crevices in the living rock, it sparkled from pumps and 
 pipes into shining marble. Inns and houses too, the latter in all 
 the imposing array of parades, rows, and squares, sprung up 
 around ; fashionable loungers loitered in the genial region, and 
 spent their time and their money amongst lodging-bouse and hotel 
 keepers, who pocketed the gains and blessed the memory of William 
 Gagg. 
 
 Fifty summers more rolled by, and another change had come 
 over the spirit and appearance of the place. The houses were 
 deserted, the Bath chairs and donkeys gone, and the invalids and 
 idlers had disappeared the pump room was empty the pump 
 handle still the water trickled unregarded and unvalued in 
 pensive and melancholy drops from its spout ; and a few old women 
 selling a few old stones by the door were all the animate objects 
 that met the eye. The waters were said to have lost their virtues, 
 the place its salubrity : fashion had shifted, the spring was cried 
 down, and the hotels shut up. Sic transit gloria mundi AND OF 
 
 THE HOTWELLS.
 
 ps 
 
 " And having come naked into this world, I desire to go naked 
 out of it ; and direct that my poor body be interred without shirt 
 or other covering." Such, as well as I can remember, were the 
 testamentary words of Robert Strange, three times Mayor of 
 Bristol, who departed this life in the year 1491, Henry VII. 
 being King of England. I would give the precise sentence from 
 his curious will if it were in my power to lay my hand npon that 
 document, but it was one of the antique curiosities belonging to my 
 late lamented friend Thomas Garrard, ex-Chamberlain of the City, 
 and I can only quote, to the best of my memory, from a cursory 
 glance which I had of the parchment many years ago. The dying 
 request fastened upon my mind all the more tenaciously from the 
 wonder and amusement it appeared to afford to my genial old friend 
 the Treasurer. " He was buried without his shirt, Sir," he would 
 say, " either because he thought the garment would do more good 
 by being left behind to cover some poor man's back that wanted it, 
 than by being placed in his coffin with him, there to rot with his 
 body; or he was anxious to keep down the undertaker's bill, by having 
 as plain an interment as possible ; or he wished to make a show in 
 his death of the humility he perhaps never practised in his life, 
 when his charity was possibly like that of the man at Islington, of 
 whom it was said 
 
 ' The naked every day he clad. 
 When he put on his clothes. ' " 
 
 This, however, was one of my departed friend's whimsical ways 
 of accounting for old customs, according to modern motives. I 
 think Robert Strange, three times Mayor of Bristol, meant to 
 enunciate to his neighbours and fellow-citizens a solemn truth just 
 as he was about to quit the world, in which he was probably as 
 keen after the coins as any of his friends. The blunt old moralist 
 " lyeth," as the ancient Chronicle has it, "in St. John's churchyard 
 in a monument of freestone near the Almshouse, which he 
 founded," and which said Almshouse, good reader, you may 
 daily see as you pass down St. John's steps so-called (though ihe 
 steps are now gone,) which led from John-street to Broad- 
 mead. I may, therefore, presume that the old gentleman was a 
 parishioner of St. John the Baptist, and intended by the words of 
 his will to cry out like his canonized patron, in a wilderness of 
 selfishness money getting and personal assumption, a grim sermon 
 to his over careful neighbours, on the old text, never to become 
 obsolete, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," upon which the preacher 
 of all time to this day rings the changes. Possibly he had read in 
 one of the stories of the old Crusades, which were more than two 
 hundred years old when he was a boy, how the great Saladin had 
 his shroud borne like a standard through the city just before his 
 death, while a herald preceded it calling out "This is all that
 
 129 
 
 remains to the mighty conquerer of the East !" So Rohert Strange, 
 when he could not have so romantic a proclamation made for him 
 in his dying hour, made one for himself after his own fashion, in 
 which he so far eclipsed the great Saracenic hero that, whereas 
 Soliman wished it to be understood that he could only boast of a 
 winding sheet, the old Bristol citizen resolved not to take credit 
 even for that sepulchral garment, and desired to have it noted that 
 he went out of the world as he unquestionably came into it, without 
 his shirt. 
 
 Somehow or the other we have got (at least I have got) to regard 
 the men and women of antiquity as so many tableaux. Whether 
 in pictures, or in carvings, or in illuminated manuscripts I look 
 back at them, I cannot hammer it into my head that those figures 
 in quaint costumes, in ruffs, and hose, and doublets, and plumed 
 beavers, were anything more than archaeological curiosities : yet 
 in the change of fashion, as we all know, from the days of Adam 
 and his fig leaves down to the flowing toga, and from the flowing 
 toga to the satin breeches tied with bunches of blue ribbon, and 
 from the satin breeches again down to the peg-top trousers, the 
 
 Ehysical form of men under all these varieties of costume has 
 een the same, and the hearts within beat with like emotions ; for 
 if Mr. Darwin's development principle ever was in operation, I 
 believe it must have been before the time of our first parents, and 
 that we had wholly got rid of all our tadpole peculiarities long ere 
 the " grand old gardener," as Tennyson calls him, cut and 
 presented his first cucumber to mother Eve. You may depend 
 upon it, then, that though more than three centuries and a half 
 have elapsed since Robert Strange made his will and breathed his 
 last in some respectable mansion in Broad Street, or even up Bell 
 Lane, and though the men then moved about in very odd dresses 
 such as you would only now see in a masquerade or on the stage, 
 and Bristol dames were more grotesque figures than even modern 
 fashions have made them pretty well the same fancies and feelings 
 actuated them that influence the present generation. The same 
 passion for money-getting, the same personal rivalries and personal 
 peculiarities that furnish matter for our gossipings and tattleings 
 and scandal now, were then in full play ; an'l porhaps Robert 
 Strange was moved by them in his lit'o-tirno mixi-d in the city 
 squabbles, talked at city i ^Iit it out with hi.s great 
 
 neighbours for authority in city matters, swung his j trs.- over his 
 head like other magnates, and only became aware of the vanity of 
 the things which appeared so important to him in health and 
 strength, as he got a near glimpse for the first time of the dark 
 valley, through which all our ways will one day lie, as did that of 
 Robert Strange 380 years ago, when Henry VII. of that name was 
 on the throne of England. So Robert Strange seeing his time 
 short thought he would make the most of it according to his own 
 idea. And could one, who had three times filled the office of Chief 
 Magistrate of the second city in England who had walked to the 
 Tolzey in scarlet-furred robe and gold chain more effectually 
 abase himself in the eyes of the world than by ordering that he 
 should be buried without his shirt : that the man who had shone
 
 130 
 
 in the scarlet and fine linen of the Mayoralty should he committed 
 naked to his coffin ? Perhaps while he was inditing this, his last 
 will and testament, to those who stood at his hcdside in some 
 wainscotted chamber, close by the passing hell (a custom then 
 always observed), was tolling at solemn intervals for him from the 
 tower of St. John's Church, and those who went by on some 
 business or pleasure under the gateway muttered, as in duty bound, 
 a hasty prayer for the soul about to depart. But how think you, 
 after all, was his sermon on the vanity of human wishes, as 
 preached from his death bed in his last will and testament received 
 t>y those who survived him ? I cannot say, but the probability ia 
 that the first question his neighbours asked was how he " cut up?" 
 Bless your soul, I expect whether it be in the Reign of Henry VII. 
 or Victoria I., had half Bristol been buried by their own request 
 without their shirts, by way of inculcating a great moral lesson, 
 the other half would push along and struggle for the vanities all 
 the same, as they dad the day after Robert Strange's will was 
 known and he was committed to his freestone monument on the 
 south side of St. John's churchyard. I know the monument very 
 well, the piety of some parish authorities enclosed it with a tiled 
 shed, entered through a large doorway, like a coach house in which 
 King Death kept his black equipage. Some thirty years or so ago 
 I held the distinguished office of churchwarden of St. John's, when, 
 in conformity with the wish of a number of Johnians, whose 
 sleeping apartments overlooked this said burial ground, I purchased 
 sundry pounds of mignionette seed, and sowed it broad cast over 
 the graves and most thickly round the monument of the man who 
 went out of the world without a shirt to his hack ; for I had a 
 respect for the old fellow's memory, if it were only for his grim 
 fancy for naked truths, and resolved that, should his spirit take to 
 " walk the night," its first steps back upon earth from the meads of 
 Asphodel should be into a bed of mignionette. 
 
 I am bound to confess, however, that for one who had so humble 
 a notion in the particular of his sepulchral wardrobe, he had a very 
 ambitious idea of a sepulchre ; and, in the matter of carved free- 
 stone, made up for a dozen worked cambric shirts, upon the 
 principle laid down in an old writer (whose words I remember, 
 though I have forgotten his name), that " tombs are the clothes of 
 the dead, and a rich monument is one embroidered." But this 
 seeming inconsistency in the business of burial is not confined to 
 Strange : Whitson, who flourished in the reign of Henry VII. 's 
 grand-daughter, Queen Elizabeth, gave orders for his funeral in 
 the following words, " that this body of myne be buried without 
 any superfluous charge or pomp ;" accordingly we know, from bills 
 extant, that his coffin only cost 14s., not much above the contract 
 price now given by Poor Law Unions. Nevertheless, even a 
 modern fashionable undertaker could not have made up a much 
 prettier funeral bill than was incurred for the obsequies of the 
 founder of the Red Maid's Hospital. The claret drank upon that 
 " mournful occasion," at his house in Nicholas Street, alone cost 
 6 which, considering the price of wine and the rate of currency 
 then prevailing, was enormous. Some years ago, the particulars,
 
 131 
 
 as furnished from Alderman Whitson's papers, were given in the 
 Bristol Times and Felix Farley's Journal in full, and the reader must 
 have laughed serious as the subject was at the odd fashion in 
 which the items were entered, " an epitaph, 10s ," heing imme- 
 diately followed hy "mustard, Id." Whitson, too, was huried in 
 great pomp, notwithstanding his modest will ; the trained bands of 
 the city, with drums and fifes, having accompanied to the grave 
 his body, which was followed by the Corporation in mourning 
 gloves, 75 old men in black gowns, minute guns being fired while 
 the funeral proceeded. Colston, too, had the obsequies almost of a 
 monarch, and no night spectacle has since been half so grand as 
 the line of torches that flared at the triumphal entry of the ashes 
 of the conquering philanthropist, and which extended from the city 
 bounds to All Saints. I can say, too, from occular proof and 
 a sight of his coffined corpse, that not only was he buried in his 
 shirt, but that the garment was of finest cambric and elaborately 
 frilled. 
 
 Indeed, we can hardly now quite estimate the sacrifice that 
 Strange made in wishing to go naked out of the world, unless we 
 bear in mind " what a store" the men of his day set upon fine 
 apparel. Many of them, in their wills, enumerate their wardrobes 
 with evident pride in the inventory, and think it quite a compliment 
 to leave their old clothes amongst their most valued friends, so that 
 it was no unusual sight to see, after one city magnate was dead 
 and buried, another city magnate strutting about in the well known 
 Genoa velvet cloak, sad coloured doublet, or worsted hose of the 
 deceased. We gain an idea of the extent and character of the 
 wearing apparel of the Bristol merchant of that day, from the 
 inventory left by Foster, the founder of the Almshouse of the 
 Three Kings, at the top of Steep Street, who was, as nearly as 
 possible, a contemporary of Strange's. He had " 20 worsted 
 doublets, 2 scarlet eowns [no doubt his civic dress used on high 
 days], 2 velvet gowns furred, a black g"own, a black cloak, and a 
 hat and tippet of velvet," a wardrobe, which for extent and value, 
 you would certainly find few Bristol Aldermen possessed of in our 
 days, when we know the very first thing a man does when he quits 
 the Council is to sell his robe to his successor, who drives a hard 
 and advantageous bargain, aware of the fact that the former owner 
 has " no further use of it." Perhaps it was with a lingering look 
 at the clothes press in the corner of his chamber, where the furred 
 gown and the velvet tippets were, that old Robert Strange dictated 
 his will, and consigned himself naked to his coffin 
 
 As still in a voice of dolorous pitch, 
 With a hope that its tone would reach the rich. 
 He sang his song of a SHIRT. 
 
 This old shroudless Alderman founded the Almshouses under St. 
 John's steps, which were rebuilt some century or so ago, but some- 
 how or other he was so occupied in his last moments about the 
 fashion in which his body was to be coffined, that he forgot to 
 endow them with any funds ; so the old ladies who inhabited the 
 tenements had barely " dry lodgings" through his bounty, until
 
 132 
 
 they got a grant from the Reynold's Fund. It is true that there 
 is a story told by Barrett, of certain tenements outside Newgate 
 and the Spur Inn, "Wine Street, being left by Strange and 
 embezzled by naughty vestry-men, who cut leaves out of the 
 parish books and erased an inscription on the freestone monument 
 in St. John's churchyard hard by to conceal their iniquity. But a 
 descendant ot the Shirtless tried this question against the church- 
 wardens in 1629 and lost the trial, the parish authorities having 
 " shown" that no such property ever belonged to Robert Strange. 
 They also ingeniously questioned whether he had ever built the 
 almshouses and were quite in the humour to prove that no such 
 person ever existed, and that his tomb and will were myths and 
 shams, when the plaintiff gave in, seeing that had he persisted in 
 his suit, it would probably cost him so much that, like his worthy 
 ancestor through necessity, however, and not by choice he 
 would have to be " BUBIED WITHOUT HIS SHIRT."
 
 e f abg m BJftife. 
 
 Mr. Barrett notices, in his History, p. 345, that " under the floor [of St. 
 Mark's vestry] is a large vault, the entrance of which, in 1730, fell in, 
 and, upon examining the corpses there deposited, supposed to be those 
 of the founders of the Church, there was found a gold bodkin, entangled 
 in some hair." One of the bodies, as we learn from a note in Mr. H. 
 Smith's illustrated copy of Barrett, was that of " a female clothed in 
 white satin (lying just under where the fireplace now is), having her 
 robes fastened on the breast by a very handsome gold clasp, which was 
 taken by and. as I am informed, is now (1818) in the possession of Mrs. 
 Becher, in College-green. Evans. 
 
 This ves'ry was, it is thought, at one time, a mortuary chapel, and used 
 as such by the family of Poyntz. of Acton, not far from Bristol. 
 Barrett says it was formerly a confessional, with two arches in the wall 
 between it and the high altar. The ai chitecture of the room is very 
 rich, the ceiling being beautifully arched with freestone, and having 
 on it the shields of the Gourneys and Poyntz of Acton The lady in 
 white is conjectured to have been one of the latter family. 
 
 When Henry VII. came to Bristol, and was received with great state and 
 pageants, he was accompanied by Sir Robt. Poyntz, then Sheriff of 
 Gloucestershire, and at whose house he and his suite had stopped some 
 days. 
 
 The last Prior or Master of the Collegiate Chapel of the Gaunts was J. 
 Colman, who, with his brethren, surrendered the house and all its 
 estates to Henry VIII., in 1534. There was still a tradition in Bristol, 
 when the late John Britton was a boy, that one of the last priests of 
 the " Bons Hommes " (as the brethren of the Chapel were called) 
 retired to a little cottage in Gaunt's-lane close by, and there lived to a 
 great age under the shadow of the old hospital, cultivating his garden 
 in quiet and contentment. 
 
 " Beware of the ' clenched fist,' young gallant ; and as for thee, 
 fro ward wench, get thee to thy apartment, until we see whether 
 bread and water may not cool thy ardent humour." 
 
 This speech was made by Sir Robert Poyntz, wbo, little expect- 
 ing such, a discovery, overheard the love plightings of bis daughter 
 Margaret with one of the young courtiers in the train of the King, 
 who was enjoying for a few days the hospitality of Acton, on bis 
 way to Bristol. Near the old mansion, the site of which may still 
 be traced, was one of those green alleys so common in old English 
 manor bouses. Two bigh thick hedges of clipped yew enclosed it 
 on either side ; and it was while passing behind one of them to 
 another part of the homestead that the knight without at all 
 intending to be an eavesdropper overheard the tender interchange 
 of vows between the two young people, who bad made such good 
 use of their time that after a couple of days' acquaintance they had 
 vowed fidelity. The clenched fist (or poign) was the rebus or pun 
 on the family name, and it was to this Sir Robert referred when be 
 warned the gallant against bis wrath. 
 
 The worthy knight, however, bad interposed too late. He could 
 shut up his daughter in ber room, and complain to tbe King of tbe 
 breach of hospitality committed by one of his suite both of which 
 he did ; but the young people bad made an impression upon one 
 another that parental anger or royal displeasure could not efface. 
 They might never see each other again, but it would take years 
 and years to make them forget that deep tenderness wbicb a brief 
 courtship had created.
 
 134 
 
 Little susceptible of love himself, Henry ordered young Coleman 
 (for such was the youthful courtier's name) to return to London, 
 " since he would not retain a heart-pilferer any more than a purse- 
 stealer in his train." Accordingly, when the King entered Bristol 
 in pomp and pageant, being entertained with plays and pantomimic 
 allegories at the High Cross and St. John's Gate, the plume of the 
 banished Coleman did not flutter amongst that forest of feathers 
 which followed in the royal wake, and which made such havoc 
 amongst the hearts of the burghers' daughters as they looked out 
 of their open lattices on the gay pageant. 
 
 The disgraced courtier returned to London, and, finding little 
 chance of being reinstated in the King's service, he determined to 
 become a scholar, and having already had a fair education and 
 some literary taste he departed for Padua, with the hope of so dis- 
 tinguishing himself in the liberal arts as to become useful to the 
 King in some civil situation, and thus attain distinction, which 
 would enable him to go frankly to the Gloucestershire knight and 
 publicly claim the hand already pledged to him in secret. 
 
 A. longer time elapsed than he at first anticipated ere Coleman. 
 had realized even the first part of his plans. At length his friends 
 at Court were able, not only to secure the King's forgiveness for 
 him, but also a promise of employment in connection with one of 
 those secret embassies which the peace-loving Henry was so fond 
 of, and which he preferred to the ruder instrumentality of war for 
 accomplishing his politic purposes. When, however, Coleman had 
 got to Calais on his way back to England, high-hearted with the 
 hopes of being ere long able to claim his betrothed whose 
 cherished love had been his inspiration and support in all his 
 efforts he met an old Court acquaintance who had some connec- 
 tion with Gloucestershire, and of whom he, as it were, casually 
 and with that nervous affectation of indifference common in those 
 deeply in love, inquired for the family at Acton and for Mistress 
 Margaret. The latter, his informant (unconscious of the pain he 
 was inflicting) said, was about to be married to a neighbouring 
 knight when he left England. 
 
 From the moment that, scared by the angry father, the young 
 pair parted in the attee verte of the old manor house, Coleman had 
 heard nothing of his ladye-love; yet such was his trust in her faith 
 and affection that, up to that instant, it never occurred to him to 
 doubt the impossibility of her forgetting him or changing her mind. 
 Nevertheless, his informant gave him such a circumstantial account 
 of the "approaching marriage," that he could not discredit it. And 
 indeed all the other said was, up to a certain point, true. Margaret 
 had received an offer of marriage from a wealthy and well-bred 
 neighbouring gentleman, and her father urged her to accept it with 
 a parental despotism that left her no choice between that and a 
 convent. Nevertheless, for a long time, she held out, and only 
 allowed herself to be talked into a reluctant consent, when she saw 
 her father meant to carry out his threat, and a friend, to whom she 
 had confided her secret, suggested the probability since she had 
 never heard from him of Coleman, if still alive, looking back upon 
 their passion as little more than a youthful fancy. Just, however, 
 before the time appointed for the marriage, she received a message,
 
 135 
 
 that had been long in reaching her, from the Paduan scholar, and 
 this reawakened so strongly the old feeling, that she determined to 
 brave anything and everything rather than break faith with one 
 who still kept faith with her. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the old knight would have carried 
 out his menace and shut his refractory daughter up in a nunnery, 
 but that death, suddenly descending upon him, shut him up in hia 
 grave before he could execute his purpose. Margaret was therefore 
 free to wait the return of her lover, which, however, was prevented 
 by the unfortunate meeting with the old court acquaintance at 
 Calais. Coleman's informant only knew that she had given her 
 consent, and his knowledge went no further. As England offered 
 to the Paduan scholar nothing but disappointment and suffering, 
 and the world now that she in whom he had " garnered up his 
 heart " had consented to be another's held no attraction for him, 
 he turned back, and weary and sick in mind, took shelter in one of 
 the monasteries of the Rhine, where his learning and piety attracted 
 much attention ; and, having chosen the calling of a priest, he 
 remained there some years. Here he made the acquaintance of the 
 Abbot of St. Augustine's, who, on his way back to Bristol from 
 Rome, rested for a few days in the Rhenish monastery. Possibly 
 ApGwilliam (for it was he, the last of the abbots of Bristol) detected 
 in hia conversations with Coleman some home fondness for England, 
 for on the mastership of the Bons Homines becoming vacant, and 
 the patronage of the Gaunts' Chapel being now in the hands of the 
 Monastery, he wrote and offered it to him. 
 
 Perhaps there was something of the old human weakness some- 
 thing of the wish to be near the place where his heart was once so 
 deeply engaged that determined Coleman to accept the offer ; and 
 he did accept it. On entering on the Mastership of the Hospital, 
 however, he resolved to discipline his nature, and bring it down 
 to his stern duty, so that he would not allow himself even to make an 
 enquiry after her whom he now believed to be another's, in order 
 that there might be nothiug to distract him from his sacred office. 
 
 But danger was nearer than he dreamt of. The Poyntz family 
 had been benefactors hardly less liberal than the Berkeleys of the 
 Hospital of the Gaunts' of Bellesvicke, as College-green was then 
 called. Their offerings had helped to swell the dole to the poor 
 made at the gate each morning, and to maintain the number of 
 choristers who, in black caps and white surplices, daily chaunted 
 the services in the choir. The dead of the family had been buried 
 in it, and the living members often came to worship there. 
 
 After Prior John (as Coleman was designated) had been about 
 twelvemonths in the Mastership, he was taking the confessions of 
 penitents in the little chapel near the high altar. Having listened 
 to the tale of frailty or otherwise as the case might be, of the last 
 of those who waited by the little arches opening out from the inner 
 chapel, he was about to quit the church, when a cloaked figure, 
 whose dress and carriage bespoke her of a different class to the 
 others, knelt by the confessional. This was Margaret de Poyntz, 
 who, at intervals, used to visit the religious house so closely asso- 
 ciated with her family. She now came to confess, wholly un- 
 conscious of who the new master was. She only knew there was a
 
 136 
 
 new Master ; but as she dropped on her knees by one of the little 
 arches, and Prior John inclined his head to hear her story, the 
 discovery of who the fair penitent was hardly left him strength to 
 stand. The beatings of his heart might have told Margaret that 
 no common confessor was listening to her story ; but all unconscious 
 of his identity, she continued to tell it the story of a too loving 
 heart that, sinking under its suffering, would still dwell upon a 
 wayward human passion, when it should be preparing itself for 
 heaven by more holy thoughts and discipline. Coleman dared not 
 look at that cheek, but had he done so, a single glance would have 
 sufficed to show him that a tender soul was then fast sinking a 
 sacrifice to a true love. If he did not earnestly absolve or 
 affectionately comfort the poor penitent, it was because he had 
 hardly strength to speak, and the few formal words he uttered were 
 husky and hardly audible through emotion. 
 
 Margaret rose, folded her mantle more closely around her, and 
 quitted the chapel. But the Prior sat long in the confessional before 
 he was able to go to his apartments, and for more than a week he 
 did not appear in the services of the choir. 
 
 Soon after this, he received a summons to attend a dying person, 
 a visitor at the residence of one of the Merchant Princes of the 
 city ; but before he could reach the house the spirit had departed. 
 He entered, however, and stood by the bed on which lay the dead 
 form of Margaret de Poyntz. 
 
 On the table by her side was a sealed missive for the master of 
 the Gaunts. Coleman took it with trembling hands, and it was 
 some moments ere he could recover strength to open it. Save a 
 little trinket, it contained, however, only a request to be interred 
 in the family chapel at the Bons Hommes, and that her body might 
 be dressed in a white satin robe, which would be found in a certain 
 place, and that in her hair might be placed a gold bodkin, which 
 accompanied the letter. In this little ornament, dimmed though 
 the Prior's eyes were with tears, he had no difficulty in recognizing 
 his own love token which he had placed with his hand in those raven 
 locks on the second evening that they met in the alle'e verte at Acton. 
 
 The instructions of the poor broken hearted lady were faithfully 
 carried out ; but whether she recognized in the Master of the 
 Bone Hommes the old lover remained a matter of uncertainty in 
 Coleman's mind, though there was much in the manner of her 
 request to raise a suspicion that he was not wholly unknown to her. 
 If the truth must be told, the Prior in his heart of hearts cherished 
 this suspicion until it became a fond hope. 
 
 From the day that the remains of Margaret de Poyntz, clad in a 
 wedding garment, were placed in the family tomb until the 
 suppression of the Hospital of the Gaunts by Henry VIII., all 
 the Prior's devotions were made in the little mortuary chapel ; and 
 when afterwards he and his brethren delivered up to the King's 
 Commissioners the lands and rich plate of their religious house 
 " under two seals of red wax," instead of returning to the Rhenish 
 Monastery, where he wouid have been welcomed, John Coleman 
 accepted the offer of the little tenement with garden in Gaunts' -lane, 
 that he might live near the ashes of her he loved, and when he ceased 
 to live he might secure a resting-place for himself near her grave.
 
 [Not long since there appeared in the Bristol Times and Felix Farley's 
 Journal a conjectural account of the death of William, the cook 
 of the great Canynges, who lies not far from the tomb or monu- 
 ment of his master. I had hoped that the writer of that sketch 
 would have done equal justice to the memory of another of 
 Canynges' faithful domestics, whose ashes repose still nearer the 
 grave of that good man, I mean his brewer, John Blecker, on 
 whose tombstone may still be read the following inscription : 
 " Hie jacet Joannes Blecker, pandoxator, cujus animce propitietur 
 Deus."] 
 
 The correspondent, with some ingenuity, suggested the cook's 
 death to have been caused lay his master's determination to retire to 
 a convent and consequently to give up dinner parties, thus rendering 
 no longer necessary the eminent services of the kitchen artist. I 
 think I can show, upon quite as good grounds at least, that the 
 brewer's demise was also occasioned by sore disappointment. And 
 that he was equally esteemed by his master we may presume from 
 the fact, that Barrett tells us he had seen a deed in which Canynges 
 orders that the obiit of the man of malt should be kept in ISt. 
 Catherine's chapel. In a series of papers which appeared in the 
 Bristol Times some years ago, called "A Descent amongst the 
 Dissenters,' 1 in one of these "The man without the pale" describes 
 a colloquy which he had with an old fellow with a very white head, 
 a very red face, and a wooden leg, who was making up some new 
 mown grass, in the grounds of the Bishop's palace, at Wells. It 
 was just after the late Dr. Bagot had been inducted. I give the 
 scene as described by the writer himself : 
 
 " Well, my worthy friend," said I, "this is a nice old place." 
 
 " Yes it are," said he ; "I've seen it a long time over 40 year." 
 
 " Then you've seen more than one mitred head pass in and out 
 that gate ? " 
 
 "Eh?" said he. 
 
 I found I was too ambitious in my diction ; so to " descend from 
 my iambics," I repeated aloud, for he was somewhat hard of hearing, 
 " You have seen more than one Bishop in your time." 
 
 " Ay, three. The Bishop afore this, and the Bishop afore he 
 again." 
 
 " Well, how do you like the present one ! " 
 
 " Oh I believe purty well : we don't know much of un yet ; but 
 the ould Bishop afore the last, he war the Bishop ah, he war the 
 Bishop," he repeated, after a moment's pause, as musing he sup- 
 ported his chin on the top of his rake. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said I, letting the wooden-legged piece of human 
 antiquity continue the tale as ho chose himself.
 
 138 
 
 " Ah, he war the Bishop. He put six gallons to the Bushel," and 
 the old man looked up in my face as if to challenge my admiration. 
 ' That was a capital brew," said I. 
 
 ' Yes sure, six gallons to the bushel ! Ah, he war a Bishop !" 
 1 But the last Bishop, what were his ideas on this important 
 point ? " 
 'Eh!" 
 
 ' What sort of a brew was the last Bishop's ? " 
 ' Oh, 'twarn't bad. Nine gallons to the bushel 'twarn't bad ; 
 but 'twarn't like the ould Bishop afore him. Ah, he war the Bishop" 
 continued the old man, dreamily relapsing once more to the object 
 of his far gone but gratefnl recollection the fine old prelate whose 
 proportions were six gallons to the bushel. "Ah, he war the 
 Bishop I lost my leg brewing for him," and he tapped the wooden 
 limb with the handle of his rake. 
 
 Well, thought 1, I see to be remembered by posterity a Bishop 
 had better depend upon his tap than his theology. But the old 
 man seemed disposed to resume the conversation, so I let him have 
 his way. 
 
 "Yes, sure," said he, taking up the subject, " the last one wern't 
 bad nine gallons to the bushel. But when he went daft, and his 
 son the Chancellor, as they called him, came here ah, he war the 
 stingy one. Why he would allow only a bushel of malt to the 20 
 gallons warn't that mean," exclaimed the old man with an 
 expression of indignant contempt, which showed his ideas of the 
 due and proper strength of beer and those of the Chancellor of 
 Lichfield did not at all agree. " Twenty to the bushel ! oh, he war 
 a stingy one." 
 
 " But the present Bishop," inquired I, after I had allowed the 
 old man's indignation to cool down " what are his ideas of a tap ?" 
 
 " Why you see as how we've had no brew since he came f but I 
 hopes well from him. He's sent the tubs to be washed !" And the 
 old raker limped off about his business, mumbling to himself as he 
 tossed the new-mown grass together, "but the ould one of all ah, 
 he war the Bishop : six to the busJiel." 
 
 Now, I have some suspicion that the fatal breach between 
 Canynges' brewer and the rebuilder of Redcliff Church, arose from 
 very much the same difference of opinion as to what ought to be 
 the proportions of water to that of malt in making the household 
 tap : and that I am not without confirmation may be seen from the 
 following manuscript penes me, but not one of the Rowleian lot, 
 disinterred from the muniment chest by the industry of Thomas 
 Chatterton. 
 
 "Holloa! what the deuce are they at down there in the kitchen !" 
 Such was the exclamation of Master Canynges, as rosary in hand, 
 he rose abruptly from his devotions, and coming out of his private 
 chapel, stood on the landing at the top of the stairs, where he had 
 the pleasure of hearing a most diabolical row in the servants' hall. 
 They were not fighting ; no, not a bit of it. They were in too good 
 humour for that ; they were laughing, and singing, and kicking up 
 Mag's delights, doubtless believing that their worthy master was
 
 139 
 
 too much engaged with his evening's devotions to hear or heed 
 them. 
 
 " A song, a song," Canynges could hear Master Jack Blecker, 
 the brewer, cry out. " Give us a song, old Smudge," and presently 
 arose the voice of the scullion, knocking off the following ancient 
 ditty, which, by some oversight, was omitted in the last edition of 
 Percy's Reliques : 
 
 You have asked for a song, so I wont be slack in 
 Answering your call, and here's to all ; 
 I sing the praises of Warren's blacking. 
 
 " Now by all that is lovely (the Saints forgive me for swear- 
 ing,") exclaimed Canynges, turning to his confessor, Father 
 Rowley, wbo had followed him from the chapel and stood by his 
 side on the landing in the dark. " Now by all that is lovely I'll 
 kick every mother's soul of them out of the house this moment, and 
 teuch them to sing the seven penitential psalms instead of such 
 profane trash. It is enough to drive a man mad to hear them 
 making such a riot at this hour of the night in a peaceable house, 
 and I, too, about to be priested. Hold my rosary, Tom," and so 
 saying he handed his beads to the Friar, tore down stairs, and 
 burst into the servants' hall before they could even say Jack 
 Robinson." 
 
 " La ! Master," exclaimed the brewer, emboldened by a cup or 
 two, " you were the last man we expected to see. " 
 
 " Or wished to see either," said Canynges, in a towering rage, 
 " but I'll teach ye rapscallions to sing other vespers on the vigil 
 of St. Catherine. Get out of the house this moment ; every one of 
 you pack, presto, be off. If I had to boil my own eggs and toast 
 my own bacon myself, aye, or wash my own shirt, I would sooner 
 do it than have a house full of such drunken revellers, waking the 
 neighbours, and Mrs. Norton's child in the measles too* a pretty 
 thing, they will say, perhaps, that Father Rowley and myself have 
 been making all this riot. Out, I say then ; bundle, begone, for I 
 don't go to bed till I have seen the back of the last of ye." 
 
 " Arrah, Master," interposed Jack Blecker, who was an Irishman, 
 and a good Catholic, "don't be so hard upon us, it is not our fault 
 at all." 
 
 " And whose fault is it, you pudding-headed Patlander," 
 exclaimed the rebuilder of St. Mary's ; " whose fault is it it is 
 not mine?" 
 
 " No, Sir," answered the brewer ; " 'tis the beer, Sir 'tis the 
 beer. I made my last brew, Sir, only six gallons to the bushel of 
 malt, and that is strong enough to make a saint or a statue sing." 
 
 " Oh, that is it," said Canynges ; "then, upon my honour, you 
 won't have to complain on that head again ; I'll water it to your 
 heart's content, so there won't be a song in a hogshead of it, and 
 Father Matthew himself will say it is an innocent tap. But it is 
 too late to night to go into business. Before you make your next 
 brew, Master Jack, come to me, and I will give you the pro- 
 
 ' Mrs. Norton was doubtless the respected lady of Canynge's friend 
 the alchemist.
 
 no 
 
 portions." With that Master Canynges stalked back again 
 upstairs, and before another hour the household was fast asleep, the 
 slumbers of the servants being as deep as their potations had been. 
 
 Next morning Master Canynges was in his counting-house, when 
 John Blecker begged to see him. The brewer looked sheepish, as 
 well he might, and a little the worse for his noisy carouse, as he had 
 good reason to be. 
 
 " Well, Sirrah," said his Master ; " and it is very clear from 
 your appearance that your evening's entertainment does not bear 
 the morning's reflection ; but what is your business have you 
 come to ask me to pack you off, as you deserve to be ?" 
 
 " Please, no, Sir," said the brewer, dropping his head, and 
 ] ooking uncommonly foolish, " but but ' 
 
 " But what,'' said Canynges ; " do you want a penance ? go to 
 Father Rowley and tell him to set you one : or suppose you walk 
 from Redcliff to Temple Cross on your bare knees." 
 
 " No, Sir," said the brewer ; " but the beer is out, and I came to 
 ask you the proportions, as you told me." 
 
 " What out ?" exclaimed Canynges, with surprise, " but I'll take 
 eare the next shall last longer. It will be less to your tastes, 
 perhaps, Put twenty gallons of water to a bushel of malt !" 
 
 Had the High Cross left its place by the Tolzey, and stooping its 
 head walked under Nicholas Gate and over the Bridge to make a 
 morning call on Redcliff Church, Master Blecker could not have 
 evinced more surprise. 
 
 " Twenty gallons of water to the bushel of malt, Sir ! ! ! " he 
 repeated, opening his eyes, and his hair almost standing on end, at 
 the idea of such washy tipple ; " Why it will give us all the 
 dropsy." 
 
 ' And a good deed," answered Canynges, " but go and do as 
 you are bid, Sir. I'll take care that you do not desecrate the vigil 
 of St. Catherine again." 
 
 Blecker complied with his master's orders, and all the household 
 and the parish turned up their noses at the poor stuff. Blecker's 
 fame as a brewer fell from that moment, and with it fell his spirits 
 too. He drooped and died in a week, his last words being that 
 " twenty gallons to the bushel would be found engraven on his 
 heart." His master, however, gave him a grave near the family 
 vault, in the new structure, and Tom Rowley wrote an inscription, 
 which will be found at this day inscribed on the tomb of the man 
 of malt.
 
 Ite 
 
 A STORY OF BRISTOL IN THE TIME OF PRINCE 
 RUPERT. 
 
 1645. Sir John Cadman was beheaded in the Castle for killing Miles 
 Callowhill, an officer of the garrison. Outlines of the History of Bristol. 
 
 During the brief occupation of Bristol by the Royalist forces, 
 one of the few respectable families that remained in the city, 
 after the previous sufferings and persecutions to which the loyal 
 inhabitants were subjected by Finnes and the Republicans, that 
 of Master John Everett was the most notable. His house stood 
 on the north side of Frome Bridge, and was a pleasant and spacious 
 residence, that part of Bristol being then a favourite abode with 
 many of the chief citizens. He kept house as became one of the 
 Cavalier school, and contributed not a little, by his pleasant enter- 
 tainments, to dispel the gloom which war and pestilence had cast 
 upon the once proud and gay city of the merchant princes. 
 
 His daughter, Maria, was celebrated for her beauty, and had not 
 a few admirers and suitors amongst the officers of Prince Rupert's 
 army, who were frequent guests at her father's house, and shared 
 his hospitalities. Three admirers in particular she had ; Sir John 
 Cadman, a gay and dissipated Cavalier ; Miles Callowhill, a young 
 officer in the Hearts of Flame ; and Ralph Deane, also bearing a 
 commission in Charles's army. Maria, though in the main a 
 generous-hearted girl, was rather vain of her beauty, to which not 
 a few sonnets had been addressed by her rhyming lovers. She 
 was, too, somewhat of a coquette, and for a time rendered it very 
 doubtful as to which of the three possessed most of her heart. For 
 each in turn she seemed to evince a preference, and thus inflamed 
 the ardour with which they regarded her and the animosity which, 
 after a while, their rivalry begat one against the other. At length 
 there could be no longer a doubt as to the fortunate suitor on 
 whom she was likely to bestow her hand. Her election was mani- 
 festly made in favour of Miles Callowhill, the youngest, and 
 certainly the best of the three ; for, though not wholly unaffected 
 by the gaiety and perhaps some of the vices of the camp, he was 
 of a genial disposition and an honourable nature. 
 
 It was quickly known that he had won the coquette's heart, and 
 was received by old Everett as his destined son-in-law. In those 
 troubled times, when the chances of war shifted victory so 
 suddenly from one side to the other, courtships could not be long, 
 and a day was named for their marriage. 
 
 In proportion to Callowhill' s happiness were the chagrin and 
 mortification of his unsuccessful rivals ; and though before so 
 much opposed to one another, Cadman and Deane now became
 
 142 
 
 united in their enmity to their younger competitor. Deane was 
 the first to make an overture to his rejected fellow suitor, and 
 Cadman was in a frame of mind that made him only too suscepti- 
 hle of the dark suggestions of the other, who said that since the 
 chances of hoth were destroyed hy the " beardless popinjay," as 
 he called him, they should rid themselves of his rivalry, and then, 
 enter the field, as he said, " in fair competition " for the capricious 
 beauty, whpse apparent levity of character gave them reason to 
 hope she would be easily induced to transfer her hand to either, if 
 her favourite were no longer in the way. In the lawlessness of 
 those days, when quarrels, duels, and contentions were of such 
 constant occurrence as to elicit no very rigorous inquiry, any 
 project, however violent, was likely to be attended with a success 
 and impunity that in a more settled state of things could not be 
 expected. Cadman fell in with the views of his associate so far as 
 they promised to rid him of his rival, but he stipulated that 
 CallowhilTs life should not be taken, only that he should be carried 
 off and secured in some distant part until there was no longer any 
 dread of his interfering with their suit. This, in the state of civil 
 war England was then in, seemed feasible enough ; and Deane, 
 who was a deep plotter and had a still deeper purpose in mind, 
 affected to consent to Sir John's conditions. 
 
 An opportunity offered for carrying out their plot, but not until 
 the very eve of the day fixed for the marriage of Maria and 
 Callowhill in St. John's Church. It was late the previous night 
 when Callowhill quitted the residence of his betrothed, and the 
 time was only too well suited for the purpose of his enemies. It 
 was a stormy wild night as he left Everett's for his quarters in the 
 Castle. Occupied, however, with thoughts of his approaching 
 happiness, he cared little for the elements, and drew his large cloak 
 closely around him, to protect himself from the gusts of wind and 
 rain that came sweeping over Frome Bridge as he crossed it. He 
 had only reached Christmas Street, however, when three men 
 rushed upon him, and ere he could stand on his defence bore him 
 to the ground helpless against such odds. Callowhill cried loudly 
 for help, but the inhabitants were too much accustomsd to street 
 brawls in a city occupied by soldiers and conflicting parties to very 
 quickly rush to the rescue at every sudden alarm, especially as a 
 rapier thrust was often the only reward which they received for 
 their interference. Still. Callowhill cried " Help, help, good citizens, 
 murder," until a stab through the body silenced him. " Let us 
 bear him off," said one of the assailants. "Too late, too late," 
 cried the other, "the townsfolk are upon us : quick, let us save our- 
 selves." The first speaker, notwithstanding, endeavoured to catch 
 up the fallen man in his arms, but lights were seen and the people 
 were heard to issue from the nearest houses, so his companion 
 dragged him off the fallen man ; not, however, without some diffi- 
 culty, as the latter had got a dying hold of his doublet. The 
 assassins fled, and the people only found the young Royalist officer 
 on the ground, and almost in the death agonies. 
 
 The cries had been heard by the inmates of Everett's house, and 
 they, with others, had come rushing over the Frome Bridge to
 
 143 
 
 ascertain the cause. A light was brought, and Callowhill being 
 recognised, was borne back into the house he had so recently quitted 
 in high health and spirits. Maria impetuously threw herself on 
 her lover in an agony of grief. He attempted to murmur something, 
 but his words were inaudible, and he expired a few minutes after- 
 wards. While the terror and indignation of the household were 
 still at their height a person entered with a letter in his hand. It 
 was directed to Sir John Cadman, Knt., and had just been found 
 in the street close to where Callowhill had fallen. Suspicion im- 
 mediately attached to the person to whom this missive was ad- 
 dressed, and then it was noticed that the murdered man held 
 clutched in his hand a fragment of dress ; the fineness of the cloth 
 and scrap of gold lace adhering to it showing it belonged to no 
 common man. 
 
 The sorrow and indignation of Everett determined him at once 
 to take instant steps to detect the murderer. He hastened at once 
 to the Castle, and, late as it was, demanded to see the Prince. He 
 was introduced to his Excellency to whom, in a few words, he 
 narrated the black crime which had just been committed in the 
 very heart of the city, producing the letter and fragment of dress 
 that had been extricated from the dead man's clutch. 
 
 Prince Rupert with an oath declared he would not sleep until the 
 assassin was found, and, calling a guard, issued at once from the 
 Castle. Just as they crossed the drawbridge some one was heard 
 approaching. He was challenged by the Prince, and the person who 
 answered was Sir John Cadman. " What, so late abroad, good 
 Knight ?" said the Prince, and, calling to the guard to arrest Sir 
 John, he returned with his prisoner back into the great hall of the 
 Castle. 
 
 The spectacle which the latter presented on being introduced to 
 the light alone carried with it a proof of guilt. Blood was on his 
 hands, his dress was disordered, and a large piece of cloth -was torn 
 from his laced doublet. " Produce the fragment," cried the Prince. 
 It was fitted to the dress, and exactly suited the rent made in the 
 Knight's doublet. 
 
 " Then a soldier of King Charles has been the base murderer of 
 a brother officer,'' exclaimed the Prince, and his face flushed with 
 rage. " Murderer!" repeated Sir John, involuntarily, "is hedead ?" 
 " Yea, dead," was the reply, " the blow was given with too fell an 
 assassin cunning to leave a chance of life. Who were your fellow 
 cut-throats ? " "I answer no questions," was the prisoner's reply. 
 " I confess my share in it it is useless to deny it, and I make but 
 one request. Prince Rupert,' 1 he continued, " my crime is great, 
 but I have been a soldier, and you must acknowledge I wanted no 
 quality of a soldier when I rode by your side in the charge of Edge- 
 hill ; let my felony not foul a fair name. I deserve to die, and am 
 willing to pay the penalty ; but save not me, but mine, from ex- 
 posure. A Cadman, even an unworthy member of a house of good 
 gentlemen and brave cavaliers, should not dangle like a disloyal 
 knave from a gibbet. The boon I ask is a block and sharp axe, and 
 a death at daybreak within the Castle Court. I make the request 
 on my knees," and the wretcSed man knelt at Rupert's feet.
 
 144 
 
 The Prince was silent for a moment, and then said, " Your re- 
 quest is granted ; you deserve no consideration, miserable man, but 
 your house have served the King too well to have their escutcheons 
 dimmed by your shame. You die as you request, at daybreak." 
 
 With the first gray of dawn, Sir John Cadman was led out into 
 the Castle yard by six soldiers, and ere five minutes more had 
 passed the headsman's axe fell with a dull sound, and there was 
 one living man the less within the walls of the fortress. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Three years after this occurrence, Ralph Deane and Maria Everett 
 were married in her father's house by one of the proscribed clergy- 
 men, whose livings were sequestered by the Parliament. Cry not 
 out against her too harshly, fair reader. Of Ralph Deane's share in 
 the murder of her lover she knew nothing, nor was there the re- 
 motest suspicion. With something of fidelity, if we could imagine 
 such a feeling in connection with such a crime, Sir John Cadman 
 had refused to disclose the names cf his accomplices, even though, 
 one at least was more guilty than he. Maria Everett's was a 
 character, however violent her grief at the moment, upon which 
 even the tragic fate of her lover made no very abiding impression, 
 and Deane urged his suite with such patience and address that, at 
 the end of three years, she consented to forego her first resolution 
 a resolution hastily formed over the dead body of her lover to 
 spend the rest of her life in virgin widowhood. But, as might be 
 expected, their union was far from a happy one. Three children, 
 the issue of the'r marriage, died in quick succession, and her life 
 was further embittered by the conduct of her husband. The stings 
 of conscience tormented him, and he sought to drown the remem- 
 brance of his bloody crime in wild dissipations. 
 
 Thus matters continued for years, until the very day at the 
 end of December, 1654, when the order of Oliver Cromwell for the 
 demolition of the Castle was received in Bristol, a stranger called 
 at Ralph Deane's house. It was towards nightfall, and Deane was 
 from home ; but the visitor desired to see his wife, and to speak 
 with her privately. She gave the man the desired audience, and 
 waa soon horror-struck by his narrative. He opened the interview 
 by asking her if she remembered the night of Miles Callowhill's 
 murder. " An incident so terrible," she said, could never be erased 
 from her memory. " But why ask the question ? " 
 
 " For no purpose of idle curiosity," was the reply. "That bloody 
 business has brought me here from beyond the sea at the risk of 
 being hanged by the Protector as a traitor. You see before you 
 one who took part in that crime ; stay," said he as Maria started 
 apparently with the purpose of flying from the apartment; "you 
 need not be afraid to abide my presence for a few minutes, seeing 
 that you have lived for seven years under the same roof with one 
 whose share in that murder was more criminal than mine. Yes," 
 he continued, noticing her horrified surprise, "neither the wretched 
 man who suffered for the crime, nor I, who consented for a bribe to 
 help them, meditated the death of Miles Callowhill, but only to 
 remove him from your presence. Your husband, Ralph Deane, it
 
 145 
 
 was who gave the death blow, and dropt the letter, and thus rid 
 himself at once of two rivals for your hand. " 
 
 " But miserable man," interrupted Maria, "why have delayed this 
 revelation so long, or why make it now?" 
 
 " A few months since," replied the other, " I was at the point of 
 death at Ostend, and was visited by a priest to whom I confessed 
 the crime, and who gave me absolution only on condition that if I 
 recovered I should hasten here to prevent Deane obtaining his 
 object, by disclosing the secret to you. I find I have come too late 
 to prevent the first, but I have fulfilled my promise and I trust eased 
 my conscience of a sore burden by the disclosures I have made to 
 you." And the man hastily quitting the place was lost to sight in 
 the darkness. 
 
 When Ralph Deane returned home that night, he was informed 
 that his wife had quitted the house two hours previously, and had 
 left a sealed letter for him. He opened it and read these words: 
 " Murderer of Miles Callowhill, never again to be called husband : 
 we part and for ever. I possess the proof of your most criminal 
 and chief part in that bloody business. Betake yourself from this 
 city ere the morning and you are safe from vengeance, so far as I 
 am concerned. I desire not that your blood be on my hands, but I 
 warn you never again to cross my sight. Maria." 
 
 From that moment Maria was rid of her husband, and the tenor 
 of her own life was changed. The remainder of her days was 
 devoted to religion and active charity to helping the poor, to 
 visiting the sick. 
 
 Towards the close of the reign of Charles II., and when Maria 
 had grown old and grey-headed, a woman called at her residence, 
 to say that a stranger, who had arrived at her house a day or two 
 before, was ill and, she feared, dying, and begged her to call and 
 see him, as, hearing of her charity, he craved that she might visit 
 him. Maria, now never loath to go upon a mission of mercy, though 
 it was dark, followed the woman to her house a poor one in one 
 of the back narrow streets leading into the Marsh. Maria followed 
 her conductress up a flight of steps into a little apartment, where a 
 man, worn with sickness and years, lay ill on a wretched pallet. 
 She asked his name : the sufferer motioned the woman of the house 
 to withdraw, and when they were alone, raising himself on his 
 arm, he suid, in answer to her question, " I am Kalph Deane, and 
 having I trust obtained pardon from God for my sins, I have 
 crawled hither with the hopo of obtaining your's too, and from 
 what I have heard of you since I reached this place, my hope is a 
 confident one." 
 
 It was freely and fully granted by Maria. The sufferer closed 
 his eyes, saying in a low tone " Then I depart in peace," and as his 
 wife prayed by the side of his pallet, the spirit of the murderer of 
 Miles Callowhill quitted his shattered tenement of clay.
 
 A CIVIC SKETCH OF BRISTOL IN 1247. 
 
 By exercise our ancient fathers stood, 
 Strengthened their nerves and purified their blood. 
 
 [1247. Previous to the grant of land by the Monastery for the new course 
 of the Froom. the site of Queen-square was called Avon-Marsh, and the 
 present Canons' Marsh was named St. Augustin's Marsh. A part of 
 Avon-Marsh, called Chanter's Close, probably the nearest to the wall of 
 the city, upon which the north side of New King-street is built, had 
 been exchanged by the Abbot with the Corporation for Treen Mills, 
 on the south side of the Avon (the pond of which is now Bathurst 
 Basin), with reservation of the privilege of hunting the duck there, 'for 
 disport of the magistrates,' upon paying down a certain sum. The 
 remainder of Avon-Marsh was at that time subject to overflowings of 
 the tide. 
 
 [I may here say all the names but two introduced in the following sketch, 
 and which were those of local magistrates, living and well known when 
 it was written, have since vanished from the Bench and the world.] 
 
 "What jolly old times ! " It is better,' 1 they say, " to be a live 
 drummer than a dead general," and as I could not be alive and 
 kicking now and have enjoyed the civic sport in the 1 3th century, 
 I do not exactly wish I was in the body and flesh in Bristol when 
 Henry III. was on the throne of England. I am content, there- 
 fore, to let things remain as they are ; but one does long to have 
 been able to look at a grand field-day for duck-hunting in the pond 
 of Treen Mills, in the year 1247. 
 
 'Egad, I have the picture before my eyes this moment. The 
 Magistrates are in the Tolzey or Council House, -which stood 
 nearly about where it stands now ; they are hurrying off a few 
 disorderly cases, and pushing justice to a hand-gallop, for they hear 
 the yelping of their water-spaniels, which are being held outside 
 under the colonnade or pillared and covered way then in front of 
 the Tolzey. Or perhaps three or four retrievers are tied on to the 
 railings that enclose the High Cross, at the meeting of the four 
 streets close by. " Bow wow, bow wow," yelp the water spaniels, 
 and their masters hear the call as they occupy the seat of justice, 
 and as good as say, " We are coming, beauties ; we'll be with you 
 in a moment ; and then, ho ! for Treen Mills, and the ducks, and 
 a day's sport !" 
 
 Well, well, how times are changed : just fancy such a state of 
 things now! How Radicals would shake their heads, and local 
 papers sermonise upon the "indecent exhibition," and a call for 
 stipendiary magistrates arise from all quarters, and a memorialising 
 of the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary take place. Yet, 
 I dare say, the varlets in the days of Henry III, got as much
 
 147 
 
 justice as they wanted or cared for, and that the very culprit at 
 the bar, witnesses, officers of the court, &c. , were all in a hurry to 
 have the case finished, that they might be off to the mill pond and 
 the fun commence. Ho ! Messrs. Magistrates of the City and 
 County of Bristol, don't you wish the days of Henry III were 
 revived, that you might make ducks and drakes of justice ? Let us 
 just transfer the persons of the 19th century into the practice and 
 period of the 13th, and imagine the present bench presiding in the 
 reign of Henry III. There is Inspector Bell outside the Council 
 House, commanding a chosen band of P.C.'s, each constable hold- 
 ing a water-dog with chain and collar, while to a couple of sheriff's 
 officers is committed the custody of a large wicker basket full of 
 Aylesbury ducks, so necessary for the sport. Mr. Justice Herapath 
 has got into a judicial wrangle with some attorney attending the 
 Court, when Mr. H. 0. Wills calls out, " Come, Herapath, be 
 quick ; cut it short ; I hear Diver giving tongue outside ; the day 
 will be far spent before we launch a single duck." Just at the 
 same moment Justice Lunell hears the familiar tones of his 
 favourite, Neptune, " a dog that never let a feather escape him," 
 and begs Mr. Brice to abridge the elaborate judgment he is pro- 
 nouncing on some excise case, as he perceives Mr. W. Naish and 
 Mr. Robert Leonard pulling on their waterproof overalls and 
 getting ready for the sport, while General Worrall's brown Irish 
 water bitch, impatient of the law's delay, has already intruded into 
 the Temple of Themis and given unmistakeable proof that she 
 thinks it is time the Court rose. Mr. John Nash Saunders has 
 something to say on juvenile offenders, but his brother beaks will not 
 listen to him, for the bills of the ducks are quacking clamorously 
 outside, when Mr. Phippen, rising, and exclaiming, "All 
 work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," " moves that this Court 
 do now adjourn to Treen Mills, and that the prisoner at the bar be 
 sentenced to carry the basket of ducks to the place of aquatic 
 sport." And it is full time they started, for the Town Clerk, 
 putting his head inside the Court, protests he cannot attend to 
 business, the dogs are making such an infernal row under his 
 window ; whereat Mr. Coates begs he will shut up his books for 
 the day, and come along with them. The Mayor, however, faintly 
 suggests that perhaps the Ratepayers' Protection Society will be 
 kicking up a row about the outlay for ducks, while Mr. M. Castle 
 thinks the best way to prevent any disturbance of that kind is to 
 send the vigilant representative of that powerful body in the Town 
 Council, Mr. Warren, the fattest couple killed in the day's sport for 
 roasting, with the proper complement of sage and onions to season 
 the same. 
 
 And now to the pond ! There they go : P.C. 130 has opened the 
 door of the wicker trap, and flushes a white Aylesbury bird, that 
 goes plump into the mill pond, and wagging its curly tail, gives a 
 defiant quack or two, as much as to say, catch me if you can. 
 " Now, Bigg," cries out Mr. Justice Barrow, and the latter lets slip 
 his curled " Bosquet," which is followed by Mr. Shaw's " Toby," 
 that, unlike his master, is as cross a varmint as ever menaced a 
 man's calves. Justice Lane'e "Pitcher" next takes to the water,
 
 148 
 
 while Mr. Justice Herapath and Mr. Justice Coates slip a couple of 
 wire-haired Scotch terriers, which, though not to the element 
 native-horn, prove themselves " bitter weeds "to worry the game. 
 Soon a Babel of sporting cries resounds from the busy banks of the 
 mill-pond, and the miller, covered with meal, is shouting at the 
 top of his voice from his water-hatch, while the Mayor is 
 encouraging his dog "Sailor" to go in and win, and Mr. Shaw 
 cries, " That's it, Toby ; now for it." Mr. Justice Bigg hails his 
 canine pet with a " Hie on, Bosquet," and Messrs. W. D. Wills, 
 Leonard, John Evans Lunell, Phippen, Cox, and Hughes are all 
 frantic with delight, having bet on the bird, to see the drake elude 
 its pursuers Verily, those were times to be in the commission, and 
 times to be in Bristol, too ; when care and commerce were literally 
 thrown, like physic, "to the dogs" for the day, and men, instead 
 of poring over ledgers or law books, and carving wrinkles on their 
 foreheads and faces in the ceaseless puisuit of gain, hunted ducks ; 
 and the Magistrates, by giving the populace a day's sport at Treen 
 Mill, kept them in good humour and off the Tread Mill. Well, 
 the old mill-pond has been converted into a naval basin, and our 
 merchants and magistrates now float ships where they once swam 
 ducks, yet, for thorough enjoyment, give me the days when our 
 jolly old peak-bearded ancestors in hose and doublet pursued 
 aquatic sports, and made the old mill-pond resound with their 
 cheery cries without ever making ducks and drakes of their own or 
 the public business either.
 
 attir 
 
 " Every widow is my wife, and every orphan my child." This 
 was the closing sentence of a neat little speech delivered by the 
 rich bachelor, Edward Colston, at a wedding breakfast where he 
 was the chief guest. 
 
 Wedding breakfasts people seem to think are generally stupid. 
 This one, where the future philanthropist (he was a philanthropist 
 then, though not fully developed) uttered these now locally well- 
 known words, was stately, as most things were in those days 
 amongst the city magnates. The daughter of Colston's old friend, 
 Kitchen, residing in Wine Street, was that morning married in 
 Christ Church to the son of another friend, and both families were 
 solicitous to secure the company of the wealthy and unwedded 
 merchant, whose great house in Small Street contained all that 
 could be coveted save the placens uxor if indeed, as some satirical 
 people might suggest, the placens uxor is an object coveted anywhere 
 except in the Tenth Commandment. Be this as it may, the 
 magnificent Mr. Colston, who that morning wore his best full- 
 bottomed wig, his finest lace coat, satin breeches and silver-buckled 
 shoes, had just delivered a speech formal as himself, in which he 
 wished all health and happiness to the young couple to whom he 
 had only an hour before given a wedding present of 500. Having 
 " said hia say," he resumed his seat, which was the seat of honour 
 at the table, when a pretty but rather saucy young widow, who also 
 was one of the party (a Mistress Fell), said, quoting his own motto 
 and applying it to the occasion, " Go thou and do likewise, Mr. 
 Colston." 
 
 The host, the hostess, and all the seniors at the breakfast table 
 looked not a little frightened at the liberty the gay relict had taken 
 with the great man. For though Colston was as good as a good 
 angel, he was as proud as Lucifer, the fallen one. Perhaps no one 
 ever before had ventured to make so free with that stiff, stately, 
 middle-aged bachelor. They, therefore, felt some alarm lest he 
 might be offended. But he was not, or if he was, he did not show 
 it : for rising slowly for the second time, he said, " It has been 
 suggested by my fair neighbour opposite that I should go and do 
 likewise. Every one has his part to play in life, and mine is not to 
 found a family of my own, but to do my best to help those of others 
 who are not fortunate in life. Of wife or child, I hope I shall never 
 feel the want ; for every widow is my wife and every orphan my child." 
 (Applause.) Having spoken thus, he resumed his seat, and looked 
 with a grand de-haut-en-bas expression on the lady whose imper- 
 tinence he had so neatly rebuked. 
 
 There were no local newspapers in those days (for Fdix Farley 
 had not set up his press until twenty years later), and if there were,
 
 150 
 
 I daresay they would not so soon have attained to the fine art in 
 journalism of spinning out half a column under the heading of 
 " Fashionable Wedding," as we now see daily done. Were the 
 same marriage, or a marriage in the same rank, to take place at the 
 present time, we should have all the particulars to-morrow morning, 
 with a catalogue of the wedding gifts from the plated snuffers to 
 the plated epergne. And particularly we should have Mr. Edward 
 Colston's smart and pointed speech set forth in the clearest type and 
 with the most pedantic punctuation. But in the absence of 
 newspapers, a hundred tongues sent it forth over the city in the 
 course of the afternoon. The Philanthropist was far and away the 
 most distinguished citizen of Bristol, and anything he said was sure 
 to he noted. So on 'Change and in counting-houses, on the quays 
 and in all the principal households, this philanthropic epigram of 
 his at the wedding breakfast was talked of before evening. 
 
 I cannot say whether or not the echo of his own little speech 
 returned to him ; but that night, as the Philanthropist sat in his 
 fine old dining-room in his big house in small-street a room still, 
 I believe, partially preserved in the present new Assize Court he 
 could not help thinking over the circumstances of the morning. 
 Above the sculptured fireplace was emblazoned his motto, " Go 
 thou and do likewise," and every time he raised his eyes he saw it, 
 and every time he saw it, it recalled the young widow's arch 
 application to himself. " I wonder," he thought (for a man, however 
 good and stilted in public in the eyes of his fellow-citizens, cannot 
 avoid being occasionally upon familiar terms with himself), " I 
 wonder if I had gone and done likewise twenty or five and 
 twenty years ago, whether I should be any the happier now ?" 
 And the Philanthropist fell to musing again : musing over his 
 knowledge of family affairs and secrets in. other households, and the 
 trouble and anxiety sons and daughters had occasioned many a 
 citizen of his acquaintance ; for he was regarded as a " rock of 
 sense," and deferentially consulted by people he condescended to 
 know when they were in domestic distress or any kind of strait. 
 Taking all things into account, therefore, he almost decided that he 
 had done best in not " doing likewise." " Almost," I say ; for 
 there was just that hesitation in coming to a conclusion which 
 made the qualifying adverb in Agrippa's little speech so important. 
 
 There he sat, Edward Colston, the true type of the Merchant 
 Prince, the first citizen of no mean city and its representative, or 
 soon to be. He lived in ease and stately affluence in a grand 
 abode, and the polished oak furniture and the family pictures 
 reflected the pleasant light from the deep recessed fireplace ; but 
 still these words of the wise man would persist in suggesting 
 themselves to his mind " It is not good for man to be alone." 
 
 And he was alone a pleasant state enough occasionally. I 
 myself enjoy the temporary celibate condition once a year, when the 
 wife and children go for the month to the seaside say to Burnham 
 and leave me to look after the cook and the house cat, and there 
 is quiet, a strange quiet, within the four walls, and I almost hear 
 the sound of my own lips as I puff peaceably at my evening pipe. 
 But better, like Alexander Selkirk, " dwell in the midst of alarms "
 
 151 
 
 than reign in such a solitude for more than a month or six weeks at 
 most. So that hy the time my wife returns and lets loose the little 
 troop of domestic Bashi-Bazouks again all over the building, I 
 have just come to the conclusion that the worst thing ahout the 
 tower of Babel was not its confusion of tongues. 
 
 The Philanthropist did not like noise, but in that great house 
 and in that stately Gothic room, which looked out on a courtyard 
 far removed from the few sounds that still lingered in Small -street, 
 the silence was too profound, and a pair or two of little trotting 
 feet might have been felt as a relief even by the old bachelor. 
 Again he raised his eyes to the line above the mantel-piece, and 
 again read the words, " Go thou and do likewise." Again, too, he 
 re-opened the mental discussion with himself as to whether or not 
 he had done the wise thing in breaking off just a quarter of a 
 century before with that young lady who (tradition says) rebuked 
 him a little too soon, however, for her own interests for being 
 too liberal of his money. 
 
 How long he would have pursued his reverie, I cannot say, had 
 not a servant, in rich but subdued livery, entered the room and 
 informed him that " A lady desired to see Mr. Colston." 
 
 The Philanthropist had heard the solemn old house bell sound a 
 little before, but softly, as was due to the distance ; so that he was 
 not wholly unprepared, late as it was, to hear that there was a 
 visitor. 
 
 " Her name ?" asked the Philanthropist. 
 
 " She gave no name, sir : but told me it was sufficient to say, ' A 
 lady wished to see Mr. Colston, for Mr. Colston would always see a 
 lady.' " 
 
 " Where is the lady ?" 
 
 " She is in the tapestried parlour, sir." 
 
 Colston walked leisurely along the corridor which led from the 
 room in which he was to the apartment hung with Arras-work. A 
 lady with a cowl or hood was sitting down, and was rising as he 
 entered, when he said, " Pray, madam, retain your seat." 
 
 His ability and willingness to help the distressed were so well 
 known in the city that he had very frequent applications made to 
 him, and he naturally concluded this was one of them. But as the 
 lady did not speak at once, he said, " Can I be of any use, madam ? 
 May I inquire why I am honoured with this call ?" 
 
 A deep sigh came from under the hood, and something even like 
 a sob ; but as yet no other answer. 
 
 The rich bachelor felt a little uncomfortable even though it was 
 in his own house. Here was, so far as figure and dress allowed him 
 to judge, a young woman and a lady in distress, and almost going 
 to cry if indeed she had not already begun to cry in his decorous 
 house, at that comparatively late hour. So he said, with a little more 
 peremptoriness, in which a touch of alarm was traceable, " May I 
 ask, madam, whom I have the honour of receiving in my humble 
 abode?" For under no circumstances could Edward Colston use 
 aught but stiff and formal phrase. 
 
 He got no answer beyond another little sob, so he repeated the 
 question. His surprise, therefore, may be more easily imagined
 
 152 
 
 than described, when his mysterious visitor replied, rising from her 
 seat as she did so and coming towards him, as though she would 
 throw herself on his neck, " Tour wife your acknowledged wife, 
 Edward Colston !" 
 
 " My acknowledged wife !" exclaimed Colston, with an emphasis 
 nearer to a scream than he had ever hefore indulged in. "I never 
 was married, madam, as all the world knowSj and I never 
 acknowledged you or any one else as my wife." 
 
 " Oh yes, you did you did," she cried, coming again towards 
 him, while he retired a step or two to avoid the threatened embrace. 
 "You said this morning 'Every widow was your wife, 1 and I am 
 (and as she spoke she threw back her hood and showed the bright 
 face and arch eyes that he had seen at the wedding breakfast), I 
 AM A WIDOW the Widow Fell ! and I come to claim my husband, 
 according to his own word, and Edward Colston never goes back of 
 his word !" 
 
 The Philanthropist was nearer laughing then than he ever before 
 was in this life. But he did not ; for he remembered that a liberty 
 had been taken twice with him that day. The widow, however, 
 laughed enough for him and for herself. She saw and enjoyed his 
 surprise and fright, and then bowing, turned to depart, saying, as 
 she left the room, "Go thou and do likewise." 
 
 " Score one for the Widow. I have done it !" she said to a 
 couple of friends, who waited for her at the top of Small-street, and 
 who were her confidants in the "lark" she undertook to play off 
 upon the stiff old stately bachelor, in return for the sharp hit he had 
 given her at the wedding breakfast. 
 
 Edward Colston soon afterwards removed to Mortlake, grievously 
 offended at anyone having dared to play off a hoax upon so good 
 and so great a gentleman.
 
 for a 
 
 The episode in our local history which takes my fancy most is 
 that of Sir John Duddlestone, who, at the close of the 17th century, 
 got his family entitled, if not ennobled, in return for a family 
 dinner. 
 
 It is a hearty, homely incident in our annals, most encouraging 
 to the virtue of hospitality, and seems to this day to shed upon the 
 records of All Saints Parish the genial flavour of roast beef and 
 plum pudding. It is, too, in an eminent degree characteristic of 
 old Bristol, which if impregnable in any respect was in this, that it 
 could never be " taken by surprise" in the matter of eating and 
 drinking. 
 
 Barrett, in recounting the tombs and monuments of All Saints, 
 says : 
 
 Sir John Duddlestone, Bait., lies buried here, with Dame Susanna, his 
 lady, under the firso pew coming into the church on the right hand at the 
 north door. He was created a baronet January 11, 1691. He was the first 
 baronet of his family, and was n eminent tobacco merchant in the house 
 fronting the south side of St. Werburgh's tower, the back part of which 
 is now called Shannon Court, wi bin the parish ot St. Worburgh ; who, 
 on Prince George of Denmark's arrival to see this city, was the first person 
 that invited him to his house, whereupon when that Prince came to 
 London he got him first knighted, and afterwarus a baronet's patent. 
 
 There is, it is true, some little mystery about the good Knight 
 and his lady, and antiquarians have been investing it with more. 
 Some scribbling sages in "iSotes and Queries" have even tried to 
 explain away the whole story ; but as Barrett probably lived 
 within fifty or sixty years of the Duddlestones' time, and must have 
 recorded a circumstance which was then comparatively fresh in the 
 minds of Bristol folks, I should far prefer his blunt word to the 
 most ingenious scepticism of modern critics. Here is recorded the 
 death of the Baronet and his dame, which is better evidence of their 
 having lived than any conjectures to the contrary which doubters 
 can produce. There is their grave by the north porch of All Saints, 
 where, as Jack Cade observes, " The very stones survive to this 
 day as witnesses of the fact." These stones and bones and record 
 of burial may all be cited against the cavillers, whose strongest 
 argument is that as Prince George had been to Bristol before in 
 company with his father-in-law, James II., the magistrates must 
 have known him, and knowing would not have left him to the 
 casual entertainment of a plain citizen like John Duddlestone, who, 
 or his wife (most probably the latter), had been a boddice maker 
 before he had entered the Virginian trade. His Royal Highness, 
 say the doubters, would not have gone to so homely a table as old 
 Duddlestone's when the utmost civic magnificence was at his 
 service ; but we know that when the Duke of Cumberland, some 
 fifty or sixty years later, was returning through York after his 
 Scotch victories he declined the invitations of the Archbishop, Lord 
 Mayor, Dean and Chapter, and went and supped with the Precentor, 
 Laurence Sterne's uncle ; and there is no reason to suppose that 
 Prince George (who was an easy homely sort of royalty) might not
 
 154 
 
 hare just the same fancy for a quiet family feed in preference to 
 the laborious and elaborate state of the civic chamber admitting 
 that such was tendered to him. But of this I am not so sure. The 
 magnates and magistrates of Bristol were still smarting from the 
 " go by" which Popish James gave them, and the slights which he 
 cast upon them, and they probably took this occasion to show their 
 sense of the wrong and insult offered them, by a pointed neglect of 
 the Monarch's son-in-law. The fact probably is that the circumstance 
 of the illustrious visitor being allowed to saunter about so long 
 without anyone asking him to dinner had some political meaning in 
 it, and Duddlestone was rewarded less for the feed he gave the 
 Prince than for the public protest which he thus practically made 
 to the party spirit of the more lofty local dons, who, in envy of a 
 man who made such capital profit out ot their mistake, set to 
 sneering at the presumption of the " boddice-maker," his homely 
 menage, and his wife's " blue apron." But Duddlestone had the 
 laugh at them, as we all know, in the long run; and the incident 
 has descended to us as an encouragement to prompt and courageous 
 hospitality. Never be afraid to ask a man to dinner when you have 
 anything to offer him. " Bis dot," says the proverb, " qui cito dat :" 
 and while others were probably thinking of and wondering what 
 they had in the house, and whether it would stand so distinguished 
 a guest, the tobacco merchant went straight up to the princely 
 Dane, whose soft bland easy manner could deter no one, though he was 
 allowed to wander up and down the Merchant's Walk without any 
 one asking him if he had a mouth, lest he might open it and 
 swallow them up Duddlestone, I say, walked straight up to him, 
 and, saying something in excuse for his plain fare, asked his Royal 
 Highness point-blank home to pot luck. The Prince did not 
 annihilate him with a glance, or scowl at him as an impudent snob 
 for his presumption, but, it may be, said " I'm your man, my friend : 
 name your hour." Or if not in these exact words, something to the 
 same purpose. 
 
 Felix Farley's Journal was not started until 23 years later, other- 
 wise we could have got from its venerable pages the precise 
 expression, the ipsissima verba, of the Prince. In these days of 
 newspaper enterprise, you would, in fact, not only get the exact 
 words but a few more particulars in addition : the weight of the 
 piece of beef upon which the illustrious visitor dined, and the person 
 who fattened the ox out of which it was cut the weight of the 
 pudding, and the name of the grocer who supplied the currants. 
 
 As it is, we must be content to imagine all this, as well as the 
 conversation with which Duddlestone and his dame entertained 
 their guest, whom they probably had all to themselves, with merely 
 the vicar of All-Saints, John Rainstorp, to say grace and keep the 
 talk up. If, however, there were any deficiency of talk in the 
 second floor parlour of the house in Corn-street opposite St. 
 Werburgh's on this same afternoon, there was no lack of gossip 
 outside, when it became generally known that the Duddlestones 
 at whom the other magnates, I expect, turned up their noses had 
 nothing less than a real live Prince to share pot-luck with them. 
 How " thronged the citizens " in front of the house, haunted the
 
 155 
 
 street outside, looked up enviously at the window on the second 
 floor, behind which the Royal Anne's hushand was dining. I wish 
 I could get a Prince to dine with me. I'd become quite the fashion 
 after that, and need never feed at home on my own hashed mutton. 
 Every person would be asking me out then : for to entertain a man 
 who entertained a Prince would be like entertaining a Prince 
 second-hand. 
 
 Well, though we cannot exactly say what they had for dinner, 
 we may fairly infer that they dined at two, or a little earlier ; for 
 Pope and Addison, and most of the good people of the period dined 
 at two. For convivial enjoyment, 1 think a later hour preferable, 
 but for more useful and nutritious purposes an early meal is best ; 
 and I suspect our great grandfathers and great grandmothers of the 
 Duddlestone's time were mainly guided by the latter and more 
 vulgar consideration in matters of feeding. " Barbarous nations," 
 says De Quincey, in his chapter on the Casuistry of Roman Meals, 
 " and none were, in that respect, more barbarous than our own 
 ancestors made this capital blunder : the brutes, if you asked 
 them what was the use of dinner, what it was meant for, stared at 
 you, and replied as a horse would reply, if you put the same 
 question about his provender that it was to give him strength for 
 finishing his work ! Therefore, if you point your telescope back to 
 antiquity about twelve or one o'clock of the daytime, you will 
 descry our most worthy ancestors eating for their very lives eating 
 as*dogs eat, viz., in bodily fear that some other dog will come and 
 take their dinner away. What swelling of the veins in the temples 
 (see Boswell's Natural History of Dr. Johnson at Dinner) ! what 
 intense and rapid deglutition ! what odious clatter of knives and 
 plates ! what silence of" the human voice ! what gravity ! what 
 fury in the libidinous eyes with which they contemplaie the dishes ! 
 but, above all, what maniacal haste and hurry, as if the fiend were 
 waiting with red-hot pincers to lay hold of the hindermost!" 
 
 The Prince had no great reputation for conversational vivacity, 
 and Mr. and Mistress Duddlestone must have had so slight an 
 acquaintance with Court gossip, that they could have found few 
 common topics of interest. But I daresay they got on as well with 
 their royal guest as Railway King Hudson and his wife did with 
 the old Duke of Cambridge, when he visited the locomotive magnate 
 at his great mansion near Albert Gate, and it is said his Royal 
 Highness inquired if they " knew Lord R," a Yorkshire nobleman. 
 " Oh, very well, your Royal Highness," chimed in both, " he often 
 sleeps with us when he comes to town." " The deuce he does," 
 rejoined the jolly old Duke, taking them literally at their word ; 
 " close quarters that, close quarters that three in a bed." 
 
 The little local scandal-mongers were fond of telling how Mrs. 
 Duddlestone was caught in her blue apron, and apologized to the 
 Prince for being found in so homely a garb. But all this I take to 
 be weak inventions of the enemy. Be this, however, as it may, of 
 two things I am satisfied First, that the tobacco merchant kept a 
 good table and had a decent dinner every day, or he would not 
 have ventured to ask the illustrious stranger home at a hop in this 
 fashion. And, secondly, that his wife had a superb temper, to
 
 156 
 
 receive with equanimity so grand an" addition to their mid-day 
 meal : for which of us could calculate upon our better half not heing 
 terribly put out by so unlocked for an incident ? In most households 
 a far less important personage dropping in on the domestic circle 
 would create as great a flutter amongst madame and the kitchen 
 ministers as a hawk in a dove-cot : still, with a good piece of roast 
 beef and plum pudding one need not be afraid to face even a Royal 
 Prince. It is good enough for a King ; and Duddlestone doubtless 
 could add a prime bottle of " Bristol milk " to the impromptu 
 entertainment. 
 
 " The proof of the pudding," and the beef, too, is said to be " in 
 the eating ;" and the proof that the Prince enjoyed his victuals lies 
 in the fact so positively asserted, that he gave the hospitable couple 
 an invitation to the Palace, should they ever visit London when he 
 happened to be there. They did visit it, but not until the Royal 
 Dane's wife was Queen of England, when (the story goes on to say) 
 the Bristol couple presented themselves at the Eoyal residence in 
 due form, and were not ignored, or snubbed, or sent about their 
 business, or treated to a cold shoulder, as some of our unpresentable 
 country friends might be, if we happened to get up in the world 
 high above their heads, and did not wish our great neighbours to 
 know that we ever had such homely acquaintances. They got a 
 hearty invitation for next day, and, nothing abashed, accepted it. 
 The story is told of Barrium that having been entertained by a New 
 York magnate, and having partaken of three courses, on the fourtk 
 making its appearance, he cried out, " he could eat no more, but 
 would takeout the rest in money." The tobacco merchant and his 
 wife were no doubt fully satisfied before the palace banquet had 
 half finished ; but when their appetites failed, her Majesty had it in 
 her power to further gratify them. As they were about to depart, 
 the Queen made the worthy Bristolian get on his knees, and, 
 taking the sword from the Prince's side, struck the kneeling citizen 
 on the shoulder, and told him, as his good dame afterwards 
 described it, to " Stan' up, Sir Jan Duddlestone." 
 
 Here again we miss the local chronicler : for had Bristol then 
 possessed a newspaper, we should not be left in the dark, as we 
 now are, as to the manner in which the new knight and his wife 
 were received by their envious neighbours when they returned 
 borne, with all their blushing honours thick upon them. For my 
 part, I think they eminently deserved their courtly reward, and the 
 whole affair carries with it a sound substantial moral, that a good 
 wife ought always to be glad to see her husband's friends even at a 
 moment's notice, without looking black at him ; for she does not 
 know what day he may pick up a Prince, who may have it in his 
 power to reward her homely hospitality by making a knight of her 
 liege and a lady of herself. For my part, I am quite resolved, if 
 ever I get the chance of asking Albert Edward to take pot luck 
 with us, I'll embrace the opportunity, with the hope that we shall 
 be as handsomely recompensed for our civility as was the Bristol 
 tobacconist, who rose up Sir John Duddlestone, though he now lies 
 low enough with his good dame by his side within the north porch 
 of All Saints' Church.
 
 aito fets Clerk; 
 
 A PAGE OF BRISTOL HISTORY ENLARGED. 
 
 In 1734 I went to Bristol with some recommendations to eminent 
 Bristol merchants, but in a few months found that scene wholly un- 
 suitable to me. A utobioyraphy of David Hume, the Historian. 
 
 Hume was clerk to Mr. William Miller, residing in Queen-Square : but 
 David's taste in English composition being offended by the Merchant's 
 letter book ; and volunteering to reform it altogether '' I'll tell you 
 what, Mr. Hume," exclaimed his employer, "I have made 20,000 by 
 my English, and I won't have it mended." Note in Evans. 
 
 1734 The sect called Methodists first appeared. Outlines of Bristol 
 History. 
 
 In the year 1734, the Mulberry Tree Tavern, in Broad-street, was 
 the favourite evening rendezvous of our substantial citizens. A couple 
 of shops facing the entrance to John-street now stand on what was 
 its street front, which was recessed a little from the flagway, and 
 had seats and other sociable conveniences for the casual customer, 
 who chose there to drink his horn of malt, or cup of sack, or glass 
 of punch, and watch city life as it rolled by in the well-frequentod 
 thoroughfare. The chosen retreat, however, of the regular fre- 
 quenters of the tavern the social knot was the courtyard in the 
 rear, in the centre of which stood a large mulberry-tree, which 
 gave its name to the house, and under the shadow of which 
 congregated every evening many of the most wealthy Bristolians ; 
 amongst them even merchants, who, so proud of their money and 
 their commercial position, were yet not too proud to meet in this 
 easy and convivial fashion for enjoyment and local gossip. 
 
 The little court still remains but the old tree is gone, and the 
 surrounding tenements, instead of being appropriated to festive 
 purposes, are suites of solicitors' offices. Yet on a summer evening, 
 at the time I refer to, it was a sight to look in at the little 
 quadrangle, and see on the forms and before the benches under the 
 spreading boughs of the old mulberry, the fathers of the city, long 
 pipes in mouth and tankards before them, gravely telling the news 
 and talking over the prices of colonial commodities, while now and 
 again a ripe rich fruit dropped from the branches above them, the 
 only act of levity in the seniors being an occasional attempt, if they 
 saw the purple berry falling, to try to catch it in their glass or 
 tankard before it touched the ground a feat which, when 
 accomplished, they were very proud of. Besides this, however, 
 there was no other symptom of exhilaration amongst the company 
 that assembled round the great trunk of the aged mulberry tree ; 
 for a true type of what one might call the hereditary Bristolian were 
 the men of that day. Their's was a substantial decorous festivity ; 
 their hard heads would stand almost any amount of punch and 
 tobacco, without betraying them into any exuberance or forgetfulness
 
 158 
 
 of self. There was not one of them, as they rose from their benches in 
 the Mulberry Tree-court to depart at the close of the evening sitting, 
 that was not capable of guarding his interests in a bargain, if he 
 had to make one at that moment, or who would forget in any stage 
 of festivity his sense of self-importance. For your true-bred 
 Bristolian was always a rigid stander up for his own dignity, 
 whatever the state of life to which it had pleased God to call him. 
 The tradesman, as a tradesman, would have his due of personal 
 deference, and yield it also (let it be confessed) to his superiors. 
 There were degrees of merchants, the little merchants and the 
 magnates the Merchant Princes, " the Princes of Naphtali and 
 Zebulon," as a witty Canon called them. Yet to some extent 
 with, perhaps, the exception of the very highest they met 
 in common, though not on equality, at places of symposia! 
 assembly like the Mulberry Tree and the Stone Kitchen, and at 
 the latter place, it must be remembered, they had even a ducal 
 Howard for their guest. Nevertheless, even at these resorts, social 
 distinctions were observable more implied, perhaps, than expressed. 
 The merchant was an oracle, and delivered himself like an oracle 
 amongst the men of lesser local note, the substantial shopkeepers and 
 attorneys, who then deferred perhaps more than they do now to 
 monied customers and clients. All joined in the conversation, 
 which to a great extent was general, but they waited for the 
 leading opinion of the leading man of the coterie, who delivered his 
 sentiments in a pompous tone and with an authority which showed 
 he expected none but a person as rich as himself to differ from him. 
 
 To this downright and dogmatic class, belonged Mr. William 
 Miller, of Queen-square, merchant, and afterwards partner in the 
 first banking-house established in Bristol. He was the looked-up-to 
 of the Mulberry Tavern lot, not so much for his enlarged views as 
 his large purse and a certain shrewdness which secured worldly 
 success. In winter his was the seat next the broad fire-place 
 in the inner room kept specially for the evening " set," and in 
 summer a high-backed bench against the trunk of the mulberry 
 tree, was his prescriptive post of honour, which nobody attempted 
 to take even though he should be a little late in making his 
 appearance. Here, pipe in hand " Billy Miller," as he was called 
 behind his back, but " Mr. Miller '' to his face, laid down the law, 
 while the listening tradesmen of Wine-street, Corn-street, and 
 Broad-street, accepted as absolute wisdom everything that fell from 
 his lips. This would have spoiled perhaps a man of even more 
 education than Miller, so that we must excuse him if amongst the 
 coterie of the Mulberry Tree frequenters he was pomposity and 
 dogmatism itself. 
 
 One warm June evening after he had taken his seat under the 
 old tree as usual, and had given a few puffs of his pipe and taken a 
 few sips of his tankard, he gave vent to the following interjection : 
 " A pretty pass indeed we are come to ! I suppose it is the work 
 of this rascally Pretender, that rebellion should begin to show 
 itself in one's very counting-house!" 
 
 " Aye sooth, aye sooth," chimed in the obsequious company, 
 " they are queer times, indeed, our lot is cast in."
 
 159 
 
 Having given expression to this general sentiment, they waited 
 for Mr. Miller to disclose the particular event or events which led 
 to this solemn conclusion, and after a few puffs more the self- 
 important merchant proceeded. " A couple of months ago a young 
 man from Scotland came to me with recommendations from 
 correspondents in Edinburgh, at whose request I took him into my 
 counting-house, and what do you think I detected him in to-day ?" 
 
 " Peculation, robbery," said two or three voices at a time. 
 
 " No, no," said Miller, " I have nought to say in disparagement 
 of the young Scotchman's honesty : but he actually presumed to 
 correct, as he called it, the language of my letter book. He has 
 positively been mending my writing, if you please." 
 
 " What impudence ! did you ever !" exclaimed the coterie round the 
 mulberry tree, and thoy puffed away their pipes more vigorously 
 than ever, as if to give vent to their indignant effervescence. 
 
 " Well, what do you think I said to him,' said Miller; " I said 
 to him, Mr. Hume (for that is his name), I'll tell you what, I have 
 made twenty thousand pounds by my English, and I won't have it 
 mended ; and when you have made a tithe of the money by your 
 composition, as you call it, I will give you leave to correct mine." 
 
 The applause that followed this specimen of cutting retort, was 
 only what the speaker expected. He raised his can to his lips, 
 and then resumed his pipe with manifest self-complacency and 
 satisfaction, giving his audience time to admire and repeat his clever 
 retort. But even Billy Miller's self-possession was hardly proof 
 against the unpleasant surprise that awaited him, when the smoke 
 clearing away a little, he saw seated on a bench a few yards from 
 him, a young man, about three and twenty, of pleasant intelligent 
 features, rather high cheek bones, a full firm mouth, and somewhat 
 aquiline nose. Pretty Mistress Newth, the landlord's daughter, was 
 serving him with a glass of Geneva and water, and he had already 
 begun to draw at his pipe like the rest of the company. He had 
 only just sat down, so it was a moot point if he heard or understood 
 the lust part of the conversation, but whether he did or not it was 
 impossible to guess from his pleasant and placid manner and the 
 look of quiet curiosity with which he regarded the company. 
 Miller, however, adroitly let his friends know that it would not 
 be civil to pursue the subject any longer in the presence of the 
 very person to whom it related, so he called out with a nod of 
 condescension to the new comer, " My service to you Mr. Hume, 
 glad to welcome you to the shelter of the mulberry tree." The 
 eyes of the company turned to the presumptuous young clerk and 
 embryo-historian, as David bowed with well-bred decorum to their 
 salutations ; for the Scotch youth came of good family, and even 
 at this time he justified the character which he afterwards gave of 
 himself when on the eve of his death in the fullness of his fame. 
 " I am," said he, " or rather was, a man of mild disposition, of 
 command of temper, of an open social and cheerful humour, capable 
 of attachment but little susceptible of enmity, and of great 
 moderation in all my passions ; my company was not unacceptable 
 to the young and careless as well as to the studious and literary." 
 
 The young Scotchman sat on. his bench and sipped his Geneva
 
 160 
 
 and water, and listened silently a while to the tirade which the 
 company soon fell into against some who were at that time 
 advocating a more unfettered trade intercourse with other nations ; 
 for your old Bristolians cherished a strong commercial jealousy. At 
 length the future historian fell into the topic, hut shocked the 
 seniors present hy taking a view totally different to theirs. " The 
 jealousy of trade," said he, " is the hane of civilization, and it 
 would he ungrateful, as well as impolitic in Englishmen, to cherish 
 the blind feeling. Every improvement which we have for the last 
 two centuries made has arisen from our imitation of foreigners, 
 and we ought, so far, to esteem it happy that they had previously 
 made advances in arts and ingenuity. 1 ' 
 
 A few pooh-poohs from the company under the mulberry tree 
 greeted this sentiment ; but the young Scotchman continued in a 
 calm tone which his master thought, and, indeed, audibly 
 pronounced impertinence, still further to second his views, " Were 
 our narrow and malignant politics,," said he, "to meet with 
 success, we should reduce all our neighbouring nations to the same 
 state of sloth and ignorance that prevails in Morocco and the coast 
 of Barbary. But what would be the consequence ? They would 
 send us no commodities, they would take none from us ; your 
 domestic commerce itself would languish for want of emulation, 
 example, and instruction, and you yourselves would soon fall into 
 the same abject condition to which you had reduced them; I, 
 therefore, make bold to say, gentlemen, with all respect for your 
 greater experience and business habits, that not only as a man, but 
 a British subject, I pray for the nourishing commerce of Germany, 
 Spain, Italy, and even France itself."* 
 
 This was too much for his master, Billy Miller, who struck his 
 pipe passionately on the bench before him. " I'll tell you what, 
 Mr. Hume," said he, "when I consented, at the request of my 
 correspondents in Edinburgh, to take a young man into my counting- 
 house to teach him trade, I did not bargain to have a Jacobite and 
 Pretender's man in disguise, turning over my ledger and preaching 
 treason in taverns, so I tell you plainly you wont suit me or Bristol. 1 ' 
 
 " I have already discovered that myself, Mr. Miller," replied 
 David, as he walked across to the bar, and, with a bland smile to 
 pretty Mistress Newth, who returned his courtesy with another 
 smile, paid his reckoning, and, bowing to the company, walked out 
 of the old Mulberry Tree-court, never again to enter it.f 
 
 A few mornings afterwards two persons took seats in the great 
 leathern convenience or stage-coach that started from the White 
 Lion, and occupied three days in the journey to London. The 
 younger one was David Hume, and the other, who was some thirty 
 years of age, was John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, who 
 
 * The reader of Hume will perceive that I have not put strange 
 sentiments into his mouth, as I have only thrown into a conversational 
 form a part of his own Essay on the jealousy of trade. 
 
 t That a gallant courtesy was congenial to Hume, we have his own words 
 for it. "I took a particular pleasure," said he, "in the company of 
 modest women, and I had not reason to be displeased with the reception 
 I met from them."
 
 161 
 
 was returning from a preaching visit to Bristol, and was then going 
 to the metropolis, with a view of making some arrangements for 
 his intended voyage to Georgia. 
 
 Four years after the events above related, Dr. Joseph Butler, the 
 profound and learned author of the " Analogy," was installed 
 Bishop of Bristol. It is known that few were more hospitable or 
 liberal than this great and good man. "Living," says one of his 
 biographers, "a single life, and having no relations depending on 
 him, he laid out all his income, and generously expended more in the 
 twelve years he was Bishop of Bristol than he received from the 
 whole See." One of the many ways in which he employed his 
 money was in entertaining the head merchants and magnates ; for 
 he did not forget, while he was beneficence itself to the poor, that 
 a bishop, who would set an example or exercise an influence for 
 good amongst the rich, must not neglect his social duties amongst 
 them also. The old Palace in the Lower Green was therefore 
 maintained warmly and profusely, and many a gathering of civic 
 guests took place in that ancient and comfortably wainscoted 
 room, which was the refectory of the old Abbots, but which a 
 Reform mob gave to the flames. 
 
 In the winter of 1742 Billy Miller was one of a party of local 
 notables who had assembled in the Bishop's library, and were in 
 momentary expectation of hearing his Lordship's butler announce 
 dinner. On the library table lay a newly-printed book, which the 
 Bishop, who was a keen and curious reader of the literary and 
 political controversies of the day, was in the act of perusing when 
 his guests were announced. Miller, who was in good humour for 
 his dinner, and perhaps rendered a little hungry by the tantalising 
 odours that reached him from the episcopal kitchen, mechanically 
 turned over the pages of the work as if to allay his impatience, 
 when, casting his eye casually upon the title, he exclaimed, 
 " David Hume ! My old clerk, by Jove." " What," said the 
 Bishop, who was close at hand, " do you know the author, Mr. 
 Miller?" " Know him, my Lord," repeated the merchant, "why 
 he kept my letter-book for months, until I turned away the 
 conceited puppy because he would correct my English : only think 
 of his writing a book now !" and the Bristol merchant held up the 
 volume, which was the first part of Hume's Essays, Moral and 
 Political. 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Miller," said the good Bishop, with a smile, " I wish 
 you had permitted the young Scotchman to go on mending your 
 composition, in which case, perhaps, you would have kept at a 
 more innocent occupation a man who, I fear, is destined to prove 
 one of the most dangerous and ingenious opponents of revealed 
 religion." 
 
 But Billy Miller's thoughts and wonder had taken a different 
 direction, namely, that a clerk of fits, a copier and writer of bills of 
 lading, in his, William Miller's, counting-house, should ever come 
 to write a book that a great bishop should read, was what puzzled 
 and perplexed him ; so that he went on muttering as he walked to 
 the dining room, and with the savour of turtle soup floating about 
 him, " To think of that fellow, whom I would not have thought of
 
 162 
 
 trusting to sell a few tierces of sugar, coming to this well, I 
 never." There is no guessing to -what depths of reflection Miller 
 would have sunk, hut he was recalled to consciousness hy the first 
 spoonful of green fat that he put in his mouth. 
 
 Years rolled hy, and William Miller troubled his head no more 
 ahout David Hume : the Bristol merchant had other things to 
 occupy him, for, in 1750, jointly with Mr. Isaac Elton and Mr. 
 Harford Lloyd, he started in Broad Street, nearly opposite his old 
 haunt, the Mulherry Tree Tavern and in the house now occupied 
 by Messrs. Osborne and Ward, the first bank established in this 
 city. Seven years afterwards the newly-appointed Dean of Bristol 
 opened an account with them : this was no other than the great 
 writer and tremendous polemic, William Warburton, and while 
 Billy Miller sat in his bank parlour, like the king in the nursery 
 rhyme counting out his money, the great Dr. Warburton sat in 
 the study of the Deanery or Dove House, as it was then better 
 known, answering in his bold and trenchant fashion, the treatises 
 and discourses of Billy's whilome clerk, David Hume, who had 
 once presumed to mend his English. And what is more wonderful, 
 in a literary sense, this same David Hume contrived to make 
 20,000, more wonderful, in a literary man, too, he contrived to 
 keep it ; for the historian tells us, he realised by his literary 
 labours and occupations a fortune that produced him 1,000 
 a-year. Billy Miller did not, however, live to hear this last and 
 greatest wonder of all.
 
 attfr i\t 
 
 LEGEND OF ST. AUGUSTINE'S. 
 
 [The reader is probably aware of the plot of this story, from some of 
 the many dresses under which it has appeared. Longfellow adapted it 
 to his tale of " Martin Franc." George Colman served it up in the 
 "Knight and the Friar." It has had seyeral French forms, and it is 
 conjectured its real origin is to be found in " The Arabian Nights," or 
 " The Story of the Little Hunchback." Be this as it may, I have at- 
 tempted to make my use of it, and have followed Longfellow's version 
 while giving it a local habitation and a name in and from Bristol. In 
 one of the visitations by the Bishop of Worcester of the Monastery of 
 St. Augustine's, we find the prelate directing " inquiry to be made" 
 into the conduct of one of the Black Canons of our Abbey, John de 
 Schaf tesbury, ' ' accused of incontinence with certain women unknown. " 
 A friend of mine has an old deed, in which Christmas Street is called 
 " Knights' Smith Street," as he (I think rightly) conjectures, from its 
 containing the booths and workshops of the Armourers.] 
 
 In the reign of Edward IV., when the discipline of the Monas- 
 teries, like the morality of the Court, was rather relaxed, there 
 lived in Christmas Street (then called Knights' Smith Street, owing 
 to its heing chiefly occupied by armourers' shops,), one Giles Gaston, 
 who had inherited a fair business and a decent fortune from his 
 father. He was a hauberk-maker, and had a good name for the 
 manufacture of that part of defensive armour, but was still better 
 known as the possessor of one of the prettiest wives in Bristol. 
 Amongst the many fair dames of the parish of St. John, there was 
 none who had so dark an eye, so symmetrical yet rounded a form, 
 or so rich a red struggling out through the hazel-brown of her 
 cheek ; so much so, that the little church of St. John's was, on 
 Sunday, the resort of many a young citizen, who went there quite 
 as much to see Mistress Margueretta as to hear mass. But though 
 so much the object of admiration, there was not, within a circle of 
 five miles round the Civic Cross of Bristol, a more correct or right 
 principled dame than the hauberk-maker's wife. 
 
 But, if Giles was blessed with a placens uxor a comely and pru- 
 dent partner he was not equally fortunate in the possession, of 
 much worldly wisdom himself. That is, he did what a great many 
 people did then, have done since, and are doing now lived beyond 
 his means outran the constable. He liked company, and while he 
 entertained his friends in his pleasant parlour that went back and, 
 with its oriel window, almost overhung the Frome, his workmen 
 were not as attentive to hauberk-making in the front shop as they 
 ought to have been ; for it rarely happens that when a man ceases 
 to attend to his own business, the people in his employ will he over- 
 particular in their sphere. They find it out quickly enough, and 
 there are none that so soon notice when the head of the house begins 
 to neglect his business as those under his own roof, those in his 
 own employ. Thus Giles's hauberks failed to give the satisfaction 
 they did in old Gaston's time ; they were not so well riveted or so 
 well tempered, and the customers fell off. People did not come as
 
 164 
 
 often to his shop as they once did, but there was no decrease in the 
 number of his dinner company. The back parlour was as full of 
 acquaintances as ever, for though his wares were by no means as 
 strong as formerly, his entertainments were quite as unexception- 
 able. It would have been better for Master Gaston had his dinners 
 been bad and his hauberks been good, for it is always easier to get 
 company to eat your mutton than customers to buy your wares. 
 
 There is ever an end to this state of things, for we all know the 
 result when expenses exceed our earnings. In fact, the hauberk- 
 maker was in the end (to use a modern phrase) " sowed up." One 
 fine morning all Gaston's neighbours were noticed, when they met 
 each other, to shake their heads, and say they knew it must come 
 to this it could not last " the man was living too fast " nobody 
 could be surprised at it nobody nobody nobody. And they 
 went away shaking their heads the rascals. I say rascals ; be- 
 cause if they knew it could not last, why were they drinking the 
 man's sack and eating his capons all the time ? Was there one of 
 them one of these solemn, sensible, prudent fellows, so very saga- 
 cious when misfortune began to overtake the man, that ever had the 
 manliness, when he sent them an invitation to taste his sherry-sack, 
 or cock-ale, or metheglin, or have a cut at his venison-pasties, his 
 elvers or eel-cakes and marrow-puddings I say was there one of 
 the solemn head-shakers, who then had the manliness to write back 
 a friendly note, or if they could not write for that was an accom- 
 plishment not very common at the time even amongst gentlefolks 
 did any of them walk across to him, and take him aside, and say 
 " Excuse me, my dear fellow, but if I seem to do an impudent act 
 I at least am honest, and wish you well : I am very much obliged 
 to you for your kind invitation, and I like cock-ale and marrow- 
 pudding, but I have a qualm of conscience, and don't like to share 
 your hospitality, lest you may not be able to afford it. Excuse me. 
 I know indeed, I see by your face I am taking a liberty ; but I 
 could not accept your kind invitation until I had said so much." 
 
 I don't say that a man, when he receives an invitation under these 
 circumstances, is at all called upon to take this over-frank course. 
 And had any of his acquaintances so acted towards Giles Gaston, 
 the probability is that the latter who was rather a hot-tempered, 
 thoughtless fellow would have kicked him out into the street for 
 his candour. But not having done this, and having eaten his 
 dinners, and drunk his sherry-sack, and enjoyed both, I say they 
 had no right to shake their heads and say " they knew it," and to 
 talk of his " going so fast," when they themselves helped him along. 
 
 When it was known that the foolish hauberk-maker could give 
 no more dinners, no one asked him to have one, though it would 
 not have been amiss, and he would not have said " no," since his 
 appetite persisted in perversely continuing very good after his 
 means had all gone. No ; those who drank his health at his own 
 table out of his own cock-ale and sherry-sack, and said he was 
 " the soul of hospitality," and " had his heart in the right place," 
 never asked him if he had a mouth, when he had little to fill 
 it, but bolted out of his way when they met him. 
 
 These things made Gaston wiser than he was before ; but Gaston's
 
 165 
 
 wisdom came too late, and the only pleasure he had (if pleasure it 
 could be called) was abusing himself for a fool and a donkey, that 
 he should have wasted his substance on people who, the moment he 
 was used up, cut from him through all by-ways and lanes. If he 
 had his marrow-puddings, and his pasties, and his cock-ale and 
 sherry-sack back again, he'd see them all shrunk up with starvation 
 or dried up with thirst before he'd give them a bit or a sup : but 
 he had not his sherry-sack or his cock-ale, or his marrow-puddings, 
 and what was the use of talking ? Perhaps if he had them again, 
 he'd be as good-natured, as great a fool as ever, and till his back 
 parlour and pile up the table in the oriel window over the Frome 
 with flagons of sherry-sack. It is my full belief he would have 
 done so ; but he did not get the opportunity of setting himself down 
 an ass the second time. 
 
 However, there were two people who stood by him one was his 
 Margueretta she stood by him like a trump ; and though she did 
 not invite the people to eat the venison pasties and marrow puddings, 
 and drink cock ale ; yet she did not blow up her poor fool of a 
 husband in his adversity, and say, " This is all your doing, Mr. 
 Gaston it is your folly that has reduced me to this I, that was 
 used to a comfortable home you spent it all, yes, you did, on those 
 worthless pot companions of yours, who cut you now, and run away 
 from me when they see me at mass as if I had the plague .Yes, I 
 tell you it was all your fault." No ; Margueretta did none of these 
 things she had too good a heart to throw water on a drowned rat ; 
 and, after all, if Giles was not a Solomon he was a good-tempered, 
 good-natured fellow, and in his prosperity he never said an unkind 
 word to Margueretta. He was not like some men who are like 
 the moon, a bright face to the world and a dark face at the other 
 side. He did not play the fiddle to amuse people when he was out 
 and hang it up when he got home. And this all married men may 
 be sure of if they are kind to their wives in prosperity their wives 
 will never turn a black face on them in adversity. 
 
 Giles Gaston' s other friend or acquaintance, who stuck by him, 
 or rather stuck by his house, after the marrow puddings and the 
 elvers and the cock ale were all gone, was Friar John de Schaftes- 
 bury, a Black Canon of St. Augustine's (now the Cathedral in 
 College-green). Friar John came to Gaston's as usual, and Gaston 
 thought him an honest fellow not to run away from the cupboard, 
 like the rest of the worthless mice, because it was empty. Nay, 
 Father John occasionally brought a bottle of Rhenish wine and a 
 pasty under his black cassock, and cheered the Armourer's heart 
 when most it wanted cheer. Giles never suspected the monk of 
 sinister views, until one day his wife said to him that he had better 
 not encourage the monk's visits. " Why not ? " asked Giles; "He 
 is the only decent fellow of all the men I feasted, and the only one 
 who shows a substantial recollection of my cock-ale." 
 
 "I see," said Margueretta, "my simple-hearted husband, that 
 you are still, in spite of all your lessons, unsuspicious. Then I 
 must tell you it is not to see you, but me, Friar John comes. I 
 care little for beauty and it ill becomes me to speak of it, but 
 people will have it that I am handsome, and that wicked friar
 
 166 
 
 would fain make me forget that which is a thousand times better 
 than beauty virtue." 
 
 " I see, I see," said the slow-witted hauberk-maker, now blazing 
 out into a passion. " I will go at once to the Monastery, and break 
 that fellow's shorn pate, though he were the Pope." 
 
 " Do nothing of the kind, Giles," said his wife, " but when he 
 next comes show him the door, and tell him you will show him a 
 cudgel should he again put his nose near it." 
 
 Hardly had these words passed Margueretta' s lips when the oily- 
 faced John of Schaftesbury made his appearance with his usual 
 salutation of " Benedicite," and leering towards Margueretta as he 
 spoke. 
 
 "Benedicite," shouted the hauberk maker, " I'll benedicite you, 
 you hypocritical vagabond, coming to my house with your 
 dishonourable proposals to an honest woman ! " and he caught the 
 priest by his broad shoulders, and dealing him a stout kick behind, 
 sent him quickly into the street. They saw or heard nothing 
 moro of Friar John for a month a hard month for poor Gaston 
 and his wife, who could hardly get a meal a da)'. At the end of 
 the month, however, Margueretta went to vespers at the Lady 
 Chapel in the Abbey, and when the congregation had gone she lit 
 her votive taper before the Virgin's shrine, and began to pray for 
 better fortune. She was so absorbed in her devotions that she did 
 not hear a footstep approaching, until some one touched her on the 
 shoulder. She looked up, and saw over her the nasty, gross, 
 voluptuous face of the Friar. " The Virgin has sent me, in answer 
 to your prayers, daughter Margueretta," said he. "Rather, say 
 the devil," answered Margueretta, who had plenty of nerve ; " for 
 you are more likely to run of his errands than our Lady's." 
 
 " You do me wrong, and your husband has done me wrong, but 
 I forgive you both ; and, as a proof of my forgiveness, here is 
 something to help you in your adversity" and he held out a purse ; 
 but Margueretta, knowing the Friar's gift was not an honest one, 
 refused it. Still Father John persisted with his importunities, 
 and Margueretta seemed to relent a little. " I will not take the 
 money here before our Lady's shrine," she said. "If you mean 
 me to have it, you can bring it to my house you know where it 
 is, Father John," she added, with a smile, which appeared to give 
 him some encouragement. 
 
 " But " said Father John, adding something in her ear. 
 
 "You can come at midnight," she said, "my husband will not be 
 at home," and with that she quitted the Lady Chapel. 
 
 At midnight, Friar John, after sneaking for some time in the 
 deep shadow of the cloisters to escape the observation of his brethren, 
 crossed the Abbey garden, which occupied part of the site of the 
 Lower Green, and let himself out through a wicket into the west 
 suburb of the city, now Limekiln-lane, He soon afterwards 
 knocked stealthily at Gaston's door in Christmas-street, first casting 
 an eye to see that no loiterers watched him into the hauberk- 
 maker's house. Margueretta undid the door, and the Friar entered. 
 He was for at once saluting her with a kiss but she waved him 
 back, saying " Not quite so fast, Father John ; you forget your
 
 167 
 
 promise." "I do not," exclaimed the Friar, throwing a leathern 
 purse on the table ; "there is my share of the contract." 
 
 " And here is mine," exclaimed some one behind him ; and at 
 the same time a cudgel descended with such force on the priest that 
 he was felled to the ground. It was Gaston's hand dealt the blow, 
 for his wife had told him of the friar's importunities, and they 
 adopted this plan in concert, to teach him better manners for the 
 future, while at the same time to profit by his purse. 
 
 But the plot went farther than they intended. Gaston merely 
 purposed cudgelling the priest's shoulders, but the stick had 
 descended on his bald crown, and when they went to pick him up 
 they found, to their horror, that he was dead ! Here was a scrape 
 to get into. Hanged they must both be if the body were discovered 
 there. What were they to do with it ? 
 
 Margueretta was quickest in expedients. "Here," she said, 
 taking a bunch of keys from the friar's girdle, "one of these is sure 
 to unlock the Abbey postern, through which this unhappy man 
 often came forth, prowling into the town by night : put him on 
 your shoulder ; nobody that can see you is now stirring ; open the 
 wicket, and once having placed the body within the monastery 
 precincts, we are safe." 
 
 Gaston did not like the job. To walk through the streets at 
 midnight with a dead monk on his back was not pleasant, but there 
 was no choice. It must be done ; so away he started with his load, 
 desperation giving him strength to reach the Abbey wicket, which 
 he opened, and taking the friar to a fish pond in the garden, which 
 was supplied with water from the river, he propped the body up 
 against a great willow, and leaving it there, he went back at a quick 
 pace to his own home. 
 
 In the meantime, midnight prayers were going on in the 
 monastery, and when they had finished, the Abbot, who had missed 
 Friar John, exclaimed, " By the bones of St. Augustine, here is 
 that incorrigible offender John of Schaftesbury again prowling 
 about the town, and bringing scandal on the brotherhood ; is there 
 anybody who will go and see where the scamp is gone ? " 
 
 Friar John might have had friends in the Abbey, but he certainly 
 had enemies ; one of the latter was Henry of the Granary a Friar 
 little better than himself, but who, nevertheless, had his reasons 
 for hating John, and was known to hate him. 
 
 "I will go, father Abbot," said Henry of the Granary. " Let 
 him go," said the Prior; "set a thief to catch a thief; Brother 
 Henry is the man to find Brother John par nobile fratrum.* 
 
 Henry of the Granary did not mind the sneer, but started off in 
 pursuit of his scampish brother, crossing the garden on his way to 
 the western wicket ; but as he passed the fishpond, the moon shone 
 out, and he thought ho recognised the truant John, standing with 
 his back against the willow. 
 
 " Hallo," called out Henry of the Granary, " wonders will never 
 cease. So you have turned a St. Anthony, and are preaching to 
 the fishes. But, come along ; the Abbot has other fish for you to 
 fry come along you are not drunk or asleep, are you ? " he added, 
 giving Friar John a push on the shoulder, when he did not answer.
 
 168 
 
 It was a push given with a good will, for it sent the body toppling 
 over into the fishpond. 
 
 " That will cool you," said Henry of the Granary, calling to his 
 erring brother in the water ; but when Friar John did not reappear 
 on the surface, Henry grew cooler himself through fright. He 
 stooped down and laid hold of the Friar's cassock and pulled him 
 out. " By the bones of St. Augustine, he's dead," thought the 
 Superintendent of the Granary, " and they'll say I murdered him, if 
 they find him here. It is a bad business, but I must shift suspicion 
 elsewhere. I must carry the body from this, and deposit it near 
 one of his haunts. Let me see. He used to be always making 
 after the hauberk-maker's pretty wife." No sooner said than done. 
 Henry of the Granary was a stout fellow, so he tossed up the body 
 of Friar John on his shoulders, and was not long in taking it to 
 Christmas Street. He placed it up against Gaston's door, knocked 
 loudly, and ran away. 
 
 Gaston and his wife were in too great fright to go to bed, and the 
 knock at this hour, and after what had happened, made their hearts 
 jump into their mouths. Margueretta, having most self-possession, 
 went down and undid the door, and the moment it was opened, the 
 monk's body fell back into her arms. She cried out in terror, 
 and her husband was at her side. They looked like two ghosts at 
 one another. " I placed him," said Giles, " by the Fishponds. It 
 is only Satan himself could have brought him back." 
 
 " It must have been Satan," replied his wife ; " but Satan must 
 not betray us. Let us drop the body through the back window 
 into the Froome." 
 
 "No, no," said Giles ; " the neighbours would hear the splash, 
 and Satan would keep the friar's body floating under our window, 
 and we should be discovered." 
 
 "Then take him," said his partner, " to the Bridge, and put him 
 in the Avon ; or, better, into the pond of Baldwin's Mill. I have 
 seen him about there, skulking after the miller's daughter ; and her 
 lover, Dighton the butcher, threatened to cut his crown for it. 
 They will think he was after no good there, and tumbled in." 
 
 Giles liked this job no more than the other, so, muttering some- 
 thing about the machinations of Beelzebub, he once more took the 
 body on his shoulders, and going round by the Fish Market, then 
 on the site of St. Stephen's Street, he had got near the mill, which 
 stood by St. Nicholas' Steps, when he heard someone coming along . 
 He propped the body against the wall, and stood by its side, hoping 
 the night-walker would pass, but the man, who also had a load on his 
 shoulders, no sooner saw what he considered were two persons, than 
 thinking himself watched, he dropped a heavy bag, and ran away. 
 
 " He surely was not going to drown another monk," said Gaston, 
 venturing to look at the load the man had dropped. It was not a 
 friar, but a dead hog in a sack a pig in a poke which the fellow, 
 doubtless, was stealing, and fancying he was in danger, threw 
 down and ran away. 
 
 Gaston's wits were quick enough this night. " Exchange is no 
 robbery," thought he, so he promptly substituted the monk's body 
 for the hog's carcase, and returned to his wife with the latter.
 
 169 
 
 In the meantime the pig-stealer, not heing pursued, and being 
 joined by a couple of accomplices, returned, and found his bag in 
 the same place. His companions twitted him on his nervousness, 
 and all three proceeded to a low hostelry, which was little better 
 than a receiving house for thieves, and the landlord of which found 
 it profitable to keep open his doors all night for such customers. 
 They put down the bag. 
 
 " What's the take to-night ? " asked the landlord. 
 
 "A hog," answered the rogues. "Gasper here found it hanging 
 in a booth in the shambles, ready for to-morrow's customers [the 
 shambles stood then near the present Bridge-street], and he haa 
 only forestalled the market, that's all." 
 
 " Is it all ! " exclaimed the landlord, starting back, for he had 
 undone the mouth of the sack, and the first thing he saw was the 
 monk's shorn head. 
 
 They all started in horror. " It is Beelzebub's doing," cried they ; 
 " for whatever is in the sack now, it was a hog that Gasper bagged." 
 
 "It is that vagabond monk, Friar John," said the tavern-keeper, 
 " and I daresay Satan has turned him into a dead hog. I knew he 
 would never come to a good end but it won't do, fiend or not, to 
 leave him here. We'd all get quartered for him ; take him, and 
 hang him up where the hog was, and be quick, or the townsfolk 
 will be about." 
 
 So they twisted a string round the Friar's neck, and put him on 
 the hook in the butcher's yard, and decamped. 
 
 Now the butcher happened to be Dighton, who had threatened 
 the Friar for sneaking after his sweetheart, the miller's daughter, 
 so when he came to his yard in the morning, he found his old enemy 
 hanging from the meat hook. " Here's a pretty go," he exclaimed 
 his first fright over. " The Abbot and all the world will say I hung 
 this varlet though it is clear he hung himself in despair for his 
 wickedness. What shall I do ?" His man, who had entered the 
 yard with him, said, " Do ; why tie him on your nag; let him 
 gallop out of the yard, and then cry ' thief ! ' The people are about 
 and will run after him, and leave the rest to chance." 
 
 The butcher was no wiseacre, so he fell in with the suggestion, 
 stupid as it was. The monk was fastened on the mare, the door of 
 the yard thrown open, and out bolted the frightened animal and 
 his dead rider. "Thief! thief!" shouted the butcher and his 
 man. " Thief ! thief ! " echoed the people through High-street, up 
 which the animal galloped furiously. " The monk has stolen the 
 butcher's horse ! " resounded from all sides, the dogs barking and 
 the folks bellowing after him. Wildly the horse tore through Corn- 
 street, under St . Leonard's Gate, and through the Marsh, making 
 for the river opposite Gib Taylor (Prince-street Bridge), and with 
 one terrific bound, leapt with its ghastly rider over the bank into the 
 tide, which was then ebbing fast, whirling horse and corpse in its 
 current. A week after, both were seen by some sailors lying in the 
 Swash, near the river's mouth, and for years the point where the 
 horse plunged into the river was known as " The Monk's Leap. " The 
 whole affair was put down to the direct agency of Satan, and Gaston, 
 who, alone knew the secret, was not such a fool as to let it out,
 
 1824 Under the (St. Ewin's) church pavement, behind what was Mr. 
 Davies's shop, was found the long hair only of a female ; and about 
 the middle of the remains of her coffin, wrapped in yellow silk, an 
 oval miniature, in oil-colours on copper, of a gentleman, dressed in the 
 costume of the early part of the last century, his flowing wig being of 
 moderate dimensions, neckcloth rose-tied, and coat a light brown, 
 without collar. Evans's History of Bristol. 
 
 About the time that the first George ascended the British, throne, 
 there lived in Broad Street, Bristol, on the west side of that 
 then picturesque thoroughfare, a Levantine and Mediterranean 
 merchant, whom we shall call Golding. He had one son, an 
 accomplished young man, but of retired and rather romantic 
 habits. When he had attained the age of fi ve-and-twenty, business 
 called Charles Golding away to Genoa, where some complication of 
 affairs with a correspondent of their house required personal 
 superintendence. He went out in one of his father's ships, which 
 alter landing him at Genoa proceeded to Alexandria, on its return 
 from which place it was to call for him again at the Italian port 
 and continue its voyage to Bristol. This arrangement allowed 
 Golding some months' stay in Italy, and having finished his 
 business at Genoa sooner than he expected, he had ample leisure to 
 make excursions into the interior. In his peregrinations he visited 
 the lakes of Lombardy, and spent weeks in exploring the romantic 
 recesses on the southern slopes of the Carnic Alps. 
 
 In the course of his journeyings he one evening reached a little 
 hamlet on the north-eastern shore of the lake Garda. The hamlet 
 consisted of a few vine-covered cottages overlooking the mirrored 
 waters of the lake, across which the setting sun then reflected a 
 great broad streak like a highway of light, gilding olive tree and 
 pine grove with its rich tints, ere sinking behind the Lombardian 
 Alps it proceeded on its course towards other regions. Charles 
 Golding reined in his horse to enjoy the glorious sight, so soon to 
 be succeeded by twilight ; and it was not until the last blush of 
 v the sun had faded from the horizon that he bethought him of 
 looking out for entertainment for self and steed. Nothing in the 
 shape of an Inn could he see, and he was about to ride to one 
 of the cottages to make enquiries, when he perceived a young 
 girl approaching from a footpath that led from the lake. Her 
 costume bespoke her no more than a peasant's daughter, yet 
 there was a dignity in her carriage and in her beauty which might 
 have belonged to the best born of the land. In her features she 
 was a true daughter of Italy : the glossy, raven hair, the soft, dark 
 eye, and the delicate olive tint were all there, and with them a 
 sweetness and courtesy of expression, when she answered his
 
 171 
 
 enquiry as to the possibility of his obtaining lodgings for the night, 
 which produced that instant effect on the romantic nature of 
 Charles Golding, which goes by the name of love at first sight. 
 
 In reply to his question, she said that the hamlet boasted no 
 hostelry, but such shelter and entertainment as her father's cottage 
 afforded were heartily at his service. 
 
 If it had been the ugliest and oldest woman in Lombardy from 
 whom this invitation came, Golding was fain to accept it, as no 
 other lodgings for the night offered : hospitality tendered by one 
 so lovely was, therefore, not to be refused. 
 
 The traveller found the family of the fair Italian what her dress 
 indicated. They were Lombardic peasants of the better order : the 
 trellised cottage, surrounded with its fruit trees and almost 
 reflected in the lake, was a pretty and picturesque object as might 
 be seen, but then the frugal household the supper of dried figs 
 and grapes and coarse brown bread showed that poverty, though 
 covered with decency, abode with them. The little circle consisted 
 of the father, mother, the girl Golding had met, a younger sister, 
 and two sons, boys of twelve and fourteen years of age. When 
 the horse he rode had been housed for the night in a cattle shed, 
 and Golding joined the family meal, the father, John Vassi, a fine 
 specimen of the peasant of Northern Italy, said a short but 
 impressive grace, which, with other indications, convinced Golding 
 that he was in one of the few Protestant hamlets which, in this 
 retired Alpine district, continued to hold its faith through centuries 
 of persecution. The supper ended, they retired to rest, Dora, the 
 eldest girl, having made up for the young Englishman a bed of 
 dried fern, which, with a woollen coverlid, served him as comfort- 
 ably as a couch of down ; for delicious, indeed, were the dreams 
 which visited his slumbers, and the soft eyes and the sweet smile of 
 Dora made a part of every vision. 
 
 He was up with the lark, but not to resume his journey. The 
 first person he met, on issuing from the cottage, was Dora returning 
 with a jar of water from the lake, and the morning's reality more 
 than confirmed the impression of the previous evening. He could 
 not depart that day : he found an excuse for delay in the beauties 
 of the lake, and returned at night to claim again the hospitalities 
 of the peasant's cottage. 
 
 The tale is partly told already. No wonder that the beauty of 
 Dora Vassi, and, what was more, her sweetness and natural 
 courtesy, made an indelible impression on the heart of the romantic 
 Golding. To live without her he felt was impossible, and to take 
 home as a wife, to the house of proud parents, the daughter of an 
 Italian peasant would, he knew, be to break their hearts, and have 
 himself, perhaps, and his bride, thrust forth upon the world. For 
 his own part, too, he did not relish the notion of being sneered at 
 by his friends and neighbours at home for a mesalliance. The folks 
 in Bristol were then pretty much what they are now ; and Charles 
 Golding himself was not without a large share of pride, and liked 
 to hold up his head as high as his neighbours, which, he feared, he 
 would not be able to do, if it were known that his wife's father 
 was only a poor vine-dresser and goatherd on the banks of the
 
 172 
 
 Garda, though Dora, with her grace, her sweetness, and self-respect, 
 might pass for the daughter of one of the palace-lodged merchant- 
 princes of Venice. 
 
 Now, this very thought suggested an escape from his difficulty. 
 Why not pass her off as such ? Why not introduce her to his father 
 and mother as one more than his equal ? Who, at that distance, 
 was to find out it was otherwise, could he only persuade the 
 object of his love to second his plan ? It was now more than a 
 week since the evening he first rode into the hamlet ; and Dora and 
 he were in a light boat on the lake, when he told her all his love 
 and all his schemes. His love the girl readily returned ; hut to 
 his suggestions that she should permit him to pass her off as the 
 daughter of an Italian aristocrat, she was not as easily induced to 
 consent. Her conscience revolted at being a. party to deceive 
 Golding's parents, and her pride forbade her to deny her own. 
 But her lover urged it would be only for a time. His father and 
 mother were old, and might not live to render secresy long 
 necessary, or she might and probably would so win upon them, 
 that they would be glad to receive her and love her though her 
 birth were still more obscure. Her family should not want for 
 funds ; and though at present it was necessary that their 
 destination should be unknown to her parents, the latter should 
 from time to time hear from and of her, and might, at no distant 
 day, join them in free England and participate in their daughter's 
 good fortune. 
 
 At length Golding so won upon her by his arguments her 
 heart being already his that she allowed him to consult her father 
 and mother, and if they consented to part with her on these terms, 
 she would, for their sakes and his sake, commit her being and 
 happiness to the keeping of the Englishman who had so strangely 
 found his way to her hamlet home. 
 
 Dora's father and mother did not feel to the same extent the 
 scruples of their daughter. They could not understand how it was 
 desirable that Golding's proud English parents at home should be 
 gained over before the whole truth was made known to them ; 
 though they at first could not see why they themselves were to be 
 kept in ignorance of the exact destination of their child. This 
 objection, too, was overruled by Golding, who suggested that a 
 secret in the keeping of a whole family might be no secret at all, 
 and that the real state of matters might thus, through some third 
 party, become known to his parents before it was desirable. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Golding's father and mother were prepared for the reception of 
 his beautiful Italian bride by letters, which he dispatched home ere 
 the ship returning from Alexandria called at Genoa to carry him 
 and Dora to England. The story which he told in his communica- 
 tion was in accordance with his own device. His bride, he said, 
 was the daughter of an Italian Count, and, unable to gain her 
 father's consent, she had fled with him and from her home. The 
 natural dignity and beauty of Doia, when she arrived with her
 
 173 
 
 husband in Bristol, were well calculated to support his narrative. 
 The old people never doubted it, and received with open arms the 
 Count's daughter, though they would, it is to be feared, have 
 refused admittance to her had she come as the child of the poor 
 vine-dresser of the lake of Garda. Their neighbours were equally 
 charmed with the lovely foreigner, and saw the " unmistakeable 
 signs of noble birth" in everything she did and said, and of course 
 estimated her society according. 
 
 But in all this success and gaiety poor Dora after a while 
 though she loved her husband as tenderly as ever began to pine 
 for her Italian home. Amidst the wealthy display of the rich 
 English city, back to her came the reminiscences of the loved 
 trellised cottage overlooking the waters of the Garda ; and then 
 the thought of those loved ones beneath its roof the mother who 
 had nursed her, the manly father his cheek tanned by sun and 
 labour the little sister that toiled by her side, and the young nut- 
 brown brothers, whose hearts nearly broke as they parted from 
 her ; while her conscience smote her to think that she was then 
 denying them, and that she was living amidst so much luxury 
 while penury and toil were their portion. To these bitter memories 
 were added the circumstance that she had not yet heard from 
 them : her husband had not informed them of her destination, and 
 had forbidden her to write, lest some " unpleasant revelation " 
 should be made. More than once she asked him for tidings of her 
 far off Italian home, and to remove from her his prohibition against 
 writing, but he answered in a manner that showed her importunity 
 annoyed him. Kepelled from sympathy, she had recourse to grief 
 in secret : and not in secret only, for sometimes in company her 
 feelings would come upon her with a rush that overbore all 
 restraint ; and when she sang one of her little Italian songs to her 
 lute, the melody would bring back the thoughts of home and 
 kindred, and tears would fall upon her hands and instrument, so 
 that some people whispered she was unhappy, and that the high- 
 bred " Italian Countess," in the society of wealthy burghers, 
 " pined for the splendid marble halls of her father's palace." Poor 
 Dora, how happy would she have been if she and her husband were 
 only vinedressers on the pleasant banks of the Garda. 
 
 Thus three years passed, at the end of which Golding's parents 
 died, and then his wife sought the fulfilment of his promise that 
 her family and she should be united. But though Charles Golding's 
 love for his Italian wife was after a fashion as intense as ever, his 
 feelings shrank from any step which might endanger his respect- 
 ability. He plainly told his wife she must be content to be severed 
 for ever from her family, though he would take care that the 
 means of greater comfort were procured for them. No wonder 
 that conduct like this led to some little estrangement between 
 them. Dora was constantly closeting herself, refusing society, and 
 more than ever suffering from her home sickness. Everything 
 reminded her of the loved peasant cottage on the Garda : when 
 the chimes of the Bristol churches were heard on a summer 
 Sunday morning, they recalled to mind the time when she listened 
 to the echoes of the bells as they were borne on the lake from the
 
 174 
 
 nearest village church, and she could notftake a walk in the 
 neighbourhood without memories of her loved Lombardy being 
 awakened. 
 
 Her eye was losing its lustre and her cheek growing wan under 
 this struggle, and her husband, who could not understand how, 
 amid all that wealth could procure, she pined after a rough 
 peasant's lot, began to put down her grief to other causes. The 
 morbid thought got possession of him that she only accepted him 
 because he was wealthy, and that she might have formed some 
 other affection ere chance led him to her native hills. To this alone 
 he thought was attributable her estrangement : he even charged 
 her with it, and in the bitterness of her grief she took little trouble 
 to disabuse him of the impression, though in reality he now, as 
 always, was the sole possessor of her heart ; and yet, perhaps, she 
 imagined this new fancy of his might lead to some change for the 
 better, and that in order to secure her love he would comply with 
 her wishes. Thus she unconsciously fed the passion which in 
 secret preyed upon him, and while both grew more estranged, he 
 also grew daily more and more jealous of some unknown and 
 imaginary rival. 
 
 Curious enough, while such were the causes of Gelding's and his 
 wife's unhappiness, their acquaintances had put down the alteration 
 in their manner to each other, not to Golding's pride but to Dora's, 
 and to her distaste for a mode of life inferior to that in which she 
 had been brought up. Thus matters stood when one day, as she 
 was nursing in secret as usual her home-sickness, and wondering 
 how the world went with those she loved far off in Lombardy, her 
 ears caught the strain of a little melody she had never heard but 
 in her own far off hamlet. She listened ; the words were in 
 Italian, and familiar to her ; the accompaniment was played on an 
 instrument such as the Lombardic peasants were accustomed to sing 
 to. She ran to the casement, and opening it, beheld in the street a 
 young Italian, about seventeen years of age, with black hair, bright 
 eyes, and handsome nut-brown features. What makes the poor, 
 fair exile's sight swim, and her knees to totter ? Many an Italian 
 boy had sung and played in front of the old White Lion opposite, 
 without producing any such effect upon her, but with a sister's 
 instinct and a sister's eye she had discovered in the street minstrel, 
 who all unconsciously sang his Lombardic melody in front of the 
 house of his richly married sister, her brother Alberto, he whose 
 arms could with difficulty be disentangled from her neck as he bade 
 her adieu four years ago, ere she entered the carriage and was 
 carried off by her English husband. All her pent up affection burst 
 forth, and she stopped not to consider if her husband would consent 
 to recognise a brother-in-law in the young Italian vagrant, and the 
 youth might go away while she prayed and entreated permission to 
 see him. No time was to be lost. She called one of the servants, 
 and told him to send up the young singer, as she wished to hear 
 his melody. It was only natural that his Italian mistress should 
 wish to hear Italian music, so the man executed his errand, and the 
 young minstrel was introduced into the room, doffing his cap with 
 a winning smile, and the usual "Miladi" salutation. Dora's back
 
 175 
 
 was to the light, and the youth did not recognise her. As she 
 turned round, however, and addressed him in Italian, her own voice 
 trembling with emotion as the well-known tones of her brother's 
 thrilled upon her ear, the youth gave a cry of joyful recognition, 
 and crying " 0, sorella mia," rushed forward. With that heartfelt 
 exclamation all cold considerations of caution vanished, and Dora 
 flung herself into her Alberto's arms : the beautiful wife of the proud 
 Bristol merchant lay sobbing in the embrace of the young street 
 musician. 
 
 In this ecstatic meeting they heard not, they heeded not, footsteps 
 on the staircase. Dora noticed not, saw not her husband's entrance, 
 and the black expression of jealousy that passed across his features, 
 as with a sudden and violent effort he separated the young man 
 from the embrace of his sister, and in a paroxysm of rage flung 
 him forth from the room, arid ere he could recover himself, Alberto 
 fell headlong down the stairs. With a loud cry of agony Dora was 
 quickly by the side of her insensible brother, and ere another 
 minute passed, Golding himself had learnt that he who was all but 
 lifeless was no rival but his wife's mother's son, come to seek his 
 loved and unheard-of sister in a far land, and maintaining himself, 
 during his affectionate search, by his voice and his instrument. To 
 do him justice, no one could have been more shocked at the sad 
 results of his almost involuntary act than was Golding. He lifted 
 the body of the Italian youth, bore him up stairs and placed him 
 on a couch, but the bright eye was fast getting glazed, and the 
 colour fleeting from the brown cheek. In the fall the boy had 
 received a fatal injury where the spine meets the brain, and in a 
 few minutes more life had departed, though Dora still hung over 
 him kissing and bathing his handsome features with her tears, until 
 she suddenly became conscious of the terrible truth, that not a 
 living but a lifeless body was in her arms. Then she rose, and all 
 the meek endurance of four years had departed from her nature ; 
 she faced round on her husband, fire flashing from her eyes. 
 "Proud, cruel, heartless man!" she cried, "murderer of my 
 brother, from this moment I tear you from my heart as I do this 
 picture from my neck," and with that she broke the chain of a 
 miniature of Golding, that until then had hung round her neck, 
 threw it from her, and once more she flung herself on the body of 
 Alberto. 
 
 A deep groan that seemed to rend his heart burst from Golding, 
 and with that agonised expression of remorse and grief departed all 
 that was bad in his nature, pride and jealousy which had caused 
 the death of a fellow being. ' ' I have sinned," said he, " I am 
 punished the curse of Cain is upon me ; " and like another Cain 
 he went forth to wander on the earth. 
 
 Fortunately there were none of the servants present when the 
 fatal accident occurred, and for an accident only it passed. The 
 day after, however, when the first paroxysm of Dora's grief had 
 somewhat softened, she received a letter from Golding, the bitter 
 heart-broken remorse and agony of which could not fail to 
 touch even one who had suffered so much by his violence. He 
 said he would that day leave for Italy, and when he brought back
 
 176 
 
 to England her parents, her sister, and her surviving brother, and 
 acknowledged them in the face of the world and made them the 
 sharers of all he had, that then and not till then he would ask for 
 her forgiveness. If anything in the meantime happened to him and 
 he was unable to carry out his purpose, the utmost he could ask 
 her was that if she thought he might be pardoned, she would again 
 place the miniature around her neck, however unworthy the 
 original. He also enclosed a few words, making her the sole 
 heiress of his property in case of death. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Nearly a year passed and nothing was heard of Golding ; and the 
 longer his absence, the more Dora's old love for him returned. 
 She now found excuses for much that she before blamed, and when 
 at length intelligence reached Bristol that the ship in which he 
 sailed had been seized by Algerine pirates who then infested the 
 Mediterranean, and every soul on board was put to death, she turned 
 upon herself all the accusations she once levelled at him, and 
 upbraided herself with being his murderer, having driven him 
 forth with a cruel speech, every word of which seemed traced with 
 a barbed arrow of self accusation indelibly on her memory. These 
 accumulated struggles proved too much for poor Dora. Days of 
 anguish were followed by fever and delirium, which rendered it 
 necessary that the long, black, silky tresses, so often admired, 
 should be cut from her head. But it was all to no purpose ; she 
 sank rapidly, and a short time before she expired consciousness 
 returned for a few minutes, when she whispered the request that 
 the miniature which she wore round her neck should be buried 
 with her. Her wish was complied with, and ere they closed the 
 coffin the physician who attended her placed her long hair in it 
 also, saying it had added to her loveliness in life, and in death it 
 must not be divided from her. 
 
 Twelve years more had flown by, and the story of the fair Italian 
 was almost forgotten by her neighbours round the High Cross, 
 when one evening the sexton of St. E wen's was accosted by a 
 swarthy stranger, as he was locking the church door. He asked 
 to be allowed to enter, and then begged the sexton to point him. 
 out the tomb where the ashes of the Italian lady lay. The sexton 
 did so, and in his communicativeness pointed out another grave 
 close by ; " It was that," he said, " of an Italian boy, who had 
 met with his death in a strange manner in her house." "It was 
 an odd story," he said, " the poor lady died mad, and raved about 
 her husband and this boy, whom she called her brother. " "And 
 the husband?" asked the stranger in a husky voice, "What 
 became of him ? " 
 
 " They said he was killed by pirates," answered the man, "on 
 his way to Italy, but if I might make bold to guess," he continued, 
 looking the stranger full in the face, " Mr. Charles Golding now 
 stands before me." 
 
 It was Golding, who had escaped from an Algerine prison, for
 
 177 
 
 the pirates had retained him (for the hope of ransom) ; his hair had 
 grown grey, and his features dark and wan. He confessed his 
 identity, and more than that he made a confidant of the sexton, 
 and that night, when all around were asleep, he had the grave 
 opened, and though the body of Dora had mouldered away, when 
 he saw the miniature he raised a cry of joy, and fell sobbing on the 
 pavement. Golding's remaining strength only appeared to serve 
 him to reach the grave of his wife. From the old church he 
 departed but to take to his bed, and never left it until his body, 
 too, was borne to the church of St. Ewen, and deposited in the 
 tomb that enclosed the ashes of his wife, and now contained all 
 that remained of the original, as well as the little oval MINIATURE 
 which supplies a name for my story.
 
 iristnl glterait imfr (jig 
 
 [John Whitson, the founder of the Red Maids' Hospital, who died in 1629. 
 owing to injuries received by a fall from his horse while riding near his 
 country house at Ashton, in Wiltshire, disinherited his step-daughter, 
 Sarah Hynde, the child of his second wife, for marrying against his 
 wish, alleging as his reason for so doing that she refused to be ruled by 
 him in the matter of her marriage. Whitson's residence in Bristol was 
 in Nicholas Street, late the Queen-Bess public-house, but now forming 
 part of the Athenaeum Chambers.] 
 
 Alderman Whitson and his neighbour Colton sat after dinner in 
 front of the great fire-place in the Alderman's dining-room in his 
 house in Nicholas Street, the same room and great carved chimney- 
 piece which, until recent years, had so long been lions of our local 
 domestic architecture. Both men had risen to be magnates from 
 very humble origin, both loved to talk of their early struggles, and 
 both, while affecting to take pride in their humble birth, were very 
 lofty and imperious old gentlemen in their way. The subject of 
 their evening's conversation was a proposed alliance between 
 Colton's son and the Alderman's pretty step-daughter, Sarah 
 Hynde. Of course Whitson never asked the young girl whether 
 she would like Master Colton, junior, whose chief attraction con- 
 sisted in a certain derivative capacity for making money which 
 belonged to the family, whose talent for getting was only equalled 
 by their genius for keeping what they got. Sarah herself, as she 
 tripped lightly into the room with a fresh flask of Rhenish for this 
 long-headed old pair, never dreamt that they were bargaining her 
 away as if she were a bag of wool or any other article of 
 merchandize, and least of all did her step-father fancy that she 
 would be imprudent enough to dispute his will and pleasure. 
 Presently, however, a tap is heard at the door, and a young man, 
 one of Whitson's clerks with some letters from the counting-house, 
 enters. He stands, cap in hand, while the Alderman peruses the 
 papers, and is rewarded by his patron with a glass of wine ; and 
 though he is a frank, pleasant, intelligent-looking young fellow, 
 and a steady clever youth (as his master pronounces him after he 
 leaves the apartment), the Alderman allows him to drink it stand- 
 ing ; for though originally a poor boy himself, who had come across 
 the Severn to seek his fortune in Bristol, he felt of course it would 
 derogate from his dignity to offer the youth a seat. But never 
 mind Richard Holdworthy (for such was the young man's name) 
 is solaced for the slight (if slight there be) as he leaves the room 
 and meets outside Mistress Sarah Hynde, from whom he receives a 
 smiling look and a pleasant word. 
 
 Ah! go on, old gentlemen, and bargain over your older wine. If 
 you could only see through the great oak door, how that blooming 
 girl met the frank young clerk on the lobby after he left you, you 
 would be convinced that there must be even more than two to a
 
 179 
 
 bargain. Mistress Hynde had a good pair of blue eyes, and when 
 she called at the counting-house for her step-father she did not 
 shut them when the good-looking young clerk, by some stealthy 
 glances over his account book, became aware that if he had not a 
 very faint heart he might win a fair lady Where there is a will 
 there is a way ; and when Richard Holdworthy went upstairs after 
 dinner with the letters, as was his wont, his frequent meetings with 
 Mistress Sarah by the great dining-room door, were not mere 
 meetings of chance and accident, any more than were the brief 
 interviews which took place between the young people before 
 Richard tapped at the oak door, and the full authoritative voice of 
 the old Alderman was heard to say " Come in." 
 
 However, the Alderman was soon to be enlightened. As a mere 
 matter of form he told Mistress Sarah one morning that she was to 
 be married, and she, as a matter of natural curiosity, asked her 
 step-father to whom : and when informed that it was to John Col ton 
 (who, as he sat opposite to her in St. Nicholas Church, was the 
 object of her silent, but special dislike), she answered in a manner 
 that marvellously astonished the Alderman, that " She could not 
 dream of marrying a mere money grubber." 
 
 When an old man, who is very wealthy and thinks himself very 
 wise, hears his pleasure for the first time disputed, and that by a 
 little baggage of a girl, it is surprising what a novel but unpleasant 
 sensation he experiences. Old Whitson was an oracle in his way, 
 and the deference paid him out of doors was a bad preparation for 
 his patiently receiving opposition within. He was preremptory 
 and the girl was positive, and, in the candour of the moment, not 
 only told him whom she would not have, but whom she would have, 
 and that John Colton she abhorred, and Richard Holdworthy she 
 loved. 
 
 " What ! a penniless hireling in my counting-house ? " exclaimed 
 Whitson ; and Sarah, in her impetuosity, reminded her step-papa 
 that he himself had been a poor boy, and that Richard Holdworthy 
 could, by her dear father's assistance, rise as he had done. 
 
 "By my assistance!" cried the Alderman, he could say 
 
 no more, he was in such a sublime state of indignation, but stalked 
 down to the counting-house, and calling Holdworthy into his 
 
 Erivate room closed the door, and looked the young culprit in the 
 ice. " So you," said he, " have had the assurance to make love 
 to my step-daughter?" 
 
 Holdworthy frankly admitted that he "could not help it." How 
 could he ? People can no more help falling in love than they can 
 help falling sick. He hoped the Alderman would forgive them 
 both, and permit them to be happy. 
 
 This did not at all please the magnate. " I suppose," said he, 
 indignantly, "you imagine I am going to stand godfather to a 
 pretty romance, join your hands, bid you be happy, and ask you to 
 walk in and make yourselves comfortable with my hard-earned 
 fortune ; be an obedient old fellow, sit in the chimney-corner, and 
 see you bill and coo. What do you think I am going to do with 
 my money ?" 
 Holdworthy said he would not presume to guess, " but as the
 
 180 
 
 alderman had no children of his own, and could not take it with 
 him to another world, he did not think he could make a better use 
 of a portion of it than by helping a couple of young people, who 
 would ever be grateful and try to be industrious." 
 
 Whitson, like all people who have not much reason on their side, 
 would not condescend to argue the question, but immediately had 
 recourse to a personal appeal. "Go," said he; "see Mistress 
 Hynde, and dissuade her out of a foolish notion which you have 
 craftily put into her head, and if in half an hour you do not return 
 to me with her repentant promise to marry John Colton, you shall 
 pack for ever out of my counting-house, and she shall have no place 
 either in my will or my affection." 
 
 Holdworthy bowed, took his cap and departed, while the Alder- 
 man proceeded, in a somewhat perturbed state of mind, to turn 
 over his letters. Foolish Alderman Whitson, to send the fox with 
 a message to the poultry-yard ! " Sarah," said Holdworthy ; " the 
 Alderman is in a rage, and has sent me to request you to make me 
 the bearer of your promise to wed John Colton, but I think I could 
 suggest a much better course." 
 
 What that course was the sequel showed ; for when an hour 
 expired and Holdworthy had not returned, the Alderman went to 
 see for himself, and called Sarah Hynde from the top of the house 
 to the bottom, but no Sarah Hynde was to be heard or seen. Then 
 Whitson went to his strong chest^and took out his will, and a cloud 
 of dark indignation overshadowed his brow, as he began erasing 
 her name for the handsome dowry he had left her therein. "The 
 white plate which was her mother's," and "the damask, which was 
 marked with the letter 'M,'" and "the diamond ring, and the two 
 small chains of gold, and the six damask napkins," and "the house 
 in Corn Street" all, all were scratched out.* 
 
 Oh ! that expression in the Alderman's eyes, and those compressed 
 lips, as he put back the altered will into the strong box, boded no 
 good to the runaway pair. For run away they did, and the citizens 
 had the story of the truant lovers irom Nicholas Gate to the 
 Gaunts, before the evening had set in ; but the stern and upright 
 Alderman was next morning at the Tolzey as usual, and no one 
 would imagine from his countenance, as no one had ventured to 
 question him, what had taken place. 
 
 Mistress Sarah and her young husband shortly returned, and 
 there was a story about her having gone one winter's night to the 
 great house in Nicholas Street, and stolen upstairs, and thrown her- 
 self at her step-father's feet as he sat silent and solitary by his great 
 carved chimney-piece, and asked his forgiveness and his help in 
 their struggle to make way in the world ; and that the old 
 Alderman continued relentless, and Sarah left the great house once 
 more hopeless to meet her husband, who awaited her outside in the 
 street. 
 
 But they had better help than the Alderman. Heaven favoured 
 
 * This is nearly an exact copy of what Whitson had left Sarah Hynde 
 in his first will, and afterwards revoked. The hardship of the case was 
 that he actually disinherited her of her mother's own property.
 
 181 
 
 their honest young efforts to struggle with the world, and Hold- 
 worthy continued to advance in prosperity and rise in the city, 
 while Whitson spent most of a contemplative half-moody old age at 
 his country house at Rood Ashton. At length, after some years 
 had passed, and Holdworthy had become a citizen of substance, he 
 and his wife, when they no longer wanted help, resolved in the 
 early spring of 1629 to visit the Alderman at his country seat and 
 entreat a reconciliation, which they had reason to suppose would 
 not be ungrateful to him. It was afternoon as they approached 
 the snug mansion, and they were speculating on their probable 
 reception when a riderless horse attracted their attention, and 
 presently, lying by the road side, the old Alderman himself. They 
 flew to his assistance, but life was fast ebbing. He seemed, 
 however, to recognise them, and muttered some words, which they 
 fondly fancied were " Forgive and be forgiven." 
 
 Every one has heard of the grand funeral which the founder of 
 the Red Maids' Hospital had. He was buried on the 9th of March 
 in the crypt of St. Nicholas church, where, as well as in the west 
 entrance, his monument may yet be seen, and was seen last 
 November 20, when the Red Maids and City School Boys attended 
 divine service on the Alderman's anniversary. All the Corporation, 
 in mourning gloves, attended the grand obsequies. The trained 
 bands, too (their fifes and drums playing solemn tunes), the boys of 
 Queen Elizabeth's Hospital, and seventy-five old men in black 
 gowns accompanied the procession, while as the funeral train 
 passed along the Quay minute guns were fired. But amongst all 
 that crowd there was not one who more sincerely mourned than 
 Richard Holdworthy, who had stolen away that stern old 
 Alderman's step-daughter. 
 
 In 1634-5, as you will find by passing your finger down the list 
 of Mayors, Holdworthy was Chief Magistrate of Bristol ; the same 
 year that the Red Maids' Hospital to endow which Whitson had 
 disinherited Sarah Hynde was opened with twelve girls. The 
 first Sunday they went publicly to church, the Mayoress, scarlet- 
 gowned like themselves, walked at their head, calling them her 
 twelve young sisters for whom she had been disinherited ; and the 
 citizens looked on and blessed the good woman, who as she ever 
 after took an interest in that institution, always admitted that her 
 father, in providing for those poor children, had made a better use 
 of his money than in enriching a disobedient daughter who had 
 been more prosperous than she deserved to be.
 
 Colstons 3pcrij|al fate 
 
 [For the truth of the following (it will be admitted very extraordinary) 
 passage in the life of Colston, the reader must take my own word, as I 
 am not prepared at present to produce the important and lately dis- 
 covered manuscripts from which it is taken, I quite expect to see some 
 irreverent and unbelieving antiquarian throw a doubt on the whole, 
 and perhaps cite authorities to prove that my narrative is a fiction. 
 Now with regard to this, all I have to say is with poor Power, in 
 
 His Last Legs, " D all your authorities " I don't care a fig for them ; 
 
 there's Barrett lias written a history on the strength of the Rowley 
 manuscripts, and Dumas has constructed a large book on celebrated 
 criminals from his own imagination. At the proper time namely 
 Colston's Day I mean to produce my documents, as the present paper 
 was written for the purpose of being perused at the next Dolphin 
 dinner, in conformity with the usual custom of reading ' ' something 
 connected " with the Philanthropist on that charity festive occasion.] 
 Barrett says Colston was "at years of maturity sent as a factor 
 to Spain ; " but Barrett seems ignorant of the real cause of 
 Colston's departure, which took place at an earlier age than one 
 might be disposed to infer from this. It will doubtless appear 
 to my readers a new passage in the life of the Philanthropist, 
 when informed that he had been a lover and was crossed in love. 
 The cause of Colston's continued celibacy is put down to his phil- 
 anthropy ; but his saying when urged to marry, that every "widow 
 was his wife, and her distressed orphans his children," was only 
 the amiable apology under which he concealed the painful secret 
 and resolution of his life. 
 
 The family of Colston were ever celebrated for their high Church 
 and royalist principles ; and in his youth, when party spirit ran 
 high, and the terrors and dissensions of the Republican period 
 with all its persecutions were still fresh in the recollection of men, 
 a difference on the important points of politics and religion was 
 deemed an insuperable barrier to anything like intimacy between 
 two families. Young Colston inherited the principles of his 
 ancestors. To serve God and honour the King was the motto on 
 which he acted ; and if he was too charitable to cherish hatied for 
 those persons in the city who were known as inveterate Puritans 
 and Republicans, he was taught from an early age to regard them 
 with distant and distrustful leelings. How one seemingly so forti- 
 fied against such casualties could be touched with love his first 
 and last love for the daughter of a notoriously disaffected house 
 therefore appears strange. But this was the fact. The name of 
 Vickeris for nearly half a century had been associated with all the 
 discontent, fanaticism, intrigues, and plots of the city. Not only 
 had the male members of the family been violent partizans, but in 
 the time of the Parliamentary struggles the female branches had, 
 if possible, been still more active ; Mrs. Vickeris, in the time of 
 Charles I., having been the principal means of letting the Eepub-
 
 183 
 
 lican army into the city. They could boast of one merit, however, 
 in their principles they were consistent. The reign of Queen 
 Anne found them at least as malignant in feeling as they were 
 under the first of the Stuarts. But there are at times as handsome 
 faces amongst malignants as amongst the most loyal. We can't keep 
 all the beauty on our side of the question, though one thinks a 
 blooming cheek and a bright eye should never belong but to loyalty. 
 Ann Vickeris had both, and a certain peculiar expression which gave 
 softness and sweetness of character to features naturally so well 
 favoured. How Colston became first acquainted with the fair 
 Republican I cannot say. There are a hundred opportunities, when 
 youth and beauty are attractive, for both to meet without any one 
 having need to trouble their head with a hundred conjectures. 
 And meet they did, and that often, but never at the houses 
 of one or the other : the party feelings of either family were too 
 strong for that a great gulf of religion and politics divided 
 them. Many of the citizens noticed the growing intimacy, and 
 gravely predicted a union between the representative of the rich 
 royalist, Colston, and the fair daughter of the republican, Vickeris : 
 yet, though there were many to gossip about this little love affair, 
 neither family as those most interested are often the last to be 
 informed in such matters knew anything about it ; for both the 
 lovers were doubtless conscious of the difficulty which interposed 
 between them in this respect, and avoided disclosing the secret for 
 the present to their friends, unknown to whom they met. 
 
 There are always good-natured persons, however, ready to assist 
 people to early and authentic intormation, and one afternoon as 
 old Vickeris was bustling through College Green, he was stopped 
 by an inveterate gossip, a person who, having nothing better to 
 employ his time, spent most of it amongst the favourite and shady 
 promenades of the Green. There are always such men in every 
 age and in every place, from the crowded city to the country 
 town they live upon rumour ; tattling is a luxury essential to 
 them, and they'd as soon almost be without their breakfast as a 
 fresh report for the day. You meet them lounging in public rooms, 
 lolling against lamp-posts, and looking out for people to lay hold 
 of by the button-hole. Such a local nuisance was the person 
 who accosted old Vickeris, and congratulated him on the approach- 
 ing marriage of his daughter. Vickeris was surprised, and being 
 of gruff manners, inquired whether his informant was mad or 
 dreaming ; his daughter was not going to be married to his know- 
 ledge. " Then she's going to be married^ without it," replied the 
 gossip ; " and I am glad you are about to infuse some liberal blood 
 into old Colston's family ; I hope she'll convert the red hot royalist 
 as well as his son." 
 
 " Young Colston my daughter," muttered the old Puritan, 
 "they don't even know one another." 
 
 " Don't thej* ?" said the gossip ; " When you have been poking 
 over your ledger, and falling asleep over invoices of indigo, they 
 have been cooing like turtle doves under these green trees. Bless 
 your soul, why it was talked of last night in the Nag's Head, and 
 they said he meant to run away with her indeed I saw myself
 
 184 
 
 rather a suspicious looking coach, and four this morning are you 
 quite sure your daughter is at home ? " 
 
 Old Vickeris merely muttered " An old fool ! " and making no 
 further reply, turned on his heel somewhat perturbed, looking, as 
 the gossip afterwards remarked in the Nag's Head when retailing 
 the conversation to two parties, by whom it was transmitted to 
 posterity " as if he was just being obliged to subscribe to the 
 Thirty-nine Articles." 
 
 What could make old Vickeris seem so uncomfortable might be 
 a matter of surprise to many, for "in all that makes a match 
 desirable " (to use the parlance of the world) young Edward Colston 
 was everything a man could desire for his daughter (with the ex- 
 ception, the single exception of party). But this, as subsequent 
 events showed, was the objection with Vickeris. There was an old 
 political feud between the families, and there had further been a 
 personal quarrel between him and the elder Colston, who was still 
 living, and whom he cordially hated. His feeling in this respect, 
 too, might have been fortified by the secret conviction that to 
 Edward's father the alliance would be still more distasteful than 
 even to himself. 
 
 All unconscious of the impending cloud, poor Mistress Ann was 
 arraying herself for an afternoon walk, in which it is possible she 
 would not have been unaccompanied, when her father knocked at 
 the door. " Come in," said Ann, and old Vickeris entered. What 
 passed between father and daughter, the historian has no means of 
 ascertaining. Ann, however, did not go out to walk that evening, 
 and when she left her dressing-room her eyes were red : but a 
 faithful historian, unless cognizant of the fact, should not assume 
 from this that she had been weeping. 
 
 "Where can that old round-head be going in such a hurry?" 
 inquired two citizens almost in the same breath of each other, as 
 they stood by their door in High Street, and saw old Vickeria pass 
 in a kind of trotting gait, which he always adopted when bound 
 upon urgent business or mischief. " Something is in the wind," 
 yon may rest assured, said the elder partner : " Puritanism looking 
 up, or indigo down." They were wags, were these citizens, well- 
 to-do-in the world ? They loved the Church, honoured the King, 
 and kept good wares, and when the hurry of the day was over, 
 their enjoyment was to stand at their own shop door, each with 
 his shoulder against a post, and crack jokes with those who passed ; 
 and there was something so good-humoured in their faces, so 
 hearty in their laugh, that you might see the neighbouring trades- 
 men one after the other leave their own thresholds, and join in the 
 merriment, or as they expressed it themselves, " speak with them 
 in the gate." Old Vickeris, however, did not relax a muscle as he 
 passed this merry group, whose evening's entertainments were so 
 well-known : his sour visage seemed to grow, if possible, more 
 ascetic. 
 
 The elder Colston, dinner over, was seated with his son before a 
 bottle of canary in the principal summer apartment of his house in 
 the Temple (as the precincts of Temple parish were then familiarly 
 called). The lattice which was open, and surrounded with clusters
 
 of roses peeping in as it were inquisitively on the two, looked out 
 on a small though neat and trim garden, in the centre of which 
 was a fountain surmounted by two Dolphins (the family device), 
 discharging jets of water from their mouths. " Come, .Edward," 
 said the father, " fill your glass ; you seem for the last half-hour 
 as though you were anxious to rid me of your company one would 
 fancy you were in love, and had to meet your mistress." Had not 
 the attention of the elder Colston been withdrawn at that moment 
 by the entrance of a servant, he might have noticed that his son 
 reddened. 
 
 " Master Vickeris wishes to see you, sir," said the servant. 
 The young Colston again changed colour. " Master Vickeris ! " 
 repeated his father, with surprise, not having spoken to the old 
 republican for years. " What can he want with me ? Tell him to 
 walk up." The servant left the room with the message, but 
 returned to say that Master Vickeris wished to see him in private. 
 
 The elder Colston, though a stern unbending man, was a 
 gentleman in mind and bearing. Vickeris, however, partook 
 largely of the characteristics of his party. Morose but naturally 
 awkward, he concealed his awkwardness under a seeming of blunt 
 independence. Colston led the way into his study, a small 
 wainscoted apartment. On entering Vickeris said without further 
 preface, " I believe, Mr. Colston, you entertain no very friendly 
 regard for me ?" 
 
 Surprised at this sudden address, the other hesitated before 
 attempting to answer so invidious a question. " Come," said 
 Vickeris, seeing his hesitation, " I suppose that offspring of 
 insincerity called politeness prevents you replying to a downright 
 question with a downright answer : but I, you know, am no great 
 lover of Kings, and, therefore, no adept in these courtly arts : to 
 free your candour then from any restraint allow me to lead the 
 way by saying I am no friend of you or yours. We have always 
 been political enemies, our parties are opposite as the poles, and I 
 shall and always did consider my political enemy as my personal 
 foe." 
 
 " Then," said Colston, with some composure, " since you have 
 been so frank as to volunteer this confession, I am free to confess 
 there is no love lost between us." 
 
 " So far then we understand each other," said Vickeris. " Pray 
 how would you like to have this family feud patched up with a 
 marriage?" 
 
 " With a marriage !" repeated Colston, with astonishment. 
 
 " Yes," said Vickeris ; " how would you like a republican branch 
 grafted on your royal oak ?" 
 
 " Your language is a riddle to me." 
 
 "Then it shall be no longer," replied Vickeris : " in fact and in 
 short your son and my daughter are in love, and were progressing 
 towards matrimony when I discovered the secret." 
 
 The elder Colston, though not a coarse man like Vickeris, was a 
 proud man and a stern man. Of higher rank and more ancient 
 family than Vickeris, he would have regarded in any case such a 
 match as below his son's position and deserts ; but the notorious
 
 186 
 
 disaffection of the family of Vickeris was an insurmountable 
 obstacle in his eyes even to a friendly intercourse, to say nothing 
 of an alliance. He was silent for a moment with chagrin and 
 surprise. 
 
 Vickeris noticed it. " I see," said he, " you are no more disposed 
 to fuse the two bloods than I am, and I would keep the republican 
 pure ; no daughter of mine shall steal an unwelcome guest into 
 any house, least of all in a royalist's. It is for this, therefore, that 
 I have called to combine with you in this one matter, as we never 
 did in any other I to save my daughter from an alliance with 
 your family : you to save your son from a connection with mine." 
 
 Colston was more and more surprised at the extraordinary tone 
 Vickeris assumed. This was the very thing he wished to do the 
 moment he heard of the ill-assorted attachment : yet he hesitated 
 for a moment lest, in so rudely snapping such a bond, he should 
 tear up many tender feelings with it. He knew too his son was 
 high spirited, and would not brook much domination on this head 
 even if he were disposed to exercise it : but to be allied to so 
 notoriously a disaffected family, and after the head of that family 
 had himself so insolently spurned the alliance, was an act against 
 which his pride and feelings revolted. In order to have time to 
 consider what was best to be done, he therefore coldly said in reply 
 that he trusted too much to his son's pride and prudence tor 
 maintaining the character of his house, to have many fears on that 
 head. 
 
 " Place little reliance in one or the other," said Vickeris, " when 
 that silly passion, love, is so strong. Trust rather to time and 
 distance. Better send your son abroad than leave him at home 
 to break his heart about a girl he shall never have ;" with that he 
 turned on his heel and departed. 
 
 A fortnight after this the future philanthropist sailed for Spain ; 
 and considering how generally and correctly conjectured the cause 
 of his departure was at the time, it is only to be wondered at that 
 it has not reached us before. There was a report, too, that the 
 evening before he left, he contrived to have an interview with Ann 
 Vickeris, and that they renewed their vows of constancy. Of this, 
 however, I have no authentic proof ; but more than one costly 
 present, which reached her during the year, proved that Colston's 
 love, at least, was unimpaired. For the honour of the fair sex, I 
 wish I could say the same for Mistress Ann Vickeris. Some say 
 she was tyrannized over by her family ; others that she heard 
 Colston was married to the daughter of a Spanish Don ; and others 
 that she forgot the absent young Royalist in the presence of a 
 handsome young malignant who became her suitor : others that 
 she despaired of old Colston ever sanctioning the marriage. How- 
 ever this may be, at the end of two years after the young 
 philanthropist's departure for Spain she was married to another. 
 Some were surprised, some blamed, and some excused her ; but 
 how Colston himself received the intelligence of her broken faith, 
 which reached him soon after, was a secret only known to himself. 
 
 To thia bitter disappointment, however, we probably owe the 
 munificent charities that now bear his name, and the incalculable
 
 187 
 
 amount of good he did during his life-time. He was of too 
 wholesome and well-regulated a mind of which affection 
 rather than romance was the pervading character to fly off into 
 excesses of rage or grief. Nay more, in the benevolence of his 
 nature he may have palliated the infidelity of one whom he so 
 loved, and devised the strongest excuse of any for her weakness. 
 But his heart, nevertheless, keenly felt the deprivation. Be that 
 as it may, however, the precious image which hope and love had 
 set up in his breast being removed and for ever, he determined 
 that philanthropy alone should occupy its place. His mind and 
 sympathies were now free to follow out to the uttermost the noble 
 principles that always actuated taem : the boundless benevolence 
 of that nature over which she might have reigned mistress, he 
 determined not to allow any morbid misamhropy or bitter dis- 
 appointment to congeal ; but to give it up, and consecrate its best 
 impulses to the active service and amelioration of the whole human 
 race. Instead of wasting his energies in sickly repinings for a 
 mistress's infidelity, or revenging himself upon society in general 
 for the fault of one by narrow seclusion from the world, he made 
 this great and generous resolve that he would, as he could not wrap 
 himself in the amiable selfishness of a single love, embrace the whole 
 world in his affections : ' ' If I could not retain the devotion of 
 one," said he, " I will earn the gratitude by achieving the good of 
 thousands : as she whom I would have called my own would not 
 be my wife, every poor widow shall supply her place in my 
 solicitude ; and since children are denied me, every orphan shall 
 be my adopted." .Posterity knows how he kept his resolve. It 
 seemed as if his disappointment, bitter as it was for the moment, 
 was wisely and providentially ordained, as well for his own fame as 
 for society ; for had the course of true love run smooth, he would 
 now perhaps have been forgotten amongst the amiable husoands of 
 the seventeenth century. He would doubtless have been an 
 excellent father to his family, but possibly not a parent to his 
 native city. And to him the title of " father of the city" truly 
 belonged ; the noblest monuments atiest his claim to it he earned 
 it by a life of active benevolence and charities that will survive 
 him to the end of time. 
 
 This disappointment may have induced Edward Colston to remain 
 longer in Spain than at hrst he determined. For some years before 
 he returned to Bristol, however, there were none in the city who 
 lived in greater splendour than Ann Vickeris (now Silke) and her 
 husband. Hers was evidently a nature too light to be influenced 
 by any lasting love or regret ; and if her mind ever recurred to her 
 first love for Uolston, it was possibly only to treat it as an early and 
 mere fancy of youth. It was well for her that the Philanthropist's 
 affection and remembrance were of a more enduring character, for 
 in a few years more a dark cloud passed over their fortunes. A 
 large venture in which her husband was engaged failed : that 
 failure was followed by another and another, anl one morning the 
 city was startled from its propriety by the intelligence that 
 "Merchant tiilke" was a bankrupt. There were many to express 
 surprise many to express pity, aad several of course to say they
 
 knew it must come to this : for any one who had so filled the public 
 eye as they had could not escape many adverse predictions in his 
 prosperity, and invidious comments when fortune turned round. 
 But there were none out of all who had partaken of their 
 hospitality, none out of all who had thronged to their parties and 
 crowded to their festivities, to offer a helping hand. The gay and 
 prosperous citizen had a host of acquaintances the ruined merchant 
 had no friend. Poor Ann Vickeris was all powerful as in fine 
 feathers and bare braceleted arms she received her company in the 
 glare of chandeliers and the sound of music ; but as she sat alone 
 in her deserted drawing room the day after the failure reduced 
 them to beggary, there were none to call. A week before about 
 the same hour, the loud roll of the knocker would have been 
 constantly heard, and name after name proclaimed as the servant, 
 throwing open that same drawing-room door, announced one 
 morning visitor after another. Now these people passed by on the 
 other side, and muttered as they looked askaunt at the residence 
 of the ruined merchant, " How shocking ! " I should be sorry to 
 counsel or inculcate anything inhospitable ; but if those who 
 spend their money in feasting hosts of company and acquaintances 
 only saw the melancholy interior of that house on that morning, 
 they would be better able to estimate the value of a fashionable 
 acquaintance. Not that in point of fact the house was altered 
 from what it had been three days before no, the splendid furniture 
 was still there none of the rich carpets, the brilliant lustres, and 
 the fine paintings had been removed. The servants were there still 
 still wore their liveries, but there was an air of undefinable but 
 significant depression over all. The sun shone in and yet there was 
 a gloom in the house a shade seemed to rest upon everything : 
 the very servants carried the calamity in their countenances, and 
 appeared to convey in their looks as plainly as though it were written 
 in large letters on their foreheads, " Our master is a bankrupt." 
 Laughter had ceased to be heard, and they spoke in a voice less loud 
 and walked about with a step more noiseless as though death were 
 in the house. And had death itself been there, it could not have 
 thrown so sombre a character as that sudden stroke of insolvency 
 did on the residence of the ruined merchant. Poor Ann Vickeris 
 saw this herself. Of too light a nature ever to interest herself in 
 her husband's affairs she previously knew nothing about them, 
 and was not prepared for the calamity : her husband had always 
 afforded her the amplest means of maintaining a fashionable life, 
 and it had never crossed her thoughts that the resources from which 
 she derived the supply could fail. But this sudden stroke of 
 calamity, instead of prostrating a nature so light as hers, placing 
 her in a new though a sad position, gave her something like a new 
 force of character. A terrible reality seemed to have awakened her 
 to increased feeling and sensibility, as she saw in the faces of the 
 domestics when they addressed her (it is true, with the same or 
 perhaps increased respect), something like an expression of 
 melancholy commiseration, which brought the sadness of her 
 situation more bitterly home to her mind. 
 She was in this frame of mind, when the servant entered to say
 
 189 
 
 that a strange gentleman, who would not give his name, wished to 
 see her. Surprised at such a visitor, she was about to answer she 
 could not see him unless he gave his name ; " Say Edward Colston, 
 then," exclaimed the philanthropist entering the room, having the 
 day before returned from Spain. 
 
 Of what were the details of that interview, painful perhaps to 
 both, history does not give an account, though no triumph was 
 mingled with the feelings of the good man in seeing one who had 
 ao deserted him so humbled. He went not into the bankrupt 
 merchant's house to exult or upbraid : he went as the calm 
 benevolent philanthropist to be the friend of one who had no 
 friends to raise a ruined man to raise a ruined family once more 
 into credit. That was the first of his great works of benevolence 
 in his native city a work rendered doubly gracious by the 
 circumstances under which it was performed. 
 
 " Many years had rolled by," says the writer of the document 
 from which I quote, " when one Sunday morning I saw Edward 
 Colston, then an old man, standing (as it was his wont when in 
 Bristol at that time to do) by the door of the Cathedral. Age instead 
 of diminishing seemed to add to the benevolent expression of a 
 countenance always handsome, and marked as strongly by good 
 sense as good nature. A bright smile of satisfaction lit up his face 
 as a long troop of his own schoolboys appeared in the green and 
 approached the Cathedral, and as they passed into the sacred 
 building, each lad touching his cap, he patted them kindly on the 
 heads, and had an encouraging word for all. I think I can see his 
 form now before me, his mild expressive aquiline features in 
 cheerful play ; his laced coat, fine ruffles, and high-heeled shoes, 
 as he accosted one little urchin after another, while all answered 
 with an almost filial deference and affection. At length, as the 
 last file passed him, his eye discerned a fresh face, and he stopped 
 the new comer to inquire his name. ' Silke, Sir," said the lad 
 bowing : but before the boy had opened his lips the likeness had 
 announced the fact he was the grandson of Ann Vickeris. A tear 
 rose to Colston's eye, he had lived to be the benefactor of three 
 generations how much more gratifying than to have been the 
 founder of one great family."
 
 Almost every street in Bristol has a remarkable house, or has had 
 a remarkable inhabitant. " Here lived so and so," or "there died 
 so and so," says the enumerator or annotator of Bristol topography. 
 Now, amongst our street traditions, there is one I have never seen 
 noticed in print, and the verbal versions of it that I have heard 
 are all, for the most part, so hazy and uncertain that I should like 
 to see a little light thrown upon the subject. 
 
 The story is that there lived, some hundred years ago, in a house 
 about half-way down on the east side of Small Street (No. 17), a 
 gentleman, named Fane, who was a diligent, painstaking, and, for an 
 attorney, a quiet man, and was thankful to get 6s. 8d. or 1 3s 4d. in the 
 way of business. There was a general impression abroad amongst his 
 co-professionals that he was of a good family, and even was related 
 in a far off way to a lord. Nobody, however, particularly troubled 
 himself about him : he did his work, and paid his way, and lived 
 on the premises, and in the evening met his co-parishioners over a 
 friendly pipe, in that famous house of call, " The Ship," a little 
 further up, in Small Street Court. But one day (so the 
 popular narrative had it), a sudden piece of news flew about that 
 the honest and (not consequently) poor attorney had all at once 
 become a lord, and had got a great house in Northamptonshire and 
 another in Yorkshire with estates to match, and that he wanted no 
 more clients, and would smoke no more pipes in the Ship, but would 
 carry his political wisdom to the Chamber of Peers in short, that 
 Attorney Fane had become the Earl of Westmoreland. 
 
 Of course such an incident could not escape romance ; it was too 
 unusual an occurrence for a Bristol attorney to "hide his head in a 
 coronet," as Sheridan said, for the gossips to allow it to pass without 
 adding some interesting circumstances of their own to the event. 
 Thus, I remember hearing from an old Bristolian, that on the very 
 morning on which Attorney Fane received the information that, 
 by the death of the last direct heir, the earldom had fallen to his 
 lot, though he was little more than a thirty-first cousin to the 
 deceased peer I say, on that morning the story goes a purse- 
 proud Bristol tradesman or merchant, a client of Mr. Fane's, called 
 on him to do a piece of law, which Mr. F. did not think was such 
 as a respectable solicitor could with credit undertake, so he 
 respectfully declined it ; upon which the other, who had put a great 
 deal of work in the attorney's way, got into a towering rage, 
 charged him with ingratitude, and taunted him with being too fine 
 a gentleman for his business. " You think yourself," said the 
 indignant client, " better able to judge of what's right and what's 
 wrong than a man who might buy you ten times over. 
 
 " I think myself capable of judging what is good manners," 
 retorted the attorney ; " and as you, sir, do not know how to 
 behave yourself, I desire you to quit my office." 
 
 " Quit your office," screamed the Bristol merchant, astonished at 
 the impudence of a poor attorney saying such a thing to a wealthy 
 client. " Who are you, that dare apply such language to me ?
 
 191 
 
 Who are you, I repeat, who dare thus presume P " The client bad 
 got his back against the door as he made this demand. 
 
 " Who am I," replied Fane. " You ask me the question, and I 
 will answer it. I am Thomas, eighth Earl of Westmoreland. That 
 letter which lies there (pointing to the tahle) informs me that I 
 need no longer trouble myself about your legal affairs, or those of 
 any other man, who does not know how to distinguish between 
 what is right and what is wrong in professional matters. The 
 motto of the house of which I am now the head says, the Fanes ' do 
 nothing that is discreditable, ' and I am not going to disgrace a 
 coronet which has so unexpectedly descended to me." 
 
 The story, as you may guess, goes on to to say that the rich client 
 was flabbergasted. There was something in the attorney's manner 
 that convinced him the statement was true ; and, as mean natures 
 are often at the same time most insolent and fawning, the man who 
 was not ashamed to insult one who he thought was only a poor 
 attorney, was horrified at the idea of speaking so rudely to an earl, 
 so he stammered and mumbled an apology, of which Fane only so 
 far took notice as to assure him that " the only way for the future to 
 avoid being rude to an unknown earl was to be civil to everybody he 
 met," and so he bowed the last client he ever had out into Small Street. 
 
 Having been a little curious and incredulous about the whole 
 circumstance, even to doubting if ever a Bristol attorney became a 
 peer of the realm, I took to hunting in Burke for a clue to the 
 matter, and I think I partly got hold of the right man, who no 
 doubt felt that, in getting the title and estates of an ancient house, 
 he was in the right place. The account of Attorney Fane, as you 
 probably have heard, was that there were some thirteen or fourteen 
 between him and the title, so, instead of hoping against all hope, 
 he very properly attended to his profession, looking to get his 
 bread for himself and family as best he could by legal business. 
 
 I find that Francis Fane, the first Earl of Westmoreland, who 
 died in 1628, left three sons Mildmay, who succeeded him as 2nd 
 Earl ; Thomas and Francis. This Francis, the third son, had a 
 large family, his eldest son being brought up as a barrister, and his 
 second being named Thomas. Mildmay, the second Earl, who was 
 twice married, left two sons and nine daughters ; and was succeeded 
 by the eldest of the former, Charles, the third Earl, who though, 
 like his father, married twice, died without issue ; so the title des- 
 cended to his half-brother, Vere, the fourth Earl, who left six 
 daughters and four sons, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Vere, 
 the fifth Earl, who died unmarried within a few days of being of age ; 
 thus the honours devolved upon his brother Thomas, the sixth Earl, 
 who, though married, had died without issue, the Earldom falling 
 to his brother John, the seventh Earl, who died childless in 1762, 
 when the family honours devolved to the next male heir, Thomas 
 Fane, the second son of Francis, who was the third son of the first 
 Earl. This Thomas married a Bristol lady, Frances, daughter of 
 William Swymmer, a merchant, of the city. Thus Thomas became 
 Earl of Westmoreland, though there were between him and the title, 
 at one time or another, as I count them, eleven male heirs, all of 
 whom had to die before the coronet could alight on his brow.
 
 RICHARD BAGGS. 
 
 There used to be, and, I suppose, there still (1866) is (at least I 
 hope no Gothic churchwarden has removed it) at the top of the 
 staircase leading to the north gallery of St Philip's Church, Bristol, 
 a benefaction board, bearing the following entry : " Given by an 
 UNKNOWN HAND the aum of twenty ptunds, the interest to the poor of 
 thit parish for ever." 
 
 When last I read this brief but almost touching bequest, the 
 gold letters in which it was originally recorded were growing in- 
 distinct ; but I doubt if I should care to have them renewed or 
 refreshed ; for their very dimness seemed to give effect to their 
 purport, and carry us back to the time (whenever it was) when the 
 sum, possibly a large one for the means of the donor, was secretly 
 contributed. It reads like a rebuke to demonstrative givers in all 
 times. Something very different to a feeling of impertinent curiosity 
 made me long to get the secret out of those fast-fading letters, 
 which contrasted in character and spirit with the brighter gold of 
 more modern munificence on other benefaction-boards hard by. 
 
 Until about twenty years ago (or perhaps it might not be quite 
 so much) there was another, but quite different inscription, set up 
 in one of the public secular buildings of Bristol. Those who, like 
 myself, were members of the Corporation of the Poor (they call 
 them Poor Law Guardians now, and thus take the shine out of 
 this department of the public service), will remember a panel 
 prominently set up inside and over the door of the Board room of 
 St. Peter's Hospital, on which was painted in very legible letters 
 this stern and blunt inscription : 
 
 Richard Baggs, an unworthy member of this Corporation, having 
 defrauded the poor, and being detected in the same, paid the sum of 
 200 to the benefit of the said poor. 
 
 There was no beating about the bush here ; but a relentless 
 justice, almost Roman, in its uncompromising character no search- 
 ing for a mild name for Mr. Baggs's conduct no calling of it a 
 mere mistake or error of judgment, or at most an equivocal act ; 
 which probably would be the case now, especially if Mr. B. were a 
 manager, or promoter, or " floater" of a Limited Liability Company, 
 by which thousands and tens of thousands were lost to the poor, 
 and the rich, too. Were he a railway director or a railway pro- 
 jector, or possibly a railway contractor, and lived in our day, they 
 would be sure to call his act not fraud, but " financing." Unfor- 
 tunately, however, for Mr. Baggs's fame, he existed, and did evil 
 in an age when people called a spade a spade were rough and 
 ready in judging of men or things, and were not mealy-mouthed 
 in expressing their judgment. He was not, unluckily for his fame,
 
 193 
 
 a projector of public companies, but the member of a body to which 
 a number of stubborn, old-fashioned, honest Bristolians belonged, 
 and when they caught him playing the rogue, especially towards 
 the poor, they did not condone or compromise the offence, or take 
 a sum of money from him privately and hush it up, and say he was 
 not a bad man himself but the victim of a bad system which, and 
 not the individual, ought to be blamed. No ; they openly exposed 
 and publicly by name gibbeted the man, besides making him 
 refund the money (and possibly more) of which he had defrauded 
 the poor. They were not content with publishing him in the 
 newspapers (if, indeed, there were newspapers in his day), for it 
 would then be only a nine days' wonder. When the frail sheet upon 
 which it was printed was cut up into curl papers or distributed 
 round pounds of butter, the thing would be forgotten, and Richard 
 Baggs would after a few months' retirement reappear in public 
 and brazen it out. No ; these old Bristolians stuck it up in view, 
 manifest and palpable as a monument, so that all who ran, or at 
 least who entered, might read over the doorway of the court which 
 was the scene of his fraud, and where they probably meant it to 
 remain for ever a warning to all future ages. 
 
 But future ages have been more lenient to Richard Baggs than 
 were his contemporaries. The board has disappeared. I have not 
 seen it for the last twenty years. Perhaps our modern guardians 
 thought the unhappy man had been sufficiently punished tor his 
 offence had hung in chains, or rather in paint, long enough, and 
 in very pity to his manes had cut him down. It might be that 
 they were struck with the inconsistency of keeping Richard Baggs 
 in a perpetual pillory for fraud posting him in this palpable 
 fashion while so many prosperous knaves were abroad in the 
 world, living in fine houses, riding in fine carriages, and against 
 whom no tongue wags save in private. Probably the persons who 
 removed the panel from over the door in St. Peter's Hospital said 
 to themselves, " Either old Baggs ought to come down, or in all 
 fairness others ought to go up Fiat Justitia ! Why should a 
 beggarly offender of this kind, a mere purloiner of the poor, be 
 gibbeted for ever and a day, while So-and-So and So-and-So are 
 flourishing like green bay trees upon riches gained not much more 
 respectably ? It is a grim mockery to keep that wretched man 
 there, unless you put up like malediction signs over the doorway of 
 many a boardroom in which railway directors, and limited bank 
 directors, and financial companies' directors weekly meet. But 
 what painter will be found bold enough to paint us the long lists of 
 ' respectable ' men who, sitting at such boards, have defrauded poor 
 and rich, and are still called, not ' unworthy,' but 'worthy?' " 
 
 So the Bristol guardians determined to take down old Baggs, and 
 make lucifer matches of the panel ; and it was done, or at least the 
 panel has disappeared. Finding it impossible to gibbet all the 
 rogues that a prolific age hastening to be rich has produced, they 
 thought it hypocrisy to keep up this one unlucky varlet. 
 
 Perhaps after all Baggs had only to blame himself for his 
 punishment. The inscription tells us that not only did he defraud, 
 but he " was detected in the same. " There is a proverb which says
 
 194 
 
 that the crime is not in the fact, but in being found out. The 
 " unworthy member" of the Corporation of the Poor was manifestly 
 a bungler in the practical exercise of dishonesty and the fine arts 
 of knavery, and was detected. He wanted the accomplishment, 
 the cleverness of more modern schemers, who have discovered how 
 to cheat, how to defraud, I will not say without being found out, 
 but without any one daring to "board," or post them up, or panel 
 them in this downright fashion. Ah, Richard Baggs, Richard 
 Baggs, you were an anachronism you lived before your proper 
 time. If you moved on the world's stage now you would find us 
 much more indulgent "to your faults," not merely "a little 
 kind" more ready to account in an amiable manner for your 
 " mistake " than were those grim unforgiving old Bristolians who 
 " damned you to everlasting fame " in that terrible panel, which 
 probably for more than a century looked down from above the 
 doorway upon the weekly meetings of the Corporation of the Poor. 
 
 If it had been taken down only within the last two years or so, 
 those who took it down would have been right : for it would be a 
 gross inconsistency, a sham, to keep it up, while things of which 
 we hear are daily occurring, and being condoned, amongst us. 
 But if it was removed as far back as twenty or even ten years, it 
 may be that we owe some of our recent rogueries to the doing away 
 with so wholesome an example so palpable and outspoken a terror 
 to evil-doers. Post hoc ergo f ropier hoc. If our financial rascalities 
 have followed the removal of Baggs' s board or have transpired 
 since its removal, as I believe they have then may we not lay at 
 the doors of those feeble weak-minded men, who pitied a public 
 detrauder and took down the record of Richard Baggs, the blame 
 of many of the moral and monetary iniquities from which 
 English society is suffering through the length and breadth of the 
 land ? If we were only to gibbet (as R. B. was gibbeted) a couple 
 of hundred of our most recent " rogues in buckram," " knaves of 
 rank," we believe we should have much fewer frauds and failures 
 to complain of. 
 
 Be this, however, as it may, here goes for an attempt to account 
 for the two queer inscriptions above referred to in a fragmentary 
 sketch of 
 
 THE UNKNOWN HAND. 
 
 The afternoon was cold, wet and cheerless : the few who attended 
 morning service at St. Philip's Church had reached their homes : 
 the last old almswoman was tottering with her Sunday dole of 
 bread across the wide churchyard which she must soon tenant, and 
 the two worthy wardens, having drawn on their great coats, were 
 preparing to turn their faces towards their roast beef, when an old 
 man, poorly and thinly clad, entered the vestry. The senior 
 recognised him as a person whom he had noticed for the last few 
 Sundays sitting on the lowest form of the free seats, always humbly 
 and always devoutly, at least to human eye, engaged in worship. 
 Thinking, therefore, that the old man's errand could only be for 
 one object an application for charity he turned to the sexton, 
 and ordered him a loaf, offering him at the same time a small silver 
 coin from his own pocket.
 
 1P5 
 
 "Thank you," said the old man, meekly (and there was that in 
 his voice which spoke of hetter days); " I came not to ask charity, 
 but to heg of you to be the almoners of a trifle." So saying he 
 took a small cotton bag from his pocket, and as he laid it down on 
 the vestry table its contents jingled like gold. 
 
 " I would commend these few pounds to your care, gentlemen," 
 he added ; " the interest thereof to be distributed to the poor of 
 the parish'for erer," and he turned and left the vestry. 
 
 Surprised at the contrast between the outward appearance of the 
 visitor and his object, as well as by the suddenness and singularity 
 of the whole affair, the churchwardens remained looking at each 
 other for a minute and then, recollecting that the donor had not 
 left name or address, the junior seized his hat, and hastening after 
 the old man, overtook him while, stooping and feeble, he was yet 
 struggling against the wind and the rain across the church- 
 yard. 
 
 " You forgot'to^leave us your name," said he ; but the old man 
 did not seem to hear, or, if he did, not to heed him, The church- 
 warden laid his hand on his shoulder, and repeated the words. 
 
 "It is of no consequence," replied the old man; "my name 
 signifies nothing." 
 
 " But from whom shall we say it comes ? " again inquired the 
 churchwarden. 
 
 "From an unknown hand an unknown hand" muttered the 
 old man, as he went out at the gate, and the churchwarden returned 
 to the vestry. 
 
 The following week an addition was made to the benefaction 
 board, and the gift from "an unknown hand" thus simply and 
 shortly inscribed. 
 
 
 
 Next Sunday the old man was missed from his usual place in the 
 free seats. Another and another Sabbath succeeded, and he was 
 not there. Interested in his fate from the singularity of the 
 circumstance related, the churchwardens made inquiries amongst 
 the poor, and at length ascertained that he had been seen to enter 
 more than once a wretched tenement in Poyntzpool, a neighbour- 
 hood even then the most abounding in vice and immorality of any 
 in the parish. They proceeded to the house, and on inquiring of 
 the poor creature that kept it, found that the old man was dead 
 he had died that morning. The body lay on a straw pallet ; on a 
 broken chair the old man's clothes the only property (if such they 
 might be called) he had apparently left, though he had paid for his 
 lodgings the day previous to his death. The churchwardens 
 searched the clothes, in the hope of finding something that would 
 lead to the identification of the aged stranger, in whom they were 
 so singularly interested : but to no purpose. At length the old 
 woman bethought her she had seen him with a prayer book, and on 
 raising the head of the corpse, and looking under the pillow, they 
 found it there. They opened it, and read in the first page 
 
 Richard Baggs, an unworthy member of this Corporation, having 
 defrauded the poor, and being detected in the same, paid the sum of 
 200 for the benefit of the said poor.
 
 196 
 
 Underneath this, and evidently very recently written, was a copy 
 of the inscription on the benefaction hoard : 
 
 Gave by an unknown hand the sum of twenty pounds, the interest 
 thereof to the poor of this parish for ever. 
 
 Opposite the first record was written " Nay, ye do wrong and 
 defraud : and that your brethren." Opposite the second " I will 
 hear from Heaven, and forgive his sin." 
 
 There were none by who could recognise the face which there 
 lay cold and rigid on the pallet : but the few cognisant of the 
 circumstances concluded the " unknown hand " was that of the 
 unfortunate and unworthy member of the Corporation of the Poor, 
 whose fraud was so long chronicled in the Court of St. Peter's 
 Hospital, in the words above given. He went abroad soon after 
 his exposure a broken-hearted man, and had returned, it was 
 conjectured, to make all the requital he could to repent and to die 
 unknown, unnamed, and unfriended,
 
 A STORY OP OLD DURDHAM DOWN. 
 
 Old Durdham Down ! it is prim and neat enough, now, with its 
 young trees and its smooth drives the last gracefully curving 
 round to the Sea Walls, made mainly through the efforts of Mr. 
 Thomas, when Mayor and its close turf. But I remember a time 
 when it was rude and rustic, and I liked it better. When the great 
 bunches of old gorse blazed out in their yellow glory in the late 
 spring, and patches of tall bracken, brown and sered in autumn, 
 gave it a russet mellowness in mid Fall. It was something like 
 an adventure to pass over the Down then as night approached, 
 when you had to make your way through thorn brakes and furze 
 chin-deep, and you were not quite sure that a couple of fellows 
 with short bludgeons or brass-barrelled pistols would not make 
 their appearance from a tuft of thorn trees, and ask you, in a style 
 more laconic than polite, for your spare cash. There is nothing 
 of that kind of thing now. The dry furze plats have been burned 
 up since the days when Lucifer inspired some chemist to make the 
 matches called after his name, and young ruffians to apply them 
 to the pernicious purpose of destroying one of the most characteristic 
 features of our broad and beautiful common. Furze, and bracken, 
 and highwaymen have all disappeared : and I was going to say 
 I am sincerely sorry for it, only that highwaymen, however 
 picturesque in story and romance, are objects to whom distance 
 lends more enchantment than a nearer view. What between the 
 County Constabulary and the Downs Committee, there is no 
 covert or opportunity for gentlemen of the picturesque and exciting 
 calling of Richard Turpin and Claude Duval, Esquires. 
 
 Before the time, however, to which, my most remote memory 
 extends, there were other ornaments of the Down still more 
 interesting, if also terribly grim and ghastly. It was a 
 place of gibbets ! three of these tall structures having decorated 
 it within the memory of an old Cliftonian with whom I conversed 
 not more than a quarter of a century ago. From Westbury Hill 
 to the corner of Gallows' Acre Lane, the noble area was full of 
 memories of murder and robbery, and if you happen to be crossing 
 Westbury churchyard along the path which leads from the turn of 
 the Eastfield Road to the south porch of the sacred building, you 
 will read on a little mossy headstone that underneath lie interred 
 the remains of one Rudge, I think it is (but no relation of the 
 subject of my story) the coachman of a former Sir Robert Cann, 
 of Stoke House, that was plundered and done to death on the 
 said Downs by a couple of footpads who, being caught, convicted 
 and hanged, were dipped in a bituminous composition, encaged in 
 iron basket-work, and suspended from tall poles, thence to dangle 
 and decay away a terror to evildoers as also to those who did 
 well, in the persons of simple peasants who had to cross the 
 greensward after sundown. 
 
 The last and most memorable of all these gibbeted gentlemen 
 was one Shenkin Protheroe, who was hanged by the. neck until he
 
 198 
 
 was dead in 1783, and then suspended from a tall piece of timber 
 with crossbeam, fixed at a spot as near as possible to -where the 
 little round tower now leads down into the tunnel of the railway, 
 as it crosses the head of Pembroke Road, which, with its churches 
 and villas, occupies the site of the once narrow thoroughfare with 
 the ill-omened name. Shenkin was a sort of demon cripple, a 
 " Billy-in-the-Bowl " without legs, or at least legs that would bear 
 him up, but with powerful arms, which compensated him for the 
 loss of his lower limbs, and with which, and the aid of a couple of 
 little hand stools, he contrived to move about deftly enough, 
 exciting the pity and attracting the alms of those he passed in his 
 uncouth peregrinations. One of the persons whose compassion he 
 awakened was a cattle drover, who drew from his pocket a long 
 leather purse, from which he gave him some coppers. The cripple, 
 however, had a keen eye as well as a cruel heart, and saw, as the 
 man undid his money bag, some gold and silver as well as pence 
 and halfpence in the pouch. This excited the creature's greed, 
 and learning from him that he was returning that same evening 
 to Hallen-in-the-Marshes, he set his infernal ingenuity to work 
 and contrived a clever plot to rob his benefactor. "With nightfall, 
 Shenkin contrived to hide himself in a ditch near the same spot at 
 the top of the lane, and there awaited his victim. As soon as he 
 descried the stalwart figure of the drover approach on his homeward 
 road, he raised a cry of distress. The man drew near to see from 
 whom the sounds came, when Shenkin piteously explained that 
 he had fallen into the ditch, and,, owing to his helpless condition, 
 was unable to extricate himself. The good-natured drover 
 descended into the hollow to help him out, and as he stooped 
 down, the cripple, who was prepared for the opportunity, drew 
 forth a knife and stabbed him to the heart, when taking the leathern 
 pouch, which was his temptation, from the poor man's pocket, he 
 escaped with his booty, but only for a short time. Suspicion was 
 awakened by the circumstance that the cripple was seen in the 
 neighbourhood about the time the murder was committed, and he 
 was arrested, when proof of his guilt was found on his person. He 
 was tried, hung, and gibbeted on the spot where the crime was 
 committed, and where he swung in the breeze and bleached in the 
 sun for some years a conspicuous object to the traveller as he 
 emerged from Gallows' Acre Lane, as it opened on the Down close 
 to where the Zoological Gardens harbour lions, bears and tigers. 
 
 Here the gibbet stood erect for a considerable time, until decay 
 and disgust caused the grim and ghastly object to be removed. 
 But for years, before a consummation devoutly wished for by all 
 belated travellers whose homes lay on the other side of the Down 
 came to pass, such a fear was there of the suspended skeleton that 
 it was the practice of the country folks to make a party and cross 
 when companionship supplied courage. If one or two persons 
 happened to be on their way home, they waited at the top of 
 Eichmond Hill until they were joined by their neighbours ; as 
 perhaps in the whole hundred or tything you could not find a 
 single rustic, man or woman, bold enough to pass the gibbet alone 
 after dark. "We have advanced since then greatly in knowledge ; 
 nevertheless, I doubt, were Shenkin Protheroe still swinging in his
 
 199 
 
 chains on the old spot on a winter's night, when there was just 
 enough of moonlight to cast ghostly and fitful gleams on objects, 
 if any of us would feel very comfortable in walking alone under 
 the projecting beam, and hearing and seeing the bleached bones of 
 the murderer creaking and swinging in their cage of hoop iron 
 over our heads. 
 
 "Well (and now to my story), it so happened that at the time the 
 gibbet was erected, there lived in the village of Westbury a well- 
 to-do old couple, Farmer Rudge and his wife, who had an only 
 daughter, a comely girl, somewhat spoiled and a little wilful. As 
 the girl was bound to have a good bit of money, there were plenty 
 of yount;' sparks very ready to make up to her, as the phrase is, 
 and Jenny for her part would have been only too happy to make 
 any amount of love with the smart fellows. But the old folks 
 were lynx-eyed and jealous. They were in no hurry to get their 
 daughter married. And small blame to them : as it is very 
 provoking, when you have watched a girl through teething, 
 whooping-cough, measles, writing, reading, and arithmetic, and 
 are just beginning to be repaid by her company for some of the 
 trouble and cost at which you have been, to find her immediately 
 make to herself wings and fly off with some young chap, who, 
 having none of the trouble, has the entire enjoyment of her 
 society. Again, old Rudge, who had a good penny to give his 
 daughter, did not like the class of suitors who flocked to his door, 
 and who were, for the most part, smart apprentices in Bristol 
 whose Sunday walk took them to Westbury, and who liked the 
 idea of making a conquest of the rustic maid with a good dower. 
 
 Beyond the door, however, none of them got. Old Rudge and 
 his wife did not stand on ceremony, and if any of the sparks crossed 
 the threshold with a " How do you do, farmer ?" he was very 
 quickly given to understand the sooner he made himself scarce the 
 better. Nevertheless, Miss Jenny managed to have more than a 
 dozen words with Dick Foyle, the hosier's apprentice, in Wine 
 Street, when she visited the shop on market days to make a 
 purchase, and Dick Foyle, for his part, on not a few occasions 
 managed to snatch a short interview with Jenny as she crossed 
 Westbury churchyard after service on Sunday. At length the 
 two young people arrived at the silly determination that either 
 could not be happy without the other : but they were not such 
 simpletons as to imagine that the young lady's parents would give 
 their consent to her union with a penniless shopboy, so they 
 resolved upon taking the obvious course of running away. 
 
 Jenny secretly got things ready for her clandestine flight, and 
 Dick made equally active preparations for the same interesting 
 journey. Their mode of communicating with one another during 
 the preparatory proceedings was by slipping notes into an old 
 cucumber frame at the end of the garden, which could be easily 
 reached over the privet hedge which bounded the farmer's cottage 
 from a narrow footpath close by. A day or two before the intended 
 elopement, it being Sunday, Dick left Bristol with a note in his 
 pocket for the old cucumber frame, and very adroitly dropped it 
 in, when he thought the farmer and family were at church. But 
 it unfortunately happened that Master Rudge did not feel well
 
 200 
 
 that morning ; he had taken some new cider which disagreed with 
 him, and so he remained at home and dozed away in his easy chair 
 over the fire, instead of under the sermon in church. While so 
 engaged, he heard a step on the gravel footpath, and thinking 
 someone was come to steal his carrots, he peeped carefully out 
 from a corner of the window, and saw Dick drop his love missive 
 into the old cucumher frame. Allowing the youth to retire out of 
 sight, the farmer secured, opened, and read the letter, and was 
 more surprised than delighted to learn therefrom that everything 
 was prepared and ready for their flight on the following Tuesday 
 night. Need I say what course Farmer Eudge took under these 
 circumstances ? 
 
 There " was no elopement after all." Jenny's mother took upon 
 herself the special duty of never letting " the silly hussy " out of 
 her sight, while Farmer Rudge himself trudged into Bristol, an 
 oak stick in his hand, and entering the hosier's shop in Wine Street, 
 informed Dick, the disconsolate lover, that if he again caught him 
 sneaking ahout the premises he would hreak every bone in his 
 body, for an impudent " counter hopper " as he was. 
 
 Dick Foyle, the bold apprentice, however, was not a lad to he 
 daunted with one failure. ftut to get speech or signal with his 
 sweetheart for months he could not, so keenly was she guarded by 
 the domestic dragons. One or other always kept her in view, never 
 leaving her at home even when they went to market, but taking 
 her into Bristol with them, and keeping her closely at their side. 
 But Dick was a man of resources, and he bided bis time. 
 
 One scowling and stormy night, late in the autumn of '86, a little 
 group of Westbury neighbours were waiting for reinforcements at 
 the usual rendezvous at Gallows' Acre-lane, ere they made the 
 nervous passage of the Down, when Farmer Rudge, wife, and 
 Jenny joined them. The travellers, now thinking themselves 
 sufficiently strong to pass Shenkin's gibbet without any particular 
 tremours, resumed their homeward course. Indeed, it was a night 
 to try the strength of rustic nerves. The wind moaned and howled, 
 and ere the party could discern the dim outlines of the gloomy 
 gibbet, they could hear its timbers creak and the chain rattle as, like 
 a huge iron censer, the cage which contained the skeleton of the 
 murderer swung to and fro in the storm. The pilgrims stuck 
 together very close, mentally wishing they were at home at their 
 own firesides, when, just as the party arrived near the gibbet, a 
 streak of moonlight broke out from the dark clouds and showed 
 Shenkin's remains fearfully agitated in mid-air, as though Satan 
 himself seemed busy making a pendulum of the murderer's bones. 
 " Seemed," did I say ? nay, by all that is ghostly, the Evil One, 
 in propria persona, appeared to the affrighted rustics to be busy 
 with the mortal remains of the wicked Welshman : for at that 
 moment down there glided, with a supernatural sound, from the 
 gibbet amongst them a dark figure fearful to look upon, had the 
 homeward-bound company waited to make ocular observation ; 
 but, with a scream of terror, the party dispersed and fled in all 
 directions, little disposed to have a nearer acquaintance with the 
 hideous Shenkin. Old Rudge was stout enough, if he had man or 
 beast to deal with and a strong oaken staff in. his hand, but the
 
 201 
 
 tales that were told round the firesides of Westbury of the awful 
 sights and sounds seen and heard near Protheroe's gihhet, on the 
 margin of those lone dark Downs, had made such an impression, 
 upon the superstitious old couple that, in the first moments of their 
 fright, they forgot their daughter, and it was not until they had 
 fled almost as far as the pathway to Stoke that they missed Jenny. 
 Then did they call in frantic voices for her, hut though a few of 
 the neighbours rejoined them, and they retraced their way some 
 distance in the direction of the gihhet, no voice answered theirs, 
 and no sight of their daughter could they get. They hegan to think, 
 and their friends confirmed the hope, that the girl, being light of 
 limb had in her fright outrun them all, and was probably by that 
 time at home in Westbury. But what was the old people's alarm, 
 on arriving at the house, to learn that Jenny had not made her 
 appearance. A number of lanterns and assistants were obtained, 
 and the Downs again traversed in all directions, but to no purpose. 
 Jenny could not he found ; and no wonder, for the young fly-away 
 was before morning's break snugly lodged at Aust with an old 
 aunt of Master Dick Foyle's, the bold apprentice being himself her 
 charioteer on the occasion. 
 
 " None but the brave," says the poet, " deserves the fair," and 
 Dick was a stout jolly lad, and had his deserts. Finding all other 
 means of getting possession of his sweetheart fail, he concocted, in 
 concert with a fellow apprentice as hardy as himself, the scheme 
 which proved so successful. Shenkin Protheroe, too, was pressed 
 into the service. Dick knew the custom of the country folk on 
 that side of the city to make up a party in order to pass the Downs 
 after nightfall ; so his companion climbed the gibbet, fastened a 
 rope to the cross-beam, and there perched himself until the country 
 people approached, swinging poor Shenkin's remains most violently 
 to and fro as the party approached the skeleton, and, just as they 
 were under it, he glided with an unearthly sound swiftly down the 
 rope, as though Shenkin himself were coming amongst them. 
 
 By a note cunningly slipped into her pocket in the crush of the 
 maiket, Jenny was made acquainted with the plot, and in the 
 confusion and flight attending the startling apparition, Dick pi iced 
 her in a Whitechapel cart, which he had waiting close by, and 
 drove her off to Aust. 
 
 When it was too late to refuse the old people gave their 
 consent, and Dick, who was as steady as he was bold, went and 
 lived with them, and managed the farm. In the fulness of time, 
 the two old folks were "put to bed with a spade" in Westbury 
 churchyard, and Dick and Jenny, who were now become a jolly 
 couple set round with young rosy faces, when they drove into 
 Bristol market always laughed at the thought of old times, as they 
 passed under Shenkin's gibbet. The worthy couple survived the 
 gibbet, but when it was being taken down, Dick secured a piece of 
 the timber, and had it turned into a tobacco box, on the top of 
 which he had carved the words, " To the memory of Shenkin 
 Protheroe, Esq." Dick has long been gathered to his fathers, but 
 the tobacco-box is still preserved in the family, and the story of 
 his grand-father's night lark is now told by the grandson, an. 
 elderly man, for the amusement of an occasional friend.
 
 oi 
 
 Raro antecedentem scelestum 
 Deseruit pede Pcena claudo. 
 
 Hor., car. iii., 2. 
 
 There is a singular interest attaching to undiscovered crimes. 
 In ordinary cases, only a short time elapses after the discovery of 
 the deed before certainty or suspicion indicates the perpetrator. 
 Public opinion, ever on the watch for that which will most excite 
 its horror or stimulate its praise, has thus soon afforded to it an 
 object on which it may wreak its fullest expression ; and with the 
 discovery and capture of the offender, the thrilling interest in the 
 unknown assailant, the breathless curiosity with which every 
 particular of circumstantial evidence is greedily listened to, and, in 
 a word, the air of mysterious fascination involving the whole affair, 
 in a large decree immediately subside. A clue has been found for 
 the perplexing labyrinth in which the surmises of the public so 
 long wandered blindfold, and the goal of curiosity is attained. As 
 to the rest, the law takes its usual course, and justice is appeased. 
 
 Such is the ordinary course of a crime in England : but it does 
 sometimes happen that cases occur with a totally different result. 
 Public attention is roused by some crime of peculiar atrocity. The 
 resources of the police are placed in requisition in every direction, 
 efforts are made to discover the offender at considerable outlay, 
 evidence is sought for and witnesses examined Still the cloud of 
 mystery grows darker, a chase in which every turn has lent new 
 interest to the pursuit and fresh excitement to the pursuers, in time 
 grows wearisome : one day reveals an apparent clue, only for the 
 next to expose its falsity; until at length, finding herself mocked 
 and deluded at every turn, Justice, though unsatisfied, is compelled 
 to abandon the search in despair, and confess herself baffled and 
 disappointed by the wary criminal. 
 
 A conclusion like this, so far from destroying the popular interest 
 in the case, will stimulate it to the highest pitch, and in all 
 probability invest the tale with a degree of mysterious attraction 
 sufficient to preserve it fresh in the memory of the next generation. 
 
 Few, comparatively, of the crowds who daily pass and repass 
 our College-green who frequent its brilliant shops, loiter under its 
 shady trees, or, more rare by far, steal a few minutes from the 
 ordinary avocations of life to join in the services of its venerable 
 cathedral are aware that one hundred years ago that locality, then 
 so quiet, was the scene of a most appalling and mysterious tragedy. 
 
 The writer remembers, many years ago, walking through the 
 Green on a Sunday morning, in company with one of the oldest 
 members of the Corporation, who, pausing opposite a house, 
 between the Church of St. Augustine and the Cathedral, bade him 
 remark that its exterior had been modernized, while he proceeded
 
 203 
 
 to tell how, three quarters of a century before, there resided in 
 that same house an aged lady and her female servant. 
 
 One breezy morning in September, 1764, the shutters were 
 opened and the blinds drawn up as usual, and Mrs. Ruscombe and 
 Mary Sweet, her maid, went in and out as heretofore. About 
 noon someone going to the house found their knock unheeded, all 
 was silent. This excited suspicion, an alarm was raised, and an 
 entrance speedily gained. To their utter horror the foremost, on 
 entering, found Mary Sweet murdered on the stairs, while an 
 extended search soon discovered the unfortunate lady herself, with 
 her throat cut, a corpse on the floor of her bedroom. 
 
 Such a deliberate murder in broad daylight could not but create 
 an intense sensation. The whole city was aroused. Silently, 
 skilfully, and with secresy had the wretch fulfilled his dreadful 
 task. No human eye saw him enter on his errand of death, none 
 saw him quit on its accomplishment. Every measure that wisdom 
 could suggest or to which justice could have recourse was 
 immediately adopted. The Corporation of Bristol, impressed with 
 the necessity for immediately investigating a crime whose horror 
 was only equalled by the mystery attending it, came forward with 
 a reward of 200 for the detection of the assassin, and to this Mr. 
 Robert Nugent, one of the members fur the city, added a farther 
 sum of 500, both unfortunately without the slightest success. 
 Years rolled on, and the history of the transaction still remained 
 enveloped in its original silence, while the house which had been 
 the theatre of so frightful a tragedy lay void and closed blighted 
 as it were by an evil influence, for encountering which no one 
 apparently possessed the requisite courage. 
 
 The foregoing facts have been recalled to mind principally by 
 some passages in a volume of De Quincey's, entitled "Miscellanies," 
 where (p. 28), in an article headed " Murder as one of the Fine 
 Arts," he writes as follows : 
 
 To the best of my remembrance this (Mrs. Ruscombe's murder) was in 
 1764 ; upwards of sixty years have now elapsed, and yet the artist is still 
 undiscovered. The suspicions of posterity have settled on two pretenders, 
 a baker and a chimney sweeper. But posterity is wrong ; no unpractised 
 artist could have conceived so bold au idea as that of a noonday murder 
 in the h^art of a great city * I came to know who the artist was 
 
 from a celebi ated surgeon who assisted at his dissection. This gentleman 
 had a private museum in the way of his profession, one corner of this 
 was occupied by a '-ast from a man of remarkably fine proportions. 
 "That" said the surgeon, "is a cast from the celebrated Lancashire 
 highway-man, who coucea'ed his profession for some time from his 
 neighbours, by drawing woollen stockings over his horse's legs, and in 
 that way muffling the clatter which he must else have made in riding up 
 a flagged ally that led to his stable. At the time of his execution for 
 highway robbery, I was studying under Cruiekshank, and the man's 
 figure was so uncommonly fine that no money or exertion was spared to 
 get into possession ot him with the least possible delay. By the 
 connivance of the Under-sheriff, he \vas cut down within the legal time 
 and instantly put into a chaise and four ; so that when he reached 
 Cruickshank's he was positively not dead. Mr. , a young student at that 
 time, had the honour of giving him the coup de grace and finishing the 
 sentence of the law." I was repeating this anecdote one day to a 
 Lancashire lady, who thereupon informed me that she had herself lived 
 in the neighbourhood of that highway-man, and well remembered two 
 circumstances which combined, in the opinion of ail his neighbours,|to fix
 
 204 
 
 upon'himtthef credit of Mrs. Ruscombe's affair. One was the facfof his 
 absence for a whole fortnight at the period of that murder ; the other, 
 that within a very little time after the neighbourhood of this highway- 
 man was deluged with dollars. Now Mrs. Ruscombe was kuown to have 
 hoarded 2000 of that coin. Be the artist, however, who he might, the 
 affair remains a durable monument of his genius, for such was the 
 impression of awe and the sense of power left behind by the strength of 
 conception, manifested in this minder, that no tenant (as I was told in 
 1810) had been found up to that time for Mrs. Ruscombe's house. 
 
 It is a matter of regret that.De Quincey does not give us the 
 name of the culprit, or the particular crime for which he suffered. 
 If the lady's surmise was correct as to the highwayman's identity 
 with Mrs. Ruscombe's murder, it is but another proof of that retri- 
 butive justice which sooner or later tracks the footsteps of the 
 murderer, a doctrine in which even Horace himself was a firm 
 believer. Here, then, in all probability we reach the final limits of 
 all that will ever be known respecting this mysterious affair. For 
 fifty years did the house, shunned and desolate, stand out before 
 the busy city, a silent witness, like the skeleton at the Egyptian 
 banquets, reminding those who passed its door and gazed at its 
 dusty windows of the fearful end of. its last inmates, an end which 
 from the same source might yet with equal secrecy terminate their 
 own thread of existence. As a last resource the house was refronted 
 and otherwise altered in appearance, a proceeding which at length 
 secured a tenant, since which time it apparently has borne an 
 irreproachable character, and given its inhabitants no cause for 
 uneasiness. The file of Felix Farley, in the Commercial Rooms, 
 does not extend beyond Nov., 1764, or doubtless many additional 
 particulars might be gathered from the current papers of the day 
 respecting so remarkable an incident In closing these desultory 
 remarks, we will only add that the records of by-gone days are 
 always interesting and frequently suggestive, and if in comparing 
 1855 with 1764, we are struck with the almost fabulous progress 
 which the interval has produced in art and science, we must blush 
 while we admit that an age so remarkable for high refinement as 
 the present, should nevertheless exhibit a catalogue of crimes equal 
 in magnitude if not in number to the worst periods of the last 
 century. 
 
 [The house no longer stands,' having been[pulled down sometime 
 between 1865 and 1875 to form part of the site of the large hotel, 
 " The Royal," on the south-east side of the Green.]
 
 FEW OTHER PAPERS 
 
 FROM THE SAME PEN.
 
 I have two reasons for adding the following to " Brief Romances 
 from Bristol History." In the first place, the latter did not make 
 enough by themselves to he entitled to the dignity of binding in 
 boards ; supplemental matter was therefore needed to bring them 
 up to the regulation bulk. In the second place I have, from time 
 to time, had applications made to me for copies of some of the 
 papers now appended (chiefly I believe for the purpose of Penny 
 Readings) without being able to comply with the request, owing to 
 there being left no back numbers of the newspapers in which they 
 originally appeared. I have accordingly availed myself of the 
 present easy opportunity to supply them.
 
 BY ONE WHO BROKE DOWN 
 
 Whether I am the Parson, the Lawyer, or the Doctor of the 
 
 village of B would be of no consequence to the reader, but that 
 
 my brief narrative does, in some measure, turn upon my profession. 
 
 B was amongst the first places to catch the fever for Penny 
 
 Readings. There had been some successful recitations at T , 
 
 and B resolved not to be behind the age. Our national 
 
 schoolmaster, who was a man of big words and lofty thoughts, said 
 in the parlour of " the Crown " on Saturday night " I tell you 
 what, my friends ! Penny Readings are the great feature of the 
 times in which we live." The general shopkeeper, who sat in the 
 opposite chair, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and concurred 
 with the schoolmaster, and thereupon they all agreed, did that 
 
 coterie at "the Crown," that B should be no longer without 
 
 its great reciting and rhetorical institution. 
 
 The upshot of it was that, on Monday morning, a deputation 
 waited on me in my surgery : I might as well say I'm the 
 Doctor. So many entering the room at the same time made me 
 conclude it must be a murder or fatal accident ; at any rate, that it 
 was a call to attend the Coroner, and that a guinea at the least 
 would come out of it Nothing of the kind. The schoolmaster, 
 who was the spokesman, opened the pleadings with a spirited 
 panegyric on the social, moral, civil, and civilising effect of Penny 
 Readings. The elocutionist, he said, was to become the real 
 instructor of the age, the educator of the masses, who were to get 
 all their knowledge and virtue and religion for the future in 
 verse : would I kindly take part in a series of soirees, to be held in 
 the National Schoolroom for this purpose ? They had been already 
 to the Clergyman and the Attorney, and both had promised their 
 co-operation. 
 
 I unhesitatingly said I should be most happy to do the same, 
 and at once produced a shilling to pay for twelve tickets, though 
 to consume them in my own household I must frank the dispensary- 
 boy, the gardener, and the groom. They were much obliged, they 
 replied, but this, they explained, was not exactly what they 
 wanted. They wanted me to take part in the readings, to recite 
 something comic or serious : serio-comic, tragedy, or pastoral 
 comedy. I was amazingly tickled with the idea of my becoming 
 public orator for the village : I, who never heard my own voice 
 out of ordinary conversation, to get up on a platform and recite off 
 the reel, as the saying is, a string of verses! The Parson had 
 promised and chosen " Gray's Elegy," and the Attorney 
 " Lochinvar " and " Alexander Selkirk." My wife came in at the
 
 210 
 
 moment, and decided that I must not be behind my neighbours, or 
 rather, that she should not be behind the neighbours' wives, so that 
 before the deputation quitted the surgery they had put me down for 
 Cowper's " Jackdaw," my better half averring that if I had an 
 intellectual tendency one way or another, it was rather to light and 
 airy description. 
 
 The reason why my wife thought of the Jackdaw was that she 
 once heard me read it to the children many years ago one winter's 
 night, and I verily believe it is the only piece of poetry she ever 
 heard me read. I do not know if the person who is perusing this 
 paper has ever seen the piece. Most probably he has : I believe it 
 is common enough. It is a little stroke of playful philosophy by 
 one of England's most genial and gentle poets. It begins 
 
 There is a bird, who by his coat, 
 And by the hoarseness of his note, 
 
 Might be supposed a crow : 
 A great frequenter of the Church, 
 Where, bishop-like, he finds a perch, 
 
 And dormitory too. 
 
 However, the most effective verse, or at least that which gives best 
 scope for the elocutionary powers of the reader, is the fifth, which 
 is as follows : 
 
 He sees that this great roundabout, 
 The world, with all its motley lout, 
 
 Church, army, physic, law, 
 Its customs and its businesses, 
 Is no concern at all of his, 
 
 And says what says he ? caw. 
 
 If I was to shine at all it must be in these six lines, and the 
 first fit of trepidation over, I did, I must confess, nourish a lurking 
 fancy that I should make a hit here. I planned it in my own mind 
 how I should give point to each of the four professions in the third 
 line. The parson and village lawyer, who were on the committee, 
 would in all probability have the posts of honour on the platform, 
 
 and I should so artfully contrive it that my neighbour B , 
 
 who is a Lieutenant in the S Volunteer Rifles, and was 
 
 likewise to recite, should also have a place assigned him in the 
 same row, and thus, when I came to the telling line, 
 Church, army, PHYSIC, LAW". 
 
 I should point in succession, and with culminating emphasis, to the 
 parson, the rifleman, myself, and the attorney. Could anything 
 possibly be better : the least I could expect was four cheers, one 
 after each allusion, with one more for myself and my success. I 
 also meditated another bold stroke in the last line of the verse, 
 And says what says he ? CAW. 
 
 There I determined to give such a " caiv" as would not only 
 astonish the audience, but the rooks outside on the old church 
 tower. Nevertheless, I had some unpleasant fears lest I should 
 not hit off the exact note lest I should pitch the caw too high or 
 too low give it too loudly or too timidly make it a crowning 
 success, or in fact make a fool of myself. I was ashamed to practice
 
 211 
 
 it in the house, lest the cook or dispensary boy should overhear me 
 and think master had gone demented. In my drives through the 
 country I could not try it, because my groom, who sat by my side, 
 would be sure to come to the same awful conclusion as to my 
 sanity. I hit on a plan : instead of putting her in harness I had 
 the mare saddled, and on two or three days made my professional 
 round on horseback. When I got into a retired and lonesome 
 road, after taking the precaution to look both before and behind, 
 that there should be no witnesses of my folly, I began reciting and 
 cawing away until the very crows in the field came flying and 
 wheeling over my head, to see who their new friend was. 
 
 Unhappily for me, however, if woods have not ears, according to 
 the adage, bushes do sometimes harbour folks who have the faculty 
 of hearing. There was a good-for-nothing fellow in our village, 
 whose proclivities, as the Americans say, were chiefly for poaching. 
 This rascal was snaring rabbits under a hedge as I came along, 
 and, fearing detection, he so crouched and concealed himself that 
 I never suspected a human being was near ; the rogue, however, 
 had the full benefit of my recitation, cawing included, and, as I 
 afterwards learnt, declared that evening in the alehouse, that the 
 Doctor was mad, gone clean daft out of his senses that I fancied 
 myself a crow, and kept cawing as I rode through the country. 
 Of course, at the moment, I was fortunately unconscious of this 
 vile gossip : nevertheless, I had from time to time misgivings, and 
 my promised Penny Reading began to trouble me more than all 
 my practice. I have had cases which broke my rest, but nothing 
 has ever kept me awake so long as this confounded Jackdaw, which 
 ought to have been a croaking raven, so ill-omened a bird was it 
 to me : I only wonder I did not kill some of my patients through 
 absence or distraction of mind. While it was hanging about me, 
 I used to start up in my sleep, fancying I heard rooks at the 
 bedroom window, and every time I passed a church there were 
 sure to be four of those glossy black birds on the pinnacles cawing 
 to me, as to a poor relation, from their proud altitude. At length, 
 a day before my first appearance in public upon that or any other 
 stage, my wife, who felt no doubt that her honour was bound up in 
 mine that any laurels I won in the elocution line must overshadow 
 her as well as myself suggested I should give a private rehearsal 
 in the parlour ; she and the girls to act as the elite, and the surgery- 
 boy, cook, housemaid, groom, and gardener, as the general public 
 of B 
 
 " Nonsense, my dear ; I could not have the face to do it ; make 
 a fool of myself in my own house ? it is out of the question." 
 
 " But," says she, very naively, " if you are afraid to make a fool 
 of yourself before so few people, what will you do to-morrow night 
 when you have three or four hundred to hear you ?" 
 
 " I tell you what I shall do, my dear," I said. " Old Mrs. A. 
 has the bronchitis very badly, and I shall have an urgent call to 
 see her, and leave you and the villagers to the Parson, Lawyer 
 Smith, and Lieutenant Brown." 
 
 " Look here," was her determined answer, " if you do anything 
 half so cowardly as to run away from a Penny Reading, to turn
 
 212 
 
 your back upon a poor Jackdaw, I shall hold you in contempt for 
 the rest of your life, and denounce you to all your friends." 
 
 Of course, as I might as well be dead as in disgrace with my 
 wife, I determined, whatever happened, to stand my ground, and 
 caw it out. Oh, trembling spirit of modesty, oh, blushing genius 
 of bashfulness ! How hot my face was when I took my place on 
 the platform with my other three reciters ! I did take a pint of 
 brown sherry just before leaving home to keep my courage up a 
 little ; but it only flew into my countenance, causing a confusion 
 which threatened forgetfulness of even the words of my piece. 
 There was hardly an upturned face amongst the audience, all 
 looking towards us, and towards me particularly I fancied, whose 
 owner I had not physicked some time or another, and yet I grew 
 as nervous under their gaze as though I had committed some 
 crime, and was about to be tried. 
 
 And had I not committed a crime, I thought, or something 
 worse than a crime, according to old Talleyrand, an egregious 
 blunder, in ever consenting to make an ass of myself before my own 
 patients. But stop, T said ; let me reflect another moment, and I 
 shall be sure to break down ; the only chance a man has in passing 
 over a dizzy height is not to look into the abyss beneath him. I 
 must not look down into the yawning depth ot folly over which I 
 have consented to pass on a single plank. Cheer up, old fellow, 
 then, I said to myself ; with a faint heart you will never get 
 through the Jackdaw, and as for cawing, that, like the chorister's 
 song in the Witch of Berkeley, will " end in a quaver of 
 consternation." 
 
 The room was decorated with evergreens, and in floral letters at 
 the top of it was a line suggested by the schoolmaster, to this 
 effect 
 
 And listening senates on his accents hung. 
 
 The chair was taken by the Parson, who, after a few introductory 
 words, said, that as he was more in the habit of looking at them 
 and talking to them than any of his other friends who had to give 
 recitations that evening, he would be the first to break the ice. 
 So off he went with Gray's Elegy, through which his voice thrilled 
 with most touching pathos. 
 
 He was followed by the gallant Volunteer, Lieutenant Brown, 
 who appeared in full uniform, sword and all, the better to give a 
 martial effect to his warlike words, which were Tennyson's Charge 
 of the Light Brigade at Balaklava. My gracious, did not he 
 mouth it ! Great Mars himself and Hector of Troy could not have 
 cut about them in any melee with more fearful emphasis than he 
 did through that awful episode of the Crimean campaign. 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Cannon in front of them, 
 Volleyed and thundered 
 
 through his stentorian voice so that the room seemed to reverberate 
 with the roll of artillery. I was so disgusted with him, yet I 
 wished he had gone on for ever, for I knew when he had finished
 
 213 
 
 my turn was come. The favour which Polyphemus proposed to 
 do to Ulysses, namely to " eat him last," has little comfort in it 
 after all, for the last will come. It is true I was only the 
 penultimate penny-a-liner the lawyer was actually to be the last ; 
 but after me might come the Deluge for aught I cared. 
 
 I arose with a confused head and a parched tongue. The awful 
 anxiety depicted in my wife's face was something fearful to behold : 
 the moment was big with the fate of the whole family, yet, like a 
 brave woman, she rallied herself to give me a nod of encouragement, 
 while the girls clapped their white gloves together, as their lips 
 moved apparently to pronounce the words " Poor Papa." If it had 
 not been for the groom and the gardener I do not think I could 
 have begun. These fellows, with a noble fidelity which I shall 
 remember with gratitude to the last day of my life, made a noise 
 like a couple of Bedlamites. The groom had furnished himself 
 with a big stick, and the gardener, in order to produce a novel 
 effect in acoustics, had brought his rake. Uproar is contagious : 
 the oi TToAAot resolved to have their share in the recitations, so 
 they continued cheering " for the Doctor" until the doctor, under 
 their invigorating influence, cheered up a little. 
 
 The tumult ceased : a dead pause followed. "Now, Doctor," 
 says the Parson. " Go in and win," whispered the Attorney. I 
 went in, but I did not win ; it is just as well to confess it at once. 
 No, in spite of all I could do, I started with a hideous conviction 
 that I was cutting a ridiculous figure. I would have given 
 anything for the Boanergian barefacedness of my friend Lieutenant 
 Brown, but after his warlike hurly-burly my voice sounded thin. 
 The jocose inflection I endeavoured to give it appeared to me 
 ghastly. I had not got half way through the first verse before I 
 felt disposed to run away ; to leap from the platform and escape 
 into outer darkness, but of course that was out of the question. I 
 looked at my wife ; she held down her head. 1 looked at the girls ; 
 they were nervously fingering their gloves. I looked at the parson. 
 " Not so bad," he whispered in the first convenient pause ; and if 
 ever I felt disposed to murder a man it was our own venerable 
 vicar, for his damningly faint praise. It was a critical moment, in 
 which an encouraging word might have made all pass off success- 
 fully. Had he said " capital" in a good clear voice, I should have 
 gone on and prospered ; but as it was, it was certainly a very 
 dead-alive business until I came to the famous fifth verse. Now 
 or never, thought I. Here I must retrieve my fortune, or as a 
 Penny Reader fall like Lucifer never to rise again. 
 
 How my face burns at this moment even to write about the 
 blunder I made. Instead of the splendid hit I looked forward to 
 in the third line 
 
 Church, army, physic, law 
 
 I pointed to the Parson right enough for the first ; but indicated 
 the Attorney when I came to the army, amidst great laughter, 
 which caused such confusion to the unfortunate reciter that I put 
 down Lieutenant Brown, amidst another roar, for physic ; and 
 ended by pointing with my forefinger in the direction of my own. 
 breast when I had to mention law.
 
 214 
 
 How I was to acquit myself after this in the " caw" was not 
 ascertained was not to be known : for I never got so far : as at 
 the mention of " the law " my wife fainted off, whether it was 
 overcome with surprise at my having unknown to her changed 
 my profession, or in a transport of admiration at her husband's 
 success, I could not at the instant say, but the interruption saved 
 the audience and me the famous caw passage, which I suspect 
 would have gone off in a scream, or, like Macbeth's " Amen," 
 stuck in my throat altogether. 
 
 My wife quickly recovered, but I did not resume my part in the 
 readings. The Attorney came out strong in " Young Lochinvar," 
 and with a vote of thanks to the Vicar for his kindness in taking 
 the chair, "a most delightful entertainment," as the county paper 
 called it, came to a close. 
 
 On my way home, my wife, noble woman, confessed to me she 
 never fainted at all ; but, with a woman's wit, she devised this 
 little trick to prevent me going further, so profoundly impressed 
 was she with the egregious breakdown I must perpetrate, if ever 
 I were permitted to come to that confounded " caw." 
 
 Need I say I have never since taken any part in Penny Readings, 
 and that I never see a Jackdaw or hear one without feeling very 
 uncomfortable, and making a strong resolution, should I ever be 
 rich enough to build a mansion, not to cultivate a rookery in 
 connection with it.
 
 fn *trarji*Mnarg Cellar of 
 
 These are days when men so appreciate old wine and good wine, 
 that even a man's chance of getting into the Town Council will 
 turn on a bottle of Port, and the merits of '20 are discussed with 
 more gout than Magna Charta or the Bill of Rights. "We have 
 seen astounding prices given for ancient vintages, and the iron men 
 of the North, as it were, drink molten gold from magnums. This, 
 then, being the case, I am sure the cognoscenti in vinous matters 
 will be very glad to hear of a most extraordinary cellar of wine, 
 which I ha ve lately been permitted to inspect. 
 
 There is in a maritime city in the West of England of solid and 
 ancient repute, with which we are all well acquainted, an honest 
 and elderly bachelor, unknown to fame and to the newspapers, 
 though he sometimes appears in the latter, but always under anony- 
 mous designations or a vague initial as a donor to some quiet 
 unshowy charity, or purpose. The old celibate lives comfortably 
 and rather quaintly in a quiet but, so far as fashion is concerned, 
 deserted part of the antique city of his birth. He has a competent 
 but moderate private property, and, his habits being inexpensive, 
 he is on that account comparatively rich, or perhaps I should rather 
 say has annually, after his own expenditure, a tidy little surplus to 
 bestow upon his brother and sister fellow-beings less fortunate in a 
 worldly sense than himself. 
 
 My acquaintance with him is of recent date and of accidental 
 forming. He was until a year or so ago a tolerably regular attend- 
 ant at the Cathedral, and I sometimes sat on the same form for 
 he never entered a stall or a pew with him. Thus it happened 
 that a word or two passed between us as we floated slowly out with 
 the rest of the congregation after morning service, and loitered a 
 little by pillar and monument to hear the rolling organ, now 
 whisper like the gentle wind, now swell like a gathering storm 
 through the vaulted aisles. Until the middle of the last month, I 
 had missed him from his accustomed form for a considerable time, 
 and was glad to learn that absence from home, and not illness, was 
 the reason for my not seeing him. As we emerged into the Green, 
 an October wind was driving before it the sear leaves like a crowd 
 of fugitive skeletons, rustling and scraping along the gravelled 
 alleys of the Cathedral close, which gave my old neighbour an 
 opportunity to display a little bit of scholarship, by alluding to the 
 Homeric simile that compares the passing race of men to falling 
 leaves. My own classical reading is scant enough, goodness knows; 
 still it luckily happened by pure accident that I nearly scraped my 
 way through the original quotation, which so won the heart of my 
 acquaintance that he said, " I do not know whether you may be 
 like myself a bachelor, but if you have no home engagement for 
 to-day and will join me in an early dinner, I can give you a bit
 
 216 
 
 of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding." Without at all disclosing 
 family secrets, I may say that I happened to be just at the time 
 living en garyon, so that I was able to accept the old gentleman's 
 invitation, which I did with pleasure. I was anxious to see his 
 menage, how he lived, and what the interior of his cabin was like. 
 I had a fancy that it must be quaint enough ; and besides, roast 
 beef and Yorkshire pudding, and a scraping of horse-radish round 
 the dish were in themselves rather tempting. I seemed to sniff 
 the savoury meal in the keen October wind, which blew down the 
 walks of leafless limes and made me draw my great coat closer 
 round me, while it ballooned the crinoline of many a fair Cathedral 
 attendant, as like a ship in full sail she tacked with difficulty across 
 the Green against the gale. 
 
 My host's domicile was just what I expected it to be. It was 
 an old-fashioned substantial, wainscoted, wide-hailed, black ma- 
 hogany-bannistered house, in a part of the city which once held 
 some magnates at high rents, but now afforded spacious accommo- 
 dation at small cost to large families. The table was laid out for 
 dinner, and a fire blazed up brightly from the spacious fire-place 
 set round with blue and white glazed Dutch tiles that reflected and 
 refracted and played, as it were, with the upleaping dancing flames 
 from the Welsh coal. On two sides of the room were bookshelves, 
 which I had time scarcely to scan (as I did not wish to seem im- 
 pertinently curious) while my host went out to change his Sunday 
 coat for a warm dressing-gown, bringing another for my accommo- 
 dation, as he said " a man always enjoyed himself the more when 
 he knew he was not rubbing the back out of his best coat." Well, 
 on his bookshelves I saw some divinity Barrow, South, and Til- 
 lotson ; Richardson's Novels, Paradise Lost, and Buchan's Domestic 
 Medicine. Over the chimney-piece was a full length portrait of 
 George III. in walking costume, and under it was written, I suspect 
 in mine host's hand, that famous stubborn saying of His Majesty, 
 when they wanted him to consent to Catholic Emancipation, that 
 " he could lay his head on the block, but could not violate his 
 coronation oath, &c." Two early sketches of Bird's, and a couple 
 of rather indifferent portraits in oil (I fancy the old gentleman's 
 father and mother), completed the decorative furniture of the room. 
 Two arm-chairs stood invitingly at either side of the fire-place, and 
 the only other remarkable object in the apartment was a large 
 brass-mounted dark walnut- wood chest of drawers, with an escri- 
 toire or writing-desk at the top. 
 
 We sat down to dinner, and a good glass of October beer washed 
 down the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, which came up hissing 
 on the dish, and was transferred to thick delft hot plates of an 
 old-fashioned substance that retained the heat. We had no wine 
 at dinner, but when the cheese was removed he asked me what I 
 drank. I had got it into my head that the old gentleman possessed 
 a few dozen of uncommon fine port, bottled very likely by the 
 original of the oil painting over our heads something with a cob- 
 web outside and a beeswing inside the bottle, so I frankly said 
 I would take a glass of port. " Come, my friend," said he, " you 
 shall draw it from the bin yourself."
 
 217 
 
 Now there is nothing I prefer to going down into a long-standing 
 well-furnished private wine cellar, and seeing the bulged ends of 
 bottles (the " kicks-up " I think they are called) in little black 
 circles, with a groundwork of yellow sawdust between ; the brick 
 partitions tufted with that purple fungus which accumulates from 
 years of vinous deposit, and the dark cobwebs depending from the 
 arched roof altogether that cosy cavernous genial temperature, and 
 " dim obscure " which the candle that you carry is just sufficient 
 to dispel, and which any one who has descended into the lower 
 regions of a warm old house is well acquainted with. Here, if 
 anywhere, I thought, in the catacombs of this ancient town domi- 
 cile I shall be able to see what a wine-cellar of the last century 
 was like. What then was my surprise, when instead of ringing 
 for a candle to be brought to him and producing some queer-shaped 
 key, he took from his pocket a bunch of bright little ones, and 
 walking up to the brass-mounted dark walnut-wood escritoire, 
 unlocked the falling top, and showed me a number of drawers 
 labelled, one with "Port," another with "Sherry," another with 
 " Claret," another with " Madeira," &c., &c. 
 
 It was not merely the names of the wines which were on the 
 drawers, but the quantities they were supposed to contain, date of 
 vintage, price, &c. On one I read " 4 dozen of '20 Port, 120 
 shillings": a second, "3 dozen of Lafitte Claret, 84 shillings" : 
 another, " 5 dozen of Port, 48 shillings " : another, 10 dozen of 
 Sherry, 44 shillings," and so on. As may be supposed, I was 
 puzzled at the spectacle. Hardly one of the drawers would have 
 contained a pound of tea ; yet here they professed to hold, the 
 smallest of them, some dozens of wine. 
 
 " You said you would have port," said my host; " and as this is 
 the first time I have had the pleasure of entertaining you, we 
 cannot drink to our better acquaintance in anything less than a 
 bottle of '20 : let me see, 12 into 120 goes 10 times ten shillings, 
 that is five shillings a piece :" so saying he drew out the drawer, 
 which was filled with silver, took from it four half-crowns, and 
 placed two in my wine-glass and two in his own. 
 
 Seeing me look, as I might well do, puzzled and astonished, he 
 said, " This is my wine-cellar. I keep it pretty well stocked ; and 
 as I have a little money to spare I replenish the bins as they get 
 low. Whenever I want a bottle of wine, you see I have not far to 
 go for it. The fact is, it is a whim of mine formed years ago. I 
 had previously been fond of my wine in moderation and most 
 days drew a cork for myself or a friend : it then suddenly struck 
 me, in a hard clear winter, that when I had a good meal, and a 
 good glass of beer, I may very well dispense with wine. But with 
 means, and without a family, the money I should thus save would 
 be of no use to me; so I conceived this little device of yearly 
 laying in an imaginary stock of wine as previously, and drinking 
 imaginary bottles as we shall to-day, always taking out the pro- 
 bable cost of each, and, instead of swallowing it in sips, giving it 
 to those who may want. If I do not meet with a deserving object 
 myself, I hand it over to the parson of the parish, or some other 
 discreet person, who acts as my almoner."
 
 218 
 
 Falling at once into the old gentleman's humour, I said " that 
 is all very well for yourself, but how is your guest to manage his 
 half of the hottle ? How, for instance, am I to drink my share of 
 the port ? " and I pointed to the five shillings in the glass. 
 
 " Colston's motto," replied my friend, "Go and do thou like- 
 wise : surely around your neighbourhood you can find no difficulty 
 in disposing of two half-crowns. I believe," he added, " that I 
 have priced my '20 Port too low, judging from what I see from the 
 papers is sometimes given for that vintage : but I cannot afford to 
 give more than 6 per dozen for any wine, even in imagination. 
 Indeed, I do not think it right : and this I only produce on rare 
 occasions for instance, when I have the pleasure of making the 
 acquaintance of a friend like yourself." 
 
 I bowed in return for the compliment, and said, " Pray how do 
 you regulate your own private tipple ? on what principle, for 
 instance ? " 
 
 " No principle at all," he answered, " but according to whim 
 and fancy ; as I might take a liking, if I were still a wine drinker, 
 to wit : on a cold day like this, with the wind piping against the 
 window frame, I might say to myself Well, I will just warm up 
 a pint of Madeira, and sip it with a page of the quaint, classical, 
 and silvery Jeremy Taylor after dinner. So I go to my desk and 
 take out, say half-a-crown (draw my cork, as I call it), and dispose 
 of it like the rest. With a friend, you perceive how I share a 
 bottle of '20 Port. In summer, when I throw open the window, 
 and look over the tops of the lilacs and listen to the birds chirping 
 on the feathery sprays of my neighbour's birch tree yonder, the 
 time and the balmy warmth are suggestive of a cool bottle of 
 claret ; so I say ' here goes for a pint of Lafitte ; ' and I draw the 
 price and dispose of it ditto. Whenever I find any of the bins 
 getting low I replenish it ; and should I suddenly quit this world 
 I have left directions that the cellar is to be handed over to the 
 parson of the parish, to be employed by him as I have employed 
 it. Thus, you see, it really costs me nothing to help other folks 
 who have not small beer. I do not feel the outlay now any more 
 than I did before. Only the same money is expended on my new 
 cellar as on my old ; my health is as good as ever, while I have 
 just as much pleasure in drinking in fancy my wine after this old 
 fashion as before, and, however much I may take on the present 
 plan, I never have head-ache nor stomach-ache, nor" 
 
 " Heart-ache my good friend, and here is to your continued 
 happiness and health," I added, raising the glass with the two half- 
 crowns in it to my lips, "and I drink it as sincerely as though I 
 washed down the toast with Imperial Tokay." 
 
 Such is the story of this extraordinary cellar of wine, which, I 
 hope, has not seriously disappointed anyone who has read through 
 the narrative, at not having his curiosity more literally gratified.
 
 j iirlrelors at Jtwlmtr. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The main features of the following story I have had from two 
 persons, who vouch for the truth of them, in so far that they heard 
 them from those whom they believe to have been credible witnesses. 
 Possibly, some aged person in the neighbourhood of Frenchay may 
 be able to confirm or enlarge them, but he can hardly do so unless 
 by hearsay, as it is nearly eighty years since the romantic 
 circumstances, which I shall endeavour to narrate in my own way, 
 occurred. I may add that one of my informants had the account 
 from the late Mr. Richard Smith, surgeon, of Bristol, more than 
 thirty years ago, when the latter said he quite well remembered 
 as a lad the local excitement caused by the startling occurrence. 
 It is noteworthy that the late W. M. Thackeray in Denis Duval 
 the story which he left unfinished at the time of his death, and 
 which was published in its fragmentary form in the Cornhill 
 Magazine makes part of the plot of his tale turn on a somewhat 
 similar incident to that which occurred in the case of the Frenchay 
 Bachelors. 
 
 My informants having only a general recollection of the circum- 
 stances cannot fix the date exactly, but it will probably be 
 somewhere between the years 1785 and 1790, when two fashionable 
 young men came to reside in a house not far off Frenchay 
 Common, and which I learn still stands, though I cannot say by 
 whom it is now inhabited. They were fashionable young fellows, 
 apparently of good breeding and family ; and as they lived in some 
 style and had an excellent address they were soon visited by the 
 first families in the neighbourhood. They were extensively invited 
 out, and saw the gentry of the county at their own house in return, 
 where they entertained well. They were particularly remarkable 
 for the large stud of high-bred horses which they kept, one of the 
 great features of the house in which they lived being its spacious 
 set of stables. In those days, as now, the country round about was 
 hunted by packs belonging to the then Duke of Beaufort and Earl 
 Berkeley. As both bachelors constantly attended the meets and 
 rode very well, there was nothing very remarkable in their keeping 
 a good stable full of blooded animals. Their neighbours, however, 
 noticed that sometimes the two returned home very late in the 
 evening with their horses apparently much distressed, though it 
 was pretty well known there was no hunt that day anywhere 
 in the vicinity. At times they were absent a whole day or a 
 couple of days together, though when they left their house on 
 horseback they appar8ntly seemed equipped only for a ride of a 
 few hours.
 
 220 
 
 These circumstances, however, were only passingly noticed. No 
 one pondered them ; or (strange to say, for a gossiping village) 
 pryed into their affairs, beyond attributing these eccentricities to 
 the whim and caprice of two young men of fortune and family. 
 It was enough for the neighbours that they kept a good establish- 
 ment, entertained well, and were bachelors. Besides this, the 
 Vernons (such we will suppose was the name they went by, being 
 said to be brothers, though they were not at all alike) were handsome, 
 well-dressed men ; perhaps a little too stylish in their garments, 
 sporting brighter colors and more lace than country gentlemen 
 usually indulged in even in those days of excessive dress. There 
 might, too, have been an expression about the eyes of both not 
 always prepossessing a determined, even severe and fierce flash at 
 times : but the young ladies put all this down to high blood and 
 spirits, and it was thought there were more than one or two of the 
 handsome daughters of Gloucestershire squires in the vicinity, who 
 would be only too happy were either of the Frenchay Bachelors to 
 make them an offer. 
 
 One, indeed, there was (we will call her Maria Hayward) who 
 was said to have captivated the elder of the two, and to be 
 herself at the same time enamoured of the handsome stranger with 
 the dark eyes. She had other admirers, however, and one of them, 
 a young Newnham, son to a wealthy Bristol banker of that name, 
 and brother to the Rev. Mr. Newnham, who so strangely lost his 
 life at Pen Park Hole; but, being inferior in apparent personal 
 qualities to the elder Vernon, it was considered that he had a rival 
 too formidable to be displaced. 
 
 At the time the Hotwells were at the height of their fashion 
 and popularity, Clifton being then unknown, except as a small 
 suburban hamlet on the hill. To the balls and the festivities in 
 the old Assembly Room, which has long been appropriated to other 
 purposes, the gentry of the surrounding country and their families 
 flocked, and the Bachelors of Frenchay were amongst the frequent 
 and most noticeable attendants at these gay entertainments. And 
 it was only natural to suppose that many a mother with marriage- 
 able daughters looked wistfully to young fellows of fashion and 
 figure like the Vernons, whose style of living bespoke them men of 
 good fortune and peculiarly eligible matches. If other young fellows 
 of fashion, their contemporaries, did sometimes wonder " where 
 the deuce the Vernons came from ; " of what family and county 
 they were ; how, without any connections and friends, they selected 
 Frenchay for their residence dropping, as it were, from the clouds 
 down into the house by the common ladies were not so critical, 
 and had not perhaps the same cause for jealousy that the men had, 
 who rarely could get a chance of dancing with any belle of the 
 evening when the Vernons were at the assemblies. It was enough 
 for them that the latter paid their way handsomely, were munificent 
 in all matters, and when the gentleman who let them the house 
 asked for a reference they replied by giving a year's rent in 
 advance. 
 
 Maria Hayward's parents, who were people of good position 
 residing in Winterbourne parish, were probably not wholly
 
 221 
 
 unconscious of certain polite attentions paid by the elder bachelor, 
 Sydney Vernon, to their daughter ; but as he had made no formal 
 proposal they were not in a position to ask him for information as 
 to his family connections, &c. Had they, however, been more 
 quick of observation, they might have been led to suspect that 
 Maria herself and the fashionable stranger were much nearer 
 making an engagement for themselves than their friends fancied ; 
 while the residents at Oldbury-court in those days whispered that 
 they more than once saw two persons walking through the thick 
 and romantic woods by the Frome side, whose figures, even though 
 at a distance, marvellously resembled those of Maria Hayward and 
 the elder Vernon. 
 
 Thus matters stood when a ball of more than ordinary brilliancy 
 a bachelors' ball was given at the Hotwells. All the fashionable 
 world were there, and the two Vernons were not absent. Maria 
 Hayward never looked better than on that evening. There was a 
 flash of excitement in her eye and a flush on her cheek which 
 became her, and she seemed for the first time careless about 
 concealing her love for the elder Vernon. And, as he danced no 
 less than four times during the evening with her, the significant 
 attention did not fail to attract the notice of the company. She 
 wore that night a bracelet glittering with gems of extraordinary 
 brilliancy, which her friends had not noticed before in her 
 possession, and which it afterwards came to be known was the gift 
 of the elder of the two bachelors. 
 
 Her other old suitor, Newnham, was there also, but he had the 
 penetration to see that matters had come to a pass when there was 
 no hope for him ; he therefore abstained from further paying 
 attentions which he saw were not acceptable Like a sensible 
 fellow, he flung himself into the festivities of the evening, and did 
 his best to forget his disappointment in the gaieties of the hour. 
 In one of the dances he took his place with his fair partner close 
 to Maria Hayward and Sydney Vernon, and, the better to conceal 
 any appearance of chagrin, rattled on in gay conversation with his 
 companion, telling her of his intended journey to London, on which 
 he was to start soon after supper a journey which he periodically 
 made with a large amount of bills and money belonging to the 
 banking firm of which he was a member. 
 
 " I wonder you are not afraid," said his partner, " of highway- 
 men." For that was the time of Paul Cliffords and cavaliers of 
 the road. 
 
 " No danger : " said he lightly ; " I have done the journey ten 
 times already with such impunity that I begin to doubt the very 
 existence of these gallant knights of the stand-and-deliver order." 
 
 " But supposing they did stop you and ask you to stand and 
 deliver ? " enquired his companion. 
 
 " Sydney," said Maria Hayward to her partner, in an earnest 
 whisper, " are you asleep or spell-bound ? " for the Bachelor of 
 Frenchay, though it was his turn to advance in the dance, remained 
 stationary and, as it almost seemed, intently listening to the con- 
 versation of the couple next to him. With a sudden flush Vernon 
 recovered himself, and moved through his part, while Newnham
 
 222 
 
 replied to his fair companion, " And supposing they did stop me, 
 one always has a purse of loose coins to present to the fellows for 
 their civilities. We bankers are only too happy to insure a large 
 amount at so small a cost." 
 
 Before supper that night, Sydney Vernon hastily approached 
 Maria Hay ward, and saying that an old malady of giddiness, which 
 sometimes attacked him in large assemblies owing to the heat of 
 the room and the exertion of dancing, had come upon him, and 
 that he must wish her good night, and get home while he could. 
 Something more he whispered as he pressed her hand, but what 
 that was she herself only heard. He added, however, as he was 
 leaving, that he feared he could not see her to-morrow, as the ill- 
 ness usually confined him to the house for a day or two. After 
 this, he left the room, accompanied by his younger brother Henry. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Day was closing in when a chaise and four appeared on the high 
 road which crosses the broad plain of Hounslow Heath. The 
 occupant was John Newnham, the banker, and, as he was a cool 
 collected fellow prepared, as we have seen, for any sudden incident 
 of this noted highway, we can imagine he travelled without feeling 
 any violent apprehensions of what might occur. It was well he 
 had made up his mind for all accidents ; as he was almost imme- 
 diately aroused from his reverie by hearing the quick, dull beat of 
 horses' feet on the turf. Looking out, he saw two mounted and 
 armed men approach at a rapid gallop, one of whom called with an 
 imperative voice to the driver to stop, and enforced his command 
 by firing a pistol and sending a bullet whistling through the air 
 over the man's head. The driver did not need a second word to 
 bring the chaise to a stand-still, when one of the horsemen, both 
 of whom wore black masks of crape on their faces, appeared at the 
 carriage door, through which he held a long brass-barrelled pistol, 
 pointed at the banker's head, and at the same time demanded his 
 money. It was evident, from the promptitude with which Newnham 
 handed him a pretty well filled purse, that the latter had already 
 made up his mind how to act in the emergency. The highwayman 
 took the proffered prize, saying, as he did, however, " The smallest 
 contribution is thankfully received : but Bristol bankers do not 
 usually travel so slenderly provided ; so I shall thank you, sir, to 
 hand me the little black trunk by your side." 
 
 "You have the advantage of me," coolly answered Newnham ; 
 " for while you apparently know me, I have not the honour of your 
 acquaintance ; but with a loaded pistol at my head, I suppose I 
 must submit to my fate," and he handed' to the highwayman the 
 little black box also. The cavalier took it, and turning their 
 horses' heads, he and his companion galloped swiftly over the 
 heath, and were soon lost to sight in the deepening shadows of the 
 night. Newnham then put his head out of the chaise window, and 
 calling to the driver, told him to quicken his pace ; " those fellows 
 have lightened your load and mine, too, my man," said he, " so I 
 think you will have no difficulty in getting over the ground at a 
 round trot." " Humph," added he to himself after a short silence,
 
 * ' I wish them joy of their booty. The Bristol man has contrived 
 to keep his one eye open, otherwise it would be a poor business 
 for the bank." 
 
 Newnham. had the best of it after all ; for he not only kept a 
 loose purse ready for the occasion, but a box also, clenched with 
 iron and filled with copper coins, which no doubt the highwaymen 
 believed contained metal more attractive in the form of gold 
 pieces. He chuckled to himself, and musingly said, " I think my 
 ear was not quite a stranger to that voice." Whatever the secret 
 was, however, he kept it to himself, and afterwards reached 
 London without anything further occurring to call for observation. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Four days after the event on Hounslow Heath, three horsemen 
 rode up to the residence of the Bachelors at Frenchay. One of 
 them enquired of the servant who answered them if either of his 
 masters were at home, and on being informed that they had left 
 the house only for a short time and were expected back every 
 moment, the stranger said that as they were friends they would 
 remain until either returned. They asked permission to put up 
 their horses for a little, which was readily granted them, when they 
 loitered for a few moments in the yard, and then appeared to stroll 
 quite carelessly into the stables. 
 
 " You have some nice well-bred cattle here," said the spokesman 
 of the party to Vernon's principal groom. "I call that a noble 
 gelding," he added, pointing to a black horse, which though carefully 
 dressed, appeared as though it had been recently very hardly 
 ridden. The animal hearing voices turned its head round from the 
 manger to look at the speakers, upon which one of the men 
 glanced meaningly at the chief person of the party, who, in fact, 
 was Newnham, and said, " A. nice star that sir," alluding to the 
 white irregular mark on the horse's forehead. 
 
 "Yes," answered Newnham, nodding, "the very same; I'd 
 swear to it." Then turning round to Vernon's groom, who 
 followed them into the stable, he carelessly observed, "this horse 
 seems to have been doing a good deal of work lately." 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied the man, " master has been in Berkshire with 
 him, and has had some hard days." 
 
 While they were yet speaking the younger Vernon entered the 
 yard, and seemed for the moment disconcerted at the appearance of 
 strangers. However he nodded to Newnham, with whom he had 
 some acquaintance, and then asked them into the house, as the 
 latter said they wished to speak to him. No sooner had Vernon 
 entered the dining-room than the two men who were with 
 Newnham seized him and handcuffed him. They were, in fact, 
 London Bow Street officers whom the banker had brought with 
 him, as, on consideration, he had little doubt that the voice ot 
 the foremost highwayman in the mask was that of the elder 
 Vernon, while he noted that his companion rode a black horse with 
 a white blaze on its forehead, which he thought he recognised as 
 one he had seen Henry Vernon ride with the Beaufort and Berkeley 
 hounds.
 
 224 
 
 No sooner had the butler, who appeared to be a confidential 
 servant, seen how his younger master was served, than he turned 
 to quit the room. " Stop, my friend," exclaimed one of the Bow- 
 street officers, producing a pistol and pointing it at him, " there is 
 no use your trying that dodge with us. You cannot give the other 
 bird notice to wing it ; we bean't such fools as not to look after him 
 as well as this 'ere young gentleman. I daresay his lover's walk is 
 cut short by this time." 
 
 The younger Vernon, who, up to this moment, had kept silence, 
 muttered a terrific oath and ground his teeth in impotent rage. 
 He saw it was all up with him, and so it was. A scout had been 
 sent out to Frenchay an hour or two before Newnham and his 
 party reached the village, and had seen Sidney Vernon and Maria 
 Hayward meet at a trysting place in a wooded dell of the Frome, 
 just where that romantic little river makes a sudden bend towards 
 the woods of Oldbury Court. He gave his employers intimation 
 of this fact, and two men were despatched to head the lovers and 
 lie in ambush for them where the thick leafy covert, close to a 
 little pathway by the river side, enabled them to remain quite 
 concealed until they could almost touch Vernon as he passed. 
 
 Experienced, however, as the officers were in such matters, they 
 did not quite correctly calculate the acuteness of eye and ear 
 possessed by cavaliers whose business is carried on when they 
 require vision to pierce the darkness of night, and hearing to 
 catch the first distant sounds of approaching horses and carriage 
 wheels. A few steps ere the lovers had reached the spot where 
 the men were hidden, Vernon, who before this was engaged in 
 the deepest conversation with Maria, heard a slight rustle, which 
 made him cast a rapid glance towards the place of concealment. 
 The sound came from one of the men who was gently putting 
 aside a branch, the better to enable him to spring at the bachelor 
 as he passed. At the same moment, Vernon raised his hand 
 towards the breast of his coat, and as the movement was noticed 
 by the two men from their leafy hiding-place, they knew a moment 
 was not to be lost : both sprang together towards him, and it was 
 as well at least for one of them that they did not hesitate, and thus 
 allow Vernon time to take aim. As it was, the pistol, which he 
 pulled from his pocket and hastily fired, sent a ball through the 
 beaver of the foremost officer. Even still, the bachelor might have 
 escaped or made a bold fight for liberty, but that Maria, shocked at 
 this extraordinary encounter, fell fainting on the pathway. Vernon 
 turned his eye for a second, and put out his hand to catch her as 
 they were close by the river, and in so doing gave his captors an 
 advantage which they instantly availed themselves of. The two, 
 who were powerful men, threw themselves on him, when seeing 
 there apparently was no use of further resistance he submitted to 
 be disarmed, merely requesting, as they secured his wrists with 
 handcuffs, that one would assist the lady. But there was no need 
 of this : the pistol shot had attracted to the spot a servant from 
 the Court, who happened to be at some little distance, and he 
 promptly summoned help to Miss Hayward, who w s known to the 
 family, while the officers conducted their prisoner back to Frenchay.
 
 225 
 
 When the elder brother on entering the house saw Newnham his 
 countenance changed for a second. Then, recovering himself, he 
 said, " I suppose, sir, this is your mode of entering the lists with a 
 rival in love ? A notable plot, forsooth, for the gratification of 
 disappointed gallantry, but you shall answer for it." 
 
 " It is probable," roplied Newnham, " that you will first have to 
 answer for something yourself on which you will not find it quite so 
 easy to satisfy twelve of your countrymen. I confess myself worsted 
 by you in the field of love ; but it is to be hoped you did not carry 
 on your suit as you did your profession in disguise." And so 
 speaking, the Bristol banker held up a couple of crape masks, 
 which, with other properties necessary for the better transaction of 
 business on the highway, were found concealed in the house. 
 
 The sequel of the story may be anticipated , the bachelors (who 
 really were young fellows of good family and had taken to this 
 wild mode of life) were tried and convicted of stopping on the high- 
 way and robbing John Newnham, banker, of Bristol, who swore 
 distinctly to the voice of one of the men, and to the horse ridden 
 by the other. A chain of corroborative evidence was also adduced, 
 which placed their guilt beyond a doubt. Just as morning was 
 breaking on the day of their capture a man, who was sent for a 
 doctor, saw the two Vernons arrive at their house on horseback, 
 themselves dusty and their horses much distressed. Two men, 
 answering their description, were also traced at several points 
 al'mg the road between the distant scene of the robbery and their 
 residence at Frenchay : and, to cr:)wn all, some articles of jewellery, 
 which pr .>bably they waited an opportunity to dispose of, and which 
 were identified as the pr >perty of persons who had been stopped 
 by two horsemen on the highway, were f ound on the premises. 
 
 An alibi was attempted to be established for the prisoners, but it 
 failed, and the lives of both were forfeited to the law. 
 
 Almost immediately after this extraordinary event the Haywards 
 left that part of the country to reside abroad. Maria's brilliant 
 bracelet that she wore at the bachelors' ball was sent by her parents 
 to the Crown prosecutor, when it was identified as belonging to the 
 
 Countess of C , who, with her husband the Earl, had been 
 
 stopped in their carriage on the Heath by a couple of well-mounted 
 men in masks, and made to deliver not merely their purses but the 
 other valuables they had ab mt them. In a m >ment of infatuated 
 passion the elder Vern >n, who, no doubt of it, was deeply attached 
 to Maria Hayward, presented her with the ornament which might 
 at any moment have led to his discovery. Maria herself was said 
 to have received such a shock that her reason at times was slightly 
 affected, and she died abroad some few years after the strange 
 events which I have (I admit with a slight colouring) endeavoured 
 to relate, but the main points of which are founded on facts, that 
 I have had from two credible sources. 
 
 Richard Smith used to say that the house at Frenchay where the 
 bachelors lived had been pointed out to him as a boy ; but the 
 owner of it need not be under any apprehension that my story will 
 cause his property to be named " The Highwayman's Box," as I 
 myself have not the means of identifying it.
 
 imfr 
 
 I have at times thought that one with leisure and opportunity 
 might find out and write something interesting on the medical 
 annals of Bristol. Its ecclesiastical and commercial history has 
 been amply illustrated. We know how its mitred priests and 
 merchant princes lived and where they lived, for we are still rich 
 in the monastic and domestic architecture of the Middle Ages ; but 
 what old physicians it had, what they did towards increasing or 
 diminishing the population of the place in the different ages in 
 which they flourished, we do not know certainly I do not know. 
 Yet doubtless, considering the size and importance of the city, the 
 healing art in old times must have had some learned professors 
 amongst its local practitioners. Without going further into the 
 subject, however, which I candidly confess I have not the means of 
 doing, I have been struck with the curious coincidence that the two 
 principal memorialists, or at least topographers, of Bristol were 
 mediciners or belonged to the medical profession. Those were 
 William Botoner, better known as William of Wycestre, and 
 William Barrett. 
 
 Nearly four hundred years intervened between the two worthies 
 between the time that the former cultivated a garden of medicinal 
 herbs by the gateway of St. Philip's Church (where he lived and 
 practised physic) and the time when the latter screwed his brass 
 plate, inscribed with " William Barrett, Surgeon," on the house in 
 St. Augustine's Parade, formerly occupied by Messrs. Ohillcott. 
 Nevertheless, I fancy there was something in common between the 
 dispositions of the two old Bristol physickers and topographers : 
 something even of similarity in their histories. Certes, they were 
 alike in the loving minuteness with which they loitered around the 
 antiquarian points of interest in the old city the loving curiosity 
 with which they pryed into every feature of its ancient and monu- 
 mental buildings, walking about Bristol as the Psalmist would have 
 us walk about Sion, marking well her bulwarks, and telling the 
 towers thereof, while setting down their measurements and their 
 beauties for the information of after-ages. 
 
 In an old Quarterly Review and a pleasant paper, entitled " Travel- 
 ling in England," we have a short notice of our friend Botoner : 
 
 "The most ancient notes of a traveller in England which remain to us 
 (says the Reviewer) are those of William Botoner, better known as 
 William of Worcester, who (notwithstanding his name which he inherited 
 from his father) was born in Bristol about the year 1415. He was educated 
 at Oxford, mainly at the expense of Sir John FalstofF, of Caistor. in 
 Norfolk, whose squire he afterwards became, and whose life he wrote. 
 Some specimens of his correspondence with Sir John Falstoff occur among 
 the Paston Letters. His ' Itinerary ' is preserved in the library of 
 Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and was printed in 1778. It contains 
 notes of his pilgrimage from Ware, in Hertfordshire, to St. Michael's 
 Mount, in Cornwall, and of various other journeys in the South of
 
 . 227 
 
 England : descriptions of Bristol and the adjoining country ; scraps about 
 the Falstoffs and their Castle; and various historical notes inserted 
 almost at random. The whole is very brief and confused ; but besides 
 the especial interest belonging to any work of a learned layman in the 
 fifteenth century, the ' Itinerary ' preserves dimensions and measure- 
 ments of churches, castles, and other buildings, the value of which has 
 long been recognised by archaeologists. It is not easy to discover even a 
 hint of the picturesque in William of Worcester : yet we follow with 
 some curiosity the record of his ten days' ride from Ware to the great 
 Cornish shrine, and those at least who know the country are pleased to 
 learn how ' jentavit ' he breakfasted among the Canons of Crediton, 
 and then proceeded by rough roads (a day's journey, although little more 
 than fifteen miles so that we must suppose the Bordeaux of the Canons 
 to htve been unusually attractive) to Oakhampton, where he found 
 shelter in the stronghold of the Courtenays, the ruined walls of which 
 still hang so picturesquely over the mountain stream. From Oakhampton 
 Master William journeyed over ' le moore vocat Dertmore,' to the great 
 hall of the Benedictines at Tavistock, where, if the annals of the house 
 speak true, he was sure to find good venison of the red-deer, and no lack 
 of its necessary accompauimeats. It is this progress from college to 
 castle, and from castle to monastery, which gives such a marked 
 distinction to William's ' Itinerary,' and to that of his successor, Leland. 
 Both travellers show us something of the true old England ; although 
 great changes had taken place between the time of William's journeys, 
 made just before the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses, and those of 
 Leland, when the storm had already broken over the great religious 
 houses." 
 
 This is a scanty biography, yet it is pretty well all we know of 
 the earliest English, topographer, who was born in our St. James's 
 Back, " of parents not ex equestri ordine, as Tanner saith, but trades- 
 men, whitawers, skinners, and glovers." We are reminded by a 
 late annalist that St. James's Back at the time of William of 
 Wycestre was " almost wholly occupied as open garden ground to 
 the few houses of the opulent who were located in that neighbour- 
 hood ; and whose casements looked over the Broad Meads that 
 stretched away eastward, and refreshed the eye of young Master 
 Botoner with their greenness, or tempted him forth a cowsliping." 
 Passing along the Back any evening, as he makes his way from 
 Nelson Street into St. James's Churchyard, the reader can amuse 
 himself realising, if possible, Mr. Pryce's fancy picture of the 
 locality in the early part of the 15th century. 
 
 The Quarterly Reviewer omits one or two little facts in connec- 
 tion with W. of Wycestre which Barrett inserts in the almost 
 equally brief account which he gives of his prototype. Botoner, it 
 is believed, was the first to translate any of Cicero's works into 
 English. The treatise on " Old Age " (De Senectute) he presented 
 to William de Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, but he complains 
 that he received no return or acknowledgment nullum regardum 
 recipi de episcopo a delightful little characteristic grumble, which 
 shows how human nature and learned patronage have been pretty 
 much the same in all ages of the world. " It is not at all uncommon 
 for authors, especially translators," mildly adds Barrett, " to go 
 unrewarded." The gentle Bristol surgeon could not for the life of 
 him say anything sharper He was no slasher or sensationalist 
 writer, Heaven bless his memory ! 
 
 Wycestre's manuscript, which has since been a guide to so many 
 antiquarians, was nothing more than a commonplace or pocket-
 
 228 
 
 book, which he carried with him in his wanderings, pulling it out 
 and dotting down rude notes and measurements of the places he 
 visited and examined. When discovered in the Benet Col- 
 lege Library, Cambridge, the characters in the worn and well- 
 thumbed pages were so indistinct and difficult that, the entries 
 being almost wholly in Latin, it was as hard to decipher as though 
 it had been a roll of papyrus filled with hieroglyphics. Nevertheless 
 the tedious task was executed by the ingenious Mr. Nasymth, who 
 published the book in 1778. ' Wycestre," says Barrett, "is 
 particular in description of the churches, the streets, the religious 
 houses, &c., of his native city, though little taste in architecture is 
 displayed, and often nothing but their measurement by steps 
 (gressusj given, without any order observed, but things are noted 
 down as they occur." Nevertheless, there is at times, in spite of 
 all that may be said to the contrary, a graphic reality in his entries. 
 For instance, when describing the boundaries of the old castle, he 
 says, " you go on marching by the wall of the ditch, of the walls of 
 the Castle through Newgate, and along the street called the Weer 
 and over Weer bridge, leaving the watering place on the left hand, 
 and making a circuit by the wall of the Castle ditch towards the South 
 near the Cross in the Old Market," and plodding on, the old fellow 
 concludes his rounds by observing, "the whole circuit contains 
 2,100 steps." Do you not see, in your mind's eye, the gossiping 
 old phy sicker trudging his lonely round of those wide ramparts, 
 mentally counting step after step as he marches along, to use his 
 own words? his "step" by the way being somewhere about 
 twenty-one or twenty-two inches. The good old note-taker used 
 no measuring chain or tape measure ; he had not even his walking- 
 stick notched out into feet or pedes, but with his own stout legs 
 he took the dimensions, and when he had " stepped " north and 
 south, east and west, he put his hand in his broad cloth doublet, 
 pulled out his pocket book, and, like Captain Cuttle, " made a note 
 on it." He picked up some information also from others as he 
 went along, jotting by the way. Thus he says, speaking in English 
 of " the quantite of the dongeon of the Castell of Bristol," that 
 he had the dimensions " after the informatione of . . Porter of 
 the Castell ; " from which we may presume that Master Botoner 
 was unable to obtain admission or did not care to ask for it to that 
 gloomy feudal apartment : so was content with the measurement 
 second-hand from the porter, as he paid the man a gossiping visit 
 in the lodge, and perhaps stood something handsome in the shape 
 of a treat. Another instance of his exactness as to length and 
 breadth may be taken as a sample of whole pages of his Itinerary. 
 Speaking of the hall of the Castle, he says, " The length of it is 
 36 yards, or 52 steps; the breadth of the hall is 18 yards or 26 
 steps ; and the height of the walls outside the hall is fourteen feet, 
 as I measured them." One extract more, and I have done with the 
 old topographer's jottings : it is a sly little poke at the parsons, as 
 we should say in our days. Speaking of the Castle Chapel of the 
 outer ward, he says, " It is dedicated to the honour of St. Martin, 
 but in devotion to Saint John the Baptist, a monk of St Jamea 
 ought to celebrate the office every day, but he does it but Sunday,
 
 229 
 
 Wednesday, and Friday." Tis clear Master Botoner thought the 
 Friar was shirking his duty. 
 
 With that instinctive yearning for old and well remembered 
 locality, which comes back to most men in the evening of life, 
 William of Wyrcester on the death of his patron, returned to his 
 native place. Possibly the parental abode in St. James's Back had 
 become the property of another, or did not suit his new circum- 
 stances, since we find he started as physician and herbalist in a 
 tenement by St. Philip's Gate. It was no new calling, for he was 
 medical adviser as well as secretary and executor of Sir John 
 Falstoff. A peaceful and pleasant mode of life, too, it must have 
 been, this culling of simples out in the morning in his garden 
 gathering rosemary and mint and rue and sassafras when St. 
 Philip's bells were ringing for matins, and sauntering there again 
 in the dewy eve when these same bells called to vespers. I hold it 
 to be not a little characteristic of the old topographer's mental 
 tranquillity and happy disposition that he should have selected for 
 his first subject of translation Cicero's treatise on " Old Age," 
 which is so soothing and sweetly philosophic for those who are 
 declining in days. The good old herbalist lived to be seventy, 
 reaching exactly the time when another great lover of gardens and 
 gardening, Sir William Temple, seemed to think most men should 
 die should say their Nunc Dimittis. "I knew and esteemed a 
 person abroad," wrote Sir William, " who used to say a man must 
 be a mean wretch who desired to live after three score years old : 
 but so much I doubt is certain," continues the illustrious 
 diplomatist, " that in life as in wine, he that will drink it good, 
 must not draw it to the dregs." Nevertheless he also gives us the 
 cheerful side of a lengthened life ; " Socrates used to say that it 
 was pleasant to grow old with good health and a good friend, and 
 he might have reason ; a man might be content to live while he is 
 no trouble to himself or his friends ; but after that, it is hard if he 
 be not content to die." 
 
 I conclude Botoner enjoyed life to the last ; varying the duties 
 of his profession with walks through the city, dotting down the 
 dimensions and descriptions of its ancient buildings, with now and 
 again a week's holiday, for an excursion in the country from castle 
 to castle and monastery to monastery. 
 
 Thus, too, it was with William Barrett as with William Botoner. 
 The second Bristol topographer found time and leisure even amidst 
 the calls of a good practice to make himself acquainted with all 
 our venerable churches and historic buildings hunting up old 
 manuscripts, reading old charters. And though there were many 
 richer men doubtless than he, I question if there was one that 
 was more happy, when on a summer's evening, having seen all his 
 patients and sent out all his physic, he sat down in his little parlour 
 on St Augustine's Back to arrange the materials of his future his- 
 tory. If he loitered in his literary labour he tells us he was quickened 
 to diligence by the admonition of a friend who urged him to make 
 haste with his book, and suid " Habe ante oculos mortalitatem." 
 
 Barrett spent the last years of his life in a peaceful, rural retreat 
 near Wraxall, in a house afterwards occupied by a family named
 
 230 
 
 Homer, and where, like Botoner, he prescribed for the poor, but 
 unlike him, was fortunate in being able to prepare his jottings in a 
 collected form for the press. I know few things in a small way 
 more affecting than the passing notice which Barrett gives of his 
 wife's tomb in St. Mary Redcliff. She died when comparatively 
 young, "quietly fell asleep," as he says himself in the epitaph 
 which is very fair Latin. 
 
 Written at a time when the style of mortuary memorials was 
 fulsome and inflated, it presents in its simplicity and natural 
 affection, a refreshing contrast to what we read on the sculptured 
 tablets of the period. In his enumeration of the monuments of 
 Redcliff Church, given in his own history, he glances aside to 
 notice this one to him associated with so much that was sad and 
 sweet in memory. He directs the attention of the reader or visitor 
 to it in but few words : they are, however, touching for their 
 brevity, and seem to come from him with a suppressed sigh. I can 
 almost see the widowred and harmless old man as, pencil in hand, 
 he makes the inventory of the adjacent monuments, turn towards 
 this with half averted look, as a tear falls from an eye dimmed 
 with age on the note-book in his hand. It is to the " memory of 
 one," he says, " who justly deserved the character here given her 
 by her husband ; she was taken from him in early life. Eheu, dies 
 atro carbone notanda." From the day "to be noted with a black 
 mark," to the time he was making this note in his history, more 
 than a quarter of a century had elapsed, and the aged historian 
 doubtless looked back, as it were but yesterday, on that 8th of May, 
 1763, when in the 32nd year of her age, she " calmly fell asleep in 
 the Lord without a sigh," (placide obdormivit) leaving four 
 daughters and a little son to be cared for by the simple-hearted 
 surgeon, who probably from his studious and antiquarian habits 
 was better calculated to look after ancient coats of arms than the 
 clothes of a young family. The inscription is, of course, in Latin ; 
 poor Barrett was too fond of the dead language to employ a living 
 one, where he could legitimately use the tongue in which Virgil 
 and Livy wrote. He begins 
 
 Maiife charissimse conjugi 
 Gulielmi Barrett, chirurgi 
 
 and then goes on to tell of that suavity of manner, that simplicity 
 of life, that benevolence of soul, and that eminent piety which 
 made her dear to all who knew her, and bound her husband to her 
 by the sweet chain of love : he tells us too how she wasted away, 
 the victim of consumption, and bearing her malady with Christian 
 fortitude. Her maiden name was Tandy and she was of a respectable 
 Wiltshire family. 
 
 It is a pity we do not know more of the personal history of our 
 local historian, who if he has put together his book crudely and in 
 a somewhat undigested shape, has yet shown himself a most 
 painstaking and patient chronicler, and has collected in that 
 awkward old quarto of his much valuable topographical information 
 and ancient records, abundant material out of which a more expert 
 and graphic writer might, with little trouble to himself, compile a 
 pleasant useful and even picturesque history of our ancient and, in
 
 231 
 
 spite of all its faults, dear old city. Possibly some of our local 
 collectors may be in possession of scraps illustrative of the private 
 life of the Bristol surgeon, who gave up so much of his time and 
 spent some of his own money in searching out, selecting and 
 condensing the mass of ancient authorities which he must have 
 consulted and digested in making his volume. At present, however, 
 as far as I can see, we have only the few particulars of the man that 
 may be gleaned from occasional references in the history he has 
 written, and incidental allusions to him which occur in the 
 memorials and lives of Chatterton. And from his conduct to that 
 wayward, proud, and impracticable boy, we can see he was a man 
 of natural kindness, and with a dash of pedantry and studious 
 absence of mind did not want for benevolent good sense, judging 
 from the way in which he spoke to the youth when his master, 
 Lambert, showed him the letter the former had left for Mr. 
 Clayfield, and in which he intimated his intention of committing 
 suicide. Sending immediately for Chatterton, Barrett says ho 
 " questioned him closely upon the occasion in a tender and friendly 
 manner." Next day the young poet wrote Barrett the letter with 
 which the readers of his life are so well acquainted. One thing 
 may be noticed in it, that Chatterton does not treat the kind 
 surgeon with the same malapert style that he always employs in 
 speaking or writing of his other local patron, old Catcott, the 
 pewterer. Chatterton with all his faults had great penetration, and 
 doubtless saw more to respect and admire in the simple-hearted 
 Barrett than in the conceited Catcott ; for we are sure to none but 
 to one of whose kindness and worth he was convinced would he 
 have made the painful confession which he does in this letter 
 " No ! it is my pride, my damned native unconquerable pride, that 
 plunges me into distraction." 
 
 That Barrett did not continue to physic and bleed his fellow- 
 citizens up to the time of his death we learn from a passage in the 
 preface of his history. " Retiring from business into the country," 
 he says, " and often confined by the gout, he thought he should 
 find some amusement in this literary employ, and resumed the long 
 intermitted task, that he might leave it in a less unfinished state to 
 be completed and published hereafter." One tiling we know, that 
 it was in his rustic retreat he finished and printed the history of 
 Bristol. A far greater historian turned the leisure of a country 
 life to the production of his greatest work. Machiavelli, when 
 forced by the stress of politics at Florence to betake himself to his 
 paternal farm, recreated himself in writing " The Prince," when 
 not chopping wood, pruning apple-trees, or hoeing turnips. The 
 idea of writing the History of Bristol occurred to Barrett twenty 
 years before he produced the work, and he then collected most of 
 the materials, and made some progress, he tells us, in compiling it, 
 and even had the copper plates engraved for the book in folio (as 
 we may perceive from most of them having to be folded into the 
 quarto) ; but, he adds, that being engaged in business, which 
 commanded his time and attention, and receiving no encouragement 
 to proceed, he sat down contented with his first loss, and desisted 
 from the undertaking, intending to leave it to one of more leisure,
 
 232 
 
 and to a time more auspicious and favourable to the undertaking. 
 The worthy surgeon was doubtless as cross as one of his placid 
 nature could be at having to put aside his papers and his darling 
 task, so he grumbled about losing his labour and his oil (oleum et 
 operamj . After quitting business, however, and taking down his 
 brass plate, and getting comfortable in his country cot, where he 
 could no longer be disturbed by that horrid "night-bell," and did 
 not go to bed with the apprehension that his first sleep would be 
 broken by the tintinnabular summons, when putting his head out 
 of the window, the messenger on the flag- way below informed him 
 
 that Mrs. , was in a state more interesting than comfortable, 
 
 and required his instant and obstetric aid, Then, I say, like ohe 
 soldier tired of war's alarms, Barrett, tired of professional 
 summonses, welcomed no doubt with pleasure the ease and quiet of 
 his country life ; and having arranged his books and papers on their 
 new shelves, recovered in its full force his love for the abandoned 
 work. Even then, perhaps, he would not have persevered, but, as 
 he tells us, at the time " a worthy doctor of one of our 
 universities, deservedly esteemed by all for his singular humanity 
 and friendly disposition, visited him and warmly solicited him to 
 proceed with the work and publish it himself in his life-time." The 
 worthy doctor wrote to his Bristol acquaintance in Latin. Two 
 such learned pundits of course would not condescend to anything so 
 common-place as English in their communications. Barrett gives 
 us a scrap of the letter, wherein the University doctor, like a 
 flattering old rogue, affectionately scolds the Bristol surgeon on 
 being a hard and cruel man to keep so distinguished a work so long 
 from the public, and after a few more honeyed phrases, clinches all 
 by giving him an injunction to consider how brief and uncertain 
 was life. Habe ante oculos mortalitatem. 
 
 This sentence, Barrett tells us, made an impression irresistible 
 applied to one in a declining state of health and years. In a word, 
 the volume was immediately resumed, and prosecuted without inter- 
 ruption, and then offered to the public, who liberally patronised it. 
 The history was printed in 1789. 
 
 I really do think that both Botoner and Barrett, as two Bristol 
 memorialists and medical practitioners, deserve some little monu- 
 mental recognition of their peaceful literary and professional lives, 
 and the pains they took as topographers to perpetuate the archi- 
 tectural features and ancient fame of our old town. 
 
 By the way, there was another Bristol practitioner but he was 
 in our own day who was a great dabbler in local history and 
 antiquities, Richard Smith, or " Dick Smith " as men were wont to 
 call him. The pages of the Bristol Mirror bear ample testimony to 
 his talent in this respect, and for nearly two score years, I think, 
 he regularly wrote the newsman's Christmas verses for that paper. 
 The writer of this notice remembers that almost the last occasion 
 when he saw and spoke to Mr. Smith, the latter presented him 
 with a printed copy of his illustrated history, in rhyme, of "The 
 dreadful tragedy of Sir Dinely Goodyer," literally bound in boards, 
 made out cf a piece of the gibbet on which the murdeier was hung 
 in chains at the Swash.
 
 iamtt, 
 
 THE BRISTOL HISTORIAN. 
 
 We are happy to say that the foregoing paper, scanty in materials 
 though it was, has fortunately elicited from the surviving relatives 
 of the historian rather full and really interesting particulars of the 
 man, which our readers, we are sure, will thank us for being 
 the means of procuring and placing before them. We have, at the 
 same time, to thank those of Mr. Barrett's relations who have kindly 
 lent their aid in the collection of the materials furnished in the 
 following; which is mainly supplied to us from the pen of a lady, a 
 descendant of the family of Mrs. Barrett, the latter having been a 
 Bristolian, daughter of a Mr Tandy, sugar-baker of some eminence 
 in the last century, and residing in Thomas Street : 
 
 William Barrett, surgeon, F.S.A., was born about the year 1735, 
 at Chippenham, or the adjoining village, Notion ; of his parents we 
 know nothing, save that they died when he was very young, leaving 
 another son, an infant, named Anthony. William and Anthony 
 appear to have been comfortably provided for, and were placed 
 under the care of kind guardians. The first steps in learning were 
 made by the youthful William under the care of the schoolmaster 
 of his native place, whose name was Bull ; this worthy held his 
 school in the porch or vestry of the church, and from his pupil 
 having to repeat his lessons in a very loud voice, the villagers, on 
 passing, used frequentlj to exclaim, " Hark'ee, there's Bull and 
 Barrett up at zaye." Barrett made such rapid progress in the 
 classics, that his master rested not until he had persuaded his 
 guardians to send him to Winchester. Mr. Barrett used frequently 
 to relate with great glee his introduction to that public School. 
 " Being very young and little, upon his going into the schoolroom, 
 the master called him up, and asked him what he could read. 
 ' Homer,' was the answer. ' You read Homer ! ' was the astonished 
 reply; and forthwith a book was given him, when, to the amaze- 
 ment of the enquirer and mirth of the boys, the little fellow begaii 
 to shout forth the lesson in the same loud key he had been accus- 
 tomed to in the church porch." The surprise of the master, and 
 peals of laughter of the boys, he never forgot. 
 
 At Winchester he made a lasting friendship with John Tandy, 
 the son of a Bristol sugar-baker, and frequently passed holidays at 
 his home in Thomas-street. As he advanced to manhood, he fell 
 in love with Mary Tandy, his friend's younger sister, and as soon 
 as he had been admitted a surgeon he married her, settling in 
 Broad Street. With a comfortable income of his own and a goodly 
 portion with his wife, Barrett had not, like many of his brethren, 
 to struggle through poverty upwards : being very skilful, too, he 
 soon gained a first-rate practice, and the next thing we find him 
 doing is moving to St. Augustine's Back (the house occupied by 
 Messrs. Chilcott at the corner of Host Street) ; there being no 
 houses then on the Quay, the gardens reached to the river, and it 
 was considered a pleasant and fashionable situation. With constant 
 calls on his time from his profession, Barrett gave much of his
 
 234 
 
 nights to the study of Holy Scripture in the original language, and 
 antiquarian researches. It is remembered by his family that, if 
 ever called up in the night, -when he returned home, he never retired 
 to rest, but spent the remaining hours with his books In 1763, 
 amidst every temporal blessing, the great sorrow of his life took 
 place : the wife of his youth sickened, and, in spite of every earthly 
 care, died of consumption after giving birth to her fifth child, Sophia. 
 
 Of Mrs. Barrett we say little : her husband's beautiful epitaph 
 on her speaks for itself, and his future life bore testimony to her 
 lasting influence. He buried her with her own forefathers in 
 Redcliff Church, and doubtless felt the old building was now 
 doubly dear when holding that which was to him the most 
 precious of earth. 
 
 Barrett was not a man to sit down despondingly under affliction ; 
 it rather quickened his energies and urged him out of self into 
 deeper study of his favourite objects. Committing the care of his 
 house to a Mrs. Trappel, a distant relative of his own, and the 
 superintendence of his young children to his mother-in-law, Mrs 
 Tandy, he became more devoted to the city of which he had 
 become an adopted son, and determined to write its history. In 
 this he was greatly influenced by a learned friend, Dr. Glyn (the 
 author of the poem, " The Last Day"). Increasing practice, how- 
 ever, gave him little opportunity of carrying out his desire, and 
 much of the spare time he had was given to the teaching of his 
 youngest child, Sophia, who appeared to have a larger claim on 
 his love from having never known her mother's. He taught her 
 Latin, and began Greek with her also, and found she was as 
 willing to receive instruction as he to communicate it. About 1784 
 he came to the determination of retiring from his profession. 
 Frequent attacks of gout prcbably assisted him in his resolution, 
 and his two kind relatives having died, his eldest daughter, 
 Susannah, took the head of his household at his country house 
 at Wraxall, which he had bought a few years before (the house 
 that the late Mr. Homer re-built and lived in so many years). 
 Here surrounded by books, children and friends, he gave up him- 
 self to the real enjoyment of his life, " close study," only attending 
 the poor of the village, whom he denominated "God Almighty's 
 patients.' 1 He published his history of Bristol in 1789, and then 
 began with some friends to translate the Old Testament from the 
 Hebrew. Many sermons that he wrote for his son, now in posses- 
 sion of Mrs. Barrett's family, are quaint and original. 
 
 But in the midst of his agreeable pursuits, severe suffering in his 
 head came on with a swelling on one of his eyebrows. One 
 morning after a distressing night he called for a mirror, and 
 carefully examined the enlargement. He then told his daughters 
 that it was a carbuncle and that in forty-eight hours he should be 
 no more. Barrett's words were verified and he died about the 
 time he had mentioned to his children. His death took place 
 in September, 1780, at Wraxall, and his age must have been about 
 55. He was buried at Higham, in Somersetshire, in the Church 
 of which his only son was the rector. 
 
 Miss Sophia Barrett, Mr. Barrett's youngest daughter, lived for.
 
 235 
 
 many years with her nephew Dr. Gapper, now Southby, at the 
 Abbey Gate House, College Green, Bristol. Dr. Southby is the 
 eldest surviving grandson of Mr. Barrett. He took to the name of 
 Southby in 183.5, on the deaths of Miss Southby and Lady Pollen, 
 being their heir-at-law. 
 
 From another of his descendants, we learn that there is still 
 extant, and in the possession of the writer, a large interleaved 
 Testament of his, full of his writing, and with a Latin inscription 
 on the first page, to the effect that, " On the 1st day of August, 
 1784, he began to read through the books of the New Testament 
 in the order in which they are placed ; and which, he was ashamed 
 to say, he had not found leisure to do in the whole of his life, while 
 turning through so many other volumes." He also gives the dates 
 on which he began the different books, the last being August, 1787, 
 at Wraxall, " where I then (he adds) fixed my residence" (ubi 
 tune habitationem fixi). " Omnia te Textus, si sapis, ipse docet ;" 
 and at the foot of the page 
 
 " Forsan heec oliru meminisse juvabit." 
 
 "We are also indebted to Miss Homer, of Wraxall (whose family 
 purchased the historian's residence after his death, and who still 
 (1860) reside in it), for some pleasing particulars of the amiable 
 and learned Historian, while living in that village. From the 
 memoranda kindly furnished by that lady, we collect the following : 
 
 Barrett bought the house at Wraxall, with the land attached to it. in 
 1766, of Samuel King, Esq. I have by me an attested copy of his will, 
 dated 1787, in which, after disposing of his property, he charges his son, 
 the Rev. William Tandy Barrett, rector of Higham, and his son-in-law, 
 the Rev. Edmund Gapper, rector of Kington Manstield (both in the 
 county of Somerset), to finish, transcribe, and publish his History of 
 Bristol in the "reasonable size of one large quarto" (however he lived to 
 complete it himself). The last clause in the will is, perhaps, characteristic, 
 and I will copy it. " Lastly (he says), I desire that when I shall happen 
 to die, my body be rolled in an old blanket, and put in a common shell 
 or coffin, and that it be buried in any churchyard nearest and adjoining, 
 and carried to the grave liy six of the poor men of the parish, who shall 
 receive 5s. each, and a crape hatband each, for their labour, and a large 
 flat stone only be put over the grave, inscribed with my name." I know 
 not in what year he (Barrett) died, but I find my grandfather (Thomas 
 Gee, Esq.), bought the estate of his representatives in 1790. He left at 
 his death a son, Rev. W. T. Barrett, and four daughters, Mary, wife of 
 Rev. E. Gapper, and Susan, Ann, and Sophia, single. 
 
 An old woman still living here remembers Mr. B. well, as a kind 
 elderly man in a cocked hat, with a pleasant word for everybody and 
 especially for the children, whose heads he used to pat when they made 
 their little bows and curtsies to him. She also recollects his attending 
 her mother on one occasion and refusing to take any fee, because he said 
 she was poor and worked hard she remembers seeing him walk down 
 the road with (she thinks) a viper in his hand, which he had detected in 
 the act of destroying a poor toad, and whose life he thus saved. She tel s 
 too of his building a cottage (still standing) tor a poor woman who 
 washed at his house and allowing her to pay for it by her work. Perhaps 
 I ought to say (adds Miss Homer) that this house was much smaller than 
 at present, when he lived in it, but nevertheless a great part of the old 
 building still remains. I find, however, he owned the advowson of the 
 living of Higham, a house on St. Augustine Back, Aldridge's twine-yard. 
 Great Garden, and other property at the time he made his will. A 
 cabinet of coins, pictures, ic., and a library of booi<s alluded to in the 
 codicil seem to bespeak him a man of taste and education.
 
 iristol 
 
 " It is difficult to grow old gracefully," said Madame de Stael. 
 And so it is ; for when infirmities will not allow you to descend 
 the hill pleasantly, there are also querulousness against the present 
 and an extravagant admiration of the past, which make croaking 
 time often commence at three score years and ten. Old Cruger, 
 however, I should say, had learned, or more probably possessed 
 from nature, the faculty which the sententious French lady thought 
 so hard to be acquired. Red Cruger, I mean Cruger, Burke's 
 colleague who said, if he really ever did say, that famous speech, 
 " Ditto to Mr. Burke : " though like many other historical sayings, 
 the unreality of which have been exposed by Monsieur Fournier, 
 possibly this famous apophthegm too will some day be discovered to 
 be mythical * 
 
 They were grand and jolly old times for High-street, when it 
 furnished within a few doors of one another two men engaged in 
 trade able to go forth and contest the Parliamentary representation 
 of Bristol. And this, too, when a contest was no child's play, 
 merely costing three or four thousand pounds at the utmost and 
 lasting only one day aut cita mors, out Iceta victoria : but a fight 
 of fourteen days around the booths in Queen-square, when a 
 waggon-load of satin favours was the least each candidate had to 
 contribute Such were the ordinary preliminaries through which 
 a man approached senatorial honours at the close of the last 
 century. 
 
 Nevertheless, Matthew Brickdale, woollen draper, and Henry 
 Cruger, general merchant, it would seem, thought the luxury worth 
 the money. Red Cruger was a handsome man, and Samuel Peach, 
 the founder of the Tockington family and a wealthy huckaback or 
 linen merchant living in Mary-le-port Street, had an only daughter 
 who thought so too : for she fell in love with him, and married him. 
 And, more than that, his father-in-law was almost as fond of the 
 fine, fresh, upstanding Cruger ; as he opened his purse to him, 
 and paid his way through one of the hardest-fought battles the city 
 has known, allowing himself to be put forward as fourth candidate 
 in order to prevent the second votes going to Cruger's competitor. 
 
 Well ! we have heard over and over again of those giant tights, 
 for they were all giant fights in those money-no-object days. Both 
 men at one time or another gained the honours they earnestly 
 coveted ; but they lost their fortunes, though not perhaps wholly 
 through contested elections. Matthew Brickdale lived long enough 
 
 * The speech as recorded is the truth, but not the whole tiuth. Cruger 
 said, "Ditto to Mr. Burke," but he also said more ; for his whole address 
 occupies fifteen lines, as reported in Felix Farley of that day.
 
 237 
 
 to see all his means vanish, and he himself a pensioner on his own 
 son, who was Collector or Comptroller of Customs Not long ago 
 there were some still living who remembered the old man when he 
 took his daily seat in the Long Room in Queen Square, that he 
 might gossip with the people who came in to pay duties. This 
 gossiping was the last pleasure left him, for when he was eighty 
 he would he wheeled under the trees, and hail any one whom he 
 knew as they hurried by on business. Sometimes, too, he would 
 have himself pulled up into High Street, to see how the bhop fronts 
 were altered, and how the houses themselves there had changed 
 their tenants since he retailed sarsanet and sad-coloured cloth at 
 No. 21. 
 
 His competitor Cruger, who was born in New York when the 
 future United States were still a colony to old England, retired 
 after all his electioneering fights, a good deal broken in circum- 
 stances and health, to his early Transatlantic home, leaving his 
 young son behind him to take his grandfather's name, inherit his 
 grandfather's fortune, and marry one of his daughters to Mr. P. J. 
 Miles, of Leigh Court. 
 
 And this brings me to what T began with, namely, the graceful- 
 ness of Cruger's old age, as exemplified in a letter which he 
 addressed a year or two before his death to his old rival for 
 Parliamentary honours, Matthew Brickdale. They both had then 
 long been done with the world or at least with the passionate 
 political world in which they at one time played no inconsiderable 
 part and therefore able to look back on the vanity of human 
 wishes, and the vanity of human riches too, both having left them. 
 Cruger's letter to Brickdale was addressed from New York shortly 
 belore both the contemporaries of Burke closed their connection 
 wilh this lower world, and thus he wrote : 
 
 My dear Friend, Though in a far land, I learn with satisfaction from 
 those who have seen you hat you are still alive and in the enjoyment of 
 tolerable health. I am also, thank God, for my time of life, well. To 
 us, from whom the world, so far as its ambition and cares are concerned, 
 has passed away, and who can look back upon different scenes, a serene 
 passage through the brief space remaining to us is all we can hope for, 
 and God grant that this may be your lot. HENRY CRUGER. 
 
 Here is a fine piece of manly pathos. It is a sermon in itself. 
 One old man writing to the other, and wisely, if also somewhat 
 mournfully, discounting the past. It is the tranquillity of one 
 who, frail and in harbour, knows he is never to try the ocean 
 again. As Waller sings, 
 
 The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er : 
 So calm are we when passions are no more : 
 For then we know how vain it was to boast 
 Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost 
 
 It does one good to read a letter like this. There is no mawkish 
 sentimentalism about it no unprofitable croak of vanitas vanitatum 
 but the natural result of that long and last experience which must 
 come to most of us And as Cruger said " Ditto to Mr. Burke," 
 so I say " Ditto to Mr. Cruger." It is a blessing at the end of a 
 long existence to be looking forward with hope, and not backwards
 
 238 
 
 with fruitless regrets. I should like myself, when I came towards 
 the last milestone and the wheels were moving slowly, to be in a 
 frame of mind to sing or say with pleasant James Smith 
 
 World, in thy ever-busy mart 
 I've acted no unnoticed part 
 
 Would I resume it? 0, No ! 
 Four acts are done, the jest grows stale ; 
 The waning lamps burn dim and pale ; 
 
 And reason asks Cui bono ? 
 
 I wonder when Matthew Brickdale was hreathing his last, a 
 haggard old man under his son's roof, and Cruger was slowly 
 closing his eyes upon the world, three thousand miles away from 
 the scene of his Parliamentary contests, if either thought of the 
 fierce election cries and party tumults of other days, or if they 
 thought of them, whether it was merely as a misty dream. " The 
 memory of the past," says the Eastern poet, "is a sigh," and so it 
 is, and so it probably was to the two old Bristol candidates.
 
 Great a progress as the press boasts to have made of late years 
 and notwithstanding its brilliant essays, electrical messages and 
 rapid intelligence in one particular it has gone back. In the 
 most interesting department it falls short of the broadsheet of a 
 hundred years ago. I mean the marriage column, or what the wits 
 call " the hatched, matched, and despatched" the birth, marriage, 
 and death column. You take up your paper now of a Saturday 
 morning, and the lady of the house or the daughters pounce at 
 once upon " the Gazette of earthly blisses," aa a poetical friend of 
 mine calls the conjugal announcements. There you read (bat an 
 such and such a day, Miss J ones was married to Mr. Smith at such 
 a church by the Rev. Mr. So and So ; or if they are people fond of 
 creating sensations, you are further informed that the Rev. Mr. So 
 and So was assisted by another of his cloth. Hut this is all you 
 know all the advertisement tells you. Not a word is said about the 
 appearance or the portion of the bride. Miss Jones may be a 
 blackamoor and a pauper for all you know, and, in fact, there is 
 nothing to satisfy one's natural curiosity. 
 
 Now, the old newspapers were in this respect vastly superior to 
 their journalistic successors of the conceited 19th century. They 
 were not content to teaze your inquisitiveness with any such 
 meagre scraps of matrimonial news. They dealt in particulars. 
 They recited the lady's good qualities and every pound of fortune 
 she brought her lucky spouse. For instance, I take up a file of the 
 Bristol newspapers of 1742, only about 120 years ago. We are apt 
 to speak with contempt of the backwardness of the old broadsheets, 
 yet show me anything in modern journalism half so full and 
 satisfying as their announcements of marriages. Here is one, under 
 the head of Bristol, January 8, 1742 : 
 
 Last week, Masters, E<q., son of Thomas Masters, Member of Par- 
 liament for Cirencester, was married at the parish church of Almonds- 
 bury, Gloucestershire, to Miss Cann, sole daughter and heiress of Sir 
 William Cann, lace of Brisliugton, Bart., and niece of Thomas Chester, 
 of Knowle, Esq., M.P. for the county of Gloucester ; a young lady of fine 
 sense, great sweetness of temper, uncommon prudence, with a most 
 agreeable person, and a fortune of 20,000. 
 
 Lucky Master Masters ; we might well say with the old song- 
 She is a charming woman, 
 And he a most fortunate man. 
 
 The first announcement in the same interesting column on the 
 following week is as follows : 
 
 On Tuesday Mr. William Stephens, an eminent linen-draper, in Christ 
 Church parish, was married to Miss Bartlet, eldest daughter of John 
 Bartlet, Esq., late Mayoi of this city ; a polite and beautiful young lady, 
 with a handsome fortune. 
 
 Here, it will be seen, no sum is given, but we may presume it 
 was very large, upon the principle, omne ignotum pro magnified. It 
 is clear, however, Mr. Bartlet would sooner not name the sum, 
 bat leaves it to the imagination of his friends : he might have had
 
 240 
 
 a fast year of it at the Mansion House, and was somewhat cleaned 
 out. In the announcement immediately following this, the bride- 
 groom, who is one Captain William Allen, of College Green, and 
 marries a Miss Whitehead, daughter of Mr. "Whitehead, of St. 
 James's, is said "to have acquired an easy fortune," from being 
 formerly commander in the Guinea trade, for which reason " he 
 has left off the seas." 
 
 The following, under the head of February 12, 1742, is a 
 specimen of mitigated praise, that somehow or other makes you 
 think the lady was plain, since the general allusion to a " pleasing 
 person" is rather pointedly left out 
 
 On Thursday last, Mr George Beecher, the youngest son of John 
 Belcher, Esq., Senior, Alderman, and father of the City, was married to 
 Miss Williams, an agreeable young lady, with a handsome fortune. 
 
 Here again, no sum is named. Some of the announcements are 
 knocked off in a very business-like, brief style, as, for example, 
 ."William Green, Esq , to Mrs. Elizabeth Beaupre Bell, 1,500 
 per annum fortune " The principal attractions of the widow were 
 clearly her 1,500 a-year, for not a word about her amiability or 
 beauty In the following week, the marriage column is still more 
 business-like, to wit, " Samuel Butler, an eminent attorney, to Miss 
 Davis, 8,000." " Thomas Ripley, Esq., to Miss Bucknal, a 
 40,000 fortune." Tne latter, I presume, from the indefinite 
 article being prefixed to it, was considered par excellence a wopping 
 dowry, and so it was. As the Irishman said, " I'd be willing to 
 take the three sisters round at the money " 
 
 In some of the marriages a panegyric was not only bestowed on 
 the fair bride, but the Editor contrived to compliment the whole 
 family also ; as, for instance, on March 10, 1742. we read as follows : 
 
 Thursday Mr. Samuel Gardiner, Master of Colston's Hospital, was 
 married to Miss Peggy Love, daughter of Mr. John Love, an eminent 
 merchant of this city, a very agreeable youug lady, and of a family 
 remarkable for beauty and p .liteness. 
 
 I need not go on multiplying instances. The most interesting 
 inquiry for us at this distance is how those announcements came to 
 find their way into the papers. At present, we know the grand 
 contracting parties themselves are the persons who furnish the 
 intelligence to the newspapers. In London, announcements are 
 paid for as advertisements ; in the Provinces the less fortunate 
 Editor has to insert them for love, not for money. Some years 
 ago, it was the fashion in a few districts of the North of England 
 to send the Editor cards and a piece of wedding cake with the 
 announcement, and 1 have known two or three instances in the 
 course of my experience when it has occurred even in Bristol. If 
 the practice, however, were in general use, looking at the list of 
 marriages which we see in the country papers, the cloyed Editor 
 might not only support himself and his whole family upon that 
 luscious food, but he would probably come in time to resemble the 
 priest's boy in Horace, who ran away surfeited from the honeyed 
 cakes that were offered at his master's shrine. 
 
 If, then, these old marriage announcements were transmitted to 
 the public prints by the families of the couples joined in wedlock, 
 what fulsome egotists our forefathers and foremothers must have
 
 241 
 
 been, to talk about the beauty, the prudence, and politeness of their 
 daughters, and not only of the perfections of the bride, but of the 
 whole family also. And then about the fortunes! What an 
 opportunity for people to put forth false representations of wealth ! 
 Who was to contradict them who but the bridegroom himself? 
 And I suppose, even admitting the amount named to be a gross 
 exaggeration, he found it to his advantage to let it pass unchallenged, 
 since the more he was supposed to have got with his wife, the 
 larger the credit he was likely to attain, pecuniary and personal, 
 from the public. I daresay, too, the same public had a tolerably 
 correct way of discounting the reported fortunes. According to 
 Lever, the approved plan in Ireland is " to divide the given sum 
 by six, when the quotient will give you a flattering representation 
 of the real fortune." Perhaps the old Bristolians had some 
 arithmetical key of their own, of this kind, for coming at the 
 actual amount of dower. They divided the newspaper statement 
 by a given figure, and thus reached the true result. 
 
 " Doubtless it was all the Editor's doing," possibly remarks the 
 reader. That's right : stick it all, my good friend, upon the poor 
 Editor, who has to answer for everything that appears in his pages 
 from the monster gooseberry to a bad speech. But how could the 
 Editor know anything about the fortune unless the family furnished 
 him with the amount? He could not be supposed to be on intimate 
 terms with all the people who got married in the place. He was 
 not, I am sure, invited to all the wedding breakfasts ; and the 
 element in which he lived and worked was so much oftener black 
 than white, the bridesmaids would never consent to have their 
 healths proposed by his diabolic agency, even though he primed his 
 speech with all the jokes in his " Varieties" column. Now, you 
 may depend upon it, the bridal announcement was concocted after 
 or at the bridal breakfast, and possibly the amount of fortune and 
 the perfections of the newly-married lady put to the vote, amidst 
 much laughter at the pretty conceit of humbugging the public. 
 
 I remember some years ago speaking with a very old Bristolian 
 on the subject of this antique custom of publishing the bride's 
 fortune in the same paragraph that announced the event ; and he 
 told me the practice, from being at first a real bond fide statement, 
 fell into disuse and discredit and was at length wholly discontinued 
 owing to the absurdly extravagant sums which folks put down, in 
 order to appear very wealthy to the world ; the amount named 
 being, in some instances, more than the bride's whole family, if they 
 clubbed their fortunes together, could muster amongst them. 
 
 Still, if the pecuniary part were omitted, I don't see why all the 
 rest should be likewise curtailed to the meagre proportions of a 
 modern marriage announcement. Why should we not be told 
 something of the "politeness," "fine sense," and "pleasing 
 appearance," of the fair one ? Or have these good qualities gone 
 out of fashion ? for we refuse to accept the illnatured explanation 
 given by a friend of ours, that of old as we know from history 
 and tradition the Bristol women were so " plain," when a good 
 looking one got married they thought it necessary to prominently 
 and particularly state the fact.
 
 atilr TOte in 
 
 [I cannot say how many of the tombs and tablets referred to in the 
 following paper still retain the places they occupied when it was 
 written. In the Cathedral I believe several of them have been 
 displaced or put outside in the Cloisters during the restoration ; 
 and those in St. Werburgh's have, of course, disappeared with 
 that ancient church itself.] 
 
 A man cannot always keep his attention as close to the sermon 
 as he should. A few Sundays ago, when our parson was wandering 
 a little away from the text, my eye unfortunately got fixed on an 
 old monument which embellished the wall between the two windows 
 close to my pew. It was not a very old monument either ; for it 
 was put up when my father was a boy, to the memory of one who, 
 I heard him say, was very far from deserving all the fine things 
 said of him by his family and the sculptor whom they employed. 
 " He was a good man," says Rogers, " who first made stones preach 
 sermons, but a wicked one who made them tell lies ; " and there are 
 not a few " whoppers " on the identical one referred to. However, 
 I allude to it merely to account for the idea which entered into my 
 head, as I looked at its great white urn and weeping willow on 
 black marble background. That idea was to give a running notice 
 of some of the tombs and tablets to be found in our ancient city 
 churches ; for I fancy you may read the social character of a people 
 and a period on gravestones as well as in books, and that the sepul- 
 chral epitaphs and inscriptions of an age will give you an insight 
 into what sort of people they were whose ashes moulder beneath 
 them. A wit once referred to the churchyards as containing " the 
 under-ground population of the place ; " but their survivors should 
 not always treat them on the principle, " Out of sight out of mind." 
 Preceding generations have, like successive crops, grown up and 
 been gathered in, and the same fate awaits ourselves, yet we should 
 not like to think that those who came after us will not care to know 
 how we lived and moved amongst our fellow-men. Many a stirring 
 citizen, who filled a prominent place in his parish, and perhaps made 
 a little noise amongst his neighbours, now leaves no other record of 
 his existence but the carved tablet fixed on the church wall or 
 inserted in the pillar above the family pew. Let us, then, pay his 
 memory the compliment to read it, and collect as much of the man 
 as we can from the flattering record of his friends. Our city 
 forefathers appeared to be as fond as most people of " the storied 
 urn," and the walls of our churches are, on the whole, pretty well 
 dappled with their substantial memorials ; not a few of them 
 presenting internal evidence of having been suggested by the 
 defunct previous to their departure. " Let no man write my 
 epitaph," said the Irish Emmett : " Let no man write my epitaph,"
 
 243 
 
 said another, echoing the sentiment, and adding, "for I will write 
 it myself." 
 
 But how different, judging from mural inscriptions, is the 
 handwriting on the walls of our churches to what it was in 
 Belshazzar's palace, " You are weighed in the balance and found 
 wanting :" for there is nothing wanting (save occasional truth) in 
 the flattering sentences one reads on the smooth surfaces of those 
 slabs of white marble, where all the cardinal virtues, and a few 
 more, are catalogued 
 
 So very much is said, 
 One half will never be believed, 
 The other never read. 
 
 You cannot get survivors to set up such remarkably candid epitaphs 
 as Athenaeus supplied for the tomb of King Ninus, whose career, 
 however, in many respects resembled that of some fat affluent and 
 useless citizens, whose earthly merits consist in taking care of 
 themselves : " Ninus, the Assyrian, had an ocean of gold and 
 other riches, more than the sand in the Caspian Sea : he never saw 
 the stars, and perhaps he never desired it : he never stirred up the 
 holy fire amongst the magi, nor spake to his people ; but he was 
 most valiant to eat and drink ; and having mingled his wines he 
 threw the rest upon the stones. This man is dead ; behold his 
 sepulchre, and now hear where Ninus is. I am gone to hell, and 
 when I went thither, I neither carried gold, or horses, or silver 
 chariot with me." 
 
 But I must not waste the reader's time with " meditations 
 amongst the tombs," when I merely purpose to enumerate some of 
 them. Camden, in his "Remains," furnishes us with examples of 
 great men with brief epitaphs : on the inverse principle little men, 
 I think, have generally long ones. It is true that the monument 
 of Edward Colston in All Saints' Church is not a striking example 
 of sententious brevity, and I confess to you, I never look at 
 those two long panels behind Rysbrach's recumbent figure of 
 the philanthropist, filled as they are with columns of figures 
 carried out and totted up in true counting-house style, that they 
 do not strike me as somewhat suggestive of the shop, and charac- 
 teristic of the methodical book-keeping habits of the old merchant. 
 Kippis tells us he was very precise in his accounts, and so it 
 seems, for his tombstone reads like a page from his ledger. The 
 atmosphere of commerce also surrounds the tomb of Canynges in 
 Redcliff Church, and a catalogue of his ships, hung over his grave, 
 makes the south transept of the old place somewhat suggestive of 
 Lloyd's, and you expect to find each, like their owner, put down as 
 A 1 in the register. The ruling passion will, however, be strong in 
 death. 
 
 Suppose we take a turn first through the Cathedral. We won't 
 waste our time peering into niches of worn-nosed monks and 
 abbots, whose effigies are usually on a Sunday covered over by 
 the hats of the congregation or the caps of the Colston boys. We 
 learn nothing from them in their stiff Bath-stone coats. In old 
 Phillips's time, when he used to show the visitor over the building, 
 he was never very particular as to what bishop or abbot occupied
 
 244 
 
 any given recess : he always, however, was sure to point out some 
 one of them as the head of the abbatical house " who was accused 
 of keeping seven women;" but whether it was Nailhart, or Paul 
 Bush, or anybody else, it made little difference to him. Next the 
 north door is a monument that never fails to attract attention, 
 where Genius and Benevolence bend over Sterne's Eliza, a married 
 lady, who has gained undying but unenviable fame through openly 
 flirting with the author of Tristram Shandy. In the north aisle is 
 a tablet associated with another literary celebrity : for here, on a 
 simple piece of marble, may be read the touching lines by Mason, 
 the poet, on " Dead Maria." His wife was doubtless all he described 
 her, and, like most good husbands, too happy in their first choice 
 to be able to endure solitude long, he was (it is said) making love 
 to a lady, designed to supply her place, while superintending the 
 erection of this tender memorial to 
 
 That best gift which heaven so lately gave. * 
 
 About this period, 1760-70, you can perceive, from more than one 
 inscription, they were the palmy days of the Hotwells, from 
 reference to Bristol's " fount," " the healing spring," &c. 
 
 At the beginning of the 17th century, there was a particular 
 kind of monument in fashion. It often represents a whole family, 
 the two heads of the house reading at a desk or lectern, and the 
 sons and daughters in graduated succession behind them. In these 
 the figures are for the most part coloured. On the south wall of 
 the choir, below Abbot Newland's tomb, is a good specimen of this 
 kind of memorial : it surmounts the grave of Sir John Young and 
 Dame Joan his wife. On it are two men kneeling, in armour, and 
 a woman lying along before them ; beneath are eight children 
 kneeling, with a desk before them. The inscription accounts for 
 the appearance of the second gentleman in the sepulchral tableau, 
 the lady having been twice married ; her first husband being Sir 
 Giles Strangeways, who, with courteous liberality, is permitted to 
 share in the posthumous honours of his relict and of her second love. 
 The eight children represent the family of the deceased lady by her 
 two lords by her first she had five, by her second three, and 
 doubtless they dwelt together with as much unity in the domicile 
 of their stepfather as in the compartment of the monument. In 
 
 * In connection with Mason's first marriage and mural tablet on his 
 wife, the following extract from the Quarterly lievieir, Xo. 187, for Dec., 
 1853, page 39, of the " Life and Works of Gray," edited by the Rev. J. 
 Mitford, may not be unacceptable to the readers : 
 
 " Mason was now meditating marriage, but was slow in making up his 
 mind. ' He has not properly,' said Gray, in accounting for his hesita- 
 tion, ' any thing one can call a passion about him, except a little malice 
 and revenge.' He chose his wife for her taciturnity, but, however much 
 he may have abhorred pretentious women, he must have been mortified, 
 when his unpoetical bride crumpled up and thrust into her pocket a copy 
 of complimentary verses with which he presented her on the morning of 
 their marriage. Gray describes her as a ' pretty, modest, innocent, in- 
 teresting figure : ' and when, after a brief union of eighteen months, she 
 died of consumption in March, 1767, the sorrow of her husband testified 
 to her worth. The celebrated epitaph upon her tomb in Bristol Cathedral 
 must have owed its fame to the concluding stanza, for the only fine line
 
 245 
 
 St. Werburgh's Church might be seen a somewhat similar instance 
 of a lady blessed with a " duplex " proof of the devoted love of two 
 husbands. Humphrey Brown's widow, whose maiden name was 
 White, married Sir John Seymour, of Bitton who, on her death, 
 placed her ashes with those of her first husband, and wrote a 
 punning epitaph upon both 
 
 Here lies a Brown, a White, the colours one, 
 Pale drawn by Death, here shaded by a stone, 
 One house did hold them both whilst life did last, 
 One grave do hold them both now life is past. 
 
 To these he added some Latin lines setting forth his own affection 
 for the same lady, whom he compliments on being the object 
 gemini amoris. Sir John was a pleasant gentleman I daresay, and 
 so fond of a joke that he could not resist one even at the expense 
 of his departed wife. He was so partial to a pun, as we may infer 
 from his cutting a couple on the family tombstone, that I have no 
 doubt he laid hold of many a friend by the button-hole, when he 
 had made a verbal witticism, and bored his company after dinner 
 with faint plays upon words. 
 
 We should be shocked now-a-day at any man carving such grim 
 pleasantries on his wife's or his own tomb, yet it was no uncommon 
 thing at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth 
 centuries to have recourse to this queer style. Thus, in the old 
 church of St. Michael's, there was a tablet above the vault of the 
 Ashes, where the name of the family was pedantically played upon 
 in every line. I think the inscription was given in full in the 
 Bristol Times a few months ago : one couplet, however, may be 
 quoted to convey my meaning 
 
 Rak'd up in ashes here doth \ ,. f remain, 
 In hope that ashes shall be / \ again. 
 
 Even the epitaph of Sir William Penn, in Redcliff Church, 
 which belongs to the same period, is not free from quaint conceits 
 more or less aimed at in many inscriptions we then meet with. As 
 the reader knows, he was Admiral in the British service, and the 
 warlike father of a peaceful Quaker son : having fought hard, we 
 are told he withdrew after the great battle with the Dutch, " made 
 for his end with a gentle and even gale, in much peace, arrived and 
 
 in the previous portion is the invocation to his dead Maria to speak from 
 the tomb, ani this concluding stanza is now known to have been the 
 production of Gray. He showed the original verses of Mason to Mr. 
 Nicholls, saying, ' This will never do for an ending ; I have altered them 
 thus ' : 
 
 Tell them though 'tis an awful thing to die 
 
 'Twas e'en to thee yet the dread path once trod, 
 Heaven lifts its everlasting portals high. 
 
 And bids the pure in heart behold their God. 
 
 The longer these lines are Meditated, the more their beauty is felt : 
 they have every merit which is proper to the kind of writing. Nothing 
 can be finer than the eulogy on the deceased, implied in the brief 
 
 Earenthesis, ' 'Twas e'en to thee.' Nothing more rich in sublime consp- 
 ition than the sentence which follows ; nothing more severely simple in 
 expression. Nor is the stanza a mere memento to the individual it 
 speaks, as it professes to do, to the hearts of all the world."
 
 246 
 
 anchored in. his last and hest port at Wanstead, in the County of 
 Essex, 16th September, 1670, being then but 49 years of age." 
 There is a little ambiguity, as the reader will perceive, in the 
 inscription, for literally it convoys the impression that Wanstead, 
 and not Heaven, was the last and best port which the Admiral 
 made for. Penn must have been as worn with service as the 
 tattered banners which drape his tomb, to have sunk under his 
 " bodily infirmities " at the comparatively early age of forty-nine. 
 
 But to return to the Cathedral. In the style of Sir John Young's 
 monument is the Codrington tomb on the north side of the choir, a 
 little above Bishop Paul Bush's. It contains the effigies of a man 
 in armour and a woman kneeling, and under them are ranged 
 eight sons and nine daughters, with a Latin inscription long enough 
 for even so large a family. From the anagram which it contains, 
 as well as its syllabic turns on words, it has all the appearance of 
 being written by a pedantic old schoolmaster. Robert Codrington, 
 to whom it is erected, did the state some service, for though he died 
 at forty-six he raised quite a forest of olive branches seventeen, 
 it seems, by the same wife. I should think the cradle could never 
 have been at rest in his mansion. 
 
 Whilst the honest burgesses of Bristol, in going the way of all 
 flesh, took care that the world should not be left in total ignorance 
 of their previous existence, so far as money could purchase 
 immortality at sixpence per chiselled letter (japanning included), 
 some of the old fighting barons, who still sleep in our churches, 
 were by no means so fortunate. Thus, in the gloom of the east 
 aisle of the Mayor's Chapel, you see a couple of stalwart cross- 
 legged crusaders, armed in mail to the very chins, and hands upon 
 sword-hilts, lying on their backs on altar tombs ; but who they 
 are or whence they came, you know no more than whither they 
 went : hardy, do-battle-looking fellows they seem, and so little 
 dreamed they that the world would ever forget them, they did not 
 condescend to have their names stuck upon their tombs. But the 
 world has nevertheless forgotten them ; and as you look at their 
 hands on their sword-hilts, you laugh at the impotent menace 
 which the attitude implies, and wonder what they would think if 
 they were once more in the flesh, and John Bright, the Brummagem 
 Quaker, had the bullying of them for an hour. Another of those 
 cross-legged " great unknowns," whom the stone-cutters of the 
 Middle Ages forgot to label for identification in the nineteenth 
 century, may be seen in the north transept in St. Mary Redclifl'. 
 Popular tradition puts them all down for Berkeleys ; and their 
 posture suggests they had been to the Holy Land, for some anti- 
 quarians assert that none but tailors and crusaders are to be 
 found cross-legged in this fashion but this is all you know, and in 
 truth it is not of the slightest consequence to you or to me to know 
 more. The Knight Templar at Redcliff lies gloomily all alone in 
 his glory and his coat of mail, while his opposite neighbour, the 
 Bristol merchant, reposes like the head of a warm city honsehold 
 amongst his domestic servants, who seem to gather round their 
 munificent master in death as in life. William, his cook, with 
 knife and skimmer carved upon his tombstone, the local Alexis
 
 247 
 
 Soyer of the fifteenth century, who, in his day, dressed many a 
 Mayor's dinner in the great mansion below in Redcliff Street, has 
 lain down near at hand. William Cole, Oanynges' waiting man, 
 is within call ; and John Blecker, his brewer, almost makes the 
 spot redolent to the imagination of malt and hops. Canynges, 
 thus sleeping in the midst of his establishment, reminds one of the 
 old Gothic Kings, on whose graves servants were slaughtered that 
 they might wait on their masters in the other world. 
 
 It is, however, to the monuments of lesser men that you must 
 look for those characteristic peculiarities which even the tomb 
 cannot cover. Thus, at the nearer end of the east aisle in St. 
 Mark's, you see the pretentious character of the owner on the lofty 
 tomb and inscription full of fine airs of William Hilliard, Esq., 
 who tells you that, after having " travelled over the greatest part 
 of Europe, he returned to his native land a complete gentleman." 
 Marry come up, Master Hilliard ! for 6 10s. and a Cook's through 
 ticket, thousands of Browns, Joneses, and Robinsons now make 
 the grand tour every summer, and do not set up on that account 
 for being complete gentlemen, or think of carving the fact on their 
 tombstones. On the tomb of John Freeman, Esq., in All Saints, 
 you can read at once the citizen regular in his dealings and in the 
 family pew on Sundays, and in the daily consumption of two 
 glasses of sherry " He adorned an honourable old age with the 
 exact exercise of the social and religious duties, and, by a strict 
 course of temperance, attained to the age of eighty-four." By the 
 vestry of St. Werburgh's you read in a few words the character of 
 one who evidently prided himself on the cardinal virtue of paying 
 his Christmas accounts on the last day of the old year, if it did not 
 fall on Sunday. Robert Earle, Esq , some time Mayor of Bristol, 
 " a man of strict honour and justice, and remarkably punctual in 
 all his dealings." In Christ Church is commenced, and in Mary- 
 le-Port continued, the genealogy of a wondrously staunch Church 
 and King family, with the appropriate name of Standfast. The 
 first known of them was Rector of the former parish, and you may 
 read his eventful history on a little mural monument in the chancel 
 there. You learn how, in the reign of Charles L, " for his loyalty 
 to the King and steadfastness to the established religion," he 
 suffered fourteen years' sequestration, while an Independent 
 Cromwellian was preaching in his pulpit. The old man was blind 
 twenty years before his death, yet, notwithstanding this infirmity, 
 his tablet tells us, he " performed the offices of the church exactly " 
 during that time. Two days before his death he had an exposition 
 of rhyme, and wrote some verses to be placed on his monument, 
 the practical effect of which was to prove to posterity that the gods 
 never made the good old man poetical. You pick up the threads 
 of the family history again on the walls of Mary-le-Port Church, 
 where a whole race of pharmaceutical Smiths, respectable parish 
 apothecaries, spring from one Thomas of that name, a Taunton 
 man, who came to Bristol, and married the granddaughter of this 
 same old staunch Church-and-King parson Standfast. Naturally 
 proud of the connection, the Smiths have recorded the fact through 
 several generations, as represented in a row of tablets that grace
 
 248 
 
 the north wall of the sacred edifice. The Smiths, to their honour 
 be it said, were all true Blues and stood by their old Standfast 
 colours, each taking care to tell that he inherited and held to the 
 last, the " sound principles of the family." The Smiths of 
 Mary-le-Port, I should say, never gave a vote for a Radical. Two 
 more instances taken, one from St. Thomas and the other from 
 Temple, of men who were not ashamed to tell their trades to 
 posterity, and I have done. In the chancel of Temple is a monument 
 to John Stone, who was " three times Mayor, and had four wives," 
 and died in 1575. Instead of sticking up ramping lions, hands 
 and daggers, or flying griffins over his tomb, he boldly placed 
 the brewers' arms on the polished marble, and told succeeding ages 
 that he was an honest brother of the bung. The monument in 
 Saint Thomas is that of one Cater, a sugar-baker, who did not 
 surmount the tablet with heraldic monsters, but carved above 
 his mortal remains the symbols of his trade, in the shape of a 
 tittler or sugar-loaf, with two ancient implements of the saccharine 
 art placed saltire-wise.
 
 UMtatto amcmgst % Uefoton 
 
 When the Newton Chapel stood alone by the west end of the 
 North aisle, and where, of course, it still stands but before it was 
 absorbed into the congregational part of the Cathedral, and made 
 comfortable with cocoa matting and backed seats, and rush-bottomed 
 chairs, seeming and feeling like an old Gothic parlour or dormitory 
 rather than a mortuary recess its monuments looked cold and 
 reserved, and stony and feudal enough. Now, however, that one 
 is brought into close and familiar contact with them, so, as it were, 
 to be on a family footing with them, you appear to jourself to 
 have rather established a domestic understanding with a highly 
 respectable but old-fashioned household, than to be contemplating 
 the tombs and monumental effigies of departed generations. It is 
 especially difficult to resist this impression during the sermon, 
 which you can never hear from this spot, and one's vagrant thoughts 
 cannot be kept within the bounds of sober meditation. Thus, as 
 you sit by the altar tomb on which Sir Henry Newton and his 
 wife, Lady Catherine, lie with pillows under their heads and in 
 as conjugal juxtaposition as Mr. and Mrs. Caudle themselves, you 
 feel like an intimate friend admitted to the bed-chamber of the 
 dignified couple an illusion which the comfortable carpeted floor 
 quite encourages. The arrangements, too, of the recumbent pair 
 are quite exemplary. Sir Henry lies outside, giving his good lady, 
 as in duty bound, the warm place next the wall, and altogether the 
 situation is so suggestive of domestic relations that the severity of 
 the chivalrous age is lost in the associations which the monument 
 calls up, and at most you can only regard it as a representation of 
 mediaeval married life. It is true that those haughty lines, which 
 manifestly were not originally inscribed there, are calculated to 
 check familiarity and keep the spectator, if only an ordinary mortal 
 and commoner, at a proper distance. But when you have read 
 them over a couple of times, you collect from their dim and distant 
 grandeur this and no more that the deceased was a respectable 
 country gentleman of good family, who went regularly to church 
 and was charitable. Here they are, 
 
 Gurney, Hampden, Cradock Newton, last 
 Held on the measure of that ancient line 
 Of barons' blood : full seventy years he past, 
 And did in peace his sacred soul resign. 
 His Christ he loved , he loved to feed the poor, 
 Such love assures a life that dies no more. 
 
 It will be seen that no mention is here made of Lady Catherine, 
 who has her fair share of the tomb but not of the epitaph. 
 However, as deeds speak better than words and there are six 
 children carved in relief underneath, perhaps the poet thought
 
 250 
 
 these half dozen domestic virtues would serve her instead of as 
 many heroic lines which her husband enjoys. Sir Henry has lost 
 his hands. When he had them they were doubtless closed palm to 
 palm and pointed in a supplicatory posture to heaven. The 
 Cromwellian troopers did not like praying statues, and they very 
 probably chopped them off. The thing was in their ideas Popish 
 and purgatorial and idolatrous, and when they had possession of 
 the city and the cathtdral too, and stamped about the latter in iron- 
 heeled boots, they amused themselves on wet days with acts of 
 iconoclasm. Over the way, in the Mayor's chapel, on the left as 
 you enter, there was a marble monument also without hands, or it 
 was without hands until s<'ine twenty years or so ago, when a pair 
 not the most shapely were put on it. In a Noithern Cathedral 
 where there is a monument similarly mutilated, there is a popular 
 legend that the departed knight, whom the recumbent figure 
 represents, having refused mercy to a widow's son accused of 
 poaching, had the manacles slipped over the young offender's hands 
 when thus closed in supplication ; the mother prayed that he might 
 never be allowed to raise his own in entreaty to heaven, and that 
 after his death the monument was one morning found in the 
 mutilated form in which it has since remained, some indignant 
 ghost getting the credit of the Cromwellian soldier's act. 
 
 Close to Sir Henry and Dame Catherine's conjugal tomb is that 
 of a solitary Knight, who, having all the bed or slab to himself, 
 at first strikes you as tlie old bachelor of the family, who, like Uncle 
 Toby, loved a clear stage and undivided couch to kick out or stretch 
 his limbs on. As well as his neighbour and kinsman Sir Henry, 
 he is locked up in steel; from the two tablets, however, which 
 surmount the tomb, you will find that he, to, like Benedict, was a 
 married man : though what his wife did to be " a banished woman 
 from her husband's bed " I can neither say nor guess. It does, 
 nevertheless, seem invidious that while Dame Catherine is allowed 
 to place her pillow by Sir Henry's head, Lady Grace lies in her 
 leaden coffin unrepresented above ground. The solitary Newton 
 is named Sir John ; " a man of great courage," says his epitaph, 
 " and the greatest loyalty to his prince and honour to his country 
 a credit and noble ornament to his name and family." Lady Grace 
 Newton, we are told on her tablet, "died without issue," and 
 perhaps Sir John refused to allow her to lie by his side because she 
 omitted to furnish him with an heir. 
 
 Oh, the long, long years that these Newtons have lain stretched 
 out on their backs, with their heads on their stony pillows! All the 
 Bishops, and the Deans, and the Canons they have seen in and out 
 of that Cathedral, and all the future Bishops, Deans, and Canons 
 they are destined to see come and go that is, supposing there to be 
 any "speculation" in those alabaster eyes of theirs, Bishops 
 Carleton, and Trelawney, and the sententious Hall, and the 
 profound Joseph Butler, and their own learned namesake, Thos. 
 Newton, the expounder of the Prophecies. The graven images of 
 the lords and ladies of Barr's Court look sociable enough lying on 
 their pillows when the place is filled with a living and breathing 
 congregation ; but do you ever imagine them when the people are
 
 251 
 
 all gone away, and the Cathedral is locked up, and they are left to 
 their own companionship, and their recumbent outlines become 
 almost ghostly as the deepening shadows fall upon them and as 
 the night wears on, and the moon comes in and touches their 
 apathetic features ? And then again in the early morning, when the 
 grey twilight peeps in, and they gradually come forth from the 
 gloom. It is strange to think of this dormitory of statues. The 
 idea of their monotonous fixedness, their tenacity to one posture 
 through all these hundreds of years becomes almost oppressive, so 
 that it imparts a sense of relief to recur in fancy to that popular 
 superstition, which says that at certain times on certain nights 
 these stony figures rise from their stony pillows, descend from their 
 tombs, and stretch their stony limbs with a measured promenade up 
 and down the moonlit aisles : Sir Henry, in his breastplate and 
 backpiece and cuisses, giving his arm to Lady Catherine, with her 
 stiff stomacher in the stately fashion of the feudal courtier ; while 
 the solitary Sir John, for want of a companion, has to take his 
 walk all alone. 
 
 There is, too, about old monuments of the kind, a rock-like 
 solidity, that makes it difficult for you to associate with flesh and 
 blood, or anything but stone or marble or alabaster, the originals 
 themselves. But if you do as I did many years ago, take a walk 
 out to old Barr's Court, near Bitton, where these Newtons lived 
 and moved and led a jolly life enough for generations, the family 
 in the mortuary chapel on the south side of the Cathedral do no 
 longer seem to you quite the peti efactions they appeared. There is 
 little or none of their old Gloucestershire mansion left, beyond a 
 low line of offices, the remains possibly of the stables or servants' 
 apartments, but the site is well defined and the mat which 
 surrounded the goodly Grange still remains, and there is an air of 
 other days about the spot. When I visited it, some twenty years 
 ago, one of the farm servants had an hour or two before fished out 
 of this same moat an antique squat-bellied wine bottle, such as you 
 now only see in pictures and old curiosity shops, but which doubtless 
 was once filled with good Rhenish, and most probably emptied by 
 one of these same Newtons, possibly even one of the stately 
 personages that represented in alabaster lie on their backs on 
 marble pillows. That squat bottle at once animated all these 
 statues to my imagination and associated them with convivial life, 
 though long ago. 
 
 The monuments themselves look so old that it is difficult to fancy 
 their ever having been new to fancy the day when the sculptor 
 and the contractor having completed their work, the family from 
 Barr's Court rolled into Bristol in their great glass coach without 
 springs, drawn by six fat Flemish mares with outriders, and pulled 
 up in front of the north porch, and alighted and walked in to 
 inspect the monument then glistening in vermillion and blue and 
 gold. Yet such probably was the case, and as the great glass coach 
 rumbled through Castle Street, and Wine Street, and Broad Street, 
 the shopkeepers, as they stood at their doors, all knew it, and said 
 to one another, " There are the Newtons come in to see the new 
 monument." I hope the Newtons paid for it "like good old
 
 252 
 
 English gentry, all of the olden time," and that the Bristol trades- 
 man or tradesmen that did the work had not to make two or three 
 journeys out to Barr's Court before they could get their bill settled, 
 being threatened with a souse in the moat for their importunity. 
 I rather think, however, the Newtons were good payers. In their 
 epitaphs they are described as good Christians and an honour to 
 their country, and no man can be either one or the other, who does 
 not settle his accounts regularly at Christmas, which I hope all the 
 subscribers to the Bristol Times and Felix Parley at least will do, and 
 thus prove themselves both " good Christians and honours to their 
 country." 
 
 Referring to these same Newtons, of Barr's Court, the late Mr. 
 H. C. Harford, of 1'renchay, wrote to the author in 1865 : 
 
 " The Newtons, of Barr's Court, mentioned in your memoir, and whose 
 fine old monuments are still to be seen in our Cathedral, were of the 
 same family as the great Sir Isaac, although the circumstance is not 
 mentioned in any biography with which the writer is acquainted. On 
 the contrary, it is generally only said that he was of an old family, nor 
 does the writer know from whence his grandfather gained this informa- 
 tion, but he often mentioned it to his friends ; and when the writer's 
 father was a boy he had the fact strongly corroborated by a visit to the 
 ruins of the house, which are still to be seen in the parish of Bitton. 
 They were looking at the house when a very old man came up, and, 
 without their asking him any questions, said, ' When I was a boy, sir, 
 and the family lived there, they used to be visited by a cousin from 
 Lincolnshire, who was the most desperate clever man in all the world.' There 
 can be but little doubt who that desperate clever man was."
 
 j&ir CJwrles 
 
 KNIGHT AND ERST RECORDER OF BRISTOL. 
 
 Honest Sir Charles or " Old Charley," as some people with a 
 fond familiarity in -which there was not a particle of disrespect 
 were in the habit of speaking of him so completely belonged to 
 the old school (hardly a member of which outlived the Reform 
 Bill) that though he only disappeared from amongst us a com- 
 paratively few years ago, antique to our fancy as was his mould, 
 he seemed to have belonged to the last century. That plain old 
 rugged Saxon face of his was a capital index to his character the 
 great constitutional lawyer, the stubborn Tory, the impracticable 
 Attorney-General, the kind, quaint old gossip. Whether on the 
 bench trying a felony, in the House of Commons pounding the 
 Papists and O'Connell, or in the back parlour of the White Lion 
 with a glass of Hollands and water in his hand when his day's 
 work was done, Sir Charles was unique, and we nover shall see his 
 like again dear, able, uncompromising, Old Charley. 
 
 Sir Charles was an Oxford townsman ; I imagine his father was 
 one of the Heads of Houses. But he was so notable, so renowned a 
 character in himself that no one troubled to enquire who his father 
 was. By the constituency that sent him to Parliament by the 
 Cabinet which employed his great legal talents and were perplexed 
 by his unbending nature by the grey-moustachioed Cumberland, 
 late King of Hanover, with whom he was hand and glove by all he 
 was hardly less respected for his ability than regarded, even for his 
 oddities. That great bearded Cumberland, who seemed to have no 
 other friendship in the world, was the friend of the rugged and 
 honest old knight ; and when Ernest was on the throne, the 
 Recorder of Bristol was on more than one occasion a day late for his 
 sessions through prolonging his visit to his royal crony, when oer 
 a bottle of old port they probably talked of older politics, and gave 
 the palm to the oldest. The hospitalities, however, were not all 
 on one side, for Sir Charles once entertained the Royal Duke in his 
 legal den in Stone Buildings, when the dinner must have been as 
 peculiar as the company was distinguished, for the Knight's 
 chambers were not very sumptuously furnished ; as once when a 
 deputation consisting of Sir Richard Vaughan, and a few of the 
 great Bristol magnates, waited on him by appointment in solemn 
 form on some state affair, Sir Charles made his appearance (it was 
 about ten o'clock) in his flunnel waistcoat, lathering his face and 
 flourishing his shaving-brush to the most emphatic passages. 
 " Glad to see you, gentlemen," said he in his deep grave voice 
 as they entered ; " pray be seated, if you can find chairs enough, 
 and if not my clerk will go out and borrow some."
 
 254 
 
 The best of his home interviews, however, was that which he 
 held with a former Town Clerk, who called on him at Oxford, 
 relative to the State Trial of Ihe King v. Pinney. He found Sir 
 Charles immersed in the double occupation of breakfast and toilet. 
 The Knight was in his jersey, while before the fire airing on a chair 
 was his shirt. The breakfast things were on the table : Sir Charles 
 was lathering his chin ; the tea was poured out, and in the teapot 
 was immersed the razor the souchong being made to serve not 
 only for breakfast, but to give an emollient edge to the Sheffield 
 blade. On this occasion Sir Charles referred with some warmth to 
 the evidence of a man in Bristol, who created some laughter by 
 declaring, on his examination about the riots, that he saw Sir 
 Charles come out hitching up his breeches. " That man swore, 
 Sir, what was untrue I will contradict him on my oath, Sir, for I 
 wore suspenders, 1 ' exclaimed Sir Charles. Nevertheless the worthy 
 Knight had a habit of tugging up his small clothes ; and when he 
 spoke for a couple of hours with such vehemence against the 
 Catholic Relief Bill, Sir Nicholas Tindal made the House roar 
 with laughter, when he declared " the only lucid intervals in the 
 hon. and learned gentleman's speech were those between his 
 breeches and his waistcoat," alluding to the display of shirt then 
 manifest, and the pauses which Sir Charles made in the course of 
 his oration, to pull up the drooping nether garment. 
 
 Talking of these same anti-Emancipation orations of his, he 
 became at one time so popular, owing to his uncompromising 
 hostility to that measure, that when he was coming down to 
 Bristol to hold the Assizes as usual, the magistrates issued handbills 
 entreating the people, who were expected to go out and draw him 
 in his carriage thiough the streets, not to make any public 
 demonstration which, however well deserved, would be embarrass- 
 ing to one who was then about to enter Bristol in the grave 
 capacity of a judge. Nevertheless immense crowds assembled and 
 greeted him with loud cheers, as he drove up to his lodgings. 
 Two years or so afterwards, the popular Knight had to make 
 his escape with more haste than dignity from Bristol to avoid being 
 murdered, probably by the same crowds who cheered him before ; 
 so true was it that which Napoleon said, when followed through 
 Paris by applauding millions " They would cheer as loudly if 
 they were accompanying me to the scaffold." 
 
 The rugged strength Sir Charles evinced in parliament, and at 
 the Chancery bar, gave way to a sort of lazy listlessness on the 
 bench ; and many a stranger who has looked in to see the notable 
 Sir Charles Wetherell in the Bristol Sessions Court, has been 
 surprised to behold in the somewhat stupid looking old man, the 
 vehement orator of the House of Commons, and the great 
 constitutional and Chancery lawyer. Nevertheless, there were 
 moments when he would wake up to his work, when that work 
 was sufficient to provoke his dormant powers, in a manner which 
 showed that though the lion might doze in the sun his strength 
 was as great as ever. He was us slow to give a decision as his 
 friend Eldon, and would stave it off as long as he could, but when 
 he did give it it was worth having. However, he got, in his own.
 
 255 
 
 odd uncouth way, through as muo.h work in one day as some would 
 in two. He would sit late, and as the night wore on, occasionally 
 like the good Homer, would nod. He had an innocent way of 
 beguiling time occupied by the address of a heavy-headed barrister, 
 or the slow details of a petty case, and when you thought he was 
 taking elaborate notes, he was diligently engaged in making 
 pictures on a sheet of foolscap. His drawings, if they possessed no 
 other merit, had great simplicity, as he chiefly confined himself to 
 one walk of art, namely, the delineation of trees and cows, and cows 
 and trees alternately. Whether if he had devoted himself solely 
 to painting he would have rivalled Cuyp or Paul Potter I don't 
 pretend to say, but those who possessed themselves of the off-hand 
 sketches which he carelessly left behind him on the cushion, 
 affected to see considerable spirit in the Knight's efforts. On one 
 occasion (in the Cooper's Hall, I think it was,) two barristers were 
 wrangling late in the evening over a case, when they discovered 
 that Old Charley had dropped into a balmy doze in his chfiir, lulled 
 no doubt thereto by their drowsy murmur : upon this one of them 
 who was up to fun, affected to dispute the correctness of part of the 
 evidence cited by his opponent, and at the same time awoke the 
 Knight by appealing to him upon the point. Sir Charles looked 
 profoundly on the sheet of paper before him, which was as covered 
 with pictorial hieroglyphics as Cleopatra's needle, and gravely 
 replied " I do not find it on my notes," and no wonder, for there 
 were only cows and trees as usual. There was a solemn drollery 
 about him at times which was most refreshing, and m:ide you 
 think there was more fun in him than he cared to let people see. 
 He tried a great omnibus case, when these vehicles were first 
 employed in Bristol, and the proprietors maintained they were not 
 plying for hire according to law. In giving judgment Sir Charles 
 said " We see those modes of conveyance traversing our streets ; 
 and when importunate gentlemen stand behind them and politely 
 call on you to come in, entreat you to come in ; nay, if you are an 
 old woman, compel you to come in whether you will or not, if this be 
 not plying for hire within the meaning of the statute, f don't know 
 what is!" This he said without even the trace of a smile on 
 his strong plain Saxon features. Indeed, gravity was his forte, 
 and as you saw him sitting by the fire with his Hollands and 
 water in the back parlour of the Lion, like a fine old English Tory 
 in a fine old English Tory house, listening to the gossip of the 
 substantial citizens around him, and thoroughly interested in their 
 chat, he still preserved something of judicial gravity, while as 
 profoundly attentive to their opinions, even when he was Attorney- 
 General, as if he were to be guided in his public conduct by their 
 advice. 
 
 His addresses to the Grand Jury at the Sessions were amusing, 
 from the fact that, whatever was the state of the Calendar, it 
 furnished him with an apology for complimenting the Police. 
 " Gentlemen," he would say, upou one occasion, " I do not find so 
 many cases of stealing on your Quay (and he always pronounced 
 this broadly as you spell it, and not as Key), which is doubtless 
 owing to the vigilance of that excellent body, your police force, in
 
 256 
 
 preventing thefts," &c. At the next Sessions, however, he would 
 perhaps address them in this fashion : " Gentlemen of the Grand 
 Jury, I find on the Calendar now hefore me numerous instances of 
 stealing from your shipping on the Quays, but this doubtless is 
 owing to the activity of your admirable police force, in capturing 
 the culprits and perpetrators of an offence which, in a commercial 
 city like yours, is of no small moment." Some persons thought 
 he ought to have felt jealous of the Police as a new institution, and 
 as a true laudator temporis acti have given the palm to those vestiges 
 of antiquity, the old watchmen. Indeed he was once caricatured 
 himself, as snoring with his lantern and rattle by his side in a 
 watchbox, while underneath was written, " An Old Charley." 
 
 For Brougham, as a lawyer, he shared the contempt bestowed 
 upon that versatile peer by other " great men in equity," who said 
 that if the Lord Chancellor knew a little law in addition to his 
 other accomplishments, he would know something of everything. 
 "When he had to speak before his Lordship, old Sir Charles used 
 generally to contrive to wheel his back round upon the Bench and 
 Brougham, and bestow his ponderous pleading upon the Bar, as 
 though they were more capable of understanding him than the 
 peer in the high place. It used to be a joke of the young attorneys 
 in London, to take their seats in what was called the pit ot the 
 Court of Chancery, and, as they termed it, " nod up old Charlie," 
 which was done in this way. The Knight had a habit of fixing his 
 eye on some one whilst speaking, and the j'oung joker contrived to 
 attract his attention to himself, and by sundry gestures convey an 
 impression to the Knight that he was his client. Thus, after Sir 
 Charles would say, in the course of his speech, " this shameful 
 case," the wag, upon whom his eye was fixed, would nod concur- 
 rence, which instigated Sir Charles to wax warmer, and say "this 
 abominable case;" the wag would then nod twice, and more 
 energetically than before, when Sir Charles, progressing with 
 approval, would designate it "a heinous, a nefarious, an iniquitous 
 case," then, having exhausted his superlatives, the wag would 
 cease to nod, and subside into a smile of approval, when the 
 Knight resumed his argument. 
 
 His celebrated appearance for the old Corporations before the 
 House of Lords, and the happy exordium of his address on that 
 occasion are in the recollection of most people. It was suspected, 
 however, that his old crony, Shadwell, who sat in commission for 
 the Chancellor, by a leading question gave him the cue for the 
 commencement of his address. " For whom do you appear, Sir 
 Charles ?" said Shadwell. His response, as everybody knows, 
 was : " I appear pro popvlo for every Corporation in England 
 and Wales when, therefore, I am asked for whom do I appear, I 
 fear the reverse of that question may be put to me, and I may be 
 asked, ' For whom do I not appear ?' Rochester confides in me 
 Marlborough depends upon me Leicester is with me Oxford 
 regards me as her friend Norwich affects me Warwick goes with 
 me Coventry I take under my wings with Worcester I am hand 
 and glove the rose of Lancaster I wear Hereford consorts with 
 me Truro trusts me." However, before Sir Charles opened,
 
 257 
 
 while he yet stood at the bar, their lordships waiting his opening, 
 he called loudly to the attendant for a glass of wine negus, with a 
 grating of nutmeg in it, and deliberately drank the same in the 
 face of the astoniahed peers. 
 
 Glorious, great, and yet ungainly, relic of antiquity " in wit a 
 man, simplicity a child." He had but one fault he loved money, 
 and was (the truth must be told) penurious in his habits. I 
 believe he lost his life through this failing. He fell off the box of 
 a fly or gig and was killed, while he might have ridden safely 
 inside in his own carriage had he kept one. It was laughable to 
 see him returning from the sessions court in Bang Street, when the 
 Guildhall was being rebuilt, and pause in the market at some old 
 woman's basket to cheapen a half-a-dozen oranges, which he sucked 
 as he sauntered round the brokers' shops to look for bargains of 
 old china. This desultory fruit-purchasing practice was upon one 
 occasion attended with comical inconvenience to the worthy Knight. 
 I had the anecdote from the late Mr. T. Phinn, Q.C., of the Western 
 Circuit, Member for Bath, and for a short time Secretary to 
 the Admiralty. Mr. Phinn was specially brought down to the 
 Bristol Sessions I think, on an important Revenue case which was 
 heard before Sir Charles in the Coopers' Hall, King Street and 
 stayed behind to speak with the attorney in the trial after the 
 Court rose. On his return through the Market to the White Lion, 
 where he lodged, Mr. Phinn was surprised to see the Recorder 
 slowly returning a number of oranges from his capacious coat 
 pockets into the basket of an old woman who was vehemently 
 scolding him, and wishing there was a policeman in the way, that 
 she might hand him over to justice as a knavish old fellow who 
 " tried to defraud a poor woman of her property." Mr. Phinn held 
 back for a little to watch the extraordinary scene, and heard Sir 
 Charles say, " I assure you, madam, I am the person I represent 
 myself to be, Sir Charles Wetherell, Knight and Recorder of Bristol : 
 though I admit appearances are against me, seeing that being 
 such, I had not a coin of the realm wherewith to discharge 
 my debt." All this he repeated with as much deliberation as if he 
 were charging the Grand Jury, while slowly one after the other he 
 restored the oranges to the basket of the old woman, who was 
 not to be appeased or convinced. " Call yourself Sir Charles 
 Wetherell indeed, and not have a shilling : this makes the matter 
 all the worse, you wicked, false, old man ! " 
 
 Here Mr. Phinn put in an appearance and asked the learned 
 Knight what was the matter. " Oh I am so glad so see you, Mr. 
 Phinn," said Sir Charles, looking as much relieved as a shipwrecked 
 crew when the Life-Boat pulled alongside. " Passing this good 
 person's orange stall, I thought I would have a few of her fruit to 
 take with my Madeira at the Lion ; but putting my hand in my 
 pocket I found I had not wherewith to pay for them." 
 
 The old lady, greatly frightened at her inadvertent affront to 
 the Queen's judge and Recorder of Bristol, exclaimed, appealing to 
 Mr. Phinn, " Oh Sir, is it indeed Sir Charles Wetherell ? I had 
 no notion it was he. Sure I did not think he'd go without a 
 shilling."
 
 258 
 
 Sir Charles, who was judicially fair under all circumstances, 
 replied, "I admit, madam, that before I placed your wares in my 
 pockets I should have certified myself I had the means of paying 
 for them : hut you too must also admit you were unnecessarily 
 vituperative in your language more objurgatory than the occa- 
 sion called for." All the terrified orange seller could do was to 
 beg his pardon, while Mr. Phinn produced a shilling, of which 
 Sir Charles thankfully accepted " the loan," and recommenced the 
 deal with the old lady, pocketing his oranges as complacently as 
 if there had been no previous difference and strong language. 
 " Now, Mr. Phinn," said the learned Knight when the transaction 
 was ended, " will you join me over my Madeira and taste some of 
 this fruit, when I can discharge my debt to you ? " 
 
 Mr. Phinn accepted the invitation and joined Sir Charles after 
 dinner. The latter, however, never offered to repay the shilling : 
 but he did better he told the barrister, who was a keen sports- 
 man, he should have the shooting of the \Varneford estates in 
 Gloucestershire, of which he (Sir Charles) was trustee. " I had 
 thus for my shilling," Mr. Phinn would say, "three years' of 
 capital shooting the cheapest thing I ever enjoyed in my life."
 
 THE TROUBLES OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE OF 1851. 
 
 " The course of this marvellous building, for the celebration of 
 the world's festival of labour, does not appear any more than true 
 love to run smooth. The exhibitors of polished steel articles 
 declare that owing to the admission of wet, they cannot trust their 
 precious wares to the place, and that the glass must be caulked to 
 exclude rain. The sun came down so hotly on the heads of the 
 workmen last week, that they were compelled to desist for nearly 
 a day. For both these evils, however, there is said to be a remedy. 
 The roof will be covered with linen, that will exclude the rain, if 
 it rains, and if it is sunshine, will abate its fervour as a shade, and 
 keep it cool by means of water, that will be kept constantly playing 
 on the canvas. There is, however, another evil, for which no 
 remedy has yet been devised, and which is of much greater 
 importance than one might, at the first mention of it, fancy 
 namely, the intrusion into the building of a myriad of sparrows, 
 which are making nests, flying about, chirping so as to deafen 
 you, and befouling everything to a most mischievous extent : they 
 can't net them, the place is so large ; they can't shoot them, 
 without breaking the glass, and the sparrows, as if aware of the 
 advantages they possess over the owners of the premises, won't go 
 out. In fact, the Commissioners are posed and puzzled by the 
 sparrows, and they feel, unless they can get rid of these clouds of 
 mischievous intruders, the exhibitors will have their fine fabrics 
 spoiled, and will perhaps themsclvi ,s realise the fact that awoke 
 Tobit from his slumbers. A Bristol exhibitor, a few days since, 
 overheard one of the Commissioners exclaim, with as much bitter- 
 ness as if it were the Pope he was speaking of, ' Those infernal 
 things what shall we do with them ! ' 'Tis hard to say, for they 
 pay no respect to Persian silks or Genoa velvets, and serve all 
 alike." Bristol Times, of Saturday, March 28, 1851. See also other 
 papers of last week. 
 
 Prince Albert pushed his cutlet and tomato sauce from before 
 him, and rose up from the breakfast table, apparently too troubled 
 in spirit to eat. 
 
 Her Majesty noticed the act, and inquired the cause. 
 
 " Those confounded sparrows !" cried the Prince, with great 
 distress " we can't get them out." 
 
 " Oh, sit down, and eat your breakfast," interposed her Majesty, 
 soothingly, " and I'll write an order to the Horse Guards to send 
 up a whole regiment of the line to shoot them." 
 
 The Prince groaned out, " Oh, no ; the cure would be worse 
 than the disease they'd break all the glass."
 
 260 
 
 The Queen saw and felt for his distress. " I never liked the 
 Exhibition," she thought, " but it is his hobby, and I must not let 
 these stupid little sparrows make him unhappy." So she sat down 
 at the escritoire, and taking up a gold pen, wrote a note at once to 
 the Premier, requiring his attendance at Buckingham Palace. As 
 the Royal messenger was seen dashing at top speed into Chesliam 
 Place, people said 'twas another ministerial crisis, but 'tic'isn't. 
 
 " What's the matter, your Majesty ?" cried the Premier, making 
 his appearance, pale and out of breath. 
 
 "The sparrows," said her Majesty, "in the Crystal Palace." 
 And as she spoke she nodded her head to Prirtce Albert, who was 
 walking about at the upper part of the room, striking his fore- 
 head, and attending to no one, his mind being occupied Avith the 
 one sad thought. 
 
 " You know we can't shoot them, Lord John," observed her 
 Majesty, '' or I'd soon silence them with a park of artillery." 
 
 " No, your Majesty," mused the First Lord of the Treasury, 
 
 biting his nails ; and, after a pause, he added, '' We might //< t t/ici." 
 
 The Queen clapped her hands in glee. " Albert, Albert," she 
 
 exclaimed, " don't fret Lord John has found a remedy well net 
 
 them." 
 
 " Nonsense," replied the Prince Consort rather gruffly and 
 ungratefully, " you can't the place is too large." 
 
 Her Majesty's face fell at once, as she mournfully repeated her 
 Consort's words, " 'tis too large, Lord John think again." 
 
 Lord John bit his nails, and thought again. " I have it," 
 said he, after a longer meditation than before. 
 
 The Queen's eyes sparkled. " Have you !" cried she, in ecstasy. 
 " What, Lord John do please say what at once ? " 
 " Fumigate the place smother them with sulphur." 
 "Capital!" cried the Queen. "Albert, Albert," she shouted 
 out once more, " We have it this time we'll smother them." 
 
 " Cant" sulkily retorted Saxe Coburg and Gotha. " I thought of 
 that myself but 'twont do. Stink all the goods, and spoil them." 
 The Queen looked miserable once more, and begged of her Prime 
 Minister to think again, but he couldn't, and left the Palace. 
 
 The Bishop of London now called by chance, and her Majesty 
 at once consulted him. Blomfield was always a courtier : he 
 looked wise, vowed his service over and over, and said " he'd go 
 home, and look at the canons of the church." 
 
 " Don't mind it," interposed her Majesty ; " your canons always 
 make a dreadful noise, but take no effect." 
 
 Still Prince Albert kept pacing up and down, and groaning out 
 ejaculations from time to time about these confounded sparrows ; 
 and every groan sent a pang to her Majesty's heart. " I have 
 determined," she exclaimed, "I'll send for the Duke." 
 
 Another letter and another courier to bear it to Apsley House 
 The Royal missive ran thus : 
 
 My dear Duke Do come at once : my kind and true friend in every 
 emergency. Albert is in sad taking about these horrid sparrows that 
 have got into the Exhibition Building. You can do every thing : you 
 can help us to get them out. Ever yours, V.R.
 
 261 
 
 The Duke was standing at the window when theRbyal messenger 
 alighted at the door. He knew the man hy his livery. " Humph," 
 cried he, " I hope Russell is not again in one of his resignation 
 fits." He took the letter off the silver dish, and opened it. He 
 seemed annoyed, and immediately sat down in a pet to write. 
 
 F.M. the Duke of Wellington understands there are several following this 
 line of life in the neighbourhood of the Seven Dials, to whom, if it he 
 
 her Majesty's pleas u e, ht will make, known the royal request. KM. 
 the Duke of Wellington has had considerable experience in capturing 
 French eagles, but none in taking English sparrows. 
 
 His Grace read the note gave a grim smile, then repented, tore 
 it, and ordering his horse, said he would be at Buckingham Palace 
 in twenty minutes. 
 
 The Prince was still walking about restless, when the Duke 
 arrived. 
 
 The Queen and Prince all but jumped into his arms, and 
 reminded him of Qtiatre Bras. 
 
 " Oh last and best resort of difficulty and danger ! what do you 
 suggest ?" ejaculated the Sovereign. 
 
 " A SPARROW HAWK," said the Duke bowing. 
 
 " Oh ever fertile in resources," exclaimed the Prince ; "to place 
 a difficulty before you is to have a remedy. We'll have the 
 sparrow hawks," he added. 
 
 " We will,' 1 said the Queen ; and an extensive order for sparrow 
 hawks was immediately issued. 
 
 In the mean time, the twittering colony in the Crystal Palace 
 were not unconscious of what was taking place at its Buckingham 
 neighbour, and had a couple of messengera of their own flying 
 between the " two houses," bearing hourly intelligence of the 
 consultations held for turning them out of office. Thus, when 
 Lord John Russell was with her Majesty, a clever, sharp-eared 
 young sparrow alighted on the sill of the window outside, and 
 overheard the whole of the conversation. As soon as the Premier 
 departed, Muster Sparrow was back again, and gliding in through 
 one of the ventilators, was soon telling the whole story to a council 
 of veteran twitterers assembled on one of the highest branches. 
 This council was presided over by a grey-headed old sparrow, the 
 Nestor of the many flocks that flitted about the Crystal Palace. 
 
 When the young sparrow had told all that Lord John had said, 
 " Pshaw ! " cried the President of the Council. " Net us ; and we 
 forsooth are fools enough to go into the nets, while we have plenty 
 of room to avoid them Lord John has seen his best days. Unless 
 they can get a wiser counsellor than that, we'll bother Prince 
 Albert and his brother Commissioners, and break up their boasted 
 Exhibition," and all the sparrows laughed and twittered, and pro- 
 voked the Commissioners, who happened to be underneath, and 
 who cried out with more vehemence than ever, " Hang these 
 sparrows ! " Another messenger sparrow flew in amongst the 
 feathered council "The Bishop of London has just left her
 
 22 
 
 Majesty, and is going to eject us by Cr,non Latr." A provokingly 
 mirthful outburst of twittering followed the announcement. 
 
 " The Einhop of Londem hK.3 enoa^i fc> do to mind his own 
 business," said tLs veteKm gyaiiow : "let kim first get some strange 
 birds out of his own diocese, and then come to disturb us. But 
 he had better not throw stones at us ; ours is not the only Palace 
 made of glass. I think we need not make ourselves uneasy, but 
 go on building our nests." " We needn't," cried all the sparrows 
 from all the branches, " we'll stay where we are." 
 
 " The Duke is sent for," exclaimed another messenger sparrow, 
 making his appearance, and with some sign of trepidation. 
 
 " The Duke," repeated they but there was no banter in their 
 twitter now. 
 
 But the President of the Sparrows' Council still put a bold face 
 on the matter, and said in boastful tone. " The Duke would find he 
 had not a Napoleon to deal -with this time ; " nevertheless the 
 sparrows were noticed not to go on as busily with their nest- 
 building as before, when a fourth messenger flew in and said he 
 had just overheard the Duke suggest "a sparrow-hawk." " Then 
 I'm off," exclaimed the veteran President of the Council, popping 
 out through a ventilator. "That horrid old Duke! I was afraid 
 he would hit upon an expedient."
 
 PRINTED AT THB " I^IRONICLK " O3TICB, BATB.