CHAPTER VI. "AND now, Eugenio, ere we cross the ferry, and mingle with the roaring boyes and swashbucklers' of St. Bartholomew, let us halt at the Tabard, and snatch a brief association with Chaucer and his Pilgrims. The localities that were once hallowed by the presence of genius we ardently seek after, and fondly trace through all their obscurities, and regard them with as true a devotion as does the pilgrim the sacred shrine to which, after his patiently-endured perils by sea and land, he offers his adoration. The humblest roof gathers glory from the bright spirit that once irradiated it; the simplest relic becomes a precious gem, when connected with the gifted and the good. We haunt as holy ground the spot where the muse inspired our favourite bard; we treasure up his hand-writing in our cabinets; we study his works as emanations from the poet; we cherish his associations as reminiscences of the man. Never can I forget your high-toned enthusiasm when you stood in the solemn chancel of Stratford-upon-Avon, pale, breathless, and fixed like marble, before the mausoleum of Shakspeare!" "An honest and blithesome spirit was the Father of English Poetry! happy in hope, healthful in morals, lofty in imagination, and racy in hua bright earnest of that transcendent genius who, in an after age, shed his mighty lustre over the literature of Europe. The Tabard ! mour, how the heart leaps at the sound! Uncle Timothy say if he were here ?" What would "All that you have said, and much more, could he say it as well." And instantly we felt the cordial pressure of a hand stretched out to us from the next box, where sat solus the middle-aged gentleman. "To have passed the Tabard,' would 1" Befelle that in that seson, on a day, That have been treason to those beautiful associations that make memory of the value that it is! One of the most rational pleasures of the intellectual mind is to escape from the present to the past. The contemplation of antiquity is replete with melancholy interest. The eye wanders with delight over the crumbling ruins of ancient magnificence; the heart is touched with some sublime emotion; and we ask which is the most praiseworthy-the superstition that raised these holy temples, or the piety (?) that suffers them to fall to decay? This corner is one of my periodical resting-places after a day's solitary ramble; for I have many such, in order to brush up old recollections, and lay in fresh mental fuel for a winter evening's fireside. 'Tis a miracle that this antique fabric should have escaped demolition. Look at St. Saviour's! In the contemplation of that impressive scene amidst the everlasting That toward Canterbury wolden ride. And wel we weren esed atte beste." 1 The ancient grave-yard of St. Saviour's contains the sacred dust of Massinger. All that the Parish Register records of him is, "March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a freshness of nature and the decay of time—I have been taught more rightly to estimate the works of man and his Creator,-the one, like himself, stately in pride and beauty, but which pass away as a shadow, and are seen no more; the other, the type of divinity, infinite, immutable, and eternal." "But surely-may I call you Uncle Timothy ?" Uncle Timothy good-humouredly nodded assent. "Surely, Uncle Timothy, the restoration of the Ladye Chapel and Crosby Hall speak something for the good taste of the citizens." 66 Modestly argued, Eugenio !" "An accident, my young friend, a mere accident, forced upon the Vandals. Talk of antiquity to a Guildhall Magnifico! Sirs, I once mentioned Stranger." John Fletcher, the eminent dramatic poet, who died of the Plague, August 19, 1625, was buried in the church. With all due respect for Uncle Timothy's opinion, we think he is a little too hard upon the citizens, who are not the only Vandals in matters of antiquity. The mitre has done its part in the work of demolition. Who destroyed the ancient palace of the Bishops of Ely, (where "Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster," breathed his last, in 1398,) with its beautiful Chapel and magnificent Gothic Hall? The site of its once pleasant garden in Holborn, from whence Richard Duke of Gloucester requested a dish of strawberries from the the London Stone' to one of these blue-gown gentry, and his one idea immediately reverted to the well-known refectory of that venerable name, where he stuffs himself to repletion and scarletifies his nasal promontory, without a thought of Wat Tyler,' the Lord of the Circle! An acquaintance of mine, one Deputy Dewlap, after dining with Bishop on the morning he sent Lord Hastings to execution, is now a rookery of mean hovels. And the Hospital of Saint Catherine, and its Collegiate Church, where are they? Not one stone lies upon another of those unrivalled Gothic temples of piety and holiness, founded by the pious Queen Matilda. And the ancient Church of St. Bartholomew, where once reposed the ashes of Miles Coverdale, and which the Great Fire of London spared, is now razed to the ground! De Gustibus! Alderman Newman, who had scraped together out of the grocery line six hundred thousand pounds, enjoyed no greater luxury during the last three years of his life than to repair daily to the shop, and, precisely as the clock struck two (the good old-fashioned hour of city dining), eat his mutton with his successors. The late Thomas Rippon, Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, was a similar oddity. Once only, in a service of fifty years, did he venture to ask for a fortnight's holiday. He left town, but after a three days' unhappy ramble through beautiful green fields, he grew moping and melancholy, and prematurely returned to the blissful regions of Threadneedle Street to die at his desk! 1 Small was the people's gain by the insurrection of Wat Tyler. The elements of discord, once put in motion, spread abroad with wild fury, till, with the ignoble blood of base hinds, mingled the bravest and best in the land. The people returned to their subjection wondering and dispirited. For |