Messrs. Burns & Oates have announced the intended publication of a series of reprints of scarce ascetical books, many of which exist in the possession of private collectors, as heirlooms of old Catholic families, and in the libraries of religious houses. Among them are “Three Ways of Perfection,” (1663); “Sweet Thoughts of Jesus and Mary,” (1658); “Memorial of a Christian Life,” (1688), &c. The works will be edited by Mr. Orby Shipley, M.A.
Translated by Julia Goddard.
(Continued from p. 134.)
Conclusion of Part I.—Siguna and Schionatulander.
Argument.—Schionatulander having made his confession of love, Gahmureth, who has been in former times oppressed by love affairs himself, compassionates the youth, and promises to help on his cause with the young Duchess. We may here remark that Gahmureth does not appear to have been constant in his attachments. After having assisted Belakane, Queen of Zassamank, in the Moorish regions, he married her, but deserted her before their son Fierefiss was born. After that he married Herzeliede, whose son, Parzival, was chosen to be King of the Grail. Gahmureth had also been much in love with Anflisa, the French Queen, an episode, to which Schionatulander here alludes; as does Herzeleide in her conversation with Siguna, for she fears the French Queen has not yet forgiven her successful rival, and may make her heart bleed through the youthful lovers.
From the expedition in which Gahmureth was now engaged he never returned, being treacherously killed by Ipomidon, one of the Babylonian brothers. An account of his death, and of the magnificent burial given to him by Baruch, is to be found in “Parzival” (Book ii., Herzeleide).
AN UNPUBLISHED JEU D’ESPRIT.
By Sir Joshua Reynolds.
PART I.
JOHNSON AGAINST GARRICK.
Johnson and Sir J. Reynolds.
REYNOLDS.—Let me alone, I’ll draw him out (aside). I have been thinking this morning, Dr. Johnson, on a matter which has puzzled me very much; it is a subject that I daresay has often passed in your thoughts, and though I cannot, I daresay you have made up your mind upon it.
Johnson.—Tilly fally, what is all this preparation? what is all this weighty matter?
R.—Why, it is a weighty matter; this subject I have been thinking upon, is Predestination, and Free will, two things, which I cannot reconcile together, for the life of me. In my opinion, Dr. Johnson, free will and fore knowledge cannot be reconciled.
J.—Sir, it is not of very great importance, what your opinion is upon such a question.
R.—But I meant only, Dr. J., to know your opinion.
J.—No, sir, you meant no such thing; you meant only to show these gentlemen that you are not the man they took you to be, but that you think of high matters sometimes, and that you may have the credit of having it said, that you held an argument with Sam Johnson, on predestination, and free will; a subject of that magnitude, to have engaged the attention of the world, to have perplexed the wisdom of man, for these 2,000 years; a subject on which the fallen angels who had not yet lost all their original brightness find themselves in wandering mazes lost. That such a subject could be discussed in the levity of convivial conversation, is a degree of absurdity beyond what is easily conceivable.
R.—It is so, as you say, to be sure; I talked once to our friend Garrick on this subject, but I remember we could make nothing of it.
J.—Oh noble pair!
R.—Garrick was a clever fellow, Dr. J.; Garrick, take him altogether, was certainly a very great man.
J.—Garrick, sir, may be a great man in your opinion, as far as I know, but he was not so in mine; little things are great to little men.
R.—I have heard you say, Dr. Johnson——
J.—Sir, you never heard me say, David Garrick was a great man. You may have heard me say that Garrick was a good repeater of other men’s words,—words put into his mouth by other men; this makes but a faint approach towards being a great man.
R.—But take Garrick upon the whole; now in regard to conversation——
J.—Well, sir, in regard to conversation I never discovered in the conversation of D. Garrick any intellectual energy, any wide grasp of thought, any extensive comprehension of mind; or that he possessed any of those powers to which great could, with any degree of propriety, be applied.
R.—But still——
J.—Hold, sir, I have not done—there are to be sure, in the laxity of colloquial speech, various kinds of greatness. A man may be a great tobacconist, a man may be a great painter, he may be likewise a great mimick: now you may be the one, and Garrick the other, and yet neither of you be great men.
R.—But, Dr. Johnson——
J.—Hold, sir. I have often lamented how dangerous it is to investigate, and to discriminate character, to men who have no discriminative powers.
R.—Garrick as a companion, I heard you say—no longer ago than last Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale’s table——
J.—You tease me, sir. Whatever you may have heard me say, no longer ago than last Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale’s table, I tell you, I do not say so now; besides, as I said before, you may not have understood me, you may not have heard me.
R.—I am very sure, I heard you.
J.—Besides, sir, besides, besides—do not you know—are you so ignorant as not to know that it is the highest degree of rudeness to quote a man against himself?
R.—But if you differ from yourself, and give one opinion to-day——
J.—Have done, sir, the company are tired, you see, as well as myself.
T’OTHER SIDE.
Dr. Johnson and Mr. Gibbon.
Johnson.—No, sir, Garrick’s fame was prodigious, not only in England but over all Europe, even in Russia. I have been told he was a proverb; when anybody had repeated well he was called a second Garrick.
Gibbon.—I think he had full as much reputation as he deserved.
J.—I do not pretend to know, sir, what your meaning may be by saying he had as much reputation as he deserved; he deserved much, and he had much.
G.—Why, surely, Dr. Johnson, his merit was in small things only; he had none of those qualities that make a real great man.
J.—Sir, I as little understand what your meaning may be when you speak of the qualities that make a great man: it is a vague term. Garrick was no common man: a man above the common size of men, may surely, without any great impropriety, be called a great man. In my opinion, he has very reasonably fulfilled the prophecy which he once reminded me of having made to his mother, when she asked me how little David got on at school, that I should say to her, that he would come to be hanged, or come to be a great man. No, sir, it is undoubtedly true that the same qualities, united with virtue, or with vice, make a hero or a rogue, a great general or a highwayman. Now Garrick, we are sure, was never hanged, and in regard to his being a great man, you must take the whole man together. It must be considered in how many things Garrick excelled in which every man desires to excel, setting aside his excellence as an actor, in which he is acknowledged to be unrivalled; as a man, as a poet, as a convivial companion, you will find but few his equals, and none his superior. As a man he was kind, friendly, benevolent, and generous.
G.—Of Garrick’s generosity I never heard; I understood his character to be totally the reverse, and that he was reckoned to have loved money.
J.—That he loved money nobody will dispute; who does not? But if you mean by loving money he was parsimonious to a fault, sir, you have been misinformed. To Foote and such scoundrels, who circulated those reports, to such profligate spendthrifts, prudence is meanness, and economy is avarice. That Garrick, in early youth, was brought up in strict habits of economy, I believe, and that they were necessary, I have heard from himself; to suppose that Garrick might inadvertently act from this habit, and be saving in small things, can be no wonder, but let it be remembered at the same time, that if he was frugal by habit, he was liberal from principle; that when he acted from reflection, he did what his fortune enabled him to do, and what was expected from such a fortune. I remember no instance of David’s parsimony, but once, when he stopped Mrs. Woffington from replenishing the teapot; it was already, he said, as red as blood; and this is doubtful, and happened many years ago. In the latter part of his life, I observed no blameable parsimony in David; his table was elegant, and even splendid; his house both in town and country, his equipage, and I think all his habits of life were such as might be expected from a man who had acquired great riches. In regard to his generosity, which you seem to question, I shall only say there is no man to whom I would apply with more confidence of success, for the loan of £200 to assist a common friend, than to David, and this too with very little, if any, probability of its being repaid.
G.—You were going to say something about him as a writer. You don’t rate him very high as a poet?
J.—Sir, a man maybe a respectable poet without being an Homer, as a man may be a good player without being a Garrick. In the lighter kind of poetry, in the appendages of the drama, he was, if not the first, in the very first class. He had a readiness, and a facility, a dexterity of mind that appeared extraordinary even to men of experience, and who are not apt to wonder from ignorance. Writing prologues, epilogues, and epigrams, he said he considered as his trade, and he was what a man should be, always, and at all times, ready at his trade. He required two hours for a prologue or an epilogue, and five minutes for an epigram. Once at Burke’s table, the company proposed a subject, and Garrick finished his epigram within the time: the same experiment was repeated in the garden, and with the same success.
(To be continued.)
By Cornelius Walford, F.S.S., Barrister-at-Law.
PART IV.
(Continued from p. 76.)
Chapter XXXIV.—Gilds of Middlesex.
THE Gilds of this county were chiefly, but not entirely, centred in the capital.
London.—In Chapter xiv. I have given an account of a Gild which existed in this City during the Anglo-Saxon period (A.D. 827-1013). It probably had many predecessors during the Roman occupation, but of these no sufficient details have come down to us.
I now propose to give some account of other Gilds in the City, naming them generally in the order of their supposed establishment. I do not here include the 89 gilds, which took the shape of City Companies for the regulation of trades, &c., of which 12 were known as the Great Companies, and 77 as the Minor Companies; while of these latter many have altogether died out. Concerning such of these as now remain ample details are available: as to the great Companies, in Herbert’s well-known History; and as to the others, in the newly-issued Report of the Royal Commission into the Livery Companies of the City of London.
Gild of Parish Clerks.—Amongst the Minor Companies was the Gild of St. Nicholas, founded in the reign of Henry III. (13th century), which afterwards rendered important services to the City, by preparing the “Bills of Mortality,” from which the appearance of the Plague became manifest, and its progress in fatality recorded. These parish clerks (who were anciently poor real clerks, i.e., clergy) formed a Gild, or fraternity, and so excelled in church music that ladies and men of quality on this account became members, and on certain days they had public feasts, celebrated with singing and music. Upon working days they attended the schools. Their ancient duty at church was to assist the priest at the altar, sing with him, and read the Epistles.
Gild of the Glovers, founded 1354.—This was a purely secular Gild. The Ordinances now before us purport to be made by the masters and keepers [or wardens] of the Craft of Glovers in the City of London, and the bretheren. The following is a brief abstract only, for the Ordinances themselves are very full and extended:
(1) Every brother shall pay sixteen pence a year, by quarterly payments, towards providing two wax tapers to burn at the high altar of the Chapel of our Lady, in the new Church-haw beside London, and also to the poor of the fraternity who well and truly have paid their quarterage as long as they could.
(2) If any brother be behind of payment of his quarterage by a month after the end of any quarter he shall pay 16 pence, that is to say, 8d. to the old work of the Church of St. Paul of London, and the other 8d. to the box of the fraternitie. Also, as often as any brother be not obedient to the summons of the wardens, or be not present in the “heveyns that folk be dead,” and in offering at the funeral of a brother, and in attendance at church with the fraternitie on the feasts of the Annunciation and Assumption, and others, he shall pay 16 pence in like manner.
(3) Every brother shall come to Placebo and Dirige in the “hevenys of dead folk” in suit or livery of the fraternitie of the year past, and on the morrow to mass, and there offer, in his new livery or suit, upon pain of 16 pence.
(4) If a brother be behind in his quarterage for a year and a day, and though it be in his power to pay it, he maliciously refuse, he shall be summoned before the official of the Consistory Court of London. [See chapter xx.]
(5) If any brother or sister be dead within the City, and have not of his (or her) goods him (or her) to bury, he (or she) shall have burning about his (or her) body five tapers and four torches, at the cost of the bretheren, provided the deceased have continued seven years in the fraternity, &c.
(6) All the bretheren be clothed in one suit, &c.
(7) The Masters, Wardens, and bretheren shall attend and hear mass on the feast of the Assumption, &c.
(8) Every brother shall keep his livery for four years, &c.
(9) The fee for entrance into the fraternity; also the form of oath.
(10) On the day of the feast, when the bretheren have eaten, they shall go together to the Chapel of our Lady before mentioned, and there continue the time of Placebo and Dirige, and on the morrow shall attend mass of Requiem, and from thence come together to their Hall, on pain of 16d.
(11) If any brother revile another, he shall be fined 6d. or 8d., &c.
(12) All the bretheren, with their wives, shall go together to their meat the Sunday next after Trinity Sunday, &c., &c.
(13) Concerning the admission of apprentices.
(14) Fines for “contrarying” against the rules.
(15) Penalties for disobedience of rules and regulations as to apprentices.
These rules had been signed by twenty-nine brethren, who at the same time were sworn faithfully to keep and fulfil them.
Gild of the Holy Trinity (Aldersgate).—This is one of three Gilds which were founded in connection with St. Botolph without Aldersgate, concerning which much information of interest will be found in Mr. Alderman Staples’ pleasant little book, “Notes on St. Botolph without Aldersgate:” London, 1881. Regarding this particular Gild, the duty or obligation of its members was to pay devout honour to the “five wounds of Jesus Christ; the five joys of the Virgin Mary, and the Three Persons in the Glorious Trinity.” A charity founded by this Gild exists at the present day, and is administered by the Lord Mayor and Recorder of the City.
Gild of St. Katherine (Aldersgate).—Oath to be taken on entry, and a kiss of love, charity, and peace. Weekly help in poverty, old age, or loss by fire and water. The members’ payments were quarterly, 3d., women paying at the same rate as men. Members to go to church on St. Katherine’s Day, and afterwards choose officers [no feast mentioned, or apparently contemplated]. Burials were to be at the charge of the Gild, and to be attended by the bretheren. Any brother dying within ten miles of London was to have worshipful burial; all costs being made good by the Gild. Loans were to be made to bretheren out of the Gild stock, on pledge or security. Wax lights were to be found and used on certain festivals; and further services after death. New members only to be admitted by assent on the day of the assembly. Four men were to keep the goods of the Gild and render an account. Assent of all the brotherhood required to any new Gild ordinances. Each of the brotherhood was to have “a vestement, a chalys, and a massebok,” at the price of x. marks.
Gild of Sts. Fabian and Sebastian (Aldersgate).—Same general features as the preceding; with the additional feature that the young were to be helped to get work.
Gild of Garlekhith, founded 1375.—This Gild was established for the worship of God, and to nourish good fellowship. All bretheren must be of good repute. Each was to pay 6s. 8d. on entry. There were to be wardens who should gather in the payments, and yield an account thereof yearly. A livery-suit was to be worn; and the bretheren and sisteren were to hold a feast yearly. Each member was to pay 2s. yearly. There were to be four meetings touching the Gild’s welfare to be held in each year. There were to be free gifts to the Gild by the bretheren of “what hym lyketh.” Ill-behaved bretheren were to be put out of the Gild. On the death of any, all the others were to join in the burial service, and make offerings under penalty. In cases of dispute the matter was to be laid before the wardens. Any member disobeying their award should be put out of the Gild. Weekly help was to be afforded to all members of the Gild of seven years’ standing, in old age and in sickness; also, aid to those wrongfully imprisoned. New members were to make oath to keep the Gild ordinances. Every brother chosen warden must serve, or pay 40s.
Gild of the Blacksmiths.—The Ordinances before us do not bear date until 1434. They are made by the Masters and Wardens of the whole Company of the Craft “in the worship” of St. Loy. In all material respects they resemble those of the Glovers.
Gild of the Shearmen [Clothworkers].—This is an ancient Company arising out of interests connected with the woollen manufacture. The Ordinances before us bear date 1452, and recite that “the wardens and freemen of the Craft for the more encrease and continuation of brotherly love and good example unto the honour of God, our Lady St. Mary, and all Saints, by licence of the Mayor and Commonalty the City of London form a religious brotherhood amongst themselves for the sustentation of a perpetual light of thirteen tapers to burn in the church of the Augustinian Friars in London before the image of our Lady.” This, however, seems to have been a fraternity inside the general Gild, the Ordinances of the latter being very minute in detail, but to the same general purport as the Glovers.
The Gild of the Water-bearers.—This was formerly an important body in the City of London (as its counterparts still are in some of the Continental cities of Europe, especially Lisbon); but it dates back probably to a time anterior to that at which Peter Moris (the Dutchman) erected his water-works at Old London Bridge; and certainly before Sir Hugh Myddleton brought his New River water into the City, which was in 1620. The Ordinances before us purport to be made in 1496 by the Wardens of the whole fellowship of the brotherhood of St. Christopher of the Water-bearers founded within the Augustine Friars. There is nothing in them requiring special comment.
German Gilds in London.—But the most extraordinary feature was the existence in London, at a very early period, of three Gilds of Germans residing and trading in London. Speaking generally, their objects were good fellowship, and where need might arise, the succour of the poor members of the Gilds. These were:—
(1) The Brotherhood of the Holy Blood of Wilsnak in Saxony. The date of the formation of this Gild is not known, but its Ordinances were enrolled in the Commissary Court of London, April 1, 1459:
In the name of God that is Almyghti and of our Lady Seynt Mary his moder, and for the blessid blode of his sone Jesus Christ which is by all Cristen people wurshipped at Wilsnak, and opynly called the Holy Blode of Wylsnak, and of all the Seyntes of Hevyne, the xiiijth day of Aprill the yere of our Lord God Ml.cccc.lix. and the yere of King Henry the Sixt. xxxvij. A fraternitie in the special honour of the seid Holy Blode of Wylsnak and of all the Holy Seynts of Hevyn is ordayned founded and devised in the Chirche of the Crossid Freres [Crutched Friars] of London for to norish encrece and engender love and peas amonge gode Christen people in the fourme sewyng, that is to weten.
Then is set forth that the entrance fee was to be xxd., with other Ordinances after the manner of English Gilds of the period, and the following concerning the benefits receivable:—
Also, if any brother or suster of the same Bretherhede by fortune shall [fall] yn naturall sikenesse by visitacion of God so that he nor she mought labore and travel to helpe them selfe, the same foke by warnyng to the maysters for the tyme beyng the same day of the sekenesse comyng, or on the morow at forthest, shall have xxd. every wike sewing [ensuing] unto the same seke be recovered of the sekenesse and that trewly be payed at every wikes withoute any longer delay.
(2) The Brotherhood of the Holy Blood of Wilsnak in Saxony, held in Austin Friars. Date of foundation not recorded; Ordinance enrolled in Commissary Court of London, Dec. 8, 1490. It is recited in the Ordinances that the Fraternity with “oon aasent and comen accorde for the helthe and salvacion of our synfull sowles and for pease loue and charite to be kept with our even cresten, have proposed to holde maynten and to kepe a Fraternyte within the chirch and cloyster of the Freres Austyn within the Cite of London in the worship and honor of the foresaid holy blode,” &c. The Ordinances as to benefits to be granted to the brothers is as follows:—
And also whan eny of our brethern happith to fall sike of som sikenesse that comith of Gods hande, and not by no fawte of good governaunce and good gydyng, he shall have for his sustenacion after that he hath lien vij. dayes xxd. every weke as long as he lieth sike, and his benefacte and charite shall perseyve as moche the moost as the lesse, to thend this charite and almosse be not mynysshed be no wise, and whatever brother of the same brotherhod that shall owe to the same as moche as cometh to more money than iiijd. ob. he shall not have nor perceyve the forseyd benefacte and charite of the said Brotherhod.
The other Ordinances of this Gild are particularly interesting.
(3) The Fraternity of Saint Katheryn, which is stated to have been “founded and ordeyned by Duchemenne iiijxx yeres passed in the Crosse Fryers in the Cite of London.” This was enrolled in the Commissary Court of London Oct. 25, 1495 (10 Hen. VII.); and if it had only been founded by the Dutchmen eighty years previously, as its preamble recites, then it belongs to a later period than that of which we are writing. Another Ordinance, reciting that its earlier Ordinances, Acts, Constitutions, and Rules had been “specyfyed and declared in Duych tong,” points, however, to a probably earlier origin. The names enrolled look remarkably English-like for even the fifteenth century.
Staines.—In 1456 a licence was granted to John Lord Berners, Sir John Wenlock, and other parishioners of Staines, to found a Gild or Fraternity in honour of God and the Virgin Mary, in the Chapel of the Holy Cross, in the Church of Staines; which Gild should consist of two Wardens and a certain number of brethren and sisters, who were incorporated by the King’s Letters Patent of that date. (Vide Pat. 34 Hen. VI. m. 12.)
In 1548 the lands belonging to this Gild were valued at £11 17s. 6d. per annum, including 6s. 8d. for a Chamber called the Chantry Priests’ Chamber. (Vide Chantry Roll in the Augmentation Office.)
These lands paid quit-rents to the manors of Grovebarns and Iveney Court.
(To be continued.)
The new parish church of Chiswick was consecrated by the Bishop of London on Saturday, August 2. The building, which occupies the site of the old church, has been erected mainly at the cost of one of the church-wardens, Mr. Henry Smith. The old tower remains as it was. In the reconstruction of the church, the architect, Mr. J. L. Pearson, has endeavoured to indicate the leading characteristics of the old church, which dated from the early part of the fifteenth century.
No. IV.—BISHOP SHERLOCK TO G. SHAKERLEY, ESQ.
Dear Sir,—I have often had a mind to write to you, since I heard of the great Calamity which happened to you and your family; but I always felt myself so affected with the circumstances of that sad Case, which came fresh into my mind on every occasion, that I thought it would be showing but little tenderness to renew your grief by expressing my own.
There is, in the misfortunes of life, a mixture of good providence, if attended to. In your Case, the escape which some of your family had was as wonderfull and providential as the Calamity was great and terrible.
Whenever such accidents happen the trial is very great, but it cannot but afford great comfort to a serious mind, to observe the hand of providence interposing to ward off that part of the distress, which of all others would have been the most insupportable. Tho’ exposed to danger you was not without help; though greatly afflicted, yet not forsaken; a consideration which will support the spirit of a Man, not only when his goods leave him, but, when the time comes that he must leave them.
I have inquired after you and your good Lady from everybody, who was able to give me any account; and it has been a great Comfort to me to hear that you support yourselves under this great affliction by reflecting on God’s great goodness in preserving the lives of yourselves and your Children. To be insensible of such Calamitys is stupidity; but to bear them and not sink under them is the spirit of a Man. To submit to them patiently is the spirit of the Gospel. I trust the God who has saved your lives, will also make them comfortable to you, by supporting you under this trial; That he may do so is my constant prayer for you.
I desire you would give my service to your good Lady. I know this trial did not find her unprepared, And I hope the many hours She has spent in serious and religious reflections will be a comfort and a support to her now. My service attends the young Ladies. I heartily rejoice in their deliverance. Poor Miss Fanny! how often have I thought of her.
My Wife desires her service to you and Lady and the young Ladies. She has truly been a partaker of the grief of her good friends.
I am, Dear Sir,
your most obedient humble servant,
T. Sarum.
To G. Shakerley, Esq.
[This letter was addressed to Mr. Shakerley, a connection of the Wyan family, on the destruction of his mansion, Gwersylt, Denbighshire, in 1738.]
Early Church History, to the Death of Constantine. Compiled by the late Edward Backhouse. Edited and enlarged by Charles Taylor. Hamilton, Adams & Co. 1884.
Mr. Edward Backhouse, the original compiler of the work now before us, and of whom a biographical sketch is given, was a native of Darlington, and a member of the Society of Friends. He died in 1879. His object in commencing the compilation of this work is best told in his own words: “In second month, 1874, or about that period, I was standing painting in my own room, when an impression was made upon my mind, which I believed to be from the Lord, that I ought to devote my leisure in my latter days to writing a portion of Church history; especially with a view of exhibiting to the Christian world, in a popular manner, the principles and practices of the Society of Friends. So I forthwith began to explore Church history generally, because the history of Friends was quite familiar to me; and, ultimately, as I saw that I greatly differed from many excellent historians in the inferences I drew from many events in the history of the Church, I was induced to attempt myself to write a history of Christianity, which I thought might prove useful to some as exhibiting the principles and practices of the Churches, viewed from a Quaker standpoint, and compared as nearly as I could with apostolic precedent.” With this view he studied the Anti-Nicene Christian Library, and read the ecclesiastical histories of Eusebius, Socrates, Scholasticus, Sozomen, and Theodoret; and among modern compilations made use of Du Pin, Mosheim, Neander, Burton’s Church History, and some others. The work is illustrated by several photographs of Roman antiquities, &c., including the Arch of Titus, the corridor and staircase in the Catacomb of Pontianus, and fragments of sculpture of the fourth and fifth centuries.