Part 12 (1/2)
It is an effective contrast. But, perhaps the most vivid and pathetic sketch of the Submerged of the Great City is that of John Davidson's weird and haunting ballad: ”The Loafer”:
”I hang about the streets all day, At night I hang about; I sleep a little when I may, But rise betimes the morning's scout; For through the year I always hear Afar, aloft, a ghostly shout.
”My clothes are worn to threads and loops; My skin shows here and there; About my face like seaweed droops My tangled beard, my tangled hair; From cavernous and s.h.a.ggy brows My stony eyes untroubled stare.
”I move from eastern wretchedness Through Fleet Street and the Strand; And as the pleasant people press I touch them softly with my hand, Perhaps to know that still I go Alive about a living land.
”I know no handicraft, no art, But I have conquered fate; For I have chosen the better part, And neither hope, nor fear, nor hate.
With placid breath on pain and death, My certain alms, alone I wait.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Speshul!_]
CHAPTER IX
WESTMINSTER
”The devout King destined to G.o.d that place, both for that it was near unto the famous and wealthy City of London, and also had a pleasant situation amongst fruitful fields lying round about it, with the princ.i.p.al river running hard by, bringing in from all parts of the world great variety of wares and merchandise of all sorts to the city adjoining; but chiefly for the love of the Chief Apostle, whom he reverenced with a special and singular affection.”--_Contemporary Life of Edward the Confessor in Harleian M.S._
”The world-famed Abbey by the westering Thames.”--_Matthew Arnold._
”Westminster Abbey,” said Dean Stanley, ”stands alone amongst the buildings of the world. There are, it may be, some which surpa.s.s it in beauty or grandeur; there are others, certainly, which surpa.s.s it in depth and sublimity of a.s.sociation; but there is none which has been entwined by so many continuous threads with the history of a whole nation.”
The old Abbey of Westminster, is, indeed, in itself an epitome of English history. Elsewhere in London, you must dig and delve for it, study and reconstruct; here, you have it all together, a chain in a manner unbroken, from Edward the Confessor to the latest of our Hanoverian Kings, crowned here, so lately and so splendidly, in the place of his fathers.
The church has, in a manner, been founded many times; by tradition, by rebuilding, by frequent restoration and enlargement. The earliest church, or temple, on this ancient site is, indeed, almost lost in the semi-fabulous mists of early history. To all famous fanes, the after-years have a tendency to ascribe legendary and miraculous beginnings; thus, the magic haze that surrounds the primitive church of the doubtful Saxon King Lucius is hardly less than that covering the Temple of Apollo, the Sun-G.o.d, said to exist here in Roman times.
At any rate, it is clear that on this favoured spot, once the little sandy peninsula of ”Thorney Island,” was an early sanctuary and settlement, both Roman and Briton. In King Sebert's time the mists of antiquity lift, but still slightly. Sebert, King of the East-Saxons, was, early in the seventh century, the traditionary founder of a church here, dedicated to St. Peter. According to the story, Sebert, just returned from a Roman pilgrimage, was about to have his church consecrated by the bishop, Mellitus; when, one evening, a poor Saxon fisher, Edric, who was watching his nets along the sh.o.r.e, saw, on the opposite river bank, a gleaming light, and, approaching it in his boat, found a venerable man who desired to be ferried across the stream. There, the mysterious stranger landed, and proceeded to the church, where, transfigured with light, and attended by hosts of glittering angels, he consecrated it, being, indeed, no other than St.
Peter himself:
”Then all again is dark; And by the fisher's bark The unknown pa.s.senger returning stands.
_O Saxon fisher! thou hast had with thee_ _The fisher from the Lake of Galilee_--
”So saith he, blessing him with outspread hands; Then fades, but speaks the while: _At dawn thou to King Sebert shalt relate_ _How his St. Peter's Church in Thorney Isle,_ _Peter, his friend, with light did consecrate._”
The chronicle relates the story thus:
”Know, O Edric,” said the stranger, while the fisherman's heart glowed within him, ”know that I am Peter. I have hallowed the church myself. To-morrow I charge thee that thou tell these things to the Bishop, who will find a sign and token in the church of my hallowing. And for another token, put forth again upon the river, cast thy nets, and thou shalt receive so great a draught of fishes that there will be no doubt left in thy mind. But give one-tenth to this my holy church.”
The story continues that Bishop Mellitus, on hearing Edric's miraculous tale, changed the name of the place from Thorney Isle to West Minster.
The tomb of the first traditionary founder of St. Peter's church of Westminster is still shown in the Abbey to-day, as it has been shown ever since the time of its erection. Through all the vicissitudes of the Abbey, its many alterations and restorations, this early relic has always been treated carefully and with respect. The King of the East-Saxons sleeps in peace in the choir, with his wife EthelG.o.da and his sister Ricula, first of a long line of kings and potentates.
But if Sebert was the traditional founder of the Abbey, Edward the Confessor was, unquestionably, its real founder. And, for that matter, the legends that surround the mysterious Sebert still linger, like a halo, round the Confessor's memory; he who was, we are told, so saintly, that being one day at ma.s.s in the ancient minster, he saw ”the Saviour appear as a child, bright and pure as a spirit.” Truly, a picturesque age to live in! The rebuilding of the Confessor's church was, as in the later time of Rahere, the outcome of a vision, and of a direct message from the saint. Edward, said St. Peter, must rebuild the ancient minster of Thorney. Edward rebuilt it, laying the foundation stone in 1049, and naming it ”the Collegiate Church of St.
Peter of Westminster.” It was the work of the King's life, and it was only consecrated eight days before his death. Of the Confessor's chapel and monastery all that now remains is the present ”Chapel of the Pyx,” with portions of the Westminster School Buildings and of the walls of the South Cloister. For Henry III., the Abbey's second founder, who had ”a rare taste for building” pulled down, in 1245, most of his predecessor's work, and made the splendid miracle-working shrine that contains the relics of the royal saint. But it was Henry VII., in 1502, who was the great builder and transformer of the Abbey.
To him we owe the fine perpendicular chapel called by his name, ”the most beautiful chapel in the world,” the one building that impresses, at first sight, every visitor to London. Westminster Abbey, as we see it now, is probably in externals much as Henry VII. left it, except for the addition of Wren's two western towers, and ”the fact that in the middle ages it was a magnificent apex to a royal palace,”
surrounded ”by a train of subordinate offices and buildings, and with lands extending to the present Oxford Street, Fleet Street, and Vauxhall.”
Yet, without any of its former palatial accessories, is not the gray fret-work of Henry VIIth's chapel, as it breaks on the delighted vision of the traveller down Whitehall, an ever-renewed joy and wonder? To Henry Tudor we owe the union of the houses of York and Lancaster; yet we remember him far more by this, the chapel that he has given us for all time. Truly, he too must have had ”a rare taste in building!” ”It is to the exaltation of the building art,” says Mr.