the word, till it comes unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, with whom thou dwellest for ever, with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Amen." The ruins of Walsingham Abbey are now often visited, not by the pilgrim, as of yore, but by the curious of every description. The experienced architect will admire the flint-work and stonemasonry of their few remaining" buttresses," whose extraordinary state of preservation proves the excellence of the work. (Rickman's English Architect. 3rd edit. p. 78.) The antiquary will expatiate rather on the ground plan of these precincts, rich in legendary tales, and which contained every appendage belonging to monastic institutions. The admirer of nature's works will delight in the solemnity of the scene, as the possessor of these ruins has embellished them with suitable appendages, and produced an harmonious effect by the disposition of the grounds in which they stand. The Catholic will still sigh at the recollection of their past glories, or repeat prayers for their restoration by the sacred wishing-wells adjoining. A black-letter poem, from the press of R. Pynson, probably an unique copy, exists in the Pepysian library at Cambridge, detailing the miraculous discovery and subsequent fame of this Bethesda ! But as the narrative of Erasmus deals less in the marvellous, we will take it as the accredited version of the state of these wells three centuries ago. "Before the chapel was a covered building, which they said had been suddenly brought during a severe winter, the ground being at the time deeply covered with snow. In this building were two wells, filled to their highest level, whose source was a spring sacred to the holy virgin; the water is wonderfully cold, efficacious in curing diseases both of the head and stomach." "This fountain rose, as the sacristan maintained, by the command of the blessed virgin. I, having looked around, asked how many years since the building had been transported thither? Some centuries, was the reply. But the walls, said I, do not seem ancient. He assented. Nor do these wooden pillars, I added. He allowed them to be recent, as indeed was self-evident. Finally, said I, the thatch, the beams, the rafters, every thing is modern; and how do you prove to me that the house was brought from afar? "On this," continues Erasmus, under the assumed name of Ogygius, "the sacristan pointed out to me an old worn bearskin, nailed to the roof, and almost derided our incredulity in not having eyes to discover so irresistible an argument!" (Coll. de Pereg. Rel. erga.) With this extraordinary mixture of levity and piety does this incredulous pilgrim become the chronicler of his own times! But it is time to shew the connexion of these matters with our subject—the Parish Church of Walsingham. "The church of St. Mary, Walsingham, was granted and appropriated to the priory about 1280, by Jeff. de Faverches, and so is a curacy." (Blomfield's Norfolk, by Parkin, 8vo. vol. ix. p. 271.) By various deeds of endowment, preserved in Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. ii. p. 20, it appears that Galfridus de Favarches, Knt. and Earl of the Marches, on going to the Holy Land, endowed more fully the priory which his mother Richeldis or Richoldie de Favarches had founded in the time of Edward the Confessor. Subsequent monarchs confirmed these various grants, both to the church and monastery, by deeds under the seal royal, frequently affixed at Walsingham. But whatever was the exact date or early history of the endowment of this church, it is at present used solely as the parish church of Walsingham, and, as it now stands, is a handsome, uniform structure of far more recent date. It has a nave and two aisles, a tower with a leaden spire, good clerestory windows, and contains many objects interesting to the man of taste, as well as the mere antiquarian. The font of this church, for size and decoration combined, is probably the most distinguished specimen any where to be met with in England. (Rickman, pp. 108, 263.) Britton, in his Architectural Antiquities, has devoted an entire chapter to giving an elaborate account of it, accompanied by an excellent engraving, uniting effect and fidelity; and he there advances an opinion that "all basso relievos representing the Romish sacraments on the compartments of similar fonts, originated in the 14th century; about which time the doctrine of the Seven Sacraments was warmly and intemperately contested." These bas reliefs occupy seven faces of the octangular basin of the font, a crucifixion completing the design; each being in a canopied recess, to which its mouldings, crockets, and finials, give an extreme richness, unusual in such a work. An elegantly sculptured shaft supports this massive basin. Its eight principal faces are occupied by the four evangelists seated, and by four abbots standing; and at the corners between these are eight smaller figures of angels standing on lofty pedestals. This portion of the font has also its niches, pinnacles, &c., which, in point of delicacy of execution, rival the groups above. This shaft or pedestal rises itself in turn from a platform of handsome steps, which, if the font were used, would be necessary to enable the minister to stand level with the basin. The design and pattern of these steps are curious, and have a good effect; they are ornamented, but not overcharged, by bands of quatrefoils in pannels. The large dimensions of this font are deserving of notice, as it stands, exclusive of its wooden cover, six feet nine inches from the pavement; the circumference of its ground step is 23 feet. The leading monument in the church stands within the altar rails, and may be taken first in order, as forming a connecting link between the past and present history of the lands of this parish. It is that of Sir H. Sydney, chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth, and governor of Flushing, whose uncle purchased the possessions and site of Walsingham Abbey shortly after the suppression. (Blomfield's Norf. 8vo. vol. ix. p. 274.) As the last of this branch of a most illustrious family, he obtained a due share of funereal and sepulchral honours. His own recumbent statue, and that of Jane his wife, may be most advantageously studied, as illustrative either of costume or of the arts at that period. But the study of Christian character is here a more profitable lesson, as it may be read, fully delineated in the inscription on this monument: Here lyes, in hope and expectation Have slept in Him, to be partakers The eternal kingdome, S HENRY Chamberleyn to the Queene's Majie. His youth was seasoned with the feare of Men, of charitie towards the poore, of Here joyned as well in the same hope of a joyful Resurrection but thou excellest them all. Pro. xxxi. 29. The manors of this parish, and with them Walsingham Abbey, shortly passed from the Sydneys into the hands of other owners. The excellent Bishop of Rochester, John Warner, D.D., died without issue in 1666; and although he had supported the falling fortunes of Charles I. largely from his own resources, he amassed, notwithstanding, at the close of a long life, a very considerable income. "This bishop it was," says Fuller, in his Church History, "in whom dying Episcopacy gave the last groan in the house of Lords." He was the last champion who defended the right of his order to sit in that assembly; and he was subsequently commanded by Charles to write a treatise against the ordinance for the sale of church lands, which he published in 1646. (Biographia Britanica.) His disinterested and generous conduct procured him the esteem of Charles, who could not reward loyalty in a manner more acceptable than by a present of the royal portrait in Vandyke's best style, which is still preserved as an heirloom and honoured in the bishop's family. Having set his house in order, he made provision at his death for the foundation of a noble charity-" a charity as unexampled at the time of its institution, as it has been without compare since." (Hasted's Hist. of Kent, vol. i. p. 562.) In pursuance of the bishop's will, Bromley College was erected out of his personal property. His nephew, the Archdeacon Lee, also purchased Walsingham, and charged the bishop's estates of Swayton in Lincolnshire, as directed, with the payment of 4501. yearly, for the maintenance of twenty widows of loyal and orthodox clergymen. The hospital or college of Bromley, thus raised and supported, has been since further endowed, and now adorns the diocese where its worthy founder presided, not so much by its design or any architectural features, as by marking the piety and charity of which it is a standing record. The bishop himself reposes in a chapel of his own cathedral; the last resting place of his family is the chancel of the church before us, which our own great sculptor Westmacott has embellished with some of his much-admired productions. Among the other monuments there is a small one contiguous to these, which demands especial notice. Its mutilated and worn appearance carries the imagination back to a period of remote antiquity; but the thought it breathes is perfect, and might apply to the monument of to-day. It represents the closed curtains of a bed impervious to the eye; " DORMITORIVM EDWARDI DE FOTHERBIE," its simple, but eloquent inscription, contrasts as well with the heraldry of the Sydney monument, as with the forms of breathing marble which the statuary has called to life around it. Monuments of the same class as those which are here met with awaken feelings in accordance with the solemnity of the house of prayer. One of the greatest writers our own country has produced found a melancholy pleasure in considering Westminster Abbey the resting place of great men. The privilege of humble life is to draw its purest consolation from virtue rather than fame; VOL. IV.-August, 1833. U |