Micro R&D 1/MicroRD-CD-ROM-Vol1-1994.iso/books/irving/antiques

Text File | 1992-12-02 | 12KB | 195 lines

                                    1819-20
                                THE SKETCH BOOK
                                LONDON ANTIQUES
                              by Washington Irving

                                            - I do walk
         Methinks like Guido Vaux, with my dark lanthorn,
         Stealing to set the town o' fire; i' th' country
         I should be taken for William o' the Wisp,
         Or Robin Goodfellow.
                                                FLETCHER.

  I AM somewhat of an antiquity hunter, and am fond of exploring
London in quest of the relics of old times. These are principally to
be found in the depths of the city, swallowed up and almost lost in
a wilderness of brick and mortar; but deriving poetical and romantic
interest from the commonplace prosaic world around them. I was
struck with an instance of the kind in the course of a recent summer
ramble into the city; for the city is only to be explored to advantage
in summer time, when free from the smoke and fog, and rain and mud
of winter. I had been buffeting for some time against the current of
population setting through Fleet-street. The warm weather had unstrung
my nerves, and made me sensitive to every jar and jostle and
discordant sound. The flesh was weary, the spirit faint, and I was
getting out of humor with the bustling busy throng through which I had
to struggle, when in a fit of desperation I tore my way through the
crowd, plunged into a by lane, and after passing through several
obscure nooks and angles, emerged into a quaint and quiet court with a
grassplot in the centre, overhung by elms, and kept perpetually
fresh and green by a fountain with its sparkling jet of water. A
student with book in hand was seated on a stone bench, partly reading,
partly meditating on the movements of two or three trim nursery
maids with their infant charges.
  I was like an Arab, who had suddenly come upon an oasis amid the
panting sterility of the desert. By degrees the quiet and coolness
of the place soothed my nerves and refreshed my spirit. I pursued my
walk, and came, hard by to a very ancient chapel, with a low-browed
Saxon portal of massive and rich architecture. The interior was
circular and lofty, and lighted from above. Around were monumental
tombs of ancient date, on which were extended the marble effigies of
warriors in armor. Some had the hands devoutly crossed upon the
breast; others grasped the pommel of the sword, menacing hostility
even in the tomb!- while the crossed legs of several indicated
soldiers of the Faith who had been on crusades to the Holy Land.
  I was, in fact, in the chapel of the Knights Templars, strangely
situated in the very centre of sordid traffic; and I do not know a
more impressive lesson for the man of the world than thus suddenly
to turn aside from the highway of busy money-seeking life, and sit
down among these shadowy sepulchres, where all is twilight, dust,
and forgetfulness.
  In a subsequent tour of observation, I encountered another of
these relics of a "foregone world" locked up in the heart of the city.
I had been wandering for some time through dull monotonous streets,
destitute of any thing to strike the eye or excite the imagination,
when I beheld before me a Gothic gateway of mouldering antiquity. It
opened into a spacious quadrangle forming the court-yard of a
stately Gothic pile, the portal of which stood invitingly open.
  It was apparently a public edifice, and as I was antiquity
hunting, I ventured in, though with dubious steps. Meeting no one
either to oppose or rebuke my intrusion, I continued on until I
found myself in a great hall, with a lofty arched roof and oaken
gallery, all of Gothic architecture. At one end of the hall was an
enormous fireplace, with wooden settles on each side; at the other end
was a raised platform, or dais, the seat of state, above which was the
portrait of a man in antique garb, with a long robe, a ruff, and a
venerable gray beard.
  The whole establishment had an air of monastic quiet and
seclusion, and what gave it a mysterious charm, was, that I had not
met with a human being since I had passed the threshold.
  Encouraged by this loneliness, I seated myself in a recess of a
large bow window, which admitted a broad flood of yellow sunshine,
checkered here and there by tints from panes of colored glass; while
an open casement let in the soft summer air. Here, leaning my head
on my hand, and my arm on an old oaken table, I indulged in a sort
of reverie about what might have been the ancient uses of this
edifice. It had evidently been of monastic origin; perhaps one of
those collegiate establishments built of yore for the promotion of
learning, where the patient monk, in the ample solitude of the
cloister, added page to page and volume to volume, emulating in the
production of his brain the magnitude of the pile he inhabited.
  As I was seated in this musing mood, a small panelled door in an
arch at the upper end of the hall was opened, and a number of
gray-headed old men, clad in long black cloaks, came forth one by one;
proceeding in that manner through the hall, without uttering a word,
each turning a pale face on me as he passed, and disappearing
through a door at the lower end.
  I was singularly struck with their appearance; their black cloaks
and antiquated air comported with the style of this most venerable and
mysterious pile. It was as if the ghosts of the departed years,
about which I had been musing, were passing in review before me.
Pleasing myself with such fancies, I set out, in the spirit of
romance, to explore what I pictured to myself a realm of shadows,
existing in the very centre of substantial realities.
  My ramble led me through a labyrinth of interior courts, and
corridors, and dilapidated cloisters, for the main edifice had many
additions and dependencies, built at various times and in various
styles; in one open space a number of boys, who evidently belonged
to the establishment, were at their sports; but everywhere I
observed those mysterious old gray men in black mantles, sometimes
sauntering alone, sometimes conversing in groups: they appeared to
be the pervading genii of the place. I now called to mind what I had
read of certain colleges in old times, where judicial astrology,
geomancy, necromancy, and other forbidden and magical sciences were
taught. Was this an establishment of the kind, and were these
black-cloaked old men really professors of the black art?
  These surmises were passing through my mind as my eye glanced into a
chamber, hung round with all kinds of strange and uncouth objects;
implements of savage warfare; strange idols and stuffed alligators;
bottled serpents and monsters decorated the mantelpiece; while on
the high tester of an old-fashioned bedstead grinned a human skull,
flanked on each side by a dried cat.
  I approached to regard more narrowly this mystic chamber, which
seemed a fitting laboratory for a necromancer, when I was startled
at beholding a human countenance staring at me from a dusky corner. It
was that of a small, shrivelled old man, with thin cheeks, bright
eyes, and gray wiry projecting eyebrows. I at first doubted whether it
were not a mummy curiously preserved, but it moved, and I saw that
it was alive. It was another of these black-cloaked old men, and, as I
regarded his quaint physiognomy, his obsolete garb, and the hideous
and sinister objects by which he was surrounded, I began to persuade
myself that I had come upon the arch mago, who ruled over this magical
fraternity.
  Seeing me pausing before the door, he rose and invited me to
enter. I obeyed, with singular hardihood, for how did I know whether a
wave of his wand might not metamorphose me into some strange
monster, or conjure me into one of the bottles on his mantelpiece?
He proved, however, to be any thing but a conjurer, and his simple
garrulity soon dispelled all the magic and mystery with which I had
enveloped this antiquated pile and its no less antiquated inhabitants.
  It appeared that I had made my way into the centre of an ancient
asylum for superannuated tradesmen and decayed householders, with
which was connected a school for a limited number of boys. It was
founded upwards of two centuries since on an old monastic
establishment, and retained somewhat of the conventual air and
character. The shadowy line of old men in black mantles who had passed
before me in the hall, and whom I had elevated into magi, turned out
to be the pensioners returning from morning service in the chapel.
  John Hallum, the little collector of curiosities, whom I had made
the arch magician, had been for six years a resident of the place, and
had decorated this final nestling-place of his old age with relics and
rarities picked up in the course of his life. According to his own
account he had been somewhat of a traveller; having been once in
France, and very near making a visit to Holland. He regretted not
having visited the latter country, "as then he might have said he
had been there."- He was evidently a traveller of the simplest kind.
  He was aristocratical too in his notions; keeping aloof, as I found,
from the ordinary run of pensioners. His chief associates were a blind
man who spoke Latin and Greek, of both which languages Hallum was
profoundly ignorant; and a broken-down gentleman who had run through a
fortune of forty thousand pounds left him by his father, and ten
thousand pounds, the marriage portion of his wife. Little Hallum
seemed to consider it an indubitable sign of gentle blood as well as
of lofty spirit to be able to squander such enormous sums.

  P.S. The picturesque remnant of old times into which I have thus
beguiled the reader is what is called the Charter House, originally
the Chartreuse. It was founded in 1611, on the remains of an ancient
convent, by Sir Thomas Sutton, being one of those noble charities
set on foot by individual munificence, and kept up with the quaintness
and sanctity of ancient times amidst the modern changes and
innovations of London. Here eighty broken-down men, who have seen
better days, are provided, in their old age, with food, clothing,
fuel, and a yearly allowance for private expenses. They dine
together as did the monks of old, in the hall which had been the
refectory of the original convent. Attached to the establishment is
a school for forty-four boys.
  Stow, whose work I have consulted on the subject, speaking of the
obligations of the gray-headed pensioners, says, "They are not to
intermeddle with any business touching the affairs of the hospital,
but to attend only to the service of God, and take thankfully what
is provided for them, without muttering, murmuring, or grudging.
None to wear weapon, long hair, colored boots, spurs or colored shoes,
feathers in their hats, or any ruffian-like or unseemly apparel, but
such as becomes hospital men to wear." "And in truth," adds Stow,
"happy are they that are so taken from the cares and sorrows of the
world, and fixed in so good a place as these old men are; having
nothing to care for, but the good of their souls, to serve God and
to live in brotherly love."

  For the amusement of such as have been interested by the preceding
sketch, taken down from my own observation, and who may wish to know a
little more about the mysteries of London, I subjoin a modicum of
local history, put into my hands by an odd-looking old gentleman in
a small brown wig and a snuff-colored coat, with whom I became
acquainted shortly after my visit to the Charter House. I confess I
was a little dubious at first, whether it was not one of those
apocryphal tales often passed off upon inquiring travellers like
myself; and which have brought our general character for veracity into
such unmerited reproach. On making proper inquiries, however, I have
received the most satisfactory assurances of the author's probity;
and, indeed, have been told that he is actually engaged in a full and
particular account of the very interesting region in which he resides;
of which the following may be considered merely as a foretaste.
                        THE END