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498 years. But in the year 1829 they opened that tomb and they "displaced the roof thereof.

And underneath, about a foot and a half from the surface, a figure was revealed, clad in a silk priest's robe [query, a cope ?], and holding in its hand a sacramental cup, from which the stillness of five hundred years had only stolen silently the flesh from the bones and the gilding from the cup; all else remained unimpaired.

What became of that plundered cope and that precious chalice? Did they find their way to Wardour Street?

There is one more little fact that comes to light, and to my mind it is a very eloquent and pathetic fact as I read it.

They that come after will have no bad report to make of me and of my doings, and that which I have done may He within Himself make pure! You I have in no wise wronged, you are my heir. But have a thought for the young man whose father was my friend, and let him take my place and follow me as shepherd of the little flock whose pastor I have been for thirty years and more."

And then a young man's voice breaks in, and there is a promise given, and the dying village parson sinks back and there is silence; till somehow there comes up the sound of many voices chanting loud and sweet, and their song is :—

O all ye priests of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him forever.

And there are other voices that make answer again, and their song is like unto the first:

O all ye holy and humble men of heart, bless ye the Lord: praise Him and magnify Him forever.

Do not try to persuade me that all this was no more than such stuff as dreams are made of. AUGUSTUS JEssopp.

Henry Spendlove, who had been, as it seems, the lifelong trusted friend and steward of the rector, had, I think, a son, and his name was Thomas. When the rector died and the living fell vacant, Thomas Spendlove was a lad at Cambridge, but he had already been admitted to minor orders. In those days it was never safe to keep a benefice open an hour longer than was absolutely necessary, and it so happened that the Bishop of Norwich, William de Ayremine, was away in foreign parts at the time the living of Harpley fell vacant. The bishop had, however, left his brother Adam as his commissary, in charge of his diocese. Adam de Ayremine was a great don at Cambridge, though what his position in the University was I have never been able to discover. Before him, on the 2nd of January, 1332, young Thomas Spendlove presented himself armed with the necessary legal instrument, and by him he was instituted in due form, as rector of Harpley, on the presentation of "John de Gur-case of the whispering galleries in nay the younger, then lawful patron of the benefice."

And here my story ends. But I have my day dreams as I walk through the lanes and fields of Arcady; and I have my visions in the night as I lay my head upon my pillow, and at times there rise up before me scenes and sights and sounds, words and men and women so vividly present, that I find it hard to believe them other than real. I find myself standing beside the deathbed of the old parish priest of the Norfolk village, and there are others round him, and one of them is John de Gurnay the younger, who is holding his uncle's hand. And I hear the dying man speak low but clearly; and this is what he says: "Nephew mine! I am passing away and going home. I have lived my life and I have not lived in vain.

From The Cornhill Magazine. CURIOSITIES IN OUR CATHEDRALS. MANY, if not most, of our cathedrals have curiosities treasured in them that are no part of the fabrics, but yet from associations have come to be identified with them, or with their history. In rarer instances, these curiosities are part of the structure in which they occur, as in the

Gloucester Cathedral and St. Paul's; and in others, without being actually a portion of the construction, they are parts of its ornamentation, as in the case of the figure of a demon looking over Lincoln from the roof of the south-east side of Lincoln Cathedral, and of the fiddler fiddling over York on the roof of York Minster. Sometimes a recent discovery imparts an interest as of a curiosity, as in the matter of the grooves lately noticed in the shafts of the Norman triforium in the south transept of Oxford Cathedral, whereby we may see the management with which the Norman masons used for their purpose portions of the Saxon windows they found, in the edifice they were improving, ready to their hands.

In Hereford Cathedral there are two relics of considerable extraneous interest.

One is a map of the world more than five tion of the Crucifixion. The ark is delinhundred years old; and the other is a eated with various creatures and three chair of Norman workmanship. It is human figures. A mermaid also occupies thought that the map was originally in- a prominent place. Curiously, Africa is tended for an altar piece, as it is embel- called Europe, and Europe is marked lished with a representation of the Last"Affrica." England is divided into CorJudgment and other drawings of sacred nubia (Cornwall), Lindeseya (Lincolnsubjects. It gradually became faded and shire), and Norhuba, and, owing to the browned, torn and neglected. Dingley, scale, probably, but one hill is named in the seventeenth-century herald, mentions it-Clee Hill. Twenty rivers are marked having seen it in the Lady Chapel. and named, and twenty-six cities and "Among other curiosities in this library towns, of which one between Winchester are a map of ye world, drawn on vellum and Exeter, marked Cadan, has not been by a monk, kept in a frame with two doors, identified. Scotland has two divisions and with guilded and painted letters and fig- six towns. Three towns are marked in ures," he says. Before his time it was Wales, and four in Ireland. Without hidden under the wooden floor of a chan- going into details, it is sufficient to say try chapel for a season, it is said, which that the work generally is of extreme incircumstance may have saved it from de- terest and curiosity from many points of struction and given it a new interest when view, not the least being the fact that found. Nevertheless, it became so much Richard of Haldingham has been identidilapidated that it was eventually sent to fied as having held the prebendal stall of the British Museum in 1855, that it might Norton in the cathedral from A.D. 1290 to be cleaned and repaired with the requisite A.D. 1310. The chair in this cathedral is skill and judgment; and, since then, it has of still greater antiquity. Word has been been placed in the south choir aisle of the passed down through century after century cathedral, and protected with plate glass. that King Stephen sat in it on Whit SunIt is drawn in black ink, with some of the day, A.D. 1142. It consists of upwards of initials and the names of places in ver- fifty pieces, and stands three feet nine milion and gold, and the rivers are colored inches high. It is thirty-three inches blue. The map is of a circular outline, wide, and measures twenty-two inches and the framework on which it is displayed from back to front. Four upright pieces, is rectangular, leaving spandrils at each with knobs or finials, whereof two form angle that are filled in with drawings and the supports of the back, and two of a less inscriptions. It covers about eighteen height terminate at the arms in front, form square feet. Here and there, all over it, a framework which is filled with rows of are small outline drawings of fish, birds, smaller rails arranged in an ornamental animals, human figures, and buildings. manner. Below the seat, in front, is a row Some of these are exceedingly curious, of semicircular arches resting on similar the most so being a representation of a rails or shafts to those without this dis man, apparently suffering from elephanti- tinctive treatment at the sides. The seat asis, with only one leg, which is of suffi- is formed of plain boards placed in a cient dimensions to be turned up over his groove; and the back has been also filled head. Between two circular lines forming with an arrangement of moulded rails a border to the map are various inscrip- similar to that of the sides, some pieces of tions, and in the four corners are single which, however, have been lost. It is not letters, which, put together, read MORS. a little singular that Richard de HaldingIn the right-hand corner there is also a ham drew a chair of precisely the same delineation of the author, attended by a construction as a seat for the pope in one page and followed by his greyhounds. of the spandrils of his map, which has His name is given in a short Norman- been accepted as evidence in favor of the French legend: "All who have or shall probability that it was in the cathedral in have read, or shall see this history, pray his time. Before leaving this subject, it to Jesus in Deity (that) He may have may be mentioned that the chair in which mercy on Richard of Haldingham and Queen Mary was married to King Philip Lafford, who has made and contrived it, of Spain is preserved in Winchester Cathat joy may be given to him in Heaven." thedral; and that which was required, in The map gives us the measure of the geo- addition to the coronation chair, for the graphical information of the day. In the coronation of William and Mary, is precentre of it is Jerusalem, which is in served in Westminster Abbey. As in the scribed "Civitas lerusalem and Mons case of the coronation chair, a close scruCalvarie," and adorned with a representa- tiny discloses the fact that color and gild

ing once enriched the Hereford seat. As we leave this cathedral, and look down the glorious vista of massive cylindrical columns, a golden sunlight floods the building, and the verger points out a shadowy cross, cast by cross-lights, on the shaft of the central pillar of the Lady Chapel, which is surely a sciagraphical curiosity.

In Wells Cathedral is a curious old clock, brought there from Glastonbury at the Dissolution. It is not to be compared | with the wonderful piece of mechanism in Strasburg Cathedral, either for size or intricacy or comprehensiveness, but is, nevertheless, quaint and complicated, in so far as it shows the solar motions, and the age and phases of the moon, as well as tells the time. It is claimed to be the oldest clock of the kind. The name of the maker is inscribed on it as Peter Lightfoot, a monk. The dial is divided into twenty-four parts, and is marked with old English figures up to twelve, from noon to midnight, and again from thence to noon. A little figure of a man strikes the quarters with his feet; and above the dial is a tower, from which four mounted figures emerge and tilt. On the dial are two inscriptions in connection with delineations of a female figure and a full moon inclosed within two circles, the first of which is "Semper peragrat Phoebe," and the other "Punctus ab hinc monstrat micro sidericus arcus." A lantern that is always spoken of as the Glastonbury lantern, is also taken care of in this cathedral.

In Exeter Cathedral there is a fifteenthcentury clock with the motto, " Pereunt et imputantur."

In York Minster, among other curiosities, besides rings and chalices found in the tombs of such of the bishops of olden times as have been opened in this and the last century, there is the minutely carved ivory tusk that was the token that Ulphus laid upon the altar in the eleventh century, as a memento that he gave certain lands lying to the east of York to the Minster, which lands are still in the possession of the dean and chapter. This horn is completely covered with carvings, in which winged quadrupeds occupy much of the field. There is, too, though it scarcely deserves to be mentioned in the same paragraph with this delightful relic, a curiosity preserved here that was found in the coffin of Archbishop Rotherham, who died of the plague A.D. 1500. This is a life-sized head of a man carved in wood.

As well as York and Hereford, WinVOL. LXXIX. 4076

LIVING AGE.

chester and Chichester, Durham treasures several gold rings found in the tombs of mediæval bishops. Three examples, set with sapphires, were found in the stone coffins of Bishops Flambard, Geoffrey Rufus, and William de St. Barbara, when they were dug up, in 1874, out of the portion of the chapter house that was thrown into the dean's garden, on its demolition to reduce its size, in the last century. The best-known relics here, however, are the gold-embroidered stole and maniple, and the pectoral cross, in which St. Cuthbert lay for so many centuries, which, with his comb and a few other items, are carefully kept in a glass case on a table in the library. In connection with these relics the curious statement may be mentioned that has been so generally received, that only three persons know where the body of this bishop has been deposited. When one of these three die, it is said the secret is communicated to a third person, and so handed down. A few years ago an author. ized explanation was made, at a convenient opportunity, to test the truth of another lingering impression to the effect that it would be found at a certain spot, which resulted only in proving that there was no foundation for it. The president of the Durham and Northumberland Architectural and Archæological Society mentioned to the members, in 1868, that a tradition pointed to a place under the third and fourth steps of the staircase leading up to the tower where the clock was, as the place of its concealment, and that this tradition had been handed down in three lines, one being in the Benedictine order, another in the vicars-apostolic or bishops, and the third in certain lay families. As stated, when examined by the authority of the dean and chapter, it was ascertained that the place had never been disturbed since it was built in the days of the Normans. There is a carving of the dun cow and of the woman who went in search of it, on the exterior of this cathedral, that must be accounted a curiosity also.

In Norwich Cathedral, in front of the ancient stone episcopal throne in the choir, is an indenture in the pavement to indicate where it was desirable the various clerics assisting in ceremonies should stand. In York Cathedral there were formerly circular stones laid down in the pavement for this purpose, which were taken up when the new tessellated floor was laid down; and in Westminster Abbey rows of small stones in the centres of the pavements of some of the ambulato

ries, called the middle tread, served to | was carried to St. Paul's for burial, for keep processions in good order. Some conservation in that building. The earlier few of these last may still be seen.

examples bring us very closely in touch with old times, and help us to see the reality of events that we are apt to consider but slightingly as mere historical occurrences. In this light we have no more pathetic souvenirs than the sword and shield of Edward the Third still treasured in Westminster Abbey; and the gauntlets, helm, surcoat, shield, and the scabbard of the sword of the Black Prince still hanging over his tomb in Canac-terbury Cathedral. Placed there, inasmuch as their owners needed them no more, these simple personal relics bring before us, arrestingly, the loss, sorrow, wonderment, and gap felt by the nation on the occurrence of these supreme occasions.

Although a crypt is not a curiosity in a general way, the Saxon example under Ripon Cathedral may be viewed in the light of one; especially as there is a curious custom kept up of "threading the needle" in it, which consists of scrambling through a hole in a wall that divides it from a passage on one side of it. It is small and dark, under the central tower, and is approached by a long, dark, narrow passage, forty-five feet long, to which cess is gained by steps leading down from the nave. There are a few other Saxon remains that are curious, besides the Oxford windows mentioned, among which the remains of the Saxon church that was the predecessor of Peterborough Cathedral will come to mind.

Among curiosities that are parts of these noble fabrics must be counted, in addition to the whispering galleries, the instances in which history and tradition have invested certain objects with special claims, as in the matter of the martyrium of Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, and the window known as the Five Sisters of York. On the other hand there are a few items that are curiosities of con.

In Bath Abbey Church the extraordinary number of mural tablets strike the eye with astonishment. Not only are the walls completely lined with these memorials placed in close rows and tiers, but the pillars are also made use of as places upon which tablets can be displayed. The rep utation of the waters of this city does not depend upon any association with the abbey church, though in some of our cathe-struction only, as in the case of the sodrals wells are found, as in the case of St. Peter's well in the ornamented recess in Archbishop La Zouche's chapel in York Minster. There is a well, too, close to the north-east angle of the choir of Lincoln Cathedral; and another near Wells Cathedral. In Beverley Minster there is a well in the interior of the fabric, as at York.

More curious than many of these curiosities is the collection of wooden figures, or effigies, of departed kings and queens preserved in the upper chamber of Abbot Islip's chapel in Westminster Abbey. These were used on the occasion of the respective funeral ceremonies attending their interment, when these effigies, in royal robes, represented the sovereigns and their queens to their sorrowing lieges. Among them are the figures of some other persons of high rank. The robes of the earliest of these figures are no longer in existence, but, from other indications, one of them is thought likely to have represented Queen Philippa. In our own day we have added another similar funereal item to the national collection, in placing the car, on which the Duke of Wellington

called geometrical staircase leading to the library over the chapel containing the monument to Wellington in St. Paul's.

Most of the items we have mentioned, however, are small matters compared with the majesty of the structures in which they occur. When we have contemplated the height and queenly grace of the Salis bury needle, or have heard the white-robed choir singing, like a cloud of witnesses, on the top of the great Durham tower, or have ascended into the golden ball on the cupola of St. Paul's; or when we have looked upon the rival east windows of Gloucester, Carlisle, and York; or upon the massive columns of the many mighty naves with their arcades and shadowy, mysterious-looking triforiums above them, and their lightsome clerestories above these again; or upon the superb vaultings, the inviting sculptured doorways, and other component parts of these vast works left us by our forefathers, they are dwarfed indeed. When we have seen the treasures in some of the libraries, also, they may seem of slight account. Nevertheless, they have an interest of their own that will be confessed by many minds.

From Blackwood's Magazine.

SISTER.

IT does not matter where it was. I do not want other people—that is to say, those who were around us to recognize Sister or myself. It is not likely that she will see this and I am not sure that she knows my name. Of course, some one may draw her attention to this paper, and she may remember that the name affixed to it is that which I signed at the foot of a document we made out together namely, a return of deaths. At the foot of this paper our names stood one beneath the other-stand there still, perhaps, in some forgotten bundle of papers at the War Office.

I only hope that she will not see this; for she might consider it a breach of professional etiquette; and I attach great importance to the opinion of this woman, whom I have only seen once in my whole life. Moreover, on that occasion she was subordinate to me more or less in the position of a servant.

Suffice it to say, therefore, that it was war-time, and our trade was what the commercial papers call brisk. A war better remembered of the young than of the old, because it was, comparatively speaking, recent. The old fellows seem to remember the old fights better those fights that were fought when their blood was still young and the vessels thereof unclogged.

It was, by the way, my first campaign, but I was not new to the business of blood; for I am no soldier only a doctor. My only uniform my full-parade dress-is a red cross on the arm of an old blue serge jacket - said jacket being much stained with certain dull patches which are better not investigated.

All who have taken part in war - doing the damage or repairing it—know that things are not done in quite the same way when ball cartridge is served out instead of blank. The correspondents are very fond of reporting that the behavior of the men suggested a parade, which simile it is to be presumed was borne in upon their fantastic brains by its utter inapplicability. The parade may be suggested before the real work begins when it is a question of marching away from the landing-stage; but after the work - our work has begun, there is remarkably little resemblance to a review.

We are served with many official papers which we never fill in, because, on the spur of the moment, it is apt to suggest itself that men's lives are more important.

We misapply a vast majority of our surgi. cal supplies, because the most important item is usually left behind at headquarters, or at the seaport depot. In fact, we do many things that we should leave undone, and omit to do more which we are expected (officially) to do.

For some reason - presumably the absence of better men-I was sent up to the front before we had been three days at work. Our hospital by the river was not full when I received orders to follow the flying column with two assistants and the appliances of a field hospital.

Out of this little nucleus sprang the largest depot for sick and wounded that was formed during the campaign. We were within easy reach of headquarters, and I was fortunately allowed a free hand. Thus our establishment in the desert grew daily more important, and finally superseded the hospital at headquarters.

We had a busy time, for the main column had now closed up with the first expeditionary force, and our troops were in touch with the enemy not forty miles away from me.

In the course of time when the authorities learned to cease despising the foe, which is a little failing in British military high places - it was deemed expedi--ent to fortify us, and then, in addition to two medical assistants, I was allowed three government nurses. This last piece

of news was not hailed with so much enthusiasm as might have been expected. I am not in favor of bringing women anywhere near the front. They are, for their own sakes and for the peace of minds of others, much better left behind. If they are beyond a certain age they break down and have to be sent back at considerable trouble; that is to say, an escort and an ambulance cart, of which latter there are never enough. If they are below the climacteric-ever so little below it- they cause mischief of another description, and the wounded are neglected; for there is no passion of the human heart so cruel and selfish as love.

"I am sorry to hear it," I said to lighthearted little Sammy Fitz Warrener of the Naval Brigade, who brought me the news.

"Sorry to hear it? Gad! I shouldn't be. The place has got a different look about it when there are women - folk around. They are so jolly clever in their ways worth ten of your red-cross ruffians."

"That is as may be," I answered, break. ing open the case of whiskey which Sammy had brought up on the carriage of

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