is obvious that such poems as these, through channels now direct, now indirect, as change of subject or circumstance allow, may be made the means of infusing into the mind the finest maxims of piety, of inforcing the severest precepts of morality, and inspiring the purest feelings of devotion. The path of Poetry is to arrive at the abode of Reason through the avenues of the Heart; to deposit as it were in the mind, that immortal egg from which the twin-forms of beauty and purity proceed, leaving our moral feelings and our virtuous sympathies, and our best principles, to preserve and protect them. What a succession of such scenes does the Paradise Lost of Milton present! What extensive fields of noble thought are there traversed! What shifting scenes of passion are displayed! What lessons of duty, and what maxims of wisdom, are there inculcated! Every moral virtue is set off in its brightest colours; every religious feeling traced to its purest sources; every deviation from duty pursued to its fatal results. The call upon our sympathies is always true as it is powerful, and that one character that in any hands but Milton's would have only excited horror and disgust, produces its proper effect upon the mind through sorrow and fear. He must be dull of heart indeed, who does not carry with him reflections such as the deepest philosophy would recognize, adorned and recommended by all the brightest poetry could bestow. What glowing contrasts, what exalted images, what finished descriptions; how fine in taste, how ingenious in thought! Every sentiment of religious veneration heightened by every form of poetical excellence, from the first scene that opened on the purity of Eden, till the gates of Paradise closed upon the guilty father of mankind. Benhall. J. MITFORD. (To be continued.) Mr. URBAN, July 10. AFTER what has been done for St. Saviour's Church by the Lady Chapel Committee, it is a matter of surprise that no steps have been taken by the parish to preserve and secure the Nave, which still remains uncovered, and exposed to the injurious effects of the weather. The portion of the church still used for divine service is separated from the roofless nave by a screen of boards, scarcely sufficient to keep out the weather; and if measures are not speedily taken for the security and preservation of the nave, all that has been done all the money which has been expended on the Choir, the Transept, and the Lady Chapel-may be done and expended in vain. If the nave remains as it does, another winter will no doubt see this large portion of the structure a complete ruin; and if the nave be removed, what degree of stability can be ensured to the choir? The cruciform disposition of the church, having a tower in the centre, of great weight, will, like all buildings of this form, remain stable whilst the entire structure is kept up; but destroy the nave, the arcades of which act as a counter-force against the thrust occasioned by the central tower, what stability can be ensured to the choir? We have lately seen that a portion of the central tower of Bristol Cathedral has given way, and that in consequence divine service has been suspended. It is obvious that this accident arose from the want of a sufficient buttress against the western pier of the structure. A like cause will, at St. Saviour's, produce the like effect. Why then are not measures taken to prevent the possibility of such an accident occurring there? There cannot be a better time to agitate the question in the parish than at present. The spirit of opposition which formerly existed, has, since the progress of the Lady Chapel, nearly subsided; and, on the whole, a better feeling perhaps never will exist upon the subject than at present. The question of the amount of the requisite rates ought not to be taken into consideration in this parish; for it is to be recollected, that the parishioners are not subject to tithes. I hope, there fore, that this notice will be the means of causing the adoption of some measures for the restoration of this dilapidated portion of the structure. The press has effected much for the Lady Chapel; let us hope it will be equally successful in the cause of the Nave. ARCHIEPISCOPAL PALACE AT CHARING, KENT. With a Portrait of Sir George Wheler, Bart. Mr. URBAN, July 10. THE late Granville Hastings Wheler, Esq. of Otterden-place in Kent, proprietor of the manor of Charing, and of the remains of the Archiepiscopal Palace, at a very early period of his life contributed a view of the palace, drawn by himself, to the Gentleman's Magazine (see vol. LXVIII. p. 467), together with some queries respecting its history; and he frequently invited the writer of this article to survey it together with himself, with the inten tion of making a further communication. But this design, protracted from various causes, was, I regret to say, at length frustrated by Mr. Wheler's premature death, in the year 1827. Having since that time had an opportunity of visiting Charing, I send you a drawing of a different part of the ruins, taken in the interior, and not comprehending the gate and other detached buildings, which are too extensive to be comprised in one view. possessions of the Archbishops of Canterbury, as Offa King of Mercia seized it in the year 757, to bestow it on one of his favourites; but it was restored to the see by Cœnulph, at the request of Archbishop Athelard. Here the Archbishops had a palace probably long before the Conquest, at which time it was styled proprium manerium Archiepiscopi, from having been kept by them, long before that period in their own hands; and it continued a palace at which they occasionally resided until it was conveyed to Henry VIII. by Archbishop Cranmer. The natives of Charing pride themselves as belonging to that district of "fruitful Kent, The gift of Vortigern for Hengist's ill bought aid," whose inhabitants, by the show of resistance to William the Conqueror after the battle of Hastings, obtained from him the guarantee of their ancient privileges and customs, and who style themselves Men of Kent,* as distinguished from Kentish Men. Few places afford more interesting recollections than the palace at Charing. It carries us to the early establishment of Christianity in England. The manor was part of the most ancient When Harold was invaded Of Briton's race, if one surpass, A MAN OF KENT is he. Here then we may contemplate the successive tenants of the mansion, four of whom were Cardinals, and nine Lord Chancellors, occupying it in comparative retirement, though with a splendid retinue, and recruiting their health and strength for more active duties. Dunstan, Thomas à Becket, and many others, rendered themselves conspicuous in history. Charing afforded protection to Archbishop Stratford, when pursued by his enemies, who had conspired against his life in 1340. He escaped from hence Dec. 2, by day break. Nor should the less fortunate Archbishop Sudbury be silently passed over, the victim of popular fury during the insurrection of Wat Tyler. An infuriated multitude forced his palace and prison at Maidstone, set free those confined, plundered the palace of John of Gaunt at the Savoy, dragged the Archbishop from the Tower, murdered him with singular barbarity on Tower-hill, and having set his head on a pole, placed it on London-bridge.† The hardy, stout freeholders, Who saw the Tyrant near, A court leet and court baron is still held for this manor, which is of considerable extent. The custumals may be seen in Somner's Gavelkind, and the custom of pannage and danger, or lef-silver, from the dennes in the weald, in Somner's Roman Ports. See also Hasted's Hist. of Kent, 8vo, vol. vii. p. 429. While we commiserate his fate, it is mortifying to reflect, that notwithstanding Whilst Thomas Arundel filled the see, in the reign of Henry IV. the first capital execution for the crime of heresy occurred. He pronounced W. Sawtre a relapsed heretic, and those fires were kindled which at length consumed CRANMER, the last archiepiscopal tenant of the palace at Charing. From hence Abp. Arundel must have proceeded to take the examination of William Thorpe, a prisoner in Saltwood castle, accused of Lollardism and heresy; and that he returned hither may be also inferred as his having far to ride that night," is adverted to in the proceedings.* 66 A MS. in the Cotton Library gives a curious account of the state and leisure of his progress, as well as of the number of palaces he possessed to afford accommodation to himself and his retinue, when, after having been promoted to the Archbishopric by Henry VII. and having received the King's license, he travelled to Canterbury to receive the pallium. He proceeded from Lambeth greatly accompanied, first to Croydon, thence to Knowle, to Maidstone, to CHARING, to Chartham, where he lay on the Saturday night, and was on the Sunday enthronised at Canterbury. At Charing he probably projected those additions and improvements which were subsequently carried into effect, and he here entertained Henry VII. in March 1507. Henry VIII. was likewise entertained here by Abp. Warham, in his way to the interview with Francis I. between Guisnes and Ardres in 1520. The tragical history of Archbishop Cranmer is well known. Charing, however, only saw him in his more prosperous days, when he enjoyed the confidence and favour of Henry VIII. and in appearance as he is represented by Holbein and Gerhardus Fliccus, § the progress of civilization, the benefits of the art of printing, the dispersion of the Scriptures, and the numerous establishments for instructing the children of the poor, outrages similar to those at Maidstone and the Savoy (though without similar provocation), have been committed at Nottingham, at Bristol, and at various other places, in the nineteenth century! State Trials, vol. i. ↑ John Morton, one of the most extraordinary men of the age in which he lived, was born at Bere Regis in Dorsetshire. He received his education in Cerne Abbey, and his talents recommended him to Henry VI. While Parson of Blokesworth, he attended him at the battle of Towton. Edward IV. received him into favour, and promoted him to the Bishopric of Ely. By Richard III. he was sent out of the way to procure" strawberries from his garden at Ely-place," during the execution of Lord Hastings. He was afterwards committed to prison, and to the custody of the Duke of Buckingham, at Brecknock. Here, as is well known, he concerted the union of the two roses, by the marriage of Henry Earl of Richmond, with Elizabeth daughter of Edward IV. After the accession of Henry VII. he was made Archbishop of Canterbury, and subsequently became Cardinal. He lived to the age of ninety, and bequeathed considerable estates to his nephews. Edmund Morton Pleydell, of Whatcombe House in Dorsetshire, Esq. is the representative of this family. His great-grandfather, Edmund Pleydell, of Midgehall in Wilts, Esq. having married Anne, sole daughter and heir of Sir John Morton, Bart. M.P. for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis. By the will of Sir John, all the issue male of this family take the Hame of Morton. Among the Harleian charters in the British Museum are several, belonging to the family of Morton, yet unpublished. See an interesting memoir of Cardinal Morton, in Hutchins's History of Dorset, vol. ii. containing a detailed account of various particulars of his life. Sir Thomas More, who was bred up in his family, and who in his Utopia gives a high character of the Archbishop, must have frequently attended him at Charing, and have enlivened ecclesiastical formality by his facetious and humorous disposition, a quality which did not desert him even on the scaffold. Leland, vol. vii. p. 138. In the portrait of Cranmer, by Gerhardus Fliccus, at the British Museum, a volume lies before him inscribed A...... de fide et operib... The author's name is nearly obliterated, but the circumstance shows the estimation in which he was held by Cranmer, and is a striking indication of the Archbishop's principles. |