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Page 39
In contemplating these ruins more closely, the mind insensibly reverts
to the period of feudal and regal oppression, when structures like that
of Tintern Abbey necessarily became the scenes of stirring and
highly-important events. How altered is the scene! Where were formerly
magnificence and splendour; the glittering array of priestly prowess;
the crowded halls of haughty bigots, and the prison of religious
offenders; there is now but a heap of mouldering ruins. The oppressed
and the oppressor have long since lain down together in the peaceful
grave. The ruin, generally speaking, is unusually perfect, and the
sculpture still beautifully sharp. The outward walls are nearly entire,
and are thickly clad with ivy. Many of the windows are also in a good
state of preservation; but the roof has long since fallen in. The
feathered songsters were fluttering about, and pouring forth their
artless lays as a tribute of joy; while the lowing of the herds, the
bleating of flocks, and the hum of bees upon the farm near by, all burst
upon the ear, and gave the scene a picturesque sublimity that can be
easier imagined than described. Most assuredly Shakspere had such ruins
in view when he exclaimed--
"The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve--
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a wreck behind."
In the afternoon we returned to Bristol, and I spent the greater part
of the next day in examining the interior of Redcliffe Church. Few
places in the West of England have greater claims upon the topographer
and historian than the church of St. Mary's, Redcliffe. Its antiquity,
the beauty of its architecture, and above all the interesting
circumstances connected with its history, entitle it to peculiar notice.
It is also associated with the enterprise of genius; for its name has
been blended with the reputation of Rowley, of Canynge, and of
Chatterton; and no lover of poetry and admirer of art can visit it
without a degree of enthusiasm. And when the old building shall have
mouldered into ruins, even these will be trodden with veneration as
sacred to the recollection of genius of the highest order. Ascending a
winding stair, we were shown into the Treasury Room. The room forms an
irregular octagon, admitting light through narrow unglazed apertures
upon the broken and scattered fragments of the famous Rowleian chests,
that with the rubble and dust of centuries cover the floor. It is here
creative fancy pictures forth the sad image of the spirit of the
spot--the ardent boy, flushed and fed by hope, musing on the brilliant
deception he had conceived--whose daring attempt has left his name unto
the intellectual world as a marvel and a mystery.
That a boy under twelve years of age should write a series of poems,
imitating the style of the fifteenth century, and palm these poems off
upon the world as the work of a monk, is indeed strange; and that these
should become the object of interesting contemplation to the literary
world, and should awaken inquiries, and exercise the talents of a
Southey, a Bryant, a Miller, a Mathias, and others, savours more of
romance than reality. I had visited the room in a garret in High
Holborn, where this poor boy died. I had stood over a grave in the
burial-ground of the Lane Workhouse, which was pointed out to me as the
last resting-place of Chatterton; and now I was in the room where it was
alleged he obtained the manuscripts that gave him such notoriety. We
descended and viewed other portions of the church. The effect of the
chancel, as seen behind the pictures, is very singular, and suggestive
of many swelling thoughts. We look at the great east window, it is
unadorned with its wonted painted glass; we look at the altar-screen
beneath, on which the light of day again falls, and behold the injuries
it has received at the hands of time. There is a dreary mournfulness in
the scene which fastens on the mind, and is in unison with the time-worn
mouldering fragments that are seen all around us. And this dreariness is
not removed by our tracing the destiny of man on the storied pavements
or on the graven brass, that still bears upon its surface the names of
those who obtained the world's regard years back. This old pile is not
only an ornament to the city, but it stands a living monument to the
genius of its founder. Bristol has long sustained a high position as a
place from which the American Abolitionists have received substantial
encouragement in their arduous labours for the emancipation of the
slaves of that land; and the writer of this received the best evidence
that in this respect the character of the people had not been
exaggerated, especially as regards the "Clifton Ladies' Anti-Slavery
Society."
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