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Page 8
"Now, by Apollo, king,
Thou swear'st thy gods in vain";
but both Cordelia and Imogen are just as thoroughly Roman ladies, as
Virgilia or Calphurnia.
Of British Christianity and the Arthurian Legends, I shall have a word
or two to say in my lecture on "Fancy," in connection with the similar
romance which surrounds Theodoric and Charlemagne: only the worst of
it is, that while both Dietrich and Karl are themselves more wonderful
than the legends of them, Arthur fades into intangible vision:--this
much, however, remains to this day, of Arthurian blood in us, that
the richest fighting element in the British army and navy is British
native,--that is to say, Highlander, Irish, Welsh, and Cornish.
Content, therefore, (means being now given you for filling gaps,)
with the estimates given you in the preceding lecture of the sources
of instruction possessed by the Saxon capital, I pursue to-day our
question originally proposed, what London might have been by this
time, if the nature of the flowers, trees, and children, born at the
Thames-side, had been rightly understood and cultivated.
Many of my hearers can imagine far better than I, the look that London
must have had in Alfred's and Canute's days.[3] I have not, indeed,
the least idea myself what its buildings were like, but certainly
the groups of its shipping must have been superb; small, but
entirely seaworthy vessels, manned by the best seamen in the then
world. Of course, now, at Chatham and Portsmouth we have our
ironclads,--extremely beautiful and beautifully manageable things, no
doubt--to set against this Saxon and Danish shipping; but the Saxon
war-ships lay here at London shore--bright with banner and shield
and dragon prow,--instead of these you may be happier, but are not
handsomer, in having, now, the coal-barge, the penny steamer, and the
wherry full of shop boys and girls. I dwell however for a moment only
on the naval aspect of the tidal waters in the days of Alfred, because
I can refer you for all detail on this part of our subject to the
wonderful opening chapter of Dean Stanley's History of Westminster
Abbey, where you will find the origin of the name of London given as
"The City of Ships." He does not, however, tell you, that there were
built, then and there, the biggest war-ships in the world. I have
often said to friends who praised my own books that I would rather
have written that chapter than any one of them; yet if I _had_ been
able to write the historical part of it, the conclusions drawn would
have been extremely different. The Dean indeed describes with a
poet's joy the River of wells, which rose from those "once consecrated
springs which now lie choked in Holywell and Clerkenwell, and the
rivulet of Ulebrig which crossed the Strand under the Ivy bridge";
but it is only in the spirit of a modern citizen of Belgravia that he
exults in the fact that "the great arteries of our crowded streets,
the vast sewers which cleanse our habitations, are fed by the
life-blood of those old and living streams; that underneath our tread
the Tyburn, and the Holborn, and the Fleet, and the Wall Brook, are
still pursuing their ceaseless course, still ministering to the good
of man, though in a far different fashion than when Druids drank
of their sacred springs, and Saxons were baptized in their rushing
waters, ages ago."
[Footnote 3: Here Alfred's Silver Penny was shown and commented on,
thus:--Of what London was like in the days of faith, I can show you
one piece of artistic evidence. It is Alfred's silver penny struck in
London mint. The character of a coinage is quite conclusive evidence
in national history, and there is no great empire in progress, but
tells its story in beautiful coins. Here in Alfred's penny, a round
coin with L.O.N.D.I.N.I.A. struck on it, you have just the same
beauty of design, the same enigmatical arrangement of letters, as in
the early inscription, which it is "the pride of my life" to have
discovered at Venice. This inscription ("the first words that Venice
ever speaks aloud") is, it will be remembered, on the Church of St.
Giacomo di Rialto, and runs, being interpreted--"Around this temple,
let the merchant's law be just, his weights true, and his covenants
faithful."]
Whatever sympathy you may feel with these eloquent expressions of that
entire complacency in the present, past, and future, which peculiarly
animates Dean Stanley's writings, I must, in this case, pray you
to observe that the transmutation of holy wells into sewers has,
at least, destroyed the charm and utility of the Thames as a salmon
stream, and I must ask you to read with attention the succeeding
portions of the chapter which record the legends of the river
fisheries in their relation to the first Abbey of Westminster;
dedicated by its builders to St. Peter, not merely in his office of
cornerstone of the Church, nor even figuratively as a fisher of men,
but directly as a fisher of fish:--and which maintained themselves,
you will see, in actual ceremony down to 1382, when a fisherman still
annually took his place beside the Prior, after having brought in a
salmon for St. Peter, which was carried in state down the middle of
the refectory.
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