The Lure of Old London

ERD M

Septe

leaf anywhere but one is interested, amused, or receives the benefit of a shock to one's sense of the proprieties. This morning I opened him haphazard and read, "So over the fields to Southwark

the long narrow nave dim and grey, but in the neighbourhood of the clerestory a golden light diffused itself, falling in patches on the groined roof. At the tomb of John Gower, the poet, who die

d, the clasped hands, and stiff-buttoned habit falling in straight prim lines to the feet. "They do say," she rem

w Mrs. D.'s attention to the tomb of John Trehearn, gentleman servant to Queen Elizabet

to lend their

oulds't not be ca

of mind. Mrs. Darling, who, as you will have discovered by this time, is a good judge of character, said that perhaps, after all, there were worse things than bachelorhood. I was not in a po

the larder and feast instead of fast, and the old ferryman rose in his winding sheet, a candle in each hand, bent on chastising the miscreants. One of them, imagining it was the devil himself, picked up the butt end of an oar and aimed with it a blow which brought th

ve no artistic merit, and there is nothing arresting in the presentment of those six men who endured the tortures of the damned for their faith, yet somehow they seemed from their dark corner at the east end of the retro-choir to dominate the place. One saw those windows directly one entered-far-off bits of colour at the base of long tunnels framed by the sharply-pointed Gothic arches, and the remembrance of them remained, mingling strangely with thoughts of poets and playwrights. Edmund, brother of William Shakespeare, John Fletche

Poor Philip Massinger, who, after writing forty popular plays, was buried, a pauper, at the expense of the parish. Apparently

ied before his brother William, and perhaps Ed

nce to dream: ay

p of death what

plicity the secret fear which besets us all, that "dread of something aft

himself, and at times I have wondered if he were some supernatural being sent, perhaps, f

l about the ghost in "'Amblet" and something about someone who committed a murder in "Macbeth". She said, referring to the nude appearance of the poet's legs, that it was hard on the men of those days who were knock-kneed, they must have felt very cold with nothing more on their nether limbs than what she described as a

ib interpretation of those child-like specimens of medi?val art, I pictured the wood carvers, high up in vaulted roofs, giving the reins to their varied imaginations-beautiful, devout, ugly, or grotesque; at times even bestial. What matter! No one of the worshippers below would see the result of those patient hours of work-only the sunbeams, finding entrance as they travelled from east to west, or the light of the m

the nave, brought down to earth to be stared at and talked about. Did they appreciate the change?

of the Borough High Street. A policeman of whom I inquired said he had a sort of notion he had heard of it. "Down one

y not to be misled by the appearance of its leading to nothing. The George Hotel (I was sorry he had adopted that pretentious title in place

red curtains, and the entrance by a low door down a step. A waggon, with some porters in attendance, stood in front of the Great Northern Goods Depot at the farther end of the yard, but no signs of life about "The George," save a charwoman with a pail in the lower of the two galleries. This was probably owing to the fact that it was closi

in the river glazed with a reflection of colour over its black oily depths. Of all the sights of London this, to myself, is the most inspiring, and judging by the row of loiterers one invariably finds leaning over the parapet, there are others who fall under its spell. London Bridge says to the big ships which the Tower Bridge has opened its arms to receive, "Thus far and no farther," and there they lie in the Pool, whilst the cranes, like giant fishing-rods, angle for their booty. Villainous-looking little tug

picture had touched it here and there with the point of a luminous pencil. The pencil travelled along the blackened wharves, dotting them with pin-pricks of light, and the men on the barges and boats below began to hang out their lanthorns. It was an epic, this passing of the ship through

t shut out the daylight," adding the information that "arches of timber crossed the street to keep the shaky old tenements from falling on each other." "London Bridge," declared an old proverb, "was made for wise men to go over and fools to go under," b

ondon of to-day. Add the ghastly touch of a row of rotting heads spiked on the ba

timent is also foreign to her composition, whilst her scepticism of anything she cannot actually see and touch is a deeply ingrained quality. Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII, Charles II, the Christian martyrs, are, in her estimation, to be taken with a grain of salt. She makes no distinction between the

enry VIII. Fisher's head was parboiled before being spiked, and, according to Walter Thornbury, in his "Old and New London," "the face for a fortnight remained s

oil and must to bed. Do I dream, or does

n your

o your

e and yo

you goo

trophies on the battlements of the Bridge to thi

atter, and a

OR