Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 87, March, 1875

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP

OLD ENGLISH CHARITIES

The local charities connected with the family history of great landowners in England form one of the most interesting classes of public relief. They date chiefly from ante-Reformation times, and often embody a hidden symbolism into which none save the antiquary now cares to inquire. It is a mistake to suppose that all the dying bequests of pious folk in the Middle Ages were devoted to the "Church" proper: the larger part certainly were, although the spirit that prompted even the making of such bequests was symbolical of the belief in the dispensing (rather than the appropriating) powers of churchmen: but many were also the sums left to be yearly spent in the relief of the poor and starving. Thus originated the alms-(or bede-) houses so frequently met with in the retired villages of England. Bede (from the German beten, to "pray") meant prayer, hinting at the pious duty of those benefiting by the founder's legacy to pray for his eternal welfare. When the Reformation, among many abuses, also obliterated many beautiful and poetical customs, the meaning of these "houses of prayer" was forgotten, and their chapels were often ruthlessly whitewashed. The material part of the foundation, however, still remained, and the bedesmen, twelve or thirteen (in commemoration of the number of the apostles, or the apostles and their Master), continued to be chosen by the clergyman of the parish and the lord of the manor. In other places, instead of this more costly mode of relief, a custom prevailed of distributing a "dole" at stated times to a large number of poor people, the number corresponding to the age of the giver: if alive, of course the number increased every year; if dead, it was fixed at the age at which he or she had died. Many of these local customs continue to this day: some have even been instituted lately, since the revived taste for medievalism has beautified and refined English homesteads and village churches. The queen, a faithful upholder of ancient national manners, has given the example by adhering to the time-honored custom called the Royal Maundy. This word is from mandatum, or commandment, and refers to the "new commandment" given by Christ to his apostles at the Last Supper. In Catholic countries it is still the custom for the sovereign to wash the feet of twelve poor men (his wife performing the same office for twelve poor and aged women) in public on the Thursday before Easter, and to serve them at table afterward: in Vienna this is done in a very solemn and public manner. The chosen ones are brought to the palace in court-coaches, and after the ceremony is over are carried home in the same way, loaded with presents of clothing, money, and all the dishes, spoons, forks, etc., used at their dinner. In England the same charity, or its equivalent, is dispensed, not by the sovereign in person, but by her chaplains and almoners, in the midst of beautiful formalities. The dignity with which the ceremony is performed is a striking evidence of the national character, and a contrast to the sometimes slovenly manner in which great public religious functions are got through abroad. The charities are distributed in the chapel of Whitehall, the palace made tragically famous by the disgrace of Wolsey and the death of King Charles I. Fifty-five old men, and as many women, the number corresponding to the age of the sovereign, were thus relieved last year. On an earlier occasion witnessed by the writer a procession consisting of a detachment of the yeomen of the guard, under the command of a sergeant-major (one of the yeomen carrying the royal alms on a gold salver of the reign of William and Mary), several chaplains, almoners, secretaries and a few national schoolchildren (allowed to take part in the ceremony as a signal reward for good behavior), left the Royal Almonry Office for the chapel of Whitehall. It was met at the door by the lord high almoner and the subdeans of the Chapel Royal, who joined the ranks and passed up to the altar. The surpliced boys of the Chapel Royal, and the clergy and gentlemen belonging officially to it, took their appointed places right and left, and the gold salver was deposited in front of the royal pew, generally tenanted by one or more members of the royal family. Evening prayer, slightly varied and adapted for the occasion, as custom has decreed for several centuries, was then gone through; the forty-first Psalm was chanted; and after the First Lesson an anthem by Goss was sung. Then followed the distribution of £1 15s. to each woman, and a pair of shoes and stockings to each man. The two next anthems were by Mendelssohn, and in the intervals woolen and linen clothes were first distributed to each man, and money-purses to each man and woman. The Second Lesson was then read, and the fourth and concluding anthem, by Greene, chanted, after which the usual Thanksgiving and Prayer of St. Chrysostom were read. The musical part of the service, being especially prominent, was correctly and artistically performed by skillful musicians (some of them composers), styled officially "gentlemen of the Chapel Royal:" the solo in the first anthem was sung by one of the boys.

In addition to this special ceremony, other Easter bounties, styled "Minor Bounty," "Discretionary Bounty," and the "Royal Gate Alms," were, according to old custom, distributed at the Almonry Office on Good Friday and Saturday, while Easter Monday and Tuesday were devoted to the distribution of other supplementary relief to old and infirm people previously chosen by the clergy of the various London parishes. The recipients included over a thousand persons.

Among the private local charities none is on so large a scale as the famous "Tichborne Dole." The idea we now attach to the word dole is ludicrously inappropriate in this case, where the gift is in the proportion of one gallon of the best wheaten flour to each adult and half a gallon to each child, and where the number of the recipients is generally between five and six hundred, including the inhabitants of two parishes. This custom is seven hundred years old, and was first instituted on the Tichborne estate by Dame Mabel, the wife of Sir Roger de Tichborne, knight, in the beginning of the twelfth century. The foundress was renowned for her piety and charity, and by her own people was looked upon as a saint. The family record says that she was so charitable to the poor that, not content to exercise that virtue all her lifetime, she instituted the "dole" as a perpetual memorial of her goodness, and entailed it to her posterity. It is distributed yearly on the 25th of March. A large oil-painting, now hanging in the dining-room of Tichborne House, and representing the distribution of the "dole," was painted in 1670, and is considered as one of the most valuable family relics. The costumes of the period are faithfully represented, most of the prominent figures are portraits, and the scene is laid within the courtyard of the old manor, with its sculptured gables and picturesque mullioned windows. The present house, roomy and comfortable as it is, is a plain, unpretending building, with no architectural features to recommend it, but the park and grounds are very beautiful, the old trees disposed in deep glades and avenues, and the situation altogether very picturesque. Since the famous trial has made everything bearing the name of Tichborne a target for curiosity, the occupants have been sadly annoyed, and access to the house was at last, in self-defence, denied to strangers who came simply as gaping sight-seers. The "dole" distribution, as we have said, takes place every year. Last spring it was attended with less show than usual, owing to the illness of the little boy who now represents the old name (the nephew of the lost Roger Tichborne), in consequence of which none of the ladies of the family were present. But despite the absence of the festal arrangements by which it is usually accompanied, the main business was the same as it has always been since Dame Mabel's time. About nine o'clock the fine old park became thronged with men, women and children, all carrying bags and baskets in which to stow away the "bounty." The distribution was made at the back of the house. The people gathered in groups, dressed in all sorts of plain, dilapidated country garments—old men in worn-out smock-frocks (a sight seldom seen even in conservative England), gaiters such as they wear at work in the fields, and slouched, unrecognizable hats that had evidently seen better times; others stood in their "Sunday clothes," stiff and uncomfortable as a laborer looks in that unusual and unartistic guise; some were old and toothless, yet upright and almost martial-looking; while some, again, had that pathetic look—sunken eyes, bent limbs and general air of having given in to the attacks of time and sorrow—which invariably speaks the same language and stirs the same sympathy all over the world. The women were in the majority, most of them hale and hearty, the wives and daughters of laborers who were too busy to come in person. Nine sacks, each containing fifty gallons of flour, were emptied by two sturdy miller's men into an immense tub. The family being an old Roman Catholic one, a religious ceremony was the prelude of the distribution. The domestic chaplain offered up a short prayer, and after invoking the blessing of Heaven on the gift, sprinkled the flour with holy water in the form of a cross. It was no uncommon thing for one person to carry away three or four gallons of flour: the largest award was in the case of a family consisting of man, wife and seven children, the wife carrying away with her five and a half gallons. Many of those whose names appeared as witnesses for the defence during the memorable trial were present—John Etheridge, the blacksmith, and Kennett, coachman to the dowager Lady Tichborne, among the number. The latter lives in a small freehold cottage, his own property, at Cheriton, the next parish to Tichborne. Persons of all denominations were relieved—Church people, Dissenters and Roman Catholics alike—without the slightest favoritism being shown to any.

The same kind of charity, though on a smaller scale, and by the custom of living patrons instead of the will of deceased ones, is dispensed at various times in the year through the whole country by both large and small landed proprietors.

The 11th of November (St. Martin's Day) is the one generally chosen for the distribution of winter clothing to the poor of the parish, and this in commemoration of the mediaeval legend of the holy Bishop Martin, who gave half his ample cloak to a shivering leper who begged of him in the street. Next night, says the legend, he saw in a dream Christ himself clothed in that cloak, and remembered the promise that "inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, ye have done it unto Me." The writer has often assisted at such distribution of warm clothing, both made and unmade. In every county squire's house there is a bi-or tri-weekly distribution of soup to the village poor, and in most two or three sets of fine bed-linen and soft baby-clothes, to be lent out on occasions requiring greater comforts than the poor and too often thriftless women of agricultural villages can afford. Private charity is all-reaching: the "hall" is the dispensary and the general ark of refuge for all county ills, moral, physical and pecuniary, and its help is never thought degrading, like that of the "parish." Most families pay a doctor and a nurse by the year to attend the poor free of expense, and an order from the doctor for jellies, soup or wine, as well as for the ordinary sorts of medicine, is always sure of being filled from the ample stores of the "housekeeper's room." If the city poor were half as well provided for as are the agricultural poor by their "lords of the manor," there would be far less destitution. Some affect to sneer at a system which savors of what they call "feudalism," and which, they wisely suggest, encourages pauperism, but warm-hearted and charitable people will probably disagree with these searchers after new methods, and will be glad to find in the ready sympathy of English landowners for their poor neighbors a ray of the old-fashioned unquestioning charity which distinguished biblical times.

B.M.

LANDORIANA

I wish to supplement the "Recollections of Landor," published in a former number of the Magazine, by an anecdote and two or three characteristic letters which by accident escaped me when I was writing on the subject before. Here is the story: Schlegel and Niebuhr had been for some time on unpleasant terms. The historical skepticism of the latter was altogether distasteful to Schlegel; and he was wont to deny Niebuhr's claim to the title of historian. Well, Landor was dining at Bonn, and among the company immediately opposite to him at table was Schlegel. Hardly had the soup been despatched before Landor, with that stentorian voice of his which always filled every corner of every room he spoke in, began: "Are not you the man, Mr. Schlegel, who has recently discovered, at the end of two hundred and fifty years, that Shakespeare is a poet? Well, perhaps if you live two hundred and fifty years longer, you may discover that Niebuhr is an historian." "Schlegel did not like it," added Landor when telling the story himself—very much as who should say, "I knocked him down with an unexpected blow of my fist, and he did not like it!"

And now for my letters. Here is one dated "Florence, June, 1861," written to my wife when he was past eighty and within a year or two of his death. The latter portion of the letter is especially interesting, and will be none the less so to those who may be disposed to dispute the correctness of the judgments expressed in it.

"Do not be alarmed," he writes, "at a letter which 'like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.' Such, I suspect, mine will be, though it ought to contain only thanks for the admirable ones you have sent to me on the late affairs of Tuscany. Yesterday Mr. Trollope gave them to me as your present. I then exprest a hope that he or you would undertake a history of Italian affairs from the Treaty of Campo Formio down to the present day. Indeed, I hope and trust that it may be continued a year or two farther, until the recovery of Rome from the most perfidious enemy she and Italy were ever opprest by. And this under the title of deliverer! Lay your two heads together, and let me have to boast that the best and truest of our historians were my personal friends. Southey and Napier were most intimately so. Hallam is a dull proser—no discovery or illustration, no profound thought, no vivid description, not even a harmonious period. Macaulay is a smart reviewer, indifferent to truth, a hanger-on of party. Lingard is more honest, and writes better. He does not tag together loose epigrams with a crooked pin. Now put the empty chairs of these people against the wall, and sit down to your table with a long piece of work before you. And now you must be tired, as I foretold you would be. So hail the farewell of your affectionate old friend,

"W. LANDOR."

Here is another, undated, but shown by the Bath postmark to have been written in 1857. The whole letter is strongly characteristic of the writer, as indeed was everything that Landor wrote, said or did, so thoroughly and in every sense of the word was he original; but, as in the preceding letter, the most interesting portion is that toward the end, where he gives some amusing indications of his peculiar political opinions and feelings. This letter also was written to the same correspondent:

"My dear friend: It is now three years since I have been in London, except in passing through it to the Crystal Palace, without dismounting." [How curiously the phrase indicates the habits of the writer's youth, when gentlemen's journeys were for the most part performed on horseback!] "At Sydenham I remained three weeks, almost; but the air of London always disagreed with me, added to which, the necessity of visiting was always intolerable to me, and I have lost many friends by refusing to undergo it. If Mr. Trollope should find a few days' leisure for Bath, I can promise him a hearty reception and a comfortable bedroom. Is it not singular that on your letter being brought to me I laid down for it Town and Country [a novel by Frances Trollope], which interests me as much on a second reading as on the first? To-morrow I must run—imagine a man of eighty-one running!—for the Athenaeum. I myself have not thrown away the pen, which sadly wants mending. They have published Scenes from the Shades, and Alfieri and Metastasio, and Codrus and Polio. These last three are in Fraser. If they bring a few pounds or shillings, the money will be given to Capera, a laboring man who has written some noble poetry." [The writer in question produced some very tolerable verses, remarkable as coming from a man in his position, but in our friend's enthusiastic language they become "noble poetry" directly he makes the man his protegé—a truly Landorian touch!] "I could have collected three hundred pounds for Kossuth from friends who wrote to me about it, and probably ten or a dozen times as much from others, for no man ever had so few friends or acquaintances as I have. Nearly all are dead, and I have no leisure or inclination for new ones. It gave me much pleasure to hear that the fine and pleasant Lord Normanby is in part recovered from his paralysis. I parted from him at Bath with few hopes. Never have I spent a winter in England so free from every kind of malady as this last. A disastrous war ends with a disgraceful peace. We are to have an illumination and ringing of bells. Sir Claude Scott and myself will not illuminate, but I have promised the ringers twenty shillings if they will muffle the bells. Rejoice! The best generals and best soldiers in the Crymea [sic] were Italians.

"W.S.L."

Landor had many queer crotchets about spelling, and always absolutely declined to follow any rule but his own. It seems to have been one of these crotchets to spell Crimea as he spells it in the above-quoted letter—on what grounds I do not pretend to be able to guess: With regard to the seemingly unpatriotic sentiment contained in the last lines, it must be remembered that the writer was addressing a person long resident in Italy, and eagerly anxious for the well-doing of the Italian troops in their struggle with the different despotisms which oppressed the Peninsula. The bribing the ringers to muffle the bells is a highly characteristic trait.

Of a third letter I will print only a part, because the remainder concerns the unfortunate affair which compelled the writer finally to leave England—the result, as is well known, of a trial for libel in which Landor was cast in heavy damages which were far beyond his diminished means to pay. He acted very wrongly, and still more imprudently, in attempting to expose what he honestly deemed misconduct of a nature that outraged all the generous feelings of his nature, by the publication of a very gross libel. The passages in the letter in question which refer to this business, then in the stage preceding his conviction, abundantly testify to the fact that the sentiments which had impelled him to act as he did were wholly and solely those of generous indignation at wrong done, in no-wise against himself, but against another, whom he deemed to be oppressed and unprotected. But I think, on the whole, that no good purpose would be served by raking up the matter afresh. And (for Landor in his wrath was at no time a Chrysostom) the letter bristles with assertions and accusations couched in language which might, for aught I know, make the publication of it a repetition of the offence for which he suffered. The other matters touched on are not uninteresting manifestations of opinion:

"My DEAR FRIEND," he writes: "Whether I am ill or well it is always with equal pleasure that I see the trace of your hand. Surely, I must have written to you since I sent the scenes of Anthony and Octavius. But I am too apt to believe that what I ought to have done I have done. You ask me what I think of the Neapolitan abominations." [The allusion is to some one or other of the many acts of grievous tyranny which were at that time perpetrated by the Neapolitan Bourbon government in its terrified attempts to protect itself against the rising indignation of the people.] "We countenance them. The despots are in Holy Alliance against constitutions." [Surely, Landor's old antagonism to former English governments led him into error and injustice when he accuses England of "countenancing" the tyrannies of the Neapolitan government. How much Gladstone's celebrated letter and English sentiment in all quarters contributed toward the overthrow of that tyranny was not then known as well as it is now.] "On the other side of this," he continues, "you will find a few verses I wrote on Agesiloa Milano, the finest and bravest patriot on record." [Agesilao Milano, whose name was just then in every mouth in Italy, was one of the numerous victims of Austrian severity, who had met his fate with admirable courage, and who willingly gave his life for his country. But there was nothing to distinguish him specially from hundreds of other Italians who in those evil days did as much, and nothing save chance to distinguish him from the tens of hundreds who were ready to do as much had the lot fallen to them. But the mention of this poor fellow in the letter is very specially Landorian. No superlatives were with him strong enough to express his sentiments on aught that immediately moved his feelings either of admiration or indignation.] "The concessions in Lombardy," he goes on, "are fabulous. Thieves and assassins are turned out of prison with quiet literary men and brave patriots.... With kindest regards to your circle, ever your affec.

"W. LANDOR."

The verses on Agesilao Milano announced as being "on the other side" are there preceded by two epigrams on the object of his indignation above alluded to, which I suppress for the same reason that I have suppressed that portion of the letter referring to the same subject. The verses on the young Italian patriot and martyr run as follows:

Sometimes the brave have bent the headTo lick the dust that despots tread.Not so Milano; he aloneWould bow to Justice on the throne.To win a crown of thorns he trodA flinty path, and rests with God.T.A.T.

THE DEATH OF DOCTORS' COMMONS

On the 20th of last October a venerable London institution changed its quarters. Doctors' Commons may almost be said to be no more. Its heart is gone. The Principal Registry of the Court of Probate—the successor to the Prerogative Court of Canterbury—is no longer to be found there, and those who seek their fortunes in wills have now to prosecute their researches in that hub of British departmental records, Somerset House. The knell of "the Commons" was rung about twenty years ago, when a campaign against the abuses prevailing in the ecclesiastical courts was begun in the London Times. It unquestionably had been the home par excellence of sinecures and monopolies, which culminated in the office of registrar of the Prerogative Court of the archbishop of Canterbury. This office was in the gift of the archbishop, and was at the time these attacks began held by the Rev. Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore was a member of a family which had certainly good cause to stand steadfast in the faith of the Church of England, and not to waver one inch in attachment thereto. It may be doubted whether since its foundation any family—we except, of course, those to whom grants were made from abbey-lands—during the whole history of the Church has drawn such vast sums from it. His father, a singularly fortunate man, set the ball rolling. Having gone up to Christ Church, Oxford, as a sizar, or poor scholar, he happened about the time of taking his degree to cross the quadrangle at the moment when a nobleman of great position was asking the dean to recommend a tutor for his son. Young Moore at that moment caught the very reverend functionary's eye. There is the very man, thought he. He called him up, presented him to the peer, and an engagement was made. In those days the patronage of a powerful peer was a ready road to preferment. Young Moore gave satisfaction to his noble patron, and was pushed up the ecclesiastical tree until he reached its topmost branch, being created in 1783 archbishop of Canterbury. In 1770 he formed a very judicious marriage with Miss Eden. This lady was sister of Sir Robert Eden, governor of Maryland in 1776 (who married the sister and co-heir of the last Lord Baltimore), and of the first Lord Auckland, whom George III. very justly stigmatized as "that eternal intriguer." To the "eternal intriguer" the elevation of Moore to the archbishopric was probably mainly due. Lord Auckland was for many years as intimate a friend as Pitt ever had, and his daughter (afterward countess of Buckinghamshire) is the great minister's only recorded love. For twenty-three years Dr. Moore filled the archbishopric, and in those days it was a far better thing pecuniarily than it is now. He made hay whilst the sun shone, and then and for long after did his relatives bask in the sun. Registrarships, canonries and livings fell upon them in rich profusion, and the great prize of all, the registrarship of the Prerogative Court of the archbishop of Canterbury, fell to the luckiest of the lot.