Public Crosses.
That "the ages of faith" considered religion foreign to no department of
life, is in nowise more strikingly shown than by the public use of the
emblem of Christianity. Our forefathers held it as the fittest of all
ornaments, not for the Church only, but for every place where Christian
men were found. Over five thousand crosses, it is said, existed at one
time in the public places of England;--in the obscure village churchyard
and the busy mart, the lonely highway and the crowded city thoroughfare.
Precisely how many of these now remain, it would be difficult to say; but
certainly only a small proportion exists in anything like the original
state. Some have survived as mere shafts, beautiful still in many cases,
but shorn of almost all meaning by the loss of the one member that gave
them a being and a name. In other cases an unsightly stump, a useless
flight of steps, a few worn stones, an ancient place-name, or a bare
tradition, keep alive the memory of the Cross, now desecrated or
destroyed.
The ceaseless beating of the tide of time is responsible for much of this
decay, which the local authorities, in carelessness or ignorance, have
been guilty in too many instances of watching without attempting to
retard; and in not a few cases the whole structure has at last been taken
down simply to avoid the cost and trouble of needful repair.
Modern improvements in the streets of our towns have cost us several
examples that could ill be spared. It would be as foolish as futile to
decry the opening out of narrow thoroughfares to the sweet influences of
sun and air, or to grumble when growing towns make due provision for
growing traffic; yet one cannot but regret the many ancient landmarks that
these changes have swept away, nor can one doubt that, had a proper
appreciation of their worth been felt, some means might have been found to
preserve most of them.
But after all it was the bigotry of the Puritan epoch which robbed us of
the greater part of our public crosses, just as it was the narrow views
imported into the Reformation movement from foreign sources that were
chiefly answerable for the disappearance of our roods and other church
crosses.
Some method of classification being needful in treating of the various
kinds of crosses, one has been adopted here which is practically useful,
rather than strictly accurate. Churchyard crosses, included in the
preceding chapter, form a division sufficiently distinct; others, which
specially commemorate some person or event, as do the Eleanor Crosses and
that at Neville's Cross, near Durham, will compose another class to be
considered in the next chapter, as memorial crosses. In our present one
attention is called to those which were public, in the exclusive sense of
being used for public purposes, such as markets, royal proclamations, and
preaching; and finally, under the names of roadside and boundary crosses,
will be included many stone crosses which cannot be grouped under any of
these heads.
It is confessed that this classification is not scientific, inasmuch as
the classes are not in all cases mutually exclusive. No doubt several of
the market crosses, besides serving the usual purposes of such structures,
enshrined the memories of departed worthies; and unquestionably many
village and roadside crosses were originally erected as preaching places
for the brothers of some neighbouring monastery, or for the use of
itinerant friars.
For practical purposes, however, the above division of the subject will be
found to serve.
To notice every cross of this public sort which has at some time adorned
the streets and market-places of Great Britain, even if it were possible,
would be after all the compiling of a mere tedious catalogue. It will be
more interesting to take a few of the more important ones as types,
referring to the others as occasion may arise.
For such a purpose no example can suit us better as illustrating the
secular and civil uses to which these structures were put than the Market
Cross, or "Mercat Croce," of the northern capital. This venerable erection
might indeed be truly named, borrowing an American expression, the "hub"
of Scotland, round which for centuries has revolved the history, not of
Edinburgh only, but of the whole kingdom.
It seems not improbable that the original of this cross belonged to the
class of well-crosses to be referred to hereafter, and may have been
placed there by the earliest teachers of the faith in the district, an old
well existing not far from the present site under the name of the
cross-well. But no certain allusion to a cross standing here is found
before the year 1436, when we read of the assassins of King James I. of
Scotland meeting their punishment "mounted on a pillar in the Market Place
in Edinburgh." Nearly three hundred years before this, however (in 1175),
William the Lion ordered that "all merchandisis salbe presentit at the
mercat and mercat croce of burghis," which may well be taken to imply that
the first burgh in the kingdom was not at that time without its "croce."
Our next reference is in a Charter of S. Giles' Church, dated 1447, in
which occur the words "ex parte occidentali fori et crucis dicti burgi,"
and its use as a Market centre is clearly defined in a letter from James
III. to his citizens, written in October 1477, in which he orders "all
pietricks, pluvaris, capones, conyngs, checkins, and all other wyld foulis
and tame to be usit and sald about the Market Croce and in na other
place."
No data remain from which to reconstruct with any certainty the ancient
cross in the original form. The "pillar of the cross" now standing is the
same as that named in the earliest historical notices of the structure,
perhaps even the very one that was first set up, but whether it stood at
the outset on an elevated platform as it now does and long has done, or
whether it surmounted a flight of steps in the way usual in England,
cannot be determined. In the reign of James III. great improvements were
made in Edinburgh. The church of S. Giles, for instance, was enlarged and
made collegiate, and its independence of all but papal jurisdiction was
guaranteed by a Bull; it seems therefore not improbable that the same
royal patron of the arts added at that time dignity to the city cross by
building the lofty stone platform from which it could more unquestionably
dominate the market. In 1555 some alterations were made in the structure,
which are described as "bigging the rowme thereof," which has been thought
to imply that the open circles, which probably first supported this
platform, were filled in so as to form the "rowme." The following extracts
from the accounts of the city treasurer at any rate imply that the
enclosed base, entered beneath by a door, was standing shortly after this
date. In 1560 we read "Item for ane band to ye Croce dur," "Item for
mending of ye lok of ye Croce dur;" and again in 1584, "5 Julii, Item, ye
sam day given for ane lok to ye Croce duir, and three keyis for it." An
old birds-eye view of the city as it appeared in 1647 shews the main
outlines of the building to have been then very similar to what we see it
to-day.
This type of cross was peculiarly Scottish. A similar one remains in good
condition at Prestonpans, and another very fine one at Aberdeen; Perth and
Dundee had similar ones now unfortunately destroyed, and the capital
itself had a second cross of like design in the Canongate. It may have
been that the metropolitan cross was accepted as the model for the other
burghs of the kingdom.
The treasurer's accounts cited above, give evidence also of the early
erection of another feature peculiar to the Edinburgh cross, namely the
surmounting of it with the national emblem. In 1584, is an entry, "Payit
to David Williamson for making and upputting of the Unicorn upon the head
of the Croce."
In the year 1617, the "ald croce," was taken down and "translated by the
devise of certain mariners of Leith, from the place where it stood past
the memory of man to a place beneath in the High Street." The stone for
building the new substructure was "brocht frae the Deyne," and on the 25th
March "the Croce of Edinburgh was put upon the new seat;" the total cost
of its removal and re-erection being L4486 5s. 6d. (Scots). Amid the
Puritan violence of the Protectorate, the cross was defaced, among other
things the Royal arms were torn down, and "the crown that was on the
unicorn was hung upon the gallows by these treacherous villains;" as a
consequence the city accounts show payments for repairs to Robert Mylne, a
descendant of John Mylne, who had been one of the "Master measones" at the
re-erection. At this time the cross, or some part of it, perhaps the
heraldic carvings, was adorned with colour, a sum being given "to George
Porteous for painting the Croce."
On March 13th, 1756, the Market Cross of Edinburgh was demolished. Some of
the carved medallions which had decorated it passed years later into the
hands of Sir Walter Scott, by whom they were built into a wall at
Abbotsford, where they now are. The pillar, which was allowed to fall and
break in the course of demolition, was acquired by Lord Somerville, who
set it up near his house at Drum. The site was marked out with stones, and
a plain stone pillar "was erected on the side of a well in High Street,
adjacent to the place where the cross stood, which, by act of Siderunt,
was declared to be the Market Cross of Edinburgh from that period." But
even this was not allowed to remain long, the chief argument for the
removal both of it and of its great predecessor being the alleged
obstruction which it offered to traffic.
Efforts were made from time to time to persuade the city fathers to
restore a structure so long and so intimately bound up with the national
history, and at last "the pillar of the cross" was brought back to
Edinburgh, and placed upon a pedestal within the railings of St. Giles'
Church. So matters were allowed to remain until 1885, when by the
generosity of the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, then Member of Parliament
for Midlothian, the original pillar was re-instated on a new and imposing
base of the ancient type. The following translation of the Latin
inscription which appears on one of its eight faces, and which is dated
the day whereon it was formally handed over to the Corporation,
appropriately closes the record of the changes through which it has
passed: "Thanks be to God, this ancient monument, the Cross of Edinburgh,
devoted of old to public functions, having been destroyed by evil hands in
the year of our salvation, 1756, and having been avenged and lamented in
song both noble and manly by that man of highest renown, Walter Scott, has
now by permission of the city magistrates been rebuilt by William E.
Gladstone, who through both parents claims a descent entirely Scottish.
November 23rd in the year of grace 1885."
Many were the Scottish sovereigns who were greeted by their people at
this, the heart of their capital. When James IV. brought home his bride,
Margaret, daughter of Henry VII. of England, a fountain at the Cross ran
wine for all to drink, and a similar rejoicing took place when the
ill-fated Mary, in 1561, made her public entry into the city from "Halyrud
hous," and again in 1590, when her son James VI. introduced his Queen,
Anne of Denmark to the citizens.
Of the many national and civic proclamations which have been made from
Edinburgh Cross, two stand out conspicuous in the history of the whole
island of Great Britain. The first, in 1513, was a summons for a general
muster of the Scottish army for the invasion of England before the fatal
field of Flodden; and the second was in 1603, when the Lyon King-at-arms
announced from that spot the death of Elizabeth of England, and the
consequent union of the crowns of the two countries.
Such part as the cross has played in the religious history of Scotland, is
mostly concerned with the progress of the Reformation in the north. In
1555 John Knox was burnt in effigy there, having gone to Geneva instead of
answering a summons to appear before the Bishops. In 1565 a Roman Catholic
priest, for the enormity of having said mass on Easter Day at Holyrood,
was "tyed to the cross, where he tarried the space of one hour, during
which time the boys served him with his Easter egges;" and again on the
following day "he was set upon the Market Cross for the space of three or
four hours, the hangman standing by and keeping him," while the populace
again as on the former occasion displayed their godly zeal and christian
charity. In that stormy time for Scotland, the reigns of Charles II. and
his brother James, when politics and religion were so strangely and
unfortunately intermingled, that while the one party claimed to be
punishing rebels, the other felt that it was suffering martyrdom, many,
including the Duke of Argyle and a hundred other persons of all ranks,
suffered death in Edinburgh, in most cases at the "Mercat Croce."
England provides more than one instance in which, as in the case of
Edinburgh, the present generation has in some sort replaced the town
cross, hastily or heedlessly destroyed by a former age.
Bristol once possessed a handsome market cross of the fourteenth century,
containing, in niches, statues of several English Kings, the whole work
gorgeous in vermilion, and blue, and gold. So late as 1633, the citizens,
to preserve it, enclosed it with a railing and regilt it, at the same time
adding a new storey with four more statues. Yet in 1733, on the
declaration of some neighbouring tradesman that it was a danger to his
life and property, it was entirely pulled down. Re-erected at private cost
on College Green, it was actually demolished a second time, a public
subscription (to the disgrace of Bristol) defraying the charges. Sir
Richard Colt Hoare, having acquired the fragments, rebuilt it in his park
at Stone Head, and a subsequent age has replaced it on the Green with a
copy of the original, once so scornfully flung away.
Glastonbury, again, has, by the recent erection of a new cross, made some
reparation for its careless treatment of an old one. Its ancient market
cross was one of the most curious in the country; substantial, simple, and
unadorned, offering ample accommodation and shelter beneath its wide
arches, and with a certain quaint attraction in its curious gables. On
showing signs of decay, its past services to the market folk were so far
from pleading for it, that it was abandoned to the plundering of local
builders, who coveted its time-honoured materials, and not a recognizable
vestige now remains. Its modern successor is, as one expects of a
nineteenth century erection, perfectly conventional, consisting of a
column with canopied niches, surmounted by a short spire.
Gloucester boasted a market cross from the days of Richard III. to the
year 1750--an hexagonal tower-like structure garnished with statues, but,
like Edinburgh Cross, it was condemned as an obstruction, and, less
fortunate than its comrade in misfortune, has found no one to rebuild it.
Another town in which the exigencies of modern business have been supposed
to require the removal of a famous relic of the past is Coventry, whose
cross must in its day have been one of the most ornate in the country.
This cross, which Sir William Hollis reared in 1541 in the place of an
earlier one, was built on similar lines to one at Abingdon, which has also
disappeared. In form it was a hexagonal spire, some sixty feet in height,
on a series of four steps, covered with a mass of tracery and carving, and
containing a number of figures beneath canopies. It was lavishly gilded,
and so solicitous were the authorities of preserving its gleaming bravery
untarnished, that a fine was imposed on any one who should presume to
sweep the "cheepinge," or market, without first watering it to lay the
dust. In 1668, it was repaired and regilt at a cost of L276, but barely a
century later it was razed to the ground, and its memory is only kept
alive by the presence of a few of its statues and some other fragments,
preserved variously in the neighbourhood. Abingdon Cross was "sawn" down
by the Puritan soldiery of Waller's army, and the same brainless bigotry
robbed Chester of its High cross. Holbeach had a cross of unique plan,
consisting of a column supported by a pentagonal platform raised on
arches, which has disappeared; as also has one at Leicester, and a boldly
designed market cross at Ipswich, which must have been both useful and
ornamental.
[Illustration: COVENTRY CROSS.]
It is difficult for us to conceive how constantly these sculptured shafts
and sheltering arches met the gaze of our forefathers at every turn in the
older cities of England. Beside the splendid cross, for instance, just
described, Coventry had at one time its Swine's Cross (taken down about
1763), a second of the same name in another part of the town, Sponne
Cross, Hill Cross, Jesus Cross, the Maiden's Cross, and the New, or
Queen's Cross, as well as others close at hand at Radford and at Whitley.
A similar case meets us in Doncaster, which once could boast of a
Butcher's Cross (destroyed in 1725), a Butter Cross (removed to make room
for the Market House in 1846), the Northern Cross, the Wheat, or Market
Cross, the Crosses of S. James, S. Sepulchre, and Maudlin (Magdalen),
Snorel Cross, and one in the churchyard. Not one of all this list remains,
Doncaster's only example being the Hall Cross, which will be referred to
among the memorial crosses.
During the Commonwealth, with its temporary establishment of civil
marriages, this rite was "solemnized," if one may use the term in such a
connection, in Doncaster at the Wheat Cross.
The ancient city of Lincoln is another example of a place once rich in
these memorials. Only a well-cross exists there to-day, although its first
Bishop, Remigius, built a town-cross, his successor, Hugh de Grenoble,
added others, and yet others were erected by Hugh de Wells, all of which,
as also an ancient High Cross, have gone.
Amongst the Market Crosses still left to us, a foremost place, if not the
first, must be given to that of Chichester. This beautiful structure was
reared by Edward Story, bishop of the diocese from 1478 to 1504, who also
left an estate, valued at L25 per annum, to keep it in repair, and to
provide wine at the Cross annually on S. George's Day. It is an octagon in
plan, and covers a space of some four hundred square feet. Crosses of
this type, of which Malmesbury and Salisbury provide other excellent
examples, are not only more beautiful, but more useful, than the solid
decorated towers or spires, such as the crosses of Coventry and Abingdon,
for the wide arches afford both shade and shelter to the market folk in
summer heat or wintry rain and snow. A cross which is almost a combination
of the solid high-cross and the large covered type is found at Shepton
Mallet, having been erected by Walter Buckland and his wife in 1505. Other
examples of the covered cross exist at Chipping Campden, in
Gloucestershire, and at Cheddar. Even in the narrower scope of the high
cross, an attempt was sometimes made to provide at least so much shelter
as was possible under the circumstances, as we see in the open lower story
of the Butter Cross, at Winchester, and of the curious pentagonal cross at
Leighton-Buzzard.
Amid all the bustle of the busy market-place, and perhaps above all times
in this hurrying, grasping age, the old market cross stands with its
message ever old, yet ever needful, for all who have ears to hear;
testifying that there are interests of more moment than buying and selling
and getting gain, and by its very antiquity speaking of the frailty of the
life of man, so many generations of whom have bargained and chaffered
beneath its shadow, and gone out one by one in long procession into the
unknown Infinite.
Turning to those public crosses, which were used chiefly, though not quite
exclusively, for religious purposes and especially for preaching, S.
Paul's Cross comes first by right both of the importance of its position,
and of the prominent part which it has played in the religious history of
the country.
[Illustration: MARKET CROSS, CHICHESTER.]
The original foundation of the Cross at S. Paul's is lost in antiquity,
but evidence exists that one, on or near the site of the later one, marked
the spot whereon the city folkmote was held before the twelfth century.
The earliest actual mention of the cross is in 1191, when one William Fitz
Osbert here delivered an address against the divine authority of the
crown. From that time down to the middle of the seventeenth century, a
period of about five hundred years, the references to it are frequent and
interesting.
It was first used for ecclesiastical purposes in 1285, when the churchyard
was enclosed, and began probably to be regarded more distinctly as a
cathedral precinct, yet even after this the events connected with the
cross are not all strictly ecclesiastical. In 1382 the building was
damaged in a severe thunder-storm, and in 1449 it was re-built in "a more
splendid style" by Thomas Kemp, Bishop of London. The last preaching at
the cross was in 1633, after which the sermons were delivered in the
cathedral; and in 1643, by order of the Long Parliament, the cross was
taken down. All that now remains of it is the octagon base, which was
discovered a few years since, when the churchyard was laid out as a
garden; the site will be found, marked out with stones, at the northeast
corner of the present cathedral, a portion of the east wall of which rests
upon a small part of it.
In its palmy days, S. Paul's Cross consisted of a covered pulpit of stone,
surrounded by a low wall, and surmounted by a bold cross on an ogee roof.
When not in use it was closed by a door, and near the opening or window
where the preacher took his stand, was, in its latter days, a bracket for
an hour-glass. At the left hand of the structure, against the east wall of
the cathedral transept, was a covered gallery of two storeys, known as
"the shrowds," in which persons of special distinction were accommodated
to hear the preaching; the bulk of the congregation sitting on movable
forms or standing between the cross and the church.
Here at various times were heard such famous leaders of the religious
thought of the nation as Fisher, Latimer, Gardiner, Ridley, Coverdale,
Tunstall, Bonner, Grindal, Scory, Jewell, King, "the king of preachers,"
according to the opinion of James I., Hooker, "the judicious," Donne, Dean
of S. Paul's, and Laud, who, as Bishop of London, was the last of the
famous preachers to occupy this celebrated pulpit. Several of the sermons
delivered here have become historical, or were connected with events that
have helped to make history. On September 12th, 1557, "Dr. Standyche did
preach at the shrowds for the winning of the battle of St. Quentin," the
lord mayor and the aldermen being present in state. Jewell, Bishop of
Salisbury, preached a sermon on March 30th, 1560, which became known as
"the Challenge Sermon," from the fact that it was largely composed of a
number of theses, which he defied the Roman controversialists to prove
from the Fathers or from Holy Scripture. Another discourse that acquired a
name had been preached here by Latimer in 1548; this was the "Sermon of
the Plough," which treated in a quaint and characteristic manner of the
seed and the husbandry of "God's plough-land." Queen Elizabeth came to S.
Paul's Cross in full state on September 8th, 1588, to hear another bishop
of Salisbury, Dr. Piers, preach in commemoration of the overthrow of the
Armada. On this occasion eleven ensigns taken from the Spanish fleet were
exhibited, previous to their being displayed on the following day on
London Bridge. On March 24th, 1619, the cross was draped in black in
memory of the death of Anne of Denmark, the queen of James I., who had
died early in the month; and in April, King, Bishop of London, delivered a
sermon there at a solemn thanksgiving for the king's recovery from severe
illness. In 1629 a muttering of the coming storm was heard at S. Paul's
Cross, when, on the Sunday before Whitsunday, two papers were found
attached to it addressed to King Charles I., who was warned of the wrath
of heaven against him, and bidden, "Give an account of thy stewardship,
for thou must be no longer _Stuart_."
The Cross, however, was not used for sermons only. Being a place centrally
situated and resorted to by large numbers of people, it was deemed a
suitable one for the performance of acts of public penance. In 1441, Roger
Boltyngbroke, who was found guilty of the sin of necromancy, sat on a
chair by the Cross during sermon time, surrounded by his magical
appliances, and afterwards openly abjured his dark arts. A more notable
penitent was Mistress Jane Shore, who came here "out of all araie, save
her kertle onlie," and with a taper in her hand, in May, 1483. John Hig,
"alias Noke, alias Jonson"--a suspicious character obviously--stood
bareheaded and barefooted, with a faggot on his shoulder, all through the
preaching at the Cross on Good Friday, in 1528, as a penance for certain
"damnable and erroneous opinions" which he confessed to having
"erroneously and damnably said, affirmed, believed and taught." A similar
penance was performed in 1532 by a barrister of the Middle Temple, James
Baynham by name, who seems to have been a singularly weak and vacillating
creature. Having professed Protestantism, he recanted; again recalled his
recantation, and was burned at Smithfield. In 1534, Elizabeth Barton, "the
holy maid of Kent," who professed to have had divine revelations
condemning the divorce of King Henry VIII., was compelled to stand on a
high scaffold over against the pulpit, together with some half-a-dozen
priests and monks, who had expressed belief in her prophesyings. This
probably mistaken, but certainly well-meaning and pious nun, was hanged at
Tyburn on April 21st, 1534.
In November, 1554, five men did penance here by standing during the sermon
with lighted tapers in one hand and rods in the other; in March, 1556, a
man, for transgressing the rules of Lent, stood with the carcase of a pig
on his head and another in his hand; and in August, 1559, a "minister" did
penance for "marrying a couple that were married afore-time."
The custom, common in past days, of formally destroying a book by way of
condemning its publication, has several times been illustrated at S.
Paul's Cross. Many of Luther's works were burnt at a sermon preached there
by Fisher on May 12th, 1521; and Tyndale's translation of the New
Testament, after another sermon by the same bishop, Cardinal Wolsey being
present also, in 1530. In 1613, some books by a Jesuit named Suarez, whose
works were said to be "derogatory to Princes," were burnt at the Cross,
and the writings by Pareus, concerning the people's authority over
princes, were similarly treated in 1622.
A notice of the Cross in the reign of Edward III. gives us a curious
insight into the ideas of episcopal duty at the time. Michael de
Northbury, Bishop of London from 1354 to 1362, acted as a pawnbroker
for the benefit of the citizens of that city, and if at the year's end the
pledges were not redeemed, notice was given by the preacher, after his
sermon at the Cross, that they would be sold in fourteen days.
[Illustration: THE READING CROSS, ST. PAUL'S, LONDON.]
Amongst the incidents of a secular character which centred in this
time-honoured erection, we find a pleasing illustration of the friendly
relations which subsisted between the King and his subjects in bygone
days; for it seems to have been customary for the monarch, before going
abroad, to come down to S. Paul's Cross, and there to bid them farewell.
So came, at any rate, Henry III., both in 1257 and in 1261, before passing
into France.
The gatherings round the spot were not always of so friendly a nature.
Under Queen Mary, religious feeling ran so high as to lead to serious
disturbances. Dr. Bourne, chaplain to Bonner, was interrupted by shouting
and uproar for attacking Ridley in a sermon on August 13th, 1553, and a
dagger was flung at him, which stuck into a post of the Cross. On the
following Sunday, about one hundred and twenty halberdiers were present,
and peace was preserved; but in June of the next year, Dr. Pendleton was
fired on whilst preaching and nearly struck by a pellet "of tyne."
No other preaching cross attained to the name and fame of that of S.
Paul's, yet they were not uncommon in the country. In the Green Yard at
Norwich was one of wood, with leaded roof and a cross of the same metal;
Worcester also had one. Remains of a preaching cross may be seen near the
church in Iron Acton, in Gloucestershire, a graceful structure originally,
now lamentably mutilated; and at Disley, in the same county, is another,
also in ruins. A still better example is the Blackfriars' preaching cross
at Hereford, a hexagonal enclosure with open arches, above which is the
stump of what was once the sacred emblem.
The Puritans, although such advocates of preaching, evidently had a strong
prejudice against these open-air pulpits. That at Iron Acton bears to this
day marks of the violence used in the attempt to destroy it, and most of
our English preaching crosses have, like our most famous example, wholly
disappeared.
In this last half century, the English people have woke up once more in a
wonderful way to an appreciation of life in the open air. Never were
outdoor sports and games so generally followed; and "garden-parties" and
"garden-meetings" are amongst our most modern inventions. Parks and
pleasure-grounds are now demanded almost as a public right; and no
"exhibition" can look for success that does not provide ample
accommodation for its patrons to listen to music under the open skies. In
the face of all these signs of the times, is it too much to hope that the
Church may be touched with the same feeling--surely a healthy and a
desirable one; and that we may yet see on summer's evenings the
congregations choosing to sit or stand about the preaching cross in the
churchyard, rather than sit, involuntarily listless, at the best with
difficulty attentive, in the heat of a crowded, and often ill-ventilated
church?