On the 11th of January, 1825, a sketch of this church was taken from a
second-floor window in the house No. 115, Fleet-street, which stands on
the opposite side of the way to that whereon the opening was made by the
late fire; and the subjoined engraving from the sketch is designed to
perpetuate the appearance through that opening. Till then, it had been
concealed from the view of passengers through Fleet-street by the houses
destroyed, and the conflagration has been rightly deemed a favourable
opportunity for endeavouring to secure a space of sufficient extent to
render the church a public ornament to the city. To at least one person,
professionally unskilled, the spire of St. Bride’s appears more chaste
and effective than the spire of Bow. In 1805, it was 234 feet high,
which is thirty-two feet higher than the Monument, but having been
struck by lightning in that year, it was lowered to its present
standard.
[Illustration: ~St. Bride’s Church, London, as it appeared Jan. 11,
1825.~
_From the opening in Fleet-street made by the Fire of Sunday, November
14, 1824._]
St. Bride’s church was built by sir Christopher Wren, and completed in
1680. It has been repeatedly beautified: its last internal decorations
were effected in 1824. In it are interred Thomas Flatman the poet,
Samuel Richardson the novelist, and William Bingley, a bookseller,
remarkable for his determined and successful resistance to
interrogatories by the court of King’s Bench--a practice which that
resistance abated for ever: his latter years were employed, or rather
were supported, by the kindness of the venerable and venerated John
Nichols, Esq. F. S. A. whose family tablet of brass is also in this
church. As an ecclesiastical edifice, St. Bride’s is confessedly one of
the most elegant in the metropolis: an unobstructed view of it is
indispensable therefore to the national character. Appeals which will
enable the committee to purchase the interests of individuals on the
requisite site are now in progress, and can scarcely be unheeded by
those whom wealth, taste, and liberality dispose to assist in works of
public improvement. The engraved sketch does not claim to be more than
such a representation as may give a distant reader some grounds for
determining whether a vigorous effort to save a building of that
appearance from enclosure a second time ought not now to be made. The
proceedings for that purpose are in this month, and are entitled to a
place in this sheet.
[Illustration: ~Card-playing.~]
This diversion, resorted to at visitings during the twelve days of
Christmas, as of ancient custom, continues without abatement during the
prolongation of friendly meetings at this season. Persons who are
opposed to this recreation from religious scruples, do not seem to
distinguish between its use and its abuse. Mr. Archdeacon Butler refers
to the “harmless mirth and innocent amusements of society,” in his
sermon on “Christian Liberty,” before the duke of Gloucester, and the
university of Cambridge, on his royal highness’s installation as
chancellor, June 30, 1811. The archdeacon quotes, as a note on that
point in his sermon, a remarkable passage from Jeremy Taylor, who says,
“that _cards_, &c. are of themselves lawful, I do not know any reason to
doubt. He can never be suspected, in any criminal sense, to tempt the
Divine Providence, who by contingent things recreates his labour. As for
the evil appendages, they are all separable from these games, and they
may be separated by these advices, &c.” On the citation, which is here
abridged, the archdeacon remarks, “Such are the sentiments of one of the
most truly pious and most profoundly learned prelates that ever adorned
any age or country; nor do I think that the most rigid of our
disciplinarians can produce the authority of a wiser or a better man
than bishop Jeremy Taylor.” Certainly not; and therefore an objector to
this pastime will do well to read the reasoning of the whole passage as
it stands at the end of the archdeacon’s printed sermon: if he desire
further, let him peruse Jeremy Taylor’s “advices.”
Cards are not here introduced with a view of seducing parents to rear
their sons as gamblers and blacklegs, or their daughters to
“a life of scandal, an old age of cards;”
but to impress upon them the importance of “not morosely refusing to
participate in” what the archdeacon refers to, as of the “harmless mirth
and innocent amusements of society.” Persons who are wholly debarred
from such amusements in their infancy, frequently abuse a pleasure they
have been wholly restrained from, by excessive indulgence in it on the
first opportunity. This is human nature: let the string be suddenly
withdrawn from the overstrained bow, and the relaxation of the bow is
violent.
Look at a juvenile card-party--not at that which the reader sees
represented in the engraving, which is somewhat varied from a design by
Stella, who grouped boys almost as finely as Fiamingo modelled their
forms--but imagine a juvenile party closely seated round a large table,
with a Pope Joan board in the middle; each well supplied with
mother-o’-pearl fish and counters, in little Chinese ornamented red and
gold trays; their faces and the candles lighting up the room; their
bright eyes sparkling after the cards, watching the turn-up, or peeping
into the pool to see how rich it is; their growing anxiety to the
rounds, till the lucky card decides the richest stake; then the shout
out of “Rose has got it!” “It’s Rose’s!” “Here, Rose, here they
are--take ’em all; here’s a _lot_!” Emma, and John, and Alfred, and
William’s hands thrust forth to help her to the prize; Sarah and Fanny,
the elders of the party, laughing at their eagerness; the more sage
Matilda checking it, and counting how many fish Rose has won; Rose,
amazed at her sudden wealth, talks the least; little Samuel, who is too
young to play, but has been allowed a place, with some of the “pretty
fish” before him, claps his hands and halloos, and throws his playthings
to increase Rose’s treasure; and baby Ellen sits in “mother’s” lap, mute
from surprise at the “uproar wild,” till a loud crow, and the quick
motion of her legs, proclaim her delight at the general joy, which she
suddenly suspends in astonishment at the many fingers pointed towards
her, with “Look at baby! look at baby!” and gets smothered with kisses,
from which “mother” vainly endeavours to protect her. And so they go on,
till called by Matilda to a new game, and “mother” bids them to “go and
sit down, and be good children, and not make so much noise:” whereupon
they disperse to their chairs; two or three of the least help up Samuel,
who is least of all, and “mother” desires them to “take care, and mind
he does not fall.” Matilda then gives him his pretty fish “to keep him
quiet;” begins to dress the board for a new game; and once more they are
“as merry as grigs.”
In contrast to the jocund pleasure of children at a round game, take the
picture of “old Sarah Battle,” the whist-player. “A clear fire, a clean
hearth, and the rigour of the game,” was her celebrated wish. “She was
none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half-and-half players, who have no
objection to take a hand, if you want one to make up a rubber; who
affirm that they have no pleasure in winning; that they like to win one
game, and lose another; that they can wile away an hour very agreeably
at a card-table, but are indifferent whether they play or no; and will
desire an adversary, who has slipt a wrong card, to take it up and play
another. Of such it may be said that they do not play at cards, but only
play at playing at them. Sarah Battle was none of that breed; she
detested them from her heart and soul; and would not, save upon a
striking emergency, willingly seat herself at the same table with them.
She loved a thorough-paced partner, a determined enemy. She took and
gave no concessions; she hated favours; she never made a revoke, nor
ever passed it over in her adversary, without exacting the utmost
forfeiture. She sat bolt upright, and neither showed you her cards, nor
desired to see yours. All people have their blind side--their
superstitions; and I have heard her declare, under the rose, that Hearts
was her favourite suit. I never in my life (and I knew Sarah Battle many
of the best years of it) saw her take out her snuffbox when it was her
turn to play, or snuff a candle in the middle of a game, or ring for a
servant till it was fairly over. She never introduced, or connived at,
miscellaneous conversation during its process: as, she emphatically
observed, cards were cards. A grave simplicity was what she chiefly
admired in her favourite game. There was nothing silly in it, like the
nob in cribbage--nothing superfluous. To confess a truth, she was never
greatly taken with cribbage. It was an essentially vulgar game, I have
heard her say,--disputing with her uncle, who was very partial to it.
She could never heartily bring her mouth to pronounce ‘go,’ or ‘that’s a
go.’ She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging teased her. I once
knew her to forfeit a rubber, because she would not take advantage of
the turn-up knave, which would have given it her, but which she must
have claimed by the disgraceful tenure of declaring ‘two for his heels.’
Sarah Battle was a gentlewoman born.” These, omitting a few delicate
touches, are her features by the hand of _Elia_. “No inducement,” he
says, “could ever prevail upon her to play at _her favourite_ game for
nothing.” And then he adds, “With great deference to the old lady’s
judgment on these matters, I think I have experienced some moments in my
life when playing at cards _for nothing_ has even been agreeable. When I
am in sickness, or not in the best spirits, I sometimes call for the
cards, and play a game at piquet _for love_ with my cousin
Bridget--Bridget Elia.” Cousin Bridget and the gentle Elia seem beings
of that age wherein lived Pamela, whom, with “old Sarah Battle,” we may
imagine entering their room, and sitting down with them to a _square_
game. Yet Bridget and Elia live in our own times: she, full of kindness
to all, and of soothings to Elia especially;--he, no less kind and
consoling to Bridget, in all simplicity holding converse with the world,
and, ever and anon, giving us scenes that Metzu and De Foe would admire,
and portraits that Denner and Hogarth would rise from their graves to
paint.
~January 12.~
_St. Arcadius._ _St. Benedict Biscop, or Bennet._ _St. Ælred,
Tygrius._
_St. Benedict Biscop, or Bennet._
Butler says he was in the service of Oswi, king of the Northumbrians;
that at twenty-five years old he made a pilgrimage to Rome, returned and
carried Alcfrid, the son of Oswi, back to the shrines of the apostles
there, became a monk, received the abbacy of Sts. Peter and Paul,
Canterbury, resigned it, pilgrimaged again to Rome, brought home books,
relics, and religious pictures, founded the monastery of Weremouth, went
to France for masons to build a church to it, obtained glaziers from
thence to glaze it, pilgrimaged to Rome for more books, relics, and
pictures, built another monastery at Jarrow on the Tine, adorned his
churches with pictures, instructed his monks in the Gregorian chant and
Roman ceremonies, and died on this day in 690. He appears to have had a
love for literature and the arts, and, with a knowledge superior to the
general attainment of the religious in that early age, to have rendered
his knowledge subservient to the Romish church.