The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.

      The cathedral of Bristol is one of the most interesting relics of monastic splendour which have been spared from the wrecks of desolation and decay. It is dedicated to the holy and undivided Trinity, and is the remains of an abbey or monastery of great magnificence, which was dedicated to St. Augustine. The erection of this monastery was begun in 1140, and was finished and dedicated in 1148, according to the inscription on the tomb of the founder, Robert Fitzharding, the first lord of Berkeley, who, together with others of that illustrious family, are enshrined within these walls. It was also denominated the monastery of the black regular canons of the order of Saint Victor, who are mentioned by Leland as the black canons of St. Augustine within the city walls. By some historians, Fitzharding is represented as an opulent citizen of Bristol; but generally as a younger son or grandson of the king of Denmark, and as the youthful companion of Henry II., who, betaking himself from the sunshine of royal friendship, became a canon of the monastery he himself had founded. In this congenial solitude he died in 1170, aged 75. Such is the outline of the foundation of this structure, and it is one of the most attractive episodes of the early history of England; for the circumstance of a noble exchanging the gilded finery of a court, and the gay companionship of his prince, for the gloomy cloisters of an abbey, and the ascetic duties of monastic life, bespeaks a degree of resolution and self-control which was more probably the result of sincere conviction than of momentary caprice.

      The present cathedral is represented to have been merely the church of the monastery, which was entirely rebuilt in the commencement of the fourteenth century. The style of architecture in the different parts of this cathedral is accurately discriminated in the following account from the pen of Bishop Littleton, F.S.A.:—"The lower parts of the chapter house walls," says he, "together with the door-way and columns at the entrance of the chapter-house, may be pronounced to be of the age of Stephen, or rather prior to his reign, being fine Saxon architecture. The inside walls of the chapter-house have round ornamental arches intersecting each other. The cathedral appears to be of the same style of building throughout, and in no part older than Edward the First's time, though some writers suppose the present fabric was begun in king Stephen's time; but not a single arch, pillar, or window agrees with the mode which prevailed at that time. The great gateway leading into the College Green is round-arched, with mouldings richly ornamented in the Saxon taste." From this account it appears probable that the chapter-house and gateway are all the present remains of the ancient monastery. The mutilations which the cathedral of Bristol has undergone, are not entirely to be referred to the era of the dissolution of the monasteries, since this structure suffered very considerably during the period of the civil wars. The ruthless soldiers discovered their barbarism by violating the sacred tombs of the dead, and by offering every indignity which they supposed would be considered a profanation of the places which the piety of their ancestors consecrated to religion. At such instances of the violence of civil factions, the sensitive mind shudders with disgust.

      The cathedral of Bristol is rich in monumental tributes to departed worth. Among them is an elegant monument, by Bacon, to Mrs. Elizabeth Draper, the Eliza of Sterne; and the classical tomb of the Hendersons. Here, too, rests Lady Hesketh, the friend of Cowper; Powell, of Covent Garden Theatre; besides branches of the Berkeley family, and various abbots.

      The bishopric of Bristol is the least wealthy ecclesiastical promotion which confers the dignity of a mitre. Its revenue is generally stated to amount to no more than five or six hundred pounds per annum. In the list of bishops are Fletcher, father of the celebrated dramatist, the colleague of Beaumont; he attended Mary Queen of Scots on the Scaffold; Lake, one of the seven bishops committed to the Tower in the time of James I.; Trelawney, a familiar name in the events of 1688; Butler, who materially improved the episcopal palace of Bristol; Conybeare and Newton, names well known in literary history; with the erudite Warburton, whose name occurs in the list of deans of Bristol.

      DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. 1

      The time is out of joint.

      A man of my profession never counterfeits, till he lays hold upon a debtor and says he rests him: for then he brings him to all manner of unrest.

      Run not into debt, either for wares sold or money borrowed; be content to want things that are not of absolute necessity, rather than to run up the score: such a man pays at the latter a third part more than the principal comes to, and is in perpetual servitude to his creditors;

      "The greatest of all distinctions in civil life," says Steele, "is that of debtor and creditor;" although no kind of slavery is so easily endured, as that of being in debt. Luxury and expensive habits, which are commonly thought to enlarge our liberty by increasing our enjoyments, are thus the means of its infringement; whilst, in nine cases out of ten, the lessons taught by this rigid experience lead to the bending and breaking of our spirits, and the unfitting of us for the rational pleasures of life. All ranks of mankind seem to fall into this fatal error, from the voluptuous Cleopatra to the needy philosopher, who doles out a mealsworth of morality for his fellow-creatures, and who would fain live according to his own precepts, had he not exhausted his means in the acquisition of his experience.

      I blush to confess, that I have often thought the habit of debt to be our national inheritance—from that bugbear of out-of-place men, the Sinking Fund, to the parish-clerk, who mortgages his fees at the chandler's; and that my countrymen seem to have resolved to increase their own enjoyments at the expense of posterity, with whose provision, even Swift thinks we have no concern. Again; I have thought that we are apt to over-rate our national advancement, by supposing the present race to be wiser than the previous one, without once looking into our individual contributions to this state of enlightenment. Proud as we are of this distinction in the social scale, we can record few instances of contemporary genius, and we are bound to confess that men are not a whit the better in the present than in the previous generation. Thus we hoodwink each other till social outrages become every-day occurrences, and every thing but sheer violence is protected by its frequency; and in this manner we consent to compromise our happiness, and then affect to be astonished at its scarcity. In the later ages of the world, men have learned to temporize with principles, and to sacrifice, at the shrine of passing interest, as much real virtue as would bear them harmless throughout life. Hence, of what more avail is the virtue of the Roman fathers, or are the amiable friendships of Scipio and Lelius, than as so many amusing fictions to exercise the imaginations of schoolmen in drawing outlines of character, which experience does not finish. Friends, like certain flowers, bloom around us in the sunshine of success; but at night-fall or at the approach of storms, they shut up their hearts; and thus, poor victims being rifled of their mind's content, with their little string of enjoyments broken up for ever, are abandoned to the pity or scorn of bystanders. It is impossible to reflect for a moment on such a crisis, without dropping a tear for the self-created infirmities of man: but there are considerations at which he shudders, and which he would rather varnish over with the sophistry of his refinement, and the fallacies of self-conceit.

      I fear that I am breaking my rule in not confining myself to a few shades of debt and conscience, with a view of determining how far they are usually reconciled among us. The task may not