Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

Another method described by Æneas Tacticus, was that of passing a thread through holes in a tablet; the order of the threads expressing any alphabetical characters previously agreed on, conveying the meaning of the party using this contrivance. The same device admits a variation in many different ways: for instance, a piece of string may be taken, and knots tied in it at stated intervals, the lengths of the intervals being, by previous compact, made to represent certain words, letters, or other symbols. This also might be effected by marking the points of division on the string with ink, instead of tying knots.

One of the most curious contrivances of the ancients on this subject, was that which is attributed to Hystiæus, as mentioned by Herodotus. While at the Persian court, he sent to Aristagoras in Greece, a servant affected with weak eyes; but before he sent him, Hystiæus, pretending that the hair must be shorn, and the head scarified, before a cure could be made, caused the hair to be shorn, and wrote a secret message on the bald pate of the servant, keeping him afterwards in confinement until the hair grew again. On going to Aristagoras, the servant was directed to submit himself to a second operation, in order to make the cure complete: this operation consisted in a second shaving of the servant's head, by which Anaxagoras was enabled to read the secret message. "By which relation," says Bishop Wilkins, in his Secret and Swift Messenger, "you may see what strange shifts the ancients were put unto, for want of skill in the subject that is here discoursed of."

An extensive class of secret ciphers is formed by those in which each letter is rendered by one or more numerals. Polybius contrived a method of expressing telegraphic signals by torches arranged in a certain order; but after his time the same principle was applied to writing, in the manner explained beneath.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Now, to use this key, each letter is expressed by the figure above it and the figure at the side, the former preceding the latter: thus, m has 3 above it, and 2 at the side; its symbol is therefore 32. By the use of this key, the following numbers,-52,15 41,15,42,24,43,23 12,54 21,11,33,24,34,15 11,34,14 14,24,43,15,11,43,15, will be found to express the words, “We perish by famine and disease." Another numeral method, more calculated for audible or visible symbols than for writing, arises from the twenty-seven different modes in which three things may be arranged in groups of threes, in the following manner: suppose there were three audible instruments of different kinds, a drum, a fife, and a trumpet; three notes on the drum might represent the letter A; two on the drum, succeeded by one on the fife, would represent B; two on the drum and one on the trumpet, would be C: the various ways in which three notes might thus be sounded will be found to be twenty-seven, which would represent the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, together with another symbol to indicate the ending of a word. Three different notes on the same instrument, flags of three different colours, or torches yielding light of three different colours, might obviously be used for the production of the symbols, if intended, as was originally the case, for military and naval signals. But when applied to secret writing, each letter would be represented by three numerals: thus, A 111, B 112, C113, D 121, and so forth. This method is, however, more complex than that of Polybius; and is in its turn exceeded in complexity by another contrivance in which each letter is indicated by repetitions of the numbers 1

and 2,-as, A 11111, B 11112, C 11121, D 11122, and so on.

The methods to which we have just alluded are not only specimens of what has been suggested: they have often been put in practice, in one form or other. For instance, Dr. Wallis has preserved an account of a letter, written from Charles the First to his son; which begins, "I thought that," and proceeds with groups of numerals, each group being a symbol for a letter or a word. Many such letters appear to have been written during the troubles of that unfortunate monarch; and Dr. Wallis, who deciphered many of the intercepted' letters, thus speaks of the method of secret writing by numerals:-"I do scarcely believe that it will be an easy matter to contrive a way more intricate than the figure-cipher ordinarily now in practice, with the like convenience for use; and, if any affect some more perplexed than these, I doubt not but his supposed better way will be equally obnoxious to discovery; or else will be extremely tedious in use, both to him that writes by it, and to him that is to read it, that it will not admit of any tolerable dispatch."

A great deal has been said and written on the possibility of forming a musical cipher, that is, one in which the successive notes of the scale shall represent the letters of the alphabet. Sanguine, and even extravagant, opinions have been formed on this point; one writer dilating on the advantage of two persons being able to converse on two violins; or of one sending a sheet of music paper to the other, containing, under the guise of musical notes, a hidden sentiment or communication. Mr. Thicknesse in this manner expressed, by musical notes, two lines of Goldsmith's Deserted Village :

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden-flower grows wild. But this method was subject to the defect of producing notes which had no sort of melody or harmony among them; so that their utter nonsense, in a musical point of view, would at once show that concealment was intended; whereas a really good cipher would conceal the concealment, if we may use such an expression. To remedy this defect, therefore, Mr. Thicknesse proposed to select any well harmonized piece of music, consisting of treble and bass, turning down the tails of all such notes as might be selected to express the hidden meaning, and turning up those of all the other notes. this way he gave what we may term a musical version of the lines:

All that of love can be expressed,
In these soft numbers see.

In

But there are many defects in a musical cipher of this kind, which would prevent it from being of much use: it would require a great range of notes, a tolerable knowledge of music both in the writer and in the reader, and a tedious expenditure of time in expressing a very few words.

We have still to describe those ciphers which have been most used in practice; viz., the substitution of one letter for another, on certain well-understood principles; and those which are expressed by dots; as also the modes of secret writing by the employment of what are termed sympathetic inks.

THE most difficult province in friendship is the letting a man see his faults and errors, which should, if possible, be so contrived, that he may perceive our advice is given him, not so much to please ourselves as for his own advantage. The reproaches, therefore, of a friend, should always be strictly just, and not too frequent.-BUDGELL,

THE advantage of living does not consist in length of days, but in the right improvement of them.-MONTAIGNE.

JOHN W. PARKER, PUBLISHER, WEST STRAND, LONDON.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

BEVERLEY MINSTER.

THE ancient town of Beverley, in Yorkshire, is situated at the foot of the wolds, and about a mile from the river Hull. It is celebrated for its splendid cathedral, which, as well as the town itself, is said to have been founded by a celebrated individual called St. John of Beverley, whose history has been transmitted to posterity by means of the venerable Bede, one of his pupils.

John of Beverley was of a respectable Saxon family, and born at Harpham, on the wolds of Yorkshire, about the year 640. At this period the country was beginning to recover from the darkness and barbarism consequent on the Saxon invasion. Many of the priests who had retreated before the storm to take refuge in Scotland and Ireland, had there established schools and monasteries which had become the chief seats of learning to the northern parts of the kingdom. From these monasteries, missionaries were also sent out to diffuse more widely the knowledge of the Christian religion, and to promote the civilization of a semi-barbarous race. John of Beverley passed his youthful days in the monastery of Whitby, which had been founded by missionaries from Icolmkill, and was then under the direction of St. Hilda. The elementary instruction which the youth received from the sisterhood at Whitby, was afterwards exchanged for the more advanced learning gained in the schools of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, where he is said to have made himself master of all the learning of his age. It is further stated that he went to Oxford, and was the first on whom the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred; but this is probably a fiction, it being very doubtful whether Oxford became a seat of learning until after the death of John of Beverley.

The style of buildings erected by John of Beverley cannot now be known. They were partially destroyed in the contests between the Saxons and Danes which occurred shortly after the death of the founder. The clergy, however, again returned to their dilapidated possessions, and re-assigned them to their original uses. During the repeated and harassing attacks of the Danes, it is not to be supposed that the church and monastery were ever completely restored, and it is not till after the lapse of more than two hundred years that we find much mention made of them. King Athelstan then conferred some important gifts and privileges on the church at Beverley, especially the right of sanctuary, in token of which a fridstol, or chair of peace, was placed in a conspicuous situation near the altar, as an emblem of protection to the refugee. The limits of the sanctuary, called leuga, were included within the circumference of a circle, of which the radius was about a mile. The limits of the sanctuary were defined by four crosses, placed on the four principal roads leading to the town: one of these still remains, in a dilapidated state. "If a malefactor flying for refuge was apprehended within the crosses, the party that took or had hold of him there, did forfeit two hundreth; if within the walls of the church-yard, then if within the doors of the quire, then eighteen hundreth; six hundreth; if within the church, then twelve hundreth; besides penance, as in case of sacrilege; but if he presumed to take him out of the stone chair near the altar, called fridstol, or from among the holy relics behind the altar, the offence was not redeemable with any sum, but was then become sine emendatione, boteless, and nothing but the utmost severity of the offended church was to be expected, by a dreadful excommunication, besides what the secular power would impose for the presumptuous misdemeanour." It was in the year 938 that Athelstan thus distinguished the church at Beverley, which thenceforward became a place of much note. John of Beverley was canonized in the year 1037, in the time of John, the twentieth church of St. John of Beverley, upon the site of which, In 1188 a dreadful fire consumed the collegiate pope. in process of time, the principal part of the present splendid edifice was erected. The church at Beverley held jurisdiction over Beverley itself, and several other parishes, but we meet with little to mark its history

Be this as it may, the fame of his learning brought him many pupils, and amongst the rest the Venerable . Bede, who delights in exhibiting the piety, zeal, and wisdom of his instructor. The earlier part of John's career was passed in the instruction of youth, but subsequently he entered on the laborious and toilsome life of a missionary, travelling about from place to place, and labouring with distinguished zeal and success to instruct the ignorant multitudes in the doctrines and duties of the Gospel. At a later period he betook himself to a life of solitude, living as a hermit in the neigh-churches. bourhood of Hexham, though he was too valuable a person to be permitted long to remain in that seclusion. The celebrated Wilfred, patron of the arts and literature, had been appointed to the bishopric of Hexham, to which that of York was afterwards added. He like

wise held the monastery of Rippon, of which he was the founder. When Egfrid came to the throne of Northambria, in 670, he justly deemed the jurisdiction of Wilfred to be too extensive for one individual; and having called a council, at which Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, presided, it was determined that the bishoprics of Hexham and York should be held by different individuals. Wilfred made violent opposition to this proposal, and on this occasion introduced the custom of appealing to the court of Rome. The Pope decided in his favour, and hence a long series of expulsions and restorations followed, involving the church in anarchy and confusion, and terminating at length in favour of Wilfred. Amidst these struggles, John was successively raised to the sees of Hexham and York, where his learning and piety shone out in a new and more extended sphere. Bede describes the diligence with which he visited the various parts of his diocese, and performed all other episcopal duties. During his visitations he repaired to Beverley, then called Silva Deirorum. At this place he founded a parish church, and likewise a monastery, both being dedicated to St. John the Baptist. After presiding over the see of York for about thirty years, he resigned his dignities and retired to his own monastery, where he expired on the 7th of May, 721.

until it became involved in the fate of similar institu

tions, at the dissolution of monasteries and of collegiate

In

In 1717 the minster was in a very ruinous state; but by the exertions of public-spirited individuals, a fund addition to indispensable repairs, the church was rewas raised, and the necessary repairs undertaken. pewed and adorned in divers ways. Unfortunately, the with the Gothic style of architecture so beautifully apornaments thus introduced were far from harmonizing Allen, "was formed on Grecian models: the galleries were plied in the edifice itself. "Every thing," says Mr. supported by Doric pillars, and adorned with Doric triglyphs. Before the old altar-screen was placed a wooden one of Grecian work, on which stood eight beautiful Corinthian pillars, supporting a splendid triumphal arch, surmounted by a magnificent gilded eagle. The pulpit, the reading-desk, the cover for the font, all made at the same absurdity, an entrance-screen into the choir was erected, in time, were in the same taste; and by way of climax of which the Grecian and Pointed styles were mixed together, and a kind of nondescript monster produced, referable to no species of architecture."

In 1813 a better system of repairs commenced, a competent person being engaged at a permanent salary to take charge of the minster, and to enter on a regular course of repair, strictly on the principle of restoration. Since that time, the Corinthian pillars and the wooden altar-screen have disappeared, the choir has been fitted up for divine service, instead of the nave, and the original altar-piece has been restored.

The exterior of Beverley Minster is particularly grand, and much resembles York Minster. The west front is considered by Rickman to be by far the finest

perpendicular front in England. He remarks that what the west front of York is to the decorated style, this is to the perpendicular, with this addition, that in the front at Beverley only one style is seen, and therefore all is harmonious. The centre is occupied by the splendid window of the nave, and at the ends of the side aisles rise two noble towers, strengthened with buttresses, richly ornamented with niches and canopied heads. Each tower has four large and eight small pinnacles, and a very beautiful battlement. The doors are extremely rich, the pointed arch being bounded with numerous mouldings, and the hollows occupied by small flowers and busts. The head of the arch is covered with a lofty and elegant canopy, crocketted, and crowned with a finial, above which is a small niche with a superb canopy. The great window is in breadth equal to the whole extent of the central division of the building, and consists of nine lights, subdivided by a transom into two tiers. The head of the arch is occupied by two subarches, which, with their spandrils, are filled with numerous minute lights, with arched heads, made by perpendicular mullions. The arch is bounded by a sweeping canopy, crocketted, and ending in a finial; above the canopy a double series of upright panels with arched heads, divided by an embattled string, range from the arch to a cornice even with the spring of the gable. It is finished with a raking battlement, delicately pierced, and ornamented with five pinnacles, placed at short in

tervals.

The north porch of Beverley Minster is celebrated for its rich and elaborate workmanship. Mr. Rickman says of it, that as a panelled front it is perhaps unequalled. The entrance is a pointed arch. The door has a double canopy, the inner an ogee, the outer a triangle with beautiful crockets and tracery, flanked by buttresses with rich niches, crowned with pinnacles.

The transept is built in a much simpler style of architecture, and at its junction with the nave, rises a low square tower with a parapet. On this tower a modern dome was erected in 1706, from a design by Lord Burlington. This unseemly addition to the building was taken down in 1824.

The east front of this church is fine, but the large window is an introduction of a more modern period. It has nine lights divided in height by a transom; in the sweep of the arches are sub-arches with perpendicular tracery. The window has a crocketted pediment with a finial, and on the gable a foliated cross. There is reason to believe, that this front was originally lighted by tall narrow lancet-headed windows. The south side of this church closely corresponds with the north, and throughout the building a degree of uniformity prevails, which is seldom met with in ancient churches, and only surpassed by Salisbury Cathedral. The porch on the south side is, however, far simpler in its construction than that on the north, being a simple pointed arch covered with an ogee-formed canopy.

The interior of this magnificent edifice, exhibits one of our most interesting specimens of pointed architecture. The nave comprises eleven pointed arches, and the pillars are composed of eight slender cylindrical shafts. The choir is rich in superb carving and ornamental work, and is universally admired on this account, as well as for its noble monuments, variegated marble floor, and magnificent east window. The stalls are forty-two in number, and the seats which are all of equal height are so contrived that they can be raised or let down at pleasure, like the leaf of a table. The under part of each leaf, which is visible when the seat is turned up, contains some allegorical design, of which the meaning is now lost. "They may possibly," says Mr. Allen, "be the work of some of the residentiaries, as on the seventeenth stall from the east end on the north side is inscribed Clericus et Faber, and if this judgment be correct, each design might contain some sly allusion, either direct or implied, to the habits and propensities of the person then in

[ocr errors]

possession of the stall on which it was placed. The ornaments with which this stall is decorated, consist of a central group, representing a gentleman in the hunting-dress of a person of distinction, with a hawk upon his hand, and containing a single figure; the one, a dog gnawing a bone, attended by servants and dogs. On each side is a circle, the other, a cock of the true game breed, trimmed ready for battle. Hence we may conclude, that the Rev. John Wake was a branch of a noble family, and attached to the sports of the field and other domestic recreations, as well as the more sedentary pursuits, either of his sacred profession, or the amusement of decorating oaken benches with caricature embellishments."

The grotesque and ridiculous designs on many of these seats, while they are singularly misplaced in a sacred edifice, are yet sufficient to excite curiosity and investigation. On one is the exhibition of a shrew whose husband has placed her in a wheelbarrow, and appears to be conveying her to the ducking-stool, while her countenance is distorted with rage and fury, and she is in the act of tearing off her husband's wig. Other subjects are: a monkey riding on the back of a hare; another monkey acting as physician to a bed-ridden goat; a hog playing on the bag-pipes, and a number of hogs dancing; a man on horseback preceding muzzled bears; a man teaching a monkey to dance; grotesque sport of men riding on rams; a man drawing a bear in a sledge; a monkey dandling a child; three fools dancing a marisco; a fox preaching to the geese; a quarrel between two sculptors, who are striking each other with chisel and mallet, while a man at the side is holding his nose in contempt.

The restoration of the ancient altar screen was completed in 1826, and exhibits a magnificent specimen of elaborate carving. The pulpit is an octagon of two stages, the lower being panelled with cinquefoil pointed arches, the upper with crocketed pediments, each triangle having a superb purfled finial, enclosing a panelled imitation of pointed windows with tracery. The canopy is ornamented with an ogee battlement. In the vestry is the celebrated frid-stool hewn out of solid stone.

This

In the north aisle of the choir is a beautiful staircase, consisting of a series of arches, each rising higher than the former with elegant shafts and mouldings. staircase has been supposed, though it appears inaccurately, to be the shrine of St. John of Beverley.

[ocr errors]

The monuments in Beverley Minster are few in number, but several of them are extremely beautiful. That called the Percy Shrine in particular, excites the admiring attention of visitors. It consists of a pedestal, surmounted by a magnificent canopy, terminating in a beautiful finial. In the spandrils of the pediment are angels worshipping. Within the pediment is a rich arch, in the spandrils of the pediment of which are four armed knights, holding four shields. On the top of the finial of the arch is a figure emblematic of the Deity, with the right hand in the attitude of benediction on the head of a lady, (Maud, countess of Northumberland,) who is held in a sheet by angels on each side. Numerous figures of knights, &c. ornament this splendid tomb, and the monument has been pronounced a model of ancient art, where every effort that sculpture and masonry could combine, is displayed in one great excellence. In a chapel, usually called the Percy Chapel, is the monument of Henry, fourth Earl of Northumberland, slain near Thirsk, in 1489. Several other monuments of less note, also adorn this venerable edifice.

BENEVOLENCE is always a virtuous principle. Its operations always secure to others their natural rights, and it liberally superadds more than they are entitled to claim.— COGAN.

[blocks in formation]

ANCIENT FORM OF THE PRINCE OF WALES'S FEATHERS. From the shield on the Monument of Edward the Black Prince, in the Chapel of the Holy Trinity, Canterbury Cathedral. THE origin of the heraldic device borne by the Princes of Wales, is explained by the historians of England, in terms that are well known to most readers. Edward the Black Prince having on the field of Cressy gained a remarkable victory over the French, and slain John, king of Bohemia, adopted, it is said, the crest of that monarch, consisting of three ostrich feathers, with the motto, Ich dien (I serve), and which crest and motto have ever since been used by the heirs apparent of England.

Now it appears from the investigations of the learned, that this is not the fact. Among others, Mr. Nichols, in his researches on the subject of heraldic devices, states, that the popular account of the origin of this device is not the correct one; for neither did John, king of Bohemia, bear a crest of ostrich feathers, nor were plumes of feathers employed earlier than the reign of Henry the Fifth, and then only as portions of costume, and not as personal crests. The crests of John, king of Bohemia, and of his son Winceslaus, are shown by their seals to have been, not the feathers of an ostrich, but the entire wings of a vulture. poem likewise describes the crest of John, king of Bohemia, to have been two wings of a vulture besprinkled with linden-leaves of gold.

An old Flemish

Twee ghiers vlogelen daer aen geleyt
Die al vol bespringelt zyn
Met linden bladeren guld fyn;
Deze es, als ich mercken can,
Van Behem coninck Jan.

The Black Prince, therefore, did not adopt the crest of his humbled enemy, and it remains to account for the choice he made of a new device. It appears, that the prince himself wore a single feather only; but this was really that of an ostrich, as there is sufficient evidence to prove. Ostrich feathers were likewise embroidered on his tapestry and hangings, as on those of successive Princes and Princesses of Wales. In 1375, the Black Prince bequeathed to his son Richard his hangings for a hall, embroidered with mermen, and a border of red and black impaled, embroidered with swans, having lady's heads, and ostrich feathers." In 1385, Joan, princess of Wales, bequeathed, "To my dear son, the king, my new bed of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold, with boughs and leaves issuing out of their mouths."

66

On a seal appended to a grant of Prince Edward to his brother John of Gaunt, dated 1370, twenty-five years after the battle of Cressy, Edward is seen seated on a throne, as a sovereign prince of Aquitaine, with a single feather and a blank scroll on each side of him. The same badge occurs again upon a seal of 1374. A single feather was therefore doubtless the earliest form

of this badge. The popular tradition of three feathers having been the crest, arms, or badge of John, king of Bohemia, rests upon the authority of Camden, who says in his Remains, "The victorious Black Prince his [Edward's] sonne, used sometimes one feather sometimes three, in token, as some say, of his speedy execution in all his services, as the posts in the Roman times were called pterophori, and wore the feather to signifie their flying post haste; but the truth is, he won them at the battle of Cressy from John, king of Bohemia, whome he there slew." It is remarkable that this circumstance should have been completely overlooked by Froissart, Walsingham, Knighton, and all the cotemporary historians, thus resting on Camden's statement alone, who does not give any authority for that which he states as a fact.

Respecting the adoption of this crest by the Black Prince, Mr. Nichols offers an hypothesis that appears likely to be near the truth. Although the feathers of the ostrich were not worn as a badge by the kings of Bohemia, the bird itself was so. It is noticed by Mr. Willement, on the authority of Thiel, that a white ostrich issuing from a crown, and holding in its beak a horse-shoe, is the proper crest of the kingdom of Hungary. The Bohemian ostrich, instead of rising from a crown, stands erect, collared, and chained, with a nail in The nail and the horse-shoe in these cases his beak. were probably added to illustrate the fabulous powers of digestion attributed to this bird, and which were supposed to be emblematic of the warrior's appetite for the cold iron of the battle field. The German name for an ostrich (strauss) was also used to signify a fight, combat, or scuffle, which would increase the aptness of the This device of the device to the warrior's purposes. ostrich is seen upon the effigy of Anne, wife of Richard the Second, in Westminster Abbey. Her bodice is covered with a flowered pattern, with the letters R. and Her gown is ornamented in a similar A. crowned. manner, but the largest figures of the pattern are the badge of the ostrich, collared and chained, and holding in its beak a nail. Camden notices this in the following terms: "His wife Anna, sister to Winceslaus the Emperour, bare an ostrich, with a nayle in his beake." Now the Bohemian king, from whom the Black Prince is said to have copied his device, was paternal grandfather to Queen Anne, and may reasonably be supposed to have borne the same device. This device would have given him the warrior's title of "the ostrich," and Mr. Nichols thinks, that the prince may therefore possibly have adopted the feather of that bird as a trophy. there is reason to believe, that the device in question was borne by our English princes previous to the time of the Black Prince, and if this be the case, the whole story of its derivation from Bohemian princes is negatived at once.

But

It is asserted that a single ostrich feather was borne as a badge by King Edward the Third, by all the brothers and descendants of the Black Prince, and by Thomas de Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, who must either have borne it by grant from Richard the Second, or in consequence of his descent by the female side from Thomas de Brotherton, fifth son of Edward the First. The Harleian MS. No. 304, informs us that The ostrich fether, sylver, and pen, gold, is the King's. The astrich fether, pen, and all, sylver, is the Prince's. The ostrich fether, gold, ye pen, ermyne, is the Buk of Lancaster's.

The ostrich fether, sylver, and pen, gobone, is the Duk of Somersett's.

Rundle Holmes, (MS. Harl. 2035,) makes the following observations, but does not give his authorities :— "The ensigne of the auntient Britaines or Welsh was three ostrich feathers, which they used upon all their warlike colours. But when they were subdued and brought under the Saxon-English government and lawes, and that the

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »