1831.] [ 41 ] REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. The History and Description of the Town and Borough of Ipswich, including the Villages and Country Seats in its Vicinity, more particularly those seated on the Banks of the Orwell. 8vo. pp. 504. EVERY commercial town of importance should have a local history, in matter and embellishment, worthy of it, and this we can truly say of the work before us. The influence and utility of such books are not indeed subjects of sense, but their indirect action may be, and often is of the most important consequence. To enter into an elucidation of this general position is unnecessary, because we have often done so ; and have no room to spare, on account of copious ex tracts. Our author has exhibited superior taste in the selection of subjects for his excellent plates. These, of course, under such guidance, apply to architectural remains of curious construction and probable demolition. The chief of these is the subject of the plate before us (see Plate II), viz. the interior of a room at the Tankard Inn. The history of this valuable relic is as follows. Pp. 220—223. t # breadth; each pannel is bordered with a band, and alternately emblazoned with a coat of arms, or filled up with a projecting ornament, in the shape of an inverted pediment, with concave sides, richly carved, and pendentive six inches from the ceiling. Each of these projections terminates nearly in a point, topped with a leaf or rose. One large beam intersects the ceiling, in the centre, the whole length of the room, and two smaller transverse ones." Whatever defect there may be in the description, has been amply compensated by the accurate and beautiful .. engraving (here given) from a drawing by Mr. H. Davy, which at once stamps him as a master of his profession. With regard to ceilings, it is known, that among our ancestors these were rare, and that they had only two ideas upon the subject: one, that if rooms were lofty they must be arched; and, if low (for they had no idea of high rooms, with horizontal ceilings), orThat namented and cross-beamed. the beams were intended for ornament as well as use cannot be doubted, because they are often moulded and wrought, where they are crossed, in rooms which had ornamented fire places. If the ceiling was carried up rudeness was relieved by a succession to the roof, the mere barn and stable of wooden arched timber couples, resting upon brackets, as at Westminster, Hall, and the Grammar School here engraved (p. 281). And we are inclined to think that arched windows were essential to this plan, when correct, and not the square transom windows intruded in the school mentioned, for we must not condemn our ancestors for want of taste in the pure Gothic. An arched window, with a flat ceiling, must be out of keeping; and the innovation condemned is due to the barbarisms of the Tudor style. "Sir Anthony Wingfield, K. G. ViceChamberlain, Privy Counsellor, and one of the Executors of Henry VIII. had a residence where the Tankard public-house and the Theatre now stand. In the former, some curious remains of the decorations of Sir Anthony's mansion still exist, particularly in a large room on the ground floor; the oak wainscot of which, beautifully carved in festoons of flowers, and a variety of devices, was formerly gilt, but is now painted blue and white. The cieling is of groined work, carved and wrought something after the manner of Henry the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster. In various compartments of this ceiling numerous coats of arms are sculptured, and have been emblazoned in their proper colours, most of which are defaced; but still several of those of the Wing-Over the fireplace is a basso-relievo, field family, encircled with the motto of the Order of the Garter, remain in tolerable preservation. This room is twenty-seven feet long, sixteen feet nine inches wide, and only nine feet five inches high. The ceiling is divided into papnels sixteen inches and a half square; there are twelve of these in the length of the room, and eight, in the GENT. MAG. January, 1831. rudely carved in wood, and coloured in a tasteless style. It represents the Judgment of Paris. It is much mutilated." It is a disgrace to the national character, that Englishmen should feel a This is engraved at large in our vol. LXVI. p. 913, By the favour of our author we are enabled to give an engraving of that well-known machine for curing scolds, the ducking-stool." The cut is a spirited sketch, made by Mr. G. Campion, late of Ipswich, of a scene exhibiting persons preparing to carry this ceremony into execution. It was evidently a punishment intended by our ancestors for female delinquents, as the pillory was for males. In the Leges Scoticor. Burgor. c. 21 (quoted by Ducange v. Tumbrellum), we have, "If any man or woman be in blame concerning bread or beer, let the baker (pistor) be put upon the collisirigium, which is called pillorie, and the brewess (brasiatrix) upon the tumbrell, which is called castigatorium," the word tumbrel being a derivative from the French tomber. We have a loose recollection of having somewhere read, that among certain northern nations it was customary not to hang but to drown women, when under sentence of capital punishment; and at the present day REVIEW.-History of Ipswich. 1831.] the Turks use a similar practice. From hence might have been derived the distinction between the pillory and tumbrel. To return: In an apartment of the Custom-house at Ipswich, is an original ducking-stool. "It is in the form of a strong backed arm chair, with a wrought iron rod, about an inch in diameter, fastened to each arm, in front, meeting in a segment of a circle above. There is also another iron rod affixed to the back, which curves over the head of a person seated in the chair, and is connected with the others at the top, to the centre of which is fastened an iron ring, for the purpose of slinging the machine into the river. In the Chamberlain's Book are various entries of money paid to porters for taking down the ducking-stole ;' and in the year 1597 three unfortunate females underwent this opprobrious ceremony. The fee for inflicting the punishment was 1s. 6d." 43 Dictionary says, "marche-pane, massepain, f. (q. massa panis) sugared paste made into little cakes. At the inthronization feast of Archbishop Warham, all his honours and offices were drawn, depicted, and delineated, in gilded march-paine, upon the banqueting dishes. (Weev. Fun. Mon. 232. ed. fol.) To make march-paine was a female accomplishment; for Drayton says (Ecl. iv.) "The silk well couth she twist and twine, And make the fine march-pane." It appears from Nichols's Progresses of James the First (i. 597), that certain cooks, and the apothecary of the King, sent each a marchpane, for a new year's gift, in 1605-6. The King sent his picture, in return, to Mr. Bailiff Sparrow; a custom which seems to have succeeded that of acknowledging such gifts by presents of plate. The following is a very extraordinary case: "May 7th, 1762. In the paper of this date is an account of a most extraordinary case of affliction in a family at Wattisham, attested by Dr. Wollaston of Bury, and various magistrates, in which a family, consisting of a mother and five children, being first seized with a pain in one of their legs, they all of them, in the course of a few mortification ensued, and it was necessary to days, lost the use of their lower limbs; a perform amputation upon the whole of them; and, what is remarkable, during this affliction, they all of them appeared to be in perfect health, and suffered very little pain." p. 162. 44 REVIEW.-English Monastic Libraries. have been deemed a martyr. Historical criticism should always go back to contemporary ideas. It is well known, that in those days few or no laymen were either sufficiently learned or intellectual to conduct the high offices of state; and that, in those days, the clerks were, in the main, lawyers also. In the present times, public business cannot be conducted in either house of parliament without a commixture of lawyers. Wolsey was a clever business man, useful to his sovereign, and valued by him because obsequious. In a clerk of those days pedigree was not regarded, because it was not expected. "Yeomen," says Holinshed, sent their sons to the universities," and Thomas Cromwell and Wolsey were mere pet dogs of sovereigns, whom they could victimate when political necessity required, without any public feeling being interested in their behalf, unless they were saints also. It is certain that Wolsey raised himself, and that if he had favour he had also merit; Piers Gaveston, on the contrary, was a royal favourite, and it was evidently a preference to which office did not entitle him. 66 It has been observed by men who know the army and navy well, that, if mobs are scientifically managed, it has often been by deserters. We know such a man, who shot dead a constable in broad daylight, fled to a navigable river adjacent, unloosed an anchored barge, landed on the other side, concealed himself in a large wood, and by nocturnal progresses reached a coalmine in Glamorganshire, where he lay secreted for weeks; and though three of his gang were hanged, as aiders and abettors, has eluded pursuit from that day to this. There can be little doubt, therefore, of the following story: April 21st, 1787, Richard Kedgson was hanged at Rushmere; when he made the extraordinary confession, that he had enlisted forty-nine times into different regiments in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and had obtained 397 guineas, as bountymoney, thereby."-p. 363. The mischief of pseudo-patriots is, that they make rascals wholesale by the hundreds, when they hold their tumultuous assemblages; and in like manner a deserter, like Robin Hood, will organize a gang of banditti with most annoying success, at least for a Considerable period. [Jan. In p. 428, we have a wood-cut of an oaken chest of great antiquity, curiously carved, in bas-relief; which chest contains the corporation records. It is certain, that the costumes of the figures may be found in the fourteenth century; that two of them have the long pole-axe, which Dr. Meyrick makes the distinction of a general; that one is an archer, with a quiver of arrows; and that all are soldiers, except one, who holds in his hand a large bird. From the principal figure being in the act of sheathing his sword, some victory may have been the subject, for he is plainly narrating news to the others. Perhaps it was some matter in which the Ipswich men had a concern. Our author states, p. 389, that Edward III. after the battle of Cressy, in 1338, confirmed at Walton, in the vicinity, the charters of Ipswich; and taking into consideration the uses to which the chest is applied, we conceive that the carving may have been intended to commemorate that event. We here leave this work, with feelings of high satisfaction; and warmly recommend it. English Monastic Libraries. I. A Catalogue of the Library of the Priory of Bretton, in Yorkshire. 11. Notices of the Libraries belonging to other Religious Houses. By the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A. 4to.pp. xii. 30. Nichols and Son. IF it were proper courtesy to speak so of a small tract like the present, compared with the larger works of an eminent author, we should say that the elegant manner in which a subject that seems to possess a confined interest, has been treated by Mr. Hunter in the tract before us, is highly creditable to his acknowledged abilities. The former of the articles described in the title, is taken from the Chartulary of the Priory of Bretton, “preserved in the library of a neighbouring family;" and being printed for insertion in a topographical work nearly ready for publication, the editor has acted wisely in subtracting from that book which has a different general subject, the valuable facts and observations with which he was able to illustrate it; and thus to contribute a considerable body of information on an important part of Literary History, which has not yet received sufficient attention from the learned. |