feet. 40 86 From western door to the transept 206 Total interior length.......................860 96 40 40 knows whither. Its grand series of, see Abbey and Cathedral Churches: magnificent tombs and monuments its dimensions are as follow: were broken to pieces; a few were certainly preserved in the Museum, but by far the most valuable, that is, the most antient, were so irreparably injured as not to be recognizable; but we may judge from some of their remains now in the abbey-yard, their alabaster decorated with coloured glass in Mosaic, the gold, the blue, the vermilion, and the violet, how delightful they were. Not even the renown of Turenne, or of the great Henri himself, could preserve their remains from profanation, and their bodies were found to be in so perfect a state, that the features were unaltered; from the beard of the Monarch a soldier cut a lock of hair, with which forming a pair of mustachios, he exclaimed, "I am the conqueror of the enemies of France; I fly to victory!" But the rifling of its treasures was not the only injury sustained by this venerable fabric, for its roof was torn off, its ailes were converted to granaries, a market was held in its nave,and horses, cows, sheep, and pigs, profaned for years its hallowed precincts, till the policy of Napoleon put a stop to these horrors, ordaining that a thorough reparation should forthwith commence, and in 1806 he issued the following decree: "The Church of St. Denis is consecrated to become the sepulchre of Emperors. A chapter composed of ten canons is charged to officiate in that Church. These canons are to be chosen from among the Bishops, aged more than sixty years, and who are not able to fulfil their episcopal functions. They shall enjoy in that retreat the honours, prerogatives, and treatment, appertaining to the episcopal dignity. The Grand Almoner of his Majesty is chief of the Chapter." The same decree also ordered, that four Chapels should be anade in the Church, three destined to contain tables of marble inscribed with the names of the kings of the three races, and the fourth chapel to become the sepulchre of "the Empe rors." The interior of the Church receives considerably too much light from its vast windows, now, alas! shorn of their gloriously coloured glass, which also adds to its appearance of being shorter than we are accustomed to Do. of ailes....................... 16 The repairs begun by Buonaparte have been continued by Louis the Eighteenth and Charles the Tenth at an immense expence ; a large “chapelle expiatoire" has been erected on the south side of the nave, in perfect conformity with that part of the edifice, which does great credit to the architectural taste and skill of the builders. The monuments which were preserved are fast regaining their ancient stations; the tomb of Dagobert (in the 13th century style) and that of his Queen directly opposite, we see immediately upon entering. In Chapels on the sides of the nave, are the soperb marble tombs of Louis the Twelfth, Henri the Second, and Francis the First, and above the shrine containing what are said to be the relics of St. Denis, is suspended the renowned Oriflamme, the military banner of the abbey, when its Abbot armed its vassals in defence of its estates, on which occasions the Lord of the Manor of Vexin was standard bearer in right of his Manor. In 1088, Vexin becoming the property of the Crown, Philippe the First, in his right as Count of Vexin, and to show his veneration for the Apostle of France, on commencing the first crusade, went in procession to St. Denis, and received the Oriflamme from the hands of the Abbot, when from that time it became the banner of France, till the reign of Charles the Seventh, when it fled so often before the armies of England that it lost its dignity as the national standard, and resigned its place to the white flag of the heroic Joan of Arc. These, Sir, are a few notes I have put together to accompany the engraving, and such of your readers as wish for a further account of this interesting edifice, may see some wellwritten papers upon the subject, which I remember reading in one of your Mr. URBAN, IN May 9. N Sept. 1814 I communicated a short account of Bremhill in Wilts, the residence of the Rev. W. L. Bowles, which you inserted in the Magazine for that month, p. 203. A subsequent visit to the same favoured spot has given me the opportunity of transcribing two or three inscriptions, added since my former account, which for their elegance will deserve preservation. Near the Cascade, mentioned in the former account, p. 204, are the following lines: "As the rill that gushing near "Dost thou lament the dead, and mourn Of many friends, O think upon the Cross." In a corner of the Church-yard, which commands a beautiful view of the country, to a considerable distance, the following elegant lines are inscribed upon a small tablet: "Here rest the village dead, and here too I, When yonder dial points the hour, must lie. Look round, the distant prospect is display'd Like life's fair landscape, mark'd with light and shade. Stranger, in peace pursue thy onward road, An anecdote is connected with this inscription, which I record with pleasure, as affording a genuine trait of rural simplicity. A stranger passing by the place, after reading the inscription, was naturally desirous to know the author of lines so unexpectedly good in so retired a spot. The only person in view being the Sexton, who was digging a grave, he was called, and greeted with the question, "Pray who wrote those beautiful lines?" The answer was, "the Carpenter." "Carpenter? what a carpenter of this village." "Yes, our Carpenter." Stranger! "But are you sure he wrote them." Aye, Sir, quite sure. knows he did." No further infor ELEVEN gold British coins were lately found by a shepherd boy, in the parish of Wycombe, Bucks; whilst trying to catch a mole, he took up an oblong flint, and began to dig, when two of the coins dropt from an aperture at the least end, and on breaking the stone nine more were found. The stone in size and shape resembled a swan's egg, though rather flatter. The whole of the coins weighed about two ounces. There was an uniformity of execution in them all, and a great similarity in the impressions, especially on the reverse, yet in some degree they varied from each other. Similar coins are engraved in Ruding's Coinage, British Series, Pl. II. No. 37 and 38. On one side were a horse, the sun, &c. Mr. Ruding says, these coins are usually denominated British; though he acknowledges that we have no positive evidence to justify their appropriation to this Island. They are found chiefly, but not exclusively, in Britain. The situation of the hill, on which the coins were found, has a claim to public notice; not only as it presents from its summit one of the richest and most varied landscapes in the county (the details of which it may not be necessary to give), but as it bears evident traces of having been a British or Roman station, The vestige of an outwork remains. There are two fosses on the north and east sides, where the hill is very sloping, each forming the segment of a circle; and the south and west sides of the station, on one con tinued level, was flanked by a large beech wood, a part of which is still standing. IA few years ago a chalk pit was opened on the east side of the hill near the bottom, and when a few yards into it was cleared away, a stratum of flint was discovered in a solid bed of chalk (for the hill chiefly consists of that material), and running for several yards in an horizontal direction, about three or four feet from the surface, and a foot below it another layer of flint in a parallel line with the upper one. The whole of the flints were completely flat, and about the thickness of a house tile. Some of your intelligent readers, Mr. Urban, may be able to assign a probable cause for the regularity of the position of the flints, and their polished and smooth flatness, where no evident marks appear of the bed of chalk having been before disturbed. W.S. YOUR Mr. URBAN, June 12. YOUR Correspondent COL. MACDONALD, p. 409, will accept the acknowledgments of most of your readers for his very interesting communication on the "Cremation of Hindoo Widows," in which he gives us a concise view of the Indian Laws, shewing that this practice has no legal authority, but has arisen rather from the self-interest of parties, benefited by the female's death, and by the sinister persecutions of the priesthood. If these laws recommend to a widow an austerity of life, they could never so inconsistently ordain her self-immolation, and therefore the persuasion of any priest that she should enjoy millions of years of future bliss for this act, which is a violation of their law, must be an offence which, like the sacrifice itself, should be abolished. If their laws do not ordain it, and the Soodheekou moode declares it " murder for a son to set fire to his living mother," then every son, and impliedly every other person assisting, is guilty of being an accessary and party in the crime, which extends to every one who either persuades or prepares her for the sacrifice, or adds fuel or flame to the fatal pile! But Mr. Macdonald also tells us that if she shrinks from it, she incurs a penalty of the value of 2s. 6d. ; but it is directed that her neighbours should treat her as before;" therefore their laws merely in this recognise the custom, but afford it no sanction; on the contrary, the prejudice is compromised by a small penalty, and by protecting the reluctant victim from future contempt. Taking it be correct to state these victims at 1000 yearly, this is to us an alarming number, yet it bears a small proportion to the 40 millions of female population in India; and it is also well known that there is a village on the Ganges where such widows have found a retired asylum, and where they enjoy the restricted consolations of each others' society; by all which, and by the reports of the Missionary Societies, we learn that the number of these victims have of late years much decreased. I have noticed these points with a view to advance the principle, that any effectual measure of our Legisla ture, (ever carefully and wisely regarding the religious feelings of others,) for wholly subverting by gradual means this unjust and inhuman practice, would not be contrary to their own laws-that any examination whether she be in her sober senses, is but extorting from her an unwilling consent and that the interest of the parties exciting it, should be exposed and prosecuted. This would perhaps be a just ground for the interference of our Legislature, either in the way of a Statute, or of instructions to the Board of Control, and from them to the Directors, and thence to the Indian Presidencies. Another motive would also give sanction to such a measure, if it can be found that the practice is forbidden by the Law of God; for as the ancient law was promulgated in the East, and as the children of Shem are dwelling under the dispensation given to their patriarch Noah, and have respect to the subsequent institutions of the Mosaic Law, it would render essential service to the cause in view, if the attention of the native population, and of the scholars in the College at Calcutta, were particularly drawn to the following passages of Holy Writ. At the hand of man, and at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man: whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man. Gen. ix. 6. Thou shalt not kill. Exod. xx. 13. But more particularly human sacrifices are forbidden in strong and unequivocal terms; for it was the practice in Canaan, and it was foreseen by Moses, that the Israelites would be ensnared to adopt it. Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God; for every abomination to the Lord which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. Deut. xii. 31. See Lev. xvii. 1, 7; xviii. 21, 30, and xx. 2; Deut. xviii. 10. David, in lamenting the sins of their ancestors, says, that they sacrificed their sons and daughters unto devils, and shed their innocent blood to the idols of Canaan. Ps. cvi. 38. The abhorrence of it, which God was thus pleased to express, was taught to the Ísraelites, in order that it might be equally condemned to all subsequent nations (see Hewlett, i. 492); and it has therefore been repeatedly reprobated by their prophets in the most Thou shalt not let pointed manner. any of thy seed pass through the fire to Moloch- -even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among See H. Horne, iii. their people, &c. 128. To their sacrifices is added dancing and music before the idol, at every Hindoo feast, and also when human victims are offered; so among the Ammonites and Phenicians they were immolated to propitiate Moloch and Baal, and some to pass through the fire, denoting some rite of dedication and purification expressly forbidden by the Levitical Law; how much more must the prohibition be manifest, when the ceremony is extended to cruel and undeserved death by this fiery torture; as is above stated! It was one of the crimes of Ahaz, that he had done this thing to his own son! 2 K. xvi. 3. Ezekiel made it also the subject of one of his strongest denunciations against Jerusalem, that they had delivered their sons and daughters to be thus sacrificed. Ez. xvi. 20. Ez. xx. 26-31. The Egyptians also had several cities termed Typhonian, where at particular seasons similar sacrifices were offered, at Heliopolis, at Idithya, Abarci, and Busiris. That objects thus devoted, were burnt alive upon a high altar, and thus sacrificed for the good of the people; but even this pretence is not avowed in India-and it has never appeared that the offering is proposed but as a devotedness of the widow to her husband alone; and his selfish pride learns to expect this until his death! At the conclusion of these Canaanitish sacrifices, the priests collected the ashes and scattered them in the air, most likely with a view that where any of the dust were wafted, a blessing might be entertained: but by a just retribution, the same thing was done in Egypt for a punishment, that where any the smallest portion alighted, it might prove a plague and a curse to the ungrateful, cruel, and infatuated Egyptians. These were as a designed contrast in the workings of Providence, and an apparent opposition to the superstition of those times. See Bryant's Plagues, p. 116. Prevalence of Sacr. pt. i. c. i. s. 4. H. Horne, iii. 365. For a description of the sacrifices to Moloch, I must refer to Calmet. And the further records of the sacred history, 1 Kings, xi. 7, 33; 2 K. xi. 13; xxi. 3, 4; and the reproof of them by the first Christian Martyr, Acts vii. 43. There seems to us no idolatry so unaccountable as that which requires personal sacrifices accompanied by life: for the surviving children are left to the mere chance of protection-their mother's care is wholly taken from them, and they are left comfortless orphans without any protector on earth; even if the victim is willing to yield up her life in the beginning of her days, yet she is suffered thus to desert her own offspring, upon a fanatical and uncertain expectation of bliss -instead of living to instruct and form them for the welfare of the State, she yields them to perhaps very incapable or unworthy guardians! It seems little else than a continuation of the same frenzy, which deceived the ancient Zidonians, Ammonites, and Moabites, the children of incest and ignorance of God! Frantic idolatry, rejection of God, and self-destruction, seem to have constituted the ancient pedigree of their incestuous root! It may be humbly lamented that in so long a period in human affairs, the advancing light of truth should not yet have eradicated from its deep recesses in Hindoostan, the same abominations; but it has probably been reserved for the approaching accomplishment of that light, to put down all obscurities! It is for legislative wisdom to adopt with caution measures which, while they defeat idolatry of its artifice and splendour, and selfishness and avarice of their secret designs, shall forbear a upon national pretoo hasty attack judice, which would totally reverse the Hond Madam, Edmton, Sept. 24, [16]89. Just now I received your Lap letter; since my last and not before, I understand ye great averseness of ye parish from Dr Horneck, so yt if my Lord of Bedford had liked him, I could not have thought it fit, knowing how necessary it is to ye good effect of a man's ministry, y' he do not lye under any great prejudices wth ye people. The two whom ye Bp of Chichester hath named are, I think, of y worthiest of ye City min, since Mr. Kidder declines it, for ye reason given by ye Br, and if he did not, could not have it, not because of any inconsistency in ye preferments, but because ye King, having so many obligations yet to answer, cannot at ye same time give two such preferments to one man. For ye two persons mentioned, if comparison must be made between two very good men, I will tell your Lap my free thoughts of thein. Mr. Williams is realy one of ye best men I know, and most unwearied in doing good, and his preaching is very weighty and judicious. The other is a truly pious man, and of a winning conversation; he preaches well, and has much ye more plausible delivery, and I think a stronger voice. Both of them, wch I had almost forgot, have been steady in all changes of of times. This is ye plain truth; and yet I must not conceal one particular and present advantage on Dr. Free man'st side. On Sunday night last ye King ask'd me concerning a City min' whose name he had forgot; but said he had a very kind remembrance of him, having had much conversation wth him, w his Majesty was very young in Holland, and wonder'd he had never seen him since he came into England; I could not imagine who he should be, till his Ma' told me he was ye English Embassador's Chaplain above 20 years ago, meaning SW Temple's; upon yt I presently knew it was Dr Freeman; ye King said yt was his name, and desired me to find him out and tell him he had not forgotten him, but remember'd with pleasure ye acquaintance he had with him many years ago, and had charged me, wa there was an opportunity, to put him in mind of him. This I thought both great goodness in ye King, and modesty in Mr Freeman, never to shew himself to ye King all ys while. By y' your Lap will judge who is like to be most acceptable to ye King, whose satisfaction as well as service I am obliged to regard, especialy in ye disposal of his own preferments; though Mr. Williams be much more my friend, I mention'd Mr Johnson again, but his Ma put on other discourse: and my Lord Privy Seal told me yesterday morning yt ye King thought it a little hard to give pensions out of his own purse, instead of Ch. preferments, and tells me Mr Johnsont is very sharp upon me, his Lop called it railing, but it shall not move me in ye least. His Lop ask'd me if it would not be well to move ye King to give him a good Brick in Ireland, there being several void; I thought it very well if it would Dr. John Williams, afterwards Bp. of Chichester. Dunton's character of him is as follows: "This pious and learned Prelate was formerly Rector of St. Mildred's, Poultry, where I had the happiness to be personally known to him; and I have had the honour to wait on his Lordship since his deserved advancement. I call it deserved, as Bp. Williams was one whom no Friends, but his own merits; no Party, but that of Virtue; no mean adulation, but solid worth and distinguishing goodness, raised to that place; and this advancement was with so uncontested a desert, that it would have argued negligence in King William (whose care was to promote men of his moderate principles) to have suffered his continuing among the crowd of the world. And may his Lordship go on as he has begun, to preside over his Province with a gravity of admonition, exemplariness of conversation, and integrity of discipline, till the Great Bishop of Souls shall remove him from his Palace at Chichester to the New Jerusalem!" + Dr. Freeman and Mr. Johnson are commended by Dunton, among numerous other ́eminent conformists, in his "Life and Errors," 1818, p. 675. ! |