LONDON ANTIQUES
by Washington Irving
- I do walk
Methinks like Guido Vaux, with my dark lanthorn,Stealing to set the town o' fire; i' th' countryI should be taken for William o' the Wisp,Or Robin Goodfellow.
FLETCHER.
I AM somewhat of an antiquity hunter, and am fond of exploringLondon in quest of the relics of old times. These are principally tobe found in the depths of the city, swallowed up and almost lost ina wilderness of brick and mortar; but deriving poetical and romanticinterest from the commonplace prosaic world around them. I wasstruck with an instance of the kind in the course of a recent summerramble into the city; for the city is only to be explored to advantagein summer time, when free from the smoke and fog, and rain and mudof winter. I had been buffeting for some time against the current ofpopulation setting through Fleet-street. The warm weather had unstrungmy nerves, and made me sensitive to every jar and jostle anddiscordant sound. The flesh was weary, the spirit faint, and I wasgetting out of humor with the bustling busy throng through which I hadto struggle, when in a fit of desperation I tore my way through thecrowd, plunged into a by lane, and after passing through severalobscure nooks and angles, emerged into a quaint and quiet court with agrassplot in the centre, overhung by elms, and kept perpetuallyfresh and green by a fountain with its sparkling jet of water. Astudent with book in hand was seated on a stone bench, partly reading,partly meditating on the movements of two or three trim nurserymaids with their infant charges.
I was like an Arab, who had suddenly come upon an oasis amid thepanting sterility of the desert. By degrees the quiet and coolnessof the place soothed my nerves and refreshed my spirit. I pursued mywalk, and came, hard by to a very ancient chapel, with a low-browedSaxon portal of massive and rich architecture. The interior wascircular and lofty, and lighted from above. Around were monumentaltombs of ancient date, on which were extended the marble effigies ofwarriors in armor. Some had the hands devoutly crossed upon thebreast; others grasped the pommel of the sword, menacing hostilityeven in the tomb!- while the crossed legs of several indicatedsoldiers of the Faith who had been on crusades to the Holy Land.
I was, in fact, in the chapel of the Knights Templars, strangelysituated in the very centre of sordid traffic; and I do not know amore impressive lesson for the man of the world than thus suddenlyto turn aside from the highway of busy money-seeking life, and sitdown among these shadowy sepulchres, where all is twilight, dust,and forgetfulness.
In a subsequent tour of observation, I encountered another ofthese relics of a "foregone world" locked up in the heart of the city.
I had been wandering for some time through dull monotonous streets,destitute of any thing to strike the eye or excite the imagination,when I beheld before me a Gothic gateway of mouldering antiquity. Itopened into a spacious quadrangle forming the court-yard of astately Gothic pile, the portal of which stood invitingly open.
It was apparently a public edifice, and as I was antiquityhunting, I ventured in, though with dubious steps. Meeting no oneeither to oppose or rebuke my intrusion, I continued on until Ifound myself in a great hall, with a lofty arched roof and oakengallery, all of Gothic architecture. At one end of the hall was anenormous fireplace, with wooden settles on each side; at the other endwas a raised platform, or dais, the seat of state, above which was theportrait of a man in antique garb, with a long robe, a ruff, and avenerable gray beard.
The whole establishment had an air of monastic quiet andseclusion, and what gave it a mysterious charm, was, that I had notmet with a human being since I had passed the threshold.
Encouraged by this loneliness, I seated myself in a recess of alarge bow window, which admitted a broad flood of yellow sunshine,checkered here and there by tints from panes of colored glass; whilean open casement let in the soft summer air. Here, leaning my headon my hand, and my arm on an old oaken table, I indulged in a sortof reverie about what might have been the ancient uses of thisedifice. It had evidently been of monastic origin; perhaps one ofthose collegiate establishments built of yore for the promotion oflearning, where the patient monk, in the ample solitude of thecloister, added page to page and volume to volume, emulating in theproduction of his brain the magnitude of the pile he inhabited.
As I was seated in this musing mood, a small panelled door in anarch at the upper end of the hall was opened, and a number ofgray-headed old men, clad in long black cloaks, came forth one by one;proceeding in that manner through the hall, without uttering a word,each turning a pale face on me as he passed, and disappearingthrough a door at the lower end.
I was singularly struck with their appearance; their black cloaksand antiquated air comported with the style of this most venerable andmysterious pile. It was as if the ghosts of the departed years,about which I had been musing, were passing in review before me.
Pleasing myself with such fancies, I set out, in the spirit ofromance, to explore what I pictured to myself a realm of shadows,existing in the very centre of substantial realities.