menu_book Chapter 4

chapter four of highways and byways in sussex this librivox recording is in the public domain recording by peter yearsley highways and byways in sussex by e v lucas chapter four chichester i have already quoted some lines by collins on otway it is time to come to collins himself when music heavenly maid was young while yet in early greece she sung the passions oft to hear her shell thronged around her magic cell the perfect ode which opens with these unforgettable lines belongs to chichester for william collins was born there on christmas day seventeen twenty one and educated there at the prebendal school until he went to winchester william collins was the son of the mayor of chichester a hatter from whom pope's friend carroll brought his hats i have no wish to tell here the sad story of collins life it is better to remember that few as are his odes they are all of gold he died at chichester in seventeen fifty nine and was buried in st andrew's church with eyes upraised as one inspired pale melancholy sat retired

and from her wild sequestered seat in notes by distance made more sweet poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul and dashing soft from rocks around bubbling runnels joined the sound Thro'o glades and glooms the mingled measure stole, Or o'er some haunted stream with fond delay, Round and wholly calm diffusing Love of peace and lonely musing

In hollow murmurs died away. Collins is Chichester's great poet. She had a very agreeable minor poet, too, in George Smith, One of the three smiths, all artists, William, born in 1707, painter of portraits and of fruit and flower-pieces, and George and John,

born in 1713 and 1717, who painted landscapes, known collectively as the Smiths of Chichester. I mention them rather on account of George Smith's poetical experiments than for the brothers' fame as artists, but there is such a pleasant flavour in one at least of his pastorals that I have copied a portion of it. It is called The Country Lovers, or Isaac and Margit, Going to Town on a Summer's Morning. The town is probably Chichester, certainly one in Sussex and near

the Downs. Isaac speaks first. "'Come, Margit, come! The team is at the gate. Not ready yet. You always make me wait.' I omit a certain amount of the dialogue which follows, but at last Margaret exclaims, "'Well, now I'm ready. Long I have not stayed.' Isaac

"'One kiss before we go, my pretty maid.' Margaret "'Go! Don't be foolish, Isaac. Get away. Who loiters now? I thought I could not stay. There, that's enough. Why, Isaac, sure you're mad.' Isaac

"'One more, my dearest girl.' be quiet lad see both my cap and hair are rumpled o'er the tying of my beads is got before is there let it stay thy brighter blush to show which shames the cherry-coloured silken bow thy lips which seem the scarlet's hue to steal are sweeter than the candied lemon-peel marget pray take these chickens for me to the cart dear little creatures how it grieves my heart to see them tied that never knew a crime and formed so fine a flock at feeding-time the pretty poem ends with fervid protestations of devotion from isaac for thee the press with apple-juice shall foam for thee the bees shall quit their honeycomb for thee the elder's purple fruit shall grow for thee the pails with cream shall overflow but see yon team's returning from the town wind in the chalky wheel-ruts o'er the down we now must haste for if we longer stay they'll meet us ere we leave the narrow way

another of chichester's illustrious sons is archbishop juxton who stood by the side of charles i on the scaffold and bade farewell to him in the words you are exchanging from a temporal to an eternal crown a good exchange yet another of a very different type is john hardham when they talked of their raphaels correggios and stuff wrote goldsmith of sir joshua reynolds he shifted his trumpet and only took snuff had it not been for chichester the great painter might never have had the second of these consolations for the only snuff he liked was hardham's number thirty seven and hardham was a native of chichester before he became famous as a tobacconist hardham was by night a numberer of the pit for garrick at drury lane one day he happened to blend dutch and rappee and poured the mixture into a drawer labelled thirty-seven garrick so liked the pinch of it which he chanced upon that he introduced a reference to its merits in some of his comic parts with the result that hardham's little shop in fleet street soon became a resort and no nose was properly furnished without number thirty-seven

as colton wrote in his hypocrisy a name is all from garrick's breath a puff of praise gave immortality to snuff since which each connoisseur a transient heaven finds in each pinch of hardham's thirty-seven the wealth that came to the tobacconist he left to the city of chichester to relieve it of certain of its poor rates and the citizens still magnify hardham's name he died in seventeen seventy two and had the good sense to restrict the expense of his funeral to ten pounds chichester was the scene of a pleasant incident recorded by leslie in his autobiographical recollections he was staying with wilkie at petworth the guest of their patron and the patron of so many other painters lord egremont of whom we shall learn more when petworth is reached they all drove over to chichester after a visit to goodwood lord egremont says leslie had some business to transact at chichester but one of his objects was to show us a young girl the daughter of an upholsterer who was devoted to painting and considered to be a genius by her friends

she was not at home but her mother said she could soon be found if his lordship would have the goodness to wait a short time the young lady soon appeared breathless and exhausted with running lord egremont mentioned our names and she said looking up to wilkie with an expression of great respect oh sir it was but yesterday i had your head in my hands this puzzled him as he did not know she was a phrenologist and what bumps did you find said lord egremont the organ of veneration very large was her answer and wilkie making her a profound bow said madam i have a great veneration for genius she showed us an unfinished picture from the bride of lammermoor the figure of lucy ashton was completed and she told us was the portrait of a young friend of hers but ravenswood was without a head and this she explained by saying there are no handsome men in chichester but she continued her countenance brightening the tenth are expected here soon the tenth was noted for its handsome officers leslie does not carry the story farther

whether poor ravenswood ever gained his head whether if he did so it was a military one or as a last resource a chichester one and where the picture if completed now is i do not know nor have i succeeded in discovering any more of the young lady but passing through the streets of the town i was conscious of the absence of the tenth chichester is a perfect example of an english rural capital thronged on market days with tilt carts each bringing a farmer or farmer's wife and rich in those well-stored ironmongers shops that one never sees elsewhere but it is more than this it is also a cathedral town with the ever-present sense of domination by the cloth even when the cloth is not visible chichester has its roughs and its public-houses mr hudson in his nature in downland gives them a caustic chapter it also has its race week every july and barracks within hail yet it is always a cathedral town whatever noise may be in the air you know in your heart that quietude is its true characteristic

one might say that above the loudest street cries you are continually conscious of the silence of the close chichester's cathedral is not among the most beautiful or the most interesting but there is none cooler it dates from the eleventh century and contains specimens of almost every kind of church architecture but the spire is comparatively new having been built in eighteen sixty six to take the place of its predecessor which suddenly dropped like an extinguisher five years before seen from the channel it rises a friendly landmark white or grey according to the clouds and while walking on the downs above or on the plain around one is frequently pleased to catch an unexpected glimpse of its tapering beauty i have heard it said that chichester is the only english cathedral that is visible at sea within the cathedral is disappointing offering one neither richness on the one hand nor the charm of pure severity on the other a cathedral must either be plain or coloured and chichester comes short of both ideals it has no colour and no purity its proportions are however exquisite and it is impossible to remain here long without passing under the spell of the stone

yet had it one feels only radiance how much finer it would be for the completest contrast to the vastness of the cathedral one may cross into north street and enter the portal of the toy church of st which dates from the fourteenth century and is remarkable not only for its minuteness but as being one of the churches of chichester which in my experience is not normally locked and barred that chichester was built by the romans in the geometrical roman way you may see as you look down from the bell tower upon its four main streets north south east and west east becoming stain street and running direct to london chichester then was regnum on the departure of the romans chissa son of ella took possession and the name was changed to chissa's caastri hence chichester remnants of the old walls still stand and a path has been made on the portion running from north street down to west gate more attractive because more human than the cathedral itself are its precincts the long resounding cloisters

the still discreet lanes populous with clerics and most of all that little terrace of ecclesiastical residences parallel with south street in the shadow of the mighty fane covered with creeping greenness from wistaria to with minute windows inviolable front doors and trim front gardens which like all similar settlements remind one of almshouses carried out to the highest power surely the best of places in which to edit horace afresh or find new meanings in st augustine there is a tendency for the cathedral to absorb all the attention of the traveller but chichester has other beauties including the market cross which is a mere child of stone dating only from the reign of henry the eighth saint mary's hospital in north street and the remains of the monastery of the grey friars in the priory park young chichester now plays cricket where of old the monks caught fish and performed their duties it was probably on the mound that their calvary stood the last time i climbed it was to watch bonner the australian giant practising in the nets below too many years ago

like all cathedral towns chichester has beautiful gardens as one may see from the campanile there are no lawns like the lawns of bishops deans and colleges and few flower-beds more luxuriantly stocked chichester also has a number of grave solid houses such as miss austen's characters might have lived in at least one superb specimen of the art of sir christopher wren a masterpiece of substantial red brick and a noble inn the dolphin where one dines in the assembly-room a relic of the good times before inns became hotels we have some glimpses of old chichester in the reminiscences about seventeen twenty to seventeen thirty of james spurshot a chichester baptist elder who died in seventeen eighty nine aged eighty i quote a passage here and there from his paper of recollections printed in the sussex archaeological collections spinning of household linen was in use in most families also making their own bread and likewise their own household physic no tea but much industry and good cheer

the bacon racks were loaded with bacon for little pork was made in these times the farmers wives and daughters were plain in dress and made no such gay figures in our market as nowadays at christmas the whole constellation of patty-pans which adorned their chimney-fronts were taken down the spit the pot the oven were all in use together the evenings spent in jollity and their glass guns smoking toped the tumbler with the froth of good october till most of them were slain or wounded and the prince of orange and queen anne's marlborough could no longer be resounded here is mr spurshot's account of a chichester calamity juno page esq native of this city, coming from London to stand candidate here, a great number of voters went on horseback to meet him. Among the rest, Mr. Joshua Lover, a noted schoolmaster, a sober man in the

general, but of flighty passions. As he was setting out, one of his scholars, Patty Smith, afterwards my spouse, asked him for a copy, and in haste he wrote the following, extremes beget extremes extremes avoid extremes without extremes are not enjoyed he set off in high carrier and turning down rook's hill before the square riding like a madman to and fro forward and backward hallooing among the company the horse at full speed fell with him and killed him a caution to the flighty and unsteady and a verification of his copy again robert madlock a most profane swearer being employed in cleaning the outside of the steeple fell owing to a breaking rope and soon after died mr spurshot adds a warning to swearers

another entry states in my younger years there were many very large corpulent persons in the city both of men and women i could now recite by name between twenty and thirty the greater part of that number so prodigious that like other animals thoroughly fatted they could hardly move about one of chichester's epitaphs runs thus here lies a true soldier whom all must applaud much hardship he suffered at home and abroad but the hardest engagement he ever was in was the battle of self in the conquest of sin i have left until the last the prettiest thing in this city of comely streets and houses st mary's hospital at the end of lyon street out of north street the quaintest almshouse in the world the building stands back behind the ordinary houses and is gained by a passage and a courtyard you then enter what seems to be a church for at the far end is an altar beneath an unmistakably ecclesiastical window but when the first feeling of surprise has passed you discover that there is only a small chancel at the east end of the building

on either side of which are little dwellings each of these is occupied by a nice little old woman who has two rooms very minute and cosy with a little supply of faggots close at hand and all the dignity of a householder although the occupant only of an infinitesimal toy house within a house how do they agree one wonders these little old ladies of a touchy age under their great roof different accounts are given of the origin of st mary's hospital mr lower says that it was founded in twelve twenty nine for a chaplain and thirteen beadsmen in fifteen sixty two a warden and five inmates were the prescribed occupants now there are eight sets of rooms each with its demure tenant all of whom troop into the little chapel at fixed hours mrs evans sacristan who does the honours would tell me nothing as to the process of selection by which she and the seven other occupants came to be living there all that she could say was that she was very happy to be a hospitaller and that by no possibility could one of the little domiciles ever fall to me

End of chapter 4