The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 552, June 16, 1832

ST. PANCRAS OLD CHURCH

(To the Editor.)

In No. 546, of The Mirror, you gave a History of Old Saint Pancras Church. Will you allow me to say that it is not at a Church in the South of France, where prayers are said for the souls of those that are buried here, but at the Church of St. Peter, at Rome. A writer in the Morning Herald of August, 1825, states thus: "The History of the Old Church of Saint Pancras is not a little singular; it is one of the oldest in the county of Middlesex, and the parish it belongs to one of the largest, being eighteen miles in circumference. The name was sent from Rome by the Pope, expressly for this church, which has the only general Catholic burial ground in England; and mass is daily said in St. Peter's, at Rome, for the repose of the souls of the faithful, whose bodies are deposited therein; and it was also the last church in England whose bell tolled for mass, or in which any Catholic rites were celebrated. A few months ago an Italian showed me an Italian prayer-book, in which was a coloured drawing of St. Pancras Church; he told me it was held in great veneration at Rome, and prayers are said daily in St. Peter's, for its prosperity, and it is considered to be the oldest church now standing in Europe." A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1749, states thus: "Christ's sacred altar here first Britain saw. Saint Pancras is included in that land granted by Ethelbert, the fifth King of Kent, to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, about the year 603. The first mention that has been found to be made of this church, occurs in the year 1183; but it does not appear whether it was, or was not, of recent erection."

It is said there was a silver tomb in this church, which was probably taken away at the time of the commonwealth. About a mile from the church, in a field in Kentish Town, is the Gospel Oak, under which, tradition says, that Saint Austin, or one of his monks, preached. Near the church was a medicinal spa, which once attained some celebrity under the name of St. Pancras' Well, and was held in such estimation as to occasion great resort of company to it during the season. It is said the water was tasteless, but had a slight cathartic property.

Dr. Stukely, in a work published in 1756, says there was a Roman camp where St. Pancras Church stands.

The old church was repaired in 1827, when the old gallery was taken down. It was reopened under the name of St. Pancras Chapel, August 1828, by the Rev. James Moore, L.L.D., the Vicar; on which occasion he delivered a lecture, in which he gave a history of the church.

Since the year 1822, five new churches have been erected in this parish: the New St. Pancras Church, Euston-square; Regent Church, Sidmouth-street; Somers Church, Seymour-street; Camden Church, Pratt-street; and Highgate Church, on the Hill.

The first Bishop of Calcutta, the Rev. Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, D.D. was Vicar of St. Pancras. He died of a stroke of the sun, on the 8th of July, 1822. A Parishioner of St. Pancras.

MARY OF CAMBRIA.—A SONNET

(For the Mirror.)

 
There was a maiden once would come and sit
Upon our mountain, the long summer day;
And watch'd the sun, till he had beauteous lit
The mist-envelop'd rocks of Mona grey:
Beneath whose base, the timid hinds would say,
Her lover perish'd; and from that dread hour,
Bereft of reason's mind ennobling ray,
Poor Mary droop'd: Llanellian's fairest flower!
Why gazeth she thus lone; can those soft eyes
Interpret aught in each dim cloud above?
Yes, there's more joy in her wild phantasies
Than reasons in its sober power could prove.
List to her wild laugh now; she smiles and cries,
It is my William's form; he beckons from you skies.
 

The Author of a Tradesman's Lays ⁴

This little metrical record is founded on fact. In the year 1808, a young female visited the grey, sterile mountain tract of Cefu Ogo, in Denbighshire, each day successively for two months. Her lover, who was a seaman on board one of the Welsh traders, had often met her there, and a tranquil, uninterrupted walk it afforded them, for exchanging the reciprocities of their mutual affection. He was lost not far from the iron-bound coast of Carnarvonshire, but nearer towards Anglesea. I saw her frequently, and her demeanour was most peaceable, except towards the evening, when her benighted fancy would conjure up a variety of pleasing expressions, which were uttered in the Welsh language; and were invariably directed towards her lover, whom she often fancied was present with her. I was happy to hear, that through the kind superintendence of the late Dr. Jones, of Denbigh, she in a great measure recovered her faculties, but died two or three years after at Liverpool.

SHAKSPERIANA

(For the Mirror.)

 
"Each scene of many-colour'd life he drew
Exhausted worlds,—and then imagin'd knew."
 

JOHNSON.

So much has been said, and said so well, respecting the writings of Shakspeare and the peculiar character of his genius, that it would be a hopeless as well as a presumptuous task to attempt adding anything to public information on that head. But I know not that any one has ventured to point out a few of those instances in which our great dramatist has stooped to plagiarize. That he must have done so, at least occasionally, is a matter of course, as no voluminous writings were ever given to the world that were not the result of study as well as original thought, for genius must ever be corrected by judgment, and what is judgment but the child of experience and study? Observation alone can tell us, that man is an imitative animal, and philosophy teaches us that his ideas are not innate; he must borrow them at first in a simple form from those around him, and though by the association of these ideas, and the gradual extension and improvement of them, he may eventually generate new ones, yet some traces cannot but remain of what was originally lodged in the mind, and will come into play as occasion may call them forth. Shakspeare was a perfect master of human nature, but he was a master of our language as well; he was indeed one of those who have improved it, but he could never have himself arrived at the degree of perfection in which he found it, had he not derived assistance from others, and made himself intimately acquainted with our purest national works of talent. Thus, he could never have been so ignorant as he is said to have been of English literature.

Little is known of Shakspeare's earlier years, except that he was sent to the free school at Stratford, where he acquired the rudiments of the learned languages; that he was never a distinguished classic is certain, but it is equally certain that he must have been acquainted with the Greek dramatists by the use of translations, though he may not have had scholarship enough to study them in the original. So many parallel passages might be drawn from this source, that the task would be an endless one; besides the fact is so well known and admitted, that it would be unnecessary. "We find him," says Mr. Pope, "very knowing in all the customs of antiquity." In Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and other plays where the scene is laid at Rome, not only the spirit but the manners of the ancient Romans is exactly shown, and his reading in the ancient historians is no less conspicuous. It is well known at the universities of this country, that on any public examination, be the play either tragic or comic, the students are frequently required to produce parallel passages from the writings of Shakspeare: now it might indeed with some reason be supposed that occasionally the same ideas would present themselves to different minds, and where two writers are equally well acquainted with the nature of man, and equally skilled in analyzing his passions, it might well, I say, be supposed, that such true and acute observation would suggest similar ideas, and perhaps even the same method of defining them. Yet when this similarity is frequent instead of occasional, when the unusual peculiarity of the sentiment renders it startling and suspicious, then the above supposition becomes too extensive even for prejudice to admit. Such however is the case here, and so the matter stands between Shakspeare and the ancient dramatists. Even some of the machinery he has made use of is not his own. Thus, the seemingly ingenious introduction of "The Play" into Hamlet, is borrowed from an old Greek drama, where Alexander, the tyrant of Pharos, is struck with remorse for his crimes upon viewing similar cruelties to his own, practised upon the stage.

At that earlier period of literature when Shakspeare flourished, books were few in number, and consequently scarce; yet there can be no doubt that our author seized every opportunity of improving and strengthening his mind: whether he had any acquaintance with the modern languages is unknown, but he has certainly introduced many French scenes in his works, and he has taken several of his plots, such as that of Romeo and Juliet, from the Italians. As to his own language, he is said to have made the poems of Chaucer principally his study, so that it would not be quite fair to produce any plagiarisms from that writer; but I give the reader a few specimens of English literature taken from other quarters, which seem to have afforded Shakspeare ideas, or else matter, to work upon. The following passage is from one of our oldest dramas, and it will readily call to the recollection of the reader, the celebrated speech of Claudio in Measure for Measure:

 
"To die is sure to go we know not whither,
We lie in silent darkness, and we rot.
Perhaps the spirit, which is future life,
Dwells, salamander-like, unharm'd in fire,
Or else with wand'ring winds is blown about
The world; but if condemned like those
Whom our uncertain thought imagines howling,
Then the most loath'd and the most weary life,
Which age, ache, penury or imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a Paradise.
To what we fear of death."
 

The sentences that follow are from a small historical work I have fallen in with, written in old English, but without its date; about a fourth part of the matter contained in this little book is to be found woven into the different historical plays of Shakspeare, but the underwritten extracts are very nearly in his own words, allowing, of course, for the more poetical expression.

(Fall of Wolsey.) "Being near his end, he called Sir William Kingston to him, and said, 'Pray, present my duty to his majesty, who is a noble and gallant prince, and of a resolved mind, for he will venture the loss of his kingdom, rather than be contradicted in his desires. And now, Mr. Kingston, had I but served my God as diligently as I have served the king, he never would have forsaken me in my grey hairs!'" (Compare this with Cardinal Wolsey's speech to Cromwell, Henry VIII., Act iii.)

Amongst other particulars in this book, concerning Richard III. we have the following: "The Protector coming in council, seemed more than ordinarily merry, and after some other discourses, 'My lord (says he to the Bishop of Ely) you have very good strawberries in your garden in Holborn, pray let us have a dish of them.' 'With all my heart,' replied the bishop, and sent for some. Afterwards, the Protector knit his brows and his lips, and rising up in great wrath, he exclaimed, 'My lords, I have to tell you, that that old sorceress, my brother Edward's widow, and her partner, that common prostitute, Jane Shore, have by witchcraft and enchantment been contriving to take away my life, and though by God's mercy they have not been able to finish this villany, yet see the mischief they have done me; (and then he showed his left arm,) how they have caused this dear limb of mine to wither and grow useless.'" (Vide Richard III. Act iii. Scene 2.)

Shakspeare was contemporary with Bacon, and he no doubt valued and studied with attention, the writings of that great man. The working up of the splendid dialogue between Iago and Othello, may not impossibly have been suggested by this sentence of Lord Bacon: "Breaking off in the midst of what one was about to say, (as if he took himself up) breeds a greater appetite in him with whom you confer, to know more." (Vide Essays.)

But let us drop the tone of attempted criticism, which ill becomes an embryo writer at any time, and still less so when Shakspeare is the theme. Having mentioned Bacon, perhaps the following authenticated dialogue may not be uninteresting to the reader, especially as it is only to be met with in one or two scarce books:

(Shakspeare.) "I have heard, my lord, that a certain arch in Trinity College, Cambridge, would stand until a greater man than your lordship should pass through it."

(Bacon.) "Did you ever pass through it, Mr. Shakspeare?"

(Shakspeare.) "No, my lord, I never was at Cambridge."

(Bacon.) "Then we cannot decide which of us two is the greater man. I am told that most of the professors there pass under the arch without tear; which indeed shows a wise contempt of the superstition."

(Shakspeare.) "I rejoice to think that the world is yet to have a greater man than your lordship, since the arch must fall at last."

Several of Shakspeare's least amusing plays are supposed to be not of his composition, such as Henry VI., and Troilus and Cressida, with the exception of the master-touches and some of the finer speeches, which probably were introduced by him. This, however, is a trick of trade in every department of science; and when we see, for instance, the collected works of some great artist, it would be ridiculous to suppose that his whole lifetime could have sufficed for so much handicraft, and perhaps in reality, only the faces and more delicate parts were the work of his pencil.