Springtime and Other Essays Part 10

The _Flora of British India_ having been finished, he was asked to complete the handbook to the Flora of Ceylon, interrupted by the death of Trimen, and this occupied him for three years. He was then led to what was to be his final piece of work, namely, a study of the difficult group of the Balsams (_Impatiens_), and he certainly was not coloured by what he worked in, for the whole stock of his admirable patience was needed for this difficult research. His perseverance was a by-product of his n.o.ble enthusiasm. In 1906, when he was eighty-nine years of age, he writes enthusiastically to a friend in the East expressing his longing for more Balsams, and concluding, "I do love Indian Botany." And in 1909 he hears that the Paris Herbarium had overlooked forty sheets of Indo-Chinese specimens-and writes, "This is like a stroke of paralysis to a man approaching his ninety-third year, but it is no use grumbling, my eyes are as good as ever, and my fingers are as agile as ever, and I am indeed thankful."

The _Life_ of Hooker is enriched by a striking essay from the pen of Professor Bower. He points out (ii., p. 412) that "few, if indeed any, have ever known plants as he did. Such knowledge comes only from growing up with them from earliest childhood." Professor Bower adds that Hooker "shared with Darwin that wider outlook upon the field of Science that gave a special value to the writings of both"; and he adds, "The _Himalayan Journals_ ranks with Darwin's _Voyage of the_ '_Beagle_'."

When _More Letters of Charles Darwin_ was in preparation, Hooker was appealed to for a.s.sistance, and wrote a characteristically kind letter (1st Feb. 1899) to one of the editors:-

"I will gladly help you all I can; so have no scruples. . . . You are right to make the book uncompromisingly scientific. It will be greatly valued. I am getting so old and oblivious that I fear I may not be of much use."

And a few weeks later (24th Feb. 1899):-

"I had no idea that your father had kept my letters. Your account of 742 pp. of them is a revelation. I do enjoy re-reading your father's; as to my own, I regard it as a punishment for my various sins of blindness, perversity, and inattention to his thousand and one facts and hints that I did not profit by as much as I should have, all as revealed by my letters."

In 1907 he received the Order of Merit, the Insignia being conveyed to him by Colonel Douglas Dawson from the King. I had the honour of being the only person present on the occasion, though why Sir Joseph allowed me this pleasure I cannot guess. I remember Colonel Dawson in vain trying to persuade Sir Joseph not to see him to his carriage at the door. I have, too, a picture of Sir Joseph fidgeting round the room afterwards, unwillingly wearing the collar to please his family.

In 1908 he took the chief part in the fiftieth anniversary of the Darwin-Wallace papers of 1858. He characteristically begged the Darwins to tell him if they entertained "the _smallest_ doubt of the expediency or propriety of telling the public the part" which he took on that historic occasion!

He was also the chief guest at the 1909 celebration at Cambridge of the centenary of Darwin's birth. I recollect him wandering about at the evening reception, quite unconsciously the object of all eyes.

Unfortunately, Hooker was not present at the banquet, where, as Mr L.

Huxley says, "Mr Balfour's historic speech was only eclipsed by the sense of personal charm in Mr W. E. Darwin's reminiscences of his father" (ii., p. 467).

It is delightful to find Hooker in 1911 vigorously corresponding with Dr Bruce, a "brother Antarctic." He writes to Bruce, 20th February 1911, "I return herewith the proof-sheets, which I have perused with extraordinary interest and an amount of instruction and information that I never expected to receive at my age" (_Life_, ii., p. 478). It is touching that in extreme old age the first work that occupied his youth should still find so clear an echo in his vigorous old age.

Mr Huxley records (ii., p. 480) that though Sir Joseph "kept at work till but a little before the end," his physical strength began to fail in the late summer; but his mental powers were undimmed. He died in his sleep on 10th December 1911, and was buried (as he had desired) near his father's grave at Kew.

A GREAT HOSPITAL {137a}

Dr Moore writes in his preface: "The History is a gift from me to St Bartholomew's, and I hope that the labour of investigating historical events, of meditating upon them, and of finally writing the book in such hours as my profession allowed during more than thirty years, may be taken as a proof of the grat.i.tude I feel to the n.o.ble hospital with which my whole professional life has been connected."

The book seems to me eminently worthy of its subject and of its learned author. {137b} As a record of the 800 years during which the Hospital has existed it naturally contains an enormous ma.s.s of detail, and this means that the book is physically very big. The first volume is of 614 quarto pages, and the second of 992 pages. The index contains at least 20,000 entries.

The Hospital and the Priory of St Bartholomew were the first buildings erected on the open s.p.a.ce of Smithfield. The foundation took place in 1123, and Rahere, the founder, was the first Prior. He is said to have been of lowly race, and to have made himself popular in the houses of n.o.bles and princes "by witcisms and flattering talk." Then he repented of such a mode of life and made a pilgrimage to Rome to obtain forgiveness. On his way back he had a vision of St Bartholomew, by whom he was directed to found a church in Smithfield.

It seems that "no part of the hospital as built by Rahere is now standing, but within the present building, which covers the original site, there still remains one thing which was there in his time. It is a legal doc.u.ment which his eyes beheld, and which was sealed in his presence. This charter is written on vellum in the clear hand-writing of the first half of the twelfth century." The seal shows a "turreted building, which is probably the Priory of St Bartholomew's as it looked in the first twenty years of its existence."

The two parts of an indented chirograph have been preserved in the hospital, which give (i., p. 239) a view of the state of agriculture in Ess.e.x in the reign of King John. Mention is made of fields of wheat, rye, barley, oats and beans; of oxen, horses, of brew-house and barn.

Rent was paid in kind and sent by water to the hospital quay, which may have been on the River Fleet and therefore nearer to the hospital than a landing-place on the Thames. The Fleet river, as Dr Moore happily points out (i., p. 246), is now shut up in a tubular dungeon, "as if to remind it of all the unhappiness it had pa.s.sed by in the Gaola de Flete from the time" when the prisoners watched "the s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing up it with corn for St Bartholomew's Hospital . . . to the days when the body of Samuel Pickwick was confided to the custody of the tipstaff, to be by him taken to the Warden of the Fleet Prison, and there detained until the amount of the damages and costs in the action of Bardell against Pickwick was fully paid and satisfied."

The author never fails to make interesting use of the driest of charters.

Thus in the reign of King John a person with the pleasant name of Adam Pepercorn grants to the hospital ten s.h.i.+llings quit-rent for some land in Grub Street, a region full of unhappy memories. Dr Moore quotes pa.s.sages from Johnson, Swift, and Goldsmith to show that the name Grub Street should have been protected by such a.s.sociations from any change; but nothing is sacred, and Grub Street is now known as Milton Street.

The author (i., p. 279) asks whether the brethren of St Bartholomew's made any medical studies, and points out they may well have read parts of the _Liber Etymologiarum_ by St Isidore of Seville, who flourished A.D.

601. The book is a general summary of knowledge in Isidore's day, and few religious houses in England were without a copy.

I like the facts in the region of domestic economy which are given. For instance, that in 1229 Richard of Muntfichet was ordered by Henry III. to give "six leafless oaks for the hospital fire." We want to know whether they were the King's oaks, or was Muntfichet forced to supply the wood?

If Dr R. W. Darwin (father of Charles Darwin) had then been King of England he would have ordered apple-trees, for these he considered much superior to all other fuel. The reader is constantly meeting interesting stories. Thus Bishop Roger Niger was, in the year 1230, celebrating ma.s.s in St Paul's when a great thunderstorm burst over the church and the congregation fled in terror. But Roger and one deacon were not to be frightened, and went on with the Ma.s.s.

In the 13th Century John of Marsham (i., p. 390) made oath that he would carry through the affairs of Alan of Culing at the Court of Rome. Did John die on his journey, or did he fail in his suit? He never claimed the charter which he left at the hospital, where it may still be seen.

A charter recording a grant by the Master of St Bartholomew's to the Bishop of Bath is preserved in St Paul's; Sir Norman Moore says (i., p.

392), "It was pleasant to find this original doc.u.ment in the charter room of the cathedral, where mine was probably the first hand from St Bartholomew's Hospital which had touched it since it received the seal of William the master and the brethren, six hundred and seventy years ago."

I cannot resist quoting (i., p. 412) one more of the many touching and interesting episodes with which the history of St Bartholomew's abounds:-

Cecilia, a widow, devoted herself to the altar of St Edmund and received a wedding ring. When she was dying (1251), a Dominican father, giving her the last sacrament, noticed the ring and said, "Take off that ring, lest she die so decked out." Cecilia roused herself and said she would offer the ring "before the judgement seat of G.o.d my betrothed."

It is interesting to find that surnames were beginning to be established in the reign of Henry III. Thus a certain Thomas Niger is described as the son of Walter Niger. {141}

There are innumerable facts given in the history of St Bartholomew which ill.u.s.trate the permanence of the London streets. Thus in a doc.u.ment of 1256 is mentioned a little lane going towards the church of St Mary Staining Lane. The little lane is easily found at this day leading from Wood Street to a small churchyard, on a stone in the wall of which is cut "Before the dreadful fire of 1666, here stood the church of St Mary Staining" (i., p. 441).

A doc.u.ment quoted (i., p. 454) is of interest in regard to the value of money in mediaeval times; the following extract shows what in the reign of Henry II. was considered a serious sum. The hospital owed the butcher eleven pounds, and the master and brethren agreed to pay it in eight years and a quarter by a rent charge on a house.

The reader of Sir Norman Moore's book is continually coming across unexpected facts. For instance, that St James' Palace is on the site of what, in the reign of Henry III., was known as the Hospital of St James.

On 15th June 1253, St Bartholomew's Hospital obtained from Henry III. two important charters, one confirming them in their possessions, the other in their rights and privileges. The gift was made, among other reasons, for the soul "of King Henry my grandfather."

The author succeeds in conveying to his readers the personal interest which he evidently feels in the writers of the deeds of which he makes such good use. Thus (i., p. 477) he quotes Maelbrigte, who made a copy of the later Gospels at Armagh in the time of Rahere, as writing "at the foot of a very small page of vellum in a minute and exquisite hand, 'If it was my wish I could write the whole treatise like this,' thus handing down to succeeding ages a scribe's pride in his art." Again in a charter copied into the hospital cartulary the last witness is "Master Simon, who wrote this charter."

The author (i., p. 485) has occasion to refer to a grant by Stephen of Gosewelle of certain lands. And this reminds him how he heard d.i.c.kens read the trial in _Pickwick_. He says, in "almost every part I can recall his emphasis and the tone of his voice.-'Mrs Bardell shrunk from the world and courted the retirement and tranquillity of Goswell Street.'

. . . Very few know that this thoroughfare was the street of a hamlet, extra barram de Aldredesgate."

In a charter probably belonging to the earlier half of the reign of Henry III., a witness, Sabrichet, "has a name which survives in Sabrichetestead or Sabstead, the native p.r.o.nunciation of Sawbridgeworth." In the out-patient room a patient said that he came from Sawbridgeworth. The physician, {142} who had been instructed by Henry Bradshaw, remarked that the patient did not know how to p.r.o.nounce the name of his own home. On this the patient exclaimed, "Oh, I know it is Sabstead, but I thought the gentleman would not understand."

Names have a fascination for me, and I cannot resist quoting the name of Henry Pikebone, who, I hope, p.r.o.nounced it Pickbone, and might well have been one of Falstaff's men. We meet (p. 510) with a reference to John of Yvingho, which is said to have suggested Ivanhoe to Walter Scott. I regret to say that John was a fishmonger. Elsewhere we meet another pleasing name, Cecilia Pidekin, but unfortunately she is not known in any other way than as the recipient, by a will of 1281, of a chemise and a little bra.s.s pail. There are innumerable points of interest in the matter of names. Thus the author points out that Shoe Lane has nothing to do with shoes nor indeed with lanes; it is a corruption of the _solanda_ or prebend through which it pa.s.ses.

The author often helps us to realise the appearance of the inhabitants of St Bartholomew's. Thus (p. 551) the Bishop of London in his ordinance of 1316 settled that "those of the brethren who were priests were to wear round cloaks of frieze or other cloth, the lay brethren shorter cloaks; the sisters tunics and over-tunics of grey cloth, these not to be longer than to their ankles." This last regulation is curious. We should have expected the limitation to have been applied to shortness rather than to length.

Walter of Basingbourne {144} was Master of the Hospital during the greatest epidemic of plague which "the Western world had experienced since the time of Justinian." It is generally known as the Black Death, and was the same disease as that which terrified London in 1665, and the epidemic which has destroyed nearly nine millions of people in India since 1894.

Speaking (i., p. 584) of the Charter House, Sir Norman says: "Our hospital . . . saw the n.o.ble foundation of Thomas Sutton built, and became familiar with its brethren in their black cloaks and with the gown boys." He quotes appositely enough Thackeray's well-known words on the death of Colonel Newcome:-

"And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said 'Adsum,' and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called, and lo he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of his Master."

In 1381 Wat Tyler and his mob sacked and burnt the Temple and the Priory of Clerkenwell. A few days later the brethren could see from their walls the blow struck by Walworth the Mayor, the fall of Tyler from his horse, and the courageous behaviour of King Richard. Wat Tyler was carried into the hospital, but the Mayor went in and brought him out and had him beheaded. Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, was beheaded by the rebels. Sir Norman Moore once asked a patient whence she came, and she answered "from Sudbury in Suffolk." Dr Moore told his students the story of Simon's death, and added that his head is said to be "preserved to this day at Sudbury." The woman raised herself in bed and said, "My father keeps it." Simon's tomb at Canterbury has been opened, and was found to contain a headless body.

During the masters.h.i.+p of William Wakering, who died in 1405, and that of Sutton, John Mirfeld flourished in the priory of St Bartholomew and wrote his _Breviarium Bartholomei_, which may "fairly be regarded as the first book on medicine connected with St Bartholomew's Hospital."

The brethren had no watches, and had to measure "the time for heating fluids or making decoctions by reciting certain psalms and prayers." I remember to have heard Sir Norman say how he demonstrated to his pupils the efficacy of the words which our ancestors prescribed for the cure of epilepsy. Their magic depended on the fact that they required some minutes to recite, and this allowed the patient to recover from his fit.

I did not expect to find any evidence in regard to Falstaff, but the following pa.s.sage (ii., p. 2) shows that he must have been damped (in two senses) on a memorable occasion {145}:-"In the year 1413, on the ninth day of the month of April, which day was Pa.s.sion Sunday, and a very rainy day, the coronation of Henry V. took place at Westminster, at which coronation I, Brother John c.o.k, who have recorded that royal coronation for the refres.h.i.+ng of memory, was present and beheld it."

Sir Norman says (ii., p. 40):-"I was present at the coronation of King George V., and watched the splendid a.s.semblage gradually filling Westminster Abbey, . . . and heard the shouts of 'G.o.d save King George!'

. . . and saw the King in his crown, with the orb in his left hand and the sceptre in his right, walk in solemn procession down the nave. . . .

It was a solemn as well as a splendid sight. More than once during the day I thought of John c.o.k, the brother of St Bartholomew's beholding five centuries ago within the same walls and under the same n.o.ble vault, the coronation of the future victor of Agincourt. . . ."

John c.o.k is a valuable witness as regards the history of the hospital, especially as to the masters.h.i.+p of John Wakeryng, who held office for forty years. c.o.k became Rentar of the Hospital, and the chief work of his life was the writing of the Cartulary (which he called a Rental), recording rents due to the hospital, deeds of gift, papal bulls, and other doc.u.ments. c.o.k's book (dated 1456) is a large volume written in Latin on 636 leaves of vellum and enclosed in an ancient binding of oak boards covered with leather.