Winchester Worthies: Alfred the Great, Izaak Walton, and Thomas Ken.

Winchester, July 2, 1902.

Unquestionably the most interesting town in the south of England to a student of history is Winchester. It was the ancient capital of the kingdom, and teems with memories of Alfred the Great, Canute, William the Conqueror, and many of their successors. Thorneycroft's fine bronze statue of Alfred stands in the middle of the High Street, and instantly catches the eye of any one looking up or down this central thoroughfare. As we paused in front of it for a few moments, I had the pleasure of hearing two little boys from America, who are travelling with me, recall Alfred's diligence as a student, and his winning of the book offered by his mother as a prize; his invention of a candle chronometer, and of the lanthorn, as well as the familiar incident of the scolding given him by the neatherd's wife for his negligence in allowing her cakes to burn. The purity of his character, his self-sacrificing labors for his people, and the righteousness and prosperity of his reign have caused him to shine like a star in the long succession of English kings, who have too often been selfish, grasping, licentious or tyrannical.

For example, in Winchester Cathedral, close at hand, lie the remains of Hardicanute, the last Danish monarch, who died of excessive drinking. The fact that a man is buried in a cathedral argues nothing here as to his piety. If he wore the crown, or won battles, or wrote poems, he is given a place in God's house, regardless of his character.

But, besides men like Hardicanute or William Rufus, Winchester Cathedral boasts the possession of mortuary chests containing the bones of Canute, Egbert, Ethelwulf, and other kings. There is a monumental brass on the wall in memory of Jane Austen the novelist, who is buried under the pavement.

But by far the most interesting thing of this kind in the cathedral, is the floor slab which marks the resting place of Izaak Walton, the Prince of Fishermen (1593-1683), and the author of The Compleat Angler, concerning which it has been truthfully said that Walton "hooked a much bigger fish that he angled for" when he offered his quaint treatise to the public. There is hardly a name in our literature, even of the first rank, whose immortality is more secure, or whose personality is the subject of a more devoted cult. Not only is he the sacer vates of a considerable sect in the religion of recreation, but multitudes who have never put a worm on a hook—even on a fly-hook—have been caught and securely held by his picture of the delights of the gentle craft and his easy, leisurely transcript of his own simple, peaceable, loving, and amusing character." When, on the outbreak of the civil war, he retired from business as milliner for men in London, he went to a place in the country which he had bought, but we are told that he spent most of his time "in the families of the eminent clergymen of England, of whom he was much beloved." He married twice, both wives being of distinguished clerical connection, the second, Anne Ken, sister of Thomas Ken, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells. Of Thomas Ken we shall have something in particular to say presently. As we strolled, after supper, along the banks of the Itchen, from whose clear and grassy waters Walton himself had drawn so many fish, it was interesting to come upon anglers plying his beloved vocation. By the way, long before the time of Walton, there were people at Winchester who were fond of fish, and oysters, too. We read that, before the Reformation, the monks of Netley Abbey, twelve miles distant, were wont to keep their brethren at Winchester supplied during Lent with oysters from Southampton Water, they in return receiving forty-two flagons of ale weekly.

Enough has been said above to show that no church in Great Britain, outside of London, is richer in monuments than Winchester Cathedral. It has also the distinction of great size, being 556 feet long, the longest nave in England. But the exterior is heavy, without a suggestion of the symmetry and grace of Salisbury.

The other "lion" of Winchester, also, has a very uninviting and even forbidding exterior. This is the ancient College, a school for boys, where Alfred himself is said to have been educated, though William of Wykeham refounded it in 1382. The front of it looks like a prison, but within the quadrangles, and stretching far back to the river, are lovely grounds covered with grass as green and smooth as a velvet carpet. The best thing I saw here was the following inscription on the walls of a school-room, accompanied by the painted emblems which I mention below in brackets:

Aut disce. [A mitre and crosier, as the expected rewards of learning.]

Aut discede. [An inkhorn and sword, the emblems of the civil and military professions.]

Manet sors tertia caedi. [A rod.]

Which may be freely translated, "Either learn, or depart hence, or remain and be chastised," though the pithy, alliterative rendering in vogue among the boys is better, "Work, or walk, or be whopped" (h silent in the last word). American boys would probably have rendered it, "Learn, or leave, or be licked."

The school has revenues of nearly $100,000 per annum. There are 420 pupils. A number of them were having their supper as we passed through the dining-hall, eating from square beech-wood trenchers instead of plates, talking in shrill tones, and nudging and pushing each other just like American boys, unimpressed by the fact that the heavy, narrow tables from which they were eating were five hundred years old. How like boys it was to call the water pipe in the quadrangle, at which they wash their hands and faces, "Moab," and the place where they blacked their shoes, "Edom," because in Psalm lx. 8, it is said, "Moab is my wash-pot, I will cast my shoe over Edom."

As we walked through the ancient cloisters we came upon another characteristically boyish thing, a name cut on one of the stone pillars in clear, strong letters—"Tho Ken 1665"—and hardly anything in Winchester interested me so much as this, for the boy who cut it there, nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, became afterwards the author of what we call "the long metre doxology," four lines which have been sung more frequently than any other four lines in the English language, and which for generations to come will express the praise of increasing millions. This doxology was written by Ken as a concluding stanza to his famous Morning, Evening and Midnight Hymns, the best known of which, perhaps, is his evening hymn, "Glory to thee, my God, this night."

But there are other reasons why it was a pleasure to be vividly reminded of Ken at Winchester. He was a man of singularly modest, sweet, and lovable disposition. Macaulay says that his character approached, "as near as human infirmity permits, to the ideal perfection of Christian virtue." Yet he was no weakling, and on two notable occasions he showed that, mild and gentle as he was, he was also firm and fearless.

When the profligate Charles II. was at Winchester, waiting for the completion of his palace there, he requested Ken, then prebendary at Winchester, to lend his house temporarily to the notorious Nell Gwynn, the King's mistress. Ken refused to let such a person have his house. Charles does not seem to have resented the affront, for he afterwards made Ken Bishop of Bath and Wells. It is one of the abominations of the English union of Church and State, that a thoroughly depraved man like Charles II., if he succeeds to the throne, becomes ipso facto the head of the Church of England. By the way, the altar books in black letter in Winchester Cathedral were presented to the church by this same graceless Charles II. Things get badly mixed under such a system as that of the Church of England.

The second occasion on which Ken showed that, notwithstanding the infelicities of the national church, she does have men who will stand for God against the King when necessity arises, was when James II., without calling Parliament, issued what he called a declaration for liberty of conscience, the real aim of which was to put England again under the yoke of Romanism, and ordered that this declaration should be read in every cathedral and church in the kingdom. Ken and six other bishops refused, and they were arrested, and committed to the Tower of London. Instantly a blaze of popular indignation burst forth. Enormous crowds assembled to see the seven bishops embark, the shore was covered with crowds of prostrate spectators, who asked their benediction, as did also the very soldiers sent to arrest them. The bishops bore themselves well throughout, and, a few days after, when they were tried in Westminster Hall, and the verdict "Not guilty" was brought in, there was a tumultuous outburst of joy. Thus Ken bore his bold and manly part in the revolution, which finally swept the Stuarts from the throne, and delivered England, for the time, from the menace of Romish domination.

Winchester, then, with her ancient cathedral and her ancient school, with her Alfred the Great, her Izaak Walton, and her Thomas Ken, with her wealth of heroic, and gentle and saintly memories, has given us two of the most profitable days of our sojourn in Southern England.