About fifty miles away from London—you can run down in an hour by the Great Eastern—stands an ancient, if not the most ancient, city in England, where the mother of Constantine is said to have lived, where, at any rate, she founded a chapel, which still remains, and where Constantine the Great is said to have been born, and where old King Cole, that merry old soul, is reported to have reigned in all his glory. It was built by the Roman Claudius, A.D., 44. It boasts an old castle, which was terribly damaged by Cromwell’s soldiers when they took it after a severe siege, in which the inhabitants suffered terrible privations. It has an ancient priory in ruins, but which is deeply interesting to antiquarians; and it contains old houses and winding streets, which are ever a delight and wonder to the intelligent of the rising generation. Colchester, of which I write, is a busy place, and moves with the times. As you look at it from the Great Eastern Railway, which sweeps around its base, it seems a city set upon a hill; and in the old coaching days, when we drove along its High street, now handsomer than ever, it was a great relief in the summer time, when we stopped there to change horses, after a long and dusty ride, to buy some of the fruits and flowers offered for sale, and for the production of which the country round is famous. The Colchester people have a fine appreciation of their ancient and prosperous town, the streets of which are alive with military. There is a large camp here, the gallant men of which seem to have a due appreciation of the fine complexion and healthy figures of the Essex servant girls. It has its park and its promenades, a river which is rich in commerce and famed for its oysters, and if not quite up to the standard of Dr. W. B. Richardson, I must give its municipal authorities credit for doing the best they can, to bring it up to our modern ideas of sanitary excellence. It has lately taken to making shoes in the swiftest manner possible, and threatens to be a formidable rival to Northampton, and assuredly, when I hear of the money made by many of its citizens, who, starting with the proverbial half-crown, have now accumulated handsome fortunes, I feel justified in asserting that grass does not grow in its streets.

The religious history of Colchester is deeply interesting. That unfortunate Puritan, Bastwicke lived at the Red House, Red Lane. Matthew Newcomen, one of the Puritan divines who took part in the Smectymnian Controversy, was the son of a rector of Trinity. His brother Thomas, a Royalist, lived to be a Prebendary at Lincoln at the Restoration. Colchester has done much for Nonconformity. It was one of the earliest cities to do battle for religious freedom and the rights of conscience. As far back as 1428 we find the keeper of Colchester Castle empowered to search out and imprison persons suspected of “heresie or Lollardie.” In Queen Mary’s days fourteen men and eight women were brought from Colchester to London like a flock of sheep, but bound or chained together, to appear before Bonner, on account of religion; but several were burnt there at different times. The first certain account of the Baptists of Colchester is that of Thomas Lamb, about the year 1630, who was one of the victims of Archbishop Laud. For some time Baptists and PÆdo-Baptists seem to have worshipped together here; they in time separated, and the present flourishing cause, under Rev. E. Spurrier, celebrated its bi-centenary last year. From a MS. account in Dr. Williams’s library, we learn that in 1715 there were three Non-conformist congregations in Colchester—one Independant, one Presbyterian (with a total of 1,500 hearers), and one Baptist (with 200). In the schoolroom of the Baptist church at Eld-street is a fine portrait of the Captain Murrell whose noble rescue of a shipwrecked crew in a stormy sea was the admiration of the whole civilised world a year or two since. And it rightly hangs there, for as a boy he was brought up in its Sunday-school. Close to the Baptist church in Eld-lane is the well-known Congregational church, a new and handsome structure, of which Rev. T. Robinson is the pastor.

Let me now take the reader to another Congregational church—that of Stockwell, of which the Rev. Thomas Batty is the present pastor. It looks uncommonly well, considering how often it has been altered and enlarged. Like all the other Nonconformist places of worship in Colchester, it is situated in an out-of-the-way part of the town. The old Noncons were too much given to set their light under a bushel, but there were reasons for that which happily do not exist now. But it is worth while looking at the place if only for the sake of seeing the monument to Mr. Herrick, the famous Independent parson, who preached there for fifty years. It is said of him that whilst his preaching regaled the highest intellect, the common people heard him gladly. The present occupier of the pulpit, who has been there twenty-five years, seems destined to achieve fame in many ways. One of his latest inventions is a fire-globe, for warming rooms.

There were, to me, two specially interesting ecclesiastical edifices in Colchester. One now utilised for industrial purposes, almost side by side with Mr. Batty’s chapel, was erected in 1691 for Nonconformist worship. It was there Isaac Taylor preached, and there his celebrated daughters attended. Their dwelling-house is close by, and there they wrote those charming poems and tales for infants’ minds which are popular in the nursery still. It was there Isaac Taylor, of Ongar, learned to think, so as to become one of the foremost essayists of his age. As you stand outside and look at the roof of the old tabernacle you will see that some part of it is more modern than the rest. It appears there was an orthodox minister whose preaching was not acceptable to the Unitarian part of the congregation. He would not go, and they resolved to make him, and to compel him to move they took off part of the roof. The preacher, however, remained, and the small endowment with him, which has been transferred to Mr. Batty’s church over the way. The other ecclesiastical edifice to which I allude is a small Episcopalian church of ancient date, which contains the tomb of the celebrated Dr. Gilberd. But the great lion of Colchester is, of course, its castle, now utilised as a museum, full of interesting Roman remains found in the neighbourhood, and to which they are constantly being brought, as almost every excavation in the city disinters something or other left by those rulers of the ancient world. In the castle is an interesting library, left to the city by Bishop Harsnett, a Colchester lad who became a great man—Archbishop of York, if I remember aright—but who in his old age was sadly worried by the Puritans. Some of the books are in excellent preservation, and are marvels of typography. I was especially struck with one, “Meditationes Vite Jesu Christi,” printed at Strasbourg in 1483. No printer in our day could surpass such work. We have gained much, but our old masters are our old masters still. It is interesting to note that the library is used by Mr. Round, one of the Essex M.P.’s, for a Bible-class on Sunday afternoons.

Of the many distinguished natives of Colchester, I have already mentioned the Newcomens. Another famous name connected with the town is that of Daniel Whittle Harvey, a great man in London on the Liberal side, and, perhaps, still remembered by the joke in Punch, where, when a cabman asks another what the V.R. on his badge implied, replied, “It’s Vittle Harvey to be sure.” He commenced his career as articled clerk to a Colchester solicitor, and very early developed a considerable talent for public speaking. He became a somewhat ardent Radical, and was so zealous at public meetings in favour of Reform that he was induced in 1812 to contest the borough, but was defeated by the Conservatives. “His determination and perseverance,” writes Mr. Charles Benham in his Colchester Worthies, “urged him not to abandon his attempts, which were afterwards more successful, and he was several times returned at the head of the poll.” He was subsequently appointed by the Corporation of London, Chief Commissioner of the City Police. He held that office simultaneously with his seat in Parliament until the passing of the new Police Act, when he was no longer eligible for his seat in Parliament, which he relinquished in 1834, maintaining his official appointment till his death, which was about 1864. Colchester has supplied London with two Lord Mayors—one of them, Sir Thomas White, was Lord Mayor of London in 1553. He received the honour of Knighthood for preserving the peace of the city in Wyatt’s Rebellion. He made various benefactions in different towns, including Colchester, in 1566. The second was David Williams Wire, who was in D. W. Harvey’s office in his youth, and was one of the first Dissenters to become Lord Mayor. He died in 1860, and was buried at Lewisham.

Science owes not a little to natives of Colchester. One of the most distinguished of them was Dr. William Gilbert, born in 1540. The house in Colchester where he received Queen Elizabeth as a guest remains to this day, and a very attractive old house it is. He was chief physician to the Queen, who valued him highly, and wonderful to say, allowed him an annual sum to encourage him in his studies. He was also chief physician to James I. In 1600 he published his famous book, “De Magnete,” the first work ever written on electricity. It indicates great sagacity on the part of the writer. The word electric was first given to the world in it. He also wrote a learned work about the world, which was published at Amsterdam after his death. In all English-American and Continental Pharmacopoeias we have Dr. Griffiths’ mixture reproduced under the title of Mixtura ferri composita. It was in a work published at Colchester by Dr. Moses Griffiths that that prescription originally appeared. It is still frequently used. Only the other day, as it were, a celebrated, fashionable and wealthy surgeon died at the West end of London. I refer to Sir William Gull, the son of a Colchester mariner, who ultimately moved to Thorpe, near Clacton, where the son was brought up at a village school. He chose to be a schoolmaster, and assisted for a time at a Colchester seminary. He then went to be usher in a school at Lewes, where he developed great scientific tastes, which gained for him a post at Guy’s Hospital in connection with cataloguing the Museum. This led him to devote his attention to medicine, and having commenced practice, he soon rose to distinction. He attended the Prince of Wales, in conjunction with Sir William Jenner, throughout a dangerous attack of typhus fever, and was rewarded with a baronetcy. He died in 1890, and was buried at Thorpe, where there is a handsome monument to his memory. Nor in this catalogue of Colchester natives would we fail to omit the ladies. Let us give the first place to the far-famed Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, daughter of Charles Lucas, and born at Colchester. There were highly educated and gifted women then as now, and the fair Margaret early exhibited a taste for literature. She became the second wife of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, to whom she was married in 1645. Two years previously she visited the Court of Charles I., then at Oxford. She was appointed one of the Maids of Honour to the Queen Henrietta Maria, and accompanied her Majesty to France. She published ten volumes of letters—plays, poems, philosophical discourse, and the life of her husband the Duke. Her town residence was in Clerkenwell, a more fashionable locality at that time than it is to-day. The lady was certainly eccentric, but she is said to have been distinguished by pious and charitable works, and for them, perhaps as much as for her literary talent, deserves her tomb in Westminster Abbey, where she was buried in 1673.

Colchester contains a population of 34,549, and is connected by railway with most of the towns of the district. By means of its river Colne it is also a port, and has fine oyster beds, where the “Colchester Natives” are reared, which are celebrated all the world over. Its oyster feast is one of the most famous institutions of the place, though who was the Mayor who founded the feast is lost in the mists of antiquity. After the oyster-spatting season is over, that is about the middle of September, the Corporation holds a meeting on board a boat in the river, and proclaims the fishery to be open. The fishing is a source of profit to the Corporation. In the warm seasons—that was before 1870 (immense numbers of oysters were produced in 1865)—they realised as much as £18,318, the price being £4 a bushel. Since then, from the greater scarcity of oysters, and the enlarged market for them due to railway facilities, prices have been £12 and £14 for the same quantity, and it is at that price, I believe, they are now sold. The Colne fishery is about four miles and a half in extent; it contains the best fattening grounds in the kingdom, and the River Colne itself is one of the best spatting grounds in the district producing native oysters. We call them native, because so many oysters come from Holland and elsewhere, and are merely fattened in English waters. In London, when you buy a native, you are not sure that you get the genuine article. At the Colchester feast the Mayor treats you to the native in all its primitive beauty and simplicity. I own the oyster is not lovely to look at, and the sight of a hall filled with rows of tables, on which were placed plates containing a dozen for each guest, with glasses of stout or bottles of Chablis or Sauterne, lacks somewhat of the warmth of colour to which we are more or less accustomed in our civic feasts in town. It must also be remembered that these entertainments take place by night, when the gas sparkles in a hundred chandeliers. At Colchester the hour of the feast is 2 p.m., and oysters and stout, place them how you will, cannot be made to look picturesque. At one time these Colchester feasts were confined to the members of the Corporation and the officials. That custom has been changed for a better one, and many of the principal citizens and others are bidden to the feast. Strangers are also invited, and I have to thank more than one worthy Mayor for favouring me with an invitation. It is the privilege of the Mayor of Colchester for the time being to provide for all the expenses of the feast except a portion of the oysters, which are found by the Fishery Board, and the Mayor sends out all the invitations. The feast always takes place about October 22nd. Those who do not care for oysters had better stop away, as little else besides oysters and brown bread and butter is provided. Only a few ham sandwiches were added, but the oyster was, as it deserved to be, the staple of the feast; and I fancy most of us managed to consume about a couple of dozen each. It may be that others exceeded that moderate allowance, but in neither eating nor drinking was there any sign of excess. There was a time when oysters and stout were connected with Bacchanalian orgies. That time, happily, has long passed, and instead we listened to oratory as we smoked the meditative cigar or the Lilliputian cigarette, or gazed with an admiring eye on the tasteful way in which the hall had been prepared for the occasion. Music also lent its charms. Colchester is a garrison town, and at present the Royal Munster Fusiliers hold the fort. It was their band that played on the occasion, with great applause. It was not pleasant to turn out of the hall, which had begun to grow additionally cheerful in consequence of the gas, and to make one’s way along the wet and deserted streets of the ancient town. I need not add that I was all the better for what I had eaten and heard. There are delicate questions, worthy of any abler intellect than mine to settle, as to the proper way of eating an oyster. According to some theories, you should take the Great Eastern to Burnham, get on board a fishing-smack, and gulp down the delicious bivalve as he comes fresh and juicy from his watery bed. Others there are who contend for the same operation on the River Colne; and I have met with low-minded people who say that no oyster eats so pleasantly as that purchased at a common street stall, as the vendor has less capital than the regular dealer, and thus lays in a fresher stock as he requires them. If I consult my old friend Sir Henry Thompson, the great authority in such matters, I read, “Oysters are in fact the first dish of dinner and not its precursor; the preface and not the possibly obtrusive advertisement.” “It is,” he remarks, “a single service of exquisite quality served with attendant graces.” Sir Henry evidently has never been to a Colchester oyster feast, or he would have had a word to say in its favour. “It is not worth going to,” said a gentleman to me one day. Yet when I entered the hall shortly after he was the first to come and shake hands with me, and on that dull, rainy day he had travelled many miles to be at the oyster feast. The fact is, in dull days one is glad of any excuse for going out and having a chat with one’s friends, and it does one good to hear bishops and Dissenting ministers, as they did at Colchester, talk in favour of Christian unity, or the local M.P.’s talk of national ditto, or the mayors of the leading Essex towns vindicate that local self-government which we all hold to be an important element in the preservation and expansion of our national life.