Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Leland, Charles Godfrey, 1824-1903
Gundrada married, died, and was buried in a church with a fine Norman
tombstone over her remains. The church was levelled with the ground, but
the slab was preserved here and there about Lewes as a relic. When the
railway was built, about 1849, there was discovered, where the church had
been, the bones of Gundrada and her husband in leaden coffins distinctly
inscribed with their names. A very beautiful Norman chapel was then
built to receive the coffins, and over them is placed the original
memorial in black marble. There is also in Lewes an archaeological
museum appropriately bestowed in an old Gothic tower. All of which
things did greatly solace me. As did also the Norman or Gothic churches
of Shoreham, Newport, the old manor of Rottingdean, and the marvellous
Devil's Dyke, which was probably a Roman fort, and from which it is said
that fifty towns or villages may be seen "far in the blue."
One day I went with my wife and two ladies to visit the latter. The
living curiosity of the place was a famous old gypsy woman named Gentilla
Cooper, a pure blood or real _Kalorat_ Romany. I had already in America
studied Pott's "Thesaurus of Gypsy Dialects," and picked up many phrases
of the tongue from the works of Borrow, Simson, and others. The old dame
tackled us at once. As soon as I could, I whispered in her ear an
improvised rhyme:--
"The bashno and kani,
The rye and the rani,
Hav'd akai 'pre o boro lon pani."
Which means that the cock and the hen, the gentleman and the lady, came
hither across the great salt water. The effect on the gypsy was
startling; she fairly turned pale. Hustling the ladies away to one side
to see a beautiful view, she got me alone and hurriedly exclaimed,
"_Rya_--master! _be_ you one of our people?" with much more. We became
very good friends, and this little incident had in time for me great
results, and many strange experiences of gypsy life.
There live in Brighton two ladies, Miss Horace Smith and her sister Rosa,
who were and are well known in the cultured world. They are daughters of
Horace Smith, who, with his brother James, wrote the "Rejected
Addresses." Their reminiscences of distinguished men are extremely
varied and interesting. The elder sister possesses an album to which
Thackeray contributed many verses and pen-sketches. Their weekly
receptions were very pleasant; at them might be seen most of the literary
or social celebrities who came to Brighton. A visit there was like
living a chapter in a book of memoirs and reminiscences. I have had, if
it be only a quiet, and not very eventful or remarkable, at least a
somewhat varied life, and the Laings and Smiths, with their surroundings,
form two of its most interesting varieties. I believe they never missed
an opportunity to do us or any one a kindly act, to aid us to make
congenial friends, or the like. How many good people there really are in
the world!
Of these ladies the author of "Gossip of the Century" writes:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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