The Baronial Halls, and Ancient Picturesque Edifices of England; Vol. 2 of 2Hall, S. C. (Samuel Carter)
History
The Baronial Halls, and Ancient Picturesque Edifices of England; Vol. 2 of 2
Hall, S. C. (Samuel Carter)
Historic buildings -- England
The Church is a fine early structure adjoining the castle, and attached
to its south side is the mortuary chapel of the Berkeley family--a
richly groined edifice, divided
[Illustration]
into two compartments by a handsome stone screen, the inner or eastern
apartment containing several monuments of the family. The altar end is
blocked up by a fine Elizabethan tomb of Sir Henry Berkeley, who died in
1613; his first wife’s effigies are placed by his side. Under an arch,
opening into the south side of the chancel, is a highly enriched and
decorated altar-tomb, on which lie the effigies of another Earl of
Berkeley and his son. It is a beautiful specimen of the period, divided
into fourteen niches, having floriated canopies, under which are figures
on pedestals--the Virgin and Child, St. Christopher with our Saviour,
St. George and the dragon, and St. Peter, are among the number.
The groining of the chapel is curious, as containing in its several
bosses and panels a connected set of emblems referring to the awful
mystery of the Holy Trinity, with a most unaccountable interpolation of
the monkish satires of the fox preaching to geese, a monkey holding a
bottle, &c.
The churchyard contains a monument to the last of those privileged
characters, the “fool” or jester of the nobility. He was in the employ
of the Earl of Suffolk, and appears to have been lent to Lord Berkeley.
He was buried 18th June, 1728. At the end of the monument are the arms
of the earl, and on one side this inscription,--
“My lord that’s gone, himself made much of him!”
On the opposite side are these lines written by Dean Swift, who was
chaplain to Charles Earl of Berkeley:--
“Here lies the Earl of Suffolk’s fool,
Men call him Dicky Pearce;
His folly served to make men laugh,
When wit and mirth were scarce.
Poor Dick, alas! is dead and gone--
What signifies to cry?
Dickies enough are left behind
To laugh at by and by.”
The village bears the half-maritime character usual in places near the
sea, or an arm of
[Illustration]
the sea, and has some old buildings about it, of which the annexed
sketch is a specimen. It may, however, be justly celebrated as the
birthplace of Dr. Jenner, by whom cowpock inocculation was first
introduced. He was buried at Berkeley, and will ever be remembered with
gratitude as the successful combatant of that fearful disease, whose
ravages were so finely alluded to by Admiral Berkeley, when, advocating
his claims in the House of Commons, he said, that “not a _second_ is
struck by the hand of Time but a victim is sacrificed at the altar of
that most horrible of all disorders--the small-pox.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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