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Alexander Campbell
Letters from Europe--No. VII. (1847-1848)

 

FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

SERIES III.

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VOL. IV. B E T H A N Y, OCTOBER, 1847. NO. X.
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LETTERS FROM EUROPE--No. VII.

LONDON, July 1, 1847.      

      My dear Clarinda--I HAVE not got up to my present dates. My visit to Shrewsbury you have yet but in part. I promised you some notices of this very ancient city and its environs. Of it I cannot, indeed, say much. Shrewsbury is beautifully located on the banks of the Severn, and is an ancient walled town, of much celebrity. Its present population is about 30,000. Along the banks of the Severn is decidedly the most beautiful walk I have yet seen in England. Indeed, travellers hesitate not to say that the most stately rows of elms in Great Britain are those that overshadow the walks on the margin of this delightful stream. They stand in different rows, about 365 in number, averaging some sixty feet in height, and encompass a fine park in the midst of them. Beginning at Col. Leighton's, and descending to the river, and thence to the bridge, if any one can relish shade or seeks for morning or evening meditations, if he cannot find them here, I know not where to send him.

      From this walk I visited Samuel Chaid's church, and surveyed the font at which Bishop Heber was baptized. A lad of 7 or 10 years might, indeed, be immersed in it. But as it was removed here from a church in the country, and as I saw no bason in it, or near to it, I cannot say whether the great Heber was sprinkled out of it or immersed in it. In this church are many splendid paintings--Simeon blessing the Babe in the Temple--the Saviour taken down from the Cross; and, very appropos, the Saviour paving tribute to Cesar! I could not find time to visit the St. Mary's, St. Julian's, St. Michael's, St. Giles', or St. Alkmond's nor even the Abbey Church. Indeed, I was peculiarly unwell during my visit to Shrewsbury.

      In tracing its history I could find little assurance either as to its name or Its origin. The Saxons called it Scrobbesby rig, because [541] when first made a camp it was filled with alder, and was often called Salop. To this the following ancient doggerel bears witness--

"Built on a hill, fair Salop greets the eye,
While Severn like an eel curves gently by;
Two bridges cross the bark-conveying stream,
And British alder gave the town a name."

But the city occupies much space in English history. The following summary will suggest much to the student of English history:--Edward I. resided here in 1277. David, the last of the princes of ancient Britons, was imprisoned here in 1282. Richard II. held his Parliament here in 1397, 1398. This was called the "Great Parliament." Shakespeare makes memorable the great battle between the Earl of Northumberland and Henry IV., which occured here July 22, 1403. The Cambrian chieftain, Glendower, not arriving with his 12,000 men, in proper time to sustain the Earl, 40,000 persons only engaged in it. His Hotspur was killed here amongst 2000 nobles and 6000 privates. This famous battle was fought a short distance from Shrewsbury.

      Here were born the second and third sons of Edward IV.--Richard and George Plantagenet. Henry VII. held a great feast here in St. Chaid's Church, in 1490, and revisited it in 1495. This was the favorite retreat of Charles I. Here he established a mint and kept his courts. Here also he kept an army in 1642. The town was taken by storm in 1641-45. James II. held a court here in 1687, "when the conduits flowed with wine." From these political facts the town of Shrewsbury derives a portion of its fame.

      In ecclesiastic annals, too, it is conspicuous. Rev. John Bryan and Rev. Francis Tallents were ejected from their livings here by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662. Job Ortin was preacher here, and the Baptists founded a church in Cromwell's times in this city. But all the Presbyterian churches here, as every where else in England, have become Unitarians. This, too, is the county of Richard Baxter.

      Several old wooden houses, of a very singular architecture, yet stand in this city. They are curious for their architecture, and venerable fur their antiquity. I was shown the house in which Ireland, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, lived. It is still in good keeping, as are many other houses of the same architecture and material.

      In all these old towns the streets are generally narrow; many of them so narrow that two horses can scarcely pass in any kind of vehicle. Indeed, I saw in London the other day, one street but seven feet wide. Many are not more than twenty, and frequently [542] balconies and porticoes above project so far over, that those on one side of the street can shake hands with those on the other, without much inconvenience. We are pleased to see a very great improvement in all the new streets of London, and indeed in all other towns.

      I learned the other day, that the mother of the Rothchilds, the three greatest bankers in the world, yet lives in one of this class of streets, and in a very humble dwelling, in Frankfort on the Main. There was a portion of that city allotted the Jews in the times of their greatest political disabilities and oppression, out of which they were not allowed to live. Of course it was not a very eligible part that was thus allotted a people so despised as they then were, and still are. This good old Jewess, the mother of these three richest men in the world, still resides in the old house in which her husband died and esteems it her greatest honor to wear this badge of her faith and of her persecution for Moses' sake. Her sons, time after time, have offered to build her a palace in England, France, or Germany--any where--and of any style that she pleases; but they cannot induce her to leave a house made dear to her by the sufferings of her own oppressed and down-trodden people. How few Christians, under such circumstances, and with such temptations, could or would so pertinaciously adhere to a badge of their persecution for Christ's sake! The Jews are always a great and a firm people--great in their origin--once great in their palmy days in all national greatness--great in their talents, great in their piety, great in their faith; now great in their unbelief, as they are great in their ruin, dispersion, and long endurance of misfortune. Will they not yet be great in their restoration, and great in their admiration of their long rejected Messiah, and in their labors of love and their toils for his name's sake! May the Lord soon have mercy upon them and make their recovery as life from the dead!

      Before dismissing these old towns of Chester and Shrewsbury, as I do not intend hereafter to write much of this sort of history, but to use these as illustrations of other places and scenes of the olden times, I must observe that I did not see, so far as I remember, one brick laid, or about to be laid, in the towns of Chester and Shrewsbury. I did, indeed, see one brick-kiln in progress in the environs of Chester, but no other preparations for house-building or for house-repairing in brick or stone. These cities are as perfect and complete as the demands of the country require. Liverpool and London, these greatest of emporiums in this empire, are, indeed, growing and increasing much, especially London; but it is the influx of foreigners, of the nobility and gentry of the country, and because the sons [543] of affluence can live better and enjoy more in London than in the country.

      Rail-road travelling is all the passion here, and this, too, is making London and Liverpool still greater, as these great thoroughfares impart a sort of ubiquity to the people of this island. They can live here and carry on business in the interior with considerable saving in many branches of labor and trade. We move along in rail-cars, on the great routes of travel, only at the easy motion of forty miles an hour. True, accidents sometimes happen--seldom, however, compared with the number of travellers, and with the distances daily passed over. But two accidents have occurred since my arrival on the roads along which we have travelled. One of these was occasioned by the breaking down of an iron bridge over the river Dee, near Chester, a few days before my arrival there. The other at Wolverton, on the way here, some 45 miles from London, by the collision of cars. Some six or seven persons only were killed at each of these points.

      England is the Old Country--most emphatically the OLD COUNTRY. She is overbuilded, or builded all over, with cities, towns, villages, and hamlets. She complains of the continual loss of her territory by the thousands of acres appropriated to rail-roads. The ground for them is often bought at immense rates per acre. She complains of the loss of territory by the growth of the beautiful green hawthorn hedges: I think she will yet cut many of them down to enlarge her ploughlands. She complains that the new houses builded in some few of her cities and towns, are also reducing her plough and pasture grounds. She complains that she is too fruitful in sons and daughters, and yet she only increases one thousand per day.

      When I see and hear all these things--and especially when I see a great multitude as good as begging for bread--and so much wretchedness amidst so much wealth and grandeur, I am more and more thankful that my family is in a large and roomy country; that my children and their posterity, for years to come, are heirs in common of a vast patrimonial inheritance, of which new states and territories are yet to be cleared out and made the large and fruitful home of unborn millions of our race. The people here, I mean the multitude, have very inadequate conceptions of our country--of its extent, its mineral wealth, its vast resources. We appear as talking in romance when we speak of states and territories, of lakes, mountains, and rivers of such dimensions and of such amplitude as those which now compose the American Union. When we talk of Virginia [544] as being larger than all England, and of her yet unsettled and uncultivated millions of acres--herself, too, one of the oldest states in our Union--they know not how to realize it. One thing, however, is very evident--that, if myriads here had a few more sovereigns in their purses they would soon try the realities of the New World, and leave the land of their fathers the legacy of their room.

      I am not yet up to London in my notes, although now a week in this city. My visit to Leicester is yet wanting to complete my notes and memorabilia to this place. We have commenced house-keeping in the metropolis; have very comfortable rooms in Surry street, near the Strand, and are quite central in our position as respects the whole city. I have not yet felt the heart of a stranger in England. I was conducted from Chester to Shrewsbury by my very cordial friend, Mr. Samuel Davis, brother of John Davis, at Mollington. From Shrewsbury I had to Nottingham the company of a young brother Whalley, a relative of the Davis family. From Nottingham to Leicester I had the company of sister Henrietta Bakewell; and from Leicester to London, some hundred miles, is the only journey I have taken wholly by myself from Baltimore here.--Brother Wallis, of Nottingham, had come down here before me to make arrangements for our preaching--brother Henshall supplying his place at Nottingham. I was met at the rail-road depot, on my arrival here, by brother Wallis, by brother John Davis, who met me at Liverpool on landing, and a relative of his, sister Whalley, of London, mistress of the Duke of Norfolk's household; who has most kindly taken us under her special providence. Brother Davis being on some business at Parliament, we enjoyed his company for several days after our arrival. I have delivered five discourses in London since my arrival, of which, and other matters here, I have not room to go into details.

      Parliament is yet in session. I have been much gratified in several particulars. I have been very courteously received by our American Minister, Mr. Bancroft, through Mr. Clay's letter. I got through him an introduction to the House of Lords. I had also the pleasure since of spending an evening with our Envoy and several American gentlemen, at his residence. You know of my respect for the talents and learning of Lord Brougham. I had the good fortune of hearing a formal speech from him on my first introduction to the House of Lords. It was just such a rational, argumentative, and substantial speech as I expected, delivered in a plain but animated style, commanding indeed the marked attention of the House. I [545] am again to attend the House of Lords this evening. I have also an introduction to the House of Commons, but cannot yet find time to visit it. My love to all the family.

  Affectionately your Father,
A. CAMPBELL.      

 

[The Millennial Harbinger, Third Series, 4 (October 1847): 541-546.]


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