Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 1/An old church library
AN OLD CHURCH LIBRARY.
“Langley Marsh! not a very inviting locality I should judge. What could attract you to a marsh, in your longing for country air?”
“It is no marsh. The soil is gravel. Believe Lady Hertford, the invoked by Thomson, the Countess who wrote thus to the Countess of Pomfret, about Richings, not a mile distant from my calumniated village: 'One great addition to the pleasure of living here is the gravelly soil, which after a day of rain, if it holds up for two or three hours, one may walk over without being wet through one’s shoes.’ ”
“Well. Hume says, all Britain was marshy once; and I suppose this marsh has been drained in some rude agricultural fashion of the days before tiles, and instead of quagmires you have only standing pools.”
“Hume misquotes his authority when he says all Britain was marshy once; and I have little doubt some blundering topographer has misquoted an ancient title-deed, and made libellous English out of the obscure Latin which distinguished this Langley from others of the same family name.”
I was piqued at my friend’s scepticism about this district—a district of early cultivation, where grassy lanes, or paths across rich corn fields, lead to quaint farm-houses of many gables, overshadowed by majestic elms shutting the farm in with its snug orchards. A district of abundant population in old times; for bells do knoll to church from many an ivy-mantled tower-—from Langley, Upton, Iver, Horton, each within an easy walk of the other. A district which the enthusiastic Countess who dwelt at Richings, describes as coming “nearer to my idea of a scene in Arcadia than any place I ever saw.” A flat Arcadia, certainly; and the modern Arcadians have too remorselessly lopped and trimmed the hedge-row elms near Richings, since the days when Pope and Addison, Gay and Prior, capp’d verses upon the carved bench amongst the trees which Bathurst planted. Nevertheless, though the Arcadia be somewhat damaged, the most ruthless spirit of utility cannot wholly spoil nature; and this district has peculiar features of homely beauty, which like those of many an unobtrusive human face improve upon acquaintance.
All honour to those industrious men who have piled up our County Histories, folio upon folio. The four massive Volumes of the History of Buckinghamshire, by George Lipscomb, may give me what I seek. Behold! Langley Marish, or Maires, is said to have derived its name from Christiana de Mariscis, who held this manor in the reign of Edward I. Is not “Marsh” a misnomer?
A County History, with its tombstone information, affords its own sober enjoyment. It is busy idleness to doze over its records-—pleasanter even than the sweet do-nothing. No passion is roused, no prejudice is stirred, when I learn from Lipscomb that in 1626 (2 Car. I.) the king by patent granted the manor of Langley Marish to Sir John Kedermister, and dame Mary his wife; that the manor-house, originally built by Sir John, was pulled down in 1758, and rebuilt by Spencer, Duke of Marlborough; that the family of Kedermister founded the Church of Langley—a parochial chapel subject to Wyrardisbury; that Sir John Kedermister erected here an alms-house for six poor persons; that the family monument of the Kedermisters is on the north side of the chancel. Here is a fact more interesting to me than the description of that family monument: “The will of Sir John Kedermister, dated February 22, 1631, contains the following passage — ’And concerning a Library which I have prepared and adjoined to Langley Church aforesaid, for the benefit as well of ministers of the said town and such other in the county of Bucks as resort thereunto, I do appoint that those books which I have already prepared be there duly placed together with so many more as shall amount to the sum of twenty pounds.”
In 1631, Sir John Kedermister had prepared and adjoined his library to Langley Church. His will provides for additions to the existing books. They were “for public use,” as Lysons interprets the will; but with an express injunction that no book should be ever taken out of the library.
This extract from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury raises my curiosity. What books shall I find in the Library adjoined to Langley Church—-a distinct building at the south-west angle? Worthy Sir John Kedermister evidently contemplated some wider diffusion of learning than was provided for in the parochial libraries of the century which succeeded him. The statute of 1708, for the better preservation of such libraries founded by charitable contributions, says, “in many places the provision for the clergy is so mean that the necessary expense of books for the better prosecution of their studies cannot be defrayed by them.” The clauses of the statute show that the parochial library of the beginning of the eighteenth century is for the exclusive use of the minister or ministers of the parish—the incumbent and his curate. The Act is not very confiding; for its express object is to compel such regulations as shall “preserve the books from embezzlement.” Disappointing will be the search of the bibliomaniac who may expect to find treasures in the relics of such parochial libraries. They are generally contained in a worm-eaten chest of the vestry. You plunge into dust and mildew when the sexton lifts up the lid, painfully—-for the hinges are broken; and there sleep some fifty volumes of controversial lumber, that indicate pretty clearly whether the parson and his charitable friends of the reign of Anne were of High-church or Low—were believers in Divine Right or in the Act of Settlement.
A venerable church is this of Langley—with restorations in good taste. Beautiful, as well as spacious, is its churchyard. The low-roofed parsonage—a primitive cottage, such as George Herbert would have rejoiced in—is on the west. The south and the north are enclosed by the solid brick alms-houses of Sir John Kedermister, and another alms-building of a later foundation, but equally massive. The churchyard itself is a very “garden of roses.” The cluster-rose and the China-rose climb over the railings of the well preserved tombs. The one yew, of six or eight centuries’ growth, is decaying amidst scores of rose-trees, the grafts of the last six or eight autumns. The wearied labourer, and the giddy schoolboy, pass reverently by these rose-trees, and touch not a flower; for some they recognise as tokens of love, and every tree that sheds its rich June blossoms over the grassy mounds soothingly whispers “all must die.”
But the Library. In the southern alms-houses I find its guardian—one of the six poor persons who there dwell, and have each a weekly half crown, through the bounty of the Library’s founder. There is no difficulty in obtaining admission. The neat and good-humoured dame unlocks a door in the southern transept, which the records call “a particular aisle dedicated to the family of Kedermister.” I step into the family pew of the lords of the manor of Langley, which is also the entrance to the Library. A curious structure is this elevated pew—shut off from the body of the church by a screen of carved latticework. Brief Latin sentences of scriptural admonition encompass the frames of the latticed door and windows; and fill every other vacant space Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/87 Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/88 Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/89