Ipswich contains no less than thirteen churches, built, for the most part, in the Perpendicular15 style of architecture. Portions of some, however, are of earlier date. The oak door at St. Mary at the Elms, for instance, is in the Norman style, but slightly enriched, and therefore probably of the older or primary Norman. The Town Hall stands upon the Cornhill, upon the site of St. Mildred’s Church, many centuries disused. There also stood an ancient Hall of Pleas; and a Sociary or Seating Room of the Corpus Christi Guilds16 was erected17 there in Henry VIII.’s time. The mansions19 of Ipswich merchants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, still to be found ornamenting20 the parish of St. Clement’s, are worthy21 of close inspection, as they attest22 the wealth and importance of those who once inhabited them. Very many of the houses bear dates, and have fine p. 30ornamental exteriors23. Many of the fine carved corner posts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries still remain. A gateway24, an interesting relic25 of the great Cardinal26 Wolsey, who was a native of Ipswich, stands abutting27 upon College Street, and near the East end of St. Peter’s Church. It is of brick and small, and was probably not the chief place of egress28 attached to the building, which was undoubtedly29 built in a style of magnificence, and in accordance with the fine taste in architecture which the Cardinal was known to have possessed30. Over the doorway31 are the arms of Henry VIII., and on each side of the Royal coat is a trefoil-headed niche32, though now containing no figures. The place was erected in 1528. In the early part of the present century Ipswich was evidently a declining town. In 1813 its population was only 13,670, when Windham, the great statesman, who visited the place, speaks of it in very favourable33 terms as a town, picturesque and pleasant. At this present time the town has a population of 57,260. One of the most eminent34 men born in Ipswich was Firmin, the London draper, who was a philanthropist of the noblest character, and who did much for the poor both at Ipswich and in London. He was a Unitarian when to be anything but orthodox was considered in all circles as a matter of serious censure35, and yet he was a friend of a Liberal Bishop36. He is buried in Christ Church, Newgate Street, close to the great school for which he did so much, and to the funds of which he was such a liberal contributor. In every way he is to be considered a credit to his native town, and as one of the foremost men of the age in which he lived, and which he so greatly adorned37. He set a good example that many of our merchant princes have not been slow to imitate. Had he been orthodox his fame would have been greater still.
One of the oldest houses in Ipswich is that known as Christ Church, the dwelling38 place of the Fonnereaus for many generations. It is one of the oldest houses in England, and has been inhabited for 350 years. There is not a better example of Elizabethan building to be p. 31met with anywhere. More than once has Royalty39 been hospitably40 entertained there. The most celebrated Royal visitor was Queen Elizabeth, who made a tour of the Eastern Counties in 1589, and rode through Essex and Suffolk with a crowd of attendant cavaliers. Her Majesty reached Ipswich in August, and was entertained there four days. Local tradition says that the bed Her Majesty slept in may be seen to this day in the haunted chamber12 of the old mansion18. Long before the house was built, there was on the spot the convent and priory of Christ Church, tenanted by monks41, known as Black Canons of St. Augustine, who took an active part in the business of the town, and to whom King John granted a charter for a market, which became a very popular one. As regards the park, the legend is that the bowling-green on the summit, now surrounded by a double avenue of magnificent limes, was one of those places selected by the Druids for purposes of worship. It is certain that the Danes, who were much given to sailing up and down the Orwell, on plunder42 bent43, chose this very spot as the site of what may be called a hall of justice. There is reason to believe that on this very green Charles II. played bowls. There was a celebrated Lord Rochester who visited the house, and found the park-keeper driving two donkeys for the purpose of keeping the turf in good order. Further tradition says that in order not to hurt the turf the donkeys wore boots, which induced the facetious44 Earl to observe that Ipswich was “a town without people, that there was a river without water, and that asses45 wore boots.” Christ Church is now on sale. Ultimately it is to be hoped it will be purchased by the Corporation for a people’s palace and park.
In the old times Ipswich must have been a much more picturesque place than it is to-day. All its old records are religiously preserved by a worthy townsman, Mr. John Glyde, in his Illustrations of Old Ipswich, a handsome work, which is a credit to the town, and which ought to find a place in the library of East Anglians wealthy enough to purchase it. He p. 32writes lovingly of its gates and walls indicating the lamentable46 state of insecurity by which our forefathers47 were embarrassed in those good old times, when the Curfew Bell tolled48 every evening at eight o’clock. “There is, perhaps,” says an antiquarian writer, “no house in the kingdom which, for its size, is more curiously49 or quaintly50 ornamented51 than the ancient house still standing52 in the Butter Market.” The tradition is that Charles II. was hidden for awhile in that house after his defeat at Worcester. Be that as it may, the Ipswich traders, like John Gilpin, were men of credit and renown53, and Fuller, in the seventeenth century, spoke54 of the number of wealthy merchant houses in Ipswich. It was in the reign55 of Elizabeth, remarks Mr. Glyde, that Ipswich seems to have attained56 the zenith of its fame. There is scarcely a branch of foreign commerce carried on at the present time, with the exception of trade with China, that was not prosecuted57 with more or less entirety in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. At that time Ipswich was much richer in shipping58 than Yarmouth, Southampton, or Lynn. Foreign weavers60 discovered the advantage of using English wool, and the gold of Flanders found its way into the pockets of English traders. The town still boasts a memorial of Cardinal Wolsey’s munificent61 liberality. One of its representatives was no less a distinguished62 person than Bacon—
The wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind.
Cavendish, the explorer of the world, was one of the personages at one time often to be seen in its streets—streets along which had ridden in triumph Queens Mary and Elizabeth, to say nothing of the Saxon Queen, who at one time resided in the town. But if Ipswich knows no longer the grandeur63 and pageantry of the past, if its Black Friars are vanished, it is still the abiding64 place of that new and better spirit to which Cromwell appealed, and not in vain, when he sought to make this England of ours great and free.
p. 33“I knew of no town to be compared to Ipswich,” wrote old Cobbett, “except it be Nottingham, and there is this difference that Nottingham stands high and on one side looks over a fine country whereas Ipswich is in a dell, meadows running up above it and a beautiful arm of the sea below it. From the town itself you can see nothing, but you can in no direction go from it a charter of a mile without finding views that a painter might crave65, and then the country round is so well cultivated.” A good deal has been done for Ipswich since Cobbett’s day. It has its public promenades66 and in the neighbourhood of the river there still lingers somewhat of the scenery Gainsborough loved to paint. There is also a good deal of literary association connected with Ipswich. The White Horse Inn still remains67 in much the same state as it was in the times of Mr. Pickwick, “famous,” wrote Dickens, “in the neighbourhood, in the same degree as a prize ox, or county paper chronicled turnip69 or unwieldy pig for its enormous size.” Any one who has sojourned there will find it easy to understand how the illustrious Pickwick came to mistake a lady’s bed-chamber for his own. Why should not the Great White Horse be as dear to the admirers of Dickens as the Leather Bottle at Cobham? If the admirers of Pickwick rush as they do by hundreds to Cobham to view the room where Pickwick slept, why, it may be asked, should not a similar patronage70 be extended to the Great White Horse at Ipswich.
Curious people besides Pickwick and his friends have favoured Ipswich. There lived there in the reign of William III., a family known as the “odd family,” a most appropriate name, as the following facts clearly prove. Every event, good, bad, or indifferent, came to that family in an odd year, or on an odd day of the month, and every member of it was odd in person, manner, or behaviour. Even the letters of their christian71 names always amounted to an odd number. The father and mother were Peter and Rahab; their seven p. 34children (all boys) bore the names of Solomon, Roger, James, Matthew, Jonas, David, and Ezekiel. The husband possessed only one leg, and his wife only one arm; Solomon was blind in his left eye, and Roger lost his right optic by an accident. James had his left ear pulled off in a quarrel; Matthew’s left hand had but three fingers; Jonas had a stump72 foot; David was humpbacked; and Ezekiel was 6ft. 2in at the age of 19. Every one of the children had red hair, notwithstanding the fact that the father’s hair was jet black and the mother’s white. Strange at birth all died as strange. The father fell into a deep sawpit and was killed; the wife died five years after of starvation. Ezekiel enlisted73, was afterwards wounded in 23 places, but recovered. Roger, James, Matthew, Jonas, and David died in 1713, in different places on the same day; Solomon and Ezekiel were drowned in the Thames in 1723.
Thomas Colson, known to Ipswich people as Robinson Crusoe, died in the year 1811. He was originally a wool-comber, then a weaver59, but the failure of that employment induced him to enter the Suffolk Militia74, and while quartered in Leicester with his Regiment75, he learned the trade of stocking weaving, which he afterwards followed in Suffolk. But this occupation he shortly exchanged for that of fisherman on the Orwell. His little craft, which he made himself, was a curiosity in its way, and seemed too crazy to live in bad weather, and yet in it he toiled76 day and night, in calm or storm. Subject to violent chronic68 complaints, with a mind somewhat disordered, in person tall and thin, with meagre countenance77 and piercing blue eyes, he was thus described by a contemporary poet—
With squalid garments round him flung,
And o’er his bending shoulders hung,
A string of perforated stones,
With knots of elm and horses bones.
He dreams that wizards leagued with hell,
Have o’er him cast their deadly spell;
Though pinching pains his limbs endure,
He holds his life by charms secure,
And, while he feels the torturing ban,
No wave can drown the spell-bound man.
p. 35—But this security was the means of his death. In October, 1811, there was a great storm on the Orwell, and he was driven in his boat on the mud. He refused to leave his vessel78, though advised and implored79 to do so. The ebb80 of the tide drew his boat into deep water, and he was drowned.
Amongst the charitable women of Ipswich must be mentioned Miss Parish, a maiden81 lady, who died there in 1810. She seems to have relieved everyone who was in distress82. At the time of her death she had actually twenty pensioners83 living in her house, besides children supported at different schools, while numbers were cheered by her occasional donations. She was a good Samaritan indeed. It is to be hoped there are to be found many such in the Ipswich of to-day.
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1
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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majesty
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| n.雄伟，壮丽，庄严，威严；最高权威，王权 | |
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dominions
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| 统治权( dominion的名词复数 )； 领土； 疆土； 版图 | |
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arboretum
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| n.植物园 | |
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promenade
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| n./v.散步 | |
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briny
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| adj.盐水的；很咸的；n.海洋 | |
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conducive
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| adj.有益的，有助的 | |
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metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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guilds
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| 行会，同业公会，协会( guild的名词复数 ) | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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mansions
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| n.宅第，公馆，大厦( mansion的名词复数 ) | |
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20
ornamenting
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| v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的现在分词 ) | |
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21
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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attest
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| vt.证明，证实；表明 | |
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23
exteriors
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| n.外面( exterior的名词复数 )；外貌；户外景色图 | |
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gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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abutting
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| adj.邻接的v.（与…）邻接( abut的现在分词 )；（与…）毗连；接触；倚靠 | |
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28
egress
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| n.出去；出口 | |
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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hospitably
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| 亲切地，招待周到地，善于款待地 | |
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monks
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| n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 ) | |
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42
plunder
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| vt.劫掠财物，掠夺；n.劫掠物，赃物；劫掠 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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facetious
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| adj.轻浮的，好开玩笑的 | |
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asses
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| n. 驴，愚蠢的人，臀部 adv. (常用作后置)用于贬损或骂人 | |
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46
lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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forefathers
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| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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48
tolled
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| 鸣钟（toll的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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49
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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51
ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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52
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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renown
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| n.声誉，名望 | |
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54
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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55
reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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56
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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57
prosecuted
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| a.被起诉的 | |
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58
shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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59
weaver
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| n.织布工；编织者 | |
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weavers
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| 织工，编织者( weaver的名词复数 ) | |
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61
munificent
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| adj.慷慨的，大方的 | |
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62
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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63
grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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crave
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| vt.渴望得到，迫切需要，恳求，请求 | |
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66
promenades
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| n.人行道( promenade的名词复数 )；散步场所；闲逛v.兜风( promenade的第三人称单数 ) | |
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67
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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69
turnip
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| n.萝卜，芜菁 | |
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70
patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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72
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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73
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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76
toiled
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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77
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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78
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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implored
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| 恳求或乞求（某人）( implore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ebb
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| vi.衰退，减退；n.处于低潮，处于衰退状态 | |
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81
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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82
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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pensioners
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| n.领取退休、养老金或抚恤金的人( pensioner的名词复数 ) | |
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