what his Father’s formerly had been, to get his Pretended-Bishops set on foot there; his Tulchans converted into real Calves;—in which, as we shall see, he succeeded still worse than his Father had done. Dr. Laud, Bishop Laud, now near upon Archbishophood, attended his Majesty thither as formerly, still found ‘no religion’ there, but trusted now to introduce one. The Chapel at Holyrood-house was fitted up with every equipment, textile and metallic; and little Bishop Laud in person ‘performed the service,’ in a way to illuminate the benighted natives, as was hoped,—show them how an Artist could do it. He had also some dreadful travelling through certain of the savage districts of that country.
Crossing Huntingdonshire, on this occasion, in his way Northward, his Majesty had visited the Establishment of Nicholas Ferrar at Little Gidding, on the western border of that county.[1] A surprising Establishment, now in full flower; wherein above fourscore persons, including domestics, with Ferrar and his Brother and aged Mother at the head of them, had devoted themselves to a kind of Protestant Monachism, and were getting much talked of in those times. They followed celibacy, and merely religious duties; employed themselves in ‘binding of Prayer-books,’ embroidering of hassocks, in alms-giving also, and what charitable work was possible in that desert region; above all, they kept up, night and day, a continual repetition of the English Liturgy; being divided into relays and watches, one watch relieving another as on shipboard; and never allowing at any hour the sacred fire to go out. This also, as a feature of the times, the modern reader is to meditate. In Izaac Walton’s Lives there is some drowsy notice of these people, not unknown to the modern reader. A far livelier notice; record of an actual visit to the place, by an Anonymous Person, seemingly a religious Lawyer, perhaps returning from Circuit in that direction, at all events a most sharp distinct man, through whose clear eyes we also can still look;—is preserved by Hearne in very unexpected
- ↑ Rushworth, ii. 178.
