All men have not the same cast of mind. What may appear essential to one may seem impertinent to the question to another. Erasmus Darwin, though in his day branded with the name of atheist, and consigned to the infernal shades in the pages of the "Methodists' Magazine," &c., was eminently the reverse, and must be ranked with the teleologists; he certainly was not without the mistakes which are sometimes attributed to the school. Had he lived now he might have appeared in another phase: but whether so or not, we believe that he would have been a bright luminary in biology; that he would have been a popular poet may not be so certain.
Kempley Church, Gloucestershire.[1]
By J. Henry Middleton, Esq.
The Church at Kempley, in Gloucestershire, consists of a Norman nave and chancel, built probably at the end of the eleventh century: their sizes are roughly—nave, 34 feet by 19 feet; chancel, 18 feet by 14 feet, internal measurement. All the walls of this early part remain, with the west and south doors, the narrow chancel arch, and four of the original windows. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a western tower was added, a wooden porch built on to the south door, and two perpendicular two-light windows were inserted in the nave, probably in the place of older Norman ones.
The dedication of this church is not quite certain, but tradition ascribes it to the Blessed Virgin, and this view is supported by the legend on one of the bells, which is Dilige Virgo Pia quos congrego Virgo Maria. Another bell has the following legend:—Jesu campanam tibi semper protege sonam. Both these bells date from the reign of Edward III.
The chancel, where the best preserved paintings remain, is covered by a plain, circular barrel vault, built in rubble. This vault has nearly been the destruction of the chancel, by spreading and so pushing out the walls, which were without buttresses, as is usual in Norman work. It has, however, been lately shored up and made secure from outside. Such vaults as these are common in military and monastic buildings of the eleventh and twelfth centuries; but, except the White Chapel in the Tower of London, I do not remember another English instance of a church being so roofed.
The chancel arch, as well as the vault, is much injured and distorted by settlement, and a crack along the crown of the latter has seriously injured the paintings.
The whole wall surface of the chancel, in addition to the soffit of the vault, has been richly decorated with painting, and most of it still remains in a remarkably perfect condition, considering its great age. The comparative freshness of the colouring is owing to the whole surface having been thoroughly covered with repeated coats of whitewash, and
- ↑ Read before the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, on May 28th, 1876, on the occasion of their visit to Kempley Church,
