The American Fugitive in Europe; Sketches of Places and People Abroad Book

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1855 Excerpt: ... In the afternoon we returned to Bristol, and I spent the greater part of the next day in examining the interior of Redcliffe Church. Few places in the west of England have greater claims upon the topographer and historian than the church of St. Mary's, Redcliffe. Ita antiquity, the beauty of its architecture, and, above all, the interesting circumstances connected with its history, entitle it to peculiar notice. It is also associated with the enterprise of genius; for its name has been blended with the reputation of Rowley, of Canynge, and of Chatterton, and no lover of poetry and admirer of art can visit it without a degree of enthusiasm. And, when the old building shall have mouldered into ruins, even these will be trodden with veneration, as sacred to the recollection of genius of the highest order. Ascending a winding stair, we were shown into the treasury room. The room forms an irregular octagon, admitting light through narrow, unglazed apertures, upon the broken and scattered fragments of the famous Rowleian chests, that, with the rubble and dust of centuries, cover the floor. It is here creative fancy pictures forth the sad image of the spirit of the spot--the ardent boy, flushed and fed by hope, musing on the brilliant deception he had conceived, whose daring attempt has left his name unto the intellectual world as a marvel and a mystery. That a boy under twelve years of age should write a series of poems, imitating the style of the fifteenth century, and palm these poems off upon the world as the work of a monk, is indeed strange; and that these should become the object of interesting contemplation to-the literary world, and should awaken inquiries, and exercise the talents of a Southey, a Bryant, a Miller, a Mathias, and others, savors more of r...