The History of the Worthies of England, Part 2 · County 26 · Section 2
The Buildings.
St. Pauls.
This is the only Cathedral in Christendome Dedicated solely to that Saint: Great the Pillars (little Legs would bowe under so big a body) and small the Windows thereof, Darknesse in those dayes being conceived to raise Devotion, besides it made artificial Lights to appear with the more Solemnity. It may be called the Mother Church indeed, having one Babe in her Body St. Faiths, and another in her Arms St. Gregories. Surely such, who repair to Divine Service in St. Faiths, may there be well minded of their Mortality, being living People, surrounded with the Antiperistasis of the Dead both above and beneath them. For the present I behold St. Pauls Church, as one struck with the Dead Palsie on one side, the East part and Quire thereof being quick and alive, well maintained and repaired, whilst the West part is ruinous and ready to fall down. Little hopes it will be repaired in its old Decayes, which is decayed in its new Reparations, and being formerly an Ornament, is now an Eyesore to the City; not to say unto the Citizens in general, some being offended that it is in so bad, and others that it is in no worse Condition.
The Repairing of this Church was a worthy Monument of the Piety and Charity of Arch-Bishop Laud, not only procuring the Bounty of others, but expending his own Estate thereon. We dispair not but that his Majesties Zeal in commending this work to their care, will in due time meet with the Forward Bounty of the Citizens. It is no sin to wish, that those who have plundered the Cloak and Cover of St. Pauls (not left behind by, but) violently taken from him, might be compelled to make him a new one of their own Cost, at leastwise to contribute more then ordinary proportions thereunto.
As for the Parochial Churches in London they have all either cast their skins with the Snake, or renewed their Bills with the Eagle, having at the least their Fronts beautified, if not their bodies rebuilt. Amongst which St Clements Eastcheap, is not to be forgotten, the Monument of the Bounty of Baldwin Hamey Doctor in Physick. So that what is written in a modest challenge to the Papist on the Entry into the New built Church of St. Giles in the Fields, may be inscribed on the Rest. … Viator! Anne Bonis operibus effoetum est HOC seculum?
The Bridge.
The Middle thereof is properly in none, the two ends in two Counties Middlesex and Surrey. Such who only see it beneath where it is a Bridge, cannot suspect it should be a Street, and such who behold it above where it is a Street, cannot beleive it is a Bridge, It was made with great cost, and is maintained with daily charge against the Batery and Assault of the Tide: The sad Riddle is generally known to all, which happened here some twenty years since, when a lamentable fire could not be quenched, because there was such store of Water, hindering all accesse thereunto.
The Exchange.
This was built by Sir Thomas Gresham Knight, anno Domini 1571. in Imitation of that at Antwerp, but so that the Copy exceedeth the Original, Queen Elizabeth named it the Royal burse, but it is commonly called the Exchang… or Change, because by Bargains … ven there, Wares are changed for Wares, and Wares for mony, and mony for money. Yet because much of Mutability is imported in the word Change, it may be a fit Remembrancer to Merchants meeting here, not to build their hopes of perpetuity on what is so subject to Vicissitude and Alteration. Well may this place be termed the Change, where poor men so soon become rich by Good Successe, and Richmen Poor by Losses and Casualties unexpected.
The Tower.
This to wave the Fable of Julius Caesar, was first founded by King VVilliam the Conquerour, finished by William Rufus▪ encompassed with a Ditch by William Longcamp Bishop of Ely, enlarged by King Henry the Third, fortified by King Edward the Fourth, beautified by King Richard the Third, repaired by King Henry the Eighth, since whose time no considerable addition thereunto. The Morter thereof (to make it bel…ke the more tenacious) was, saith my *Fit-Stevens in his Description of London.Author, tempered with the blood of Beasts, and this Tower was built to secure London in both senses, to … or defend it, as occasion should require. It is a Palace, a Prison, a Liberty, a Town, a Castle, and what not? most remarkable for the Armory, Mint, Ward-robe and [formerly] the Unicorns-Horn therein.
Armory.
I place this before the Mint, because of Solon his Speech to Croesus that he that hath the best Steel will command all his Gold and Silver. Here many justly admire at the prodigeous greatnesse of some ancient Corslets. If Tully, seeing a little man wearing a long Sword, said pleasantly, that he was alligatus gladio, tyed to his Sword, surely at the Sight hereof he would conclude Wearers imprisoned in their arms. This hath put men on many Conjectures, some collecting hence the Strength and Stature of the Former ages, far above ours. Others parrallel them with the Shields left by Alexander to lye in India, purposely to possesse posterity with an untruth, about the proportion of the persons of his Soldiers. If I may interpose my conjecture (and if he may speak of John of Gaunt, who never fought in his armour) I conceive those Arms so signally great, not made to march in (as too ponderous for any under a Gyant) but to stand therein in a breach where they might be serviceable.
Nor can a general diminution of Mens strength be justly inferred from the Disproportion of Arms in our and former ages. I say General Diminution, seeing all ages even in the same Country have produced some of greater some of … Dimensions. For if we compare the common Armour used Three hundred years since (and yet extant in the Tower) with ours of Modern use, no such sensible difference will be found betwixt them, as should argue an Universal decay. It is confessed that their Arrows exceeded ours both in bigness and length. But a *Dr. Hac will in his Apology pag. ….learned Author … this rather to their continual practice in shooting from their Infancy, then to their strength and Stature: so that it is rather Difuse, then disability in our age, that we cannot shoot the like, and since the Invention of Guns, the Light use we make of Arrows, have made them the lighter in the making.
Mint.
Many of these anciently in most Cities and some Towns. These afterwards (as so many Spangles in one peice of Gold) were united in the Tower.
Of late it was much imployed to coin the Plate of our Nation, to make State-mony, whence one said,
Caesaris Effigies nulla est, sed imaginis Expers,
Crux duplex super est dira, gemensque Lyra.
And Another,
May their Successe, like to their Coin appear,
Send double Crosses for their Single Chear.
Sure I am, their Coin, goeth under a general suspicion of being as bad as their Cause. But I hope hereafter, when the Question is asked of our Coiners, Whose Image and Superscription is this? it will be returned the Caesars of England.
Ward-robe.
This was not that for the Kings wearing apparel, or live…es of Servants kept elsewhere in an House so called, in the Parish of St. Andrews Ward robe, but for Vests or Robes of State, with rich Carpets, Canopies and Hangings to be used on great Solemnities. Here lately was a rich peice *It now hangeth in the Painted Chamber.of Arras, presenting the Sea-fight in eighty eighth, and having the living portractures of the chiefest Commanders, wrought in the borders thereof. On the same token, that a *Lord Verulam in his ….Captain, who highly prized his own service, missing his picture therein, complained of the injury to his friend, professing of himself that he merited a place there, as well as some therein remembred, seeing he was ingaged in the middle of the Fight. Be content (quoth his friend) thou hast been an old Pirate, and art reserved for another hanging.
There were also kept in this place, the ancient Cloaths of our English Kings, which they wore on great Festivals; so that this Ward robe was in effect a Library for Antiquaries, therein to read the Mode and Fashion of Garments in all ages. These King James, in the beginning of his Reign, gave to the Earl of Dunbar, by whom they were sold, resold, and re-re-resold at as many hands almost as Briarius had, some gaining vast Estates thereby.
The Unicorns-Horn.
Amongst the many precious rarities in the Tower, this (as another in Windsor-Castle) was in my memory, shown to people. It belongs not to me to enquire, what is become of them, but rather to discuss,
1. Whether there be such a creature as an Unicorn.
2. What kind of Animal it is?
3. What the fashion and colour of his Horn.
4. What the use & effect. of his Horn.
For the first, they produce a weak proof, who alledge them to be the Supporters of the Scottish-arms, and of the arms of some English Gentlemen, particularly of the Family of Paris in Cambridge-shire; seeing most Heralds wear the addition of Painters, and the Fancy of Painters pretends to the priviledge of a lawlesse Liberty. But, besides that it is uncivil to give the lye to a common Tradition, the former existence of such a creature (and surely no Species is wholly lost) is cleared from several places of Scripture, *Num. 23. 22.God hath as it were the strength of an Unicorn. *Job. 39. 9.Will the Unicorn be willing to serve thee? *Psal. 22. 10.My Horn shalt thou exalt like the Horn of an Unicorn, &c. True it is, the Word in the *foreign … Reem.Original importeth nothing of any Horn therein (as doth the Latin Unicornis, and the Greek Monoceros) Yet I am confident it is right rendred, because it is so rendred. Such was the Learning and Piety of the persons imployed in that Translation.
Proceed we now to the second Quaere about the kind thereof. Surely it is distinct from the Rhinoceros (carrying a Horn not on his Forehead but on his Nose) because the Exaltation of his Horn is not considerable, as not bunching forth much above a Foot in the prominency thereof. He is commonly pictured, bodyed like a Buck, with a Horn advanced out of his Forehead, some two Yards in proportion, and this his Picture confuteth his Picture, seeing generally he is held to be no Beast of Prey, but which feedeth on the grass, and if so, his Mouth cannot meet with the Ground; the Interposition of his Horn so fancifully fixed, making so great distance betwixt them.
The plain Truth is, I, who first questioned whether there were any Unicorns, am since convin…ed that there are so many sorts of them, The Indian Oxe, the Indian Asse, the O…yx, &c. famous for carrying one Horn, but which is the prize in this Lottery I cannot decide, seeing none alive in our Land have seen a four footed Beast of that kind, and Julius Scaliger saith truly,
Ex libris colligere quae prodider unt Authores longe est periculosissimum; Rerum ipsarum cognitio vera è rebus ipsis est.
OLAUS WORME, One no lesse a curious Inquirer into the Mysteries, then careful preserver of the Rarities of Nature, Physician at this day to the King of Denmark, in a Learned Work which he lately set forth endevoureth to prove all under a general mistake, who fancy a Unicorn a four footed Beast, proving the same to be a Fish in the Northern Seas, of 22. Foot in Length, a long horn in his Forehead (no more cumbersome in the portage, then Ears are to other Beasts) with which Horn he tilteth at his prey, and having pierced it through, doth afterward feed upon it.
If it be objected to the contrary, that in *…. 34. 7.Scripture he is ranked amongst the Qua…; And the Unicorns shall come down with them, and the Bullocks with the Bulls, and their Land shall be soaked with blood, and their Dust made Fat with Fatnesse; It will be answered, that Unicorns there are not real, but metaphorical (rendred appellatively Robusti in some Translations) importing that strong Enemies both by Water and Land, shall invade Idumaea to the utter destruction thereof.
Come we now to the fashion and colour of the Horn, conceiving it no considerable controversie concerning the length and bignesse thereof, quantity not varying the kind in such cases. Some are plain, as that in St. Marks in Venice; others wreathed about, as that at St. Dyonis neer Paris, with anfractuous spires, and cocleary turnings about it, which probably is the effect of age, those Wreaths being but the wrinkles of most vivacious Unicorns. The same may be said of the colour, white, when newly taken from his Head; Yellow, like that lately in the Tower of some hundred years seniority, but whether or no it will ever turn black, as that of Aelians and Plinies Description, let others decide.
The last Quaere remains of the virtue of this Horn, which some exalt so high, that it is not only antidotal to several Venomes, and substances destructive by their qualities, which we can command our selves to believe; but also that it resisteth poysons which kill by second qualities, that is, by corrosion of parts; wherein I concur with my learned *Tho. Browne Dr. of Physick in his Enquiries into vulgar Errors B. 3. cap. 23.Author, and doubt such exceed the properties of its nature, and the promises of experiment will not secure the adventure; and I believe few Mountebanks will be so daring as to poyson themselves on the Security of such an Alexipharmacon.
I have done Reader with this Subject, when I have told thee that two of my worthy friends (yea, the Friends to Mankind by their general generosity) Dr. Baldwin Hamey and Sir Francis Prugean, the one had the Horn it self (which to my dim eyes at some distance seemed like a Taper of wreathed Waxe) the other hath the Socket (as I may term it) of the Fish, into which this Horn was fixed. I have heard, that upon Experiment, a great cure against poyson hath been done with some Grains the…erof; and it is improbable that the Vigour of the vigour of Nature, should extrude that so specious to Sight, which is not also Soveraign to Service. Since I am informed that the same Dr. Hamey, hath parted with the Propriety thereof to the Colledge of Physicians, and they have solemnly presented this Unicorns Horn to his Majesty, to supply the place of that in the Tower, which our Civil wars have embeseled.