and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE MIRROR
OF
LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.
| VOL. XVII, NO. 482.] | SATURDAY, MARCH 26, 1831. | [PRICE 2d. |
BRAY CHURCH.BRAY CHURCH.
Who has not heard of the Vicar of Bray, and his turning, turning,and turning again? Here is his church, and a goodly tower withal, whichwe, in our turn, have endeavoured to turn to the illustration of ourpages. There is no sinister motive in the selection; but if we have hitthe white, or rather the black, of such variableness, "let the galledjade wince," and pay the Mirror the stale compliment of velutiin speculum.
Bray is a small village about one mile from Maidenhead, and itsname would have remained "unsaid, unsung," had it not been for itsnever-enough-to-be-ridiculed Vicar. Camden supposes Bray to have beenoccupied by the Bibroci, who submitted to Caesar, and obtainedhis protection, and with it a secure possession of one of the mostbeautiful spots in this county; so that submissiveness seems to havebeen the very air of the place in all times. Philippa, the queen ofEdward III., had rents assigned to her from this and the adjoining manorof Cookham. It is now considered as part of the royal domain, beingattached to the liberties of Windsor Castle, and retaining some peculiarprivileges, among which is an exemption from tolls in the adjacentmarket-towns. In default of male heirs, lands are not divided here amongfemales of the same degree of kindred, but descend solely to the eldest.The church is "a spacious structure," says the WindsorGuide, and "composed of various materials, and exhibiting a mixtureof almost every style of architecture," says the "Beauties of Englandand Wales;" but we leave the reader to his own conclusion from ourEngraving, sketched in the summer of last year. We take for granted thechurch does not change in appearance every year, if its Vicar once didin creed.
The story of the Vicar of Bray is told with some variations, butthe fact is not questioned. In the Beauties of England and Wales we readthat his name was Simon Symonds, that he possessed the benefice in thereign of Henry VIII. and the three succeeding monarchs, and that he diedin the forty-first year of Elizabeth. "This man was twice a Protestantand twice a Papist; and when reproached for the unsteadiness of hisprinciples, which could thus suffer him to veer with every change of[pg 210]administration, replied, 'that he had always governed himself by whathe thought a very laudable principle, which was, never on any terms,if he could avoid it, to part with his vicarage." This creed has beenamplified into a song, which we shall quote presently, more for itsbeing a good conceite than for its scarceness.
The author just quoted from the Beauties observes, in anote—"Several late writers, particularly Ireland and Ferrar, who havementioned the above circumsta