Lippincotts Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878 | Page 4

a startling way, supporting them by quotations
apparently very learned, and practically, for the sort of audience he had,

irrefutable: one was on the subject of the ark, which he averred to be
still buried in the eternal snows of Mount Ararat, and discoverable by
any one with will and money to bring it to light. As to the question of
which of the disputed peaks was the Ararat of the Bible he said nothing.
This brilliant man had a passion for roses and gardening in general, and
his rectory garden was a wonder even among clerical gardens, which,
as a rule, are the most delightful and homelike of all English gardens.
[Illustration: LORD LEICESTER'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK.]
[Illustration: COVENTRY GATEWAY.]
One of Warwickshire's oldest towns and best-preserved specimens of
mediæval architecture is Coventry, famous for its legend of Lady
Godiva, still commemorated by an annual procession during the great
Show Fair, held the first Friday after Trinity Sunday and continued for
eight days. From Warwick to Coventry is a drive of ten miles, past
many villages whose windows and chimneys form as many temptations
to stop and linger, but Coventry itself is so rich in these peculiarities
that a walk through its streets is a reward for one's hurry on the road.
One would suppose, according to the saying of a ready-witted lady, that
the town must be by this time full of a large and interesting society,
since so many people have been at various times "sent to Coventry."
The origin of the saying, as an equivalent for being tabooed (itself a
term of savage origin and later date), is reported to be the deserved
unpopularity of the military there about a century ago, when no
respectable woman dared to be seen in the streets with a soldier. This
led to the place being considered by regiments as an undesirable post,
since they were shunned by the decent part of the town's-people, and to
be "sent to Coventry" became, in consequence, a synonym for being
"cut." There are, however, other interpretations of the saying, and,
though this sounds plausible, it may be incorrect. The heart of the town,
once the strong-hold of the "Red Rose," is still very ancient,
picturesque and sombre-looking, though the suburbs have been
widened, "improved" and modernized to suit present requirements. The
Coventry of our day depends for its prosperity on its silk and ribbon
trade, necessitating all the appliances of looms, furnaces and

dye-houses, which give employment to a population reaching nearly
forty thousand. The continuance of prosperous trade in most of the
ancient English boroughs is a very interesting feature in their history;
and though no doubt the picturesqueness of towns is increased or
preserved by their falling into the Pompeii stage and dwindling into
loneliness or decay, one cannot wish such to be their fate. Few English
towns that have been of any importance centuries ago have gone back,
though some have stood still; and if they have lost their social prestige,
the spirit of the times has gradually made the loss of less consequence
in proportion as the importance of trade and manufactures has
increased. The ribbon trade is indeed a new one, hardly two centuries
old, but Coventry was the centre of the old national woollen industry
long before. Twenty years ago, the silk trade having languished, the
queen revived the fashion of broad ribbons, and Coventry wares
became for a while the rage, just as Honiton lace and Norwich silk
shawls did at other times, chiefly through the same example of court
patronage of native industries. St. Michael's, Trinity and Christ
churches furnish the three noted spires, the first one of the highest and
most beautiful in England, and the third the remains of a Gray Friars'
convent, to which a new church has been attached. Of the ancient
cathedral (Lichfield and Coventry conjointly formed one see) only a
few ruins remain, and the same is the case with the old walls with their
thirty-two towers and twelve gates. The old hospitals and schools have
fared better--witness Bond's Hospital at Bablake (once an adjacent
hamlet, but now within the city limits), commonly called Bablake
Hospital, founded by the mayor of Coventry in the latter part of Henry
VII.'s reign for the use of forty-five old men, with a revenue of ten
hundred and fifty pounds; Ford's Hospital for thirty-five old women, a
building so beautiful in its details that John Carter the archæologist
declared that it "ought to be kept in a case;" Hales' free school, where
Dugdale, the famous antiquary and the possessor of Merivale Hall, near
Warwick, received the early part of his education; and St. Mary's Hall,
built by Henry VI. for the Trinity guild on the site of an old hall now
used as a public hall