The International Monthly Magazine | Page 2

imperial marshals, the last of that gigantic race who
filled the world with a red glory like the gloom which will precede the
judgment, closed his stormy life peacefully in the place where he was
born, and thence was borne to the Invalides, to "sleep well" with his old

companions."

THE HOMES OF COWLEY AND FOX.
We have in the last Art Journal another of the pleasant gossipping
Pilgrimages to English Shrines, by Mrs. S. C. HALL, and the following
abridgement of it will please all who have perused the previous papers
of the series. In Chertsey and its neighborhood are memorials of some
of the noblest men of England.
[Illustration: ABRAHAM COWLEY.]
ABRAHAM COWLEY.

CHERTSEY AND ITS FAMOUS CHARACTERS.
The county of Surrey is rich to overflowing in memories, both of
persons and events, and the little quaint and quiet town of Chertsey
could tell of the gorgeous and gloomy past as much as many of its
ancient neighbors within a day's drive of the city. Had its old abbey
stones but tongues, how they could discourse of years when a visit to
Chertsey was an undertaking; though now the distance is but half an
hour.
Nowhere within twenty miles of London does the Thames appear more
queenly, or sweep with greater grace through its fertile dominions, than
it does at Chertsey. It is, indeed, delightful to stand on the bridge in the
glowing sunset of a summer evening, and turning from the refreshing
green of the Shepperton Range, look into the deep clear blue of the
flowing river, while the murmur of the waters rushing through Laleham
Lock give a sort of spirit music to the scene. On the right, as you leave
Chertsey, the river bends gracefully towards the double bridge of
Walton, and to the left, it undulates smoothly along, having passed
Runnymede and Staines, while the almost conical hill of St. Anne's
attracts attention by its abrupt and singular form when viewed from the

vale of the Thames.
About a mile, on the Walton side, from our favorite bridge (Old
Camden tells us so), is the spot where Cæsar crossed the Thames. Were
the peasantry as imaginative as their brethren of Killarney, what
legends would have grown out of this tradition; how often would the
"noblest Roman of them all" have been seen by the pale moonlight
leading his steed over the waters of the rapid river--how many would
have heard Cassivelaunus himself during the stillness of some
particular Midsummer night working at the rude defence which can still
be traced beneath the blue waters of the Thames. What hosts of pale
and ghastly spectres would have risen from those tranquil banks, and
from the deepest hollows of the rushing current, and--like the Huns,
who almost live on the inspired canvas of Kaulbach,--fought their last
earthly battle, again and again, in the spirit world, amid the stars! But
ours is no region of romance; even remnants of history, which go
beyond the commonest capacity, are rejected as dreams, or put aside as
legends. But history has enough to tell to interest us all; and we may be
satisfied with the abundant enjoyment we have in delicious rambles
through the lanes and up the hills, along the fair river's banks, and
among the many traditional ruins of ancient and beautiful Surrey.
Never was desolation more complete than in the ruin of the Mitred
Abbey of Chertsey; hardly one stone remains above another to tell
where this stately edifice--since the far-away year 664--grew and
flourished, lording it with imperial sway over, not only the surrounding
villages, but extending its paternal wings into Middlesex and even as
far as London. The abbey was of the Benedictine order, and founded,
almost as soon as the Saxons were converted from Paganism; but it was
finished and chiefly endowed by Frithwald, Earl of Surrey. The
endowment prospered rarely; the establishment increased in the
reputation of wealth and sanctity; that it was "thickly populated" is
certain, for when the abbey was sacked and burnt by the Danes, in the
ninth century, the abbot, and ninety monks, were barbarously murdered
by the invaders.
Standing upon the site of their now obliterated cloisters and towers,

their aisles and dormitories, cells and confessionals, seeing nothing but
the dank, damp grass, and the tracings of the fish-ponds--stagnant pools
in our day--it is almost impossible to realize the onslaught of these wild
barbarians panting for plunder, the earnest defence of men who fought
(the monks of old could wield either sword or crosier) for life or death,
the terrible destruction, the treasures and relics, and painted glass, and
monuments, the plunder of the secret almerys, the intoxicated triumph
of those rude northern hordes let loose in our fair and lovely island;
what scenes of savagery, where now the