and miserable poverty; deserted even by those
to whom she had, during prosperity, done the most essential services.
From this time the Cross continually occurs in history. "It was used not
only for the instruction of mankind by the doctrine of the preacher, but
for every purpose, political or ecclesiastical; for giving force to
oaths; for promulgating of laws, or rather the royal pleasure; for royal
contracts of marriage; for the emission of papal bulls; for
anathematizing sinners; for benedictions; for exposing of penitents
under the censure of the church; for recantations; for the private ends
of the ambitious; and for the defaming of those who had incurred the
displeasure of crowned heads."
Bishop King preached the last sermon here, of any note, before James I.,
and his court on _Midlent Sunday_, 1620. The object of the sermon was
the repairing of the cathedral; and the ceremony was conducted with so
much magnificence, that the prelate exclaims, in a part of his
sermon,--"But will it almost be believed, that a King should come from
his court to this crosse, where princes seldom or never come, and that
comming to bee in a state, with a kinde of sacred pompe and procession,
accompanied with all the faire _flowers_ of his field, and the fairest
_rose_ (the Queen) of his owne garden!" The cross was demolished by
order of Parliament in 1643, executed by the willing hands of Isaac
Pennington, the fanatical Lord Mayor of that year, who died a convicted
regicide in the Tower. It stood at the north-east end of St. Paul's
Churchyard; a print of the cross, and likewise the shrouds, where the
company sat in wet weather, may be seen in Speed's Theatre of Great
Britain.
J.R.S.
* * * * *
ADA.
(_For the Mirror_.)
She stood in the midst of that gorgeous throng,
Her praise was the theme of every tongue;
Warriors were there, whose glance of fire
Spoke to their foes of vengeance dire,
But they were enslaved by beauty's power,
And knelt at her shrine in that moonlit bower.
Sweet words were breathed in Ada's ear
By many a noble cavalier;
Maidens with fairy steps were there,
Who seemed to float on the ambient air,
But none in the mazy dance could move
Like Ada, the queen of this bower of love!
The moon in her silvery beauty shines
On this joyous throng through the lofty pines;
Lamps gleaming forth from every tree,
All was splendour and revelry;
Swe
|