The Puritans
showed their strength of mind and heart by preferring a sermon an hour
and a half long, into which the preacher put his whole soul, and lopping
away all these externals, into which religious life had first leafed and
flowered, and then petrified.
After the service, while waiting for my wife in the nave, I was accosted
by a young gentleman who seemed to be an American, and whom I have
certainly seen before, but whose name I could not recollect. This, he
said, was his first visit to York, and he was evidently inclined to join
me in viewing the curiosities of the place, but, not knowing his name, I
could not introduce him to my wife, and so made a parting salute.
After dinner, we set forth and took a promenade along the wall,
and a ramble through some of the crooked streets, noting the old,
jutting-storied houses, story above story, and the old churches, gnawed
like a bone by the tooth of Time, till we came suddenly to the Black Swan
before we expected it. . . . . I rather fancy that I must have observed
most of the external peculiarities at my former visit, and therefore need
not make another record of them in this journal.
In the course of our walk we saw a procession of about fifty
charity-school boys, in flat caps, each with bands under his chin, and a
green collar to his coat; all looking unjoyous, and as if they had no
home nor parents' love. They turned into a gateway, which closed behind
them; and as the adjoining edifice seemed to be a public institution,--at
least, not private,--we asked what it was, and found it to be a hospital
or residence for Old Maiden ladies, founded by a gentlewoman of York; I
know not whether she herself is of the sisterhood.
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