Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/385

 360 ST. MARY OVERT.

and as its reputation extended, slips were taken from it for antiquarian friends. But then, through the mistake of a man employed about the grounds, this cradling from the birthplace of English liberty, was uprooted and trundled away among noteless weeds.

Runnimede, as a locality, owes its interest to the past. A graceful cottage has been erected there by the proprietor of that consecrated ground, who bears the name of Harcourt. Relics of the olden time are garnered therein, and the walls of one of the apart ments are decorated by the coats of arms of all those barons who awed King John into the signature so sacred in the annals of English history.

Visited, about the same time, the ancient and beau tiful church of St. Saviour, in the borough of South- wark, formerly called St. Mary Overy. It has recently been repaired at great expense, the older portions bearing the date of 1106. Laid our hands on the coarse table in the vaulted council chamber, the cele brated Lady-Chapel of old, where Bonner sate in state, sentencing the martyr-victims. Among the numerous tombs, where it was pleasant to pause and meditate, was that of Bishop Launcelot Andrews. There is, also, an imposing monument to the poet Gower, erected in 1400, overloaded with quaint emblematic sculpture, and kept in good preservation by Earl Gower, a de scendant of the bard, who shares with Chaucer the honored epithet of &quot; father of English verse.&quot;

Saw the immense docks, and thronging shipping in the Thames, and passed through White-Chapel and

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