Providence Morning Star

OLD ENGLISH CARVINGS.—What odd carvings we lighted on in one and another old church—dragons, imps, two faces in one mask: a mug of beer to denote that an Abbot Brewer built the church; a fox hunt by a goose, with two cubs yelping at the bottom of the gallows; a monkey at his prayers, with an owl perched on a branch over his head; a monkey armed with a halberd; a fox in canonicals, with a mitre on his head and a crosier in his hand: a young fox in chains, a bag of money in his right hand, and chattering geese and cranes witnessing against him on either side; a woman milking a cow; St. Michael weighing the Bible against the devil, the devil proving light weight, though a little imp is slyly hanging upon his tail: and so on, and so on.

One of the speediest of the Southern churches was built by one of Queen Bess's bishops—Bishop Godwyn—bears his arms, and the motto, "Godwyn-wyn God, wyn alle." An old chronicle contributed this morsel about him: "Holding the see of Bath and Wells, he possessed many other livings, and was not at all disposed to undervalue the comfortable things of this world. When upwards of seventy, and very infirm, he married for the third time. A courtier, reporting this marriage to the Queen, represented the bride to be but twenty years old, and ventured a suggestion that a fit punishment for this offence of the Bishop's would be to deprive him of some of his livings. The Duke of Bedford, thinking to soothe the Queen by lightening the offence, said whatever the bride's age might be, he knew her to have a son of forty: whereupon the Queen broke out: "Magnus peccatum habet," adding, "There are three kinds of marriages: First, of God's making, when two young folks are coupled; second, of man's, when one is young, the other old; third, of the devil's, when two old folks are married, not for comfort, but for covetousness: and such is this of the Bishop's." Nothing could pacify her; and she sent the venerable bridegroom such a series of severe messages that he was fain to renounce one of his livings for peace's sake.—The Galaxy for June.