Peck's Desiderata Curiosa, vol. 1. pp. 252-256, 4to. 1779. Flowers, Encense, and Ebergreens in Churches. [367] Flowers in S. Lawrence's, Woodstock. 1575.] "In returning from Woodstock, the Queen passed some days at Reading, and attended Divine service at the church of S. Lawrence, where a seat was fitted up for her in the chancel, with a traverse and hangings of arras...... The pulpit was then ornamented with a new cloth, and the church was` strewed with flowers.”—Queen Elizabeth's Progresses. The Book of Fragments, p. 33. [368] Encense burnt in Great S. Mary's, Cambridge. Temp. Eliz.] "It appeared that incense was used to perfume the church during all the reign of Queen Elizabeth."-Paper by E. Venables, Esq., Ecclesiologist, No. XIX. p. 89. [369] Ibid. in S. Augustine's, Farringdon-within, London. 1603.] "Two pounds of frankincense were burnt in the church." -Malcolm's Londinium Redivivum, vol. II. p. 88. 1626.] [370] Lbid. in Great Wigston, Leicestershire. 66 Paid for frankincense, 2d."-Churchwardens' Accounts of Great Wigston, Leicestershire. Illustrations of the Manners and Expenses of Ancient Times in England, p. 149. [371] Boughs and Incense in Churches recommended by the Circa 1631.] "The country parson takes order.......secondly, that the church be swept and kept clean without dust or cobwebs, and at great festivals strewed and stuck with boughs, and perfumed with incense."-Priest to the Temple, ch. xiii. The Parson's Church. [372] Flowers strewn on Dr. Donne's Grave in Old S. Paul's. 1631.] "To which place of his burial some mournful friend repaired: and as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achilles, so they strewed his with an abundance of curious and costly flowers; which course they (who were never yet known) continued morning and evening for many days, not ceasing, till the stones that were taken up in that church to give his body admission to the cold earth (now his bed of rest), were again, by the mason's art, so levelled and firmed as they had been formerly, and his place of burial undistinguishable from common view."-Walton's Lives, pp. 53-54, 8vo. 1824. [373] Encense in Bishop Andrewes' Chapel. Temp. James I.] "A triquertral censer, wherein the clerk putteth frankincense at the reading of the first lesson. The naricula, like the keel of a boat,* with a half cover and foot, out of which the frankincense is poured."-Furniture of Bishop Andrewes' Chapel. Canterbury's Doom, p. 122. [374] Incense burnt at the Consecration of an Altar at Wolverhampton. Circa 1630.] "What prescription can that cathedral church at Wolverhampton in Staffordshire plead for her goodly costly new A ship for incense is frequently mentioned in inventories of Church goods anterior to the Reformation. A similar vessel formed part of the furniture of the altar in the Chapel Royal, temp. Eliz. See antè, p. 5. altar, with the dedication thereof within these two or three years last past, in which dedication all the Roman rites were observed, as censings, washings, bowings, copes (though but borrowed from Lichfield), chantings, abusing of Scripture (as John x. 22), to prove dedication of altars, and the like?"-For GOD and the King, &c., by Henry Burton, p. 161. [375] Encense burnt by Dr. Cosins in the Chapel of S. Peter's Temp. Charles I.] "In Peter House there was on the altar a pot, which they usually called the incense pot.......A little boat, out which the frankincense is poured, which Dr. Cosins had made use of in Peter House where he burned incense."-Canterbury's Doom, pp. 74, 123. 66 [376] Incense in Cathedrals. Ibid.] Upon some altars there was a pot called the incense pot.” -Neale's Puritans, vol II. p. 224. [377] Flowers in Ferrar's Chapel at Little Gidding. 1635.] "Now (none but the deacon and I left) I observed the chapel, in general, to be fairly and sweetly adorned with herbs and flowers, natural in some places and artificial upon every pillar along both sides the chapel (such as are in cathedral churches), with tapers (I mean great virgin-wax candles) on every pillar."-Letter of Edward Lenton, to Sir Thomas Hetley. Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. v. p. 257, 8vo. 1818. [378] Encense burnt during Divine Service by the Caroline Divines. 1641.] "As for the ceremonies of breaking the Host in three parts, the giving the pax, and so forth, our men will never strain at such gnats they maintain the Church's power of instituting significant rites; they take in worse ceremonies than these, to wit, surplices, rochets, copes, candles, incense, organs, cornets, chancels, altars, rails, veils, a reclinatory for confession, a lavatory, a repository [sic], also crossings, coursings, bowings, duckings, and which is worst of all, crucifixes of massy silver, images in carved stone, and bowing of the knee before them."-A Parallel or brief Comparison of the Liturgy with the Mass-book, &c., by R. B. K. p. 93, 4to. 1641. [379] R. Sherlock, D.D. accused of Popery, for burning Encense in his Chancel. Circa 1664.] "As he lived, so he died, a member as well as an ornament of the Church of England; notwithstanding the reproach raised and industriously spread abroad, that he was a papist in disguise. This was said both by papists and dissenters, and both had the same end in propagating the calumny-the disservice of that Church which he adorned by his most exemplary life. After all, there was no ground for this slanderous report, except such as might shame those that built anything thereon. It was said, for instance, that he burnt incense in the church. Now the truth of that matter was this: his worthy patron, Charles, Earl of Derby, the Easter after the Restoration, desiring to countenance by his own presence the now re-established worship of the Church, chose to receive the LORD'S Supper at his parish church rather than in his chapel at Latham. The Doctor suspecting, what he found too true, that the chancel had been as little regarded as the LORD's Supper, which had not been administered in that church for some years past, went a few days before to see things put in order; and cleansing the chancel, which it seems had been more frequented by dogs and swine than men, it raised such an insufferable stench, that he was obliged to order frankincense to be burned the day before the solemnity, that his congregation might not be discomposed by such an unexpected nuisance. This was improved so far as to make him a papist. Nay, so unreasonable a prejudice had many against him, that reading upon his induction the title of the twenty-second Article, 'Of purgatory,' one who had not the patience to hear any more, went out of the church in great indignation, with these words spoken aloud-'If you be for purgatory, you shall be none of my teacher.'"-The Practical Christian or the Devout Penitent. Life by Bp. Wilson, prefixed, p. 31. [380] Incense burnt in S. Nicholas', Durham. 1683.] "For frankincense at the Bishop's coming, 2s. 6d."Surtees' History and Antiquities of Durham, vol. IV. p. 52, folio, 1840. [381] Encense in Whitehall Chapel. 1684.] "March 30. Easter-day. The Bishop of Rochester [Dr. Turner] preached before the king; after which his Majesty, accompanied with three of his natural sons, the Dukes of Northumberland, Richmond, and S. Alban's, (sons of Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Nelly,) went up to the altar; the three boys entering before the king within the rails at the right hand, and three Bishops on the left, viz. London (who officiated), Durham, and Rochester, with the Sub-dean, Dr. Holder. The king kneeling before the altar, making his offering, the Bishops first received, and then his Majesty; after which he retired to a canopied seat on the right hand. Note, there was perfume burnt before the office began."— Evelyn's Diary, vol. 1. p. 535, 4to. 1818. [382] Form used by Abp. Sancroft for the Consecration of a Censer. 1685.] "So likewise when a censer is presented and received, they say: 'While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. (Cant. i. 12.) Let my prayer be set forth before Thee as incense; and let the lifting up of my hands be as the evening sacrifice.' (Psalm cxli. 2.)”—The Form of Dedication and Consecration of a Church or Chapel. [383] Encense at Coronations. 1760.] "In the Coronation procession of George III. appeared the king's Groom of the Vestry in a scarlet dress, holding a perfuming pan, burning perfumes,' as at previous Coronations." Thomson's Coronation of George III., quoted in "The Book of Fragments," p. 206. [384] Evergreens in Churches at Christmas. 1712.] A correspondent in The Spectator says, that her parish church," as it is now equipped, looks more like a green-house than a place of worship. The middle aisle is a very pretty shady walk, and the pues look like so many arbours on each side of it. The pulpit itself has such clusters of ivy, holly, and rosemary about it, that a light fellow in our pue took occasion to say, that the congregation heard the word out of a bush, like Moses.'"-The Spectator, No. 282. |