Our Host Remarked, I Think, That It Was The Second
Time He Had Ever Been There.
The room is thirteen feet by twelve, and about eight feet high,
wainscotted with oak, which is scrawled over with names and
inscriptions.
There are eight large iron rings in the wall, to which
the prisoners were chained; for aught we know, Wickliffe himself may
have been one. As our kind host moved about among us with his placid
face, we could not but think that times had altered since the days
when archbishops used to imprison heretics, and preside over grim,
inquisitorial tribunals. We all agreed, however, that, considering the
very beautiful prospect this tower commands up and down the Thames,
the poor Lollards in some respects might have been worse lodged.
We passed through the guard room, library, and along a corridor where
hung a row of pictures of all the archbishops from the very earliest
times; and then the archbishop took me into his study, which is a most
charming room, containing his own private library: after that we all
sat down to lunch in a large dining hall. I was seated between the
archbishop and a venerable admiral in the navy. Among other things,
the latter asked me if there were not many railroad and steamboat
accidents in America. O my countrymen, what trouble do you make us in
foreign lands by your terrible carelessness! I was obliged, in candor,
to say that I thought there was a shocking number of accidents of that
sort, and suggested the best excuse I could think of - our youth and
inexperience; but I certainly thought my venerable friend had touched
a very indefensible point.
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