A SONNET IN PRAISE OF EXETER, 1844.

 "TO A LADY.- In Praise of Exeter. 

By the Rev. W.  Pulling, M.A.

Lady! with thine my spirit dwells delighted

On grand Exonia; she with charms is glowing:

Nature and Art therein, with powers united,

A picture form,  fresh beauties ever showing!

Painters and bards might there become excited

By her stream clear, fair-bridged, and softly flowing;

Peter's bold towers,  streets rising, myrtles blighted

By Winter scarcely, trees luxurient growing!

High on her Rougemont she a terrace raises;

A thick grove stands below, whereon th'eye gazes

With rapture!  Once beheld, her features never

Can be forgot, and Memory hymns her praises!"

Well, it's a long time since I blogged a bad poem and the Reverend William Pulling, of Sidney Sussex College,  M.A.  A.L.S, surely qualifies!  Welcome, William Pulling, to the Bad Poets' Society! (Of which I too can claim to be a proud member!) 

The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette of 6th July 1844 printed this poem in their Poets' Corner while , on the same sheet, noting that William had just published a neat little volume which contained 123 sonnets written strictly in the Italian style.  

Pulling was a native of Chudleigh and was, for some time, a master at the Grammar School there.  He was born in 1782.  Hence he was sixty-two or so when his sonnets were published. His promotion in the Church was slow but sure. He was nearly fifty when he was appointed Chaplain to the Cambridge Town Gaol and it was a good while later that he became Rector of Dymchurch in Kent.  He was 'instituted' by the Archbishop of Canterbury into the rectory at Old Romney in 1853, which I take to mean that the old man was given somewhere to live, and he died in his own house in Cambridge aged 78.  He seems never to have married.

The Gazette wrote of his work:  "we have great pleasure in recommending this little volume, as it is rarely that modern poetry is presented to us, not only so faultless, but containing so much to awaken the best feelings of the reader."

I have given this brief  'life' of William besause the internet seems not so far to have taken any notice of him and anyone who can write, probably, many more than 123, sonnets, strictly in the Italian style, surely deserves recognition.  He published some poems in the local (Kent) newspapers and his neat, little volume must still exist.

The A.L.S .the letters that he liked to put after his name, are a mystery to me.

The 'Grove' at Northernhay clearly caught his, and so many other people's, imagination.  Nowadays that part of the Gardens is a boring flat stretch of turf.  Bring back the Grove!

A DISTINGUISHED PARTY, EXMOUTH, 1844.

"EXMOUTH. - On Monday, the King of Saxony attended by the Duc de Staacpoole, aide-de-camp, the Baron de Gersendorff, Saxon Minister, and Dr Canes, the celebrated botanist, his Majesty's physician, arrived at this agreeable watering-place in two carriages and four, and dined and slept at Bastin's Marine Hotel.  His Majesty expressed himself much pleased with the Hotel,  and was engaged from an early hour in taking sketches from the drawing-room window.

"After breakfasting at half-past eight o' clock, the distinguished party were rowed to the Saltworks on the Warren and proceeded to Dawlish and Teignmouth, en route to Plymouth."

This routine notice of a middle-aged, all-male, royal party touring Britain is of more interest than it appears.  The King of Saxony whose party arrived in style at Bastin's Hotel was Friedrich August ll.  He had just come from Lyme Regis where he had purchased an ichyosaurus from Mary Anning.   He was remembered as an intelligent and benevolent monarch.

Richard, Duc de Stackpoole, was a French aristocrat but more British than French and must therefore have made an excellent ADC for the tour. He is remembered because his ghost, so men say, still haunts his old mansion of Glasshayes in the New Forest. 

Carl Gustav Carus (not Canes!), acting as the King's physician, was the most interesting of the party.  He made a name for himself not only as a botanist but as a physiologist and as a painter who studied under Caspar David Friedrich.   

I like the idea of the King of the Saxons making sketches of (?) Exmouth Bay and I like to imagine this distiguished party being rowed across the Exe to the Warren. 

I read here of the Saltworks on the Warren for the first time but I'm sure the Exmothian local historians know all about them.   The Works must have offered a superior landing place, one fit for a king.

Dr Carus wrote a book The King of Saxony's Journey through England and Scotland, 1844.  which I have not yet seen.

Source:The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette, 6th July 1844.

OUT ON "A LARK", EXETER, 1844

From The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette of 3rd August, 1844:

" ....in consequence of the anticipated Regatta at Budleigh Salterton, between ninety and a hundred persons, inhabitants of the faithful city, embarked at Exeter quay in the Owner's Good-will, W. Barratt, Commander, for that place, - the consideration for the trip being only two shillings and sixpence;  the excellent arrangements on board the vessel, we understand, including the agreeable provision of a band of music.

"When the vessel arrived at Turf, the Commander's "weather-eye" having detected certain signs of very bad weather not to be mistaken, he expressed his intention of not going over the Bar: but the company, who considered themselves out on "a lark" which would serve for anything, insisted upon it, and a steam-tug towed the vessel over.

"Many of them, however, were by this time getting sick of their amusement.  The ship hove-to a mile from Budleigh; when, to the company's great disappointment, they found that the Regatta was over, -  and  the only attraction to the good people of the town being themselves and their bark tossing on the bosom of the agitated ocean.

"A number of them, admirers of the principle of self-preservation, then disembarked in the first shore boat that could accommodate them, and departed for Exeter in two chaises and pair;  but the remainder, more courageous and less apprehensive, determined, with praiseworthy confidence, to continue to submit themselves to the experience and care of Capt. Barratt whose exertions throughout the day, under the most trying circumstances, are beyond eulogium.

"They got under weigh, and left Salterton about 4 p.m., everything presaging a gale, which came on with increasing fury.  The jib was split to shivers, - and to add to the distress, they lost the ship's boat.  The sail was split; and all but "the tars"" were compelled to go below, the hatches being battened down, and a tremendous sea making a complete breach over the vessel: her qualities as a sea boat, however, were here conspicuous, as were also the courage and skill of her commander and the crew.

"Below, the greatest confusion prevailed; the females being in a state which precluded that interchange of amenities which renders their society on pleasurable trips so charming; whilst the elegant adornments of their persons suffered considerably by the discharge, - and the males, terriified by their cries, and their reiterated and hurried enquiries of "where are we?" must have been enabled to conceive a vivid idea of a wreck at sea.

"At 7 p.m., the vessel was off Exmouth, signals of distress having  for some time been displayed.  Here a steamer bore down to their assistance, and towed her to Turf, when the state of things began to revive, and about 11 o'clock p.m. they arrived safe amid the sleeping shades of cathedral-capped Exon."

I kave heard locals speak of pleasure-boats as "sixpenny-sicks" but The Owner's Good-will was a "two-and-sixpenny sick".   You had more for your money - battened hatches,  shivered bow-sprits, torn sails, lost lifeboats.

Reported in the same newspaper is the Budleigh Regatta which went very well and without undesirable incident.  

Captain W. Barratt seems rather to have deserved censure than an eulogium, after all he subordinated the warnings of  his own prescient weather-eye to the will of his landlubber passengers. 

Cathedral-capped Exon is an echo from a time when from every direction there was a glorious view of 'St.Peter's Church'. 

  A good story?,  -  as I have written before -  it's  the way they tell them!

A NEGATIVE EXERCISE, EXETER, 2025.

The Dean of Exeter is a very smooth individual who, I have heard it said, was a spoiled child used always to getting his own way.  He wanted to clear out of the Chapter House at Exeter the 'joyless' sculpture of local artist Kenneth Carter, a great man and the producer of the most impressive sculpture of which Exeter could boast.  He has 'got his own way' indeed.  The fifteen collosal pieces of sculpture were last seen being put into a removal van.  Where are they now?

For fifty years Exeter Cathedral held this treasure.   It is now lost to citizens and visitors alike. The busy Dean has jumped over all the ecclesiastical hurdles, circumvented all who might have objected  by what might be called a conspiracy of silence,  found an artist, of whom nobody I know has ever heard, to write mean things about a true artist's work and, in the face of protest, has struck pre-emptively and lo!, the niches in the Coffee/Chapter House are bare. 

Well, it is a good story and it will not go away.  This Dean will be remembered as the man who robbed Exeter Cathedral of the Testament Sculptures.  The City will be the poorer for it.  It will be remembered as an altogether negative exercise and will not be forgotten or forgiven.

THE SHABBINESS OF THE DEAN AND CHAPTER, EXETER, 1844.

 "....a certain man of great gifts, a painter by profession, and Northcote by name - finding his end approaching, and pleasant visions of his native county floating before him in his calm slumbers before his hour of dissolution, did determine to leave a work of art which should be worthy the acceptance of his native county.  He commissoned his friend, Sir. Francis Chantrey, a most cunning carver in stone, to execute a statue to be placed in the cathedral.

"At great cost of money the statue was made, at heavy charges it was conveyed to this county.  But their Shabbiness the Chapter caused it to be placed in a corner of the cathedral where the public shalll not see it without encoutering the pitiful exactations of their Shabbinesses' protogees, the vergers  (with whom they do not go snacks it is to be hoped).

"Oh it is pitifully shabby, clerically mean! to disregard the patriotic injunctions and the liberal spirit of the honourable dead!" 

I dedicate this blog to those noble souls who are currently trying to stop the Dean and Chapter of Exeter from ripping Kenneth Carter's Testament Sculpture out of the Chapter House.  Shabbiness and meaness seem to cling to the clerics of Exeter.  Perhaps they are being passed down, somewhat like the Apostolic Succession from the meanest Anglican Bishop of all time, Henry Phillpotts!  There is certainly something shabby and mean, not to say slippery and deceitful, in the current Dean's proceedings and they are most certainly  an insult to the honourable dead.

To go snacks is delightful.  I think I have heard it but it is not in my Oxford Dictionary of Slang (Ayto) nor, as far as I can see, recorded on the internet.

I apologise for losing an accent grave.  I can't remember how to find it!

https://matthewcarter.co.nz/ken-carter-and-his-sculpture/

Source: The Western Times 27th July, 1844,  

THE TESTAMENT SCULPTURE, EXETER, 2025.

 Ken Carter, who was, I believe, Head of Sculpture at Exeter's College of Art and Design was commissioned some 50 years ago to fill the niches of the Chapter House of Exeter Cathedral with a series of colossal sculptures inspired by the story of the Testament from the Creation to the Nativity.  The work took some four years to complete and was this consummate Exeter sculptor's masterpiece.  The Testament Sculpture was well received and was one of the treasures of the Cathedral for half a century and still is.  It is a total work of art.  The sculpture complements the mediaeval building and the building complements the sculpture.  The intention is to rip this Gesamptkuenstwerk apart. It can still be appreciated, but not for much longer, in the Chapter House where it belongs which now serves coffee in the very excellent new Cloisters complex.  It is worth drinking coffee there just to see it.

The Cathedral where the sculpture belongs has conspired to get rid of half the baby by making a gift of it to Exeter College, a secular educational establishment where it does not belong.   I use the word conspired advisably for it seems clear that all the decisions have been made by a small cabal of individuals and that there has been a deliberate suppression of public information about these shameful plans.  The whole matter needs urgent public re-examination!  

The matter will do nothing for the reputation of the Cathedral, the College, the Artist, nor for the City of Exeter.  At the moment there is 'push back'  ( https://matthewcarter.co.nz/ken-carter-and-his-sculpture/.) and there is a petition to the Cathedral not to be so silly.   :https://secure.avaaz.org/community_petitions/en/the_very_reverend_jonathan_greener_dean_of_exeter__save_the_testament_sculptures_at_exeter_cathedral/?t

A TREE IN NORTHERNHAY GARDENS, EXETER, 2025

Last week the Lord Mayor of Exeter processed in fancy dress into Northernhay Gardens together with the Sword of State and the Cap of Maintenance and about fifty followers, who were looking somewhat underdone and harrassed, to dedicate a tree to the victims of  the Covid Pandemic.  

There is necessarily a memorial tablet of marble set in stone and this is what is written upon it:

THIS TREE WAS PLANTED IN MEMORY OF EVERYONE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC,  MARCH 23rd 2021.

One wonders if any other public memorial in England has been inscribed in 'Pidgin' or 'Woke' or whatever this new language is to be called.  Maybe it is a first for the City of Exeter.  This would be a  sad distinction and particularly so because it is so unnecessary:  ALL WHO DIED would have been best and the city could have saved itself the expense of fifteen letters. 

In Exeter those who died were mostly of my generation and spoke the Queen's English.

Let us hope the next time His Worshipful turns up it will be to unblock the passage beween Northernhay and Rougemont.