Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-10-18

Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity;
And one low churl, compact of thankess earth,
The fatal bYword of all ears TO come.
Boring little auger-hole in fear,
, Peeped-but his eyes before they had their will
Were shriyelld into darkness In his head
And dropt before hin. SO the powers who wait
On noble deeds cancel q sense misused.
Hew or when this ''one low churl. COM
pact of thankless earth" was first made the
hOrrid antithesis OF Lady Godiva'S noble
sacrifice, or why the honest vocation of d
tailor was called upon 10 supply a culprit,
no man can tell. But sure it is that Peep
ing Tom" whose pseudonym will continue
for all time as a type of execrable and in
siderable inquisitiveness, was
NONE OTHER THAN TAILOR,
and that all these terrible things happened
to him in ancient Coventry. Worse shame
than all other TO Peeping Tom are his APP
paling remaining ef6gies. They are count
less here in Coventry-in stone, in wood. in
delft in porcelain. in waX: while tho very
school boys are eternally testing new jack
knives upon grotesque limitations of the
repulsive object. The thing leers at you
from inches above ancient buildings;
seems to crane its lecherous head from the
cornices of new and old hotels: shows its
horse-like teeth from among ShOp-window
tribes; and haunts and pursues you until
you are startled to see its lineament repro
duced in the faces of tramps and beldames in
shddowy quarters of the musty old town.
Truly the Peeping Tom you will
find everywhere in Coventry is
dreadful travesty upon the human form
and face. They have put his trunk and
chest in armor. He is made 4 man of arms
as well as shears. with q military cooked
hat decled with huge rosette. His face
is wide, square and white. The eyes are
BrObdigna%ian in size and possess ieer
both sanctimOnious and repulsively suggeS
tive His bearded chin looks like the mirage
of savage flame. And the mouth, as wide
Us a cows, disclose
CHASTITY ROW OF GRAyEsToNE TEETH.
If this luckless wight has been merely a
popular embodiment of evil as opposed to
good, Lady Godiva certainly existed fin the
flesh. She is a historic character of au-
thentic certitcatiOn. She was sister TO
Thorald sheriff of Lincolnshire, and wife
of Lcofric, earl of Mercia, a prime favorite
OF Edward the Confessor, and in his time
at the head of various great state trans
actions. Both history and tradition unite
in honoring Lady. Godiva with the
possession of unusual piety, goodness and
beauty. The dcvout pair certairl y founded
here a great monastery for Benedictine
monks, which attained enormous wealth
and splendor, suffered strange vicissitudes,
passed into silence and decay. and massive
the banks of the river here. Le-
ofric died at Bromley, Staffordshire,
but was buried in one porch of the mon
aStery at Coventry; while his wife, who
at her death gave erich chain of precious
stones to be put around the neck of the
blessed Virgins image, so that those who
came of devotion thither should say as
many PRAYERS as there were several gems
Within" was given burial in the other.
1t was incontestablY true that the citizens
of Coventry, when Leofric'S yaSSalS, did
receive. through Lady Godiva's efforts
with her grim warrior husband, some sort
of manumission from servile tenure, as not
only ancient records prove, but as was also
clearly evidenced by the memorial window
which stood in the south transept of Trinity
church up to the Fifteenth century, and
contained a picture of Lady Godiva and
Leofric. the latter holding in his right hand
a charter bearing the following inscription:
I. Lorich, for love of thee
Doe make Coyentre tol-free.
This much for history and historical ira
ditiOn. Literature and art. sometimes
more powerful and incisive than history,
have done the rest. Coventry is not very
large city, containing barely $4,000 inhab-
itants; but some of its quarters are
VERY ANCIENT AND PICTURESQUE.
The wonderful spires of its churches,
especially of Trinity and st. Michael. the
latter being 303 feet in height,
aGd much interest to the old
city. Then in the old days of the
monasteries, Coventry uwas noted for
It's pilgrimages from France. Later, par
liaments were held within it. The pageants
of kings and queens to the pious city have
equaled the most splendid professions at
ancient Canterbury. Great jousts and
tournaments were held here. The old city
walls We're three miles long, nine feet thick,