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Show Burns a Thousand Years, Lamp First Lighted Ten Centuries Ago Is Now Going Out Some Remarkable Stories Told of These Shrines. Slnco tho reign of King Alfred, something some-thing llko a thousand years ago, Townoley hnll and park in England havs been In possession of tho Townoley Towno-ley family, which traces its origin back (or moro than a thousand years. Tho members ot this family havo a distinct claim to celebrity, for It Is to be (eared that tho (amous lamp o( Townoley chapel was tho last of tho so-called ever-burning lamps in England. Eng-land. At tho beginning of tho last century thero wero somo half a dozen known to fnmo still alight and which had been burning for centuries, while at tho tlmo ot the reformation and tho dissolution of tho monasteries by King Henry VIII. thoro were many hundreds of them that had been burning burn-ing without Interruption from tho time of tho Norman conquest. Doubtless these perpetual lamps wero a remnant of that form o( pagan worship known as tho everlasting Are, which was kept alight by guardians, both malo and (emale, tho latter known as vestals, and who wero punishable pun-ishable with death It thoy allowed tho fire to go out. How much lmportanco was attached oven after tho reformation reforma-tion and well on Into tho seventeenth century in Europo to theso over-burning lamps is demonstrated by tho tact that some of tho greatest scientists of those days devoted both much tlmo and labor to the dlscovory of somo species of lllumlnant that would burn (orover. Many works havo been written writ-ten about the matter by Fiench, Italian Ital-ian and English writers, some of whom vouch for tho most extraordinary details de-tails on tho subject. Thus, for Instance, In-stance, it is solemnly asserted that nt tho opening of the tomb ot Tullla, tho daughter of Cicero, In Rome, in the Via Appla, in tho sixteenth century, a lamp was (ound burning there, which, it tho story authenticated by records at tho Vatican and bearing the signature ot Pope Paul III. are to bo believed, must have been burning (or i moro than 1,500 years. m, Bailey, in his English dictionary of ' 1730, tells that at tho dissolution of tho monasteries In tho tlmo of Henry VIII. thoro wns n lamp found that had then burned for moro than J, 200 years that Is to say, since tho second century cen-tury of tho Christian era and declared de-clared that this lamp was In his days to bo seen at tho museum of rarities at Lcydcn, In Holland. Shakespeare In his address of Pericles refers to "over-burning lamps" and Sponsor, too, alludes to "lamps which never go out." From a puroly antiquarian point of view, theroforo, It must be a source of great regret that tho ownors should permit tho extinction of a lamp which, according to tradition, had boon burning burn-ing without Interruption since the days of King Alfred that Is to say, for moro than 1,000 years In the chapel on tho Towneley estate. |
