March 17th. [1860]
J---- and I walked to Warwick yesterday forenoon, and went into St. Mary's Church, to see the Beauchamp chapel... On one side of it were some worn steps ascending to a confessional, where the priest used to sit, while the penitent, in the body of the church, poured his sins through a perforated auricle into this unseen receptacle. The sexton showed us, too, a very old chest which had been found in the burial vault, with some ancient armour stored away in it. Three or four helmets of rusty iron, one of them barred, the last with vizors, and all intolerably weighty, were ranged in a row. What heads those must have been that could bear such massiveness! On one of the helmets was a wooden crest -- some bird or other -- that of itself weighed several pounds...
J---- and I walked to Warwick yesterday forenoon, and went into St. Mary's Church, to see the Beauchamp chapel... On one side of it were some worn steps ascending to a confessional, where the priest used to sit, while the penitent, in the body of the church, poured his sins through a perforated auricle into this unseen receptacle. The sexton showed us, too, a very old chest which had been found in the burial vault, with some ancient armour stored away in it. Three or four helmets of rusty iron, one of them barred, the last with vizors, and all intolerably weighty, were ranged in a row. What heads those must have been that could bear such massiveness! On one of the helmets was a wooden crest -- some bird or other -- that of itself weighed several pounds...
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