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diff --git a/old/10588-8.txt b/old/10588-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d1a6e9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10588-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5636 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I., by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. + Great Britain and Ireland + +Author: Various + +Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10588] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEING EUROPE, V1 *** + + + + +Produced by Inka Weide and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +SEEING EUROPE WITH FAMOUS AUTHORS + + +Selected And Edited With Introductions, Etc. + +By Francis W. Halsey + +_Editor of "Great Epochs in American History" Associate Editor of "The +Worlds Famous Orations and of The Best of the World's Classics" etc._ + +In Ten Volumes + +Illustrated + + +Vol. I Great Britain And Ireland + +Part One + + +GENERAL INTRODUCTION + +A two-fold purpose has been kept in view during the preparation of these +volumes--on the one-hand, to refresh the memories and, if possible, to +enlarge the knowledge, of readers who have already visited Europe; on the +other, to provide something in the nature of a substitute for those who +have not yet done so, and to inspire them with new and stronger ambitions +to make the trip. + +Readers of the first class will perhaps find matter here which is new to +them--at least some of it; and in any case should not regret an +opportunity again to see standard descriptions of world-famed scenes and +historic monuments. Of the other class, it may be said that, in any +profitable trip to Europe, an indispensable thing is to go there possest +of a large stock of historical knowledge, not to say with some distinct +understanding of the profound significance to our American civilization, +past, present, and future, of the things to be seen there. As has so often +been said, one finds in Europe what one takes there--that is, we recognize +there exactly those things which we have learned to understand at home. +Without an equipment of this kind, the trip will mean little more than a +sea-voyage, good or bad, a few rides on railroads somewhat different from +our own, meals and beds in hotels not quite like ours, and opportunities +to shop in places where a few real novelties may be found if one searches +for them long enough. + +No sooner has an American tourist found himself on board a ship, bound for +Europe, than he is conscious of a social system quite unlike the one in +which he was born and reared. On French ships he may well think himself +already in France. The manners of sailors, no less than those of officers, +proclaim it, the furniture proclaims it, and so do woodwork, wall +decorations, the dinner gong (which seems to have come out of a chateau in +old Touraine), and the free wine at every meal. The same is quite as true +of ships bound for English and German ports; on these are splendid order, +sober taste, efficiency in servants, and calls for dinner that start +reminiscences of hunting horns. + +The order and system impress one everywhere on these ships. Things are all +in their proper place, employees are at their proper posts, doing their +work, or alert to do it when the need comes. Here the utmost quiet +prevails. Each part of the great organization is so well adjusted to other +parts, that the system operates noiselessly, without confusion, and with +never a failure of cooperation at any point. So long as the voyage lasts, +impressions of a perfected system drive themselves into one's +consciousness. + +After one goes ashore, and as long as he remains in Europe, that well +ordered state will impress, delight and comfort him. Possibly he will +contrast it with his own country's more hurried, less firmly controlled +ways, but once he reflects on causes, he will perceive that the ways of +Europe are products of a civilization long since settled, and already +ancient, while the hurried and more thoughtless methods at home are +concomitants of a civilization still too young, too ambitious, and too +successful to bear the curbs and restraints which make good manners and +good order possible among all classes. It is from fine examples in these +social matters, no less than from visits to historic places, that the +observing and thoughtful tourist derives benefit from a European tour. + +The literature of travel in Europe makes in itself a considerable library. +Those who have contributed to it are, in literary quality, of many kinds +and various degrees of excellence. It is not now so true as it once was +that our best writers write for the benefit of tourists. If they do, it is +to compile guide-books and describe automobile trips. In any search for +adequate descriptions of scenes and places, we can not long depend on +present-day writers, but must hark back to those of the last century. +There we shall find Washington Irving's pen busily at work for us, and the +pens of others, who make up a noble company. The writings of these are +still fresh and they fit our purposes as no others do. + +Fortunately for us, the things in Europe that really count for the +cultivated traveler do not change with the passing of years or centuries. +The experience which Goethe had in visiting the crater of Vesuvius in 1787 +is just about such as an American from Kansas City, or Cripple Creek, +would have in 1914. In the old Papal Palace of Avignon, Dickens, seventy +years ago, saw essentially the same things that a keen-eyed American +tourist of today would see. When Irving, more than a century ago, made his +famous pilgrimage to Westminster Abbey, he saw about everything that a +pilgrim from Oklahoma would see today. + +It is believed that these volumes, alike in their form and contents, +present a mass of selected literature such as has not been before offered +to readers at one time and in one place. + +FRANCIS W. HALSEY. + + + +INTRODUCTION TO VOLS. I AND II + +Great Britain and Ireland + + +The tourist who has embarked for the British Isles lands usually at +Liverpool, Fishguard, or Plymouth, whence a special steamer-train takes +him in a few hours to London. In landing at Plymouth, he has passed, +outside the harbor, Eddystone, most famous of lighthouses, and has seen +waters in which Drake overthrew the Armada of Philip II. + +Once the tourist leaves the ship he is conscious of a new environment. +Aboard the tender (if there be one) he will feel this, in the custom house +formalities, when riding on the steamer-train, on stepping to the station +platform at his destination, when riding in the tidy taxicab, at the door +and in the office of his hotel, in his well-ordered bedroom, and at his +initial meal. First of all, he will appreciate the tranquility, the +unobtrusiveness, the complete efficiency, with which service is rendered +him by those employed to render it. + +When Lord Nelson, before beginning the battle of Trafalgar, said to his +officers and sailors that England expected "every man to do his duty," the +remark was merely one of friendly encouragement and sympathy, rather than +of stern discipline, because every man on board that fleet of ships +already expected to do his duty. Life in England is a school in which +doing one's duty becomes a fundamental condition of staying "in the game." +Not alone sailors and soldiers know this, and adjust their lives to it, +but all classes of public and domestic servants--indeed, all men are +subject to it, whether servants or barristers, lawmakers or kings. + +Emerging from his hotel for a walk in the street, the tourist, even tho +his visit be not the first, will note the ancient look of things. Here are +buildings that have survived for two, or even five, hundred years, and yet +they are still found fit for the purposes to which they are put. Few +buildings are tall, the "skyscraper" being undiscoverable. On great and +crowded thoroughfares one may find buildings in plenty that have only two, +or at most three, stories, and their windows small, with panes of glass +scarcely more than eight by ten. The great wall mass and dome of St. +Paul's, the roof and towers of Westminster Abbey, unlike the lone spire of +old Trinity in New York, still rise above all the buildings around them as +far as the eye can reach, just about as they did in the days of Sir +Christopher Wren. + +Leaving a great thoroughfare for a side street, a stone's throw may bring +one to a friend's office, in one of those little squares so common in the +older parts of London. How ancient all things here may seem to him, the +very street doorway an antiquity, and so the fireplace within, the hinges +and handles of the doors. From some upper rear window he may look out on +an extension roof of solid lead, that has survived, sound and good, after +the storms of several generations, and beyond may look into an ancient +burial ground, or down upon the grass-plots and ample walks around a +church (perchance the Temple Church), and again may see below him the tomb +of Oliver Goldsmith. + +In America we look for antiquities to Boston, with her Long Wharf, or +Faneuil Hall; to New York, with her Fraunccs Tavern and Van Cortlandt +Manor House; to Jamestown with her lone, crumbling church tower; to the +Pacific coast with her Franciscan mission houses; to St. Augustine with +her Spanish gates; but all these are young and blushing things compared +with the historic places of the British Isles. None of them, save one, is +of greater age than a century and a half. Even the exception (St. +Augustine) is a child in arms compared with Westminster Hall, the Tower of +London, St. Martin's of Canterbury, the ruined abbey of Glastonbury, the +remains of churches on the island of Iona, or the oldest ruins found in +Ireland. + +What to an American is ancient history, to an Englishman is an affair of +scarcely more than yesterday. As Goldwin Smith has said, the Revolution of +1776 is to an American what the Norman conquest is to an Englishman--the +event on which to found a claim of ancestral distinction. More than seven +hundred years divide these two events. With the Revolution, our history as +a nation began; before that we were a group of colonies, each a part of +the British Empire. We fought single-handed with Indians, it is true, and +we cooperated with the mother country in wresting the continent from the +French, but all this history, in a technical sense, is English history +rather than the history of the United States. + +Our Revolution occurred in the reign of the Third George; back of it runs +a line of other Hanoverian kings, of Stuart kings, of Tudor kings, of +Plantagenet kings, of Norman kings, of Saxon kings, of Roman governors, of +Briton kings and queens, of Scottish tribal heads and kings, of ancient +Irish kings. Long before Caesar landed in Kent, inhabitants of England had +erected forts, constructed war chariots, and reared temples of worship, of +which a notable example still survives on Salisbury Plain. So had the +Picts and Scots of Caledonia reared strongholds and used war chariots, and +so had Celts erected temples of worship in Ireland, and Phoenicians had +mined tin in Cornwall. When Cavaliers were founding a commonwealth at +Jamestown and the Puritans one on Massachusetts Bay, the British Isles +were six hundred years away from the Norman conquest, the Reformation of +the English church had been effected, Chaucer had written his "Tales," +Bacon his "Essays," and Shakespeare all but a few of his "Plays." + +Of the many races to whom belong these storied annals--Briton, Pict, Scot, +Saxon, Dane, Celt, Norman--we of America, whose ancestral lines run back +to those islands, are the far-descended children, heirs actual. Our +history, as a civilized people, began not in Independence Hall, +Philadelphia, not at Jamestown, not at Plymouth Rock, but there in the +northeastern Atlantic, in lands now acknowledging the sway of the +Parliament of Westminster, and where, as with us, the speech of all is +English. Not alone do we share that speech with them, but that matchless +literature, also English, and more than that, racial customs, laws and +manners, of which many are as old as the Norman conquest, while others, +for aught we know, are survivals from an age when human sacrifices were +made around the monoliths of Stonehenge. + +It is not in lands such as these that any real American can ever feel +himself a stranger. There lies for so many of us the ancestral home--in +that "land of just and of old renown," that "royal throne of kings," that +"precious stone set in the silver sea," that "dear, dear land, dear for +her reputation through the world." + +F.W.H. + + + +CONTENTS OF VOLUME I + + +GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND--PART ONE + +GENERAL INTRODUCTION AND INTRODUCTION TO +VOLS. I AND II--By the Editor + + +I--LONDON + + +A GENERAL SKETCH--By Goldwin Smith +WESTMINSTER ABBEY--By Washington Irving +THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT--By Nathaniel Hawthorne +ST. PAUL'S--By Augustus J.C. Hare +THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND THE CRYSTAL PALACE--By H.A. Taine +THE TEMPLE'S GALLERY OF GHOSTS PROM DICKENS--By J.R.G. Hassard +THE TEMPLE CHURCH--By Augustus J.C. Hare +LAMBETH CHURCH AND PALACE--By Augustus J.C. Hare +DICKENS'S LIMEHOUSE HOLE--By J.E.G. Hassard +WHITEHALL--By Augustus J. C. Hare +THE TOWER--By W. Hepworth Dixon +ST. JAMES'S PALACE--By Augustus J. C. Hare +LITERARY SHRINES OF LONDON--By William Winter + + +II--CATHEDRALS AND ABBEYS + + +CANTERBURY--By the Editor +OLD YORK--By William Winter +YORK AND LINCOLN COMPARED--By Edward A. Freeman +DURHAM--By Nathaniel Hawthorne +ELY--By James M. Hoppin +SALISBURY--By Nathaniel Hawthorne +EXETER--By Anna Bowman Dodd +LICHFIELD--By Nathaniel Hawthorne +WINCHESTER--By William Howitt +WELLS--By James M, Hoppin +BURY ST. EDMUNDS--By H. Claiborne Dixon +GLASTONBURY--By H. Claiborne Dixon +TINTERN--By H. Claiborne Dixon + + +III--CASTLES AND STATELY HOMES + + +LIVING IN GREAT HOUSES--By Richard Grant White +WINDSOR--By Harriet Beecher Stowe +BLENHEIM--By the Duke of Marlborough +WARWICK--By Harriet Beecher Stowe +KENILWORTH--By Sir Walter Scott +ALNWICK--By William Howitt +HAMPTON COURT--By William Howitt +CHATSWORTH AND HADDON HALL--By Elihu Burritt +EATON HALL--By Nathaniel Hawthorne +HOLLAND HOUSE--By William Howitt +ARUNDEL--By Anna Bowman Dodd +PENSHURST--By William Howitt + + +IV--ENGLISH LITERARY SHRINES + + +STRATFORD-ON-AVON--By Washington Irving +NEWSTEAD ABBEY--By Nathaniel Hawthorne +HUCKNALL-TORKARD CHURCH (Byron's Grave)--By William Winter +DR. JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE--By Nathaniel Hawthorne + +_(English Literary Shrines continued in Vol. II)_ + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +VOLUME I + + +FRONTISPIECE + TRAFALGAR SQUARE, LONDON + +PRECEDING PAGE I + WESTMINSTER ABBEY + RIVER FRONT OF THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT + ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL + INTERIOR OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL + CHAPEL OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, WESTMINSTER ABBEY + THE TOWER OF LONDON + CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL + TINTERN ABBEY + DRYEURGH ABBEY + WINDSOR CASTLE + +FOLLOWING PAGE 95 + THE ALBERT MEMORIAL CHAPEL, WINDSOR + THE THRONE ROOM, WINDSOR CASTLE + POETS' CORNER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY + THE GREAT HALL AT PENSHURST + THE ENTRANCE HALL OF BLENHEIM PALACE + GUY'S TOWER AND THE CLOCK TOWER, WARWICK CASTLE + WARWICK CASTLE + THE BEAUCHAMP CHAPEL, WARWICK + THE RUINS OF KENILWORTH CASTLE CHATSWORTH + ALNWICK CASTLE + HOLLAND HOUSE + EATON HALL + + + + +I + +LONDON + +A GENERAL SKETCH [Footnote: From articles written for the Toronto "Week." +Afterward (1888) issued by The Macmillan Company in the volume entitled +"The Trip to England."] + +BY GOLDWIN SMITH + + +The huge city perhaps never imprest the imagination more than when +approaching it by night on the top of a coach you saw its numberless +lights flaring, as Tennyson says, "like a dreary dawn." The most +impressive approach is now by the river through the infinitude of docks, +quays, and shipping. London is not a city, but a province of brick and +stone. Hardly even from the top of St. Paul's or of the Monument can +anything like a view of the city as a whole be obtained. + +It is indispensable, however, to make one or the other of these ascents +when a clear day can be found, not so much because the view is fine, as +because you will get a sensation of vastness and multitude not easily to +be forgotten. There is, or was not long ago, a point on the ridge which +connects Hampstead with Highgate from which, as you looked over London to +the Surrey Hills beyond, the modern Babylon presented something like the +aspect of a city. The ancient Babylon may have vied with London in +circumference, but the greater part of its area was occupied by open +spaces; the modern Babylon is a dense mass of humanity.... + +The Empire and the commercial relations of England draw representatives of +trading committees or subject races from all parts of the globe, and the +faces and costumes of the Hindu, the Parsee, the Lascar and the ubiquitous +Chinaman mingle in the motley crowd with the merchants of Europe and +America. The streets of London are, in this respect, to the modern what +the great Palace of Tyre must have been to the ancient world. But pile +Carthage on Tyre, Venice on Carthage, Amsterdam on Venice, and you will +not make the equal, or anything near the equal, of London. + +Here is the great mart of the world, to which the best and richest +products are brought from every land and clime, so that if you have put +money in your purse you may command every object of utility or fancy which +grows or is made anywhere without going beyond the circuit of the great +cosmopolitan city. Parisian, German, Russian, Hindu, Japanese, Chinese +industry is as much at your service here, if you have the all-compelling +talisman in your pocket, as in Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Benares, +Yokohama, or Peking. That London is the great distributing center of the +world is shown by the fleets of the carrying trade of which the countless +masts rise along her wharves and in her docks. She is also the bank of the +world. But we are reminded of the vicissitudes of commerce and the +precarious tenure by which its empire is held when we consider that the +bank of the world in the middle of the last century was Amsterdam. + +The first and perhaps the greatest marvel of London is the commissariat. +How can the five millions be regularly supplied with food, and everything +needful to life, even with such things as milk and those kinds of fruits +which can hardly be left beyond a day? Here again we see reason for +excepting to the sweeping jeremiads of cynicism, and concluding that tho +there may be fraud and scamping in the industrial world, genuine +production, faithful service, disciplined energy, and skill in +organization, can not wholly have departed from the earth. London is not +only well fed, but well supplied with water and well drained. Vast and +densely peopled as it is, it is a healthy city. Yet the limit of practical +extension seems to be nearly reached. It becomes a question how the +increasing multitude shall be supplied not only with food and water, but +with air. + +The East of London, which is the old city, is, as all know, the business +quarter. Let the worshiper of Mammon when he sets foot in Lombard Street +adore his divinity, of all whose temples this is the richest and the most +famous. Note the throng incessantly threading those narrow and tortuous +streets. Nowhere are the faces so eager or the steps so hurried, except +perhaps in the business quarter of New York. Commerce has still its center +here; but the old social and civic life of the city has fled. What once +were the dwellings of the merchants of London are now vast collections of +offices. The merchants dwell in the mansions of the West End, their clerks +in villas and boxes without number, to which when their offices close they +are taken by the suburban railways. On Sunday a more than Sabbath +stillness reigns in those streets, while in the churches, the monuments of +Wren's architectural genius which in Wren's day were so crowded, the +clergyman sleepily performs the service to a congregation which you may +count upon your fingers. + +It is worth while to visit the city on a Sunday. Here and there, in a back +street, may still be seen what was once the mansion of a merchant prince, +ample and stately, with the rooms which in former days displayed the pride +of commercial wealth and resounded with the festivities of the olden time; +now the sound of the pen alone is heard. These and other relics of former +days are fast disappearing before the march of improvement, which is +driving straight new streets through the antique labyrinth. Some of the +old thoroughfares as well as the old names remain. There is Cheapside, +along which, through the changeful ages, so varied a procession of history +has swept. There is Fleet Street, close to which, in Bolt Court, Johnson +lived, and which he preferred, or affected to prefer, to the finest scenes +of nature. Temple Bar, once grimly garnished with the heads of traitors, +has been numbered with the things of the past, after furnishing Mr. +Bright, by the manner in which the omnibuses were jammed in it, with a +vivid simile for a legislative deadlock.... + +Society has migrated to the Westward, leaving far behind the ancient +abodes of aristocracy, the Strand, where once stood a long line of +patrician dwellings, Great Queen Street, where Shaftesbury's house may +still be seen; Lincoln's Inn Fields, where, in the time of George II, the +Duke of Newcastle held his levee of office-seekers, and Russell Square, +now reduced to a sort of dowager gentility. Hereditary mansions, too +ancient and magnificent to be deserted, such as Norfolk House, Spencer +House and Lansdowne House, stayed the westward course of aristocracy at +St. James's Square and Street, Piccadilly, and Mayfair; but the general +tide of fashion has swept far beyond. + +In that vast realm of wealth and leisure, the West End of London, the eye +is not satisfied with seeing, neither the ear with hearing. There is not, +nor has there ever been, anything like it in the world. Notes of +admiration might be accumulated to any extent without aiding the +impression. In every direction the visitor may walk till he is weary +through streets and squares of houses, all evidently the abodes of wealth, +some of them veritable palaces. The parks are thronged, the streets are +blocked with handsome equipages, filled with the rich and gay. Shops blaze +with costly wares, and abound with everything that can minister to luxury. + +On a fine bright day of May or early June, and days of May or early June +are often as bright in London as anywhere, the Park is probably the +greatest display of wealth and of the pride of wealth in the world. The +contrast with the slums of the East End, no doubt, is striking, and we can +not wonder if the soul of the East End is sometimes filled with bitterness +at the sight. A social Jeremiah might be moved to holy wrath by the +glittering scene. The seer, however, might be reminded that not all the +owners of those carriages are the children of idleness, living by the +sweat of another man's brow; many of them are professional men or chiefs +of industry, working as hard with their brains as any mechanic works with +his hands, and indispensable ministers of the highest civilization. The +number and splendor of the equipages are thought to have been somewhat +diminished of late by the reduction of rents. + +The architecture of the West End of London is for the most part drearily +monotonous; its forms have too plainly been determined by the builder, not +by the artist, tho since the restoration of art, varieties of style have +been introduced, and individual beauty has been more cultivated. It is the +boundless expanse of opulence, street after street, square after square, +that most impresses the beholder, and makes him wonder from what +miraculous horn of plenty such a tide of riches can have been poured. + +A beautiful city London can not be called. In beauty it is no match for +Paris. The smoke, which not only blackens but corrodes, is fatal to the +architecture as well as to the atmosphere. Moreover, the fine buildings, +which if brought together would form a magnificent assemblage, are +scattered over the immense city, and some of them are ruined by their +surroundings. There is a fine group at Westminster, and the view from the +steps under the Duke of York's column across St. James's Park is +beautiful. But even at Westminster meanness jostles splendor, and the +picture is marred by Mr. Hankey's huge tower of Babel rising near. London +has had no edile like Haussmann. + +The Embankment on the one side of the Thames is noble in itself, but you +look across from it at the hideous and dirty wharves of Southwark. Nothing +is more charming than a fine water street; and this water street might be +very fine were it not marred by the projection of a huge railway shed. The +new Courts of Law, a magnificent, tho it is said inconvenient, pile, +instead of being placed on the Embankment or in some large open space, are +choked up and lost in rookeries. London, we must repeat, has had no edile. +Perhaps the finest view is that from a steamboat on the river, embracing +the Houses of Parliament, Somerset House, and the Temple, with St. Paul's +rising above the whole. + + + +WESTMINSTER ABBEY [Footnote: From "The Sketch Book." Published by G.P. +Putnam's Sons.] + +BY WASHINGTON IRVING + + +On one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter part of +Autumn, when the shadows of morning and evening almost mingle together and +throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed several hours in +rambling about Westminster Abbey. I spent some time in Poet's Corner, +which occupies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of the +abbey. The monuments are generally simple; for the lives of literary men +afford no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have +statues erected to their memories; but the greater part have busts, +medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the +simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to +the abbey remained longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes +the place of that cold curiosity or vague admiration with which they gaze +on the splendid monuments of the great and heroic. They linger about these +as about the tombs of friends and companions; for indeed there is +something of companionship between the author and the reader. Other men +are known to posterity only through the medium of history, which is +continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the +author and his fellow men is ever new, active and immediate. + +From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll toward that part of the abbey +which contains the sepulchers of the kings. I wandered among what once +were chapels, but which are now occupied by the tombs and monuments of the +great. At every turn I met with some illustrious name; or the cognizance +of some powerful house renowned in history. As the eye darts into these +dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of quaint effigies; some +kneeling in niches, as if in devotion; others stretched upon the tombs, +with hands piously prest together; warriors in armor, as if reposing after +battle; prelates with croziers and miters; and nobles in robes and +coronets, lying, as it were, in state. In glancing over this scene, so +strangely populous, yet where every form is so still and silent, it seems +almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city where +everything had been suddenly transmuted into stone. + +In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner stands a monument which is among +the most renowned achievements of modern art, but which to me appears +horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. Nightingale, by +Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is represented as throwing open its +marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is +falling from its fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. +She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who strives, with vain +and frantic effort, to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible +truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph +bursting from the distended jaws of the specter. But why should we thus +seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread horrors round +the tombs of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by everything +that might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead; or that might +win the living to virtue. It is the place, not of disgust and dismay, but +of sorrow and meditation. + +I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb, and from chapel to +chapel. The day was gradually wearing away; the distant tread of loiterers +about the abbey grew less and less frequent; the sweet-tongued bell was +summoning to evening prayers; and I saw at a distance the choristers, in +their white surplices, crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood +before the entrance to Henry the Seventh's chapel. A flight of steps lead +up to it, through a deep and gloomy but magnificent arch. Great gates of +brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily upon their hinges, as +if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common mortals into this most +gorgeous of sepulchers. + +On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture and the +elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into +universal ornament, incrusted with tracery and scooped into niches, +crowded with statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning +labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, +suspended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the +wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb. + +Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights of the +Bath, richly carved of oak, tho with the grotesque decorations of Gothic +architecture. On the pinnacles of the stalls are affixt the helmets and +crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords; and above them are +suspended their banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and +contrasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson with the cold gray +fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum stands the +sepulcher of its founder--his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on +a sumptuous tomb, and the whole surrounded by a superbly wrought brazen +railing.... + +When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were those of men +scattered far and wide about the world, some tossing upon distant seas; +some under arms in distant lands; some mingling in the busy intrigues of +courts and cabinets; all seeking to deserve one more distinction in this +mansion of shadowy honors; the melancholy reward of a monument. + +Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touching instance +of the equality of the grave; which brings down the oppressor to a level +with the opprest, and mingles the dust of the bitterest enemies together. +In one is the sepulcher of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of +her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day but +some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled +with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's sepulcher +continually echo with sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave of her rival. + +A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The +light struggles dimly through windows darkened by dust. The greater part +of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by +time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, +round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national +emblem--the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest +myself at the monument, revolving in my mind the chequered and disastrous +story of poor Mary.... + +Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear, falling +with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge +billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with this +mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults, and +breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the +silent sepulcher vocal! And now they rise in triumph and acclamation, +heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on +sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into +sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft, and warble along the roof, and +seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again +the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into +music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What +solemn, sweeping concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful--it +fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls--the ear is +stunned--the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full +jubilee--it is rising from the earth to heaven--the very soul seems rapt +away and floated upward on this swelling tide of harmony!... + +I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight of steps +which lead into the body of the building, my eye was caught by the shrine +of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the small staircase that conducts +to it, to take from thence a general survey of this wilderness of tombs. +The shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are +the sepulchers of various kings and queens. From this eminence the eye +looks down between pillars and funeral trophies to the chapels and +chambers below, crowded with tombs; where warriors, prelates, courtiers +and statesmen lie moldering in their "beds of darkness." Close by me stood +the great chair of coronation, rudely carved of oak, in the barbarous +taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene seemed almost as if contrived, +with theatrical artifice, to produce an effect upon the beholder. Here was +a type of the beginning and the end of human pomp and power; here it was +literally but a step from the throne to the sepulcher. Would not one think +that these incongruous mementos had been gathered together as a lesson to +living greatness, to show it, even in the moment of its proudest +exaltation, the neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive; how +soon that crown which encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie +down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the +feet of the meanest of the multitude?... + +The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted +windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of the abbey were +already wrapt in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and aisles grew +darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows; the +marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain +light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of +the grave; and even the distant footfall of a verger, traversing the +Poet's Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly +retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the +cloisters the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the +whole building with echoes. + +I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been +contemplating, but found they were already fallen into indistinctness and +confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all become confounded in my +recollection, tho I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. +What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchers but a treasury of +humiliation; a huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown +and the certainty of oblivion! It is, indeed, the empire of death; his +great shadowy palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of +human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of +princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time +is ever silently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the +story of the present, to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave +interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily +forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our +recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by his successor of +to-morrow. + +"Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Browne, "find their graves in our short +memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors." +History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; +the inscription molders from the tablet; the statue falls from the +pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand; and +their epitaphs, but characters written in the dust? What is the security +of a tomb, or the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains of Alexander +the Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty sarcophagus is +now the mere curiosity of a museum. "The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses +or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth; Mizraim cures wounds, and +Pharaoh is sold for balsams." [Footnote: Sir Thomas Browne.] + +What, then, is to insure this pile which now towers above me from sharing +the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time must come when its gilded +vaults, which now spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish beneath the +feet; when, instead of the sound of melody and praise, the wind shall +whistle through the broken arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered +tower--when the garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions of +death, and the ivy twine round the fallen column; and the foxglove hang +its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus +the man passes away; his name perishes from record and recollection; his +history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin. + + + +THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By +arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's +works, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870-1898.] + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + +A little before twelve, we took a cab, and went to the two Houses of +Parliament--the most immense building, methinks, that ever was built; and +not yet finished, tho it has now been occupied for years. Its exterior +lies hugely along the ground, and its great unfinished tower is still +climbing toward the sky; but the result (unless it be the river-front, +which I have not yet seen) seems not very impressive. The interior is much +more successful. Nothing can be more magnificent and gravely gorgeous than +the Chamber of Peers--a large oblong hall, paneled with oak, elaborately +carved, to the height of perhaps twenty feet. Then the balustrade of the +gallery runs around the hall, and above the gallery are six arched windows +on each side, richly painted with historic subjects. The roof is +ornamented and gilded, and everywhere throughout there is embellishment of +color and carving on the broadest scale, and, at the same time, most +minute and elaborate; statues of full size in niches aloft; small heads of +kings, no bigger than a doll; and the oak is carved in all parts of the +paneling as faithfully as they used to do it in Henry VII.'s time--as +faithfully and with as good workmanship, but with nothing like the variety +and invention which I saw in the dining-room of Smithell's Hall. There the +artist wrought with his heart and head; but much of this work, I suppose, +was done by machinery. + +It is a most noble and splendid apartment, and, tho so fine, there is not +a touch of finery; it glistens and glows with even a somber magnificence, +owing to the deep, rich hues and the dim light, bedimmed with rich colors +by coming through the painted windows. In arched recesses, that serve as +frames, at each end of the hall, there are three pictures by modern +artists from English history; and tho it was not possible to see them well +as pictures, they adorned and enriched the walls marvelously as +architectural embellishments. The Peers' seats are four rows of long sofas +on each side, covered with red morocco; comfortable seats enough, but not +adapted to any other than a decorously exact position. The woolsack is +between these two divisions of sofas, in the middle passage of the +floor--a great square seat, covered with scarlet, and with a scarlet +cushion set up perpendicularly for the Chancellor to lean against. In +front of the woolsack there is another still larger ottoman, on which he +might lie at full length--for what purpose intended, I know not. I should +take the woolsack to be not a very comfortable seat, tho I suppose it was +originally designed to be the most comfortable one that could be +contrived. + +The throne is the first object you see on entering the hall, being close +to the door; a chair of antique form, with a high, peaked back, and a +square canopy above, the whole richly carved and quite covered with +burnished gilding, besides being adorned with rows of rock crystals--which +seemed to me of rather questionable taste.... + +We next, after long contemplating this rich hall, proceeded through +passages and corridores to a great central room, very beautiful, which +seems to be used for purposes of refreshment, and for electric telegraphs; +tho I should not suppose this could be its primitive and ultimate design. +Thence we went into the House of Commons, which is larger than the Chamber +of Peers, and much less richly ornamented, tho it would have appeared +splendid had it come first in order. The Speaker's chair, if I remember +rightly, is loftier and statelier than the throne itself. Both in this +hall and in that of the Lords we were at first surprized by the narrow +limits within which the great ideas of the Lords and Commons of England +are physically realized; they would seem to require a vaster space. When +we hear of members rising on opposite sides of the House, we think of them +but as dimly discernible to their opponents, and uplifting their voices, +so as to be heard afar; whereas they sit closely enough to feel each +other's spheres, to note all expression of face, and to give the debate +the character of a conversation. In this view a debate seems a much more +earnest and real thing than as we read it in a newspaper. Think of the +debaters meeting each other's eyes, their faces flushing, their looks +interpreting their words, their speech growing into eloquence, without +losing the genuineness of talk! Yet, in fact, the Chamber of Peers is +ninety feet long and half as broad and high, and the Chamber of Commons is +still larger. + + + +ST. PAUL'S [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] + +BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE + + +It will be admitted that, tho in general effect there is nothing in the +same style of architecture which exceeds the exterior of St. Paul's, it +has not a single detail deserving of attention, except the Phenix over the +south portico, which was executed by Cibber, and commemorates the curious +fact narrated in the "Parentalia," that the very first stone which Sir +Christopher Wren directed a mason to bring from the rubbish of the old +church to serve as a mark for the center of the dome in his plans was +inscribed with the single word _Resurgam_--I shall rise again. The other +ornaments and statues are chiefly by Bird, a most inferior sculptor. Those +who find greater faults must, however, remember that St. Paul's, as it now +stands, is not according to the first design of Wren, the rejection of +which cost him bitter tears. Even in his after work he met with so many +rubs and ruffles, and was so insufficiently paid, that the Duchess of +Marlborough, said, in allusion to his scaffold labors, "He is dragged up +and down in a basket two or three times in a week for an insignificant +£200 a year."... + +The interior of St. Paul's is not without a grandeur of its own, but in +detail it is bare, cold, and uninteresting, tho Wren intended to have +lined the dome with mosaics, and to have placed a grand baldacchino in the +choir. Tho a comparison with St. Peter's inevitably forces itself upon +those who are familiar with the great Roman basilica, there can scarcely +be a greater contrast than between the two buildings. There, all is +blazing with precious marbles; here, there is no color except from the +poor glass of the eastern windows, or where a tattered banner waves above +a hero's monument. In the blue depths of the misty dome the London fog +loves to linger, and hides the remains of some feeble frescoes by +Thornhill, Hogarth's father-in-law. In St. Paul's, as in St. Peter's, the +statues on the monuments destroy the natural proportion of the arches by +their monstrous size, but they have seldom any beauty or grace to excuse +them. The week-day services are thinly attended, and, from the nave, it +seems as if the knot of worshipers near the choir were lost in the +immensity, and the peals of the organ and the voices of the choristers +were vibrating through an arcaded solitude.... + +The most interesting portion of the church is the Crypt, where, at the +eastern extremity, are gathered nearly all the remains of the tombs which +were saved from the old St. Paul's. Here repose the head and half the body +of Sir Nicholas Bacon (1579), Lord Keeper of the Great Seal in the reign +of Elizabeth, and father of Francis, Lord Bacon. Other fragments represent +William Cokain, 1626; William Hewit, 1597; and John Wolley and his wife, +1595. There are tablets to "Sir Simon Baskerville the rich," physician to +James I. and Charles I., 1641; and to Brian, Bishop of Chester, 1661. The +tomb of John Martin, bookseller, and his wife, 1680, was probably the +first monument erected in the crypt of new St. Paul's.... + +In the Crypt, not far from the old St. Paul's tombs, the revered Dean +Milman, the great historian of the church (best known, perhaps, by his +"History of the Jews," his "History of Latin Christianity," and his +contributions to "Heber's Hymns"), is now buried under a simple tomb +ornamented with a raised cross. In a recess on the south is the slab of +Sir Christopher Wren, and near him, in other chapels, Robert Mylne, the +architect of old Blackfriars Bridge, and John Rennie, the architect of +Waterloo Bridge. Beneath the pavement lies Sir Joshua Reynolds (1742), who +had an almost royal funeral in St. Paul's, dukes and marquises contending +for the honor of being his pallbearers. Around him are buried his +disciples and followers--Lawrence (1830), Barry (1806), Opie (1807), West +(1820), Fuseli (1825); but the most remarkable grave is that of William +Maillord Turner, whose dying request was that he might be buried as near +as possible to Sir Joshua. + +Where the heavy pillars and arches gather thick beneath the dome, in spite +of his memorable words at the battle of the Nile--"Victory or Westminster +Abbey"--is the grave of Lord Nelson. Followed to the grave by the seven +sons of his sovereign, he was buried here in 1806, when Dean Milman, who +was present, "heard, or seemed to hear, the low wail of the sailors who +encircled the remains of their admiral." They tore to pieces the largest +of the flags of the "Victory," which waved above his grave; the rest were +buried with his coffin. + +The sarcophagus of Nelson was designed and executed for Cardinal Wolsey by +the famous Torregiano, and was intended to contain the body of Henry VIII. +in the tomb-house at Windsor. It encloses the coffin made from the mast of +the ship "L'Orient," which was presented to Nelson after the battle of the +Nile by Ben Hallowell, captain of the "Swiftsure," that, when he was tired +of life, he might "be buried in one of his own trophies." On either side +of Nelson repose the minor heroes of Trafalgar, Collingwood (1810) and +Lord Northesk; Picton also lies near him, but outside the surrounding +arches. + +A second huge sarcophagus of porphyry resting on lions is the tomb where +Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, was laid in 1852, in the presence of +15,000 spectators, Dean Milman, who had been present at Nelson's funeral, +then reading the services. Beyond the tomb of Nelson, in a ghastly +ghost-befitting chamber hung with the velvet which surrounded his lying in +state at Chelsea, and on which, by the flickering torchlight, we see +emblazoned the many Orders presented to him by foreign sovereigns, is the +funeral car of Wellington, modeled and constructed in six weeks, at an +expense of £13,000, from guns taken in his campaigns. + +In the southwest pier of the dome a staircase ascends by 616 steps to the +highest point of the cathedral. No feeble person should attempt the +fatigue, and, except to architects, the undertaking is scarcely worth +while. An easy ascent leads to the immense passages of the triforium, in +which, opening from the gallery above the south aisle, is the Library, +founded by Bishop Compton, who crowned William and Mary, Archbishop Seeker +refusing to do so. It contains the bishop's portrait and some carving by +Gibbons. + +At the corner of the gallery, on the left, a very narrow stair leads to +the Clock, of enormous size, with a pendulum 16 feet long, constructed by +Langley Bradley in 1708. Ever since, the oaken seats behind it have been +occupied by a changing crowd, waiting with anxious curiosity to see the +hammer strike its bell, and tremulously hoping to tremble at the +vibration. + +Returning, another long ascent leads to the Whispering Gallery, below the +windows of the cupola, where visitors are requested to sit down upon a +matted seat that they may be shown how a low whisper uttered against the +wall can be distinctly heard from the other side of the dome. Hence we +reach the Stone Gallery, outside the base of the dome, whence we may +ascend to the Golden Gallery at its summit. This last ascent is +interesting, as being between the outer and inner domes, and showing how +completely different in construction one is from the other. The view from +the gallery is vast, but generally, beyond a certain distance, it is +shrouded in smoke. Sometimes, one stands aloft in a clear atmosphere, +while beneath the fog rolls like a sea, through which the steeples and +towers are just visible "like the masts of stranded vessels." Hence one +may study the anatomy of the fifty-four towers which Wren was obliged to +build after the Fire in a space of time which would only have properly +sufficed for the construction of four. The same characteristics, more and +more painfully diluted, but always slightly varied, occur in each. Bow +Church, St. Magnus, St. Bride, and St. Vedast are the best. + +The Great Bell of St. Paul's (of 1716), which hangs in the south tower, +bears the inscription, "Richard Phelps made me, 1716." It only tolls on +the deaths and funerals of the royal family, of Bishops of London, Deans +of St. Paul's, and Lord Mayors who die in their mayoralty. + + + +THE BRITISH MUSEUM AND THE CRYSTAL PALACE [Footnote: From "Notes on +England." By arrangement with the publishers, Henry Holt & Co.] + +BY HIPPOLYTE ADOLPHE TAINE + + +I have letters of introduction and a ticket of admission to the British +Museum. About the Grecian marbles, the original Italian drawings, about +the National Gallery, the Hampton Court galleries, the pictures at +Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, and the private collections, I shall +say nothing. Still, what marvels and what historical tokens are all these +things, five or six specimens of high civilization manifested in a perfect +art, all differing greatly from that which I now examine, and so well +adapted for bringing into relief the good and the evil. To do that would +fill a volume by itself. + +The Museum library contains six hundred thousand volumes; the reading-room +is vast, circular in form, and covered with a cupola, so that no one is +far from the central office, and no one has the light in his eyes. All the +lower stage of shelves is filled with works of reference--dictionaries, +collections of biographies, classics of all sorts--which can be consulted +on the spot, and are excellently arranged. Moreover, a small plan placed +on each table indicates where they are placed and the order in which they +stand. + +Each seat is isolated; there is nothing in front but the woodwork of the +desk, so that no one is annoyed by the presence of his neighbor. The seats +and the tables are covered with leather, and are very clean; there are two +pens to each desk, the one being steel, the other a quill pen; there is +also a small stand at the side, upon which a second volume, or the volume +from which the extracts are being copied may be placed. To procure a book, +the title is written on a form, which is handed to the central office. The +attendant brings the book to you himself, and does so without delay. I +have made trial of this, even in the case of works seldom asked for. The +holder of the book is responsible till he has received back the form +filled up when he applied for it. For ladies a place is reserved, which is +a delicate piece of attention. + +What a contrast if we compare this with our great library at the Louvre, +with its long room, with half of the readers dazzled by the light in their +eyes, the readers being packed together at a common table, the titles of +the books being called out in loud tones, the long time spent in waiting +at the central office. The French Library has been reformed according to +the English model, yet without being rendered as convenient. Nevertheless, +ours is the more liberally conducted; its doors are opened to all comers. +Here one must be a "respecable" person; no one is admitted unless vouched +for by two householders. This is said to be enough; as it is, those gain +admission who are worse than shabby--men in working clothes, and some +without shoes--they have been introduced by clergymen. The grant for +buying new books is seven or eight times larger than ours. When shall we +learn to spend our money in a sensible way? + +In other matters they are not so successful, such as the Crystal Palace at +Sydenham, for instance, which formed the building for the Great +Exhibition, and which is now a sort of museum of curiosities. It is +gigantic, like London itself, and like so many things in London, but how +can I portray the gigantic? All the ordinary sensations produced by size +are intensified several times here. It is two miles in circumference and +has three stories of prodigious height; it would easily hold five or six +buildings like our Palace of Industry, and it is of glass; it consists, +first, of an immense rectangular structure rising toward the center in a +semicircle like a hothouse, and flanked by two Chinese towers; then, on +either side, long buildings descend at right angles, enclosing the garden +with its fountains, statues, summer houses, strips of turf, groups of +large trees, exotic plants, and beds of flowers. The acres of glass +sparkle in the sunlight; at the horizon an undulating line of green +eminences is bathed in the luminous vapor which softens all colors and +spreads an expression of tender beauty over an entire landscape. + +Always the same English method of decoration--on the one side a park and +natural embellishments, which it must be granted, are beautiful and +adapted to the climate; on the other, the building, which is a monstrous +jumble, wanting in style, and bearing witness not to taste, but to English +power. The interior consists of a museum of antiquities, composed of +plaster facsimiles of all the Grecian and Roman statues scattered over +Europe; of a museum of the Middle Ages; of a Revival museum; of an +Egyptian museum; of a Nineveh museum; of an Indian museum; of a +reproduction of a Pompeiian house; of a reproduction of the Alhambra. The +ornaments of the Alhambra have been molded, and these molds are preserved +in an adjoining room as proofs of authenticity. In order to omit nothing, +copies have been made of the most notable Italian paintings, and these are +daubs worthy of a country fair. + +There is a huge tropical hothouse, wherein are fountains, swimming +turtles, large aquatic plants in flower, the Sphinx and Egyptian statues +sixty feet high, specimens of colossal or rare trees, among others the +bark of a Sequoia California 450 feet in height and measuring 116 feet in +circumference. The bark is arranged and fastened to an inner framework in +such a manner as to give an idea of the tree itself. There is a circular +concert room, with tiers of benches as in a Colosseum. Lastly, in the +gardens are to be seen life-size reproductions of antediluvian monsters, +megatheriums, dinotheriums, and others. In these gardens Blondin does his +tricks at the height of a hundred feet. + +I pass over half the things; but does not this conglomeration of odds and +ends carry back one's thoughts to the Rome of Caesar and the Antonines? At +that period also pleasure-palaces were erected for the sovereign people; +circuses, theaters, baths wherein were collected statues, paintings, +animals, musicians, acrobats, all the treasures and all the oddities of +the world; pantheons of opulence and curiosity; genuine bazaars where the +liking for what was novel, heterogeneous, and fantastic ousted the feeling +of appreciation for simple beauty. + +In truth, Rome enriched herself with these things by conquest, England by +industry. Thus it is that at Rome the paintings, the statues, were stolen +originals, and the monsters, whether rhinoceroses or lions, were perfectly +alive and tore human beings to pieces; whereas here the statues are made +of plaster and the monsters of goldbeater's skin. The spectacle is one of +second class, but of the same kind. A Greek would not have regarded it +with satisfaction; he would have considered it appropriate to powerful +barbarians, who, trying to become refined, had utterly failed. + + + +THE TEMPLE'S GALLERY OF GHOSTS FROM DICKENS [Footnote: From "A Pickwickian +Pilgrimage." The persons mentioned in Mr. Hassard's Pilgrimage to the +Temple and its neighborhood will be recognized as characters In the novels +of Charles Dickens. By arrangement with, and by permission of, the +publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1881.] + +BY JOHN R.G. HASSARD + + +The Temple is crowded with the ghosts of fiction. Here were the neglected +chambers, lumbered with heaps and parcels of books, where Tom Pinch was +set to work by Mr. Fips, and where old Martin Chuzzlewit revealed himself +in due time and knocked Mr. Pecksniff into a corner. Here Mr. Mortimer +Lightwood's dismal office-boy leaned out of a dismal window overlooking +the dismal churchyard; and here Mortimer and Eugene were visited by Mr. +Boffin offering a large reward for the conviction of the murderer of John +Harmon; by that honest water-side character, Rogue Riderhood, anxious to +earn "a pot o' money" in the sweat of his brow by swearing away the life +of Gaffer Hexam; by Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam; by "Mr. Dolls," +negotiating for "three-penn'orths of rum." + +It was in Garden Court of The Temple, in the house nearest the river, that +Pip, holding his lamp over the stairs one stormy night, saw the returned +convict climbing up to his rooms to disclose the mystery of his Great +Expectations. Close by the gateway from The Temple into Fleet Street, and +adjoining the site of Temple Bar, is Child's ancient banking house, the +original of Tellson's Bank in a "Tale of Two Cities." The demolition of +Temple Bar made necessary some alterations in the bank, too; and when I +was last there the front of the old building which so long defied time and +change was boarded up. + +Chancery Lane, opposite The Temple, running from Fleet Street to +Holborn--a distance only a little greater than that between the Fifth and +Sixth Avenues in New York--is the principal pathway through the "perplexed +and troublous valley of the shadow of the law." At either end of it there +are fresh green spots; but the lane itself is wholly given up to legal +dust and darkness. Facing it, on the farther side of Holborn, in a +position corresponding with that of The Temple at the Fleet Street +extremity, is Gray's Inn, especially attractive to me on account of the +long grassy enclosure within its innermost court, so smooth and bright and +well-kept that I always stopt to gaze longingly at it through the railed +barrier which shuts strangers out--as if here were a tennis lawn reserved +for the exclusive vise of frisky barristers. + +At No. 2 Holborn Court, in Gray's Inn, David Copperfield, on his return +from abroad near the end of the story, found the rooms of that rising +young lawyer, Mr. Thomas Traddles. There was a great scuttling and +scampering when David knocked at the door; for Traddles was at that moment +playing puss-in-the-corner with Sophy and "the girls." Thavies' Inn, on +the other side of Holborn, a little farther east, is no longer enclosed; +it is only a little fragment of shabby street which starts, with mouth +wide open, to run out of Holborn Circus, and stops short, after a few +reds, without having got anywhere. The faded houses look as if they +belonged to East Broadway; and in one of them lived Mrs. Jellyby.... + +The buildings within the large enclosure of Lincoln's Inn are a strange +mixture of aged dulness and new splendor; but the old houses and the old +court-rooms seem to be without exception dark, stuffy, and inconvenient. +Here were the chambers of Kenge and Carboy, and the dirty and disorderly +offices of Sergeant Snubbin, counsel for the defendant in the suit of +Bardell against Pickwick. Here the Lord Chancellor sat, in the heart of +the fog, to hear the case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. + +At the back of the Inn, in the shabby-genteel square called Lincoln's Inn +Fields, Mr. Tulkinghorn was murdered in his rusty apartment. The story of +"Bleak House" revolves about Lincoln's Inn. The whole neighborhood has an +air of mystery and a scent like a stationer's shop. Always I found Mr. +Guppy there, with a necktie much too smart for the rest of his clothes, +and a bundle of documents tied with red tape. Jobling and young Smallweed +sometimes stopt to talk with him. The doors of the crowded court-rooms +opened now and then, and gentlemen in gowns and horsehair wigs came out to +speak with clients who waited under the arches.... + +The climax of "Bleak House" is the pursuit of Lady Dedlock, and the +finding of the fugitive, cold and dead, with one arm around a rail of the +dark little graveyard where they buried the law-copyist, "Nemo," and where +poor Jo, the crossing-sweeper, came at night and swept the stones as his +last tribute to the friend who "was very good" to him. There are three +striking descriptions of this place in the novel. "A hemmed-in churchyard, +pestiferous and obscene--a beastly scrap of ground which a Turk would +reject as a savage abomination, and a Kafir would shudder at. With houses +looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court +gives access to the iron gate--with every villainy of life in action close +on death, and every poisonous element of death in action close on life; +here they lower our dear brother down a foot or two; here sow him in +corruption to be raised in corruption; an avenging ghost at many a +sick-bedside; a shameful testimony to future ages how civilization and +barbarism walked this boastful island together." + +The exact situation of the graveyard is not defined in the novel; but it +was evidently near Lincoln's Inn, and Mr. Winter told us, in one of his +delightful London letters, that it was also near Drury Lane. So strangely +hidden away is it among close and dirty houses that it was only after +three long searches through all the courts thereabouts that I found the +"reeking little tunnel," and twice I passed the entrance without observing +it. Opening out of Drury Lane, at the back and side of the theater, is a +network of narrow, flagged passages built up with tall houses. There are +rag and waste-paper shops in this retreat, two or three dreadful little +greengrocers' stalls, a pawnbroker's, a surprizing number of cobblers, and +in the core of the place, where the alley widens into the semblance of a +dwarfed court, a nest of dealers in theatrical finery, dancing-shoes, +pasteboard rounds of beef and cutlets, stage armor, and second-hand +play-books. Between Marquis Court on the one hand, Russell Court on the +other, and a miserable alley called Cross Court which connects them, is +what appears at first sight to be a solid block of tenements. The +graveyard is in the very heart of this populous block. The door of one of +the houses stood open, and through a barred staircase window at the back +of the entry I caught a glimpse of a patch of grass--a sight so strange in +this part of London that I went around to the other side of the block to +examine further. + +There I found the "reeking little tunnel." It is merely a stone-paved +passage about four feet wide through the ground floor of a tenement. House +doors open into it. A lamp hangs over the entrance. A rusty iron gate +closes it at the farther end. Here is the "pestiferous and obscene +churchyard," completely hemmed in by the habitations of the living. Few of +the graves are marked, and most of the tombstones remaining are set up on +end against the walls of the houses. Perhaps a church stood there once, +but there is none now. The burials are no longer permitted in this hideous +spot, the people of the block, when they shut their doors at night, shut +the dead in with them. The dishonoring of the old graves goes on briskly. +Inside the gate lay various rubbish--a woman's boot, a broken coal +scuttle, the foot of a tin candlestick, fragments of paper, sticks, bones, +straw--unmentionable abominations; and over the dismal scene a reeking, +smoke-laden fog spread darkness and moisture. + + + +THE TEMPLE CHURCH [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] + +BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE + + +By Inner Temple Lane we reach the only existing relic of the residence of +the Knights Templars in these courts, their magnificent Temple Church (St +Mary's), which fortunately just escaped the Great Fire in which most of +the Inner Temple perished. The church was restored in 1839-42 at an +expense of £70,000, but it has been ill-done, and with great disregard of +the historic memorials it contained. + +It is entered by a grand Norman arch under the western porch, which will +remind those who have traveled in France of the glorious door of Loches. +This opens upon the Round Church of 1185 (fifty-eight feet in diameter), +built in recollection of the Round Church of the Holy Sepulcher, one of +the only four remaining round churches in England; the others being at +Cambridge, Northampton, and Maplestead in Essex. Hence, between graceful +groups of Purbeck marble columns, we look into the later church of 1240; +these two churches, built only at a distance of fifty-five years from each +other, forming one of the most interesting examples we possess of the +transition from Norman to Early English architecture. The Round Church is +surrounded by an arcade of narrow Early English arches, separated by a +series of heads, which are chiefly restorations. On the pavement lie two +groups of restored effigies of "associates" of the Temple (not Knights +Templars), carved in freestone, being probably the "eight images of armed +knights" mentioned by Stow in 1598.... + +Against the wall, behind the Marshalls, is the effigy of Robert Ros, +Governor of Carlisle in the reign of John. He was one of the great Magna +Charta barons, and married the daughter of a king of Scotland, but he was +not a Templar, for he wears flowing hair, which is forbidden by the rites +of the Order; at the close of his life, however, he took the Templars' +habit as an associate, and was buried here in 1227. On the opposite side +is a Purbeck marble sarcophagus, said to be that of Queen Eleanor of +Aquitaine, but her effigy is at Fontevrault, where the monastic annals +prove that she took the veil after the murder of Prince Arthur. Henry II. +left five hundred marks by his will for his burial in the Temple Church, +but was also buried at Fontevrault. Gough considers that the tomb here may +be that of William Plantagenet, fifth son of Henry III., who died in +infancy, and (according to Weaver) was buried in the Temple in 1256. + +A staircase in the walls leads to the triforium of the Round Church, which +is now filled with the tombs, foolishly removed from the chancel beneath. +Worthy of especial notice is the colored kneeling effigy of Martin, +Recorder of London, and Reader of the Middle Temple, 1615. Near this is +the effigy--also colored and under a canopy--of Edmund Plowden, the famous +jurist, of whom Lord Ellenborough said that "better authority could not be +cited"; and referring to whom Fuller quaintly remarks: "How excellent a +medley is made, when honesty and ability meet in a man of his profession!" +There is also a monument to James Howell (1594-1666), whose entertaining +letters, chiefly written from the Fleet, give many curious particulars +relating to the reigns of James I. and Charles I.... The church (eight-two +feet long, fifty-eight wide, thirty-seven high), begun in 1185 and +finished in 1240, is one of our most beautiful existing specimens of Early +English Pointed architecture: "the roof springing, as it were, in a +harmonious and accordant fountain, out of the clustered pillars that +support its pinioned arches; and these pillars, immense as they are, +polished like so many gems." [Footnote: Hawthorne.] In the ornaments of +the ceiling the banner of the Templars is frequently repeated--black and +white, "because," says Fawyne, "the Templars showed themselves wholly +white and fair toward the Christians, but black and terrible to them that +were miscreants." The letters "Beausean" are for "Beauseant," their war +cry. + +In a dark hole to the left of the altar is the white marble monument of +John Selden, 1654, called by Milton "the chief of learned men reputed in +this land." The endless stream of volumes which he poured forth were +filled with research and discrimination. Of these, his work "On the Law of +Nature and of Nations" is described by Hallam as among the greatest +achievements in erudition that any English writer has performed, but he is +perhaps best known by his "Table Talk," of which Coleridge says, "There is +more weighty bullion sense in this book than I ever found in the same +number of pages of any uninspired writer."... + +On the right of the choir, near a handsome marble piscina, is the effigy +of a bishop, usually shown as that of Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, +by whom the church was consecrated, but he left England in a fury, after +Henry II. refused to perform his vow of joining the Crusades in person, to +atone for the murder of Becket. The figure more probably represents +Silverston de Eversdon, Bishop of Carlisle, 1255. In the vestry are +monuments to Lords Eldon and Stowell, and that of Lord Thurlow (1806) by +Rossi. + +The organ, by Father Smydt or Smith, is famous from the long competition +it underwent with one by Harris. Both were temporarily erected in the +church. Blow and Purcell were employed to perform on that of Smith; +Battista Draghi, organist to Queen Catherine, on that of Harris. Immense +audiences came to listen, but tho the contest lasted a year they could +arrive at no decision. Finally, it was left to Judge Jefferies of the +Inner Temple, who was a great musician, and who chose that of Smith. + + + +LAMBETH--CHURCH AND PALACE [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] + +BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE + + +The Church of St. Mary, Lambeth, was formerly one of the most interesting +churches in London, being, next to Canterbury Cathedral, the great burial +place of its archbishops, but falling under the ruthless hand of +"restorers" it was rebuilt (except its tower of 1377) in 1851-52 by +Hardwick, and its interest has been totally destroyed, its monuments +huddled away anywhere, for the most part close under the roof, where their +inscriptions are of course wholly illegible!... + +Almost the only interesting feature retained in this cruelly abused +building is the figure of a pedler with his pack and dog (on the third +window of the north aisle) who left "Pedlar's Acre" to the parish, on +condition of his figure being always preserved on one of the church +windows. The figure was existing here as early as 1608. + +In the churchyard, at the east end of the church, is an altar tomb, with +the angles sculptured like trees, spreading over a strange confusion of +obelisks, pyramids, crocodiles, shells, etc., and, at one end, a hydra. It +is the monument of John Tradescant (1638) and his son, two of the earliest +British naturalists. The elder was so enthusiastic a botanist that he +joined an expedition against Algerine corsairs on purpose to get a new +apricot from the African coast, which was thenceforth known as "the Algier +Apricot." His quaint medley of curiosities, known in his own time as +"Tradeskin's Ark," was afterward incorporated with the Ashmolean +Museum.... + +"Lambeth, envy of each band and gown," has been for more than 700 years +the residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, tho the site of the +present palace was only obtained by Archbishop Baldwin in 1197, when he +exchanged some lands in Kent for it with Glanville, Bishop of Rochester, +to whose see it had been granted by the Countess Goda, sister of the +Confessor. The former proprietorship of the Bishops of Rochester is still +commemorated in Rochester Row, Lambeth, on the site of a house which was +retained when the exchange was made, for their use when they came to +attend Parliament. The Palace is full of beauty in itself and intensely +interesting from its associations. It is approached by a noble Gateway of +red brick with stone dressings, built by Cardinal Moreton in 1490. It is +here that the poor of Lambeth have received "the Archbishops' Dole" for +hundreds of years. In ancient times a farthing loaf was given twice a week +to 4,000 people. + +Adjoining the Porter's Lodge is a room evidently once used as a prison. On +passing the gate we are in the outer court, at the end of which rises the +picturesque Lollards' Tower, built by Archbishop Chicheley, 1434-45; on +the right is the Hall. A second gateway leads to the inner court, +containing the modern (Tudor) palace, built by Archbishop Howley +(1828-48), who spent the whole of his private fortune upon it rather than +let Blore the architect be ruined by exceeding his contract to the amount +of £30,000. On the left, between the buttresses of the hall, are the +descendants of some famous fig trees planted by Cardinal Pole. + +The Hall was built by Archbishop Juxon in the reign of Charles II., on the +site of the hall built by Archbishop Boniface (1244), which was pulled +down by Scot and Hardyng, the regicides, who purchased the palace when it +was sold under the Commonwealth. Juxon's arms and the date 1663 are over +the door leading to the palace. The stained window opposite contains the +arms of many of the archbishops, and a portrait of Archbishop Chicheley. +Archbishop Bancroft, whose arms appear at the east end, turned the hall +into a Library, and the collection of books which it contains has been +enlarged by his successors, especially by Archbishop Seeker, whose arms +appear at the west end, and who bequeathed his library to Lambeth. Upon +the death of Laud, the books were saved from dispersion through being +claimed by the University of Cambridge, under the will of Bancroft, which +provided that they should go to the University if alienated from the see; +they were restored by Cambridge to Archbishop Sheldon. The library +contains a number of valuable MSS., the greatest treasure being a copy of +Lord Rivers's translation of the "Diets and Sayings of the Philosophers," +with an illumination of the Earl presenting Caxton on his knees to Edward +IV. Beside the King stand Elizabeth Woodville and her eldest son, and +this, the only known portrait of Edward V., is engraved by Vertue in his +Kings of England. + +A glass case contains: The Four Gospels in Irish, a volume which belonged +to King Athelstan, and was given by him to the city of Canterbury; a copy +of the Koran written by Sultan Allaruddeen Siljuky in the fifteenth +century, taken in the Library of Tippoo Saib at Seringapatam; the Lumley +Chronicle of St. Alban's Abbey; Queen Elizabeth's Prayer-Book, with +illuminations from Holbein's Dance of Death destroyed in Old St. Paul's; +an illuminated copy of the Apocalypse, of the thirteenth century; the +Mazarine Testament, fifteenth century; and the rosary of Cardinal Pole. + +A staircase lined with portraits of the Walpole family, leads from the +Library to the Guard Room, now the Dining-Hall. It is surrounded by an +interesting series of portraits of the archbishops from the beginning of +the sixteenth century. + +Through the paneled room, called Cranmer's Parlor, we enter the Chapel, +which stands upon a Crypt supposed to belong to the manor-house built by +Archbishop Herbert Fitzwalter, about 1190. Its pillars have been buried +nearly up to their capitals, to prevent the rising of the river tides +within its wall. The chapel itself, tho greatly modernized, is older than +any other part of the palace, having been built by Archbishop Boniface, +1244-70. Its lancet windows were found by Laud--"shameful to look at, all +diversely patched like a poor beggar's coat," and he filled them with +stained glass, which he proved that he collected from ancient existing +fragments, tho his insertion of "Popish images and pictures made by their +like in a mass book" was one of the articles in the impeachment against +him. The glass collected by Laud was entirely smashed by the Puritans: the +present windows were put in by Archbishop Howley. In this chapel most of +the archbishops have been consecrated since the time of Boniface.... + +Here Archbishop Parker erected his tomb in his lifetime "by the spot where +he used to pray," and here he was buried, but his tomb was broken up, with +every insult that could be shown, by Scot, one of the Puritan possessors +of Lambeth, while the other, Hardyng, not to be outdone, exhumed the +Archbishop's body, sold its leaden coffin, and buried it in a dunghill. +His remains were found by Sir William Dugdale at the Restoration, and +honorably reinterred in front of the altar, with the epitaph, "Corpus +Matthaei Archiepiscopi tandem hic quiescit." His tomb, in the ante-chapel, +was re-erected by Archbishop Sancroft, but the brass inscription which +encircled it is gone. + +The screen, erected by Laud, was suffered to survive the Commonwealth. At +the west end of the chapel, high on the wall, projects a Gothic +confessional, erected by Archbishop Chicheley. It was formerly approached +by seven steps. The beautiful western door of the chapel opens into the +curious Post Room, which takes its name from the central wooden pillar, +supposed to have been used as a whipping-post for the Lollards. The +ornamented flat ceiling which we see here is extremely rare. The door at +the northeast corner, by which the Lollards were brought in, was walled +up, about 1874. + +Hence we ascend the Lollard's [Footnote: The name Lollard was used as a +term of reproach for the followers of Wyclif. Formerly derived from Peter +Lollard, a Waldensian pastor of the thirteenth century, more recently from +the Middle Dutch "lollen," to hum.] Tower, built by Chicheley--the lower +story of which is now given up by the Archbishop for the use of Bishops +who have no fixt residence in London. The winding staircase, of rude slabs +of unplaned oak, on which the bark in many cases remains, is of +Chicheley's time. In a room at the top is a trap-door, through which as +the tide rose prisoners, secretly condemned, could be let down unseen into +the river. Hard by is the famous Lollard's Prison (13 feet long, 12 broad, +8 high), boarded all over walls, ceiling, and floor. The rough-hewn boards +bear many fragments of inscriptions which show that others besides +Lollards were immured here. Some of them, especially his motto "Nosce te +ipsum," are attributed to Cranmer. The most legible inscription is "IHS +cyppe me out of all al compane. Amen." Other boards bear the notches cut +by prisoners to mark the lapse of time. The eight rings remain to which +the prisoners were secured: one feels that his companions must have envied +the one by the window. Above some of the rings the boards are burned with +the hot-iron used in torture. The door has a wooden lock, and is fastened +by the wooden pegs which preceded the use of nails; it is a relic of +Archbishop Sudbury's palace facing the river, which was pulled down by +Chicheley. From the roof of the chapel there is a noble view up the river, +with the quaint tourelle of the Lollard's Tower in the foreground. + +The gardens of Lambeth are vast and delightful. Their terrace is called +"Clarendon's Walk" from a conference which there took place between Laud +and the Earl of Clarendon. The "summer-house of exquisite workmanship," +built by Cranmer, has disappeared. A picturesque view may be obtained of +Cranmer's Tower, with the Chapel and the Lollard's Tower behind it. + + + +DICKENS'S LIMEHOUSE HOLE [Footnote A: From "A Pickwickian Pilgrimage." The +persons mentioned in Mr. Hassard's account of Limehouse Hole will be +recognized as characters in the novels of Charles Dickens. By arrangement +with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co. +Copyright, 1881.] + +BY JOHN R.G. HASSARD + + +I took a steamboat one day at Westminster Bridge, and after a voyage of 40 +minutes or so landed near Limehouse Hole, and followed the river streets +both east and west. It was easy enough to trace the course of Mortimer +Lightwood and Eugene Wrayburn, as they walked under the guidance of +Riderhood through the stormy night from their rooms in The Temple, four +miles away, past the Tower and the London Docks, and down by the slippery +water's edge to Limehouse Hole, when they went to cause Gaffer Hexam's +arrest, and found him drowned, tied to his own boat. The strictly +commercial aspect of the Docks--the London Docks above and the West India +Docks below--shades off by slight degrees into the black misery of the +hole. The warehouses are succeeded by boat-builders' sheds; by private +wharves, where ships, all hidden, as to their hulls, behind walls and +close fences, thrust unexpected bowsprits over the narrow roadway; by +lime-yards; by the shops of marine store-dealers and purveyors to all the +wants and follies of seamen; and then by a variety of strange +establishments which it would be hard to classify. + +Close by a yard piled up with crates and barrels of second-hand bottles, +was a large brick warehouse devoted to the purchase and sale of broken +glass. A wagon loaded with that commodity stood before the door, and men +with scoop-shovels were transferring the glass into barrels. An enclosure +of one or two acres, in an out-of-the-way street, might have been the +original of the dust-yard that contained Boffin's Bower, except that +Boffin's Bower was several miles distant, on the northern outskirt of +London. A string of carts, full of miscellaneous street and house rubbish, +all called here by the general name of "dust," were waiting their turn to +discharge. There was a mountain of this refuse at the end of the yard; and +a party of laborers, more or less impeded by two very active black hogs, +were sifting and sorting it. Other mounds, formed from the sittings of the +first, were visible at the sides. There were huge accumulations of broken +crockery and of scraps of tin and other metal, and of bones. There was a +quantity of stable-manure and old straw, and a heap, as large as a +two-story cottage, of old hoops stript from casks and packing-cases. I +never understood, until I looked into this yard, how there could have been +so much value in the dust-mounds at Boffin's Bower. + +Gradually the streets became narrower, wetter, dirtier, and poorer. +Hideous little alleys led down to the water's edge where the high tide +splashed over the stone steps. I turned into several of them, and I always +found two or three muddy men lounging at the bottom; often a foul and +furtive boat crept across the field of view. The character of the shops +became more and more difficult to define. Here a window displayed a heap +of sailor's thimbles and pack-thread; there another set forth an array of +trumpery glass vases or a basket of stale fruit, pretexts, perhaps, for +the disguise of a "leaving shop," or unlicensed pawnbroker's +establishment, out of which I expected to see Miss Pleasant Riderhood come +forth, twisting up her back hair as she came. At a place where the houses +ceased, and an open space left free a prospect of the black and +bad-smelling river, there was an old factory, disused and ruined, like the +ancient mill in which Gaffer Hexam made his home, and Lizzie told the +fortunes of her brother in the hollow by the fire. + +I turned down a muddy alley, where 12 or 15 placards headed "Body Found," +were pasted against the wall. They were printed forms, filled in with a +pen. Mr. Forster tells us in his life of Dickens that it was the sight of +bills of this sort which gave the first suggestion of "Our Mutual Friend." +At the end of the alley was a neat brick police-station; stairs led to the +water, and several trim boats were moored there. Within the station I +could see an officer quietly busy at his desk, as if he had been sitting +there ever since Dickens described "the Night Inspector, with a pen and +ink ruler, posting up his books in a whitewashed office as studiously as +if he were in a monastery on the top of a mountain, and no howling fury of +a drunken woman were banging herself against a cell-door in the back yard +at his elbow." A handsome young fellow in uniform, who looked like a cross +between a sailor and a constable, came out and asked very civilly if he +could be of use to me. "Do you know," said I, "where the station was that +Dickens describes in 'Our Mutual Friend'?" + +"Oh, yes, sir! this is the very spot. It was the old building that stood +just here: this is a new one, but it has been put up in the same place." + +"Mr. Dickens often went out with your men in the boat, didn't he?" + +"Yes, sir, many a night in the old times." + +"Do you know the tavern which is described in the same book by the name of +The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters?" + +"No, sir, I don't know it; at least not by that name. It may have been +pulled down, for a lot of warehouses have been built along here, and the +place is very much changed; or it may be one of those below." + +Of course, I chose to think that it must be "one of those below." I kept +on a little farther, by the crooked river lanes, where public houses were +as plentiful as if the entire population suffered from a raging and +inextinguishable thirst for beer. The sign-boards displayed a preference +for the plural which seems not to have escaped the observation of the +novelist. If I did not see The Six Porters, I came across The Three +Mariners, The Three Cups, The Three Suns, The Three Tuns, The Three Foxes, +and the Two Brewers; and in the last I hope that I found the original of +the tavern so often mentioned in the story. + +I had first noticed it from the steamboat--"a narrow, lop-sided wooden +jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon another as you might heap as +many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden veranda impending over the +water,"--a tavern of dropsical appearance, which had not a straight floor +in its whole constitution, and hardly a straight line. I got at the +entrance on the land side after a search among puzzling alleys, and there +I found still stronger reminders of "Our Mutual Friend." Stuck against the +wall was an array of old and new hand-bills, headed, "Drowned," and +offering rewards for the recovery of bodies. The value set upon dead +persons in Limehouse Hole is not excessive: the customary recompense for +finding them seems to be ten shillings, and in only one instance did the +price reach the dazzling amount of one pound. + +By the side of the house is an approach to the river: most of the +buildings near are old and irregular, and at low tide a great deal of the +shore must be exposed. Going upon the slippery stones, beside which lay a +few idle and rickety boats, I found the expected range of windows with +"red curtains matching the noses of the regular customers." I looked in at +the door. A long passage opened a vista of pleasant bar-parlor, or +whatever it may have been, on the river-side; and, perhaps, I should have +seen Miss Abbey Potterson if I had gone to the end. Several water-side +characters were drinking beer at the lead-covered counter, waited upon by +a sharp young woman, who seems to have replaced Bob Gliddery. Instead of +the little room called "Cozy," where the Police Inspector drank burned +sherry with Lightwood and Wrayburn, there was an apartment labelled "The +Club." A party of "regular customers," all evidently connected with water +(or mud), sat around a table: beyond question they were Tootle, and +Mullins, and Bob Glamour, and Captain Joey; and at ten o'clock Miss Abbey +would issue from the bar-parlor, and send them home. If The Jolly +Fellowship Porters is still extant, this must be it. + + + +WHITEHALL [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] + +BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE + + +The present Banqueting-House of Whitehall was begun by Inigo Jones, and +completed in 1622, forming only the central portion of one wing in his +immense design for a new palace, which, if completed, would have been the +finest in the world. The masonry is by a master-mason, Nicholas Stone, +several of whose works we have seen in other parts of London. "Little did +James think that he was raising a pile from which his son was to step from +the throne to a scaffold." The plan of Inigo Jones would have covered 24 +acres, and one may best judge of its intended size by comparison with +other buildings. Hampton Court covers 8 acres; St. James's Palace, 4 +acres; Buckingham Palace, 2-1/2 acres. It would have been as large as +Versailles, and larger than the Louvre. Inigo Jones received only 8s. 4d. +a day while he was employed at Whitehall, and £46 per annum for +house-rent. The huge palace always remained unfinished. + +Whitehall attained its greatest splendor in the reign of Charles I. The +mask of Comus was one of the plays acted here before the king; but Charles +was so afraid of the pictures in the Banqueting-House being injured by the +number of wax lights which were used, that he built for the purpose a +boarded room called the "King's Masking-House," afterward destroyed by the +Parliament. The gallery toward Privy Garden was used for the king's +collection of pictures, afterward either sold or burned. The +Banqueting-House was the scene of hospitalities almost boundless. + +The different accounts of Charles I.'s execution introduce us to several +names of the rooms in the old palace. We are able to follow him through +the whole of the last scenes of the 30th of January, 1648. When he +arrived, having walked from St. James's, "the King went up the stairs +leading to the Long Gallery" of Henry VIII, and so to the west side of the +palace. In the "Horn Chamber" he was given up to the officers who held the +warrant for his execution. Then he passed on to the "Cabinet Chamber," +looking upon Privy Garden. Here, the scaffold not being ready, he prayed +and conversed with Bishop Juxon, ate some bread, and drank some claret. +Several of the Puritan clergy knocked at the door and offered to pray with +him, but he said that they had prayed against him too often for him to +wish to pray with them in his last moments. Meanwhile, in a small distant +room, Cromwell was signing the order to the executioner, and workmen were +employed in breaking a passage through the west wall of the Banqueting +House, that the warrant for the execution might be carried out which +ordained it to be held "in the open street before Whitehall.".... + +Almost from the time of Charles's execution Cromwell occupied rooms in the +Cockpit, where the Treasury is now, but soon after he was installed "Lord +Protector of the Commonwealth" (December 16, 1653), he took up his abode +in the royal apartments, with his "Lady Protectress" and his family. +Cromwell's puritanical tastes did not make him averse to the luxury he +found there, and, when Evelyn visited Whitehall after a long interval in +1656, he found it "very glorious and well furnished." But the Protectress +could not give up her habits of nimble housewifery, and "employed a +surveyor to make her some little labyrinths and trap-stairs, by which she +might, at all times, unseen, pass to and fro, and come unawares upon her +servants, and keep them vigilant in their places and honest in the +discharge thereof." With Cromwell in Whitehall lived Milton, as his Latin +Secretary. Here the Protector's daughters, Mrs. Rich and Mrs. Claypole, +were married, and here Oliver Cromwell died (September 3, 1658) while a +great storm was raging which tore up the finest elms in the Park, and +hurled them to the ground, beneath the northern windows of the palace. + +In the words of Hume, Cromwell upon his deathbed "assumed more the +character of a mediator, interceding for his people, than that of a +criminal, whose atrocious violation of social duty had, from every +tribunal, human and divine, merited the severest vengeance." Having +inquired of Godwin, the divine who attended him, whether a person who had +once been in a state of grace could afterward be damned, and being assured +it was impossible, he said, "Then I am safe, for I am sure that I was once +in a state of grace." Richard Cromwell continued to reside in Whitehall +till his resignation of the Protectorate. + +On his birthday, the 29th of May, 1660, Charles II returned to Whitehall. +The vast labyrinthine chambers of the palace were soon filled to +overflowing by his crowded court. The queen's rooms were facing the river +to the east of the Water Gate. Prince Rupert had rooms in the Stone +Gallery, which ran along the south side of Privy Gardens, beyond the main +buildings of the palace, and beneath him were the apartments of the king's +mistresses, Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine, afterward Duchess of +Cleveland, and Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. The rooms of +the latter, who first came to England with Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, +to entice Charles II into an alliance with Louis XIV., and whose +"childish, simple, baby-face" is described by Evelyn, were three times +rebuilt to please her, having "ten times the richness and glory" of the +queen's. Nell Gwynne did not live in the palace, tho she was one of Queen +Catherine's Maids of Honor! + +Charles died in Whitehall on February 6, 1684. With his successor the +character of the palace changed. James II, who continued to make it his +principal residence, established a Roman Catholic chapel there. + +It was from Whitehall that Queen Mary Beatrice made her escape on the +night of December 9, 1688. The adventure was confided to the Count de +Lauzun and his friend M. de St. Victor, a gentleman of Avignon. The queen +on that terrible evening entreated vainly to be allowed to remain and +share the perils of her husband; he assured her that it was absolutely +necessary that she should precede him, and that he would follow her in +twenty-four hours. The king and queen went to bed as usual to avoid +suspicion, but rose soon after, when the queen put on a disguise provided +by St. Victor. The royal pair then descended to the rooms of Madame de +Labadie, where they found Lauzun, with the infant Prince James and his two +nurses. The king, turning-to Lauzun, said, "I confide my queen and my son +to your care: all must be hazarded to convey them with the utmost speed to +France." Lauzun then gave his hand to the queen to lead her away, and, +followed by the two nurses with the child, they crossed the Great Gallery, +and descended by a back staircase and a postern gate to Privy Gardens. At +the garden gate a coach was waiting, the queen entered with Lauzun, the +nurses, and her child, who slept the whole time, St. Victor mounted by the +coachman, and they drove to the "Horse Ferry" at Westminster, where a boat +was waiting in which they crossed to Lambeth. + +On the 11th the Dutch troops had entered London, and James, having +commanded the gallant Lord Craven, who was prepared to defend the palace +to the utmost, to draw off the guard which he commanded, escaped himself +in a boat from the water-entrance of the palace at three o'clock in the +morning. At Feversham his flight was arrested, and he returned amid +bonfires, bell-ringing, and every symptom of joy from the fickle populace. +Once more he slept in Whitehall, but in the middle of the night was +aroused by order of his son-in-law, and hurried forcibly down the river to +Rochester, whence, on December 23, he escaped to France. On the 25th of +November the Princess Anne had declared against her unfortunate father, by +absconding at night by a back staircase from her lodgings in the Cockpit, +as the northwestern angle of the palace was called, which looked on St. +James's Park. Compton, Bishop of London, was waiting for her with a +hackney coach, and she fled to his house in Aldersgate Street. Mary II +arrived in the middle of February, and "came into Whitehall, jolly as to a +wedding, seeming quite transported with joy." + +But the glories of Whitehall were now over. William III., occupied with +his buildings at Hampton Court and Kensington, never cared to live there, +and Mary doubtless stayed there as little as possible, feeling opprest by +the recollections of her youth spent there with an indulgent father whom +she had cruelly wronged, and a stepmother whom she had once loved with +sisterly as well as filial affection, and from whom she had parted with +passionate grief on her marriage, only nine years before. The Stone +Gallery and the late apartments of the royal mistresses in Whitehall were +burned down in 1691, and the whole edifice was almost totally destroyed by +fire through the negligence of a Dutch maidservant in 1697. + +The principal remaining fragment of the palace is the Banqueting-House of +Inigo Jones, from which Charles I. passed to execution. Built in the dawn +of the style of Wren, it is one of the most grandiose examples of that +style, and is perfect alike in symmetry and proportion. That it has no +entrance apparent at first sight is due to the fact that it was only +intended as a portion of a larger building. In the same way we must +remember that the appearance of two stories externally, while the whole is +one room, is due to the Banqueting-House being only one of four intended +blocks, of which one was to be a chapel surrounded by galleries, and the +other two divided into two tiers of apartments. The Banqueting-House was +turned into a ehapel by George I., but has never been consecrated, and the +aspect of a hall is retained by the ugly false red curtains which surround +the interior of the building. It is called the Chapel Royal of Whitehall, +is served by the chaplains of the sovereign, and is one of the dreariest +places of worship in London. The ceiling is still decorated with canvas +pictures by Rubens (1635) representing the apotheosis of James I. The +painter received £3,000 for these works. The walls were to have been +painted by Vandyke with the History of the Order of the Garter. "What," +says Walpole, "had the Banqueting-House been if completed?" Over the +entrance is a bronze bust of James I. attributed to Le Soeur. + + + +THE TOWER [Footnote: From "Her Majesty's Tower."] + +BY W. HEPWORTH DIXON + + +Half-a-mile below London Bridge, on ground which was once a bluff, +commanding the Thames from St. Saviour's Creek to St. Olave's Wharf, +stands the Tower; a mass of ramparts, walls, and gates, the most ancient +and most poetic pile in Europe.... The Tower has an attraction for us akin +to that of the house in which we were born, the school in which we were +trained. Go where we may, that grim old edifice on the Pool goes with us; +a part of all we know, and of all we are. Put seas between us and the +Thames, this Tower will cling to us, like a thing of life. It colors +Shakespeare's page. It casts a momentary gloom over Bacon's story. Many of +our books were written in its vaults; the Duke of Orleans's "Poesies," +Raleigh's "Historie of the World," Eliot's "Monarchy of Man," and Penn's +"No Cross, No Crown." + +Even as to length of days, the Tower has no rival among places and +prisons, its origin, like that of the Iliad, that of the Sphinx, that of +the Newton Stone, being lost in the nebulous ages, long before our +definite history took shape. Old writers date it from the days of Caesar; +a legend taken up by Shakespeare and the poets in favor of which the name +of Caesar's tower remains in popular use to this very day. A Roman wall +can even yet be traced near some parts of the ditch. The Tower is +mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle in a way not incompatible with the fact +of a Saxon stronghold having stood upon this spot. The buildings as we +have them now in block and plan were commenced by William the Conqueror; +and the series of apartments in Caesar's tower--hall, gallery, +council-chamber, chapel--were built in the early Norman reigns, and used +as a royal residence by all our Norman kings. What can Europe show to +compare against such a tale? + +Set against the Tower of London--with its 800 years of historic life, its +1,900 prisons of traditional fame--all other palaces and prisons appear +like things of an hour. The oldest bit of palace in Europe, that of the +west front of the Burg in Vienna, is of the time of Henry the Third. The +Kremlin in Moscow, the Doge's Palazzo in Venice, are of the fourteenth +century. The Seraglio in Stamboul was built by Mohammed the Second. The +oldest part of the Vatican was commenced by Borgia, whose name it bears. +The old Louvre was commenced in the reign of Henry the Eighth; the +Tuilleries in that of Elizabeth. In the time of our civil war Versailles +was yet a swamp. Sans Souci and the Escurial belong to the eighteenth +century. The Serail of Jerusalem is a Turkish edifice. The palaces of +Athens, of Cairo, of Teheran, are all of modern date. + +Neither can the prisons which remain in fact as well as in history and +drama--with the one exception of St. Angelo in Rome--compare with the +Tower. The Bastile is gone; the Bargello has become a museum; the Piombi +are removed from the Doge's roof. Vincennes, Spandau, Spilberg, Magdeburg, +are all modern in comparison with a jail from which Ralph Flambard escaped +so long ago in the year 1100, the date of the First Crusade. + +Standing on Tower Hill, looking down on the dark lines of wall--picking +out keep and turret, bastion and ballium, chapel and belfry--the +jewel-house, armory, the mounts, the casemates, the open leads, the +Bye-ward-gate, the Belfry, the Bloody tower--the whole edifice seems alive +with story--the story of a nation's highest splendor, its deepest misery, +and its darkest shame. The soil beneath your feet is richer in blood than +many a great battle-field; for out upon this sod has been poured, from +generation to generation, a stream of the noblest life in our land. + +Should you have come to this spot alone, in the early days when the Tower +is noisy with martial doings, you may haply catch in the hum which rises +from the ditch and issues from the wall below you--broken by roll of drum, +by blast of bugle, by tramp of soldiers--some echoes, as it were, of a +far-off time, some hints of a Mayday revel, of a state execution, of a +royal entry. You may catch some sound which recalls the thrum of a queen's +virginal, the cry of a victim on the rack, the laughter of a bridal feast. +For all these sights and sounds--the dance of love and the dance of +death--are part of that gay and tragic memory which clings around the +Tower. + +From the reign of Stephen down to that of Henry of Richmond, Caesar's +tower (the great Norman keep, now called the White Tower), was a main part +of the royal palace; and for that large interval of time the story of the +White Tower is in some part that of our English society as well as of our +English kings. Here were kept the royal wardrobe and the royal jewels; and +hither came with their goody wares the tiremen, the goldsmiths, the +chasers and embroiderers, from Flanders, Italy, and Almaigne. Close by +were the Mint, the lion's den, the old archery-grounds, the Court of +King's Bench, the Court of Common Pleas, the Queen's gardens, the royal +banqueting-hall, so that art and trade, science and manners, literature +and law, sport and politics, find themselves equally at home. + +Two great architects designed the main parts of the Tower: Gundulf the +Weeper and Henry the Builder; one a poor Norman monk, the other a great +English king. + +Gundulf, a Benedictine friar, had, for that age, seen a great deal of the +world; for he had not only lived in Rouen and Caen, but had traveled in +the East. Familiar with the glories of Saracenic art, no less than with +the Norman simplicities of Bec, St. Ouen, and St. Etienne, a pupil of +Lanfranc, a friend of Anselm, he had been employed in the monastery of Bec +to marshal with the eye of an artist all the pictorial ceremonies of his +church. But he was chiefly known in that convent as a weeper. No monk at +Bec could cry so often and so much as Gundulf. He could weep with those +who wept, nay, he could weep with those who sported, for his tears welled +forth from what seemed to be an unfailing source. + +As the price of his exile from Bec, Gundulf received the crozier of +Rochester, in which city he rebuilt the cathedral and perhaps designed the +castle, since the great keep on the Medway has a sister's likeness to the +great keep on the Thames. His works in London were the White Tower, the +first St. Peter's Church, and the old barbican, afterward known as the +Hall Tower, and now used as the Jewel House. + +The cost of these works was great; the discontent caused by them was sore. +Ralph, Bishop of Durham, the able and rapacious minister who had to raise +the money, was hated and reviled by the Commons with peculiar bitterness +of heart and phrase. He was called Flambard, or Firebrand. He was +represented as a devouring lion. Still the great edifice grew up, and +Gundulf, who lived to the age of fourscore, saw his great keep completed +from basement to battlement. + +Henry the Third, a prince of epical fancies as Corffe, Conway, Beaumaris +and many other fine poems in stone attest, not only spent much of his +money in adding to its beauty and strength, ... but was his own chief +clerk of the works. The Water Gate, the embanked wharf, the Cradle Tower, +the Lantern, which he made his bedroom and private closet, the Galleyman +Tower, and the first wall appear to have been his gifts. But the prince +who did so much for Westminster Abbey, not content with giving stone and +piles to the home in which he dwelt, enriched the chambers with frescoes +and sculptures, the chapels with carving and glass, making St. John's +Chapel in the White Tower splendid with saints, St. Peter's Church on the +Tower Green musical with bells. In the Hall Tower, from which a passage +led through the Great Hall into the King's bedroom in the Lantern, he +built a tiny chapel for his private use--a chapel which served for the +devotions of his successors until Henry the Sixth was stabbed to death +before the cross. Sparing neither skill nor gold to make the great +fortress worthy of his art, he sent to Purbeck for marble and to Caen for +stone. The dabs of lime, the spawls of flint, the layers of brick which +deface the walls and towers in too many places are of either earlier or +later times. The marble shafts, the noble groins, the delicate traceries, +are Henry's work. Traitor's Gate was built by him. In short, nearly all +that is purest in art is traceable to his reign. + +Edward the First may be added, at a distance, to the list of builders. In +his reign the original Church of St. Peter's fell into ruin; the wrecks +were carted away, and the present edifice was built. The bill of costs for +clearing the ground is still extant in Fetter Lane. Twelve men, who were +paid twopence a day wages, were employed on the work for twenty days. The +cost of pulling down the old chapel was forty-six shillings and eight +pence; that of digging foundations for the new chapel forty shillings. +That chapel has suffered from wardens and lieutenants; yet the shell is of +very fine Norman work. + +From the days of Henry the builder down to those of Henry of Richmond the +Tower, as the strongest place in the south of England, was by turns the +magnificent home and the miserable jail of all our princes. Here Richard +the Second held his court and gave up his crown. Here Henry the Sixth was +murdered. Here the Duke of Clarence was drowned in wine. Here King Edward +and the Duke of York was slain by command of Richard. Here Margaret of +Salisbury suffered her tragic fate. + +Henry of Richmond kept his royal state in the Tower, receiving his +ambassadors, counting his angels, making presents to his bride, Elizabeth +of York. Among other gifts to that lady on her nuptial day was a Royal +Book of verse, composed by a prisoner in the keep. + + + +ST. JAMES'S PALACE [Footnote: From "Walks in London."] + +BY AUGUSTUS J.C. HARE + + +The picturesque old brick gateway of St. James's Palace still looks up St. +James's Street, one of the most precious relics of the past in London, and +enshrining the memory of a greater succession of historical events than +any other domestic building in England, Windsor Castle not excepted. The +site of the palace was occupied, even before the Conquest, by a hospital +dedicated to St. James, for "fourteen maidens that were leprous." Henry +VIII. obtained it by exchange, pensioned off the sisters, and converted +the hospital into "a fair mansion and park," in the same year in which he +was married to Anne Boleyn, who was commemorated here with him in +love-knots, now almost obliterated, upon the side doors of the gateway, +and in the letters "H.A." on the chimney-piece of the presence-chamber or +tapestry room. Holbein is sometimes said to have been the king's architect +here, as he was at Whitehall. Henry can seldom have lived here, but hither +his daughter, Mary I., retired, after her husband Philip left England for +Spain, and here she died, November 17, 1558. + +James I., in 1610, settled St. James's on his eldest son, Prince Henry, +who kept his court here for two years with great magnificence, having a +salaried household of no less than two hundred and ninety-seven persons. +Here he died in his nineteenth year, November 6, 1612. Upon his death, St. +James's was given to his brother Charles, who frequently resided here +after his accession to the throne, and here Henrietta Maria gave birth to +Charles II., James II., and the Princess Elizabeth. In 1638 the palace was +given as a refuge to the queen's mother, Marie de Medici, who lived here +for three years, with a pension of £3,000 a month! Hither Charles I. was +brought from Windsor as the prisoner of the Parliament, his usual +attendants, with one exception, being debarred access to him, and being +replaced by common soldiers, who sat smoking and drinking even in the +royal bedchamber, never allowing him a moment's privacy, and hence he was +taken in a sedan chair to his trial at Whitehall. + +On the following day the king was led away from St. James's to the +scaffold. His faithful friends, Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, the Duke of +Hamilton, and Lord Capel were afterward imprisoned in the palace and +suffered like their master. + +Charles II., who was born at St. James's (May 29, 1630), resided at +Whitehall, giving up the palace to his brother, the Duke of York (also +born here, October 25, 1633), but reserving apartments for his mistress, +the Duchess of Mazarin, who at one time resided there with a pension of +£4,000 a year. Here Mary II. was born, April 30, 1662; and here she was +married to William of Orange, at eleven at night, November 4, 1677. Here +for many years the Duke and Duchess of York secluded themselves with their +children, in mourning and sorrow, on the anniversary of his father's +murder. Here also Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, died, March 31, 1671, +asking, "What is truth?" of Blandford, Bishop of Worcester, who came to +visit her. + +In St. James's Palace also, James's second wife, Mary of Modena, gave +birth to her fifth child, Prince James Edward ("the Old Pretender") on +June 10, 1688. + +It was to St. James's that William III. came on his first arrival in +England, and he frequently resided there afterward, dining in public, with +the Duke of Schomberg seated at his right hand and a number of Dutch +guests, but on no occasion was any English gentleman invited. In the +latter part of William's reign the palace was given up to the Princess +Anne, who had been born there February 6, 1665, and married there to +Prince George of Denmark July 28, 1683. She was residing here when Bishop +Burnet brought her the news of William's death and her own accession. + +George I., on his arrival in England, came at once to St. James's. "This +is a strange country," he remarked afterward; "the first morning after my +arrival at St. James's I looked out of the window, and saw a park with +walks, and a canal, which they told me were mine. The next day Lord +Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of my +canal; and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's servant +for bringing me my own carp, out of my own canal, in my own park." + +The Duchess of Kendal, the king's mistress, had rooms in the palace, and, +toward the close of his reign, George I. assigned apartments there on the +ground floor to a fresh favorite, Miss Anne Brett. When the king left for +Hanover, Miss Brett had a door opened from her rooms to the royal gardens, +which the king's granddaughter, Princess Anne, who was residing in the +palace, indignantly ordered to be walled up. Miss Brett had it opened a +second time, and the quarrel was at its height when the news of the king's +death put an end to the power of his mistress. With the accession of +George II. the Countesses of Yarmouth and Suffolk took possession of the +apartments of the Duchess of Kendal. As Prince of Wales, George II. had +resided in the palace till a smoldering quarrel with his father came to a +crisis over the christening of one of the royal children, and the next day +he was put under arrest, and ordered to leave St. James's with his family +the same evening. Wilhelmina Caroline of Anspach, the beloved queen of +George II., died in the palace, November 20, 1737, after an agonizing +illness, endured with the utmost fortitude and consideration for all +around her. + +Of the daughters of George II. and Queen Caroline, Anne, the eldest, was +married at St. James's to the Prince of Orange, November, 1733, urged to +the alliance by her desire for power, and answering to her parents, when +they reminded her of the hideous and ungainly appearance of the +bridegroom, "I would marry him, even if he were a baboon!" The marriage, +however, was a happy one, and a pleasant contrast to that of her younger +sister Mary, the king's fourth daughter, who was married here to the +brutal Frederick of Hesse Cassel, June 14, 1771. The third daughter, +Caroline, died at St. James's, December 28, 1757, after a long seclusion +consequent upon the death of John, Lord Harvey, to whom she was +passionately attached. + +George I. and George II. used, on certain days to play at Hazard at the +grooms' postern at St. James's, and the name "Hells," as applied to modern +gaming-houses is derived from that given to the gloomy room used by the +royal gamblers. + +The northern part of the palace, beyond the gateway (inhabited in the +reign of Victoria by the Duchess of Cambridge), was built for the marriage +of Frederick Prince of Wales. + +The State Apartments (which those who frequent levees and drawing-rooms +have abundant opportunities of surveying) are handsome, and contain a +number of good royal portraits. + +The Chapel Royal, on the right on entering the "Color Court," has a carved +and painted ceiling of 1540. Madame d'Arblay describes the pertinacity of +George III. in attending service here in bitter November weather, when the +queen and court at length left the king, his chaplain, and equerry "to +freeze it out together."... + +When Queen Caroline (wife of George II.) asked Mr. Whiston what fault +people had to find with her conduct, he replied that the fault they most +complained of was her habit of talking in chapel. She promised amendment, +but proceeding to ask what other faults were objected to her, he replied, +"When your Majesty has amended this I'll tell you of the next." + +It was in this chapel that the colors taken from James II. at the Battle +of the Boyne were hung up by his daughter Mary, an unnatural exhibition of +triumph which shocked the Londoners. Besides that of Queen Anne, a number +of royal marriages have been solemnized here; those of the daughters of +George II., of Frederick Prince of Wales to Augusta of Saxe Cobourg, of +George IV. to Caroline of Brunswick, and of Queen Victoria to Prince +Albert. + +The Garden at the back of St. James's Palace has a private entrance to the +Park. It was as he was alighting from his carriage here, August 2, 1786, +that George III. was attacked with a knife by the insane Margaret +Nicholson. "The bystanders were proceeding to wreak summary vengeance on +the (would-be) assassin, when the King generously interfered in her +behalf. 'The poor creature,' he exclaimed, 'is mad: do not hurt her; she +has not hurt me.' He then stept forward and showed himself to the +populace, assuring them that he was safe and uninjured." + + + +LITERARY SHRINES OF LONDON [Footnote: From "Shakespeare's England." By +arrangement with the publishers, Moffat, Yard & Co. Copyright by William +Winter, 1878-1910.] + +BY WILLIAM WINTER + + +The mind that can reverence historic associations needs no explanation of +the charm that such associations possess. There are streets and houses in +London which, for pilgrims of this class, are haunted with memories and +hallowed with an imperishable light that not even the dreary commonness of +everyday life can quench or dim. Almost every great author in English +literature has here left some personal trace, some relic that brings you +at once into his living presence. In the time of Shakespeare,--of whom it +should be noted that, wherever found, he is found in elegant +neighborhoods,--Aldersgate was a secluded, peaceful quarter of the town, +and there the poet had his residence, convenient to the theater in +Blackfriars, in which he owned a share. It is said that he dwelt at No. +134 Aldersgate Street (the house was long ago demolished), and in that +region, amid all the din of traffic and all the discordant adjuncts of a +new age, those who love him are in his company. Milton was born in a court +adjacent to Bread Street, Cheapside, and the explorer comes upon him as a +resident in St. Bride's churchyard,--where the poet Lovelace was +buried,--and at No. 19 York Street, Westminster, in later times occupied +by Jeremy Bentham and by William Hazlitt. When secretary to Cromwell he +lived in Scotland Yard, now the headquarters of the London police. His +last home was in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, but the visitor to that +spot finds it covered by the Artillery barracks. Walking through King +Street, Westminster, you will not forget the great poet Edmund Spenser, +who, a victim to barbarity, died there, in destitution and grief. Ben +Jonson's terse record of that calamity says: "The Irish having robbed +Spenser's goods and burnt his house and a little child new-born, he and +his wife escaped, and after he died, for lack of bread, in King Street." +Ben Jonson is closely associated with places that can still be seen. He +passed his boyhood near Charing Cross--having been born in Hartshorn Lane, +now Northumberland Street; he attended the parish school of St. +Martin's-in-the-Fields; and persons who roam about Lincoln's Inn will call +to mind that he helped to build it--a trowel in one hand and a volume of +Horace in the other. His residence, in his day of fame, was outside the +Temple Bar, but all that neighborhood is new. + +The Mermaid,--which Jonson frequented, in companionship with Shakespeare, +Fletcher, Herrick, Chapman, and Donne,--was in Bread Street, but no trace +of it remains, and a banking house stands now on the site of the old Devil +Tavern, in Fleet Street, a room in which, called "The Apollo," was the +trysting place of the club of which he was the founder. The famous +inscription, "O, rare Ben Jonson!" is three times cut in the Abbey; once +in Poets' Corner and twice in the north aisle, where he was buried,--a +little slab in the pavement marking his grave. Dryden once dwelt in a +quaint, narrow house, in Fetter Lane,--the street in which Dean Swift has +placed the home of "Gulliver," and where the famous Doomsday Book was +kept,--but, later, he removed to a liner dwelling, in Gerrard Street, +Soho, which was the scene of his death. (The house in Fetter Lane was torn +down in 1891.) Edmund Burke's house, also in Gerrard Street, is a +beer-shop, but the memory of the great orator hallows the abode, and an +inscription upon it proudly announces that here he lived. Dr. Johnson's +house, in Gough Square, bears (or bore) a mural tablet, and standing at +its time-worn threshold, the visitor needed no effort of fancy to picture +that uncouth figure shambling through the crooked lanes that afford access +to this queer, somber, melancholy retreat. In that house he wrote the +first dictionary of the English language and the characteristic, memorable +letter to Lord Chesterfield. The historical antiquarian society that has +marked many of the literary shrines of London has rendered a signal +service. The custom of marking the houses that are associated with +renowned names is, obviously, a good one, because it provides instruction, +and also because it tends to vitalize, in the general mind, a sense of the +value of honorable repute: it ought, therefore, to be everywhere adopted +and followed. A house associated with Sir Joshua Reynolds and a house +associated with Hogaith, both in Leicester Square, and houses associated +with Benjamin Franklin and Peter the Great, in Craven Street; Sheridan, in +Savile Row; Campbell, in Duke Street; Carrick, in the Adelphi Terrace; +Mrs. Siddons, in Baker Street, and Michael Faraday, in Blandford Street, +are only a few of the notable places which have been thus designated. More +of such commemorative work remains to be done, and, doubtless, will be +accomplished. The traveler would like to know in which of the houses in +Buckingham Street Coleridge lodged, while he was translating +"Wallenstein"; which house in Bloomsbury Square was the residence of +Akenside, when he wrote "The Pleasures of Imagination," and of Croly, when +he wrote "Salathiel"; or where it was that Gray lived, when he established +his residence in Russel Square, in order to be one of the first (as he +continued to be one of the most constant) students at the then newly +opened British Museum (1759).... These records, and such as these, may +seem trivialities, but Nature has denied an unfailing source of innocent +pleasure to the person who can feel no interest in them. For my part, when +rambling in Fleet Street it is a special delight to remember even so +little an incident as that recorded of the author of the "Elegy"--that he +once saw there his contemptuous critic, Dr. Johnson, shambling along the +sidewalk, and murmured to a companion, "Here comes Ursa Major." For true +lovers of literature "Ursus Major" walks oftener in Fleet Street to-day +than any living man. + +A good leading thread of literary research might be profitably followed by +the student who should trace the footsteps of all the poets, dead and +gone, that have held, in England, the office of laureate. John Kay was +laureate in the reign of King Edward the Fourth; Andrew Bernard in that of +King Henry the Seventh; John Skelton in that of King Henry the Eighth, and +Edmund Spenser in that of Queen Elizabeth. Since then the succession has +included the names of Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, Sir +William Devenant, John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell, Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, +Lawrence Eusden, Colley Cibber, William Whitehead, Thomas Warton, Henry +James Pye, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and Alfred Tennyson. Most +of those bards were intimately associated with London, and several of them +are buried in the Abbey. It is, indeed, because so many storied names are +written upon gravestones that the explorer of the old churches of London +finds in them so rich a harvest of instructive association and elevating +thought. Few persons visit them, and you are likely to find yourself +comparatively alone, in rambles of this kind. I went one morning into St. +Martin's,--once "in-the-fields," now at the busy center of the city,--and +found there only a pew-opener, preparing for the service, and an organist, +practising music. It is a beautiful structure, with graceful spire and +with columns of weather-beaten, gray stone, curiously stained with streaks +of black, and it is almost as famous for theatrical names as St. Paul's, +Covent Garden, or St. George's, Bloomsbury, or St. Clement Danes. There, +in a vault beneath the church, was buried the bewitching, generous Nell +Gwynn; there is the grave of James Smith, joint author with his brother +Horace,--who was buried at Tunbridge Wells,--of "The Rejected Addresses"; +there rests Richard Yates, the original "Sir Oliver Surface"; and there +were laid the ashes of the romantic Mrs. Centlivre, and of George +Farquhar, whom neither youth, genius, patient labor, nor sterling +achievement could save from a life of misfortune and an untimely, piteous +death. A cheerier association of this church is with the poet Thomas +Moore, who was there married. At St. Giles's-in-the-Fields are the graves +of George Chapman, who translated Homer; Andrew Marvel, who wrote such +lovely lyrics; Rich, the manager, who brought out "The Beggar's Opera," +and James Shirley, the fine dramatist and poet, whose immortal couplet has +often been murmured in such solemn haunts as these: + +Only the actions of the just +Smell sweet and blossom in the dust. + +Shirley was one of the most fertile, accomplished, admirable, and admired +of writers, during the greater part of his life (1596-1666), and the study +of his writing amply rewards the diligence of the student. His plays, +about forty in number, of which "The Traitor" is deemed the best tragedy +and "The Lady of Pleasure" the best comedy, comprehend a wide variety of +subject and exhibit refinement, deep feeling, and sustained fluency of +graceful expression. His name is associated with St. Albans, where he +dwelt as a school-teacher, and, in London, with Gray's Inn, where at one +time he resided. + + + + +II + +CATHEDRALS AND ABBEYS + + + +CANTERBURY [Footnote: From "Two Months Abroad." Printed privately. +(1878.)] + +BY THE EDITOR + + +An Anglo-Saxon man may get down to first principles in Canterbury. He +reaches the dividing point in England between the old faith of Pagans and +the new religion of Jesus the Christ. The founder of the new gospel had +been dead five hundred years when England accepted Him, and acceptance +came only after the Saxon King Ethelbert had married Bertha, daughter of a +Frankish prince. Here in Canterbury Ethelbert held his court. Bertha, like +her father, was a Christian. After her marriage, Bertha herself for some +years held Christian services here alone in little St. Martin's Church, +but Ethelbert still loved his idols; indeed, for many years, he continued +to worship Odin and Thor. St. Patrick had been in Ireland a full century +before this. + +Bertha as a Christian stood almost alone in Saxon England, but her +persistence at last so wrought upon Ethelbert that he wrote a letter to +Pope Gregory the Great, asking that a missionary be sent to England. This +was in the sixth century. St. Augustine and forty monks were dispatched by +Gregory to the English shore. To-day I have seen the church where this +great missionary preached. It still contains the font from which he +baptized his many English converts. In this church King Ethelbert himself +embraced Christianity, and so it was that the union of Church and State +was here effected. Canterbury then became the mother of the Church of +England--a title she has retained through all succeeding years. + +Few towns in England can interest an educated man more. Its foundation +dates from years before the Christian era--how long before no man knows. +It is rich in history, secular as well as ecclesiastical. The Black +Prince, beloved and admired as few princes ever were, had a strong +attachment for it, and here lies buried. Opposite his tomb sleeps Henry +IV, the king who dethroned Richard II, son of this same Black Prince. +Thomas à Becket, and those marvelous pilgrimages that followed his murder +for three hundred years, have given it lasting renown. The "father of +English poetry" has still further immortalized it in his "Tales." Indeed, +there are few towns possessing so many claims on the attention of the +churchman, the antiquarian, and the man of letters. + +One of the densest fogs I ever knew settled upon the ancient town the +morning after my arrival. It was impossible to see clearly across streets. +This fog increased the gloom which long ago came over these ancient +monuments and seemed to add something unreal to the air of solemn +greatness that appeared in every street and corner. Chance threw me into +Mercury Lane. Here at once was historic ground. On a corner of the lane +stands the very old inn that is mentioned by Chaucer as the resort of the +pilgrims whose deeds he has celebrated. It is now used by a linen-draper. +The original vaulted cellars and overhanging upper stories still remain. + +Pressing onward, I soon reached a Gothic gateway, handsomely carved, but +sadly old and decayed. It led into the grass-covered cathedral yard. +Through the thick fog could now be distinguished some of the lofty +outlines of the majestic cathedral. Its central tower, which is among the +best specimens of the pointed style in England, could be seen faintly as +it rose ponderously into the clouded air. No picture, no figures, no mere +letter, can place before the reader's mind this enormous edifice. Its +total length is 520 feet--Westminster Abbey is more than 100 feet less. As +we enter, the immensity of it grows. It is a beautiful theory that these +great Gothic churches, as outgrowths of the spirit of Christianity, in +their largeness and in the forms of their windows and aisles, were meant +to represent the universality and lofty ideals of the Christian faith. +Pagans worshiped largely in family temples which none but the rich could +build. The new faith opened its temples to all men, and it built churches +large enough for all classes and conditions to enter and find room. + +Two styles of architecture are shown in the interior of Canterbury, Norman +and Early Gothic. In the former style are the transept, choir and Becket +chapel, each with its noble series of lofty columns and arches. Beneath +the choir and chapel is a crypt, also Norman and the oldest part of the +cathedral, some of it undoubtedly dating from St. Augustine's time. He is +known to have built a church soon after his arrival upon ground formerly +occupied by Christians in the Roman army, and this is believed to be its +site. The crypt, in a splendid state of preservation, extends under the +entire Norman portion of the building. + +When the Gothic style came into vogue, succeeding the Norman, the +remainder of the present edifice was added. Either part--Norman or +Gothic--would in itself make a large church. One will meet few grander +naves anywhere than this Gothic nave in Canterbury, formed of white stone +and wonderfully symmetrical in all its outlines. A screen, richly wrought, +divides the Norman from the Gothic part. Two flights of stone steps lead +from one to the other. It will not be easy to forget the impression made +that dark December morning when I entered the little doorway of this +cathedral and first walked down its long, gray, lofty nave to this flight +of steps. The chanting in the choir of the morning service which echoed +throughout the vast edifice gave profound solemnity to a scene that can +never pass from recollection. + +When the service had closed, an intelligent verger acted as my guide. New +chapels and aisles seemed to open in all directions. Before we had +completed the circuit, it seemed as if we were going through another +Westminster Abbey. In one cornear is the "Warrior's Chapel," crowded with +the tombs of knights whose effigies, in full armor, lie recumbent on +elaborate bases. Henry IV. and his second queen lie in the Becket Chapel +under an elegant canopy, between two immense Norman pillars. On the other +side, between two other pillars, lies the Black Prince, with recumbent +statue in full armor. Suspended above the canopy are his coat of mail and +the helmet and shield he wore at Cressy. + +In the center of this chapel, and between these two monuments, formerly +stood Thomas à Becket's famous shrine. The chapel was added to the +cathedral for the express purpose of receiving his remains. At the height +of the pilgrimages, about 100,000 people are said to have visited it every +year. The steps that lead to it show how they were deeply worn by +pilgrims, who ascended in pairs on their knees. Where stood the shrine the +pavement has also been worn deeply down to the shape of the human knee by +pilgrims while in prayer. Each pilgrim brought an offering, and nothing +less than gold was accepted. Not alone the common people, but princes, +kings and great church dignitaries from foreign lands came with gifts. +Erasmus was here in 1510 and wrote of the Becket shrine that it "shone and +glittered with the rarest and most precious jewels of an extraordinary +largeness, some larger than the egg of a goose." + +The brilliant duration of these pilgrimages came finally to a sudden end. +During the Reformation, Henry VIII. seized and demolished the shrine. The +treasure, filling two large chests, and which eight men could with +difficulty carry, was seized, and on the adjoining pavement the bones of +the saint were burned. Not a single relic of Becket now remains in +Canterbury. With no ordinary feeling does one stand amid the scene of this +most interesting and curious chapter in church history. Not far from the +shrine is the place where the murder of Becket was committed. You are +shown the actual stone that was stained with his blood. A piece of this +stone, about four inches square, was cut out of the pavement at the time +of the murder and sent to Rome, where it is still preserved. Among many +interesting tombs not already referred to are those of the great St. +Dunstan; of Admiral Rooke, the hero of Gibraltar; of Stephen Langton +(immortal with Magna Charta), and of Archbishop Pole, of Mary Tudor's +time, who died the same day as that queen, and thus made clear Elizabeth's +path to a restoration of Protestantism. + +After the cathedral, the most interesting place in Canterbury is St. +Martin's Church. With few exceptions--including, perhaps, a very early and +well-preserved church in Ravenna--it is doubted if an older Christian +church now remains in Europe. There certainly is none that can claim more +interest for Englishmen and for descendants of Englishmen in the New +World. St. Martin's is somewhat removed from the town, where it stands +alone on a sloping knoll, and is very simple in form. The tower that rises +over the doorway is built of plain Roman brick and broken flint stones, +and has occasionally a piece of drest stone on corners. The tower is +square and rises about ten feet above the roof. Almost any mason could +have built this church. A luxuriant growth of ivy covers nearly all its +parts. Rude in outline and finish are all its parts, ivy has added to St. +Martin's the only beauty it could possibly claim. + +The interior bears heavier marks of age than do the walls outside. The +chancel has walls built almost entirely of Roman brick, and the nave is +without columns. The old font--certainly one of the first constructed in +England--stands in the chancel. It was probably from this font that King +Ethelbert was baptized. Both chronicle and tradition say good Bertha was +buried here. A recess in the wall of the chancel contains an old stone +coffin, which is believed to contain the dust of England's first Christian +queen. Standing within this ancient structure, one feels that he has +reached the source for Anglo-Saxon people of this modern faith, +Christianity, and the civilization it has given to the world. A new race +of pilgrims, as numerous as those who went to Becket's shrine, might well +find as worthy an object of their gifts and their journeys in this +ivy-mantled relic of ancient days. + + + +OLD YORK [Footnote: From "Gray Days and Gold." By arrangement with the +publishers, Moffat, Yard & Co. Copyright by William Winter, 1890.] + +BY WILLIAM WINTER + + +The pilgrim to York stands in the center of the largest shire in England, +and is surrounded by castles and monasteries, now mostly in ruins, but +teeming with those associations of history and literature that are the +glory of this delightful land. From the summit of the great central tower +of the cathedral, which is reached by 237 steps, I gazed, one morning, +over the vale of York and beheld one of the loveliest spectacles that ever +blest the eyes of man. The wind was fierce, the sun brilliant, and the +vanquished storm-clouds were streaming away before the northern blast. Far +beneath lay the red-roofed city, its devious lanes and its many great +churches,--crumbling relics of ancient ecclesiastical power,--distinctly +visible. Through the plain, and far away toward the south and east, ran +the silver thread of the Ouse, while all around, as far as the eye could +see, stretched forth a smiling landscape of green meadow and cultivated +field; here a patch of woodland, and there a silver gleam of wave; here a +manor house nestled amid stately trees, and there an ivy-covered fragment +of ruined masonry; and everywhere the green lines of the flowering +hedge.... + +In the city that lies at your feet stood once the potent Constantine, to +be proclaimed Emperor, A.D. 306, and to be vested with the imperial purple +of Rome. In the original York Minster (the present is the fourth church +that has been erected upon this site) was buried that valiant soldier, +"old Siward," whom "gracious England" lent to the Scottish cause, under +Malcolm and Macduff, when time at length was ripe for the ruin of Glamis +and Cawdor. Close by is the field of Stamford, where Harold defeated the +Norwegians with terrible slaughter, only nine days before he was himself +defeated, and slain, at Hastings. Southward, following the line of the +Ouse, you look down upon the ruins of Clifford's Tower, built by King +William the Conqueror in 1068, and destroyed by the explosion of its +powder magazine in 1684. Not far away is the battlefield of Towton. King +Henry the Sixth and Queen Margaret were waiting in York for news of the +event of that fatal battle,--which, in its effect, made them exiles, and +bore to supremacy the rightful standard of the White Rose. In this church +King Edward the Fourth was crowned, 1464, and King Richard the Third was +proclaimed king and had his second coronation. + +Southward you can see the open space called the Pavement, connecting with +Parliament Street, and the red brick church of St. Crux. In the Pavement +the Earl of Northumberland was beheaded for treason against Queen +Elizabeth, in 1572, and in St. Crux, one of Wren's churches, his remains +lie buried, beneath a dark blue slab which is shown to visitors. A few +miles away, but easily within reach of your vision, is the field of +Marston Moor, where the impetuous Prince Rupert imperiled and well-nigh +lost the cause of King Charles the First in 1644; and as you look toward +that fatal spot you almost hear, in the chamber of your fancy, the paeans +of thanksgiving for the victory, that were uttered in the church beneath. +Cromwell, then a subordinate officer in the Parliamentary army, was one of +the worshipers. Of the fifteen kings, from William of Normandy to Henry of +Windsor, whose sculptured effigies appear upon the chancel screen in York +Minster, there is scarcely one who has not worshiped in this cathedral.... + +There it stands, symbolizing, as no other object on earth can ever do, +except one of its own great kindred, the promise of immortal life to man +and man's pathetic faith in that promise. Dark and lonely it comes back +upon my vision, but during all hours of its daily and nightly life +sentient, eloquent, vital, participating in all the thought, conduct, and +experience of those who dwell around it.... + +York is the loftiest of all the English cathedrals, and the third in +length,--both St. Alban's and Winchester being longer. The present +structure is 600 years old, and more than 200 years were occupied in the +building of it. They show you, in the crypt, some fine remains of the +Norman church that preceded it on the same site, together with traces of +the still older Saxon church that preceded the Norman. The first one was +of wood, and was totally destroyed. The Saxon remains are a fragment of +stone staircase and a piece of wall built in the ancient herring-bone +fashion. The Norman remains are four clustered columns, embellished in the +zig-zag style. There is not much of commemorative statuary at York, and +what there is of it was placed chiefly in the chancel. + + + +YORK AND LINCOLN COMPARED [Footnote: From "English Towns and Districts."] + +BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN + + +The towers of Lincoln, simply as towers, are immeasurably finer than those +of York; but the front of York, as a front, far surpasses the front of +Lincoln. + +As for the general outline, there can be no doubt as to the vast +superiority of Lincoln. Lincoln has sacrificed a great deal to the +enormous pitch of its roofs, but it has its reward in the distant view of +the outside. The outline of York is spoiled by the incongruity between the +low roofs of the nave and choir and the high roofs of the transepts. The +dumpiness of the central tower of York--which is, in truth, the original +Norman tower cased--can not be wholly made a matter of blame to the +original builders. For it is clear that some finish, whether a crown like +those at Newcastle and Edinburgh or any other, was intended. Still the +proportion which is solemn in Romanesque becomes squat in perpendicular, +and, if York has never received its last finish, Lincoln has lost the last +finish which it received. Surely no one who is not locally sworn to the +honor of York can doubt about preferring the noble central tower of +Lincoln, soaring still, even tho shorn of its spire. The eastern transept, +again, is far more skilfully managed at Lincoln than at York. It may well +be doubted whether such a transept is really an improvement; but if it is +to be there at all, it is certainly better to make it the bold and +important feature which it is at Lincoln, than to leave it, as it is at +York, half afraid, as it were, to proclaim its own existence. + +Coming to the east end, we again find, as at the west, Lincoln throwing +away great advantages by a perverse piece of sham. The east window of +Lincoln is the very noblest specimen of the pure and bold tracery of its +own date. But it is crusht, as it were, by the huge gable window above +it--big enough to be the east window of a large church--and the aisles, +whose east windows are as good on their smaller scale as the great window, +are absurdly finished with sham gables, destroying the real and natural +outline of the whole composition. At York we have no gables at all; the +vast east window, with its many flimsy mullions, is wonderful rather than +beautiful; still the east end of York is real, and so far it surpasses +that of Lincoln. + +On entering either of these noble churches, the great fault to be found is +the lack of apparent height. To some extent this is due to a cause common +to both. We are convinced that both churches are too long. The eastern +part of Lincoln--the angels' choir--is in itself one of the loveliest of +human works; the proportion of the side elevations and the beauty of the +details are both simply perfect. But its addition has spoiled the minster +as a whole. The vast length at one unbroken height gives to the eastern +view of the inside the effect of looking through a tube, and the +magnificent east window, when seen from the western part of the choir, is +utterly dwarfed. And the same arrangement is open to the further objection +that it does not fall in with the ecclestiastical arrangements of the +building.... + +In the nave of York, looking eastward or westward, it is hard indeed to +believe that we are in a church only a few feet lower than Westminster or +Saint Ouens. The height is utterly lost, partly through the enormous +width, partly through the low and crushing shape of the vaulting-arch. The +vault, it must be remembered, is an imitation of an imitation, a modern +copy of a wooden roof made to imitate stone. This imitation of stone +construction in wood runs through the greater part of the church; it comes +out specially in the transepts, where a not very successful attempt is +made to bring the gable windows within the vault--the very opposite to the +vast space lost in the roofs at Lincoln. Yet with all this, many noble +views may be got in York nave and transepts, provided only the beholder +takes care never to look due east or west. The western view is still +further injured by the treatment of the west window--in itself an +admirable piece of tracery--which fits into nothing, and seems cut through +the wall at an arbitrary point. But the nave elevation, taken bay by bay, +is admirable. Looking across out of the aisle--the true way to judge--the +real height at last comes out, and we are reminded of some of the most +stately minsters of France.... + + + +DURHAM [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By arrangement with, and by +permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, Mifflin Co. +Copyright, 1870 and 1898.] + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + +Durham Cathedral has one advantage over the others I have seen, there +being no organ-screen, nor any sort of partition between the choir and +nave; so that we saw its entire length, nearly 500 feet, in one vista. The +pillars of the nave are immensely thick, but hardly of proportionate +height, and they support the round Norman arch; nor is there, as far as I +remember, a single pointed arch in the cathedral. The effect is to give +the edifice an air of heavy grandeur. It seems to have been built before +the best style of church architecture had established itself; so that it +weighs upon the soul, instead of helping it to aspire. First, there are +these round arches, supported by gigantic columns; then, immediately +above, another row of round arches, behind which is the usual gallery that +runs, as it were, in the thickness of the wall, around the nave of the +cathedral; then, above all, another row of round arches, enclosing the +windows of the clerestory. + +The great pillars are ornamented in various ways--some with a great spiral +groove running from bottom to top; others with two spirals, ascending in +different directions, so as to cross over one another; some are fluted or +channeled straight up and down; some are wrought with chevrons, like those +on the sleeve of a police inspector. There are zigzag cuttings and +carvings, which I do not know how to name scientifically, round the arches +of the doors and windows; but nothing that seems to have flowered out +spontaneously, as natural incidents of a grand and beautiful design. In +the nave, between the columns of the side aisles, I saw one or two +monuments.... + +I left my seat, and after strolling up and down the aisle a few times +sallied forth into the churchyard. On the cathedral door there is a +curious old knocker, in the form of a monstrous face, which was placed +there, centuries ago, for the benefit of fugitives from justice, who used +to be entitled to sanctuary here. The exterior of the cathedral, being +huge, is therefore grand; it has a great central tower, and two at the +western end; and reposes in vast and heavy length, without the multitude +of niches, and crumbling statues, and richness of detail, that make the +towers and fronts of some cathedrals so endlessly interesting. One piece +of sculpture I remember--a carving of a cow, a milkmaid, and a monk, in +reference to the legend that the site of the cathedral was, in some way, +determined by a woman bidding her cow go home to Dunholme. Cadmus was +guided to the site of his destined city in some such way as this. + +It was a very beautiful day, and tho the shadow of the cathedral fell on +this side, yet, it being about noontide, it did not cover the churchyard +entirely, but left many of the graves in sunshine. There were not a great +many monuments, and these were chiefly horizontal slabs, some of which +looked aged, but on closer inspection proved to be mostly of the present +century. I observed an old stone figure, however, half worn away, which +seemed to have something like a bishop's miter on its head, and may +perhaps have lain in the proudest chapel of the cathedral before occupying +its present bed among the grass. About fifteen paces from the central +tower, and within its shadow, I found a weather-worn slab of marble, seven +or eight feet long, the inscription on which interested me somewhat. It +was to the memory of Robert Dodsley, the bookseller, Johnson's +acquaintance, who, as his tombstone rather superciliously avers, had made +a much better figure as an author than "could have been expected in his +rank of life." But, after all, it is inevitable that a man's tombstone +should look down on him, or, at all events, comport itself toward him "de +haut en bas." I love to find the graves of men connected with literature. +They interest me more, even tho of no great eminence, than those of +persons far more illustrious in other walks of life. I know not whether +this is because I happen to be one of the literary kindred, or because all +men feel themselves akin, and on terms of intimacy, with those whom they +know, or might have known, in books. I rather believe that the latter is +the case. + +We went around the edifice, and, passing into the close, penetrated +through an arched passage into the crypt, which, methought, was in a +better style of architecture than the nave and choir.... Thence we went +into the cloisters, which are entire, but not particularly interesting. +Indeed, this cathedral has not taken hold of my affections, except in one +aspect, when it was exceedingly grand and beautiful. + + + +ELY [Footnote: From "Old England: Its Scenery, Art, and People." Published +by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + +BY JAMES M. HOPPIN + + +I was attracted around by the way of Ely, to see the cathedral there, +instead of taking the Huntingdon route more directly to Cambridge. This +was quite a loss, for Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon. Hinchinbroke +House, the property of his family, now belongs to the Earl of Sandwich. + +But Ely Cathedral was not to be lost. It is frozen history as well as +"frozen music." I value these old structures because such wealth of +English history is embodied in them; their human interest, after all, is +greater than their artistic. Ely is said to be derived from "willow," or a +kind of willow or ozier island, upon which the abbey and town were built +in the midst of marshes. Among these impenetrable marshes Hereward the +Saxon retreated; and here, too, we have that bit of genuine antique poetry +which from its simplicity must have described a true scene; and we catch a +glimpse of that pleasing and soothing picture, amid those rude and bloody +days, of King Canute and his knights resting for a moment upon their +toiling oars to hear the vesper song of the monks. + +The foundation of the cathedral was laid in 1083, and it was finished in +1534. In printed lists of its bishops, as in those of other English +cathedral churches, I have noticed that they are given in their +chronological succession, right on, the bishops of the Reformed Church +being linked upon the Roman Catholic bishops. The bishopric of Ely was +partially carved out of the bishopric of Lincoln, and comprizes Cambridge +in its jurisdiction. It has, therefore, had all the riches, influence, +taste, and learning of the University to bear upon the restoration of its +noble old cathedral; and of all the old churches of England this one +exhibits indications of the greatest modern care and thought bestowed upon +it. It glows with new stained-glass windows, splendid marbles, exquisite +sculptures, and bronze work. Its western tower, 266 feet in height, +turreted spires, central octagon tower, flying buttresses, unequaled +length of 517 feet, and its vast, irregular bulk soaring above the +insignificant little town at its foot, make it a most commanding object +seen from the flat plain. + +What is called the octagon, which has taken the place of the central tower +that had fallen, is quite an original feature of the church. Eight arches, +rising from eight ponderous piers, form a windowed tower, or lantern, +which lets in a flood of light upon the otherwise gloomy interior. Above +the keystone of each arch is the carved figure of a saint. The new brasses +of the choir are wonderfully elaborate. The bronze scroll and vine work of +the gates and lamps, for grace and Oriental luxuriance of fancy, for their +arabesque and flower designs, might fitly have belonged to King Solomon's +Temple of old. The modern woodwork of the choir compares also well with +the ancient woodwork carving. Gold stars on azure ground, and all vivid +coloring and gilding, are freely used. The new "reredos," or altar screen, +is one marvelous crystallization of sculptures. The ancient Purbeck marble +pillars have been scraped and re-polished, and form a fine contrast to the +white marbles on which they are set. If, indeed, one wishes to see what +modern enthusiasm, art, and lavish wealth can do for the restoration and +adorning of one of these old temples, he must go to Ely Cathedral. + + + +SALISBURY [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By arrangement with, and +by permission of, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, Mifflin +Co. Copyright, 1870 and 1898.] + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + +I do not remember any cathedral with so fine a site as this, rising up out +of the center of a beautiful green, extensive enough to show its full +proportions, relieved and insulated from all other patchwork and +impertinence of rusty edifices. It is of gray stone, and looks as perfect +as when just finished, and with the perfection, too, that could not have +come in less than six centuries of venerableness, with a view to which +these edifices seem to have been built. A new cathedral would lack the +last touch to its beauty and grandeur. It needs to be mellowed and +ripened, like some pictures; altho I suppose this awfulness of antiquity +was supplied, in the minds of the generation that built cathedrals, by the +sanctity which they attributed to them. + +Salisbury Cathedral is far more beautiful than that of York, the exterior +of which was really disagreeable to my eye; but this mighty spire and +these multitudinous gray pinnacles and towers ascend toward heaven with a +kind of natural beauty, not as if man had contrived them. They might be +fancied to have grown up, just as the spires of a tuft of grass do, at the +same time that they have a law of propriety and regularity among +themselves. The tall spire is of such admirable proportion that it does +not seem gigantic; and, indeed, the effect of the whole edifice is of +beauty rather than weight and massiveness. Perhaps the bright, balmy +sunshine in which we saw it contributed to give it a tender glory, and to +soften a little its majesty. + +When we went in, we heard the organ, the forenoon service being near +conclusion. If I had never seen the interior of York Cathedral, I should +have been quite satisfied, no doubt, with the spaciousness of this nave +and these side aisles, and the height of their arches, and the girth of +these pillars; but with that recollection in my mind they fell a little +short of grandeur. The interior is seen to disadvantage, and in a way the +builder never meant it to be seen; because there is little or no painted +glass, nor any such mystery as it makes, but only a colorless, common +daylight, revealing everything without remorse. There is a general light +hue, moreover, like that of whitewash, over the whole of the roof and +walls of the interior, pillar, monuments, and all; whereas, originally, +every pillar was polished, and the ceiling was ornamented in brilliant +colors, and the light came, many-hued, through the windows, on all this +elaborate beauty, in lieu of which there is nothing now but space. + +Between the pillars that separate the nave from the side aisles there are +ancient tombs, most of which have recumbent statues on them. One of these +is Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, son of Fair Rosamond, in chain mail; and +there are many other warriors and bishops, and one cross-legged Crusader, +and on one tombstone a recumbent skeleton, which I have likewise seen in +two or three other cathedrals. The pavement of the aisles and nave is laid +in great part with flat tombstones, the inscriptions on which are half +obliterated, and on the walls, especially in the transepts, there are +tablets, among which I saw one to the poet Bowles, who was a canon of the +cathedral.... + +Between the nave and the choir, as usual, there is a screen that half +destroys the majesty of the building, by abridging the spectator of the +long vista which he might otherwise have of the whole interior at a +glance. We peeped through the barrier, and saw some elaborate monuments in +the chancel beyond; but the doors of the screen are kept locked, so that +the vergers may raise a revenue by showing strangers through the richest +part of the cathedral. By and by one of these vergers came through the +screen with a gentleman and lady whom he was taking around, and we joined +ourselves to the party. He showed us into the cloisters, which had long +been neglected and ruinous, until the time of Bishop Dennison, the last +prelate, who has been but a few years dead. This bishop has repaired and +restored the cloisters in faithful adherence to the original plan; and +they now form a most delightful walk about a pleasant and verdant +enclosure, in the center of which sleeps good Bishop Dennison, with a wife +on either side of him, all three beneath broad flat stones. + +Most cloisters are darksome and grim; but these have a broad paved walk +beneath the vista of arches, and are light, airy, and cheerful; and from +one corner you can get the best possible view of the whole height and +beautiful proportion of the cathedral spire. On one side of this +cloistered walk seems to be the length of the nave of the cathedral. There +is a square of four such sides; and of places for meditation, grave, yet +not too somber, it seemed to me one of the best. While we stayed there, a +jackdaw was walking to and fro across the grassy enclosure, and haunting +around the good bishop's grave. He was clad in black, and looked like a +feathered ecclesiastic; but I know not whether it were Bishop Dennison's +ghost or that of some old monk. + +On one side of the cloisters, and contiguous to the main body of the +cathedral, stands the chapterhouse. Bishop Dennison had it much at heart +to repair this part of the holy edifice; and, if I mistake not, did begin +the work; for it had been long ruinous, and in Cromwell's time his +dragoons stationed their horses there. Little progress, however, had been +made in the repairs when the bishop died; and it was decided to restore +the building in his honor, and by way of monument to him. The repairs are +now nearly completed; and the interior of this chapter-house gave me the +first idea, anywise adequate, of the splendor of these Gothic church +edifices. The roof is sustained by one great central pillar of polished +marble--small pillars clustered about a great central column, which rises +to the ceiling, and there gushes out with various beauty, that overflows +all the walls; as if the fluid idea had sprung out of that fountain, and +grown solid in what we see. The pavement is elaborately ornamented; the +ceiling is to be brilliantly gilded and painted, as it was of yore, and +the tracery and sculptures around the walls are to be faithfully renewed +from what remains of the original patterns. + + + +EXETER [Footnote: From "Cathedral Days." By arrangement with, and by +permission of, the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Copyright, 1887.] + +BY ANNA BOWMAN DODD + + +A very obvious part of the charm of Exeter Cathedral lies in the fact that +it has to be sought for. It is so well and dexterously concealed from +view, as one passes along High Street, that one might be some days in town +without so much as suspecting that one of the finest cathedrals in England +was a near neighbor. It was almost by chance, I remember, that as we +turned into a long, quaint alley-way, filled up with little, low shops, we +caught a glimpse of a green plot of grass and some trees in the distance. +Our guiding instinct divined these to be the cathedral close.... + +To analyze the beauties of Exeter is only to add another note to one's joy +in them, their quality and rarity being of such an order as to warrant +one's cooler admiration. The front is as unique in design as it is +architecturally beautiful. There is that rarest of features in English +cathedrals--an elaborately sculptured screen, thoroughly honest in +construction. In originality of conception this front is perhaps +unrivalled, at least on English soil; there are three receding stories, so +admirably proportioned as to produce a beautiful effect in perspective. +The glory of the great west window is further enhanced by the graduated +arcades which have the appearance of receding behind it. Above the west +window rises a second and smaller triangular window in the gabled roof. + +Thus the triangular motif is sustained throughout, from the three low +doorways in the screen up to the far-distant roof. This complete and +harmonious front is nobly enriched by the splendid note of contrast in the +two transeptal Norman towers, whose massive structural elegance and +elaborateness of detail lend an extraordinary breadth and solidity to the +edifice. + +The grandeur which distinguishes the exterior is only a fitting +preparation for the solemnity and splendor of the interior. Passing +beneath the thickly massed sculptures of the low portals, the effect of +the vastness of the nave is striking in its immensity. Curiously enough, +in this instance, this effect of immensity is not due to an unbroken +stretch of nave-aisles or to a lengthy procession of pier-arches, but to +the magnificent sweep of the unencumbered vaulting in the roof. An organ +screen intercepts the line of vision at the entrance to the choir. This, +however, is the sole obstruction which the eye encounters. Above, the +great roof, with its unbroken 300 feet of interlacing lines, rises like +some mighty forest, its airy loftiness giving to the entire interior a +certain open-air atmosphere of breadth and vastness.... + +What most deeply concerned us was the desire to secure an uninterrupted +session of contemplative enjoyment. We had lost our hearts to the beauty +of the cathedral, and cared little or nothing for a clever dissecting of +its parts. We came again and again; and it was the glory of the cathedral +as a whole--its expressive, noble character, its breadth and grandeur, the +poetry of its dusky aisles, and the play of the rich shadows about its +massive columns--that charmed and enchained us. It was one of the few +English cathedrals, we said to each other, that possess the Old-World +continental charm, the charm of perpetual entertainment, and whose beauty +has just the right quality of richness and completeness to evoke an +intense and personal sympathy; for in all the greatest triumphs of art +there is something supremely human. + + + +LICHFIELD [Footnote: From "Our Old Home." Published by Houghton, +Mifflin Co.] + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + +I know not what rank the Cathedral of Lichfield holds among its sister +edifices in England, as a piece of magnificent architecture. Except that +of Chester (the grim and simple nave of which stands yet unrivaled in my +memory), and one or two small ones in North Wales, hardly worthy of the +name of cathedrals, it was the first that I had seen. To my uninstructed +vision, it seemed the object best worth gazing at in the whole world; and +now, after beholding a great many more, I remember it with less prodigal +admiration only because others are as magnificent as itself. The traces +remaining in my memory represent it as airy rather than massive. A +multitude of beautiful shapes appeared to be comprehended within its +single outline; it was a kind of kaleidoscopic mystery, so rich a variety +of aspects did it assume from each altered point of view, through the +presentation of a different face, and the rearrangement of its peaks and +pinnacles and the three battlemented towers, with the spires that shot +heavenward from all three, but one loftier than its fellows. + +Thus it imprest you, at every change, as a newly created structure of the +passing moment, in which yet you lovingly recognized the half-vanished +structure of the instant before, and felt, moreover, a joyful faith in the +indestructible existence of all this cloudlike vicissitude. A Gothic +cathedral is surely the most wonderful work which mortal man has yet +achieved, so vast, so intricate, and so profoundly simple, with such +strange, delightful recesses in its grand figure, so difficult to +comprehend within one idea, and yet all so consonant that it ultimately +draws the beholder and his universe into its harmony. It is the only thing +in the world that is vast enough and rich enough. + +Inside of the minster there is a long and lofty nave, transepts of the +same height, and side-aisles and chapels, dim nooks of holiness, where in +Catholic times the lamps were continually burning before the richly +decorated shrines of saints. In the audacity of my ignorance, as I humbly +acknowledge it to have been, I criticized this great interior as too much +broken into compartments, and shorn of half its rightful impressiveness by +the interposition of a screen betwixt the nave and chancel. It did not +spread itself in breadth, but ascended to the roof in lofty narrowness. + +A great deal of white marble decorates the old stonework of the aisles, in +the shape of altars, obelisks, sarcophagi, and busts. Most of these +memorials are commemorative of people locally distinguished, especially +the deans and canons of the cathedral, with their relatives and families; +and I found but two monuments of personages whom I had ever heard of--one +being Gilbert Walmesley, and the other Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a +literary acquaintance of my boyhood. It was really pleasant to meet her +there; for after a friend has lain in the grave far into the second +century, she would be unreasonable to require any melancholy emotions in a +chance interview at her tombstone. It adds a rich charm to sacred +edifices, this time-honored custom of burial in churches, after a few +years, at least, when the mortal remains have turned to dust beneath the +pavement, and the quaint devices and inscriptions still speak to you +above.... + +A large space in the immediate neighborhood of the cathedral is called the +Close, and comprises beautifully kept lawns and a shadowy walk, bordered +by the dwellings of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the diocese. All +this row of episcopal, canonical, and clerical residences has an air of +the deepest quiet, repose, and well-protected, tho not inaccessible +seclusion. They seemed capable of including everything that a saint could +desire, and a great many more things than most of us sinners generally +succeed in acquiring. Their most marked feature is a dignified comfort, +looking as if no disturbance or vulgar intrusiveness could ever cross +their thresholds, encroach upon their ornamented lawns, or straggle into +the beautiful gardens that surround them with flower-beds and rich clumps +of shrubbery. The episcopal palace is a stately mansion of stone, built +somewhat in the Italian style, and bearing on its front the figures of +1687, as the date of its erection. A large edifice of brick, which, if I +remember, stood next to the palace, I took to be the residence of the +second dignitary of the cathedral; and in that case it must have been the +youthful home of Addison, whose father was Dean of Lichfield. I tried to +fancy his figure on the delightful walk that extends in front of those +priestly abodes, from which and the interior lawns it is separated by an +open-work iron fence, lined with rich old shrubbery, and overarched by a +minster-aisle of venerable trees. + + + +WINCHESTER [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] + +BY WILLIAM HOWITT + + +On entering the cathedral enclosure on its north side from High Street, +you are at once struck with the venerable majesty and antique beauty of +the fine old pile before you, and with the sacred quietude of the +enclosure itself. In the heart of this tranquil city it has yet a deeper +tranquillity of its own. Its numerous tombs and headstones, scattered over +its greensward, and its lofty avenues of limetrees, seem to give you a +peaceful welcome to the Christian fame and resting-place of so many +generations. If you enter at the central passage, you tread at once on the +eastern foundations of the Conqueror's palace, and pass close to the spot +on which formerly rose the western towers of Alfred's Newan Mynstre, and +where lay his remains, after having been removed from the old mynstre, +till Hyde Abbey was built. + +It is impossible to walk over this ground, now so peaceful, without +calling to mind what scenes of havoc and blood, of triumph and +ecclesiastical pomp, it has witnessed--the butchery of the persecution of +Diocletian, when the Christians fell here by thousands; the repeated +massacres and conflagrations of the Danes; the crowning of Saxon and of +English kings; the proud processions of kings and queens, nobles, mitered +prelates, friars, and monks, to offer thanksgivings for victory, or +penance for sins, from age to age; and, finally, the stern visitation of +the Reformers and the Cromwellian troopers. + +The venerable minster itself bears on its aspect the testimonies of its +own antiquity. The short and massy tower in the center, the work of Bishop +Walkelin, the cousin of the Conqueror, has the very look of that distant +age, and, to eyes accustomed to the lofty and rich towers of some of our +cathedrals, has an air of meanness. Many people tell you that it never was +finished; but besides that there is no more reason that the tower should +remain unfinished through so many centuries than any other part of the +building, we know that it was the character of the time, of which the +tower of the Norman church of St. Cross affords another instance just at +hand. In fact, the spire was then unknown. + +Having arrived at the west front, we can not avoid pausing to survey the +beauty of its workmanship--that of the great William of Wykeham; its great +central doorway, with its two smaller side-doors; the fretted gallery over +it, where the bishop in his pontificals was wont to stand and bless the +people, or absolve them from the censures of the church; its noble window, +rich with perpendicular tracery; its two slender lantern turrets; its +crowning tabernacle, with its statue of the builder; and its pinnacled +side aisles. + +I must confess that of all the cathedrals which I have entered, none gave +me such a sensation of surprize and pleasure. The loftiness, the space, +the vast length of the whole unbroken roof above, I believe not exceeded +by any other in England; the two rows of lofty clustered pillars; the +branching aisles, with their again branching and crossing tracery; the +long line of the vaulted roof, embossed with armorial escutcheons and +religious devices of gorgeous coloring; the richly painted windows; and, +below, the carved chantries and mural monuments, seen amid the tempered +light; and the sober yet delicate hue of the Portland stone, with which +the whole noble fabric is lined, produce a tout ensemble of sublime +loveliness which is not easily to be rivaled.... + +But we have made the circuit of the church without beholding the choir, +and we must not quit its precincts without entering there. Ascending the +flight of steps which lead to it, we front that elegant screen with which +modern good taste has replaced the screen of Inigo Jones, who, blind to +all the beauty of the Gothic architecture, not only placed here a Grecian +screen, but also affixt a Grecian bishop's throne to the beautiful Gothic +canopy-work of the choir. In the niches of this screen are two bronze +statues of James I and Charles I. + +We are now on the spot of the ancient rood-loft, where formerly stood the +great rood, or crucifix, with the attendant figures of the Virgin and St. +John, of vast size and value, being of silver, which were bequeathed to +the minster by the notorious Archbishop Stigand, before the Conquest. As +we enter the choir through the door in the screen, we are struck with the +great beauty of the place. Around us rises the rich dark woodwork of the +stalls, contrasting well with the pale delicacy of the walls above. + +Overhead is seen to swell the fine vault of the roof, with its rich +tracery, and its central line, and orbs at the junction of its timbers, +embossed with bold armorial shields of the houses of Tudor, Lancaster, and +Castile, as united in John of Gaunt and Beaufort, with those of various +episcopal sees, and stretching on to the splendid east window in that +direction, emblazoned with "the several implements of our Savior's +Passion--the cross, crown of thorns, nails, hammer, pillar, scourges, +reed, sponge, lance, sword, with the ear of Malchus upon it, lantern, +ladder, cock, and dice; also the faces of Pilate and his wife, of the +Jewish high priest, with a great many others, too numerous to be +described, but worthy of notice for the ingenuity of design," and the +richness of their tints. They are, indeed, emblazoned in the most gorgeous +colors--scarlet, blue and gold; and, to a fanciful eye, may resemble, many +of them, huge sacred beetles of lordly shapes and hues. + +On each side rise up, into the very roof, the tall pointed windows glowing +with figures of saints, prophets, and apostles, who seem to be ranged on +either hand, in audience of the divine persons in the great east +window--the Savior and the Virgin, with apostles and other saints. But +what is the most striking to the eye and mind of the spectator is to +behold, on the floor of the sanctuary before him, a plain beveled stone of +dark marble--the tomb of William Rufus; and arranged on the top of the +beautiful stone partitions on each side of the sanctuary, dividing it from +the aisles, are six mortuary chests, three on a side, containing the bones +of many of the most eminent Saxon princes. The bones which, from the +repeated rebuildings and alterings of the cathedral, must have been in +danger of being disturbed, and the places of their burial rendered +obscure, or lost altogether, Bishop de Blois, in the twelfth century, +collected and placed in coffins of lead over the Holy Hole. At the +rebuilding of the choir, as it was necessary again to remove them, Bishop +Fox had them deposited in these chests, and placed in this situation. The +chests are carved, gilt, and surmounted with crowns, with the names and +epitaphs, in Latin verse and black letter, inscribed upon them. + +But if we had quitted Winchester Cathedral without paying a visit to the +grave of one of the best and most cheerful-hearted old men who lie in it, +we should have committed a great fault. No, we stood on the stone in the +floor of Prior Silkstede's chapel in the old Norman south transept, which +is inscribed with the name of Izaak Walton. There lies that prince of +fishermen, who, when Milner wrote his history of this city, was so little +thought of that he is not once mentioned in the whole huge quarto! + + + +WELLS [Footnote: From "Old England: Its Scenery, Art and People." +Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + +BY JAMES M. HOPPIN + + +The city of Wells, which we now visit, has a romantic situation on the +southern slope of the Mendip Hills, twenty miles equi-distant from Bath, +Bistol, and Bridgewater. It takes its name from the ancient well dedicated +to St. Andrew, which rises within the Episcopal grounds, and runs through +the city down the sides of the principal streets in clear, sparkling' +streams. + +There is no place which, taken altogether, preserves a more antique air of +tranquil seclusion than Wells. In the precincts of Chester Cathedral, and +at many other points in England, there broods the same antique calm, but +here the whole place is pervaded by this reposeful spirit of the past; and +this culminates in the neighborhood of St. Andrew's Cathedral, the +bishop's palace, the old moat, the conventual buildings, and the three +venerable gates, or "eyes," as they are called, of the cathedral yard. The +moat about the bishop's palace, overhung by a thick curtain of aged elms +mingled with ivy, growing like a warrior's crest upon the high-turreted +interior walls, and reflected in deep shadows in the smooth, dark mirror +of the water, has a thoroughly feudal look, which is heightened by the +drawbridge over the moat, and the frowning castellated gateway. How +strange the state of society when a Christian bishop lived in such +jealously armed seclusion, behind moated walls and embattled towers! What +a commentary, this very name of "the close"! One of these old bishops was +himself a famous fighting character, who, at the age of sixty-four, +commanded the king's artillery at the battle of Sedgmoor.... + +The Cathedral of St. Andrew was built upon the site of a still more +ancient church founded by Ina, king of the West Saxons in 704. It also +goes back to a remote antiquity, for its choir and nave were rebuilt in +the middle of the twelfth century. The central tower, which is the noblest +and most finished part of the structure, is of the early English style to +the roof; the upper part is of the Decorated, with a mixture of the early +Perpendicular styles. It has an elegant appearance from its rich +pinnacles, and is of a softened and gray tint. Beginning to show signs of +sinking, it was raised in the fourteenth century, and was strengthened by +the introduction beneath it of inverted buttressing-arches, which give to +the interior a strange effect. These arches, architecturally considered, +are undoubtedly blemishes, but they are on such a vast scale, and so bold +in their forms, and yet so simple, that they do not take away from the +plain grandeur of the interior. They are quite Oriental or Saracenic. The +top of the eastern window is seen bright and glowing over the lower part +of the upper arch. The west front, 235 feet in length, has two square +towers, with a central screen terminated by minarets, and is divided into +distinct compartments of eight projecting buttresses; all of these +projections and recessed parts are covered with rich sculpture and +statuary, of which there are 153 figures of life-size, and more than 450 +smaller figures.... + +The other most striking features of Wells Cathedral are the Chapter House +and the Ladye Chapel. The first of these, on the rear of the church, is an +otagonal structure with pinnacled buttresses at each angle. It is +approached from the interior by a worn staircase of 20 steps of noble +architectural design. Among the grotesque carvings that line the +staircase, I remember in particular one queer old figure with a staff, or +rather crutch, thrust in a dragon's mouth, supporting a column. While thus +holding up the cathedral with its head and hand above, and choking a +writhing dragon beneath, he looks smiling and unconcerned, as if it were +an everyday affair with him, as indeed it is. The whole church abounds in +these old sculptures, little demoniac figures with big heads, faces with +enormous fish mouths, old men with packs on their backs, and angels with +huge armfuls of flowers. They seem to let one into the interior chambers +of fancy, the imaginative workings of the human mind in the middle +ages.... + +Wells Cathedral, on the whole, is distinguished for a dignified but rich +simplicity, arising from its plain large surfaces, mingled and edged here +and there with fine-cut and elegant ornamentation. The court and buildings +of the Wells Theological College have a thoroughly quaint, old-fashioned +look, quiet, rigid, and medieval; as if the students reared there could +not but be Churchmen of the "Brother Ignatius" stamp, gentlemen, scholars, +and--priests. I can not leave Wells without speaking of the two splendid +"cedars of Lebanon" standing in the environs of the church. They are not +very tall, but they sweep the ground majestically, and grow in a series of +broad, heavy masses of foliage, gracefully undulating in their outline. + + + +BURY ST. EDMUNDS [Footnote: From "The Abbeys of Great Britain."] + +BY H. CLAIBORNE DIXON + + +The history of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, altho veiled in much +legendary and mythical lore, tells, nevertheless, in its actual history of +the progress of civilization and of the enlightenment of the human mind. +Sigberet, King of the East Angles, is said to have founded the first +monastery at Beodericsworth (a town known to the Romans, ancient Britains, +Saxons, and Danes), and to have subsequently laid aside his royal dignity +by joining the brotherhood which he had established. Following his example +of religious devotion, Edmund, last King of the Angles, sacrificed not +only his crown but his life in defense of the Christian faith, for he was +beheaded by the Danes at Eglesdene in 870.... + +His head was cast into a forest, and, as the story goes, was miraculously +discovered and found to be guarded by a wolf. It was then buried with the +body at the village of Hoxne, where it remained until 903. In this year, +"the precious, undefiled, uncorrupted body of the glorious king and +martyr" was translated to the care of the secular priests at +Beodericsworth, since when the town has been called St. Edmundsbury, in +memory of the sainted monarch. Other wonderful traditions are associated +with the shrine of St. Edmund. Sweyn, the violent Danish king, coming in +hot pursuit of a woman who had claimed sanctuary, was miraculously killed +by an imaginary spear which came out of the shrine when he was about to +seize the woman who was clinging to its side. Bishop Herfastus, too, was +struck blind, when on a visit to the abbot, in the attempt to establish +his new see in the monastical demesne, and afterward miraculously healed. +For centuries the highest in the land brought gifts and laid them before +the venerated shrine. + +Canute was the actual founder of the monastery proper, for in the eleventh +century he brought over Benedictine monks from Hulm, granting them a +charter and many benefactions. The monastery yearly became more +prosperous, and, with the exception of Glastonbury, exceeded in +magnificence and privileges all other ecclestiastical establishments in +the country. In the height of its glory it must have been a most beautiful +and dignified structure. Leland writes: + +"A monastery more noble, whether one considers the endowments, largeness, +or unparalleled magnificence, the sun never saw. One might think the +monastery alone a city: it has three grand gates for entrances, some +whereof are brass, many towers, high walls, and a church than which +nothing can be more magnificent." + +The immense minster, with its lofty western and central towers, rose above +the monastic buildings, which were enclosed by a wall. To the north was a +great cloister, with the various conventual offices, to the southwest lay +the cemetery and church of St. Mary, while immediately before the west +front of the church stood the Norman tower leading to St. James's Church. + +Sufficient is left of the reverend walls to convey some idea of the former +vastness of the abbey and its attendant buildings. Of the minster itself +little remains--some arches of the west front, now converted into private +houses, and the bases of the piers which supported the central tower. The +site of St. Edmunds' Chapel--the part of the building which contained the +famous and much-visited shrine--is at the east end of the church. Besides +these relics of the minster, there still exists the Norman tower--built +during the time of Abbot Anselm, and formerly known as the principal +entrance to the cemetery of St. Edmund, and latterly as the "Churchgate" +and bell tower of St. James's Church--the abbot's bridge (Decorated) of +three arches; portions of the walls, and the abbey gateway.... + +First among the abbots of Bury stands the name of Samson, "the wolf who +raged among the monks." Many of the brothers had become entangled with +Jewish money-lenders in the twelfth century, and Abbot Samson, while +protecting the Jews at the time of the massacre, discharged all the debts +of his house, established many new rules, and set a godly and strenuous +example to his followers. Later, in 1205, the chief barons met at Bury in +opposition to King John, and swore at the second meeting, four years +later, in the presence of the king and Archbishop Langton, to stand by +their cause till the king should be induced to sign the Great Charter, and +to establish those liberties which we still enjoy. + + + +GLASTONBURY [Footnote: From "The Abbeys of Great Britain."] + +BY H. CLAIBORNE DIXON + + +Tho once surrounded by fenland, the Abbey of Glastonbury--a veritable +treasure-house of legendary lore--stands now amid orchards and level +pasture lands engirt by the river Bure. The majestic Tor overshadows this +spot, where, undoubtedly, the first British Christian settlement was +established. The name of the new builder of the first early church can +never be ascertained, so that in want of more substantial evidence the old +legend of St. Joseph of Arimathaea must be accepted, however slight its +claims to historical authority. Certain it is that Christianity was +introduced into this land on the island of Yniswytryn, or "Isle of Glass" +(so called on account of its crystal streams), in the very early +centuries. + +According to the Arthurian legends, St. Philip, Lazarus, Martha, Mary and +Joseph of Arimathaea, having been banished by their countrymen, journeyed +to Marseilles, from whence Joseph, with twelve companions and holy women, +was sent by St. Philip to Britain. They landed on the southwest coast and +made their way to Glastonbury, then Avalon (and so named in allusion to +its apple orchards), and by means of preaching and many miraculous deeds +persuaded the people to adopt Christianity. Gaining the good will of King +Arviragus, they built a church of wattle and twigs on the ground given to +them by their royal patron. The Benedictine, with its later developments +in Norman times of Augustine and Cluniac orders, was the first religious +order introduced into this country. It was instituted in Italy early in +the sixth century by St. Benedict of Nursia. Many monasteries established +before the Conquest came under its sway, and were, centuries later, after +the Dissolution, converted into cathedral churches. + +A sharp distinction should be drawn between the monasteries established +previous to the Conquest and those subsequently founded by the Cistercian +and other orders. The former were national houses--in every way belonging +to the English people and untouched by Papal influence; while the latter, +which were under the immediate control of the Bishop of Rome, were +essentially of foreign foundation.... + +King Ina, persuaded by St. Aldhelm, rebuilt and reendowed the abbey in the +eighth century, renounced his royal state, and lived as an ordinary +civilian, being induced to do so by extraordinary devices on the part of +his wife Ethelburgh. On one occasion, after King Ina had given a great +feast to his barons, he and his queen left the castle and proceeded to +another of the royal residences. Before leaving, Ethelburgh had commanded +the servants to strip the castle of all its valuables, furniture, etc., +and to fill it with rubbish, and to put a litter of pigs in the king's +bed. A short distance on their journey, Ethelburgh persuaded the king to +return, and, showing him over the desecrated palace, exhorted him to +consider the utter worthlessness of all earthly splendor and the +advisability of joining her on a pilgrimage to Rome. Imprest by her words, +Ina acted as she advised, and later endowed a school in Rome in which +Anglo-Saxon children might become acquainted with the customs of foreign +countries. Ina and Ethelburgh spent the remainder of their days in privacy +in the Holy City. + +The famous Dunstau, one of the greatest of ecclesiastical statesmen, was +born in Glastonbury, and, after proving his many marvelous capabilities +and aptitude for learning, was made abbot of the Benedictine house in his +native town in the reign of Edmund the Magnificent. Many strange stories +are told of him--the most fantastic, perhaps, being that of his interview +with the natural enemy of man, the Devil himself, during which the +reverend man became either so irritated or terrified that he was provoked +to seize the nose of his ghostly visitor with a pair of red-hot +pincers.... + +The fame belonging to this noble foundation exceeded that of any other +great building in England. An old writer tells us, "Kings and queens, not +only of the West Saxons, but of other kingdoms; several archbishops and +bishops; many dukes; and the nobility of both sexes thought themselves +happy in increasing the revenues of this venerable house, to ensure +themselves a place of burial therein." The story of the burial of St. +Joseph of Arimathaea at Glastonbury, to us a mere shadowy legend, was +accepted as a fact in the early English ages, and that it figured in the +mind of these worthies as endowing Glastonbury with extraordinary sanctity +is beyond doubt. + +At the time of the Dissolution no corruption whatever was revealed at +Glastonbury, nor any blame recorded against its management. It was still +doing splendid work, having daily services and extending its educational +influence for miles around. There was but scanty comfort for its inmates, +who rested on a straw mattress and bolster on their narrow bedstead in a +bare cell, and whose food, duties and discipline were marked by an austere +simplicity. Nor were they idle, these monks of Glastonbury--some taught in +the abbey school, others toiled in the orchards, and the beauty of the +stained glass, designed within the abbey walls, found fame far and wide. + +Richard Whiting was Abbot of Glastonbury when, in 1539, Henry VIII. +ordered inquiries to be made into the condition and property of the abbey. +Altho he recognized the monarch as supreme head of the church, he +respected the Glastonbury traditions and met the "visitors" in a spirit of +passive resistance. With the object of preserving them from desecration, +the abbot had concealed some of the communion vessels, and for this +offense the venerable man was tried and condemned to death. His head, +white with the touch of eighty years, was fixt upon the abbey gate, and +the rest of his body quartered and sent to Bath, Wells, Bridgwater, and +Ilchester. The abbey building--one of the most perfect examples of +architecture in the land--served as a stone quarry, much of the material +being used to make a road over the fenland from Glastonbury to Wells. The +revenue at the time of the Dissolution was over £3,000, a big income in +those days. + + + +TINTERN [Footnote: From "The Abbeys of Great Britain."] + +BY H. CLAIBORNE DIXON + + +More than one great artist has immortalized the secluded vale, where, on a +bend of the Wye and surrounded by wooded hills, the ruins of Tintern Abbey +stand. The somber-looking heights, which close in to the east and west, +create the atmosphere of loneliness and separation from the world so +sought after by the Cistercian monks, who doubtless found inspiration in +the grandeur of the surrounding mountains and in the peacefulness of the +sweet valley below. Tho the church of the Early English abbey is roofless +and the central tower gone, the noble structure, with its many graceful +arches, seems to attest to the spirit of religious fervor and devotion so +intimately associated with the history of its gray and lichen-covered +walls. + +The finest part of the ruins is undoubtedly the church, which, with the +exception of the roof and the north piers of the nave, still stands +complete. It has a nave of six bays with aisles, a choir of four bays with +aisles, the transepts with eastern aisles having two chapels. A transverse +Galilee stood formerly beyond the western entrance. In the north transept +are remains of the dormitory stairs, and on this side the cloisters, too, +were situated. The aumbry, parlor, sacristy, chapterhouse, slype to the +infirmary, day-stairs to dormitory and undercroft were on the east side of +the cloisters; the postern and river gate, over which was the abbot's +lodge on the north side, and also the buttery, refectory, and kitchen. The +delicacy of design and execution to be seen in the ruins is unrivaled in +the kingdom--the tracery of the windows being particularly fine. The +ruined church possesses the grace and lightness of architecture peculiar +to the twelfth century, and is, even in its decay, of truly sublime and +grand proportions. Time has been unable to obliterate the skilful work of +our forefathers, for the Early English transition arches, the delicate +molding, and the exquisite stone tracery in the windows still delight the +eye. The history of Tintern is almost a hidden page in the chronicles of +time. On the surrender of Raglan Castle to the Cromwellian troops by the +Marquis of Worcester, the castle was razed to the ground, and with it were +lost the abbey records, which had been taken from Tintern when the abbey +was granted to the Marquis's ancestor by Henry VIII. It is known, however, +that the first foundation on the site was in the hands of a cousin of +William the Conqueror, Richard Bienfaite by name. He founded the abbey in +1131, and was succeeded by his nephew, Gilbert "Strongbow." His +granddaughter Isabel married the then Earl of Pembroke, and her daughter, +marrying Hugh Bigod, brought the estates to the ducal house of Norfolk. + + + + +III + +CASTLES AND STATELY HOMES + + + +LIVING IN GREAT HOUSES [Footnote: From "England Without and Within." By +arrangement with, and by permission of, the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin +Co. Copyright, 1881.] + +BY RICHARD GRANT WHITE + + +Now I will tell you a little--it can be but a little--about life in the +"great houses," as they are called here. When you are asked to come to +one, a train is suggested, and you are told that a carriage will be at the +station to meet you. Somehow the footman manages to find you out. At ---- +which is a little station at which few people get out, I had hardly left +the train when a very respectable-looking person, not a footman, stept up +to me and said, "Lord ----'s carriage is waiting for you, sir." The +carriage and the footman and coachman were, of course, on the other side +of the building. My drive from the station to ---- took quite as long a +time as it took me to come down by rail from London, altho we went at a +grand trot. The country was beautiful, stretching off on both sides in +broad fields and meadows, darkened in lines by hedges, and in spots by +clumps of trees. The roads were very narrow--they seemed rather like +lanes--and this effect was increased by the high walls and hedges on +either side. Two carriages had hardly room to pass in some places, with +careful driving. Being in Lord ----'s well-known carriage, I was quite in +state, and the country folk, most of them, bowed to me as I went on; and +of course I followed the apostolic injunction, and condescended unto men +of low estate. + +And, by the way, yesterday afternoon (for a day has passed since I began +this letter, and I am now at ----) Lady ---- drove me through their park +and off to ----, the dowager Lady ----'s jointure house, and I had the +honor of acknowledging for her all the numerous bobs and ducks she +received from the tenants and their children. So, you see, I shall be in +good training when I come into my estate. When and where I entered the +park, either here or at ----, I could not exactly make out. There were +gates and gates, and the private grounds seemed to shade off gradually +into the public. I know that the park extended far beyond the lodge. The +house at ---- is very ugly. It was built by Inigo Jones, and, never +handsome, was altogether spoiled by tasteless alterations in the last +century. The ugliness of English country houses built at that time is +quite inexpressible. + +I ought to have said that the ----s are in mourning;... and it was very +kind of them to invite me. I was met at the door by a dignified personage +in black, who asked me if I would go up to Lady ----'s room. She welcomed +me warmly, said that Lord ---- had been called away for a few hours, and +offered me tea from a tiny table at her side. And, by the way, you are +usually asked to come at a time which brings you to five-o'clock tea. This +gives you an opportunity to rub off the rough edge of strangeness, before +you dress for dinner. Lady ----'s own room was large and hung with +tapestry, and yet it was cosy and homelike. The hall is large and square, +and the walls are covered with old arms. The staircase is good, but not so +grand as others that I have seen; that at ----, for instance, where there +was an oriel window on the first landing. This one has no landing; it is +of polished oak, but is carpeted. + +Lady ---- is a very attractive and elegant woman, sensible, sensitive, and +with a soft, gentle way of speech and action, which is all the more +charming, as she is tall. Her tea was good. She talked well, and we got on +together very satisfactorily. Presently a nurse brought in her two little +daughters. I thought she must have approved of her savage Yankee guest; +for she encouraged them to come to me and sit upon my knees; and all +mothers are shy about that. Soon in popped Lord ----, and gave me the +heartiest welcome that I have received since I have been in England. He +has altered somewhat since he was in New York; is grown a little stouter, +and a very little graver, but is just the same frank, simple fellow as +when you saw him. About seven o'clock I was asked if I would like to go up +to my room. He went with me,--an attention which I found general; and +"directly he had left me," according to the phrase here, a very +fine-mannered person, in a dress coat and a white tie, appeared, and asked +me for my keys. + +I apprehended the situation at once, and submitted to his ministrations. +He did everything for me except actually to wash my face and hands and put +on my clothes. He laid everything that I could need, opened and laid out +my dressing-case, and actually turned my stocking's. Dinner at eight. I +take in Lady ----. Butler, a very solemn personage, but not stout nor +red-faced. I have seen no stout, red-faced butler since I have been in +England. Dining room large and handsome. Some good portraits. Gas in +globes at the walls; candles on the table. Dinner very good, of course. +Menu written in pencil on a porcelain card, with the formula in gilt and a +coronet. Indeed, the very cans that came up to my bedroom with hot water +were marked with coronet and cipher. I was inclined to scoff at this, at +first, as ostentatious; but after all, as the things were to be marked, +how could it be done better? + +After dinner, a very pleasant chat in the drawing-room until about eleven +o'clock, when Lord ---- sent Lady ---- to bed. She shakes hands on bidding +me good-night, and asks if half-past nine o'clock is too early for +breakfast for me. I was tempted to say that it was, and to ask if it +couldn't be postponed till ten; but I didn't. The drawing-room, by the +way, altho it was handsome and cheerful, was far inferior in its show to a +thousand that might be found in New York, many of which, too, are quite +equal to it in comfort and in tasteful adornment. Lord ---- and I sit up +awhile and chat about old times and the shooting on Long Island, and when +I go to my room I find that, altho I am to stay but two days, my trunk has +been unpacked and all my clothes put into the wardrobe and the drawers, +and most carefully arranged, as if I were going to stay a month. My +morning dress has been taken away. + +In the morning the same servant comes, opens my window, draws my bed +curtain, prepares my bath, turns my stockings, and in fact does everything +but actually bathe and dress me, and all with a very pleasant and cheerful +attentiveness. At a quarter past nine the gong rings for prayers. These +are generally read by the master of the household in the dining-room, with +the breakfast table laid; but here in a morning-room. After breakfast you +are left very much to yourself. Business and household affairs are looked +after by your host and hostess; and you go where you please and do what +you like. + +On Sunday I of course went to church with the family: a charming old +church; tower of the time of Edward III.; some fine old monuments. We +merely walked through the park a distance of about the width of Washington +Square, passed through a little door in the park wall, and there was the +church just opposite. It was Harvest Thanksgiving day, a festival recently +introduced in England, in imitation of that which has come down to us from +our Puritan forefathers. There was a special service; and the church was +very prettily drest with oats, flowers, grass, and grapes, the last being +substituted for hops, as it was too late for them. The offerings were for +the Bulgarians; for everything now in England is tinged with the hue of +"Turkish horrors." + +After service Lord ---- took me to the chantry, where the tombs of the +family are. It was to show me a famous statue, that of a Lady ---- and her +baby, at the birth of which she died, it dying soon, too. The statue is +very beautiful, and is the most purely and sweetly pathetic work in +sculpture that I ever saw. It had a special interest for me because I +remembered reading about it in my boyhood; but I had forgotten the name of +the subject, and I had no thought of finding it here in a little country +church. + + + +WINDSOR [Footnote: From "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands."] + +BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE + + +About eleven o'clock we found ourselves going up the old stone steps to +the castle. It was the last day of a fair which had been holden in this +part of the country, and crowds of the common people were flocking to the +castle, men, women, and children pattering up the stairs before and after +us. + +We went first through the state apartments. The principal thing that +interested me was the ball room, which was a perfect gallery of Vandyke's +paintings. Here was certainly an opportunity to know what Vandyke is. I +should call him a true court painter--a master of splendid +conventionalities, whose portraits of kings are the most powerful +arguments for the divine right I know of. + +The queen's audience chamber is hung with tapestry representing scenes +from the book of Esther. This tapestry made a very great impression upon +me. A knowledge of the difficulties to be overcome in the material part of +painting is undoubtedly an unsuspected element of much of the pleasure we +derive from it; and for this reason, probably, this tapestry appeared to +us better than paintings executed with equal spirit in oils. We admired it +exceedingly, entirely careless what critics might think of us if they knew +it.... + +From the state rooms we were taken to the top of the Round Tower, where we +gained a magnificent view of the Park of Windsor, with its regal avenue, +miles in length, of ancient oaks; its sweeps of greensward; clumps of +trees; its old Herne oak, of classic memory; in short, all that +constitutes the idea of a perfect English landscape. The English tree is +shorter and stouter than ours; its foliage dense and deep, lying with a +full, rounding outline against the sky. Everything here conveys the idea +of concentrated vitality, but without that rank luxuriance seen in our +American growth. Having unfortunately exhausted the English language on +the subject of grass, I will not repeat any ecstasies upon that topic. + +After descending from the tower we filed off to the proper quarter, to +show our orders for the private rooms. The state apartments, which we had +been looking at, are open at all times, but the private apartments can +only be seen in the queen's absence, and by special permission, which had +been procured for us on this occasion by the kindness of the Duchess of +Sutherland. + +One of the first objects that attracted my attention when entering the +vestibule was a baby's wicker wagon, standing in one corner; it was much +such a carriage as all mothers are familiar with; such as figures largely +in the history of almost every family. It had neat curtains and cushions +of green merino, and was not royal, only maternal. I mused over the little +thing with a good deal of interest.... + +In the family breakfast room we saw some fine Gobelin tapestry, +representing the classical story of Meleager. In one of the rooms, on a +pedestal, stood a gigantic china vase, a present from the Emperor of +Russia, and in the state rooms before we had seen a large malachite vase +from the same donor. The toning of this room, with regard to color, was +like that of the room I described in Stafford House--the carpet of green +ground, with the same little leaf upon it, the walls, chairs, and sofas +covered with green damask. + +The whole air of these rooms was very charming, suggestive of refined +taste and domestic habits. The idea of home, which pervades everything in +England, from the cottage to the palace, was as much suggested here as in +any apartments I have seen. The walls of the different rooms were +decorated with portraits of the members of the royal family, and those of +other European princes. + +After this we went thro the kitchen department--saw the silver and gold +plate of the table; among the latter were some designs which I thought +particularly graceful. To conclude all, we went through the stables. The +men who showed them told us that several of the queen's favorite horses +were taken to Osborne; but there were many beautiful creatures left, which +I regarded with great complacency. The stables and stalls were perfectly +clean, and neatly kept; and one, in short, derives from the whole view of +the economies of Windsor that satisfaction which results from seeing a +thing thoroughly done in the best conceivable manner. + + + +BLENHEIM [Footnote: From "Famous Homes of Great Britain and Their +Stories." A.H. Malan, Editor. By arrangement with the publishers, G.P. +Putnam's Sons. Copyright, 1899.] + +BY THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH. + + +The architecture of the house itself clearly indicates the taste and +training of its builder. Vanbrugh shared the enthusiasm of the day for +classical work, as understood and developed, whether well or ill, by the +Italians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but with +characteristic disregard of law, he thought to combine classical severity +with the fancifulness natural in a northerner and a playwright. Thus, +while the general scheme of the south front, for instance, is distinctly +severe, the massive towers at its ends are surmounted by fantastic masses +of open stone-work, most quaintly finished off with arrangements of +cannon-balls and coronets. Throughout he repeatedly made use of classical +members with strange disregard to their structural intention. Silvester, +the French artist employed to make designs for the decoration of the +salon, sniffed contemptuously at Vanbrugh's Gothic tendencies. "I can not +approve of that double line of niches. It suggests the façade of a Gothic +church." And then with savage delight he announced his discovery that much +of the design was merely an unintelligent imitation of the Palazzo Farnese +at Florence. + +Certainly, in spite of Vanbrugh's attempt to achieve at once dignity and +lightness, the probable impression made by the building on the casual +observer is, that it is ponderous without being stately, and irregular +without being tasteful. But the final feeling of any one whose fate it is +to study it at leisure will assuredly be one of respect, even of +enthusiasm, for the ability of Vanbrugh. It takes time to realize the +boldness of the general design and the solidity of the masonry. In many +parts there are about as many feet of solid stone as a modern architect +would put inches of lath and plaster. The negative qualities of integrity +and thoroughness are rare enough in work of the present day, now that the +architect has delegated to the contractor the execution of his design. + +The interior proportions of the rooms are generally admirable, and so +perfectly was the work carried out that it is possible to look through the +keyholes of ten doors, and see daylight at the end, over three hundred +feet off. It is noticeable, further, that the whole was designed by a +single man, there being no subsequent additions, as there are, for +instance, at Chatsworth and Wentworth. Vanbrugh is responsible for good +and bad qualities alike. One would imagine a priori that he had everything +in his favor--unlimited money and a free hand. Far from this being the +case, the stupendous work was accomplished under difficulties greater than +any long-suffering architect ever had to contend with. + +The beginning of the building was most auspicious. In 1705, the year after +Blenheim, Queen Anne, in accordance with an address of the Commons, +granted Marlborough the royal estate of which Woodstock was the center, +with moneys to build a suitable house. The nation was anxious to show its +gratitude to the General under whom English troops had won their first +considerable victory on foreign soil since Agincourt; the Queen was for +doing all in her power for her dear Mrs. Freeman; Marlborough saw in the +scheme a dignified and legitimate method of perpetuating his fame; and so +Vanbrugh was commissioned to build a house which should be worthy of all +three. The work was at once begun on the existing scale. Difficulties +sprang up when the Duchess began to lose, by her abuse of it, the power +which she had always possessed over the Queen; when, too, it was seen that +the architect's estimate bore no sort of relation to the actual cost. +Vanbrugh was often in the greatest straits for money, and wrote piteously +to the Duchess and the Lord Treasurer Godolphin without the slightest +effect. Things naturally grew worse when both the Duke and Duchess were +dismissed from all their posts, in 1711; and at last, in 1721, the +disputes culminated in a lawsuit successfully brought against the Duke by +the workmen for arrears of pay, the defendant's contention being that the +Treasury was liable for the whole expense. The Duchess vented her +displeasure on the unfortunate architect, whom she never credited with +doing anything right. She carefully kept his letters, and made spiteful +endorsements on them for the benefit of her counsel at the trial. + +While Sarah was perpetually involving herself in quarrels with her +architect, the Duke was indirectly furthering the progress of the building +by a succession of victories abroad. Without taking an active part, he was +yet much interested in the house, always looking forward to the time when +he should live there in peace with his wife. When on a campaign he wrote +to her nearly every other day, and in almost every letter there is a +personal touch, showing his ever-present love for her, his keen anxiety to +keep her love, and to win her approval of everything he did. + +The main interest of Marlborough's later life centered in Blenheim. The +Duchess had done the lion's share of the work of superintendence; it +remained for him to arrange the many works of art he had bought and had +been given during the war. There still exists an account of the prices he +paid for tapestries made in Brussels, most of which are now on the walls +of the house. Over the south front was placed a bust of Louis XIV., a +trophy taken from the gates of Tournay.... + +Changes of fashion and of taste have left their mark on Blenheim; and, as +the old oaks recall the joyousness of the Middle Ages, and the elms and +cedars have a certain air of eighteenth-century stateliness, so perhaps +the orchids, with their exotic delicacy, may be held typical of the +decadent present. From the house many treasures, once part of its +adornment, are now missed; and while books, pictures, and gems have +disappeared, modern ideas of comfort have suggested the insertion of +electric lights and telephones. To regret the treasures of the past is a +commonplace; it would seem fitter to make the best of the advantages of +the present. + + + +WARWICK [Footnote: From "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands."] + +BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE + + +When we came fairly into the courtyard of Warwick Castle, a scene of +magnificent beauty opened before us. I can not describe it minutely. The +principal features are the battlements, towers, and turrets of the old +feudal castle, encompassed by grounds on which has been expended all that +princely art of landscape gardening for which England is famous--leafy +thickets, magnificent trees, openings, and vistas of verdure, and wide +sweeps of grass, short, thick, and vividly green, as the velvet moss we +sometimes see growing on rocks in New England. Grass is an art and a +science in England--it is an institution. The pains that are taken in +sowing, tending, cutting, clipping, rolling, and otherwise nursing and +coaxing it, being seconded by the misty breath and often falling tears of +the climate, produce results which must be seen to be appreciated.... + +Here, under the shade of lofty cedars, has sprung and fallen an hereditary +line of princes. One can not but feel, in looking on these majestic trees, +with the battlements, turrets, and towers of the old castle everywhere +surrounding him, and the magnificent parks and lawns opening through +dreamy vistas of trees into what seems immeasurable distance, the force of +the soliloquy which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of the dying old +king-maker, as he lies ebreathing out his soul in the dust and blood of +the battlefield.... + +I have described the grounds first, but, in fact, we did not look at them +first, but went into the house where we saw not only all the state rooms, +but, through the kindness of the noble proprietor, many of those which are +not commonly exhibited; a bewildering display of magnificent apartments, +pictures, gems, vases, arms and armor, antiques, all, in short, that the +wealth of a princely and powerful family had for centuries been +accumulating. + +The great hall of the castle is sixty-two feet in length and forty in +breadth, ornamented with a richly carved Gothic roof, in which figures +largely the family cognizance of the bear and ragged staff. There is a +succession of shields, on which are emblazoned the quarterings of +successive Earls of Warwick. The sides of the wall are ornamented with +lances, corselets, shields, helmets, and complete suits of armor, +regularly arranged as in an armory. + +Here we saw the helmet of Cromwell, a most venerable relic. Before the +great, cavernous fireplace was piled up on a sled a quantity of yew-tree +wood. The rude simplicity of thus arranging it on the polished floor of +this magnificent apartment struck me as quite singular. I suppose it is a +continuation of some ancient custom. + +Opening from this apartment on either side are suites of rooms, the whole +series being three hundred and thirty-three feet in length. These rooms +are all hung with pictures, and studded with antiques and curiosities of +immense value. There is, first, the red drawing-room, and then the cedar +drawing-room, then the gilt drawing-room, the state bedroom, the boudoir, +etc., etc., hung with pictures by Vandyke, Rubens, Guido, Sir Joshua +Reynolds, Paul Veronese, any one of which would require days of study. + +I walked to one of the windows of these lordly apartments, and while the +company were examining buhl cabinets, and all other deliciousness of the +place, I looked down the old gray walls into the amber waters of the Avon, +which flows at their base, and thought that the most beautiful of all was +without. There is a tiny fall that crosses the river just above here, +whose waters turn the wheels of an old mossy mill, where for centuries the +family grain has been ground. The river winds away through the beautiful +parks and undulating foliage, its soft, grassy banks dotted here and there +with sheep and cattle, and you catch farewell gleams and glitters of it as +it loses itself among the trees. + +Gray moss, wallflowers, ivy, and grass were growing here and there out of +crevices in the castle walls, as I looked down, sometimes trailing their +rippling tendrils in the river. This vegetative propensity of walls is one +of the chief graces of these old buildings. + +In the state bedroom were a bed and furnishings of rich crimson velvet, +once belonging to Queen Anne, and presented by George III. to the Warwick +family. The walls are hung with Brussels tapestry, representing the +gardens of Versailles as they were at the time. The chimney-piece, which +is sculptured of verde antique and white marble, supports two black marble +vases on its mantel. Over the mantel-piece is a full-length portrait of +Queen Anne, in a rich brocade dress, wearing the collar and jewels of the +garter, bearing in one hand a scepter, and in the other a globe. There are +two splendid buhl cabinets in the room, and a table of costly stone from +Italy; it is mounted on a richly carved and gilt stand. + +The boudoir, which adjoins, is hung with pea-green satin and velvet. In +this room is one of the most authentic portraits of Henry VIII., by +Holbein, in which that selfish, brutal, unfeeling tyrant is veritably set +forth, with all the gold and gems which, in his day, blinded mankind; his +fat, white hands were beautifully painted.... + +After having examined all the upper stories, we went down into the vaults +underneath--vaults once grim and hoary, terrible to captives and feudal +enemies, now devoted to no purpose more grim than that of coal cellars and +wine vaults. In Oliver's time, a regiment was quartered there; they are +extensive enough, apparently, for an army. + +The kitchen and its adjuncts are of magnificent dimensions, and indicate +an ancient amplitude in the way of provision for good cheer worthy an +ancient house; and what struck me as a still better feature was a library +of sound, sensible, historical, and religious works for the servants. + +We went into the beer vaults, where a man drew beer into a long black +jack, such as Scott describes. It is a tankard, made of black leather, I +should think half a yard deep. He drew the beer from a large hogshead, and +offered us some in a glass. It looked very clear, but, on tasting, I found +it so exceedingly bitter that it struck me there would be small virtue for +me in abstinence. + + + +KENILWORTH [Footnote: From Scott's "Kenilworth." Kenilworth is now the +most stately ruined castle in England. Its destruction dates from the +Civil War, when it was dismantled by soldiers under Cromwell. Then it was +allowed to decay. Scott describes it as it was in Queen Elizabeth's time.] + +BY SIR WALTER SCOTT + + +The outer wall of this splendid and gigantic structure enclosed seven +acres, a part of which was occupied by extensive stables, and by a +pleasure garden, with its trim arbors and parterres, and the rest formed +the large base-court, or outer-yard, of the noble castle. The lordly +structure itself, which rose near the center of this spacious enclosure, +was composed of a huge pile of magnificent castellated buildings, +apparently of different ages, surrounding an inner court, and bearing in +the names attached to each portion of the magnificent mass, and in the +armorial bearings which were there blazoned, the emblems of mighty chiefs +who had long passed away, and whose history, could ambition have lent ear +to it, might have read a lesson to the haughty favorite, who had now +acquired and was augmenting the fair domain. A large and massive keep, +which formed the citadel of the castle, was of uncertain tho great +antiquity. It bore the name of Cæsar, perhaps from its resemblance to that +in the Tower of London so called. + +Some antiquaries ascribe its foundation to the time of Kenelph, from whom +the castle had its name, a Saxon King of Mercia, and others to an early +era after the Norman Conquest. On the exterior walls frowned the +escutcheon of the Clintons, by whom they were founded in the reign of +Henry I., and of the yet more redoubted Simon de Montfort, by whom, during +the Barons' wars, Kenilworth was long held out against Henry III. Here +Mortimer, Earl of March, famous alike for his rise and his fall, had once +gaily revelled in Kenilworth, while his dethroned sovereign, Edward II. +languished in its dungeons. Old John of Gaunt, "time-honored Lancaster," +had widely extended the castle, erecting that noble and massive pile which +yet bears the name of Lancaster's buildings: and Leicester himself had +outdone the former possessors, princely and powerful as they were, by +erecting another immense structure, which now lies crusht under its own +ruins, the monument of its owner's ambition. The external wall of this +royal castle was, on the south and west sides, adorned and defended by a +lake partly artificial, across which Leicester had constructed a stately +bridge, that Elizabeth might enter the castle by a path hitherto +untrodden, instead of the usual entrance to the northward, over which he +had erected a gate-house, or barbican, which still exists, and is equal in +extent, and superior in architecture, to the baronial castle of many a +northern chief. + +Beyond the lake lay an extensive chase, full of red-deer, fallow-deer, +roes, and every species of game, and abounding with lofty trees, from +among which the extended front and massive towers of the castle were seen +to rise in majesty and beauty. We can not but add that of this lordly +palace, where princes feasted and heroes fought, now in the bloody earnest +of storm and siege, and now in the games of chivalry, where beauty dealt +the prize which valor won, all is now desolate. The bed of the lake is but +a rushy swamp and the massive ruins of the castle only serve to show what +their splendor once was, and to impress on the musing visitor the +transitory value of human possessions, and the happiness of those who +enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment. + + + +ALNWICK [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] + +BY WILLIAM HOWITT + + +A visit to Alnwick is like going back into the old feudal times. The town +still retains the moderate dimensions and the quiet air of one that has +grown up under the protection of the castle, and of the great family of +the castle. Other towns, that arose under the same circumstances, have +caught the impulse of modern commerce and manufacture, and have grown into +huge, bustling, and noisy cities, in which the old fortified walls and the +old castle have either vanished, or have been swallowed up, and stand, as +if in superannuated wonder, amid a race and a wilderness of buildings, +with which they have nothing in common. When, however, you enter Alnwick, +you still feel that you are entering a feudal place. It is as the abode of +the Percys has presented itself to your imagination. It is still, quaint, +gray, and old-worldish.... + +In fact, the whole situation is fine, without being highly romantic, and +worthy of its superb old fabric. In the castle itself, without and within, +I never saw one on English ground that more delighted me; because it more +completely came up to the beau ideal of the feudal baronial mansion, and +especially of that of the Percys, the great chieftains of the British +Border--the heroes of Otterburn and Chevy Chase. + +Nothing can be more striking than the effect at first entering within the +walls from the town; when, through a dark gloomy gateway of considerable +length and depth, the eye suddenly emerges into one of the most splendid +scenes that can be imagined; and is presented at once with the great body +of the inner castle, surrounded with fair semi-circular towers, finely +swelling to the eye, and gaily adorned with pinnacles, battlements, etc. +The impression is still further strengthened by the successive entrances +into the second and third courts, through great massy towers, till you are +landed in the inner court, in the very center of this great citadel. + +An idea may be formed of the scale of this brave castle, when we state +that it includes, within its outer walls, about five acres of ground; and +that its walls are flanked with sixteen towers, which now afford a +complete set of offices to the castle, and many of them retain not only +their ancient names, but also their original uses. + +The castle courts, except the center one, are beautifully carpeted with +green turf, which gives them a very pleasant aspect. In the center of the +second court is a lion with his paw on a ball, a copy of one of the lions +of St. Mark at Venice.... + +The inner court is square, with the corners taken off; and on the wall +opposite to the entrance are medallion portraits of the first Duke and +Duchess. Near the gateway appear the old wheels and axle which worked the +great well, over which is the figure of a pilgrim blessing the waters. +Within the gateway you enter an octagon tower, where the old dungeon still +remains in the floor, covered with its iron grate. It is eleven feet deep, +by nine feet eight inches and a half square at the bottom. In the court +are two other dungeons, now or formerly used for a force-pump to throw +water up to the top of the castle; and one now not used at all--which +could all be so closed down as to exclude the prisoners from both sound +and light.... + +Having wandered thus around this noble pile, it is time to enter it. Of +the interior, however, I shall not say much more than that it is at once a +fitting modern residence for a nobleman of the high rank and ancient +descent of the proprietor, and in admirable keeping with its exterior. The +rooms are fitted up with light Gothic tracery on the walls, very chaste +and elegant; and the colors are so delicate and subdued, that you are not +offended with that feeling of over-fineness that is felt at Raby. + +You ascend by a noble staircase, surrounded with armorial escutcheons +instead of a cornice, to a suite of very spacious and handsome rooms, of +which the principal are the saloon, dining-room, breakfast-room, library, +and chapel. The ceilings are finely worked into compartments with +escutcheons and pendants. The walls of the saloon are covered with crimson +silk, sprigged with yellow flowers; those of the dining-room, with pale +buff, and white moldings, rich tracery and elegant compartmented ceiling. +In the center of some of the arches you see the crescent, the crest of the +Percys. + +On the whole, it is a noble and highly satisfactory mansion; but still it +is when you get without again that you feel the real antiquity and proud +dignity of the place. The fame of the Percy and the Douglas seems to be +whispered by every wind that plays around those old towers. + + + +HAMPTON COURT [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] + +BY WILLIAM HOWITT + + +To the visitors of cultivated taste and historic knowledge, Hampton Court +abounds with subjects of reflective interest of the highest order. It is +true, that, compared with some of our palaces, it can lay no claims to +antiquity; but from the days of Henry VIII. to those of George III., there +are few of them that have witnessed more singular or momentous events. + +Overbearing despot as Wolsey [who built it] was, there is something +magnificent in the sweep of his ambition, and irresistibly interesting in +the greatness of his fall. He was the last of those haughty prelates in +the good old Catholic times who rose up from the dust of insignificance +into the most lordly and overgrown magnificence; outdoing monarchs in the +number of their servants, and in the pomp of their state. Equaling the +great Cardinals who have figured on the Continent, Ximenes, Richelieu, +Mazarin, and De Retz, in political ability and personal ambition, he +exceeded all in the wealth which he unhesitatingly seized, and the +princely splendor in which he lived. + +When we enter, therefore, the gates of Hampton Court, and are struck with +the magnificent extent of the erection, which at that time not only, +according to Rapin, "was a stately palace, and outshined all the king's +houses," but was one of the most splendid structures in Europe, we can not +help figuring to ourselves the proud Cardinal surveying its progress, and +musing over the wonders of that career which had brought him, if not from +the humble estate of the son of a butcher, yet from an origin of no great +condition, or it could not have remained dubious to this period--the +wealthiest man in Europe, the most potent in political influence, and the +ardent aspirant to the Popedom itself.... + +It was only at Hampton Court that his vast train of servants and +attendants, with the nobility and ambassadors who flocked about him, could +be fully entertained. These, as we learn from his gentleman-usher, +Cavendish, were little short of a thousand persons; for there were upon +his "cheine roll" eight hundred persons belonging to his household, +independent of suitors, who were all entertained in the hall. In this hall +he had daily spread three tables. At the head of the first presided a +priest, a steward; at that of the second a knight, as treasurer; and at +the third his comptroller, who was an esquire.... Besides these, there was +always a doctor, a confessor, two almoners, three marshals, three ushers +of the hall, and groom. The furnishing of these tables required a +proportionate kitchen; and here were two clerks, a clerk-comptroller, and +surveyor of the dressers; a clerk of the spicery; two cooks, with laborers +and children for assistants: turnspits a dozen; four scullery-men; two +yeomen of the pastry, and two paste-layers. In his own kitchen was his +master-cook, daily drest in velvet or satin, and wearing a gold chain. +Under him were two other cooks and their six laborers; in the larder a +yeoman and groom; in the scullery a yeoman and two grooms; in the ewry two +yeomen and two grooms; in the buttery the same; in the cellar three yeomen +and three pages; in the chandlery and the wafery, each two yeomen; in the +wardrobe the master of the wardrobe and twenty assistants; in the laundry, +yeoman, groom, thirteen pages, two yeoman-purveyors and groom-purveyor; in +the bake-house, two yeomen and two grooms; in the wood-yard one yeoman and +groom; in the barn a yeoman; at the gate two yeomen and two grooms; a +yeoman of his barge; the master of his horse; a clerk and groom of the +stables; the farrier; the yeoman of the stirrup; a maltster; and sixteen +grooms, each keeping four horses. + +There were the dean and sub-dean of his chapel; the repeater of the choir; +the gospeler, the epistler, or the singing priest; the master of the +singers, with his men and children. In the vestry were a yeoman and two +grooms. In the procession were commonly seen forty priests, all in rich +copes and other vestments of white satin, or scarlet, or crimson. The +altar was covered with massy plate, and blazed with jewels and precious +stones. But if such were his general establishment, not less was the array +of those who attended on his person. In his privy chamber he had his chief +chamberlain, vice-chamberlain, and two gentlemen-ushers. Six +gentlemen-waiters and twelve yeomen; and at their head nine or ten lords +to attend on him, each with their two or three servants, and some more, to +wait on them, the Earl of Derby having five. Three gentlemen-cupbearers, +gentlemen-carvers, and servers to the amount of forty in the great and the +privy chamber; six gentlemen-ushers and eight grooms. Attending on his +table were twelve doctors and chaplains, clerk of the closet, two clerks +of the signet, four counsellors learned in the law, and two secretaries. + +He had his riding-clerk; clerk of the crown; clerk of the hamper and +chaffer; clerk of the cheque for the chaplains; clerk for the yeomen of +the chamber; and "fourteen footmen garnished with rich running-coates, +whensoever he had any journey;" besides these, a herald-at-arms, +sergeant-at-arms, a physician, an apothecary, four minstrels, a keeper of +the tents, an armorer; an instructor of his wards in chancery; "an +instructor of his wardrop of roabes;" a keeper of his chamber; a surveyor +of York, and clerk of the green cloth.... + +I am afraid the story of Henry VIII. coming to see this splendid palace on +its first being built, and saying in a jealous surprize, "My Lord +Cardinal, is this a dwelling for a subject?" and the courtly Cardinal +replying, "My gracious liege, it is not intended for a subject; it is +meant only for the greatest and most bounteous king in Christendom," is +too good to be true; for altho Wolsey did give up this favorite palace to +his royal master, it was long afterward, and only on the palpable outbreak +of his displeasure, as a most persuasive peace-offering; an offering +which, tho especially acceptable, failed nevertheless to ensure lasting +peace. The sun of the great Cardinal was already in its decline.... + +Henry VIII. used to keep his court here frequently in great state, and +here he used to celebrate Christmas in all its ancient festivity. Here he +lost his third wife, Jane Seymour, a few days after the birth of his son +Edward VI., and felt or affected much grief on that account, perhaps +because he had not had the pleasure of cutting off her head. Here he +married his sixth wife, Lady Catherine Parr, widow of Neville, Lord +Latimer, and sister of the Marquis of Northampton. This lady, who had the +hardihood to marry this royal Bluebeard, after he had divorced two wives +and chopped off the heads of two others, narrowly escaped the fate she so +rashly hazarded. The very warrant for her committal to the Tower, whence +she was only to be brought forth to be burned at the stake for heresy, was +signed, and on the point of execution, when she accidentally became aware +of it, and managed to soothe the ferocious tyrant by the most artful +submission to his conceit of his theological learning, and by rubbing his +ulcerated leg. + +Here, as we have said, Edward VI. was born; and three days after he was +baptized in the king's chapel in the palace in great state--Cranmer, +archbishop of Canterbury, and the Duke of Norfolk, being god-fathers. +Hampton Court was appropriated by the guardians of Edward as his +residence, and he was residing here when the council rose against the +authority of the Protector Somerset, and was removed by him hence to +Windsor Castle, lest the council should obtain possession of his person. +Here Bloody Mary, and her husband, Philip of Spain, passed their honeymoon +in great retirement; and here--when they were desirous of effacing from +the mind of their sister, the Princess Elizabeth, the recollection of her +imprisonment at Woodstock, and the vain attempts of their arch-rascal +priest Stephen Gardiner, Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Winchester, to +coerce her into popery, or to convict her of heresy, and probably bring +her to the flaming stake--they invited her to spend some time with them, +and set on foot banquets, maskings, and all sorts of revelries. + +Here they kept Christmas with her as royally as the father, Henry VIII., +had kept it in his day; Elizabeth being seated at the royal table with +their majesties, next the cloth of state, and, at the removal of the +dishes, served with a perfumed napkin and plate of confect by the Lord +Paget. Here, too, during her stay, they gave a grand tournament, wherein +two hundred spears were broken by contending knights. Here Elizabeth also, +when she was become the potent queen instead of the jealously-watched +sister, continued occasionally to assemble her brilliant court, and to +hold merry Christmas, as Mary, Edward, and her father had done before. +Here also the especial festivals of the Christmases of 1572 and 1593 were +kept by her.... + +The entrance to the portion of the palace built by Wolsey is by a sort of +outer court of great extent, the gates of which have their pillars +surmounted by a large lion and unicorn as supporters of the crown royal, +and each of the side gates by a military trophy. Along the left side of +the area are barracks and such offices; the greater part of the right side +is open toward the river, and there stand nine as lofty and noble elms, in +a row, as perhaps any part of England can match. Two gateways are before +you; the one to the left leading to the kitchen-court, the center one to +the first quadrangle. This chief gateway has been restored, in excellent +keeping with the old building, and has a noble aspect as you approach it, +being flanked with octagon towers, pierced with a fine pointed arch, over +which are cut, in rich relief, the royal arms, and above them projects a +large and handsome bay-window, framed of stone. + +You now enter by a Gothic archway the first of the courts of Wolsey +remaining. These two are said to have been the meanest then in the palace. +There were originally five; the three finest of which were pulled down to +make way for William III.'s great square mass of brickwork. The writers +who saw it in its glory, describe it in entireness as the most splendid +palace in Europe. Grotius says, "other palaces are residences of kings, +but this is of the gods." Hentzner, who saw it in Elizabeth's time, speaks +of it with astonishment, and says, "the rooms being very numerous, are +adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, and velvet, in some of which were +woven history pieces; in other Turkish and Armenian dresses, all extremely +natural. In one chamber are several excessively rich tapestries, which are +hung up when the queen gives audience to foreign ambassadors. All the +walls of the palace shine with gold and silver. Here is likewise a certain +cabinet called Paradise, where, besides that every thing glitters so with +silver, gold, and jewels, as to dazzle one's eyes, there is a musical +instrument made all of glass except the strings." + +It was, indeed, a Dutch taste which leveled all these stately buildings to +the ground, to erect the great square mass which replaced them. A glorious +view, if old drawings are to be believed, must all that vast and +picturesque variety of towers, battlements, tall mullioned windows, +cupolas and pinnacles, have made, as they stood under the clear heaven +glittering in the sun.... + +The hall, the chapel, the withdrawing-room, are all splendid specimens of +Gothic grandeur, and possess many historic associations. In the hall, +Surrey wrote on a pane of glass some of his verses to Géraldine; and +there, too, it is said, the play of Henry VIII., exhibiting the fall of +Wolsey in the very creation of his former glory, was once acted, +Shakespeare himself being one of the performers! + + + +CHATSWORTH AND HADDON HALL [Footnote: From "A Walk From London to John +O'Groats."] + +BY ELIHU BURRITT + + +It was a pleasure quite equal to my anticipation to visit Chatsworth for +the first time, after a sojourn in England, off and on, for sixteen years. +It is the lion number three, according to the American ranking of the +historical edifices and localities of England. Stratford-upon-Avon, +Westminster Abbey and Chatsworth are the three representative celebrities +which our travelers think they must visit if they would see the life of +England's ages from the best standpoints. And this is the order in which +they rank them. Chatsworth and Haddon Hall should be seen the same day if +possible; so that you may carry the impression of the one fresh and active +into the other. They are the two most representative buildings in the +kingdom. Haddon is old English feudalism edificed. It represents the rough +grandeur, hospitality, wassail and rude romance of the English nobility +five hundred years ago. It was all in its glory about the time when +Thomas-à-Becket, the Magnificent, used to entertain great companies of +belted knights of the realm in a manner that exceeded regal munificence in +those days--even directing fresh straw to be laid for them on his ample +mansion floor, that they might not soil the bravery of their dresses when +they bunked down for the night. The building is brimful of the character +and history of that period. Indeed, there are no two milestones of English +history so near together, and yet measuring such a space of the nation's +life and mariners between them, as this hall and that of Chatsworth. + +It was built, of course, in the bow and arrow times, when the sun had to +use the same missiles in shooting its barbed rays into the narrow +apertures of old castles--or the stone coffins of fear-hunted knights and +ladies, as they might be called. What a monument this to the dispositions +and habits of the world, outside and inside of that early time! Here is +the porter's or warder's lodge just inside the huge gate. To think of a +living being with a human soul in him burrowing in such a place!--a big, +black sarcophagus without a lid to it, set deep in the solid wall. Then +there is the chapel. Compare it with that of Chatsworth, and you may count +almost on your fingers the centuries that have intervened between them. It +was new-roofed soon after the discovery of America, and, perhaps, done up +to some show of decency and comfort. But how small and rude the pulpit and +pews--looking like rough-boarded potato-bins! Here is the great +banquet-hall, full to overflowing with the tracks and cross-tracks of that +wild, strange life of old. There is a fire-place for you, and the mark in +the chimney-back of five hundred Christmas logs. Doubtless this great +stone pavement of a floor was carpeted with straw at banquets, after the +illustrious Becket's pattern. + +Here is a memento of the feast hanging up at the top of the kitchenward +door--a pair of roughly-forged, rusty handcuffs amalgamated into one pair +of jaws, like a muskrat trap. What was the use of that thing, conductor? +"That sir, they put the 'ands in of them as shirked and didn't drink up +all the wine as was poured into their cups, and there they made them stand +on tiptoe up against that door, sir, before all the company, sir, until +they was ashamed of theirselves." Descend into the kitchen, all scarred +with the tremendous cookery of ages. Here they roasted bullocks whole, and +just back in that dark vault with a slit or two in it for the light, they +killed and drest them. There are relics of the shambles, and here is the +great form on which they cut them up into manageable pieces. It would do +you good, you Young America, to see that form, and the cross-gashes of the +meat ax in it. It is the half of a gigantic English oak, which was growing +in Julius Caesar's time, sawed through lengthwise, making a top surface +several feet wide, black and smooth as ebony. Some of the bark still +clings to the under side. The dancing-hall is the great room of the +building. All that the taste, art and wealth of that day could do, was +done to make it a splendid apartment, and it would pass muster still as a +comfortable and respectable salon. As we pass out, you may decipher the +short prayer cut in the wasting stone over a side portal, "God Save the +Vernons." I hope this prayer has been favorably answered; for history +records much virtue in the family, mingled with some romantic escapades, +which have contributed, I believe, to the entertainment of many novel +readers. + +Just what Haddon Hall is to the baronial life and society of England five +hundred years ago, is Chatsworth to the full stature of modern +civilization and aristocratic wealth, taste and position. Of this it is +probably the best measure and representative in the kingdom; and as such +it possesses a special value and interest to the world at large. Were it +not for here and there such an establishment, we should lack way-marks in +the progress of the arts, sciences and tastes of advancing civilization. + + + +EATON HALL [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By permission of, and by +arrangement with, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, Mifflin +Co. Copyright, 1870 and 1898.] + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + +The Church of St. John is outside of the city walls of Chester. Entering +the East gate, we walked awhile under the Rows, bought our tickets for +Eaton Hall and its gardens, and likewise some playthings for the children; +for this old city of Chester seems to me to possess an unusual number of +toy-shops. Finally we took a cab, and drove to the Hall, about four miles +distant, nearly the whole of the way lying through the wooded Park. There +are many sorts of trees, making up a wilderness, which looked not unlike +the woods of our own Concord, only less wild. The English oak is not a +handsome tree, being short and sturdy, with a round, thick mass of +foliage, lying all within its own bounds. It was a showery day. Had there +been any sunshine, there might doubtless have been many beautiful effects +of light and shadow in these woods. We saw one or two herds of deer, +quietly feeding, a hundred yards or so distant. They appeared to be +somewhat wilder than cattle, but, I think, not much wilder than sheep. +Their ancestors have probably been in a half-domesticated state, receiving +food at the hands of man, in winter, for centuries. There is a kind of +poetry in this, quite as much as if they were really wild deer, such as +their forefathers were, when Hugh Lupus used to hunt them. + +Our miserable cab drew up at the steps of Eaton Hall, and, ascending under +the portico, the door swung silently open, and we were received very +civilly by two old men--one, a tall footman in livery; the other, of +higher grade, in plain clothes. The entrance-hall is very spacious, and +the floor is tessellated or somehow inlaid with marble. There was statuary +in marble on the floor, and in niches stood several figures in antique +armor, of various dates; some with lances, and others with battle-axes and +swords. There was a two-handed sword, as much as six feet long; but not +nearly so ponderous as I have supposed this kind of weapon to be, from +reading of it. I could easily have brandished it. + +The plainly drest old man now led us into a long corridor, which goes, I +think, the whole length of the house, about five hundred feet, arched all +the way, and lengthened interminably by a looking-glass at the end, in +which I saw our own party approaching like a party of strangers. But I +have so often seen this effect produced in dry-goods stores and elsewhere, +that I was not much imprest. There were family portraits and other +pictures, and likewise pieces of statuary, along this arched corridor; and +it communicated with a chapel with a scriptural altar-piece, copied from +Rubens, and a picture of St. Michael and the Dragon, and two, or perhaps +three, richly painted windows. Everything here is entirely new and fresh, +this part having been repaired, and never yet inhabited by the family. +This brand-newness makes it much less effective than if it had been lived +in; and I felt pretty much as if I were strolling through any other +renewed house. After all, the utmost force of man can do positively very +little toward making grand things or beautiful things. The imagination can +do so much more, merely on shutting one's eyes, that the actual effect +seems meager; so that a new house, unassociated with the past, is +exceedingly unsatisfactory, especially when you have heard that the wealth +and skill of man has here done its best. Besides, the rooms, as we saw +them, did not look by any means their best, the carpets not being down, +and the furniture being covered with protective envelops. However, rooms +can not be seen to advantage by daylight; it being altogether essential to +the effect, that they should be illuminated by artificial light, which +takes them somewhat out of the region of bare reality. Nevertheless, there +was undoubtedly great splendor--for the details of which I refer to the +guide-book. Among the family portraits, there was one of a lady famous for +her beautiful hand; and she was holding it up to notice in the funniest +way--and very beautiful it certainly was. The private apartments of the +family were not shown us. I should think it impossible for the owner of +this house to imbue it with his personality to such a degree as to feel it +to be his home. It must be like a small lobster in a shell much too large +for him. + +After seeing what was to be seen of the rooms, we visited the gardens, in +which are noble conservatories and hot-houses, containing all manner of +rare and beautiful flowers, and tropical fruits. I noticed some large +pines, looking as if they were really made of gold. The gardener +(under-gardener I suppose he was) who showed this part of the spectacle +was very intelligent as well as kindly, and seemed to take an interest in +his business. He gave S---- a purple everlasting flower, which will endure +a great many years, as a memento of our visit to Eaton Hall. Finally, we +took a view of the front of the edifice, which is very fine, and much more +satisfactory than the interior--and returned to Chester. + + + +HOLLAND HOUSE [Footnote: From "Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent +British Poets."] + +BY WILLIAM HOWITT + + +Of Holland House, the last residence of Addison, it would require a long +article to give a fitting idea. This fine old mansion is full of historic +associations. It takes its name from Henry Rich, earl of Holland, whose +portrait is in Bilton. It was built by his father-in-law, Sir Walter Cope, +in 1607, and affords a very good specimen of the architecture of that +period. The general form is that of a half H. The projection in the +center, forming: at once porch and tower, and the two wings supported on +pillars, give great decision of effect to it. The stone quoins worked with +a sort of arabesque figure, remind one of the style of some portions of +Heidelberg Castle, which is what is called on the Continent roccoco. Here +it is deemed Elizabethan; but the plain buildings attached on each side to +the main body of the house, with their shingled and steep-roofed towers, +have a very picturesque and Bohemian look. Altogether, it is a charming +old pile, and the interior corresponds beautifully with the exterior. +There is a fine entrance-hall, a library behind it, and another library +extending the whole length of one of the wings and the house upstairs, one +hundred and five feet in length. The drawing-room over the entrance-hall, +called the Gilt Room, extends from front to back of the house, and +commands views of the gardens both way; those to the back are very +beautiful. + +In the house are, of course, many interesting and valuable works of art; a +great portion of them memorials of the distinguished men who have been +accustomed to resort thither. In one room is a portrait of Charles James +Fox, as a child, in a light blue dress, and with a close, reddish, woolen +cap on his head, under which show lace edges. The artist is unknown, but +is supposed to be French. The countenance is full of life and +intelligence, and the "child" in it is, most remarkably, "the father of +the man." The likeness is wonderful. You can imagine how, by time and +circumstance, that child's countenance expanded into what it became in +maturity. There is also a portrait of Addison, which belonged to his +daughter. It represents him as much younger than any other that I have +seen. In the Gilt Room are marble busts of George IV. and William IV. On +the staircase is a bust of Lord Holland, father of the second earl and of +Charles Fox, by Nollekens. This bust, which is massy, and full of power +and expression, is said to have brought Nollekens into his great repute. +The likeness to that of Charles Fox is very striking. By the same artist +there are also the busts of Charles Fox, the late Lord Holland, and the +present earl. That of Frere, by Chantry, is very spirited. There are also, +here, portraits of Lord Lansdowne, Lord John Russell, and family +portraits. There is also a large and very curious painting of a fair, by +Callot, and an Italian print of it. + +In the library, downstairs, are portraits of Charles James Fox--a very +fine one; of the late Lord Holland; of Talleyrand, by Ary Scheffer, +perhaps the best in existence, and the only one which he said that he ever +sat for; of Sir Samuel Romilly; Sir James Mackintosh; Lord Erskine, by Sir +Thomas Lawrence; Tierney; Francis Horner, by Raeburn, so like Sir Walter +Scott, by the same artist, that I at first supposed it to be him; Lord +Macartney, by Phillips; Frere, by Shea; Mone, Lord Thanet; Archibald +Hamilton; late Lord Darnley; late Lord King, when young, by Hoppner; and a +very sweet, foreign fancy portrait of the present Lady Holland. We miss, +however, from this haunt of genius, the portraits of Byron, Brougham, +Crabbe, Blanco White, Hallam, Rogers, Lord Jeffrey, and others. In the +left wing is placed the colossal model of the statue of Charles Fox, which +stands in Bloomsbury Square. + +In the gardens are various memorials of distinguished men. Among several +very fine cedars, perhaps the finest is said to have been planted by +Charles Fox. In the quaint old garden is an alcove, in which are the +following lines, placed there by the late earl: + +"Here Rogers sat--and here for ever dwell +With me, those pleasures which he sang so well." + +Beneath these are framed and glazed a copy of verses in honor of the same +poet, by Mr. Luttrell. There is also in the same garden, and opposite this +alcove, a bronze bust of Napoleon, on a granite pillar, with a Greek +inscription from the Odyssey, admirably applying the situation of Ulysses +to that of Napoleon at St. Helena: "In a far-distant isle he remains under +the harsh surveillance of base men." + +The fine avenue leading down from the house to the Kensington road is +remarkable for having often been the walking and talking place of Cromwell +and General Lambert. Lambert then occupied Holland House; and Cromwell, +who lived next door, when he came to converse with him on state affairs, +had to speak very loud to him, because he was deaf. To avoid being +overheard, they used to walk in this avenue. + +The traditions regarding Addison here are very slight. They are, simply, +that he used to walk, when composing his "Spectators," in the long +library, then a picture gallery, with a bottle of wine at each end, which +he visited as he alternately arrived at them; and that the room in which +he died, tho not positively known, is supposed to be the present +dining-room, being then the state bed-room. The young Earl of Warwick, to +whom he there address the emphatic words, "See in what peace a Christian +can die!" died also, himself, in 1721, but two years afterward. The estate +then devolved to Lord Kensington, descended from Robert Rich, Earl of +Warwick, who sold it, about 1762, to the Right Honorable Henry Fox, +afterward Lord Holland. Here the early days of the great statesman, +Charles James, were passed. + + + +ARUNDEL [Footnote: From "Cathedral Days." By permission of, and by +arrangement with, the publishers, Little, Brown & Co. Copyright, 1887.] + +BY ANNA BOWMAN DODD + + +Such a vast architectural mass as Arundel Castle, implanted in Saxon, +Roman, and feudal military necessities, strikes its roots deep and wide. +The town appeared, in comparison, to be but an accidental projection on +the hillside. The walls grow out of the town as the trunks of a great tree +shoot forth from the ground--of a different growth, but an integral part +of it. + +Topographically, Arundel has only a few features, yet they are fine enough +to form a rich ensemble. There is the castle, huge, splendid, impressive, +set like a great gray pearl on the crown of the hill. On one side spreads +the town; on the other, the tall trees of the castle park begirt its +towers and battlements. At the foot of the hill runs the river--a +beautiful sinuous stream, which curves its course between the Down +hillsides out through the plains to the sea. Whatever may have been the +fate of the town in former times, held perhaps at a distance far below in +the valley, during troublous times when the castle must be free for the +more serious work of assault or defense, it no longer lies at the foot of +its great protector. In friendly confidence it seems to sit, if not within +its arms, at least beside its knee.... + +There is no escaping the conclusion that a duke, when one is confronted +with his castle, does seem an awfully real being. The castle was a great +Catholic stronghold, the Dukes of Norfolk being among the few great +families which have remained faithful, since the Conquest, to the See of +Rome. The present Duke of Norfolk, by reason of the fervor of his piety, +his untiring zeal and magnificent generosity, is recognized as the head of +the Catholic party in England. To learn that he was at present on a +pilgrimage to Lourdes, and that such was his yearly custom, seemed to +shorten distance for us. It made the old--its beliefs, its superstitions, +its unquestioning ardor of faith--strangely new. It invested the castle, +which appealed to our consciousness as something remote and alien, with +the reality of its relation to medieval life and manners. + +The little cathedral which crowns the hill--the most prominent object for +miles about, after the castle--is the gift of the present Duke. It is a +pretty structure, pointed Gothic in style, consciously reproduced with all +the aids of flying buttresses, niches, pinnacles, and arches. It was +doubtless a splendid gift. Perhaps in the twenty-first century, when the +weather has done its architectural work on the exterior, and when the +interior has been finely dimmed with burned incense, when stained glass +and sculptured effigies of saints have been donated by future dukes, it +will be a very imposing edifice indeed. + +But all the beauty of ecclesiastical picturesqueness lies across the way. +Hidden behind the lovely beech-arched gateway rests the old parochial +church. In spite of restoration the age of six centuries is written +unmistakably on the massive square bell-tower, the thirteenth-century +traceries, and the rich old glass. It is guarded by a high wall from the +adjoining castle-walls, as if the castle still feared there were something +dangerously infectious in the mere propinquity of such heresies. + +It has had its turn at the sieges that have beset the castle. From the old +tower there came a rattling hail when Waller's artillery flashed forth its +fire upon the Royalist garrison in the castle. The old bells that peal out +the Sunday chimes seem to retain something of the jubilant spirit of that +martial time. There was a brisk military vigor in their clanging, +suggestive of command rather than of entreaty, as if they were more at +home when summoning fighters than worshipers. + +All is peace now. The old church sits in the midst of its graves, like an +old patriarch surrounded by the dead whom he has survived.... + +In looking up at the castle from the river, as a foreground, one has a +lovely breastwork of trees, the castle resting on the crown of the hill +like some splendid jewel. Its grayness makes its strong, bold outlines +appear the more distinct against the melting background of the faint blue +and white English sky and the shifting sky scenery.... + +The earliest Saxon who built his stronghold where the castle now stands +must have had an eye for situation, pictorially considered, as well as +that keen martial foresight which told him that the warrior who commanded +the first hill from the sea, with that bastion of natural fortifications +behind him, the Downs, had the God of battle already ranged on his side. +The God of battle has been called on, in times past, to preside over a +number of military engagements which have come off on this now peaceful +hillside. + +There have been few stirring events in English history in which Arundel +Castle has not had its share. As Norman barons, the Earls of Arundel could +not do less than the other barons of their time, and so quarreled with +their king. When the Magna Charta was going about to gain signers, these +feudal Arundel gentlemen figured in the bill, so to speak. The fine +Baron's Hall, which commemorates this memorable signing, in the castle +yonder, was built in honor of those remote but far-sighted ancestors. The +Englishman, of course, has neither the vanity of the Frenchman nor the +pride of the Spaniard. But for a modest people, it is astonishing what a +number of monuments are built to tell the rest of the world how free +England is. + +The other events which have in turn destroyed or rent the castle--its +siege and surrender to Henry I., the second siege by King Stephen, and +later the struggle of the Cavaliers and Roundheads for its possession, +during the absence abroad of the then reigning Earl--have been recorded +with less boastful emphasis. The recent restorations, rebuildings, and +enlargements have obliterated all traces of these rude shocks. It has +since risen a hundred times more beautiful from its ruins. It is due to +these modern renovations that the castle presents such a superb +appearance. It has the air of careful preservation which distinguishes +some of the great royal residences--such as Windsor, for instance, to +which it has often been compared; its finish and completeness suggests the +modern chisel. It is this aspect of completeness, as well as the unity of +its fine architectural features, which makes such a great castle as this +so impressive. As a feudal stronghold it can hardly fail to appeal to the +imagination. As the modern palatial home of an English nobleman, it +appeals to something more virile--to the sense that behind the medieval +walls the life of its occupants is still representative, is still deep and +national in importance and significance. Pictorially, there is +nothing--unless it be a great cathedral, which brings up quite a different +order of impressions and sensations--that gives to the landscape such +pictorial effect as a castle. + + + +PENSHURST [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places."] + +BY WILLIAM HOWITT + + +England, among her titled families, can point to none more illustrious +than that of Sidney. It is a name which carries with it the attestation of +its genuine nobility. Others are of older standing in the realm. It is not +one of those to be found on the roll of Battle Abbey. The first who bore +it in England is said to have come hither in the reign of Henry III. There +are others, too, which have mounted much higher in the scale of mere rank; +but it may be safely said that there is none of a truer dignity, nor more +endeared to the spirits of Englishmen. + +Of this distinguished line, the most illustrious and popular was +unquestionably Sir Philip. The universal admiration that he won from his +contemporaries is one of the most curious circumstances of the history of +those times. The generous and affectionate enthusiasm with which he +inspired both his own countrymen and foreigners, has, perhaps, no +parallel.... + +The first view which I got of the old house of Penshurst, called formerly +both Penshurst Place and Penshurst Castle, was as I descended the hill +opposite to it. Its gray walls and turrets, and high-peaked and red roofs +rising in the midst of them; and the new buildings of fresh stone, mingled +with the ancient fabric, presented a very striking and venerable aspect. + +It stands in the midst of a wide valley, on a pleasant elevation; its +woods and park stretching away beyond, northward; and the picturesque +church, parsonage, and other houses of the village, grouping in front. +From whichever side you view the house, it strikes you as a fitting abode +of the noble Sidneys. Valleys run out on every side from the main one in +which it stands; and the hills, which are everywhere at some distance, +wind about in a very pleasant and picturesque manner, covered with mingled +woods and fields, and hop-grounds. + +The house now presents two principal fronts. The one facing westward, +formerly looked into a court, called the President's Court, because the +greater part of it was built by Sir Henry Sidney, the father of Sir +Philip, and Lord President of the Council established in the Marches of +Wales. The court is now thrown open, and converted into a lawn surrounded +by a sunk fence, and overlooking a quiet valley of perhaps a mile in +length, terminated by woody hills of great rural beauty. + +This front, as well as the northern one, is of great length. It is of +several dates and styles of architecture. The façade is of two stories, +and battlemented. The center division, which is of recent erection, has +large windows of triple arches, with armorial shields between the upper +and lower stories. The south end of the façade is of an ancient date, with +smaller mullioned windows; the northern portion with windows of a similar +character to those in the center, but less and plainer. Over this façade +shows itself the tall gable of the ancient banqueting-hall which stands in +the inner court. At each end of this façade projects a wing, with its +various towers of various bulk and height; some square, of stone, others +octagon, of brick, with a great diversity of tall, worked chimneys, which, +with steep roofs, and the mixture of brick-work and stone-work all through +the front, give a mottled, but yet very venerable aspect to it. + +The north and principal front, facing up the park, has been restored by +its noble possessor, and presents a battlemented range of stone buildings +of various projections, towers, turrets, and turreted chimneys, which, +when the windows are put in, which is not yet fully done, will have few +superiors among the castellated mansions of England.... + +In the center of the inner court stands the old banqueting-hall, a tall +gabled building with high red roof, surmounted with the ruins of a cupola, +erected upon it by Mr. Perry, who married the heiress of the family, but +who does not seem to have brought much taste into it. On the point of each +gable is an old stone figure--the one a tortoise, the other a lion +couchant--and upon the back of each of these old figures, so completely +accordant with the building itself, which exhibits under its eaves and at +the corners of its windows numbers of those grotesque corbels which +distinguish our buildings of an early date, both domestic and +ecclesiastical, good Mr. Perry clapped a huge leaden vase which had +probably crowned aforetime the pillars of a gateway, or the roof of a +garden-house.... + +The south side of the house has all the irregularity of an old castle, +consisting of various towers, projections, buttresses, and gables. Some of +the windows show tracery of a superior order, and others have huge common +sashes, introduced by the tasteful Mr. Perry aforesaid. The court on this +side is surrounded by battlemented walls, and has a massy square gatehouse +leading into the old garden, or pleasaunce, which sloped away down toward +the Medway, but is now merely a grassy lawn, with the remains of one fine +terrace running along its western side.... + +The old banqueting-hall is a noble specimen of the baronial hall of the +reign of Edward III., when both house and table exhibited the rudeness of +a martial age, and both gentle and simple revelled together, parted only +by the salt. The floor is of brick. The raised platform, or dais, at the +west-end, advances sixteen feet into the room. The width of the hall is +about forty feet, and the length of it about fifty-four feet. On each side +are tall Gothic windows, much of the tracery of which has been some time +knocked out, and the openings plastered up. At the east end is a fine +large window, with two smaller ones above it; but the large window is, for +the most part, hidden by the front of the music gallery. + +In the center of the floor an octagon space is marked out with a rim of +stone, and within this space stands a massy old dog, or brand-iron, about +a yard and a half wide, and the two upright ends three feet six inches +high, having on their outer sides, near the top, the double broad arrow of +the Sidney arms. The smoke from the fire, which was laid on this jolly +dog, ascended and passed out through the center of the roof, which is +high, and of framed oak, and was adorned at the spring of the huge groined +spars with grotesque projecting carved figures, or corbels, which are now +taken down, being considered in danger of falling, and are laid in the +music gallery. + + + + +IV + +ENGLISH LITERARY SHRINES + + + +STRATFORD-ON-AVON [Footnote: From "The Sketch Book." Published by G.P. +Putnam's Sons.] + +BY WASHINGTON IRVING + + +Thou soft flowing Avon, by thy silver stream +Of things more than mortal sweet Shakespeare would dream; +The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, +For hallowed the turf is which pillowed his head. + +GARRICK. + +I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimage. My first visit was to +the house where Shakespeare was born, and where, according to tradition, +he was brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It is a small, +mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, a true nestling-place of genius, +which seems to delight in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The walls +of its squalid chambers are covered with names and inscriptions in every +language, by pilgrims of all nations, ranks, and conditions, from the +prince to the peasant; and present a striking instance of the spontaneous +and universal homage of mankind to the great poet of nature. + +The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in a frosty red face, lighted +up by a cold blue anxious eye, and garnished with artificial locks of +flaxen hair, curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She was +peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with which this, like all +other celebrated shrines, abounds. There was the shattered stock of the +very matchlock with which Shakespeare shot the deer, on his poaching +exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box; which proves that he was a +rival smoker of Sir Walter Raleigh; the sword also with which he played +Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar Laurence discovered +Romeo and Juliet at the tomb! There was an ample supply also of +Shakespeare's mulberry-tree, which seems to have as extraordinary powers +of self-multiplication as the wood of the true cross; of which there is +enough extant to build a ship of the line. + +The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is Shakespeare's chair. It +stands in the chimney-nook of a small gloomy chamber, just behind what was +his father's shop. Here he may many a time have sat when a boy, watching +the slowly-revolving spit, with all the longing of an urchin; or, of an +evening, listening to the crones and gossips of Stratford, dealing forth +churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of the troublesome times in +England. In this chair it is the custom of everyone who visits the house +to sit: whether this be done with the hope of imbibing any of the +inspiration of the bard, I am at a loss to say; I merely mention the fact; +and mine hostess privately assured me that, tho built of solid oak, such +was the fervent zeal of devotees, that the chair had to be new-bottomed at +least once in three years. From the birthplace of Shakespeare a few paces +brought me to his grave.... We approached the church through the avenue of +limes, and entered by a Gothic porch, highly ornamented with carved doors +of massive oak. The interior is spacious, and the architecture and +embellishments superior to those of most country churches. There are +several ancient monuments of nobility and gentry, over some of which hang +funeral escutcheons, and banners dropping piecemeal from the walls. The +tomb of Shakespeare is in the chancel. The place is solemn and sepulchral. +Tall elms wave before the pointed windows, and the Avon, which runs at a +short distance from the walls, keeps up a low perpetual murmur. A flat +stone marks the spot where the bard is buried. There are four lines +inscribed on it, said to have been written by himself, and which have in +them something extremely awful. If they are indeed his own, they show that +solicitude about the quiet of the grave which seems natural to fine +sensibilities and thoughtful minds: + +"Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbeare +To dig the dust inclosèd here. +Blessed be he that spares these stones, +And curst be he that moves my bones." + +The inscription on the tombstone has not been without its effect. It has +prevented the removal of his remains from the bosom of his native place to +Westminster Abbey, which was at one time contemplated. A few years since +also, as some laborers were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth +caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an arch, through which +one might have reached into his grave. No one, however, presumed to meddle +with the remains so awfully guarded by a malediction; and lest any of the +idle or the curious, or any collector of relics, should be tempted to +commit depredations, the old sexton kept watch over the place for two +days, until the vault was finished, and the aperture closed again. He told +me that he had made bold to look in at the hole, but could see neither +coffin nor bones; nothing but dust. It was something, I thought, to have +seen the dust of Shakespeare. + +I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim's devotion, but I had a +desire to see the old family seat of the Lucy's at Charlecot, and to +ramble through the park where Shakespeare, in company with some of the +roisterers of Stratford, committed his youthful offense of deer-stealing. +The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding park still remain in the +possession of the Lucy family, and are peculiarly interesting from being +connected with this whimsical but eventful circumstance in the scanty +history of the bard. As the house stood at little more than three miles' +distance from Stratford, I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit, that I +might stroll leisurely through some of those scenes from which Shakespeare +must have derived his earliest ideas of rural imagery. + +My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the Avon, which made a +variety of the most fanciful doublings and windings through a wide and +fertile valley; sometimes glittering from among willows, which fringed its +borders; sometimes disappearing among groves, or beneath green banks; and +sometimes rambling out into full view, and making an azure sweep around a +slope of meadow land. This beautiful bosom of country is called the Vale +of the Red Horse. A distant line of undulating blue hills seems to be its +boundary, while all the soft intervening landscape lies in a manner +enchained in the silver links of the Avon. + +After pursuing the road for about three miles, I turned off into a +foot-path, which led along the borders of fields and under hedgerows to a +private gate of the park; there was a stile, however, for the benefit of +the pedestrian; there being a public right of way through the grounds. I +delight in these hospitable estates, in which everyone has a kind of +property--at least as far as the foot-path is concerned. I now found +myself among noble avenues of oaks and elms, whose vast size bespoke the +growth of centuries. The wind sounded solemnly among their branches, and +the rooks cawed from their hereditary nests in the tree tops. The eye +ranged through a long lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the view +but a distant statue, and a vagrant deer stalking like a shadow across the +opening. + +I had now come in sight of the house. It is a large building of brick, +with stone quoins, and is in the Gothic style of Queen Elizabeth's day, +having been built in the first year of her reign. The exterior remains +very nearly in its original state, and may be considered a fair specimen +of the residence of a wealthy country gentleman of those days. A great +gateway opens from the park into a kind of courtyard in front of the +house, ornamented with a grass-plot, shrubs, and flower-beds. The gateway +is in imitation of the ancient barbican; being a kind of outpost and +flanked by towers; tho evidently for mere ornament, instead of defense. +The front of the house is completely in the old style; with stone shafted +casements, a great bow-window of heavy stone work, and a portal with +armorial bearings over it, carved in stone. At each corner of the building +is an octagon tower, surmounted by a gilt ball and weathercock. + +The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a bend just at the foot of a +gently sloping bank, which sweeps down from the rear of the house. Large +herds of deer were feeding or reposing upon its borders; and swans were +sailing majestically upon its bosom. + +After prowling about for some time, I at length found my way to a lateral +portal, which was the every-day entrance to the mansion. I was courteously +received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, with the civility and +communicativeness of her order, showed me the interior of the house. The +greater part has undergone alterations, and been adapted to modern tastes +and modes of living; there is a fine old oaken staircase; and the great +hall, that noble feature in an ancient manor-house, still retains much of +the appearance it must have had in the days of Shakespeare. The ceiling is +arched and lofty; and at one end is a gallery, in which stands an organ. +The weapons and trophies of the chase, which formerly adorned the hall of +a country gentleman, have made way for family portraits. There is a wide +hospitable fire-place, calculated for an ample old-fashioned wood fire, +formerly the rallying place of winter festivity. On the opposite side of +the hall is the huge Gothic bow-window, with stone shafts, which looks out +upon the court-yard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass the armorial +bearings of the Lucy family for many generations, some being dated in +1558.... + +I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the hall had +disappeared; for I had hoped to meet with the stately elbow-chair of +carved oak, in which the country Squire of former days was wont to sway +the scepter of empire over his rural domains; and in which might be +presumed the redoubted Sir Thomas sat enthroned in awful state, when the +recreant Shakespeare was brought before him. As I like to deck out +pictures for my entertainment, I pleased myself with the idea that this +very hall had been the scene of the unlucky bard's examination on the +morning after his captivity in the lodge. I fancied to myself the rural +potentate, surrounded by his body-guard of butler, pages, and the +blue-coated serving-men with their badges; while the luckless culprit was +brought in, forlorn and chapfallen, in the custody of game-keepers, +huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by a rabble rout of country +clowns. I fancied bright faces of curious housemaids peeping from the +half-opened doors; while from the gallery the fair daughters of the Knight +leaned gracefully forward, eying the youthful prisoner with that pity +"that dwells in womanhood." Who would have thought that this poor varlet, +thus trembling before the brief authority of a country Squire, and the +sport of rustic boors, was soon to become the delight of princes; the +theme of all tongues and ages; the dictator to the human mind; and was to +confer immortality on his oppressor by a caricature and a lampoon! + +I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. My mind had become so +completely possest by the imaginary scenes and characters connected with +it, that I seemed to be actually living among them. Everything brought +them as it were before my eyes; and as the door of the dining-room opened, +I almost expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence quavering +forth his favorite ditty: + +"Tis merry in hall, when beards wag all, +And welcome merry Shrove-tide!" + +On returning to my inn, I could not but reflect on the singular gift of my +poet; to be able thus to spread the magic of his mind over the very face +of nature; to give to things and places a charm and character not their +own, and to turn this "working-day world" into a perfect fairy land. He is +indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but +upon the imagination and the heart. Under the wizard influence of +Shakespeare I had been walking all day in complete delusion. I had +surveyed the landscape through the prism of poetry, which tinged every +object with the hues of the rainbow. I had been surrounded with fancied +beings; with mere airy nothings, conjured up by poetic power; yet which, +to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard Jacques soliloquize +beneath his oak; had beheld the fair Rosalind and her companion +adventuring through the woodlands; and, above all, had been once more +present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff, and his contemporaries, from the +august Justice Shallow down to the gentle Master Slender, and the sweet +Anne Page. + + + +NEWSTEAD ABBEY [Footnote: From "English Note Books." By permission of, and +by arrangement with, the publishers of Hawthorne's works, Houghton, +Mifflin Co. Copyright, 1870-1898.] + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + +Our drive to Newstead lay through what was once a portion of Sherwood +Forest, tho all of it, I believe, has now become private property, and is +converted into fertile fields, except where the owners of estates have set +out plantations.... The post-boy calls the distance ten miles from +Nottingham. He also averred that it was forbidden to drive visitors within +the gates; so we left the fly at the inn, and set out to walk from the +entrance to the house. There is no porter's lodge; and the grounds, in +this outlying region, had not the appearance of being very primly kept, +but were well wooded with evergreens, and much overgrown with ferns, +serving for cover for hares, which scampered in and out of their +hiding-places. The road went winding gently along, and, at the distance of +nearly a mile, brought us to a second gate, through which we likewise +passed, and walked onward a good way farther, seeing much wood, but as yet +nothing of the Abbey. + +At last, through the trees, we caught a glimpse of its battlements, and +saw, too, the gleam of water, and then appeared the Abbey's venerable +front. It comprises the western wall of the church, which is all that +remains of that fabric, a great, central window, entirely empty, without +tracery or mullions; the ivy clambering up on the inside of the wall, and +hanging over in front. The front of the inhabited part of the house +extends along on a line with this church wall, rather low, with +battlements along its top, and all in good keeping with the ruinous +remnant. We met a servant, who replied civilly to our inquiries about the +mode of gaining admittance, and bade us ring a bell at the corner of the +principal porch. We rang accordingly, and were forthwith admitted into a +low, vaulted basement, ponderously wrought with intersecting arches, dark +and rather chilly, just like what I remember to have seen at Battle Abbey; +and, after waiting here a little while, a respectable elderly gentlewoman +appeared, of whom we requested to be shown round the Abbey. She +courteously acceded, first presenting us to a book, in which to inscribe +our names. + +I suppose ten thousand people, three-fourths of them Americans, have +written descriptions of Newstead Abbey; and none of them, so far as I have +read, give any true idea of the place; neither will my description, if I +write one. In fact, I forget very much that I saw, and especially in what +order the objects came. In the basement was Byron's bath--a dark and cold +and cellar-like hole, which it must have required good courage to plunge +into; in this region, too, or near it, was the chapel, which Colonel +Wildman has decorously fitted up, and where service is now regularly +performed, but which was used as a dogs' kennel in Byron's time. + +After seeing this, we were led to Byron's own bed-chamber, which remains +just as when he slept in it--the furniture and all the other arrangements +being religiously preserved. It was in the plainest possible style, +homely, indeed, and almost mean--an ordinary paper-hanging, and everything +so commonplace that it was only the deep embrasure of the window that made +it look unlike a bed-chamber in a middling-class lodging-house. It would +have seemed difficult, beforehand, to fit up a room in that picturesque +old edifice so that it should be utterly void of picturesqueness; but it +was effected in this apartment, and I suppose it is a specimen of the way +in which old mansions used to be robbed of their antique character, and +adapted to modern tastes, before medieval antiquities came into fashion. +Some prints of the Cambridge colleges, and other pictures indicating +Byron's predilections at the time, and which he himself had hung there, +were on the walls. This, the housekeeper told us, had been the Abbot's +chamber, in the monastic time. Adjoining it is the haunted room, where the +ghostly monk whom Byron introduces into "Don Juan," is said to have his +lurking-place. It is fitted up in the same style as Byron's, and used to +be occupied by his valet or page. No doubt, in his lordship's day, these +were the only comfortable bedrooms in the Abbey; and by the housekeeper's +account of what Colonel Wildman has done, it is to be inferred that the +place must have been in a most wild, shaggy, tumble-down condition, inside +and out, when he bought it. + +It is very different now. After showing us these two apartments of Byron +and his servant, the housekeeper led us from one to another and another +magnificent chamber, fitted up in antique style, with oak paneling, and +heavily carved bedsteads, of Queen Elizabeth's time, or of the Stuarts, +hung with rich tapestry curtains of similar date, and with beautiful old +cabinets of carved wood, sculptured in relief, or tortoise-shell and +ivory. The very pictures and realities, these rooms were, of stately +comfort; and they were called by the names of kings--King Edward's, King +Charles II.'s, King Henry VII.'s, chamber; and they were hung with +beautiful pictures, many of them portraits of these kings. The +chimney-pieces were carved and emblazoned; and all, so far as I could +judge, was in perfect keeping, so that if a prince or noble of three +centuries ago were to come to lodge at Newstead Abbey, he would hardly +know that he had strayed out of his own century. And yet he might have +known by some token, for there are volumes of poetry and light literature +on the tables in these royal bed-chambers, and in that of Henry VII. I saw +"The House of the Seven Gables," and "The Scarlet Letter," in Routledge's +edition. + +Certainly the house is admirably fitted up; and there must have been +something very excellent and comprehensive in the domestic arrangements of +the monks, since they adapt themselves so well to a state of society +entirely different from that in which they originated. The library is a +very comfortable room, and provocative of studious ideas, tho lounging and +luxurious. It is long, and rather low, furnished with soft couches, and, +on the whole, tho a man might dream of study, I think he would be most +likely to read nothing but novels there. I know not what the room was in +monkish times, but it was waste and ruinous in Lord Byron's. Here, I +think, the housekeeper unlocked a beautiful cabinet, and took out the +famous skull which Lord Byron transformed into a drinking-goblet. It has a +silver rim and stand, but still the ugly skull is bare and evident, and +the naked inner bone receives the wine. + +There was much more to see in the house than I had any previous notion of; +but except the two chambers already noticed, nothing remained the least as +Byron left it. Yes, another place there was--his own small dining-room, +with a table of moderate size, where, no doubt, the skull-goblet has often +gone its rounds. Colonel Wildman's dining-room was once Byron's +shooting-gallery, and the original refectory of the monks. It is now +magnificently arranged, with a vaulted roof, a music-gallery at one end, +suits of armor and weapons on the walls, and mailed arms extended, holding +candelabras. + +We parted with the housekeeper, and I with a good many shillings, at the +door by which we entered; and our next business was to see the private +grounds and gardens. A little boy attended us through the first part of +our progress, but soon appeared the veritable gardener--a shrewd and +sensible old man, who has been very many years on the place. There was +nothing of special interest as concerning Byron until we entered the +original old monkish garden, which is still laid out in the same fashion +as the monks left it, with a large oblong piece of water in the center, +and terraced banks rising at two or three different stages with perfect +regularity around it; so that the sheet of water looks like the plate of +an immense looking-glass, of which the terraces form the frame. It seems +as if, were there any giant large enough, he might raise up this mirror +and set it on end. + +In the monks' garden, there is a marble statue of Pan, which the gardener +told us, was brought by the "Wicked Lord" (great-uncle of Byron) from +Italy, and was supposed by the country people to represent the devil, and +to be the object of his worship--a natural idea enough, in view of his +horns and cloven feet and tail, tho this indicates at all events, a very +jolly devil. There is also a female statue, beautiful from the waist +upward, but shaggy and cloven-footed below, and holding a little +cloven-footed child by the hand. This, the old gardener assured us was +Pandora, wife of the above-mentioned Pan, with her son. Not far from this +spot, we came to the tree on which Byron carved his own name and that of +his sister Augusta. It is a tree of twin stems,--a birch-tree, I +think--growing up side by side. One of the stems still lives and +flourished, but that on which he carved the two names is quite dead, as if +there had been something fatal in the inscription that has made it for +ever famous. The names are still very legible, altho the letters had been +closed up by the growth of the bark before the tree died. They must have +been deeply cut at first. + +There are old yew-trees of unknown antiquity in this garden, and many +other interesting things; and among them may be reckoned a fountain of +very pure water, called the "Holly Well," of which we drank. There are +several fountains, besides the large mirror in the center of the garden; +and these are mostly inhabited by carp, the genuine descendants of those +which peopled the fishponds in the days of the monks. Coming in front of +the Abbey, the gardener showed us the oak that Byron planted, now a +vigorous young tree; and the monument which he erected to his Newfoundland +dog, and which is larger than most Christians get, being composed of a +marble, altar-shaped tomb, surrounded by a circular area of steps, as much +as twenty feet in diameter. The gardener said, however, that Byron +intended this, not merely as the burial-place of his dog, but for himself, +too, and his sister. + + + +HUCKNALL-TORKARD CHURCH [Footnote: From "Gray Days and Gold." By +permission of, and by arrangement with, the publishers, Moffat, Yard & Co. +Copyright by William Winter, 1890-1911.] + +[Byron's Grave] + +BY WILLIAM WINTER + + +It was near the close of a fragrant, golden summer day when, having driven +from Nottingham, I alighted in the market-place of the little town of +Hucknall-Torkard, on a pilgrimage to the grave of Byron. The town is +modern and commonplace in appearance,--a straggling collection of low +brick dwellings, mostly occupied by colliers. On that day it appeared at +its worst; for the widest part of its main street was filled with stalls, +benches, wagons, and canvas-covered structures for the display of +vegetables and other commodities, which were thus offered for sale, and it +was thronged with rough, noisy, dirty persons, intent on barter and +traffic, and not indisposed to boisterous pranks and mirth, as they pushed +and jostled each other among the crowded booths. This main street +terminates at the wall of the graveyard in which stands the little gray +church wherein Byron was buried. There is an iron gate in the center of +the wall, and in order to reach this it was necessary to thread the mazes +of the marketplace, and to push aside the canvas flaps of a pedler's stall +which had been placed close against it. Next to the churchyard wall is a +little cottage, with a bit of garden, devoted, at that time, to potatoes; +and there, while waiting for the sexton, I talked with an aged man, who +said that he remembered, as an eye-witness, the funeral of Byron. He +stated his age and said that his name was William Callandyne. Pointing to +the church, he indicated the place of the Byron vault. "I was the last +man," he said, "that went down into it before he was buried there. I was a +young fellow then, and curious to see what was going on. The place was +full of skulls and bones. I wish you could see my son; he's a clever lad, +only he ought to have more of the _suaviter in modo_." Thus, with the +garrulity of wandering age, he prattled on, but his mind was clear and his +memory tenacious and positive. There is a good prospect from the region of +Hucknall-Torkard Church, and pointing into the distance, when his mind had +been brought back to the subject of Byron, my aged interlocutor described, +with minute specification of road and lane,--seeming to assume that the +names and the turnings were familiar to me,--the course of the funeral +train from Nottingham to the church. "There were eleven carriages," he +said. "They didn't go to the Abbey" (meaning Newstead), "but came directly +here. There were many people to look at them. I remember all about it, and +I'm an old man--eighty-two. You're an Italian, I should say," he added. By +this time the sexton had come and unlocked the gate, and parting from Mr. +Callandyne we presently made our way into the Church of St. James, locking +the churchyard gate to exclude rough and possibly mischievous followers. A +strange and sad contrast, I thought, between this coarse, turbulent place, +by a malign destiny ordained for the grave of Byron, and that peaceful, +lovely, majestic church and precinct at Stratford-upon-Avon which enshrine +the dust of Shakespeare.... + +The sexton of the Church of St. James and the parish clerk of +Hucknall-Torkard was Mr. John Brown, and a man of sympathetic +intelligence, kind heart, and interesting character I found him to +be,--large, dark, stalwart, but gentle alike in manner and feeling, and +considerate of his visitor. The pilgrim to the literary shrines of England +does not always find the neighboring inhabitants either sympathetic with +his reverence or conscious of especial sanctity or interest appertaining +to the relics which they possess; but honest, manly John Brown of +Hucknall-Torkard understood both the hallowing charm of the place and the +sentiment, not to say the profound emotion, of the traveler who now beheld +for the first time the tomb of Byron. The church has been considerably +altered since Byron was buried in it, 1824, yet it retains its fundamental +structure and its ancient peculiarities. The tower, a fine specimen of +Norman architecture, dark, ragged, and grim, gives indication of great +age. It is of a kind often met with in ancient English towns; you can see +its brothers at York, Shrewsbury, Canterbury, Worcester, Warwick, and in +many places sprinkled over the northern heights of London; but amid its +tame surroundings in this little colliery settlement it looms with a +peculiar frowning majesty, a certain bleak loneliness, both unique and +impressive. The edifice is of the customary crucial form,--a low stone +structure, having a peaked roof, which is supported by four great pillars +on each side of the center aisle. The ceiling, which is made of heavy +timbers, forms almost a true arch above the nave. There are four large +windows on each side of the nave, and two on each side of the chancel, +which is beneath a roof somewhat lower than that of the main building. +Under the pavement of the chancel, and back of the altar rail,--at which +it was my privilege to kneel while gazing upon this sacred spot,--is the +grave of Byron.... Nothing is written on the stone that covers his +sepulcher except the simple name of BYRON with the dates of his birth and +death, in brass letters, surrounded by a wreath of leaves in brass, the +gift of the King of Greece; and never did a name seem more stately or a +place more hallowed. The dust of the poet reposes between that of his +mother on his right hand, and that of his Ada,--"sole daughter of my house +and heart,"--on his left. The mother died on August 1, 1811; the daughter, +who had by marriage become the Countess of Lovelace, in 1852. "I buried +her with my own hands," said the sexton, John Brown, when, after a little +time, he rejoined me at the altar-rail. "I told them exactly where he was +laid when they wanted to put that brass on the stone; I remembered it +well, for I lowered the coffin of the Countess of Lovelace into this +vault, and laid her by her father's side." And when presently we went into +the vestry, he produced the Register of Burials and displayed the record +of that interment in the following words: "1852. Died at 69 Cumberland Pl. +London. Buried December 3. Aged thirty-six.--Curtis Jackson." The Byrons +were a short-lived race. The poet himself had just turned thirty-six; his +mother was only forty-six when she passed away. This name of Curtis +Jackson in the register was that of the rector or curate then incumbent +but now departed.... + +A book has been kept for many years, at the church of Hucknall-Torkard, in +which visitors desiring to do so, can write their names. The first book +provided for this purpose was an album given to the church by the poet, +Sir John Bowling, and in that there was a record of visitations during the +years from 1825 to 1834.... The catalog of pilgrims to the grave of Byron +during the last eighty years is not a long one. The votaries of that poet +are far less numerous than those of Shakespeare. Custom has made the visit +to Stratford "a property of easiness," and Shakespeare is a safe no less +than a rightful object of worship. The visit to Hucknall-Torkard is +neither as easy nor as agreeable. Torkard is neither as easy nor as +agreeable.... On the capital of a column near Byron's tomb I saw two +moldering wreaths of laurel, which had hung there for several years; one +brought by the Bishop of Norwich, the other by the American poet Joaquin +Miller. It was good to see them, and especially to see them beside the +tablet of white marble which was placed on that church wall to commemorate +the poet, and to be her witness in death, by his loving and beloved sister +Augusta Mary Leigh,--a name that is the synonym of noble fidelity, a name +that cruel detraction and hideous calumny have done their worst to +tarnish. That tablet names him "The Author of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," +and if the conviction of thoughtful men and women throughout the world can +be accepted as an authority, no name in the long annals of English +literature is more certain of immortality than the name of Byron. His +reputation can afford the absence of all memorial to him in Westminster +Abbey,--can endure it, perhaps, better than the English nation can,--and +it can endure the neglect and censure of the precinct of Nottingham. That +city rejoices in many interesting associations, but all that really +hallows it for the stranger is its association with the name of Byron. The +stranger will look in vain, however, for any adequate sign of his former +connection with that place. It is difficult even to find prints or +photographs of the Byron shrine, in the shops of Nottingham. [Footnote: +Since this paper was written the buildings that flanked the front wall of +Hucknall-Torkard churchyard have been removed, the street in front of it +has been widened, and the church has been "restored" and considerably +altered.--Author's note to the Editor.] + + + +DR. JOHNSON'S BIRTHPLACE [Footnote: From "Our Old Home." Published by +Houghton, Mifflin Co.] + +BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE + + +Seeking for Dr. Johnson's birthplace, I found it in St. Mary's Square +(Lichfield), which is not so much a square as the mere widening of a +street. The house is tall and thin, of three stories, with a square front +and a roof rising steep and high. On a side-view, the building looks as if +it had been cut in two in the midst, there being no slope of the roof on +that side. A ladder slanted against the wall, and a painter was giving a +livelier hue to the plaster. In a corner-room of the basement, where old +Michael Johnson may be supposed to have sold books, is now what we should +call a dry-goods store, or, according to the English phrase, a mercer's +and haberdasher's shop. + +The house has a private entrance on a cross-street, the door being +accessible by several much worn stone-steps, which are bordered by an iron +balustrade. I set my foot on the steps and laid my hand on the balustrade, +where Johnson's hand and foot must many a time have been, and ascending to +the door, I knocked once, and again, and again, and got no admittance. +Going round to the shop-entrance, I tried to open it, but found it as fast +bolted as the gate of Paradise. It is mortifying to be so balked in one's +little enthusiasms; but looking round in quest of somebody to make +inquiries of, I was a good deal consoled by the sight of Dr. Johnson +himself, who happened, just at that moment, to be sitting at his ease +nearly in the middle of St. Mary's Square, with his face turned toward his +father's house. + +Of course, it being almost fourscore years since the doctor laid aside his +weary bulk of flesh, together with the ponderous melancholy that had so +long weighed him down--the intelligent reader will at once comprehend that +he was marble in his substance, and seated in a marble chair, on an +elevated stone-pedestal. In short, it was a statue, sculptured by Lucas, +and placed here in 1838, at the expense of Dr. Law, the reverend +chancellor of the Diocese. + +The figure is colossal (tho perhaps not much more so than the mountainous +doctor himself) and looks down upon the spectator from its pedestal of ten +or twelve feet high, with a broad and heavy benignity of aspect, very like +in feature to Sir Joshua Reynold's portrait of Johnson, but calmer and +sweeter in expression. Several big books are piled up beneath his chair, +and, if I mistake not, he holds a volume in his hand, thus blinking forth +at the world out of his learned abstraction, owl-like, yet benevolent at +heart. The statue is immensely massive, a vast ponderosity of stone, not +finely spiritualized, nor indeed, fully humanized, but rather resembling a +great stone-boulder than a man. You must look with the eyes of faith and +sympathy, or possibly, you might lose the human being altogether, and find +only a big stone within your mental grasp. On the pedestal are three +bas-reliefs. In the first, Johnson is represented as hardly more than a +baby, bestriding an old man's shoulders, resting his chin on the bald head +which he embraces with his little arms, and listening earnestly to the +high-church eloquence of Dr. Sacheverell. In the second tablet, he is seen +riding to school on the shoulders of two of his comrades, while another +boy supports him in the rear. + +The third bas-relief possesses, to my mind, a great deal of pathos, to +which my appreciative faculty is probably the more alive, because I have +always been profoundly imprest by the incident here commemorated, and long +ago tried to tell it for the behoof of childish readers. It shows Johnson +in the market-place of Uttoxeter, doing penance for an act of disobedience +to his father, committed, fifty years before. He stands bare-headed, a +venerable figure, and a countenance extremely sad and wo-begone, with the +wind and rain driving hard against him, and thus helping to suggest to the +spectator the gloom of his inward state. Some market-people and children +gaze awe-stricken into his face, and an aged man and woman, with clapsed +and uplifted hands, seem to be praying for him. These latter personages +(whose introduction by the artist is none the less effective, because, in +queer proximity, there are some commodities of market-day in the shape of +living ducks and dead poultry,) I interpreted to represent the spirits of +Johnson's father and mother, lending what aid they could to lighten his +half-century's burden of remorse. + +I had never heard of the above-described piece of sculpture before; it +appears to have no reputation as a work of art, nor am I at all positive +that it deserves any. For me, however, it did as much as sculpture could +under the circumstances, even if the artist of the Libyan Sibyl had +wrought it, by reviving my interest in the sturdy old Englishman, and +particularly by freshening my perception of a wonderful beauty and +pathetic tenderness in the incident of the penance. + +The next day I left Lichfield for Uttoxeter, on one of the few purely +sentimental pilgrimages that I ever undertook, to see the very spot where +Johnson had stood. Boswell, I think, speaks of the town (its name is +pronounced Yuteox'eter) as being about nine miles off from Lichfield, but +the county-map would indicate a greater distance; and by rail, passing +from one line to another, it is as much as eighteen miles. I have always +had an idea of old Michael Johnson sending his literay merchandise by +carrier's wagon, journeying to Uttoxeter afoot on market-day morning, +selling "books" through the busy hours, and returning to Lichfield at +night. This could not possibly have been the case. + +Arriving at the Uttoxeter station, the first objects that I saw, with a +green field or two between them and me, were the tower and gray steeple of +a church, rising among red-tiled roofs and a few scattered trees. A very +short walk takes you from the station up into the town. It had been my +previous impression that the market-place of Uttoxeter lay immediately +round about the church; and, if I remember the narrative aright, Johnson, +or Boswell in his behalf, describes his father's book-stall as standing in +the market-place close beside the sacred edifice. + +It is impossible for me to say what changes may have occurred in the +topography of the town, during almost a century and a half since Michael +Johnson retired from business, and ninety years, at least, since his son's +penance was performed. But the church has now merely a street of ordinary +width passing around it, while the market-place, tho near at hand, neither +forms a part of it nor is really contiguous, nor would its throng and +bustle be apt to overflow their boundaries and surge against the +churchyard and the old gray tower. Nevertheless, a walk of a minute or two +brings a person from the center of the market-place to the church-door; +and Michael Johnson might very conveniently have located his stall and +laid out his literary ware in the corner at the tower's base; better +there, indeed, than in the busy center of an agricultural market. But the +picturesque arrangement and full impressiveness of the story absolutely +require that Johnson shall not have done his penance in a corner, ever so +little retired, but shall have been the very nucleus of the crowd--the +midmost man of the market-place--a central image of Memory and Remorse, +contrasting with and overpowering the petty materialism around him. He +himself, having the force to throw vitality and truth into what persons +differently constituted might reckon a mere external ceremony, and an +absurd one, would not have failed to see this necessity. I am resolved, +therefore, that the true site of Dr. Johnson's penance was in the middle +of the market-place. + +How strange and stupid it is that tradition should not have marked and +kept in mind the very place! How shameful (nothing less than that) that +there should be no local memorial of this incident, as beautiful and +touching a passage as can be cited out of any human life! No inscription +of it, almost as sacred as a verse of Scripture on the wall of the church! +No statue of the venerable and illustrious penitent in the market-place to +throw a wholesome awe over its earthliness, its frauds and petty wrongs of +which the benumbed fingers of conscience can make no record, its selfish +competition of each man with his brother or his neighbor, its traffic of +soul-substance for a little worldly gain! Such a statue, if the piety of +the people did not raise it, might almost have been expected to grow up +out of the pavement of its own accord on the spot that had been watered by +the rain that dript from Johnson's garments, mingled with his remorseful +tears. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, +Volume I., by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEEING EUROPE, V1 *** + +***** This file should be named 10588-8.txt or 10588-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/8/10588/ + +Produced by Inka Weide and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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