May 22nd, 1857
We set out at a little past eleven . . .
. . . and shortly after six
o'clock we caught the first glimpse of the Cathedral towers, though they loomed
scarcely huge enough for our preconceived idea of them. But, as we drew nearer,
the great edifice began to assert itself, making us acknowledge it to be larger
than our receptivity could take in.
Between seven and eight o'clock (it being still broad daylight in these long English days) we set out to pay a preliminary visit to the exterior of the Cathedral. Passing through the Stone Bow, as the city-gate close by is called, we ascended a street which grew steeper and narrower as we advanced, till at last it got to be the steepest street I ever climbed,— so steep that any carriage, if left to itself, would rattle downward much faster than it could possibly be drawn up.
Being almost the only hill in Lincolnshire, the inhabitants seem disposed to make the most of it.
And still the street grew steeper and steeper. Certainly, the Bishop and clergy of Lincoln ought not to be fat men, but of very spiritual, saint-like, almost angelic habit, if it be a frequent part of their ecclesiastical duty to climb this hill; for it is a real penance, and was probably performed as such, and groaned over accordingly, in monkish times.
Formerly, on the day of his installation, the Bishop used to
ascend the hill barefoot, and was doubtless cheered and invigorated by looking
upward to the grandeur that was to console him for the humility of his
approach. We, likewise, were beckoned onward by glimpses of the Cathedral
towers, and, finally, attaining an open square on the summit, we saw an old
Gothic gateway to the left hand, and another to the right. The latter had
apparently been a part of the exterior defences of the Cathedral, at a time when
the edifice was fortified. The west front rose behind.
We passed through one of the side-arches of the Gothic
portal, and found ourselves in the Cathedral Close, a wide, level space, where
the great old Minster has fair room to sit, looking down on the ancient
structures that surround it, all of which, in former days, were the habitations
of its dignitaries and officers. Some of them are still occupied as such,
though others are in too neglected and dilapidated a state to seem worthy of so
splendid an establishment. Unless it be Salisbury Close, however (which is
incomparably rich as regards the old residences that belong to it), I remember
no more comfortably picturesque precincts round any other cathedral. But, in
truth, almost every cathedral close, in turn, has seemed to me the loveliest,
cosiest, safest, least wind-shaken, most decorous, and most enjoyable shelter
that ever the thrift and selfishness of mortal man contrived for himself. How
delightful, to combine all this with the service of the temple!
Lincoln Cathedral is built of a yellowish brown-stone, which
appears either to have been largely restored, or else does not assume the
hoary, crumbly surface that gives such a venerable aspect to most of the
ancient churches and castles in England. In many parts, the recent restorations
are quite evident; but other, and much the larger portions, can scarcely have
been touched for centuries: for there are still the gargoyles, perfect, or with
broken noses, as the case may be, but showing that variety and fertility of
grotesque extravagance which no modern imitation can effect.
There are innumerable niches, too, up the whole height of
the towers, above and around the entrance, and all over the walls: most of them
empty, but a few containing the lamentable remnants of headless saints and
angels. It is singular what a native animosity lives in the human heart against
carved images, insomuch that, whether they represent Christian saint or Pagan
deity, all unsophisticated men seize the first safe opportunity to knock off
their heads!
In spite of all dilapidations, however, the effect of the
west front of the Cathedral is still exceedingly rich, being covered from
massive base to airy summit with the minutest details of sculpture and carving:
at least, it was so once; and even now the spiritual impression of its beauty
remains so strong, that we have to look twice to see that much of it has been
obliterated. I have seen a cherry-stone carved all over by a monk, so minutely
that it must have cost him half a lifetime of labor; and this cathedral-front
seems to have been elaborated in a monkish spirit, like that cherry-stone. Not
that the result is in the least petty, but miraculously grand, and all the more
so for the faithful beauty of the smallest details.
An elderly maid, seeing us looking up at the west front,
came to the door of an adjacent house, and called to inquire if we wished to go
into the Cathedral; but as there would have been a dusky twilight beneath its
roof, like the antiquity that has sheltered itself within, we declined for the
present. So we merely walked round the exterior, and thought it more beautiful
than that of York; though, on recollection, I hardly deem it so majestic and
mighty as that. It is vain to attempt a description, or seek even to record the
feeling which the edifice inspires. It does not impress the beholder as an
inanimate object, but as something that has a vast, quiet, long-enduring life
of its own,— a creation which man did not build, though in some way or other it
is connected with him, and kindred to human nature.
In short, I fall straightway to talking nonsense, when I try
to express my inner sense of this and other cathedrals.
While we stood in the close, at the eastern end of the
Minster, the clock chimed the quarters; and then Great Tom, who hangs in the
Rood Tower, told us it was eight o'clock, in far the sweetest and mightiest
accents that I ever heard from any bell,— slow, and solemn, and allowing the
profound reverberations of each stroke to die away before the next one fell. It
was still broad daylight in that upper region of the town, and would be so for
some time longer; but the evening atmosphere was getting sharp and cool. We
therefore descended the steep street,— our younger companion running before us,
and gathering such headway that I fully expected him to break his head against
some projecting wall.
[May 23rd]
In the morning we took a fly (an English term for an
exceedingly sluggish vehicle), and drove up to the Minster by a road rather
less steep and abrupt than the one we had previously climbed. We alighted
before the west front, and sent our charioteer in quest of the verger; but, as
he was not immediately to be found, a young girl let us into the nave. We found
it very grand, it is needless to say, but not so grand, methought, as the vast
nave of York Cathedral, especially beneath the great central tower of the
latter.
Unless a writer intends a professedly architectural
description, there is but one set of phrases in which to talk of all the
cathedrals in England and elsewhere. They are alike in their great features: an
acre or two of stone flags for a pavement; rows of vast columns supporting a
vaulted roof at a dusky height; great windows, sometimes richly bedimmed with
ancient or modern stained glass; and an elaborately carved screen between the
nave and chancel, breaking the vista that might else be of such glorious length,
and which is further choked up by a massive organ.— in spite of which
obstructions, you catch the broad, variegated glimmer of the painted east
window, where a hundred saints wear their robes of transfiguration.
Behind the screen are the carved oaken stalls of the Chapter
and Prebendaries, the Bishop's throne, the pulpit, the altar, and whatever else
may furnish out the Holy of Holies. Nor must we forget the range of chapels
(once dedicated to Catholic saints, but which have now lost their individual
consecration), nor the old monuments of kings, warriors, and prelates, in the
side-aisles of the chancel.
In close contiguity to the main body of the Cathedral is the
Chapter-House, which, here at Lincoln, as at Salisbury, is supported by one
central pillar rising from the floor, and putting forth branches like a tree,
to hold up the roof.
Adjacent to the Chapter-House are the cloisters, extending
round a quadrangle, and paved with lettered tombstones, the more antique of
which have had their inscriptions half obliterated by the feet of monks taking
their noontide exercise in these sheltered walks, five hundred years ago. Some
of these old burial-stones, although with ancient crosses engraved upon them,
have been made to serve as memorials to dead people of very recent date. In the
chancel, among the tombs of forgotten bishops and knights, we saw an immense
slab of stone purporting to be the monument of Catherine Swynford, wife of John
of Gaunt; also, here was the shrine of the little Saint Hugh, that Christian
child who was fabled to have been crucified by the Jews of Lincoln.
The Cathedral is not particularly rich in monuments; for it
suffered grievous outrage and dilapidation, both at the Reformation and in
Cromwell's time. This latter iconoclast is in especially bad odor with the
sextons and vergers of most of the old churches which I have visited. His
soldiers stabled their steeds in the nave of Lincoln Cathedral, and hacked and
hewed the monkish sculptures, and the ancestral memorials of great families,
quite at their wicked and plebeian pleasure.
Nevertheless, there are some most exquisite and marvellous
specimens of flowers, foliage, and grapevines, and miracles of stone-work
twined about arches, as if the material had been as soft as wax in the cunning
sculptor's hands,— the leaves being represented with all their veins, so that
you would almost think it petrified Nature, for which he sought to steal the
praise of Art.
Here, too, were those grotesque faces which always grin at
you from the projections of monkish architecture, as if the builders had gone
mad with their own deep solemnity, or dreaded such a catastrophe, unless
permitted to throw in something ineffably absurd.
Originally, it is supposed, all the pillars of this great
edifice, and all these magic sculptures, were polished to the utmost degree of
lustre; nor is it unreasonable to think that the artists would have taken these
further pains, when they had already bestowed so much labor in working out
their conceptions to the extremest point. But, at present, the whole interior
of the Cathedral is smeared over with a yellowish wash, the very meanest hue
imaginable, and for which somebody's soul has a bitter reckoning to undergo.
In the centre of the grassy quadrangle about which the
cloisters perambulate is a small, mean brick building, with a locked door. Our
guide,— I forgot to say that we had been captured by a verger, in black, and
with a white tie, but of a lusty and jolly aspect,— our guide unlocked this
door, and disclosed a flight of steps.
At the bottom appeared what I should have taken to be a
large square of dim, worn, and faded oil-carpeting, which might originally have
been painted of a rather gaudy pattern. This was a Roman tessellated pavement,
made of small colored bricks, or pieces of burnt clay. It was accidentally
discovered here, and has not been meddled with, further than by removing the
superincumbent earth and rubbish.
Nothing else occurs to me, just now, to be recorded about
the interior of the Cathedral, except that we saw a place where the stone
pavement had been worn away by the feet of ancient pilgrims scraping upon it,
as they knelt down before a shrine of the Virgin.
Leaving the Minster, we now went along a street of more
venerable appearance than we had heretofore seen, bordered with houses, the
high peaked roofs of which were covered with red earthen tiles. It led us to a
Roman arch, which was once the gateway of a fortification, and has been
striding across the English street ever since the latter was a faint
village-path, and for centuries before. The arch is about four hundred yards
from the Cathedral; and it is to be noticed that there are Roman remains in all
this neighborhood, some above ground, and doubtless innumerable more beneath
it; for, as in ancient Rome itself, an inundation of accumulated soil seems to
have swept over what was the surface of that earlier day.
The gateway which I am speaking about is probably buried to
a third of its height, and perhaps has as perfect a Roman pavement (if sought
for at the original depth) as that which runs beneath the Arch of Titus. It is
a rude and massive structure, and seems as stalwart now as it could have been
two thousand years ago; and though Time has gnawed it externally, he has made
what amends he could by crowning its rough and broken summit with grass and
weeds, and planting tufts of yellow flowers on the projections up and down the
sides.
We now went home to the Saracen's Head; and as the weather was very unpropitious, and it sprinkled a little now and then, I would gladly have felt myself released from further thraldom to the Cathedral. But it had taken possession of me, and would not let me be at rest; so at length I found myself compelled to climb the hill again, between daylight and dusk.
A mist was now hovering about the upper height of the great
central tower, so as to dim and half obliterate its battlements and pinnacles,
even while I stood in the close beneath it. It was the most impressive view
that I had had. The whole lower part of the structure was seen with perfect
distinctness; but at the very summit the mist was so dense as to form an actual
cloud, as well defined as ever I saw resting on a mountain-top. Really and
literally, here was a "cloud-capt tower." The entire Cathedral, too,
transfigured itself into a richer beauty and more imposing majesty than ever.
The longer I looked, the better I loved it. Its exterior is
certainly far more beautiful than that of York Minster; and its finer effect is
due, I think, to the many peaks in which the structure ascends, and to the
pinnacles which, as it were, repeat and re-echo them into the sky. York
Cathedral is comparatively square and angular in its general effect; but in
this at Lincoln there is a continual mystery of variety, so that at every
glance you are aware of a change, and a disclosure of something new, yet working
an harmonious development of what you have heretofore seen.
The west front is unspeakably grand, and may be read over
and over again forever, and still show undetected meanings, like a great, broad
page of marvellous writing in black-letter,— so many sculptured ornaments there
are, blossoming out before your eyes, and gray statues that have grown there
since you looked last, and empty niches, and a hundred airy canopies beneath
which carved images used to be, and where they will show themselves again, if
you gaze long enough.— But I will not say another word about the Cathedral.
We spent the rest of the day within the sombre precincts of
the Saracen's Head, reading yesterday's "Times," "The Guide-Book
of Lincoln," and "The Directory of the Eastern Counties." Dismal
as the weather was, the street beneath our window was enlivened with a great
bustle and turmoil of people all the evening, because it was Saturday night 23rd ,
and they had accomplished their week's toil, received their wages, and were
making their small purchases against Sunday, and enjoying themselves as well as
they knew how. A band of music passed to and fro several times, with the
rain-drops falling into the mouth of the brazen trumpet and pattering on the
bass-drum; a spirit-shop, opposite the hotel, had a vast run of custom; and a
coffee-dealer, in the open air, found occasional vent for his commodity, in
spite of the cold water that dripped into the cups.The whole breadth of the
street, between the Stone Bow and the bridge across the Witham, was thronged to
overflowing, and humming with human life.
[Monday, May 25th]
Observing in the Guide-Book that a steamer runs on the river
Witham between Lincoln and Boston, I inquired of the waiter, and learned that
she was to start on Monday at ten o'clock. Thinking it might be an interesting
trip, and a pleasant variation of our customary mode of travel, we determined
to make the voyage. The Witham flows through Lincoln, crossing the main street
under an arched bridge of Gothic construction, a little below the Saracen's
Head. It has more the appearance of a canal than of a river, in its passage
through the town,— being bordered with hewn-stone mason-work on each side, and
provided with one or two locks.
The steamer proved to be small, dirty, and altogether
inconvenient. The early morning had been bright; but the sky now lowered upon
us with a sulky English temper, and we had not long put off before we felt an
ugly wind from the German Ocean blowing right in our teeth. There were a number
of passengers on board, country-people, such as travel by third-class on the
railway; for, I suppose, nobody but ourselves ever dreamt of voyaging by the
steamer for the sake of what he might happen upon in the way of river-scenery.
We bothered a good while about getting through a preliminary lock; nor, when
fairly under way, did we ever accomplish, I think, six miles an hour. Constant
delays were caused, moreover, by stopping to take up passengers and freight,—
not at regular landing-places, but anywhere along the green banks.
The scenery was identical with that of the railway, because
the latter runs along by the river-side through the whole distance, or nowhere
departs from it except to make a short cut across some sinuosity; so that our
only advantage lay in the drawling, snail-like slothfulness of our progress,
which allowed us time enough and to spare for the objects along the shore.
Unfortunately, there was nothing, or next to nothing, to be seen,— the country
being one unvaried level over the whole thirty miles of our voyage,— not a hill
in sight, either near or far, except that solitary one on the summit of which
we had left Lincoln Cathedral.
And the Cathedral was our landmark for four hours or more, and at last rather faded out than was hidden by any intervening object.
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