_Easter Holidays—Lichfield and Dr. Johnson._
My reverend friend accompanied me to Lichfield, as our occupation for
Easter-Tuesday; kindly expressing his desire to have a share in the
enthusiasm, with which he justly imagined the first sight of an ancient
cathedral would inspire a visiter from America. And although Lichfield
is by no means one of the most impressive specimens of English cathedral
architecture, as it is small, and not very well kept, I was very glad to
begin my pilgrimage to the cathedrals with this venerable Church, the
see of the primitive and apostolic St. Chad; the scene of some of the
most severe and melancholy outrages of the Great Rebellion; and the
sacred spot, in which some of the earliest and most durable impressions
were made upon the character of the truly great Dr. Johnson. Familiar
with all I expected to see, so far as books and engravings could make me
so, it was thrilling to set out for my first visit to such a place, and
I was obliged to smother something like anxiety lest the reality should
fall far below anticipation. How would it strike me, after all? I was to
tread, at last, the hallowed pavement of an ancient minster, in which
the sacrifices of religion had been offered for centuries, and occupying
a spot which had been drenched with the blood of primitive martyrs; I
was to join in the solemn chant of its perpetual services; I was to go
round about its walls, and mark well its bulwarks, and survey its
towers, and to trace the tokens of those who had once set up their
banners there, and broken down its carved work with axes and hammers,
and defiled the place of its sanctuary. No English mind, to which
ancient things have been familiar from birth, could possibly have
appreciated my inward agitation at the prospect of such a day; and, as I
took my seat in the train, I could not but wonder at the indifference of
my fellow-passengers, to whom _booking_ for Lichfield was an every-day
affair, and whose associations with that city were evidently those of
mere business, and downright matter-of-fact.
The three spires, crowning the principal towers of the Church, soon came
in sight, and beneath its paternal shadow were clustered the humbler
roofs of the town. How like a hen gathering her chickens under her
wings, is a true cathedral amid the dwellings which it overshadows, and
how completely is its true intent set forth by this natural suggestion
of its architecture! I had never, before, seen a city purely religious
in its _prestige_, and I felt, as soon as my eyes saw it, the moral
worth to a nation of many such cities scattered amid the more busy hives
of its industry. On alighting, I could not but remark to my companion,
the still and Sabbath-like aspect of the city. “It is generally so,” he
answered, “with our cathedral towns; they are unlike all other places.”
This is their reproach in the eyes of the economist; but such men never
seem to reflect that the cathedral towns owe their existence to the fact
they are such, and would, generally, have no population at all, but for
their ecclesiastical character. Why can they not see, besides, that such
a place as Lichfield is as necessary to a great empire, as a Sheffield?
It bred a Johnson—and that was a better product for England than ever
came out of a manufactory of cotton or hardware. Probably, just such a
mind could have been reared only in just such a place. “You are an idle
set of people,” said Boswell to his master, as they entered Lichfield
together. “Sir,” replied the despot, “we are a city of philosophers: we
work with our _heads_, and make the boobies of Birmingham work for us
with their _hands_.”
But here at length is the cathedral, and service is going on! A moment’s
survey of its western front, so old, so enriched with carvings and
figures, so defiant of casual observation, and so worthy of careful
study—and we pass inside—and here is the nave, and the massive and dim
effect of the interior—somehow not all realized at once, and yet
overpowering. We reach the choir, and a verger quietly smuggles us
within. After a moment’s kneeling, we observe that the Epistle is
reading, and the service about to close. In a few minutes my first
impressions of worship in a cathedral are complete, and they are very
unsatisfactory. I had reached the sanctuary too late for the musical
parts of the solemnity, and there was rather a deficiency than an excess
of ceremonial, in the parts I saw. A moment’s inspection convinced me
that Lichfield Cathedral is, by no means, over-worked by its Dean and
Chapter. Alas! I said to myself, what we could do with such a foundation
in my own city, in America! We might have such a school of the prophets
as should be felt in all the land: we would make it the life of the
place; the seat of perpetual preachings, and prayers, and catechizings,
and councils; a citadel of power to the faith, and a magazine of holy
armor and defences for the Church. Why do not these worthy Canons wake
up, and go to work, like genuine sons and successors of St. Chad?
We now went the rounds of the Church, with the stupid verger for our
orator, and I began to experience the intolerable annoyance complained
of by all travellers. “Oh, that he might hold his tongue! We know it—we
know it—only let us alone, and here’s your shilling”—said my inmost
heart, a score of times, but still he mumbled on. He was most impressive
in detailing the exploits of the Puritans: here they hacked, and there
they hewed; this was done by Cromwell’s men—when they broke into the
old Bishops’ sepulchres; and that, when they hunted a cat, with the
hounds, through the nave and aisles. Here they _tooted_ with the broken
organ pipes, and there the soldiers mounted the pulpit, and preached _à
la Woodstock_. They went so far as to cut up their rations of flesh meat
on the altar, and they baptised a calf at the font; but, enough; mine
eyes have seen that there were such men in England two hundred years
ago, and oh, let us pray that we may not deserve such judgments again.
It was refreshing to stop before the tomb of Bishop Hacket, and to thank
God, who put it into his heart to be a repairer of the breach. The
Bishop had his failings, but what he did for his cathedral should cover
a multitude of sins, if he had so many. He was the man who, during the
worst scenes of the rebellion, was threatened by a soldier with instant
death, unless he desisted from the prayers which he was then offering,
in the Church of St. Giles, Holborn, and who answered, calmly, “you do
what becomes a soldier, but I shall do as becomes a priest,” and so went
on with the service. At the Restoration, being already three-score and
ten, he was appointed to this See. He found the cathedral almost a ruin;
thousands of round shot, and hand-grenades had been fired upon it; the
pinnacles were battered to pieces, and the walls and spires seemed ready
to fall, while the interior was a mass of filth and desolation. The very
next day after his arrival, he set his own horses to work in clearing
away the rubbish, and for eight years he devoted his wealth and labor,
and made perpetual efforts among the zealous laity of the kingdom, to
achieve and pay for the restoration of the Church, which he thus
accomplished. Finally he reconciled the holy place by a solemn
ceremonial, and re-instituted the services. When he heard the bells
ring, for the first time, being then confined to his bed-chamber, he
went into another room to hear the sound; but, while he blessed God that
he had lived to enjoy it, said it was his knell, and so, soon after,
died like old Simeon.
We paused before the busts of Johnson and Garrick, and the monuments of
Miss Seward and Lady M. W. Montague, and also before a monument lately
erected to some soldiers who perished in India, over which the flags of
their victories were displayed. The kneeling figure of the late Bishop
Ryder is pleasing and appropriate; but the object of universal
attraction is the monument of two children, by Chantrey, so generally
known and admired in prints and engravings. I cannot say that the style
of this monument comports well with the surrounding architecture, but in
itself it is beautiful, and bespeaks that sentimental love of children
for which the Church of England has made the English people remarkable,
beyond other Christian nations. The epitaph is a sad blemish, but the
reposing Innocents make you forget it. So simple and sweet is their
marble slumber, which, of itself, speaks “the Resurrection and the
Life.”
The cathedral-close is open and spacious, and one gains a very good view
of the architecture, on all sides of the exterior. I sat down beneath
some trees, at the eastern extremity of the Church, and for a long while
gazed at the old stones, from the foundation to the topmost spire. They
told of centuries—how mutely eloquent! All was so still that the rooks
and jackdaws, chattering in the belfries, supplied the only sounds.
There was the bishop’s palace at my right, the scene of Anna Seward’s
bright days, and of some of Dr. Johnson’s happiest hours. The ivy almost
covers its modest but ample front. The close is a little picture of
itself; too much, perhaps, like the swallows’ nests, around the altar,
in the warm and inactive contentment with which it must tend to surfeit
any but the most conscientious of God’s ministers.
On one side of the cathedral is a pretty pool, and altogether, in this
point of observation, it presents a beautiful view. Swans are kept in
this water, and go oaring themselves about, without that annoyance from
boys and vagabonds, which prevents their being kept in public places, in
our country. They came familiarly to us, and even followed us a long
distance, as we walked on the margin of the pool, as if doing the honors
of the place to ecclesiastical visitors. We now took a walk through the
meadows, to Stowe, distant about half-a-mile, and presenting another
pleasant picture, with its old, but beautiful parish-church. Here we
found tokens of that work of Church restoration which is going on
throughout all England, and which will make the age of Victoria enviably
famous with future generations. The little Church was in perfect
keeping, throughout; severely plain, but strictly Anglican, and full of
reverend simplicity. There were some pews in the Church, but the new
sittings were all open, and apparently free. We looked with some
interest at the monument of Lucy Porter, daughter of the lady who
afterwards became the wife of Dr. Johnson. Hard by the Church is the
well of St. Chad, to which I next paid a visit, and from which I was
glad to drink. It is twined with roses, and neatly arched over with
masonry, on which is chiselled CE. EP.—that is, _Ceadda Episcopus_, and
here, in the seventh century, the holy man lived and baptized. St. Chad,
though a Saxon by birth, was in British orders, of the primitive
ante-Gregorian succession, and held the See of York, until his own
humility, and the Roman scruples of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
transferred him to Lichfield, where he lived the life of an apostle, and
from which he itinerated through the midland counties, very often, on
foot, in the spirit of a truly primitive missionary. It was with
exceeding veneration for the memory of his worth and piety, that I
visited this scene of his holy life, and blessed God for the mercies
which have issued thence, even to my own remote country. Such are the
world’s true benefactors: the world forgets them, but their record is
with God; and He will make up His jewels yet, in the sight of the
assembled universe.
Returning, we had the cathedral before us, all the way, in truly
delightful prospect. I observed the birds that darted across our path
with peculiar pleasure, and could not but remark that the sparrows were
John Bull’s own sparrows, having, in comparison with ours, a truly
English rotundity and plumpness, which should no doubt be credited to
the roast-beef of Old England, and to good ale, withal, or to something
equivalent in the diet of birds. We now took a turn into the city, and
first, went to see the house, in a window of which Lord Brooke was
seated when he received the fatal bullet from the cathedral. It seems a
great distance for such a shot; and this fact heightens the peculiarity
of the occurrence. There is a little tablet, fixed in the wall,
recording the event. As it took place on St. Chad’s day, and as the shot
was fired by a deaf and dumb man in the tower, putting out the eye with
which the Puritan besieger had prayed he might behold the ruins of the
cathedral, and killing him on the spot, it is not wonderful that the
providence was regarded as special and significant. Sacrilege has been
dangerous sport ever since the days of Belshazzar. It was a more
gratifying occupation to seek next the birth-place of Dr. Johnson, with
which pictures had made me so familiar, that when I came suddenly into
the market-place, I recognized the house and St. Mary’s Church, and even
the statue, all as old acquaintances. The pillars at the corners of the
house give it a very marked effect, and one would say, at the outset,
that it must have a history. It is not unworthy of such a man’s
nativity. The Church in which the future sage was christened is almost
directly opposite; and as I came in view of it, I looked for its
projecting clock, and found it, just as I had seen it in engravings. The
statue of Dr. Johnson is placed in the market square, just before the
house in which he first saw the light. It was the gift of one of the
dignitaries of the cathedral to the city. Did poor Michael Johnson, the
bookseller, ever console his poverty and sorrows, as he looked from
those windows on a stormy day, with visions of this tribute to the
Christian genius of his son? Perhaps, just where it stands, he often saw
his boy borne to school on the backs of his playmates, in triumphal
procession; and this incident of his childhood is now wrought into the
monumental stone. In another bas-relief, he is seen as a child of three
years old, perched on his father’s shoulder, listening to Dr.
Sacheverel, as he preaches in the cathedral. In a third is illustrated
that touching act of filial piety, the penance of the sage in Uttoxeter
market. For an act of disobedience to his poor hard-faring father, done
when he was a boy, but haunting him through life with remorse, the great
man went to the site of his father’s humble book-stall in the
market-place, and there stood bare-headed in the storm, one rainy day,
bewailing his sin, and honoring the lowliness of the parental industry
which provided for the wants of his dependent years. What moral
sublimity! worthy indeed of a memorial, and doubtless recorded in the
book of the Lamb that was slain to take away his sin!
Opposite St. Mary’s, and next door to the birth-place, we found the
“Three Crowns Inn,” where Johnson chose to stay, with sturdy
independence, when he visited Lichfield, refusing even the hospitalities
of Peter Garrick. I suppose the room in which we lunched was the scene
of another instance of true greatness in Dr. Johnson, who, with the
dignity of a gentleman, entertained here a friend of his humbler days,
“whose talk was of bullocks,” and whose personal appearance was by no
means agreeable, but to whose tiresome volubility, in things of his own
profession, the sage extended the most patient and condescending
attention. We could not but drink our mug of ale to the memory of the
immortal old man of ten thousand honest prejudices, and as many virtues;
in whom “has been found no lie,” and who has made his own massive
character, in some respects, the ideal of a genuine Englishman.
We visited the hospital and Church of St. John Baptist, a charitable
foundation of an old Bishop of Lichfield, who was also a munificent
benefactor of Brazen-nose College, at Oxford. It is a queer,
out-of-the-way, little blessing, of the sort which attracts no
attention, but which bespeaks a Church at work among the people, of the
like of which England is full. I was much pleased with this fragrant
little flower of charity, for such it seemed, hiding, like the violet,
out of sight, but heavenly when discovered. The Church of St. Michael,
Green-hill, next attracted me, standing on an eminence, and crowning it
with a conspicuous tower and spire. An avenue of venerable elms leads to
its portal, and I found it open. The font, which is a relic of very high
antiquity, has lately been restored to its place; and nearly the whole
of the nave is a late restoration. Here, then, is another proof of the
revival of primitive life and zeal in the Church of England! And all so
truly national; Anglican and yet Catholic; consistent with self, and
with antiquity, and attesting a continuous ecclesiastical life, from the
days of Ceadda, and his predecessors, until now.
The Evening Service at the cathedral was far more gratifying than the
morning’s experience had led me to anticipate. The evening sun streamed
through the windows of the clere-story with inspiring effect, and the
_Magnificat_ quite lifted me up to the devotional heights I had desired
to attain, in such a place. Then came the anthem, suitable to
Easter-week—“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” How amiable the
beautiful and holy place in which such strains have been heard for ages!
In passing through the streets, on my way home, I saw one of the popular
sports of the Easter-holidays, peculiar to the midland counties, and a
relic of the many frolics in use before the Reformation. Some buxom
lasses were endeavoring to _lift_, or _heave_, a strapping youth, who,
in no very gallant style, repelled the embraces and salutations of his
female aggressors. I take it for granted, however, that he was not
released until he had been handsomely lifted into the air, and made to
purchase his freedom by a substantial fine. This is a custom confined,
of course, to the vulgar—but even among them, according to my judgment,
“more honored in the breach than in the observance.”