_St. Mary’s, Lambeth—Temple—St. Paul’s—Tunnel._
Time never need hang heavily on one’s hands in London. A stroll in the
Parks is an unfailing resource in fair weather: when it was wet, I used
to take refuge under cover of some exhibition. The National Gallery, in
Trafalgar Square, and the Vernon Gallery, gratuitously opened to the
public, in Marlborough House, were quite a resource; although the annual
show of pictures in the former was nothing extraordinary. The portrait
of Dr. Wiseman was displayed there, and a sight of it cured me of all
curiosity to see more of him. Its coarse and sensual effect afforded a
very striking contrast to the refined and intellectual head of the
Bishop of London, which was hung _vis-à-vis_, perhaps not without
design. But of pictures I do not propose to speak particularly.
In the cool of a charming May morning I sauntered forth, and crossed
Westminster Bridge. It was too late for the full enjoyment of
Wordsworth’s emotions, on that thoroughfare, for already the city was
astir; and yet there was enough in the scene it commanded to make one
stop a few moments and conjure up the imagery of his inimitable
sonnet:—
“Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air!
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep:
The river glideth at his own sweet will;
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep,
And all that mighty heart is lying still!”
So I passed on to Lambeth, and came by Bishop’s Walk, under the walls of
the Archbishop’s gardens, to Morning Prayer at St. Mary’s. It was here,
under the shadow of this Church, that the poor Queen of James, the
Runagate, stood shivering on a stormy night, with her unfortunate little
babe packed up in a basket, awaiting a start to France. Had the baby
only cried, how different might have been the history of the British
Crown and nation! A great many Scotchmen would have lived quietly
through the greater part of the succeeding century, who (as the baby
slept soundly) were only born to be hanged, shot, and beheaded; and
then, in all probability, we should have had no Waverley novels!
However, I now found the Church a ruin; only its tower standing, and a
bit of the chancel, while the rebuilding was going bravely on. But I am
glad to say that the daily service was not therefore interrupted. The
chancel was roughly boarded up, and protected from the weather, and
there a good congregation was at prayer when I entered, two curates
officiating. I was rejoiced to worship there, in such a primitive way.
The bones of the brave old primate Bancroft, and of good Archbishop
Tenison were beneath us as we knelt; and the meek Secker reposes hard
by.
After breakfast, at the Rectory, in a room overlooking the
archiepiscopal grounds, I went to the river, and hunted up one of those
deposed and antiquated things—a _wherry_, resolved to go by water, in
the old fashioned way, from Lambeth to the Temple. Now, then, I was
legitimately afloat upon “the silent highway,” only that the hideous
little steamers would destroy my anti-modern imaginations, as they
paddled triumphantly by. I was trying to imagine myself in the primate’s
barge, with Cranmer or with Laud; or again, as I “shot the bridge, with
its roar of waters,” I conjured up the day when Dryden, with his
fashionable companions, took water, that they might the better hear the
distant guns, by which they knew “the fleet, under his Royal Highness,
was then engaging the Dutch upon the coast, and that a great event was
then deciding.” Ah! it was the poetry of the Thames to go upon it with
oars, and to hear the waterman lament the degenerate days of steam; or
to draw out his _Allegro_ by questions about the “champion of the
river,” and the great rowing match soon to come off, to the probable
discomfiture of that hero’s further claims to that dignity. The salt
talked very bad _dry_ English, but his _wet_ vocabulary was truly rich;
and I left his boat at Blackfriars Bridge, with a sort of feeling that,
instead of a few paltry shillings he had earned by his conduct on the
voyage, the not unusual compliment to affable sea-captains, of “a vote
of thanks, and a piece of plate.”
I now went to the Temple Gardens, where, according to great Will, began
the wars of York and Lancaster, by the plucking of the two roses; and,
for a while, I sauntered about those pleasant walks, in the company of
one of the benchers, feeling very much as if I had found a little Oxford
on the margin of the Thames. After a subsequent visit to the room which
Dr. Johnson once inhabited, and sauntering through courts and alleys,
where one sees many a celebrated name painted over a door, as a business
sign, we entered the Temple Church. Great restorations have been made
here of late, at an immense expense, and generally in good taste and on
correct principles, save that unsightly seats, too much like pews,
encumber the space in front of the altar, which ought to be entirely
open. What a reverend old Church; built in the twelfth century by
Crusaders, and consecrated by a Patriarch of Jerusalem! Under its walls,
inside, lies Selden, and outside, lies Oliver Goldsmith; but, to me, its
most sacred interest is the fact, that here the immortal Hooker erected
those noble defences of the Church of England which broke the rising
tide of Puritanism, and ultimately saved us from its floods. Here that
great “Master of the Temple,” while his inmost soul was panting for a
quiet country cure, bore patiently the heat and burthen of the day, in
wearisome conflict with the dogged Travers, who could always preach
“_Geneva_ in the afternoon, against the morning _Canterbury_.” On
entering “the Round,” you are struck with its venerable effect,
heightened by the fine figures of the old Templars, stretched,
cross-legged, upon the floor. These figures were sadly mutilated, but
have been admirably restored. The Round is free from pewing, and opens
into the choir, where the benchers’ stalls are ranged on either hand.
The two societies of the Middle and Inner Temple worship here together,
and their respective arms—a Pegasus and a Lamb—are interchanged in the
showy decorations of the vaulting.
I ascended into the _triforia_ by a cork-screw staircase, pausing to
enter the famous Penitential Cell—a dismal hole in the wall, in which a
refractory Templar was sometimes confined, but which offered him the
consolations of religion, by means of a hagioscope, or slit in the
masonry, through which he could see the altar of the Church, and join in
the devotions of his brethren—though it may be feared he more generally
responded to their chant with anything but benediction. In the
_triforia_ are happily preserved all the monuments which lately
disfigured the walls below: and so set are the benchers against any
renewing of a bad example, that I was told they had resisted the
erection of even Hooker’s bust in the choir. This I was sorry to hear,
as one really felt the want of it on looking about the walls which once
reflected the sounds of his earnest and persuasive voice. And what was
my surprise, on my next visit, to find a workman setting it there, just
as it should be! It was covered. I begged him to let me see it. ‘Honour
to thy old square cap, thou venerable and judicious Richard,’ said my
inmost heart, as the well-known features emerged in all their dignity;
and then I asked if I was so fortunate as to be the very first to salute
it. The workman, who was the sculptor himself, assured me that I was.
‘It is well,’ I answered, ‘that an American clergyman should have the
privilege. We know how to value in America the great defender of Law and
of Religion, and much as England owes to Hooker, America owes infinitely
more, or will do so when the Church shall have proved herself, as she
will in the end, the salvation of the Republic.’
Under the roof of the Middle Temple Hall, where the benchers, barristers
and students still dine together, was first acted on Twelfth night,
1602, Shakspeare’s play, so called. A visit to that noble hall, and a
sight of its celebrated equestrian Charles First, by Vandyck, gave me
great delight. There are also several other royal portraits, and many
heraldic memorials of the great historic lawyers who once “ate their
terms” within its walls. The hall of the Inner Temple is less striking,
but of similar character. One wonders what future Lord Chancellor sits
daily at these boards, among the students. But in the Inner Temple, I
thought chiefly of that gentle Templar, more gentle than its armorial
Lamb, who once sat with them, the author of “the Task.”
My next visit was an ambitious one. I spent an hour, or so, in climbing
to the ball of St. Paul’s, within which, of course, I ensconsed myself,
and indulged in very sublime reflections. The fact is, however, that it
was very hot, and when some half dozen cockneys had wedged themselves
in, after me, I verily thought the chances lay between smothering and
being toppled down in a lump into the street (400 feet below) like a big
pippin; for the ball shook and trembled upon the rods which support it,
in a manner by no means soothing to excitable nerves. I was glad when I
got safely back to the “Golden Gallery,” and could cool myself, and look
down on the roofs and chimneys of the million at one glance. Here is
your true view of London! Here that “mighty heart” is seen, and felt,
and heard in its throbbings. Here a thoughtful man finds food for
reflection, and a benevolent one for interceding prayer. Oh, God! to
think of the life and death, the joy and misery, the innocence and the
guilt, and all the mixed and mingled passions, emotions, thoughts, and
deeds which are going on beneath these roofs, along those labyrinthine
streets, and alleys, and in all this circuit of miles and miles, and
close-packed human beings! God alone understands the issues there
deciding: it is too much for one to dwell upon a single moment; but,
thank God for the assurance that “He remembereth that we are but dust:”
yea, thank God, for a Saviour and an High Priest, who can be touched
with the feeling of human infirmities!
In the successive stages of mounting to the ball, one passes, of course,
many objects of interest. The original model of St. Paul’s is well
worthy of inspection, as conveying Wren’s own ideal of the cathedral. He
was so attached to it, that he cried when forced to depart from it; but
it strikes me as greatly inferior to the actual design. It might better
suit the _dilettanti_, but except in the unreality of the second story,
which is a mere screen to the roofing and buttresses, I can see nothing
to regret in the substitution. The model room is also the depository of
sundry old and tattered flags, which, after escaping “the thunder of the
captains, and the shoutings,” were formerly suspended in the dome. It
was fashionable to say that they desecrated it—but why so? The God of
battles and the Prince of Peace are one: and I can see no reason why the
flags of Waterloo should not be hung up before the Lord of Hosts, in His
Holy Temple. The question is merely one of taste; but the flags may be
as well considered as tokens of peace, as trophies of war; and why
should not the providence of God, as the giver of all victory, be thus
recognized, by a significant acknowledgment, that to Him, and not to the
Duke of Wellington, for example, we owe the general peace which has for
so long a period blessed the world, since the overthrow of Napoleon? It
is a sublime association with this cathedral, that it was first used for
Divine Service in celebrating the Peace of Ryswick, which, with all its
faults, has secured to England inestimable blessings: and, perhaps the
virtual appeal to God, which is made by connecting His awful name with
the awful issues of battles, may have a happy effect on the national
conscience. It may make men afraid of mere wars of ambition; may keep in
view the fact, that peace only should be the end of conflict; and may
also correct the sentimentalism which fails to see that war may
sometimes be a just and a holy exertion of that magistracy with which
God has girded the loins of rulers, and for which they are responsible
to Him who commands them not to “wear the sword in vain.”
The Library is a place of little interest to one who has but little
time. You look with reverence at the great bell, which thunders out the
death of time from hour to hour, and only tolls when a Prince’s
departure, or that of some great ecclesiastic, is to be announced to the
nation. The vastness of the clock and its dial, give you fresh
impressions of the enormous scale of everything about you, and the
Whispering Gallery is reached with a sense of fatigue, which quite
accords with this effect. Here a bore of a fellow shows off the petty
experiment of the whisper, and stuns you by slamming a door; after which
you are vexed to find that the paintings of the dome have disappeared
under the humid influences of the London climate. It is only when these
first annoyances are over, that you regain entire command of your
thoughts, and are able to measure “the length and breadth, and depth and
height,” of the noble dome within whose concavity you are now walking
about, and perchance listening to the glorious swell of the organ below.
The architecture of this dome becomes easily understood, as one ascends
between its inner and outer surfaces, and one cannot but regret to find
that the former is so vastly disproportioned to the latter. Here the
triumph of Michael Angelo, and the one grand superiority of St. Peter’s,
begins to be powerfully felt. Wren has constructed his dome prosaically;
the rhetoric and the poetry of architecture are sublimely displayed in
the work of the mighty Florentine.
During the ascent, you emerge from time to time to open air, and get
external views from the successive galleries. London chimneys are, at
first, below you, and then the steeples, and then even its canopy of
smoke and vapour; and all its mingling sounds come to your ear at last
like the murmur of the sea. “How dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low.”
The elevation is indeed considerable; but with such a Babel at one’s
feet; with the fleets and the treasures of nations all in sight; and
with a million of men swarming like ants in their mole-hill, just below,
it is one’s own fault if the moral elevation be not far more sublime,
and if the impressions of the hour are not forcibly suggestive of a
glimpse of the world from the mansions of eternity.
After a very cursory inspection of the ill-judged sculpture in the nave
and transepts, and a more affectionate visit to the statue of Howard, to
the kneeling figure of Heber, and that of Bishop Middleton, which
represents him as confirming two Indian children, I had time to survey
the crypts before the Evening Service. Here lie Reynolds, and West, and
Lawrence, and several of their brothers of the Academy; and here, in a
sort of chapel, which admits the external air and light through a
grating, lies the architect himself—the truly great Sir Christopher.
“Lie heavy on him earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee!”
But now you come to the circular vault, upheld by massive pillars, and
lighted partially from the dome above, but more strongly by gas-burners,
where you stand before the sepulchre of Nelson. The sarcophagus is an
empty relic of Cardinal Wolsey’s ambition, but looks so modern, that one
is tempted to believe he ordered it in prophetic spirit, expressly for
its present purpose. After all, it is not Nelson’s sepulchre, for he is
buried under it. The hero and the ecclesiastic have alike been compelled
to accept a “little earth for charity,” and this hollow semblance of a
coffin dangles like that of Mohammed, between them. Alas! that Nelson’s
tomb should suggest any meaner thoughts than those of his genius and
glory; but it was in fact a relief to turn to the simple monument of
Collingwood, and to be able to say, here lies not only a decaying hero,
but a slumbering Christian.
I looked for the monument of Dr. Donne with especial interest. You grope
amid interesting relics of old St. Paul’s, a fragment of Lord Chancellor
Hatton’s effigy, a piece of Dean Colet’s, and another of Sir Nicholas
Bacon’s. At last, in one corner of a dismal cell, feebly lighted by a
grated window from without, you see the old worthy, in his shroud,
precisely as Walton describes the figure, but leaning against the wall
like a ghost, or rather like one of the dried corpses in the Morgue, on
the Great St. Bernard. You think of his truly heavenly mind, and strange
life; of his rusty old poetry, and sound old sermons; of his ancestor,
Sir Thomas More, and of his descendant, William Cowper. It is strange
that no one ever thinks of Cowper as the inheritor of this double
genius, and as owing some features of his intellect not less to the
rhyming Dean of St. Paul’s, than to the author of _Utopia_. One would
hope that under the Deanship of another poet, the graceful and scholarly
Milman, this one historic relic of the old cathedral, and of a brother
of the sacred lyre, might be set in a fitter place, or at least more
decently erected in the place where it now seems irreverently set aside
to moulder and be forgotten.
The _Thames Tunnel_ was pronounced, by Canning, “the greatest bore in
England:” he was bored to death by applications for Government aid in
completing it, and hence spoke feelingly. It is now apparently done,
though not finished, and is a cockney wonder, well worth a visit. Were
it only in actual use as a thoroughfare under the bed of the Thames,
thus realizing the original conception, it would not be without an
element of true sublimity; but to see it degraded to a miserable show,
scarcely paying for its keeper, and serving only to enable the visitor
to say that he has walked under the Thames, is enough to justify one in
naming it a folly. Its uses, however, may even yet be demonstrated to be
great, and I cannot but feel that this noble work has not been executed
for naught. It will even yet have a history. Pity it is that the Duke of
Wellington had no occasion to use it, in planning the defences of the
city on the memorable tenth of April, 1848. It needed but the passage of
a single regiment, under his command, through this mysterious
excavation, for actual purposes of surprise and stratagem, to give the
place a charm forever; and had such a passage been by chance
accomplished in the night, and led by the Duke in person, for the sake
of some masterly result, a new and romantic interest would have been
added as well to his own marvellous story, as to that of the Tunnel
itself. If the caverny wine vaults of the London Docks were but
connected with the Tunnel on one side, and the Tower on the other, so
that there might be a sub-marine passage to the Tower, from the Surrey
side, it would at least furnish associations of a military character to
this daring achievement of Brunel.
Such were some of the random suggestions of my fancy, as I descended the
shaft, on the Wapping-side. I entered the dark hole, with a vague
realization of the descent of the Trojan hero into the shades of old.
The first glance reveals a narrow street, with very narrow side-walks,
or _trottoirs_, arched over with masonry, which is quite devoid of
anything remarkable in itself. It is here and there a little
damp-looking, but not more so perhaps than tunnels under ground. Gas
burns along the dismal vault, but hardly lights it; enabling one to
amuse himself with the thought of seeing fire beneath a river, and to
pick his way comfortably; but otherwise only rendering darkness visible.
The corresponding way, or the other half, is quite filled up with stalls
and shops, in which they offer, here a raree-show, and there
refreshments. A wretched grinding organ fills the cavern with doleful
music, and little peddlers offer things for sale. So few, however, seem
to be passing, that one wonders how they find it worth while to carry on
this mermaid merchandise. You are so bored with their importunity, that
it is not without an effort that you compose yourself, and reflect that
fishes are swimming, and that the keels of countless ships, with the
wealth of nations in their holds, are passing over your head, and that
the very smallest breach in the arch above would “hurl an ocean on your
march below.” This is the one great idea of the Tunnel. I passed through
and emerged at Rotherhithe, and then descending, returned in the same
way. It occurred to me, what if Guy Fawkes the Second should fill this
place with gunpowder, and touch off the magazine, by electric telegraph,
just as a royal fleet was passing the critical point! Strange to say, it
might be so arranged, by means of the telegraph and Cardinal Wiseman,
that the Pope himself, sitting in his armchair at the Vatican, might
produce this terrible explosion in the Thames; and I suppose he is quite
as likely to do it, as he is to effect the other results which he and
the Cardinal (or the Cardinal and he) are actually attempting.
The shipping which one beholds in the vicinity of the Tunnel, is such as
to produce a powerful impression upon the mind, in favour of the vast
scale on which the commerce of London is maintained with the whole
world. Truly—“the harvest of the river is her revenue, and she is a
mart of nations.” As compared with the port of New-York, the narrowness
of the river here rather increases than lessens the effect, bringing the
forest of masts and the bulk of steamers close together, while, in our
great harbour, they are stretched along such a circuit of shore, or
anchored in such an expanse of water, as materially diminishes the
general impression of multitude and immensity. It must be remembered,
however, that in estimating the tonnage of London, a vast number of
vessels are included which are never thought of at the Custom-house in
New-York. Thus, our river craft, which supply the city with produce for
the market, such as eggs, poultry and the like, with the whole fleet of
our domestic steamers, go for nothing with us; while on the contrary,
the hoys that bring the like from the Low Countries and the coast of
France, with the steamers that ply to other British ports, are all
religiously reckoned in the commercial lists of the British Metropolis.
With this abatement, one is surprised to see how respectable a
proportion the tonnage of New-York bears to that of the populous Tyre of
England; a proportion which is probably destined to a direct reversal at
no distant period, when once the Pacific and the Australian and Asiatic
coasts are fairly opened to our direct trade through the Isthmus of
Darien.