_Worcester—Malvern—Gloucester._
My first excursion with my friend V——, was to Worcester and Malvern.
In Worcester of course the great attraction is the cathedral, and
thither we went immediately upon our arrival, and found Service going
on. We lingered without the choir, and listened to the anthem, as it
rose from the voices within; and then, as the prayers went on, in the
monotone of chaunting, varied by the occasional cadence of the priest,
and the sweet response of the singers, we had an opportunity of worship
which I trust was not only enjoyed, but reverently appropriated in
devotion. Service ended, the verger, with his mace, issued from the
doors of the choir, preceding the singers in their surplices, and the
residentiary canons—far too feeble a force, however, for a cathedral,
in which “the spirit of a living creature” should always be “within the
wheels,” giving motion and reality to the routine of daily prayers, and
fasts, and festivals. There is no excuse for the present condition of
the English cathedrals. They require the most thorough reforms to make
them felt as blessings. At Worcester I began to feel that such was the
case, and the painful conviction increased upon me, throughout my
subsequent tour.
We now surveyed the venerable temple, and experienced the usual
annoyance of the verger’s expositions. Here was the monument of King
John; and there the chapel tomb of Arthur, Prince of Wales, the first
husband of Queen Katherine of Arragon. Here, too, are shown the statues
of St. Oswald, an early bishop of this see, and of Wolstan, another
bishop who laid the foundation of the existing cathedral, in the
eleventh century. The choir is impressive, but the eastern window struck
me as too predominantly green, and altogether as somewhat kaleidoscopic.
Among the more modern monuments, a small bas-relief, by Bacon, struck me
as very meritorious. A widow with her three children gathered about her,
and bending to the storm of sorrow, was the fitting memorial of a
departed husband and father. Or was it that the group reminded me of the
treasures of my own far-off home, and of the scene which an Atlantic
storm might so easily create around the fireside that would be trimmed
for my return! At any rate, it touched me, and reminded me that I was in
a house of prayer, where ejaculations might be wafted from the heart,
and answered three thousand miles away. Other associations made me pause
before the tomb of Bishop Hough, that brave old president of Magdalen,
to whose resistance of the Popish James I have referred before. The
sculpture is by Roubilliac, but is free from the usual affectations of
that artist; and the scene in Magdalen College is represented on the
base of the monument. We lingered about the exterior for some time, and
were particularly struck with the flying buttresses of the choir, as the
most pleasing portion of the venerable structure. After a visit to one
of the prebendal residences in the cloisters, we loitered about the town
for an hour, and then took the top of the stage-coach for Malvern.
Several coaches were starting at the same time for diverse points of the
compass, and here we had before us something of the moribund system of
travel of the days of George the Fourth. The flaming red liveries of the
whip and the guard, with the notes of the bugle as we whirled over the
Severn, gave one a sense of the poetry of locomotion which suggested
some foolish sighs over the achievements of invention, and the age of
the rail. However, it was something to be thankful for, that there was
as yet no tunnel under Malvern hills. Crack went the whip—and away
sprung the horses, and very soon the tower of the cathedral was all we
could see of Worcester. We passed the Teme, and drove through Powick and
Mather. The fields were fragrant with the blossoms of the bean; the open
road-side was garnished with flowering furze; and the cottages stood
forth, neat and comfortable, amid embowering laburnums, and lilacs, and
guelder-roses. ‘Ah, yes—I grant you, England is a beautiful country,
but you Englishmen don’t know how to enjoy it half as much as your
American cousins; not that we have not glorious scenery at home, but
that we have no such garden, as England seems to be, from one sea to the
other.’ So I said to my companion.
We ascended the Malvern hills, on a brisk trot, by a good road
stretching along the face of the hills, and soon entered the smart and
showy town of Great Malvern itself, which overhangs the charming vale of
Gloucester, and affords a view of the winding Severn, and many beautiful
villages, churches, and seats. The towers of several abbeys, with those
of the cathedrals of Gloucester and Worcester, adorn the prospect, and
the distant ridge of the Cotswolds completes the picture. The Abbey
Church of Great Malvern proved, of itself, sufficient to reward our
visit to the place, but my friend V——, found at one of the hotels, a
party of his friends enjoying a brief sojourn in this delightful
retreat, for the benefit of its air and springs—for “Ma’vern,” as
everybody knows, is a fashionable watering-place. Good reason have I to
remember the spot where I first met the amiable W——s, to whose
subsequent attentions I owed so much pleasure on my northern tour; and I
trust they too may be willing to remember our holiday at Malvern. I was
particularly gratified with the adventurous spirit of the ladies, who
insisted on doing us the honours of the place, considering us as their
guests. Under their kindly guidance we climbed the hills, and visited
the Holy Well, and the well of St. Ann’s, and finally reached the summit
of the Malverns, where we gained a magnificent sight into Herefordshire,
and could see to the best advantage the nearer beauties of the vale of
the Severn. We walked along the ridge, pausing to rest awhile, and to
enjoy the scenery, near the Worcestershire beacon, and so passing down
on the Hereford side, and returning through a gap called the Wych, we
parted with our fair guides at Malvern Wells, and taking a post-chaise
started on a delightful drive across the valley.
It was a beautiful afternoon, and our route took us through a great
variety of country scenes. Now we skirted the base of the Malverns; and
now reached the picturesque Church of Little Malvern; and now descended,
amid overhanging trees, into the valley of the Severn, partly darkened
by the stretching shadow of the hills, and partly glittering with
reflections of the descending sun. My friend V——, who seemed to have
friends everywhere, was so well acquainted with the neighbouring gentry,
that he was quite at liberty to enliven our drive, by leaving the high
road and crossing the park of this or that beautiful residence which
happened to lie in our way. Thus we gained fine views of several elegant
mansions and their surrounding grounds. At the lodge of one of these
parks, as we entered, I was struck with a curious tree, called the
peacock yew, from the showy _pavonazetto_ of its foliage: but the
oddities of nature, after all, are far less attractive than her ordinary
beauties. At last we re-crossed the Severn, and entered Tewksbury. It
has been justly remarked that this place appears to have stood still for
five hundred years. Its massive abbey, with its magnificent Anglo-Norman
tower, has the advantage therefore of standing in the company of
contemporary walls and roofs, instead of being an insulated lump of
Mediævalism, in a mass of nineteenth century brick and plaster. I was
wholly unprepared for so splendid a specimen of cathedral architecture
as this abbey proved to be; and when I entered the sacred place, I was
quite overwhelmed with its effect. It is of great length, and the aisles
are separated from the nave by a series of immense Saxon pillars, which
convey an idea of strength and sombre dignity wholly different from the
impressions produced by the light and springing shafts of the
perpendicular and decorated Gothic. Its great window is a solitary
example of such vast and solemn combinations of proportion and detail;
its Norman arches being deeply recessed in the gigantic wall, and its
height commensurately sublime. While we surveyed this stupendous
interior, the rich shadows and faint illuminations produced by the close
of day, greatly heightened the impressiveness of the architecture and
the awful associations of this ancient sanctuary and cemetery. It was
indeed sublime to reflect that under the shade of these walls was waged
the last battle of the House of Lancaster, and that the noble ashes of
its heroes were everywhere under foot, as we paced its aisles. We
surveyed one after another the tombs of Clarence, of Somerset, of
Wenlock, and De Clifford, moralizing on the Providence which reduced the
Norman blood of England just in the time and manner best suited to give
the Commons room to rise; and which laid these proud patricians in the
dust, that out of the dust might spring the freedom and the power which
now invest the world with Anglo-Saxon glory. God only is wise—God only
great! Issuing from a small door in one of the aisles of the abbey, we
entered a green and peaceful meadow, to which the deepening twilight
gave a grave and rich effect, heightened not a little by the shadows of
the abbey towers, and by the croaking of rooks and daws among the
buttresses and pinnacles. Here was the fatal field where the red-rose
was smothered forever in red blood. “Lance to lance, and horse to
horse”—here its fated champions struck the last blow for Margaret and
her son. Here the young prince himself asserted, face to face with
usurping York, the rights which his fathers had not less usurped from
the fallen Plantagenet; and here, for his boldness and for his fatal
royalty, he fell beneath the rapier, the last blood of Lancastrian
majesty spouting from his many wounds. Can it be, so green a field was
ever so crimson? It was impossible to conjure up the scenes of a period
so long gone by; and yet not less impossible to stand on such a field,
without some communion with the spirit of departed ages.
With a worthy clergyman of Tewksbury, we finally quenched our enthusiasm
in a cup of tea, and buried the swelling thoughts of Margaret’s wrongs,
under the juicy morsels of a mutton-chop. As we sat at our repast, I
observed that our reverend entertainer had “a river at his
garden’s-end.” “Yes,” was his reply—“the Avon!” I had supposed it the
Severn, of course; but when he thus reminded us of its noble confluent,
after our historical communion with Shakspeare in the battle-field, all
my enthusiasm returned again, and, in spite of tea and mutton-chop, I
felt a thrill to find myself so near the river of the immortal Swan of
Stratford. Here, indeed, it finds its fitting union with the larger
waters, and runs with Severn to the sea. But now, it seemed to me
fragrant and vocal with a spirit caught from the banks of Stratford
churchyard, and its murmurs continually repeated the lines—
“Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That stabbed me in the field, by Tewksbury.”
During my visit at Cheltenham, we contrived to spend a Sunday in the
country—and such a Sunday as should realize my ideas of an English
Sunday among a rural population. Early in the morning we went to Bredon,
and there surveyed its parish Church, just opened for Divine service,
and exhibiting a neat interior, which, but for my growing familiarity
with so many superior examples, I should have considered very
noteworthy. In the floor of the nave is a plain slab covering the grave
of “Bishop Prideaux, 1650.” This Church, too, showed the hand of the
restorer, and had been much improved and beautified in the spirit of
what I suppose will be called the Victorian Restoration. Leaving this
Church, we started over the field for Kemerton. It was a beautiful
morning—what I am wont to call a _George-Herbert-Sunday_; and as I went
through the fragrant meads and harvest lands, or turned into a shady
lane, amid the hawthorn hedges, I felt those quiet influences stealing
over me which are the sweetest preparation for enjoyment in the house of
God. By and by we descried above the foliage the tower of Kemerton
Church; and hard by was the parsonage, where that estimable dignitary,
the venerable Archdeacon Thorp, gave us a most cordial welcome. Before
service, my friend V—— called me aside into the churchyard, and
pointed to a little grave beautifully decorated with fresh flowers. I
understood at once that it was the grave of a beloved child he had
lately lost, and whose transient but lovely life had shed a charm around
these scenes of its sweet and holy habitation, and endeared them to the
hearts of all who knew him. For a moment I entered into the sorrows of a
bereaved parent, and wept with one that wept.
The service in Kemerton Church is performed in some respects very
simply, in others, one might say, elaborately, for most of it is sung.
There is no organ, and the singers are plain farmers and village-lads,
yet they have places in the chancel, and wear surplices, and sing with
very agreeable effect. When Morning Service was over, I proposed a quiet
ramble through the fields, with my friend, for my heart was quite full
of the solemnities of which the Holy Communion formed a part. As we were
about to leave, we observed the bell-ringers taking their stand under
the tower, which opened into the Church, with great reverence and
propriety in their behaviour. The Archdeacon informed us that they were
all worthy parishioners, who understood the nature of the humblest
office in the house of God, and who rung the bells with a sense of
serving the temple, and sounding forth the glory of the Lord. When we
had gone about a quarter of a mile from the Church, we heard the bells
ringing, accordingly, and sweet music did they discourse. They seemed
indeed full of Sabbath blessing; full of peace and good will to men.
“This, dear V——,” said I, “This is enchanting, and more, ’tis
heavenly! Shall I ever forget this peaceful Sunday noon in England?” As
I looked around, all seemed, as the Gospel would make the whole earth
appear, if only sinful men would let it; all blossomed as the rose. A
church but a few rods in one direction—and another less than a mile
before us—and many others near us, all around! All _churches_ too—not
so many tokens of religious strife and schism, but each to its own
little nest of villagers, the centre of one faith, of one baptism, and
the worship of one Lord. Ah—here is the true glory of England! Mile
after mile, in some counties, seems to be marked by church after church;
each beautiful in its kind, the monument of ancestral piety among its
rural worshippers, and the tutelary of their rude forefathers’ graves,
that cluster beneath its eaves. One wonders what a dissenter is made of,
when he beholds these rural churches, and their happy influence over a
rustic population. We extended our walk to Overbury Church, an old
Norman structure of small dimensions, beautifully restored, and in
perfect repair. The congregation had just withdrawn, and the breath of
prayer seemed lingering in the sanctuary. My ramble was completed before
the Evening Service began, and certainly never saw I Sunday so liveried
before, to celebrate the holy tide. The hawthorn was everywhere in
flower; butter-cups, daisies, lilacs, cowslips, and every variety of
contemporary blossom, were to be seen in all the fields and
cottage-gardens; and the very sheep and cattle, resting in the shadow of
the trees, seemed to know it was the holy day. Where else, save in
England, is holy tide ever so entirely what holy tide should be?
The Evening Prayer was divided, as in all the English cathedrals, so
that the sermon followed the second lesson. Then came the Canticle, and
the rest of the prayers. This arrangement follows the original idea of
_Catechising_ at the Evening Prayer, and has many advantages. I was
privileged to be the preacher, and I spake with a sincere appreciation
of the duty, as a privilege indeed. It appeared strange to me, when
service was over, to reflect that Kemerton Church is many hundred years
old, and yet that, in all probability, never had any one stood in its
pulpit before, who was not a subject of the English crown.
Among the valuable acquaintances which I formed at Cheltenham, I reckon
myself fortunate in that of the Rev. Alexander Watson, now of
Marychurch, Devon, so well known by his many publications in defence of
Church doctrine, and in aid of practical religion. It was in his company
that I visited Gloucester, and added to my stock of travelling
experiences another day of memorable enjoyment. After a pleasant
breakfast party, at his hospitable table, we started in a private
carriage, for a somewhat circuitous drive, to that “godly city;” passing
Leckhampton, under lee of the tallest peaks of the Cotswolds, and so by
Birdlip Wood, and Cooper’s Hill. Far away, on the other side of the
valley, a prominent headland was pointed out to me, as May’s Hill. It is
a not less conspicuous landmark from the Severn, and once served to save
from shipwreck a mariner, named May, just returning from the sea; in
consequence of which, he planted its summit with a clump of trees, and
made provision for keeping them there perpetually. At a little distance
I descried a hamlet, and a Church, which my friend pointed out to me as
_Chozen_, at the same time informing me that it was spelt _Churchdown_.
This is but one of many amusing specimens of the wide variance which
often exists, between the spelling and pronouncing of English proper
names. At Shurdington we paused to visit its pretty Church, surrounded
by a shady field, and found it undergoing entire restoration at the
expense of the curate. Both the restoration, and the munificence of its
promoter, were the rather interesting, as being no uncommon things. Such
proofs of life and godliness are everywhere encountered, at the present
day, in England. I found myself more and more delighted, as we drove on,
with the scenery, and often with the road itself, so beautifully hedged
and shaded, and affording so many points of interest to an observing
eye. Here was the tower of Badgworth Church, and here was Brockworth.
Churches everywhere—and everywhere, upon the face of field and farm,
the tokens of that industry and thrift, of that order and decency, with
which the Church alone can ennoble the aspect of civilization. The same
charm which I had observed in the features of society, and which I had
traced to harmony in religion, appeared to me, here and elsewhere,
transferred in a great degree to the very soil, to its culture, and to
its embellishment. Nature itself seemed to have borrowed a grace, and a
glory, from the holy Faith, of which such monuments were visible at
every turn, in spires and towers peering above the green trees, and
gleaming amid the wide-spread bounties of God, whose adorable name they
seemed to display as the giver of all. As we slowly ascended the slope
of Cooper’s Hill, walking behind our carriage, and surveying the scene
to right and left, with reflections such as these, we heard a note from
the deep foliage of Birdlip Wood, which arrested us, and brought to my
mind many scraps of poetry, such as Logan’s, or Wordsworth’s—
————shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
It was the cuckoo! I had never heard it before, except in wooden
imitation from the perch of a German clock. I shall not soon forget its
effects, upon the still beauty of the hour and the scene, as I heard it
for the first time, in nature’s own sweet modulations and heart-touching
pathos.
Hucklecot new Church we only sighted, but at Upton St. Leonard’s we made
a halt, and visited the Church, the parsonage, and the school. The
Church was a gem of its kind, with interesting monuments and
architectural objects, and had been freshly restored. The schools were
lately built by a munificent lady of rank, and the parsonage was
apparently new; the whole furnishing another instance of what is going
on, almost universally. Passing Robinwood-hill on the left, as we
continued our drive, we soon entered Gloucester, of which the glorious
cathedral tower had long been the conspicuous object in our view.
Here we visited the Church of St. Mary-de-Crypt, (lately restored) where
the admirers of Whitfield would chiefly think of him, and where,
perhaps, he ought to have been more thought of by the Church, and so
saved from the extravagances of his subsequent career. We went also to
see St. Michael’s and St. Mary-de-Lode, (fresh restorations again) and
finally visited the scene of Bishop Hooper’s fiery martyrdom. The death
of Hooper dignifies the otherwise inglorious memory of a prelate who did
not a little to spoil his own work as a reformer, by tampering with
Geneva. And it is curious how much of puritanism he seems to have
bequeathed to his see; Glos’ter having been the proverbial haunt of the
“godlie” in Cromwell’s time, and having bred the zealous evangelist, to
whom I have already alluded as originally illuminating with his
enthusiasm, the cold interior of St. Mary-de-Crypt. Strange, that after
beginning here as a deacon of the Church, he should now lie buried under
a puritan pulpit in New England, having completely revolutionized the
Calvinism of our own country, and entailed upon it the _Convulsionism_
of which it is now expiring. Had the zeal of Whitfield been according to
his knowledge, and had the dormant Hanoverian age, which produced him,
by the law of reaction, only known how to use him, he might have left
behind him some less equivocal fruits of missionary enterprise.
Before speaking of the cathedral, I must allude to our visit to Highnam,
on the other side of the Severn. Here we found a Church, lately erected
entire, at a cost of £30,000, by a single individual—nave, chancel,
tower, and spire complete, and all affording a model of ecclesiastical
art, worthy of standing in the neighbourhood of some of its noblest
originals. To see a Victorian Church, and one thus erected by private
munificence, comparing so favourably with some of the most admired
specimens of the middle ages, not only in general construction, but in
the most elaborate details, was indeed refreshing to the eye and to the
heart. The chancel and altar were especially noteworthy, adorned as they
were with the most delicate sculpture, in Caen stone, and instinct with
the life and beauty of a healthful symbolism. Into the chancel opened a
small sepulchral chapel, which exceedingly interested my feelings, and
warmed my admiration of the whole. Two memorial windows were dedicated,
each to the remembrance of a departed child, and between them stood, in
a niche, the marble bust of their departed mother. Blessed religion of
Jesus, which makes the dead in Christ so dear, and which so beautifies
their memory: which so sanctifies the ties of earth, and so triumphs
over death, in its power to render them eternal! Here was a family nest,
indeed, hung upon the altar of the Lord of Hosts! My eyes glistened as I
read, beneath the lovely effigy of the Christian wife and mother, an
inscription to “Anna Maria Isabella G—— P——; in fulfilment of whose
pious purpose this Church was erected to the glory of God, by her
husband.” Then followed the texts—including an allusion to the
children, as well as their mother—“And they shall be mine in that day
when I make up my jewels:”—“The Lord grant unto them that they may find
mercy of the Lord in that day.” I can scarcely remember anything of the
kind which ever more powerfully touched the springs of Christian
sympathy within me; those sacred springs of the heart, which can never
issue in their fullest flow, till they have been fed by the hallowed
love of the husband and the father.
Returning to the town, I devoted nearly the whole of the remainder of
the afternoon to the cathedral; accompanied most of the time, by the
friend to whom I had owed the pleasures of the day, and to whom I at
last bade a reluctant farewell. I had been greatly benefited, not only
by his intelligent conversation on indifferent topics, but by his
earnestness in those particularly, which Christian priests should
discuss most freely in each other’s company. He left me to the kind
attention of a worthy dignitary of the cathedral, the Rev. Sir John
S——, in the enjoyment of whose polite hospitalities I spent the
evening of this charming day.
The exterior of the cathedral, as seen from every point of vantage, in
neighbouring gardens, or from the solemn seclusion of the surrounding
precincts, was not less striking, in its way, than that of any similar
structure I had yet beheld; but the internal survey was more impressive,
by far, than that of any other, except Westminster Abbey. It is one of
the largest of its class of buildings, and in its different portions,
presents an epitome of pointed art, in its several stages of progress
through a period of five hundred years. Here is the Anglo-Norman nave,
with massive columns, like those of Tewksbury; then comes the choir,
with its rich and delicate elaborations; and then the Lady-Chapel, which
is a little paradise of architecture. The solid crypts beneath, dating
from the tenth century, present a singular instance of groining, in
their square and solid ribs, entirely unadorned; while the cloisters, in
the style of the fifteenth century, seem to have exhausted the skill of
the architect, in the exceeding richness of their tracery, and pendant
vaulting. The very defects of the building seem to have contributed to
its graces, for when I had admired the aerial effect of a slender arch,
springing athwart the transepts and attaching itself to the roof, as if
its solid stone were a mere hanging festoon, I was told that this was,
in fact, a blemish, and had been introduced into the original plan, only
to strengthen the walls. I went into the triforia, and tried the
whispering-gallery, but had no time to amuse myself with such small
experiments, amid so many incentives to a higher employment of my
opportunities. I am sorry that the marvellous beauty of the Lady-Chapel
still demands the hand of a restorer. The “godly” Cromwellians have left
the traces of their hammers on all its carved work, and it is sadly
despoiled. Would that the same skill and taste which reared the Church
at Highnam might be permitted to make this holy place worthy of an
English cathedral! That the English people still suffer these
mother-churches of the nation to remain as too many of them are, is one
of their greatest national disgraces. When they are restored as they
might be, and managed as they should be, then, and not till then, must
they command the unmingled admiration and delight of every intelligent
visitor.
After a thorough inspection of the cathedral, in the broad light of day,
I was kindly invited by Sir John to visit it again, as the day was about
to close. We entered, by his private key, and were alone in the vast and
awful interior. Going into the nave, he said to me, as I paused to
observe the solemn perspective—“Whose bones, do you suppose, are now
beneath your feet?” I stepped aside, as he added, “You are standing on
the grave of Bishop Warburton.” So much wit and genius in the dust! Yet
in what nobler sepulchre could earth to earth be delivered, to await the
resurrection? Hard by, are the monuments of two of the world’s
benefactors; that of Jenner, who poured water upon the flame of the
noisome pestilence, and that of Raikes, who first “gathered the
children” into Sunday Schools. There is another modern monument,
deserving of mention, as one of that purely Anglican type, which tends
to _divinify_ domestic love, and the holy relations of the wife and
mother. A female figure, with a babe, appear in the radiant marble,
invited by angels into Paradise, from the waves of the sea. It is from
the pure chisel of Flaxman, and commemorates one who died in the perils
of childbirth, while encompassed by the perils of the great deep.
Less pleasing, yet even more impressive, was the quaint effigy, in old
carved oak, of Robert, Duke of Normandy, surnamed Curthose. You touch it
and it moves, and you involuntarily start. It is, of course, very light,
and lies upon the tomb so loosely that it is easily disturbed; and then,
it seems as if the old Norman were about to rise and confront you, as an
audacious intruder upon his repose. But how shall I describe the effect
of the marble effigy of poor King Edward the Second, as I saw it, in the
solemn twilight, and in the unbroken silence of the deserted cathedral?
There was that outstretched figure, and that sad outline of a face
composed in death, and hands clasped in resignation; but its dread
appearance was as if imploring God, against the cruel murderers who had
done him such awful violence. I thought of Gray’s sketchy but
descriptive lyric, and muttered to myself:—
“Those shrieks of death through Berkeley’s roofs that ring;
Shrieks of an agonizing king.”
The neighbouring peasant woke at the outcry of the tortured sufferer,
and crossed himself; for he suspected what the devil was doing in the
castle. Here now lies the victim of that horrid regicide, but there is
something in the sculpture of his visage, that reminds the visitor, that
“God shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness.” This powerful
impression lingered with me, as I paced the cloisters, and revived, when
at a late hour of the night I was awakened by the chimes of the
cathedral clock charming the darkness with a solemn tune, and lifting
the thoughts of the listener to communion with his God.