OLD YORK
York, August 12, 1888.--All summer long the sorrowful skies have been
weeping over England, and my first prospect of this ancient city was
a prospect through drizzle and mist. Yet even so it was impressive.
York is one of the quaintest cities in the kingdom. Many of the
streets are narrow and crooked. Most of the buildings are of low
stature, built of brick, and roofed with red tiles. Here and there you
find a house of Queen Elizabeth's time, picturesque with overhanging
timber-crossed fronts and peaked gables. One such house, in Stonegate,
is conspicuously marked with its date, 1574. Another, in College
street, enclosing a quadrangular court and lovely with old timber and
carved gateway, was built by the Neville family in 1460. There is a
wide area in the centre of the town called Parliament street, where
the market is opened, by torchlight, on certain evenings of every
week. It was market-time last evening, and, wandering through the
motley and merry crowd that filled the square, about nine o'clock, I
bought, at a flower-stall, the white rose of York and the red rose of
Lancaster,--twining them together as an emblem of the settled peace
that here broods so sweetly over the venerable relics of a wild and
stormy past.
[Illustration: _Bootham Bar._]
Four sections of the old wall of York are still extant and the
observer is amused to perceive the ingenuity with which those gray and
mouldering remnants of the feudal age are blended into the structures
of the democratic present. From Bootham to Monk Gate,--so named in
honour of General Monk, at the Restoration,--a distance of about half
a mile, the wall is absorbed by the adjacent buildings. But you may
walk upon it from Monk Gate to Jewbury, about a quarter of a mile, and
afterward, crossing the Foss, you may find it again on the southeast
of the city, and walk upon it from Red Tower to old Fishergate,
descending near York Castle. There are houses both within the walls and
without. The walk is about eight feet wide, protected on one hand by a
fretted battlement and on the other by an occasional bit of iron fence.
The base of the wall, for a considerable part of its extent, is fringed
with market gardens or with grassy banks. In one of its towers there is
a gate-house, still occupied as a dwelling; and a comfortable dwelling
no doubt it is. In another, of which nothing now remains but the walls,
four large trees are rooted; and, as they are already tall enough to
wave their leafy tops above the battlement, they must have been growing
there for at least twenty years. At one point the Great Northern
Railway enters through an arch in the ancient wall, and as you look
down from the battlements your gaze rests upon long lines of rail and
a spacious station, together with its adjacent hotel,--objects which
consort but strangely with what your fancy knows of York; a city of
donjons and barbicans, the moat, the draw-bridge, the portcullis, the
citadel, the man-at-arms, and the knight in armour, with the banners of
William the Norman flowing over all.
The river Ouse divides the city of York, which lies mostly upon its
east bank, and in order to reach the longest and most attractive
portion of the wall that is now available to the pedestrian you must
cross the Ouse, either at Skeldergate or Lendal, paying a half-penny
as toll, both when you go and when you return. The walk here is
three-quarters of a mile long, and from an angle of this wall, just
above the railway arch, may be obtained the best view of the mighty
cathedral,--one of the most stupendous and sublime works that ever
were erected by the inspired brain and loving labour of man. While I
walked there last night, and mused upon the story of the Wars of the
Roses, and strove to conjure up the pageants and the horrors that
must have been presented, all about this region, in that remote and
turbulent past, the glorious bells of the minster were chiming from its
towers, while the fresh evening breeze, sweet with the fragrance of wet
flowers and foliage, seemed to flood this ancient, venerable city with
the golden music of a celestial benediction.
[Illustration: _York Cathedral--West Front._]
The pilgrim to York stands in the centre of the largest shire
in England and is surrounded with 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 two hundred and thirty-seven steps, I gazed out over the vale of
York and beheld one of the loveliest spectacles that ever blessed
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 gray 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 reach, stretched forth a smiling landscape of
emerald 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. The prospect is even
finer here than it is from the splendid summit of Strasburg cathedral;
and indeed, when all is said that can be said about natural scenery
and architectural sublimities, it seems amazing that any lover of the
beautiful should deem it necessary to quit the infinite variety of the
British islands. Earth cannot show you anything more softly fair than
the lakes and mountains of Cumberland and Westmoreland. No city can
excel Edinburgh in stately solidity of character, or tranquil grandeur,
or magnificence of position. The most exquisitely beautiful of churches
is Roslin chapel. And though you search the wide world through you will
never find such cathedrals,--so fraught with majesty, sublimity, the
loveliness of human art, and the ecstatic sense of a divine element in
human destiny,--as those of York, Canterbury, Gloucester, and Lincoln.
While thus I lingered in wondering meditation upon the crag-like summit
of York minster, the muffled thunder of its vast, sonorous organ rose,
rolling and throbbing, from the mysterious depth below, and seemed
to shake the great tower as with a mighty blast of jubilation and
worship. At such moments, if ever, when the tones of human adoration
are floating up to heaven, a man is lifted out of himself and made to
forget his puny mortal existence and all the petty nothings that weary
his spirit, darken his vision, and weigh him down to the level of the
sordid, trivial world. Well did they know this,--those old monks who
built the abbeys of Britain, laying their foundations not alone deeply
in the earth but deeply in the human soul!
All the ground that you survey from the top of York minster is classic
ground,--at least to those persons whose imaginations are kindled
by associations with the stately and storied past. In the city that
lies at your feet once stood 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,--for 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 William the Conqueror, in 1068, and destroyed by the explosion
of its powder magazine in 1684. Not far away is the battlefield of
Towton, where the great Warwick slew his horse, that he might fight on
foot and possess no advantage over the common soldiers of his force.
Henry the Sixth and Margaret were waiting in York for news of the event
of that fatal battle,--which, in its effect, made them exiles and bore
to an assured supremacy the rightful standard of the White Rose. In
this church Edward the Fourth was crowned [1464], and Richard the Third
was proclaimed king and had his second coronation. Southward you may
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, still 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 imperilled and well-nigh lost the
cause of Charles the First, in 1644; and as you look toward that fatal
spot you can almost hear, in the chamber of your fancy, the pæans 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 worshippers. Charles also has knelt at this altar. Indeed, 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 worshipped in this cathedral.
[Illustration: _York Cathedral--South Side._]
York minster has often been described, but no description can convey
an adequate impression of its grandeur. Canterbury is the lovelier
cathedral of the two, though not the grander, and Canterbury possesses
the inestimable advantage of a spacious close. It must be said also,
for the city of Canterbury, that the presence and influence of a great
church are more distinctly and delightfully felt in that place than
they are in York. There is a more spiritual tone at Canterbury, a tone
of superior delicacy and refinement, a certain aristocratic coldness
and repose. In York you perceive the coarse spirit of a democratic era.
The walls, that ought to be cherished with scrupulous care, are found
in many places to be ill-used. At intervals along the walks upon the
banks of the Ouse you behold placards requesting the co-operation of
the public in protecting from harm the swans that navigate the river.
Even in the cathedral itself there is displayed a printed notice that
the Dean and Chapter are amazed at disturbances which occur in the
nave while divine service is proceeding in the choir. These things
imply a rough element in the population, and in such a place as York
such an element is exceptionally offensive and deplorable.
It was said by the wise Lord Beaconsfield that progress in the
nineteenth century is found to consist chiefly in a return to ancient
ideas. There may be places to which the characteristic spirit of the
present day contributes an element of beauty; but if so I have not seen
them. Wherever there is beauty there is the living force of tradition
to account for it. The most that a conservative force in society can
accomplish, for the preservation of an instinct in favour of whatever
is beautiful and impressive, is to protect what remains from the
past. Modern Edinburgh, for example, has contributed no building that
is comparable with its glorious old castle, or with Roslin, or with
what we know to have been Melrose or Dryburgh; but its castle and its
chapels are protected and preserved. York, in the present day, erects a
commodious railway-station and a sumptuous hotel, and spans its ample
river with two splendid bridges; but its modern architecture is puerile
beside that of its ancient minster; and so its best work, after all, is
the preservation of its cathedral. The observer finds it difficult to
understand how anybody, however lowly born or poorly endowed or meanly
nurtured, can live within the presence of that heavenly building, and
not be purified and exalted by the contemplation of so much majesty,
and by its constantly irradiative force of religious sentiment and
power. But the spirit which in the past created objects of beauty
and adorned common life with visible manifestations of the celestial
aspiration in human nature had constantly to struggle against
insensibility or violence; and just so the few who have inherited that
spirit in the present day are compelled steadily to combat the hard
materialism and gross animal proclivities of the new age.
[Illustration: _York Cathedral--East Front._]
What a comfort their souls must find in such an edifice as York
minster! What a solace and what an inspiration! There it stands, dark
and lonely to-night, but symbolising, as no other object upon earth
can ever do, except one of its own great kindred, God's promise of
immortal life to man, and man's unquenchable faith in the promise
of God. Dark and lonely now, but during many hours of its daily and
nightly life sentient, eloquent, vital, participating in all the
thought, conduct, and experience of those who dwell around it. The
beautiful peal of its bells that I heard last night was for Canon
Baillie, one of the oldest and most beloved and venerated of its
clergy. This morning, sitting in its choir, I heard the tender,
thoughtful eulogy so simply and sweetly spoken by the aged Dean, and
once again learned the essential lesson that an old age of grace,
patience, and benignity means a pure heart, an unselfish spirit, and a
good life passed in the service of others. This afternoon I had a place
among the worshippers that thronged the nave to hear the special anthem
chanted for the deceased Canon; and, as the organ pealed forth its
mellow thunder, and the rich tones of the choristers swelled and rose
and broke in golden waves of melody upon the groined arches and vaulted
roof, my soul seemed borne away to a peace and rest that are not of
this world. To-night the rising moon as she gleams through drifting
clouds, will pour her silver rays upon that great east window,--at once
the largest and the most beautiful in existence,--and all the Bible
stories told there in such exquisite hues and forms will glow with
heavenly lustre on the dark vista of chancel and nave. And when the
morning comes the first beams of the rising sun will stream through
the great casement and illumine the figures of saints and archbishops,
and gild the old tattered battle-flags in the chancel aisle, and touch
with blessing the marble effigies of the dead; and we who walk there,
refreshed and comforted, shall feel that the vast cathedral is indeed
the gateway to heaven.
York minster is the loftiest of all the English cathedrals, and the
third in length,[11]--both St. Albans and Winchester being longer.
The present structure is six hundred years old, and more than two
hundred years were occupied in the building of it. They show you, in
the crypt, some fine remains of the Norman church that preceded it
upon 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 zigzag
style. There is not much of commemorative statuary at York minster,
and what there is of it was placed chiefly in the chancel. Archbishop
Richard Scrope, who figures in Shakespeare's historical play of _Henry
the Fourth_, and who was beheaded for treason in 1405, was buried in
the lady chapel. Laurence Sterne's grandfather, who was chaplain to
Laud, is represented there, in his ecclesiastical dress, reclining
upon a couch and supporting his mitred head upon his hand,--a squat
figure uncomfortably posed, but sculptured with delicate skill. Many
historic names occur in the inscriptions,--Wentworth, Finch, Fenwick,
Carlisle, and Heneage,--and in the north aisle of the chancel is the
tomb of William of Hatfield, second son of Edward the Third, who died
in 1343-44, in the eighth year of his age. An alabaster statue of
the royal boy reclines upon his tomb. In the cathedral library, which
contains eight thousand volumes and is kept at the Deanery, is the
Princess Elizabeth's prayer-book, containing her autograph. In one of
the chapels is the original throne-chair of Edward the Third.
In St. Leonard's Place still stands the York theatre, erected by
Tate Wilkinson in 1765. In York Castle Eugene Aram was imprisoned
and suffered death. The poet and bishop Beilby Porteus, the sculptor
Flaxman, the grammarian Lindley Murray, and the fanatic Guy Fawkes
were natives of York, and have often walked its streets. Standing on
Skeldergate bridge, few readers of English fiction could fail to recall
that exquisite description of the place, in the novel of _No Name_. In
his artistic use of weather, atmosphere, and colour Wilkie Collins is
always remarkable equally for his fidelity to nature and fact, and for
the felicity and beauty of his language. His portrayal of York seems
more than ever a gem of literary art, when you have seen the veritable
spot of poor Magdalen's meeting with Captain Wragge. The name of Wragge
is on one of the signboards in the city. The river, on which I did not
omit to take a boat, was picturesque, with its many quaint barges,
bearing masts and sails and embellished with touches of green and
crimson and blue. There is no end to the associations and suggestions
of the storied city. But lest my readers weary of them, let me respect
the admonition of the midnight bell, and seek repose beneath the
hospitable wing of the old Black Swan in Coney street, whence I send
this humble memorial of ancient York.