I do not remember any cathedral with so fine a site as this, rising up
out of the centre of a beautiful green, extensive enough to show its full
proportions, relieved and insulated from all other patchwork and
impertinence of rusty edifices. It is of gray stone, and looks as
perfect as when just finished, and with the perfection, too, that could
not have come in less than six centuries of venerableness, with a view to
which these edifices seem to have been built. A new cathedral would lack
the last touch to its beauty and grandeur. It needs to be mellowed and
ripened, like some pictures; although I suppose this awfulness of
antiquity was supplied, in the minds of the generation that built
cathedrals, by the sanctity which they attributed to them. Salisbury
Cathedral is far more beautiful than that of York, the exterior of which
was really disagreeable to my eye; but this mighty spire and these
multitudinous gray pinnacles and towers ascend towards heaven with a kind
of natural beauty, not as if man had contrived them. They might be
fancied to have grown up, just as the spires of a tuft of grass do, at
the same time that they have a law of propriety and regularity among
themselves. The tall spire is of such admirable proportion that it does
not seem gigantic; and indeed the effect of the whole edifice is of
beauty rather than weight and massiveness. Perhaps the bright, balmy
sunshine in which we saw it contributed to give it a tender glory, and to
soften a little its majesty.
When we went in, we heard the organ, the forenoon service being near
conclusion. If I had never seen the interior of York Cathedral, I should
have been quite satisfied, no doubt, with the spaciousness of this nave
and these side aisles, and the height of their arches, and the girth of
these pillars; but with that recollection in my mind they fell a little
short of grandeur. The interior is seen to disadvantage, and in a way
the builder never meant it to be seen; because there is little or no
painted glass, nor any such mystery as it makes, but only a colorless,
common daylight, revealing everything without remorse. There is a
general light hue, moreover, like that of whitewash, over the whole of
the roof and walls of the interior, pillars, monuments, and all; whereas,
originally, every pillar was polished, and the ceiling was ornamented in
brilliant colors, and the light came, many-hued, through the windows, on
all this elaborate beauty, in lieu of which there is nothing now but
space.
Between the pillars that separate the nave from the side aisles, there
are ancient tombs, most of which have recumbent statues on them. One of
these is Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, son of Fair Rosamond, in chain
mail; and there are many other warriors and bishops, and one cross-legged
Crusader, and on one tombstone a recumbent skeleton, which I have
likewise seen in two or three other cathedrals. The pavement of the
aisles and nave is laid in great part with flat tombstones, the
inscriptions on which are half obliterated, and on the walls, especially
in the transepts, there are tablets, among which I saw one to the poet
Bowles, who was a canon of this cathedral. The ecclesiastical
dignitaries bury themselves and monument themselves to the exclusion of
almost everybody else, in these latter times; though still, as of old,
the warrior has his place. A young officer, slain in the Indian wars,
was memorialized by a tablet, and may be remembered by it, six hundred
years hence, as we now remember the old Knights and Crusaders. It
deserves to be mentioned that I saw one or two noses still unbroken among
these recumbent figures. Most of the antique statues, on close
examination, proved to be almost, entirely covered with names and
initials, scratched over the once polished surface. The cathedral and
its relics must have been far less carefully watched, at some former
period, than now.
Between the nave and the choir, as usual, there is a screen that half
destroys the majesty of the building, by abridging the spectator of the
long vista which he might otherwise have of the whole interior at a
glance. We peeped through the barrier, and saw some elaborate monuments
in the chancel beyond; but the doors of the screen are kept locked, so
that the vergers may raise a revenue by showing strangers through the
richest part of the cathedral. By and by one of these vergers came
through the screen, with a gentleman and lady whom he was taking round,
and we joined ourselves to the party. He showed us into the cloisters,
which had long been neglected and ruinous, until the time of Bishop
Dennison, the last prelate, who has been but a few years dead. This
Bishop has repaired and restored the cloisters in faithful adherence to
the original plan; and they now form a most delightful walk about a
pleasant and verdant enclosure, in the centre of which sleeps good Bishop
Dennison, with a wife on either side of him, all three beneath broad flat
stones. Most cloisters are darksome and grim; but these have a broad
paved walk beneath the vista of arches, and are light, airy, and
cheerful; and from one corner you can get the best possible view of the
whole height and beautiful proportion of the cathedral spire. One side
of this cloistered walk seems to be the length of the nave of the
cathedral. There is a square of four such sides; and of places for
meditation, grave, yet not too sombre, it seemed to me one of the best.
While we stayed there, a jackdaw was walking to and fro across the grassy
enclosure, and haunting around the good Bishop's grave. He was clad in
black, and looked like a feathered ecclesiastic; but I know not whether
it were Bishop Dennison's ghost, or that of some old monk.
On one side of the cloisters, and contiguous to the main body of the
cathedral, stands the chapter-house. Bishop Dennison had it much at
heart to repair this part of the holy edifice; and, if I mistake not, did
begin the work; for it had been long ruinous, and in Cromwell's time his
dragoons stationed their horses there. Little progress, however, had
been made in the repairs when the Bishop died; and it was decided to
restore the building in his honor, and by way of monument to him. The
repairs are now nearly completed; and the interior of this chapter-house
gave me the first idea, anywise adequate, of the splendor of these Gothic
church edifices. The roof is sustained by one great central pillar of
polished marble,--small pillars clustered about a great central column,
which rises to the ceiling, and there gushes out with various beauty,
that overflows all the walls; as if the fluid idea had sprung out of that
fountain, and grown solid in what we see. The pavement is elaborately
ornamented; the ceiling is to be brilliantly gilded and painted, as it
was of yore, and the tracery and sculptures around the walls are to be
faithfully renewed from what remains of the original patterns.
After viewing the chapter-house, the verger--an elderly man of grave,
benign manner, clad in black and talking of the cathedral and the
monuments as if he loved them--led us again into the nave of the
cathedral, and thence within the screen of the choir. The screen is as
poor as possible,--mere barren wood-work, without the least attempt at
beauty. In the chancel there are some meagre patches of old glass, and
some of modern date, not very well worth looking at. We saw several
interesting monuments in this part of the cathedral,--one belonging to
the ducal family of Somerset, and erected in the reign of James I.; it is
of marble, and extremely splendid and elaborate, with kneeling figures
and all manner of magnificence,--more than I have seen in any monument
except that of Mary of Scotland in Westminster Abbey. The more ancient
tombs are also very numerous, and among them that of the Bishop who
founded the cathedral. Within the screen, against the wall, is erected a
monument, by Chantrey, to the Earl of Malmesbury; a full-length statue of
the Earl in a half-recumbent position, holding an open volume and looking
upward,--a noble work,--a calm, wise, thoughtful, firm, and not
unbenignant face. Beholding its expression, it really was impossible not
to have faith in the high character of the individual thus represented;
and I have seldom felt this effect from any monumental bust or statue,
though I presume it is always aimed at.
I am weary of trying to describe cathedrals. It is utterly useless;
there is no possibility of giving the general effect, or any shadow of
it, and it is miserable to put down a few items of tombstones, and a bit
of glass from a painted window, as if the gloom and glory of the edifice
were thus to be reproduced. Cathedrals are almost the only things (if
even those) that have quite filled out my ideal here in this old world;
and cathedrals often make me miserable from my inadequacy to take them
wholly in; and, above all, I despise myself when I sit down to describe
them.
We now walked around the Close, which is surrounded by some of the
quaintest and comfortablest ecclesiastical residences that can be
imagined. These are the dwelling-houses of the Dean and the canons, and
whatever other high officers compose the Bishop's staff; and there was
one large brick mansion, old, but not so ancient as the rest, which we
took to be the Bishop's palace. I never beheld anything--I must say
again so cosey, so indicative of domestic comfort for whole centuries
together,--houses so fit to live in or to die in, and where it would be
so pleasant to lead a young wife beneath the antique portal, and dwell
with her till husband and wife were patriarchal,--as these delectable old
houses. They belong naturally to the cathedral, and have a necessary
relation to it, and its sanctity is somehow thrown over them all, so that
they do not quite belong to this world, though they look full to
overflowing of whatever earthly things are good for man. These are
places, however, in which mankind makes no progress; the rushing tumult
of human life here subsides into a deep, quiet pool, with perhaps a
gentle circular eddy, but no onward movement. The same identical
thought, I suppose, goes round in a slow whirl from one generation to
another, as I have seen a withered leaf do in the vortex of a brook. In
the front of the cathedral there is a most stately and beautiful tree,
which flings its verdure upward to a very lofty height; but far above it
rises the tall spire, dwarfing the great tree by comparison.
When the cathedral had sufficiently oppressed us with its beauty, we
returned to sublunary matters, and went wandering about Salisbury in
search of a luncheon, which we finally took in a confectioner's shop.
Then we inquired hither and thither, at various livery-stables, for a
conveyance to Stonehenge, and at last took a fly from the Lamb Hotel.
The drive was over a turnpike for the first seven miles, over a bare,
ridgy country, showing little to interest us. We passed a party of seven
or eight men, in a coarse uniform dress, resembling that worn by convicts
and apparently under the guardianship of a stout, authoritative, yet
rather kindly-looking man with a cane. Our driver said that they were
lunatics from a neighboring asylum, out for a walk.
Seven miles from Salisbury, we turned aside from the turnpike, and drove
two miles across Salisbury Plain, which is an apparently boundless extent
of unenclosed land, treeless and houseless. It is not exactly a plain,
but a green sea of long and gentle swells and subsidences, affording
views of miles upon miles to a very far horizon. We passed large flocks
of sheep, with the shepherds watching them; but the dogs seemed to take
most of the care of the flocks upon their own shoulders, and would
scamper to turn the sheep when they inclined to stray whither they should
not; and then arose a thousand-fold bleating, not unpleasant to the ear;
for it did not apparently indicate any fear or discomfort on the part of
the flock. The sheep and lambs are all black-faced, and have a very
funny expression. As we drove over the plain (my seat was beside the
driver), I saw at a distance a cluster of large gray stones, mostly
standing upright, and some of them slightly inclined towards each other,
--very irregular, and so far off forming no very picturesque or
noteworthy spectacle. Of course I knew at once that this was