though I found no point from which a good view of the exterior can be
seen.
It has a very beautiful and rich outside, however, and a lofty tower,
very large and ponderous, but so finished off, and adorned with
pinnacles, and all manner of architectural devices,--wherewith these old
builders knew how to alleviate their massive structures,--that it seems
to sit lightly in the air. The porch was open, and some workmen were
trundling barrows into the nave; so I followed, and found two young women
sitting just within the porch, one of whom offered to show me round the
cathedral. There was a great dust in the nave, arising from the
operations of the workmen. They had been laying a new pavement, and
scraping away the plaster, which had heretofore been laid over the
pillars and walls. The pillars come out from the process as good as
new,--great, round, massive columns, not clustered like those of most
cathedrals; they are twenty-one feet in circumference, and support
semicircular arches. I think there are seven of these columns, on each
side of the nave, which did not impress me as very spacious; and the dust
and racket of the work-people quite destroyed the effect which should
have been produced by the aisles and arches; so that I hardly stopped to
glance at this part, though I saw some mural monuments and recumbent
statues along the walls.
The choir is separated from the nave by the usual screen, and now by a
sail-cloth or something of that kind, drawn across, in order to keep out
the dust, while the repairs are going on. When the young woman conducted
me hither, I was at once struck by the magnificent eastern window, the
largest in England, which fills, or looks vast enough to fill, all that
end of the cathedral,--a most splendid window, full of old painted glass,
which looked as bright as sunshine, though the sun was not really shining
through it. The roof of the choir is of oak and very fine, and as much
as ninety feet high. There are chapels opening from the choir, and
within them the monuments of the eminent people who built them, and of
benefactors or prelates, or of those otherwise illustrious in their day.
My recollection of what I saw here is very dim and confused; more so than
I anticipated. I remember somewhere within the choir the tomb of Edward
II. with his effigy upon the top of it, in a long robe, with a crown on
his head, and a ball and sceptre in his hand; likewise, a statue of
Robert, son of the Conqueror, carved in Irish oak and painted. He lolls
in an easy posture on his tomb, with one leg crossed lightly over the
other, to denote that he was a Crusader. There are several monuments of
mitred abbots who formerly presided over the cathedral. A Cavalier and
his wife, with the dress of the period elaborately represented, lie side
by side in excellent preservation; and it is remarkable that though their
noses are very prominent, they have come down from the past without any
wear and tear. The date of the Cavalier's death is 1637, and I think his
statue could not have been sculptured until after the Restoration, else
he and his dame would hardly have come through Cromwell's time unscathed.
Here, as in all the other churches in England, Cromwell is said to have
stabled his horses, and broken the windows, and belabored the old
monuments.
There is one large and beautiful chapel, styled the Lady's Chapel, which
is, indeed, a church by itself, being ninety feet long, and comprising
everything that appertains to a place of worship. Here, too, there are
monuments, and on the floor are many old bricks and tiles, with
inscriptions on them, or Gothic devices, and flat tombstones, with coats
of arms sculptured on them; as, indeed, there are everywhere else, except
in the nave, where the new pavement has obliterated them. After viewing
the choir and the chapels, the young woman led me down into the crypts
below, where the dead persons who are commemorated in the upper regions
were buried. The low ponderous pillars and arches of these crypts are
supposed to be older than the upper portions of the building. They are
about as perfect, I suppose, as when new, but very damp, dreary, and
darksome; and the arches intersect one another so intricately, that, if
the girl had deserted me, I might easily have got lost there. These are
chapels where masses used to be said for the souls of the deceased; and
my guide said that a great many skulls and bones had been dug up here.
No doubt a vast population has been deposited in the course of a thousand
years. I saw two white skulls, in a niche, grinning as skulls always do,
though it is impossible to see the joke. These crypts, or crypts like
these, are doubtless what Congreve calls the "aisles and monumental caves
of Death," in that passage which Dr. Johnson admired so much. They are
very singular,--something like a dark shadow or dismal repetition of the
upper church below ground.
Ascending from the crypts, we went next to the cloisters, which are in a
very perfect state, and form an unbroken square about the green
grass-plot, enclosed within. Here also it is said Cromwell stabled his
horses; but if so, they were remarkably quiet beasts, for tombstones,
which form the pavement, are not broken, nor cracked, nor bear any
hoof-marks. All around the cloisters, too, the stone tracery that shuts
them in like a closed curtain, carefully drawn, remains as it was in the
days of the monks, insomuch that it is not easy to get a glimpse of the
green enclosure. Probably there used to be painted glass in the larger
apertures of this stone-work; otherwise it is perfect. These cloisters
are very different from the free, open, and airy ones of Salisbury; but
they are more in accordance with our notions of monkish habits; and even
at this day, if I were a canon of Gloucester, I would put that dim
ambulatory to a good use. The library is adjacent to the cloisters, and
I saw some rows of folios and quartos. I have nothing else to record
about the cathedral, though if I were to stay there a month, I suppose it
might then begin to be understood. It is wicked to look at these solemn
old churches in a hurry. By the by, it was not built in a hurry; but in
full three hundred years, having been begun in 1188 and only finished in
1498, not a great many years before Papistry began to go out of vogue in
England.
From Gloucester I took the rail for Basingstoke before noon. The first
part of the journey was through an uncommonly beautiful tract of country,
hilly, but not wild; a tender and graceful picturesqueness,--fine, single
trees and clumps of trees, and sometimes wide woods, scattered over the
landscape, and filling the nooks of the hills with luxuriant foliage.
Old villages scattered frequently along our track, looking very peaceful,
with the peace of past ages lingering about them; and a rich, rural
verdure of antique cultivation everywhere. Old country-seats--specimens
of the old English hall or manor-house--appeared on the hillsides, with
park-scenery surrounding the mansions; and the gray churches rose in the
midst of all the little towns. The beauty of English scenery makes me
desperate, it is so impossible to describe it, or in any way to record
its impression, and such a pity to leave it undescribed; and, moreover, I
always feel that I do not get from it a hundredth or a millionth part of
the enjoyment that there really is in it, hurrying past it thus. I was
really glad when we rumbled into a tunnel, piercing for a long distance
through a hill; and, emerging on the other side, we found ourselves in a
comparatively level and uninteresting tract of country, which lasted till
we reached Southampton. English scenery, to be appreciated and to be
reproduced with pen and pencil, requires to be dwelt upon long, and to be
wrought out with the nicest touches. A coarse and hasty brush is not the
instrument for such work.
July 6th.--Monday, June 30th, was a warm and beautiful day, and my wife
and I took a cab from Southampton and drove to