in an hour or two. We put up at the Black Swan, and before tea went out,
on the cool bright edge of evening, to get a glimpse of the cathedral,
which impressed me more grandly than when I first saw it, nearly a year
ago. Indeed, almost any object gains upon me at the second sight. I
have spent the evening in writing up my journal,--an act of real virtue.
After walking round the cathedral, we went up a narrow and crooked
street, very old and shabby, but with an antique house projecting as much
as a yard over the pavement on one side,--a timber house it seemed to be,
plastered over and stained yellow or buff. There was no external door,
affording entrance into this edifice; but about midway of its front we
came to a low, Gothic, stone archway, passing right through the house;
and as it looked much time-worn, and was sculptured with untraceable
devices, we went through. There was an exceedingly antique, battered,
and shattered pair of oaken leaves, which used doubtless to shut up the
passage in former times, and keep it secure; but for the last centuries,
probably, there has been free ingress and egress. Indeed, the portal
arch may never have been closed since the Reformation. Within, we found
a quadrangle, of which the house upon the street formed one side, the
others being composed of ancient houses, with gables in a row, all
looking upon the paved quadrangle, through quaint windows of various
fashion. An elderly, neat, pleasant-looking woman now came in beneath
the arch, and as she had a look of being acquainted here, we asked her
what the place was; and she told us, that in the old Popish times the
prebends of the cathedral used to live here, to keep them from doing
mischief in the town. The establishment, she said, was now called "The
College," and was let in rooms and small tenements to poor people. On
consulting the York Guide, I find that her account was pretty correct;
the house having been founded in Henry VI.'s time, and called St.
William's College, the statue of the patron saint being sculptured over
the arch. It was intended for the residence of the parsons and priests
of the cathedral, who had formerly caused troubles and scandals by living
in the town.
We returned to the front of the cathedral on our way homeward, and an old
man stopped us, to inquire if we had ever seen the Fiddler of York. We
answered in the negative, and said that we had not time to see him now;
but the old gentleman pointed up to the highest pinnacle of the southern
front, where stood the Fiddler of York, one of those Gothic quaintnesses
which blotch the grandeur and solemnity of this and other cathedrals.
April 12th.--This morning was bleak and most ungenial; a chilly sunshine,
a piercing wind, a prevalence of watery cloud,--April weather, without
the tenderness that ought to be half revealed in it. This is