and service at the cathedral commenced at half past ten; so we set out
betimes and found admittance into the vast nave, and thence into the
choir. An attendant ushered S----- and J----- to a seat at a distance
from me, and then gave me a place in one of the stalls where the monks
used to sit or kneel while chanting the services. I think these stalls
are now appropriated to the prebends. They are of carved oaken wood,
much less elaborate and wonderfully wrought than those of Chester
Cathedral, where all was done with head and heart, each a separate
device, instead of cut, by machinery like this. The whole effect of this
carved work, however, lining the choir with its light tracery and
pinnacles, is very fine. The whole choir, from the roof downward, except
the old stones of the outer walls, is of modern renovation, it being but
a few years since this part of the cathedral was destroyed by fire. The
arches and pillars and lofty roof, however, have been well restored; and
there was a vast east window, full of painted glass, which, if it be
modern, is wonderfully chaste and Gothic-like. All the other windows
have painted glass, which does not flare and glare as if newly painted.
But the light, whitewashed aspect of the general interior of the choir
has a cold and dreary effect. There is an enormous organ, all clad in
rich oaken carving, of similar pattern to that of the stalls. It was
communion day, and near the high altar, within a screen, I saw the
glistening of the gold vessels wherewith the services were to be
performed.
The choir was respectably filled with a pretty numerous congregation,
among whom I saw some officers in full dress, with their swords by their
sides, and one, old white-bearded warrior, who sat near me, seemed very
devout at his religious exercises. In front of me and on the
corresponding benches, on the other side of the choir, sat two rows of
white-robed choristers, twenty in all, and these, with some women;
performed the vocal part of the music. It is not good to see musicians,
for they are sometimes coarse and vulgar people, and so the auditor loses
faith in any fine and spiritual tones that they may breathe forth.
The services of Easter Sunday comprehend more than the ordinary quantity
of singing and chanting; at all events, nearly an hour and a half were
thus employed, with some intermixture of prayers and reading of
Scriptures; and, being almost congealed with cold, I thought it would
never come to an end. The spirit of my Puritan ancestors was mighty
within me, and I did not wonder at their being out of patience with all
this mummery, which seemed to me worse than papistry because it was a
corruption of it. At last a canon gave out the text, and preached a
sermon about twenty minutes long,--the coldest, driest, most superficial
rubbish; for this gorgeous setting of the magnificent cathedral, the
elaborate music, and the rich ceremonies seem inevitably to take the life
out of the sermon, which, to be anything, must be all. The Puritans
showed their strength of mind and heart by preferring a sermon an hour
and a half long, into which the preacher put his whole soul, and lopping
away all these externals, into which religious life had first leafed and
flowered, and then petrified.
After the service, while waiting for my wife in the nave, I was accosted
by a young gentleman who seemed to be an American, and whom I have
certainly seen before, but whose name I could not recollect. This, he
said, was his first visit to York, and he was evidently inclined to join
me in viewing the curiosities of the place, but, not knowing his name, I
could not introduce him to my wife, and so made a parting salute.
After dinner, we set forth and took a promenade along the wall,
and a ramble through some of the crooked streets, noting the old,
jutting-storied houses, story above story, and the old churches, gnawed
like a bone by the tooth of Time, till we came suddenly to the Black Swan
before we expected it. . . . I rather fancy that I must have observed
most of the external peculiarities at my former visit, and therefore need
not make another record of them in this journal.
In the course of our walk we saw a procession of about fifty
charity-school boys, in flat caps, each with bands under his chin, and a
green collar to his coat; all looking unjoyous, and as if they had no
home nor parents' love. They turned into a gateway, which closed behind
them; and as the adjoining edifice seemed to be a public institution,--at
least, not private,--we asked what it was, and found it to be a hospital
or residence for Old Maiden ladies, founded by a gentlewoman of York; I
know not whether she herself is of the sisterhood. It must be a very
singular institution, and worthy of intimate study, if it were possible
to make one's way within the portal.
After writing the above, J----- and I went out for another ramble before
tea; and, taking a new course, we came to a grated iron fence and
gateway, through which we could see the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey. They
are very extensive, and situated quite in the midst of the city, and the
wall and then a tower of the Abbey seem to border more than one of the
streets. Our walk was interesting, as it brought us unexpectedly upon
several relics of antiquity,--a loop-holed and battlemented gateway; and
at various points fragments of the old Gothic stone-work, built in among
more recent edifices, which themselves were old; grimness intermixed with
quaintness and grotesqueness; old fragments of religious or warlike
architecture mingled with queer domestic structures,--the general effect
sombre, sordid, and grimy; but yet with a fascination that makes us fain
to linger about such scenes, and come to them again.
We passed round the cathedral, and saw jackdaws fluttering round the
pinnacles, while the bells chimed the quarters, and little children
played on the steps under the grand arch of the entrance. It is very
stately, very beautiful, this minster; and doubtless would be very
satisfactory, could I only know it long and well enough,--so rich as its
front is, even with almost all the niches empty of their statues; not
stern in its effect, which I suppose must be owing to the elaborate
detail with which its great surface is wrought all over, like the chasing
of a lady's jewel-box, and yet so grand! There is a dwelling-house on
one side, gray with antiquity, which has apparently grown out of it like
an excrescence; and though a good-sized edifice, yet the cathedral is so
large that its vastness is not in the least deformed by it. If it be a
dwelling-house, I suppose it is inhabited by the person who takes care of
the cathedral. This morning, while listening to the tedious chanting and
lukewarm sermon, I depreciated the whole affair, cathedral and all; but
now I do more justice, at least to the latter, and am only sorry that its
noble echoes must follow at every syllable, and re-reverberate at the
commas and semicolons, such poor discourses as the canon's. But, after
all, it was the Puritans who made the sermon of such importance in
religious worship as we New-Englanders now consider it; and we are absurd
in considering this magnificent church and all those embroidered
ceremonies only in reference to it.
Before going back to the hotel, I went again up the narrow and twisted
passage of College Street, to take another glance at St. William's
College. I underestimated the projection of the front over the street;
it is considerably more than three feet, and is about eight or nine feet
above the pavement. The little statue of St. William is an alto-relievo
over the arched entrance, and has an escutcheon of arms on each side, all
much defaced. In the interior of the quadrangle, the houses have not
gables nor peaked fronts, but have peaked windows on the red-tiled roofs.
The doorway, opposite the entrance-arch, is rather stately; and on one
side is a large, projecting window, which is said to belong to the room
where the printing-press of Charles I. was established in the days of the
Parliament.