I know not what rank the Cathedral of Lichfield holds among its sister
edifices in England, as a piece of magnificent architecture. Except that
of Chester (the grim and simple nave of which stands yet unrivaled in my
memory), and one or two small ones in North Wales, hardly worthy of the
name of cathedrals, it was the first that I had seen. To my uninstructed
vision, it seemed the object best worth gazing at in the whole world; and
now, after beholding a great many more, I remember it with less prodigal
admiration only because others are as magnificent as itself. The traces
remaining in my memory represent it as airy rather than massive. A
multitude of beautiful shapes appeared to be comprehended within its
single outline; it was a kind of kaleidoscopic mystery, so rich a variety
of aspects did it assume from each altered point of view, through the
presentation of a different face, and the rearrangement of its peaks and
pinnacles and the three battlemented towers, with the spires that shot
heavenward from all three, but one loftier than its fellows.
Thus it imprest you, at every change, as a newly created structure of the
passing moment, in which yet you lovingly recognized the half-vanished
structure of the instant before, and felt, moreover, a joyful faith in the
indestructible existence of all this cloudlike vicissitude. A Gothic
cathedral is surely the most wonderful work which mortal man has yet
achieved, so vast, so intricate, and so profoundly simple, with such
strange, delightful recesses in its grand figure, so difficult to
comprehend within one idea, and yet all so consonant that it ultimately
draws the beholder and his universe into its harmony. It is the only thing
in the world that is vast enough and rich enough.
Inside of the minster there is a long and lofty nave, transepts of the
same height, and side-aisles and chapels, dim nooks of holiness, where in
Catholic times the lamps were continually burning before the richly
decorated shrines of saints. In the audacity of my ignorance, as I humbly
acknowledge it to have been, I criticized this great interior as too much
broken into compartments, and shorn of half its rightful impressiveness by
the interposition of a screen betwixt the nave and chancel. It did not
spread itself in breadth, but ascended to the roof in lofty narrowness.
A great deal of white marble decorates the old stonework of the aisles, in
the shape of altars, obelisks, sarcophagi, and busts. Most of these
memorials are commemorative of people locally distinguished, especially
the deans and canons of the cathedral, with their relatives and families;
and I found but two monuments of personages whom I had ever heard of--one
being Gilbert Walmesley, and the other Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a
literary acquaintance of my boyhood. It was really pleasant to meet her
there; for after a friend has lain in the grave far into the second
century, she would be unreasonable to require any melancholy emotions in a
chance interview at her tombstone. It adds a rich charm to sacred
edifices, this time-honored custom of burial in churches, after a few
years, at least, when the mortal remains have turned to dust beneath the
pavement, and the quaint devices and inscriptions still speak to you
above....
A large space in the immediate neighborhood of the cathedral is called the
Close, and comprises beautifully kept lawns and a shadowy walk, bordered
by the dwellings of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the diocese. All
this row of episcopal, canonical, and clerical residences has an air of
the deepest quiet, repose, and well-protected, tho not inaccessible
seclusion. They seemed capable of including everything that a saint could
desire, and a great many more things than most of us sinners generally
succeed in acquiring. Their most marked feature is a dignified comfort,
looking as if no disturbance or vulgar intrusiveness could ever cross
their thresholds, encroach upon their ornamented lawns, or straggle into
the beautiful gardens that surround them with flower-beds and rich clumps
of shrubbery. The episcopal palace is a stately mansion of stone, built
somewhat in the Italian style, and bearing on its front the figures of
1687, as the date of its erection. A large edifice of brick, which, if I
remember, stood next to the palace, I took to be the residence of the
second dignitary of the cathedral; and in that case it must have been the
youthful home of Addison, whose father was Dean of Lichfield. I tried to
fancy his figure on the delightful walk that extends in front of those
priestly abodes, from which and the interior lawns it is separated by an
open-work iron fence, lined with rich old shrubbery, and overarched by a
minster-aisle of venerable trees.