On entering the cathedral enclosure on its north side from High Street,
you are at once struck with the venerable majesty and antique beauty of
the fine old pile before you, and with the sacred quietude of the
enclosure itself. In the heart of this tranquil city it has yet a deeper
tranquillity of its own. Its numerous tombs and headstones, scattered over
its greensward, and its lofty avenues of limetrees, seem to give you a
peaceful welcome to the Christian fame and resting-place of so many
generations. If you enter at the central passage, you tread at once on the
eastern foundations of the Conqueror's palace, and pass close to the spot
on which formerly rose the western towers of Alfred's Newan Mynstre, and
where lay his remains, after having been removed from the old mynstre,
till Hyde Abbey was built.
It is impossible to walk over this ground, now so peaceful, without
calling to mind what scenes of havoc and blood, of triumph and
ecclesiastical pomp, it has witnessed--the butchery of the persecution of
Diocletian, when the Christians fell here by thousands; the repeated
massacres and conflagrations of the Danes; the crowning of Saxon and of
English kings; the proud processions of kings and queens, nobles, mitered
prelates, friars, and monks, to offer thanksgivings for victory, or
penance for sins, from age to age; and, finally, the stern visitation of
the Reformers and the Cromwellian troopers.
The venerable minster itself bears on its aspect the testimonies of its
own antiquity. The short and massy tower in the center, the work of Bishop
Walkelin, the cousin of the Conqueror, has the very look of that distant
age, and, to eyes accustomed to the lofty and rich towers of some of our
cathedrals, has an air of meanness. Many people tell you that it never was
finished; but besides that there is no more reason that the tower should
remain unfinished through so many centuries than any other part of the
building, we know that it was the character of the time, of which the
tower of the Norman church of St. Cross affords another instance just at
hand. In fact, the spire was then unknown.
Having arrived at the west front, we can not avoid pausing to survey the
beauty of its workmanship--that of the great William of Wykeham; its great
central doorway, with its two smaller side-doors; the fretted gallery over
it, where the bishop in his pontificals was wont to stand and bless the
people, or absolve them from the censures of the church; its noble window,
rich with perpendicular tracery; its two slender lantern turrets; its
crowning tabernacle, with its statue of the builder; and its pinnacled
side aisles.
I must confess that of all the cathedrals which I have entered, none gave
me such a sensation of surprize and pleasure. The loftiness, the space,
the vast length of the whole unbroken roof above, I believe not exceeded
by any other in England; the two rows of lofty clustered pillars; the
branching aisles, with their again branching and crossing tracery; the
long line of the vaulted roof, embossed with armorial escutcheons and
religious devices of gorgeous coloring; the richly painted windows; and,
below, the carved chantries and mural monuments, seen amid the tempered
light; and the sober yet delicate hue of the Portland stone, with which
the whole noble fabric is lined, produce a tout ensemble of sublime
loveliness which is not easily to be rivaled....
But we have made the circuit of the church without beholding the choir,
and we must not quit its precincts without entering there. Ascending the
flight of steps which lead to it, we front that elegant screen with which
modern good taste has replaced the screen of Inigo Jones, who, blind to
all the beauty of the Gothic architecture, not only placed here a Grecian
screen, but also affixt a Grecian bishop's throne to the beautiful Gothic
canopy-work of the choir. In the niches of this screen are two bronze
statues of James I and Charles I.
We are now on the spot of the ancient rood-loft, where formerly stood the
great rood, or crucifix, with the attendant figures of the Virgin and St.
John, of vast size and value, being of silver, which were bequeathed to
the minster by the notorious Archbishop Stigand, before the Conquest. As
we enter the choir through the door in the screen, we are struck with the
great beauty of the place. Around us rises the rich dark woodwork of the
stalls, contrasting well with the pale delicacy of the walls above.
Overhead is seen to swell the fine vault of the roof, with its rich
tracery, and its central line, and orbs at the junction of its timbers,
embossed with bold armorial shields of the houses of Tudor, Lancaster, and
Castile, as united in John of Gaunt and Beaufort, with those of various
episcopal sees, and stretching on to the splendid east window in that
direction, emblazoned with "the several implements of our Savior's
Passion--the cross, crown of thorns, nails, hammer, pillar, scourges,
reed, sponge, lance, sword, with the ear of Malchus upon it, lantern,
ladder, cock, and dice; also the faces of Pilate and his wife, of the
Jewish high priest, with a great many others, too numerous to be
described, but worthy of notice for the ingenuity of design," and the
richness of their tints. They are, indeed, emblazoned in the most gorgeous
colors--scarlet, blue and gold; and, to a fanciful eye, may resemble, many
of them, huge sacred beetles of lordly shapes and hues.
On each side rise up, into the very roof, the tall pointed windows glowing
with figures of saints, prophets, and apostles, who seem to be ranged on
either hand, in audience of the divine persons in the great east
window--the Savior and the Virgin, with apostles and other saints. But
what is the most striking to the eye and mind of the spectator is to
behold, on the floor of the sanctuary before him, a plain beveled stone of
dark marble--the tomb of William Rufus; and arranged on the top of the
beautiful stone partitions on each side of the sanctuary, dividing it from
the aisles, are six mortuary chests, three on a side, containing the bones
of many of the most eminent Saxon princes. The bones which, from the
repeated rebuildings and alterings of the cathedral, must have been in
danger of being disturbed, and the places of their burial rendered
obscure, or lost altogether, Bishop de Blois, in the twelfth century,
collected and placed in coffins of lead over the Holy Hole. At the
rebuilding of the choir, as it was necessary again to remove them, Bishop
Fox had them deposited in these chests, and placed in this situation. The
chests are carved, gilt, and surmounted with crowns, with the names and
epitaphs, in Latin verse and black letter, inscribed upon them.
But if we had quitted Winchester Cathedral without paying a visit to the
grave of one of the best and most cheerful-hearted old men who lie in it,
we should have committed a great fault. No, we stood on the stone in the
floor of Prior Silkstede's chapel in the old Norman south transept, which
is inscribed with the name of Izaak Walton. There lies that prince of
fishermen, who, when Milner wrote his history of this city, was so little
thought of that he is not once mentioned in the whole huge quarto!
WELLS [Footnote: From "Old England: Its Scenery, Art and People."
Published by Houghton, Mifflin Co.]