all the story of the warrior and the lover--in the fort so nakedly
grim without and the palace so richly voluptuous within. Under the
brow of the sheer sandstone walls you are dwarfed to a pigmy. Before
and beneath the great gateway stands a double curtain of loophole and
machicolation and tower: you go in through cavernous guard-houses,
up a ramp between sky-closing walls. Only thus do you reach the
real entrance--the great Elephant Gate--two jutting octagon towers
supporting spacious chambers thrown across the passage. On the lower
storey all is closed, and only white plaster designs relieve the
savage masses of the sandstone; in the upper balconies are windows and
recesses, all decked with white, and above all runs a gallery crowned
with cupolas.
Under this arch you go, a dome above, deep and lofty recesses on either
hand; now you are past the sternness. Shah Jehan is soldier no longer
but artist and amorist at large. You come to the Pearl Mosque. There
is a Pearl Mosque at Delhi, sandstone slabs without, marble within,
as this is; but the Delhi mosque is a bauble to this. This is a broad
court, paved with slabs of marble, veined with white and blue, gray
and yellow. This is all marble--marble walls with moulded panels,
marble cloisters of multifoliate arches, marble gateways breaking three
walls of the square, marble columns supporting bell-cupolas above
them and at each corner, a marble basin in the centre of the court,
a marble sundial beside it. Along the west side of the court shines
the glorious face of the mosque itself--only a roofed quarter of the
whole space, a mere portico, but colonnaded with three rows of seven
pillars apiece, each branching to right and left, to front and back,
with eight-pointed, nine-leaved arches. Along the entablature above
runs a Persian inscription in mosaic of black marble; on the roof, over
each pillar of the front row is a cupola with four columns, and at each
corner a cupola with eight columns. Three domes fold their broad white
wings behind and above all.
Three steps for the mullah to preach from, and that is all the
catalogue. No altar or shrine or image: there is no god but God. No
carving or lattice-work: but the simple pillars and arches, the few
cupolas and domes, are yet the richest of ornamentation. No paint or
gems--only the clear harmonious veining of the marble. Only space
and proportion, form and whispers of colour--and it is so beautiful
that you can hardly breathe for rapture. The radiant marble ripples
from shade to shade--snow-white, pearl-white, ivory-white--till it
seems half alive. The bells and pinnacles are so light that they seem
to float in the air. It cannot be a building, you whisper: it is
enchantment.
But now go on to the palace. It has been battered and sacked--the
Jats of Bhurtpur carried away the precious stones from the walls; but
through the restorations you can dream of some of its delights when it
held the houris of Shah Jehan. Dream this and it is all enchantment;
you have arrived at last--at last, after so many years, after so many
leagues--in the dear country of your earliest dreams, and the Arabian
nights are come to life. Under this pillared hall the ambassadors
of Shiraz and Samarkand are making their obeisance and displaying
rich gifts. Above, in the marble alcove festooned with flowers and
tendrils in pietra dura, reclines the Sultan of the Indies on a couch
of white marble. Up the stairs--and here, enclosed by a colonnade of
two storeys, is the fish-pond; on the upper terrace under that canopy,
which is one block of creamy marble embossed with flowers, sits the
lovely favourite Schemselnihar, and makes believe to angle. She rises
and follows the other lights of the harem into the little square court
and portico that miniature the great Pearl Mosque without. But some of
the beauties turn aside to the gallery, where, below, is an enclosed
bazaar; handsome young merchants of Baghdad tempt them with silks and
brocades--and with looks that sigh and languish. They had best be
prudent: eyes as fathomless as theirs have grown dim in the dungeons
under the terraces, below the water. From lust to cruelty is only a
step; and when the Sultan raised the marble and the gems he sank the
dungeon, remote in a labyrinth of tunnels. Across it is a beam with a
noose for soft necks and a shoot for frail bodies that tumbles them
into the Jumna.
The Sultan has risen from his audience: he walks round the terrace,
through the delicious Hall of Private Audience, whose walls are marble,
whose pillars are festooned with creepers in agate and jasper, jade and
cornelian, whose ends are profound and graceful recesses, half-arch,
half-dome. He passes to the heavy slab of the black marble throne on
the riverside brink of the quadrangle; in the pit below they let out
buffaloes and tigers to fight before him; on the white seat behind him
sits the court jester to make him merry.
And now--it is the full moon that rises from an arch of the pavilion
to the right--the full moon, though it is still broad day? It is the
Sultaness-in-Chief looking out at the fight from her abode in the
Jasmine Tower. She has grown tired of throwing the dice, while her
handmaidens stand for pieces on the pachisi-board that is let into
her marble pavement--there, behind those duenna screens, the gauze
of lattice-work that encloses her courtyard. She has grown tired of
dabbling in the fountain that tinkles on the shallow basin of figured
marble, weary of her bower of marble inlaid with gems. The Sultan
rises, and it is the signal for the bath--the bath in the dark Mirror
Palace, lighted with a score of flambeaux and walled with a million
tiny mirrors, that reflect.... No; we must not think of it--nor of the
feast in the Private Palace, under the ceiling emblazoned with blue
and crimson and gold--nor yet of the disrobing in the Golden Pavilion,
where the ladies thrust their jewels into holes in the wall too narrow
for a man’s arm to follow them.... No; you should not listen to what
the Jester is saying now.
But if you envy Shah Jehan, look again later into the tiny Gem Mosque
and the cupboard at the side, too small to turn in, where he is the
uncrowned prisoner of his son. No Mirror Palace now; the ceiling is
black where they heat the water for his bath, in a hole of a cistern
where he cannot stretch out his limbs. Look again into the little
gilt-domed cupola, where he lies dying, and Jehanara’s voice sounds
suddenly far away; and the very Taj, though he knows every angle and
curve of it, swims in a grey-white blur; and nothing is left clear
save the voice and face of the beautiful Persian, Arjmand Banu, whose
palankeen followed all his campaigns in the days when empire was still
a-winning, whose children called him father--Arjmand Banu, silent and
unseen now for four-and-thirty years, the wife of his youth.
Now follow him to the Taj. Under the great gateway of strong sandstone
ribbed with delicate marble, its vaulted red arch cobwebbed with white
threads, and then before you--then the miracle of miracles, the final
wonder of the world. In chaste majesty it stands suddenly before you,
as if the magical word had called it this moment out of the earth.
On a white marble platform it stands exactly four-square, but that
the angles are cut off; nothing so rude as a corner could find place
in its soft harmonies. Seen through the avenue, it looks high rather
than broad; seen from the pavement below it, it looks broad rather
than high; you doubt, then conclude that its proportions are perfect.
Above its centre rises a full white dome, at each corner of whose base
nestles a smaller dome, upheld on eight arches. The centre of each face
is a lofty-headed gateway rising above the line of the roof; within
it is again a pointed caving recess, half arch, half dome; within
this, again, a screen of latticed marble. On each flank of these,
and on the facets of the cut-off angles, are pairs of smaller, blind
recesses of the same design, one above the other. From each junction
of facets rises a slim pinnacle. Everywhere it is embellished with
elaborate profusion. Moulding, sculpture, inlaid frets and scrolls
of coloured marbles, twining branches and garlands of jade and agate
and cornelian--here is every point of lavish splendour you saw in the
palace combined in one supreme embodiment--superb dignity matched with
graceful richness.
But it is vain to flounder amid epithets; the man who should describe
the Taj must own genius equal to his who built it. Description halts
between its mass and its fineness. It makes you giddy to look up at it,
yet it is so delicate you feel that a brick would lay it in shivers at
your feet. It is a rock temple and a Chinese casket together--a giant
gem.
Nothing jars; for if the jewel were away the setting would still be
among the noblest monuments on earth. The minarets at the four corners
of the platform are a moment’s stumbling-block: they look irreverently
like the military masts of a battleship, and the hard lines where
the stones join remind you of a London subway. But look at the Taj
itself, and the minarets fall instantly into place; they set off its
glories, and, standing like acolytes, seem to be challenging you not
to worship it. At each side, below the Taj, is a triple-domed building
of sandstone and marble; the hot red throws up the pearl-and-ivory
softness of the Taj. The cloisters round the garden, the lordly
caravanserai outside the gate, the clustering domes and mosaic texts
from the Koran on the great gate itself--all this you hardly notice;
but when you do, you find that every point is perfection. As for
the garden, with shady trees of every hue, from sprightly yellow to
funereal cypress, with purple blossoms cascading from the topmost
boughs, with roses and lilies, phloxes and carnations--and the channel
of clear water with twenty fountains that runs through the garden, and
the basin with the goldfish.... It is pure Arabian Nights! You listen
for the speaking bird and the singing tree. And was it not hither
that Prince Ahmed, leaving his brother Ali to cuddle Nuronnihar in the
palace, followed his arrow? And is not that the fairy Peri-Banu coming
out of the pleasure-house to welcome him? Surely man never made such
a Paradise: it must be the fabric of a dream wafted through gates of
silver and opal.
O Shah Jehan, Shah Jehan, you are bewitching a respectable
newspaper-correspondent. The thought of you is strong wine. Shah Jehan,
with your queens and concubines without number, their amber feet
mirrored in marble, their ivory limbs mirrored in quicksilver; Shah
Jehan, who starved them in the black oubliettes, and hung them from the
mouldy beam, and sluiced their beautiful bodies into the cold river;
Shah Jehan, with elephants and peacocks; Shah Jehan, returning from the
conquered Dekhan, dismounting in the Armoury Square, hastening through
the Grape Garden, hastening past the fair ones in the Golden Pavilion
to the fairest within the Jasmine Tower!
Shah Jehan--Grape Garden--Golden Pavilion--Jasmine Tower--there is
dizzy magic in the very names. And when I turn aside in your garden,
shunning your fierce black-and-scarlet petals to bring back my senses
with English stocks and pansies, the sight of your Taj through the
trees sends my brain areel again. I go in and stand by your tomb. The
jewel-creepers blossom more luxuriantly than ever in the trellised
screen that encloses it, and the two oblong cenotaphs are embowered in
gems. But here it is dark and cool: light comes in only through double
lattices of feathery marble. You look up into a dome, obscure and
mysterious, but mightily expansive, as it were the vault of the heaven
of the dead. It is very well; it is the fit close. In this breathless
twilight, after his battles and buildings, his ecstasies and torments,
his love and his loss, Shah Jehan has come to his own again for ever.
THE PRIORY AND CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW
CHARLES KNIGHT
Of all the persons whom the mighty business of providing sustenance for
the population of London leads among the pens, and crowds, and filth
of the great Metropolitan beast-market--of all those whom pleasure
attracts to the gingerbread and shows, and gong-resounding din of the
great Fair--or, lastly, of all those whom chance, or a dim remembrance
of the popular memories of the place, its burnings, tournaments, etc.,
or any other motive, brings into Smithfield--we wonder how many, as
they pass the south-western corner of the area, look through the
ancient gateway which leads up to the still more ancient church of St.
Bartholomew, with a kindly remembrance of the man (whose ashes there
repose) from whom these, and most of the other interesting features and
recollections of Smithfield, are directly or indirectly derived? We
fear very few. Time has wrought strange changes in the scene around;
and it is not at all surprising that we should forget what has ceased
to be readily visible. Who could suppose, from a mere hasty glance at
the comparatively mean-looking brick tower, and the narrow restricted
site of St. Bartholomew, that that very edifice was once the centre
only, of the splendid church of a splendid monastery--a church which
extended its spacious transepts on either side, and sent up a noble
tower high up into the air, to overlook, and, as it were, to guard, the
stately halls, far-extending cloisters, and delightful gardens that
surrounded the sacred edifice? Or, again, who would suspect that the
site of this extensive establishment (now in a great measure covered
with houses), and most probably the entire space of Smithfield, was,
prior to the foundation of the former, nothing but a marsh “dunge and
fenny,” with the exception of a solitary spot of dry land, occupied
by the travellers’ token of civilization, a gallows? Yet such are the
changes that have taken place, and for all that is valuable in them our
gratitude is due to the one man to whom we have referred--Rahere.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW, ENGLAND.]
The history of the Priory is indeed the history of this singular
individual; and, by a fortunate coincidence, the historical materials
we possess are as ample as they are important. Among the manuscripts of
the British Museum is one entirely devoted to the life, character, and
doings of Rahere, written evidently shortly after his death by a monk
of the establishment, and which, for the details it also gives of the
circumstances attending the establishment of a great religious house
in the Twelfth Century, its glimpses into the manners and customs,
the modes of thought and feeling of the time--and, above all, for its
marked superiority of style to the writings that then generally issued
from the cloister--forms one of the most extraordinary, as it certainly
is one of the most interesting, of monastical documents.
Rahere, it appears, was a “man sprung and born from low _kynage_:
when he attained the flower of youth, he began to haunt the households
of noblemen and the palaces of princes; where under every elbow of
them, he spread their cushions with japes and flatterings, delectably
anointing their eyes, by this manner to draw to him their friendships.
And he still was not content with this, but often haunted the King’s
palace, and among the noiseful press of that tumultuous court informed
himself with polity and cardinal suavity, by the which he might draw
to him the hearts of many a one. There in spectacles, in meetings,
in plays, and other courtly mockeries and trifles intruding, he
led forth the business of all the day. This wise to the King and
great men, gentle and courteous known, familiar and fellowly he
was.” The King here referred to is Henry I. Stow says Rahere was
“a pleasant-witted gentleman; and therefore in his time called the
_king’s minstrel_.” To continue: “This manner of living he chose
in his beginning, and in this excused his youth. But the _inward
Seer_ and merciful God of all, the which out of Mary Magdalen cast
out seven fiends, the which to the Fisher gave the Keys of Heaven,
mercifully converted this man from the error of his way, and added to
him so many gifts of virtue.” Foremost in repentance as he had been in
sin, Rahere now “decreed himself to go to the court of Rome, coveting
in so great a labour to do the works of penance. And while he tarried
there, in that meanwhile, he began to be vexed with grievous sickness;
and his dolours little and little taking their increase, he drew to the
extreme of life. He avowed that if health God would him grant, that he
might return to his country, he would make an hospital in recreation
of poor men, and to them there so gathered, necessaries minister after
his power.” And not long after the benign and merciful Lord beheld this
weeping man, gave him his health, approved his vow.
When he would perfect his way that he had begun, in a certain night he
saw a vision full of dread and sweetness. It seemed to him to be borne
up on high of a certain beast, having four feet and two wings, and set
him in a high place. To whom appeared a certain man, pretending in
cheer the majesty of a king, of great beauty and imperial authority,
and his eye on him fastened. “O man,” he said, “what and how much
service shouldest thou give to him that in so great a peril hath
brought help to thee?” Anon he answered to this saint, “Whatsoever
might be of heart and of might diligently should I give in recompence
to my deliverer.” And then, said he, “I am Bartholomew, the apostle of
Jesus Christ, that come to succour thee in thine anguish and to open
to thee the secret mysteries of Heaven. Know me truly, by the will
and commandment of the Holy Trinity _and the common favour of the
celestial court and council_, to have chosen a place in the suburbs
of London, at Smithfield, where in my name thou shalt found a church.”
A man like this could not but succeed in whatever he essayed; and
accordingly the work “prosperously succeeded, and after the Apostle’s
word all necessaries flowed unto the hand. The church he made of
comely stonework, tablewise. And an hospital-house, a little longer
off from the church by himself he began to edify. The church was
founded (as we have taken of our elders) in the month of March, 1113.
President in the Church of England, William, Archbishop of Canterbury,
and Richard, Bishop of London;” who “of due law and right,” hallowed
a part of the adjoining field as a cemetery. “Clerks to live under
regular institution were brought together, and Rahere, of course, was
appointed Prior, who ministered unto his fellows necessaries, not of
certain rents, but plenteously of oblations of faithful people.” The
completion of the work, under such circumstances, evidently excited
a large amount of wonder and admiration, not unmixed with a kind of
superstitious awe. In 1410, during the prelacy perhaps of brother John
the Priory was rebuilt. At this time, and perhaps before, it possessed
within itself every possible convenience for the solace and comfort
of its inmates. We read of Le Fermery, Le Dorter, Le Frater, Les
Cloysters, Les Galleries, Le Hall, Le Kitchen, Le Buttry, Le Pantry,
Le olde Kitchen, Le Woodehouse, Le Garnier, and Le Prior’s Stable,
so late as the period of the dissolution in the Sixteenth Century.
There was also the Prior’s house, the Mulberry-garden, the Chapel now
the Church of St. Bartholomew the Less, etc., etc. It was entirely
enclosed within walls, the boundaries of which have been carefully
traced in the _Londini Illustrata_, and for which we abbreviate
the following description:--The north wall ran from Smithfield, along
the south side of Long Lane, to its junction with the east wall, about
thirty yards west from Aldersgate Street. It is mentioned by Stow, and
shown in Aggas’ plan, who represents a small gate or postern in it.
This gate stood immediately opposite Charter House Lane, where is now
the entrance into King Street or Cloth Fair. The west wall commenced
at the south-west corner of Long Lane, and continued along Smithfield,
and the middle of Duc Lane (or Duke Street) to the south gate, or
Great Gate House, now the principal entrance into Bartholomew Close.
The south wall, commencing from this gate, ran eastward in a direct
line towards Aldersgate Street, where it formed an angle and passed
southward about forty yards, enclosing the site of the present Alboin
Buildings, then resumed its eastern direction and joined the corner of
the eastern wall, which ran parallel with Aldersgate Street, at the
distance of about twenty-six yards. This wall was fronted for the most
part by houses in the street just mentioned, some of them large and
magnificent, particularly London House, between which and the wall was
a ditch. At first there were no houses in the immediate neighbourhood;
but the establishment of the monastery, and the fair granted to it,
speedily caused a considerable population to spring up all around, and
ultimately within. This grant was obtained from Henry II. The fair was
to be kept at Bartholomew tide for three days, namely, the eve, the
next day, and the morrow; and unto it “the clothiers of England and the
drapers of London repaired, and had their booths and standings within
the churchyard of this priory, closed in with walls and gates, locked
every night and watched, for safety of men’s goods and wares.” A Court
of Pie-powders sat daily during the fair holden for debts and contracts.
Although the present church, which was the choir of the more ancient
structure belonging to the Priory, stands some distance backwards from
Smithfield, there is little doubt that its front was originally on a
line with the small gateway yet remaining, and that the latter indeed
was the entrance from Smithfield into the southern aisle of the nave,
the part of the church now entirely lost. It is useless to inquire
what kind of front was here presented to the open area before it;
but if we may judge of it by this gateway, and by the general style
of the interior parts of the choir, it must have been a grand work.
The gateway is of a very beautiful character, with a finely pointed
arch, consisting of four ribs, each with numerous mouldings, receding
one within the other, and decorated with roses and zigzag ornaments.
Straight before us as we pass through this gateway are the churchyard
and church, the former having around it a range of large and very
dingy-looking lath-and-plaster houses, which, however, derive somewhat
of a picturesque appearance from their gable ends, and their windows
scattered about in “most admired disorder.” The exterior of the church,
as it here appears to us, consists of a brick tower, erected in 1628,
and by its side the end of the church, from which the nave has been cut
away, and the wall and large window erected to terminate the structure
at this point. The foundations of the nave still lie below the soil
of the churchyard some three or four feet. The wall of the latter, on
the right or southern side, now faced with brick, is very ancient
and of immense thickness, and forming most probably the original wall
of the south aisle. On stepping into the apartments of the adjoining
public-house, to which the wall now belongs, we find traces of a past
very different from what we see at present. Rooms with arched ceilings,
a cornice with a shield extending through two or three of them, and
thus showing that they have formed but one room, and a chalk cellar
below the house--all betoken that we are wandering among the ruins
of the old Priory. By the side of this house is a yard, filled with
costermongers and their donkeys, and surrounded by black and decayed
sheds and habitations, with balconied galleries.