looked immense in the distance but distinctly and decidedly small,
by comparison, on a near approach. The beauty of the Piazza in which
it stands, with its clusters of exquisite columns and its gushing
fountains--so fresh, so broad, and free and beautiful--nothing can
exaggerate. The first burst of the interior, in all its expansive
majesty and glory: and most of all, the looking up into the Dome:
is a sensation never to be forgotten. But, there were preparations
for a Festa; the pillars of stately marble were swathed in some
impertinent frippery of red and yellow; the altar, and entrance to the
subterranean chapel: which is before it, in the centre of the church:
were like a goldsmith’s shop, or one of the opening scenes in a very
lavish pantomime. And though I had as high a sense of the beauty of
the building (I hope) as it is possible to entertain, I felt no very
strong emotion. I have been infinitely more affected in many English
cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many English country
churches when the congregation have been singing. I had a much greater
sense of mystery and wonder in the Cathedral of San Mark, at Venice....
On Sunday the Pope assisted in the performance of High Mass at St.
Peter’s. The effect of the Cathedral on my mind, on that second
visit, was exactly what it was at first, and what it remains after
many visits. It is not religiously impressive or affecting. It is an
immense edifice, with no one point for the mind to rest upon; and it
tires itself with wandering round and round. The very purpose of the
place is not expressed in anything you see there, unless you examine
its details--and all examination of details is incompatible with the
place itself. It might be a Pantheon, or a Senate House, or a great
architectural trophy, having no other object than an architectural
triumph. There is a black statue of St. Peter, to be sure, under a red
canopy; which is larger than life, and which is constantly having its
great toe kissed by good Catholics. You cannot help seeing that: it
is so very prominent and popular. But it does not heighten the effect
of the temple as a work of art; and it is not expressive--to me, at
least--of its high purpose.
[Illustration: ST. PETER’S.]
A large space behind the altar was fitted up with boxes, shaped like
those at the Italian Opera in England, but in their decoration much
more gaudy. In the centre of the kind of theatre thus railed off was a
canopied dais with the Pope’s chair upon it. The pavement was covered
with a carpet of the brightest green; and what with this green, and
the intolerable reds and crimsons, and gold borders of the hangings,
the whole concern looked like a stupendous Bonbon. On either side of
the altar was a large box for lady strangers. These were filled with
ladies in black dresses and black veils. The gentlemen of the Pope’s
guard, in red coats, leather breeches, and jack-boots, guarded all
this reserved space, with drawn swords that were very flashy in every
sense; and, from the altar all down the nave, a broad lane was kept
clear by the Pope’s Swiss Guard, who wear a quaint striped surcoat, and
striped tight legs, and carry halberds like those which are usually
shouldered by those theatrical supernumeraries, who never _can_ get off
the stage fast enough, and who may be generally observed to linger in
the enemy’s camp after the open country, held by the opposite forces,
has been split up the middle by a convulsion of Nature.
I got upon the border of the green carpet, in company with a great many
other gentlemen attired in black (no other passport is necessary), and
stood there, at my ease, during the performance of mass. The singers
were in a crib of wire-work (like a large meat-safe or bird-cage) in
one corner; and sung most atrociously. All about the green carpet there
was a slowly-moving crowd of people: talking to each other: staring at
the Pope through eye-glasses: defrauding one another, in moments of
partial curiosity, out of precarious seats on the bases of pillars: and
grinning hideously at the ladies. Dotted here and there were little
knots of friars (Francescani, or Cappuccini, in their coarse brown
dresses and peaked hoods), making a strange contrast to the gaudy
ecclesiastics of higher degree, and having their humility gratified to
the utmost, by being shouldered about, and elbowed right and left, on
all sides. Some of these had muddy sandals and umbrellas, and stained
garments: having trudged in from the country. The faces of the greater
part were as coarse and heavy as their dress; their dogged, stupid,
monotonous stare at all the glory and splendour having something in it
half miserable, and half ridiculous.
Upon the green carpet itself, and gathered round the altar, was a
perfect army of cardinals and priests, in red, gold, purple, violet,
white, and fine linen. Stragglers from these went to and fro among the
crowd, conversing two and two, or giving and receiving introductions,
and exchanging salutations; other functionaries in black gowns, and
other functionaries in court dresses, were similarly engaged. In the
midst of all these, and stealthy Jesuits creeping in and out, and the
extreme restlessness of the Youth of England, who were perpetually
wandering about, some few steady persons in black cassocks, who had
knelt down with their faces to the wall, and were poring over their
missals, became, unintentionally, a sort of human man-traps, and with
their own devout legs tripped up other people’s by the dozen.
There was a great pile of candles lying down on the floor near me,
which a very old man in a rusty black gown with an open-work tippet,
like a summer ornament for a fire-place in tissue paper, made himself
very busy in dispensing to all the ecclesiastics: one apiece. They
loitered about with these for some time, under their arms like
walking-sticks, or in their hands like truncheons. At a certain period
of the ceremony, however, each carried his candle up to the Pope, laid
it across his two knees to be blessed, took it back again, and filed
off. This was done in a very attenuated procession, as you may suppose,
and occupied a long time. Not because it takes long to bless a candle
through and through, but because there were so many candles to be
blessed. At last they were all blessed, and then they were all lighted;
and then the Pope was taken up, chair and all, and carried round the
church....
On Easter Sunday, as well as on the preceding Thursday, the Pope
bestows his benediction on the people from the balcony in front of
St. Peter’s. This Easter Sunday was a day so bright and blue: so
cloudless, balmy, wonderfully bright: that all the previous bad weather
vanished from the recollection in a moment. I had seen the Thursday’s
benediction dropping damply on some hundreds of umbrellas, but there
was not a sparkle then in all the hundred fountains of Rome--such
fountains as they are!--and, on this Sunday morning, they were running
diamonds. The miles of miserable streets through which we drove
(compelled to a certain course by the Pope’s dragoons: the Roman police
on such occasions) were so full of colour, that nothing in them was
capable of wearing a faded aspect. The common people came out in their
gayest dresses; the richer people in their smartest vehicles; Cardinals
rattled to the church of the Poor Fisherman in their state carriages;
shabby magnificence flaunted its threadbare liveries and tarnished
cocked-hats in the sun; and every coach in Rome was put in requisition
for the Great Piazza of St. Peter’s.
One hundred and fifty thousand people were there at least! Yet there
was ample room. How many carriages were there I don’t know; yet there
was room for them too, and to spare. The great steps of the church were
densely crowded. There were many of the Contadini, from Albano (who
delight in red), in that part of the square, and the mingling of bright
colours in the crowd was beautiful. Below the steps the troops were
ranged. In the magnificent proportions of the place, they looked like
a bed of flowers. Sulky Romans, lively peasants from the neighbouring
country, groups of pilgrims from distant parts of Italy, sight-seeing
foreigners of all nations, made a murmur in the clear air, like so many
insects; and high above them all, plashing and bubbling, and making
rainbow colours in the light, the two delicious fountains welled and
tumbled bountifully.
A kind of bright carpet was hung over the front of the balcony; and the
sides of the great window were bedecked with crimson drapery. An awning
was stretched, too, over the top, to screen the old man from the hot
rays of the sun. As noon approached, all eyes were turned up to this
window. In due time the chair was seen approaching to the front, with
the gigantic fans of peacock’s feathers close behind. The doll within
it (for the balcony is very high) then rose up, and stretched out its
tiny arms, while all the male spectators in the square uncovered, and
some, but not by any means the greater part, kneeled down. The guns
upon the ramparts of the Castle of St. Angelo proclaimed, next moment,
that the benediction was given; drums beat; trumpets sounded; arms
clashed; and the great mass below, suddenly breaking into smaller
heaps, and scattering here and there in rills, was stirred like
party-coloured sand....
But, when the night came on, without a cloud to dim the full moon,
what a sight it was to see the Great Square full once more, and the
whole church, from the cross to the ground, lighted with innumerable
lanterns, tracing out the architecture, and winking and shining all
round the colonnade of the Piazza. And what a sense of exultation,
joy, delight, it was, when the great bell struck half past seven--on
the instant--to behold one bright red mass of fire soar gallantly from
the top of the cupola to the extremest summit of the cross, and, the
moment it leaped into its place, become the signal of a bursting out
of countless lights, as great, and red, and blazing as itself, from
every part of the gigantic church; so that every cornice, capital, and
smallest ornament of stone expressed itself in fire: and the black,
solid groundwork of the enormous dome seemed to grow transparent as an
egg-shell!
A train of gunpowder, an electric chain--nothing could be fired more
suddenly and swiftly than this second illumination: and when we had got
away, and gone upon a distant height, and looked toward it two hours
afterward, there it still stood, shining and glittering in the calm
night like a jewel! Not a line of its proportions wanting; not an angle
blunted; not an atom of its radiance lost.
_Pictures from Italy_ (London, 1845).
THE CATHEDRAL OF STRASBURG.
VICTOR HUGO.
I arrived in Nancy Sunday evening at seven o’clock; at eight the
diligence started again. Was I more fatigued? Was the road better? The
fact is I propped myself on the braces of the conveyance and slept.
Thus I arrived in Phalsbourg.
I woke up about four o’clock in the morning. A cool breeze blew upon my
face and the carriage was going down the incline at a gallop, for we
were descending the famous Saverne.
It was one of the most beautiful impressions of my life. The rain had
ceased, the mists had been blown to the four winds, and the crescent
moon slipped rapidly through the clouds and sailed freely through the
azure space like a barque on a little lake. A breeze which came from
the Rhine made the trees, which bordered the road, tremble. From time
to time they waved aside and permitted me to see an indistinct and
frightful abyss: in the foreground, a forest beneath which the mountain
disappeared; below, immense plains, meandering streams glittering like
streaks of lightning; and in the background a dark, indistinct, and
heavy line--the Black Forest--a magical panorama beheld by moonlight.
Such incomplete visions have, perhaps, more distinction than any
others. They are dreams which one can look upon and feel. I knew that
my eyes rested upon France, Germany, and Switzerland, Strasburg with
its spire, the Black Forest with its mountains, and the Rhine with its
windings; I searched for everything and I saw nothing. I have never
experienced a more extraordinary sensation. Add to that the hour, the
journey, the horses dashing down the precipice, the violent noise of
the wheels, the rattling of the windows, the frequent passage through
dark woods, the breath of the morning upon the mountains, a gentle
murmur heard through the valleys, and the beauty of the sky, and you
will understand what I felt. Day is amazing in this valley; night is
fascinating.
The descent took a quarter of an hour. Half an hour later came the
twilight of morning; at my left the dawn quickened the lower sky, a
group of white houses with black roofs became visible on the summit of
a hill, the blue of day began to overflow the horizon, several peasants
passed by going to their vines, a clear, cold, and violet light
struggled with the ashy glimmer of the moon, the constellations paled,
two of the Pleiades were lost to sight, the three horses in our chariot
descended rapidly towards their stable with its blue doors, it was cold
and I was frozen, for it had become necessary to open the windows. A
moment afterwards the sun rose, and the first thing it showed to me
was the village notary shaving at a broken mirror under a red calico
curtain.
A league further on the peasants became more picturesque and the
waggons magnificent; I counted in one thirteen mules harnessed far
apart by long chains. You felt you were approaching Strasburg, the old
German city.
Galloping furiously, we traversed Wasselonne, a long narrow trench
of houses strangled in the last gorge of the Vosges by the side of
Strasburg. There I caught a glimpse of one façade of the Cathedral,
surmounted by three round and pointed towers in juxtaposition, which
the movement of the diligence brought before my vision brusquely and
then took it away, jolting it about as if it were a scene in the
theatre.
Suddenly, at a turn in the road the mist lifted and I saw the Münster.
It was six o’clock in the morning. The enormous Cathedral, which is the
highest building that the hand of man has made since the great Pyramid,
was clearly defined against a background of dark mountains whose forms
were magnificent and whose valleys were flooded with sunshine. The work
of God made for man and the work of man made for God, the mountain and
the Cathedral contesting for grandeur. I have never seen anything more
imposing.
Yesterday I visited the Cathedral. The Münster is truly a marvel. The
doors of the church are beautiful, particularly the Roman porch, the
façade contains some superb figures on horseback, the rose-window is
beautifully cut, and the entire face of the Cathedral is a poem, wisely
composed. But the real triumph of the Cathedral is the spire. It is a
true tiara of stone with its crown and its cross. It is a prodigy of
grandeur and delicacy. I have seen Chartres, and I have seen Antwerp,
but Strasburg pleases me best.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF STRASBURG.]
The church has never been finished. The apse, miserably mutilated, has
been restored according to that imbecile, the Cardinal de Rohan, of the
necklace fame. It is hideous. The window they have selected is like a
modern carpet. It is ignoble. The other windows, with the exception
of some added panes, are beautiful, notably the great rose-window.
All the church is shamefully whitewashed; some of the sculptures have
been restored with some little taste. This Cathedral has been affected
by all styles. The pulpit is a little construction of the Fifteenth
Century, of florid Gothic of a design and style that are ravishing.
Unfortunately they have gilded it in the most stupid manner. The
baptismal font is of the same period and is restored in a superior
manner. It is a vase surrounded by foliage in sculpture, the most
marvellous in the world. In a dark chapel at the side there are two
tombs. One, of a bishop of the time of Louis V., is of that formidable
character which Gothic architecture always expresses. The sepulchre is
in two floors. The bishop, in pontifical robes and with his mitre on
his head, is lying in his bed under a canopy; he is sleeping. Above and
on the foot of the bed in the shadow, you perceive an enormous stone
in which two enormous iron rings are imbedded; that is the lid of the
tomb. You see nothing more. The architects of the Sixteenth Century
showed you the corpse (you remember the tombs of Brou?); those of the
Fourteenth concealed it: that is even more terrifying. Nothing could be
more sinister than these two rings....
The tomb of which I have spoken is in the left arm of the cross. In
the right arm there is a chapel, which scaffolding prevented me from
seeing. At the side of this chapel runs a balustrade of the Fifteenth
Century, leaning against a wall. A sculptured and painted figure leans
against this balustrade and seems to be admiring a pillar surrounded by
statues placed one over the other, which is directly opposite and which
has a marvellous effect. Tradition says that this figure represents the
first architect of the Münster--Erwyn von Steinbach....
I did not see the famous astronomical clock, which is in the nave and
which is a charming little building of the Sixteenth Century. They were
restoring it and it was covered with a scaffolding of boards.
After having seen the church, I made the ascent of the steeple. You
know my taste for perpendicular trips. I was very careful not to miss
the highest spire in the world. The Münster of Strasburg is nearly
five hundred feet high. It belongs to the family of spires which are
open-worked stairways.
It is delightful to wind about in that monstrous mass of stone, filled
with air and light hollowed out like a _joujou de Dieppe_, a lantern
as well as a pyramid, which vibrates and palpitates with every breath
of the wind. I mounted as far as the vertical stairs. As I went up I
met a visitor who was descending, pale and trembling, and half-carried
by the guide. There is, however, no danger. The danger begins where I
stopped, where the spire, properly so-called, begins. Four open-worked
spiral stairways, corresponding to the four vertical towers, unroll in
an entanglement of delicate, slender, and beautifully-worked stone,
supported by the spire, every angle of which it follows, winding until
it reaches the crown at about thirty feet from the lantern surmounted
by a cross which forms the summit of the bell-tower. The steps of these
stairways are very steep and very narrow, and become narrower and
narrower as you ascend, until there is barely ledge enough on which to
place your foot.
In this way you have to climb a hundred feet which brings you four
hundred feet above the street. There are no hand-rails, or such slight
ones that they are not worth speaking about. The entrance to this
stairway is closed by an iron grille. They will not open this grille
without a special permission from the Mayor of Strasburg, and nobody
is allowed to ascend it unless accompanied by two workmen of the
roof, who tie a rope around your body, the end of which they fasten,
in proportion as you ascend, to the various iron bars which bind the
mullions. Only a week ago three German women, a mother and her two
daughters, made this ascent. Nobody but the workmen of the roof, who
repair the bell-tower, are allowed to go beyond the lantern. Here there
is not even a stairway, but only a simple iron ladder.
From where I stopped the view was wonderful. Strasburg lies at your
feet,--the old town with its dentellated gables, and its large roofs
encumbered with chimneys, and its towers and churches--as picturesque
as any town of Flanders. The Ill and the Rhine, two lovely rivers,
enliven this dark mass with their plashing waters, so clear and green.
Beyond the walls, as far as the eye can reach, stretches an immense
country richly wooded and dotted with villages. The Rhine, which flows
within a league of the town, winds through the landscape. In walking
around this bell-tower you see three chains of mountains--the ridges of
the Black Forest on the north, the Vosges on the west, and the Alps in
the centre....
The sun willingly makes a festival for those who are upon great
heights. At the moment I reached the top of the Münster, it suddenly
scattered the clouds, with which the sky had been covered all day, and
turned the smoke of the city and all the mists of the valley to rosy
flames, while it showered a golden rain on Saverne, whose magnificent
slope I saw twelve leagues towards the horizon, through the most
resplendent haze. Behind me a large cloud dropped rain upon the Rhine;
the gentle hum of the town was brought to me by some puffs of wind; the
bells echoed from a hundred villages; some little red and white fleas,
which were really a herd of cattle, grazed in the meadow to the right;
other little blue and red fleas, which were really gunners, performed
field-exercise in the polygon to the left; a black beetle, which was
the diligence, crawled along the road to Metz; and to the north on the
brow of the hill the castle of the Grand Duke of Baden sparkled in a
flash of light like a precious stone. I went from one tower to another,
looking by turns upon France, Switzerland, and Germany, all illuminated
by the same ray of sunlight.
Each tower looks upon a different country.
Descending, I stopped for a few moments at one of the high doors of
the tower-stairway. On either side of this door are the stone effigies
of the two architects of the Münster. These two great poets are
represented as kneeling and looking behind them upward as if they were
lost in astonishment at the height of their work. I put myself in the
same posture and remained thus for several minutes. At the platform
they made me write my name in a book; after which I went away.
_Le Rhin_ (Paris, 1842).
THE SHWAY DAGOHN.
GWENDOLIN TRENCH GASCOIGNE.
The “Shway Dagohn” at Rangoon, or Golden Pagoda, is one of the most
ancient and venerated shrines which exists, and it certainly should
hold a high place among the beautiful and artistic monuments of the
world, for it is exquisite in design and form. Its proportions and
height are simply magnificent; wide at the base, it shoots up 370
feet, tapering gradually away until crowned by its airy golden Htee,
or umbrella-shaped roof. This delicate little structure is studded
profusely with precious stones and hung round with scores of tiny gold
and jewelled bells, which, when swung lightly by the soft breeze, give
out the tenderest and most mystic of melodies. The Htee was the gift of
King Mindohn-Min, and it is said to have cost the enormous sum of fifty
thousand pounds.
The great pagoda is believed by the faithful to have been erected in
588 B. C.; but for many centuries previous to that date the spot where
the pagoda now stands was held sacred, as the relics of three preceding
Buddhas were discovered there when the two Talaing brothers (the
founders of the Great Pagoda) brought the eight holy hairs of Buddha to
the Thehngoothara Hill, the spot where the pagoda now stands. Shway Yoe
(Mr. Scott) says that it also possesses in the Tapanahteik, or relic
chamber, of the pagoda the drinking cup of Kaukkathan, the “thengan,”
or robe, of Gawnagohng, and the “toungway,” or staff, of Kathapah.
It is therefore so holy that pilgrims visit this shrine from far
countries, such as Siam, and even the Corea. The height of the pagoda
was originally only twenty-seven feet, but it has attained its present
proportions by being constantly encased in bricks. It is a marvellously
striking structure, raising up its delicate, glittering head from among
a wondrous company of profusely carved shrines and small temples, whose
colour and cunning workmanship make fit attendants to this stupendous
monument.
It is always a delight to one’s eyes to gaze upon its glittering spire,
always a fairy study of artistic enchantment; but perhaps if it has a
moment when it seems clothed with peculiar and almost ethereal, mystic
attraction, it is in the early morning light, when the air has been
bathed by dewdrops and is of crystal clearness, and when that scorching
Eastern sun has only just begun to send forth his burning rays. I would
say go and gaze on the pagoda at the awakening hour, standing there on
the last spur of the Pegu Hills, and framed by a luxuriant tropical
bower of foliage. The light scintillates and glistens like a myriad of
diamonds upon its golden surface, and the dreamy beauty of its glorious
personality seems to strike one dumb with deep, unspoken reverence and
admiration.