has one advantage over the others which I have seen, there being no
organ-screen, nor any sort of partition between the choir and nave; so
that we saw its entire length, nearly five hundred feet, in one vista.
The pillars of the nave are immensely thick, but hardly of proportionate
height, and they support the round Norman arch; nor is there, as far as I
remember, a single pointed arch in the cathedral. The effect is to give
the edifice an air of heavy grandeur. It seems to have been built before
the best style of church architecture had established itself; so that it
weighs upon the soul, instead of helping it to aspire. First, there are
these round arches, supported by gigantic columns; then, immediately
above, another row of round arches, behind which is the usual gallery
that runs, as it were, in the thickness of the wall, around the nave of
the cathedral; then, above all, another row of round arches, enclosing
the windows of the clere-story. The great pillars are ornamented in
various ways,--some with a great spiral groove running from bottom to
top; others with two spirals, ascending in different directions, so as to
cross over one another; some are fluted or channelled straight up and
down; some are wrought with chevrons, like those on the sleeve of a
police-inspector. There are zigzag cuttings and carvings, which I do not
know how to name scientifically, round the arches of the doors and
windows; but nothing that seems to have flowered out spontaneously, as
natural incidents of a grand and beautiful design. In the nave, between
the columns of the side aisles, I saw one or two monuments. . . . .
The cathedral service is very long; and though the choral part of it is
pleasant enough, I thought it not best to wait for the sermon, especially
as it would have been quite unintelligible, so remotely as I sat in the
great space. So I left my seat, and after strolling up and down the
aisle a few times, sallied forth into the churchyard. On the cathedral
door there is a curious old knocker, in the form of a monstrous face,
which was placed there, centuries ago, for the benefit of fugitives from
justice, who used to be entitled to sanctuary here. The exterior of the
cathedral, being huge, is therefore grand; it has a great central tower,
and two at the western end; and reposes in vast and heavy length, without
the multitude of niches, and crumbling statues, and richness of detail,
that make the towers and fronts of some cathedrals so endlessly
interesting. One piece of sculpture I remember,--a carving of a cow, a
milk-maid, and a monk, in reference to the legend that the site of the
cathedral was, in some way, determined by a woman bidding her cow go home
to Dunholme. Cadmus was guided to the site of his destined city in some
such way as this.
It was a very beautiful day, and though the shadow of the cathedral fell
on this side, yet, it being about noontide, it did not cover the
churchyard entirely, but left many of the graves in sunshine. There were
not a great many monuments, and these were chiefly horizontal slabs, some
of which looked aged, but on closer inspection proved to be mostly of the
present century. I observed an old stone figure, however, half worn
away, which seemed to have something like a bishop's mitre on its head,
and may perhaps have lain in the proudest chapel of the cathedral before
occupying its present bed among the grass. About fifteen paces from the
central tower, and within its shadow, I found a weather-worn slab of
marble, seven or eight feet long, the inscription on which interested me
somewhat. It was to the memory of Robert Dodsley, the bookseller,
Johnson's acquaintance, who, as his tombstone rather superciliously
avers, had made a much better figure as an author than "could have been
expected in his rank of life." But, after all, it is inevitable that a
man's tombstone should look down on him, or, at all events, comport
itself towards him "de haut en bas." I love to find the graves of men
connected with literature. They interest me more, even though of no
great eminence, than those of persons far more illustrious in other walks
of life. I know not whether this is because I happen to be one of the
literary kindred, or because all men feel themselves akin, and on terms
of intimacy, with those whom they know, or might have known, in books. I
rather believe that the latter is the case.
My wife had stayed in the cathedral, but she came out at the end of the
sermon, and told me of two little birds, who had got into the vast
interior, and were in great trouble at not being able to find their way
out again. Thus, two winged souls may often have been imprisoned within
a faith of heavy ceremonials.
We went round the edifice, and, passing into the close, penetrated
through an arched passage into the crypt, which, methought, was in a
better style of architecture than the nave and choir. At one end stood a
crowd of venerable figures leaning against the wall, being stone images
of bearded saints, apostles, patriarchs, kings,--personages of great
dignity, at all events, who had doubtless occupied conspicuous niches in
and about the cathedral till finally imprisoned in this cellar. I looked
at every one, and found not an entire nose among them, nor quite so many
heads as they once had.
Thence we went into the cloisters, which are entire, but not particularly
interesting. Indeed, this cathedral has not taken hold of my affections,
except in one aspect, when it was exceedingly grand and beautiful.
After looking at the crypt and the cloisters, we returned through the
close and the churchyard, and went back to the hotel through a path by
the river-side. This is the same dim and dusky path through which I
wandered the night before, and in the sunshine it looked quite as
beautiful as I knew it must,-- a shadow of elm-trees clothing the high
bank, and overarching the paths above and below; some of the elms growing
close to the water-side, and flinging up their topmost boughs not nearly
so high as where we stood, and others climbing upward and upward, till
our way wound among their roots; while through the foliage the quiet
river loitered along, with this lovely shade on both its banks, to pass
through the centre of the town. The stately cathedral rose high above
us, and farther onward, in a line with it, the battlemented walls of the
old Norman castle, gray and warlike, though now it has become a
University. This delightful walk terminates at an old bridge in the
heart of the town; and the castle hangs immediately over its busiest
street. On this bridge, last night, in the embrasure, or just over the
pier, where there is a stone seat, I saw some old men seated, smoking
their pipes and chatting. In my judgment, a river flowing through the
centre of a town, and not too broad to make itself familiar, nor too
swift, but idling along, as if it loved better to stay there than to go,
is the pleasantest imaginable piece of scenery; so transient as it is,
and yet enduring,--just the same from life's end to life's end; and this
river Wear, with its sylvan wildness, and yet so sweet and placable, is
the best of all little rivers,--not that it is so very small, but with a
bosom broad enough to be crossed by a three-arched bridge. Just above
the cathedral there is a mill upon its shore, as ancient as the times of
the Abbey.
We went homeward through the market-place and one or two narrow streets;
for the town has the irregularity of all ancient settlements, and,
moreover, undulates upward and downward, and is also made more
unintelligible to a stranger, in its points and bearings, by the tortuous
course of the river.
After dinner J----- and I walked along the bank opposite to that on which
the cathedral stands, and found the paths there equally delightful with
those which I have attempted to describe. We went onward while the river
gleamed through the foliage beneath us, and passed so far beyond the
cathedral that we began to think we were getting into the country, and
that it was time to return; when all at once we saw a bridge before us,
and beyond that, on the opposite bank of the Wear, the cathedral itself!
The stream had made a circuit without our knowing it. We paused upon the
bridge, and admired and wondered at the beauty and glory of the scene,
with those vast, ancient towers rising out of the green shade, and
looking as if they were based upon it. The situation of Durham Cathedral
is certainly a noble one, finer even than that of Lincoln, though the
latter stands even at a more lordly height above the town. But as I saw
it then, it was grand, venerable, and sweet, all at once; and I never saw
so lovely and magnificent a scene, nor, being content with this, do I
care to see a better. The castle beyond came also into the view, and the
whole picture was mirrored in the tranquil stream below. And so,
crossing the bridge, the path led us back through many a bower of hollow
shade; and we then quitted the hotel, and took the rail for