Glasgow Cathedral, situated on the highest ground in the metropolis of
Scotland, looks over the spires, domes, and crowded masonry of a city of
half a million inhabitants. A view from its tower, over two hundred feet
in height, takes in the valley of the River Clyde, with woods, and
hedges, and pleasant meadows, and the river itself rolling on its way
towards the ocean. The Renfrewshire Hills, the neighboring town of
Paisley, Dumbarton Rock, and the Argyleshire Mountains, and a ruin or
two, with the waving ivy, green upon the shattered walls, complete the
distant picture; while spread beneath, at our very feet, is the busy
city itself, with its factories, its furnaces, and great masses of
high-storied houses, and stretching along by the water side the great
quay wall of fifteen thousand feet in length, with vessels ranged two or
three abreast before it.
This fine old cathedral is an elegant Gothic structure, and was built in
1136. It is remarkable from being one of the few churches in Scotland
that have been preserved in a comparatively perfect state, and its
annals for the past seven hundred years have been well preserved and
authenticated; but with these I must have but little to do, for once
immersed in the curious records of these old ecclesiastical edifices, so
celebrated in history, and so wondrous in architectural beauty, and we
shall get on all too slowly among the sights and scenes in foreign
lands.
The grand entrance to the Glasgow Cathedral is at the great doorway at
one end of the nave, and we enter a huge church, three hundred and
nineteen feet long by about sixty wide, divided by a splendid screen, or
rood loft, as it is called, separating the nave from the choir, that
most sacred part of the Roman Catholic edifices, where the principal
altars were erected, and high mass was performed. The carving and
ancient decoration here are in a fine state of preservation, and
the majestic columns which support the main arches, with their
beautifully-cut foliaged capitals of various designs, are an
architectural triumph.
The crypts beneath this cathedral are in an excellent state of
preservation, and at one time were used for purposes of worship. In
Catholic times these old crypts were used for the purposes of sepulture
for prelates and high dignitaries of the church; but nearly all traces
of the monuments of these worthies were swept away in the blind fury
which characterized the Reformation in its destruction of "monuments of
idolatry;" and so zealous, or, we may now say, fanatical, were the
Reformers, that they swept to swift destruction some of the finest
architectural structures in the land, and monuments erected to men who
had been of benefit to their race and generation, in one general ruin.
The tourist, as he notes the mutilation of the finest works of
architectural skill, and the almost total destruction of exquisite
sculpture and historical monuments, which he constantly encounters in
these ecclesiastical buildings, finds himself giving utterance to
expressions anything but flattering to the perpetrators of this
vandalism.
An effigy of a bishop, with head struck off and otherwise mutilated, is
now about all of note that remains of the monuments here in the crypt.
It is supposed to be the effigy of Jocline, the founder of this part of
the cathedral, which is about one hundred and thirty feet in length, and
sixty-five wide, with five rows of columns of every possible form, from
simple shaft to those of elaborate design, supporting the structure
above. The crypts are, it is said, the finest in the kingdom. But the
great wonder of Glasgow Cathedral is its stained-glass windows, which
are marvels of modern work, for they were commenced in 1859, and
completed in 1864, and are some of the finest specimens of painted-glass
work that the Royal Establishment of Glass Painting, in Munich, has ever
produced.
These windows are over eighty in number; but forty-four of them are
_great_ windows, twenty-five or thirty feet high, and each one giving a
Bible story in pictures. The subjects begin with the Expulsion from
Paradise, and continue on in regular order of Bible chronology. Besides
these are coats of arms of the different donors of windows, in a circle
of colored glass at the base, as each was given by some noted person or
family, and serves as a memento of relatives and friends who are
interred in the cathedral or its necropolis. Besides the leading events
of biblical history, from the Old Testament portrayed, such as Noah's
Sacrifice, Abraham offering Isaac, the Offer of Marriage to Rebekah, the
Blessing of Jacob, the Finding of Moses, &c., there are figures of the
apostles, the prophets, illustrations of the parables of our Saviour,
and other subjects from the Holy Scriptures, all beautifully executed
after designs by eminent artists.
But space will not permit further description of this magnificent
building. Scott says this is "the only metropolitan church, except the
Cathedral Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, that remained uninjured at the
Reformation." It owes its preservation from destruction somewhat to the
fact that James Rabat, who was Dean of Guild when its demolition was
clamored for, was a good Mason, and saved this work of the masters' art
by suffering the "idolatrous statues" of saints to be destroyed on
condition of safety to the building.
At the rear of the cathedral rises the Necropolis, a bold, semicircular
eminence, some three hundred feet in height, and formed in regular
terraces, which are divided into walks, and crowded with elegant and
costly modern monuments; too crowded, in fact, and reminding one more of
a sculpture gallery than a cemetery. Among the most conspicuous of these
monuments was a fine Corinthian shaft and statue to John Knox, and on
the shaft was inscribed,--
"When laid in the ground, the regent said, 'There lieth he who
never feared the face of man, who was often threatened with dag
and dagger, yet hath ended his days in peace and honor.'"
A magnificent square sarcophagus, erected to James Sheridan Knowles,
bore his name.
"Died November, 1862."
A fine monument to John Dick, Professor of Theology and Minister of
Grayfriars Church, Edinburgh; another to William McGarvin, author of the
"Protestant." One erected to a favorite Scotch comedian attracted my
attention from the appropriateness of its design and epitaph. The
designs were elegantly-cut figures of Comedy and Tragedy, in marble, a
medallion head in bass-relief, probably a likeness of the deceased, and
the mask, bowl, and other well-known emblems of the histrionic art. The
epitaph was as follows:--
"Fallen is the curtain; the last scene is o'er,
The favorite actor treads life's stage no more.
Oft lavish plaudits from the crowd he drew,
And laughing eyes confessed his humor true.
Here fond affection rears this sculptured stone,
For virtues not enacted, but his own--
A constancy unshaken unto death,
A truth unswerving, and a Christian's faith.
Who knew him best have cause to mourn him most;
O, weep the man more than the actor lost.
Unnumbered parts he played, yet to the end
His best were those of husband, father, friend."
The deceased's name was John Henry Alexander, who died December 15,
1851.
From Glasgow we took rail to Ayr, on a pilgrimage to Burns's birthplace,
and, at five o'clock of a pleasant afternoon, arrived at that little
Scotch town, and as we rode through the streets, passed by the very
tavern where "Tam O'Shanter" held his revel with "Souter Johnny"--a
clean little squat stone house, indicated by a big sign-board, on which
is a pictorial representation of Tam and his crony sitting together, and
enjoying a "wee drapit" of something from handled mugs, which they are
holding out to each other, and, judging from the size of the mugs, not a
"wee drapit" either; for the old Scotsmen who frequent these taverns
will carry off, without winking, a load beneath their jackets that would
floor a stout man of ordinary capacity.
A queer old town is Ayr, and at the hotel above mentioned the curious
tourist may not only sit in the chairs of Tam and Johnny, but in that
Burns himself has pressed; and if he gets the jolly fat old landlord in
good humor,--as he is sure to get when Americans order some of his best
"mountain dew,"--and engages him in conversation, he may have an
opportunity to drink it from the very wooden cup, now hooped with
silver, from which the poet himself indulged in potations, and drained
inspiration.
As we ride over the road from the town of Ayr--
"Auld Ayr, whom ne'er a town surpasses
For honest men and bonnie lasses"--
to Burns's birthplace, and Alloway Kirk, we find ourselves upon the same
course traversed by Tam O'Shanter on his memorable ride, and passing
many of those objects which, for their fearful associations, gave
additional terror to the journey, and kept him
"glowering round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares."
A pleasant ride we had of it, recalling the verses, as each point
mentioned in the ballad, which is such a combination of the ludicrous
and awful, came into view and was pointed out to us.
"The ford
Whare in the snaw the Chapman smoored,
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Whare drunken Charlie brake neck-bane;
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murdered bairn;
And near the thorn aboon the well,
Whare Mungo's mither hanged hersel."
But let us stop at the poet's cottage--the little one-story
"clay-biggin" it originally was, when, in 1759, Robert Burns was born
there, consisting only of a kitchen and sitting-room; these still
remain, and in a little recess in the former is a sort of bunk, or bed,
where the poet first saw light; that is, what little of it stole in at
the deep-set window of this little den; additional rooms have been built
on to the cottage, including a large one for society meetings and
anniversary dinners; the little squat thatched cot is the Mecca of
thousands of travellers from all parts of the world, as the visitors'
book reveals.
An old Scotch woman, who was busy with her week's ironing, her work, for
a few moments, to show us the rooms and sell a stereoscopic view, and
then returned to her flat-irons. An old fellow, named "Miller" Goudie,
and his wife, used to occupy the cot. He now rests in Alloway
churchyard, and, as his epitaph says,--
"For forty years it was his lot
To show the poet's humble cot;
And, sometimes laughin', sometimes sobbin',
Told his last interview with Robin:
A quiet, civil, blithesome body,
Without a foe, was Miller Goudie."
A framed autograph letter of Burns, and a picture of him at a masonic
assembly, adorn the walls of the large room, and are about all of
interest in it. A short distance beyond the cottage, and we come to
"Alloway's auld haunted Kirk,"--a little bit of a Scotch church, with
only the walls standing, and familiar to us from the many pictures we
had seen of it.
Here it was that Tam saw the witches dance; and there must have been the
very window, just high enough for him to have looked in from horseback:
just off from the road is the kirk, and near enough for Tam to hive seen
the light through the chinks, and bear the sound of mirth and dancing.
Of course I marched straight up to the little window towards the road,
and peeped in at the very place where Tam had viewed the wondrous sight;
but such narrow and circumscribed limits for a witches' dance! Why,
Nannie's leap and fling could not have been much in such a wee bit of a
chapel, and I expressed that opinion audibly, with a derisive laugh at
Scotch witches, when, as if to punish scepticism, the bit of stone
which I had propped up against the wall to give me additional height,
slipped from beneath my feet, bringing my chin in sharp contact with the
window-sill, and giving me such a shock altogether, that I wondered if
the witches were not still keeping guard over the old place, for it
looks weird enough, with its gray, roofless walls, the dark ivy about
them flapping in the breeze, and the interior choked with weeds and
rubbish.
In the little burial-ground of the kirk is the grave of the poet's
father, marked by a plain tombstone, and bearing an epitaph written by
Burns. Leaving the kirk, a few hundred yards' walk brings us to
"The banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,"
and the "auld brigg" spanning it, over which Tam O'Shanter's mare
Maggie, clattered just in time to save him from the witch's vengeance,
losing her tail in the struggle on the "keystane." The keystone was
pointed out to us by a little Scotch lassie, as we stood on the bridge,
admiring the swift stream, as it whirled under the arches, and the old
Scotch guide told us "Tam had eight mair miles to gang ere he stopit at
his own door-stane."
Near this bridge is the Burns Monument, a sort of circular structure,
about sixty feet high, of Grecian architecture. In a circular apartment
within the monument is a glass case, containing several relics, the most
interesting of which is the Bible given by Burns to his Highland Mary.
It is bound in two volumes, and on the fly-leaf of the first is
inscribed the following text, in the poet's handwriting: "And ye shall
not swear by my name falsely; I am the Lord." (Levit. xix. 12.) And on
the leaf of the second, "Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt
perform unto the Lord thine oaths." (Matt. v. 33.) In both volumes the
poet has inscribed his autograph, and in one of them there rests a
little tress of Highland Mary's hair.
The grounds--about an acre in extent around the monument--are prettily
laid out, and in a little building, at one extremity, are the original,
far-famed figures of Tam O'Shanter and Souter Johnny, chiselled out of
solid freestone by the self-taught sculptor Thom; and marvellously
well-executed figures they are, down to the minutest details of hose and
bonnet, as they sit with their mugs of good cheer, jollily pledging each
other. This group, and that of Tam riding over the bridge, with the
witch just catching at Maggie's tail, are both familiar to almost every
American family, and owe their familiarity, in more than one instance,
to the representations of them upon the cheap little pitchers of
Wedgwood ware, which are so extensively used as syrup pitchers wherever
buckwheat cakes are eaten.
The ride back to Ayr, by a different route, carries us past some
pleasant country-seats, the low bridge of Doon, and a lovely landscape
all about us.
But we visited the classic Doon, with its banks and braes so "fresh and
fair," as most of our countrymen do--did it in a day, dreamed and
imagined for an hour in the little old churchyard of Kirk Alloway,
leaned over the auld brig, and looked down into the running waters, and
wondered how often the poet had gazed at it from the same place, or
sauntered on that romantic little pathway by its bank, where we plucked
daisies, and pressed them between the leaves of a pocket edition of his
poems, as mementos of our visit. We did not omit a visit to the "twa
brigs" that span the Ayr. The auld brig,--
"Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet,"--
was erected in the fourteenth century, and was formerly steep and
narrow, but has been widened and improved within the past fifteen years.
The new one, which is about two hundred yards from it, was built in
1788, and from it a good view of the river and the old bridge is
obtained.
A ride round the town shows us but little of special interest to write
of; a fine statue of William Wallace, cut by Thom, in front of a Gothic
building, known as Wallace Tower, being the most striking object that
met our view. From Ayr to Carlisle, where we saw the castle which Bruce
failed to take in 1312, which surrendered to Prince Charles Stuart in
1745, and which was the scene of such barbarities on the conquered on
its being retaken by the Duke of Cumberland. The old castle, or that
portion of it that remains, with its lofty, massive tower and wall,
makes an imposing appearance, and is something like the pictures of
castles in the story-books. In one portion of it are the rooms occupied
by Mary, Queen of Scots, on her flight to England, after the battle of
Langside.
The old red freestone cathedral, built in the time of the Saxons, where
sleeps Dr. Paley, once archdeacon, and where is a monument erected to
his memory, claimed a modicum of our time, after which we passed through
Newcastle-on-Tyne, celebrated, as all know in these modern days, as a
port of shipment for coal, and busy with its glass-houses, potteries,
iron and steel factories, and machine shops, and owing its name to the
fact that Robert, son of William the Conqueror, built a new castle here
after his return from a military expedition. The old donjon keep and
tower still stand, massive and blackened, not with the smoke of battle,
but of modern industry, which rises, in murky volumes, from many
chimneys.
On we speed, leaving Newcastle, its dingy buildings and murky cloud,
behind, and whirl over the railroad, till we reach the beautiful vale
that holds the "Metropolis of the North of England," as the guide-books
style it,--the ancient city of York,--with its Roman walls, and its
magnificent minster; a city, which, A. D. 150, was one of the greatest
of the Roman stations in England, and had a regular government, an
imperial palace, and a tribunal within its walls. York, which carries us
back to school-boy days, when we studied of the wars of the Roses, and
the houses of York and Lancaster--York, whose modern namesake, more than
seventeen hundred years its junior, in the New World, has seventeen
times its population.
York--yes, in York one feels that he is in Old England indeed. Here are
the old walls, still strong and massy, that have echoed to the tramp of
the Roman legions, that looked down on Adrian and Constantine the Great,
that have successively been manned by Britons, Picts, Danes, and Saxons,
the latter under the command of Hengist, mentioned in the story-legends
that tell of the pair of warlike Saxon brothers, Hengist and Horsa, the
latter, whose name in my youthful days always seemed to have some
mysterious connection with the great white-horse banner of the Saxon
warriors, that was wont to float from the masts of their war ships.
It was in York that the first Christmas was ever kept in England. This
was done by King Arthur and his nobility when he began to rebuild the
churches, in the year 500, that the Saxons had destroyed.
York was once a place where many Jews dwelt. We all remember Isaac of
York, in the story of Ivanhoe; and the great massacre of this people
there in 1490, when over two thousand fell victims to popular fury.
But I am not going to give a chronological history of this interesting
city, for there is scarcely an American reader of English history but
will recall a score of noteworthy events that have occurred within its
ancient walls.
The great and crowning wonder here to the tourist is, of course, the
cathedral, or the minster, as it is called. This magnificent and
stupendous pile, which occupied nearly two hundred years in erection,
and has stood for three hundred years since its completion, is, without
doubt, one of the most magnificent Gothic structures in the world, and
excels in beauty and magnificence most ecclesiastical buildings of the
middle ages. After a walk through a quaint old quarter of the city, and
a stroll on the parapets of the great wall, through some of the gates,
with the round, solid watch-towers above them, pierced with arrow-slits
for crossbowmen, or having, high above, little turrets for sentinels, I
was in the mood for the sight of the grand old cathedral, but not at all
prepared for the superb and elegant proportions of the pile which
suddenly appeared to view, as I turned a corner of a street.
The length of this majestic pile is five hundred and twenty-four feet,
and its breadth two hundred and twenty-two, and the height of its two
square and massive towers one hundred and ninety-six feet. I got a west
view of the building first, which is what I should suppose was properly
its front, consisting of the two tall square towers, with the main
entrance between them, surmounted by a great Gothic window, exhibiting a
magnificent specimen of the leafy and fairy-like tracery of the
fourteenth century. Tall, pointed arches are above it, and the two
towers are also adorned with windows, and elaborate ornamentation. To
the rear of them, at the end of the nave and between the two transepts,
rises the central tower two hundred and thirteen feet. There is a fine
open space in front of this glorious west front, and no lover of
architecture can come upon it for the first time without standing
entranced at the wondrous beauty of the building in proportion,
decoration, and design.
Churches occupied the site of York Cathedral centuries before it. One
was built here by King Edwin, in 627; another in 767, which stood till
1069; but the present building was founded in 1171, and completed in the
year 1400.
The expectations created by an external view of its architectural
grandeur and rich embellishments are surpassed upon an examination of
the interior, a particular description of which would require almost a
volume to give space to. We can only, therefore, take a glance at it.
First, there is the great east window, which, for magnitude and beauty
of coloring, is unequalled in the world. Only think of a great arch
_seventy-five feet high_, and over thirty feet broad, a glory of stained
glass! The upper part is a piece of admirable tracery, and below
it are over a hundred compartments, occupied with scriptural
representations--saints, priests, angels, &c. Each pane of glass is a
yard square, and the figures two feet three inches in length. Right
across this great window runs what I supposed to be a strong iron rod,
or wire, but which turned out to be a stone gallery, or piazza, a bridge
big enough for a person to cross upon, and from which the view that is
had of the whole interior of this great minster--a vista of Gothic
arches and clustered columns of more than five hundred feet in length,
terminated by the great west window, with its gorgeous display of
colored glass--is grand beyond description. The great west window
contains pictured representations of the eight earliest archbishops of
York, and eight saints, and other figures. It was put up in 1338, and is
remarkable for its richness of coloring.
Besides the great east and west windows, there are sixteen in the nave
and fifteen in the side aisles. In the south transept, which is the
oldest part of the building, high up above the entrance, in the point of
the arch, is the great "marigold window," formed of two concentric
circles of small arches in the form of a wheel, the lights of which give
it the appearance of the flower from which it is named, the diameter of
this great stone and glass marigold being over thirty feet. Then, in the
north transept, opposite, is another window of exquisite coloring--those
warm, deep, mellow hues of the old artisans in colored glass, which the
most cunning of their modern successors seek in vain to rival. It
appears, as it were, a vast embroidery frame in five sections, each
section a different pattern of those elaborate traceries and exquisite
hues of needle-work with which noble ladies whiled away their time in
castle-bower, while their knights fought the infidel in distant clime.
This noble window is known as the "Five Sisters," from the fact that the
pattern is said to have been wrought from designs in needle-work of five
maiden sisters of York.
The story of these sisters is told by Dickens in the sixth chapter of
Nicholas Nickleby. This magnificent window is fifty-seven feet in
height, and it was put in in the year 1290. The other windows I cannot
spare space to refer to; suffice it to say the windows of this cathedral
present a gorgeous display of ancient stained glass not to be met with
in any similar building in the world. In fact, the minster exhibits more
windows than solid fabric to exterior view, imparting a marvellous
degree of lightness to the huge structure, while inside the vastness of
the space gives the spectator opportunity to stand at a proper distance,
and look up at them as they are stretched before the view like great
paintings, framed in exquisite tracery of stone-work, with the best
possible effect of light. The glass of these windows, I was informed by
the verger who acted as our guide, was taken out and hidden during the
iconoclastic excitement of Cromwell's time, and they are now the only
ones that have preserved the ancient glass intact in the kingdom. The
most valuable are protected by a strong shield of extra plate glass
outside.
From the painted glories of the windows the visitor's eye sweeps over
the vast expanse of clustered pillars, lofty Gothic arches, and splendid
vistas of Gothic columns on every side. In the great western aisle, or
nave, a perspective view of full three hundred feet of columns and
arches is had; and standing upon the pavement, you look to the grand
arched roof, which is clear ninety-nine feet above, and the eye is
fairly dazed with the immensity of space. The screen, as it is called,
which separates the nave from the choir, rises just high enough to form
a support for the organ, without concealing from view the grand arches
and columns of the choir, which stretch far away, another vista of two
hundred and sixty-four feet, before the bewildered view of the visitor,
who finds himself almost awe-struck in the very vastness and sublimity
of this grand architectural creation.
The screen is a most elaborate and superb piece of sculpture, and is
ornamented with the statues of the English kings, from the time of
William the Conqueror to Henry VI., fifteen in number. The great choir,
with its exuberant display of carving, richly-ornamented stalls, altar,
and side aisles, screened with carved oak, is another wonder. Here I had
the pleasure of listening to the choral service, performed by the full
choir of men and boys attached to the cathedral; and I stood out among
the monuments of old archbishops and warriors of five hundred years
agone, and heard that sweet chant float upon the swelling peals of the
organ, away up amid the lofty groined arches of the grand old minster,
till its dying echoes were lost amid the mysterious tracery above, or
the grand, full chorus of powerful voices made the lofty roof to ring
again, as it were, with heavenly melody. There was every appeal to the
ear, the eye, the imagination; and I may say it seemed the very poetry
of religion, and poetry of a sublime order, too.
An attempt even at a description of the different monuments of the now
almost forgotten, and many entirely forgotten, dignitaries and
benefactors of the church that are found all along the great side
aisles, would be a useless task. Some are magnificent structures of
marble, with elegantly-sculptured effigies of bishops in their
ecclesiastical robes. Others once were magnificent in sculptured stone
and brass, but have been defaced by time and vandalism, and, in their
shattered ruin, tell the story of man's last vanity, or are a most
striking illustration of what a perishable shadow is human greatness.
The Chapter-house attached to York Minster is said to be the most
perfect specimen of Gothic architecture in the world, and is certainly
one of the most magnificent interiors of the kind I ever gazed upon. The
records of the church give no information as to whom this superb edifice
was erected by, or at what period, and the subject is one of dispute
among the antiquaries, who suppose it must have been built either in the
year 1200 or 1300. It is a perfect octagon, of sixty-three feet in
diameter, and the height from the centre to the middle knot of the roof
sixty-seven feet, without the interruption of a single pillar,--being
wholly dependent on a single key-pin, geometrically placed in the
centre.
Seven squares of the octagon have each a window of stained glass, with
the armorial bearings of benefactors of the church, the eighth octagon
being the entrance; below the windows are the seats, or stalls, for the
canons and dignitaries of the church, when they assemble here for
installations and other purposes. The columns around the side of this
room are carved, in the most profuse manner, with the most singular
figures, such as an ugly old friar embracing a young girl, to the
infinite delight of a group of nuns, grotesque figures of men and
animals, monks playing all sorts of pranks, grinning faces, &c. The
whole formation of this exquisitely-constructed building shows a
thorough geometric knowledge in the builders, and the entrance to it is
by a vestibule, in the form of a mason's square.
In the vestries we had an opportunity of seeing many and
well-authenticated historical curiosities. The most ancient of these is
the famous Horn of Ulphus, the great Saxon drinking horn, from which
Ulphus was wont to drink, and by which the church still holds valuable
estates near York. With this great ivory horn, filled with wine, the old
chieftain knelt before the high altar, and, solemnly quaffing a deep
draught, bestowed upon the church by the act all his lands, tenements,
&c., giving to the holy fathers the horn as their title deed, which they
have preserved ever since; and their successors permit sacrilegious
Yankees, like myself, to press their lips to its brim, while examining
the old relic.
A more modern drinking-cup is the ancient wooden bowl, which was
presented by Archbishop Scrope--who was beheaded in the year 1405--to
the Society of Cordwainers in 1398, and by them given to the church in
1808. This more sensible drinking-cup has silver legs and a silver rim,
and not only is it well adapted for a jorum of punch, but the good
archbishop made it worth while to drink from it, according to the
ancient inscription upon it, in Old English characters, which reads,--
=Richarde arch beschope Scroope grant unto all tho that drinkis
of this cope ILti days to pardon.=
Besides this, we had the pleasure of grasping the solid silver crosier,
given by Queen Catharine, widow of King Charles II. to her confessor, a
staff of weight and value, seven feet in length, elegantly wrought in
appropriate designs. We were also shown the official rings found in the
forgotten tombs of archbishops, in repairing the church pavement,
bearing their dates of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The antique
chair in which the Saxon kings were crowned is here--a relic older than
the cathedral itself; and as "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,"
uncomfortable must have been the seat of him that wore it also, if my
few minutes' experience between its great arms is worth anything; but,
still, it was something to have sat in the very chair in which the
bloody Richard III. had been crowned,--for both he and James I. were
crowned in this chair,--thinking at the time, while I mentally execrated
the crooked tyrant's memory, of the words Shakespeare put into his
mouth:--
"Is the chair empty? Is the sword unswayed?
Is the king dead? the empire unpossessed?
What heir of York is there alive but we?
And who is England's king but great York's heir?"
Here we were shown an old Bible, presented by King Charles II., the old
communion plate, which is five hundred years old, the old vestment
chest, of carved oak, of the time of Edward III., with the legend of St.
George and the Dragon represented upon it, a Bible of 1671, presented by
James I., and other interesting antiquities.
I concluded my visit to this glorious old minster by ascending the
Central or Lantern Tower, as it is called, which rises to a height of
two hundred and thirteen feet from the pavement, and from which I had a
magnificent view of the city of York and the surrounding country.
Although forbearing an attempt to enter upon any detailed descriptions
of numerous beautiful monuments in the cathedral, I cannot omit
referring to the many modern memorials of British officers and soldiers
who have perished in different parts of the world, fighting the battles
of their sovereign. Here is one to six hundred officers and privates of
the nineteenth regiment of foot, who fell in Russia, in 1854-5; another
to three hundred officers and privates of the fifty-first, who fell at
Burmah, in 1852-3; a monument to three hundred and seventy-three of the
eighty-fourth, who perished during the mutiny and rebellion in India in
1857, '8 and '9; a memorial slab to six hundred officers and men of the
thirty-third West York, or Wellington's Own, who lost their lives in the
Russian campaign of 1854-6; a beautiful, elaborate monument to Colonel
Moore and those of the Inniskillen Dragoons, who perished with him in a
transport vessel at sea, &c.
There is not a church or cathedral, not in ruins, that the tourist
visits in Great Britain, but that he reads the bloody catalogue of
victims of England's glory recorded on mural tablets or costly
monuments, a glory that seems built upon hecatombs of lives, showing
that the very empire itself is held together by the cement of human
blood,--blood, too, of the dearest and the bravest,--for I have read
upon costly monuments, reared by titled parents, of noble young
soldiers, of twenty-two and twenty years, and even younger, who have
fallen "victims to Chinese treachery," "perished in a typhoon in the
Indian Ocean," "been massacred in India," "lost at sea," "killed in the
Crimea." They have fallen upon the burning sands of India, amid the
snows of Russia, or in the depths of savage forests, or sunk beneath the
pitiless wave, in upholding the blood-red banner of that nation. This
fearful record that one encounters upon every side is a terrible and
bloody reckoning of the cost of the great nation's glory and power.
From the glories of York Minster, from the pleasant and dreamy walks on
delightful spring days, upon its old walls, and beneath its antique
gateways, its ruined cloisters of St. Leonard's, founded by Athelstane
the Saxon, and the stately ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, with the old
Norman arch and shattered walls, we will glance at an English city under
a cloud, or, I might almost say, under a pall, for the great black
banner that hangs over Sheffield is almost dark enough for one, and in
that respect reminds us of our own Pittsburg, with the everlasting coal
smoke permeating and penetrating everywhere and everything.
The streets of Sheffield have the usual grimy, smoky appearance of a
manufacturing place, and, apart from the steel and cutlery works, there
is but little of interest here. One cannot help observing, however, the
more abject squalor and misery which appear in some of the poorer
neighborhoods, than is ever seen in similar towns or cities in America.
The spirit shops, with their bold signs of different kinds of liquors,
and the gin saloons, with their great painted casks reared on high
behind the counter, at which women serve out the blue ruin, are visible
explanations of the cause of no small portion of the misery.
I found the cutlery works that I visited conducted far differently than
we manage such things in America, where the whole work would be carried
on in one great factory, and from year to year improvements made in
machinery, interior arrangements, &c.; but here the effort seems to be,
on the part of the workmen, to resist every advance or improvement
possible.
We visited the great show-rooms of Rogers & Sons, where specimens of
every description of knives, razors, scissors, cork-screws, boot-hooks,
&c., that they manufacture, were exhibited, a very museum of steel work;
and a young salesman was detailed to answer the questions and show the
same, including the celebrated many-bladed knife, which has one blade
added for every year.
A visit to Joseph Elliot & Son's razor works revealed to us the manner
in which many of the manufacturers carry on their business. We found the
workmen not all together in one factory, but in different buildings. In
one was where the first rough process of forging was performed; from
thence, perhaps across a street, the blades received further touches
from other workmen, and so on, till, when ready for grinding and
polishing, they were carried to the grinding and polishing works, some
distance off, and finally returned to a building near the warerooms, to
be joined to the handles, after which they were papered and packed,
immediately adjoining the warerooms proper, where sales were made and
goods delivered.
I was surprised, in visiting the forges where the elastic metal was beat
into graceful blades, to find them little dingy nooks and corners in a
series of old rookeries of buildings, often badly lighted, cramped and
inconvenient, and difficult of access. No American workmen would work in
such a place; but in watching the progress of the work, we saw
instances of the skill and thoroughness of British mechanics, who have
devoted their life to one particular branch of manufacture--the
precision of stroke in forging, the rapidity with which it was done, to
say nothing of the reliability, which is one characteristic of English
work.
In that country, where the ranks of every department of labor are so
crowded, there seems to be an ambition as to who shall do the best work,
who shall be he that turns out the most skilfully wrought article; and
of course the incentive to this ambition is a permanent situation, and a
workman whom the master will be the last to part with in dull times.
Then, again, in the battle for life, for absolute bread and butter,
people are only too glad to make a sacrifice to learn a trade that will
provide it. No boy can set up as a journeyman here after a couple of
years' experience, as they do in America. There are no such bunglers in
every department of mechanical work as in our country. To do
journeyman's work and earn journeyman's pay, a man must have served a
regular apprenticeship, and have learned his business; and he has to pay
his master for giving him the opportunity, and teaching him a trade, by
which he can work and receive a journeyman's pay--which is right and
proper. The compensation may be in the advantage the master gets from
good work at a low figure in the last years of the apprenticeship, or in
some kinds of business in a stipulated sum of money paid to him. Yet in
England he gets some return, instead of having his workman, as is
generally the case in America, as soon as he ceases to spoil material
and becomes of some value, desert him _sans cérémonie_.
The difficulty, in America, lies in the enormous demand for mechanical
labor, so large that many are willing and obliged to receive inferior
work or none at all, in the haste that all have to be rich, the boy to
have journeyman's wages, the journeyman to be foreman, and foreman to be
contractor and manager, and the abundant opportunity for them all to be
so with the very smallest qualifications for the positions.
It is the thorough workmanship of many varieties of British goods that
makes them so much superior to those of American manufacture; and we may
talk in this country as much as we please about its being snobbish to
prefer foreign to American manufactured goods, yet just as long as the
American article is inferior in quality, durability, and finish to the
foreign article, just so long will people of means and education
purchase it. I believe in encouraging American manufactures to their
fullest extent; but let American manufacturers, when they _are_
encouraged by protection or whatever means, prove by their products that
they are deserving it, as it is gratifying to know that many of them
have; and in this very article of steel, the great Pittsburg steel
workers, such as Park Bros. & Co., Hussey, Wells, & Co., Anderson, Cook,
& Co., and others in that city and Philadelphia, whose names do not now
occur to me, have actually, in some departments of their business,
beaten the British manufacturers in excellence and finish, proving that
it can be done in America. When visiting the great iron works, forges,
and factories in Pittsburg, I have frequently encountered, in the
different departments, skilled workmen from Birmingham, Sheffield, and
other English manufacturing towns, who, of course, were doing much
better than at home, and whose thorough knowledge of their trade never
failed to be the burden of the managers' commendation.
A razor is beaten out into shape, ground, tempered, polished, and
finished much more speedily than I imagined; and as an illustration of
the cheapness at which one can be produced, very good ones are made by
Rogers & Sons for six shillings a dozen, or sixpence each. This can be
done because they are made by apprentices, whose wages are comparatively
trifling. A very large number of these razors go to the United States.
Rogers' knives and razors of the finer descriptions generally command a
slight advance over those of other manufacturers, although there are
some here even in Sheffield whose work is equally good in every respect.
The Messrs. Elliot's razors are celebrated for their excellence both in
England and this country. In visiting their works I was received by one
of the partners, a man who owns his elegant country-house, and enjoys a
handsome income, but who was in his great wareroom, with his workman's
apron on--a badge which he seemed to wear as a matter of course, and in
no way affecting his position; and I then remembered one American
gentleman, who, after rising to affluence, was never too proud to wear
his apron if he thought that part of his dress necessary about his
business, and he a man we all remember _sans reproche_--the late Jonas
Chickering, the great piano manufacturer of Boston.
At Needham Brothers' cutlery works we saw table knives beaten out of the
rough steel with an astonishing rapidity, passed from man to man, till
the black, shapeless lump was placed in my hand a trenchant blade, fit
for service at the festive board. Both here and at Elliot & Sons' razor
works we saw invoices of handsome cutlery in process of manufacture for
the American market.
The grinders and polishers here receive the highest wages, on account of
the unhealthy nature of the employment, which has frequently been
described, the fine particles of steel affecting the lungs so that the
grinders are said to be short-lived men, and their motto "a short life
and a merry one," as I was informed; the "merry" part consisting of
getting uproariously drunk between Saturday night and Tuesday morning.
These grinders are also exceedingly jealous of apprentices, and I
shrewdly suspect in some degree magnify the dangers of their calling, in
order that their numbers may be kept as few, and wages as high, as
possible.
A vast deal of ale is drank in Sheffield, as may well be imagined; and
the great arched vaults which form the support to a bridge, or causeway,
out from the railway station to the streets of the city, are filled with
hundreds on hundreds of barrels of this popular English beverage. And in
truth, to enjoy good ale, and get good ale, one must go to England for
it; the butler on the stage who said, "They 'ave no good hale in
Hamerica, because they ain't got the opps," spoke comparatively, no
doubt; but at the little English inns, upon benches beneath the branches
of a great tree, or in cleanly sanded little public-house parlors at
the windows, looking out upon charming English landscapes, the frothing
tankards are especially inviting and comforting to those using them;
while, per contra, the foul, stale effluvia from the sloppy dens in this
city, which were thronged when the men were off work, the bluff,
bloated, and sodden appearance of ardent lovers of the ale of England,
were evidence that its use might be abused, as well as that of more
potent fluids.
There is comparatively little of historical interest in Sheffield to
attract the attention of the tourist. There was an old castle erected
there at an early period, and, at a place called Sheffield Manor-house,
Mary, Queen of Scots, passed over thirty years of her imprisonment;
but the chief interest of the place is, of course, its cutlery
manufactories, and its reputation for good knives dates back to the
thirteenth century, when it was noted as the place where a kind of knife
known as "Whittles" were made. The presence of iron ore, coal, and also
the excellent water power near the city, make it a very advantageous
place for such work. The great grinding works in the city, where the
largest proportion of that work is done, are driven by steam power.
Besides cutlery in all its branches, Sheffield turns out plated goods,
Britannia ware, brass work, buttons, &c., in large quantities.
Leaving the smoke, hum, clatter, and dingy atmosphere of a great English
manufacturing city, we took rail, and sped on till we reached
Matlock-Bath. Here debarking, we took an open carriage for Edensor, a
little village belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, and situated upon a
portion of his magnificent estate, the finest estate of any nobleman in
England. And some idea of its extent may be gathered from the fact that
its pleasure park contains two thousand acres. Our ride to this estate,
known as Chatsworth, was another one of those enjoyable experiences of
charming English scenery, over a pleasant drive of ten miles, till we
entered upon the duke's estates, and drove across one corner, for
a mile or more, to a pretty little road-side inn, where we were
welcomed by a white-aproned landlord, landlady, and waiter, just
such as are described by the novel writers, and people to whom the
hurried, bustling, imperious manner of go-ahead Americans seems most
extraordinary and surprising.
The Duke of Devonshire's landed property is just such a one as an
American should visit to realize the impressions he has received of a
nobleman's estate from English stories, novels, and dramatic
representations. Here great reaches of beautiful greensward swept away
as far as the eye could reach, with groups of magnificent oaks in the
landscape view, and troops of deer bounding off in the distance. Down
the slope, here and there, came the ploughman, homeward plodding his
weary way, in almost the same costume that Westall has drawn him in his
exquisite little vignette, in the Chiswick edition of Gray's poems.
There, in "the open," upon the close-cut turf, as we approached the
village, was a party of English boys, playing the English game of
cricket. Here, in a sheltered nook beneath two tall trees, nestled the
cottage--the pretty English cottage of one of the duke's gamekeepers.
The garden was gay with many-colored flowers, three chubby children were
rolling over each other on the grass, and a little brook wimpled on its
course down towards groups of clustering alders, quarter of a mile away.
Farther on, we meet the gamekeeper himself, with his double-barrelled
gun and game-pouch, and followed by two splendid pointers. There were
hill and dale, river and lake, oaks and forest, wooded hills and rough
rocks, grand old trees,--
"The brave old oak,
That stands in his pride and majesty
When a hundred years have flown,"
and upon an eminence, overlooking the whole, stands the palace of the
duke, the whole front, of twelve or thirteen hundred feet, having a
grand Italian flower garden, with its urns, vases, and statues in full
view over the dwarf balustrades that protect it; the beautiful Grecian
architecture of the building, the statues, fountains, forest, stream,
and slope, all so charmingly combined by both nature and art into a
lovely landscape picture, as to seem almost like a scene from fairy
land.
But here we are at Edensor, the little village owned by the duke, and in
which he is finishing a new church for his tenantry, a very handsome
edifice, at a cost of nearly fifteen thousand pounds. This Edensor is
one of the most beautiful little villages in England. Its houses are all
built in Elizabethan, Swiss, and quaint styles of architecture, and
looking, for all the world, like a clean little engraving from an
illustrated book.
I hardly know where to commence any attempt at description of this
magnificent estate; but some idea may be had of its extent from the fact
that the park is over nine miles in circumference, that the kitchen
gardens and green-houses cover twenty acres, and that there are thirty
green-houses, from fifty to seventy-five feet long; that, standing upon
a hill-top, commanding a circuit view of twelve miles, I could see
nothing but what this man owned, or was his estate. Through the great
park, as we walked, magnificent pheasants, secure in their protection by
the game laws upon this vast estate, hardly waddled out of our path. The
troops of deer galloped within fifty paces of us, sleek cattle grazed
upon the verdant slope, and every portion of the land showed evidence of
careful attention from skilful hands.
We reached a bridge which spanned the little river,--a fine, massive
stone structure, built from a design by Michael Angelo,--and crossing
it, wound our way up to the grand entrance, with its great gates of
wrought and gilt iron. One of those well-got-up, full-fed, liveried
individuals, whom Punch denominates flunkies, carried my card in, for
permission to view the premises, which is readily accorded, the steward
of the establishment sending a servant to act as guide.
Passing through a broad court-yard, we enter the grand entrance-hall--a
noble room some sixty or seventy feet in length, its lofty wall adorned
with elegant frescoes, representing scenes from the life of Cæsar,
including his celebrated Passing of the Rubicon, and his Death at the
Senate House, &c. Passing up a superb, grand staircase, rich with
statues of heathen deities and elegantly-wrought columns, we went on to
the state apartments of the house. The ceilings of these magnificent
rooms are adorned with splendid pictures, among which are the Judgment
of Paris, Phaeton in the Chariot of the Sun, Aurora, and other
mythological subjects, while the rooms themselves, opening one out of
the other, are each rich in works of vertu and art, and form a vista of
beauty and wonder. Recollect, all these rooms were different, each
furnished in the most perfect taste, each rich in rare and curious
productions of art, ancient and modern, for which all countries, even
Egypt and Turkey, had been ransacked.
The presents of kings and princes, and the purchases of the richest
dukes for three generations, contributed to adorn the apartments of this
superb palace. Not among the least wonderful works of art is some of the
splendid wood-carving of Gibbon upon the walls--of game, flowers, and
fruit, so exquisitely executed that the careless heap of grouse, snipe,
or partridges look as though a light breeze would stir their very
feathers--flowers that seem as if they would drop from the walls, and a
game-bag at which I had to take a close look to see if it were really a
creation of the carver's art.
Upon the walls of all the rooms are suspended beautiful pictures by the
great artists. Here, in one room, we found our old, familiar friend,
Bolton Abbey in the Olden Time, the original painting by Landseer, and a
magnificent picture it is. In another room was one of Holbein's
portraits of Henry VIII., and we were shown also the rosary of this
king, who was _married so numerously_, an elegant and elaborately-carved
piece of work. In another apartment was a huge table of malachite,--a
single magnificent slab of about eight feet long by four in width,--a
clock of gold and malachite, presented to the duke by the Emperor
Nicholas, worth a thousand guineas, a broad table of one single sheet of
translucent spar.
In the state bedroom was the bed in which George II. died. Here also
were the chairs and foot-stools that were used by George III. and his
queen at their coronation; and in another room the two chairs in which
William IV. and Queen Adelaide sat when they were crowned, and looking
in their elaborate and florid decoration of gold and color precisely
like the chairs placed upon the stage at the theatre for the mimic
monarchs of dramatic representations. In fact, all the pomp, costume,
and paraphernalia of royalty, so strikingly reminds an American of
theatric display, that the only difference seems that the one is shown
by a manager, and the other by a king.
Then there were numerous magnificent cabinets, ancient and modern,
inlaid with elegant mosaic work, and on their shelves rested that rich,
curious, and antique old china of every design, for which the wealthy
were wont to pay such fabulous prices. Some was of exquisite beauty and
elegant design; others, to my unpractised eye, would have suffered in
comparison with our present kitchen delf. Elegant tapestries, cabinet
paintings, beautifully-modelled furniture, met the eye at every turn;
rare bronze busts and statues appropriately placed; the floors one sheet
of polished oak, so exactly were they matched; and the grand entrance
doors of each one of the long range of beautiful rooms being placed
exactly opposite the other, give a vista of five hundred and sixty feet
in length.
Then there was the great library, which is a superb room over a hundred
feet long, with great columns from floor to ceiling, and a light gallery
running around it. Opening out of it are an ante-library and cabinet
library--perfect gems of rooms, rich in medallions, pictures by
Landseer, &c., and, of course, each room containing a wealth of
literature on the book-shelves in the Spanish mahogany alcoves. In fact,
the rooms in this edifice realize one's idea of a nobleman's palace, and
the visitor sees that they contain all that unbounded wealth can
purchase, and taste and art produce. I must not forget, in one of these
apartments, a whole set of exquisite little filigree, silver toys, made
for one of the duke's daughters, embracing a complete outfit for a
baby-house, and including piano, chairs, carriage, &c., all beautifully
wrought, elaborate specimens of workmanship, artistically made, but, of
course, useless for service.
In one of the great galleries we were shown a magnificent collection
of artistic wealth in the form of nearly a thousand original
drawings--first rough sketches of the old masters, some of their
masterpieces which adorn the great galleries of Europe, and are
celebrated all over the world.
Only think of looking upon the _original designs_, the rough crayon,
pencil, or chalk sketches made by Rubens, Salvator Rosa, Claude
Lorraine, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Michael Angelo, Nicolas Poussin,
Hogarth, and other great artists, of some of their most celebrated
works, and these sketches bearing the autographic signatures of the
painters! This grand collection of artistic wealth is all arrayed and
classified into Flemish, Venetian, Spanish, French, and Italian schools,
&c., and the value in an artistic point of view is almost as
inconceivable as the interest to a lover of art is indescribable. The
tourist can only feel, as he is compelled to hurry through such
treasures of art, that the brief time he has to devote to them is but
little better than an aggravation.
An elegant private chapel, rich in sculpture, painting, and carving,
affords opportunity for the master of this magnificent estate to worship
God in a luxurious manner. Scenes from the life of the Saviour, from the
pencils of great artists, adorn the walls--Verrio's Incredulity of
Thomas; an altar-piece by Cibber, made of Derbyshire spar and marble,
with figures of Faith and Hope, and the wondrous wood carving of Gibbon,
are among the treasures of this exquisite temple to the Most High.
Next we visit the Sculpture Gallery, in which are collected the choicest
works of art in Chatsworth: the statues, busts, vases, and bronzes that
we have passed in niches, upon cabinets, on great marble staircases, and
at various other points in the mansion, would in themselves have formed
a wondrous collection; but here is the Sculpture Gallery proper, a lofty
hall over one hundred feet in length, lighted from the top, and the
light is managed so as to display to the best advantage the treasures
of art here collected. I can only mention a few of the most striking
which I jotted down in my note-book, and which will indicate the value
of the collection: Discobulus, by Kessels; upon the panels of the
pedestal, on which this statue is placed, are inlaid slabs of elegant
Swedish porphyry, and a fine mosaic taken from Herculaneum; a colossal
marble bust of Bonaparte, by Canova; Gott's Venus; two colossal lions
(after Canova), cut in Carrara marble, one by Rinaldi and the other by
Benaglia--they are beautifully finished, and the weight of the group is
eight tons; bust of Edward Everett, by Powers; the Venus Genetrix of
Thorwaldsen; five elegantly finished small columns from Constantinople,
surmounted by Corinthian capitals cut in Rome, and crowned with vases
and balls, all of beautiful workmanship; a statue of Hebe, by Canova; a
colossal group of Mars and Cupid, by Gibson; Cupid enclosing in his
hands the butterfly; an image of Psyche, the Grecian emblem of the soul,
an exquisite piece of sculpture, by Finelli; a bass-relief of three
sleeping Cupids, also most life-like in execution; Tadolini's Ganymede
and Eagle; Bartolini's Bacchante with Tamborine; a superb vase and
pedestal, presented by the Emperor of Russia; Venus wounded by treading
on a rose, and Cupid extracting the thorn; Endymion sleeping with his
dog watching, by Canova; Achilles wounded; Venus Filatrice, as it is
called, a beautiful spinning girl, one of the most beautiful works in
the gallery--the pedestal on which this figure stands is a fragment from
Trajan's Forum; Petrarch's Laura, by Canova, &c. From the few that I
have mentioned, the wealth of this collection may be imagined. In the
centre of the room stands the gigantic Mecklenburg Vase, twenty feet in
circumference, sculptured out of a single block of granite, resting on a
pedestal of the same material, and inside the vase a serpent coiled in
form of a figure eight, wrought from black marble.
I have given but a mere glance at the inside of this elegant palace: in
passing through the different grand apartments, the visitor, if he will
step from time to time into the deep windows and look upon the scene
without, will see how art has managed that the very landscape views
shall have additional charm and beauty to the eye. One window commands a
close-shaven green lawn over a hundred feet wide and five hundred long,
as regular and clean as a sheet of green velvet, its extreme edge rich
in a border of many-colored flowers; another shows a slope crossed with
walks, and enlivened with vases and sparkling fountains; another, the
natural landscape, with river and bridge, and the background of noble
oak trees; a fourth shows a series of terraces rising one above the
other for hundreds of feet, rich in flowering shrubs and plants, and
descending the centre from the very summit, a great flight of stone
steps, thirty feet in width, down which dashes a broad, thin sheet of
water like a great web of silver in the sunshine, reflecting the marble
statues at its margin, till it reaches the very verge of the broad
gravel walk of the pleasure-grounds, as if to dash in torrents over it,
when it disappears, as by magic, into the very earth, being conveyed
away by a subterranean passage to the river.
After walking about the enclosed gardens immediately around the palace,
which are laid out in Italian style, with vases, statues, and fountains,
reminding one strikingly of views upon theatrical act-drops on an
extended scale, we came to several acres of ground, which appeared to
have been left in a natural state; huge crags, abrupt cliffs with
dripping waterfall falling over the edge into a silent, black tarn at
its base, curious caverns, huge boulders thrown together as by some
convulsion, and odd plants growing among them.
In and about romantic views, our winding path carried us until we were
stopped by a huge boulder of rock that had tumbled down, apparently from
a neighboring crag, directly upon the pathway. We were about to turn
back to make a _détour_, as clambering over the obstacle was out of the
question, when our guide solved the difficulty by pressing against the
intruding mass of rock, which, to our surprise, yielding, swung to one
side, leaving passage for us to pass. It was artificially poised upon a
pivot for this purpose. Then it was that we learned that the whole of
this apparently natural scenery was in reality the work of art; the
rocky crags, waterfall and tarn, romantic and tangled shrubbery, rustic
nooks, odd caverns, and mossy cliffs, nay, even old uprooted tree, and
the one that, with dead foliage, stripped limbs, that stood out in bold
relief against the sky, were all artistically placed,--in fact the whole
built and arranged for effect; and on knowing this, it seemed to be a
series of natural models set for landscape painters to get bits of
effect from.
Among the curiosities in this natural artificial region was a wonderful
tree, a sort of stiff-looking willow, but which our conductor changed by
touching a secret spring into a _veritable_ weeping willow, for fine
streams of water started from every leaf, twig, and shoot of its copper
branches--a most novel and curious style of fountain.
But we must pass on to the great conservatory, another surprise in this
realm of wonders. Only think of a conservatory covering more than an
acre of ground, with an arched roof of glass seventy feet high, and a
great drive-way large enough for a carriage and four horses to be driven
right through from one end to the other, a distance of two hundred and
seventy-six feet, as Queen Victoria's was, on her visit to the estate.
Before the erection of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, this conservatory
was the most magnificent building of the kind in England, and was
designed and built by Paxton, the duke's gardener, afterwards the
architect of the Crystal Palace. Here one might well fancy himself, from
the surroundings, transferred by Fortunatus's wishing cap into the
tropics. Great palm trees lifted their broad, leafy crowns fifty feet
above our heads; slender bamboos rose like stacks of lances; immense
cactuses, ten feet high, bristled like fragments of a warrior's armor;
the air was fragrant with the smell of orange trees; big lemons plumped
down on the rank turf from the dark, glossy foliage of the trees that
bore them; opening ovoids displayed stringy mace holding aromatic
nutmegs; wondrous vegetation, like crooked serpents, wound off on the
damp soil; great pitcher-plants, huge broad leaves of curious colors,
looking as if cut from different varieties of velvet, and other
fantastic wonders of the tropics, greeted us at every turn. Here was the
curious sago palm; there rose with its clusters of fruit the date palm;
again, great clusters of rich bananas drooped pendent from their
support; singular shrubs, curious grasses, wonderful leaves huge in size
and singular in shape, and wondrous trees _as large as life_, rose on
every side, so that one might readily imagine himself in an East Indian
jungle or a Brazilian forest,--
"And every air was heavy with the sighs
Of orange groves,"--
or the strong, spicy perfume of strange trees and plants unknown in this
cold climate.
Over seventy thousand square feet of glass are between the iron ribs of
the great roof of this conservatory, and within its ample space the soil
and temperature are carefully arranged to suit the nature and characters
of the different plants it contains, while neither expense nor pains are
spared to obtain and cultivate these vegetable curiosities in their
native luxuriance and beauty.
I will not attempt a particular description of the other green-houses.
There are thirty in all, and each devoted to different kinds of fruits
or flowers--a study for the horticulturist or botanist. One was devoted
entirely to medicinal plants, another to rare and curious flowering
plants, gay in all the hues of the rainbow, and rich with perfume; a
Victoria Regia house, just completed, of octagon form, and erected
expressly for the growth of this curious product of South American
waters; magnificent graperies, four or five in all, and seven hundred
feet long, with the green, white, and purple clusters depending in every
direction and in various stages of growth, from blossom to perfection;
pineries containing whole regiments of the fruit, ranged in regular
ranks, with their martial blades erect above their green and yellow
coats of mail. Peach-houses, with the pink blossoms just bursting into
beauty, were succeeded by the fruit, first like vegetable grape-shot,
and further on in great, luscious, velvet-coated spheroids at maturity,
as it drops from the branches into netting spread to catch it.
In the peach-houses is one tree, fifteen feet high, and its branches
extending on the walls a distance of over fifty feet, producing, some
years, over a thousand peaches. Then there are strawberry-houses,
apricot, vegetable, and even a house for mushrooms, besides the
extensive kitchen gardens, in which every variety of ordinary
vegetable is grown; all of these nurseries, gardens, hot-houses, and
conservatories are well cared for, and kept in excellent order.
The great conservatory is said to have cost one hundred thousand pounds;
it is heated by steam and hot water, and there are over six miles of
piping in the building. The duke's table, whether he be here or at
London, is supplied daily with rare fruits and the other products of
these _hot-beds of luxury_.
But the reader will tire of reading, as does the visitor of viewing, the
endless evidences of the apparently boundless wealth that almost
staggers the conception of the American tourist fresh from home, with
_his_ ideas of what constitutes wealth and power in a republican
country.
After having visited, as we have, one of the most magnificent modern
palaces of one of the most princely of modern England's noblemen, it was
a pleasant transition to ride over to one of the most perfect remnants
of the habitations of her feudal nobility, Haddon Hall, situated in
Derbyshire, a few miles from Chatsworth.
This fine old castellated building is one from which can be formed a
correct idea of those old strongholds of the feudal lords of the middle
ages; indeed, it is a remnant of one of those very strongholds, a
crumbling picture of the past, rich in its fine old coloring of chivalry
and romance, conjuring up many poetic fancies, and putting to flight
others, by the practical realities that it presents in the shape of what
would be now positive discomfort in our domestic life, but which, in
those rude days, was magnificence.
Haddon Hall is in fact a very fine example of an old baronial hall in ye
times of old, and portions of the interior appear as though it had been
preserved in the exact condition it was left by its knightly occupants
three hundred years ago.
The embattled turrets of Haddon, rising above the trees, as it stood on
its rocky platform, overlooking the little River Wye and the surrounding
country, seemed only to be wanting the knightly banner fluttering above
them, and we almost expected to see the flash of a spear-head in the
sunlight, or the glitter of a steel helmet from the ancient but
well-preserved walls. We climbed up the steep ascent to the great arched
entrance, surmounted with the arms, in rude sculpture, of the Vernon
family, who held the property for three centuries and a half; and
beneath that arch, where warlike helmets, haughty brows, and beauteous
ladies, the noblest and bravest blood of England have passed, passed we.
No warder's horn summons the man-at-arms to the battlements above; no
drawbridge falls, with ringing clang, over the castle moat, or pointed
portcullis slowly raises its iron fangs to admit us; but for hundreds of
years have hundreds of feet pressed that threshold of stone--the feet of
those of our own time, and of those who slumbered in the dust hundreds
of years ere we trod the earth; and we mark, as we pass through the
little door, cut through one of the broad leaves of the great gates,
that in the stony threshold is the deep impression of a human foot, worn
by the innumerable steppings that have been made upon the same spot by
mailed heels, ladies' slippers, pilgrims' sandals, troopers' boots, or
the leather and steel-clad feet of our own time. Passed the portal, and
we were in the grand, open court-yard, with its quaint ornaments of
stone carving, its stone pavement, and entrances to various parts of the
building.
There is a picture, entitled "Coming of Age in the Olden Time," which is
familiar to many of my readers, and which is still common in many of our
print-stores; an engraving issued by one of the Scotch Art Unions, I
believe, which was brought forcibly to my mind, as I stood in this old
court-yard of Haddon Hall, there were so many general features that were
similar, and it required no great stretch of the imagination for me to
place the young nobleman upon the very flight of steps he occupies in
the picture, and to group the other figures in the parts of the space
before me, which seemed the very one they had formerly occupied; but my
dreams and imaginings were interrupted by a request to come and see what
remained of the realities of the place.
First, there was the great kitchen, all of stone, its fireplace big
enough to roast an ox; a huge rude table or dresser; the great trough,
or sink, into which fresh water was conducted: and an adjoining room,
with its huge chopping-block still remaining, was evidently the larder,
and doubtless many a rich haunch of venison, or juicy baron of beef, has
been trimmed into shape here. Another great vaulted room, down a flight
of steps, was the beer cellar; and a good supply of stout ale was kept
there, as is evinced by the low platform of stone-work all around, and
the stone drain to carry off the drippings. Then there is the
bake-house, with its moulding-stone and ovens, the store-rooms for corn,
malt, &c., all indicating that the men of ye olden times liked good,
generous living.
The Great Hall, as it is called, where the lord of the castle feasted
with his guests, still remains, with its rough roof and rafters of oak,
its minstrel gallery, ornamented with stags' antlers; and there, raised
above the stone floor a foot or so, yet remains the dais, upon which
rested the table at which sat the nobler guests; and here is the very
table itself, three long, blackened oak planks, supported by rude X
legs--the table that has borne the boars' heads, the barons of beef,
gilded peacocks, haunches of venison, flagons of ale, and stoups of
wine. Let us stand at its head, and look down the old baronial hall: it
was once noisy with mirth and revelry, music and song: the fires from
the huge fireplaces flashed on armor and weapons, faces and forms that
have all long since crumbled into dust; and here is only left a
cheerless, barn-like old room, thirty-five feet long and twenty-five
wide, with time-blackened rafters, and a retainers' room, or servants'
hall, looking into it.
Up a massive staircase of huge blocks of stone, and we are in another
apartment, a room called the dining-room, used for that purpose by more
modern occupants of the Hall; and here we find portraits of Henry VII.
and his queen, and also of the king's jester, Will Somers. Over the
fireplace are the royal arms, and beneath them, in Old English
character, the motto,--
=Drede God, and honor the King.=
Up stairs, six semicircular steps of solid oak, and we are in the long
gallery, or ball-room, one hundred and ten feet long and eighteen wide,
with immense bay-windows, commanding beautiful views, the sides of the
room wainscoted in oak, and decorated with carvings of the boar's head
and peacock, the crests of the Vernon and Manners families; carvings of
roses and thistles also adorn the walls of this apartment, which was
said to have been built in Queen Elizabeth's time, and there is a
curious story told of the oaken floor, which is, that the boards were
all cut from _one_ tree that grew in the garden, and that the roots
furnished the great semicircular steps that lead up to the room. The
compartments of the bay-windows are adorned with armorial bearings of
different owners of the place, and from them are obtained some of those
ravishing landscape views for which England is so famous--silvery
stream, spanned by rustic bridges, as it meandered off towards green
meadows; the old park, with splendid group of oaks; the distant village,
with its ancient church; and all those picturesque objects that
contribute to make the picture perfect.
We now wend our way through other rooms, with the old Gobelin tapestry
upon the walls, with the pictured story of Moses still distinct upon its
wondrous folds, and into rooms comparatively modern, that have been
restored, kept, and used within the past century. Here is one with
furniture of green and damask, chairs and state bed, and hung with
Gobelin tapestry, with Esop's fables wrought upon it. Here, again, the
rude carving, massive oak-work, and ill-constructed joining, tell the
olden time.
But we must not leave Haddon Hall without passing through the ante-room,
as it is called, and out into the garden on Dorothy Vernon's Walk. On
our way thither the guide lifts up occasionally the arras, or tapestry,
and shows us those concealed doors and passages of which we have read so
often in the books; and now that I think of it, it was here at Haddon
Hall that many of the wild and romantic ideas were obtained by Mrs.
Radcliff for that celebrated old-fashioned romance, "The Mysteries of
Udolpho."
The "garden of Haddon," writes S. C. Hall, "has been, time out of mind,
a treasure store of the English landscape painter, and one of the most
favorite 'bits' being 'Dorothy Vernon's Walk,' and the door out of which
tradition describes her as escaping to meet her lover, Sir John Manners,
with whom she eloped." Haddon, by this marriage, became the property of
the noble house of Rutland, who made it their residence till the
commencement of the present century, when they removed to the more
splendid castle of Belvoir; but to the Duke of Rutland the tourist and
those who venerate antiquity, owe much for keeping this fine old place
from "improvements," and so much of it in its original and ancient form.
That the landscape painters had made good and frequent use of the garden
of Haddon I ascertained the moment I entered it. Dorothy's Walk, a fine
terrace, shaded by limes and sycamores, leads to picturesque flights of
marble steps, which I recognized as old friends that had figured in many
a "flat" of theatrical scenery, upon many an act-drop, or been still
more skilfully borrowed from, in effect, by the stage-carpenter and
machinist in a set scene. Plucking a little bunch of wild-flowers from
Dorothy's Walk, and a sprig of ivy from the steps down which she hurried
in the darkness, while her friends were revelling in another part of the
hall, we bade farewell to old Haddon, with its quaint halls, its
court-yards, and its terraced garden, amid whose venerable trees
"the air
Seems hallowed by the breath of other times."