Miscellany 34

MISCELLANY 34

THE EMPEROR’S NEW CLOTHES

Hans Christian Andersen

Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress. He did not trouble himself in the least about his soldiers; nor did he care to go either to the theatre or the chase, except for the opportunities then afforded him for displaying his new clothes. He had a different suit for each hour of the day; and as of any other king or emperor, one is accustomed to say, “he is sitting in council,” it was always said of him, “The Emperor is sitting in his wardrobe.”
Time passed merrily in the large town which was his capital; strangers arrived every day at the court. One day, two rogues, calling themselves weavers, made their appearance. They gave out that they knew how to weave stuffs of the most beautiful colors and elaborate patterns, the clothes manufactured from which should have the wonderful property of remaining invisible to everyone who was unfit for the office he held, or who was extraordinarily simple in character.
“These must, indeed, be splendid clothes!” thought the Emperor. “Had I such a suit, I might at once find out what men in my realms are unfit for their office, and also be able to distinguish the wise from the foolish! This stuff must be woven for me immediately.” And he caused large sums of money to be given to both the weavers in order that they might begin their work directly.
So the two pretended weavers set up two looms, and affected to work very busily, though in reality they did nothing at all. They asked for the most delicate silk and the purest gold thread; put both into their own knapsacks; and then continued their pretended work at the empty looms until late at night.
“I should like to know how the weavers are getting on with my cloth,” said the Emperor to himself, after some little time had elapsed; he was, however, rather embarrassed, when he remembered that a simpleton, or one unfit for his office, would be unable to see the manufacture. To be sure, he thought he had nothing to risk in his own person; but yet, he would prefer sending somebody else, to bring him intelligence about the weavers, and their work, before he troubled himself in the affair. All the people throughout the city had heard of the wonderful property the cloth was to possess; and all were anxious to learn how wise, or how ignorant, their neighbors might prove to be.
“I will send my faithful old minister to the weavers,” said the Emperor at last, after some deliberation, “he will be best able to see how the cloth looks; for he is a man of sense, and no one can be more suitable for his office than he is.”
So the faithful old minister went into the hall, where the knaves were working with all their might, at their empty looms. “What can be the meaning of this?” thought the old man, opening his eyes very wide. “I cannot discover the least bit of thread on the looms.” However, he did not express his thoughts aloud.
The impostors requested him very courteously to be so good as to come nearer their looms; and then asked him whether the design pleased him, and whether the colors were not very beautiful; at the same time pointing to the empty frames. The poor old minister looked and looked, he could not discover anything on the looms, for a very good reason, viz: there was nothing there. “What!” thought he again. “Is it possible that I am a simpleton? I have never thought so myself; and no one must know it now if I am so. Can it be, that I am unfit for my office? No, that must not be said either. I will never confess that I could not see the stuff.”
“Well, Sir Minister!” said one of the knaves, still pretending to work. “You do not say whether the stuff pleases you.”
“Oh, it is excellent!” replied the old minister, looking at the loom through his spectacles. “This pattern, and the colors, yes, I will tell the Emperor without delay, how very beautiful I think them.”
“We shall be much obliged to you,” said the impostors, and then they named the different colors and described the pattern of the pretended stuff. The old minister listened attentively to their words, in order that he might repeat them to the Emperor; and then the knaves asked for more silk and gold, saying that it was necessary to complete what they had begun. However, they put all that was given them into their knapsacks; and continued to work with as much apparent diligence as before at their empty looms.
The Emperor now sent another officer of his court to see how the men were getting on, and to ascertain whether the cloth would soon be ready. It was just the same with this gentleman as with the minister; he surveyed the looms on all sides, but could see nothing at all but the empty frames.
“Does not the stuff appear as beautiful to you, as it did to my lord the minister?” asked the impostors of the Emperor’s second ambassador; at the same time making the same gestures as before, and talking of the design and colors which were not there.
“I certainly am not stupid!” thought the messenger. “It must be, that I am not fit for my good, profitable office! That is very odd; however, no one shall know anything about it.” And accordingly he praised the stuff he could not see, and declared that he was delighted with both colors and patterns. “Indeed, please your Imperial Majesty,” said he to his sovereign when he returned, “the cloth which the weavers are preparing is extraordinarily magnificent.”
The whole city was talking of the splendid cloth which the Emperor had ordered to be woven at his own expense.
And now the Emperor himself wished to see the costly manufacture, while it was still in the loom. Accompanied by a select number of officers of the court, among whom were the two honest men who had already admired the cloth, he went to the crafty impostors, who, as soon as they were aware of the Emperor’s approach, went on working more diligently than ever; although they still did not pass a single thread through the looms.
“Is not the work absolutely magnificent?” said the two officers of the crown, already mentioned. “If your Majesty will only be pleased to look at it! What a splendid design! What glorious colors!” and at the same time they pointed to the empty frames; for they imagined that everyone else could see this exquisite piece of workmanship.
“How is this?” said the Emperor to himself. “I can see nothing! This is indeed a terrible affair! Am I a simpleton, or am I unfit to be an Emperor? That would be the worst thing that could happen—Oh! the cloth is charming,” said he, aloud. “It has my complete approbation.” And he smiled most graciously, and looked closely at the empty looms; for on no account would he say that he could not see what two of the officers of his court had praised so much. All his retinue now strained their eyes, hoping to discover something on the looms, but they could see no more than the others; nevertheless, they all exclaimed, “Oh, how beautiful!” and advised his majesty to have some new clothes made from this splendid material, for the approaching procession. “Magnificent! Charming! Excellent!” resounded on all sides; and everyone was uncommonly gay. The Emperor shared in the general satisfaction; and presented the impostors with the riband of an order of knighthood, to be worn in their button-holes, and the title of “Gentlemen Weavers.”
The rogues sat up the whole of the night before the day on which the procession was to take place, and had sixteen lights burning, so that everyone might see how anxious they were to finish the Emperor’s new suit. They pretended to roll the cloth off the looms; cut the air with their scissors; and sewed with needles without any thread in them. “See!” cried they, at last. “The Emperor’s new clothes are ready!”
And now the Emperor, with all the grandees of his court, came to the weavers; and the rogues raised their arms, as if in the act of holding something up, saying, “Here are your Majesty’s trousers! Here is the scarf! Here is the mantle! The whole suit is as light as a cobweb; one might fancy one has nothing at all on, when dressed in it; that, however, is the great virtue of this delicate cloth.”
“Yes indeed!” said all the courtiers, although not one of them could see anything of this exquisite manufacture.
“If your Imperial Majesty will be graciously pleased to take off your clothes, we will fit on the new suit, in front of the looking glass.”
The Emperor was accordingly undressed, and the rogues pretended to array him in his new suit; the Emperor turning round, from side to side, before the looking glass.
“How splendid his Majesty looks in his new clothes, and how well they fit!” everyone cried out. “What a design! What colors! These are indeed royal robes!”
“The canopy which is to be borne over your Majesty, in the procession, is waiting,” announced the chief master of the ceremonies.
“I am quite ready,” answered the Emperor. “Do my new clothes fit well?” asked he, turning himself round again before the looking glass, in order that he might appear to be examining his handsome suit.
The lords of the bedchamber, who were to carry his Majesty’s train felt about on the ground, as if they were lifting up the ends of the mantle; and pretended to be carrying something; for they would by no means betray anything like simplicity, or unfitness for their office.
So now the Emperor walked under his high canopy in the midst of the procession, through the streets of his capital; and all the people standing by, and those at the windows, cried out, “Oh! How beautiful are our Emperor’s new clothes! What a magnificent train there is to the mantle; and how gracefully the scarf hangs!” in short, no one would allow that he could not see these much-admired clothes; because, in doing so, he would have declared himself either a simpleton or unfit for his office. Certainly, none of the Emperor’s various suits, had ever made so great an impression, as these invisible ones.
“But the Emperor has nothing at all on!” said a little child.
“Listen to the voice of innocence!” exclaimed his father; and what the child had said was whispered from one to another.
“But he has nothing at all on!” at last cried out all the people. The Emperor was vexed, for he knew that the people were right; but he thought the procession must go on now! And the lords of the bedchamber took greater pains than ever, to appear holding up a train, although, in reality, there was no train to hold.

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Miscellany 33

MISCELLANY 33

THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN’S CULTURAL TOUR OF LINCOLNSHIRE (1838): VII

Lincoln to Doncaster (in 1838)

THERE are perhaps few routes, in the fertile and happy country of England, which exhibit what painters call the "amenity" of landscape, more correctly and strikingly, than that from "Lincoln to York" through Doncaster and Wakefield. It was with more than one sigh that I turned my back upon Hull, and Beverley Minster, visited twenty years ago (of all the Minsters probably in Europe, that of Beverley yields to none in elegance), and so I started in time sufficient, by easy stages, to reach Doncaster to a late dinner. 

 Gainsborough, a town of business, with a population of seven thousand souls, was the first important place where we halted. It is about eighteen miles from Lincoln, and the journey thither is flat and dull. It was from hence, sixteen years before—as I seem to recollect—that I started in a steamer for Hull. Now, there is a constant intercourse by means of the same sort of conveyance; and commerce of every kind was, as I learnt, "looking up." Vessels of 150 tons burden, borne upon the bosom of the Trent, display their streamers as it were in the very heart of the town. These maintain a brisk trade along the shores of the Baltic: while sundry canals facilitate inland navigation. You pass over a noble bridge of three elliptical arches, as you enter the town. There is little to reward the search of the antiquary, except it be the Old Hall, or Palace, consisting of three sides of a quadrangle, and of which the greater portion of the materials consist of timber. There are some old chimney stacks which may be pushed to the reign of Henry VII; and, perhaps, a part of the building may extend to the year 1400. It has been supposed that the Danish ships, under the predatory chieftain, Sweyne, landed at Gainsborough, when their crews laid waste the surrounding country. It might have been so. From Gainsborough we made rapid way to Bawtry. The country now assumes a more luxuriant aspect. Woods of deep foliage; fields waving with golden grain; pasture-lands upon which thriving cattle were feeding—everything seemed to indicate what Yorkshire had been always held out to me to exhibit, a rich and prosperous county. 

As I neared Bawtry, I passed the lodge and gates of Wyston [now Wiseton] —the residence of the present Earl Spencer; who, as Viscount Althorp and Chancellor of the Exchequer, under the successive administrations of Earl Grey and Viscount Melbourne, conducted the Reform Bill through the stormiest opposition in the House of Commons which had been ever evinced: who, by his " incomparable felicity of temper" (as Gibbon said of Lord North) steadiness of purpose, and integrity of principle, won more "golden opinions," and carried away more hearts captive, than probably had fallen to the lot of any one of his predecessors in office. On the death of his father, Lord Althorp necessarily succeeded to the peerage; but his country will always lament his secession from public life. That undisguised simplicity of utterance, and inflexible integrity of heart, which had uniformly distinguished his career, was duly appreciated, as well without, as within, the doors and now here, and at Althorp, the retired senator studiously reposes. 

A short nine miles from Bawtry brings you to Doncaster ... a name, next to that of Newmarket, ever memorable in the annals of horse-racing: the focus of fashion and of provincial beauty in the month of September, when the great St. Leger Stake is contested. Here Eclipse, that great quadrupedical hero of other days, gathered immortal renown.  Eclipse won his first great stake at Doncaster. The course is somewhat in the form of the figure 8; and our "hero" had completely rounded it, ere his companions had covered one-half. He had a slouch in his mode of running, putting his head downwards like a hare: nor did he commence his career (at five years of age) till others, now-a-days, have concluded it. Memnon, of later times, rushed like the winds to the winning post. The shout, the laugh, the jest, the gibe,—the expanded forehead of success, and the indented brow of defeat,—the braggart champion, and the skulking shark,—rank, wealth, equipage,— the unknown, the poor, and the unsuspecting,—the gamester, springing upon his prey,—the affrighted novice, and the ruined squire ;—these, and a thousand things besides, strike the imagination of the sentimental traveller as he enters Doncaster supplied by a sight of the great stand and race-course immediately to the right. 

Still nearing the town, you pass a new church, of which the spire—before my return from Scotland—had been scathed and destroyed by lightning. It was a fearful sight as I saw it on my return in December. The work of destruction had been as complete as prompt. Man labours for months and years: heaven destroys those labours in the twinkling of an eye. An amiable young clergyman, of the name of Branston, had been just appointed to the preferment.

 Of all the towns I had ever entered, on the Continent or in England, I am not sure that I was ever so thoroughly impressed with the neatness, the breathing space, the residence-inviting aspect of any, as of the town of Doncaster. It is cheerful, commodious, and the streets are of delightful breadth. You need not fear suffocation, either from natural or artificial causes,—for no smoke is vomited, in trailing columns, from manufacturing chimneys. The sky is blue,— the sun is bright,—the air is pure. Your heart dances merrily within you, as the horses seem to stop naturally at the New Angel hotel—for the meek, unoffending monosyllable, "Inn," seems now to be gradually sinking into desuetude. We bespoke a sitting room and two bed-rooms, for two days.

 The next day was Sunday. I had seen, on approaching the town, the noble tower of the old Church; of about the Tudor time of architecture. It is lofty and massive; but perhaps overlaid with ornament in the upper part. It reminded me of the tower of Gloucester cathedral, of which it may be deemed an octavo edition; but the old folio beats it in simplicity of arrangement, and grandeur of elevation. The open pinnacles of the latter, on the summit of the tower, leave nothing to desire. But we must keep to our text, and remember that we are at Doncaster. The entire church, which I carefully surveyed within and without, and in which I attended divine service on the Sunday afternoon, is without doubt one of the finest in the kingdom. It has space as well as proportion; but what language can do justice to the Painted Window over the high altar!—to which the eye is instantly rivetted, on entering the eastern door. It represents, in the main part, the Evangelists and Apostles; and was achieved at an expense little short of a thousand guineas,— a sum by no means beyond its merits. The artist, who has gained a glorious immortality by its achieve ment, is Mr. William Miller. It is difficult to say which colour predominates in splendour and transparency; but the green struck me as the most sparkling and effective. This precious, and, as a modern specimen of art, unrivalled production, is wisely secured from accident, without, by small wires. It measures twenty-eight feet in height, by fifteen in width. You know not how to gaze enough, or when to go away. It is so entirely beyond all ordinary productions of art in the same style, that you wonder whence it came, and almost doubt its execution by a living hand. Compared with this, how lame and impotent are the productions of Egginton! (The Eggintons of Birmingham were the "crack" artists of the day, in the stained-glass line of business; but their names are now beginning to be forgotten. The window at the end of Trinity Library, Cambridge, must not be looked at: but a tolerably fair specimen may be seen over the altar of my own church of St. Mary, Bryanston Square, London; put up about thirteen years ago.)

The history of the erection of this window is honourable to all parties. The living of Doncaster became vested in a maiden lady, who died unmarried. On her death, the great tithes of the living were disposed of at a price so liberal and satisfactory, that Mr. Baker, of Longford House, near Gloucester, her executor, begged the Vicar (the Rev. Dr. Sharpe) would suggest some mode by which his feelings of satisfaction and gratitude might be adequately demonstrated towards the Church of Doncaster. The Vicar suggested the erection of a Window such as we Now Behold It. The price was fixed,—the artist selected,—and within a very reasonable period Mr. Miller achieved this chef-d’oeuvre of his skill. Some fifty pages might be devoted to the faithful development of its beauties.

The Organ is worthy of the window. It is large, and sonorous to a great extent. A very young organist had been recently elected; who seemed to mistake noise for expression, and difficulties for taste and proper effect. We sat in front of the gallery, with this enormous piece of musical machinery not far behind us; and we were occasionally fairly stunned. Since the notes emitted from the organ of St. Germain des Pres, at Paris, I had never heard anything so formidable and so astounding: but the performer is a very zealot in the cause of organ-psalmody, and did enough to convince me that when time has somewhat mellowed his practice, and ripened his judgment, he need not fear competition with the most talented musicians of the day. [The organist at the time was one Isaac Brailsford, who had a lively musical reputation in the town but not further afield.]

The gallery of this church is spacious and commodious, secured by a glazed screen from the rough blast of the west. It is capable of holding a congregation of two thousand; and the voice from the pulpit seems to reach every portion of the auditory, without much exertion on the part of the preacher. The pulpit is well placed, and of an elegant construction. It was a considerable drawback to me not to be able to pay my personal respects to the vicar, the Rev. Dr. Sharpe, who was doing duty at a neighbouring church; and whom I saw only hastily on the ensuing morning, in a parsonage house of singular compactness and comfort: situated in a garden where flowers and shrubs seemed to strive in rivalry with each other for the mastery.

[The Tudor church which Dibdin is describing was totally destroyed by fire in 1853, to be replaced by a design of Sir George Gilbert Scott.  Dibdin, writing in 1838, is describing Doncaster about ten years before the railway arrived in the town.]

Here we leave Dibdin happily pottering around rural Doncaster.

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Miscellany 32

MISCELLANY 32

THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN’S CULTURAL TOUR OF LINCOLNSHIRE (1838): VI

 Further description of Lincoln Cathedral (in 1838)

 Lincoln

The central tower has a great advantage, without, over that of York: it being both loftier and more ornate. Its height is scarcely less than 270 feet. Perhaps the upper part of it, just beneath the battlement, is not in the purest taste of the time, towards the beginning of the fourteenth century: and I am not quite certain whether the restoring hand of Essex have not encrusted it with some ornament which had better have been away. However, there are those who give it the preference even to Old Harry— the central tower of Canterbury Cathedral. It is probably loftier; but it is less simple and grand.  Upon each of the three Towers of Lincoln Cathedral, were formerly Spires ; which were taken down some thirty years ago, from an apprehension that they rendered the towers unsafe. The western towers, with the exception of the upper parts, are of the twelfth century. There is no name dearer to the lovers of the literature of the thirteenth century, than that of Robert Greathead— consecrated Bishop of Lincoln in 1235. He was learned, I had almost said, beyond his time; and his moral character and prelatical jurisdiction were worthy of his intellectual attainments. Warton and Henry may well expatiate on his talents.

. We will nowenter the Chapter House. To those who have seen the brother, or sister, Chapter House at York, that at Lincoln will appear both diminutive and uninteresting: but I confess that I prefer a central pillar, as here, terminating in a fan-like support, merging into the roof, than a larger roof, as at York, without such support. In the latter instance, it is a wonder: in the former, it is a more intelligible and safer-looking piece of business. But what associations affect me, in particular, on entering this Chapter House!—for here I saw, on my first entrance in 1813, the portrait of Dean Honeywood leaning against the pillar, and the letter treasures of his library displayed—some upon trunks, others upon tables. But in surveying the surrounding niches, where the monks of other times sat, encircling their bishop, St. Hugh—the founder of the building—I could not help filling them in imagination with the prebendaries that now be; and reflecting upon the alteration of habit, and form, and revenue! The pavement of this interesting apartment was surely more creditably preserved in former times than now. Let us turn to the grand western front; and whatever be the adulterations of the component parts, let us admire its width and simplicity ;—the rude carvings, or rather sculpture, commemorativeof the life of the founder, St. Remigius: and although horrified by the indented windows, of the perpendicular style, let us pause again and again before we enter at the side-aisle door. All the three doors are too low: but see what a height and what a space this front occupies! It was standing on this spot, that Corio, my dear departed friend— some twenty-two years ago—assured me he remained almost from sunset to dawn of day, as the whole of the front was steeped in the soft silvery light of an autumnal full moon. He had seen nothing before so grand. He had felt nothing before so stirring. The planets and stars, as they rolled in their silent and glittering orbits, and in a subdued lustre, over the roof of the nave, gave peculiar zest to the grandeur of the whole scene: add to which, the awfully deepening sounds of Great Tom made his very soul to vibrate! Here, as that bell struck the hour of two, seemed to sit the shrouded figures of Remigius, Bloet, and Geoffrey Plantagenet, — who saluted each other in formal prostrations, This must have been "Great Tom" the First, cast in 1610; preceded probably by one or more Great Toms, to the time of Geoffrey Plantagenet. Great Tom the Second was cast by Mr. Mears of Whitechapel in 1834, and was hung in the central tower in 1835. Its weight is 5 tons, 8 cwt.; being one ton heavier than its immediate predecessor, and six hundred-weight heavier than the great bell of St. Paul's Cathedral. The diameter of the bell, at the extreme rim, is 6 ft. 10^ in.—being one inch wider than St Paul's. Its tone is one note lower than that of the old bell, and considered to be about the same as that of St. Paul's, but sweeter and softer. Great Tom the first was hung in the north-west tower.  Robert Bloet, was a worthy successor of Remigius, The cock crew; the sun rose; and, with it, all enchantment was at an end. Life has few purer, yet more delirious enjoyments, than this.

Bloet was thirty years a Bishop of this see—largely endowing it with prebendal stalls, and with rich gifts of palls, hoods, and silver crosses. He completed the western front—and, perhaps, finished the Norman portion of the nave, now replaced by the early English. He also added rich manors to the see; and when it pleased King Henry I and one. At the appointed place for the anthem, the organ made a few flourishing sounds, and then ceased.

And now for the interior. But before a word be said, or an opinion hazarded, upon its architectural arrangements, let me notice what befel me on a recent visit. It was about vesper-time—three of the o'clock—that I entered. The sound of the organ was quickly heard ... and I instinctively thought of Mozart's Twelfth Mass at Peterborough. I approached the eastern extremity of the choir. But there was no choir, no music. The service ending, I enquired the cause. "The gentleman in residence, Sir, does not like music." Of course, I had too much courtesy to enquire who that gentleman might be,—whether " fit for treason, stratagem, and spoil:" but such conduct is little short of frightful heresy. The organist descended; and I poured into his willing ear my deep complaint on the violation of so essential a part of cathedral duty. He entirely sympathised with me.

The stalls in the choir are of beautiful workmanship, in oak; and many of them apparently of the fourteenth century. After the clean and striking condition of those at Peterborough, these at Lincoln struck me as being scandalously neglected, being enveloped in coats of dust. The interior of the choir is as disgraceful as the exterior of the building is commendable. But a freezing horror pervades you as you survey the whole interior. It is of a jaundice tint, begrimed with dirt—the compound effects of art and time. The sooner a general scaffolding be raised, and the tint of Ely or of York Cathedral adopted, the better.

One of the most striking features in the interior of this Cathedral, is the Lady-Chapel —for size and simplicity; and the adjoining altar, when in its pristine state, with all its clustering shrines, must have been of surpassing splendour. There is immense space at this eastern extremity; but too much modern stained glass has been allowed to creep into, and to disfigure, the great window. Here are tombs in abundance—of the olden time; but many of them miserably mangled by Puritanical fury. The skill of Essex, in masking bands and buttresses by rosettes and other ornaments, is here highly talked of: but it were difficult to assign these to any precise period of Gothic architecture. After a few more solemn pacings and musings, we seek the cloister and the Library. To the pavement of the former has been transferred several Roman funereal inscriptions and relics; while, in the small quadrangle, you descend, by a short flight of steps, into a Roman tessellated chamber. Here once slept the body of Bishop St. Hugh in a shrine of solid silver, of costly workmanship: and within these consecrated precincts were kept "the jewels, vestments, and other ornaments to the revestry of the cathedral, &c." Look, gentle reader, at the inventory of these treasures, as taken in 1536, just before the battering ram of Henry the Eighth's reforming pioneers was launched against the said "revestry," as "made by Master Henry Lytherland, treasurer of the same church," and to be seen in the new Dugdale, pt. li. p. 1278, &c. Amongst them, arechalices, pyxes, and candlesticks of Solid Gold ! One finds a difficulty in giving credence to what one reads "of the king's letters, by force whereof the shrines and other jewels were taken away," as seen at page 1286, voL ii. of the same work; wherein "the said relicks, jewels, and plate, were to be safely conveyed to the tower of London, into the jewel-house there, charging the master of the jewels with the same." This was in 1541, about five years after "Master Lytherland's Inventory." pavement... upon which great stress is laid for its undisturbed genuineness, and soundness of condition. The late Sir Joshua Banks is reported to have been frenzied with delight, on its discovery; and to have paid it a regular annual visit, as a pilgrim to his beloved shrine.

The reader may here perhaps expect something like the institution of a comparison between these two great rival cathedrals of Lincoln and York; although he will have observed many points in common between them to have been previously settled. The preference to Lincoln is given chiefly from its minute and varied detail ; while its position impresses you, at first sight, with such mingled awe and admiration, that you cannot divest yourself of this impression, on a more dispassionately critical survey of its component parts. The versed antiquary adheres to Lincoln, and would build his nest within one of the crocketted pinnacles of the western towers—that he might hence command a view of the great central tower; and, abroad, of the strait Roman road running to Barton, and the glittering waters of the broad and distant Humber. But for one human being of this stamp, you would have one hundred collecting within and without the great rival at York. Its vastness, its space, its effulgence of light, and breadth of effect: its imposing simplicity, by the comparative paucity of minute ornament—its lofty lantern, shining, as it were, at heaven's gate, on the summit of the central tower: and, above all, the soul-awaking devotion kindled by a survey of its vast and matchless choir ... leave not a shadow of doubt behind, respecting the decided superiority of this latter edifice. This, however, is not the place for amplification of description, or for further comparison; and accordingly it is high time to bring the reader back to Lincoln, to request him to mount the old oak staircase with me, which conducts to Dean Honeywood's Library. Good Mr. Garvey, the librarian, leads the way; and requests us to wipe our shoes, on entrance, upon a rug, of which the materials, for ought he knows to the contrary, might have been manufactured under the superintendance of the Dean's grandmother, a sempstress of undoubted notoriety in her day. On entering, you find yourself thrown all at once into the book-characteristics of some four centuries back. It short, here is all that remains of the Old Library, of the early part of the fifteenth century. The roof, the timbers, the arrangement—all savours of that period ; while an old catalogue, written in the Latin tongue, and inserted in a MS. Bible of the middle of the twelfth century, is one of the greatest curiosities and treats for bibliographical student. This library-room was erected about the year 1420.

[Dibdin, who was a bibliophile as well as an antiquarian (and a clerk in holy orders), then proceeds to give a remarkably full and detailed catalogue of the Library.]

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No 31

MISCELLANY 31

THOMAS FROGNALL DIBDIN’S CULTURAL TOUR OF LINCOLNSHIRE (1818): VI

Lincoln

WELCOME to LINCOLN! Upwards of twenty summer suns have rolled their bright and genial courses since my first visit to this

ancient city,—or rather, to this venerable Cathedral: for the former seems to be merged in the latter. There is no proportion between them. A population of only twelve thousand inhabitants, and scarcely more than an ordinary sprinkling of low, common-place, brick-houses, are but inharmonious accessories to an ecclesiastical edifice, built upon the summit of a steep and lofty hill—pointing upwards with its three beautiful and massive towers towards heaven, and stretching longways with its lofty nave, choir, lady-chapel, side chapels, and double transepts. For site, there is no cathedral to my knowledge which approaches it.  My first visit to Lincoln Cathedral—somewhere in the year 1813—was attended with two gratifying, but purely accidental, circumstances. On the evening of the day of my arrival, in midautumn, I ascended the summit of the central tower, and from thence, as the surrounding country was exceedingly flat and tame, seemed to look over half England. The scenery above compensated for the poverty of the scenery below. The sun was about to set; and such a vast sweep of arch, of the ruddiest pink hue—bestriding one half of the hemisphere—I had not remembered to have before beheld. It increased in vividness of tint, as the sun sunk lower: while immediately about his couch of repose, a cluster of small different, but not less interesting and picturesque description. I got into an early chaise, to overtake the mail at Newark, in my way to Stamford. The morning was chill and grey. Thick masses of clouds seemed to be forming in the horizon, when, having got well quit of the town, I turned to take a last view of the cathedral. The effect was as impressive as extraordinary. Not one of the three towers could be seen. They were involved in a dense dark cloud, of which the edges seemed to rest upon the roof of the nave. At such a moment, you might suppose the height of the building to be interminable. Meanwhile, the clouds seemed to collect themselves, and to draw up like the folds of a curtain,— developing by degrees the entire fabric: upon which, at that instant, a full and bright sunbeam, darting forth, enveloped the more prominent parts of the nave in glittering gold, and rendered, in proportion, the superincumbent cloud of a more deep and inky hue. I gazed a little minute... and the whole scene changed its character and interest.

"Welcome to Lincoln!" ... for I not only found here the portrait of my old friend Dean Honeywood [1597-1681], looking as complacently upon me as ever. A beautifully stippled engraving of this portrait, from a sepia drawing by the Royal Academician Mr. Hilton—copied from the original by Cornelius Jansen, above alluded to—may be seen in the Bibliographical Decameron, vol. iii. p. 263 [by Dibdin himself]; where may be also read, in sundry long notes, as much gossip touching the worthy Dean, as may be necessary for the reader to become acquainted with. The original portrait, to the right on entrance, is placed— just where it ought not to be placed, both for light and effect . To the left, is a portrait of the Dean's grandmother, who, according to the inscription, lived to see Three Hundred And Sixty-seven persons lawfully descended from her. Of these, 16 were of her own body; 114 were grandchildren; 228 were of the third generation; and the remaining 9 were of thefourth generation. The old lady herself attained her 93rd year, having been 44 years a widow. Mr. Willson informs me, that the portrait of her in the cathedral library is copied from the original, painted in 1597— preserved at Marks Hall, Essex, where she died. There is a memoir of her in Fuller's Worthies of Kent. The story of her despair, and of her throwing her drinking glass on the floor, has been lately revived by Mr. Southey, in his Life and Works of Cowper, vol. iii. pp. 121, 234. I know of no print of this portrait but the wretched one in that wretched compilation entitled Kirby's Wonderful Museum. Both these portraits should be placed at the upper end of the library—to be immediately seen on entrance of the Honeywood Library, I recorded the livelier gratification of experiencing, in the kindly attentions of my friend Mr. Willson, all that solicitude and sympathy in the object of my researches, which I experienced on the first visit, at the period just mentioned. Time had somewhat silvered his hair, and indented his brow; but his antiquarian tastes and pursuits were yet as youthful, vigorous, and unremitting, as ever. Time had made no inroads here. The work, just referred to, will bear no slight evidence of my obligations to Mr. Willson. Since the period of that publication, those obligations have increased—as the reader will presently find. Meanwhile, I cannot withhold an anecdote, singularly characteristic of that gentleman's early passion for books and literary lore. There was a charm about the name and collection of Dean Honeywood, that worked wonders with him. "I can never forget (says he, in one of his more recent letters to me) my first visit to the cathedral library. I had never passed through its proper entrance; when, one day, the casements being left open, with all the curiosity of a boy, I scaled the cloisters, windows, and roofs; crept upon the cornice, and was soon in the presence of Dean Honeywood, and his ancient grandmother. It was a delightful summer's day: and I remember the very smell of the place,—and how carefully I stepped along, fearful of the entrance of the dean or a canon: and then how I made good my retreat, by the same roguish sort of passage, through the narrow casement."

Mr. Willson was for several years, if not the inducted or official librarian, the constant inmate of the library, and the vigilant protector of its treasures. The Rev. Mr. Garvey is now the librarian; a cheerful, pains-taking, and obliging gentleman. He endured my mania for a good lengthy half-hour; and placed before me a MS. Of a Roman archway, of no slight magnitude and interest. It was situated at the western gate of Lindum, and inclosed in the western mound of the wall of the castle; having been concealed there ever since the construction of that fortress by William the Conqueror. When discovered, it was in a very ruinous state, and fell down suddenly two or three days afterwards. There was just time to take a sketch or two of it, with some of its dimensions. A small view of it was engraved in the "Gentleman's Magazine;" and a lithographic plate of it was published by Mr. Tuke, of Lincoln, an ingenious man, and a house-painter. This gate resembled the Roman gate, now standing, and called the Newport gate, but it had no posterns, as the latter has. "The arch was semi circular, and had been fifteen feet in its span, but was luxated by the sinking of one pier. The blocks, or keystones, were twenty-two in number; each about four feet thick, and morticed at the top for the insertion of an instrument called a Lewis —by which each had been hoisted, and let down into its place. This shows the antiquity of an instrument which some modern French Engineer laid claim to as his own invention. The destruction of this Southern Roman gate is related by Stukeley in his Itinerarium Curiosum, p. 83; and that of the Eastern gate is noticed by Gough in his additions to Camden. I am indebted to my friend Mr. Willson for this piece of information, which will be valued by antiquarian readers; but that friend will forgive my adding, that, anything more clumsy and more unworkmanlike than the Newport Gate, exists not, at least among the Roman ruins which I have seen in this country. The above-mentioned friend is, I rejoice to inform the public, busied in writing the biographies of the Bishops, Deans, and Prebendaries of Lincoln: at least, such snatches from business as can be stolen with advantage are devoted by him to this commendable object. But among these bygone bishops, no one seems to have made so much effort to derive information and benefit. In his hands, if in any hands, (" ille, si quis alius") are deposited those materials for a history of the City, and more particularly of the Cathedral, which it were a shame not to bring forth to the open day, by means of a prompt and liberal patronage. On my first visit to Lincoln, there was no inn at which a civilised traveller could tarry within the immediate neighbourhood of the Cathedral; so that I was compelled, domiciling at the principal inn, below, and in the heart of the town, to make a toilsome and painful pilgrimage, every time that I was obliged to visit the Cathedral, or rather the chapter library. It is now otherwise. A decent and comfortable inn—the White Hart —will afford all that sensible an impression upon my friend's heart as St. Hugh ; who was consecrated in 1186, and of whose life there is a curious and very valuable MS. in the Bodleian^.Library, from which Lurius and Capgrave have exclusively, and somewhat largely, borrowed. My friend has nearly all the printed authorities (with the exception of some few very scarce volumes) to refer to; but he is looking forward, with the anxious fondness of a lover, to the day when he can clasp the Bodleian MS. in his arms, and elicit all that is instructive and fruitful from the embrace. I wish him every success: for St. Hugh was well deserving of his canonization. His life was private and austere. Few heard the echo of his footsteps; few partook of the bounty of his table. But he had nobler objects in view. If his discipline was rigid, those who lived in subjection to it were eminent for their virtues and their talents. The stalls had never before been filled with so goodly a race of occupants. Of all the benefactors to the cathedral, St. Hugh was the largest and most liberal. He is said to have built the Chapter House "with marble pillars," and to have added greatly to his palace. His figure, as a canonized saint, was frequently sculptured on some of the a reasonable visitor can wish. It is scarcely a half minute's walk to the entrance arch of the Cathedral close: and if it be a gratification, that same visitor may fancy his bed to tremble at every stroke of the bell of Great Tom ; of which the vibration, from for unquestionable proofs of his Bibliomaniacism, consult the Bibliog. Decani, vol. iii. p. 226. There is no room, here, for a catalogue raisonne of his manifold merits: it sufficing only to add, that, King John, meeting William, King of the Scots, at Lincoln, just at the time of the good bishop's interment, these two monarchs helped to carry the corpse to the door of the cathedral, where it was received by a host of church dignitaries, and the body enshrined in silver, behind the high altar.— See Browne Willit. There is a curious print of this bell, of which the weight is nearly six tons. The belfry of the central tower is the finest, in all respects, which I remember to have seen.  

It is surely a sorry shame to the inhabitants of the extensive county of Lincoln, that it has No Historian. But the age of book chivalry is gone I Look at its castles, parks, baronial mansions, and manors—and, above all, its matchless churches :—and can it be the knowledge of the beholder and inhabitant, its days of departed grandeur,—when its churches were quadrupled in number, and when the successive visits of Norman and Plantagenet kings made the streets to re-echo with the multitude's shouts, and the windows and balconies to be in a blaze with silken banners, and the presence of beauteous dames. Edward I. held a parliament here; and during his reign, and before the door of the very house of which a vignette is prefixed to this chapter, two Jews were executed for "clipping the King's coin."* I should think the house itself to be about a century earlier than the time of Edward; and if so, I would ask the curious reader in what town he would find an earlier specimen of domestic architecture? During the reigns of the three Edwards, the Cathedral was growing up, if it had not received its last finish, into that grandeur of form, as well as enrichment of detail, whence it may be said to challenge competition with any cathedral in Europe. I shall presently be more particular. But the bygone glory of Lincoln may be traced to earlier times. It may be questioned whether any town in England exceed it in variety and abundance of Roman antiquities ... at least, of the more solid kind.  Can it be credited that no patronage should be given for the record of these precious and interesting objects? The late Sir Joseph Banks is reported to have laboured hard for its accomplishment; but in vain. If done as it ought to be done, it must at least be the labour of three pairs of hands. Such hands are to be found, if there be hearts to put them in motion. I ought, perhaps, to except Newcastle-upon-Tyne, if not York.

However, it is now high time to approach, and to describe somewhat particularly, the magnificent Cathedral, of which so much has been previously said, referring the reader to the splendid graphic pages of Mr. Wild, for a minutely engraved representation of the exterior and interior, Gough, in his additions to Camden, has given a very fair account of the principal Roman Remains at Lincoln. The Mint Wall is Roman, and is yet standing as entire as when Gough saw it, some fifty years ago. The tessellated pavement in the area of the cathedral cloisters, (as above mentioned) yet preserves almost its entire identity. Sepulchral urns are frequently found, (as, indeed, where are they not ?) of which my friend Mr. Willson has several; and coins of the Lower Empire are picked up in fields and gardens every year. Most of these are the small brass of Carausius, Tetricus, Claudius Gothicus, Constantine, &c. &c Mr. Willson shewed me some large brass of Antoninus Pius, Dioclesian, &c Those marked in the exergue PLC. are supposed to have been struck at Lincoln: Percuss, hind. Col. Such evidences of Roman rule are everywhere in England; the soil of which may be said to be ingrained with numismatic relics. In the humble village in which these pages are indited, there is almost every-day testimony of its ancient possession by the Romans: and it is only within twenty-four hours that a specimen of the middle copper coin of Trajan was shewed me, as bright and perfect as if it were of yesterday's mintage. I consider only the surface of the soil of the history of " The Romans In England," to be yet turned up. Horsley was a giant labourer in this career: yet Stukeley, pp. 8390, with his two plates, is deserving of a grateful remembrance. t It is a folio, with large engravings in aqua-tint, published in 1819. But in the Vetusta Monumenta, vol. iii. pi. x. xi. are two plates of the Cathedral, well worth examination. Yet all are eclipsed by Mr Coney's splendid engraving of the South to the fifteenth century. The large indented windows are of this latter period, and exhibit a frightful heresy. Remigius was a monk of Fescamp in Normandy, and brought over here by William the Conqueror. He was worthy of all promotion. Brompton tells us that he began to build the Cathedral in 1088, and finished it in 1092, when it was consecrated; but the founder died two days before its consecration. Although Remigius endowed it with a dean, a precentor, chancellor, treasurer, and twenty-one prebendaries, it is impossible to suppose, that, within the short period of four years, the original dimensions of the Cathedral were anything like so extensive as those of its present state. The greater part of the western front may claim antiquity with the time of Remigius. Its sculptured ornaments are sufficiently frightful. The doors, or entrances to the nave, are supposed to be of the time of Alexander, the third Bishop; who, in 1144, repaired much of the Cathedral which had suffered from a fire. See the new Ihigdale, pt. li. p. 1269. This Alexander had a charter, in the time of Stephen, for coining money in his Vill of Newark. Ibid. you to the end of the twelfth century: then succeeds a wonderful extent of early English, or the pointed arch.

Still at Lincoln next week

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