MISCELLANY 33
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.
