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
