Over the Ocean Part 8

"Died November, 1862."

A fine monument to John d.i.c.k, 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 ba.s.s-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, pa.s.sed 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 surpa.s.ses For honest men and bonnie la.s.ses"--

to Burns's birthplace, and Alloway Kirk, we find ourselves upon the same course traversed by Tam O'Shanter on his memorable ride, and pa.s.sing many of those objects which, for their fearful a.s.sociations, 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 a.s.sembly, 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 c.h.i.n.ks, 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 circ.u.mscribed 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 la.s.sie, 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 gla.s.s 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 cla.s.sic 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 c.u.mberland. The old castle, or that portion of it that remains, with its lofty, ma.s.sive 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 modic.u.m of our time, after which we pa.s.sed through Newcastle-on-Tyne, celebrated, as all know in these modern days, as a port of shipment for coal, and busy with its gla.s.s-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, ma.s.sive 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 ma.s.sy, 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 n.o.bility 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 ma.s.sacre 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 ma.s.sive 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 s.p.a.ce 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 surpa.s.sed upon an examination of the interior, a particular description of which would require almost a volume to give s.p.a.ce 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 gla.s.s! 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 gla.s.s 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 cl.u.s.tered columns of more than five hundred feet in length, terminated by the great west window, with its gorgeous display of colored gla.s.s--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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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 n.o.ble ladies whiled away their time in castle-bower, while their knights fought the infidel in distant clime.

This n.o.ble 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 d.i.c.kens 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 s.p.a.ce to refer to; suffice it to say the windows of this cathedral present a gorgeous display of ancient stained gla.s.s 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 s.p.a.ce 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s intact in the kingdom. The most valuable are protected by a strong shield of extra plate gla.s.s outside.

From the painted glories of the windows the visitor's eye sweeps over the vast expanse of cl.u.s.tered 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 bra.s.s, 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 gla.s.s, 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 a.s.semble 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 t.i.tle 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.