CHAPTER XIX.

_Worcester—Malvern—Gloucester._

My first excursion with my friend V——, was to Worcester and Malvern. In Worcester of course the great attraction is the cathedral, and thither we went immediately upon our arrival, and found Service going on. We lingered without the choir, and listened to the anthem, as it rose from the voices within; and then, as the prayers went on, in the monotone of chaunting, varied by the occasional cadence of the priest, and the sweet response of the singers, we had an opportunity of worship which I trust was not only enjoyed, but reverently appropriated in devotion. Service ended, the verger, with his mace, issued from the doors of the choir, preceding the singers in their surplices, and the residentiary canons—far too feeble a force, however, for a cathedral, in which “the spirit of a living creature” should always be “within the wheels,” giving motion and reality to the routine of daily prayers, and fasts, and festivals. There is no excuse for the present condition of the English cathedrals. They require the most thorough reforms to make them felt as blessings. At Worcester I began to feel that such was the case, and the painful conviction increased upon me, throughout my subsequent tour.

We now surveyed the venerable temple, and experienced the usual annoyance of the verger’s expositions. Here was the monument of King John; and there the chapel tomb of Arthur, Prince of Wales, the first husband of Queen Katherine of Arragon. Here, too, are shown the statues of St. Oswald, an early bishop of this see, and of Wolstan, another bishop who laid the foundation of the existing cathedral, in the eleventh century. The choir is impressive, but the eastern window struck me as too predominantly green, and altogether as somewhat kaleidoscopic. Among the more modern monuments, a small bas-relief, by Bacon, struck me as very meritorious. A widow with her three children gathered about her, and bending to the storm of sorrow, was the fitting memorial of a departed husband and father. Or was it that the group reminded me of the treasures of my own far-off home, and of the scene which an Atlantic storm might so easily create around the fireside that would be trimmed for my return! At any rate, it touched me, and reminded me that I was in a house of prayer, where ejaculations might be wafted from the heart, and answered three thousand miles away. Other associations made me pause before the tomb of Bishop Hough, that brave old president of Magdalen, to whose resistance of the Popish James I have referred before. The sculpture is by Roubilliac, but is free from the usual affectations of that artist; and the scene in Magdalen College is represented on the base of the monument. We lingered about the exterior for some time, and were particularly struck with the flying buttresses of the choir, as the most pleasing portion of the venerable structure. After a visit to one of the prebendal residences in the cloisters, we loitered about the town for an hour, and then took the top of the stage-coach for Malvern.

Several coaches were starting at the same time for diverse points of the compass, and here we had before us something of the moribund system of travel of the days of George the Fourth. The flaming red liveries of the whip and the guard, with the notes of the bugle as we whirled over the Severn, gave one a sense of the poetry of locomotion which suggested some foolish sighs over the achievements of invention, and the age of the rail. However, it was something to be thankful for, that there was as yet no tunnel under Malvern hills. Crack went the whip—and away sprung the horses, and very soon the tower of the cathedral was all we could see of Worcester. We passed the Teme, and drove through Powick and Mather. The fields were fragrant with the blossoms of the bean; the open road-side was garnished with flowering furze; and the cottages stood forth, neat and comfortable, amid embowering laburnums, and lilacs, and guelder-roses. ‘Ah, yes—I grant you, England is a beautiful country, but you Englishmen don’t know how to enjoy it half as much as your American cousins; not that we have not glorious scenery at home, but that we have no such garden, as England seems to be, from one sea to the other.’ So I said to my companion.

We ascended the Malvern hills, on a brisk trot, by a good road stretching along the face of the hills, and soon entered the smart and showy town of Great Malvern itself, which overhangs the charming vale of Gloucester, and affords a view of the winding Severn, and many beautiful villages, churches, and seats. The towers of several abbeys, with those of the cathedrals of Gloucester and Worcester, adorn the prospect, and the distant ridge of the Cotswolds completes the picture. The Abbey Church of Great Malvern proved, of itself, sufficient to reward our visit to the place, but my friend V——, found at one of the hotels, a party of his friends enjoying a brief sojourn in this delightful retreat, for the benefit of its air and springs—for “Ma’vern,” as everybody knows, is a fashionable watering-place. Good reason have I to remember the spot where I first met the amiable W——s, to whose subsequent attentions I owed so much pleasure on my northern tour; and I trust they too may be willing to remember our holiday at Malvern. I was particularly gratified with the adventurous spirit of the ladies, who insisted on doing us the honours of the place, considering us as their guests. Under their kindly guidance we climbed the hills, and visited the Holy Well, and the well of St. Ann’s, and finally reached the summit of the Malverns, where we gained a magnificent sight into Herefordshire, and could see to the best advantage the nearer beauties of the vale of the Severn. We walked along the ridge, pausing to rest awhile, and to enjoy the scenery, near the Worcestershire beacon, and so passing down on the Hereford side, and returning through a gap called the Wych, we parted with our fair guides at Malvern Wells, and taking a post-chaise started on a delightful drive across the valley.

It was a beautiful afternoon, and our route took us through a great variety of country scenes. Now we skirted the base of the Malverns; and now reached the picturesque Church of Little Malvern; and now descended, amid overhanging trees, into the valley of the Severn, partly darkened by the stretching shadow of the hills, and partly glittering with reflections of the descending sun. My friend V——, who seemed to have friends everywhere, was so well acquainted with the neighbouring gentry, that he was quite at liberty to enliven our drive, by leaving the high road and crossing the park of this or that beautiful residence which happened to lie in our way. Thus we gained fine views of several elegant mansions and their surrounding grounds. At the lodge of one of these parks, as we entered, I was struck with a curious tree, called the peacock yew, from the showy _pavonazetto_ of its foliage: but the oddities of nature, after all, are far less attractive than her ordinary beauties. At last we re-crossed the Severn, and entered Tewksbury. It has been justly remarked that this place appears to have stood still for five hundred years. Its massive abbey, with its magnificent Anglo-Norman tower, has the advantage therefore of standing in the company of contemporary walls and roofs, instead of being an insulated lump of Mediævalism, in a mass of nineteenth century brick and plaster. I was wholly unprepared for so splendid a specimen of cathedral architecture as this abbey proved to be; and when I entered the sacred place, I was quite overwhelmed with its effect. It is of great length, and the aisles are separated from the nave by a series of immense Saxon pillars, which convey an idea of strength and sombre dignity wholly different from the impressions produced by the light and springing shafts of the perpendicular and decorated Gothic. Its great window is a solitary example of such vast and solemn combinations of proportion and detail; its Norman arches being deeply recessed in the gigantic wall, and its height commensurately sublime. While we surveyed this stupendous interior, the rich shadows and faint illuminations produced by the close of day, greatly heightened the impressiveness of the architecture and the awful associations of this ancient sanctuary and cemetery. It was indeed sublime to reflect that under the shade of these walls was waged the last battle of the House of Lancaster, and that the noble ashes of its heroes were everywhere under foot, as we paced its aisles. We surveyed one after another the tombs of Clarence, of Somerset, of Wenlock, and De Clifford, moralizing on the Providence which reduced the Norman blood of England just in the time and manner best suited to give the Commons room to rise; and which laid these proud patricians in the dust, that out of the dust might spring the freedom and the power which now invest the world with Anglo-Saxon glory. God only is wise—God only great! Issuing from a small door in one of the aisles of the abbey, we entered a green and peaceful meadow, to which the deepening twilight gave a grave and rich effect, heightened not a little by the shadows of the abbey towers, and by the croaking of rooks and daws among the buttresses and pinnacles. Here was the fatal field where the red-rose was smothered forever in red blood. “Lance to lance, and horse to horse”—here its fated champions struck the last blow for Margaret and her son. Here the young prince himself asserted, face to face with usurping York, the rights which his fathers had not less usurped from the fallen Plantagenet; and here, for his boldness and for his fatal royalty, he fell beneath the rapier, the last blood of Lancastrian majesty spouting from his many wounds. Can it be, so green a field was ever so crimson? It was impossible to conjure up the scenes of a period so long gone by; and yet not less impossible to stand on such a field, without some communion with the spirit of departed ages.

With a worthy clergyman of Tewksbury, we finally quenched our enthusiasm in a cup of tea, and buried the swelling thoughts of Margaret’s wrongs, under the juicy morsels of a mutton-chop. As we sat at our repast, I observed that our reverend entertainer had “a river at his garden’s-end.” “Yes,” was his reply—“the Avon!” I had supposed it the Severn, of course; but when he thus reminded us of its noble confluent, after our historical communion with Shakspeare in the battle-field, all my enthusiasm returned again, and, in spite of tea and mutton-chop, I felt a thrill to find myself so near the river of the immortal Swan of Stratford. Here, indeed, it finds its fitting union with the larger waters, and runs with Severn to the sea. But now, it seemed to me fragrant and vocal with a spirit caught from the banks of Stratford churchyard, and its murmurs continually repeated the lines—

“Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, That stabbed me in the field, by Tewksbury.”

During my visit at Cheltenham, we contrived to spend a Sunday in the country—and such a Sunday as should realize my ideas of an English Sunday among a rural population. Early in the morning we went to Bredon, and there surveyed its parish Church, just opened for Divine service, and exhibiting a neat interior, which, but for my growing familiarity with so many superior examples, I should have considered very noteworthy. In the floor of the nave is a plain slab covering the grave of “Bishop Prideaux, 1650.” This Church, too, showed the hand of the restorer, and had been much improved and beautified in the spirit of what I suppose will be called the Victorian Restoration. Leaving this Church, we started over the field for Kemerton. It was a beautiful morning—what I am wont to call a _George-Herbert-Sunday_; and as I went through the fragrant meads and harvest lands, or turned into a shady lane, amid the hawthorn hedges, I felt those quiet influences stealing over me which are the sweetest preparation for enjoyment in the house of God. By and by we descried above the foliage the tower of Kemerton Church; and hard by was the parsonage, where that estimable dignitary, the venerable Archdeacon Thorp, gave us a most cordial welcome. Before service, my friend V—— called me aside into the churchyard, and pointed to a little grave beautifully decorated with fresh flowers. I understood at once that it was the grave of a beloved child he had lately lost, and whose transient but lovely life had shed a charm around these scenes of its sweet and holy habitation, and endeared them to the hearts of all who knew him. For a moment I entered into the sorrows of a bereaved parent, and wept with one that wept.

The service in Kemerton Church is performed in some respects very simply, in others, one might say, elaborately, for most of it is sung. There is no organ, and the singers are plain farmers and village-lads, yet they have places in the chancel, and wear surplices, and sing with very agreeable effect. When Morning Service was over, I proposed a quiet ramble through the fields, with my friend, for my heart was quite full of the solemnities of which the Holy Communion formed a part. As we were about to leave, we observed the bell-ringers taking their stand under the tower, which opened into the Church, with great reverence and propriety in their behaviour. The Archdeacon informed us that they were all worthy parishioners, who understood the nature of the humblest office in the house of God, and who rung the bells with a sense of serving the temple, and sounding forth the glory of the Lord. When we had gone about a quarter of a mile from the Church, we heard the bells ringing, accordingly, and sweet music did they discourse. They seemed indeed full of Sabbath blessing; full of peace and good will to men. “This, dear V——,” said I, “This is enchanting, and more, ’tis heavenly! Shall I ever forget this peaceful Sunday noon in England?” As I looked around, all seemed, as the Gospel would make the whole earth appear, if only sinful men would let it; all blossomed as the rose. A church but a few rods in one direction—and another less than a mile before us—and many others near us, all around! All _churches_ too—not so many tokens of religious strife and schism, but each to its own little nest of villagers, the centre of one faith, of one baptism, and the worship of one Lord. Ah—here is the true glory of England! Mile after mile, in some counties, seems to be marked by church after church; each beautiful in its kind, the monument of ancestral piety among its rural worshippers, and the tutelary of their rude forefathers’ graves, that cluster beneath its eaves. One wonders what a dissenter is made of, when he beholds these rural churches, and their happy influence over a rustic population. We extended our walk to Overbury Church, an old Norman structure of small dimensions, beautifully restored, and in perfect repair. The congregation had just withdrawn, and the breath of prayer seemed lingering in the sanctuary. My ramble was completed before the Evening Service began, and certainly never saw I Sunday so liveried before, to celebrate the holy tide. The hawthorn was everywhere in flower; butter-cups, daisies, lilacs, cowslips, and every variety of contemporary blossom, were to be seen in all the fields and cottage-gardens; and the very sheep and cattle, resting in the shadow of the trees, seemed to know it was the holy day. Where else, save in England, is holy tide ever so entirely what holy tide should be?

The Evening Prayer was divided, as in all the English cathedrals, so that the sermon followed the second lesson. Then came the Canticle, and the rest of the prayers. This arrangement follows the original idea of _Catechising_ at the Evening Prayer, and has many advantages. I was privileged to be the preacher, and I spake with a sincere appreciation of the duty, as a privilege indeed. It appeared strange to me, when service was over, to reflect that Kemerton Church is many hundred years old, and yet that, in all probability, never had any one stood in its pulpit before, who was not a subject of the English crown.

Among the valuable acquaintances which I formed at Cheltenham, I reckon myself fortunate in that of the Rev. Alexander Watson, now of Marychurch, Devon, so well known by his many publications in defence of Church doctrine, and in aid of practical religion. It was in his company that I visited Gloucester, and added to my stock of travelling experiences another day of memorable enjoyment. After a pleasant breakfast party, at his hospitable table, we started in a private carriage, for a somewhat circuitous drive, to that “godly city;” passing Leckhampton, under lee of the tallest peaks of the Cotswolds, and so by Birdlip Wood, and Cooper’s Hill. Far away, on the other side of the valley, a prominent headland was pointed out to me, as May’s Hill. It is a not less conspicuous landmark from the Severn, and once served to save from shipwreck a mariner, named May, just returning from the sea; in consequence of which, he planted its summit with a clump of trees, and made provision for keeping them there perpetually. At a little distance I descried a hamlet, and a Church, which my friend pointed out to me as _Chozen_, at the same time informing me that it was spelt _Churchdown_. This is but one of many amusing specimens of the wide variance which often exists, between the spelling and pronouncing of English proper names. At Shurdington we paused to visit its pretty Church, surrounded by a shady field, and found it undergoing entire restoration at the expense of the curate. Both the restoration, and the munificence of its promoter, were the rather interesting, as being no uncommon things. Such proofs of life and godliness are everywhere encountered, at the present day, in England. I found myself more and more delighted, as we drove on, with the scenery, and often with the road itself, so beautifully hedged and shaded, and affording so many points of interest to an observing eye. Here was the tower of Badgworth Church, and here was Brockworth. Churches everywhere—and everywhere, upon the face of field and farm, the tokens of that industry and thrift, of that order and decency, with which the Church alone can ennoble the aspect of civilization. The same charm which I had observed in the features of society, and which I had traced to harmony in religion, appeared to me, here and elsewhere, transferred in a great degree to the very soil, to its culture, and to its embellishment. Nature itself seemed to have borrowed a grace, and a glory, from the holy Faith, of which such monuments were visible at every turn, in spires and towers peering above the green trees, and gleaming amid the wide-spread bounties of God, whose adorable name they seemed to display as the giver of all. As we slowly ascended the slope of Cooper’s Hill, walking behind our carriage, and surveying the scene to right and left, with reflections such as these, we heard a note from the deep foliage of Birdlip Wood, which arrested us, and brought to my mind many scraps of poetry, such as Logan’s, or Wordsworth’s—

————shall I call thee bird, Or but a wandering voice?

It was the cuckoo! I had never heard it before, except in wooden imitation from the perch of a German clock. I shall not soon forget its effects, upon the still beauty of the hour and the scene, as I heard it for the first time, in nature’s own sweet modulations and heart-touching pathos.

Hucklecot new Church we only sighted, but at Upton St. Leonard’s we made a halt, and visited the Church, the parsonage, and the school. The Church was a gem of its kind, with interesting monuments and architectural objects, and had been freshly restored. The schools were lately built by a munificent lady of rank, and the parsonage was apparently new; the whole furnishing another instance of what is going on, almost universally. Passing Robinwood-hill on the left, as we continued our drive, we soon entered Gloucester, of which the glorious cathedral tower had long been the conspicuous object in our view.

Here we visited the Church of St. Mary-de-Crypt, (lately restored) where the admirers of Whitfield would chiefly think of him, and where, perhaps, he ought to have been more thought of by the Church, and so saved from the extravagances of his subsequent career. We went also to see St. Michael’s and St. Mary-de-Lode, (fresh restorations again) and finally visited the scene of Bishop Hooper’s fiery martyrdom. The death of Hooper dignifies the otherwise inglorious memory of a prelate who did not a little to spoil his own work as a reformer, by tampering with Geneva. And it is curious how much of puritanism he seems to have bequeathed to his see; Glos’ter having been the proverbial haunt of the “godlie” in Cromwell’s time, and having bred the zealous evangelist, to whom I have already alluded as originally illuminating with his enthusiasm, the cold interior of St. Mary-de-Crypt. Strange, that after beginning here as a deacon of the Church, he should now lie buried under a puritan pulpit in New England, having completely revolutionized the Calvinism of our own country, and entailed upon it the _Convulsionism_ of which it is now expiring. Had the zeal of Whitfield been according to his knowledge, and had the dormant Hanoverian age, which produced him, by the law of reaction, only known how to use him, he might have left behind him some less equivocal fruits of missionary enterprise.

Before speaking of the cathedral, I must allude to our visit to Highnam, on the other side of the Severn. Here we found a Church, lately erected entire, at a cost of £30,000, by a single individual—nave, chancel, tower, and spire complete, and all affording a model of ecclesiastical art, worthy of standing in the neighbourhood of some of its noblest originals. To see a Victorian Church, and one thus erected by private munificence, comparing so favourably with some of the most admired specimens of the middle ages, not only in general construction, but in the most elaborate details, was indeed refreshing to the eye and to the heart. The chancel and altar were especially noteworthy, adorned as they were with the most delicate sculpture, in Caen stone, and instinct with the life and beauty of a healthful symbolism. Into the chancel opened a small sepulchral chapel, which exceedingly interested my feelings, and warmed my admiration of the whole. Two memorial windows were dedicated, each to the remembrance of a departed child, and between them stood, in a niche, the marble bust of their departed mother. Blessed religion of Jesus, which makes the dead in Christ so dear, and which so beautifies their memory: which so sanctifies the ties of earth, and so triumphs over death, in its power to render them eternal! Here was a family nest, indeed, hung upon the altar of the Lord of Hosts! My eyes glistened as I read, beneath the lovely effigy of the Christian wife and mother, an inscription to “Anna Maria Isabella G—— P——; in fulfilment of whose pious purpose this Church was erected to the glory of God, by her husband.” Then followed the texts—including an allusion to the children, as well as their mother—“And they shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels:”—“The Lord grant unto them that they may find mercy of the Lord in that day.” I can scarcely remember anything of the kind which ever more powerfully touched the springs of Christian sympathy within me; those sacred springs of the heart, which can never issue in their fullest flow, till they have been fed by the hallowed love of the husband and the father.

Returning to the town, I devoted nearly the whole of the remainder of the afternoon to the cathedral; accompanied most of the time, by the friend to whom I had owed the pleasures of the day, and to whom I at last bade a reluctant farewell. I had been greatly benefited, not only by his intelligent conversation on indifferent topics, but by his earnestness in those particularly, which Christian priests should discuss most freely in each other’s company. He left me to the kind attention of a worthy dignitary of the cathedral, the Rev. Sir John S——, in the enjoyment of whose polite hospitalities I spent the evening of this charming day.

The exterior of the cathedral, as seen from every point of vantage, in neighbouring gardens, or from the solemn seclusion of the surrounding precincts, was not less striking, in its way, than that of any similar structure I had yet beheld; but the internal survey was more impressive, by far, than that of any other, except Westminster Abbey. It is one of the largest of its class of buildings, and in its different portions, presents an epitome of pointed art, in its several stages of progress through a period of five hundred years. Here is the Anglo-Norman nave, with massive columns, like those of Tewksbury; then comes the choir, with its rich and delicate elaborations; and then the Lady-Chapel, which is a little paradise of architecture. The solid crypts beneath, dating from the tenth century, present a singular instance of groining, in their square and solid ribs, entirely unadorned; while the cloisters, in the style of the fifteenth century, seem to have exhausted the skill of the architect, in the exceeding richness of their tracery, and pendant vaulting. The very defects of the building seem to have contributed to its graces, for when I had admired the aerial effect of a slender arch, springing athwart the transepts and attaching itself to the roof, as if its solid stone were a mere hanging festoon, I was told that this was, in fact, a blemish, and had been introduced into the original plan, only to strengthen the walls. I went into the triforia, and tried the whispering-gallery, but had no time to amuse myself with such small experiments, amid so many incentives to a higher employment of my opportunities. I am sorry that the marvellous beauty of the Lady-Chapel still demands the hand of a restorer. The “godly” Cromwellians have left the traces of their hammers on all its carved work, and it is sadly despoiled. Would that the same skill and taste which reared the Church at Highnam might be permitted to make this holy place worthy of an English cathedral! That the English people still suffer these mother-churches of the nation to remain as too many of them are, is one of their greatest national disgraces. When they are restored as they might be, and managed as they should be, then, and not till then, must they command the unmingled admiration and delight of every intelligent visitor.

After a thorough inspection of the cathedral, in the broad light of day, I was kindly invited by Sir John to visit it again, as the day was about to close. We entered, by his private key, and were alone in the vast and awful interior. Going into the nave, he said to me, as I paused to observe the solemn perspective—“Whose bones, do you suppose, are now beneath your feet?” I stepped aside, as he added, “You are standing on the grave of Bishop Warburton.” So much wit and genius in the dust! Yet in what nobler sepulchre could earth to earth be delivered, to await the resurrection? Hard by, are the monuments of two of the world’s benefactors; that of Jenner, who poured water upon the flame of the noisome pestilence, and that of Raikes, who first “gathered the children” into Sunday Schools. There is another modern monument, deserving of mention, as one of that purely Anglican type, which tends to _divinify_ domestic love, and the holy relations of the wife and mother. A female figure, with a babe, appear in the radiant marble, invited by angels into Paradise, from the waves of the sea. It is from the pure chisel of Flaxman, and commemorates one who died in the perils of childbirth, while encompassed by the perils of the great deep.

Less pleasing, yet even more impressive, was the quaint effigy, in old carved oak, of Robert, Duke of Normandy, surnamed Curthose. You touch it and it moves, and you involuntarily start. It is, of course, very light, and lies upon the tomb so loosely that it is easily disturbed; and then, it seems as if the old Norman were about to rise and confront you, as an audacious intruder upon his repose. But how shall I describe the effect of the marble effigy of poor King Edward the Second, as I saw it, in the solemn twilight, and in the unbroken silence of the deserted cathedral? There was that outstretched figure, and that sad outline of a face composed in death, and hands clasped in resignation; but its dread appearance was as if imploring God, against the cruel murderers who had done him such awful violence. I thought of Gray’s sketchy but descriptive lyric, and muttered to myself:—

“Those shrieks of death through Berkeley’s roofs that ring; Shrieks of an agonizing king.”

The neighbouring peasant woke at the outcry of the tortured sufferer, and crossed himself; for he suspected what the devil was doing in the castle. Here now lies the victim of that horrid regicide, but there is something in the sculpture of his visage, that reminds the visitor, that “God shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness.” This powerful impression lingered with me, as I paced the cloisters, and revived, when at a late hour of the night I was awakened by the chimes of the cathedral clock charming the darkness with a solemn tune, and lifting the thoughts of the listener to communion with his God.