CHAPTER VI.
GLOUCESTER—BRISTOL—BATH—SALISBURY—SARUM—AMESBURY—STONEHENGE—WILTON.
At 6 p. m., after a scant two hours' ride, we take rooms at the Gloucester House, and are out on a walk in another beautiful town, the River Severn running through it,—a town more like Worcester than like Hereford, though in population (18,330) strikingly like the latter. The city is of British origin, but is very ancient. It was once a Roman station by the name of Colonia Glevum, and under the Emperor Claudius received the name of Claudia Castra. The Saxons, after they had taken it, gave it the name of Glean-ceaster; hence our modern word Gloucester. It had its part in battles, and in the seventeenth century was strongly fortified and took part with the Royalists. The place was of so much importance that Henry VIII. made it a bishop's seat, and so its great abbey church became a cathedral. The edifice is in fine repair, and is noted for its elegant cloisters,—the finest of any cathedral in the world. They are of very liberal dimensions, and adorned with fanlike tracery of extraordinary finish; and the openings into the great courtyard are filled with glass. The cathedral itself is one of rare beauty. It is 423 feet long, and 147 feet wide at the transepts; and the great central tower is 176 feet high to the base of the corner pinnacles, which tower up 49 feet higher. The cloisters are 148 feet long on each of their four sides. We shall not attempt a closer description of this than of other cathedrals, though every part is a study.
It has but a small number of noted monuments, but among them are some of unusual interest. One, always attracting attention, is of Robert, Duke of Normandy. It is a recumbent effigy of bog-oak, covered with wire network. Being a Crusader, the legs are crossed, as is the customary representation. Robert was imprisoned by his brother Henry, his eyes were put out, and for twenty-eight years he continued in this miserable condition till death came to his relief. Another monument is to the memory of Edward II., who was murdered Sept. 21, 1327. Another commemorates Bishop Warburton, who was made bishop of the diocese in 1759, and died here in 1779. Near the entrance is a monument to Dr. Edward Jenner, the discoverer of vaccination, or inoculation, as a preventive of smallpox. He died at Berkley, in the county of Gloucestershire, and was buried in this cathedral in 1823, at the age of seventy-five.
In this city, in 1735, was born Robert Raikes, who in 1781 hired rooms for Sunday-schools, and employed women at a shilling a day to teach poor children, whom he found in the streets, the rudiments of common education. The school was held from 10 a. m. to 12 m. An hour's recess was followed by a lesson in reading, and then they went to church. After service the catechism was repeated till 5 p. m., "when they were charged to go home at once, and quietly." This was the origin of our present system of Sunday-schools, that of Mr. Raikes being the first of which we have any account. Here also, on the 16th of December, 1714, was born the celebrated preacher, George Whitefield, who died at Newburyport, Mass., Sept. 30, 1770, and whose remains are entombed under the pulpit of the Old South (Presbyterian) Church of that place. One mural tablet was of especial interest to us,—a white marble slab, high up on one of the transept walls, thought to be in memory of a relative of the founder of the chimes on Christ Church at the North End of Boston. It reads as follows:—
Abraham Rudhall Bell founder
Fam'd for his great Skill
belov'd and esteem'd for his signal
good nature and integrity
Died Jan'y 25th 1785-6 aged 78.
One of the bells at our Christ Church bears this inscription: "Abel Rudhall of Gloucester cast us all, Anno. 1744." As Abraham would have been about forty-two years old at the time, perhaps he was the son of this Abel.
The organ in the cathedral is one of great power and brilliancy of tone. It was built by the celebrated Renatus Harris of London, who built many of the large organs of England.
Reluctantly we left these beautiful grounds, and entertaining a regret unusually deep. The walks are kept scrupulously clean, and the flowers in the vicinity of the student's precincts were charming. As we sauntered about we could not but think of the great who have here held court. Beneath the shadow of these very walls walked Edward the Confessor, and many a Norman lord. In the old abbey Henry III. was crowned three hundred years ago; and who can walk and meditate here and not think of Richard III., Duke of Gloucester? We cannot refrain from quoting the quaint description given of him by Sir Thomas More:—
Richarde, the thirde sonne of Richard, Duke of Yorke, was in witte and corage equal with his two brothers, in bodye and prowesse far under them both, little of stature, ill fetured of limmes, croke backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard favored of visage, and such as in stater called warlye, in other menne otherwise, he was malicious, wrathful, envious and from his birth ever frowarde. It is for truth reported that he came into the world with the feet forwarde, and also ontothed, as if nature changed her course in hys beginnynge, which in the course of his lyfe manny thinges unnaturallye committed.
Just outside the cathedral grounds, in a little park, stands a monument to the memory of John Hooper, who, in the reign of Queen Mary, was one of the first to suffer martyrdom, and was on this spot burned at the stake Feb. 9, 1555. Over three hundred years are gone since the smoke of the martyr arose from this spot. How changed the scene! Over the vast domain, none now for conscience sake have power to destroy.
As reluctantly as can be imagined, we turned away. Very dear to us already had become old Gloucester. With an indescribable feeling we left the hallowed spot, and at 11 a. m., on Wednesday, May 8, took cars for Bristol. Our people do not think enough of the Mother Country. They hurry breathlessly and thoughtlessly, with but confused perceptions, to yet more foreign lands; they do not rest by the way in these fine old towns, drink in the inspiration which pervades their very atmosphere, and so make themselves ever after able better to interpret history. Another has well expressed it: "To him who is of a mind rightly framed, the world is a thousand times more populous than to the men to whom everything that is not flesh and blood is nothing."