These are the crowd that Cowper alludes to when describing the burning of Lord Mansfield’s library. The second term only now is ever used in reproach, the first being almost, as before remarked, a complimentary epithet. Happily it is so, or else the cathedrals would have fallen in the fashion of the period that made each new era in design paramount for the time. Nothing can have been less conservative than the way in which the monks of old regarded the works of their predecessors. In any English cathedral we see the masonry of different eras, each with its own peculiarity, and there was not the slightest hesitation in pulling down the works of the previous century in order to replace them with those in fashion; indeed we often find exquisite carved work broken in pieces and used for rubble, when its very condition shows that the builders who so used it could have easily restored it—not “restored” in the modern sense of the word, but repaired it. To be so conservative as we are now of the works of our ancestors in an age that is pre-eminently one of progress, seems an anachronism, but it must be remembered that we should not now have possessed much in the way of cathedrals if it were not for the fact that after the Reformation, clergy fell almost into contempt for a long time. Macaulay’s History of England tells us how lightly they were esteemed; a chaplain to a family of rank and wealth was hardly held in greater honour than the head gamekeeper or huntsman; and the wealth of the bishops and dignitaries seems almost to have isolated rather than enabled them to mingle with their equals. Ecclesiastical buildings were therefore neglected, happily for the present generation, or else we should have had a dozen grand old Gothic piles replaced by the architecture of Queen Anne or the Georges. The tide of improvement that swept away so many old English mansions passed by them.
Surrey is a very beautiful county, undulating and diversified. A great part of it is not more than 300 feet above the level of the sea, and Leith Hill, near Dorking, which is the highest part of it, is only about 900 feet in elevation. There are many old towns and villages in Surrey, and not a few are of great historical interest. Esher is the place where Cardinal Wolsey was ordered to retire to after his downfall. The gateway still remains of Esher Palace. It is a fine old tower, with turrets at the angles. Norfolk gives the—to him—congenial orders:—
“Hear the King’s pleasure, Cardinal; who commands you
To render up the great seal presently
Into our hands; and to confine yourself
To Esher-house—my lord of Winchester’s.”
The Town-hall of Guildford is a very characteristic building of the earliest period of classic revival. I saw a painting of it that dated back to the earlier part of last century, and the street seems hardly to have been altered since this picture was executed. The balcony is of course for addressing an audience at election times, and the clock stands quaintly out into the street, supported by thin ribbons of wrought
iron. Much of the character of this and other classic buildings of the period when the revival took place, came from Holland, and the stiff gardening was introduced from the Netherlands, though of course the Dutch element is more observable in places like Hull, that had more direct communication with the Low Countries. The revivals of Wren and Inigo Jones proceed from an entirely different quarter, though of course they often combined with them.
The city of Salisbury, it has been well said by one of our best antiquarians, has its origin well defined, and in this respect differs from English cities generally. It has nothing Roman, Saxon, or
even Norman in its origin, but is purely an English city, and it may be considered as unique. It has abundant provision for cleanliness, and is even without the remains of a baronial fortress. True it is that it was surrounded by walls, and a very fine gateway is shown here, but these walls were the boundaries of the precincts of the ecclesiastics. The