The surroundings of a custodian of a mediæval cathedral, beautiful though they are, at the same time are unutterably pathetic. They tell him, do the pages of the old solemn Book of Stone he is never weary of turning over and of pondering upon, that the genius of man has its limits, which it may never pass; that the story of human progress to higher and ever higher levels is often a delusive one; that in past ages his forefathers were perhaps as noble and chivalrous—aye, nobler, more chivalrous than the men of his own generation—that their imagination was more brilliant and their hands more cunning; that if in some respects progress is visible, in others the movement is retrograde.
Again, a great mediæval cathedral like our own glorious Gloucester, inimitable in its fadeless beauty and matchless strength, surely deals a very heavy blow to human pride, and it teaches humility to the most competent and ablest of our number, for it is a conception belonging to a past age. A great gathering, however, like the present, numbering some six or seven thousand persons, is for varied reasons an inspiring one and bids us be trustful—even hopeful.
Dwell we a brief while first on our surroundings. Of all works devised by human ingenuity and carried on by human skill, the triumphs of architecture are among the most enduring, afford the most genuine and purest delight to the greater number of men and women, are confessedly the most attractive, perhaps the most instructive, as they are among the most enduring of human creations. The glories of Luxor and Karnak, which for several thousand years have been mirrored in the grey-green Nile; the white and gleaming shrines of Athens the bright and happy, the mighty ruins of Eternal Rome, are splendid instances.
But perhaps the conspicuous examples of this architecture, the most loved of human arts and crafts, are, after all, the mediæval cathedrals. The first object of interest for the modern traveller in search of health or rest is a cathedral. All sorts and conditions of men find delight in its contemplation. The delight, of course, is varied, but the strange and witching beauty appeals to them all. This appeal to the higher and devotional side of our nature speaks to every soul, to the unlearned as to the learned, to the mill-hand as to the scholar. The wanderer from the New World beyond the seas at once seeks them out, conscious that in them he will find a beauty and a joy such as he will never see or feel outside their charmed walls.
I have said that to the custodian of such a cathedral the surroundings are, if not sad, at least pathetic, for these magnificent and loved creations of human genius belong to a somewhat remote past, and, as far as these exquisite buildings are concerned, save for purposes of necessary repair—repair simply to arrest the ravages of time—for nearly four hundred years the clink of trowel and pickaxe has been hushed.
It is scarcely an exaggerated statement which speaks of architecture, in its noblest sense, as a lost art. Very significant are the words of one of the greatest of modern architects, who, after dwelling on the decadence of his loved art, tells us how "It is a somewhat saddening reflection—but there is no escaping from the conclusion—that the art which created the glorious abbeys and minsters, the beautiful parish churches so plentifully dotted over our country—abbeys, minsters, and churches which the churchmen of the second half of the nineteenth century so reverently and wisely restore and seek to copy stone by stone, arch by arch, window by window, down to the smallest bit of ornament—is a lost art! Men have come sorrowfully to see that mediæval architecture is the last link—perhaps the most beautiful as well as the last link—of that long chain of architectural styles, 'commencing in far-back ages in Egypt and passing on in continuous course through Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, and thence taken up by the infant nations of modern Europe, and by them prolonged through successive ages of continuous progress till it terminated in the beautiful thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Gothic, and has never since produced a link of its own.... Alas! it is the last link of that mighty chain which had stretched unbroken through nearly four thousand years—the glorious termination of the history of original and genuine architecture.'" Well may men love it and seek to preserve the examples they possess of it, and aim at copying it as well as they can. These remarkable and melancholy words above quoted were deliberately spoken by Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A., LL.D., in his first lecture on Mediæval Architecture delivered at the Royal Academy some years ago.
So much for my note of sadness. Now let me strike a different chord.
Such a gathering as the present, I repeat, is an inspiring one, for it tells me that if one great art dies, He who loves us and has redeemed us at so great a price, gives His children something in its place. Now it is strange that amidst all the gorgeous and striking ceremonial of the mediæval services, with their wealth of colour and ornament, with all their touching and elaborate symbolism, music, as it is now understood, was unknown and comparatively neglected. In the noblest cathedral of the Middle Ages, in the stateliest Benedictine or Cistercian abbey, while the eye was filled with sights of solemnity and beauty, each sight containing its special and peculiar teaching, the ear was comparatively uncared for. Strangely monotonous and even harsh would chaunt and psalm and hymn, as rendered in the mighty abbeys of Westminster, Durham, or Gloucester in the days of the great Plantagenets, of the White Rose or Red Rose kings, sound to the musically trained ears of the worshippers of the second half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, music as a great science was unknown in pre-Reformation times. The most complete anthem-book may be searched through by the curious scholar, but scarcely a musical composer of any note will be found in these collections of a date earlier than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It would seem as though, when architecture ceased in the sixteenth century to be a living craft, a new art was discovered and worked at by men.
A new art! I say these words, strange to some, with emphasis. One who has indeed a right to speak of music[1] thus voices my assertion. While telling us that certain grand forms of music loom out of the darkness of the earlier centuries of our era, the famous musician to whom I refer adds that little of what we understand of music existed before the later years of the fifteenth century. It was no mere renaissance, for that which had never been born could not be born again.