The new beauty of Truro Cathedral at present lacks those weatherings that only time can give. The fine-grained granite and the Box stone dressings have not attained the stains and bloom of years, and so it is impossible to altogether judge the merits or drawbacks of the exterior; but that the architect strove to be pictorial, and that he rather overstrained in that direction, seems undeniable. The building, only three hundred feet in its greatest length, from east to west, is really one of our smallest cathedrals, six feet shorter than Rochester, and it is ornamented to a degree that in places spoils the effect. This is very noticeable in the south door, the usual entrance. It is contrived in the south transept and is loaded with ornamentation that emphasises the naturally squeezed-in appearance. The over-enrichment was a mistake, but the cramped nature of this part seems to have been unavoidable, considering the extreme narrowness of the site here.
TRURO CATHEDRAL.
The interior discloses none of these limitations, and exhibits a noble clerestoried nave of nine bays and of fine proportions. A very notable feature is the beautiful baptistery close by the south door. Its many slender columns and the artfully arranged half-light set off the rich stained-glass with the effect of jewels. The choir is a light and graceful and glorified continuation of the nave. Most of the windows are already furnished with stained-glass, whose subjects include a representation of Wesley preaching at Gwennap: a more liberal-minded inclusion than any of which Hawker of Morwenstow would have been capable, with his bitter remark that Wesley had made the Cornish change their sins; not get rid of them, you know.
A certain specious air of antiquity is given to the north transept by the old monuments from St. Mary's, restored and built into the walls. Notable among them is the Robartes monument of 1614. And history is being quickly made here, for already Truro has come to its third bishop and the cathedral is beginning to accumulate relics. Thus we see in a case on the east wall of the south transept the pastoral staff presented to Dr. Benson, the first Bishop.
There are also war memorials in the cathedral: tablets and flags that tell eloquently of the latest great effort in the art of murder by wholesale. It is a bitter commentary upon Christianity that in twenty years from the beginning of the cathedral such things should be necessary. But the fault was not ours, and no patriotic Englishman would have those memorials away, for they show that we can still hold our own against attack. "The men are splendid," as a famous dispatch from those sun-scorched fields ran. Of their officers it were kinder to keep silence, but perhaps their failure was merely the fault of the system.
There is an interesting museum of the Royal Institution of Cornwall in Truro, with illustrations of South American scenes a good deal too prominent on its walls; and there is a curious old inscription carved in granite on a wall in the Market House. It belonged to an older building, and runs thus: "Ienkin Daniel, Maior. Who seks to find eternal tresvre, mvst vse no gvile in waight or measvre, 1615."
