Friday.
The exterior of Lincoln cathedral is far more beautiful than that of York, the inside is far inferior. They have been obliged in some places to lay a beam from one column to another, to strengthen them; they have covered it with Gothic work, and it appears at first like a continuation of the passages above. It is to be wished that in their other modern works there had been the same approximation to the taste of better times. A fine Roman pavement was discovered not many years ago in the centre of the cloister; they have built a little brick building over it to preserve it with commendable care; but so vile a one as to look like one of those houses of necessity which are attached to every cottage in this country—and which it is to be hoped will one day become as general in our own. A library forms one side of the cloister-quadrangle, which is also modern and mean. Another vile work of modern time is a picture of the Annunciation over the altar.
Most of the old windows were demolished in the days of fanaticism; their place has not been supplied with painted glass,—and from the few which remain, the effect of the coloured light crowning the little crockets and pinnacles, and playing upon the columns with red and purple and saffron shades of light, made us the more regret that all were not in the same state of beauty. We ascended the highest tower, crossing a labyrinth of narrow passages; it was a long and wearying way,—the jackdaws who inhabit these steeples have greatly the advantage of us in getting to the top of them. How very much must these birds be obliged to man for building cathedrals for their use! It is something higher than York, and the labour of climbing it was compensated by a bird's eye view all around us.
We ascended one of the other towers afterwards to see Great Tom, the largest bell in England. At first it disappointed me, but the disappointment wore off, and we became satisfied that it was as great a thing as it was said to be. A tall man might stand in it, upright; the mouth measures one and twenty English feet in circumference, and it would be a large tree of which the girth equalled the size of its middle. The hours are struck upon it with a hammer. I should tell you that the method of sounding bells in England is not by striking, but by swinging them: no bell, however, which approaches nearly to the size of this is ever moved, except this; it is swung on Whitsunday, and when the judges arrive to try the prisoners,—another fit occasion would be at executions, to which it would give great solemnity, for the sound is heard far and wide over the fens. On other occasions it was disused, because it shook the tower, but the stones have now been secured with iron cramps.—Tom, which is the familiar abbreviation of Thomas, seems to be the only name which they give to a bell in this country.
Only one coach passes through Lincoln on the way to London, and that early in the morning, we were therefore obliged to return again into the great north road, which we did by taking chaise to Newark; the road is a straight line, along an old Roman way. A bridge over the Trent and the ruins of a castle, which long held out for the king in the great civil war, are the only remarkable objects in this town,—except indeed that I saw the name Ordoyno over a shop. The day ended in rain; we got into a stage in the evening, which took us through the towns of Grantham, Stamford, and Stilton, and dropt us in the middle of the night at a single inn called Alconbury-Hill,—where after a few minutes we succeeded in obtaining admittance and went to bed.
LETTER XLVI.
Cambridge.—Republican Tendency of Schools counteracted at College.—College a useful Place for the debauched Students, a melancholy one for others.—Fellowships.—Advantage of a University Education.—Not so necessary as it once was.
Wednesday.
From From Alconbury-Hill to Cambridge is two short stages,—we passed through Huntingdon, the birth-place of Oliver Cromwell, and travelled over a dismal flat, the country northward being one great fen. The whole of these extensive fens is said once to have been dry and productive ground reduced to this state by some earthquake or deluge, unremembered in history. Tools found beneath the soil, and submersed forests, are the proofs. A century and half ago they began to drain them, and the draining still proceeds. In old times they were the favourite retreat of the religious: the waters were at that time carried off by great rivers through the level, above twenty leagues long, which formed innumerable lakes, many of them of considerable size, and on the islands in these a hermitage or a convent was placed in safety from the sudden attack of the Northern Sea Kings, and in that solitude which its holy inhabitants desired. The greater number of the old English saints flourished in this district.