Repentant sighs and voluntary pains.”
But a cheerful serenity, and an enlivening interest, very different from the ideas usually associated with the gloom of a convent.
The churches of Ghent in which, as usual, the grand objects of curiosity and vertu are amassed and exhibited, are in point of number, richness, and sombre beauty, quite proportionate to the other attractions of Ghent. They are all, (with one exception, that of St. Peter’s, which is a copy of the one at Rome,) built in the same venerable and massive style of gothic architecture, with huge square turrets, lofty aisles, rich altars, pulpits of carved oak and marble, and chapels decorated with paintings by the old masters of the Flemish School. The population is almost exclusively Roman Catholic, hardly 2000 of its 95,000 inhabitants being of the reformed religion. For the use of the latter, a church was appropriated by the King of Holland, in 1817, which had once been attached to a convent of Capuchins, and on their suppression, had been converted into a military magazine and hospital by the French. Such, however, was the animosity of the priesthood to this act of toleration on the part of the King, that it was for some time necessary to station a guard, both within the church and without, to protect those who frequented it from violence or insult. And yet Ghent has the reputation of being the least intolerant and bigoted city in the Netherlands.
The cathedral of St. Bavon, besides being the oldest, is by far the most magnificent in Ghent, and seems, in fact, to have a high reputation for its splendour, as we repeatedly heard of it at subsequent points of our tour. The whole of the basement is occupied by one vast crypt or souterrain, the low vaulted arches of which, rest on the shafts of the huge columns which support the roof of the grand edifice above. Like it, it is divided into a series of little gloomy chapels, containing the tombs of some of the ancient families of distinction, and occasionally decorated by pictures and statues of extreme antiquity. The brothers John and Hubert Van Eyck, the painters and their sister, who was likewise an artist, sleep in one grave under the floor of this melancholy vault. Over the grand entrance to the cathedral is a curious old statue of St. Bavon holding a hawk upon his wrist, a curious attitude, though characteristic of the manners of the times. The coup-d’œil of the interior is surprisingly grand, the choir being separated from the nave and aisles by lofty columns of variegated marbles, and the entrance to each of the four and twenty chapels which surround the church, covered by a screen of neat design, sometimes in carved oak or stone, but more frequently in gilded brass or iron of exquisite workmanship.
The numerous paintings with which the church is covered are few of them of extraordinary merit, they are chiefly by the artists, contemporary and subsequent to Rubens, Crayer, Otto Vennius, Honthorst, Serghers and others. The most remarkable painting is that of the Saint Agneau or adoration of the lamb by the Van Eycks. It is in marvellous preservation, and is one of the most valuable specimens remaining of the school to which it belongs. It contains a profusion of figures, finished with the richness and delicacy of a miniature, and represents the lamb upon an altar, in the midst of a rich landscape, surrounded by angels, and worshipped by multitudes of popes, emperors, monks and nuns. It is surmounted and surrounded by a number of compartments, containing pictures of the Saviour and the Virgin, and representing divers incidents in the life of the former; in addition to these, there were originally six doors or volets to the picture, which, by some ignorance of the persons in charge of them, were actually sold in 1816 for a mere trifle to an Englishman called Solly, from whom they were bought by the King of Prussia, for 400,000 francs, and they now decorate the museum at Berlin. There is also a picture by Rubens, of St. Bavon retiring to a monastery, after having distributed his goods to the poor, which was carried by Napoleon to Paris, and restored in 1819.
The choir, which is finished with carved mahogany, has on either side, at the entrance, two statues of St. Peter and St. Paul casting the viper from his hand, by Van Poucke, a modern Flemish sculptor, who died at Rome in 1809. Among its other ornaments are four lofty candelabra of polished copper, once the property of Charles I of England, and sold along with the other decorations of the chapel at Whitehall by order of the Commonwealth. Round the altar are also some tombs of the former prelates of Ghent, amongst which, that by Duquesnoy of the Bishop Triest, is regarded as the finest piece of sculpture in the Netherlands. The mitred dignitaries each repose upon his sculptured sarcophagus, or kneel with clasped and upraised hands:
“Seeming to say the prayer when dead,
That living they had never said.”
Here, again, the pulpit is an extraordinary production in carved wood of huge dimensions, but with white marble ornaments and figures injudiciously intermingled with the rich old oak. The principal figures are statues of Truth awakening Time, and presenting to him the scriptures with the motto, “surge qui dormis illuminabit te Christus!” This pulpit, which is far inferior to those at Antwerp and elsewhere, is not by Verbruggen, who is the Canova of wood, but by an artist of Ghent, called Laurence Delvaux, who died about 1780.
The other churches present a succession of objects which is almost as tiresome to visit as it is tedious to enumerate. That of St. Michael, in extent and magnificence, is second only to the cathedral. Amongst a host of ordinary paintings, and some by modern artists, especially one of great merit, by Paelinck, a native of Ghent, it possesses a chef d’œuvre of Vandyk, a “Crucifixion,” in which he has introduced the same magnificent horse as in his picture of Charles V, in the Sal di Baroccio, at Florence. Sir Joshua Reynolds calls it “one of his noblest works.” It had been injured by repeated cleanings, but M. Voisin, the historian of Ghent, observes with much naïveté, “qu’il vient d’être restauré par un artiste habile.” Who he may be who has ventured to restore a chef-d’œuvre of Vandyck, M. Voisin discreetly forbears to name.