"The cathedral,—what of that?" says the reader. Well, it is by no means forgotten, and we next tell of that. It is situated on low and level land, and is from a distance looked down upon, or over to, rather than up to, as is the case at Durham, Lincoln, and in fact in many other places. It is built of a dark-gray sandstone, and has a rather sombre look, and is located in the midst of grounds, about in which are walls and ruins of the old monastery, and the original garden walls yet remain; so that while the cathedral is not out among buildings of ordinary character, but has ample grounds and shrubbery around it, yet it has no grand close, or park, as at Salisbury, Hereford, and many others; but all is complete within these precincts, and charming in the extreme. A charming quiet pervades these ancient-appearing and large premises, and all is befitting the venerable structure.
Like all cathedrals, this boasts of a good antiquity. The See was removed from Thetford to Norwich in 1096. The first establishment consisted of sixty monks; they took possession of the premises in 1106, and Bishop Herbert laid the cathedral foundation in 1115. The work advanced, so that on Advent Sunday, 1278,—or 163 years after the laying of the corner-stone,—it was consecrated by Bishop Middleton, in presence of King Edward I. and Queen Eleanor. In 1272 the tower was badly injured by lightning; and this was but the precursor of a greater evil, for on the 18th of September of that year a riot occurred among the populace, and they turned their attention to the edifice. Most of the court buildings were destroyed, the cathedral itself much injured, several of the sub-deacons and lay-servants killed in the cloisters, the treasury ransacked, and all the monks but two driven away. In 1289 Bishop Walpole began a spire of wood, covered with lead, completed in 1295, which remained some years, when it was blown down, and much injury was done to the roofs. Bishop Percy erected the present stone spire in the years 1364-1369, so that as we now see it, it is 536 years old.
The building is 416 feet long, transepts, 185 feet wide; and the tower, which is 45½ feet square, is 140 feet high, with a stone spire, 169½ feet above this, or an aggregate 309½, exclusive of iron-work, above it. The cloisters are 150 feet square, and the open close about them is one of the finest in England. The interior is very solid in appearance, yet as well decorated as any in the kingdom. Indescribable is the solemnity of grand effect. How complete all is; and how of eternity itself do the great Norman columns speak! Had we not already employed so much eulogy in praise of other cathedrals, we now could use adjectives to advantage; but language has never yet adequately described a cathedral's interior. There is more to the thing than matters of curiosity and a tame entertainment. We first are interested, next admire; soon a feeling of awe and solemnity is inspired, and the strong sensations tone down, and one feels to be in the presence of men of other generations. Bishops of distinguished renown have here held sway more than half a thousand years ago. Here have kings and queens worshipped. These arches through the centuries have echoed back a million songs and psalms and prayers; about, amid this lofty vaulting, have the odors and smoke of Roman Catholic incense wandered on; and here at the foot of these ponderous columns, and at these shrines, have thousands, yea millions, of pious devotees tried to do honor to the King of kings and the Lord of lords; and here also by-and-by, in aid of reformation, was ruthless work done, and images of saints and grand sculptures, made by monks and pious ones, were hurled from their quiet resting-places, to be broken and to be cast out, after centuries of service,—to be as common things, ground to powder and trodden under foot of men. The good Scripture statement is that there is joy among the redeemed over repenting mortals. If joy, then knowledge and observation of what mortals do. Is it too much to think that, with extended vision and enlightened conditions, seeing truth clearly, and rid of its dress and habiliments of superstition and enslaving penance and wordy ritual, that even the seeming desecration, speaking of advancing conditions and better ones for after worshippers,—that listening to this, they too rejoiced in the work, and that always after they have been interested here at these great shrines, and are present and communing? Is there not now, as of old, a great cloud of witnesses? When one walks through the vast cathedral nave, and the sound of his feet makes echoes that pass from one to another of their lofty arches, is it too much to think that these are not all the sounds awakened or elements set in motion? "Things are not what they seem," for the poet has well said:—
As the temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal.
This place so sacred, and now in grand repose, has been desecrated to an incredible degree. The world's people and the monks have at times come to blows. In recounting the desecrations which took place during one of the civil wars, Sir Thomas Browne says, that "more than one hundred monumental brasses were taken from the mural slabs in this cathedral, and were carried away and destroyed." Bishop Hall says:—
The rebel musketeers committed abominable excesses in this cathedral church, which they converted into an ale-house. They sallied out habited in the surplices and vestments, sounding on the organ pipes, and grossly parodying the litany, and burned the service-books, six copies, and records in the market-place.
No cathedral makes a greater show of monuments, in wider variety of design, or commemorative of more influential and distinguished men; and first may be named the elegant memorial window at the west end of the nave, to the memory of Bishop Edward Stanley, who was father of the celebrated and now worthily lamented Dean of Westminster at London. The bishop was born in 1779, and died at Norwich in 1849, having been made bishop of this cathedral in 1837. In the presbytery is a table-tomb to the memory of Sir W. Boleyn, who died in 1505. He was the great-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth.
Near by is a wall tablet commemorating Bishop George Horne, who died Jan. 17, 1792. He was distinguished as a preacher, and became President of Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1768, Chaplain to the King in 1771, Dean of Canterbury in 1781, and Bishop of Norwich, 1790. He was a very voluminous writer; his chief work is his "Commentary on the Psalms," on which he labored for twenty years, and published it in 1776. As one lingers among these remains he is forcibly struck with the antiquity of the monuments, and finds himself counting their age by hundreds of years; and among them are the following bishops with the year of their death. They will be given in the order in which they are met with, not regarding priority of dates: Bishop Nix, 1536; Parkhurst, 1575; Dean Gardner, 1589; Bishop Herbert, 1682; Goldwell, 1499; Wakering, 1425; Overell, 1619; Bathurst, 1837; Prior N. de Brampton, 1268; Prior Bonoun, 1480; Reynolds, 1676; R. Pulvertoft, 1494; and so might the list be continued. Here are bishops, deans, curates, priors, sir-knights-templars, members of parliament; and distinguished women also, for not unfrequently appears the title of Dame, as Dame Calthorp, who died in 1582. As we think of these for whom monumental stones have been raised, and the hundreds in the old grounds, who are "unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown;" of monk, nun, abbot, and abbess; Catholic and Protestant; of them of ancient dispensation, as well as of them of the new; the whole a great company, more in the aggregate than all they who in the city entire are yet in the flesh,—as we loiter here and think of these things, we see the force of the remark, "One generation cometh and another goeth, but the earth abideth forever." We have said, after all, comparatively nothing concerning this place of so much interest and renown, but time with us moves as it did with those who a thousand years ago labored and died here. The great bell in the tower solemnly counts off the hour of 3 o'clock, and we wend our way from these sacred precincts, and drop the curtain, but not without the promise that whenever again at London, we will come over to Norwich; and now at 3.30 of the same Tuesday, we take cars for the next cathedral town, which is famous old