Lichfield, Staffordshire, July 31, 1890.—To a man of letters there is no name in the long annals of English literature more interesting and significant than the name of Samuel Johnson. It has been truly said that no other man was ever subjected to such a light as Boswell threw upon Johnson, and that few other men could have endured it so well. He was in many ways noble, but of all men of letters he is especially noble as the champion of literature. He vindicated the profession of letters. He lived by his pen, and he taught the great world, once for all, that it is honourable so to live. That lesson was needed in the England of his period; and from that period onward the literary vocation has steadily been held in higher esteem than it enjoyed up to that time. The reader will not be surprised that one of the humblest of his followers should linger for a while in the ancient town that is glorified by association with his illustrious name, or should write a word of fealty and homage in the birthplace of Dr. Johnson.
Dr. Johnson.
Lichfield is a cluster of rather dingy streets and of red-brick and stucco buildings, lying in a vale, a little northward from Birmingham, diversified by a couple of artificial lakes and glorified by one of the loveliest churches in Europe. Without its church the town would be nothing. Lichfield cathedral, although an ancient structure,—dating back, indeed, to the early part of the twelfth century,—has been so sorely battered, and so considerably "restored," that it presents the aspect of a building almost modern. The denotements of antiquity, however, are not entirely absent from it, and it is not less venerable than majestic. No one of the cathedrals of England presents a more beautiful front. The multitudinous statues of saints and kings that are upon it create an impression of royal opulence. The carving upon the recesses of the great doorways on the north and west is of astonishing variety and loveliness. The massive doors of dark oak, fretted with ironwork of rare delicacy, are impressive and are exceptionally suitable for such an edifice. Seven of the large gothic windows in the chancel are filled with genuine old glass,—not, indeed, the glass they originally contained, for that was smashed by the Puritan fanatics, but a great quantity [no less than at least three hundred and forty pieces, each about twenty-two inches square], made in Germany, in the early part of the sixteenth century, when the art of staining glass was at its summit of skill. This treasure was given to the cathedral by a liberal friend, Sir Brooke Boothby, who had obtained it by purchase, in 1802, from the dissolved Abbey of Herckenrode. No such colour as that old glass presents can be seen in the glass that is manufactured now. It is imitated indeed, but it does not last. The subjects portrayed in those sumptuous windows are mostly scriptural, but the centre window on the north side of the chancel is devoted to portraits of noblemen, one of them being Errard de la Marck, who was enthroned Bishop of Liège in 1505, and who, toward the end of his stormy life, adopted the old Roman motto, comprehensive and final, which, a little garbled, appears in the glass beneath his heraldic arms:
"Decipimus votis; et tempore fallimur;
Et Mors deridet curas; anxia vita nihil."
Lichfield Cathedral—West Front.