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TOMB OF ABBESS ETHELDREDA. 
 
THE CHURCH RESTORERS: 
 
 A TALE, 
 
 TREATING OF ANCIENT AND MODERN 
 ARCHITECTURE AND CHURCH DECORATIONS. 
 
 By F. a. PALEY, M.A. 
 
 HONORARY SECRETARY TO THE CAMBRIDGE CAMDEN SOCIETY. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 NORRIS DECK, 6, KING'S PARADE. 
 
 MDCCCXLIV. 
 
/-"J 
 
TO 
 
 ANTHONY SALVIN, Esq. 
 
 ARCHITECT 
 
 TO 
 
 C^e l^estoratton of S. Sepulri^rc's €i&urr]^, €:amt)ritrge, 
 
 THIS SMALL TRIBUTE OF ESTEEM 
 
 FOR HIS PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL CHARACTER 
 
 IS INSCRIBED, 
 
 WITH THE REGARDS AND AVELL-WISHES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 '.X) 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 It is very possible, and somewhat to be feared, 
 that the following tale, if it attracts any notice at 
 all, will excite the wrath of one party, the ridi- 
 cule of another, and the suspicions of a third. By 
 all three it will probably be called popish, super- 
 stitious, flippant, satirical, and a great many other 
 hard names of the like kind. 
 
 Now it is clear, that a book must be very bad 
 indeed to deserve all this ; and an author must 
 either have some sinister end in view, or entertain 
 an overweening opinion of its merits or useful- 
 ness, to risk the danger of such abuse. It is 
 right, therefore, that his real motive in publishing 
 it should be clearly and honestly expressed. 
 
 That a contrast is drawn between the mediaeval 
 and the reformed Church, unfavourable to the 
 latter in respect not only of church architecture 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 but of faith, devotion, and discipline, is not de- 
 nied. If the author's view be altogether erro- 
 neous of the latter Christian qualities, there can 
 be no just cause for indignation at the expression 
 of mistaken sentiments. But for the first, with 
 which he is more immediately concerned, it is 
 impossible to deny that the practice of the art is 
 now (with, of course, not a few honourable excep- 
 tions,) so degraded, as fully to deserve the severest 
 animadversion from all who are really interested 
 in its improvement. Irreverent and ridiculous 
 usages should be placed in their true light, with- 
 out disguise or concealment. Thus only will 
 people learn that they are really so, or desire to 
 amend them. Apathy and indifference are to be 
 dealt with by stirring and wounding weapons. 
 These only become wrong when wielded by ma- 
 lice, or envenomed by bitterness of spirit. The 
 author is well aware how ungracious a task this 
 is, and how liable to misconception. But to ex- 
 pose in bold and strong language does not neces- 
 sarily imply a delight in doing it, as some persons 
 groundlessly and uncharitably suppose. 
 
 Of course, the events and characters of the 
 narrative, both ancient and modern, are entirely 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 fictitious, A class has been described, but no 
 real person in any instance pourtrajed. The 
 modern architects, and the apathetic and church- 
 destroying clergy of the last century, who may 
 seem to have been severely and satirically 
 handled, are, in fact, strictly and faithfully drawn, 
 and not in the least overwrought. They repre- 
 sent, unhappily, a great body, who form the rule, 
 and not the exception. And for the desecrations 
 and profanities of Protestantism, a great deal more 
 might have been said of much sterner and darker 
 reality. Some years spent in the study of church 
 architecture have convinced the author that this 
 part of the subject can hardly have any limits as- 
 signed to it. 
 
 As a story, the work claims no merit whatever. 
 It will at once be seen that this style is adopt- 
 ed but as a medium for illustrating in a less 
 technical and tedious form the general character 
 and principles of mediaeval and protestant church 
 architecture. Neither subject is indeed now 
 new to the reader ; yet perhaps a sketch of their 
 respective peculiarities, professedly authentic, as 
 far as can be ascertained by the author's own re- 
 search and observation, and not, intentionally at 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 least, exaggerated on either side, may be interest- 
 ing to some. In writing of medioBval times and 
 events the faith of the period in Miracles has 
 been freely embodied in the narrative. Without 
 expressing any opinion as to their truth or false- 
 hood, the author thinks it fair to make use of a 
 belief universally prevalent in the Church at the 
 time, and unnecessary to omit so remarkable and 
 interesting a characteristic merely to suit modern 
 prejudice. He only hopes that the adaptation of 
 recorded Miracles to a tale of mere fiction may not 
 be deemed derogatory to a very serious and solemn 
 subject. 
 
 It only remains to observe, "^that neither his 
 Publisher nor the Society with which he is con- 
 nected can be in the remotest degree responsible 
 for any opinions expressed by the author in the 
 narrative. 
 
 The reader is requested to omit the word 
 " Sire " in the epitaph of Sir Aubrey de Kynas- 
 tone, in pp. 31 and 37. It is manifestly erro- 
 neous, and was inserted by mistake. 
 
 St. John's College, Cambridge, 
 August, 1844. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. The Saxon Church . . . -1 
 
 u. The Monastery . . . .10 
 
 HI. The New Church . . . .25 
 
 IV. The Castle ..... 36 
 
 V. The Consecration . . . .46 
 
 VI. The Glory of the Church . . 51 
 
 VII. The Reformation . . . .64 
 
 viiL The Latter Days .... 74 
 
 IX. The Ecclesiologist . . . .82 
 
 X. The Architect , ... 92 
 
 XI. The Squire . . . . .122 
 xii. The Restoration . . . .135 
 
 xiii. The Pic-Nic Party . . . .155 
 
 XIV. The Church in her Influence . . 165 
 
A MANUAL OF GOTHIC MOULDINGS, 
 
 with many Illustrations ; in which the progressive deve- 
 lopment is traced, and rules given for determining the styles, 
 by Mr. Palev, is in preparation. 
 
o i J*, 3 » > o » * 
 
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 ' ' > > ^ 3 3 J ^ , ' . ', i ' , , , ' , 
 
 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. — THE SAXON CHURCH. 
 
 In the midst of a bare and liilly tract of country 
 on the eastern side of England, far away from the 
 noise of cities, lies a romantic village, which from 
 its own exceeding beauty, as well as from the 
 cheering contrast presented by the sudden and 
 unexpected change in the scenery, seldom fails to 
 strike the traveller with wonder and delight. It 
 is a charming prospect, that quiet valley, on a 
 bright and silent summer's eve. On all sides it is 
 inclosed by sloping verdant hills, partly clothed 
 with wood, partly occupied by scattered sheep and 
 cattle, which are resting from the heat of the day, 
 and seem musingly to enjoy, as they recline on 
 the sunny turf, the undisturbed tranquillity of 
 their domain. The village is small, and the cot- 
 tages very humble ; but they are clean and de- 
 cently kept, so that the outward aspect of rural 
 peace and contentment is not accompanied with 
 the idea of hidden distress, nor saddened by the 
 
 B 
 
!a THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 i i 
 
 ' 'icontemplati Oil of S(5[ualid poverty. Perfect seclu- 
 
 •sioii and i-etirement from tlie busy world seem 
 
 . hix% ii any where, avtainable. Not that it is shut 
 
 ' ' 'out' from the converse of mankind ; for several 
 roads converge to a point in the valley, and may 
 be seen from the heights winding in chalky white 
 streaks over the distant hills in as many dijQferent 
 directions : but they seem rather to suggest access 
 from without to a paradise of peace, than to tempt 
 the favoured inhabitants to stray in search of hap- 
 piness beyond the narrow limits of its own proper 
 abode. 
 
 Through the heart of the village of Letherton 
 runs a clear stream, which issues from under 
 a rock in a shady grove at the southern extremity. 
 So cold are the waters of the never-failing spring, 
 that the hand almost immediately becomes numb 
 and chill by immersion in its source ; so clear, 
 that its rippling motion alone betrays the trans- 
 parent covering of the shining pebbles below. 
 Hard by stands the village church, a most ancient 
 structure, the erection of which carries us back to 
 the time of the Saxon kings, though portions of 
 various styles shew the many additions and altera- 
 tions of succeeding ages. Such are the actual 
 features at the present day of a village, which we 
 shall leave those who may be interested in the dis- 
 covery to identify for themselves ; since much of 
 what we shall relate of its early history is but 
 
THE SAXON CHURCH. O 
 
 legendary, and will doubtless seem absurd and 
 impossible to those who bave no knowledge of nor 
 sympathy with the great and glorious ages of the 
 Church, the " Ages of Faith," as they are rightly 
 called. Therefore we decline to attach to a real 
 name a narrative which we cannot prove to be true. 
 Reader, if you are content to follow the history 
 of a Saxon Church through all its fortunes, its 
 foundation, enlargements, reconstruction, and suc- 
 cessive decorations ; to view the dismal scenes of 
 its plunder, desecration, and neglect, till the time 
 of its complete restoration in these latter days, 
 you shall learn therein somewhat of a sacred art 
 as it was of old, and contrast it with what it is 
 now. While others investigate the causes, you 
 shall consider only the effects respectively pro- 
 duced j and so you may be enabled to draw some 
 conclusions bearing directly on the architectural 
 practice of the present day. And if you find in 
 the course of the tale less disparagement of these 
 " dark" ages than is quite orthodox, you must 
 bear in mind that the subject of it is one which, 
 as all allow, places them in as favourable as it does 
 protestantism in a mean and disadvantageous light ; 
 namely, the science of Church-building. Much 
 as we are apt to boast of the wisdom, learning, 
 taste, enlightened piety and happy freedom from 
 superstition of the present day, it is to be feared 
 that the unreformed Church must, in this one 
 
4: THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 point at least, be acknowledged pre-eminent : it 
 must be conceded that Art, as the handmaid of 
 Religion, was hers, and hers alone. 
 
 In the year 870 a band of persecuted Christians 
 was flying from the pursuit of the murderous 
 Danes, by whom their settlement and little wooden 
 church in a remote part of Lincolnshire had been 
 disturbed and overthrown. Their lives, and the 
 sacred relics of their plundered altar, were all that 
 had escaped the spoilers' violence ; and happy in 
 the possession of these they wandered wearily in 
 search of a new abode, which should be less ex- 
 posed to the assaults of a relentless foe. Arriving 
 at Letherton, after a hot and toilsome day's jour- 
 ney, they rested for the night under shelter of a 
 rock in the hidden recess of a leafy grove. But 
 vain was their anxious search for a spring of water, 
 of which they were in urgent need. The old 
 priest Aedbert, the leader of the company, and a 
 man of great sanctity, placed the relics on the 
 ground, and devoutly prayed that God would be 
 pleased for the merits of His holy Saint and 
 Martyr, Winifride, of whose precious body they 
 bore with them a part, to relieve them in their 
 present distress. In the course of the night a 
 gurgling sound was heard in the bowels of the 
 earth ; and a copious stream suddenly spouted 
 forth from under the very stone on which the 
 relics had been deposited. That stream it is 
 
THE SAXON CHURCH. O 
 
 whicli still fertilizes the valley of Letherton ; nor 
 has it ever been known to fail or diminish in the 
 longest and severest season of drought. To com- 
 memorate so signal a deliverance, a little church 
 was erected near the spot in the year 950, and 
 dedicated to God in honour of the Blessed Virgin 
 Mary and the holy Saint Winifride. To this day 
 the old tower stands, as the spring still flows, in 
 testimony of the event. The villagers believe the 
 tale, and are considered superstitious. What 
 worse are they, and why should the legend be the 
 less true for the scoiFs of modern philosophy, or 
 the ridicule of modern unbelief? 
 
 That Saxon churches were of very simple con- 
 struction is now known to most. The church at 
 Letherton had only a chancel and a nave, and a 
 short square tower. The entrance was through a 
 low semicircular arch at the west end, composed of 
 rough blocks of stone hewn from the rock at the 
 miraculous spring, and put together with coarse 
 cement and smaller rubble at the sides and in the 
 interstices. The tower was divided into two stages 
 by a square-edged string-course, on which stood 
 the belfry windows, each of two lights separated 
 by a balustre shaft, and arched above the impost 
 by a single stone. The roof was a conical capping, 
 like a low pyramid, covered with shingles and 
 thick pieces of oak bark disposed in the manner 
 of large scales ; and no other architectural feature 
 
b THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 did this simple structure possess to adorn or re- 
 lieve its plain bare walls. The nave was built of 
 the same coarse stone, with large blocks or quoins 
 at the angles, and thatched with reeds. The win- 
 dows were small and few, somewhat lanciform in 
 shape, and splayed from both sides to a point in 
 the middle. They were latticed with wood, the 
 east window alone being filled with glass. No or- 
 namental detail could they boast ; they were only 
 apertures left in the masonry, and gathered in at 
 the heads by irregular rubble arches. Internally, 
 the rough walls were covered with a coarse and 
 durable cement ; but the timbers of the roof, and 
 even the thatch, were exposed to view. No seats 
 of any kind, save a few wooden stools placed apart 
 in one corner, encumbered the area of the nave ; 
 but a low stone bench ran round three sides of the 
 wall, leaving in the middle a clear level surface of 
 beaten clay, indurated by an admixture of lime, 
 and strewed with rushes. The chancel arch was a 
 perfectly plain square-edged opening in the wall, 
 rather resembling the entrance to a dungeon or a 
 cave, than the elaborately carved and shafted arch- 
 ways of the Norman architects, who were so soon 
 destined to succeed. The belfry arch was similar, 
 but higher, and had projecting imposts formed by 
 single blocks of stone. The chancel floor was 
 slightly raised, and paved with stone. From a low 
 platform or ambo, on the north side, the priest, 
 
THE SAXON CHURCH. 7 
 
 dressed in albe, stole, and chasuble, and holding 
 the maniple in his left hand, offered the prayers, 
 attended by a deacon, habited in a dalmatic and 
 stole thrown over the left shoulder. Here too he 
 duly delivered his brief address to the people, A 
 stone font was placed in the church, — a rude, tub- 
 like vessel, supported on a circular stem : but the 
 office of Baptism was generally performed in the 
 open air by immersion in the pure water of the 
 sacred spring. The wooden altar, which stood in 
 a semicircular apse, was erected over the grave of 
 old Aedbert, — an honourable memorial of his fate. 
 He hdd been overtaken by the Danes and cruelly 
 martyred for the faith, shortly after his departure 
 from Letherton. His mangled body was brought 
 by a few faithful followers to the scene of his mi- 
 raculous intercession, and laid, in the dead of the 
 night, in the green sward, with a lowly cross of wood 
 to mark the spot. What better site than a mar- 
 tyr's grave could be found for a church ? The 
 perishable cross had long crumbled away when the 
 building was afterwards commenced ; but one of 
 stone was then built into the wall, with this in- 
 scription in rude Koman and Anglo-Saxon charac- 
 ters on the base : 
 
 >J< Hanc ecclesiam in honore sancte Winifride 
 et sancte Marie Virginis construxit Earnulphus 
 cementarius, dedicavit dominus Leovinus Episco- 
 
8 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 pus Dorcestriensis tertio non. Mali a. s. d.ccccl. 
 quo loco olim sepultus est Aedbertus presbyter et 
 martyr. >J< Tempore Edredi Regis. 
 
 For many years did the few and poor, but 
 happy and religious, inhabitants of Letherton, as- 
 semble in their little church, standing and kneel- 
 ing on the cold floor, bowing reverently as they 
 entered, and crossing themselves ever as they ap- 
 proached, the House of God. Truly they loved 
 and venerated that house, plain and humble as it 
 was. But it was the best they could provide ; for 
 they had no money, and few tools ; and it was 
 entirely the unpaid work of their own hands, 
 under the direction of the deacon and mason 
 Earnulphus. 
 
 In that early age you might have heard a bell 
 sounding from the steeple, and seen a cock sur- 
 mounting the tower roof, and admired the native 
 ingenuity of the twisted iron hinges on the doors. 
 We have early pictures of Saxon churches, as well 
 as early accounts, from which our description is 
 derived ; and enough of Saxon work remains to 
 this day to verify the features there represented. 
 
 In 1130, the chancel and nave were rebuilt in 
 plain Norman style, with the addition of a north 
 aisle for the increased number of villagers. The 
 little colony had prospered in its quiet and unpre- 
 tending course of daily devotions ; and the tithes 
 
THE SAXON CHURCH. 9 
 
 cheerfully and thankfully paid to their good priest 
 from the produce of the soil seemed to bring a 
 blessing on their agricultural labours. Little 
 alteration was made in the internal arrangements 
 of the church, beyond a few occasional gifts of 
 more seemly decoration. A quaintly-carved re- 
 presentation in stone of the Virgin and Child 
 within a Vesica Piscis was placed over the door- 
 way in the south wall of the nave, and figures of 
 the Crucifixion and of several saints were built 
 into the chancel-wall. A new altar of stone, 
 marked with five crosses, and with the character- 
 istic Norman ornaments, was erected and con- 
 secrated with due form. A screen of wood was 
 placed in the chancel arch to divide the people 
 from the Throne of the adorable Mysteries. 
 
10 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 CHAPTER II. — THE MONASTERY. 
 
 In the year of Grace 1235, Sir Aubrey de 
 Kynastone, a renowned warrior, and a confidential 
 counsellor of King Henry III., was presented by 
 his Sovereign, for his service in the wars, with a 
 mighty lordship, comprising Letherton and all 
 the surrounding domain as far as the eye could 
 reach. It was then a wild uncultivated tract of 
 forest and fen, producing little beyond noble tim- 
 ber trees, and pasturage for deer, cattle, and abun- 
 dance of game. There were, however, in these 
 wild woodlands, which were seldom penetrated by 
 the foot of man, a large Abbey, and more than one 
 dependent priory, or smaller religious house, each 
 maintaining around its walls a colony of agricul- 
 turists and foresters, the vassals of the monks and 
 their superiors, whose lands, possessions, and rights 
 were preserved strictly inviolate in the King's grant 
 to Sir Aubrey. The Abbey was even then of very 
 great antiquity ; but it had been destroyed by the 
 Danes, and entirely refounded towards the close of 
 the eleventh century, so that no part of the origi- 
 nal building remained. Though the new lord of 
 
 % 
 
THE MONASTERY. 11 
 
 the manor had no power to interfere with or in 
 any way molest the Religious within his vast do- 
 main, yet, as it was manifestly to their interest to 
 find in him a kind patron and protector against 
 aggressions from other quarters, they naturally 
 awaited with some anxiety the development of his 
 feelings and disposition towards them. Happily 
 they had no cause for apprehension. Sir Aubrey, 
 though a stern old baron, whose hands and sword 
 had been imbrued in many a hard-fought battle, 
 and who had borne the fatigues of the long and 
 laborious third Crusade, was a strict and conscien- 
 tious churchman, far more desirous to benefit than 
 to molest any ecclesiastical institution. At the 
 age of sixty-five, when he first bethought himself 
 of repose from a life of turmoil and danger, he 
 had placed himself entirely under the spiritual 
 governance of his venerable caj^ellanics, who had 
 held a chantry endowed by the Kynastone family, 
 and now desired to follow his lord to his new 
 place of abode. Gulielmus de Bardwell was the 
 name of this priest ; and the first step taken by 
 Sir Aubrey was to send his chaplain to have an 
 interview with the Lord Abbat of Wardley, in 
 whose patronage was vested the church at Lether- 
 ton, though the tithes were not impropriated, as 
 in other cases, to the monastery, with the condi- 
 tion that it should provide a priest at a certain 
 annual stipend. It was Sir Aubrey's wish to have 
 
12 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 his own chaplain appointed to the rectory on the 
 first vacancy ; for, as he observed, the then rector, 
 John de Beauchamp, was getting an old and infirm 
 man ; though in truth there was very little difier- 
 ence in age between the baron and the priest. 
 
 So William de Bardwell departed on his mission 
 a few weeks before the arrival of Sir Aubrey at 
 Letherton, to negotiate some preliminary matters 
 respecting tithe and vassalage, as well as to convey 
 the professions of duty and respect from his lord. 
 He travelled on a mule, attended by a guide and 
 three stout servants of Sir Aubrey's household ; 
 and he arrived at Wardley on the night of the 
 fifth day. The monastery was about a day's jour- 
 ney to the south of Letherton ; so he had resolved 
 to sojourn with the monks till he had transacted 
 his business. 
 
 It was a glorious sight, on emerging from a 
 forest-path on the brow of a hill, to look down on 
 that grey abbey. The moon shone clear and 
 bright upon the dense mass of foliage which filled 
 the valley beneath, and embosomed the monastery 
 in its peaceful seclusion. The lofty towers of the 
 church, with their tall wooden spires, covered with 
 leaden plates, glistened in the pale light, and 
 reflected back the beam as it played and lingered 
 on the hallowed walls. The great bell Gabriel, 
 brought from over the seas by a benefactor of the 
 abbey, and consecrated by the hand of Pope 
 
THE MONASTERY. 13 
 
 Innocent III., was tolling for matins, or midnight 
 prayers ; and softly did its silver sound steal over 
 the entranced ear of the watchful and timid inha- 
 bitants of the vale. For the lonely forest glades 
 had an ill name among the simple and credulous 
 people j but the deep tone of that mighty bell 
 was well known to all as a charm against storms 
 and lightnings, conflagrations, meteors, and every 
 evil influence of the powers of the air. No one 
 failed to cross himself and say Pater noster at its 
 heavenly note. It was the consolation and as- 
 surance against the perils of the night. How 
 beautiful, how holy was the scene, and how un- 
 like anything that we now behold ! The sha- 
 dowy buttress and spiry pinnacle stood forth in 
 dark relief as the light of the tapers within the 
 church streamed through the stained windows of 
 the choir. Soon there came forth from the cloister 
 a long procession of vested monks, headed by the 
 Abbat, with torches and a fair silver cross. As 
 they slowly ascended a pathway to the door of the 
 church, their voices could faintly be heard chaunt- 
 ing a Latin hymn. The priest proceeded to the 
 gate of the abbey, when the service had com- 
 menced, in which he had arrived too late to join, 
 and was admitted with much respect and a hearty 
 " Save your reverence," by the keeper of the por- 
 tal. Refreshments and lodgings for the night 
 were most freely and kindly bestowed ; nor did the 
 
14: THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 Abbat retire to rest before invoking with uplifted 
 band a blessing on the beads of the sleeping and 
 unconscious travellers, whose names he had never 
 asked, and whose business and professions were 
 alike unknown to him. 
 
 The next morning after Terce William de 
 Bardwell was introduced to the Abbat. He sate 
 in a small vaulted room, adjoining his private 
 oratory, and commanding a view, from its narrow 
 lancet lights, of the sunny woods and streams, and 
 of a richly-carved stone cross, with curiously flo- 
 riated arms and stem of saintly imagery, which 
 stood in the centre of the abbey-garth. The cell 
 was furnished only with a massive oaken table, a 
 lettern desk, with parchments and writing imple- 
 ments, a cresset in a niche, a large chest, with 
 ramifying hinges and locks, and several heavy and 
 quaintly-carved chairs. It was the favourite scrip- 
 tory of the Abbat ; and the many precious vo- 
 lumes which lay open on the table and were dis- 
 posed in rows on shelves seemed to show that 
 theological literature occupied much of his atten- 
 tion. Here there was a folio copy of the Gospels, 
 written on vellum, and displaying the most gor- 
 geous illuminations. The binding was of wood, 
 decorated with bosses of silver, some of which 
 inclosed holy relics, and were studded with gems. 
 There was the Sarum Missal, or office of the Church 
 of Salisbury, which had been compiled about a cen- 
 
THE MONASTERY. 15 
 
 tury and a half ago, and was now in general use 
 in the church ; the history of the venerable Bede ; 
 the Lives of various Saints ; a martyrology, and 
 many classical and ecclesiastical authors. The 
 groined ribs of the vault were coloured with vermi- 
 lion, azure, and gold ; and the bosses at the crown 
 were carved with deeply-cut foliage, inclosing vari- 
 ous devices and monograms ; i h c j a crowned m ; 
 the Holy Lamb ; S. Oswald ; our Saviour in a 
 Vesica Piscis ; and the arms of the abbey. Gules, a 
 cross pattee between four lions combatant Or. On 
 a chair by the table sat the Abbat reading, in the 
 plain and severe undress of the Benedictine order. 
 He rose with much courtesy at the lowly bow of 
 the priest, but resumed his seat immediately, 
 while the visitor stood in his presence. 
 
 "The right honourable Baron, most reverend 
 Father," said the priest, " my lord Sir Aubrey de 
 Kynastone, consiliarius of late to our most gracious 
 Sovereign King Henry, to whom his Majesty hath, 
 as is known to your holiness, presented in per- 
 petuity the manor and lordship of Letherton, 
 sendeth greeting by me to the Abbat of this 
 goodly church and monastery. He beseeches your 
 holiness's constant prayers and blessing for him- 
 self and his family, and desires you to accept, for 
 the honour and benefit of this church, this small 
 parcel of the True Wood of the most blessed 
 Cross, the which he obtained by great favour and 
 
16 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 privilege in foreign parts, and of tlie verity of 
 which he is most assured by the miraculous cures 
 it hath to his own certain knoAvledge wrought on 
 the afflicted persons of several of the faithful; 
 the truth whereof I can of my own sight and ob- 
 servance freely attest, most reverend Father, by 
 the cure of a lame and palsied hand on the recep- 
 tion into the palm thereof of this blessed and 
 salutary relick. Wherefore my lord entreats you 
 will accept of the same in the crystal cross in 
 which he hath caused it to be inclosed, and to 
 place it reverently among the goodly treasures of 
 this church. And Sir Aubrey doth venture to 
 prefer a request, (not in any way of bribe or pur- 
 chase, but as a gift of courtesy in return,) that 
 your servant, William de Bardwell, priest, his 
 lordship's chaplain, whom you now see before you 
 the bearer of this petition, may be preferred on 
 the decease of John de Beauchamp to the rectory 
 of Letherton, where his lordship doth intend 
 forthwith to build him a castle. Furthermore — " 
 " Your good lord hath freely the presentation of 
 the said rectory from us, good brother, for your- 
 self to hold, or whomsoever his lordship shall care 
 to appoint to the same. And for the other mat- 
 ters, it were well to consult on them with our 
 brethren in the chapter-house after vespers this 
 day, and to append our sigillum to the needful 
 instruments and agreements between us and the 
 
THE MONASTERY. 17 
 
 Lord Kynastone. For the present we would 
 gladly shew jou our poor hospitality, and exhibit 
 our church and furnitures, which have a good re- 
 port among such of the Regulars as from time to 
 time visit our house." 
 
 The Abbat forthwith summoned the sacristan, 
 and conducted the priest through a private door 
 into the choir of the great church. They entered 
 with a lowly bow, having first crossed themselves 
 with the holy water in a benatura on the right 
 side, from which the Abbat sprinkled his guest. 
 It was a most splendid building, and had been in 
 great part rebuilt about thirty years before. The 
 style was the early pointed, which was in use 
 about the year 1200 j not exuberant in orna- 
 mental detail, nor very light and graceful in its 
 proportions, but displaying a medium between 
 massive Norman grandeur and the airy ascendancy 
 of the more fully developed Early English compo- 
 sitions. The windows of the aisles and clerestory 
 were filled with stained glass of the richest hues, 
 mostly of mosaic pattern, having foliage and geo- 
 metric devices hatched in strong black lines on a 
 ground of a greenish colour. Variously-shaped 
 medallions of gold, ruby, and azure were inter- 
 mixed, in which were pictured the lives and mira- 
 cles of many holy saints, with a legend below each 
 in Lombardic characters. The eastern triplet of 
 lancets was a gorgeous work. It was one vast 
 
 c 
 
18 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 blaze of glorious portraiture, executed at a great 
 cost, and yet glowing with the undimmed bright- 
 ness which we cannot now observe in windows some 
 hundred years old. The subjects were, the five 
 Joyful, the five Dolorous, and the five Glorious 
 Mysteries, in successive medallions on a diapered 
 ground. The roof was groined in stone, and cu- 
 riously painted in divers brilliant colours. The 
 high altar was raised on many steps ; it was of 
 stone, supported on gilt pillars, and had a rich 
 cloth of golden tissue hanging partly over the 
 front, where it was met by a frontal of crimson 
 embroidery, and nearly to the ground on each side. 
 Curtains of baudekin (a rich stuff of silk and 
 gold thread) were suspended from the ciborium, 
 or canopy above. At the back of the altar was 
 a rare painting of our Saviour rising, in a Ve- 
 sica Piscis, adoring Angels on either side ex- 
 tending their wings and heads over a reliquary. 
 Above, and on each side, were foliage and flowers 
 carved in the stone, all gilded and coloured. On 
 the altar stood a large golden cross, sparkling 
 with rubies and emeralds inlaid, a tabernacle of 
 gold and crystal for the reception of the Host, and 
 two mighty candlesticks of solid silver, with 
 waxen tapers upon the prickets. The floor was 
 paved throughout with tiles, alternately bearing 
 a fleur-de-lis, and the arms of the abbey and of the 
 founder. There were no carved stalls, such as we 
 
THE MONASTERY. 19 
 
 see in cathedral choirs of later date ; but low 
 wooden frames, elaborately decorated with arcades 
 and carved foliage, extended along each side with- 
 in the range of the piers ; a more elevated throne 
 being erected for the Abbat towards the east end. 
 Five stone sedilia, of rich design, with moulded 
 arches and shafts of polished Purbeck marble, 
 were constructed in the south wall next the altar, 
 for the use of the priests at high Mass and great fes- 
 tivals. There were several aumbrjes or closets in 
 the walls, with oaken doors, and floriated iron 
 hinges. These were opened in succession by the 
 sacristan at the command of the Abbat, and the 
 splendid jewelled chalices, crosses, thuribles, pyxes, 
 and tabernacles, were displayed before the admiring 
 eyes of the priest. Then the Abbat proceeded to 
 the revestry, where the sacristan unlocked a huge 
 circular cedar chest, clamped with iron-work, 
 which ramified in scrolls and fleurs-de-lis over 
 every part, and unrolled the priestly vestments 
 used on the high festivals. Here was a chasuble 
 of the deepest crimson velvet, diapered and em- 
 broidered with gold thread, and bearing the mo- 
 nogram I H c in countless quatrefoiled circles all 
 over the exterior surface. Here was a blue, here 
 a green vestment, sewn with seed pearls on gold 
 thread ; here one of white silk, with lilies and 
 spread eaglets, worked in alternate patterns. 
 There was a rich cope, there a stole ; all were ex- 
 
20 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 qiiisite as they were varied in device. Some 
 costly specimens of embroidery were produced, 
 worked by the fair hands of the ladies De Lacy, 
 relations of a former benefactor, Hugh de Lacy. 
 One large piece of tapestry, inwoven with passages 
 from the life and passion of S. Catherine, was the 
 result of six years' unwearied labour, early and 
 late, for the honour of the church. In the midst 
 of the pavement the convent had laid down a huge 
 brass ef^gj, six feet in length, in memory of the 
 said Hugh, their illustrious patron ; a kind of mo- 
 nument then but recently introduced. He was 
 represented in full armour, in mailed hauberk 
 drawn over his head like a hood, surcoat, baudrick, 
 shield, and prick-spurs. The shield and surcoat 
 were charged with his arms, the hands were clasp- 
 ed over the breast, the sheathed sword lay by his 
 side, and his feet rested on a couchant lion. The 
 legend was cut in Lombardic characters round the 
 edge of the marble slab, in which the effigj was 
 infixed. Every letter was inlaid with brass, and 
 the inscription ran thus : 
 
 >^ Hie jacet Hugo de Lacy, miles, qui hanc ec- 
 clesiam denuo sedificari fecit. Cujus animse pro- 
 picietur Deus. Amen. 
 
 Under a low arch in the north wall lay a re- 
 cumbent effigy of Galfridus de Eocheford, a former 
 Abbat of the church, and a man of noted piety and 
 
THE MONASTERY. 21 
 
 mortification. The figure was of Purbeck marble, 
 exquisitely wrought and highly polished. The pas- 
 toral staff" was held i^^ the right hand : the lower 
 end inserted in the mouth of a dragon, typifying 
 Sin subdued by the power of the Church. The left 
 hand held a clasped book. The head lay within 
 a trefoiled canopy of the most delicate foliage, 
 which blended with the long curling hair, and 
 extended in clusters down each of the sides, thus 
 beautifully symbolizing the evergreen life of the 
 Resurrection. The pastoral staff was adorned 
 with real gems ; and the orphrey, or border of the 
 chasuble, which was diapered all over in low relief, 
 was richly coloured with efiigies of saints. Se- 
 veral plain coped cofiin-lids, and sepulchral floor 
 crosses, each with a brief inscription specifying 
 the name of the deceased, but without date, were 
 laid down in various parts of the church. There 
 was one touching memorial to a Lady de Lacy, 
 who had died in childbirth, and been allowed 
 sepulture in the church as akin to a benefactor. 
 It was a thick slab inserted in the pavement, at the 
 top of which, in a sunken quatrefoil, a female head 
 and wimpled neck lay peacefully inclosed a little 
 below the level of the surface. About the waist, a 
 trefoil of smaller dimensions revealed the form of 
 a newly-born child. Both mother and baby had 
 clasped hands and closed eyes ; and the device 
 was affectingly beautiful. For the soul of each 
 
22 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 and every of the sleeping saints the priest failed 
 not to utter a prayer, knowing that they had de- 
 parted in the Faith, and that the whole Church, 
 visible and invisible, is One, and for that One it 
 became every Christian, especially every priest, 
 continually to pray. In truth, even the tombs 
 and effigies of the deceased seemed to the brother- 
 hood of the abbey still the familiar companions of 
 the living. A temporary separation was all that 
 they saw in death : the same daily prayers and 
 hymns, and the same Mass in which they had 
 joined when alive, were said over the graves of the 
 departed. They were still one in the communion 
 of Spirits. 
 
 And now a costly and most precious reliquary, 
 or portable shrine, was drawn from beneath the 
 high altar, and reverently and breathlessly open- 
 ed. It was a chest of wood, inlaid with ivory 
 and silver, having a candlestick at every corner 
 of its ridge or roof-like cover. It was finely gilt 
 and diapered, and had hinges, lock, and handles, 
 of elaborate scroll-work or filigree. It contained 
 several relics of great value and reputed virtue ; 
 amongst which, as not the least in esteem, was 
 now deposited by the hands of the Abbat him- 
 self the crystal cross of the Lord Kynastone, with 
 great reverence and joy. 
 
 The church, the library, the cloisters, the dor- 
 mitory, and the various ofiices and treasures of the 
 
THE MONASTERY. 23 
 
 monastery having been visited, William de Bard- 
 well entered the refectory about noon to partake 
 of the ordinary daily fare with the brethren, hav- 
 ing declined the hospitality of the Abbat's private 
 table. It was a noble room, a hundred feet in 
 length, vaulted with stone internally, and covered 
 outside with a high-pitched roof of timber and 
 lead. It was lighted on each side by couplets 
 of lancet-windows, between tall and massive but- 
 tresses. Below them, both within and without, 
 a string-course was carried round ; immediately 
 under which, internally, a trefoil-headed arcade 
 arose on detached marble shafts from a low stone 
 base or podium, about two feet above the level 
 of the floor, so as to form a seat under every arch. 
 The walls were four feet in thickness, and the gay 
 sunbeam which struggled through the stained glass 
 was reflected on the heavy internal splays and fres- 
 coed walls with the finest eflect. A great picture of 
 the Crucifixion adorned one end of the room. The 
 Abbat himself dined there that day, and presided 
 at the meal. Not less than one hundred brethren 
 dined at once in this noble frater-house. There 
 was neither luxury nor superfluity of provision. 
 Bread, cheese, fish, eggs, and dried venison, with 
 ale and cider, was the repast. Grace was said by 
 a novice, followed by a benediction from the Ab- 
 bat. During the meal, passages from the Scrip- 
 tures were read by a monk from a stone pulpit 
 
24 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 in one angle of the building. Afterwards the 
 brethren retired to the cloisters : the priest re- 
 turned to transact further business with the 
 Abbat. 
 
THE NEW CHURCH. 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. — THE NEW CHURCH. 
 
 Early on the third morning WiUiam de Bard- 
 well was on his route towards Letherton, whither 
 the Lord Kynastone was himself expected to ar- 
 rive in a Tery few days. He was the bearer of a 
 broad parchment, signed by the Abbat, and having 
 appended to it, by a strip of the same material, an 
 impression in wax of the great seal of the abbey. 
 The shape of the seal was a pointed oval. On 
 one side was King Oswald, seated on a throne with 
 triple canopy, holding a scej)tre in his hand. 
 Round the margin were the letters sigillum 
 
 SANCTI OSWALDI GLORIOSI REGIS ET MARTYRIS DE 
 
 WARDLEY. Below wcrc the arms of the abbey. 
 On the reverse were SS. Peter and Paul standing 
 under similar canopies ; the legend was s. comune 
 
 ABBATIS ET CONVENTUS MON. APOSTOLORUM PETRI 
 
 ET PAVLi. In the lower part, a half figure of 
 an Abbat with a pastoral staff. The ground on 
 each side was richly diapered, and the canopies 
 crocketed in the usual Early English style. The 
 first care of the priest on his return was to in- 
 spect the condition and present appurtenances of 
 
26 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 the church at Letherton, which he did in com- 
 pany with the rector, John de Beauchamp. For 
 the Lord Kjnastone had made this the first and 
 special object of inquiry ; secretly resolving that 
 he would fully adorn, endow, and furnish the 
 church, to the very best of his means, before 
 he came to reside in the castle at Letherton. 
 When, therefore, a report was duly sent by his 
 chaplain, setting forth the mean and unworthy 
 condition (so he termed it, though it would have 
 put to shame most modern churches,) of the sa- 
 cred fabric, and adding a humble but earnest 
 request from the rector, that his lord would be 
 pleased to execute certain necessary repairs and 
 improvements forthwith, that he might see the 
 church which he loved before all earthly things 
 renovated and beautified, and then lay his bones 
 in peace by the side of the altar ; some surprise 
 and disappointment were felt by the old incum- 
 bent, on receiving a short and seemingly discour- 
 teous refusal of what he considered a duty in the 
 new lord, and, therefore, a most reasonable re- 
 quest. But the chaplain well knew the humour 
 of the baron ; nor did he share in the rector's 
 amazement at the arrival in a very short time of 
 a company of freemasons, and the speedy demoli- 
 tion of the old church, of which nothing was suf- 
 fered to stand except the Saxon tower, as a me- 
 morial of its first origin and foundation. For this 
 
THE NEW CHURCH. 27 
 
 procedure the baron had privately obtained the 
 necessary permission. 
 
 Active preparation was now made for the erec- 
 tion of an entirely new chancel, nave, and aisles, 
 on a large and costly scale. The masons, possess- 
 ing the secrets of that extraordinary craft, by 
 which they erected in the conventional style of the 
 day, and without the smallest departure from rule 
 in the carvings, mouldings, and details, every ec- 
 clesiastical building throughout the kingdom, 
 worked rather by oral direction, than by regular 
 plans and elevations. The director of the men 
 merely pointed out the place for a door, or a win- 
 dow, or a column, and sketched roughly on a 
 board, or on the stone itself, the section of a 
 moulding, or the plan of an arch, and the design 
 was unerringly executed by them without further 
 difficulty or delay. Little attention was paid to the 
 accurate measurement of every line ; general pro- 
 portions, rather than close coincidence of parts, 
 seemed to be the care of the builders. Frequently 
 the chief cementarius would come and survey the 
 work, as the walls rose gradually in height, and, 
 scanning with intelligent eye the different points of 
 perspective and effect, would order this arch to be 
 more acute, this to be more obtuse ; one window 
 to be a little shorter and wider in the splay, one 
 to be divided by a mullion, one to have a trefoiled 
 head, and so on. He seldom placed the windows 
 
28 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 precisely opposite to each other, so as to produce a 
 cross light ; but he so disposed them that dark 
 and light should as much as possible alternate and 
 relieve each other by contrast from opposite sides. 
 The stones used in the work were all of small size, 
 and the walls were not carried up very high ; for 
 they had not the tackle and scaffolding which we 
 are accustomed to use. They were content -wdth 
 boughs and timbers procured on the spot ; the 
 long and light poles which we consider indispen- 
 sable were not easily procured in every locality, 
 and the expense of their conveyance was out of the 
 question. Meanwhile a noble roof of oak had 
 been framed on the ground, and awaited the com- 
 pletion and proper settlement of the walls. It 
 would have seemed to us very tall for a wooden 
 roof, being of nearly the same height as the walls 
 themselves, so that it formed a very acute angle at 
 the ridge. The construction was simple, but 
 scientific and secure. A series of upright rafters, 
 set closely together, sloped to a point at the ridge ; 
 and every two such beams were secured from 
 spreading apart by a collar, or horizontal bar 
 extended across about midway ; and these again 
 were connected with the feet of the rafters by 
 slanting braces fastened with wooden pins. Then 
 the whole frame was boarded outside with stout 
 oak planks, which held every part firmly together ; 
 and so it was covered at a great expense with 
 
THE NEW CHURCH. 29 
 
 thick sheets of lead. While the roof was being- 
 fixed on the church, a number of men were en- 
 gaged in working out the hollow mouldings, the 
 projecting ornament which we call dog-tooth, and 
 the foliaged capitals : for most of these had been 
 left in the block, that is, in solid stone, till the 
 fabric was reared. It was surprising to observe 
 how perfectly the masons appeared to understand 
 their business without either drawings or a word 
 of instruction. You might see a shapeless lump 
 of stone left at the top of a column gradually 
 expand under the magic touch of the artist's 
 chisel into the most exquisite bunches of flowers, 
 which seemed to start into life from out the solid 
 mass, and to curl and creep and cluster in a thou- 
 sand fantastic knots and interlacing excrescences. 
 Then the doorways were amazing to behold. The 
 highest powers of a never-failing genius seemed 
 to be exerted in their design and enrichment. 
 They freely invented ; in fact, scarcely any two 
 details were actually the same ; yet all were per- 
 fectly consistent in general appearance and con- 
 tour. The recessed and retiring arches were 
 filled with rows of dog-tooth and nail-head in- 
 serted between groups of deep hollow mouldings. 
 Some were almost hidden, and seemed to peer 
 forth from their channelled nooks : but they 
 were not the less carefully cut for all that ; for 
 nothing inferior was permitted in building a 
 
30 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 House of God. The shafts which supported each 
 group on either side were of bright polished 
 marble, and stood detached from the jambs, so 
 that you could insert your hand behind them, 
 which gave a deep shadowy effect, and implied 
 constructive utility rather than a merely orna- 
 mental arrangement. The doors were of solid 
 oak, framed with stout cross-bars internally, with 
 planks nailed over them on the outside. The whole 
 surfaces were covered by the iron hinges, which 
 were curiously hammered out into the most graceful 
 curves and scroll patterns ; thus at once clamp- 
 ing together the different planks, and relieving 
 the unsightly appearance of a heavy iron bar. 
 Round the edge of the south door was carved in 
 the oak : johannes . de . beauchamp . rector . 
 
 ECCLESIE . de . LETHERTON . HANC . JANUAM . EX . 
 
 suo . SUMPTU . FIERI . FECIT. This was the worthy 
 present of the old man to his own parish church ; 
 and if the reader has been to Castor, near Peter- 
 borough, he may have observed a similar dona- 
 tion of an oak door, a hundred years older than 
 the days of John de Beauchamp. 
 
 The floor of the church was laid down with 
 highly-glazed square tiles, in each of which a 
 little ornament was impressed. Those of the 
 chancel were arranged in various geometric de- 
 vices, by means of circular, square, or triangular 
 pieces. Near the altar they were all encaustic, 
 
THE NEW CHURCH. 31 
 
 or inlaid with patterns of a different colour. In 
 the chancel wall, to the north of the altar, was 
 constructed a beautiful trefoil-arched recess, mth- 
 in which was an oblong mass of masonry, raised 
 about a foot above the ground, and surmounted 
 by a slab of dark marble. Upon it was sculp- 
 tured in relief a cross pattee, with tender leaves 
 sprouting forth at intervals from the stem. 
 Around the margin the following legend was 
 incised : 
 
 »J< Hie jacet ^s Aubrey de Kynastone, 
 miles, huju.s eccl'ie novator. Cujus animse pro- 
 picietur Deus. Amen. 
 
 And the old baron often delighted to point 
 out to his guests the simple and unostentatious 
 monument he had prepared during his lifetime 
 for the privileged sepulture which he hoped to 
 obtain under the chancel wall. 
 
 There was at that time a far-famed manufac- 
 tory for stained glass established at York, the 
 wonderful works of which may yet be traced 
 (alas ! how mutilated their remains !) in the ca- 
 thedral and parish churches of that city. Thither 
 Sir Aubrey dispatched an order for the imme- 
 diate preparation of seventeen lancet windows for 
 the new church. The subjects were selected 
 and specified in detail by members of Sir Au- 
 brey's family. To the eldest daughter and heir- 
 
32 THE CHUKCH RESTORERS. 
 
 ess, the Iiady Etheldreda de Kynastone, was en- 
 trusted the choice of a convenient imagery to 
 adorn the three great altar windows. For the 
 central light, Avhich was fifteen feet high by one 
 and a half wide, the following designs were 
 wrought. In the middle was a large Vesica 
 Piscis, in which, on a clear deep azure ground, 
 was depicted with great majesty the Saviour, 
 holding in one hand a globe, and raising the 
 other in benediction. Round the head was a 
 golden nimbus, or glory, quartered with a cross 
 pattee. The robe was of the deepest ruby, all 
 diapered in curious patterns ; and in the clear 
 blue twinkled the golden stars of night. Above 
 was the Resurrection ; below, the Crucifixion ; 
 each in a medallion enclosed by a circlet of ruby. 
 The ground was of very thick white glass arrang- 
 ed in mosaic panes ; a vine-tree with its leaves 
 and tendrils seemed to climb over every part, and 
 blend its clear black lines with the deep colouring 
 of the medallions and border. The side lancet 
 on the right contained the Annunciation and the 
 Assumption of our Lady ; St. Anne teaching our 
 Lady to read ; the holy Mother and Child, the 
 former with triple crown, the latter with nimbus 
 as before. The window to the left contained 
 passages from the life of S. Etheldreda, the tute- 
 lary saint of the Lady de Kynastone. Under each 
 device was written in characters of gold colour, 
 
THE NEW CHURCH. 33 
 
 Sancta Etheldritha : and at the lower part of tlie 
 window was Orate pro bono statu Etheldrithe de 
 Kynastone que hanc fenestram fieri fecit. The side 
 windows of the church contained pictures of the 
 martyrdoms of Aedbert and S. Winifride; the in- 
 vention, by their mutual intercession, of the mira- 
 culous spring ; the passion of S. Catharine ; the 
 first Abbat of Wardley; the founder, Gislibertus 
 de Gaunt, Earl of Lincoln ; S. Thomas, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury ; Our Saviour delivering 
 the keys to S. Peter ; S. John Baptist ; S. Bene- 
 dict, with staiF, chasuble, and mitre ; S. Nicolas ; 
 and other holy saints and personages, whose lives 
 and actions, set forth in lively portraiture, might 
 inspire the hearts of all beholders to follow their 
 blessed example. The interior of the roof was 
 painted in various patterns with foliage and sacred 
 emblems. The tower contained a tunable ring of 
 eight new bells, each having a legend and the 
 name of a saint. 
 
 On the internal walls of the church were de- 
 picted in fresco many Scripture subjects. The 
 stem of Jesse ; the martyrdom of S. Stephen : 
 the Doom, on the west side of the chancel arch, 
 above the crown of which appeared the Saviour 
 sitting on a rainbow, attended by our Lady and 
 S. John Baptist ; while on the right and the left 
 was the resurrection of the just and the unjust. 
 All the people of the earth, kings, bishops, priests. 
 
34 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 knights, were rising from the grave ; naked, for 
 they brought nothing into this world ; and each 
 with his badge of dignity, shewing that all must 
 one day there appear. Opposite the south door- 
 way was S. Christopher, a giant eight feet high, 
 bearing; the infant Saviour on his shoulders. He 
 was walking with an uprooted tree through a 
 stream of water, in which many fishes were seen 
 to play in sportive shoals around the feet of 
 the Saint. All round the cornice of the nave 
 roof ran a legend in bold characters : Domine 
 dilexi decorem domus tuce. In the chancel : San- 
 guis mens novi Testamenti pro midtis effimditur 
 in remissionem 2J€ccatoritm. Below, and extend- 
 ing round the arches, and partly down the jambs 
 of the lancet windows, curled foliage was paint- 
 ed in gold, azure, and vermilion, most beautiful 
 to behold ; for it harmonized with the glow- 
 ing windows and pavement, and rendered all one 
 richly toned and subdued effulgence of celestial 
 brightness. A chantry chapel with an altar was 
 erected by Sir Aubrey, that after his departure 
 masses might be said daily for the weal of his 
 soul ; a most rich and costly building, separated 
 by a screen of carved oak from the east end of the 
 north aisle. Here, on a bracket in the wall, was 
 a silver image of the Blessed Virgin ; and a 
 corona lucis, or chandelier, hung from the roof, 
 which threw its faint light through a hagioscope 
 
THE NEW CHUECH. 35 
 
 upon the founder's tomb by tbe altar side. The 
 pavement was of tiles, charged with the Kynas- 
 tone arms indented in the surface of each ; and 
 a brave silken banner, with the same bearings, 
 a sword, spurs, and hauberk, all which Sir Au- 
 brey had worn in many a battle, were suspend- 
 ed against the wall, in token that he had resign- 
 ed war for the repose of domestic life, and danger 
 and strife for the consolations and discipline of 
 the Church. It was a solemn scene to enter the 
 holy doors by the light of the moon, where all 
 within was still and awful, and a holy Presence 
 seemed to sanctify the repose around. Sir Aubrey 
 visited the church in the late evening, when the 
 work was completed and ready for consecration, 
 attended by the old rector. He saw a tear on 
 that ancient man's cheek, as he left it in silence, 
 scarcely able to articulate the words : " I had not 
 hoped to live to see this." 
 
36 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. THE CASTLE. 
 
 On the lordship of Letherton stood a large 
 Norman castle. It had been built by a former 
 possessor of the estate ; and had lately been for- 
 feited to the crown by a rebellious descendant 
 bearing arms against his sovereign. While the 
 church was rebuilding, not less extensive had 
 been the work of improvement and enlargement 
 at the castle. The moat was cleared and deep- 
 ened ; the portcullis newly shod with pointed 
 iron ; the keep, which had been much injured in 
 a desperate siege, repaired and strengthened j the 
 drawbridge hung anew ; the mighty dining-hall 
 restored, roofed, and hung with banners, arms, 
 hunting implements, and trophies of the chase. 
 The dais was loaded by a mighty table of carved 
 black oak ; the fire-place, huge and vast, en- 
 circled with brilliant heraldries, and filled with 
 great andirons, or fire-dogs, seemed prepared for 
 the reception and speedy consumption of logs of 
 timber of a size unknown to the forestless es- 
 tates of modern days. New turrets of great size 
 were raised high above the embrasures of the 
 
THE CASTLE. 37 
 
 flanking walls j for the domestic rather than 
 the military conveniences were the baron's chief 
 care in the work, and he had to provide for the 
 maintenance of a large and powerful baronial 
 retinue. The castle was built on a hill overlook- 
 ing the vale and village of Letherton. The ap- 
 proach was all but impregnable from the inge- 
 nious disposition and great strength of the out- 
 works. The path which led to the barbican was 
 very steep and narrow : the portal itself, under a 
 dark lowering archway, lay between two large 
 circular towers, and was guarded by a portcullis. 
 Immediately behind it was the door, of solid oak, 
 framed with immense timbers a foot in thick- 
 ness, and clamped with iron bolts. Both the 
 portcullis and the outside of the door were cover- 
 ed with iron plates to resist the effects of fire. 
 Within the soffit of the arch were three large 
 holes, by means of which great stones, scalding 
 water, and molten lead, could be poured from the 
 battlements with fatal precision on the assailants 
 below. Beside this, the projecting parapets of 
 the two flanking towers were machicolated for 
 the same purpose. Two narrow loopholes, or 
 balistraria, opened transversely in the side of the 
 towers, from which a shower of arrows and bolts 
 could be discharged by crossbowmen safely en- 
 sconced within, so close that the aim was cer- 
 tain and the effect inevitable upon the enemy, 
 
38 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 while they were themselves protected from harm 
 by the peculiar conformation of the internal 
 splay. Thus the drawbridge and moat being 
 passed amidst a storm of arrows from the battle- 
 ments above and sally-port below, the steep path- 
 way must be climbed in the face of the same 
 missiles, ground must be maintained between the 
 towers in front of the portal, in defiance of hot 
 lead from above and bolts from either side, 
 whilst first a portcullis, then a door, which nei- 
 ther axe could cleave nor fire could burn, was 
 fruitlessly assailed. If these were at length over- 
 come by dauntless bravery and perseverance, there 
 still remained the great square keep in the centre 
 of the inclosure, with solid walls twelve feet in 
 thickness, to capture or demolish. Surely hu- 
 man means of preservation could scarcely go be- 
 yond this. Yet craft was superadded to strength. 
 More than one other portal, of precisely similar 
 appearance, but presenting a much more favour- 
 able point for attack, were so constructed as to 
 induce the enemy to begin the siege and expend 
 their strength on the most hopeless, because, in 
 reality, the strongest, part in the whole building. 
 In fact, these gateways were mere deceptions ; 
 the towers being solid, and the wall behind the 
 portcullis impenetrable. Sir Aubrey was still 
 the old soldier by habit and natural predilection, 
 and he would descant by the hour upon the for- 
 
THE CASTLE. 39 
 
 tifications of his castle with little less pleasure 
 than upon the splendours of his new church. 
 
 Early on a morning of May, a.d. 1238, the in- 
 habitants of the castle were awakened by a shrill 
 blast from the warder's trumpet on the outer 
 walls. A train of domestics, headed by the sene- 
 schal, forthwith issued from the castle-gates : the 
 drawbridge was let down, and with bare heads 
 the band of menials awaited the approach of a 
 goodly company of ecclesiastics whom the sen- 
 tinel had descried wending their way to the 
 castle. It was Robert Grostete, Bishop of Lin- 
 coln, accompanied by the Abbat of Wardley, with 
 their respective attendants. The object of the 
 Bisho|)'s visit was the consecration of the new 
 church of Letherton, on his route to which place 
 he had spent a night at the abbey, and brought 
 with him the Abbat, who was desirous of paying 
 his respects in person to his good friend and 
 patron the powerful baron of Letherton. The 
 Bishop and Abbat rode side by side on their pal- 
 freys, preceded by two clerics, one bearing the 
 pastoral staif, the other a silver cross with a 
 silken vexillum, or flag. "Peace be to this ho- 
 nourable household !" said the Bishop, raising his 
 right hand in benediction, while each head bowed 
 lowly at his approach. Several of the retainers 
 of the castle kneeled to receive individually the 
 blessing which was freely bestowed upon all. 
 
40 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 " Is the good lord of the castle within, with 
 whom we would fain speak ?" The seneschal 
 replied with a lowly obeisance, and retired. Pre- 
 sently was seen advancing from the inner ballium 
 the Lord Kynastone himself, who with much 
 courtesy and reverential demeanour escorted the 
 guests into the interior of the castle. The morn- 
 ing meal of bread, eggs, fish, game, and venison, 
 with milk, wine, mead, and strong ale, was offer- 
 ed to the illustrious visitors, who partook spar- 
 ingly of the viands before them, though they 
 heartily praised the hospitality of the host, and 
 greatly admired the furniture and arrangements 
 of his hall. At the request of the Abbat, they 
 were afterwards conducted over the principal 
 parts of the vast building : the dungeon, a long 
 and dark room, vaulted with ribbed arches of 
 stone, and entered only by a small door at one 
 end, and from above by a deep dry well of smooth 
 masonry, by which prisoners were let down ; the 
 keep, the chapel, the warder's tower, the walls. 
 In the centre of the keep was a well of fearful 
 depth. It had been sunk by the builder of the 
 castle, and descended full three hundred feet 
 through the solid limestone rock. The whiteness 
 of the sides could be faintly discerned for a few 
 fathoms below the surface; all beyond was lost in 
 profound darkness. A pebble dropped into the 
 middle was heard again and again to rebound 
 
THE CASTLE. 41 
 
 with sullen clang against the sides, till in about 
 half a minute the faint sound became inaudible, 
 and the distant plash of deep water alone reached 
 the ear. Tradition said, that about halfway down 
 this well was the mouth of a subterranean passage 
 extending to the church ; but no one was found 
 hardy enough to descend, for it was reported that 
 about a hundred years ago the attempt had been 
 made, when suddenly, and without the least noise 
 of any fall, the rope to which the adventurer was 
 attached was released, and drawn up disengaged 
 from its burden ; nor had he ever been heard of 
 since. But no one would draw water from that 
 well alone at night ; for fearful tales were whis- 
 pered of strange appearances on the spot. 
 
 Ascending a steep staircase through a low Nor- 
 man arch, and between narrow walls, the Lord 
 Kynastone knocked softly at a small door. It 
 was opened by a female servant ; and the Bishop 
 and the Abbat found themselves unexpectedly in 
 the presence of the Lady Etheldreda. She was 
 young, and very fair ; but an air of placid melan- 
 choly, and perhaps ill health, or the effects of 
 protracted study, sate upon her brow. She re- 
 ceived the guests with that respectful courtesy 
 and affectionate regard which is felt by a devoted 
 daughter of the Church towards its saintly minis- 
 ters. As she knelt to receive their united bless- 
 ing, her eye was instinctively turned towards a 
 
42 THE CHUECH RESTORERS. 
 
 small silver crucifix wliicli stood upon a stone 
 bracket in the wall : and the good Bishop failed 
 not to note that the ground before it was worn by 
 the knees of this holy maid. She was pleased, 
 she said, that they had condescended to visit her 
 little oriel, which she had not hoped ever to see 
 thus highly honoured ; but it would be yet dearer 
 to her from that day. Yet to view such a bower 
 and such an inhabitant might angels have come ; 
 as, perhaps, they often did. It was a quaint 
 little apartment, vaulted with stone, and dimly 
 lighted by a stained window, which looked from 
 a height over the pleasant country, and the little 
 herbary or garden of simples and medicinal plants 
 which she reared for the use of the castle and the 
 neighbourhood. The floor was paved with beau- 
 ful encaustic tiles, over a part of which was 
 thrown a warm woollen carpet of heraldic device, 
 the work of her own hands; and on a fawn-skin 
 by the fire reclined in amicable companionship a 
 favourite lapdog and a little kid. The bare walls 
 of smooth masonry were covered with tapestry, 
 representing the miraculous events in the life of 
 S. Etheldreda : her marriage and subsequent vir- 
 ginity ; her preservation from pursuit ; the flow- 
 ering stafl"; her inthronization as Abbess by S. 
 Wilfrid ; her death, appearance, and disinter- 
 ment. On the table lay open an illuminated 
 breviary, which she was painting with great pains 
 
THE CASTLE, 43 
 
 and the most exquisite skill for the use of the 
 new church. The Abbat wrote with his own 
 hand, in a style which shewed his perfect know- 
 ledge of the art, two or three lines from an open 
 copy, and sketched out the form of an initial 
 letter containing, among its minute ornaments, 
 as a memento of his brief visit, the words Johann, 
 Ahbas de War die?/. She stood looking over his 
 shoulder as he wrote, pleased and flattered at the 
 compliment from so great a man, and perhaps 
 thinking to derive instruction in an art which 
 none knew better than herself The old baron 
 shewed the greatest affection for his daughter, to 
 whose apartment he used regularly to repair 
 twice each day ; for she liked not the noise and 
 confusion of the castle, and seldom joined the 
 family in the great hall, but remained apart in 
 the seclusion of the little cell which had been as- 
 signed for her use. Here she would spend the 
 long days in quiet meditation, sometimes with 
 the old chaplain, her confessor, sometimes with 
 her maid, a humble orphan, yet a friend. Some- 
 times, in the silent evening, she might be seen 
 gliding along the old avenues, or walking in the 
 herbary : often she used to sit under the green 
 yew in the churchyard, and look now at the half- 
 built church, now at the old grey cross, now at 
 the lowly graves, till her eyes filled with tears. 
 Some people said that she was distraught ; others 
 
44: THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 that slie had been deceived : some that a gay 
 lover had been slain beyond seas. But it was not 
 so. It was not earthly love that she desired. 
 One fair sister lay dead near that cross in a far 
 distant churchyard ; and the peace of the Church 
 was all she sought, till the souls that were. never 
 parted below should be united in heaven. 
 
 " You have chosen a good part, my daughter," 
 said the Bishop ; " but how brooks my lord your 
 father this seclusion from the hall which you 
 should adorn and the pageant you were born to 
 grace 1 Hath the dance and the blithe woods, 
 the falconrie and the course, no charms for thee 1 
 Thou art young ; but there is a blight on that 
 brow : doth no worldly care disturb thy thoughts, 
 no disappointment rankle in thy breast ? Why 
 this cloud upon thy gentle countenance 1 for 
 truly the stain of sin is not on such as thou, nor 
 is penance, and the grace of Absolution commit- 
 ted to us by the Church, for a conscience as free 
 from guile as thine : else methinks my good lord 
 Abbat should e'en be thy confessor, and my will- 
 ing office would it be to confer on thee the bless- 
 ing of the Church, of which thou art the most 
 dutiful and affectionate daughter," So saying, 
 he laid his left hand on her fair hair, and rais- 
 ing three fingers of his right he solemnly pro- 
 nounced the Apostolic Benediction. 
 
 The Lady Etheldreda crossed herself, and 
 
THE CASTLE. 45 
 
 pointing to two small silver images of tlie saint 
 her namesake and the blessed Virgin, she said, 
 " These, my lord, are goodly subjects for my poor 
 thoughts, as their blessed deeds are for the por- 
 traiture of my poor hands, — hand, I should say," 
 she added, smiling, and at the same time with- 
 drawing from a black riband the fingers of her 
 left, which were terribly withered, and had been 
 crippled from her birth. 
 
 " My poor Ethel," said her father, embracing 
 her tenderly, " therein is my thorn, yet per- 
 chance thy blessing. By my sword, none shall 
 ever molest thee, nor thwart thine own choice ! 
 Fare thee well, my Ethel ; and forget not to be 
 present betimes on the morrow at the consecra- 
 tion of the church, which thou hast seen finished 
 at length, and knowest to be a right goodly struc- 
 ture, after thine own heart's desire and thy old 
 father's best means." So saying, the baron and 
 his guests left the lady's bower. 
 
46 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE COXSECRATIOX. 
 
 Early the next morning a concourse of people 
 had assembled at the church of Letherton, await- 
 ing the arrival of the party from the castle. At 
 the time appointed the Bishop and the Abbat, 
 attended by several priests and deacons, both secu- 
 lar and regular, were seen to approach. A splen- 
 did processional cross of silver was carried before 
 them. The Bishop held his pastoral staff in his 
 left hand; it was made of a reddish wood, shaped 
 like a ram's head at the top, with the inscription 
 on a brass plate below the neck : Fer . haculi . 
 formam . j^relati . discite . normam. After the 
 body of the ecclesiastics came the Lord Kynas- 
 tone, leading his daughter Etheldreda on his arm, 
 and escorting the members of his family and the 
 several guests who had been invited to attend 
 the ceremony. When all had taken their places 
 near the church, preparations were made for 
 opening the grave of the Martyr Aedbert, who 
 had lain buried on the site of the old church 
 nearly four centuries. This preliminary was 
 necessary, because no altar could be duly conse- 
 
THE CONSECRATION. 47 
 
 crated without holy relics : it being requisite to 
 deposit some portion of the body, vesture, bones, 
 or blood, of a saint or martyr in a cavity called 
 the sigillicm beneath the altar-stone. The exact 
 place had ever been carefully marked, and faci- 
 lities afforded by the builders of the new church 
 for opening the grave. Removing the soil to the 
 depth of four feet, they came to a rude vault of 
 large sandstones, with a cross, and the figure of a 
 lance, the instrument of the martyrdom, incised 
 on the lid which covered the body. The lid was 
 raised, while each one pressed anxiously to view 
 the bones of the holy man who had died man- 
 fully for the Faith, But neither bones nor dust 
 did they behold. To the joyful surprise of all, 
 there lay the body, fresh and fair as if it had 
 just departed. It was not discoloured, nor taint- 
 ed by corruption, nor even rigid and immoveable 
 in death. The very wounds appeared as if re- 
 cently inflicted, and the blood seemed yet to 
 exude from the gaping flesh. 
 
 The Bishop raised his hand, and with a coun- 
 tenance lighted by undoubting faith, turned to 
 the Lady Etheldreda, and said, " Step forward, 
 my daughter, and lay thine hand on the relics 
 of this holy man." Then he prayed with a loud 
 voice, "We beseech Thee, Lord, to vouchsafe 
 to us a sign and token that Thou dost graciously 
 accept the death of this Martyr for the Faith 
 
48 THE CHUKCH RESTORERS. 
 
 of Thy Holy Church ; and grant that for Jesus' 
 sake we may be strengthened to follow the good 
 example of Thy blessed saints, Amen." Imme- 
 diately the crippled hand was restored to its full 
 vigour, the arm strengthened, and the joint re- 
 laxed : and the people who all witnessed the 
 miracle, raised a shout of joy and thanksgiving. 
 A small portion of the martyr's vest, moistened 
 ^dth the blood, was removed and placed in a 
 recess under the altar-stone ; the coffin-lid was 
 then replaced and the grave closed. 
 
 After this the Bishop proceeded with the cere- 
 mony of consecration. First he walked thrice 
 round the outside of the church, followed by the 
 priests and people, and sprinkling the walls with 
 holy water from a branch of hyssop. As he pass- 
 ed the south door each time, he struck it with 
 his staff, and said, " Lift up your heads, ye 
 gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, 
 and the King of Glory shall come in." A deacon 
 within the church each time responded, " Who 
 is the King of Glory?" and the third time the 
 deacon opened the door and the Bishop entered 
 alone, the people answering, " The Lord of Hosts, 
 He is the King of Glory." The Bishop on enter- 
 ing said, " Peace be to this house." After that 
 the Litany was sung, and a cross made on the 
 pavement by the Bishop, who then proceeded to 
 the altar, and walking round it seven times, 
 
THE CONSECRATION. 49 
 
 touclied witli the hyssop the crosses cut upon the 
 upper surface of the slab, and anointed them with 
 chrism. He next anointed in the same manner 
 the twelve dedication crosses marked upon the 
 outer walls, before each of which a lighted 
 candle was placed. Then the whole church was 
 sprinkled and censed, till it was filled with a 
 cloud of perfumes : lastly, the deed of endow- 
 ment, by which Sir Aubrey annexed for ever 
 certain lands of the lordship to the Rectory 
 of Letherton, was read, and deposited, with the 
 Bishop's written document of consecration, be- 
 neath the high altar. The people were then 
 dismissed with the Bishop's benediction, and the 
 whole company, including guests, retainers, and 
 parishioners, returned to a great feast at the cas- 
 tle. Ethel retired to her bower, and offered her 
 thanksgivings to God for the signal mercy she 
 had that day experienced. 
 
 Forty years afterwards, a fair canopied monu- 
 ment was erected in the chantry of Letherton 
 church. The wall behind and underneath was 
 powdered with gold fleurs de lis on a blue ground ; 
 the crockets and sculptured ornaments of the 
 cusps and spandrils were richly gilt. On each 
 side of the canopy arose elegant groups of but- 
 tressed pinnacles. On a marble slab reclined a 
 female e&igj in Caen stone, in the garb of an 
 Abbess ; the staff or crook was supported by the 
 
 E 
 
50 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 left arm : the hands were clasped in prayer over 
 the breast. The wimple covered the neck and 
 chin, and the modest drapery which enveloped 
 the spare frame was disposed with touching sim- 
 plicity and exquisite effect. At the head, which 
 lay on a double cushion, two kneeling angels with 
 outspread wings were represented with censers, 
 censing the deceased. The front of the high 
 tomb upon which the figure lay was divided by 
 crocketed canopies and delicate shafts into twelve 
 compartments, containing effigies in stone of as 
 many saints ; among whom S. Etheldreda holding 
 a lily in her hand, and our blessed Lady, were 
 conspicuous. A short inscription round the edge 
 of the marble stated in French that Etheldreda de 
 Kynastone died Abbess of the Convent of S. Marie 
 Overie at C . 
 
THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH. 51 
 
 CHAPTER VI. — THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 Time had long laid the bones of Sir Aubrey in 
 the grave which he had prepared for their recep- 
 tion. For many a year cressets were kept burn- 
 ing night and day over his tomb and that of the 
 Abbess his daughter ; and daily Mass was said by 
 a priest for the repose of their souls. At all hours 
 the doors of the church were kept open ; so that 
 the people might have free access to the house of 
 prayer. Often you might have seen a solitary 
 form kneeling on the floor of the nave (for none 
 but the clergy might enter the chancel) or pacing 
 the dim aisle, now paved with many a Lombardic 
 coffin-stone, and inlaid with many a shining brass. 
 A hundred years had passed since the consecra- 
 tion of the church ; but they had not brought 
 either neglect or decay : on the contrary, each 
 possessor of the castle seemed to think it his duty 
 to make some improvement, or add some enrich- 
 ment to his parish church. In place of the old 
 chancel screen, a magnificent new work, with the 
 proper appurtenances of Rood and Rood-loft, was 
 erected. The former partition was only an ar- 
 
52 
 
 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 cade on banded shafts, rising about nine feet from 
 the floor : the new one displayed all the elabo- 
 rate device of the fully developed Decorated or 
 Edwardian period. It consisted of a central en- 
 trance, under a cinquefoiled arch, with doors 
 opening inwards to the chancel, and five nar- 
 rower compartments on each side. A spider's 
 web carved in wood could scarcely surpass the 
 airy texture of the spandril traceries ; it was a 
 wondrous piece of art, presented to the church 
 by Sir John de Kynastone and the Lady Dorothy 
 as a thank-offering on the birth of their son and 
 heir. Over each compartment was a beautiful 
 canopy, of acute triangular form, crocketed and 
 finialed, and enriched with creeping vine-leaves, 
 birds, and clustering foliage. The lower part of 
 the screen was filled up with solid panels, on each 
 of which was a costly painting, on a gold diaper 
 ground, of a Saint with his appropriate symbol, 
 done in lively colours. The mullions and spaces 
 around the panels were powdered with cinque- 
 foils, ermines, fleurs de lis, and cross crosslets 
 of azure and vermilion. Above was reared high 
 aloft, the devotion and humble adoration of all 
 worshippers, the great Rood or Crucifix, filling 
 the space of the chancel arch nearly to the crown. 
 It was of dark oak, richly carved, and bearing 
 at the extremities of the arms the Evangelistic 
 symbols. Upon the carved pedestals on each side 
 
THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH. 53 
 
 of the foot were smaller figures of our Lady and 
 S. John. An ascent to the Rood-loft in which 
 it was placed was formed by the addition of a 
 turret at the north-west angle of the chancel, 
 containing a circular stone staircase, and a fine 
 convenience above for stepping through the upper 
 door into the loft. A second chantry altar was 
 erected and endowed at the east end of the south 
 aisle, which was screened off with carved wood- 
 work on the north and west sides. Elaborate 
 niches, brackets, piscina, and aumbry were added 
 as the usual appurtenances. A new Decorated 
 window of two lights was inserted in place of 
 the original single lancet, and filled with stained 
 glass. 
 
 This was the glorious age of Church architec- 
 ture. It was the climax beyond which Christian 
 art was never carried. Though all that riches, 
 devoted piety, and sublime talents could effect 
 was done to sustain its consummate excellence, it 
 followed the universal law, and, having once reach- 
 ed perfection, began gradually to decline. We, 
 who see nothing around us but the wrecks of an- 
 cient art, have some difficulty in forming an accu-. 
 rate idea of the extreme architectural and decora- 
 tive magnificence which prevailed at this period. 
 It may however be fearlessly asserted, that not 
 only were the Abbey and the Cathedral of gorgeous 
 beauty and wealth incalculable, but every parish 
 
54 
 
 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 church was proportionately adorned. Let us step, 
 for an example of the former class of sacred edi- 
 fices, into the Ladj Chapel at Ely, a place which 
 now exhibits the desolation of Protestantism per- 
 haps more painfully than any building in the 
 kingdom. Examine any one of its hundred cano- 
 pied secUlia; but your enraptured gaze must dwell 
 for an hour upon it, before you can comprehend 
 its beauties, or your eye can scan the whole of its 
 exuberant details. Look first at the exquisite 
 mouldings and panellings of the polished Purbeck 
 shafts and buttresses below ; then admire the mi- 
 nute images, the crisp bunches of hollow foliage, 
 carved like ivory balls with almost microscopic 
 nicety. Lastly, see the thick flakes of gold which 
 overlay them, and the bright, varied colouring 
 which may yet be traced under the coats of mo- 
 dern whitewash. Then view the spangled vault, 
 once glowing with stars and golden bosses j the 
 windows, which were filled with the richest stain- 
 ed glass, as their scanty and obliterated fragments 
 still attest ; observe the countless compartments 
 of tracery within tracery, and canopy above cano- 
 py, which climb even to the ceiling. You must 
 not think of the walls as they are now, encrusted 
 with patches of marble, and monumental tablets 
 of every conceivable pagan device ; nor of the floor 
 as it is now, partitioned into a crowded heap of 
 square deal pues. The vestiges of ancient work- 
 
THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH. 55 
 
 manship which have not been hewn away by the 
 axe and the chisel, must be minutely observed, if 
 the mind would truly realize the splendour which 
 the eye now desiderates. Again, imagine Lincoln 
 or Westminster in its glory. There are many 
 parts of these, and indeed of every Cathedral, 
 where a single square yard of sculptured detail 
 exhibits the labour of months ; where a niche, or 
 a canopy, or a moulded base, must have been the 
 task of many a long and toilsome week. The 
 aggregate cost of any one such building would 
 now be almost incredible. Take the first of that 
 long series of high tombs, with its panellings, its 
 canopies, its effigies : the jewelled mitre and ring, 
 the painted orphrey, the gilded crocket : look up 
 under the dark canopy : there is gold and colour 
 and intricate groining, though man's eye was 
 never likely to behold it. The pavement was 
 once of coloured tiles, or mosaics, in which an 
 hundred latten effigies and crosses shone resplen- 
 dent. You may still see the marble slabs, reft of 
 their metal : the boss faint with its faded gold ; 
 the canopy deprived of its silver Saint ; the win- 
 dow without its ancient hues. Go again to the 
 village-church. In the time of the Edwards alone 
 thousands of these were built throughout the 
 land. It is certain, and may be proved by actual 
 examination in numberless instances, that even 
 these, however remote, generally possessed the 
 
56 THE CHUKCH RESTORERS. 
 
 most exquisite decorations. The art of painting, 
 whether in oil on wood, in distemper on walls, or 
 encaustic on glass, was then carried to very great 
 perfection, and was quite common in every church. 
 In most cases, perhaps, the internal walls were 
 coloured either with patterns or pictorial subjects; 
 such as the Crucifixion, the Doom, S. Christopher, 
 Our Lady, the passion of S. Catherine, the Stem of 
 Jesse, the lives and miracles of various Saints. A 
 great number of these remain ; more are being 
 daily discovered. The designs are often excel- 
 lent as paintings ; though the mediaeval artists 
 seldom attained either in painting or sculpture 
 the power of perfectly representing the human 
 form. It is probable, indeed, that a certain 
 conventional method was observed in this, as in 
 every other department of art. The positions of 
 the hands, of the head, of the drapery, are usually 
 executed according to a certain rule, which un- 
 questionably imparts a remarkable and character- 
 istic grace, though the outlines are quaint, and, in 
 a certain sense, stiff and unnatural. This is espe- 
 cially evident in ancient stained glass, and is 
 generally observable also in distemper or fresco 
 paintings. The celestiality of countenance has 
 never been equalled in modern times. Lines, few 
 and hard, yet true and clear, produced unrivalled 
 effects. To harmonize with the glowing walls and 
 windows, not only the rood-screens but the roofs 
 
THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH. 57 
 
 were almost always painted, as we may fairly in- 
 fer from the great number of existing examples. 
 Tlie gorgeous ceiling in Peterborough Cathedral is 
 of early Decorated work. A common design, es- 
 pecially in the cradle roofs, was an azure sky with 
 gilt spangles for stars. Moulded timbers were 
 usually adorned with twisted spiral lines of black, 
 white, and red, like the strands of a rope. The 
 prodigious quantity of stained glass destroyed at 
 and since the Reformation would almost pass the 
 belief of those who have not cared to investigate 
 the subject. Of the manufactures, the artists, the 
 cost, of this, nothing whatever is known. But the 
 latter was, of course, much less than in modern 
 times. The metal was usually extremely thick 
 and heavy ; an advantage seldom available in our 
 times, from the onerous duty on the material 
 The dense and semiopaque quality of the old 
 glass imparted to it a rich hue, and an impervi- 
 ousness to bright light, which we with difficulty 
 attain by artificial means. The ancients knew 
 how to produce the best effects with comparative- 
 ly little colour ; and they almost always inter- 
 mixed a large proportion of white glass even in 
 their richest designs. It is a grievous mistake of 
 modern artists to fill up entirely with colour. 
 
 The carving of this period, whether in wood or 
 stone, as it fell to the department of a different 
 class of artists, exhibits peculiarities of its own. 
 
58 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 To judge by the fallible test of existing remains, 
 (in which the relative durability of material must 
 be taken into account,) we should infer that wood 
 carving was but scantily practised before the De- 
 corated period. We have very little early English 
 woodwork of any kind, beyond a few doors, (as that 
 at the great western entrance at Peterborough, which 
 has the tooth-moulding,) here and there a portion 
 of a screen, and some roofs. There are no carved 
 seats or stalls existing of this age. Probably in- 
 deed the area of churches was generally free and 
 open till the fifteenth century. 
 
 If we have dwelt tediously on our accounts of 
 ancient churches, and gone somewhat minutely 
 into detail, it has been from an earnest desire to 
 set forth in its true and proper light the condi- 
 tion of the arts in those ages, which by contrast 
 with our own we call Dark. Hereafter we shall 
 examine the probable causes of modern degene- 
 racy in that study, which once attained such an 
 extraordinary ascendancy over men's minds, and 
 became so powerful an instrument of religious im- 
 pression. 
 
 But we have wandered somewhat from the 
 course of our history. Many additions were made 
 to the parish church of Letherton in the fifteenth 
 century. The aisles were partly rebuilt in the 
 style then prevalent, and the large windows en- 
 tirely filled with painted glass of a different kind. 
 
THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH. 59 
 
 The ground was formed by diamond panes, each 
 with a yellow flower in the centre : amidst which 
 large figures of symboled Saints and mitred Bishops 
 stood beneath goodly canopies like so many tute- 
 lary powers, the heavenly sentinels of the holy 
 mansions within. A costly pulpit of carved oak 
 was erected : a new font of Caen stone presented, 
 containing sculptured representations of the Seven 
 Sacraments; several new brasses, sepulchral crosses, 
 paintings, vestments, and images were added. The 
 old roofs were taken down ; not so much from 
 decay, but because they were not deemed suffici- 
 ently beautiful. A new and higher clerestory was 
 now raised above the nave arches, and covered 
 with a noble oak roof which far surpassed the 
 former in richness and elaborate design. It was 
 divided by principal rafters into five bays or par- 
 titions ; at the end of every hammerbeam were 
 carved and painted angels with expanded wings : 
 all the spandrils were of pierced tracery, and the 
 ridge, purlins, and common rafters elaborately 
 moulded. The cornice was fringed with Tudor 
 flower j and representations of men and animals, 
 trees, fishes, and birds, were chiselled in the solid 
 wood in a long pictorial series round the walls of 
 the church. There were also hammerbeams in 
 long perspective rows midway up the dark valley 
 of this fine structure, with struts and carved braces 
 at once decorated and secured. At the ends of 
 
60 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 these, smaller angels with various musical instru- 
 ments seemed to play celestial music to the sound 
 of the psalms and catholic hymns sung by the 
 earthly worshippers below. 
 
 All the area of the nave was now filled with 
 fixed open seats of massive carved oak, well adorn- 
 ed with tracery, poppy-heads, and the conven- 
 tional emblems of the Church. They were all 
 turned towards the East : so that every worshipper 
 faced the altar and the great rood, to which they 
 bowed, and not, as now, to one another. There 
 was no confusion, no idle lounging, no refusal to 
 kneel or stand at the offices of prayer or praise. 
 No one had a particular place assigned him ; yet 
 by a kind of tacit agreement each generally oc- 
 cupied the same seat. On the north side sate the 
 women, on the south the men. No one struggled 
 and quarrelled to sit under the preacher, nor com- 
 plained of draughts and damps ; for in those days 
 doors were whole, and pavements were dry, and 
 windows all tightly glazed with massive stained 
 glass an eighth of an inch in thickness, and more. 
 The dense ruby chasuble of a Saint did not let in 
 rain and frost and cold as the flimsy and shatter- 
 ed old church windows we now see generally do ; 
 and the incense and the lighted tapers, the daily 
 service and the constant Mass, made the church 
 so warm and so comfortable that there was no 
 need of large iron stoves and smoky coal fires. 
 
THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH. 61 
 
 But such good order was not destined to last 
 long in the Church. She had become venal and 
 corrupt and careless of her charge, and the bless- 
 ing of peace was taken from her. The iron reign 
 of Henry VIII. had long threatened her amiable 
 dwellings and her holy things ; and at length 
 the first blow fell in the appointment of the Com- 
 missioners to inquire into the condition and reve- 
 nues of the monastic houses. The most lying 
 charges and scandalous inventions were got up by 
 these unscrupulous visitors to palliate the robbery 
 that was intended from the first. One by one the 
 ancient abbeys were seized, their churches unroofed 
 and plundered, their lands and revenues confiscat- 
 ed, and the aged monks made to wander houseless 
 and penniless over the land, amidst the execra- 
 tions of the poor whom they had maintained upon 
 the head of their tyrannical and sacrilegious King. 
 But England was filled with monastic establish- 
 ments ; many hundreds of religious houses of all 
 sizes and professions were scattered over the coun- 
 try : scarcely thirty miles could anywhere be pass- 
 ed without coming in sight of some splendid pile 
 with its lofty spires and glorious roofs, and por- 
 tals ever open to the call of the stranger and the 
 wants of the poor. A mighty sum did the wick- 
 ed King derive from these : for not one was 
 spared ', and for two whole years the work of 
 plunder continued, by which 330^000^. were 
 
62 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 brought into tlie rojal treasury, and immediately 
 lavished upon infidel and abandoned courtiers. 
 And the voice of prayer which had hourly as- 
 cended from the churches for many hundreds of 
 years was suddenly hushed; the owl and the jack- 
 daw alone were heard within the deserted walls. 
 Even yet we view with indifference the sad scenes 
 of this fearful havoc, and talk about the " glorious 
 Reformation." Perhaps we never think that a 
 curse can have attended such worse than heathen 
 impieties. 
 
 The Abbey of Wardley fell among the first. The 
 Abbat was an infirm man, and distracted with the 
 troublous times and the internal dissensions of the 
 brethren. A stipend was promised him for his 
 life ; and he resigned his charge into the hands of 
 the plunderers. The hell-hounds of destruction 
 were let loose ; the church, the library, the altars, 
 the costly plate, the jewelled shrines, were all ran- 
 sacked; and their hallowed contents scattered to 
 the winds. The lead was stripped from the roofs, 
 and the naked timbers sawn asunder or set on fire. 
 The stained windows were demolished, and the 
 walls defaced with iron bars and hammers ; the 
 very graves were rifled of their dead. Scarcely 
 more complete or more dreadful was the havoc 
 which the pagan Danes had made six hundred 
 years before. In two short days that ancient Ab- 
 
THE GLORY OF THE CHURCH. 63 
 
 bey was reduced from a home of piety and peace 
 to a shattered and smoking ruin. 
 
 Little cared the godless possessors of the 
 Church's lands for the solemn anathema which 
 She had pronounced of old on the heads of the 
 spoilers. But the judgment came, and fearfully 
 and visibly it fell. Great families one by one be- 
 came rapidly extinct. Awful deaths, grievous 
 visitations, fruitless marriages, were the penalties 
 which attended sacrilegious wealth. Property 
 passed from hand to hand, but remained with 
 none. The finger of God was manifested against 
 the deeds of that day j but man in his blindness 
 saw it not. 
 
64 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. — THE REFORMATIO]S\ 
 
 Though much less of wanton mischief and de- 
 struction was committed on the cathedrals and 
 parish churches of the land than on the unhappy 
 monasteries, yet there also the consequences of the 
 Reformation were instantly and severely felt. The 
 energies of the church-builders, which had never 
 ceased for many hundreds of years to erect and 
 adorn God's holy temples, were paralysed, because 
 their efforts were blighted and their means with- 
 drawn!. Many noble buildings were in progress of 
 erection when the blow fell : and they never were 
 completed. Architecture and the fine arts, as 
 the handmaids of the Church, by which they had 
 been fostered and patronised, from that moment 
 lost their vitality, and rapidly became secularized, 
 degraded, and neglected. Nothing was done to 
 recover the art during the remainder of that cen- 
 tury ; in fact scarcely a single new church seems 
 to have been erected in the land in the whole of 
 that time. Orders had been issued, at the insti- 
 gation of the Reformers, for the destruction of the 
 Roods and Rood-lofts, the demolition of stone Al- 
 
THE REFORMATION. 65 
 
 tars, and tlie removal of pictures, images, and 
 relics ; the first of whicli at least was performed 
 with such rigid fidelity and exactitude that not 
 even the most remote and distant village churches 
 were exempted from this cruel visitation. At Le- 
 therton the injunction was carried out to the ut- 
 most. The altars were torn down, broken to 
 pieces, and trampled under foot. The great Bood 
 was burnt in the churchyard, and the royal arms 
 were set up as if in mockery in the place where it 
 stood. The old cross was mutilated and defaced ; 
 several windows destroyed ; the whole of the plate 
 carried off; the Office-books, (among them the 
 Missal illuminated by the hands of the Abbess 
 Etheldreda,) and the more costly of the priestly 
 vestments, were sold for paltry sums to profane 
 and ignorant purchasers. The church was now 
 served by a priest who received a small annual 
 stipend from the Crown ; for the destruction of the 
 monasteries and the dispersion of the brethren 
 had rendered it difficult to procure the services of 
 any competent minister of religion. He was a 
 man of little education, and a zealous adherent to 
 the new learning, so that little care was taken by 
 him to retain anything that savoured of the an- 
 cient " superstitions." Nevertheless, here, as in 
 most churches, candlesticks were yet placed on 
 the altar ; copes and vestments were still worn ; 
 incense was still used at festivals j and in many 
 
Q6 THE CHURCH RESTOREES. 
 
 particulars whicli have now "been long lost sight 
 of from neglect or distaste, the old ceremonies and 
 arrangements were retained. The prayers were 
 still offered from the priest's stall in the chancel ; 
 the lessons still read from the carved wooden lec- 
 tern or brazen eagle : the windows yet glowed 
 with stained glass, and the beautiful old monu- 
 ments and brasses still pictured the floor with 
 their prayerful and instructive legends. The re- 
 formation we have chosen to follow, in practice at 
 least if not in spirit, was yet to be brought about 
 by Cromwell and his infatuated crew. 
 
 The feeble attempts of Queen Mary to stem the 
 tide of protestant fury, and restore the churches 
 to their former condition, had produced but little 
 effect in so remote a place as Letherton. It was 
 soon discovered that it is easier to destroy than to 
 amend ; and the terrible events of that awful 
 time unsettled and distracted the whole state of 
 the Church. The restoration therefore of the old 
 rites and arrangements was as partial as it was 
 imperfect. A large mass of the people would 
 have no popery ; how should they, when the fires 
 of the martyrs in every direction at once confirm- 
 ed their dislike of the old and their belief in the 
 truth of the new religion 1 A terrible time it 
 was, when persecution and terror usurped the 
 place of gentleness and peace : and was not a ter- 
 rible scourge to be looked for after the dreadful 
 
THE REFORMATION. 67 
 
 sacrileges and cruelties of the Reformation ? 
 
 o 
 
 Queen Elizabeth, though she was no violent re- 
 former, was urged onwards by her Bishops and 
 councillors to sanction and acquiesce in their 
 wishes. The reign of King James brought little 
 into the Church but pagan statuary and clumsy 
 marble monuments ; pues, reading-desks, and Ve- 
 netian windows. The Kynastone Chantry was en- 
 cumbered by an immense oaken structure with a 
 canopy over it in the fashion of a bedstead, to 
 which indeed it bore a very close affinity in its 
 use. It was an early specimen of a family pue. 
 It bore the date 1615, and the following inscrip- 
 tion in large letters round the rim : " Istec est 
 sedes Annse, dominse uxoris Johannis Smithi, 
 ecclesise Lethertonensis patroni," This was a sad 
 example of affected grandeur and pride in the 
 House where every worshipper should be equal. 
 But it did not long remain in solitary magni- 
 ficence. Other small landholders endeavoured to 
 rival the great family of the Smiths, who had 
 purchased the manor and what remained of the 
 old castle from the last of the Kynastones. That 
 ancient house had adhered to the unreformed 
 Faith, and suffered in consequence the most relent- 
 less persecution from the protestant faction under 
 Elizabeth. The castle had been in great part de- 
 molished during the wars of the Roses, and the 
 estates had gradually diminished in extent and 
 
Q8 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 importance ; so that Master John Smith, a wealthy- 
 merchant of London, had succeeded in making a 
 very advantageous purchase of the whole. The 
 parishioners of Letherton could never regard him 
 with the attachment they had ever shewn to the 
 ancient lords ; they considered themselves as good 
 as he, if not so wealthy; so they would not be 
 behind him in setting up each for himself a large 
 square pue. Thus the poor, on whose rights they 
 encroached, were shut out from their favourite and 
 long-accustomed seats ; the congregation was soon 
 reduced to half its number ; and perpetual dis- 
 contentment and jealousies were entertained among 
 those who should have been an example of for- 
 bearance, forgiveness, and peace. 
 
 In the month of June, 1643, two horsemen 
 were seen advancing at a round trot towards the 
 village of Letherton. One was a tall gaunt-look- 
 ing man, with a drawling and lisping tone of 
 voice, and a turned-up eye, which argued some- 
 thing of either affected sanctity or religious fana 
 ticism. His dress was soiled and disordered, and 
 his grey cloak seemed smeared with lime and 
 dust. The other carried a book, and a roll of 
 paper which he ostentatiously displayed — a war- 
 rant from the Earl of Manchester for visiting 
 and purifying from popish abominations the re- 
 formed protestant churches. The production of 
 the warrant procured the key from the alarmed 
 
THE REFORMATION. 69 
 
 and reluctant rector ; and armed with, autho- 
 rity which few dared to oppose, the strangers 
 at once proceeded to the church. The sight of 
 the cross on the gable seemed to cause consider- 
 able offence, for both raised their hands and shook 
 their heads at it in the most feeling manner. 
 They had not been long within the church when 
 three more persons, similarly attired, rode up to 
 the village inn. They alighted at the little 
 hostelrie, and consigned their horses to the care of 
 the landlord. 
 
 "I marvel, good Master Peter," observed one, 
 " that the holy man hath not yet arrived. Doubt- 
 less he hath had a longer task to perform this 
 morning than he is wont ; for he did by special 
 injunction appoint us to meet here at noon for the 
 cleansing of yon sink of popery ; and who hath 
 ever known Master Dowsing to be slack in the 
 service of the Lord 1 Verily, if he cometh not, 
 we will e'en have a blow at the Whore of our own 
 good will and pleasure. But it bethinketh me 
 the godly man may be tarrying for us at the 
 church : let us see whether it be so, that we de- 
 lay not unweetingly the blessed work." 
 
 " Ah ! good Masters," said Will Dowsing, for it 
 was he, " ye come well : fearful are the abomina- 
 tions of this temple of Belial ; there is enough of 
 superstition here to destroy the souls of ten such 
 villages as this. Go, Master Woollard, get axe and 
 
70 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 bar, and let us proceed to remove from the sight 
 of these benighted people the accursed images and 
 the idolatrous pictures of the Antichrist." 
 
 So the pious Master Woollard, nothing loath, 
 brought sundry implements of destruction, and to 
 work they went right zealously. First they de- 
 molished the whole of the stained windows that 
 remained entire ; for those only had been broken 
 by injunction of Edward VI. which contained 
 "feigned miracles, idolatry, and superstition." 
 The pictures of S. Winifride and Aedbert the 
 Martyrs had been destroyed, with portions of some 
 others ; but a proclamation had been put forth by 
 Elizabeth strictly forbidding glass windows to be 
 broken or defaced ; so that much yet remained at 
 Letherton to ghit the fury of the Puritan visitors. 
 They beat down the glorious windows in the aisles 
 and at the east end with poles and hammers, and 
 trode the fragments to atoms on the pavement. 
 Next they defaced the fresco paintings and in- 
 scriptions on the walls, both of which, it is need- 
 less to say, they were quite unable to understand. 
 Then they ripped off four or five brasses ; levelled 
 the chancel steps ; took away a cross and the can- 
 dlesticks from the altar, and broke the effigies 
 and monumental slabs. Dowsing all the while 
 taking account in his book with the utmost cool- 
 ness of the details of the havoc he had directed 
 and superintended. The ancient and still magni- 
 
THE REFORMATION. 71 
 
 ficent tomb of Etlieldreda de Kynastone, with the 
 calm and touchingij beautiful effi.gj as it lay in 
 the stillness of Christian sleep under its gorgeous 
 canopy, almost moved Master Peter to spare it. 
 Unfortunately however the figures of the blessed 
 S. Etheldreda and our Lady caught the eye of 
 Woollard. " Down with the old Jezebel ! " said 
 he, dealing a fierce blow with a crowbar across 
 the breast of the Abbess, and dislodging from 
 the marble slab the fragments into which he 
 had shattered the frail form. A stroke from the 
 axe decapitated the image of S. Etheldreda, and 
 another broke in pieces that of our Lady. A 
 parting blow, by way of goodwill, curtailed the 
 canopy of its finial ; and so they left it. Outside 
 of the church they pulled down the gable crosses, 
 and overthrew the effigy of the patron Saint from 
 its niche above the archway of the porch. 
 
 "A mighty goodly work. Master Dowsing," 
 said Woollard, as they left the despoiled and dese- 
 crated church. " Hitherto the Lord hath prosper- 
 ed our labours in the righteous cause. Let me 
 see, there be six brass orate pro animabuses, forty- 
 three superstitious pictures on the walls, twelve 
 great windows, the Jezebel on the painted tomb, 
 the steps levelled, the crucifix and candles re- 
 moved, diverse crosses effaced — truly we have 
 cleansed the mass-house of some popish filth." 
 
 "Ye should have seen. Master Peter," said 
 
72 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 Dowsing, " how at B I did break down with 
 
 mine own hand ten mighty great angels in glass, 
 and a hundred pictures superstitious, and how we 
 consumed Mary and eighteen cherubims in wood ; 
 insomuch that ye see I rade with speed to be with 
 ye at Letherton by noon. The parson is an ungod- 
 ly man, and did rail at us and the parliament." 
 
 " Saw ye," said Woollard, " how the malignant, 
 he at the Rectory, stood and wept at the door of 
 the porch as we brake the pictures 1 Marry, he 
 shall pray for the King but a while longer at 
 Letherton. The host at the inn hath told us 
 that he keepeth all the mummery of the Mass, 
 the bowings and the east-worship, and prayeth 
 not for the parliament : whereof my good lord of 
 Manchester must be duly certified. But we have 
 w^ork enough yet before us for this day, so let us 
 e'en hasten on our way." 
 
 With this they rode off to purify the next 
 church. Shortly afterwards, articles were exhi- 
 bited against the Rector as a malignant and a 
 papist, &c., &c., for which he was of course 
 ejected and sequestrated without the least regard 
 to his old age. He did not long survive this 
 cruel and unjust treatment, but died almost in 
 want of the common necessaries of life, in the 
 farm-house of one of his parishioners, though his 
 daughter worked with her own hands in the fields 
 early and late to maintain him. 
 
 I 
 
THE REFORMATION. 73 
 
 The ensuing century was a dreary one for the 
 Church. The minds of the people, which had 
 long inclined to the ancient Faith, while the re- 
 membrance of it was yet recent among them, 
 were by this time thoroughly protestantised, and 
 not a vestige of the old Catholic spirit remained. 
 The power of the Church seemed to lie dormant, 
 while frigid moralists preached and learned dispu- 
 tants wrote controversies on doctrinal subjects. 
 Dissent had long been spreading its baneful and 
 disloyal poison throughout the land, and the aJQPec- 
 tions of the people were alienated from the Church 
 of their forefathers by the apathy and total want 
 of vitality which it seemed to present, to say 
 nothing of the glaring and scandalous abuses 
 which were felt to sully the boasted purity of the 
 Reformation. Architecture was now utterly de- 
 graded, and the national taste so strangely per- 
 verted, that the finest buildings of mediaeval art 
 were almost daily destroyed to make room for 
 pagan temples or mongrel Italian edifices. Every- 
 body who professed taste in the fine arts was a 
 follower of Wren, and scarcely a church was built 
 in any other style but that which his great talents 
 unhappily introduced and for a time almost na- 
 turalized in England. 
 
74 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. — THE LATTER DAYS. 
 
 Parson Joliffe was considered the keenest 
 fox-hunter within a circle of twenty miles round 
 Letherton, though the neighbourhood in 1770 
 could produce several first-rate specimens of clerical 
 sportsmen. He had been presented to the living on 
 the illegal and simoniacal stipulation of paying an- 
 nually to the patron a fifth part of the proceeds of 
 the tithes : but enough remained to keep a couple 
 of hunters and a good cellar ; so he made himself 
 as comfortable as possible on the remainder. In 
 addition to his celebrity in field-sports, he was 
 reckoned a great patron and excellent judge of 
 the fine arts. He established this fame by having 
 a large hunting-piece executed, containing a por- 
 trait of himself in red coat and top-boots, just as 
 he appeared to the life bestriding his favourite 
 mare, and cheering on the hounds cap in hand. 
 He was also a collector of paintings, and some- 
 times gave a round price for a work that par- 
 ticularly pleased his fancy. On one occasion he 
 purchased a full-length picture of a protestant 
 Archbishop of Canterbury in a full-bottomed 
 
THE LATTER DAYS. 75 
 
 wig ; and shortly afterwards meeting with an 
 obliterated portraiture of Sir Roger de Coverley 
 at a sale, he immediately bought it, and altering 
 his hat into a mitre, and elongating his walking 
 cane into the dignity of a crozier, he affixed the 
 two on each side of the Grecian altar screen, 
 under the conventional titles of Moses and Aaron. 
 Unfortunately, however, the light was a bad one 
 for displaying their beauties ; so he judiciously 
 blocked up the east window with boards and 
 mortar, thereby darkening the chancel very con- 
 siderably, and nearly restoring the sombre effect 
 produced by the ancient stained glass. The aisle 
 windows on the south side having become very 
 dilapidated under the incumbency of this rector, 
 he had them wholly removed, and neat Venetian 
 casements inserted in their places : for which im- 
 provement the parishioners had a very heavy rate 
 to pay. He likewise removed the old font to his 
 farm-yard, where it served for many years as a 
 watering trough for his hunters, and substituted 
 a Roman urn of red earthenware, being in fact 
 a wine-cooler discarded from his service by the 
 accidental defalcation of a handle : though, as the 
 butler justly observed, it might do well enough in 
 a church where it could hardly appear with de- 
 cency on a gentleman's table. He also built a 
 Grecian gallery at the west end ; and had a flat 
 plaister ceiling put up under the carved oak roof, 
 
76 THE CHTJRCH RESTORERS. 
 
 which he deemed both neater and warmer than 
 the old one. To defray the expense of this un- 
 dertaking, he stripped the roofs of their ancient 
 leaden covering, and substituted blue slates. He 
 also caused the piers and arches to be painted 
 a marble colour and the walls to be yellow- 
 washed. After holding the living thirty years, 
 he died at an advanced age from a fall received 
 in hunting, and was buried in the chancel. A 
 lars^e white marble monument was erected aejainst 
 the wall, and thrown into strong relief by a deep 
 border of lamp-black carried round. The design 
 was neat and significant. Two corpulent cherubs 
 with unfledged wings presided at a kind of urn 
 something like a soup tureen ; each had a fist 
 thrust into an eye in token of grief, and each 
 bore an inverted torch ; while in the back-ground 
 a broken column seemed arrested in its descent 
 upon the tureen, and fixed in mid air exactly at 
 the right moment to prevent a serious accident 
 either to it or one of the officiating cherubs. The 
 meaning of the column was obvious. It typified 
 a pillar of the Church suddenly cut off in the 
 middle of his career of usefulness. Below were 
 three medallions, bearing portraits of the rector 
 and his two wives ; between which, and imme- 
 diately under the urn, was a death's head and 
 cross-bones. The epitaph was as follows : 
 
. THE LATTER DATS. 77 
 
 NEAR THIS PLACE IS INTERRED 
 
 IN SURE HOPE OP A JOYFUL RESURRECTION 
 
 THE REV. WILLIAM JOLIFFE, B. D. 
 
 THIRTY YEARS RECTOR OF THIS PARISH. 
 
 IN WHICH BY HIS UNPARALLELED URBANITY, 
 
 CHARITABLE AND CHRISTIAN DISPOSITION, 
 
 AND VIRTUOUS LIFE AND CONDUCT 
 
 AS A DEVOTED MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL, 
 
 HE ENDEARED HIMSELF TO ALL AVHO KNEW HIM, 
 
 AND DIED UNIVERSALLY LAMENTED. 
 
 AFTER A SHORT BUT SEVERE ILLNESS, 
 
 CAUSED BY A FALL FROM HIS HORSE, 
 
 HE DEPARTED TO THE REWARD OF THE JUST, 
 
 IN THE SEVENTIETH YEAR OF HIS AGE, 
 
 ANNO DOMINI, 1801, 
 
 LEAVING FIVE SONS AND TWELVE DAUGHTERS TO 
 
 BEWAIL HIS LOSS. 
 
 This elegant and veracious tablet was enclosed 
 in a substructure resembling a miniature heathen 
 temple, which was based upon the chancel floor, 
 and so placed as to cover an ancient brass all but 
 one corner, where the words on ivhoos sowle Jhesu 
 have mercy might be traced. None noticed the 
 contrast : for none could so much as read the 
 old ecclesiastical character. 
 
 The Reverend Mr. Holdworthy was next in- 
 ducted to the living. He was considered a very 
 spiritual and evangelical clergyman, and greatly 
 esteemed as a popular preacher. He was parti- 
 cularly distinguished for his untiring zeal against 
 Popery and Papists. He removed and broke up 
 
78 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 the beautiful old rood screen, which still retained 
 the paintings of Saints on its lower panels, and 
 boarded off the chancel with a lath and plaister 
 partition, leaving only an entrance by a small 
 door, so as to form at once a commodious vestry, 
 a school-room, and a depository for rubbish. He 
 caused two new tables of commandments and a 
 painting of the royal arms to be affixed in the 
 vacant space above the arch, which gave a very 
 gay and lively appearance to the church. He 
 sold the tenor bell because it bore the super- 
 stitious inscription Sancta Katarina or a pro no- 
 bis ; and he removed the remains of stained glass 
 that had escaped destruction, because he was told 
 by an antiquarian friend (he knew nothing of 
 such subjects himself) that they contained ob- 
 jectionable representations of the Virgin Mary. 
 A large floriated cross, inlaid with brass, of the 
 fourteenth century, which had been overlooked 
 by Dowsing, and was the only ancient monument 
 to be seen in the church, he took up and placed 
 in his barn to make room for the capacious tomb- 
 stone of the Squire's lady. It was never heard 
 of afterwards ; and was supposed to have been 
 ripped off and sold to the plumbers. He erected 
 a lofty and capacious pulpit at the west end of 
 the church, the ascent to which was by a stair- 
 case extending halfway up the nave towards the 
 east. So greatly admired were his discourses, 
 
THE LATTER DAYS. 79 
 
 that galleries were soon erected within the arches 
 on each side of the nave, intercepting and block- 
 ing up the upper half of the aisle windows. To 
 compensate for this deficiency, a skylight was 
 opened in the roof and ceiling immediately above 
 the pulpit. The erection of the galleries caused 
 the final mutilation of the piers ', the foliage of 
 the capitals interfered with the beams, so it was 
 chiselled clean away, and some ornaments in 
 Roman cement stuck upon the only part which 
 was not concealed by the boarding of the gallery 
 floor. 
 
 But the church had not yet reached the lowest 
 point of degradation. The successor of this in- 
 cumbent, in commemoration of whose virtues an- 
 other and still larger mural monument was erected, 
 cared little and understood less of church archi- 
 tecture. His great object was to make the church 
 comfortable. To this end he introduced a black 
 cast-iron stove, of Birmingham-gothic design, 
 close under the pulpit, so as to warm himself 
 particularly and the congregation generally by 
 the genial influence of its sulphurous exhalations. 
 The flue extended above the line of pues the 
 whole length of both nave and chancel, and found 
 its exit at the east window, across the tracery of 
 which it was carried, and made to disembogue its 
 filthy volumes of smoke from a cement chimney 
 moulded in the form of a plain gable cross. The 
 
80 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 old doors of the chancel and aisles being much 
 decayed, the pavement damp and broken, and the 
 walls green with dank slime, several reluctant 
 church-goers caught imaginary colds : so a square 
 wooden box, fitted with a green-baize door re- 
 splendent with brass nails, was erected over each 
 doorway inside, at more than twice the cost of 
 entirely new oak doors. The most remarkable 
 feature in the church was the Squire's new pue. 
 It gave the idea of comfort concentrated in the 
 midst of a general blight of human health and 
 happiness. It was a very large enclosure, occu- 
 pying a space fully capable of accommodating at 
 least twenty-five persons on open seats. It was 
 carpeted, curtained round, and furnished with a 
 mahogany drawing-room table and a set of cane 
 chairs. There were two easy chairs, with foot- 
 stools, placed by a small brazen stove on one side, 
 which was duly furnished with fire-irons, grate, 
 and coal-scuttle. Elegantly bound bibles and 
 prayer-books lay upon the table, and costly 
 velvet cushions with fringes and tassels lay on 
 the ground for the use of the occupants if at 
 any time disposed to kneel. When this great 
 improvement had been completed, the rest of 
 the pues were lined, painted, and raised to the 
 same standard height, which was five feet four 
 inches. This was exceedingly convenient on 
 many accounts. No one was obliged to kneel 
 
THE LATTER DAYS. 81 
 
 out of mere decency and for the sake of example ; 
 for the congregation could not see the position 
 of the worshiiyper within. No one, for the same 
 reason, was bound to keep awake, or say the 
 responses, or in any way comply with the orders 
 of the Church. But every one was perfectly satis- 
 fied ; which was all that could possibly be desired ; 
 and the Rector never had a thought beyond this. 
 The altar (a discarded dressing-table belonging 
 to the Rectory, and covered with a piece of coarse 
 baize,) was enclosed by a flimsy railing of deal, 
 the handywork of the village carpenter, who took 
 the old oaken table of 1610 as his perquisite 
 in lieu of payment, and sold it, to furnish the 
 hall of a neighbouring house. In this state the 
 church continued for some years, until suddenly 
 the chancel roof fell in ; when the eastern gable 
 and part of the window were removed, and a flat 
 roof and ceiling erected instead. The incumbent 
 died suddenly, leaving his church in a condition 
 more resembling a stable or an old-store house 
 than a temple of God ; when an eventful period 
 of our little history commences, to which we must 
 proceed to introduce the reader. 
 
82 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. — THE ECCLESIOLOGIST. 
 
 The new Rector was as worthy and well-mean- 
 ing a man as the parishioners of Letherton could 
 wish ; and great was their satisfaction at his ap- 
 pointment to the living. His zeal indeed in the 
 cause of Church restoration was not great, neither 
 was his knowledge of the subject very extensive ; 
 but he was too good a man to acquiesce in the 
 beggarly and neglected state of a place solemnly 
 consecrated to the worship of God. He had some 
 old-fashioned ideas about the " simplicity of Pro- 
 testant worship," and the "neatness" of churches; 
 which made him desire to see the windows glazed 
 and the pues painted and the ceiling whitewash- 
 ed : but of the splendour of the ancient churches 
 he had not the least idea ; or, if he had, he re- 
 garded their furnitures and costly decorations but 
 as part of the superstitious observances from 
 which the Church had been happily freed at 
 the Reformation. Hence he was not at all sur- 
 prised, nor pe haps shocked, at the miserable 
 state of Letherton Church on his first visit to 
 the parish. His eye was familiar to such scenes 
 
THE ECCLESIOLOGIST. 83 
 
 of desolation ; in fact lie had scarcely seen any 
 country church much better in this respect. He 
 thought it was a pity, especially as it would in- 
 volve some considerable expense ; but he medi- 
 tated nothing beyond necessary repairs and a 
 little fresh whitewash and paint. The Rector 
 had however a son at Oxford who had learned 
 to entertain very different views on the subject. 
 Church architecture had long been his most fa- 
 vourite pursuit ; and he had been indefatigable 
 in acquiring by patient labour and industrious 
 research an accurate knowledge of the science. 
 Indeed so far did he carry his fondness for this 
 study, that some of his friends considered him 
 as little short of a downright fanatic. For he 
 had often been found sketching or rubbing brasses 
 alone in a village church, when everybody else 
 was dressing or dining or visiting or driving out ; 
 often too he would go out early in the morning 
 and come home quite late, tired and hungry, with 
 merely a few notes or drawings to shew for his 
 trouble ; so that he was pronounced a harmless 
 good-natured young man, but very extraordinary 
 in his taste and habits. They acknowledged in- 
 deed that he was rather clever in his way, when 
 he could read off an old half-effaced inscription, 
 and tell them both its date and meaning ; or 
 explain the pictures in stained glass, or tell all 
 about a cathedral or ruined abbey ; its Bishops, 
 
84 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 Abbats, and benefactors, its tombs, effigies, sculp- 
 tures, and arrangements. Sometimes he could do 
 this when very great people were present, who 
 were generally considered to know everything : 
 and all admitted on these occasions that he could 
 explain the old armour of a knight, or the dress 
 of a priest, or the heraldry in the windows, a 
 great deal better than they. Besides this, he 
 exhibited great enthusiasm when they shewed 
 great apathy ; and this seldom fails to confer 
 considerable advantage on the active and inter- 
 ested party. He had a vast collection of paper 
 rolls, each containing the coal-black effigy of some 
 grim old fellow he had found in some remote vil- 
 lage church, which nobody had ever heard of. 
 They were very ugly indeed, and seemed very 
 much alike in that and in other respects ; yet 
 he could tell exactly the date of every brass from 
 which he had taken the impression, and could 
 point out the difference in the head-dresses, the 
 armour, nay the very shoes, which no one else in 
 the world would have thought of observing. 
 
 No one exactly knew why this was his pleasure 
 and delight. Most persons thought it a mere an- 
 tiquarian pursuit, and therefore natural enough. 
 One very evangelical clergyman, the neglected and 
 almost desecrated state of whose church he had 
 exposed, used to shake his head, and say he feared 
 he was a worldly young man who cared for little 
 
THE ECCLESIOLOGIST. 85 
 
 beyond ceremonies and external things. But he 
 had motives for the study which lay far deeper 
 than his friends surmised. He did not care for 
 the old churches merely because they were ancient, 
 and contained beautiful or curious things, but 
 because he was deeply interested in the noble 
 works of the great days of the Church, and 
 mourned over the heartless apathy with which 
 the pious gifts and most honourable exertions of 
 the ancient men for the glory of God were viewed 
 by their descendants in the present generation. 
 He could trace in every work of their hands a 
 refined piety and a fervent faith which delighted 
 him the more he unfolded the pages of antiquity, 
 and learnt to decypher the hidden lore which is 
 to be read within the walls of every ancient church. 
 His sensitive mind could look with a melancholy 
 affection at the vestiges of ancient splendour which 
 lingered on the broken walls of a village-church 
 as well as of a ruined abbey or a protestantised 
 cathedral. He knew what it must once have been, 
 and he longed to see it in part at least brought 
 back again to the Church, and the niggardly irre- 
 verent expedients of modern usage more generally 
 reprobated and condemned. In a word, he looked 
 on architecture as a thing of religion, and he 
 loved it because, however degraded it might now 
 be, it was essentially the offspring of the Church. 
 Shortly after he had commenced his residence at 
 
86 
 
 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 Oxford, he had become a member of the Society 
 established in that University for promoting the 
 study of Gothic architecture, and had actively and 
 energetically co-operated with its executive in for- 
 warding its excellent objects. Here he found 
 many congenial minds who could view his favour- 
 ite study in its proper light ; and it was a very 
 great pleasure to him to know that such available 
 means were afforded for uniting the efforts of 
 many in one cause. For he saw that what a 
 thousand could not effect individually, a much 
 smaller body might collectively achieve. He ob- 
 served too that the taste spread as fast as the 
 knowledge of this long-forgotten subject ; many of 
 the clergy now actively promoted and personally 
 directed the repairs of the churches under their 
 charge ; at the risk indeed of some mistakes on 
 their parts as well as some abuse and many hin- 
 derances on the part of others : yet still on the 
 whole with eminent success. The attention of 
 the poor was directed to the beauties of architec- 
 ture which had been hitherto concealed from them ; 
 the rich began to take pride and pleasure in giv- 
 ing costly gifts for the service of the Temple and 
 the Altar j and though in numberless instances 
 their zeal outstripped their judgment, the princi- 
 ple was equally good, and a cheering sign of im- 
 provement. Above all, he felt that attachment to 
 the Church and respect for her ordinances were 
 
THE ECCLESIOLOGIST. 87 
 
 incalculably increased by tbe revival of care for 
 her holy edifices ; and this satisfied him that the 
 study was one of the deepest importance to all. 
 
 One morning our youthful ecclesiologist received 
 the following letter from his father : — 
 
 "Letherton, September, 18 — . 
 " MY DEAR FRANCIS, 
 
 " You will be glad to hear of our intended 
 plans respecting my new church, the present con- 
 dition of which you recollect reprobating in no 
 very measured terms when we inspected it together 
 last July. By the advice of the Rural Dean I 
 have engaged the services of a Mr. Carter, who I 
 hear is a most excellent architect, to draw out 
 plans for the restoration ; and he has sent me a 
 series of designs which I think are exactly what 
 we want. The chancel, as you know, is at present 
 in a wretched state — anything but neat and com- 
 fortable ; indeed it is so damp and disagreeable 
 that it is impossible at present to have the school 
 children sit there during service, which is greatly 
 to be regretted. The east window is quite shut 
 up with boards and the Grecian screen in front of 
 the Communion table. I fear it can hardly be 
 opened the entire length without sacrificing the 
 screen, which is very handsome, and Mr. Carter 
 says it would be a pity to remove it. The stove 
 is to be moved from the side of the Communion 
 
88 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 rails to the middle of the chancel, so that the 
 pipe can go out of the north window without any 
 difficulty. At present you recollect it is carried 
 through the ceiling, which it has blackened a good 
 deal ; besides, the wet comes through in that part, 
 and rusts the stove so much that the clerk says it 
 is quite impossible to make it look bright and 
 clean, which is a great pity. The outside of the 
 walls looks very ragged and rough ; and Mr. C. 
 proposes to cover them entirely with patent ce- 
 ment, which will look, he assures me, just as well 
 as stone. The roof must be altogether new ; it 
 will be rather low, and very plaiii ; I believe of 
 deal, to be grained like oak. The outer covering 
 will be of blue slate ; but very little of that will 
 be visible, as a parapet is to be added, which will 
 hide all but the very top. We are to have two 
 new windows ; and the other two, which I think 
 you called lancets, are to be blocked up, as there is 
 quite enough light without them. This will I hope 
 make the chancel respectable as well as weather- 
 proof — for I must admit that my worthy prede- 
 cessor seems to have left it neither one thing nor 
 the other. A handsome new pulpit is to be 
 erected in front of the chancel arch. I think it 
 rather high, but Mr. Carter assures me the people 
 can both see and hear all the better. The reading 
 desk is on the west side of it, so that I face the 
 whole congregation very conveniently. We must 
 
THE ECCLESIOLOGIST. 89 
 
 have the gallery newly painted and repaired ; and 
 some of the old pues should be a little renewed 
 in the same way, or I am sure no one will ever 
 come into them. There are five large pues in 
 the nave which are scarcely ever used ; I wish 
 I could get them for the poor people, who are 
 wretchedly accommodated at the west end, under 
 the gallery : but I really do not see how we can 
 interfere with the private rights of families. The 
 great pue in the side chapel, near the old monu- 
 ment you so much admired, is a sad eyesore. I 
 hope to persuade the Squire to alter it, or even 
 pull it down, as his family never sit there at 
 church. The nave roof is probably pretty good ; 
 but I think the skylight over the present pulpit 
 is neither necessary nor elegant ; what is your 
 opinion 1 The windows all want glazing ; there 
 are a good many old bits of coloured glass, which 
 Mr. Carter says are of no use at all ; but he thinks 
 perhaps the glazier might make a trifling allow- 
 ance for them. A few old oak seats in the aisles 
 must come down, to make room for new pues, 
 which will assort better with the present appear- 
 ance of the church, to say nothing of the altered 
 state of society, which seems to me to make pues 
 very desirable. We have some thoughts of throw- 
 ing out a south transept for additional accom- 
 modation. 
 
 " I do not know whether we shall get enough 
 
90 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 money for all this ; but the parishioners are quite 
 willing to make a rate which will raise 300/. ; 
 I shall give 200L myself; Lady W. promises 501. ; 
 and several of our old friends at B have pro- 
 fessed their willingness to subscribe something 
 handsome. Then the Squire can hardly give us 
 less than 501. ; so I hope to make up 700/. with- 
 out much difficulty. I think you will give us a 
 donation out of your aunt's legacy of 400/., which 
 will be paid this autumn. I am sure, in asking 
 this, I am but suggesting the way in which above 
 all others you delight to spend your money. I 
 think of commencing immediately, as Mr. Carter 
 says no time should be lost now the autumn is 
 coming on. I forgot to mention that Mr. Carter 
 has lately restored a great many of the churches 
 in the neighbourhood. Indeed he has an im- 
 mense business. Only last week he was engaged 
 
 to build the new town-hall at M after the 
 
 model of the Parthenon, and I am told it will 
 completely establish his fame. 
 
 " Yours, my dear Francis, 
 
 «E. R ." 
 
 Not a little surprised and dismayed was the 
 good Rector at receiving by return of post the fol- 
 lowing answer : — 
 
THE ECCLESIOLOGIST. 91 
 
 — Coll. Oxford, the Feast of S. Matthew. 
 
 "my dear father, 
 
 " I MOST earnestly beseech you to suspend 
 the works you purpose at the parish church till 
 I come down next month. It will only cause 
 three weeks' delay, and I have the most urgent 
 reasons for making the request. 
 
 " Your affectionate son, 
 
 " Francis E ." 
 
 He felt sure that such unusually strong en- 
 treaties must have something of reason in them, 
 though he was at a loss to comprehend what 
 grounds his antiquarian son could have for wish- 
 ing the suspension of the work till his arrival. 
 However, the delay was not great, and as several 
 preliminaries had to be adjusted before he com- 
 menced the restoration, he consented to wait for 
 the time specified. Mr. Carter could not compre- 
 hend the case at all ; but he had heard and read 
 some rather strong abuse of certain architectural 
 societies, and rather more than suspected that ob- 
 jections to his design were in store for him. He 
 could not but feel conscious that he had bestowed 
 very little pains in examining the ancient struc- 
 ture, which abounded with beautiful features and 
 curious detail ; in fact he had preferred random 
 conjecture to laborious investigation, and swept 
 away half the ancient work to make room for 
 original designs of his own. 
 
92 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. — THE ARCHITECT. 
 
 Our student's first care on his arrival from 
 Oxford was to examine leisurely and minutely 
 the old parish church, and to acquaint himself 
 with its original condition by a careful induction 
 founded upon the existing details. He saw at 
 once that the chancel roof was modern, and he 
 could trace the exact height of the ancient tim- 
 bers, which was about that of an equilateral 
 triangle, on the gable of the nave. The windows 
 had been so much altered at various periods, that 
 it was extremely difficult to ascertain their origi- 
 nal forms ; but by removing some portions of the 
 internal plaister he discovered evidences of the 
 north aisle having been pierced with two light 
 Early English windows, the position and propor- 
 tions of one of which he was enabled to obtain. 
 Underneath it there was a string-course of the 
 same date, which was also continued round the 
 south aisle, where Parson Holdworthy's Venetian 
 casements still maintained their position ; this 
 therefore satisfactorily proved that both aisles 
 were coeval with the rest of the church, and that 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 93 
 
 the walls had only been partly rebuilt above the 
 string for the insertion of the perpendicular 
 windows. Now Mr. Carter had not observed 
 these facts ; and had sent drawings of large square 
 windows of late and very poor description, and all 
 precisely of the same size and shape. Similar 
 experiments upon the chancel walls proved emi- 
 nently successful. Two most beautiful single 
 lancet lights were found completely blocked and 
 plaistered over. Inside they had jamb-shafts with 
 floriated capitals, and a bold roll-moulding carried 
 over the arch. Leave was readily obtained from 
 the Rector to open them ; and from seven in the 
 morning till three in the afternoon did our student 
 work with his own hands in removing the stones 
 and rubbish with hammer and pick, and in 
 scraping and cleaning the splays and jambs. And 
 well was he rewarded for his pains. Large por- 
 tions of the ancient painting still adorned the 
 shafts, mouldings, and interior splays ; the ma- 
 sonry of the latter was smooth ashlar, semee with 
 cinquefoils and fleurs-de-lis in distemper colouring, 
 of which amply suflicient was laid bare to render 
 its perfect restoration an easy matter. A blow of 
 the hammer in removing some of the loose rubble 
 which blocked the northern lancet disclosed, to 
 Francis' great delight, a considerable piece of the 
 early mosaic glass yet remaining in the aperture, 
 and tolerably perfect. It was very thick, and al- 
 
94 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 most opaque from corrosion ; the lines were bold 
 and strongly-marked, and rather coarse in detail ; 
 but the original pattern was ascertained, and this 
 was most satisfactory. The blocked east window 
 proved to be a fine Decorated one ; and though 
 traces of the jambs of a triplet of lancets were 
 distinctly visible, he pronounced their restora- 
 tion unadvisable at the sacrifice of a good and 
 perfect work of the succeeding century. Having 
 completed his survey, he made accurate drawings 
 of all the windows as he conceived they had been 
 in their most perfect state, and quietly awaited 
 Mr. Carter's arrival, who had been summoned by 
 the Rector to a conference in presence of his son. 
 The architect was a bustling little man, very 
 full of his own opinion, and very confident in the 
 correctness of his own judgment, with a propor- 
 tionate contempt for w^hat he called " amateur in- 
 terference." He had been brought up as a builder ; 
 but having at the age of twenty-five perpetrated 
 a Roman cement school-house in the Palladian 
 style, and the street front of an hotel in no style 
 at all, he had dubbed himself architect, and con- 
 trived, by the assumption of that more dignified 
 title, to establish a pretty lucrative business under 
 the joint conduct and liabilities of Carter and 
 Crampwell. Crampwell was a young man who 
 had been sent to Greece to sketch and measure 
 the Parthenon and the Erechtheum, and of course 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 95 
 
 returned full of pediments and pilasters from the 
 beautiful idol-houses erected bj the pagans of old. 
 Of national architecture neither knew one tittle. 
 There was but little demand for it in the trade ; 
 so cathedrals and parish churches they looked at 
 only now and then in books, when they were in 
 want of a few Gothic details, as in the present 
 instance ; but Grecian was all the fashion for the 
 style, and patent cement for the material ; so with 
 these essentials for a stock in trade Carter and 
 Crampwell had succeeded in making some noise in 
 the world. They were not particular what they 
 built ; and their performances had indeed been 
 rather of a miscellaneous kind. They had erected 
 a Gothic water-mill for a neighbouring squire of 
 picturesque taste; a dissenting conventicle, two 
 union workhouses, an Egyptian cemetery chapel, 
 two town-halls in the Grecian style, a skew-bridge 
 for a railway (which afterwards fell down, for they 
 were poor hands at engineering,) several Grecian 
 porticos and street fronts, an Italian music-room, 
 a Moorish structure intended for a park lodge, 
 and a Swiss villa. Unfortunately, they had lately 
 undertaken church building and restoration, and 
 had erected one ugly modern, and spoiled several 
 very fine old churches in consequence. 
 
 In his native town Mr. Carter was considered 
 immensely clever ; for by talking a great deal, 
 and now and then insanely rushing through the 
 
96 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 streets with a large roll of paper in his hand, he 
 had acquired the reputation of a first-rate profes- 
 sional man, who was in constant employ, and 
 would only undertake a small work as a special 
 favour to some distinguished patron. He used to 
 boast that he had run in cement from the same 
 moulds (original designs by Cramp well) thirteen 
 shop fronts, nine bow windows, and eighteen door- 
 ways, besides chimneys innumerable and Grecian 
 cornices positively without limit. Indeed so large 
 was his trade in the cement line, that he had com- 
 posed a church porch entirely of this material, 
 which might have been seen for three or four 
 years after its erection, till one unusually wet 
 season it melted imperceptibly away. Such a 
 man was not to be thwarted by the crude ideas of 
 a mere amateur, and that a student in the univer- 
 sity, where nobody learnt anything but Greek and 
 Latin ; so Mr. Carter met our ecclesiologist with 
 something of arrogant confidence lurking on his 
 face. He was however a little disarmed by the 
 mild and courteous manner of the young student ; 
 and the plans being unrolled before the Rector, he 
 submitted with a tolerably good grace to their 
 joint criticisms. 
 
 " It seems to me," said Francis, " that Mr. Car- 
 ter's roof is somewhat too low. The chancel is 
 clearly of the thirteenth century ; and certainly 
 buildings of that date had usually very high 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 97 
 
 pitched roofs ; to say nothing, in the present case, 
 of the mark of the old one being visible on the 
 nave gable, which seems to me conclusive. But 
 perhaps Mr. Carter has some constructive reason 
 to allege against restoring the former pitch, which 
 may not be familiar to me, who am not a pro- 
 fessional man." 
 
 "I assure you, gentlemen," said Mr. Carter, 
 wiping his face and adjusting his spectacles, 
 "modern practice is entirely against high roofs. 
 We consider them a great waste of timber, to say 
 nothing of the weight. A good framing, sir, of 
 Memel timber, rising about five feet in the ridge, 
 and covered with blue slates, has a very neat appear- 
 ance, and will last longer than any of our lives." 
 
 " Six hundred years to wit," said Francis. 
 
 " Why," said Mr. Carter, " you are rather 
 hard upon us there, my dear sir. The fact is, 
 dry rot makes sad havoc of our timber, and I 
 shouldn't like to guarantee my roof to stand quite 
 so long. But the waste of money on lead and 
 timber in the old times, sir, was very prodigious, 
 I do assure you. Quite amazing must have been 
 the ignorance of economy in the dark ages, espe- 
 cially in church-building, sir." 
 
 " I believe it was little understood," observed 
 Francis. " But what do you think would be the 
 extra cost of a chancel roof as high as the old 
 one?" 
 
98 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 " Sixty pounds, sir, at the very least, would be 
 the difference. I could make you a neat design 
 for that sum extra. The cornices and bosses may 
 be run in plaister of Paris, and painted oak ; and, 
 if the mouldings could be clapped on afterwards, 
 it would diminish the expense. Do we say a high 
 roof, sir?" 
 
 " Not on those conditions, I trust," said Fran- 
 cis. " I should beg to omit the bosses, cornices, 
 and mouldings. Something in this way," added 
 he, drawing a sketch of a plain collar-tied and 
 braced pair of principals. " Let the timbers be 
 lofty, and o'pen, and real — the three essentials of a 
 good church roof, — no painting like oak, no plais- 
 ter of Paris ornaments, — and the effect will take 
 care of itself" 
 
 " I protest," said the Rector, " I like the idea, 
 and the sketch is excellent. A high roof we will 
 have, Mr. Carter, since it certainly was so origin- 
 ally, and the additional expense we must try 
 to provide. But what do you propose to cover 
 it with outside T 
 
 " Lead," said Francis. 
 
 The architect held up his hands in amazement. 
 " An hundred and fifty pounds extra at the least," 
 said he. 
 
 " I will guarantee the difference myself, on con- 
 dition that you will agree to a similar covering 
 for the nave, which I suspect has a very noble 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 99 
 
 oak roof under tlie present flat ceiling. At least 
 let us commence by ascertaining what ought to 
 be done, and making our estimates of the cost. 
 Perhaps money may not be wanting in the end, 
 if we engage in the work in faith, and with 
 the full intention of doing the very best in our 
 power." 
 
 " Well," said the Rector, " there can be no 
 harm in that. Put down in the estimate a high 
 roof to the chancel, and a covering of lead for both 
 that and the nave." 
 
 The architect complied, with a slight shrug of 
 
 the shoulders. " And omit the external coating 
 
 of cement and the parapets," said Francis. " We 
 
 can point up the good rough old masonry at 
 
 very small cost, and the roof can have dropping 
 eaves." 
 
 " Now for the windows," said Francis, produ- 
 cing his drawings, which were not a little dif- 
 ferent from the Carter and Crampwell plans. 
 " You will observe that my windows are much 
 smaller than yours, and still less expensive, being 
 either single lancets or plain two-light windows 
 with trefoiled heads and a circle above. These 
 two alone have a little more work ; but I do not 
 think they will be very costly." 
 
 " But, my dear sir," said Mr. Carter, " you ob- 
 serve your windows are of different shapes and 
 sizes, and not set in the wall alike on both sides, 
 
100 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 which is quite contrary to practice, I do assure 
 you. Besides, your designs are quite out of 
 style, the aisles being altogether late" (this, by the 
 way, was quite a guess) "in their details. I assure 
 you, gentlemen, it is quite impossible that the 
 church ever should have had such windows as 
 these." 
 
 " If you will step with me to the church," said 
 Francis, " I will shew you the data I have fol- 
 lowed in my plan for the restoration. You may 
 trace clearly in this place," continued he, when 
 they had entered the church, " the remains of the 
 original jambs and cill, where the old window 
 was blocked up to make room for this Venetian 
 affair ; and here again you see distinctly part 
 of a mullion and the original tracery. And if I 
 mistake not, the old windows will be found en- 
 tire if you remove the bricks and plaister at the 
 west end of the aisles. I endeavoured to open 
 them, but could not succeed without the aid of a 
 workman." 
 
 By Mr. Carter's assistance part of the wall was 
 taken out, and it was even as Francis had pre- 
 dicted ; both windows remained quite perfect 
 under the coating of plaister which had been laid 
 over the blocking masonry. That on the north 
 side was a delicate little triplet of lancets, richly 
 adorned with the tooth-moulding : the other a 
 two-lisrht window with a trefoiled circle in the 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 101 
 
 head. " You see," said Francis, " that the win- 
 dows were not always the same on both sides." 
 
 On removing the plaister internally, more dis- 
 temper colouring was revealed, ir^ a very -perfect 
 state. Mr. Carter observed it Was '■' ^cTeij a bit' ' ' 
 of the old Popish paintings.'" ' ] \ ' ' > '■' V^, \\ 
 
 " The whole walls have hc^il 'tiids decorated,'" 
 said Francis ; " and my researches have led me to 
 the conclusion that even the smallest and hum- 
 blest village churches were very often, if not usu- 
 ally, so adorned. In fact, painting on the walls 
 seems to have been thought almost as essential as 
 stained glass to the windows." 
 
 Mr. Carter's plan for the new pues was next 
 examined. " This pue," said he, " will hold eight 
 — four on the north, two on the east, and two on 
 the west, so as to face the pulpit, — " 
 
 " And turn their backs to the altar," said 
 Francis. 
 
 The Rector held up a finger deprecatory of un- 
 toward interruption. 
 
 " On the side next the Squire's great pue I 
 place an embattled back, six feet seven in height 
 from the ground, which will at once keep the cold 
 out and prevent inquisitive neighbours from look- 
 ing in. On the other side I suspend a curtain 
 on a neat brass rod. The old pues under the gal- 
 lery will do for the poor people very well if re- 
 paired ; or deal forms on a brick floor would come 
 
102 THE CHTJRCH RESTORERS. 
 
 in very reasonably. The school-children will 
 find room in the chancel near the stove. The 
 benches are just far enough to prevent the little 
 boys roasting apples on the bars. The two square 
 pues in tiic^ chancel want new doors and new 
 grtjeoi-baixfe linings ; . but perhaps that may be 
 done By the occupants. The galleries are in very 
 good condition, and handsome, though perhaps 
 a thought too low. New cast-iron pillars and a 
 trifle additional height to the west would be an 
 improvement ; and the tower arch should be 
 newly boarded up to prevent draughts, and make 
 all tight and comfortable for the singers." 
 
 " What do you think of the present pues ?" 
 asked the Rector of his son. " The arrange- 
 ment seems to me very inconvenient, and I fear a 
 great deal of room is lost. Shall we adopt Mr. 
 Carter's plan 1 This row of seven new deal pues 
 in the aisles, with brass handles and locks to the 
 doors, and the name and number in a quatrefoil 
 panel, seems very neat and convenient." 
 
 " You well know my own opinion is entirely in 
 favour of open seats. And I have great hopes, if 
 you will allow me to point out to such of your 
 parishioners as may object to try them, their 
 manifest advantages in appearance, comfort, and 
 convenience over modern pues, the more reason- 
 able at least will be inclined to comply with my 
 proposal." 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 103 
 
 "Well," said the Rector, "we will not deter- 
 mine this till we have consulted further about 
 it. But let us see how Mr. Carter proposes to 
 find me a vestry and a Rector's pue." 
 
 " The vestry," said Mr. Carter, " might come 
 behind the Communion table, which could be 
 moved forward a yard or two, and an eight-foot 
 screen erected about where the present rails are. 
 We could easily gothicise this Grecian screen ; 
 and I should say the tables of Commandments 
 might be made to open by way of a door, so 
 that you could come out through the Creed on 
 the other side, which would have a striking effect. 
 In fact the people could hear and see a great deal 
 better if the chancel was a little curtailed. The 
 length of the old chancels is exceedingly incon- 
 venient ; indeed we generally omit them in our 
 practice, though some of the clergy of late have 
 insisted on having them retained. I should have 
 recommended pulling down the chancel and build- 
 ing a small apse with the materials, which would 
 have been cheaper than the new roof and pave- 
 ment. But perhaps you might wish to leave it 
 as it is, considering the new prejudice in favour 
 of chancels." 
 
 " I am not sure," said the Rector, " that I 
 differ very far from Mr. Carter on this point. 
 The long chancels are certainly inconsistent with 
 the simplicity and purity of Protestant worship. 
 
104 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 I cannot see that we are bound to retain any of 
 the arrangements of Popery at the present day. 
 Certainly, if I were building a new church, I 
 should not have such a chancel as this, unless 
 indeed it were for the purpose of holding more 
 people. But when church accommodation is so 
 urgently wanted, and money is so difficult to 
 raise, to waste hundreds of pounds in building a 
 large empty chancel for mere show, does seem to 
 me actually wrong." 
 
 " My dear sir," said Francis warmly, " on what 
 principle and on what authority can you presume, 
 on the mere weak and worthless grounds of expe- 
 diency, to set aside the universal practice of the 
 English Church for at least a thousand years ? 
 the practice too of the Reformed Church, as 
 exemplified in every building that I am ac- 
 quainted with, or have ever heard of, until the 
 last half-century, when the wretched effects of 
 economy, ignorance, and contempt for Catholic 
 usage and precedent have set at defiance all 
 established rule, and made our new churches in 
 no respect better than conventicles. You will 
 admit that ' the novelties of Popery ' could not 
 much affect England in the Saxon times ; yet 
 Saxon churches built long before the Conquest 
 have chancels exactly the same as this. And 
 considerable as is the difference in some points 
 between the fully developed Christian style and 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 105 
 
 the earliest Basilican churches, this fact is quite 
 certain, that the latter are altogether against the 
 modern notion of omitting chancels. Recollect too 
 the absolute injunction of our Rubric, that ' chan- 
 cels shall remain as in times past / that is, as 
 before the Reformation. But to take the highest 
 grounds : does the chancel convey to a religious 
 mind no esoteric meaning ? Is it a mere oblong 
 projection of the nave towards the east 1 Do we 
 not instinctively feel that while the nave is, as it 
 were, the vestibule, the chancel is the palace of 
 the Great King ? Can we see its solemn screen 
 — its most ancient cancelli across the entrance 
 arch, — without hearing the Church say to the 
 careless intruder, thus far shalt thou come and no 
 further .? The use of the chancel is just the same 
 to us as it was before the Reformation; namely, 
 to receive the clergy as distinct from the laity ; 
 the communicants from the non-communicants ; 
 the priest who offers prayer, from the people who 
 follow and join in it. The chancel is the choir 
 of the angels ; the Church triumphant ; the Holy 
 of Holies. It is the feature which essentially 
 distinguishes the form and character of a church 
 from a secular building. It holds apart from the 
 vulgar gaze the seat of the blessed Mysteries ; 
 and by the superior sanctity shewn by its screen- 
 ed partition and vacant space, it suggests greater 
 awe and reverence in approaching that heavenly 
 
106 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 throne. Granting that in its present degraded 
 and desecrated condition, a chancel is little cal- 
 culated to inspire such feelings of awe and devo- 
 tion — as accordingly, and in consequence, we 
 find they do not exist in ordinary minds — we 
 surely do wrong in abolishing as useless that very 
 feature, w^hose reverent use would go far to bring 
 back the lost feeling of a holy Presence in a 
 church." 
 
 " Well, well," said the Rector, smiling rather 
 incredulously, " it is a pretty theory, and a harm- 
 less, perhaps. However, we will let our chancel 
 stand, and with your high leaden roof too, as I 
 hope. The vestry can be added, as I think 
 you once suggested, on the north side of the 
 chancel." 
 
 " That is unquestionably the most correct posi- 
 tion," said Francis. " I wish you could see the 
 exquisite Decorated revestry at Willingham, near 
 Cambridge. The roof is of stone, of extremely 
 acute pitch, and of singular timber-like construc- 
 tion internally, such as I remember to have seen 
 in the porches of Careby and Benington, Lincoln- 
 shire. Why so few of these sacristies remain, 
 especially of early date, seems to me difficult to 
 explain. You may frequently trace the marks 
 of such buildings, long demolished, at the north- 
 east of the chancel. But I do not think they 
 occur in parish churches, unless very rarely, be- 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 107 
 
 fore the fourteenth century, and I have often 
 been puzzled to know how they contrived to do 
 without a building which we are apt to consider 
 at least as essential as the chancel itself." 
 
 " I built a beautiful vestry," said Mr. Carter, 
 " at the new church lately erected from my designs 
 
 at C . A beautiful vestry it was, gentlemen, 
 
 though I say it; and I flatter myself a neater 
 church would not easily be found to match it. 
 We placed it just behind the Communion table ; 
 a square embattled turret running up behind 
 the nave j above, the organ ; below, the vestry. 
 We had chairs, tables, closets, looking-glasses, 
 sofa, everything completely comfortable for an 
 elegant preacher. I do assure you, gentlemen, 
 it was the sweetest thing I ever turned out of my 
 office; and I am happy to add it was very highly 
 approved ; — in fact, it was preferred to a design 
 with a chancel as long as the nave. The com- 
 mittee wanted more of ornament, and less of chan- 
 cel ; and Mr. Crampwell's cement pinnacles stood 
 them in very reasonably. The pulpit and desk 
 were on each side of the Communion rails, so 
 that both singers and preacher were in one place, 
 and faced the people : an improved arrangement 
 which I have the honour to have first introduced. 
 In the vestry, immediately behind the Commu- 
 nion, was a commodious water — " 
 
 " Where was the font V interrupted Francis. 
 
108 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 " The font, sir, was inserted in a lower panel 
 of the pulpit, (quite a new idea, I assure you,) 
 so as to waste no room by being placed on the 
 floor. Allow me, gentlemen, just to draw you 
 a slight sketch of that church. Here, you see, 
 is the nave, sixty by sixty ; the very best form 
 for hearing the preacher. Tower with four large 
 clock-faces, and four octagonal pinnacles, one a 
 chimney. Windows, early English ; twenty feet 
 high by three wide, giving sufficient light both 
 above and below the commodious galleries. I do 
 assure you the whole thing is a perfect model 
 of a " 
 
 " Protestant preaching-house," again interposed 
 Francis, losing all patience. " Pray, Mr. Car- 
 ter, can you give me any information about this 
 stone staircase in the turret close to the chancel 
 arch?" 
 
 " That, sir," answered the Architect, " doubt- 
 less led to the galleries in the times of Popery." 
 
 Francis looked at his father significantly. " I 
 observe," said he, " a small doorway in the north 
 wall of the chancel. Do you suppose there was 
 any building on this side which has since been 
 demolished 1" 
 
 " No doubt the confessional, sir," replied Mr. 
 Carter, not exactly perceiving the object of these 
 questions. " The old monks used to get the 
 nuns into the churches, and make 'em confess 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 109 
 
 their sins. Dark ages, sir, very dark indeed, in 
 the times of Popery." At which Mr. Carter 
 complacently took snuif, and then wiped his 
 spectacles, as if to see as far into the darkness 
 as possible. 
 
 " Very enlightened at present,'* retorted Fran- 
 cis, who never could bear the absurd expression 
 " dark ages," "when we can first misrepresent and 
 then despise the rites and the religion, to say 
 nothing of the glorious buildings of our fore- 
 fathers. I only wish we would try to imitate 
 their numerous excellences, their beautiful faith, 
 and their boundless liberality in the service of 
 God and the Church. Who, for instance, would 
 give money enough in our days to build such 
 a church as this, in a remote village 1 " 
 
 " Superstition, sir," said Mr. Carter, with a 
 theological air, " did this and a great deal more. 
 When the old priests made people give all their 
 property to the Church to buy forgiveness of their 
 sins, it was no wonder at all." 
 
 " There are," said Francis, " hundreds of pa- 
 rish churches, ay, milage churches, which would 
 now cost from twenty to fifty thousand pounds 
 to build and furnish in their ancient style : and 
 I say this advisedly. Now, do you suppose that 
 you could raise such a sum in this place by 
 making the parishioners and landowners believe 
 the doctrine you assert ? " 
 
110 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 Mr. Carter was of opinion that it might not 
 be easy to raise fifty pounds amongst them by 
 such means, unless the Squire were to give up 
 his estates. 
 
 " And supposing he did," rejoined Francis, 
 " what would his descendants do ? The family 
 would necessarily be impoverished, and perhaps 
 soon forgotten or extinct. Depend upon it, there 
 were other means of raising these amazing struc- 
 tures, — amazing in their ruin, desecration, and 
 decay, — for what they must have once been I 
 cannot realise to my mind without a feeling of 
 unbounded admiration. Death-bed extortion is 
 little more than a fable of modern days to ac- 
 count for the vastly superior liberality of the 
 ancient. I do not defend all the ways and means 
 formerly adopted to raise money for building 
 churches and other religious purposes. Pardons 
 and indulgences, and offerings to relics, often pro- 
 cured great wealth, and by methods by no means 
 creditable in all cases. But there must have been 
 a noble spirit among the wealthy of old in offer- 
 ing the best of their substance, and the first- 
 fruits of all their successes, to the glory of God. 
 In times when estates were many times as large 
 as they are now, and when building was done 
 gradually, or at least very much slower than at 
 present, I can conceive the noble owner of a 
 great lordship giving a large annual sum, with 
 
THE ARCHITECT. Ill 
 
 unlimited supplies of stone and timber, for build- 
 ing churches in every village not yet provided 
 with them, which was comprised within the wide 
 circuit of the manor. Labour was probably cheap ; 
 perhaps very often in such a cause entirely gra- 
 tuitous ; but of this we know little, and still less 
 about the craft and hire of the Freemasons. 
 I have often amused myself with the problem, 
 who built the church of St. Andrew Heckington, 
 in Lincolnshire, It is a small village, and has, 
 to my mind, the finest parochial church in Eng- 
 land. And scarcely two miles from it is another 
 church at Ewerby, only inferior to it in the rich- 
 ness of its details. Perhaps some great family 
 then resident near the spot, now long forgotten — 
 on earth. I dare say this very church was built 
 at the cost of the owner of the great castle in the 
 reign of Henry III." 
 
 " Well,'' said the Rector, " Mr. Carter will 
 probably thank you as little for your conjectures 
 on the subject, as for your long oration on the 
 excellence of ancient churches, the merits of 
 which I believe he has no desire to dispute. We 
 must now spare Mr. Carter, whom we have de- 
 tained a very long time ; and we will very shortly 
 let him know the result of our consultations." 
 
 " My dear sir," said Francis, when the Archi- 
 tect had made his bow ; " one thing is perfectly 
 clear to me at least ; and I felt sure of it from 
 
112 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 the moment I had read your letter. We must 
 give up this Mr. Carter, or we shall throw away 
 a thousand pounds on as bad a piece of patch- 
 work as has been perpetrated even in these very 
 tasteless days. Though you do not perhaps enter 
 into the subject as warmly as myself, I feel sure 
 you would wish everything to be done well ; in- 
 deed you engaged Mr. Carter, as your letter in- 
 formed me, under the full conviction of his com- 
 petency ; a point which I boldly impugn, and 
 assert that he is not the man to be entrusted with 
 a sin2:le detail of church architecture." 
 
 " I confess," said the Rector, " I cannot under- 
 stand how you, a mere amateur, can be qualified 
 to decide on the merits of a man who has certain- 
 ly spent his life in the profession, and who must 
 know the practical part of his business much 
 better than you can teach him. You must con- 
 vince me of this before I commit myself to a step 
 which, from its uncourteousness as well as incon- 
 venience, I am very reluctant to take." 
 
 "Of the ^9?'ac^im^ part," answered Francis, 
 " meaning the building, stone-cutting, masonry, 
 calculations, estimates, working drawings, and ge- 
 neral office business, I of course know little com- 
 pared with any experienced architect. But of the 
 spirit of ancient design, of symbolism and ritual- 
 ism, no unimportant though greatly neglected 
 branches of the science ; in a word, of its principles. 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 113 
 
 I conceive tliat I may claim some knowledge, in- 
 dependently of mechanical or professional skill. 
 A church architect ought surely to know the ori- 
 ginal meaning and use of the parts he copies ; he 
 should understand fully the requirements of 
 rubric and canons ; he should he thoroughly 
 aware of what the Reformers allowed and 
 what they intended to forbid ; what is due 
 to authority and what to mere caprice and 
 laxity of usage. Again, I believe that my actual 
 research has been much greater, and I am sure my 
 interest is much deeper, in the study than Mr. 
 Carter's. He evidently views the art according to 
 his very narrow and prejudiced notions, which he 
 has no desire to alter, because he has no heart 
 whatever in the profession, no care beyond that of 
 personal profit. He regards it with the cold mat- 
 ter-of-fact eye which has the same pleasure in 
 viewing a theatre as a church ; a Grrecian pedi- 
 ment as a Decorated spire. He does not delight 
 in architecture as a churchman. Is there nothing 
 in this ? Should not there be a feeling of deep 
 interest and devotion in a man who enjoys the 
 high privilege of designing an earthly House for 
 his God j and should not the reflection call forth 
 the highest energies of his mind 1 Yet there is 
 surprisingly little of this natural and essential 
 train of thought to be traced either in the works 
 or the conversation of most modern architects ; 
 
 I 
 
114 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 and certainly none whatever manifests itself in 
 your friend Mr. Carter." 
 
 " It is certainly true," said the Kector, " that 
 modern architects are deficient in something, the 
 want of which affects the character of their works. 
 But I am hardly satisfied with the reasons gene- 
 rally alleged to account for the fact." 
 
 "Listen, then," said Francis. "I assign the 
 acknowledged inferiority of modern architecture 
 (to speak generally) to three principal causes : 
 the depraved taste of the day ; the exclusively 
 secular character of the science ; and the want of 
 heart, that is, energy and enthusiasm, in the 
 generality of its professors. Now a few words 
 on each of these heads will suffice. Must you 
 not expect an architect to devote his time and 
 attention to that branch of his profession which 
 is the most lucrative to himself ? It is not a high 
 motive, I admit, but it is a natural and generally 
 a necessary one. Now, if public taste is distracted 
 from the due appreciation of any one consistent 
 and national style of art, such as once prevailed 
 exclusively in this land, and is led by habit and 
 the force of example to view Grecian, Moorish, 
 Romanesque, Italian, Gothic, Rustic, Egyptian, 
 merely as so many legitimate varieties, having 
 equal merit and therefore equal claim to attention, 
 out of which all are free to choose what they like 
 best and think the prettiest for church, factory, 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 115 
 
 or village ; is it not inevitable^ first, tliat they can 
 understand none, and secondly, that competing and 
 rival architects will be tempted to pander to their 
 ignorant fancies in the design and erection of 
 every possible absurdity 1 Anciently, the greatest 
 architects knew only one style : I do not mean 
 only Gothic, but only one kind or modification of 
 Gothic, the particular variety prevalent in their 
 time. TheT/ could not know or study any other. 
 And the advantage of this exclusive practice is 
 seen in their glorious works. Yet there are per- 
 sons who gravely maintain that what they call a 
 comprehensvve knowledge of the true theory of ar- 
 chitecture can only be acquired by an enlarged 
 view of the science in all its branches and bound- 
 less varieties. Now observe the consequence of 
 the comprehensive system ; the practical, if not 
 the necessary, result of designing a Grecian portico 
 one day, a Gothic steeple the next, and an 
 Egyptian cemetery the third. All are bad — abso- 
 lutely bad and execrable designs. It is clear the 
 said system does not enlarge j it only confuses the 
 ideas and corrupts the taste. I do not hesitate to 
 declare my conviction that it is impossible to be 
 great at once in two such opposite and conflicting 
 styles as Grecian and Gothic. Very few moderns 
 indeed have shewn themselves tolerable in either. 
 There is a spirit in both — in Gothic at least I can 
 answer for it — which requires for its full compre- 
 
116 THE CHUECH RESTOEERS. 
 
 hension long and painful thought and observa- 
 tion ; a religious view of the science ; a sincere 
 admiration for its ancient professors, and not a 
 scoffing contempt for their holy Faith ; an humble 
 teachable inclination to follow rather than to in- 
 vent. The restrictions of modern caprice are 
 also fatal to a correct system of architectural 
 practice. An approved architect, who understands 
 his profession and can be trusted, is insulted by 
 the alterations made in his design by a church- 
 building committee of tradesmen and country 
 gentlemen. Such an architect, once nominated, 
 should be allowed to have his way in carrying out 
 unmolested the instructions he may have received. 
 " Secondly, I say that architecture is secular- 
 ized. I mean it is no longer, as a science, regard- 
 ed as a thing of religion and of the Church. The 
 same man who builds a gin-palace for Evil builds a 
 temple for Religion : and this is universal. I doubt 
 whether many persons consider the designing of 
 the one in any different light from the other. 
 They are both 'jobs.' Who would now believe 
 that fasting and prayer, confession and meditation, 
 and the holy Eucharist, were the preparations of 
 the ancient builders for commencing a church ? I 
 delight in believing that Angels themselves dic- 
 tated the designs of the great cathedrals and 
 abbeys ; that their builders obtained inspiration 
 and immediate influences which are not vouch- 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 117 
 
 safed to us. tlie dulness and blindness of those 
 who cannot feel these palpable causes of ancient 
 superiority : who in ignorance presume to speak 
 disparagingly of the ' dark ages ! ' We must 
 have, as they had, church architects, either exclu- 
 sively so, or men at least capable of drawing a 
 wide distinction between the purpose and the cha- 
 racter of sacred and secular buildings, and of 
 treating each accordingly. 
 
 "Lastly, want of zeal and real love for the 
 science is a very common fault. Some few archi- 
 tects indeed pay a visit to Greece and Rome ; but 
 where is the man who devotes either time or 
 money to journey through his native land for the 
 purposes of research and improvement ? Those 
 who do, know well what a quantity of enlarged 
 notions, how many novel details and combinations 
 might be thus added to the stale and very 
 limited ideas of most modern builders. A church 
 architect should ever be learning, ever searching, 
 ever examining, sketching, measuring, analysing 
 ancient examples. Yet how few modern archi- 
 tects, once settled in their offices, care to add to 
 their small stock of Gothic by the painful collec- 
 tion of new examples ! A few conventional man- 
 nerisms culled from books, often destitute, in their 
 application, of ordinary correctness, form the 
 capital and resource of half our celebrated 
 builders. 
 
118 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 " Protestantism in truth is a very hopeless 
 school for the revival of Church architecture. 
 Much as our ritual allows us, prejudice and 
 apathy will never delight in carrying out its 
 intentions by what we call superfluous decora- 
 tion of churches. Cheapness, convenience, and 
 simplicity — that is, meanness, bodily comfort, 
 and naked meagreness — are the three requisites 
 for modern churches. The privilege of giving 
 largely to such purposes is felt by very few ; 
 and the recognised principle of providing all at 
 once a vast amount of church accommodation for 
 our neglected millions must for a time render 
 a return to ancient ways positively impracticable. 
 In some few instances, where very noble sums 
 have been contributed, and the best and highest 
 intentions evinced, the work has unfortunately 
 fallen into the hands of bad architects, who have 
 erected the most costly churches in the worst 
 possible taste, and completely at variance with 
 ancient precedent. Some recent examples of de- 
 votion and munificence would have done honour 
 to any age, and perhaps the architects employed 
 have not been wanting in zeal and energy ; they 
 have failed through the fault of the time, and 
 from their mistaken notions of ritualism and 
 catholic authority. On the other hand, there are 
 architects living, who, I believe, could achieve 
 almost anything, if their genius had but scope for 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 119 
 
 display. It is consoling to hope that the class of 
 architects to which Mr. Carter belongs is now 
 fast becoming extinct, and that men of real taste 
 and genius are everywhere rising around us." 
 
 " And you really believe," said the Rector, who 
 had listened with attention, "that I have been 
 mistaken in this Mr. Carter, and that it is 
 advisable to cancel the engagement in the best 
 manner I can 1 " 
 
 " I think it is a positive duty to yourself and 
 the Church to do so," answered his son. " Let 
 me beg you to grant me this favour ; to nominate 
 an architect of my own choice, and to get rid of 
 Mr. Carter at once by a brief and straightforward 
 discharge." 
 
 " I think you are right," said the Rector after 
 a little thought. " We shall have something to 
 pay for these plans and drawings ; but we had 
 better sacrifice that, and obtain the assistance of 
 some architect who perhaps will cause us less 
 expense in the end." 
 
 Permission once granted, Francis lost no time 
 in informing Mr. Carter that his father had re- 
 solved upon a more extensive and entirely differ- 
 ent plan of restoring the parish church of Le- 
 therton, for which his drawings would not be 
 available. He regretted that Mr. Carter's further 
 services must necessarily be dispensed with, and 
 expressed his readiness to discharge all the costs 
 
120 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 that had been incurred. Having done this, he 
 dispatched a letter to a young architect with 
 whom he had some acquaintance. In two days 
 he arrived at Letherton. 
 
 Mr. Wilkinson was a graduate of Oxford, 
 where Francis had first seen him. He had re- 
 linquished the study of the law, which his great 
 talents well qualified him to prosecute with suc- 
 cess, for that of an architect. An early love for 
 the Church and reverence for her holy things had 
 become deeply rooted in his mind by the writings 
 and conversation of more than one excellent divine 
 whom he had the happiness to know during his 
 residence at the University. No contrast could 
 be more marked than that between him and Mr. 
 Carter. The one was all reverence, humility, dis- 
 trustfulness of his own talent and worthiness ; 
 the other careless, boastful, and ignorant. Mr. 
 Wilkinson had not had so much professional 
 experience ; but his thoughtful and minute at- 
 tention had for years been devoted to Church 
 architecture, and his refined taste enabled him 
 deeply to appreciate the excellences of the an- 
 cient artists. The Rector at once perceived and 
 remarked to his son this difference of character. 
 
 " Mr. Carter," he said, " was whistling with his 
 hat on in the chancel ; Mr. Wilkinson I saw, 
 when I entered without his knowledge, kneeling 
 on the ground before the altar." 
 
THE ARCHITECT. 121 
 
 "The right spirit in which to commence 
 Church Restoration," thought Francis. 
 
 Mr. Carter's drawings were shewn to his suc- 
 cessor in the work. He could not help smiling. 
 
 " These windows/' said he, " are the very same 
 that Carter placed in one of his union work- 
 houses, and I suspect copied from the same work- 
 ing drawing." 
 
 " Then I think," said Francis, " that we may 
 venture to consign them to the flames. They 
 will be sent, if we return them, to some other 
 church which this gentleman is allowed to spoil." 
 
 Mr. Wilkinson entirely approved of Francis' 
 suggestions respecting the roofs and windows. 
 The first great object, he said, in restoring a 
 church was to ascertain its original condition, 
 and the next to replace exactly every feature and 
 detail. " I never try to improve^'' he observed ; 
 " I would much rather retain a plain early "win- 
 dow than insert a rich one of my own. Every 
 old feature we sacrifice, however plain it may 
 be, we obliterate somewhat of those glorious 
 works which were bequeathed to us to preserve 
 and perpetuate, and which now form our models 
 for imitation. 
 
122 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 CHArTER XI. — THE SQUIRE. 
 
 The family of the Merchant Smiths had in 
 their turn resigned the manor of Letherton to a 
 new possessor. The grandson of the last pur- 
 chaser of the estate, Mr. Merton, was the present 
 Squire. He lived in a large new-fashioned man- 
 sion, erected by his father on the site of the anci- 
 ent castle, which had been so completely razed to 
 the ground, and carried away piece-meal for mend- 
 ing roads and for building-materials, that not a 
 vestige now remained except a sloping terrace in 
 front of the hall, formerly part of the moat. Mr. 
 Merton's income was very large, and for the most 
 part expended liberally and usefully on his own 
 estate, where he constantly resided. Unfortunately 
 the great object of his life was self. His sole 
 ambition was to be a great man, and to maintain 
 a more luxurious and splendid establishment than 
 any family in the neighbourhood. With this en- 
 grossing care he could not be a highly religious 
 man ; but he called himself a churchman, because 
 he was somehow attached to " the establishment" 
 by a kind of hereditary feeling, or political bias, or 
 
THE SQUIRE. 123 
 
 natural inclination ; perhaps he hardly knew from 
 which of these motives, for he was extremely 
 ill-informed, and full of prejudice, though his 
 good-nature and readiness to conciliate made him 
 less obstinate in maintaining his opinions than 
 many persons of the same class. He was on the 
 most friendly terms with the Rector, and the mem- 
 bers of their respective families were not less 
 kindly disposed towards each other ; so that in 
 a very short time an intimacy was established 
 between them. 
 
 Mr. Merton was walking in the garden one 
 morning when the Rector was announced, accom- 
 panied by his son and Mr. Wilkinson the archi- 
 tect. " I called," said the Rector, " to consult with 
 you about our parish church, in which, as you are 
 aware, I contemplate extensive repairs, and I 
 think my son and my architect are in league 
 together to run me into expenses in the process 
 which we shall be very ill able to meet without 
 your most liberal aid." 
 
 Francis had but just arrived from Oxford, and 
 had not seen the Squire before. " The architectural 
 gentleman, I presume," said the latter, bowing, 
 " who prefers cold churches to hot dinners ; a gen- 
 tleman, I may venture to add, of very singular 
 and incomprehensible taste. I assure you, Mr. 
 Frank, I have heard of you and your society at 
 Oxford, My wife is quite afraid of Popery, and 
 
124 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 she hears that you are going to put up stone altars 
 and images and painted windows and crosses and 
 what not, in the old parish church. Now, sir, 
 what are we to say of you when such things are 
 reported ? I am half afraid of you myself, though 
 I profess high-church principles. I always sus- 
 pect Oxford men. Depend upon it, sir, their real 
 attachment to the Protestant establishment is 
 more than questionable." 
 
 Having delivered himself of this sagacious re- 
 mark, (which he had read in the newspaper that 
 very morning,) the Squire folded his arms and 
 waited calmly for an answer to the charge. 
 
 Francis admitted that he meditated consider- 
 able alterations in the church, if he could per- 
 suade his father to carry them into effect, and 
 obtain suflEicient funds. " And first," said he, " I 
 intend that you and your family shall give up to 
 me your great pue in the chancel, and sit on open 
 seats in the nave, without any embellishment of 
 crimson linins^s or stuffed seats or luxurious 
 cushions ; in short, without any mark of distinc- 
 tion whatever from those of the poorest parish- 
 ioners." 
 
 The Squire smiled, and said really it was an 
 excellent idea. 
 
 " Secondly," continued Francis, " Mrs. Merton 
 is to give a stained window. Thirdly, the Miss 
 Mertons are to exercise their acknowledged skill 
 
THE SQUIRE. 125 
 
 in needle-work and embroidery on some patterns 
 with which I will furnish them for the use of the 
 church. Fourthly, you are to supply us with 
 funds. Lastly, you are heartily to approve of the 
 work in the end, and confess you do not repent 
 of having followed my advice." 
 
 This was said so gravely that the Squire did 
 not know what to think of his new friend ; so he 
 made no direct answer, and merely inquired what 
 was going to be done at the church. 
 
 " I will tell you at once how the chancel is to 
 be finished," said Francis. " A new roof, covered 
 with lead, all the windows filled with stained 
 glass, pavement laid with coloured tiles, altar of 
 stone, mth new plate, candlesticks, and drapery ; 
 the steps raised, the pues, panels, and marble 
 monuments cleared away, and carved oaken stalls 
 placed along the wall on each side, and a screen 
 in the chancel arch. This we calculate will cost 
 about six hundred pounds. Now the whole 
 amount we can raise will be scarcely eight hun- 
 dred ; so my father intends, I know, to ask you 
 plainly to afford us liberal help. We hope to 
 make Letherton church the most perfect model of 
 correct and beautiful decoration in the diocese. 
 We cannot, I fear, inspire you at once with 
 that fine old English spirit — call it chivalrous, 
 religious, or superstitious, as you will — which in- 
 duced the lord of the manor of olden times to 
 
126 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 regard with such love and reverence his parish 
 church ; but we hope to convert you to our ideas 
 on the duty and necessity of giving to the glory 
 of God. They were great days, truly, when the 
 ivy-clad grey tower and embowered roofs were 
 everywhere seen nestling under the wing of the 
 old hall, with its high irregular gables, its prim 
 terraces, and its long avenues of oak and chesnut. 
 That fine old hall — with its great blazing hearths 
 and hospitable tables, ever open to the poor ; that 
 glorious old park of five hundred years' growth ; 
 the woods around, the rippling river below ; the 
 church-spire overlooking them all ; quiet, secluded, 
 beautiful in its peace : where the old banners 
 wave over the knightly effigies of ancestral tombs ; 
 where the old family scutcheons grow dim and 
 moulder on the wall ; where sleep the dead as they 
 have passed in their turn out of the mansion — 
 the cradle of their youth and the placid abode of 
 their old age — to the green church-yard, their 
 long home. I do believe that the first object of 
 care and pride to these fine old gentry was their 
 church. How could it be otherwise with such 
 associations 1 They adorned, endowed, and beau- 
 tified it with a zeal befitting the object on which 
 it was bestowed ; and they showed a finer and 
 more catholic feeling for their religion than we 
 often meet with now-a-days. This is the charac- 
 ter I do long to see again ; for I fear it is now 
 
THE SQUIRE. 127 
 
 well nigh extinct. Our modern Italian villas and 
 selfish luxuries, our gilded drawing-rooms but 
 ruinous churches, argue little indeed of the ancient 
 spirit. You must pardon me if I speak freely on 
 a subject which I have so much at heart." 
 
 " I hope," said the Squire, " you will not sup- 
 pose we poor moderns are entirely destitute of cor- 
 rect feelings. My attachment to the establish- 
 ment, sir, is warm and sincere ; and though, per- 
 haps, I do not quite realize your idea of the fine 
 old English gentleman, at least I will give you 
 a proof of my sincerity by promising two hundred 
 pounds towards the repairs of my parish church." 
 
 Before the Kector could express his thanks for 
 so unexpected a donation, Mrs. Merton came up 
 and joined the party. She was glad to hear the 
 church was to be made comfortable, but she 
 ventured to hope there would be no crosses nor 
 pictures of saints in the windows. 
 
 The Rector thought it not unlikely there might 
 be both, as their object was to restore the church 
 as nearly as they could to its ancient appearance 
 — consistently, of course, with the simplicity of 
 protestant worship. 
 
 " I hope," said his lady, " Mr. Merton will not 
 sanction any such thing. I cannot understand 
 the use of wasting large sums on making old 
 churches as fine as theatres. The worship of the 
 heart, and not of the eye, is what we want. You 
 
128 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 will never make people religious by your altars 
 and candlesticks and painted glass." 
 
 " I am no advocate," said the Rector, " for the 
 captivating splendours of the Romish Church ; 
 but I do think people are never likely to feel any 
 religious or devotional emotions — to say nothing 
 of ordinary reverence or respect — while churches 
 remain in their present state. My own experience 
 inclines me to believe that the Church Service but 
 rarely produces any deep sensations of humility 
 or devotion in ordinary minds while performed in 
 the slovenly way and in the dirty and desecrated 
 churches we too commonly see. The mind must be 
 acted on by the senses. It is a necessary condition 
 of our being. Religion must be aesthetic. Where 
 you see before you neglect, indifference, irreverence 
 the most startling, dirt, dilapidation and decay 
 around the very altar of God, the feelings are too 
 often frozen and blighted by the miserable spec- 
 tacle. A sad consciousness of something like 
 hypocrisy comes over my mind when I hear of per- 
 sons professing to pray earnestly in such places. 
 To beg of God a blessing on ourselves and on our 
 own homes while we outrage common decency and 
 respect to His House and His Sacraments, can 
 hardly, I fear, be anything else." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Merton, " you will allow the 
 early Church had no such aids to devotion. They 
 had nothing but common rooms or perhaps wooden 
 
THE SQUIRE. 129 
 
 slieds for their worship. Yet they could pray at 
 least as well as we can in the finest cathedrals." 
 
 "They had the very best they could possibly 
 procure," said the Rector, " and they knew it. 
 Why do not we carry out the same principle, and 
 give to God the very best we can procure 1 This 
 is all I ask. But we give the very worst, and we 
 know and feel all the time that it is the very 
 worst ; and herein lies the difference between the 
 two cases." 
 
 " But do you not think so much of cold cere- 
 mony and external form is incompatible with true 
 spiritual piety ?" asked Mrs. Merton. 
 
 " That is a conclusion," answered the Rector, 
 "which cannot logically be drawn : indeed there 
 is no conceivable reason why both should not exist 
 together. On the contrary, the one will spring 
 out of the other — if by ' cold ceremony' you mean 
 the decencies of Christian worship. If there 
 were more of ' true spiritual piety' you would 
 probably see a great deal more of such decencies 
 than we now possess. Beautiful churches, I grant, 
 will not alone produce religion ; it is religion 
 which must produce beautiful churches. If the 
 alternative were ceremony or vital religion, no one 
 could hesitate which to choose. The saying of the 
 saintly Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester at the time 
 of the Conquest, is much to the point. He feared 
 that the one was giving way to the other, and well 
 
 E 
 
130 THE CHURCH EESTORERS. 
 
 remarked that ' the good old time -was, when men 
 knew not how to build magnificent piles, but 
 thought any roof good enough, if under it they 
 could offer themselves a willing sacrifice to God. 
 It is a miserable change if we neglect the souls of 
 men and pile together stones.'" 
 
 " I am glad," said Mrs. Merton, " you admit so 
 much. I have heard the high-church Oxford 
 clergymen are trying to restore all the formality 
 and strict observances of Popery in the churches 
 under their care ; and I rather fear Mr. Francis 
 has some such design at Letherton." 
 
 " I faithfully promise you," said he, " that, as 
 far as I have any voice in the restoration, not one 
 ornament shall appear which was condemned by 
 the Reformers, or is forbidden by our rubric and 
 canons." 
 
 " But why," asked Mrs. Merton, " should you 
 set up your crosses and altars to offend conscien- 
 tious people who dislike such things ?" 
 
 " Of conscientious dislilce to the holy cross^'' said 
 Francis, " I have heard a good deal, but believe 
 very little. At least I can neither understand 
 nor sympathize ydih. the religion of such persons. 
 No true Christian can be scandalized at the em- 
 blem of his redemption ; no one can turn away 
 from it in anger or contempt, without turning 
 from that which he feels to be none of his," 
 
 " But," said Mrs. Merton, " you at once intro- 
 
THE SQUIRE. 131 
 
 duce images to worsiiip and adore, and bring in 
 all sorts of novelties which have long ago been 
 condemned as vain superstitions by the more pure 
 and enlightened piety of modern times. I am 
 sure I cannot bear to see the clergy bowing and 
 even crossing themselves, and turning to the east, 
 and preaching in their surplices." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Francis, " you confound the 
 cross with the crucifix. And for the latter, it is 
 very inconsistent to reject sculjjtures and retain 
 paintings of the Crucifixion, which we so often 
 see as altar-pieces in churches. For my own part, 
 I can see nothing objectionable in either ; nor do I 
 think the Reformers were justified in destroying 
 the great Hoods or wooden crucifixes which for- 
 merly stood under the chancel arch of every 
 church." 
 
 " A proof," said Mrs. Merton, " that fine archi- 
 tecture and beautiful sculptures have no effect in 
 producing devotion, may be drawn from our 
 Cathedral churches. These are the finest places 
 of worship we have, but still fewer worshipers 
 frequent them than may often be seen in the hum- 
 blest church. I am sure a good preacher might 
 ensure a better congregation in a barn than all 
 the music and grandeur of Cathedral service." 
 
 " A great many causes might be alleged for 
 this," answered the Rector. " Custom is unhap- 
 pily altogether against the daily Church service. 
 
132 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 and therefore against attending Cathedral worship 
 as a practice. The example too of our clergy and 
 dignitaries is lamentably on the side of neglect 
 and omission of this great privilege and Christian 
 duty." 
 
 " I have often thought," observed Mr. Wilkin- 
 son, " that the real spirit of modern protestantism 
 is more clearly and unanswerably set forth by this 
 than by any other of its unfavourable character- 
 istics. It is a fact that in cities of from five to 
 fifty thousand inhabitants not ten can anywhere 
 be found who regularly attend the Cathedral ; 
 and perhaps not one hundred who attend it at 
 all. Yet we believe ourselves to be very religious 
 and ' spiritually' disposed. I fear we must be 
 tested after all by our practice." 
 
 " Were I," said Francis, " to enjoy the high 
 privilege of a fixed residence in a city, I would 
 try some such plan as the following. I would 
 endeavour to unite myself with a body of perhaps 
 twenty of the wealthier inhabitants, and as many 
 more as could be relied upon, who should engage 
 as a solemn duty to attend the Cathedral service 
 twice every day throughout the year, if not pre- 
 vented by illness or unavoidable absence. This 
 simple and I trust unobjectionable compact would 
 ^ave the inestimable advantages of at once setting 
 an example to others and of supplying a regular 
 congregation to ojQfer those constant prayers for the 
 
THE SQUIRE. 133 
 
 Church and the city, which their self-styled ' spi- 
 ritual' brethren think it unnecessary to do, as well 
 as of removing the painful disgrace of empty seats 
 and silent walls from the house of God. But my 
 society should do more. Every member should 
 agree to give or get by the willing contributions 
 of friends, a certain annual sum, say ten guineas, 
 (and there are few who might not by a little sa- 
 crifice or exertion give a great deal more,) for the 
 decoration of the Cathedral under the sanction of 
 the Dean. Only think what two hundred guineas 
 expended yearly in filling the windows with the 
 stained glass which once adorned them would 
 effect in time ! How many would be likely to 
 add their unsolicited mite to so noble and inter- 
 esting a work, I cannot undertake to say : but I 
 think that some good donations might come in 
 after the result of the first year's subscriptions was 
 seen and admired. By such means too the ancient 
 brasses and monuments might gradually be re- 
 stored and replaced." 
 
 " I am sure I would not be one of your society, 
 Mr. Francis," said Mrs. Merton, " nor help to fill 
 our Cathedrals with the Popery from which they 
 have been freed." 
 
 " Do you know who freed them 1 " asked Fran- 
 cis. " The Puritans ! Cromwell and his gang 
 of rebels : the murderers of their king and over- 
 throwers of their Church ! I wish people would 
 
134 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 only consider the source from wliicli their favour- 
 ite ' protestant simplicity' first emanated. Few 
 seem to be aware that all the ancient ecclesiastical 
 ornaments, copes and vestments, mitres and pas- 
 toral staffs, processions, incense, paintings, and 
 other such decorations and usages, were for the 
 most part retained by the Reformers, till they 
 were without either right or authority abolished 
 by the Puritan faction." 
 
 As Mrs. Merton could not controvert this disa- 
 greeable fact, she dropped the conversation, and 
 the visitors took their leave, highly pleased with 
 the unexpected success of their mission. 
 
THE KESTORATION. 13-5 
 
 CHAPTER XII. THE RESTORATIOK". 
 
 The work of restoration now began in earnest. 
 The flat roof was taken off the chancel, the win- 
 dows were opened and the shattered glass re- 
 moved ; the Grecian screen pulled down ; the altar 
 and altar rails, with some wooden panelling on 
 each side of it, cleared away, the pues destroyed, 
 and the whole area left bare and unincumbered. 
 The pavement was taken up, and the floor raised 
 by a bed of concrete to its original height. It 
 was quite refreshing to see the great waggon arrive 
 with huge wooden cases of Messrs. Chamberlains' 
 best encaustic tiles, from their porcelain works at 
 Worcester, ready to be laid down in place of the 
 old shattered flags and tomb-stones, which were 
 piled up in a great heap in one corner of the 
 church-yard. Several features which were quite 
 new to the Rector were laid open to view by clear- 
 ing the interior. Immediately behind the altar 
 was a square recess in the thickness of the wall, 
 \vith a narrow opening spreading inwards to the 
 north and south. " This," said Francis, " is the 
 ancient reliquary ; and a rare and interesting dis- 
 
136 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 covery it is. I can recollect finding but three 
 such in my researches. One is at Ewerby, in Lin- 
 colnshire, another at Harlton, Cambridgeshire, the 
 third at Tinwell, Rutlandshire, which last has 
 never been opened, so that I only judge from its 
 exterior resemblance to the small stone chests 
 which remain at Yaxley, Hunts, and Brixworth, 
 Northampton. At Wratting, in Suffolk, is a very 
 remarkable recess, like a large double piscina, be- 
 hind the altar, which may possibly be another 
 example. In these the altar relics seem to have 
 been deposited, and hence they were probably 
 sometimes removed for processions or for exhibi- 
 tion to the faithful. This piscina, you may ob- 
 serve, proves not only the original height, but 
 the date also of the chancel ; for double piscinae 
 scarcely, if ever, occur later than 1250, about 
 which time, or perhaps a little earlier, I should 
 say this was erected." 
 
 " Here is a singular-looking square stone with 
 a hole in it on the ground just below the piscina," 
 said the Hector ; " what can this have been 1 " 
 
 Neither Francis nor Mr. Wilkinson had ob- 
 served it. The former was completely puzzled, 
 for he had never met with anything like it before. 
 " If I am not mistaken," said the Architect, " this 
 is even a more interesting discovery than the re- 
 liquary. In some early Constitutions a ground- 
 drain is ordered where there is no piscina. I have 
 
THE EESTORATION. 137 
 
 seen tliem at Utterby, near Louth^ and little Cas- 
 terton, Rutlandshire, but they are excessively 
 rare, and therefore very curious. But I really 
 cannot account for the fact that in each instance 
 the usual piscina exists besides. But probably 
 they are of different dates. These three sedilia 
 are very perfect, and should of course be pre- 
 served. They are surely much more appropriate 
 and becoming seats for priests than the wooden 
 chairs we generally see on each side of the altar." 
 
 " This, I suppose," said the Rector, " is the 
 founder's tomb, which was only this morning dis- 
 covered behind the panels. Well, they have at 
 least saved it from the mutilating hands of my 
 worthy predecessor. Can you make anything out 
 of these early letters V 
 
 Francis knelt close to it, and began scraping 
 the dirt from the half obliterated inscription with 
 his knife. " Kynastone is the name," said he ; 
 " no doubt one of the family who possessed the 
 great castle which tradition says formerly stood 
 on the hill-side. Let me see : I have it now. 
 IHg jacet ^ss? Aubrey de Kynastone, miles, hujus 
 ecdesice novator. Cujus animce propitietur Deus. 
 Amen. Amen !" added he. " I suspect this tomb 
 had once the privilege of being used for the Easter 
 Sepulchre. You recollect the mutilated sculpture 
 of the Resurrection at Lincoln Cathedral 1 That 
 also is thought to be the tomb of an early Bishop. 
 
138 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 Very rich representations of a similar character 
 occur at Patrington, Yorkshire, Hawton, Notts, 
 Heckington, Lincolnshire. At Ewerby and Little 
 Bytham, in the same county, are plainer examples. 
 At Exton, Rutland, Milton, Little Shelford, and 
 Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire, and Long Melford, Suf- 
 folk, are high-tombs which appear to have been 
 used for the same purpose. Of this use of tombs 
 there can be no doubt, because some early wills 
 are extant where the provision is expressly made. 
 What a splendid and awful ceremony must the 
 Resurr€ctio7i have been in the dead of the night 
 preceding Easter-day ! It is beautifully described 
 in the Antiquities of Durham Abbey. Such 
 didactic representations, appealing directly and 
 forcibly to the senses, must have deeply impress- 
 ed upon the minds of the people the reality 
 and importance of such an event. On the same 
 principle we attach stories and pictures to the 
 letters of the alphabet, to impress the senses where 
 the understanding is yet weak. I can fully feel 
 the effect such a church as this must once have 
 had, when the windows and walls everywhere set 
 forth in vivid colours the miracles and passion of 
 the Saviour, and the deeds of the holy Saints. 
 To us indeed, who are dead to the glories of Church 
 arts, and ignorant of the histories of the greatest 
 of the Saints, — to whom, I fear, the very name is 
 too often an abomination, — perhaps these things 
 
THE RESTORATION. 139 
 
 would look 'pretty,' and nothing more. But I 
 should like to see the experiment tried, even in 
 our day. Would that Letherton church could be 
 numbered among the first-fruits of that exertion 
 in the cause, of which the restoration of the Tem- 
 ple church, London, and that of the holy Sepul- 
 chre at Cambridge, are such beautiful results !" 
 
 " A wish," said the Rector, " that it is mani- 
 festly vain to entertain, with our limited means, 
 even supposing it altogether desirable to carry 
 mere decoration so far, which I am by no means 
 disposed to concede, in the present case at least." 
 
 " The chancel," said Francis, " is your own. It 
 is possible to make this a perfect specimen of cor- 
 rect arrangement and detail. Now that we are 
 happily rid of our friend Mr. Carter, we have an 
 opportunity which may not again occur of shew* 
 ing the clergy of this neighbourhood what a re- 
 verent and becoming chancel really is. I am 
 sorry to say such an example is most urgently 
 needed : for the scenes of wilful and profane dese- 
 cration everywhere to be witnessed are fearful to 
 contemplate. Let us spare no cost in doing this : 
 and trust me the nave will follow. Do only what 
 is necessary there at present, and effect all that 
 is proper here at once. Give me a little time, 
 and I intend to convert all your parishioners to 
 my doctrine of open seats." 
 
 The Rector said nothing : but his son knew 
 
140 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 how much his views had been altered by con- 
 versing with him on these points, and he saw 
 that the favourite theory about " protestant sim- 
 plicity" was rapidly giving way. 
 
 " Look here," he said, turning aside, " at this 
 singular little window in the south wall, near the 
 west end of the chancel, with open iron bars, like 
 a prison grating. Can you explain its use 1 " 
 
 " I am unable to do so satisfactorily," rejoined 
 Francis. " The name of lychnoscope has been 
 given to it, and seems generally received, though 
 I fear the origin of the name has nothing to do 
 with its real use. It is sometimes barred, as at 
 Rampton, Cambridge, Whitwell, Rutland, and 
 Little AVelnetham, near Bury S. Edmund's. A 
 wooden shutter seems usually to have filled the 
 aperture instead of glass. Perhaps the window 
 was in some way connected with the Rood. 
 Some have thought it intended for a confessional, 
 which is altogether improbable. Others suppose 
 it intended to command a view of the altar from 
 without, which however it seldom does. I re- 
 member a passage in the History of Prince 
 Arthur, in chapter Ixiii., where allusion may 
 possibly be made to this kind of window, though 
 I rather think it refers to the oblique aperture 
 you see on the other side opening into the chantry, 
 called by some a hagioscope. The passage is this, 
 if I remember rightly : ' Then he armed him, 
 
THE RESTORATION. 141 
 
 and took his horse, and as he rode that way he 
 saw a chapel where was a recluse, which had a 
 window that he might see up to the altar.' — But 
 what is this stone which they have removed from 
 the pavement, where it has lain perhaps since 
 Dowsing's days broken and turned upside down ? 
 See, here is the other half. It appears very 
 legible. I think it is as early as the middle of 
 the thirteenth century. 
 
 >J< ici gist Wilhelm de Bardwell di ki alme dieu 
 eit merci. Amen. 
 
 "This chalice sculptured on one side of the 
 stone shews that he was a priest ; a former rector 
 of Letherton, there can be little doubt. What a 
 simple and beautiful monument, and how appro- 
 priate an emblem of the priestly office ! I have 
 seen the chalice alone, both in brass and sculp- 
 tured on a slab, and both with and without the 
 Host. A very large one remains in Lincoln 
 Cathedral, on a grave-stone. It is seventeen 
 inches high by twelve wide, and has the Wafer. 
 Perhaps a careful search among this heap of 
 broken stones and rubbish may lead to the dis- 
 covery of other remains of equal interest. Let us 
 examine them more attentively while we have so 
 favourable an opportunity." 
 
 Moving the fragments of the pavement which 
 lay in a heap outside, they came to the head and 
 
142 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 shoulders of a female effigy of beautiful and deli- 
 cate workmanship. A further search discovered 
 the remaining portion, in a mutilated state, yet 
 not so far injured as to prevent the parts being 
 united and restored. The figure had evidently 
 been shattered by a violent blow across the 
 middle, and the fragments had at some later period 
 been thrown into a grave made in the chancel 
 floor, either by way of filling it up or making 
 away with what was considered useless rubbish. 
 
 " Depend upon it," said Francis, " this is the 
 very figure which belonged to the canopied monu- 
 ment in the chantry. Let us try whether the 
 pieces appear to fit the high-tomb beneath it, 
 which fortunately yet remains." They brought 
 the heavy fragments into the church one by 
 one, and placed them together. They fitted 
 exactly. " This must and shall be restored," said 
 Francis, " if I have to live on bread and water 
 for six months for it." 
 
 " That shall be done without any such unne- 
 cessary penance," said his father. " But I fear 
 we shall have great trouble with the monuments 
 generally. Look at this immense marble struc- 
 ture against the chancel wall. How can we hope 
 to remove it ? Yet what restoration can ever be 
 eiFectuar while it remains to disfigure and encum- 
 ber the walls ? " 
 
 " I could almost, methinks, treat it as Crom- 
 
THE RESTORATION. 143 
 
 well's people served the figure of my sleeping 
 nun, were it not unworthy as well as inconsistent 
 to give way to the same feeling against protestant 
 deformities, which they entertained against what 
 they called popish superstitions. Yet I do feel 
 somewhat indignant to see every church and 
 every Cathedral spoilt and degraded by these 
 frightful piles of naked pagan statuary. Utterly 
 dead as were the people of the last century to any 
 appreciation of catholic art, I should have thought 
 that the mere consideration of comparative cost 
 would have prevented the general adoption of 
 such burlesque absurdities to the rejection of the 
 chaste and beautiful ancient models. We cannot 
 help feeling it was to gratify pride rather than to 
 adorn the church or to invite the sympathies of 
 the living, that these marble mountains were 
 piled up against wall, window, and pillar. The 
 same spirit which induces a squire to have the 
 largest and best pue in the church, makes his sur- 
 viving friends erect to his memory a marble of the 
 greatest pomp and pretension. The humility, the 
 devotion, the catholic faith and hope, and the 
 prayerful appeal, are all utterly lost in these un- 
 sightly monumental excrescences. And if we 
 may judge of the feelings which suggested and 
 designed such memorials by the result, it is to be 
 feared that these fall as far below the ancient 
 principle as do the designs themselves. I do not 
 
144 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 mean that the depth of natural affection is less 
 pointedly and feelingly manifested in the modern, 
 but that the absorbing principle of self-abasement 
 is wholly lost sight of I really do not recollect 
 a single ancient monument in which the latter 
 does not entirely predominate over the former. 
 I read nothing of ' affectionate wife,' ' beloved 
 child,' ' tender and attached husband,' &c., on 
 ancient tombs. I only perceive that a cross is 
 laid upon their graves, and that for the best and 
 most saintly of the ancient dead (and I say this 
 with a deep conviction that the Ages of Faith 
 numbered indeed many such) there is a prayer 
 for forgiveness and acceptance : that their failings 
 alone are set forth, their merits recorded only in 
 Heaven and in the minds of those who knew them. 
 How brief and simple is the meed of human 
 praise bestowed on the character of a heavenly- 
 minded sister, once of the convent of S. Rhade- 
 gund, now long departed, but yet lying in the 
 Chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, On the lid of 
 the stone coffin which holds her remains is in- 
 scribed in very early characters : 
 
 " >J< MORIBUS ORNATA JACET HIC BONA BERTHA 
 
 ROSATA. 
 
 " The good Bertha ! A tribute of esteem so rare in 
 those times, feelingly bespeaks the love of the 
 
THE RESTORATION. 145 
 
 holy sisterhood for a dear and valued friend. But 
 is it not sad to think that we daily see and tread 
 on these ancient tombs, thoughtless of those whose 
 bones they cover, and regardless of the appeal ' Of 
 your charite pray,' &c. All in vain is the most 
 pathetic petition. No responsive sympathy is 
 awakened by that call from the grave. Distrust- 
 ful of a doctrine held by the Early Church but 
 rejected by modern fanatics, we dare not com- 
 ply. The request is unheeded, and we pass on." 
 
 " We are entering upon ground that must be 
 tenderly trodden," said Mr. Wilkinson ; " yet I 
 cannot withhold my own entire concurrence with 
 your feelings on this subject. I do think how- 
 ever that there are yet some to whom these mute 
 appeals are not dead letters — or worse, subjects 
 of contemptuous reproach, or proud self-congra- 
 tulation. The improvement of church monu- 
 ments generally is one of vast importance. I be- 
 lieve it would be impossible to go beyond the 
 height of absurdity and deformity to which mo- 
 dern designs have now been carried. Their cost 
 too is often something enormous when compared 
 with the simple and appropriate devices which 
 better taste and higher feeling would have sug- 
 gested. An ugly white mural marble, with a pot 
 and a cherub, will cost fifty or sixty pounds : a 
 beautiful floriated brass cross, with efiigy in the 
 centre and inscription, twenty-five. A statue in 
 
 L 
 
146 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 the Grecian style, on an ^appropriate pedestal, 
 from two hundred to a thousand guineas : a ca- 
 nopied high-tomb, with effigy, angels, saints, em- 
 blems, like the exquisite example our church 
 possesses, from one hundred and fifty to five hun- 
 dred. The most splendid full-sized brass, with 
 Evangelistic symbols, rich canopies, and marginal 
 legend, can now be executed in a style quite equal 
 to the best ancient specimens for about one hun- 
 dred guineas : and I am certain this pagan affair 
 to the memory of the Rev. William Joliffe would 
 cost twice that sum. 
 
 " It may be remarked that the ancient monu- 
 ments exhibit few and definite varieties in kind, 
 while the modern are countless. The former may 
 all be classed under six heads : recumbent effigies ; 
 brasses ; engraved slabs ; sunken half-figures ; 
 coped coffins ; floor-crosses : the first three of 
 which are often raised on high-tombs or placed 
 under canopies. Now with respect to the first 
 kind, which will be the most difficult to re\4ve, 
 though more than one attempt has been very 
 successfully made of late years, we may notice 
 this important peculiarity, that the figure is al- 
 ways represented lifeless, while modern statuary 
 aims at positions significant of energetic action, 
 or at least of vitality, I would rather call the 
 ancient figures dormant ; for the clasped or raised 
 hands imply only a torpid state of devotional 
 
THE RESTORATION. 147 
 
 repose, a transitional slumber, and never pour- 
 tray the relaxed nerveless prostration of death. 
 How perfectly this embodies the Catholic idea 
 of departure in the Faith : how exquisitely sym- 
 bolical is the dormant and prayerful attitude of 
 Christian sleep ! How much more consoling to 
 behold, than to view some snowy philosopher 
 in an imaginary arm-chair, perusing attentively 
 one of his own works, or a toga-clad statesman 
 making a voiceless speech, or a brave general 
 pointing an inexplosive gun ! Brasses may and 
 ought to be generally revived. They are ex- 
 tremely beautiful, not very expensive, are no 
 encumbrance, are full of didactic emblem and 
 touching portraiture. Mr. Pugin has satisfac- 
 torily shewn that modern dresses may be readily 
 adapted for the folding drapery which adds such 
 a charm to the ancient figures. It is impossible 
 to conceive any reason, except extreme bigotry 
 or ignorance, against their general revival. Many 
 hundreds of the most magnificent examples still 
 remain in England, from which designs of all 
 kinds and sizes could readily be taken : and the 
 general demand would at once supply artists 
 able to execute them. Engraved slabs of alabas- 
 ter, marble, or free-stone, often occur. They an- 
 swer the same end as brasses, and are made in 
 precisely the same way ; but they are of course 
 much more liable to wear. A most elaborate and 
 
148 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 beautiful monument to a priest, bearing the date 
 1349, remains in tbe chancel at Middleton, near 
 Sudbury. The figure is clad in the Eucharistic 
 vestments, and bears a chalice. Above the head is 
 a canopy. The features appear formerly to have 
 stood out in relief; the only example with this 
 peculiarity with which I am acquainted. The 
 sunken figure is to my mind one of the most 
 beautiful of all monuments. The bust or head of 
 the deceased, and sometimes the feet, is seen with- 
 in a circle or foliated aperture, as through the 
 lid of the coffin. Very fine examples remain at 
 Careby, Normanby, Utterby, and Howell, Lincoln- 
 shire ; and a founder's tomb of this kind I re- 
 member to have seen at Gilling, Yorkshire. How 
 much superior these, which admit of the whole 
 face and the clasped hands, to the modern medal- 
 lions €11 projil ! Floor-crosses are very simple 
 devices. A flat slab incised in strong lines with 
 the arms and stem of a cross, and with a marginal 
 legend, costs about ten pounds. The stem should 
 stand on a calvary, or mount of graduated steps 
 at the lower part. One of the most exquisite and 
 perfect examples I have seen is at Scothern, Lin- 
 colnshire. This is at the west end (a position 
 sometimes chosen from motives of humility), and 
 is sculptured in relief on a raised tomb. Some- 
 times the cross is sunk, sometimes merely marked 
 in shallow lines. Many very lovely designs may 
 
THE RESTORATION. 149 
 
 yet be seen, probably in their original places, at 
 Tintern Abbey. I do not recollect having met with 
 more than one ^;Za^?^ floor-cross ; and this I think 
 was in Llandaff" Cathedral. The arms and stem 
 were almost invariably floriated. I cannot see 
 what objection, except the infidel dislike to the 
 symbol of the Cross, can be raised against the 
 general adoption of these. An almost boundless 
 variety of most beautiful ancient forms might 
 easily be collected. I do not hesitate to say I 
 have myself seen hundreds. 
 
 " Both sepulchral slabs with marginal legends 
 and coped cofiins were used long after the Reforma- 
 tion. I have seen examples at Peterborough and 
 at Kirton, near Sleaford. Instead of the ancient 
 cross, we now generally see the arms of the de- 
 ceased, and some laudatory epitaph arranged, for 
 the sake of reading it with less trouble, in lines 
 one below the other. Coped cofiins are peculiarly 
 appropriate for churchyards ; fioor-crosses for the 
 interior of churches. The ridge-like shape of the 
 former is meant to throw ofi" the rain. Their size 
 is not greater than the usual mounds of turf, and 
 of course their use would render our forests of 
 upright stones of all shapes and sizes quite unne- 
 cessary. How different must have been the aspect 
 of an ancient churchyard, with its old yew-trees, 
 its grey stone cross, rising high above the lowly 
 graves, and protecting them with its arms, its 
 
150 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 long lines of cojSin- stones, all pointing eastward, 
 with here and there perhaps a head-stone of oak 
 or stone worked in a beautiful heraldic cross. I 
 have no doubt that such was generally the ancient 
 appearance. I have seen some churchyards where 
 the coping of the wall was formed entirely of 
 stone coffin-crosses. Now and then you may find 
 one still remaining in the churchyard, as at Cot- 
 terstock, Northamptonshire, and Aylmerton, Nor- 
 folk. But the turf has grown and the soil has 
 risen so as long ago to cover the few that have 
 escaped the cross-destroyers and the village road- 
 makers, who between them have broken up and 
 abolished all they could find. 
 
 " I cannot speak of the churchyard cross with- 
 out entreating you to restore this mutilated stem 
 which yet remains on its three steps to the south 
 of the church. So far as I am aware, no order 
 was ever issued by authority for the demolition of 
 these graceful structures : and their use was cer- 
 tainly universal from the time of the Conquest to 
 the Reformation. Beautiful they are to the eyes 
 of him who loves to meditate among the tombs : 
 beautiful in their moonlight loneliness, beautiful 
 in their sun-lit brightness as they peer through 
 the foliage of the green trees. Is there now not 
 one who cares to plant that standard where the 
 rank grass grows and the dew sparkles over those 
 that sleep below 1 — to kneel at its base — to gaze 
 
THE RESTORATION. 
 
 151 
 
 on its tutelary arms 1 Shall we not restore to 
 the ancient dead the saving symbol which they 
 surely prized, and little thought ever to have torn 
 down from over their graves 1 You might once 
 have seen them nestling under yon fretted stem, 
 as though it were safer and better to lie buried 
 there. And we should respect a feeling which was 
 unlawfully outraged by apostate hands. 
 
 " Few churchyard crosses now remain. I have 
 seen but three or four which are quite perfect : at 
 Somersby, Bradley, and Great Grimsby, all in Lin- 
 colnshire, and at Pitcombe, Somerset, very fine 
 specimens exist. That at Grimsby is Early Eng- 
 lish, and highly interesting from its great antiquity 
 and the beauty of its design." 
 
 "In this churchyard a cross would look ex- 
 tremely cheering and beautiful among the green 
 trees. I wish," said Francis, " you would give us 
 a design for the restoration of the venerable old 
 stem." 
 
 " With the Rector's kind permission," said the 
 Architect, "which I think I shall obtain from one 
 who has engaged with such spirit in a work like 
 this, the churchyard cross shall be my own pecu- 
 liar care. I mean that I shall hope to be allowed 
 the pleasure of restoring it at my own cost. I 
 never undertake any church-building engagement 
 without leaving some little gift of my own as a 
 thank-offering for the privilege I have enjoyed. 
 
152 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 So small a sum as will suffice for this little work 
 I trust I may freely bestow." 
 
 Delighted at the excellent and catholic feeling 
 exhibited by our new friend, the Rector cordially 
 complied. He felt sure that no one in the village 
 would object ; and the Squire's lady might learn 
 by a more frequent sight of it to feel less shocked 
 at the " innovation." 
 
 In a fortnight's time a comely new cross of 
 stone was erected near the south porch on the 
 ancient base. It was a slender octagonal stem 
 tapering to a point, with a square crocketed head, 
 containing in a niche on each side a symbol of an 
 Evangelist. At the top of all was placed a wheel 
 cross-moline, which stood sixteen feet above the 
 ground. 
 
 The works at the church made rapid advance- 
 ment. The chancel roof was put on and covered 
 ^vith lead ; the windows all restored, the pavement 
 of encaustic tiles laid down, a stone altar erected, 
 the Founder's tomb, the piscina, and the sedilia, 
 cleaned and polished, and all the walls scraped 
 within and pointed -without. The fresco-colour 
 found on the jamb of the north lancet was care- 
 fully restored and extended to the rest ; the win- 
 dow arches were also correspondingly embellished 
 with heraldic ornaments supplied by Mr. Wilkin- 
 son. The ceiling was removed from the nave, and 
 the magnificent old oak roof exposed to view. It 
 
THE RESTORATION. 153 
 
 was not mucli damaged by the exclusion of the 
 air, so that little cost was necessary in cleaning 
 and varnishing it, and restoring the angels' wings. 
 A great many pues were destroyed, and good stout 
 open seats of English oak placed in their steads 
 For this purpose the Squire had given an un- 
 limited supply of timber from his estate. Some 
 of the farmers stood out stoutly for what they 
 called their rights in retaining pues ; but the Rec- 
 tor as resolutely insisted that they had no rights 
 at all in the matter, since pues were all positively 
 illegal, as well as selfish, ugly, and inconvenient. 
 He adopted a method which had great success 
 with even the most obstinate. He removed his 
 own pue, and substituted three rows of handsome 
 open seats with richly-carved poppy-heads. As 
 they stood in juxta-position with a monster enclo- 
 sure of deal, above five feet high, the contrast of 
 eiFect was sufficiently striking ; and when the ob- 
 jectors were persuaded to sit and kneel in each 
 successively by way of trial, they were compelled 
 to admit that the open seats were much more com- 
 fortable and convenient. Thus he gained over the 
 whole parish, the Squire himself included, except 
 four or five, who with a very bad grace retained 
 their favourite pin-folds in solitary exclusiveness 
 for a little time, till at last they were fairly 
 ashamed of them, and fell in with the good old 
 uniform open benches. 
 
154 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 All the modern monuments were placed in the 
 new vestry, which was made large enough for 
 their convenient reception. The monument of the 
 Abbess Etheldreda was entirely restored. The 
 mutilated effigj, the angels, the figures, even the 
 painting and gilding, were replaced. And when, 
 to the Rector's surprise, a huge wooden case, la- 
 belled " stained glass," arrived from London, con- 
 taining a magnificent new window, the gift of 
 Francis to the church, and the deep glowing tints 
 shone resplendent from the east end, and illumi- 
 nated the mellow pavement and carved altar ; not 
 even Mrs. Merton herself could resist the donation 
 of a side lancet light, on the strict condition that 
 it should not contain the painting of a saint. 
 Numbers of friends and visitors came to see the 
 splendours of the restored church, and other 
 stained windows and various liberal donations 
 followed each other in quick succession. The 
 result of the experiment was triumphant ; all 
 acknowledged its beneficial influence and longed 
 to follow the example. 
 
THE PIC-NIC PARTY. 155 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. THE PIC-KIC PARTY. 
 
 It was a warm and lovely day in the month of 
 June. The ruined abbey of Wardley lay in its 
 deserted grandeur, embosomed amidst the trees 
 that had overgrown its once stately walls. The 
 wild rose and the honeysuckle entwined their 
 branches in luxuriant festoons over the bare and 
 blighted pile ; the moss and the fern sprouted 
 from every crevice and crested every point ; only 
 here and there the grey ashlar shone in the sun- 
 beam as it found its way through the thick fo- 
 liage. Nature had thrown a verdant front over 
 the Church's shame, and had laboured to hide the 
 devastations of infatuated man. The doorways, 
 yet rich in the multiplicity of receding mouldings 
 and flowered shafts, remained nearly as they were 
 built ; time-worn indeed and venerable in their 
 old age, but entire, and exquisitely graceful, 
 though but little heeded by modern eye. Here 
 was part of a wall, there an arch, there a window. 
 Here a mound of green sward, on which, amidst 
 the wild thyme and the harebell, many a shapely 
 stone protruded its bare white form from the 
 
156 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 mass below, shewing the vast accumulation of 
 ruined magnificence which lay buried beneath. 
 Here was a corbel, quaint and grim, with the 
 cross-springer of some broken vault scarcely ba- 
 lanced on its own failing support. There a great 
 boss, like a complex nest of intricate ramified 
 foliage, lay all bleached and broken on the ground. 
 In many parts the mantling ivy clung in over- 
 hanging bowers from the gable and lofty arch, its 
 gnarled and curling grey stem binding and girding 
 together the stones which its own tendrils had 
 dislodged from their ancient bed. All was still 
 and bright on that lonely spot. The birds twit- 
 tered from the roofless clerestory ; the fly and the 
 bee filled the sultry air with their drowsy hum. 
 As of old, the place seemed scarce the abode of 
 busy man. There was but a little village under 
 the abbey walls, built chiefly out of its ruins, as 
 was evident from the many carved stones and 
 curious mouldings and ornaments which might be 
 seen imbedded in the masonry of every cottage 
 and shed. The little garden-plots were glowing 
 with the flowers of summer. Nature's incense 
 was rife around the sacred spot. The yellow 
 stone-crop and the house-leek bloomed on the 
 walls and thatched roofs ; and the thin grey 
 smoke of the fragrant turf fire on the cottager's 
 hearth issued here and there from a chimney amid 
 the trees. The whole scene was of that entrancing 
 
THE PIC-NIC PAETr. 157 
 
 meditative kind which makes the traveller desire 
 to be alone, that he may recall for a space the 
 visions of by-gone days. 
 
 So thought Mr. Wilkinson, as he wandered 
 among the noble ruins of Wardley Abbey, whither 
 he had come on his return from the last profes- 
 sional visit to the church at Letherton. He de- 
 lighted to be alone. It was the very place for 
 solitary enjoyment, and he could sketch, and 
 measure, and think, and weep, just as he pleased, 
 unmolested by any intruder. But he was very 
 disagreeably startled from his dreamy wanderings 
 among the "ages of faith," by a loud laughing, 
 the drawing of corks, and the clattering of glasses, 
 which portended a noisy pic-nic in the immediate 
 neighbourhood. Coming suddenly to a breach in 
 the wall, he found himself in sight of a large 
 party of ladies and gentlemen, who were sitting 
 in the ruined choir, just on the spot where once 
 the high altar stood. A table-cloth was spread 
 on the ground before them, well furnished with 
 hampers of substantial provisions, and with wine, 
 cakes, and fruit, for the refreshment of the vi- 
 sitors. On the inverted fragment of a stone coffin 
 sate a young man with long hair and mustachios, 
 and a great many gold chains and rings, who was 
 addressed by Squire Merton as Mr. Tompkins. 
 The Squire himself, with his coat off, and a 
 silk handkerchief tied round his head to keep 
 
158 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 oif the sun, looked very warm and uncomfortable. 
 Mrs. Merton and the Miss Mortons and a good 
 many others were there, all talking, eating, and 
 laughing, with equal avidity. 
 
 " Well, I declare," exclaimed Mrs. Merton, as 
 the young Architect shewed himself to the party, 
 from which he had now no fair chance of escape, 
 " there is that Mr. Wilkinson. Why in the 
 world has the man got his hat off, just as if he 
 was in church 1 I do call that such affectation. 
 I declare he looks as if he had been crying, in- 
 stead of amusing himself in this delightful spot." 
 
 " I'm sure," said Miss Merton, " there can be 
 little to cry about here. Perhaps the poor man 
 has fallen down and hurt himself I heard a 
 great crash a little while ago, like a heavy fall of 
 stones." 
 
 "That," said Mr. Tompkins, "was only Dick 
 and I knocking a loose stone out of an old arch- 
 way over head. It did come down with a precious 
 noise, and brought three feet of the wall below 
 along with it in its descent. Lucky some of the 
 old monks' hard heads were not beneath : the 
 stones would certainly have been broken across 
 them." At this he put his glass to his eye, and 
 laughed immoderately. 
 
 By this time Mr. Wilkinson had approached, 
 and expressed the surprise (he did not say " unex- 
 pected pleasure") which he felt at meeting Mrs. 
 
THE PlC-^nC PARTY. 159 
 
 Merton's party in a place "vvliere he least thought 
 to see them. But he was aware, he said, that 
 ruined abbeys were favourite places of resort for 
 parties of pleasure, and certainly the weather 
 was highly favourable for the present expedi- 
 tion. 
 
 " I dare say," said Mrs. Merton, " Mr. Wil- 
 kinson will be so good as to tell us something 
 about the abbey. We cannot make out the dif- 
 ferent parts at all ; the refectory where the monks 
 slept, and the dormitory where they dined, and 
 the church and the cloisters. There seems no- 
 thing but a heap of confused arches and door- 
 ways wherever we turn." 
 
 " The largest and best room was for eating, the 
 next for sleeping, and the smallest and worst for 
 praying, you may depend upon it," said Mr. 
 Tompkins. Whereupon he poured out a glass of 
 champagne, and forthwith commenced an appro- 
 priate song, containing certain popular balderdash 
 on the subject of fat monks in connexion with 
 venison pasties. This not proving very amusing 
 to the company, he placed his hat on the head of 
 a mutilated stone effigy which lay propped against 
 a pier, and a cigar in its mouth ; then he retired 
 backwards a few paces, and burst into a loud fit of 
 laughter, declaring it was " a capital idea." 
 
 Indignant at such miserable levity, Mr. Wil- 
 kinson sternly and boldly rebuked him. "Do 
 
160 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 you know," said he, " that you are within the 
 consecrated walls of a church ? Can the work of 
 unholy destroyers render it less sacred 1 Let me 
 entreat you to have some regard to the feelings of 
 others, to which such conduct is indescribably 
 painful." 
 
 Mr. Tompkins begged pardon with rather a 
 sulky air, and sate down somewhat disconcerted 
 with the result of his experiment. 
 
 As Mr. Wilkinson could not refuse the request, 
 he endeavoured to explain to the party the ar- 
 rangements of the abbey as far as he could make 
 them out. He shewed them the refectory, of 
 which only part of the lower walls, with their 
 internal arcade, now remained. The ground-plan 
 of the church he defined and drew out on paper, 
 shewing the position of the altar, and venturing 
 to express a belief that they would have dined 
 elsewhere had they known the ancient sanctity 
 of the spot which they had unwittingly selected. 
 And he took the opportunity of pointing out the 
 feelings of reverence and religious interest with 
 which such melancholy wrecks of ancient gran- 
 deur should be visited, and of reprobating the 
 too common custom of making ruined abbeys the 
 resort of thoughtless parties of gaiety, which he 
 said greatly tended to blind us in our preju- 
 dices, and harden us in the delusions of popular 
 protestantism. 
 
THE PIC -NIC TARTY. 161 
 
 The great kitchen, part of the cloisters, the 
 gate-house, were jet distinctly to be traced. But 
 several smaller buildings of irregular projection 
 Mr. Wilkinson could not certainly explain. The 
 great abbeys, he said, sometimes covered several 
 acres of ground with their buildings and de- 
 pendencies, and so little was known about them 
 that much remained for conjecture. A great deal 
 of general information, however, he gave them 
 about abbeys and the various orders of religious : so 
 that he was unanimously considered a most agree- 
 able and fortunate acquisition to the party. Poor 
 Mr. Tompkins could only smoke cigars and 
 whistle Italian airs ; so that for the present he 
 found himself, to his great mortification, com- 
 pletely eclipsed by his more intelligent rival the 
 Architect. 
 
 In one place there was a deep descent over 
 loose piles of broken stones into a narrow square 
 building. The sky above was almost shut out 
 from view by umbrageous shrubs and trees which 
 had taken root on the soil and mortar at the top. 
 Mr. Wilkinson offered his arm to Miss Merton to 
 descend. At the bottom was a small low arch, 
 leading to a clear cold well about three feet deep. 
 " This reminds me," said he, " of St. Joseph's 
 Well at Glastonbury, which is in a very similar 
 position. I have little doubt that miraculous 
 virtues were attributed to this spring." 
 
 M 
 
162 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 " But you do not believe," said Miss Merton, 
 " that miraculous cures were really ever per- 
 formed by such means ?" 
 
 " I should be sorry to say that I disbelieved 
 it," answered he, " when the Protestant Bishop Hall 
 himself attests an instance. I cannot tell whe- 
 ther springs derive their healing properties from 
 passing over mineral beds of medicinal virtue, or 
 over the buried relics of a Saint. But there is 
 undoubted testimony to many cures having been 
 effected, even in modern times. The Holy Wells 
 of Ireland are to this day frequented by thou- 
 sands : and we must ask of this, as of the medi- 
 seval miracles, how it is credible that such a re- 
 putation could ever be obtained, except by many 
 instances of signal and notorious relief. From 
 the miraculous pool of Bethesda down to our 
 own times, a strange virtue seems to be inherent 
 in some springs, as if they were given for special 
 instruments of cure. A remarkable case occurred 
 to my own knowledge very recently at the Holy 
 Well of St. Winifride, near Chester. At least I 
 had the details of the case from one resident on 
 the spot, who himself daily watched the progress 
 of the cure." 
 
 " I should like to hear it," said Miss Merton. 
 
 " A young Irish lad was grievously afflicted 
 with that almost incurable disease, a white swell- 
 ing in the knee-joint. He was brought, truly 
 
THE PIC-NIC PARTY. 163 
 
 in faith, from a very great distance to St. Wini- 
 fride's well. The bone, I believe, was quite 
 diseased ; at least the pain and suffering were so 
 severe that the poor lad could only bear to sit at 
 the well and pour the blessed water with his 
 hand over the joint. In a week he could walk : 
 in a month he was 'perfectly recovered by these 
 means alone. People said cold water must be 
 a specific for white swellings ; and perhaps, if 
 they had said the cold water of St. Winifride's 
 well, they would have been right." 
 
 " Very extraordinary indeed," said Miss Merton. 
 "Do you see this dark niche in the wall here? 
 Do you think some poor nun was ever immured 
 within it, as Sir Walter Scott describes in Mar- 
 mion ? That was very horrible, was it not 1" 
 
 " I know of no positive evidence whatever," said 
 Mr. Wilkinson, " of such dreadful proceedings. 
 Here it certainly could not have occurred, because 
 this was an establishment for monks alone. But 
 if the tale be true, you must view it in its fair 
 light. The Church held that bodily suffering 
 would in part atone for sins committed on earth. 
 On this principle they thought to save the soul of 
 a fallen sister, by the infliction of severe and pro- 
 tracted pains on the unhappy offender. I will 
 not allow that they were either cruel or incon- 
 sistent in this. But I do hope and believe the 
 whole legend is without foundation." 
 
164 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 "Well," said Miss Merton, "it certainly is a 
 very horrible belief, tbat about penance, and pur- 
 gatory, and that sort of thing." 
 
 Mr. Wilkinson made no answer, not wishing to 
 discuss the question with one who seemed to have 
 thought very little about it. They rejoined the 
 party, Miss Merton declaring her fixed intention 
 of never becoming a Nun. 
 
THE CHUUCH IN HER INFLUENCE. 165 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. THE CHURCH IN HER U- 
 
 FLUEXCE. 
 
 Just before the completion of the work of 
 restoration at Letherton Church, the Rural Dean 
 made a visit to the Rectory. He had heard much 
 of the new decorations and the stained windows ; 
 so, having a secret dread of such things, he came to 
 admonish and expostulate, not, of course, in an offi- 
 cial capacity, but only as a neighbour and a friend. 
 
 On entering the church the first object which 
 met his eye was the stone altar. It was hand- 
 somely but simply designed, and chaste and in- 
 offensive in its construction and ornaments. It 
 stood upon six pillars, the front being left open. 
 Upon it were standing two silver candlesticks of 
 antique ecclesiastical design, which had just ar- 
 rived from Birmingham. 
 
 Mr. Montague looked very grave and shook his 
 head when he saw this. It was not only directly 
 contrary to the canons, but it tacitly recognised 
 the most corrupt of all the popish heresies. Stone 
 Altars were both idolatrous and heretical, and 
 they were sure to prove an abomination in the 
 eyes of the parishioners, as they certainly did in 
 
166 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 his own. For his part, he said, he would rather 
 die than consent to use them for the celebration of 
 the Sacrament. 
 
 The Rural Dean expressed himself with so 
 much warmth and vehemence, that the Rector 
 was by no means favourably impressed with the 
 reverence or the sincerity of his friend. He could 
 not help thinking that such language was but an 
 ebullition of party feeling ; and well knowing how 
 prone the best of us are to be hot and violent on 
 subjects the most solemn, and how angrily we 
 contend in defence of what we call our deep re- 
 ligious convictions — as if religion depended in the 
 least upon men's notions — he wisely surmised that 
 there was more of impulse and prejudice than of 
 deliberation in the objection. He answered, there- 
 fore, that he had not erected the stone table with- 
 out mature consideration, and was fully prepared 
 to contest the point with him as a matter of ar- 
 gument and fair controversy. He freely confessed 
 that he had himself thought somewhat differently 
 on the subject six months ago; but the absence of 
 prejudice, and attention to the importance and 
 proprieties of church arrangements, had convinced 
 him of his former error. 
 
 "And first," said he, "let me explain the rea- 
 sons which induced me to take a step which ap- 
 pears to you so objectionable. 
 
 " My principal motive was reverence. Wooden 
 
THE CHURCH IN HER INFLUENCE. 167 
 
 tables have been tried, and have failed to secure 
 proper respect. It has been found impossible to 
 preserve from general abuse and desecration the 
 mean and unsightly wooden frames which have 
 been used in the Church since the Reformation. 
 Vestry meetings are held upon them, carpenters 
 use them as work -benches, schoolmasters as desks, 
 workmen sit upon them with their hats on ; nay, 
 any village idler will lean against them unconcerned 
 while he smokes his pipe. So rapidly did this 
 feeling increase, that rails were found absolutely 
 necessary, in less than a hundred years, to secure 
 the table from actual profanation. In fact, so 
 complete and so obvious is the association in the 
 thoughtless mind between the sight of an ordi- 
 nary table and the idea of its secular use, that I 
 have known the parishioners make a general 
 practice of sitting within the rails on chairs and 
 forms, and jangle over it about a church-rate. I 
 have seen it used as a scaffold in whitewashing a 
 church ; I have seen it turned up on end to assist 
 in climbing up to a window-cill ; I have found it 
 used as a hall table in a rectory-house ; ejected 
 and put to some ignominious use in a damp and 
 dirty corner of the church. Many and many a 
 time have I seen coarse and rough pieces of deal 
 hammered together and covered with a soiled and 
 torn rag of green baize ; broken and dusty boards, 
 not fit to place in a cottage, are perhaps the ordi- 
 
168 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 nary altars of Protestant churclies. Now I do 
 maintain that a stone table never could be liable to 
 such desecration : and the reasons are, first, be- 
 cause it is fixed, (by its own weight at least,) 
 secondly, that it cannot be viewed in the same 
 light as a mere piece of domestic furniture. The 
 conditions of the canon are, I conceive, satisfied, if 
 a stone table is so far moveable, that it is not built 
 into the solid masonry of the wall. For no one 
 will ever be able to shew that the word " table" 
 implies of necessity some particular material. The 
 ancient altars, with their anointed crosses, their 
 various decorations of painting, drapery, and 
 sculpture, their relics, and what was considered 
 their superstitious consecration, having been re- 
 moved (though I find that a large number cer- 
 tainly remained till Cromwell's time), — and re- 
 moved, I conceive, much more from these reasons 
 than simply because they were of stone, — "tables" 
 were ordered to be used, without specifying the 
 material at all, which it is really incredible that 
 the canon should have failed to specify, if the sole 
 ground of objection lay in their being of stone. 
 Whether the adoption of the word " table " in the 
 Rubric was merely to satisfy the prejudice of par- 
 ties, and the canon intentionally compiled with a 
 view to a restoration of the more Catholic usage 
 in a less critical period, it is for more learned 
 ritualists than myself to determine. 
 
THE CHURCH IN HER INFLUENCE. 169 
 
 " To the remote antiquity of stone Altars (the 
 reign of Constantino, if not earlier,) may be added 
 the constant use of the term Altar in all ages of 
 the Church, and its common acceptation in the 
 present j by which the other objection, in itself a 
 frivolous one, that it implies a Romish doctrine, 
 falls to the ground : for the idea and the name 
 are so familiar to us all, that it is quite impossi- 
 ble the material used in any particular case should 
 make it more or less so. Again, as the nature of 
 a Sacrament cannot possibly be altered by the 
 kind of table used in its administration, so the in- 
 different use of both terms and both materials, so 
 far from unsettling men's minds, ought only to 
 prove to them how little any doctrinal question is 
 really involved." 
 
 " You cannot defend the erection of a fixed 
 stone Altar," said Mr. Montague, "when, first, all 
 stone Altars were expressly ordered to be pulled 
 down, and, secondly, it is implied, if not directly 
 stated, that the table should be moveable." 
 
 " For the first," answered the Rector, " though 
 the intrigues of the Genevan party succeeded in 
 getting the Altars removed by royal injunction in 
 the third year of Edward VI., still after that storm 
 was passed, the Rubrics of Elizabeth and Charles II. 
 deliberately ordered that the ornaments of churches 
 were to remain the same as in the second year of 
 Edward VI. It is most unreasonable to insist on 
 
170 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 the moveableness of tables, when rails were uni- 
 versally used in the time of Charles II., by which 
 the permanent position of the table at the east 
 end was of course determined. But after all, the 
 sanction of so many living prelates, who have con- 
 secrated churches with stone tables in them, is a 
 sufficient proof of their legitimate use in the An- 
 glican Church. You may perhaps be surprised to 
 learn that probably not less than three hundred 
 are now in use in protestant English churches." 
 
 The Dean did not discuss the question further, 
 feeling that he had very weak grounds for his po- 
 sition. He turned to the new Rood-screen, which 
 was of very rich carved oak, coloured and gilded 
 in the tracery and lower panels exactly in the an- 
 cient fashion. He said he was sorry to see such a 
 melancholy revival of not only useless, but highly 
 objectionable popish furniture. 
 
 " This screen," said the Rector, "will ever be en- 
 deared to me by the most interesting associations. 
 An aged parishioner, who has ever been a devout 
 and sincere churchman, came to me with tears in 
 his eyes, and after expressing his heartfelt joy at 
 having seen the church in which he and his fathers 
 had knelt for ages at length restored to its ancient 
 beauty, he desired to place in my hands fifty 
 pounds for procuring some ornament which might 
 attest his gratitude. My son, I believe, suggested 
 to him that it might be well devoted to the purchase 
 
THE CHURCH IN HER INFLUENCE. 171 
 
 of a chancel screen. For its strict propriety as a 
 part of the furniture of a church, Francis can sup- 
 ply abundant proofs." 
 
 " Till the time of James I.," said Francis, 
 " and generally, I think, till Charles II., rood- 
 screens were erected in new churches, or where 
 the old screens had been destroyed or removed. 
 The number of Jacobean or debased screens I 
 have met with is a very interesting token to the 
 general recognition of this Catholic practice by 
 the Reformed Church. And in several instances 
 I have seen Jacobean doors added to ancient 
 screens. Even Wren's churches always had 
 screens ; in truth, till the last hundred years, I 
 suspect they were scarcely ever omitted." 
 
 Again baffled in his objections, Mr. Montague 
 did not know what to say. He had not the 
 least idea of these facts, and was merely a fol- 
 lower of the popular " no popery" cry, without 
 having taken the smallest trouble to investigate 
 the real truth of the subject. 
 
 " This arrangement," he said, " is clearly in- 
 tended unduly to exalt the Sacraments and the 
 clergy, and can be productive of no good to the 
 Church." 
 
 " The first allegation," said the Rector, " I am 
 willing to believe you would not seriously make 
 on calmly considering the present state of opinion 
 on the subject. For the second, a screen, I grant, 
 
172 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 is intended to separate the clergy ; but does it 
 follow that it exalts them 1 And are they not 
 already separated by their office from the laity 1 
 Why then refuse the visible distinction of that 
 office in the place where they exercise its func- 
 tions ? I recollect that Hooker (I think in his 
 fifth book) remarks that in his time the admis- 
 sion of the laity into the chancel was only begin- 
 ning to be allowed." 
 
 " Well," said the Rural Dean, " the next thing 
 will be to place crosses and roods above your 
 screens. The restoration of the latter is only the 
 first step." 
 
 " You may see them already in more churches 
 than one," said Francis. " A large carved cross 
 has been in several recent instances placed under 
 the chancel-arch, and I have not heard that it 
 has produced any evil consequences." 
 
 " You may rely upon it, sir, that one innova- 
 tion will lead to another. We shall soon see the 
 result of all this. You will not be satisfied, I 
 dare say, till you bring back copes and vest- 
 ments." 
 
 " Certainly not," said Francis, " since they are 
 ordered by the Rubric, and were long used by the 
 Reformed Church." 
 
 " I see no reading-desk in your church," said 
 Mr. Montague. " What new-fangled contrivance 
 have we here for the purpose V 
 
THE CHURCH IN HER INFLUENCE. 173 
 
 A carved oak lectern with a revolving trian- 
 gular head stood on one side of the chancel-arch, 
 near the pulpit. A beautiful Bible, bound in the 
 antique style, was fastened to it by a silver 
 chain. " This," said the Rector, " is for reading 
 the Lessons ; and very convenient and suitable 
 I find it. The Prayers I offer from a stall in 
 the chancel, just behind the Rood-screen. This, 
 Francis assures me was the custom of the Church 
 till the time of James I., when the clumsy and 
 unwieldy reading-pues first came into fashion. I 
 believe I ought to have a Litany-stool in front of 
 the chancel-arch, such as is used in cathedrals 
 and colleges : but for this I must wait a little 
 yet. You see I have let my son arrange the 
 church entirely for me. I have been shamefully 
 neglectful and ignorant of these subjects myself, 
 though I now perceive their importance. How- 
 ever, I have been fortunate in the direction of 
 one, on whose knowledge and good taste I can 
 so confidently rely." 
 
 " Your nave," said the Rural Dean, " is really 
 beautiful. The dark oak roof, the open benches, 
 the flowered capitals of the piers, which are most 
 skilfully restored, and the elaborate Font-cover, 
 are all admirable, I must freely admit. When I 
 was here before, there was only a red earthenware 
 vase for a Font." 
 
 " This very fine sculptured bason we found in 
 
174 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 one of my fields, where it had long been used as 
 a trough. We had it conveyed hither, and re- 
 stored it at considerable expense. You may readily 
 suppose all this has not been done for nothing." 
 
 " May I ask what is the total sum expended ?" 
 said the Dean. 
 
 " Not less than seventeen hundred pounds," 
 answered the Rector, " of which nearly two hun- 
 dred and fifty have been appropriated to the pur- 
 chase of stained glass, exclusive of the east win- 
 dow, which was a present. When we commenced, 
 we had little more than half that sum. But our 
 friends have taken an extraordinary interest in 
 our work, and have been truly liberal. And 
 though a considerable debt remains to be paid 
 off" by annual instalments, never shall I regret 
 having entered upon my duties at Letherton with 
 a work whidh will always afford me heartfelt gra- 
 tification for the rest of my life. I am proud of 
 my church, and I have good cause for being so. 
 And I think I can now comprehend the reason 
 why so few of the clergy ever enter the walls of 
 their own churches except, as it were, by compul- 
 sion, and why not one in twenty so much as pos- 
 sesses a church-key. They are ashamed at the 
 wretched condition to which they have been suf- 
 fered to fall." 
 
 The Dean himself took his leave half a convert 
 to the new theory of Church restoration. With 
 
THE CHURCH IN HER INFLUENCE. 175 
 
 sucli an example before his eyes, he could not 
 suppress a secret sense of the high prerogative 
 of the Church in thus enlisting Art into the 
 service of Religion. 
 
 The parishioners were delighted beyond mea- 
 sure with their church. It was always left open 
 in the day, and they used to go and look at the 
 stained windows, and the pavement of the chan- 
 cel shining through the open rood-screen. They 
 were not allowed to enter the chancel ; but they 
 would rest in the porch, while their children sate 
 on the turf by the churchyard cross to hear the 
 curfew-bell, and learnt to love the spot, as their 
 grandsires did of old before them. 
 
 Mr. Thompson's Baptist meeting-house, an un- 
 gainly square brick building with round-headed 
 windows, erected during Mr. Holdworthy's incum- 
 bency, now began to prove a fast failing concern. 
 One by one the deluded people left their false 
 teacher, attracted at once by their own beautiful 
 and solemn church, and the kind but earnest 
 tone of their excellent Rector. In vain were 
 bible-meetings, prayer-meetings, and tea-meetings ; 
 in vain the declamation and vehemence of the 
 Reverend Thomas Thompson, the minister of the 
 New Connexion Baptist Church at Letherton, for 
 so he was wont to style himself. His influence 
 was gone ; so he was fain at last to leave the 
 parish altogether, after a parting sermon, in which 
 
176 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 he solemnly warned the people that the Anti- 
 christ was at work in the parish, and more than 
 hinted that a certain state-parson was no true 
 preacher of the Gospel. But there were few 
 present to hear his denunciation ; so the Baptist 
 interest was eiFectually subdued by its own weak- 
 ness and the Church's strength in the parish of 
 Letherton. The conventicle was soon after sold 
 and turned into a school-room. 
 
 It was easy for such a man as their Rector to 
 gain the entire affections of the people. The daily 
 service, the constant attention to their wants, and 
 the liberal yet judicious charity, convinced them 
 that he was really their friend. He did not drive 
 about the country in a smart carriage with livery 
 footmen ; nor was the Rectory a fine modern 
 house, with costly carpets and gilded cornices and 
 resplendent mirrors and pictures, such as the poor 
 hardly dare to enter, from a feeling that the place 
 is not for such as they. It was an ancient plain 
 building, with thatched roofs and high gables, 
 and here and there an irregular buttress propping 
 the low and massive walls. All around it were 
 thick shrubs and trees, reaching down the verdant 
 lawn to S. AVinifride's stream, to which the tame 
 cows in the Rectory-garth would come for drink, 
 and stand loAving and ruminating half the day 
 long before the parlour windows. Then there were 
 a great many blooming honeysuckles round the 
 
THE CHURCH IN HER INFLUENCE. 177 
 
 door, and a great many bee-hives in tlie garden 
 and a fence of fragrant roses which seemed only to 
 invite, not to forbid access. It was quite impos- 
 sible to pass that spot, and see the good Rector 
 seated under a tree reading, and his daughters 
 working in the sunny flower-beds, without think- 
 ing it a perfect specimen of a good and happy 
 country parsonage. Often and often Squire Mor- 
 ton used to say that he thought it a much more 
 agreeable residence than Letherton Hall. 
 
 And so the " Church in her influence" dis- 
 penses her blessings on the parish of Letherton : 
 the happy, the beautiful, the secluded Letherton. 
 Dispenses, did we say ? Alas, alas ! that our vil- 
 lage should exist in all the luxury of nature's 
 best gifts ; alas ! that the stream should flow and 
 the trees should wave in the sunny vale, even as 
 we have described them ; but that our Church 
 and our Rectory, our castle and our hall, our 
 restoration and our worthy churchmen, should 
 be but ideal creations ! We had almost written 
 ourselves into the belief that all was reality, till 
 the unwonted use of the present tense recalled to 
 our minds that we professed from the first to be 
 writing fiction. It was at Letherton that our 
 little book was conceived. We sate on a green 
 bank by the limpid spring, one bright summer's 
 day, and fell into a dreamy train of thought on 
 the changes which that lovely village must have 
 
178 THE CHURCH RESTOEERS. 
 
 seen ; for when we viewed the church with its 
 grey and time-worn Saxon tower, we knew that 
 for a thousand years man must have colonized 
 the place, remote from his fellow-men, and un- 
 disturbed by the world's agitating cares and 
 ceaseless commotions. Then we thought that 
 surely there was of old some special cause for 
 building the sacred edifice on the knoll hard by 
 the spring, and so we bethought ourselves of 
 Saxon Saints, and martyrs, and miracles, till we 
 conjured up the scenes we have described, and 
 the story we have told. And then we went on 
 and on, never stopping in the thread of our nar- 
 rative, but restoring, and spending, and manu- 
 facturing imaginary stained windows, and draw- 
 ing forth bright encaustic tiles from visionary 
 kilns to adorn our renovated structure, never 
 thinking that we had brought our events up to the 
 present day, and must no longer talk of the past. 
 We quite forgot, meanwhile, that Letherton church 
 is really a poor neglected little place, as shabbily 
 furnished and as meanly repaired as other country 
 churches are in the nineteenth century. In truth, 
 of the parish and its management for good or for 
 ill we know nothing whatever ; for as travellers 
 on an architectural tour we left such questions of 
 internal economy unasked and uninvestigated. 
 
 Reader, if you have patiently followed this lit- 
 tle tale from the first, and borne with its dulness, 
 
THE CHURCH IN HER INFLUENCE. 179 
 
 its errors, and it may be its extravagances, you 
 will have perceived our end and object in writing 
 it. We have given a sketch of what we would 
 fain hope may yet be done in reality in many a 
 village of Old England. We have been for years 
 wanderers over her fair land, and seen cause to 
 mourn over the sad tokens of a fallen Church. 
 We have witnessed her ruined walls, her desecrated 
 Altars, her alienated people. We have lamented, 
 but not wondered, that dissent is rife ; that rever- 
 ence, teachableness, and obedience, have almost 
 fled the land ; that the villages themselves are often 
 an assemblage of squalid decayed cottages, where 
 dirt and wretchedness are alone to be seen in place 
 of the blithe and happy homesteads of ancient 
 days. W^e have grieved to see that, where once 
 stood the village Cross, where every head would 
 bow and many a knee would bend, even before 
 the eye of man and in open day, now stands the 
 village cage, that hideous prison with its barred 
 doors and stancheoned windows, and its detest- 
 able display of fetters and handcuffs, to scare men 
 from sin, instead of winning them to religion. 
 We believe that the bane began with the degra- 
 dation and desolation of the Church, and that it 
 can never be remedied till the day of her servi- 
 tude is overpast, and she reappears in all her wont- 
 ed strength and glory. We cannot yet get back 
 our monasteries and the many great churches that 
 
180 
 
 THE CHURCH RESTORERS. 
 
 have long been laid in the dust. They have passed 
 aiway with the Age of Saints ; and it may be we 
 shall never know them again. But we can all in 
 our own little way turn Church Restorers. The 
 labour is sweet, and the task a delightful one. 
 May the work prosper, as the cause is good and 
 the necessity urgent ! 
 
181 
 
 NOTES. 
 
 Page 21. 
 
 The effigy of a Benedictine Abbat at Peterborough 
 has the staff in the right hand : it was usually held in 
 the left. It is difficult from existing examples of these 
 beautiful monuments to verify the remark of Durandus, 
 that Bishops have the staff turned outwards, Abbats 
 inwards. 
 
 Page 23. 
 
 The economy of monastic Refectories very closely 
 resembled in all respects that of a College Hall ; indeed 
 they are in effect identical. The account of this, and of 
 the other features and decorations of the Abbey, is com- 
 piled from authentic sources, and may be considered as 
 giving a tolerably correct (though indeed a very feeble 
 and imperfect) idea of the ancient condition of these 
 splendid and wealthy establishments. The particular 
 house alluded to under the name of Wardley Abbey 
 will easily be recognised by the arms and sigillum, 
 p. 25. 
 
 Page 26. 
 
 It may seem improbable that a large costly church 
 should be erected without rebuilding the plain and rude 
 Saxon tower : but this has been done at Barnack, which 
 is one of the most extensive and elaborate of village 
 churches. 
 
 Page 31. 
 
 The ancient system of sepulture in Chancels is cu- 
 rious. Priests were buried within it, certainly soon 
 after the commencement of the thirteenth century, if 
 not before. Laics, especially Founders and Benefae- 
 
1 82 NOTES. 
 
 tors, were laid in stone coffins exactly under the walls, 
 which were sometimes subsequently erected upon them, 
 so as to fix them immoveably, as at Castor near Peter- 
 borough, and Bottisham, Cambridge ; sometimes a recess 
 was constructed below the foundation for the future re- 
 ception of the body, which was thus, as it were, laid 
 neither within nor without the Church. That this was 
 considered a privilege there can be no doubt. 
 
 Page 37. 
 
 The details of the Castle of Letherton are such as 
 characterised the military strong-holds in the Norman 
 period, and in the time of our narrative. There is an 
 example of a great portal, fortified in the manner de- 
 scribed, at Chepstow. The wretched taste of building 
 such edifices now cannot too strongly be reprobated. 
 There is a melancholy specimen to be seen of a sham 
 gateway of this sort in York Castle. Strict consistency 
 of sti/le with use ought to be a leading canon with every 
 architect. 
 
 Page 42. 
 
 The general description of this Oriel, or Lady's 
 Bower, is taken from a very interesting one at Castle 
 Rising. 
 
 Page 46. 
 
 This pastoral Staft'was found on opening the grave of 
 Bishop Grostete some years ago. 
 
 Page 47. 
 
 It must be confessed that it is taking a great liberty 
 with the character of this illustrious Prelate to attribute 
 to him an event which is not expressly recorded of him. 
 The apparent improbability of the miracle will perhaps 
 strike most readers : but in reality there is no cause for 
 doubting its possibility. A great many equally asto- 
 nishing cures are recorded to have happened in the 
 Church by the virtue of holy relics in ages later than this. 
 Of course it would be useless to argue upon the truth of 
 the universal tradition of the incorruptibility of the 
 
NOTES. 183 
 
 bodies of Saints and Martyrs : but a few examples shall 
 be cited in proof of the belief, which is all that the 
 author is bound to defend. 
 
 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Chapter xix. Book iii. — 
 Fursius, a holy man, having built a noble monastery, 
 "not long after, departed this life. The same Ercon- 
 vald took his body, and deposited it in the porch of a 
 church he was building in his to-wn of Perron, or Person, 
 till the Church itself should be dedicated. This hap- 
 pened twenty-seven years after, and the body being 
 taken from the porch to be reburied near the Altar was 
 found as entire as if he had just then died.^^ 
 
 Again, Chap. xix. Book iv. of the Blessed S. Ethel- 
 dreda Bede says, " as I was informed by Bishop Wil- 
 frid, of whom I inquired, because some questioned the 
 truth thereof.'''' He relates, that at the Translation of 
 that holy Body, after it had been buried sixteen years, 
 the grave being opened, " it was found as free from cor- 
 ruption as if she had died and been buried on that very 
 day, as the cforesaid Bishop Wilfrid, and many others 
 that know it, can testify.'''' The physician Cinfrid, who 
 was present at the interment, found the body undecayed, 
 and an incision which he had himself made in life-time, 
 healed, so that " to my great astonishment, (he says) 
 there appeared only an extraordinarily slender scar." 
 
 S. Cuthbert's Body remained incorrupt till the Refor- 
 mation, in which state it was found by the profane Com- 
 missioners whose testimony to the fact is recorded in 
 detail in the Antiquities of Durham Abbey. The Body 
 was on several occasions disinterred. It is first mentioned 
 by Bede, Chapter xxx. Book iv. " When he had been 
 buried eleven years. Divine Providence put it into the 
 minds of the brethren to take up his bones, expecting, 
 as is usual with dead bodies, to find all the flesh con- 
 sumed and reduced to ashes, and the rest dried up. . . . 
 On opening the grave, they found all the body whole, 
 as if it had been alive, and the joints pliable, more like 
 one asleep than a dead person," 
 
 In the Description of the County of Durham, annexed 
 to the Antiquities of Durham Abbey, is the following 
 
184 NOTES. 
 
 account : " Four hundred and eighteen years after the 
 decease of holy S. Cuthbert, upon account of a dis- 
 pute that happened among certain Prelates, some 
 doubting or denying that the corpse of S. Cuthbert 
 could continue uncorrupted for so many years, others 
 affirming and avouching its incorruption, .... the 
 holy sepulchre was opened by a select number (above 
 ten) of reverend monks, and the holy body, with all 
 things about it, found whole, sound, uncorrupted, and 
 flexible, having its natural weight, and full substance 
 of flesh, blood, and bones. A most heavenly fragrant 
 smell proceeded from it, and it was brought forth 
 and strictly examined, and exposed to the view of 
 above forty in all, of noblemen and others of the 
 clergy and laity, such as were deemed worthy and fit 
 to be eye-witnesses of such a rare and reverend spec- 
 tacle." This was in the year 1109, in the prelacy of 
 Ranulphus, eighth Bishop of the See. (Appendix, p. 
 125.) The discovery of the Body by the Commissioners 
 is deeply interesting, though a sad tale of irreverence 
 and profanity. " The sacred shrine of holy S. Cuthbert 
 was defaced at the visitation held at Durham for demo- 
 lishing such monuments, by Dr. Lee, Dr. Henley, and 
 Mr. Blithman, in King Henry the Eighth's reign, at 
 
 his suppression of religious houses After the spoil 
 
 of his ornaments and jewels, they approached near to 
 his body, expecting nothing but dust and ashes : but 
 perceiving the chest he lay in strongly bound with iron, 
 the goldsmith with a smith's great forge-hammer broke 
 it open, when they found him lying whole, uncorrupt, 
 with his face bare, and his beard as of a fortnight's 
 growth, and all the vestments about him, as he was ac- 
 customed to say mass, and his metwand of gold lying 
 by him. When the goldsmith perceived he had broken 
 one of his legs, in breaking open the chest, he was sore 
 troubled at it, and cried, 'Alas ! I have broken one of 
 his legs.' Which Dr. Henley hearing, called to him, 
 and bade him cast down his bones. The other an- 
 swered he could not get them asunder, (i. e. the frac- 
 tured limb,) for the sinews and skin held them so that 
 
NOTES. 185 
 
 they would not separate. Then Dr. Lee stept np to 
 see if it were so, and turning about, spake in Latin to 
 Dr. Henley, that he was entire, though Dr. Henley not 
 believing his words, called again to have his bones cast 
 doAvn. Dr. Lee answered, 'If you will not believe me, 
 come up yourself and see him.' Then Dr. Henley stept 
 up to him, and handled him, and found he lay whole. 
 Then he commanded them to take him down ; and so 
 it happened, contrary to their expectation, that not only 
 his body was whole and uncorrupted, but the vestments 
 wherein his body lay, and wherein he was accustomed 
 to say mass, were fresh, safe, and not consumed." The 
 Body was afterwards buried by the Convent, and the 
 secret of the spot where he was laid confided in per- 
 petuity to three persons only. The account published 
 a few years ago of the disinterment of an ancient bi- 
 shop, supposed by some to be the Body of Bede, as- 
 sumes a fact which it is quite unable to prove, and we 
 believe to be erroneously stated. 
 
 One of the most authentic and detailed accounts of 
 this miraculous incorruptibility is given in the Chro- 
 nicles of Jocelin of Brakelond, a monk of Bury S. 
 Edmund's, who wrote at the time of the occurrence. 
 The narrative of the opening the shrine of the Saint (S. 
 Edmund) is too minute to transcribe at length. After 
 a terrible fire in the choir of the great church, in which 
 the shrine was miraculously preserved unhurt in the 
 very midst of the flames, though an iron grating on the 
 spot was at a white heat, it was resolved by the Abbat 
 to examine the Body. This was done in presence of 
 twelve monks, whose names and offices are specified. 
 " Now the coffin was so filled with the sacred body, 
 both in length and width, that even a needle could 
 hardly be put between the head and the wood, or be- 
 tween the feet and the wood, and the head lay united to 
 the body, somewhat raised by a small pillow. The 
 Abbat, looking attentively, next found a silk cloth, 
 and after that another small and very fine silken cloth, 
 .... and lastly, they discovered the body, wound round 
 with a linen cloth, and then it was that the lineaments 
 
186 NOTES. 
 
 of the Saint's Body were laid open to view. At this 
 point the Abbat stopped, saying he durst not proceed 
 
 further, or view the holy body naked Proceeding, 
 
 he touched the eyes, and the nose, which was very mas- 
 sive and prominent, and then he touched the breast and 
 arms, and liaising the left arm (it was therefore flexible, 
 and could not have been embalmed or preserved artifi- 
 cially) he touched the fingers, and placed his own 
 fingers between the fingers of the Saint, and proceeding, 
 he found the feet standing up stiffs, like the feet of a man 
 who liad died to-day, and he touched the toes, and in 
 touching, counted them." This was in the year 1198. 
 Afterwards many bretliren were called in to witness 
 the miraculous preservation of one who had not been 
 " suff"ered to sec corruption." The passage is extracted 
 from Mr. Tomlins' Translation, 1844. 
 
 To pursue this subject a little further for its own in- 
 trinsic interest, rather than for the purpose of convin- 
 cing those who treat with scoffing contempt the very 
 idea of a mediasval ' miracle, and who of course re- 
 gard the belief in them as a melancholy and fatal in- 
 fatuation ; we may adduce an instance of the incor- 
 ruptible body of a Saint even at the present day, Mr. 
 Alban Butler (Lives of the Saints, September 5,) makes 
 the following statement respecting S. Rosa of Viterbo : 
 " She Avas refused admittance in the Franciscan nun- 
 nery in Viterbo ; therefore led a solitary life in a cot- 
 tage adjoining, in the most austere penitential practices, 
 and in assiduous contemplation and prayer. She died 
 about the year 1252. Her body is shewn enshrined in 
 the church of this nunnery entirely inco7Tupt ; her face 
 appears full of flesh, and as if the corpse was just 
 dead." 
 
 The testimony of S. Austin is appealed to by Pro- 
 testants of all sects, when it suits their purpose ; we 
 may therefore be allowed to cite the same writer in 
 defence of our fictitious illustration of the virtue of holy 
 relics. We have the express assurance of this illus- 
 trious Bishop, that he Avas ei/e-icitness to manj/ of the 
 miracles wrought by the relics of S. Stephen the proto- 
 
NOTES. 187 
 
 martyr. These, with a great many others, are given at 
 length in Mr. Butler's Life of S. Stej)hen, (August 3,) 
 to which the reader is referred, as it would be impos- 
 sible to recount them here in the words of the Avi-iter. 
 Among these miracles S. Austin mentions three persons 
 raised from the dead. The celebrated story of the 
 relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius is too well known 
 to need repetition. 
 
 It will perhaps be said that the faith which would 
 pray for a miracle, and expect its fulfilment, is some- 
 thing greater than we can realize, or than we can sup- 
 pose Bishop Grostete to have possessed. Of the latter 
 we cannot now fairly judge : but we have no reason 
 to think that he should have less faith in miracles than 
 was generally held by the Church. We know that S. 
 Walburga calmed the winds and the waves by the 
 prayer of faith ; and other instances are on record of 
 similar occurrences. Indeed the ceremony of the 
 " Healing," by the king's touch, set forth by royal pro- 
 clamation in 1662, most distinctly recognises the belief 
 in miraculous cures in the following prayer (see Hier- 
 urgia Anglicana, p. 204.) " O Almighty God, who art 
 the giver of all health, and the aid of them that seek to 
 Thee for succour, we call upon Thee for thy help and 
 goodness mercifully to be shewed unto these thy ser- 
 vants, that they, being healed of their infirmities, may 
 give thanks unto Thee in thy holy Church, through 
 Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.'''' 
 
 Page 61. 
 
 Every one knows what a blessing monasteries were to 
 the poor, and how Christian and charitable was their 
 system of relief compared with the truly heathen cruel- 
 ties of modern poor-laws and work-houses. In the 
 very interesting series of letters relating to the disso- 
 lution of Monasteries, lately published by the Camden 
 Society, the following testimony of the Commissioners 
 themselves occurs among many others : " The bowse 
 (Woolstrope, near Grantham) without any sclandre or 
 evyll ifame, and stonds in a wast grownde verey solitarie, 
 
188 NOTES. 
 
 kepyng suche hospitalite that except by synguler good 
 provision itt cowld natt be meynteyned with halfe so 
 muche landes more as they may spend, suche a nombre 
 of the powre inhabitantes nye therunto dayly relevyd, 
 that we have nott sene the like." (p. 137.) 
 
 Of the lying charges brought by the Commissioners 
 against the Monasteries the following are specimens, 
 from the same work : " Yesterday I lernede many 
 enormouse thynges againste Bisshope (a Confessor). . . . 
 that Bisshope wolde have persuadyt one of his lay bre- 
 deren, a smyth, to have made a key for the dore, to have 
 in the nyght tjine receyvide in wenches for hym and 
 
 his fclowe, and specially a wiffe of Uxbrige 
 
 The saide Bisshope also persuadyt a nunc, to whom he 
 was Confessor," &c. &c. &c. (p. 47.) " The Prior of 
 
 Maden Bradcley tliankcs Gode a never medelet 
 
 with marytt women, but all with madens the faireste 
 cowlde be gottyn," &c. (p. 58.) " In the tyme of Lent 
 past your contynucll oratour John Bartelot, M'ith other to 
 the noumber of v personez of good conversacion, ifound 
 the Prior of the Crossid Fryers in London at that t)Tne 
 
 beying in bedde with his hoore upon a Fryday" 
 
 (p. 60.) This veracious person tries to prove rather too 
 much to gain credence. It is a curious and suspicious 
 fact, that the letters of one Dr. Layton almost always 
 contain some atrocious charges against the abbeys 
 visited by him, while very few of the other numerous 
 correspondents mention anything of the kind. This 
 wholesale fabricator of scandal writes to Cromwell, 
 (p. 100,) that " thabbot of Fontance (Fountains) notori- 
 ously kepyth vi hoorres'^ (!). That such stuff as this 
 should gain belief at the present day is more melancholy 
 than surprising. 
 
 Page 62. 
 
 The following account of the demolition of Lewes 
 Priory is extracted from the Letters just mentioned 
 (p. 180). " My Lord, I humbly commend my selfe 
 unto your lordsh)^. The laste I wrote unto your lordshyp 
 was the xxth daye of thys present monith by the handes 
 
NOTES. 189 
 
 of Mr. Wyliamson, by the which I advertised your lord- 
 shyp of the lengthe and greateness of thys churche, and 
 how we had begon to pull the hole down to the ground, 
 and what maner and fashion they used in pulling it 
 down. I told your lordshyp of a vaute on the ryglite 
 syde of the hyghe altare, that was borne up with fower 
 greate pillars, having about it v chappelles, whych be 
 compased in with the walles ccx fete of length. All 
 thys is do-\vn a Thursday & Fryday last. Now we ar 
 pluekyng down an higher vaute, borne up by fower 
 thicke & grose pillars, xiiij. fote fro syde to syde, abowt 
 in circumference xlv fote. Thys shall downe for our 
 second Avorke. As it goth forward I woll advise your 
 lordsh)^ from tyme to tyme, & that your lordsh}^ may 
 knows with how many men we have don thys, we 
 browght from London xvij persons, 3 carpentars, 2 
 smythes, 2 plummars, and on that kepith the fornace. 
 Every of these attendith to hys own office : x of them 
 hewed the walles abowte, amonge the whych ther were 
 3 carpentars : thiese made proctes to undersette wher 
 the other cutte away, thother brake and cutte the waules. 
 Thiese ar men exercised moch better then the men that 
 we fynd here in the contrey. Wherfor we must both have 
 mo men, and other thinges also, that we have nede of, all 
 the whych I avoII within thys ij or thre dayes tell your 
 lordshyp by mouthe. A Tuesday they began to cast the 
 ledde, & it shalbe don with such diligence and savyng 
 as may be, so that our trust is your lordshyp shall be 
 moch satisfied with that we do, unto whom I most hum- 
 bly commend my self, moch desiringe God to mainteyn 
 your helth, your honour, your harte's ease. 
 "At Lewes, the xxiiij. of March, 1537. 
 " Yom* lordshyp's servant, 
 
 " Johan Portinari." 
 (Supposed to be Richard Moryson). 
 
 Page 67. 
 
 • In the church at Thoresby, Lincolnshire, is a curious 
 specimen of an early family pue. It is very large, and 
 the sides sufficiently high. Round the upper part is 
 
190 NOTES. 
 
 carved in large letters the following inscription : " Istec 
 est sedes Annse Awldbeii dnse uxoris Tristrami Smithi 
 Thoresbeiensis Eccl'iae patroni." The date is 1630. 
 In this church all the open seats are of post-reformation 
 date. Each standard, or bench-end, has the initials, 
 apparently of the owner, or rather the usual occupant, 
 carved upon it : which might perhaps be adopted with 
 advantage at the present day. The date 1(514 is attached 
 to a piece of wood which appears coeval. At S. Mary's 
 Wiggenhall, near Lynn, is another very singular manor 
 pue of early date. 
 
 Page 115. 
 
 As many persons ask why Grecian, and other antique 
 styles, may not be used at least for modern secular pur- 
 poses, we will endeavour briefly to answer tliem. All 
 architecture whatsoever is in its origin and consistent 
 development the expression and the ti/pe of the purpose 
 of its use. That is to say, the architecture of every age 
 and every nation owed its existence and formation to 
 the requirements of the religion, or other objects for 
 which it was intended. Tims, a Grecian temple con- 
 tained arrangements adapted to the worship of a hea- 
 then deity, or the reception of the worshippers, and 
 ornaments and members possessing manifest fitness as 
 parts of a whole ; material, climate, mechanical skill, 
 and other subordinate influences being taken into con- 
 sideration. In Christian architecture, in which this 
 principle was invariably carried out to the fullest ex- 
 tent, we find in the same manner a definite use for 
 every single part of a secular as well as of a religious 
 edifice. Now the question is this : can we retain the 
 form ii^respective of the use, without violating the funda- 
 mental principles of architecture 1 Clearly we cannot. 
 If we alter or curtail the form, we lose the true propor- 
 tions and efi'eet, and thus travestie, not imitate. If we 
 retain it, and copy exactly the ancient temples, we 
 waste money and space on mere show. One or the 
 other of these alternatives must attend the practice of 
 modern architects j and an examination of any pseudo- 
 
NOTES. 191 
 
 Grecian building in the kingdom will readily prove this. 
 The style is manifestly mifit for us. The middle ages 
 had in most respects the same requirements as om'S : 
 vast halls, great houses, places for worship, business, 
 and amusement, were as much wanted then as now. 
 But would the builders of that time (had they known 
 them) have copied pagan temples, retaining expensive 
 and perfectly useless parts merely to keep up the neces- 
 sary effect ? Would they have added an imposing stone 
 portico, of no manner of use in the world, to a clumsy 
 square body made up principally of brick, cast-iron, and 
 plaister of Paris, merely to make a street elevation, as 
 we have done in the new Fitzwilliam Museum at Cam- 
 bridge ? Certainly not : instead of adopting such pal- 
 pably false principles, they built naturally and consist- 
 ently in their national style, which would adapt itself 
 equally well to every possible want, and they therefore 
 worked free from the restrictions which the imitation 
 of uncongenial styles necessarily imposes. Adapted 
 designs will always prove more or less absurd, in pro- 
 portion as the purposes for which they are intended 
 differ more or less from the original uses. Let us 
 take the case of an English college. AVlrat person in 
 his senses would import a temple from Greece or Rome, 
 and build it twice over precisely of the same size 
 and shape, with porticos exactly facing each other, 
 and deformed by half-hidden sash windows under the 
 pediments, and then add to each of them a row of heavy, 
 flat, dull, tasteless walls, with low slated roofs and 
 cumbrous cornices, relieved only by square holes for 
 sash wi#iows, and a set of uniform Grecian aoorways ? 
 Yet this has actually been done at Downing College, 
 Cambridge — a design so thoroughly bad, and so utterly 
 devoid of ordinary taste, to say nothing of genius, that 
 almost any child who could wield a pencil might pro- 
 duce a better thing from an instinctive notion of effect 
 and propriety. For less money a whole square might 
 have been built, with low buttressed walls, high roofs 
 with dormer windows, hall with open roof, stained 
 windows, and louvre spire, and, above all, a correct 
 
192 NOTES. 
 
 chapel, not vaulted and richly paneled in cement, like 
 that of Corpus Christi College, nor tricked out with 
 plaister of Paris frippery, like other college chapels in 
 the same University, but real, dignified, and imposing. 
 Again, for the sum expended on the nondescript and 
 singularly ugly wing of the new library, two sides at 
 least of the proposed square might very easily have been 
 erected in the Christian and national style, harmonizing 
 with King's College Chapel, and accordant with ancient 
 associations. It is probable that the eyes of all, both 
 architects and employers, will soon be opened to the 
 truth of these facts, and that pagan architecture in Eng- 
 land must shortly " die the death;" but an immensity of 
 opposition, bigotry, and abuse, must first be encountered 
 in efi:ecting its overthrow. 
 
 Page 116. 
 
 It is the misfortune rather than the fault of architects 
 that their business comprehends such a heterogeneous 
 mixture of styles and kinds, that few indeed can give 
 their undivided attention to c/iurc/i architecture. That 
 the same man should erect a rail-road bridge or station, 
 a prison, a conventicle, a church, is degrading to the 
 sublimest of all sciences. But the greatest evil of all, 
 perhaps, is that no definite course of education, no di- 
 ploma, is requisite in this, as in every other profession. 
 Hence mere builders and cement-men often carry on a 
 business which they have no right whatever to have. 
 
 Page 118. 
 
 An important fact shews the mistaken practice of 
 building, for a very inadequate sum, a great square 
 brick edifice, with an apse and an ugly tower, to hold 
 1000 or 1500 people, in a long neglected parish of per- 
 haps five times that number of inhabitants. These 
 churches are often not half filled on any Sunday in the 
 year. The right way, undoubtedly, is to make small 
 and gradual, but sound and substantial beginnings. A 
 beautiful and really correct church, to hold two or three 
 hundred, in which the offices and sacraments could be 
 
NOTES. 193 
 
 properly and strikingly performed, without that leaven 
 of conventicular impropriety and contempt of Catholic 
 precedent which so often obtains, would be sure to pro- 
 duce another such, as soon as the first congregation had 
 become really impressed with its value and necessity. 
 It requires some credvdity to believe that five hundred 
 people perched aloft in a gallery round a central pulpit 
 can be very devotionally disposed, or very seriously im- 
 pressed with the solemn nature of the Church's Prayers 
 and Sacraments. 
 
 Page 162. 
 
 The following miraculous cures performed at Guthu- 
 rin, Shropshire, and Holywell, are given in Alban But- 
 ler's Lives of the Saints, under the Life of S. Wenefride 
 (November 3). " Sir Roger Bodenham, Knight of the 
 Bath, after he was abandoned by the ablest physicians 
 and the most famous colleges of that faculty, was cured 
 of a terrible leprosy by bathing in this miraculous foun- 
 tain in 1 606 ; upon which he became himself a Catholic, 
 and gave an ample certificate of his wonderful cure, 
 signed by many others. Mrs. Jane Wakeman, of Sus- 
 sex, in 1630, brought to the last extremity by a terrible 
 ulcerated breast, was perfectly healed in one night by 
 bathing thrice in that well, as she and her husband at- 
 tested. A poor widow of Kidderminster, in Worcester- 
 shire, had been long lame and bed-ridden, when she 
 sent a single penny to Holy Well, to be given to the 
 first poor body the person should meet with there ; and 
 at the very time it was given at Holy Well, the patient 
 arose in perfect health at Kidderminster. This fact 
 was examined and juridically attested by Mr. James 
 Bridges, Avho Avas afterwards Sheriff of Worcester, in 
 1651. Mrs. Mary Newman had been reduced to a ske- 
 leton, and to such a decrepit state and lameness, that 
 for eighteen years she had not been able to point or set 
 her foot on the ground. She tried all helps in England, 
 France, and Portugal, but in vain. At last she was 
 perfectly cured in the very well whilst she was bathing 
 herself the fifth time. Roger Whetstone, a Quaker, 
 
 
 
194 NOTES. 
 
 near Bromsgrove, by bathing in Holy Well was cured 
 of an inveterate lameness and palsy, by which he Avas 
 converted to the Catholic Faith." The cure mentioned 
 by Bishop Hall is given also by Alban Butler, vol. i. 
 p. 637, (Ed. 1838,) and the reference to the Prelate's 
 account (Invisible World, book i. sec. 8). 
 
 Page 167. 
 
 The objectors to the word " Altar " should consider 
 well the facts conveyed in the following extract from 
 Wheatley on the Common Prayer. " Altar was the 
 name by which the holy board was constantly distin- 
 guislied for the first 300 years after Christ ; during all 
 which time it does not appear that it was above once 
 called tabic, and that was in a letter of (S.) Dionysius 
 of Alexandria to (S.) Zystus of Rome. And when in 
 the fourth century (S.) Athanasius called it a table, he 
 thought himself obliged to explain the word, and to let 
 the reader know that by table he meant Altar, that being 
 then the constant and familiar name." 
 
 On the subject of the Anglican use o^ Altar, name and 
 thing, the following remarks of Bishop Overall in Ni- 
 cholls' Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, 
 (p. 37, additional notes, Ed. 1712, Fol.) are curious and 
 important. " In King Edward's first Service-Book the 
 word Altar was permitted to stand, as being the name 
 that Christians for many lumdred years had been ac- 
 quainted withal. Therefore when there was such pull- 
 ing down of Altars, and setting up of Tables at the be- 
 ginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, she was fain to 
 make an injunction to restrain such ungodly fury (for 
 ■which S. Chrysostom says the Christians would have 
 stoned a man to death that should but have laid his 
 hands on an Altar to destroy it, Hom.liii.) and appointed 
 decent and comely tables covered to be set up again, in 
 the same place where the Altars stood, thereby giving 
 an interpretation of this clause in our Communion Book, 
 For the word Table here stands not exclusively, as if it 
 might not be called an Altar, but to shew the indiffer- 
 ency and liberty of the name ; as of old it was called 
 
NOTES. 195 
 
 mensa Domini, the one having reference to the partici- 
 pation, the other to the Oblation of the Eucharist. 
 There are who contend now, it was the intent and pur- 
 pose of our Church at this Reformation to pull down 
 and wholly extinguish the very name of an Altar ; but 
 all thei?' reason being only the matte?' of fact, that Altars 
 were then pulled down, and this place of the Liturgy, that 
 here it is called a Table. We answer, that the matter 
 of fact proves nothing, being rather the zeal of the people 
 that were newly come out of the tyranny that was used 
 in Queen Mary's time. But if this were [not*] by or- 
 der of the Church, or according to the intent and mean- 
 ing of the Church and state at the Reformation, how 
 came it to pass then, that from that day to this the 
 Altars have continued in the King's and Queen's house- 
 holds after the same manner as they did before ? They 
 never dreamt there of setting up any tables instead of 
 them. And likewise in most Cathedrals how was it that 
 all things remained as they did before? .... And it 
 will be Avorthy the noting, that no Cathedral Church had 
 any pulling down, removing, or changing the Altar into a 
 table, no more than in the court, but in such places 
 only, W'here Deans and Bishops and Prebends were pre- 
 ferred, that suffered themselves more to be led by the 
 fashions which they had seen at Strasburg, Geneva, and 
 Zurick, than by the orders of the Church of England es- 
 tablished, and continued in her Majesty's family, the 
 likeliest to understand the meaning of the Church and 
 state of any other place." 
 
 Page 172. 
 
 For an accurate knowledge of the rites, ornaments, 
 and usages of all kinds which continued and were gene- 
 rally observed in the Church from the Reformation till 
 the Commonwealth, and even after it, though now en- 
 tirely obsolete, the reader is referred to the " Hierurgia 
 Anglicana," edited by members of the Cambridge Cam- 
 den Society. If the perusal of this Avork, which is un- 
 
 * This word must be expunged, or the sense is illogical. 
 
196 NOTES. 
 
 answerable because it is merely a collection of facts from 
 contemporary authorities, does not confound the objec- 
 tions of the ultra-protestants of the nineteenth century, 
 there is little hope of truth ever prevailing over prejudice. 
 
 Page 173. 
 
 It is certain that -what we call reading--pues were not 
 introduced till IGOO. A singular fact, which seems to 
 demand further investigation, is that so large a propor- 
 tion of pulpits are of this date, (from 1600 to 1640,) 
 while so few are found older than the Reformation, that 
 it is impossible to sup])ose their use was general before 
 that period. The earliest wooden pulpit with which the 
 author is acquainted is at Fulbourne, near Cambridge, 
 which dates about 1330. It is highly probable that the 
 rood-lofts were used for the ordinary purposes of pul- 
 pits ; and again, ancient pulpits were perhaps used for 
 reading the lessons as well as for general exhortations. 
 
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Works now in course of PvLlication. 
 
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 PROFESSOR OWEN'S HISTORY OF BRITISH FOSSIL MAMMALIA.* 
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