Trevithick"Come along, Trevithick," he cried, rushing away.
"Come along, Trevithick," he cried, rushing away.
"Come along, Trevithick," he cried, rushing away.
"Poor Miss Spencer always thinks he will come back, though people say he married abroad and died there. I tell you all this so that you won't be the least bit in the world inclined to laugh when you see her. I daresay it's funny enough to see a pink silk coal-scuttle bonnet on top of a grey head; but then, you know, you don't feel like laughing."
"No, indeed, darling."
"Sylvia says it's made a man-hater of her. That's how she excuses herself for treating her admirers so outrageously."
"I'd have fallen in love with Sylvia myself, only for you, Pamela."
"It's lucky you didn't, Tony." The name came with soft hesitation.
"Why, Pam?"
"She'd have laughed in your face."
"I'd rather have your way, Pam."
"My way?"
"Though it made me behave worse than I intended. But never mind. A little time will unravel the tangled skein. Now we are nearly out of the wood. Ah, Pamela! kiss me once—I shall not ask you again till I have the full right."
Without a word the girl lifted her face to meet his kiss. To her it was the kiss of betrothal.
"I wish my friend, Glengall, were at home," said Mr. Graydon, leaning back in the chair by the study fire. "He'd give you a mount while you were waiting for Johnny Maher's little mare. The hounds meet at Lettergort to-day."
He looked wistfully through the bare trees on the lawn, as though he saw in imagination the scarlet horsemen pounding away after the streaming line of hounds.
His pupil thrust into a book a sketch of Pamela which he had been making absent-mindedly.
"Why don't you hunt, sir?" he asked, with sympathy.
"So I do, my lad, when I can. But I can't afford to keep a horse, and there aren't many mounts to be had here. Glengall is going to set up stables when he comes back, and I'll have the run of them, I suppose. He's a good fellow—one wouldn't mind being obliged to him."
"The mare'll be a good one when she's broken," said the young man.
"The best in the world for Irish fences, if she does look a bit roughish."
"You'll ride her for me, when I am away at Christmas, to get her mouth in?"
"Thank you, my lad; I should like to." Mr. Graydon's eye kindled with pleasure. "But I didn't know you were going. It seems a longish way to go home for Christmas."
"My mother would like to see me."
"To be sure, to be sure. I quite understand, and, of course, there are friends in London you naturally want to see."
"No one very particularly, sir."
"Ah, well! it will be a holiday from this dull place."
"No, I assure you, sir. It is partly because I have some—some business I want to settle. It is really true that there is no one I go to see whom I regard more than the friends I shall be leaving behind."
Sir Anthony blushed hotly over this avowal, but his unsuspicious host only saw in it the shamefacedness with which a man, and especially a young man, makes a display of his feelings.
"Now, that is kind of you," he said, looking at his pupil benignantly. "I am sure our Christmas will be dull without you. Do the girls know you are going? They won't like it, eh? And they will be disappointed that you will not be here for the Vandaleur affair."
"I am coming back for that, sir."
"I am glad. It is really the children's first outing. It is a dull enough affair for young people, but then they will wear their pretty frocks and see strange faces. We are such quiet people, Trevithick, that even Vandaleur's big dinner and reception, which comes off regularly whenever there is a general election in sight"—Mr. Graydon broke off to laugh and rub his hands—"is an event for us. But we are forgetting our Tacitus, my boy. Let us get back to the old fellow."
At that moment there was the sound of a horn, and, with the shout of a boy, Mr. Graydon was up.
"Come along, Trevithick," he cried, rushing away, hatless and coatless. "We shall get a glimpse of them. What a day for a scent! They are sure to find at Larry's Spinney."
His words came back to his pupil, who was getting under weigh more leisurely.
"Dear old boy!" he muttered to himself. "It's not surprising my father never forgot him. I wonder why the mater regards him with so deadly a hatred, though?"
At lunch Mr. Graydon announced that Sir Anthony was going home for Christmas. There was a shrill expostulation from Sylvia, and even a mild protest from Mary, but Pamela said nothing. Perhaps it was not news to Pamela.
"You will not be here for the skating," said Sylvia aggrievedly; "that is, if there's goingto be any. And I've promised them at the Rectory that you'd recite at their penny reading and give away the presents at the Christmas-tree, besides managing the magic lantern. And, oh!"—the magnitude of the misfortune coming full upon her—"you're not surely going to miss the Vandaleur dinner?"
"No, Miss Sylvia, I shall be here for it certainly. I wouldn't miss it for anything; but I object to your engagements for me with the Rectory people. I'd rather be shot than recite, and—the other things are beyond me," laughing.
"Never mind, then," said the young lady airily. "Lord Glengall will do just as well. I shall like to see him distributing the articles. Besides, he will please the people better than a 'baronite,' and be of the rale ould blood, too."
"Sylvia!" said her father, with a rebuke in his voice.
"Never mind, papa dear. Sir Anthony understands all about his being only a 'baronite.' Bridget told him the other day that if the master had his rights 'tisn't teaching a 'Sir' he'd be."
"So she did," said Sir Anthony.
Mr. Graydon laughed.
"Ah, well, my boy! you mustn't tell your mother what odd people you've found among the wild Irish—will you?"
"She wouldn't understand a bit, but I'll tell her what dear friends I have found and made at Carrickmoyle."
He blushed again, and Mr. Graydon thought how well his modesty became him.
"Ah, well!" he said, "I suppose we must make up our minds to spend Christmas without you. What are you going to do this afternoon?"
"I'm going to Maher's to see the mare, and put her through her paces. I'd like to have her stabled here as soon as possible. If she's ready, she can come at once."
"To be sure. There's stabling for twenty horses here, though the stalls are bare—worse luck! But we won't let Sheila starve. Shall we, girls? I'll go bail these children will make a fine pet of her, Trevithick."
"I shall be all the fonder of her, sir, though I'm well pleased with her at present."
"She's a sweet little bit of horseflesh," assented Mr. Graydon. "I think I shall come with you, if you don't object to my company. I've a bit of business with Johnny myself."
When they returned in time for the afternoon cup of tea, they found an old yellow barouche standing before the door.
"Ah, Miss Spencer is here," said Mr. Graydon. "She's rather an oddity, my boy, so prepare to meet one."
"I heard her story from Miss Pamela. It is very sad."
"When I was a boy of thirteen or fourteen I remember her a brilliantly lovely young woman. That was before that scoundrel came in her way."
When they entered the drawing-room Miss Spencer was sitting with her back to them, almost hidden in a deep armchair. The three girls were sitting or standing about her, all evidently much interested.
"Here is papa, and our guest with him, Miss Spencer," said Mary.
The little old woman came out of her chair with a sudden darting movement like that of a bird. Her gaze went from Mr. Graydon to the younger man.
"Oh!" she cried. "Whom did you say?"
She looked at the stranger for a moment with an agony of expectation in her yet bright eyes, while she fumbled nervously for the long-handled glasses at her side. When she had found them she peered at him through them; then dropped them, the expression of her face changing to indifference.
"I beg your pardon, sir," she said. "I am expecting a friend, and for a moment I thought you were he."
"How do you do, Miss Spencer?" broke in Mr. Graydon. "I see you have Stella under the barouche again. I'm glad she has recovered from her lameness."
"The foot has come all right, thank you," said Miss Spencer, assuming quite an ordinary manner. "You weren't hunting to-day?"
"No; I must wait till Glengall sets up his stables."
"Ah, Glengall is coming home soon?"
"He expects to reach Plymouth on the eighteenth. He will be at home for Christmas."
"There'll be nothing in order for him in that old barrack of his."
"He'll stay here while he's getting things straight. He is going to make a grand place of Glengall. He has plenty of money, and the heart to spend it, and the practical wit to direct it."
"What will he do with it then? He has neither chick nor child."
"There is always time, Miss Spencer."
The slightly mad, brooding look came back to the little wizened white face.
"Yes, of course, there is time," she said, dreamily. "I remember someone—who was it?—who knew Glengall when she was a young woman and he was a little boy. Glengall can't be old, of course, and any day people may return—mayn't they?"
"Why, to be sure they may. Glengall did, though he was twenty years out of the reach of civilisation."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking of Glengall. It was of someone much younger, someone about the age of that young gentleman there."
Trevithick stood in the background and watched her with honest eyes of wonder and pity. She was smoothing the pink silk of her gown, while her eyes watched the fire as if she saw something very happy in it. Her skin was waxen white, and her features sharpened, but the brilliant eyes kept their beauty, and her little old hands, covered with rings, were delicately shaped. Her hair was half-white through the original black, and very oddly her pink bonnet, with its wreath of roses inside, sat on the streaked hair and over the white face. She had thrown off a large sable cloak on to the back of her chair.
watchedTrevithick watched her with wonder and pity.
Trevithick watched her with wonder and pity.
Trevithick watched her with wonder and pity.
Sylvia now broke in on Miss Spencer's half-mad mood. She touched one of the hands tenderly. Trevithick, as he noticed it, thought that it was the first time he had seen Sylvia's face really soft; and wonderfully the new expression completed the girl's beauty. So she will look, he thought, some day, when she is in love, like—like Pamela. But Pamela's serious face was hidden from him now with a fire-screen she held in her hand. He had noticed of late that she seldom looked at him, nor was he displeased. He knew the secret she was afraid to reveal.
"We are all going to the Vandaleur affair, Miss Spencer," Sylvia was saying. "It will be on the thirtieth. There are to be great doings—acres of marquees for the diners, and the winter garden lit by electricity, and I don't know what besides."
Miss Spencer came back to every-day life with a start.
"To the Vandaleur affair, child! Why, who is going to take you?"
"Papa, of course. He loves a little outing, though he won't admit it. He says he'd rather stay at home and have a quiet night's work at his book, and get some hot tea ready for us by the time we come home."
"Why shouldn't I take you?" said the old lady. "I'm hardly old enough for a chaperon, of course, still I've the carriage, and I'd enjoy the function. I haven't been at one since the time Tom Charteris was master of the hounds. How long ago is that?"
Mr. Graydon, to whom she spoke, answered her without looking at her.
"A goodish few years ago."
"It can't be," said the old lady; "not more than four or five at the outside. I wore white satin and pearls. That reminds me: what are you going to wear, minx?"
This to Sylvia, at the same time softly pulling her ear.
"We've got pattern-books of silk stuffs from Dublin. They're dirt-cheap; but the dressmaking will be the bother. However, I daresay we'll manage. Mrs. Collins' Nancy, who is a lady's-maid, is expected home for Christmas. She'll cut the frocks out, and we'll sew them ourselves. She'll know the fashions."
must go"I must go, to unravel a tangled skein."
"I must go, to unravel a tangled skein."
"I must go, to unravel a tangled skein."
"Stuff and nonsense, child! Your first public appearance, too."
"It's Pam's also. But you'll see we'll look very nice. I shouldn't be surprised if the prince fell in love with me."
"What prince? Oh, I see, Cinderella's. But Cinderella went magnificently to her evening party—not in cheap and nasty stuffs cobbled up anyhow."
"The prince wouldn't see that. He'd be disconsolate when I disappeared at twelve o'clock, and he'd send all over the country to find the fit of my glass slipper, and Molly and Pam would cry tears of rage because it wouldn't even fit on their toes."
"You're not ball-going, minx."
"It will be just as good. There'll be a beautiful dinner, and everyone in the county there, and afterwards there will be acres of beautiful things to see. It is a thousand pities Mr. Vandaleur is an absentee."
"If he wasn't, he wouldn't have to remind you of his existence now," said the old lady cynically. "But am I to be chaperon?"
"Well, I'll tell you what, Miss Spencer," said Mr. Graydon. "If you'd take charge of these children, I'd be greatly obliged to you. The fact is that I've to attend a sort of unofficial meeting of Vandaleur's supporters in the afternoon, and he has hospitably offered me a bed. So I thought I'd take my bag over and dress there after the meeting."
"And stay all night? I knew it," criedSylvia. "Papa pretended it was such a bother, and all the time he was longing to be in for every bit of it. Only he didn't know what to do with us."
Mr. Graydon laughed.
"Maybe you wouldn't like it yourself. I shall be button-holed by Musgrave and Frost and Clitheroe, and every man in the county who thinks he has a head for politics and wants a patient listener."
"And you will go at it hammer and tongs with the best of them, and forget you have daughters. I don't suppose you'll even remember at dinner-time to see whether anyone is asking us if we've an appetite."
"The young fellows will do that. Every boy in the county will be there, including the 300th from Dangan Barracks."
"I daresay," said Sylvia: "you're always ready to shift your responsibilities. Never mind, Miss Spencer; I daresay we shall be able to find someone who will look after us, if it's only a waiter."
"Oh, indeed, you'll find someone to befriend you, never fear. And so will Pam. And so shall I. But what about Molly?"
"Never mind me, Miss Spencer," said Mary. "It would never do to have you chaperoning three girls, and I shouldn't enjoy it a bit. I shall stay up and have tea for you after your cold drive."
"I don't know what girls are coming to," said Miss Spencer; "I shouldn't like to have to stay at home myself."
"We don't mind Molly," cried her sisters; "she really likes to stay at home and write her perpetual letters."
"I shouldn't mind having the three of you," went on Miss Spencer; "we'd pass for four sisters."
"We should never look as lovely as you in that white satin and pearls," said Sylvia, fondly.
"I was much admired," said Miss Spencer, complacently. "But now I must be going. I've letters to write before dinner: I don't want to lose my beauty-sleep sitting up to write them."
When Sir Anthony came into the drawing-room before dinner, he found only Pamela stretching her hands to the wood fire in the low grate.
The lover stooped down and kissed them.
"Have you been out?" he asked in a whisper.
"Only to the stables with Sylvia. Your Sheila has come. She is a dear thing."
"You like her, Pam?"
"Who could help it? She looks so wild and shy, and she is so gentle at the same time."
"Do you like her because she is mine, Pam? Do you, just a little because of that? Say you do, Pam."
"Just a little," whispered Pam.
"Why, if you like, she shall be yours, when—when everything has come right. I think she would carry a lady beautifully. What do you say, Pam? Would you like her,then?"
"Yes," said Pamela, with her eyes very bright.
"You didn't seem to mind my going away at Christmas, Pam. You were the only one who didn't protest."
"I know you wouldn't go if you could help it."
"Wise little woman. I must go, darling—to unravel a tangled skein. Afterwards it will be paradise, Pam. I will come back as soon—as soon as ever I can. I shall be in a fury of impatience till I come back."
"And I," said Pam, lifting her eyes to her lover, and flooding him with their light.
"Sweetheart! you were a coquette when I knew you first, Pam. Now you don't try me as many girls try their lovers."
"I have only love for you now. Ah! what should I do if you did not come back?"
"I will come back, 'though 'twere ten thousand mile.' I shall be here for your great function. Do you think I would have you go without me?"
"I shouldn't care for it without you."
"There will be other men there, Pamela, to see how beautiful you are. I must be there to guard my own."
"There is no need for that."
"I believe you, my love, you are as much mine as if you were my wife. And I am as much yours."
"Love can only mean that."
"Ah, my darling! how sweet you are! You wouldn't care for the admiration of other men, Pam?"
"Only for one."
"It is hard to be wise, Pam, when I am with you. You are too sweet. It is fortunate I am going."
"When you come back it will be different."
"Yes; you will have to make up to me for my prudence all these months. I have been good, Pam; I have never asked you for a kiss."
"Yes, you have been good."
"And you, you are a girl in ten thousand. You have never asked me what stood between us—a shadowy barrier, Pam, but even that must go before I claim you, my queen. When I come back, Pam! Ah, when I come back!"
"Here is Molly," said Pam, in a low voice, as her sister entered the room.
END OF CHAPTER SIX.
Anniversaries
By the Rev. A. R. Buckland, M.A., Morning Preacher at the Foundling Hospital.
December is a month of great names. On December 21st, 1117, according to some authorities, there was born, in a house that stood on the site of the Mercers' Chapel in Cheapside, Thomas à Becket. Whether men side with Church or State, and are for or against Becket, they will hardly deny him the right to be remembered as an outstanding figure in our history. On the last day of the month died another great Englishman; like Becket, an Oxford man, and a potent factor in the religious development of our nation. On December 31st there passed away at Lutterworth John Wycliffe. His bones, thirteen years after burial, were dragged from their resting-place and cast into the River Swift. Thomas Fuller turns that shameful act of ecclesiastical malice to good use. "Thus," he says, "this brook did convey his ashes into the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn into the narrow sea, and this into the wide ocean. And so the ashes of Wycliffe are the emblem of his doctrine, which is now dispersed all the world over." On the 13th of the month, many generations later, there came into the world Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, an ecclesiastic of still another type. No modern dean ever identified himself with his cathedral as Stanley did with Westminster Abbey. Its national character was always present to his mind. His simple piety, his good works, his sympathy with Nonconformists, all helped to make the Dean himself rather a national possession than merely an ecclesiastic. He died in 1881.
WycliffeJOHN WYCLIFFE.(From the Portrait at King's College.)
JOHN WYCLIFFE.(From the Portrait at King's College.)
JOHN WYCLIFFE.
(From the Portrait at King's College.)
We have had the Church, let us come to the State. It is a rich month that claims the birth both of William Ewart Gladstone (December 29th) and of his great rival, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (December 20th). They began their careers under very different auspices. Eton and Oxford prepared the one for immediate entry, under favouring circumstances, into Parliamentary life. The other was educated privately, designed for the law, and first caught the public eye as an author when he burst upon the world with the novel, "Vivian Grey." Mr. Gladstone survived his rival seventeen years.
StanleyDEAN STANLEY.(Photo: The London Stereoscopic Co.)
DEAN STANLEY.(Photo: The London Stereoscopic Co.)
DEAN STANLEY.
(Photo: The London Stereoscopic Co.)
There died on December 14th one whom the British nation can only number amongst its own worthies by adoption. The death of the Prince Consort in the prime of life, and just when his very considerable powers and great devotion were beginning to be understood by those who at first regarded him with doubt because he was a foreigner, plunged our Queen into sorrow which long darkened thelife of the Court and was felt by the whole nation. The pure, unblemished life of the Prince Consort, his sincere desire to advance the welfare of the people, his ready promotion of the arts and sciences, as well as his tender devotion to the Queen, have long been understood and valued by the nation which he served.
MiltonJOHN MILTON.(From the Miniature by Samuel Cooper.)
JOHN MILTON.(From the Miniature by Samuel Cooper.)
JOHN MILTON.
(From the Miniature by Samuel Cooper.)
To come to other fields: there was born in London on December 9th, 1608, John Milton. Educated at Cambridge, he early gave free play to the powers which in their issue have made his name familiar wherever the English language is spoken. Few remember him as a writer of polemical treatises on affairs of the State and the Church, or even as Latin Secretary to Cromwell; but he was an old man and blind when he gave the world "Paradise Lost."
On the 12th there died Robert Browning, a poet who spoke to his age as few men have ever done, and spoke of God and the soul, of the here and the hereafter, with a clearness of faith which was as distinct as the robust manliness of his character.
WrenSIR CHRISTOPHER WREN(From the Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller.)
SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN(From the Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller.)
SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN
(From the Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller.)
December 28th is given as the date upon which Westminster Abbey was consecrated in 1065; and on December 2nd that other minster, St. Paul's Cathedral, was opened in 1697. Legend says that the same King Sebert who founded the original St. Paul's also founded the Abbey at Westminster, whilst another story invokes the aid of King Offa. There is, however, clear testimony to the establishment of a Benedictine abbey at Westminster in the time of Edgar; that is antiquity respectable enough to satisfy most of us. A cathedral on this site is mentioned by the Venerable Bede as early as 604; but the actual fabric of St. Paul's has, according to Mr. Loftie, undergone greater vicissitudes than that of any other cathedral in England. The present St. Paul's was begun in 1675 and finished in 1710. Its cost was £736,752. Sir Christopher Wren, its architect, received for his services £200 a year. What were then called "the new ball and cross" on the cathedral were completed in this same month in 1821.
BrowningROBERT BROWNING.(Photo: Cameron and Smith, Mortimer Street, W.)
ROBERT BROWNING.(Photo: Cameron and Smith, Mortimer Street, W.)
ROBERT BROWNING.
(Photo: Cameron and Smith, Mortimer Street, W.)
An old calendar assures me that on the 15th of this month, in the year 1802, "societies for abolishing the common method of sweeping chimneys" were instituted.
On the 20th of this month, in the year 1814, Samuel Marsden landed in New Zealand—a missionary anniversary worth recalling.
GladstoneW. E. GLADSTONE THE EARL of BEACONSFIELD.Photo: Samuel Walker. Photo: Hughes-Mullins, Ryde. I.W.TWO EMINENT STATESMEN BORN IN DECEMBER.
W. E. GLADSTONE THE EARL of BEACONSFIELD.Photo: Samuel Walker. Photo: Hughes-Mullins, Ryde. I.W.TWO EMINENT STATESMEN BORN IN DECEMBER.
W. E. GLADSTONE THE EARL of BEACONSFIELD.
Photo: Samuel Walker. Photo: Hughes-Mullins, Ryde. I.W.
TWO EMINENT STATESMEN BORN IN DECEMBER.
Genius
Pulpit at Gloucester Cathedral.
A Sermon Preached by the Very Rev. H. Donald M. Spence, D.D., Dean of Gloucester, at the Opening Service of the September (1898) Meeting of the Three-Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral.
"As for Wisdom, what she is, and how she came up, I will tell you, and will not hide mysteries from you, but will seek her out from the beginning of her nativity, and bring the knowledge of her into Light, and will not pass over Truth."
"As for Wisdom, what she is, and how she came up, I will tell you, and will not hide mysteries from you, but will seek her out from the beginning of her nativity, and bring the knowledge of her into Light, and will not pass over Truth."
TThe surroundings of a custodian of a mediæval cathedral, beautiful though they are, at the same time are unutterably pathetic. They tell him, do the pages of the old solemn Book of Stone he is never weary of turning over and of pondering upon, that the genius of man has its limits, which it may never pass; that the story of human progress to higher and ever higher levels is often a delusive one; that in past ages his forefathers were perhaps as noble and chivalrous—aye, nobler, more chivalrous than the men of his own generation—that their imagination was more brilliant and their hands more cunning; that if in some respects progress is visible, in others the movement is retrograde.
The surroundings of a custodian of a mediæval cathedral, beautiful though they are, at the same time are unutterably pathetic. They tell him, do the pages of the old solemn Book of Stone he is never weary of turning over and of pondering upon, that the genius of man has its limits, which it may never pass; that the story of human progress to higher and ever higher levels is often a delusive one; that in past ages his forefathers were perhaps as noble and chivalrous—aye, nobler, more chivalrous than the men of his own generation—that their imagination was more brilliant and their hands more cunning; that if in some respects progress is visible, in others the movement is retrograde.
Again, a great mediæval cathedral like our own glorious Gloucester, inimitable in its fadeless beauty and matchless strength, surely deals a very heavy blow to human pride, and it teaches humility to the most competent and ablest of our number, for it is a conception belonging to a past age. A great gathering, however, like the present, numbering some six or seven thousand persons, is for varied reasons an inspiring one and bids us be trustful—even hopeful.
Dwell we a brief while first on our surroundings. Of all works devised by human ingenuity and carried on by human skill, the triumphs of architecture are among the most enduring, afford the most genuine and purest delight to the greater number of men and women, are confessedly the most attractive, perhaps the most instructive, as they are among the most enduring of human creations. The glories of Luxor and Karnak, which for several thousand years have been mirrored in the grey-green Nile; the white and gleaming shrines of Athens the bright and happy, the mighty ruins of Eternal Rome, are splendid instances.
But perhaps the conspicuous examples of this architecture, the most loved of human arts and crafts, are, after all, the mediæval cathedrals. The first object of interest for the modern traveller in search of health or rest is a cathedral. All sorts and conditions of men find delight in its contemplation. The delight, of course, is varied, but the strange and witching beauty appeals to them all. This appeal to the higher and devotional side of our nature speaks to every soul, to the unlearned as to the learned, to the mill-hand as to the scholar. The wanderer from the New World beyond the seas at once seeks them out, conscious that in them he will finda beauty and a joy such as he will never see or feel outside their charmed walls.
I have said that to the custodian of such a cathedral the surroundings are, if not sad, at least pathetic, for these magnificent and loved creations of human genius belong to a somewhat remote past, and, as far as these exquisite buildings are concerned, save for purposes of necessary repair—repair simply to arrest the ravages of time—for nearly four hundred years the clink of trowel and pickaxe has been hushed.
It is scarcely an exaggerated statement which speaks of architecture, in its noblest sense, as a lost art. Very significant are the words of one of the greatest of modern architects, who, after dwelling on the decadence of his loved art, tells us how "It is a somewhat saddening reflection—but there is no escaping from the conclusion—that the art which created the glorious abbeys and minsters, the beautiful parish churches so plentifully dotted over our country—abbeys, minsters, and churches which the churchmen of the second half of the nineteenth century so reverently and wisely restore and seek to copy stone by stone, arch by arch, window by window, down to the smallest bit of ornament—is a lost art! Men have come sorrowfully to see that mediæval architecture is the last link—perhaps the most beautiful as well as the last link—of that long chain of architectural styles, 'commencing in far-back ages in Egypt and passing on in continuous course through Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, and Byzantium, and thence taken up by the infant nations of modern Europe, and by them prolonged through successive ages of continuous progress till it terminated in the beautiful thirteenth-and fourteenth-century Gothic, and has never since produced a link of its own.... Alas! it is the last link of that mighty chain which had stretched unbroken through nearly four thousand years—the glorious termination of the history of original and genuine architecture.'" Well may men love it and seek to preserve the examples they possess of it, and aim at copying it as well as they can. These remarkable and melancholy words above quoted were deliberately spoken by Sir Gilbert Scott, R.A., LL.D., in his first lecture on Mediæval Architecture delivered at the Royal Academy some years ago.
So much for my note of sadness. Now let me strike a different chord.
Such a gathering as the present, I repeat, is an inspiring one, for it tells me that if one great art dies, He who loves us and has redeemed us at so great a price, gives His children something in its place. Now it is strange that amidst all the gorgeous and striking ceremonial of the mediæval services, with their wealth of colour and ornament, with all their touching and elaborate symbolism, music, as it is now understood, was unknown and comparatively neglected. In the noblest cathedral of the Middle Ages, in the stateliest Benedictine or Cistercian abbey, while the eye was filled with sights of solemnity and beauty, each sight containing its special and peculiar teaching, the ear was comparatively uncared for. Strangely monotonous and even harsh would chaunt and psalm and hymn, as rendered in the mighty abbeys of Westminster, Durham, or Gloucester in the days of the great Plantagenets, of the White Rose or Red Rose kings, sound to the musically trained ears of the worshippers of the second half of the nineteenth century. Indeed, music as a great science was unknown in pre-Reformation times. The most complete anthem-book may be searched through by the curious scholar, but scarcely a musical composer of any note will be found in these collections of a date earlier than the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It would seem as though, when architecture ceased in the sixteenth century to be a living craft, a new art was discovered and worked at by men.
A new art! I say these words, strange to some, with emphasis. One who has indeed a right to speak of music[1]thus voices my assertion. While telling us that certain grand forms of music loom out of the darkness of the earlier centuries of our era, the famous musician to whom I refer adds that little of what we understand of music existed before the later years of the fifteenth century. It was no mere renaissance, for that which had never been born could not be born again.
[1]Professor Hullah, in his "Lectures on the History of Modern Music," delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, published 1884. See, too, Professor Hullah's Royal Institution Lecture on the Transition Period of Musical History (1876).
[1]Professor Hullah, in his "Lectures on the History of Modern Music," delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, published 1884. See, too, Professor Hullah's Royal Institution Lecture on the Transition Period of Musical History (1876).
In case some should think that too strong expressions are here used, it may be well to quote some of Professor Hullah's own words, which he used in the above-mentioned lecture at the RoyalInstitution:—"Music is a new art.... What we now call music ... what answers to our definition of music, has come into being only within comparatively few years; almost within the memory of men living." "I should say that in the scholastic music there was no art, and in the popular music no science; whence it is that the former has ceased to please, and the latter has for the most part perished utterly."
It was a new art which charmed and delighted men as they listened to the magic of the sounds evoked by the majesty of the compositions of Palestrina, or by the sweetness of the music of Marenzio. It is true, as I said, that certain grand forms of music loom out of the darkness of the remote past—shadowy forms—and the rare composers and writers of the music of the past are, as far as music is concerned, but the shadow of names now. I allude, as famous examples of these shadows of names, to names such as Gregory and Isidore, Hucbald and the eleventh-centurymaestro, Guido Aretino.
With extraordinary rapidity developed the new craft. To give here some familiar landmarks—
Henry VIII. was reigning before Josquin Deprès, whom all musicians revere as one of the earliest, certainly the most renowned, of the pioneers of modern music, became generally known in Europe. Josquin Deprès was born somewhere about the year 1466, dying about 1515, some ten or fifteen years before Palestrina was born. Luther said of him, "Other musicians do what they can with notes; Josquin does what he likes with them." The Abbate Baini alludes to him as "the idol of Europe"; and again writes, "Nothing is beautiful unless it be the work of Josquin."
The famous Roman School of music only dates from 1540. The oratorio, even in its more simple forms, made its appearance some seventy years later.
Not until the last years of our Queen Elizabeth were the names of Palestrina and Marenzio, those great early composers, conspicuous, and the Queen so loved of Englishmen had long fallen asleep before Carissimi, the earliest master of the sacred cantata in its many forms, gave his mighty impulse to the new-born art; while the works of his world-famed pupil Scarlatti, and of our own English Purcell, belong to the art-records of the days of William and Mary and Queen Anne. See how the whole of the marvellous story of music—as we understand music—belongs to quite recent days!
All through the eighteenth century, when the Georges reigned, architecture slept its well-nigh dreamless sleep. But the new art of music grew with each succeeding year, while the men whose names will never die lived and wrote.
It was this eighteenth century which saw a Beethoven, a Handel, a Bach, a Haydn, and a Mozart. As masters of the new-born craft none can be conceived greater.
The century now closing boasts, however, a long line of true followers and worthy disciples of those great ones, men whose names are household words in every European city.
But my brief record, necessarily dry and bald, of a momentous change in the teaching of the world would be incomplete without one word on the glorious instrument—the voice, so to speak—of these masters of a new art, the organ. The first organ known in Western Europe traditionally was sent to Pepin in France by the Emperor of Constantinople in 759, but Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, in his poem on Virginity, some half a century earlier, apparently describes what appears to have been the organ. Elphege, Abbot of Winchester in the tenth century, is said to have caused a very large organ to be constructed; but, with this solitary exception, all the mediæval organs seem to have been small and comparatively unimportant instruments. The oldest organ-cases preserved do not date back further than the last years of the fifteenth century, and these by the side of modern organs are insignificant in size. Viollet le Duc, in his great work, gives us a picture of the Perpignan organ, one of the earliest (early in the sixteenth century). From this date the size rapidly increased.
In the "Rites of Durham," where a great mediæval church is described at the period of the Dissolution (1530-40), there were three organs in use in the abbey church, the principal one being only used at "principall Feasts," the pipes being "very faire and partly gilded." "Only two organs in England," says the "Rites," "of the same makinge, one in Yorke and another in Paules."
listenersLISTENERS AT THE THREE-CHOIR FESTIVAL.
LISTENERS AT THE THREE-CHOIR FESTIVAL.
LISTENERS AT THE THREE-CHOIR FESTIVAL.
The most magnificent organ-case inEurope is the one in St. Janskirk at Bois le Duc, and, like the vast majority of the great organ-cases, is Renaissance in style. Viollet le Duc sums up the question in the following sentence:—
"It does not appear that great organs were in use before the fifteenth century, and it was only towards the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries that the idea of building organs of dimensions hitherto unknown was first conceived."
The organ, as we now know it, was born among us at the same date when architecture died. Like the music of the Middle Ages, in the days when these vast and peerless buildings arose, it is true the organ was not unknown; but, like mediæval music, it was a small, poor thing compared with the stupendous instrument we know and love. There was no great organ before the last years of the fifteenth century, when the Tudors reigned. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed its development, and acknowledged its surpassing grandeur, and recognised its fitness as one of the chief handmaids of the new great art.
Now the secret of the men who built this lordly abbey is lost; never again will such a triumph of, alas! a dead art arise to charm and to delight, to instruct and inspire the children of men. But we may still preserve and reverently use this rare and noble legacy of a vanished age as a shrine and a peerless teaching-home—a prayer-home, in which are taught the great evangelical truths by which Christian men live and breathe and have their being, the saving knowledge of the work of the Precious Blood, the glad Redemption-story, the story loved of men; the story which never ages, never palls, but which, like dew, descends on each succeeding generation of believers, and gives them new stores of faith and hope and love. This—these things—we try to do, and not without success, for as God's bright glory-cloud once brooded over the sacred desert-tent and the holy Jerusalem Temple, so now upon our beloved and ancient cathedral, with its almost countless services of praise and prayer and teaching, God's blessing surely rests.
"It sleeps," does our cathedral, as one has lately said in words beautiful as true—"it sleeps with its splendid dreams upon its lifted face." But it has, too, its many wakeful working hours. Not the least memorable of these will strike this week, when the charmed strains of Handel and Haydn, Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven, and of the great Englishmen, Gibbons and Boyce and Walmisley and Wesley, and last, but not least, of Hubert Parry, peal through these fretted vaults, "lingering and wandering on" among these wondrous chambers of inspired imagery; while the almost prophetic words of that truest English song-man Wordsworth become history:—
"Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the loreOf nicely calculated less or more;So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the senseThese lofty pillars, spread that branching roofSelf-poised, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells,Where light and shade repose, where music dwellsLingering and wandering on as loth to die—Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proofThat they were born for immortality."