Part 1
THE PENNY MAGAZINE
OF THE
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
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7.] PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. [May 12, 1832
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THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. PAUL’S.
[Illustration: Old St. Paul’s Cathedral--South View.]
The elevated situation of the spot on which St. Paul’s is built, seems to have pointed it out from very ancient times for religious or other public purposes. Without adopting the very doubtful opinion of some antiquaries, that the Romans during their occupation of the island had erected a temple to Diana upon this eminence--an opinion which has not even the support of tradition, and which Sir Christopher Wren, when he dug the foundations of the present church, became convinced had no other support--it seems to be clear that these foreigners used it for a cemetery or burial place, if not for anything more sacred. On the erection of the present building many Roman funeral vases, lacrymatories, and other articles used in sepulture, were found at a considerable depth under the surface. Next to these lay in rows skeletons of the ancient Britons; and immediately above them, Saxons in stone coffins, or in graves lined with chalk, together with pins of ivory and box wood which had fastened their grave clothes. The earliest building which is actually recorded to have stood on this site was a Christian church, built about the year 610, by Ethelbert, King of Kent, the first of the Saxon princes who was converted by St. Augustine. It was dedicated to St. Paul, and the old historians tell us was indebted for the latest improvements which it received to the liberality of St. Erkenwald, the bishop of the diocese, who died in 681. However, it could scarcely have been a very magnificent or extensive edifice, if it be true, as is related, that upon its being accidentally burned down in 961, it was rebuilt the same year. After this it was again destroyed by fire in the year 1087; when the Norman bishop, Maurice, who had just been appointed to the see, resolved to undertake its restoration, on a much larger and more splendid scale, at his own expense. Both he and his successor De Belmeis, each of whom presided twenty years over the diocese, are said to have devoted all their revenues to this great work; but it was not finished till the time of Bishop Niger, the fourth after De Belmeis, in the year 1240. In 1135, indeed, the uncompleted building had again caught fire, and been nearly burned to the ground. When the fabric, which might thus be called ancient, even while it was yet new, at last stood ready for consecration, it exhibited a mass 690 feet in length by 130 in breadth, surmounted by a spire 520 feet in height. Some additions, which were made to it after this, were not completed till 1315, in the reign of Edward II., the ninth king after him in whose reign the first stone of the pile had been laid.
This was the building we now call old St. Paul’s, the immediate predecessor of the present cathedral. It was one of the largest edifices in the world, and in its best days, before it was deformed by the successive repairs to which it was subjected, and the various foreign incumbrances under which it was long buried, it was no doubt a grand and imposing structure. But, from the causes we have mentioned, its form in the course of time underwent so many changes that at last it presented the appearance of little else than a heap of incongruity and confusion. The spire was of timber; but in 1315 it was found to be so much decayed that the upper part of it had to be taken down and replaced. It was upon this occasion that a ball, surmounted by a cross, was first fixed upon the termination of the spire.
The first accident which befel the church was the consequence of a violent tempest of thunder and wind which burst over the metropolis on the 1st of February, 1444. The lightning having struck the spire set it on fire; and although a priest succeeded in extinguishing the flames, a good deal of damage was done, so that it was not till the year 1462 that the gilded ball with the cross again made its appearance on the summit of the building. A much more serious disaster than this, however, happened about a century afterwards. On the 4th of June, 1561, a plumber who was employed in making some repairs, thoughtlessly left a pan of coals burning within the spire while he went to dinner; the flames from which caught the adjacent wooden work, and in no long time set the whole building in a blaze. In spite of every thing that could be done, the conflagration continued to rage till it had consumed every thing about the church that was combustible, and reduced it to a mere skeleton of bare and blackened walls.
With such ardour, however, did the Queen (Elizabeth), and, it may be said indeed, the whole nation, promote the scheme of restoring the sacred edifice, all ranks contributing to the pious and patriotic work, that in the space of about five years it was again opened for worship. But it never recovered its ancient splendour: the spire, in particular, was not rebuilt at all; and from the shortness of the time spent in the restoration altogether, it is probable that other parts of the work were hurried over without much attention either to strength or beauty. By the end of the reign of Elizabeth accordingly, the structure had fallen into sad decay; so that it was found in 1608 that it could not be repaired under a cost of considerably more than twenty thousand pounds. It was not, however, till 1633, in the reign of Charles I., that the repairs were actually begun, the interval having been spent in attempts to collect the necessary funds by subscription. Meanwhile the cathedral was every year becoming more ruinous. The money subscribed at last amounted to above a hundred thousand pounds, and then the celebrated Inigo Jones having been appointed to superintend the work, it was, as we have said, proceeded with.
We shall now mention some particulars to show the extraordinary state of neglect and ruin into which this once proud edifice had been by this time allowed to fall. Towards the close of the sixteenth century it is stated, that the benches at the door of the choir were commonly used by beggars and drunkards for sleeping on, and that a large dunghill lay within one of the doors of the church. The place indeed was the common resort of idlers of all descriptions, who used to walk about in the most irreverent manner with their hats on even during the performance of divine service. More than twenty private houses were built against the walls of the church, the owners of several of which had cut closets out of the sacred edifice, while in other instances doors had been made into the vaults which were converted into cellars. At one of the visitations the verger presented that “the shrouds and cloisters under the convocation-house are made a common lay-stall for boards, trunks, and chests, being let out unto trunk-makers; where, by means of their daily knocking and noise, the church is greatly disturbed.” One house, partly formed of the church, is stated to have been “lately used as a play-house;” the owner of another, which was built upon the foundation of the church, had contrived a way through a window into a part of the steeple, which he had turned into a ware-room; and a third person had excavated an oven in one of the buttresses, in which he baked his bread and pies.
The first thing which Jones did was to clear away these obstructions, after which the work of restoration proceeded slowly but with tolerable regularity till the commencement of the civil wars in 1642. In 1643, not only all the revenues of the cathedral, but the funds which had been collected for repairing it, together with all the unused building materials, were seized by the Parliament. The scaffolding was given to the soldiers of Colonel Jephson’s regiment for arrears of pay; on which, no man hindering them, they dug pits in the middle of the church to saw the timber in. Another part of the building was converted into a barrack for dragoons and a stable. Public worship, nevertheless, was still celebrated in the east end and a part of the choir, which was separated from the rest by a brick wall, the congregation entering through one of the north windows which was converted into a door. At the west end Inigo Jones had erected a portico of great beauty, consisting of fourteen columns, each rising to the lofty height of forty-six feet, and the whole supporting an entablature crowned with statues. These statues were thrown down and broken in pieces; and shops were built within the portico, in which commodities of all sorts were sold. The wood-cut, at the head of this article, represents the cathedral as it was drawn by Hollar in 1656.
In this state things continued till the restoration. Soon after that event, the repairing of St. Paul’s again engaged the thoughts of the king and the public; and subscriptions to a considerable amount having been once more obtained, the work was recommenced on the 1st of August, 1663. Three years afterwards, however, (in September, 1666,) before it had been nearly completed, the great fire, which consumed half the metropolis, seized in its progress westward upon the scaffolding by which the cathedral was surrounded, and after an awful conflagration, left it a mere mass of ruins. History has recorded no finer instance of national spirit than the noble courage and alacrity with which the citizens of London, and the English government, and people generally, rose from this terrible calamity and applied themselves to restore all that it had destroyed. In the plans which were immediately taken into consideration for rebuilding the city, St. Paul’s was not forgotten. Sir Christopher Wren, who had been employed in superintending the previous repairs, was ordered to examine and report upon the state in which the foundations of the building were, and so much of the walls as was left standing. At first it was thought that a considerable portion of the old church might still be found available; but this idea was eventually given up; and on the 21st of June, 1675, the foundation-stone of the present building was laid. From this time the work proceeded without interruption till its completion in 1710. The same great architect, Sir Christopher Wren, presided over and directed the work from its commencement to its close. For this, all that he received was £200 a-year; and the commissioners had even the spite and meanness, after the building was considerably advanced, to suspend the payment of one half of this pittance till the edifice should be finished, under the pretence of thereby better securing the diligence and expedition of the architect. In fact, it was with no small difficulty that Sir Christopher at last got his money at all. The whole expense of rebuilding the cathedral was £736,000, which was raised almost entirely by a small tax on coals. The church of St. Peter’s at Rome, which is indeed a building of greater dimensions, but to which St. Paul’s ranks next even in that respect among the sacred edifices of Christendom, took one hundred and forty-five years to build, was the work of twelve successive architects, and exhausted the revenues of nineteen successive popes. It is worthy of remark, that St. Paul’s was begun and completed not only by one architect, and one master mason, Mr. Thomas Strong, but also while one bishop, Dr. Henry Compton, presided over the diocese.
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AN EMIGRANT’S STRUGGLES.
[Concluded from No. 6.]
When we set out upon our expedition, which I have just mentioned, we had two servants with us, and as many dogs. One man carried some biscuits; another a bottle of rum, a piece of beef, and a little tea and sugar, with a couple of tea-pots. Immediately behind my house there is a fine long hill, rising, with an easy slope, to the height of five hundred or six hundred feet, and covered, like the country in general, with trees and grass. It has been the practice to allow proprietors of cattle and sheep to graze on the unlocated parts, which they were obliged to quit on settlers coming to occupy the ground. These herds were generally left in the care of one or two men, while the proprietor lived in Hobart Town; the consequence of which was, that the cattle were allowed to stray wherever they chose, and became altogether wild. This was the case where I have settled; and although the herdsmen have removed themselves to their assigned limits, the cattle are still on my ground, and have been the cause of my suffering one of the most serious inconveniences which can befal a settler. For I had scarcely arrived on my land when my working bullocks got into the wild herd, with which they continue until this day. This has completely baulked my agricultural projects, obliging me to perform by manual labour what the beasts of the field should have done for me. But I am again digressing, and tiring you with my misfortunes, instead of giving you an account of our journey. As we approached the river Ouse we found its banks had been lately burnt by the natives, and the grass and smaller trees were completely consumed. After some search we found a place which we ventured to wade, but it was with great difficulty we could keep our feet. Sometimes the dogs would kill a kangaroo, and as we had not time or opportunity to make use of it, the huge crows, which abound in the woods, soon hovered over the carcase in great numbers. These crows are of the same genus as your English ones, but of a different species. They are very large, and distinguished by a white ring round the eye: they have even more cunning than their brethren of the old world. The banks on the further side of the Ouse are yet steeper than on this. We continued to ascend over the burnt ground, and underneath huge trees, for about five miles, till we arrived at the stock-keeper’s hut, which we discovered by the help of the track of horses. Here we found eight men, who had been sent up a few days before to erect a hut and stackyard for the cattle. They had sheltered themselves by branches of trees, and burnt a large fire in front. They had chosen a spot beside a small spring of water, in the midst of a large valley, which was almost clear of trees. After making some kangaroo soup we again set out, and bending our course more to the north, so as to keep near the river, we arrived at sun-set on the border of a beautiful lake. It appeared about seven miles long, and proportionably broad, with two lofty islands in the midst of it. The water was very soft and clear; its bed seemed to be composed of fine sand, and very shallow. Having formed our encampment near its brink, and lighted three very large fires to keep ourselves warm, we commenced making tea. One of the party fired a shot over its surface; the discharge was succeeded by a long and lasting peal like thunder, which had a sublime effect. We therefore named this piece of water Lake Echo. We were now on very high ground, and seemed to overlook all the mountains around us. In the morning, at peep of day, we took leave of this enchanting scene, which we had admired at the two periods most favourable to the display of its beauty with the rising and the setting sun. The surface remained as even as glass, and the shadows of its banks and islands gave a soft serenity to the landscape. A fine open valley led us down to the river, but we traversed it with difficulty, for during the wet season the water had so lodged in it that it was now full of holes, and we were never sure of a step. We passed many recent encampments of the natives, and saw their fires at a little distance. As we approached the river the dog started a large kangaroo, and hunted it down on the plain. This was a seasonable supply. We immediately commenced cooking; cutting off some steaks, we strung them on a stick, and set them before the fire; when one side was done we turned the other;--this is what they call a _sticker-up_, and our manner of cooking them is called _bush-fashion_. The slang nomenclature which the convicts have imposed on this land is in many instances unpleasant and vulgar, but sometimes appropriate. Having made a comfortable meal we again crossed the Ouse, but with still greater difficulty than we had encountered the day before. The immediate space between the rivers is here still more mountainous than behind my house, and is covered with large rugged stones, and fine lofty trees. We passed several encampments of the natives. Pursuing our way, we soon came to the Shannon, which we crossed, as the eastern side afforded the best walking. Here we entered on an extensive plain, but so rough, and so obstructed with rushes, as to render our passage through it quite laborious. In one part we struck a light, and the wind blowing with great keenness, the grass blazed up in a few minutes, the flame extending for nearly half a mile. Our provisions were now quite exhausted, and we had to recreate ourselves with tea, and chat beside a beautiful cascade on the river. In these high regions we found several maple trees, with sweet unctuous juice exuding from the bark. You can hardly form an idea of the beauty of the heavens, as the vault appeared to the eye, while we reposed on a kangaroo rug on the grass, beside a large fire which illumined the trees, and with a fine sweep of the river winding its way before us, and reflecting the silvery beams of the moon. Next morning, after walking three or four miles, we killed a kangaroo, and fared sumptuously on a _sticker-up_. Thus refreshed, we descended towards home. We had explored in this journey a region which no European had ever seen before, and had ascended to some of the highest ground in the island. I should calculate my habitation to be nearly two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and I think we ascended as much more. You may suppose what romantic rapids and cascades occur in the course of a river which falls that height in the course of thirty miles. Just before my door I have a broad placid stream resembling a lake, over which I have made a flying bridge, by means of a rope and the elm-tree case of my wife’s piano, which answers the purpose so well that I brought over seven hundred sheep belonging to Mrs. Smith, the other day, by twenty at a time. I am completely at my own command, for if a visitor comes he must hail on the opposite side before I slacken my rope, and allow him to pull the boat over.
We have no fish in these rivers, excepting some fresh water craw-fish, such as are found in the Thames, some eels, and a small thing not worth catching. We sometimes, however, shoot a wild duck or a widgeon, which are both large and good. We have also a kind of pigeon, which is very fine eating, and many other smaller birds, besides cockatoos innumerable, both black and white, and some beautiful parrots and paroquets. But the bird which chiefly enlivens the grove is a species of magpie, which sings two regular bars of music, of the clearest and sweetest notes you can imagine. On taking possession of my grant, my plan was to build a rough hut for my servants, which I should inhabit whilst a better one was erecting for myself, but the loss of my bullocks made me fain to make the best of my first habitation. It is entirely built of the materials on the ground, excepting the nails, which came from England, and the window-frames, which were made in Hobart Town. The walls are composed of logs or planks split out of the trees, of about a foot broad, and two or three inches thick. These are sunk two feet in the ground, and nailed to a beam at the top; they are then plastered over with a mixture composed of sand, clay, and grass cut short, and the wall is complete. The roof is covered with shingles, which are also split out of the trees round the house, and have exactly the appearance of slates. I have not yet been able to make a floor, we therefore walk at present upon the bare earth. As I cannot afford to buy another set of bullocks (for they cost 87_l._) I must wait patiently till I recover them when the wild herds are got in. This of course throws me into great difficulties. I have, however, upwards of one hundred sheep, two cows, and three or four young ones, a goat, and a pig, besides eight hens. These last thrive amazingly, chiefly owing to the number of grasshoppers which they eat.
I have just heard of an opportunity to send off a letter, and I therefore hasten to a conclusion. It is strange, when I reflect upon it, that any vicissitudes of life should have induced me voluntarily to undergo separation from my friends; to desert their company for a wild and enthusiastic scheme of emigration. Much however as I feel the deprivation of such society, I must say that I do not yet regret my coming to this country. When I consider that the people around me have mostly been convicted of heinous offences in England, I am pleased at the security we enjoy. You will, I know, rejoice to hear that I and my family are in good health; and that though so remote, I am as near to you in the alliance of friendship as ever.
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THE LOBSTER.
[Illustration: A lobster, viewed from above.]