Morning journal and courier., 1892-05-14
dows, tiny -psned, little, biz, broad mar

,om, iohg, snort, round and square, with
 leadcased llntels; and they furnish the
 qualntest collection Of gables eyes ever be-
 held. Perhaps the primmest and tidieet
 of them all is the alf-timbered home and
 printing house of Robert Raikes.at No. IS
 Southgate street. The body of the grand
 old philanthropist lies in the Church of St.
 Mary de Crypt. not fifty yards away.
 Any one visiting the old cathedral towns
 of England will be deeply impressed by
 the extreme simplicity and almost rural
 character of their inhabitants. Barring
 the presence of few modern innovations,
 one seems to have come into the atmos-
 phere of an old English novel. This is es- | pecially true in Gloucester. All day long
 the thoroughfares have 8 quiet country
 market coloring. The actual inhabitants
 slip about and attend to their meager af-
 fairs with a smiling, humble, tolerative
 air, as though they had unconsciously
 taken on the manners of the cathedral yer | gers, and rather stood aside for the more
 strapping and brawny country element. The latter furnish many pleasant stud tes. Long-coated, heavy -jowled buyer are
 here. Frocked, list1ess, open-mouthed
 yeomen are here. Your genuine English
 farmer is here, with him the stubby, sandy
 tabs of whiskers upon his ruddy fsce, xith
 bushy brows, and a frm-set mouth that
 ever opens and shuts with sound as
 though @ huge cork had been violently pulled. Snappy-eyed farmers wives are
 here, with ample skirts and bonnets, and
 plumes that would pique with envy @ Lon
 don costermonger belle. And better than
 all, here are bevies of the most radiant
 faced English countryside lasses eyes ever beheld. | A more stirring and quite as character ful a scene comes with the evening. The | four-tuned chimes of the sweet cathedral bells have scarcely ceased when thousands | of Gloucester lads and lssses are upon the streets. The little shops are ablaze. All | the household marketing of the day is now l being done for the morrow. One can scarcely make progress on the narrow walks, and the mass overhows upon and | fills the carriage ways. Then it is you will | see innocent, unabashed, sturdy love-mak- | ing at its best. There is no secrecy about | it. The smacking is resonant, the caress- ing unchecked, the embracing muscular
 and ardent. It increases in activity and
 universality until ten o'clock. Then out | go the lights and away to their homes whisk
 the young folk, their heavy hobs beating thundrously upon the resounding pave | ments. Almost in an instant you are alone with the helmeted roundsmen upon their | beats, and utter silence has fallen upon the | old cathedral town.
 However others may feel, I never enter | an old-world cathedral without awe in my | heart apart and distinct from that direct and instinctive reverence which the sacred | character of the structure impels.
 This is because I stand in a spot which l is tomb of innumerable personages who | have assisted in making, or have gained places in, the worlds history; because the | up building, preservation. destruction, re- | mobilization, of what my hands may touch | or eyes behold, have often changed dynas- l..- -. Il. | grimages and sacrificed countless lives; and more than ali else because, for centu- | ry after century, thousands upon thou | sands of great minds have with mstchless | fidelity given of their best effort, or abso- | lutely their life's devotion, towards the | perfection of this mighty prayer in stone. And there are cathedrsls and csthedrals | besides. There is the vast and gloomy | sort like York Minister; those of Doric ponderosity like St. Paul's in London; and those that blind if not the spiritual the physical sight with their vastliness and ghastliness like Canterbury. But it seems to me that whether you contemplate this Gloucester cathedral from without until your minds receptivities of form and proportion have brought its fine outlines aud majestic central tower into | the most fitting shape you can conceive stone to be set in sacred structure; or have | stood at the side of, and just beneath, its west window, within the nave, and fol | lowed its splendid lines of depth and height up and on, up and on-past choir
 screen and choir, the delicate flying but l tresses across the great transept opening
 above, the wondrous carvings of the chan eel and the chantry faces, the high altar and the filmy Gothic reredos, to that mar velous east window, greatest in Britain, | behind-you have here feasted upon as | AL l builders have ever wrought.
 And for these reasons: Massiveness | and spaciousness have been brought into | loving proportion. Perspection and em
 bellishment are here poem in harmony. Loftiness has been, in the delicate groin | ing, fretwork and tracery of the roof, so l luminCusly enwreathed, that all the up-
 ward aspect to the beholder is one of in
 stant and lasting exultation. Never else
 where have I seen such perfect blending of miracles of human handwork with the
 magic of distance and the enchantment of | light. It can only be likened to the srched
 vault1ng of majestic forest trees, where | innumerable interlacing branches and
 leaves so filter, but do not turn back, the
 sunlight, that from highest arch to swsrd
 beneath, there is pulsing, palpsble, tran
 scendent glow.
 To simply the artlover there is profound I pleasure 10 De uerlVeQ rom ylsit to | Gloucester cathedral. The student of ec-
 clesisstical art will discover ample exam
 ples from the time of the old Anglo Saxon
 builders down past the early Norman
 workers along the development in first and
 middle pointed, perpendicular and the
 modern Gothic. Whoever loves to dwell
 upon ecclesiastic history will find a world
 of material in tradition and fact from the
 time of Lucius, in the second century, to
 that of Victoria in this. The antiquarian
 can come upon a no richer field. And he
 who delves in civil history will find much
 to feast upon here where parliaments have
 assembled, kings have been crowned and
 monarchs lie entombed.
 More unique, splendid and interesting
 than those of any other British cathedral
 are the cloisters. North and south they
 are one hundred and forty-four feet in
 length, one hundred and forty seven feet
 long in the east and west alleys, twelve
 feet wide and eighteen feet in height; with
 the famous chapter-house reached from
 the walk. The fan-vaulting of their roof
 is the earliest specimen in England, and
 the most magnificent extant. Here in
 open. arched and embattled recesses, over
 looking the sunny cloister-gsrth, the old
 monks studied and wrote. One will finger
 long and lovingly in these. And, could
 have my wish, with the chspter-house for -T.s-