The cathedral church of St Paul’s is not more celebrated3 than it deserves to be. No other nation in modern times has reared so magnificent a monument of piety4. I never behold5 it without regretting that such a church should be appropriated to heretical worship;—that, like a whited sepulchre, there should be death within.
In the court before the grand entrance stands a statue of Queen Anne, instead of a cross; a figure as ill-executed as it is ill-placed, which has provoked some epigrams 308even in this country, indifferent as the taste in sculpture is here, and little as is the sense of religious decorum. On entering the church I was impressed by its magnitude. A fine anecdote is related of the effect this produced upon a female Esquimaux:—quite overpowered with wonder when she stood under the dome6, she leaned upon her conductor, as if sinking under the strong feeling of awe7, and fearfully asked him, “Did man make it? or was it put here?” My own sensations were of the same character, yet it was wonder at human power unmingled with any other kind of awe; not that feeling which a temple should inspire; not so much a sense that the building in which I stood was peculiarly suitable for worship, as that it could be suitable for nothing else. Gothic architecture produces the effect of sublimity9, though always without simplicity10, and often without magnitude; so perhaps does the Saracenic; if the Grecian ever produce the same effect it is by magnitude 309alone. But the architecture of the ancients is altered, and materially injured by the alteration11, when adapted to cold climates, where it is necessary when the light is admitted to exclude the air: the windows have always a littleness, always appear misplaced; they are holes cut in the wall: not, as in the Gothic, natural and essential parts of the general structure.
The air in all the English churches which I have yet entered is damp, cold, confined, and unwholesome, as if the graves beneath tainted12 it. No better proof can be required of the wisdom of enjoining13 incense14. I have complained that the area in their ordinary churches is crowded; but the opposite fault is perceivable in this great cathedral. The choir15 is but a very small part of the church; service was going on there, being hurried over as usual in week-days, and attended only by two or three old women, whose piety deserved to meet with better instructors16. The vergers, however, paid so much respect to 310this service, such as it is, that they would not show us the church till it was over. There are no chapels18, no other altar than that in the choir;—for what then can the heretics have erected20 so huge an edifice21? It is as purposeless as the Pyramids.
Here are suspended all the flags which were taken in the naval22 victories of the late war. I do not think that the natural feeling which arose within me at seeing the Spanish colours among them influences me, when I say that they do not ornament23 the church, and that, even if they did, the church is not the place for them. They might be appropriate offerings in a temple of Mars; but certainly there is nothing in the revealed will of God which teaches us that he should be better pleased with the blood of man in battle, than with that of bulls and of goats in sacrifice. The palace, the houses of legislature, the admiralty, and the tower where the regalia are deposited, should be decorated with these trophies24; so also should Greenwich be, the noble 311asylum for their old seamen25; and even in the church a flag might perhaps fitly be hung over the tomb of him who won it and fell in the victory. Monuments are erecting26 here to all the naval captains who fell in these actions; some of them are not finished; those which are do little honour to the artists of England. The artists know not what to do with their villainous costume, and, to avoid uniforms in marble, make their unhappy statues half naked. One of these represents the dying captain as falling into Neptune’s arms;—a dreadful situation for a dying captain it would be—he would certainly take the old sea-god for the devil, and the trident for the pitchfork with which he tosses about souls in the fire. Will sculptors27 never perceive the absurdity28 of allegorizing in stone!
There are but few of these monuments as yet, because the English never thought of making St Paul’s the mausoleum of their great men, till they had crowded Westminster Abbey with the illustrious 312and the obscure indiscriminately. They now seem to have discovered the nakedness of this huge edifice, and to vote parliamentary monuments to every sea captain who falls in battle, for the sake of filling it as fast as possible. This is making the honour too common. It is only the name of the commander in chief which is always necessarily connected with that of the victory; he, therefore, is the only individual to whom a national monument ought to be erected. If he survives the action, and it be thought expedient29, as I willingly allow it to be, that every victory should have its monument, let it be, like the stone at Thermopyl?, inscribed30 to the memory of all who fell. The commander in chief may deserve a separate commemoration: the responsibility of the engagement rests upon him; and to him the merit of the victory, as far as professional skill is entitled to it, will, whether justly or not, be attributed, though assuredly in most cases with the strictest justice. But 313whatever may have been the merit of the subordinate officers, the rank which they hold is not sufficiently31 conspicuous32. The historian will mention them, but the reader will not remember them because they are mentioned but once, and it is only to those who are remembered that statues should be voted; only to those who live in the hearts and in the mouths of the people. “Who is this?” is a question which will be asked at every statue; but if after the verger has named the person represented it is still necessary to ask, “Who is he?” the statue is misplaced in a national mausoleum.
These monuments are too few as yet to produce any other general effect than a wish that there were more; and the nakedness of these wide walls without altar, chapel17, confessional, picture, or offering, is striking and dolorous33 as you may suppose. Yet if such honours were awarded without any immediate34 political motive35, there are many for whom they might justly 314be claimed; for Cook for instance, the first navigator, without reproach; for Bruce, the most intrepid36 and successful of modern travellers; for lady Wortley Montague, the best of all letter-writers, and the benefactress of Europe. “I,” said W., who was with me, “should demand one for Sir Walter Raleigh; and even you, Spaniard as you are, would not, I think, contest the claim; it should be for introducing tobacco into Christendom, for which he deserves a statue of pipe-makers’ clay.”
Some five-and-twenty or thirty years ago the best English artists offered to paint pictures and give them to this cathedral;—England had never greater painters to boast of than at that time. The thing, however, was not so easy as you might imagine, and it was necessary to obtain the consent of the bishop37, the chapter, the lord mayor, and the king. The king loves the arts, and willingly consented; the lord mayor and the chapter made no objection; but 315the bishop positively38 refused; for no other reason, it is said, than because the first application had not been made to him. Perhaps some puritanical39 feeling may have been mingled8 with this despicable pride, some leven of the old Iconoclastic40 and Lutheran barbarism; but as long as the names of Barry and of Sir Joshua Reynolds are remembered in this country, and remembered they will be as long as the works and the fame of a painter can endure, so long will the provoking absurdity of this refusal be execrated41.[17]
17. A story, even less honourable42 than this to the dean and chapter of St Paul’s is current at this present time, which if false should be contradicted, and if true should be generally known. Upon the death of Barry the painter it was wished to erect19 a tablet to his memory in this cathedral, and the dean and chapter were applied43 to for permission so to do: the answer was, that the fee was a thousand pounds. In reply to this unexpected demand, it was represented that Barry had been a poor man, and that the monument was designed by his friends as a mark of respect to his genius: that it would not be large, and consequently might stand in a situation where there was not room for a larger. Upon this it was answered, that, in consideration of these circumstances, perhaps five hundred pounds might be taken. A second remonstrance44 was made, a chapter was convened45 to consider the matter, and the final answer was, that nothing less than a thousand pounds could be taken.
If this be false it should be publicly contradicted, especially as any thing dishonourable will be readily believed concerning St Paul’s, since Lord Nelson’s coffin46 was shown there in the grave for a shilling a head.—Tr.
The monuments and the body of the 316church may be seen gratuitously47; a price is required for admittance to any thing above stairs, and for fourpenny, sixpenny, and shilling fees we were admitted to see the curiosities of the building;—a model something differing from the present structure, and the work of the same great architect; a geometrical staircase, at the top of which the door closes with a tremendous sound; the clock, whose huge bell in a calm day, when what little wind is stirring is from the east, may be heard 317five leagues over the plain at Windsor; and a whispering gallery, the great amusement of children and wonder of women, and which is indeed at first sufficiently startling. It is just below the dome; and when I was on the one side and my guide on the other, the whole breadth of the dome being between us, he shut-to the door, and the sound was like a peal48 of thunder rolling among the mountains.—The scratch of a pin against the wall, and the lowest whisper, were distinctly heard across. The inside of the cupola is covered with pictures by a certain Sir James Thornhill: they are too high to be seen distinctly from any place except the gallery immediately under them, and if there were nothing else to repay the fatigue49 of the ascent it would be labour in vain.
Much as I had been impressed by the size of the building on first entering it, my sense of its magnitude was heightened by the prodigious50 length of the passages which we traversed, and the seeming endlessness 318of the steps we mounted. We kept close to our conductor with a sense of danger: that it is dangerous to do otherwise was exemplified not long since by a person who lost himself here, and remained two days and nights in this dismal51 solitude52. At length he reached one of the towers in the front; to make himself heard was impossible; he tied his handkerchief to his stick, and hung it out as a signal of distress53, which at last was seen from below, and he was rescued. The best plan in such cases would be to stop the clock, if the way to it could be found.
In all other towers which I had ever ascended54, the ascent was fatiguing55, but no ways frightful56. Stone steps winding57 round and round a stone pillar from the bottom up to the top, with just room to admit you between the pillar and the wall, make the limbs ache and the head giddy, but there is nothing to give a sense of danger. Here was a totally different scene: the ascent was up the cupola, by stair-cases 319and stages of wood, which had all the seeming insecurity of scaffolding. Projecting beams hung with cobwebs and black with dust, the depth below, the extent of the gloomy dome within which we were enclosed, and the light which just served to show all this, sometimes dawning before us, sometimes fading away behind, now slanting58 from one side, and now leaving us almost in utter darkness: of such materials you may conceive how terrifying a scene may be formed, and you know how delightful59 it is to contemplate60 images of terror with a sense of security.
Having at last reached the summit of the dome, I was contented61. The way up to the cross was by a ladder; and as we could already see as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing above to reward me for a longer and more laborious62 ascent. The old bird’s-eye views which are now disused because they are out of fashion, were of more use than any thing which supplies their place: half plain, half picture, they gave an idea of the place which they represented 320more accurately63 than pictures, and more vividly64 than plans. I would have climbed St Paul’s, if it had been only to see London thus mapped below me, and though there had been nothing beautiful or sublime65 in the view: few objects, however, are so sublime, if by sublimity we understand that which completely fills the imagination to the utmost measure of its powers, as the view of a huge city thus seen at once:—house-roofs, the chimneys of which formed so many turrets66; towers and steeples; the trees and gardens of the inns of court and the distant squares forming so many green spots in the map; Westminster Abbey on the one hand with Westminster Hall, an object scarcely less conspicuous; on the other the Monument, a prodigious column worthy67 of a happier occasion and a less lying inscription68; the Tower and the masts of the shipping69 rising behind it; the river with its three bridges and all its boats and barges70; the streets immediately within view blackened with moving swarms71 of men and lines of carriages. To the 321north were Hampstead and Highgate on their eminences72, southward the Surrey hills. Where the city ended it was impossible to distinguish: it would have been more beautiful if, as at Madrid, the capital had been circumscribed73 within walls, and the open country had commenced immediately without its limits. In every direction the lines of houses ran out as far as the eye could follow them, only the patches of green were more frequently interspersed74 towards the extremity75 of the prospect76, as the lines diverged77 further from each other. It was a sight which awed78 me and made me melancholy79. I was looking down upon the habitations of a million of human beings; upon the single spot whereon were crowded together more wealth, more splendour, more ingenuity80, more worldly wisdom, and, alas81! more worldly blindness, poverty, depravity, dishonesty, and wretchedness, than upon any other spot in the whole habitable earth.
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1
anecdote
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| n.轶事，趣闻，短故事 | |
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ascent
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| n.(声望或地位)提高；上升，升高；登高 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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dome
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| n.圆屋顶，拱顶 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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sublimity
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| 崇高，庄严，气质高尚 | |
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simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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alteration
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| n.变更，改变；蚀变 | |
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tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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enjoining
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| v.命令( enjoin的现在分词 ) | |
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incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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instructors
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| 指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 ) | |
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chapel
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| n.小教堂，殡仪馆 | |
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chapels
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| n.小教堂， （医院、监狱等的）附属礼拜堂( chapel的名词复数 )；（在小教堂和附属礼拜堂举行的）礼拜仪式 | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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edifice
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| n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿，教室) | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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trophies
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| n.（为竞赛获胜者颁发的）奖品( trophy的名词复数 )；奖杯；（尤指狩猎或战争中获得的）纪念品；（用于比赛或赛跑名称）奖 | |
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seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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erecting
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| v.使直立，竖起( erect的现在分词 )；建立 | |
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sculptors
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| 雕刻家，雕塑家( sculptor的名词复数 )； [天]玉夫座 | |
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absurdity
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| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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inscribed
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| v.写，刻( inscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；内接 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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dolorous
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| adj.悲伤的；忧愁的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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intrepid
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| adj.无畏的，刚毅的 | |
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bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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puritanical
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| adj.极端拘谨的；道德严格的 | |
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iconoclastic
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| adj.偶像破坏的，打破旧习的 | |
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execrated
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| v.憎恶( execrate的过去式和过去分词 )；厌恶；诅咒；咒骂 | |
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honourable
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| adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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convened
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| 召开( convene的过去式 )； 召集； （为正式会议而）聚集； 集合 | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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gratuitously
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| 平白 | |
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48
peal
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| n.钟声；v.鸣响 | |
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fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fatiguing
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| a.使人劳累的 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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turrets
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| （六角）转台( turret的名词复数 )； （战舰和坦克等上的）转动炮塔； （摄影机等上的）镜头转台； （旧时攻城用的）塔车 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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swarms
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| 蜂群，一大群( swarm的名词复数 ) | |
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eminences
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| 卓越( eminence的名词复数 )； 著名； 高地； 山丘 | |
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circumscribed
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| adj.[医]局限的：受限制或限于有限空间的v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定 | |
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interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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77
diverged
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| 分开( diverge的过去式和过去分词 )； 偏离； 分歧； 分道扬镳 | |
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78
awed
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| adj.充满敬畏的，表示敬畏的v.使敬畏，使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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79
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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80
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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81
alas
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| int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等) | |
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