BRITISH MAGAZINE. JULY 1, 1833. ORIGINAL PAPERS. WINCHESTER. "She leaves these objects to a slow decay, That what we are and have been may be known." We are taught, by Wordsworth, in his poem of the Hart-leap Well, to accustom the imagination to notice how truly the face of nature is made to delineate and preserve, by the forms and character she assumes, every impressive circumstance which has been transacted in her presence, and in which she has partaken of the sorrow and the joy. Some striking feature is assumed in every place where man has been at any time deeply engaged, and she conforms it to a pleasing or painful expression, marking the good and evil she has witnessed there. From the moral of this philosophical little poem, we are habituated to observe closely the prevailing sentiment that spreads itself over every place we visit; and we often find the lines and lineaments so distinct, that we discover without effort the departed presence of its character and engagements. It would be expected, therefore, when we contemplate a spot that once has been the principal seat of monastic establishments, that the conscious presence of a holy quietude would still be found resting upon its once favoured abodes, as loath to quit the dwellings that it loved; for the character impressed by the influences of many generations, is not to be destroyed by the selfish will and rash caprice of man, and, consequently, though three centuries have passed since religious houses were decreed to exist no longer, yet throughout the land their character is not removed-their spiritual presence is found hovering over many a spot, inviting the moralist and the poet to love and enjoy the presence of their dignity and repose. In no place, perhaps, has this "Genius Loci" of monastic life more safely maintained its habitation, than in the Saxon metropolis of England, the venerable and ancient Winchester; it is impossible to visit it, in spite of the unsparing violences of the VOL. IV.-July, 1833. B Reformation, without feeling that you are still in the visionary presence of abbots and priors, with all their collegiate brotherhoods about you. It looks the undoubted abode of monastic communities; the stillness of the cell is felt, and hangs about every quarter of it; its High Street and place of frequence is solemnized by a Holy Cross of lofty and venerable architecture; you tread upon the foundation and fragments of ancient buildings in every open field and garden of the city; the few people you meet abroad, the quietness throughout the town, disturbed by no movements of trade or pleasure, preserve to every street an atmosphere of devotion; the stillness of a daily Sabbath is upon them; the narrowness and obscurity of many of them give an impression not unlike the vague notion we have of the solitary dimness of cloistral residence. The low valley in which the city is placed, its rich meadows and its glassy streams of delicious water, speak of ecclesiastical abundance and enjoyment; and the very trout that are everywhere poised motionless in the river, or shooting their way, sportful or scared, through the green weed, seem to have a reference to Catholic days, and the obligations to peculiar food which the religious discipline of the place and the times required. This city, therefore, through the long course of our history, has been an eminent spot to collect the gentle and the meek from the oppressions and violences of life, to shelter here in the citadels and fortresses of religion; and it has been also, from the same cause of its thoughtful separation, a favourite seat of discipline and education. The college endowed by William of Wykeham, for the instruction of youth in every branch of sound learning and religion, is perhaps the most perfect model of a scholastic institution that has ever been devised and accomplished. Had the imaginary colleges which Milton and Cowley erected in the region of their own fancies been realized without hindrance from the intractability of matter, and from human prejudices and passions, yet would they probably have failed in most of the noble ends that have been attained by this. As in the human frame every previous development that has been made and forgotten was essential to the establishment of its after manhood, so in civil institutions the stability and grace of their form and character generally require long years of preparative growth to perfect their success. In the light of this truth, we shall probably see the immediate success and continuing excellence of the college of St. Mary Winton, for it arose out of an institution for the education of youth, which seems for centuries to have existed on this very spot; and Wykeham himself, in partiality to the old place where he had received the gifts of early learning, chose to make his rich and costly graft upon the ancient seminary. His wisdom, not less than his kindness, in doing so, is very apparent. The new establishment received the old experiences and associations, and, from its position in the principal seat of religious communities, and from the impressive performances of Christian devotion in its cathedral and its abbeys, the youthful imagination would grow up in the love and admiration of piety, and in attachment to the high interests of the church. Wykeham himself, while at school here, performed his daily devotion in the cathedral; and that high intellectual character and generous expansion of heart displayed in the intelligence and charities of his after life, was probably produced, and assisted greatly, by the presence of educated churchmen, of noble architecture and spiritual_music, in the midst of which his youthful character was so fortunately reared. The present aspect of the college has all the separation and privacy required in a place of study. The quarter of the city in which it is placed is its own, almost exclusively, and is undisturbed by any of the passing movements of life; the youths seen at intervals, in their gowns of black cloth, give to it an air anterior to the Reformation, when Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines, and Carmelites were the established dwellers of the place. The ancient gateway, likewise, preserves this appearance of Catholic times unimpaired. The image of the Virgin remains over it; in the niches, also, over the gateway to the second court, figures of the Founder in prayer, the Virgin, and an Angel, are seen, as in its earliest days. The elegant tower of the chapel (temp. Hen. VI.), which forms the southern side of the quadrangle, the apartments for the Fellows, and the dormitories of the boys, which occupy the other sides, present, both in forms and arrangement, and in the soft and exquisite colouring upon them, a picture of rich and quiet beauty; and within the chapel is preserved, in every lofty window, that rare relic in our Protestant churches, a completeness in its painted glass, where angels and patriarchs, prophets and evangelists, scriptural incidents and texts of Holy Writ are made, through the richest colours of green, of crimson, or of blue, from every side "To pour in virtue at th' attentive eye."-BISHOP LOWTH. The sepulchral brasses that ornament the floor in the ante-chapel record the names and characters of former Wardens (custodes), Fellows, Masters, and of various and numerous children reared up by this liberal parent. The grateful and affectionate attachment to the founder and the place is touched upon in many of their epitaphs, and the hope often expressed, that by being interred here their grave would not escape perhaps a notice and a regret from their grateful pupils or their old school-fellows, "Nec mihi fama tamen de marmore quæritur ulla, These monumental records of Wykeham's sons, in brass and in marble, are extended throughout the cloisters that adjoin the chapel; and when we recall the splendid names of those that have belonged to this society, that have not their burial here, but who live in the memory of every Wykehamist-Collins, Otway, Young, the Wartons, among the poets, and a constellation equally brilliant in every branch of literature-we can understand the associations and enthusiasm felt in later life, on hearing the pathetic notes of their school melody of "Domum," which, like the Ranz des Vaches to the Swiss peasant, brings tears for the recollection of departed pleasure. There is, indeed, here every thing that is calculated to awaken and enrich the youthful imagination; the serious dignity of every object around them-its connection with our national history-the course of study of the place in communion with all the proud feelings and refined taste of antiquity, must bring forward and cherish in every mind where the germ exists, its most pure and noble faculties, and bestow on it the ingredients of its most refined enjoyments. And when, with these tranquil sources of intellectual happiness, we remember the sportful mead' of athletic pleasure, the energy of the Fives' Court, and the healthful liberty of the hills,' we must feel fully the verses of one of the most learned of her sons, who carried to the grave with him a heart full of the youthful simplicity and joyousness he so beautifully describes. "O felix puerorum ætas, lucesque beatæ! En! vobis roseo ore salus, curæque fugaces, Et Lachrymæ, siquando, breves, dulcesque cachinni, Et faciles, ultrò nati de pectore, risus! O fortunati nimium! si talia constent Gaudia jam pueris, Ichinum propter amænum, Ah sedes ambire novas quæ tanta cupido est, Dotalemque domum et promissas Isidis undas?" T. WARTON. The crowded variety of churches which once stood in Winchester will give a notion of its ecclesiastical aspect: "a passenger could no way enter into this citie, either through any of the gates or single posternes, but of necessitye, either they must goe under a church, or close unto one, or some oratorye; the testimonyes whereof are at this time by the ruines." Out of fifty churches which once existed (besides chapels in all the religious houses), nine now only remain: abbeys, priories, convents, hospitals, and colleges, were sold and plundered; and the present appearance of the place, in reference to these records of its early splendour, awakens feelings similar to those which the prophet expressed, on viewing the Holy City in the days of her children's captivity— "How does the city sit solitary, that was full of people! From the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed!" LAMENT., ch. i. |