--In the armory, I grasped with some
interest the sword of Sir Adam Ferguson, which he had worn in the
Peninsular war. Our guide said, of his own knowledge, that "he was a
very funny old gentleman." He died only a year or two since.
July 11th.--The morning after our arrival in Durham being Sunday, we
attended service in the cathedral. . . . . We found a tolerable audience,
seated on benches, within and in front of the choir; and people
continually strayed in and out of the sunny churchyard and sat down, or
walked softly and quietly up and down the side aisle. Sometimes, too,
one of the vergers would come in with a handful of little boys, whom he
had caught playing among the tombstones.
DURHAM CATHEDRAL
has one advantage over the others which I have seen, there being no
organ-screen, nor any sort of partition between the choir and nave; so
that we saw its entire length, nearly five hundred feet, in one vista.
The pillars of the nave are immensely thick, but hardly of proportionate
height, and they support the round Norman arch; nor is there, as far as I
remember, a single pointed arch in the cathedral. The effect is to give
the edifice an air of heavy grandeur. It seems to have been built before
the best style of church architecture had established itself; so that it
weighs upon the soul, instead of helping it to aspire. First, there are
these round arches, supported by gigantic columns; then, immediately
above, another row of round arches, behind which is the usual gallery
that runs, as it were, in the thickness of the wall, around the nave of
the cathedral; then, above all, another row of round arches, enclosing
the windows of the clere-story.
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