We gained admission into the noble Hall, which is modern, but built in
antique style, and stately and beautiful exceedingly. I have forgotten
all but the general effect, with its lofty oaken roof, its panelled
walls, with the windows high above, and the great arched window at one
end full of painted coats of arms, which the light glorifies in passing
through them, as if each were the escutcheon of some illustrious
personage. Thence we went to the chapel of Lincoln's Inn, where, on
entering, we found a class of young choristers receiving instruction from
their music-master, while the organ accompanied their strains. These
young, clear, fresh, elastic voices are wonderfully beautiful; they are
like those of women, yet have something more birdlike and aspiring, more
like what one conceives of the singing of angels. As for the singing of
saints and blessed spirits that have once been human, it never can
resemble that of these young voices; for no duration of heavenly
enjoyments will ever quite take the mortal sadness out of it.
In this chapel we saw some painted windows of the time of James I., a
period much subsequent, to the age when painted glass was in its glory;
but the pictures of Scriptural people in these windows were certainly
very fine,--the figures being as large as life, and the faces having much
expression. The sunshine came in through some of them, and produced a
beautiful effect, almost as if the painted forms were the glorified
spirits of those holy personages.
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