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except as a subject of curious and interesting inquiry, is it of great importance from what source the first idea of this noble and most beautiful style was derived? The architects of the thirteenth century soon made it their own; and as little would it depreciate the genius that presided over those glorious structures-Salisbury, Exeter, Lincoln, and York-to discover from whence their first faint and shadowy conceptions were derived, as it would lower the high fame of Milton to point out the obscure Italian poem from whence he took the first idea of his mighty epic; or dim the enduring praise of Shakspeare, to exhibit the wild lay, or the rude chronicle, which had formed the ground-work of his inimitable dramas.

While the Norman and the earliest Gothic, were mingling together in not unfriendly strife, many of our cathedrals underwent extensive alteration ; and while in many the Norman style, though with some modifications, obtained, in others the tall clustered shaft, the sharply pointed arch, and the lancet window of the early Gothic, prevailed. This may be seen in Wells' cathedral, and Peterborough, which, although not at this time the seat of a bishopric, was one of the richest and most celebrated of the mitred abbeys. At the earliest commencement of the 13th century, Godfrey de Lucy rebuilt the greater part of his cathedral (Winchester), and the close approximation to the Gothic is observable in its "long narrow arches, pointed like a lancet, and its slender detached pillars of Petworth or Purbeck marble." Worcester, which about the same period

was nearly rebuilt, presents similar features; as do also those portions of Durham and Lincoln, which were erected about the same time. Still, no building had as yet been constructed wholly on the Gothic model, until Richard Poore superintended the erection of Salisbury; and from henceforth the triumph of Gothic architecture was complete.

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This noble edifice, remarkable for being most uniform, regular, and systematic, in its arrangement and architecture, of any cathedral in England,” owes its erection to the ardent and persevering care of Richard Poore, brother to the former bishop; who, having been translated from the see of Chichester to that of Salisbury, in 1217 directed his attention to the removal of the cathedral from Sarum, at this period a strongly fortified town, to some more quiet and more eligible site. He sent messengers to Rome to solicit the papal assent, and received from thence a bull granting him the required permission; "forasmuch as your church is built within compass of the fortifications of Sarum, it is subject to many inconveniences and oppressions, and that you cannot reside there without great corporeal peril." A spot was therefore fixed on, called Mirriefield; application was made to the king for a charter to protect the infant city, that was to arise beneath the guardian towers of the cathedral; each of the canons and vicars bound himself to pay onefourth of his income for seven years; preachers were appointed to visit various places, and collect money; and indulgences were promised to all who by gift or labour contributed to the work. On April 28th,

1220, bishop Poore, having performed the service, walked in procession-his clergy singing the litany— to the place of foundation; and there laid the first stone for pope Honorius, the second for the archbishop of Canterbury, and the third for himself. Then Longespée, the celebrated earl of Salisbury, laid the fourth; the lady Ela, his wife, the fifth; after which many others of the nobility, and each of the officers of the church, followed their example; "the people around weeping for joy, and giving alms with a ready mind." By Michaelmas, 1225, it was so far completed that the bishop consecrated three altars; that at the east end to the Trinity and all Saints, at which the mass of the Virgin was daily to be sung; that at the north to St. Peter, and all Apostles; and that at the south to St. Stephen and all Martyrs. On Michaelmas-day the archbishop of Canterbury consecrated the church, and preached to the people; and on the following Thursday the young king Henry, together with his guardian Hubert de Burgh, came, heard mass, and offered a gold ring with a ruby, a piece of silk, and a gold vase of ten marks' weight; Hubert de Burgh promising at the same time to present a "gold text," (a collection of all the lessons used in the service of the church, and probably written in gold,) set with precious stones and relics.

A more important gift was conferred by Henry on the canons, in his grant to the newly-founded city of a fair, to be held each year for eight days. From this period Salisbury rose rapidly into eminence; while its beautiful cathedral, which, unlike its

sister edifices, seems "not only to have been constructed from one original design, but to have remained to this day nearly in the state in which it was left by the builders,"* proudly challenged, and after the lapse of six centuries still challenges, the admiration of all England.

Incited, probably, by the example of the spirited bishop of Salisbury, many of the dignified clergy set about restoring or rebuilding their conventual churches; among these, Richard de Berkynge, the abbot of Westminster, eminently distinguished himself by his exertions in rebuilding the abbey-church in a style of magnificence which should render it a fitting resting place of the monarchs of England. The church, which excited the warm eulogium of Malmsbury, although little more than a century and a half had past since its erection, was, even at the commencement of the 13th century, in a very dilapidated state. No arrangements, however, seem to have been made for its reconstruction, until Richard de Berkynge, in 1222, assumed the convent mitre, and bent his whole attention toward the completion of the work. Among the various methods employed by him to raise the necessary supplies, the establishment of the fourteen days' fair at Westminster has, with great probability, been placed; but the commonly received opinions that Henry not merely superintended its erection, but took on himself nearly the whole cost, is erroneous. "His own extravagant expenditure and lavish donations to his

* Britton's Salisbury.

foreign kinsmen, frequently bereaved him of all he had obtained by his multiplied extortions;" he, however, gave the goods of a Jewess named Licori cia, and in 1254 the certainly handsome grant of three thousand marks.*

Unlike Salisbury, Westminster abbey saw more than forty years pass away in its completion; nor had Richard de Berkyng the proud gratification of beholding the finished work. Still his successor, Crokesley, watched over the slowly advancing building; and when he was removed by death, Richard de Ware, who assumed the relinquished crosier with even greater zeal than his predecessors, devoted himself to the task of its completion. It was this abbot who went to Rome to obtain from the sovereign pontiff a new charter for the convent, and who brought home with him the celebrated Roman artist Pietro Cavalini to execute the mosaic work of St. Edward's shrine, and the pavement which still remains in his chapel. At length, on the 13th of October, 1269, that church, which, to use the words of a competent judge, "is one of the finest examples of the pointed style of architecture ever raised in this country, and, with the exception of Salisbury, the most complete and perfect that now remains, was consecrated; and on the same day the body of the Confessor was removed, and deposited in its shrine in the chapel. The whole cost of this noble edifice is stated, from a contemporary document, to have been £29,340. 19s. 8d.

Brayley's Westminster.

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