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which a beautiful face rested dreamily, and in another instant Quintin Matsys clasped Lisa once more to his heart.

the twinkle of his keen, black eyes closer to the canvas.

"What!" he cried, "What do I see? A

"Lisa! Thou hast waited for me? But bee, and yet not a bee? Whose hand is no; I need not ask!"

"And thou? Thou hast come back to me an artist?" answered Lisa with a glowing face.

"Did I not determine? Where is thy father? I am in haste, like a school-boy, to say my lesson to him, and tell him that Quintin Matsys, the artist, asks his daughter's hand."

"But thou canst not say thy lesson yet; thou must wait till he returns; he will not be at home for a full hour yet."

"I must wait? Come into his studio and we will see," answered Quintin; and Lisa led the way.

It was the same queer place, half strange, half gloomy, with palettes and brushes laid, as if for a moment, beside an unfinished picture, the picture that beyond all others Johann Mandyn would have told you was to make his fame,—a wild, headlong grouping of the ruined angels' fall.

Quintin took up the palette, and Lisa held her breath as with a careless hand he began light strokes upon the foremost figure's outstretched limb. Would her father ever forgive such a reckless marring of his work?

capable of this? What genius has honored my studio while I was gone?"

"An artist from a distant city, dear father," answered Lisa's sweet voice, and he has left this picture also as a gift to thee.

"Johann snatched the picture from her hand, and gazed at it with brighter and brighter light shining in his face.

"I can do nothing like this!" he cried at last, with a despairing gesture. "Ah! if an artist like this would ask my daughter's hand!" and at that instant Quintin entered the room.

Two years can seem so long, and yet how quickly two more can flit away! The Antwerpers began to find they had lost no glory with their famous iron-worker, for their new painter was bringing still brighter honors to the town.

"Ah! but thou wert an artist, a true artist in thy soul all the time, and that is what my father often says, now that he is so proud of seeing me thy wife!" said Lisa, as she heard their praises.

Quintin looked earnestly down into her beautiful face.

"It was the good God's plan for me,-but But in another moment her musical laugh then, also, one must always be determined,” rang through the gloomy room.

"A bee! A bee!" she cried. "Only do not give it a sting, Quintin! There are too many bees already gathered round my father's brush." The bee was finished, the old man's step was heard, and Lisa hurried Quintin into an adjoining room.

"Ha!" cried Johann Mandyn, as his quick, nervous glance fixed upon his picture. "What miserable intruder has lighted here? Thou hast sucked poison, at least, for thy boldness, so begone!" and, seizing a fan, he brushed it hastily across the bee. But the insect did not stir; a second blow disturbed it no more than the first, and Johann brought

he replied.

The world has echoed Lisa's words down to our own time. Quintin Matsys's pictures are cherished as choice treasures to this day, and the Antwerpers whisper as they stand in their cathedral, and look proudly at its favorite altar-piece, The Descent from the Cross: "Yes, it was our own blacksmith boy who painted that, and those who are most learned in these things tell us that even Raphael's brush could not have done better with some of its heads." *

Isabella T. Hopkins.

The foundation of this story is a sketch in Chambers's Miscellany, Vol. VII.

I.

SOME EUROPEAN CHURCHES.

LICHFIELD AND SALISBURY.

THE American traveler in Europe who has cared enough for architecture to make any study of it, even the most superficial, finds that some of the most interesting things he sees are the churches. He has heard of such or such a building, and perhaps read descriptions of it, but to stand before it and see it with his own eyes, is a very different thing. One of the pleasantest of sensations is that with which he starts of a fine morning on the railroad toward some cathedral city, knowing that he has plenty of time before him for leisurely inspection and quiet enjoyment of what he is going to see. It was in such a mood of pleasurable anticipation that I rode from Chester to Lichfield, and drawing near, leaned from the car window to catch the first possible sight of the church spires rising against the sky above the mass of city roofs. In the approach to a city, these spires or towers are the prominent feature in the view; and in continental places, especially, the city seems not so much to contain the cathedral as to have been itself built about that important center of life; for such it, or the religion it symbolized, was during the early and middle ages. The Church which demanded of all men their unconditional reverence and obedience, extended in return its protection to all. So the houses seem to cluster about the sacred building as the people themselves clung to the spiritual powers for shelter from injury and violence.

The station at Lichfield is a mile and a half from the city, and arriving at dusk I caught no glimpse of tower or spire that night. But early the next morning I stepped from the quaint, comfortable small inn into the dingy little street, and found my way along and out of it into the cathedral close. One who has never before visited England, feels that he is tasting the essential flavor of English life when first he enters one of these "haunts of ancient peace." Shut in by the residences of the bishop and other clergy, houses of dark brick or stone that pretend to nothing but

solidity, but have a pleasant picturesqueness of mellowed tones and ivy draperies-softly carpeted with a turf ever green and shaded by venerable trees these closes always are; always, too, visited by a subdued sunlight in harmony with the scene, and pervaded by a decorous quiet. In none, surely, does there reign a profounder peace than in the little green square at Lichfield; its stillness makes it seem too remote a place for any echo of uproar from the active world beyond to reach it. And the cathedral more than most others has the look of a relic of an antique time. One hardly knows why this is, for it is not especially timeworn, nor is the exterior of so very early a date; it is early work of the Decorated period, begun about 1310.

Lichfield Cathedral is comparatively small, and has nothing grand or imposing in its aspect; but few that I have seen have pleased me more. The warm brown stone of which it is built has not the severe character of the gray stone used at Salisbury, Canterbury and elsewhere. It has the great advantage of having its three spires complete and in good preservation; for it is not unusual to find cathedrals that have been "curtailed of their fair proportions" for lack of means to carry out the whole original design. The two spires of the west front have numerous window lights, and are enriched at the corners of their bases by paneled and crocketed pinnacles. The three doorways are shallow and not an impressive feature. The central one is simply ornamented with a series of graceful cusps; and the spaces between the doors are covered with paneling work of gable-headed arches. Above the doors a line of statues under arched canopies runs across the whole front. The sculptor had an evident intention of making them lifelike and spirited; he certainly succeeded in giving an ingenious variety of grotesquely comic attitudes and expressions to this row of grinning stone kings. Over them is a double row of pedestals and canopies, meant for statues which either were never placed there or have been broken and destroyed. These are divided

by a large central arched window, having half a dozen lancet lights in the lower compartment, and in the upper a great foliated circle. The gable over this is filled with open-work ornament rather more odd, perhaps, than beautiful. At either side of this gable is a double light window; the remaining space is decorated with more paneled work, and a pretty open gallery encircles the bases of the towers.

I had come in time for the ten o'clock morning service, and entering the cathedral joined the small congregation gathered in the seats nearest the choir. Listening to the clear sweet voices of the chorister boys, and following the familiar, homelike prayers, it seemed as though devout feeling had never found better support in its upward aspiration. There was, if one may say so, a cheerful solemnity in the tone of that worship, the expression of a serene and thankful trust in Him to whom it was addressed. When the service was finished, I was free to wander delightedly about the beautiful interior of the cathedral. The building is too long for perfect proportion, as is apt to be the case with English cathedrals. The roof should have corresponded in height to the great length of the nave and choir if a very large edifice had been intended; if otherwise, the length should have been curtailed so as to be in harmony with the comparative lowness of the roof. The interior effect of Lichfield, as at Westminster and other churches, is injured by the screens separating the choir and nave, which, though often very beautiful things in themselves, hinder one from taking in as one would desire, a single comprehensive impression of the total length.

The nave pillars and the vaulting are fine Early English work, as is the arcade of small trefoil-headed arches, enriched with crocketed canopies, running along the base of the aisle walls,-always, I think, a beautiful feature. The windows are later in date, and are filled in the heads with good tracery of the Decorated period; some few are Perpendicular, and are the only things in the building one could wish altered. The triforium consists of arched mouldings enclosing open, trefoil-headed arches, with

double lights separated by a slender pillar. The clere-story windows above are of a kind not very common; they have a quaint and simple beauty, being merely spherical triangles containing a group of three trefoils. In the whole design of the church there is great harmony, as there is purity in the details of ornamentation.

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In the aisle near the choir is a monument to Major Hodson, whom many will know better as the Harry East of Tom Brown's Schooldays" than as the East Indian hero. Beyond this is Chautrey's famous and beautiful group of the sleeping children. The wood carvings of the bishop's chair and the choir stalls are very fine, and though not so profuse and elaborate as those which I had seen the day before in Chester Cathedral, superior in clearness and boldness of cutting. The most elaborate piece of workmanship in the church is the new reredos of white and colored marbles, exquisitely inlaid and sculptured in the Italian style, although by English workmen. The cost of it was 2,000 guineas. In the choir the double row of windows, one above another, are separated by a plain space and a line of open "zigzag " ornament, the only trace of Norman work in the building. The Lady Chapel is said to contain very rich and beautiful decorated work, but as it was undergoing repair, I could only peer in to catch a glimpse of the seven large windows, and then finish a visit which had well repaid expectation by a look at the Chapter House, a decagon with beautiful Early English vaulting springing from a central shaft.

Lichfield is not so well known to tourists as Salisbury Cathedral, but it is quite as well worth a visit as the latter. Salisbury has been always architecturally interesting as a complete and pure specimen of the style of the period to which it belongs. This Early English, or Early Pointed style possesses a certain severe and simple dignity, and I had expected to be much impressed by Salisbury Cathedral. But I confess to having been, on the contrary, considerably disappointed in it, as a whole. I came to spend a Sunday in the place, and took up my abode at the "Angel," another of those small, clean inns which at first one is sur

prised to find in these unpromising and ugly little places,-cities so-called, I believe, because the sites of cathedrals; but having nothing of a city about them except pavements and dull, unbroken rows of small, brick houses, and an absence of anything pleasantly green. One feels that to live in these dreary-looking houses would be an intolerable oppression; and one hastens to escape from the narrow streets into the open, verdant space where the cathedral stands.

At first sight of Salisbury one cannot but notice immediately how disproportionate are the height and the great length of the church. The roof is too low to give that look of soaring, sky-seeking height, which is one of the peculiar and beautiful characteristics of the finest Gothic buildings. The sharply-pointed Early English arches especially require this height for their due effect. What a contrast to Salisbury in this respect is the church of St. Quen, at Rouen! Nowhere is there a stronger effect produced by fine proportions. The unbroken perspective view of the church, especially as seen from the vantage of the east end of the triforium gallery, is admirable, and constitutes the chief beauty of the edifice. A less important but yet noticeable defect at Salisbury, is the too great length of the center light in the triplelancet windows of the clere-story. Where the central light rises so much higher than the side lights and the spring of the arches is not from the same point, the result is unpleasing to the eye. Again, there is a painful lack of color in the church; a fault which may be, and perhaps is, to be remedied at some future day. It was, the perverted taste of later days that ruined the original beauty of strong coloring in Gothic buildings. How important an accessory to the full effectiveness of these interiors is color, any one may see for himself who compares the interior of the lovely St. Chapelle at Paris, with this of Salisbury, for instance. Color belongs to the character of Gothic work; it goes with clustering shafts and springing arches, broken outlines and mingling lights and shades, the variety and complexity, the seriousness and gro

tesqueress in which the free fancy of the Gothic mind delighted. A short time ago Notre Dame, at Paris, was richly colored in imitation of the original work; but for some reason the polychrome color has been removed again lately, except in the chapels, and the stone laid bare. A gentleman who procured a tile from the roof of the Alhambra as a memorial of his visit there, had the curiosity to scrape the surface of it, and discovered underneath a layer of whitewash the rich color of the ancient decoration.

Indispensable, too, to a Gothic church are the "storied windows richly dight;" but at Salisbury there is so little stained glassonly a few poor windows in the choir-that the whitish walls have nothing to warm their sickly, almost ghastly tone. The unpleasant effect is increased by the multitude of columns of dark gray granite, looking like iron, which cluster about the main shafts of the pillars of the nave and choir.

Unlike Lichfield, the exterior of the cathedral is more striking than the interior. The west front has ornament of a very marked kind, and is quite unlike the facades of a later period. In the central compartment, over the plain porch, is a row of canopied statues, and above these a large, plain, triplelighted window, the gable over it filled with smaller windows and a sunk panel with a statue. The other side compartments are filled below, either with windows of different sizes, or more canopied statues. Two-thirds of the way up there runs across a very pretty sunk paneling of diamonds filled with quatrefoils and trefoils, and over this is paneled work of arches with statues and quatrefoiled heads. A little arcade of very early appearance and a plain pinnacle at either end, finishes the ornamentation at top. The spire is well known as the most beautiful feature of the building.

The finest and most impressive view of the church is to be had from the north side, where the varied outlines of the double transepts, apse, nave, and fine north porch are seen to great advantage. For Salisbury is unsurpassed in situation; no fitter setting for a noble building could be imagined than that wide-stretching greensward bordered with patriarchal trees; and a Gothic cathe

dral, even if not the finest one in existence, is a thing to linger by, to gaze on with sincere delight, and leave at last with regret.

II.

CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.

How much of historical as well as architectural interest attaches to the Cathedral at Canterbury! At mention of it names of great men who have been connected with this ancient church rise up in memory, Lanfranc, Anselm, Stephen Langton, Thomas à Becket. We find the beginnings of the history of Canterbury as far back as the end of the sixth century, at which time it is well known Pope Gregory the Great sent Prior Augustine as a missionary to Britain to preach the Gospel to the Saxons. Years before his interest in these people had been awakened, and the desire to go himself and convert them to Christianity; but after he had at length fairly started on his journey toward the distant island, he was recalled by pressing needs to Rome. He did not forget the design he had been prevented in carrying out, and when he became Pope he sent Augustine with forty monks to England.

It was to Kent that they were instructed to go, because, according to the familiar story, it had been the sight of certain Kentish youths, standing to be sold as slaves in the market-place at Rome, that first turned Gregory's thoughts to these British heathen.

Bertha, the wife of Ethelbert, the King of Kent, was a French princess, and like all the royal family of France, a Christian, and had brought with her a Christian priest; but there does not seem to have been any attempt on her part to convert her husband to her own religion. Still doubtless Ethelbert was the more favorably disposed to Christianity on account of her. He was moreover a good and sensible man, willing to listen to what the newly-arrived strangers had to say to him, and in the end he accepted their teaching and received baptism. After a while Augustine was for mally consecrated Archbishop, and then Ethelbert determined to give him "a dwelling-place and house of prayer within the

city, and retiring himself to Reculver, gave up his own palace and an old British or Roman church to be the seat of the new Archbishop, and the foundation of the new cathedral." This was a State endowment, and Canterbury, therefore, is the earliest. monument of an English church establishment. Of the actual building of this first cathedral, nothing remains. The arrival of Augustine explains why the Primate of England should be Archbishop not of London but of Canterbury. "Gregory had intended to fix the primacy in London and York, alternately, but the local feelings which grew out of Augustine's landing in Kent were too strong for him, and they have prevailed to this day."

It was Lanfranc, the new Archbishop whom William the Conqueror brought over with him from Normandy, who laid the foundations of the Cathedral as it now stands, and re-established the old church with his Norman workmen. Lanfranc's work was destroyed and the choir rebuilt between 1096 and 1110, by Ernulf, Prior of the adjoining Abbey of St. Augustine. He was succeeded by Conrad, who built the present choir. But in 1174, a fire broke out in the Cathedral that destroyed a great part of Conrad's choir, which had been hitherto the pride of the monks of Canterbury, and called by them the "Glorious choir of Conrad." They sent for an eminent French architect, William of Sens, who promised to preserve for them as much as possible what remained of the old work. He fell from a scaffold afterwards, and the building went on under the direction of an English William. This choir is considered the best type of the transition from the Norman to the Early English style. Gervase, one of the monks who has recorded the progress of the work, says that all the ornament of the old work was executed with the axe, while the later work was done with the chisel; and it is very interesting to see the junction of this old and new ornament in an arcade still remaining. In the crypts, too, may be seen the old Norman round arches side by side with the pointed arches. The mixture of styles from the early Norman to the Perpendicular of 1411, is marked and interesting. Norman work

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