York Minster

“ It is strange that what was done in the twelfth century under the impulse of a powerful religious feeling, can now be done, and done more promptly and quickly, under a feeling almost purely romantic. We must of course rejoice that so beautiful a building as York Minster has been redeemed from the ruin into which it was accidentally thrown, and once more made worthy of the homage of the highest taste. ”

“ In York Minster, the parts, the grotesques, are in themselves very sharply distinct and separate, and this distinction and separation of the parts is counterbalanced only by the multitude and variety of those parts, by which the attention is bewildered; ­ whilst the whole, or that there is a whole produced, is altogether a feeling in which the several thousand distinct impressions lose themselves as in a universal solvent. Hence in a Gothic cathedral, as in a prospect from a mountain's top, there is, indeed, a unity, an awful oneness ”

“ When the old cosmogony is proclaimed to be true in York Minster, the scientists sink into insignificance in their modern ordinary rooms; when the acolyte rings his bell in Rouen Cathedral, and the Host is lifted up, and the crowd kneels in silent adoration on the pavement, who is to deny the Real Presence? Does not every massive pillar stand there to affirm sturdily that it is true ”

“ Skirting the west end of the Minster, and having a close view of its two towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so beautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the most romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an open space faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind are the weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them rises the stately mass of the Minster. ”

“ When he came into York it is said the pressure of the crowd was so great that it caused the fall of a bridge over the Ouse, but the saint by a [Pg 299] miracle saved all their lives. The shrine was destroyed at the Reformation, and the relics buried in the nave, where they were found in the last century. York Minster remained almost unchanged until 1829, when a lunatic named Martin concealed himself one night in the cathedral and set fire to the woodwork of the choir, afterwards escaping through a transept-window. The fire destroyed the timber roofs of the choir and nave and the great organ. ”

“ We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty things, and making it seem almost undesirable to inquire into the dates and periods of construction of one of the most glorious buildings ever raised to the glory of God. ”

“ A stone, a relic of the former edifice, bearing an inscription in Anglo-Saxon, which he caused to be cut, is preserved in the wall of the present church. This stone, and Ulf’s horn, still to be seen in York Minster, are among the most venerable antiquities of the county.
Hornsea is a favourite resort of many Yorkshire folk who love quiet; hence a casual traveller is liable to be disappointed of a lodging on the shore. ”

“ Although the charges on the earlier arms of the See of York were the same as on that of Canterbury, the colours of their fields differed; for in a north window of the choir of York Minster is a shield of arms, bearing the arms of Archbishop Bowett, who held the see from 1407 to 1423, impaled by the pall and pastoral staff, on a field gules. The glass is to all appearance of the fifteenth century. ”

“ If the ringers had locked the door of the belfry after them, in all probability he could not have made his escape from the Minster, but would have been compelled to remain till the doors were opened in the morning; when mingling with the crowd, in the hurry and confusion, he might not have been noticed, and the calamity would always have been ascribed to accident.
After the ringers left, Martin went into the belfry and struck a light. A gentleman who was passing the Minster about half-past eight o'clock, saw a light in the belfry at that time ”

“ Roger seems at once to have commenced the reproduction at York of this great work, by substituting for the short simple chancel of the Minster a complex eastern building which, making due allowance for its want of equal dimensions with Canterbury choir, was yet evidently planned on the same system, with the aisles square ended instead of apsidal, and the flanking towers made to [Pg 20] perform the part of eastern transepts. Of this choir, portions only of the crypt still survive. The base of the beautiful western entrance doorway to the north aisle can still be seen by adventurous explorers. ”

“ Then we can see the end of the great Roses' Wars, the heads on the grim spikes of the city gates, while a long procession of kings and queens files out from the cathedral doors, on whose site a church has stood ever since Easter, 627 A.D.
If we had only time to sit and recall all the grand events which have happened in York Minster, we should have to wait for the next "Flying Scotchman," and perhaps for the next after that.
"Any more going on?" "Yes, we are." "Quick, please; all right." The train can't wait while we dream about the past ”

“ Bishop of Durham here in the presence of the king. At the foot of the window the figures of his brothers, gallant knights in those days, bearing their shields above their heads, may be still traced on close examination. Splendid figures of St. Lawrence, St. Christopher, and another fill the lights of the next window. The glass in all the windows is good and probably coeval with the building, though much of the tracery glass is modern and bad, the work of William Peckett, a glass painter of some local repute, who, at the close of the last century, undertook to restore the glass of the Minster. ”

“ Eight years after an English vessel put into a bay in the Magellans for water, and there was found a woman, without doubt Fuegia Basket, who said, “How do? I have been to Plymouth and London.” York Minster was also seen in 1851. From Captain Snow, commander of the mission yacht “Allen Gardiner,” we have the last accounts of Jemmy Button in 1855. Twenty-three years had not obliterated his knowledge of the English language, but he was as wild and shaggy as his untaught countrymen. In spite of his superior knowledge, he was treated as a very inferior personage by the members of his tribe ”

“ Otley is the first place we come to in the long and beautiful valley of the Wharfe. It is a busy little town where printing machinery is manufactured and worsted mills appear to thrive. Immediately to the south rises the steep ridge known as the Chevin. It answers the same purpose as Leyburn Shawl in giving a great view over the dale; the elevation of over 900 feet, being much greater than the Shawl, of course commands a far more extensive panorama, and thus, in clear weather, York Minster appears on the eastern horizon and the Ingleton Fells on the west. ”

“ Lawn had left in the room where he slept on Saturday night, and having tied one end of his rope to the machine used for cleaning the Minster, he dragged it under the window in the west aisle of the north transept, which he broke with the pincers; and having seen that one of the piles (that by the archbishop's throne) to which he had set fire was burning briskly, he descended, and left the Cathedral a little after three o'clock in the morning of the 2nd of February, taking with him the articles before mentioned, and also some purple silk—a part of one of the robes of the clergy. ”

“ We went to Dunbar; then to Howick; and spent a couple of days with Sydney Smith at Heslington, near York. I went to the Roman Catholic convent in York, to visit the daughters of Mr. Gordon, of Xeres; they seemed dejected and apprehensive that the state of Spain would prevent them from joining their family.
We made a deviation from the North road to see Lincoln Minster. We were repaid for the inconvenience of a very bad road and without exception the worst inn in England, as the Cathedral is very curious and magnificent. It is not so large as that of York, but the workmanship is much richer. ”

“ Also a large paper edition at £2 2 0 nett.
"A valuable acquisition to every Sporting Library."
"A book which no sport-loving Yorkshireman should be without."
The Heraldry of York Minster. A Key to the History of its Builders and Benefactors as shown in its stained glass windows and in the carved work in stone. By The Very Rev. A. P. Purey-Cust, D.D., F.S.A., Dean of York. 2 Vols. large 4to. ”

“ There is no telling to what lengths true religion, may rightly not go. I rather prize the incident as the sole fact concerning the Minster which I could make sure of even after repeated visits, and if I am indebted for my associations with it, long after the event, to Dr. Raine’s scholarly and interesting sketch of York history, there is no reason why the better-informed reader should not accompany me in my last visit fully equipped. ”

“ The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to All Saints’ Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where butchers’ shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of the way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops has a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the passage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and either plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces between the oak filled with dark red brick. ”

“ It was reported in the evening about seven o'clock that Martin had been captured about five miles from Bedale, and would be brought into York by the Carlisle Express coach. The coach was half-an-hour beyond its time, and the streets were filled with crowds of anxious spectators, who waited in the expectation that the incendiary would arrive by it. Many persons went out of Micklegate Bar, and ran alongside of the coach till it stopped in Coney Street. It was then found that the report was an erroneous one, for Martin was not there ”

“ Twenty-two of the ancient churches exist.
We may well imagine that the Castle Keep, known as Clifford’s Tower, still keeps watch and ward over the city: opposite stands the mound of the other castle—the old Baile—which the Conqueror built in order to terrify the men of York. The triple-towered minster of St. Peter rises high above all else, and is best seen from the stretch of walls from Bootham to Monk Bar. The walk along the walls is one of the great attractions of York.
The old entrance to York from the south was Micklegate Bar. ”

“ The principal part of Thursday and Friday he was engaged in vending his pamphlet. When he left Quin's house on Saturday morning, between nine and ten o'clock, he seemed perfectly tranquil, and said he was going to fulfil an appointment that he had in the neighbourhood of Tadcaster, and that he should return to his wife at Leeds on Monday by dinner-time. Instead of stopping at Tadcaster, he came back to York, and went to his old lodgings iu Aldwark. He told Mr. and Mrs. ”

“ Come what might, Brother Jucundus felt he must have a fling. He should die without it. Just one jolification in the twelvemonth, and then he would put up for the rest of the year with beans and cabbage, small beer and matins before dawn.
York fair approached. York fair! of all that is ravishing! The shows of dancing dogs, the whirli-go-rounds, the giantesses and dwarfs, the "spice" stalls, the drinking-booths! To York fair he must, he would go, if condemned to a bean and a thimbleful of water for fasting dinner ever after. ”

“ These two candid and faithful creatures knew themselves to be strong enough and simple enough for a most difficult situation. They were tacitly agreed to remain constant, he to Minnie, she to Lionel, and to assume the poor little burdens deserted by them.
Frances was not anxious to return to California; she suggested a suburb of New York, in quite another direction from Brownsville Landing, and Mr. Petersen consented. She found a charming house there, the sort of house she had dreamed long ago of having with Lionel, a dignified, cheerful place with a fine garden. ”

“ How far do you imagine——”
“I’ve found a boarder,” she said.
“A boarder!” they both cried, simultaneously.
“A literary gentleman,” she explained, “from New York. He’ll only pay eight dollars a week, but he’s a start, anyway.”
“But, my dear,” Frances objected, “where could you put him?”
“Nowhere in my house!” cried the old lady. “I won’t hear of it! It’s disgraceful! It’s vulgar! I won’t have it!”
“I must!” said Minnie, “I’ve made up my mind. I can’t and won’t go on this way. Either you’ll let me have this boarder or I’ll have to go into Mr. Petersen’s office.” ”

“ I must be a minstrel." "'Must' is a grave word, dear heart," said Mistress Alison, looking somewhat serious; "but let me hear your story first." So Paul told of his meeting with the minstrel. Mistress Alison sate musing a long time, smiling when she met Paul's eye, till he said at last, "Will you not speak, mother?" "I know," she said at last, "whom you have met, dear child—that is Mark, the great minstrel. He travels about the land, for he is a restless man, though the king himself would have him dwell in his court, and make music for him. ”

“ Charles Heywood (Frank Haffner) , who has an international reputation in minstrelsy as a female impersonator, possesses a remarkably fine cultivated voice, which long experience has taught him to use to the best advantage.
Mr. Heywood made his debut with an amateur minstrel company in Newark, N. J., in 1867, at the famous old Library Hall.
In January, 1868, he appeared professionally in New York with Kelly and Leon’s Minstrels.
Later he was identified with Buckley’s, Duprez and Benedict; Emerson’s; Simmons and Slocum’s; Haverly’s, and several other notable organizations. ”