126 Removal of the Screen at York Minster. which they report that the water ran after the Deluge of Deucalion. Every year into this chasm they throw a cake made of honey and flour." Of all heathen nations of antiquity, the Egyptians professed the most accurate knowledge of the real history of mankind. Solon was informed by I HAVE watched with intense anxiety the proceedings relative to the removal or rather the destruction of the magnificent and unrivalled choir screen of York Minster, and that I have not earlier added my feeble exertions to avert the threatened calamity was not the effect of lukewarmness or a want of feeling on the subject, the delay arose from the hope that the good sense of the advocates of the measure would have prevailed over the false ideas of taste which have been instilled into them, to the prejudice of their sound judgment. At present, then, the screen has not been touched; the united voices of antiquaries, artists, and men of taste, are exerted for its preservation. The names of Britton and Wellbeloved, of Etty, Stothard, and Savage, all men eminent for their writings and in their professions, added to a host of others, less conspicuous, but equally valuable as individuals whose views on a question of taste deserve the utmost regard and respect, with the assistance of the most strenuous exertions of the Morning Herald, appear as the opposers of the scheme. What, then, is arrayed against this phalanx of talent? The fiat of arbitrary power, and the caprice of affected improvement. Shall argument, then, sink before force, or truth be driven from the field by numerical strength? I should blush for the enlightened state of the age, if such was the result of this controversy. I would that a Gough, a Milner, and a Carter were living to confound with nervous argument the advocates of a measure so derogatory to antiquarian taste, and so fraught with mischief to every valuable relic of former times. There are four pamphlets on the question, which are worthy of great attention, and which are doubtless well known to such of your readers as have interested themselves in the question. The first, "A Letter addressed to the Subscribers, on the removal of the Altar-screen, by a Subscriber;" disJays the accurate knowledge and deep [Feb. their priests that in former ages the Atlantic Isle surpassed in magnitude Libya or Asia, and existed as a great and flourishing kingdom; but that in process of time, having been overwhelmed by the storms of the ocean, it presented nothing but a vast sea abounding in rocks and shoals. W. investigation, joined with the acute reasoning, which marked the writings of Dr.Milner: it is, I believe, the work of one of the soundest antiquaries of the day, resident at York. Another by the Rev. W. V. Vernon, Canon Residentiary of the Cathedral, is written in defence of the alteration. The third is a replication by the "Subscriber;" and the last a rejoinder by Mr. Vernon. The pamphlets all dis play a considerable degree of research, and contain many valuable and interesting particulars relative to the his tory of the cathedral. The arguments of the "Subscriber" are first directed to show that the screen occupies its original and appropriate situation, and secondly that it is not an excrescence of a period subsequent to the choir, but was finished when that part of the church was completed. To avoid the errors which a reliance on antient documents, without the assistance of other evidence, often produces, it is necessary that the historian should be assisted by the antiquary; and how often are erroneous conclusions arrived at, if the historian proceeds without this co-operation! How frequently are difficulties removed and contrarieties reconciled, by taking such assistance! If Mr. Vernon had followed this train of research, he would not, I think, have come so confidently to the conclusion, as to the age of the choir and the screen, as he has done. The most sure method of arriving at the age of any building, is to take its architecture as a guide; by this means any one well acquainted with the peculiarities of the ancient styles will, without any further assistance, be able to point out with certainty the dates of the different parts of a building. He may and will meet considerable difficulty in reconciling the actual appearance of the structure with its history, but in the end this mode of research will prove the surest road to truth. Among the opposers of the change, Mr. Savage, best known as the architect of Chelsea Church, has pursued this course; he considers that the 1 1831.] Removal of the Screen at York Minster. doorway of the screen, and the lateral niches are not coeval; that the former is earlier than other ornamental portions. Presuming Mr. Savage to be correct, (and I must say he adduces good argument for the idea) he completely answers Mr. Vernon's supposition of the screen being an excrescence. This latter gentleman advocates the removal, on the ground that it is not coeval with the choir; Mr. Savage shows that it is. Both Mr. Savage and the "Subscriber " advocate the preservation of the site of the screen, on the idea that it is original. Now whether, in point of date, either is right or wrong, matters but little; they both proceed on the supposition that the choir screen is coeval with the first opening of the choir, and whether that dedication took place in Thoresby's time or a century later, it helps Mr. Vernon but little; as he must now convince his new opponent that the screen is not of the age to which Mr. Savage has assigned it, and which he can only do by an examination of its architecture, for by internal evidence alone, and not by the quotation of written documents, can the point be settled. Mr. Savage has moreover called in the assistance of Mr. Cottingham, a gentleman who has had great facilities in the inspection of Rochester Cathedral, and from this additional evidence we find that a screen, certainly not coeval in all its ornaments with the choir, bears internal evidence of its occupying the original and appropriate site. Need I repeat what has been so often said, that, in a perfect Cathedral, the screen is always in the situation which that at York occupies. The advocates for the alteration know this, but they answer there are exceptions to every general rule; York is one, and Ely is another: and the only support this hypothesis receives is derived from the fact that at York the columns of the piers, against which the screen abuts, are finished to the ground. Mr. Smirke says, that those who built such magnificent objects as the great pillars, and moulded them to their bases with so much care, intended that they should be seen, and never contemplated their interment in a stone wall." How is this position of Mr. Smirke's tenable? The architect finishes his building, and of course completes all the mouldings; but he knows that af " 127 ter him another artist is to be called in, to render the building appropriate for the service for which it is designed; he knows that a screen will be built from column to column; that the sculptor will be employed, to raise what Mr. Smirke somewhat contemptuously designates a stone wall; but he will not have to build a mere dead wall, not a mass of plain ashlaring with naked mouldings, like some buildings I could name, but a rich piece of sculpture, in which the utmost skill of his hand would be displayed. The architect, I say, knows this; he also knows that it must cover some portion of his columns, but how much of the columns will be actually concealed he is not aware; perhaps all the bases may be seen, or at least a part of some of them; how then can he say what part is to be finished, and what left plain? And, at a period when the labour of the mason was cheap, would he trouble himself to consider whether a few inches of moulding might be dispensed with? No; he saw his own work finished, and he left the sculptor to perform his. The entire design was under the eye of a master, who viewed it rather with the exalted vision of a poet than the eye of a mere architect; he sought to make a grand and surprising structure. Inviting, by the magnificence of the whole, an inspection of the parts, he determined that the detail should not disappoint the idea which resulted from the entire composition; and he did not stop to consider whether half a dozen bases out of some hundreds might be concealed. But, granting the correctness of Mr. Smirke's position, that the bases ought to be exposed, it follows the screen must be totally or partially destroyed; for, if removed to another pillar, the same objection will equally apply, and another lamentation will be made over other buried bases, and so the screen will be sent from post to pillar, until at last it may only be thought worthy to macadamize some of the streets in York. But from Mr. Savage I derive a direct confutation of Mr. Smirke's argument drawn from the bases: he says the screen is coeval with the choir (and the observations of an architect so eminent as Mr. Savage are not to be slighted); it follows, then, that the original architect did entomb these bases; and even if he did at first intend them to be 128 wholly or partially seen, he afterwards considered them of so little value, that, if he was himself the designer of the screen, he hid them with something far surpassing them in beauty. Here, then, the question is narrowed to a simple issue; it is bases against screen, a few formal mouldings opposed to a splendid piece of sculpture, which has never been rivalled, and never will; and which, if destroyed, (as it is very likely to be if its removal is attempted) a matchless piece of workmanship will be lost; and a few bases, which any stone-cutter can equal, will be obtained in lieu of it. Let us hope, then, that this useless act of innovation will not be carried into effect; if it is, and the screen is mutilated, who will prove the greatest enemy to the Cathedral, the miserable fanatic who endeavoured to destroy it, or the Dean and Chapter, which completed the work that the incendiary had left unfinished? Removal of the Screen at York Minster. I have already trespassed so long on your pages, that I have not space for a few words I intended to have added on the works, as they are reported to be finishing, the American wood, the bosses nailed in, and the other expedients which cheapness or improvement have dictated. From the first, I entertained a suspicion of the literal performance of the pledge that the Cathedral should be restored; and when we see inferior wood substituted for oak, it may be received as a sample of what the party who direct these repairs are likely to propose, if entirely left to their own guidance. In conclusion, then, Mr. Urban, allow me to suggest that if public opinion is disregarded, and the removal of the screen should be persisted in, a WRITTEN PROTEST should be drawn up, and signed by all the men of genius and talent opposed to the measure, that posterity may learn how far ignorance and vanity, backed by numbers, triumphed over truth. Yours, &c. E. I. C. P. S. Mr. Etty's exertions in the cause are deserving of great praise. Let his example stimulate others, and I still hope for success. [Feb. every quarter of the kingdom, we expressed an opinion that the promoters of the innovation in the Minster had undervalued the veneration which that noble building universally inspires, and which is felt in the very highest degree in the city which possesses that estimable and perfect specimen of our ecclesiastical architecture. We continue in this opinion; because otherwise we do not believe that the agitators, bold as they are, would have proposed or defended & scheme so injurious to the grandest Cathedral in the kingdom, to their own fame as lovers of the Church (Church walls as well as Churchmen), as persons setting a just value on the works of their forefathers, and as the authors of reports and pledges diametrically opposed to all that they have lately said or done, or persist in trying to do. These attempts, we venture to affirm, would not have been made, if an almost universal opposition to the scheme had been anticipated by its abettors. It should be remembered that when the despoiler, for such he was, entered Ely Minster-notwithstanding the commendations he has received from the unthinking or uninformed there was not a Morritt or a Markham, a Wellbeloved or a Strickland, to avert his purpose; and when still later, the sacrilegious hand of Wyatt was laid upon Salisbury, Lichfield, and Ďurham Cathedrals, the public took very little or no interest in the preservation of those buildings from spoliation; and Englefield and Milner, Gough and Carter, wrote in vain at least it was not till two of the three ON THE REMOVAL OF THE SCREEN AT YORK MINSTER. IN our former remarks on this interesting subject, which still engrosses a very considerable portion of attention, not merely in the county and city of York, but in almost Cathedrals just named, were irretrievably mutilated, and that of the third was commenced, that the warning voice of Carter, conveyed to the public through the pages of our Magazine, was listened to, and the work of destruction was at length terminated before the destructive plans of the architect were more than half accomplished. It is our wish to equal magnitude in York Minster. If it be prevent the commencement of barbarities of an argument against the Screen that it is less ancient than the walls of the choir-what, we ask, is to become of the lantern tower, which is of subsequent date to the arches it stands upon; of the tops of the western towers, which also are less ancient than the gorgeous façade to whose beauty they contribute? The style of the nave differs from that of the transepts, and the choir from both. The chapter-house is less ancient than the north transept, and more ancient than the choir. All these, and many more minute varieties, embellish the architecture which constitutes the design of York Minster. In these compounded styles we observe the consequence of the progressive advancement of a great Church from its Norman original, through several ages, in a system of architecture which admitted of many varieties, varieties not produced at stated intervals, or uniformly in particular features; and these Removal of the Screen at York Minster. 1831.] circumstances have generally been considered as augmenting the interest of the building in which the diversity appears. But even the beauty and splendour of the screen at York has been assailed [Smirke, Report i. p. 7]a hiut doubtless that we shall not only see it removed, but brought to the perfection which the original architect intended. It is worth while to offer a few more remarks on the internal arrangement of our great Churches, for on this depended the situation of the choir, and consequently the position of its entrance screen. Mr. Wilkins says, "these varieties are fatal to any hypothesis which seeks to establish a principle of construction with regard to the position of the choir screen, and furnish examples of departure from constant rule or general practice. The charge of innovation therefore falls to the ground, and there can be no impropriety in choosing any situation for a choir screen, when we find it, in so many instances, determined by convenience or caprice, and not by principle."* These remarks are fatal to Mr. Wilkins's pretension to knowledge on the subject of our ancient architecture. There is, we assert, a principle of construction with regard to the position of the choir screen, and no examples of departure from it, except of modern date. These principles we have before explained. The charge of innovation therefore against the mnemoclasts of York, is fully established, and there is a glaring impropriety in choosing any other situation for a choir screen, than that in which we find the original. 66 Caprice" applies to meddling modern architects, "principle" to the architects of antiquity. Mr. Sinirke, on the same subject, p. 5, says, "The only conclusion which an examination of the plans of all the Cathedrals can really suggest to an unbiassed mind, seems to be, that neither the position of the screen, nor the limits of the choir, are fixed by any general rule or custom whatever." These remarks are fully as valuable and correct as the preceding; they, like those, are the result of observations on prints, and not on the buildings themselves, (for what Architect would tour a thousand miles to become acquainted with the merits of the architectural monuments of his own country?) and it is easily discoverable that they are intended to justify the proposed innovation, since no true or candid argument can by any ingenuity be advanced to justify a position altogether new for the Minster screen. But to correct all the mistakes and misstatements which have been made on this subject, and those in the pamphlet before us are many and great, would require more space than we can afford. We will now only correct the error respecting Ely, namely, that the alteration of the choir of that cathedral was an improvement. Report, p. 29. GENT. MAG. February, 1881. 129 The manifest want of knowledge of the history of our ancient architecture, betrayed by the innovators,-for who that possessed any correct knowledge of the subject would become an innovator or his advocate?-would have secured them from our censure on that account, had not a powerful writer, one of the ablest defenders of antiquity, evidently unacquainted with the modern part of the history of Ely Cathedral, granted to Mr. Vernon almost all he had said respecting Ely; it therefore becomes worth while to point out the innovation which has been unwarily praised by Mr. Gough. Ely, as a Norman Cathedral, had its choir under the lantern tower, and its screen in the navean arrangement which, so far from being disturbed on the rebuilding and enlargement of the eastern member of the cross, was retained, and the splendour of the choir increased beyond that of any other in the kingdom, by the magnificent octagonal lantern, which shed a refulgence of light on the high altar placed towards the east of it. Beyond the altar-screen was the feretory, and from thence the space to the east end constituted the Lady Chapel. The subdivisions here named were by low screens, and often by a distinction in the side pillars, which the commonest observer would not overlook, so as to let into the view of the choir the whole height, breadth, and beauty of the entire space between the lantern and the east end, exactly similar to York, whose extent and grandeur Mr. Vernon is so desirous to curtail. These ancient boundaries, so interesting in the history of Ely Minster, and so essential to its beauty, were demolished by Mr. Essex about 60 years ago, and the blaze of light which had been prepared for the altar, has been made to shed its brightness on a vacant space. The present altar lacks lustre and distinction under the eastern wall, which is rich in elegant architecture; and the side monuments and chapels have lost their propriety of situation. The modern Improver of the ancient Cathedral found the space too long for the new choir, and he did what the innovators at York wish to do, he left in the space between the lantern and the porch of the choir, the "folly," which has been commended and set up as an example for imitation. Wyatt displayed equal folly at Salisbury, but it was of a different kind; he kept the position of the screen under the eastern arch of the tower, but removed the screen itself, which was coeval with the Church, namely, the thirteenth century, and built up one composed of ornaments of the fifteenth century! He threw down all the monuments which surrounded and dignified the altar, removed + A Subscriber's Letter to Mr. Vernon, P. 17. Removal of the Screen at York Minster. 130 its screen, and by numberless other acts of sacrilege and impiety, cleared the way to the utmost eastern limit of the Cathedral; so that the choir of Salisbury Cathedral now consists of two buildings, namely, the ancient choir, a broad and lofty space, and the Lady Chapel, scarcely half its height or half its length, and of a totally different character, thus forming so great an extent of room, that the strongest voice is scarcely audible from one extremity to the other. These are the boasted improvements of modern architects!-these the models for York,-for the removal, the dilapidation, the destruction of the choir screen Mr. Canon Veruon still flounders in the difficulties he has brought upon himself; every effort he makes to get clear of his toil, sinks him deeper into the vortex. He attempts to combat Mr. Morritt, and what he uses for argument is quite worthy of the sacrilege he advocates in York Minster. Mr. Morritt observes : "The date and construction of the present screen is not the only question, but the plan of Mr. Smirke is to remove it into a situation where no screen has ever yet been placed in any similar building; his only reason yet assigned is, that in his opinion, and yours, and in that of many professional and influential persons, it will look better. "Mr. Smirke's choir will be behind a nameless and irregular recess, divided by a partition nol corresponding with the roof, from that recess; and secluded behind pillars from the building in which the nave and transepts will form the principal objects, and a public architectural promenade will seem the chief design of a Cathedral. [Feb. concoction and prosecution of this plan has never yet been told. "It was assigned, as Lord Harewood told us, to Mr. Smirke's report, which my own conversation with the late Archdeacon Eyre proved to be impossible; with whom then did it originate? "I wish, dear Sir, to call your attention to these conclusive and inherent objections to your plan, and to solicit from your architectural advisers, some instances of a choir superior to that of Archbishop Thoresby's, or some reason for the alteration of its original and architectural proportions, beyond what they or you have been pleased to assign; which is as yet reducible to the single allegation, that in your opinion and theirs, the two great pillars and the church will look better. "You have, however, again recourse to the argument ad verecundiam, and assail our modesty, when you fail to convince our reason. In common with the eminent architect from whose decision we appeal, you produce Sir Jeff. Wyatville, my friend Mr. Wilkins, and Mr. Chantrey !!! as advocates for your plan, in addition, I suppose, to the dignified and influential approvers of whom we have heard so much. To all these gentlemen I oppose the single authority of ARCHBISHOP THORESBY, and the architects, who, under his direction, designed and divided the choir of York Minster from the body of the church. The whole truth connected with the "Was that eminent architect's' plan suggested to the guardians of the Minster by him, or did one of the Chapter or more, suggest its execution to the Architect? "Was the discovery of an old cross wall, which was, I believe, alleged to Lord Harewood as the ground of alteration, prior to the determination of proposing such an al teration? "While doubts rest on these points, material to those who argue as you do on the deference due to an eminent architect's' judgment, it was still more unfortunate for the peace and good-humour of the subscribers, that you, and my friend the Dean, understood and explained the pledge given to the subscribers in a sense very differeut from theirs, and in one which has been disavowed by Lord Harewood, and other influential supporters of your plan, as distinctly as by all those who oppose it. It was unfortunate that the objections to the decision in July did not occur till after its decision was apparent. It was unfortunate that after repeated professions of a desire to ascertain the opinion, and be guided by the direction of the subscribers, an active canvass should take place, not to ascertain their opinion, but to solicit their votes on the ground of personal favour, and that clergymen, personally obliged to the promoters of the scheme, should, perhaps, without your authority, have scoured the country to procure them. Such, however, are the facts, and surely those who adopt the principle of electioneering cannot wonder, or even justly complain, of the irritation which it most naturally excites. As I have never admired that principle when thus applied, I certainly took the liberty to laugh, both at the zeal which adopted such a test of good taste, and at the violence with which it was repelled. It proved to me, however, that in your eagerness for conversion you were impenetrable to conviction, and I grieved for the probable fate of the Minster." Mr. Browne has published a very interesting "Letter," with two engravings, to prove, which he does most satisfactorily against the opinions of Mr. Vernon and Mr. Sa vage, that the whole screen and its enrichments are of coeval date, and has not, as the former wishes us to believe, been wrought up to its present bulk at different periods; or as the latter imagines, for want of personal inspection, that the niches and canopies in the front were subsequently added to the originally plain wall. We will now direct our readers' attention to the "Second Letter of a Subscriber," a |