CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL IN DUBLIN.* THE restoration of the two
cathedral churches of Dublin, SL Patrick's, and that of the Holy Trinity, commonly called Christ. Church, is an event of our time which is to be regarded with great satisfaction. Art and history are both gainers by the- rescue from decay of two important and interesting monuments of ancient times and an older faith.
"The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, commonly called Christ Church," though the smaller building of the two, is more ancient and more beautiful than St. Patrick's. It was about the year 1038 that Sitric,—the Danish king who was gloriously defeated by "Brian the Brave," King of Munster, at the famous Battle of Clontarf, after he had helped that patriotic chieftain to suppress Malachy, of "collar of gold" celebrity,—aided by Donat, who is termed the first Bishop of Dublin—meaning the first Danish Bishop of that see—built the original edifice, in what was then the centre of the city. The incident is of additional historical import, because it affords, as Mr. Seymour points out, the first indications of any active interest in Christianity being taken by the Danes in Ireland. "The good Bishop Donat," says Mr. Seymour, "died on the 6th of May, 1074, and was buried in his 'cathedral, on the right-band side of the high altar." He is said to have built the nave and wings, or aisles, of the cathedral, the chapel of St. Nicholas, on the north side of the church, and the adjoining chapel of St. Michael, the latter being subsequently con- verted, in the fifteenth century, by Richard Talbot, one of Donat's successors in the see, into a parish church, on the side of which the new Synod Hall has been erected by Mr. Roe, for the deliberative assembly of the Church of Ireland. Hardly a. trace of Bishop Donat's work remains. We pass on to the
• The Cathedra of the Holy Trinity, commonly called Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. An Accouut of the Restoration of the Fabric. By G. E. Street, E.A.. With a Historical Sketch by Edward Seymour, LA., and a Dedication by Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B. LoLd : Batton, Sharpe, and Co.
'history of the cathedral after A.D. 1163, when Bishop Laurence, generally known as St. Laurence O'Toole (Lorcan O'Tuathal), converted it into a priory, and changed the secular clergy into the regular order of Arroasian canons so called from an abbey in the diocese of Arras, in Flanders, a branch of the Augustinian Order long since extinct. To Bishop Laurence, during whose episcopacy the Anglo-Normans invaded Ireland and Henry II. took possession of the island, -and to Strongbow, were due the erection of the eastern portion of the cathedral, and the endowment of the priory with wealth and privileges. This work was not long completed when Strong- bow died, and, although the authenticity of his tomb, which is -one of the few treasures left to "Christ's," is reasonably denied, there is no doubt that "the great and powerful Earl" was solemnly interred in the cathedral, under the direction of Arch- .bishop Laurence, who survived him four years, and died at Eu, in Normandy. Within fifty years Laurence was canonised by Pope Honorius III., but his body was not brought home to his cathedral. Mr. Seymour's interesting record includes a very :striking description of St. Laurence O'Toole, whose three im- mediate successors were all Englishmen, and great benefactors of the cathedral. During the time of the first and second, the beautiful nave, which still remains, was added to Laurence's work. The priory rose in importance as time went on ; the Prior was a Lord in Parliament in the time of King John, who granted several privileges to the community, and in the coarse of the thirteenth century, the Cathedral, whose beauty has been retraced and disinterred by Mr. Street, and is put before us in this admirable book, was completed. Perhaps it was too complete — there is an old super .stition about the last stone of a church—at all events, its troubles began immediately. In 1283, certain of the Irishry " set fire to Skinner's Row, which communicated with the church, whereby the steeple, the chapter house, the dormitory, and the cloisters were destroyed. "It is recorded to the honour of the citizens on this occasion," says Mr. Sey- mour, "that they made a collection to restore the priory, before they repaired their own dwellings which had suffered by the .fire In 1303, a licence was granted to Friar Henri de Cork to travel through the kingdom to collect alms for the restoration of the cathedral, and the King's letter of safe-con- duct on this occasion is still extant among the records in Dublin Castle. At the close of the century, the dispute between the governing bodies of the two cathedrals (St. Patrick's Chapter also claiming the right to elect an Archbishop of Dublin, when the See became vacant) was settled by Pope Boniface III., who gave precedence to Christ Church. Mr. Seymour gives an .animated account of the fierce contest that raged on the occa- sion. No doubt, the cathedral was being adorned and beautified all this time ; but soon after, it sustained serious damage. In 1316, the steeple was blown down, to be rebuilt in 1329; and ten years later, Archbishop John of St. Paul, took down the original choir, substituted that which every one who remembers the cathedral before its present restoration will agree with Mr. Seymour in pronouncing "elongated and poverty-stricken," and made several other additions. There is not wanting the element of romance, nor, indeed, that of humour, to the history of these ancient walls, for in 1394, King Richard II. crossed, with an army of 4,000 knights and esquires and 30,000 archers, passed several months in Dublin, dazzled the inhabitants by the magnificence of his Court, and conferred the honour of knighthood upon the four principal Irish princes, O'Neill, O'Connor, O'Brien, and MeMurchad. Mr. Seymour quotes the amusing account of this pageant to be found in Froissart's Chronicles, from the narrative of Sir Harry Cristall, who was "charged with the care .and teachings of these four kings," and found it hard to make them appreciate the honour, for they stoutly maintained that they were knights already. Nor was this his only diffi- oulty ; the Irish princes no more took kindly to breeches than did Rob Roy's folk, and saddles and stirrups were, in their eyes, just so many impediments to the purposes of horsemanship. The cathedral was rich in relics, in addition to the "Staff of Christ" and the shrine of St. Cabins ; it was the scene of many pageants, and it was an exclusively English institution. Probably that pre-Reformation characteristic, and the tradition of it remain- ing, rendered the Irish people so indifferent, as they certainly were, to the appropriation of their cathedrals to Protestant worship, while the Protestant religion made no impression upon them. So strictly was the English character of the Cathedral maintained by the rigid exclusion of all native Irishmen, even from inferior offices—Mr. Seymour quotes Mr. Gilbert for this—that in 1380, "the Parliament, in which the Prior always held a seat, passed a law that no native should be suffered to profess himself in this institution." In 1486, Christ Church was the scene of a remarkable per- formance,—no other than the coronation of Lambert Simnel as Edward VI., amid the acclamations.of the people, with a crown said to have been taken "from the statue of the Virgin in St. Mary's Abbey." Two years later, the Bishop of Meath had to make atonement for his share in this act of disloyalty to Henry VII., by reading publicly in Christ Church "the Pope's Bull of accursing, and the absolution for the same, and the grace which the King had sent."
It was in the time of Henry VIII. that the old name was Abandoned, and the Cathedral became Christ Church. In 1562, the catastrophe occurred that made the building the unsightly object it remained until Mr. Street restored it, according to the munificent purpose of Mr. Roe :—
" Owing to the bad construction of the piers, the massive stone- groined roof gradually spread the walls of the nave asunder, and on April 3rd, 1562, it came to the ground, carrying along with it the greater portion of the southern arcade, the eastern arch of which alone remained, and that in a very shattered and damaged condition ; while the northern side of the nave was left standing indeed, but sadly shaken, and much out of the perpendicular. The greater part of the west front, too, was carried away in the crash. The southern arcade was replaced in the same year by a hideous blank wall, and the stone groined roof by mean and naked rafters. These things, happily, now belong to the past., and can only be recalled to mind by the assistance of the photographer's art, from which alone we can judge how completely this sad calamity effaced the former beauty of Christ Church."
There is a hint in this passage, afterwards developed by Mr. Street, that our cherished notions of the Art ideas and the matchless handiwork of the medimval workman are not quite securely founded. He was not such an intolerable person as the British workman of to-day, but he could, and did, scamp his work on occasions, of which the building of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity was a favourable one. It was, indeed, an ugly, deserted, " God-forgotten " pile on which Mr. Street's masterly skill and fine taste were brought to bear, with unex- ampled freedom, under the stimulus of Mr. Roe's munificence. That Mr. Street lived to see his great work completed is matter for rejoicing ; and now we have that work supplemented by a variously interesting narrative of the manner and progress of that restoration, and of the discovery, piecemeal, of the old church during the process. It must have been a delightful task to such a mind as Mr. Street's to read the thoughts of his predecessors, to rend away the veils of time, to undo the work of ruin, to atone for the blank indifference of neglect. He was hampered with no restrictions, he was troubled with no "fads," either single or collective, he had his own way in all things—that way stands justified by the result—and he has left the record of his task in a narrative which cannot fail to instruct and interest even the reader least well disposed towards technical detail. In Mr. Seymour's historical sketch we find a slight elegiac flavour, mildly mournful, a gentle wailing, as of an lEolian harp put out in not too strong a wind, over the "sad" event of Dis- establishment. This is very natural; but then the restoration of a beautiful cathedral, by the act of a private citizen, and its presentation to "the Disestablished Church of Ireland," cheers up the Precentor, as it ought to do, and reduces the decorous dolefulness of the protest de rigueur to the same sort of disclaimer as the Jacobite toasts in the dying-echo period of the last century. It is also very natural that in his re-solution of the ruin of Christ Church into its first principles, Mr. Street should have sought, and found, the supreme importance of the architect everywhere, the subordination of the craftsman in everything; and although we have to part with another cherished notion, we shall not attempt to dispute, from our unlearned and outside position, the limited share that he assigns to the imagination, the taste, and the discrimination of the workman. His narrative is full of interest of many kinds, of exploration, speculation, discovery, glimpses of the history of the past, and of the great satisfaction of an unqualified success.
The dedication of this superb book to Mr. Henry Roe is written by Sir Theodore Martin ; it is slightly old-fashioned in style ; the periods are lengthy and very much rounded; the tone is courtierly ; the whole composition goes well with the stateliness of the magnificent volume, whose white-vellum bind-• ing, enriched with designs in red and gold drawn by Mr. Street, is the most perfect thing of the kind we have ever seen. Among the illustrations are two woodcuts of great merit, from drawings by Mr. Brewer, representing the Lady chapel and the pulpit; and several other woodcuts, steel engravings, and chromo-litho- graphs. The latter show us the new stained-glass windows, which Mr. Street praises very highly. We agree with him as to the colours ; these must be singularly rich, soft, and skilfully blended, but the designs strike us as meagre and inexpressive. The paper and the printing are of the very best kind ; alto- gether, the book is emphatically "a thing of beauty."
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