superior external magnificence of the cathedral and its ambitious spire, which will not suffer itself to be so neglected : : nec de se sinit ambitiosa taceri Quæ sola ex tribus a trunco surgentibus uno Eminet, atque impellit acuta cuspide nubes.* In describing the ornaments and fine monuments in this edifice, he falls into the common error of supposing most of them to have been executed whilst the English had possession of the province; and when he notices this as the burial-place of the Regent Duke of Bedford, who must be consigned to eternal infamy as the base murderer of the heroic Joan of Arc, he notices also the high-minded answer of Louis XI. who, when he was counselled by envious persons to deface the tomb of his antagonist, used * This tower, which fell a few years since by a conflagration, was 380 French feet in height. The length of the cathedral is 408 feet, its breadth 83, and the height of its vaulted roof 84. Its great western front is perhaps the most gorgeous façade that any church possesses, uniting vastness and variety of outline, with richness of ornament, and picturesque effect, to a marvellous degree : its highest point of elevation is about 250 feet, and its breadth 180: its two flanking towers are noble structures, particularly that at the S.W. corner, which almost rivals the central tower of St. Ouen in height and richness of decoration: it is sometimes called the tour de beurre, from the impost on that article granted for its erection, or tour d'Amboise, from the distinguished prelate under whom it was begun and finished, and who placed therein his enormous bell: the three deep porches and pediments of this façade are filled with innumerable statues of popes, emperors, kings, cardinals, bishops, &c. Probably the north and south porches of this cathedral are equally unrivalled; but its interior is as inferior to that of St. Ouen as St. Paul's is to St. Peter's. these princely words: "What honor shall it be for us, or you, to break this monument, and to pull out of the ground the bones of him, whom in his life-time neither my father nor his progenitors, with all their puissance, were once able to make fly a foot backward? who by his strength, policy, and wit, kept them all out of the principal domi- › nions of France, and out of this noble duchy of Normandy? Wherefore I say first, God save his soul! and let his body now lie in rest, which, when he was alive, could have disquieted the proudest of us all. And for this tomb, I assure you it is not so worthy or convenient as his honor and acts have deserved.' Herois monumenta rapi, manesque lacessi Yet the tomb, after all, had disappeared, and Barrow was disappointed in his search for it :-tumulum spes irrita quærit. He was not aware that the French Calvinists, who were quite as malignant as the English Puritans, destroyed it in their merciless attacks on ecclesiastical architecture * Sandford, Ed. 1707. p. 315. “There is a curious chapter," says Dr. Dibdin, “in Pommeraye's 'Histoire de l'Eglise Cath. de Rouen,' p. 203, respecting this duke's taking the habit of a canon of the cathedral, attending with his first wife, Anne of Burgundy, and throwing himself on the liberality and kindness of the monks, to be received by them as one of their order." This almost matches the act of Lady Margaret foundress of St. John's Coll. Camb., who made herself a vestal, and took the vows, in her old age, and after having had three husbands. in the sixteenth century, when, besides other atrocities, they disinterred the bodies of St. Ouen, St. Nicaise, and St. Remi, burned them in the very church, and scattered their ashes to the winds. But though Barrow is unable to discover the sepulcre of his countryman,* he sees and describes with admiration the sumptuous monument erected to the great minister Cardinal d'Amboise, by his nephew, who succeeded him in the archbishopric of Rouen. The labor of seven years was expended on this superb work; Quà merito minor Ambosius sub marmore clausus Marmora quid loquor? bunc resonabit buccina major, Is posset clamor cunctas perrumpere sphæras, &c. *On a lozenge behind the altar is the following inscription: AD DEXTRUM ALTARIS LATUS JACET JOHANNES DUX BEDFORDI NORMANNIÆ PROREX. MCCCCXXXV. In a chapel of this cathedral is the tomb of Rollo, first duke of Normandy, and in one opposite is that of his son William Longsword: the effigies of both are still preserved. The tombs that once adorned the choir, those of Charles V. of France, of Richard Coeur-de-Lion (whose heart was buried here), and of William son Few readers probably would guess the instrument which Barrow here declares so fit to carry the fame of his hero over all the realms of earth and air: be it then known that in these sonorous verses he alludes to an enormous bell, the largest ever suspended in frame-work, with which the Cardinal adorned his tower, and which was called after its donor's name, Georges d'Amboise, like our Tom of Lincoln. It was cast in 1501 by one Jean le Masson, who is said to have died with joy at his success in the attempt, not living to hear its sound when it was first swung in 1502 by sixteen sturdy ringers.* Its diameter at the base was 30 feet, and its weight 33,000 pounds; that of its clapper being 1838 pounds, which occasioned its fracture, when it was rung in 1786 on the occasion of Louis XVIth's paying a visit to Rouen.† Quitting with reluctance this monster of sound, which he has celebrated in notes deep-mouthed as its own, our traveller resumes his journey along the beautiful banks of the Seine, studded with woody isles, in the direction of Paris. As he proceeds southward, he remarks, what is still observable, the appearance and gradual increase of vines, succeeding to the apple-trees of Lower Normandy. of Geoffrey Plantagenet, were removed in 1736, as interfering with the works then going forward: they have since been destroyed; but there still remains a beautiful monument erected to the Duke de Brezé, grand Seneschal of Normandy, by his celebrated but faithless spouse, Diana of Poitiers. * Pommeraye, p. 50. †This clapper is said to be still preserved; but the bell itself was taken down at the Revolution, and melted for the purpose of casting cannon. Sic dum pomiferis celeres excedimus arvis, When he enters the Elysian valley of Montmorency, whose fields glow with the ruddy purple of the cherry, added to that of the grape, Paris, the present goal of his desires, opens to view, and he abruptly closes the poetical part of this epistle. In the remaining portion, he modestly proposes to supply this defect by the addition of some bungling prose. An inspection however of his composition will soon show that the character given of it by himself is not to be relied on ; for though his rich and exuberant flow of genius does at times overwhelm his taste, and judgment, and discretion; though he often exhibits sentences inaccurately constructed, or employs words of inferior latinity, and phrases not quite analogous to the rules of syntax; yet he has the language fully at command, dives into its deepest recesses, and, as it were, exhausts its energies in the boundless variety of his expressions. In this part of his dispatch from the French capital Barrow discovers such a close attention to passing events, such a keen discrimination of character, and such a remarkable insight into political causes and effects, that it seems probable, if he had early addicted himself to such pursuits, he would have made a great statesman, especially if honesty and integrity be considered an addition to pre-eminent abilities. Very few years before his arrival at Paris, Louis XIV. |