Chapter VII (2)

In addition to that from Mitton, there is another road by which Stonyhurst may be reached, leading up from Hurst Green—a little village near the bottom of the hill, half a mile away, and past the cemetery. The approach is by a broad avenue of spreading trees, a quarter of a mile in length, the vista being terminated by the principal front of the mansion, half revealed through the leafy screen, and which gains in importance and architectural effect by its natural surroundings. At the end of the avenue the road is flanked on each side by an ornamental sheet of water, part of the old pleasure grounds as laid out in the stiff and formal fashion prevalent in the time of the last Sherburn; and, beyond, a dwarf wall is carried across, forming the boundary of the court. In the centre is an ample gateway, with ornamental gateposts on each side; and from this point the entire front of the mansion, in all its stately proportions, appears in view.

As previously stated, Sir Nicholas Sherburn made considerable additions to the old home; but was prevented from carrying out to their fullest extent the plans he had prepared, through the untimely death of his only son. The work, however, which he left undone has been completed on an even more extensive scale by the present owners. A college church and other buildings have also been erected to meet the requirements of the institution; and altogether the place presents a much more imposing appearance than it could at any time have done during its occupancy by the Sherburns. The chief feature in the main façade is the entrance tower, which forms the central compartment, and is advanced slightly from the line of the main structure. It is a handsome erection, essentially Italian in character, though exhibiting some details of the late Tudor type, and is ascribed, though erroneously as we believe, to Inigo Jones. The basement is occupied by an arched portal, forming the chief entrance, and is surmounted by an ornamental cornice supported on each side by double-fluted columns, above which is a carved escutcheon, with the arms of the Sherburns quartered with those of the Bayleys—the family through whom they acquired the Stonyhurst property. The “red hand” of Ulster is also displayed—an evidence that the shield must have been placed there in the time of Sir Nicholas Sherburn, he being the only member of the house who had the baronetcy. The three upper stories are each pierced with a square window, mullioned and transomed and flanked with coupled columns, similar to those on the basement. An embattled parapet surmounts the structure, and in the rear rise two octagonal towers, covered with dome-like cupolas crowned with eagles. These latter were erected in 1712 for the modest sum of £50, as appears by the “artickles of agreement” made in that year and still preserved among the Stonyhurst muniments. From the entrance tower two wings extend, one on each side, both being similar in style and dimensions, though they are of different dates; that on the south being coeval with the tower itself, whilst the one on the north was erected so recently as 1842. From the south-west angle a corridor extends at right angles, connecting the main building with the chapel, a handsome Gothic edifice in the florid or perpendicular style of architecture, erected in 1835, from the designs of Mr. Scoles, of London, and resembling very much in external aspect that splendid monument of mediæval art—the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge.

The recollection of the doings of the order which at one time exercised such a powerful influence over the cabinets and councils of Europe, if it did not create a feeling of awe, at least induced one of curiosity to see the system pursued in what has been the _alma mater_ of so many members of that notable fraternity. Though we had omitted to provide ourselves with that customary “open sesame,” a letter of introduction, our request to see over the establishment was at once courteously complied with.

Passing beneath the great arched portal and along a corridor on the left we were ushered into a waiting-room the walls of which are hung with a series of views, engravings, and photographs representing the hall of Stonyhurst at different periods of its history. The attendant then led the way into a paved court directly opposite the principal entrance. It is quadrangular in form, and from it you can note the general disposition of the buildings, their architectural characteristics, and the difference between the old and the new work. The additions harmonise and exhibit a striking unity with the general features of the pile, while possessing the conveniences required by the present occupants. Altogether it conveys the idea of the ancient baronial hall erected when the manor house had disengaged itself from the castle, and law having succeeded to the reign of the strong hand, beauty and ornament were considered more than strength and resistance. The south side is the more ancient, the greater part having been erected during the lifetime of Sir Nicholas Sherburn, though there are some remains of a still earlier date. There are unmistakable evidences, however, of substantial repairs having been made at the time the house was transferred to the Jesuit Fathers, and the leaden waterspouts bear the date 1694, the year they acquired possession. A handsome oriel projects from the main wall, and beneath is a doorway giving admission to the range of apartments on this side of the building; there are also indications of several other doors that formerly existed, but in the rearrangement of the interior they have been built up. The north wing, which has been added in recent times, is of corresponding form and dimensions, though much plainer in detail, its severity of character almost approaching to baldness.

Entering by the door beneath the oriel on the south side we pass into a corridor that runs the entire length of the wing. At the western end is an antiquated apartment lighted by a five-light pointed window with traceried head, the old chapel or domestic oratory of the Sherburns, but now used for school purposes. Quitting this room we are next conducted through a series of corridors, galleries, and apartments, a detailed description of which is not only beyond our purpose but would be wearying to the reader. Among them is a room deserving of especial notice—the refectory—the banquetting hall of the former lords of Stonyhurst, which, though it has been extended at one end and subjected to other alterations, still retains many of its ancient features unimpaired. It is a spacious apartment, ninety feet by twenty-seven feet, with two recessed oriels and a fireplace capacious enough to roast an ox. It is fitted up in a style harmonising with its ancient characteristics, and is very suggestive of the abundance and lavish hospitality that were here displayed in bygone days; when the “two-hooped pot” was indeed a “four-hooped pot,” and fell felony it was to drink small beer. The floor is of marble, arranged in lozenge-like patterns, and a raised daïs or platform of the same material extending across the southern end terminates in the oriel recesses before referred to. The walls have the addition of a dado of oak and an elaborately ornamented frieze in relief. Across the northern end is a gallery protected by an open balustrade, adorned in front with the head and antlers of the moose deer and other trophies of the chase, and having the following inscription carved beneath:—

QUANT JE PUIS. HUGO SHERBURN ARMIG, ME FIERI FECIT. ANNO DOMINI
1523. ET SICUT FUIT SIC FIAT.

Over the fireplace is the Sherburn coat of arms, with the motto, “_Quant je Puis_,” and the date, MDCLXXXIX. A large number of portraits are placed against the walls, many of them those of distinguished alumni of Stonyhurst, while others are again commemorated by their heraldic shields in painted glass placed in the two oriel windows. At one end of the room is a large painting, the “Immaculate Conception,” which is said to be an original of Murillo.

Contiguous to the great dining-room is the library and museum, which may be reckoned among the chief attractions of the place. The library certainly contains a remarkably fine collection of works, including many of extreme rarity and value. There are about thirty thousand volumes in all, and the collection of ancient MSS., missals, black-letter books, and examples of early typography are especially interesting. Upon shelves reaching from floor to ceiling, in galleries and recesses, upon tables and in glass cases, and, in short, in every nook and corner, are these literary treasures displayed. A world of thought, a mighty mass of intellectual matter, is spread about, before which the haughty Aristarch himself, without any consciousness of humiliation, might have doffed “the hat which never veiled to human pride.” Every school of thought, every department of literature is represented; here are sombre-looking folios of ancient date that scholars of the old English school might well delight in, and there, dapper duodecimos of the present age to gratify the taste of the modern dilettante reader whose platonic love of literature is influenced more by the external vanities—the gold and glitter without than the solid thought within. Among these curiosities of book-craft, and especially deserving of note, is a copy of Caxton’s “Boke of Eneydos” (1490), a translation of a French novel partly based upon the Æneid of Virgil, which provoked the anger of Gavin Douglas, who savagely attacked Caxton for translating a book from the French, professing to be a translation of Virgil when it had nothing to do with it—

Clepaud et Virgil in Eneados
Quihilk that he sayes of French he did translait.
It has nothing ado therewith, God wate,
Nor na mare like than the Devil and Sanct Austin.

There is also an imperfect copy of that remarkable work, the “Golden Legend”—the first attempt to render hagiology amenable to the laws of reason and decency, and which from its containing a translation into English of the whole of the Pentateuch, and a great part of the Gospels, became one of the principal instruments in preparing the way for the Reformation. The first edition of the work was printed by Caxton in folio 1483-4, the Stonyhurst copy is of the date 1493, and must, therefore, be the third, the one generally accepted as having issued from the press of Wynkyn de Worde, and of which only nine copies are known to exist. A singularly interesting relic, screened in a glass case, is a small prayer-book which tradition affirms to be the identical one that Mary Queen of Scots carried with her to the scaffold when she was beheaded. It is said to have been given by her confessor to the library at Douay; subsequently it was transferred to the college at Liege, from which place it found its way to Stonyhurst when its owners removed there. It is remarkable for the sharpness and beauty of the type, which bears a close resemblance to the court-hand of the Tudor period, as well as for the richness of the binding. The cover is of crimson silk velvet, embossed, with the words “Maria” and “Regina” in silver gilt capitals, with the arms of France and England quartered, and a crown, rose, and pomegranate. If this book ever belonged to the Queen of Scots there is good reason to believe that it must previously have been owned by her kinswoman and namesake, Mary of England, for the reason that the pomegranate was the emblem of Spain, and one of the badges of Catherine of Arragon, and Mary herself used as a device the pomegranate and rose combined.

Another feature of the library is the collection of ancient illuminated missals, the largest and probably the most beautiful in the kingdom. There is also a copy of the Gospel of St. John, believed to have been transcribed in the seventh century, and said to have been found in the tomb of St. Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral, and a MS. copy of the Homilies of Pope Gregory, attributed to Simon, Abbot of St Albans, in the twelfth century. In another room is the valuable collection of books presented to the college in 1834 by the Lady Mary Ann, widow of James Everard, tenth Lord Arundell of Wardour, and numbering about five thousand volumes.

The contents of the museum at Stonyhurst are many and varied; some are ancient, some modern, some of great historic interest, and some, it may be said, of little or no interest at all. To learn what they are we must yield ourselves and listen _auribus patulis_ to the descriptions of our courteous cicerone, who is familiar with the history and uses of each and all. Here we find displayed the cap, rosary, seal, and reliquary of that impersonation of goodness and incorruptibility, Sir Thomas More, and near it a fragment of chain mail taken from one of the dusky warriors of King Theodore; porphyry from the ruins of ancient Carthage, and pistols that played a part in the fight at Navarino; chips from the cedars of Mount Lebanon, and prize cups of silver awarded to shorthorns of the Stonyhurst breed, for be it known that Papal bulls are not the only ones with which the Jesuit Fathers at Stonyhurst have concerned themselves. Now our attention is drawn to the seals of James the Second and Fenelon, and to a quaint old jewel case of lapis lazuli once possessed by Queen Christina of Sweden; and anon to the tobacco pouch of a Sioux Indian; next we are shown a huge rusty key that belonged to the far-famed abbey of Bolton, and an antique gold ring turned up by the plough near Hoghton Tower some years ago with the arms of Langton on the seal, and the motto “_De bon cuer_” on the inner side, and that, for aught we know, may have been dropped at the time of that lawless foray in 1589 which cost Thomas Hoghton, the builder of Hoghton Tower, his life, and lost the manor of Lea to the proud family of the Langtons. Here is a bit of masonry brought from one of the Holy Places, and there a bullet taken from the body of a British soldier at Sebastopol. Indian bows and arrows, swords, spears, and other implements of warfare are exposed to view, with grim relics from Waterloo, the Crimea, and Lucknow, that call up mingled memories of bloodshed and bravery. Many of the curiosities are deposited in glass cases to protect them from the touch of the vulgar or profane; there are ivory carvings of wonderful workmanship; crucifixes, triptychs, and devotional tablets; ancient bronzes, Papal medals, seals, and coins of every nation under the sun, sufficient in number and variety to turn the head of a numismatist and set the student of history a-thinking of the changes the whirligig of time has brought about, and the dynasties that have risen and passed away since they received the impresses they still display.

From the library we return through the dining-hall to an apartment named, from its proportions, the Long Room, occupied chiefly as a museum of natural history. Tables run the entire length, filled with geological and mineralogical specimens illustrative of every epoch in the world’s history; precious stones of every hue; fossil remains and skeletons of creatures of various kinds; delicately-tinted shells, and eggs of every shape and size; butterflies, beetles, and birds the splendour of whose plumage would defy the painter’s art to imitate, many of them the gift of a former student of the college, the distinguished naturalist and genial, hospitable, and cultivated gentleman, Charles Waterton. Another room is fitted up with mechanical appliances, models of steam engines, &c., and adjoining it is one devoted to the purposes of a laboratory.

One of the great attractions of the place is the Sodality Chapel, as it is called, devoted to the use of the students whilst “saying their office,” small, but a very marvel of architectural skill and decorative art. As we pass through the ante-chapel our attention is arrested by a large plaster model of Auchterman’s celebrated sculpture, the Dead Christ supported by the Virgin, placed there to commemorate the services of Father Clough, who for a period of twelve years was rector or principal of the college. The Sodality Chapel was erected in 1856 from the designs of Mr. C. A. Buckler, of Oxford. It is Gothic in character of the 15th century period, and is remarkable for the elaborate carving and sculpture, and the profuse decoration in polychrome displayed. There is an apsidal termination lighted by three two-light windows with oak traceried panelling carried round; the altar has wreathed columns of alabaster, and the reredos is of stone and alabaster, with a statue of the Virgin in the centre, surmounted by a richly-decorated canopy. The windows are filled with stained glass, the work of Hardman, of Birmingham. Close to this beautiful example of Gothic art is the Community Chapel, in which the students attend mass every morning.

As previously stated, there is another church connected with the institution, St Peter’s, erected nearly half a century ago, and of much larger dimensions, being intended for the use of the neighbourhood as well as that of the inmates of the college. It will accommodate about 1,500 worshippers, and, considering the date of its erection, will bear favourable comparison with many of the Gothic structures of more recent years. Painting, carving, and sculpture have been freely employed, with everything that could add to that architectural effect the love of which forms so distinguishing a feature of the Roman Church. The interior, with its spacious nave, its “long drawn” aisles, its lofty arches, and its elegant oak-panelled roof, has a very imposing appearance. The high altar has a reredos behind, rich in carving, and above is a magnificent window divided into five lights with a traceried head, and subdivided by double transoms into fifteen compartments, each filled with the image of one of the apostles or saints in stained glass, while the storied windows of the clerestory “shoot down a stained and shadowy stream of light.” Within the sanctuary are two niches occupied with statues of SS. Peter and Paul, and we also noticed two coloured frescoes, the work of Wurm and Fischer, of Munich, the one representing Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order, administering the communion to his first missionary companions, and the other, St. Francis Xavier, “the apostle of India and Japan,” who threw around the society the lustre of poetry in action, and “the mists of the wonderful, if not the dignity of historic heroism,” preaching to the Indians, some of whom are represented as breaking their idols in his presence.

The college chapel, as we have said, is situated near the south-west angle of the main structure. Occupying very nearly a corresponding position at the north-west side is the hospital, connected with the main building by a broad corridor, the walls of which are hung with portraits and engravings.

Any notice of Stonyhurst would be incomplete that did not make mention of the gardens and pleasure grounds. Though somewhat diminished in size by the additions made from time to time to the college buildings, they remain pretty much in the same stiff and formal style in which they were laid out a couple of centuries ago. They are pleasant in themselves and pleasantly situated, commanding as they do a widespread view of the surrounding country, a country rich in everything that can beautify or adorn the landscape. A curious feature noticeable is the lofty, solid, well-trimmed walls of yew which extend in various directions. Though more remarkable for their quaintness than their natural beauty, they furnish a pleasant shade for the students, and have a certain air of antiquity that well accords with the surroundings. In one part of the grounds is a large circular bowling green, on the edge of which is placed the Roman altar found among some rubbish in the neighbourhood in 1834, and evidently the one found at Ribchester which Camden saw in 1603. It originally bore an inscription setting forth that it was dedicated by a Captain of the Asturians to the mother-goddesses, but this can now only in part be deciphered, the greater portion of the lettering having become obliterated by exposure to the weather. The following is Camden’s rendering:—

DEIS MATRIBVS
M. INGENVI
VS. ASIATICVS
DEC. AL. AST.
SS. LL. M.

Within the garden is a capacious circular basin, in the centre of which, on a square pedestal, is the figure of a man in chains, said to be that of Atilius Regulus; and near thereto is the observatory, a building consisting of a central octagon and four projecting transepts, fitted up with every necessary scientific appliance. The kitchen gardens are on the south-east side, and eastward of them is the famous “Dark Walk,” a long avenue of firs, cedars, and yews, very patriarchs of their kind, that meet overhead, and impart a green tinge to everything around, creating a solemn and mysterious gloom, fitted for reflection and the meditations of the religious devotee—a solemn, cool, and shady retreat—a very grove of Academe, and the place of all others to dream away a summer afternoon. These trees must have budded and flourished through long centuries of time; successive generations of Sherburns have paced beneath their vernal shade; here the tender tale, the word that sums all bliss, the—

Sweet chord that harmonises all
The harps of Paradise,

has doubtless oft been breathed to the fair daughters of the house; and here, if tradition is to be believed, the last scion of the Sherburns plucked the poisonous fruit that terminated a long and illustrious race.

The college at Stonyhurst has accommodation for 300 students, and we were informed at the time of our visit that, including the pupils at the Hodder House, about 250 were receiving instruction. It does not come within our province to enter into the scholastic arrangements of the place or the educational course pursued, and the domestic life of the establishment is a subject too lengthy for our notice. It may be said, however, that everything which efficient teaching can accomplish is done; everything that skill and ingenuity and means can provide in the shape of scientific and mechanical appliances to aid the efforts of the teacher is there. As you pass along the corridors, and through the halls and classrooms, you are struck with the quietude, the order, and the perfect discipline which prevail. Morality among the students is maintained by the strictest supervision, and equal care is bestowed in the development of their mental powers, with the natural result that the institution has earned the fullest confidence of its Catholic patrons, while its pupils have given proof of the excellence of their training by their scholarly attainments, and the distinctions so many of them have earned in the competition for honours at the examinations of the London University. The life at Stonyhurst is one in which teacher and taught are in kindly sympathy with each other, and where associations are formed productive of quiet happiness to the one and joy and gladness to the other.

After our perambulation of the college we lingered for some time in the gardens enjoying the prospect from the high ground, looking across the broad fertile valleys of the Ribble and the Calder to the bleak ridges of Pendle and the wooded heights of Bowland Forest. Daylight was melting away into the soft warm haze of a summer eve, deepening in splendour the woods and meads and darkening hills beyond. A peaceful calm pervaded the scene, the stillness being only broken as now and then some feathered warbler trilled out its evening lay, or the wind rustled with plaintive cadence through the trees that waved sleepily overhead, making a dreamy lullaby. Then, as the sun circling towards the glowing west, and the chapel bell summoning the collegiates to vespers, warned us of the approach of night, we bade adieu to Stonyhurst, and, descending by a steep path that winds round the edge of a thick wood, were soon wending our way along the quiet old country lanes to our quarters at Whalley.