Stained Glass Tours in EnglandSherrill, Charles Hitchcock
History
Stained Glass Tours in England
Sherrill, Charles Hitchcock
Cathedrals -- England; England -- Description and travel; Glass painting and staining -- England
St. George's, Hanover Square, has long been famed far and wide for
the great number of weddings there solemnised. It is perhaps not
inappropriate that the old glass to be seen here once constituted a
Tree of Jesse. The spacious window at the back of the chancel, and
also those which flank it on either side, are filled with it. So large
are the figures (the largest the writer has ever seen in this favourite
glass design) that two of them suffice to fill each of these side
windows, although their embrasures are by no means small. The glass was
originally made for a church at Mechlin, Belgium, and though its figures
have been necessarily readjusted to suit their new home, there remain so
many sections of the vine as well as of the familiar name-labels as to
make it obvious that the panels as originally combined made up a Tree of
Jesse. The glazing as a whole is rich in tone, unmistakably Renaissance,
and, best of all, so agreeably disposed in its present abiding-place as
to make it seem as if it had always belonged there.
CAMBRIDGE
In the mind of most Americans the names of Oxford and Cambridge are
firmly locked together--a sort of Siamese twins of University education.
As a matter of fact, they are strangely different--very much more so,
indeed, than any two American universities. While Oxford has her
charming quadrangles with their delightful gardens, Cambridge not only
has them also, but further rejoices in a very special beauty, her
"Backs," those admirable contrivances for preventing overstudy on
the part of too zealous students. A "Back" is that portion of a
college's territory through which meanders the narrow Cam, the scenic
opportunities of that slender stream being developed to the uttermost
with green banks, graceful bridges, and shaded walks. The writer never
pursued a course of study at Cambridge, and, therefore, is not competent
to judge of the charms of her undergraduate life, but he has spent
sundry happy hours canoeing on the gentle Cam, which same hours have
yielded him the impression that, fascinating as the undergraduates
doubtless find the lecture halls, there is much to be said in favour of
idling along the delightful "Backs." Hints of the joys of Cambridge
college life pervade the clever verses of Calverley, and also those of
his lineal successor, the unfortunate J. K. Stephen. Chief among the
many victories of the wearers of the "light blue" are those won by the
oarsmen, and these victories become doubly praiseworthy when we visit
the miserable little stream on which the crews have to train. That
a long line of successes have been achieved in the face of such
disheartening obstacles adds all the more to the credit and glory of men
like the brothers Close, the giant Muttlebury, Dudley Ward, and many
another. Most of the colleges follow the quadrangle system like their
Oxford cousins, but there is an exception in the case of King's College.
Here a handsome openwork screen of stone shuts off the street, but not
the view.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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