"Friday, 21st July. Cologne.--I cannot attempt to describe the Cathedral; nor indeed could any skill of mine do justice to that august pile, even if I might have lingered half a day among its walls. At our entrance, the evening sunshine rested upon portions of some of the hundred massy columns; while the shade and gloom, spread through the edifice, were deepened by those brilliant touches of golden light. Some of the painted windows were beautified by the melting together and the intermingling of colours, reflected upon the stone-work, colours and shapes, to the eye as unsubstantial as light itself, and visionary as the rainbow. The choir is hung with tapestry, designed by Rubens. It does, I think, to an unlearned eye somewhat resemble Henry the Seventh's chapel at Westminster, but is much loftier and larger. The long lancet-shaped painted windows are beautiful. The pillars and arches through the aisles of this Cathedral are of grey stone, sober, solemn, of great size, yet exquisitely proportioned; and no paltry images or tinselled altars disturb the one impression of awful magnificence, an impression received at once, and not to be overcome by regrets, that _only_ the _Choir_ and side aisles are finished. The nave, at half its destined height, is covered with a ceiling of boards. The exterior of this stupendous edifice is of massy, though most _beautiful_, architecture. Some of the lighter wreaths of stone-work (if great things may be compared with small) made me think of the Chapel of Roslin in its sequestered dell, where the adder's tongue and fern are mingled with green-grown flowers, and leaves of stone that neither fall nor fade. Flowers and bushes here grow out of the gigantic ruins--yet _ruins_ they are not; for as the Builder's hand left the unfinished work, so it appears to have remained in firmness and strength unshakable, while Nature has made her own of ornaments framed in imitation of her works, having overspread them with her colouring, and blended them with the treasures of her lonely places." (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. i.)--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 485: 1837. How gloriously pursued by daring Man, 1822. ] [Footnote 486: 1827. Charms ... 1822. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote HD: The cathedral of Cologne was completed on October 15, 1880.--ED.] [Footnote HE: The reference is to the sonnet on _Malham Cove_ (see p. 185), and the Fenwick note to _The Excursion_.--ED.] VIII IN A CARRIAGE, UPON THE BANKS OF THE RHINE