ntiquity. It is now
the longest mediaeval church not only in England, but in Europe, though
once it was surpassed by old St Paul's. It is five hundred and twenty-
six feet long, but it lacks height, and perhaps rightly, at least I
would not have it other than it is, its greatness lying in its
monotonous depressed length and weight, an enormous primeval thing
lying there in the meads beside the river. Winchester itself might seem
indeed to know nothing of it. The city does not rejoice in it as do
Lincoln and York in their great churches; here is nothing of the sheer
joy of Salisbury, a Magnificat by Palestrina; the church of Winchester
is without delight, it has supremely the mystery and monotony of the
plainsong, the true chant of the monks, the chorus of an army, with all
the appeal of just that, its immense age and half plaintive glory,
which yet never really becomes music.

And Winchester, too, has all and more than all, the surprise of the
plainsong; the better you know it the more you are impressed. No one
certainly has ever come by the narrow way out of the High Street, down
the avenue of limes to the West Front without being disappointed; but
no one thus disappointed has ever entered into the church without
astonishment, wonder and complete satisfaction. It was not always so.
That long nave was once forty feet longer and was flanked upon either
side by a Norman tower as at Ely. Must one regret their loss? No, the
astonishment of the nave within makes up for everything; there is no
grander interior in the world, nor anywhere anything at all like it. Up
that vast Perpendicular nave one looks far and far away into the
height, majesty and dominion of the glorious Norman transept, and
beyond into the light of the sanctuary. It has not the beauty of
Westminster Abbey, nor the exquisite charm of Wells, but it has a
majesty and venerable nobility all its own that I think no other church
in England can match.

Of the old Saxon church, so far as we really know, the only predecessor
of the present church, nothing really remains. This, as I have said,
had been founded by King Kynegils upon his conversion, by St Birinus in
635. We know very little about it, except that it was enlarged or
rebuilt in the middle of the tenth century by St Aethwold, and if we
may believe the poetical description of Wolstan, we shall be inclined
to believe the church was enlarged, for it appears to have been a very
complex building with a lofty