When I behold, with deep astonishment,
To famous Westminster how there resorte,
Living in brasse or stoney monument,
The princes and the worthies of all sorte;
Doe not I see reformde nobilitie,
Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation,
And looke upon offenselesse majesty,
Naked of pomp or earthly domination?
And how a play-game of a painted stone
Contents the quiet now and silent sprites,
Whome all the world which late they stood upon
Could not content nor quench their appetites.
Life is a frost of cold felicitie,
And death the thaw of all our vanitie.
CHRISTOLERO’S EPIGRAMS, BY T. B. 1598.
ON one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter part of
autumn when the shadows of morning and evening almost mingle together,
and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed several hours
in rambling about Westminster Abbey. There was something congenial to
the season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile, and as I passed
its threshold it seemed like stepping back into the regions of antiquity
and losing myself among the shades of former ages.
I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, through a long,
low, vaulted passage that had an almost subterranean look, being dimly
lighted in one part by circular perforations in the massive walls.
Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of the cloisters, with
the figure of an old verger in his black gown moving along their shadowy
vaults, and seeming like a spectre from one of the neighboring tombs.
The approach to the abbey through these gloomy monastic remains prepares
the mind for its solemn contemplation. The cloisters still retain
something of the quiet and seclusion of former days. The gray walls are
discolored by damps and crumbling with age; a coat of hoary moss has
gathered over the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and obscured the
death’s heads and other funeral emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel
are gone from the rich tracery of the arches; the roses which adorned
the keystones have lost their leafy beauty; everything bears marks of
the gradual dilapidations of time, which yet has something touching and
pleasing in its very decay.
The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of
the cloisters, beaming upon a scanty plot of grass in the centre,
and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of dusky
splendor. From between the arcades the eye glanced up to a bit of blue
sky or a passing cloud, and beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey
towering into the azure heaven.
As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating this mingled
picture of glory and decay, and sometimes endeavoring to decipher the
inscriptions on the tombstones which formed the pavement beneath my
feet, my eye was attracted to three figures rudely carved in relief,
but nearly worn away by the footsteps of many generations. They were
the effigies of three of the early abbots; the epitaphs were entirely
effaced; the names alone remained, having no doubt been renewed in later
times (Vitalis. Abbas. 1082, and Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 1114,
and Laurentius. Abbas. 1176). I remained some little while, musing over
these casual relics of antiquity thus left like wrecks upon this distant
shore of time, telling no tale but that such beings had been and had
perished, teaching no moral but the futility of that pride which hopes
still to exact homage in its ashes and to live in an inscription. A
little longer, and even these faint records will be obliterated and the
monument will cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was yet looking down
upon the gravestones I was roused by the sound of the abbey clock,
reverberating from buttress to buttress and echoing among the cloisters.
It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding
among the tombs and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow,
has rolled us onward towards the grave. I pursued my walk to an
arched door opening to the interior of the abbey. On entering here the
magnitude of the building breaks fully upon the mind, contrasted with
the vaults of the cloisters. The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered
columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing from them to such
an amazing height, and man wandering about their bases, shrunk into
insignificance in comparison with his own handiwork. The spaciousness
and gloom of this vast edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe.
We step cautiously and softly about, as if fearful of disturbing the
hallowed silence of the tomb, while every footfall whispers along the
walls and chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensible of the
quiet we have interrupted.
It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul
and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence. We feel that we are
surrounded by the congregated bones of the great men of past times, who
have filled history with their deeds and the earth with their renown.
And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition
to see how they are crowded together and jostled in the dust; what
parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook, a gloomy corner, a
little portion of earth, to those whom, when alive, kingdoms could not
satisfy, and how many shapes and forms and artifices are devised to
catch the casual notice of the passenger, and save from forgetfulness
for a few short years a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the
world’s thought and admiration.
I passed some time in Poet’s Corner, which occupies an end of one of
the transepts or cross aisles of the abbey. The monuments are generally
simple, for the lives of literary men afford no striking themes for
the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues erected to their
memories, but the greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes
mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials,
I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remained longest
about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold
curiosity or vague admiration with which they gaze on the splendid
monuments of the great and the heroic. They linger about these as about
the tombs of friends and companions, for indeed there is something of
companionship between the author and the reader. Other men are known
to posterity only through the medium of history, which is continually
growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and
his fellowmen is ever new, active, and immediate. He has lived for them
more than for himself; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoyments, and
shut himself up from the delights of social life, that he might the more
intimately commune with distant minds and distant ages. Well may the
world cherish his renown, for it has been purchased not by deeds of
violence and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure.
Well may posterity be grateful to his memory, for he has left it an
inheritance not of empty names and sounding actions, but whole treasures
of wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language.
From Poet’s Corner I continued my stroll towards that part of the abbey
which contains the sepulchres of the kings. I wandered among what once
were chapels, but which are now occupied by the tombs and monuments
of the great. At every turn I met with some illustrious name or the
cognizance of some powerful house renowned in history. As the eye
darts into these dusky chambers of death it catches glimpses of quaint
effigies--some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion; others stretched
upon the tombs, with hands piously pressed together; warriors in armor,
as if reposing after battle; prelates, with crosiers and mitres; and
nobles in robes and coronets, lying as it were in state. In glancing
over this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still
and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that
fabled city where every being had been suddenly transmuted into stone.
I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of a knight in
complete armor. A large buckler was on one arm; the hands were pressed
together in supplication upon the breast; the face was almost covered by
the morion; the legs were crossed, in token of the warrior’s having been
engaged in the holy war. It was the tomb of a crusader, of one of those
military enthusiasts who so strangely mingled religion and romance,
and whose exploits form the connecting link between fact and fiction,
between the history and the fairytale. There is something extremely
picturesque in the tombs of these adventurers, decorated as they are
with rude armorial bearings and Gothic sculpture. They comport with the
antiquated chapels in which they are generally found; and in considering
them the imagination is apt to kindle with the legendary associations,
the romantic fiction, the chivalrous pomp and pageantry which poetry has
spread over the wars for the sepulchre of Christ. They are the relics
of times utterly gone by, of beings passed from recollection, of customs
and manners with which ours have no affinity. They are like objects from
some strange and distant land of which we have no certain knowledge,
and about which all our conceptions are vague and visionary. There is
something extremely solemn and awful in those effigies on Gothic tombs,
extended as if in the sleep of death or in the supplication of the dying
hour. They have an effect infinitely more impressive on my feelings
than the fanciful attitudes, the over wrought conceits, the allegorical
groups which abound on modern monuments. I have been struck, also, with
the superiority of many of the old sepulchral inscriptions. There was a
noble way in former times of saying things simply, and yet saying
them proudly; and I do not know an epitaph that breathes a loftier
consciousness of family worth and honorable lineage than one which
affirms of a noble house that “all the brothers were brave and all the
sisters virtuous.”
In the opposite transept to Poet’s Corner stands a monument which is
among the most renowned achievements of modern art, but which to
me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs.
Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is represented
as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting
forth. The shroud is falling from his fleshless frame as he launches his
dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband’s arms,
who strives with vain and frantic effort to avert the blow. The whole
is executed with terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear
the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the
spectre. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary
terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love? The
grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness
and veneration for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It
is the place not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation.
While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles, studying
the records of the dead, the sound of busy existence from without
occasionally reaches the ear--the rumbling of the passing equipage, the
murmur of the multitude, or perhaps the light laugh of pleasure. The
contrast is striking with the deathlike repose around; and it has a
strange effect upon the feelings thus to hear the surges of active life
hurrying along and beating against the very walls of the sepulchre.
I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb and from chapel
to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away; the distant tread of
loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent; the sweet-tongued
bell was summoning to evening prayers; and I saw at a distance the
choristers in their white surplices crossing the aisle and entering
the choir. I stood before the entrance to Henry the Seventh’s chapel. A
flight of steps leads up to it through a deep and gloomy but magnificent
arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily
upon their hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common
mortals into this most gorgeous of sepulchres.
On entering the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture and the
elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into
universal ornament encrusted with tracery, and scooped into niches
crowded with the statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the
cunning labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and
density, suspended aloft as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved
with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.
Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights of
the Bath, richly carved of oak, though with the grotesque decorations
of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of the stalls are affixed the
helmets and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords,
and above them are suspended their banners, emblazoned with armorial
bearings, and contrasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson
with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand
mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder--his effigy, with that of
his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb--and the whole surrounded by a
superbly-wrought brazen railing.
There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence, this strange mixture of
tombs and trophies, these emblems of living and aspiring ambition,
close beside mementos which show the dust and oblivion in which all
must sooner or later terminate. Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper
feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of
former throng and pageant. On looking round on the vacant stalls of
the knights and their esquires, and on the rows of dusty but gorgeous
banners that were once borne before them, my imagination conjured up the
scene when this hall was bright with the valor and beauty of the land,
glittering with the splendor of jewelled rank and military array, alive
with the tread of many feet and the hum of an admiring multitude. All
had passed away; the silence of death had settled again upon the place,
interrupted only by the casual chirping of birds, which had found
their way into the chapel and built their nests among its friezes and
pendants--sure signs of solitariness and desertion.
When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were those of men
scattered far and wide about the world--some tossing upon distant seas:
some under arms in distant lands; some mingling in the busy intrigues
of courts and cabinets,--all seeking to deserve one more distinction in
this mansion of shadowy honors--the melancholy reward of a monument.
Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touching instance
of the equality of the grave, which brings down the oppressor to a
level with the oppressed and mingles the dust of the bitterest enemies
together. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other
is that of her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in
the day but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of
the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of
Elizabeth’s sepulchre continually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved
at the grave of her rival.
A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The
light struggles dimly through windows darkened by dust. The greater part
of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by
time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb,
round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national
emblem--the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to
rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the chequered and
disastrous story of poor Mary.
The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I could only
hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest repeating the
evening service and the faint responses of the choir; these paused for
a time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion, and obscurity
that were gradually prevailing around gave a deeper and more solemn
interest to the place;
For in the silent grave no conversation,
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,
No careful father’s counsel--nothing’s heard,
For nothing is, but all oblivion,
Dust, and an endless darkness.
Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear,
falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were,
huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord
with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast
vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death,
and make the silent sepulchre vocal! And now they rise in triumphant
acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes and piling
sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir
break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along
the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure
airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders,
compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What
long-drawn cadences! What solemn sweeping concords! It grows more and
more dense and powerful; it fills the vast pile and seems to jar the
very walls--the ear is stunned--the senses are overwhelmed. And now it
is winding up in full jubilee--it is rising from the earth to heaven;
the very soul seems rapt away and floated upwards on this swelling tide
of harmony!
I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of
music is apt sometimes to inspire: the shadows of evening were gradually
thickening round me; the monuments began to cast deeper and deeper
gloom; and the distant clock again gave token of the slowly waning day.
I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight of
steps which lead into the body of the building, my eye was caught by the
shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the small staircase that
conducts to it, to take from thence a general survey of this wilderness
of tombs. The shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close
around it are the sepulchres of various kings and queens. From this
eminence the eye looks down between pillars and funeral trophies to
the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs, where warriors,
prelates, courtiers, and statesmen lie mouldering in their “beds of
darkness.” Close by me stood the great chair of coronation, rudely
carved of oak in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The
scene seemed almost as if contrived with theatrical artifice to produce
an effect upon the beholder. Here was a type of the beginning and the
end of human pomp and power; here it was literally but a step from the
throne to the sepulchre. Would not one think that these incongruous
mementos had been gathered together as a lesson to living greatness?--to
show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the neglect
and dishonor to which it must soon arrive--how soon that crown which
encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and
disgraces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest
of the multitude. For, strange to tell, even the grave is here no longer
a sanctuary. There is a shocking levity in some natures which leads them
to sport with awful and hallowed things, and there are base minds
which delight to revenge on the illustrious dead the abject homage and
grovelling servility which they pay to the living. The coffin of Edward
the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their
funereal ornaments; the sceptre has been stolen from the hand of the
imperious Elizabeth; and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless.
Not a royal monument but bears some proof how false and fugitive is the
homage of mankind. Some are plundered, some mutilated, some covered with
ribaldry and insult,--all more or less outraged and dishonored.
The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted
windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of the abbey were
already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and aisles
grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows;
the marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the
uncertain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the
cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of a verger,
traversing the Poet’s Corner, had something strange and dreary in its
sound. I slowly retraced my morning’s walk, and as I passed out at the
portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind
me, filled the whole building with echoes.
I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I
had been contemplating, but found they were already falling into
indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all
become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my
foot from off the threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage
of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation--a huge pile of reiterated
homilies on the emptiness of renown and the certainty of oblivion? It
is, indeed, the empire of death; his great shadowy palace where he sits
in state mocking at the relics of human glory and spreading dust and
forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all,
is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his
pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think
of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and
each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of
to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection, and will in
turn be supplanted by his successor of tomorrow. “Our fathers,” says Sir
Thomas Browne, “find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell
us how we may be buried in our survivors.” History fades into fable;
fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription
moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns,
arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs
but characters written in the dust? What is the security of a tomb or
the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains of Alexander the Great have
been scattered to the wind, and his empty sarcophagus is now the mere
curiosity of a museum. “The Egyptian mummies, which Cambyses or time
hath spared, avarice now consumeth; Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is
sold for balsams.” *
What then is to ensure this pile which now towers above me from sharing
the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time must come when its gilded
vaults which now spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish beneath the
feet; when instead of the sound of melody and praise the wind shall
whistle through the broken arches and the owl hoot from the shattered
tower; when the garish sunbeam shall break into these gloomy mansions of
death, and the ivy twine round the fallen column; and the fox-glove hang
its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead.
Thus man passes away; his name passes from record and recollection; his
history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin.
* Sir T. Browne.