WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Sometime in the sixth century a Saxon King, named Sebert, founded an
Abbey, where Westminster now stands. It is another of the regular show
places of London, and possibly the most interesting, unless it be the
Tower. It has been rebuilt a dozen or more times, and is really the most
beautiful building in London of its class.
[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
The Abbey is three hundred and seventy-five feet in length, by two
hundred in width, and its height from the pavement to the foot of the
lantern is one hundred and forty feet. I know this, for I got it from
the guide-book.
There is nothing in England, in the way of architecture, more striking
or grand. The beautiful is not always the grand, or the grand the
beautiful. Westminster Abbey is both. The old architects might not have
been able to have built the Capitol at Washington, and they certainly
could not have built the Court House in New York, and made it cost more
than the Houses of Parliament, for they were not that kind of
architects; they mostly died poor and did not wear diamonds, but they
managed to erect a building that is worth the passage across the
Atlantic to see.
[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO THE ABBEY.]
[Sidenote: SEEING THE ABBEY.]
On entering the Abbey you run the gauntlet of a dozen or more fellows
who have the privilege of selling guide-books. They will not take "No!"
for an answer, but manage somehow to compel the gratuity. They are
Potiphar's wives with designs upon your pockets, and you have to choose
between yielding to them, like Joseph, or leaving some portion of your
garments in their grasp. You always shed the sixpence. Then you wander
about through the magnificent structure, reading tablets on which are
inscribed the virtues of all sorts of men, till happily remembering that
kings and queens were buried in the building, you ask whereabouts they
may be lying. Some one gives the information, the party is made up, and
you place yourself under the charge of what they call a verger, a beery
old fellow, with a face that blazes like a comet, with some sort of a
black gown over his shoulders, who conducts you to the gate of a chapel,
at which stands another beery old fellow, with a like face and a similar
gown on his shoulders, who deliberately asks you for sixpence apiece,
which being paid, you pass in, very like you would in a circus. Then the
beery old fellow commences in a sing-song, monotonous way, his
descriptions:--
"The first on the left is the tomb of Queen Eleanor, who died in the
year of our Lord," and so on. He intones his service just about as those
officiating in the other services do, only he goes on without making a
stop or punctuating a sentence. He guides you from one room to another
without the slightest pause, and when he gets through he and the one at
the gate, who takes the money, go out and drink beer till another party
is formed.
But it is a very cheap show, and I am under obligations to the Church of
England for the delight. In fact, it is a big shilling's worth--for a
drinking man. One blast from the fiery orifice in the volcanic face of
the verger is enough to save anybody sixpence in beer, and as for the
book, why you have it, and it is worth the money. Thus, you see, you
have the show of the building and the dead Kings thrown in. I was not
sure that we should not have given the Dean a shilling or two, and I
felt like offering it to him, but, unfortunately, I was out of silver.
It is not the magnificence and grandeur of the structure, or its
sacredness as a place of religious worship, that give Westminster Abbey
its interest to the average tourist. It is the burial place of the great
dead of England, and its walls contain the dust of more great men than
any building in the world.
Of course I did not enthuse a particle over the tombs of the old Kings,
those ancient robbers, whose titles came from force and were perpetuated
by fraud, thirteen of whom are buried here, and fourteen Queens,
commencing with Sebert, the Saxon, and ending with George, the Second.
They may sleep anywhere without exciting a thrill in me, for not one of
them ever did the world any good, or added one to the list of
achievements that really make men's names worth remembering.
I do not like kings, and if we must have them, I much prefer them dead.
Safe in an abbey, they are not making wars upon each other, and besides,
a dead king can be kept much more cheaply than a living one. I pay
sixpence willingly to see where a dead king lies. When I remember that
they must die, I always feel encouraged.
But England has buried here those who made her glory on the field, the
wave, and in the Senate and closet, and it is England's glory that she
does this. England has never let a great achievement go unnoted, or
unremembered. In the floors and on the walls of this great church, are
tablets, commemorating not only Generals and Admirals, but Captains and
Lieutenants, who aided in repulsing the foes of the country, or
extending its possessions, and the private soldier or common sailor
receives his meed of praise, the same as his officer.
In this, England is wise, as she is in most things. In this faithful
remembrance, the youth of England have a constant incentive to great
deeds and meritorious acts.
Speaking of monuments and commemorative structures, how many has the
United States? One was attempted to the memory of Washington, of the
general form and style of a Scotch claymore, set on end, hilt downward,
and it was placed in the mud, on the banks of the Potomac, where it has
been surely and certainly sinking these thirty years at least, and is
not yet half finished.
[Sidenote: MONUMENTS IN GENERAL.]
Occasionally, some enterprising woman, who wants a house, or to pay off
a mortgage, or something of the kind, organizes a Washington Monument
Association, and collects money for the purpose of completing it. But it
never amounts to anything. The lady and the managers collect a great
deal of money, but no stones are added to the monument, and there
stands, or rather, is sinking, a monument, not to Washington, but to the
inefficient management of the citizens of the country he freed, and
their indifference to the fame of their best and greatest men.
England does not do this. There is never a name in English history that
is not carefully preserved in the Abbey, and it is not permitted to wear
out and fade. When time has meddled with it the chisel is brought into
requisition, and it is restored.
[Illustration: POETS' CORNER--WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
If one wishes to thoroughly and completely appreciate the worthlessness
of human reputation, he should walk through these walls and over these
floors. While the fame of the heroes, poets and statesmen have been
carefully cared for, the nobodies buried here and hereabouts, and there
are thousands of them, have been permitted to fade out mercilessly. Sir
Toby Belch, we will say, or Sir Toby Anybody Else, who was so
circumstanced that he received the honor of being buried in the Abbey or
the grounds adjacent, lies here under a slab, on which is a long
inscription. The slab is here; but alas! where is the inscription? The
iron-nailed shoes of generations have as completely obliterated it as
though a chisel had been used for the purpose.
But not so the actually great. The slab that covers the remains of
Dickens has flowers placed upon it every day, and the inscriptions to
the memory of Shakespeare, Byron, Handel, Haydn, Macaulay, Sheridan,
Garrick, Rare Ben Johnson, and others, who made English literature, and
the innumerable warriors by land and sea who have extended English
possessions and defended England's greatness, are kept as distinct and
as bright as the day they were erected.
One singular thing is that there are no bad men buried in the Abbey;
that is, if you may believe the marble inscriptions. Marble is a bad
material to tell lies upon, because of the limited space that can be
used. Were there more room there would be more lies, I suppose, but the
English have managed it tolerably well.
There was Warren Hastings, for instance, Governor-General of India, who
in his day was held up as a monster of cruelty, and a model of rapacity
and oppression. Even the English Parliament and the East India Company
were forced to protest against his extreme cruelty to the East Indians.
Nevertheless Hastings has a bust in the Abbey, and an inscription on it,
in which he is given every virtue under the sun. He is extolled as being
all that was merciful, just, kind, good, and wise, and if there is a
virtue that is not ascribed to him, the man who wrote it forgot it. As a
matter of curiosity I copied the epitaph, and here it is:--
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
THE RIGHT HONORABLE WARREN HASTINGS,
_Governor-General of Bengal_,
_Member of His Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council, L. L. D., F. R. S._
_Descended from the elder branch of the Ancient and Noble Family of
Huntingdon._
[Sidenote: WARREN HASTINGS.]
Selected for his eminent talents and integrity, he was appointed by
Parliament, in 1773, the first Governor-General of India, to which
high office he was thrice re-appointed by the same authority. Of a
most eventful period, he restored the affairs of the East India
Company from the deepest distress to the highest prosperity, and
rescued their possessions from a combination of the most powerful
enemies ever leagued against them. In the wisdom of his counsels
and the energy of his measures, he found unexhausted resources, and
successfully sustained a long, varied, and multiplied war with
France, Mysore, and the Mahratta States, whose power he humbled,
and concluded an honorable peace; for which and for his
distinguished services he received the thanks of the East India
Company, sanctioned by the Board of Control. The Kingdom of Bengal,
the seat of his government, he ruled with a mild and equitable
sway, preserved it from invasion, and while he secured to its
inhabitants the enjoyment of their customs, laws and religion, and
the blessings of peace, was rewarded by their affection and
gratitude; nor was he more distinguished by the highest qualities
of a statesman and a patriot, than by the exercise of every
Christian virtue. He lived for many years in dignified retirement,
beloved and revered by all who knew him, at his seat of Daylesford,
in the county of Worcester, where he died in peace, in the 86th
year of his age, August 22, in the year of our Lord 1818.
Pretty good, this, for a man who was the terror of the East, and who was
publicly branded in Parliament as the most audacious, corrupt and cruel
tyrant that ever seized anything that armed force could lay its hands
upon. But as England reaped the benefit of a portion, at least, of his
wickedness, England manufactures a record for him and permits it to
stand among its other heroes, for the admiration of future generations.
[Illustration: HENRY VII.'S CHAPEL--WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
I can imagine the ghost of Hastings, as he hovers over this tablet and
reads it. He must have smiled a spirit smile. However, it is probably as
correct as other history, marble or written upon paper. The inhabitants
of the other world must be amused as they read what is said of them in
this. A great many of them must feel as the horse thief did when he wept
after the speech of his counsel in his defense.
"What are you sobbing so for?" asked the counsel.
"I never knew before what a good man I am," was the reply.
There are hundreds buried in the Abbey who have no especial claim to the
honor, that is so far as to deeds that survive the ages gone. They
enjoyed what we of to-day would term a mere local reputation, and all
that remains of them is what the marble says. The inscriptions are all
in the same strain, and are curious specimens of obituary literature.
For instance this:--
TO THE MEMORY OF
JAMES BARTLEMAN,
_formerly a chorister and lay clerk of Westminster Abbey,
and Gentleman of His Majesty's Royal Chapel_.
Educated by Dr. Cooke,
He caught all the taste and science of that great master,
Which he augmented and adorned.
With the peculiar powers of his native genius,
He possessed qualities which are seldom united;
A lively enthusiasm, with an exact judgment,
And exhibited a perfect model
Of a correct style and a commanding voice;
Simple and powerful, tender and dignified;
Solemn, chaste and purely English.
His social and domestic virtues
Corresponded with these rare endowments;
Affectionate and liberal, sincere and open-hearted,
He was not less beloved by his family and friends,
Than admired by all for his pre-eminence
In his profession.
He was born 19 Septr. 1769. Died 15 April, 1821.
And was buried in this cloister,
Near his Beloved Master.
"Solemn, chaste and purely English" is very good. What could Mr.
Bartleman ask more?
[Sidenote: EPITAPHS.]
On the monument of Admiral Sir Wondesley Shovel the inscription reads:--
"He was deservedly beloved by his country, and esteemed, though
dreaded, by the enemy, who had often experienced his conduct and
courage. Being shipwrecked on the rocks of Scilly, in his voyage
from Toulon, Oct. 22, 1707, at night, in the 57th year of his age,
his fate was lamented by all, but especially by the seafaring part
of the nation, to whom he was a generous patron and a worthy
example. His body was flung on the shore, and buried with others on
the sand; but being soon after taken up, was placed under this
monument, which his royal mistress had caused to be erected to
commemorate his steady loyalty and extraordinary virtues."
Mr. William Lawrence, who was a prebendary, gets this poetical
effusion:--
"With dilligence and trust most exemplary
Did William Lawrence serve a prebendary,
And for his paines now past before not lost
Gained this remembrance at his Master's cost.
O read these lines again: you seldom finde
A servant faithful to a master kind.
Short hand he wrote, his flowre in prime did fade
And hasty death short hand of him hath made.
Well couth he numbers, and well measured land,
Thus doth he now that ground whereon you stand,
Wherein he lies so geometrical;
Art maketh some, but this will nature all."
Obit Dec. 23, 1621.
Æstatus bud 29.
As a specimen of old English, this can hardly be excelled:--
Ander neath Lyeth
The Bodyes of 3 sonns
of Mr. Christopher Chapman,
Richard Christopher and
Peter Peter dyed the 11th
of September, 1672.
Richard dyed the 1th of
February, 1672, and
Christopher Chapman,
M. of Artes, dyed the 25
of March, 1675.
The next is a memorial to an authoress, who was the most popular of her
day, and whose pieces were the delight of London. To-day, she is only
remembered by book-worms and antiquaries:--
MRS. APHRA BEHN,
Dyed April 16,
A.D. 1689.
Here lies a proof that Wit can never be
Defence enough against Mortality.
This lady was the authoress of many dramatic pieces--all as dead as
their author.
The Wesley family are represented in this:--
NUTTY, SUSANNA,
URSULA, SAMUEL,
WESLEY.
1725, 1726, 1727, 1731.
Infant children of
_Samuel Wesley_,
Brother of John Wesley.
The British merchant was honored, as well as the British soldier:--
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
JONAS HANWAY,
who departed this life September 5, 1786, aged 74,
but whose name liveth, and will ever live,
whilst active Piety shall distinguish
_The Christian_.
Integrity and Truth shall recommend
_The British Merchant_.
And universal Kindness shall characterize
_The Citizen of the World_.
The helpless _Infant_ natur'd thro' his care:
The friendless _Prostitute_ sheltered and reformed;
The hopeless _Youth_ rescu'd from Misery and Rum,
And trained to serve and to defend his country,
Uniting in one common strain of gratitude,
Bear testimony to their Benefactors' virtues--
_This_ was the _Friend_ and _Father_ of the Poor.
[Sidenote: RELIGIOUS SERVICES.]
The wandering about among the tombs of so many illustrious dead, and the
reading of so many fulsome epitaphs--albeit I know they were not
altogether deserved--produced an impression, a feeling of solemnity,
that no other one place in all England could conjure up. It was in vain
that Tibbitts tried to make fun out of some of the quaint inscriptions.
It could not be done, and in a very short time the youth succumbed to
the influence of the mighty memory, and became a subdued and quiet
admirer of the solemn grandeur of the place.
[Illustration: CHAPEL OF EDWARD, THE CONFESSOR.]
Three is the hour that religious services are held in the large nave.
More out of curiosity, perhaps, than anything else, we determined to
remain during the service. As we sat there looking over into the Poets'
Corner, the deep silence of the majestic building, growing more and more
profound, there came trooping through the mind constantly changing
pictures suggested by the memories awakened by the vivid recollections
of the once great in literature and art, science and warfare, who are
still alive in the hearts of all English-speaking people, although their
bodies have been lying for years beneath the massive pillars and superb
arches of Westminster.
As the eye wanders upwards along the walls, covered with tablets and
rare pieces of sculpture, and seeks to unravel the intricacies of the
fretted roof, just discernible through the dim light, the great organ
peals forth the wondrous strains of the Processional.
At that instant, as though to lend a new and greater impressiveness to
the scene, the clouds, which had been lowering all the afternoon,
suddenly breaking with a glorious burst of sunshine, that comes
streaming in through the tall, graceful windows, beautiful with their
colored designs, lights up the Abbey even to its darkest recess with a
light, soft, and mellow, which only intensifies the mystic feeling of
reverence and joy combined. And then the boy choristers, with their
fresh, innocent faces, sing in wondrous tones the Gregorian chant.
Nothing more is needed; everything is complete. You are lost in a
rapturous reverie, the mind is cleansed of all things earthly, and
wanders unchecked and unfettered through the boundless realms of purity.
One sits almost entranced; his very being filled with the wondrous power
of the place. Gradually it dawns upon him that there is a discord
somewhere, that something has occurred to mar the perfection of the
whole. For an instant he rebels against the thought, and strives to
believe that he still dreams. But the inspiration has fled. The music,
which a moment before caused the tears to fill his eyes, has lost itself
in the far-away cornices of the high columns, and in its stead there is
the dull, monotonous chanting of a priest, who is intoning the service
in a tired sort of way, as though he thought that, having done the same
thing every afternoon for forty years, it was time for him to retire
upon a pension, and enjoy the quiet of a pleasant home, where there was
no absolute necessity of going through the ritual every afternoon at
three o'clock.
[Sidenote: HOW THE SERVICE IS DONE.]
The awakening was not a pleasant one, and so we left the Abbey,
disappointed, as though we had been given the promise of something
wonderful and then been denied it. The service, no matter how beautiful
in and of itself, is not in keeping with the grandeur of the place.
There is lacking, to an American, that sense of power and majesty in it
that the massive building, glorying in its wondrous architectural
beauties, demands. The clergymen had an aimlessness that was simply
tiresome, and as they drawled out the words, it seemed as though they
did not care whether it produced an effect upon the worshippers or not.
But it did produce an effect. Not the one to be desired, perhaps, but an
effect after all, for the greater number of them quietly left the place,
and reached the open air with a sigh of relief, as if they had escaped
from some very depressing, dispiriting place.
In America religion and religious services mean something more than
form, and the ministers, no matter of what denomination, or in what sort
of a building, throw something of life and fervor into their services.
They act and talk as though they had souls to save, and that the
responsibility of the souls of their congregations were upon them. This
was not of that kind. The priests went through the service as though,
having offered the bread of life to their people, it was for them to
take it or let it alone, as they chose. Indeed, when one was a little
slow, as though he had been up the night before, the other would look at
him reproachfully, as if to say, "Look here; why don't you hurry up and
get through with this, and let us get home. I don't want my dinner to
spoil," and the boys in the choir, though they sang like angels, did it,
not as if they knew or cared anything about it, but as a mere matter of
business, looking from one to another, and then upon the congregation.
Whatever the effect upon the people, their beautiful music had no more
effect upon them than as if they had been so many oysters.
These people would not do for a Western camp-meeting, or even for a
fashionable revival in an Eastern church. But they have their uses.
One room in the Abbey is devoted to the effigies in wax of seven Kings
and Queens, but few people visit it. They can see a more extensive
collection of murderers at Madam Tussaud's for the same money, and they
go there.
The cloisters, as they are called, form a not uninteresting portion of
the Abbey, they being the former places of residence of the monks of the
establishment. In the various walks, with their quaintly carved pillars,
and moss-covered arches, are buried many distinguished personages, most
of whom belonged to the Abbey.
[Illustration: EFFIGY ROOM--WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
Another point of interest is the "Chapter House," a circular room, of
large dimensions, which was built in 1250 by Henry III., on the site of
the earlier Chapter House belonging to the Abbey, founded by Edward the
Confessor. It was the chamber in which the abbot and monks, in the time
of the ancient monastery held their "Chapter," or meeting for discussion
and business. The stone seats upon which the abbot and the monks sat are
still preserved.
[Sidenote: A LITTLE HISTORY.]
[Illustration: THE ABBEY IN QUEEN ANNE'S TIME.]
In 1265, when the House of Commons came into existence, it first sat in
Westminster Hall with the House of Lords; but the two bodies having
parted, the Commons held its meetings in the Chapter House for nearly
three hundred years. The last Parliament known to have sat here was that
which assembled on the last day of the reign of King Henry VIII. After
that the House passed into the possession of the Crown, and from 1547,
when the House of Commons was transferred to Westminster Palace, until
1863, it was used as the depository of public records, and was very much
disfigured. In 1865 its restoration was begun, and it now presents the
same appearance it did in years gone by, save where the finger of Father
Time has been laid rather heavily upon its once fair paintings and
graceful proportions.
It does not appear that the nave and cloisters, though the last resting
places of so many eminent persons, were treated with due respect in the
reign of Queen Anne. At all events, the following occurs in the Acts of
the Dean and Chapter, under date of May 6, 1710.
"Whereas, several butchers and other persons have of late,
especially on market days, carried meat and other burdens through
the church, and that in time of Divine service, to the great
scandal and offence of all sober-minded persons; and, whereas,
divers disorderly beggars are daily walking and begging in the
Abbey and cloisters, and do fill the same with nastiness, whereby
great offense is caused to all persons going through the church and
cloisters; and, whereas many idle boys come into the cloister
daily, and there play at cards and other games, for money, and are
often heard to curse and swear, Charles Baldwin is appointed beadel
to restrain this, and to complain of offenders, if necessary, to a
justice of the peace."
The Abbey is the especial pride of England, and well it may be. It is a
delight in and of itself, and would be were it empty. But filled, as it
is, with the enduring monuments of its glory, it possesses a double
interest. Every American visits it, and every American should, for those
who built it and those who sleep under its wonderful roof, are of the
same blood and kin. America shares in England's glory, if not in her
shame. But then, we have some sins to answer for, and an Englishman may
not blush in the presence of his cousin across the water.