WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
On Monday, Jan. 9, 1860, we formed part of a crowd who had assembled in
the Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, to view the burial of the only man
of our generation who, by means of his literary and oratorical efforts,
has won for his brow a coronet. Of Babington Macaulay, as essayist,
poet, orator, historian, statesman, we need not speak. What he was, and
what he did, are patent to all the world. Born in 1800, the son of
Zachary Macaulay, one of the brilliant band of anti-slavery agitators of
which Mr. Wilberforce was the head, young Babington commenced life under
favourable circumstances. At Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was
educated, the world first heard of his wondrous talent. In 1830 he was
returned by Lord Lansdowne for his borough of Calne; the Reform agitation
was then at its height, and how bitterly, and fiercely, and eloquently
Macaulay spoke we remember at this day. Then, in 1834, commenced his
Indian exile, at the end of which he returned to Parliament with a
competency. His Essays in the Edinburgh Review and his History were the
chief business of his life. He might have shone as a poet had he not
betaken himself to prose; but in this department he remained unrivalled,
and the result was riches and fame. On one occasion, it is said, his
publisher gave him a cheque for 20,000 pounds, and he was made by the
Whigs a peer. His burial at Westminster Abbey, at the foot of Addison,
was a fitting climax to his career of wondrous achievement and gorgeous
success. Men most distinguished in literature--in science--in law--in
statesmanship--in divinity--in rank--were present. The funeral was not
as touching as might have been expected. It may be that the choral
service itself interferes with the inner feeling of sadness the death of
such a man arouses in every mind; it may be that the human voice is
inadequate to express the power, and pathos, and majesty of the form of
words used on such occasions; and it is certain that the many ladies
present were dressed in the most unbefitting costumes, and that ribbons,
and bonnets, and dresses of all the colours of the rainbow were quite out
of keeping with the place and the occasion. The saddest sight, the one
most suggestive of deep feeling, was that of one or two ladies, high up
in a recess above the grave. They were real mourners. Indeed, it was
said one of them was the sister of the deceased peer. Lord John Russell
also exhibited an emotion for which the general public will scarce give
him credit. At the grave he was so much overcome, that it seemed as if
he would have fallen had not the Duke of Argyle held him up. Well might
his Lordship be moved to tears. Could he keep from thinking, while
standing there, how soon his own turn would come, and how well and
worthily he, who slept the sleep of death in the plain coffin at his
feet, had fought the battle of the Whigs in their palmy days? We looked
back, as we stood there, to other days. We saw a theatre in Gower Street
filled with intelligent youths. A winter session had been closed: all
its work and competition were over; to the successful candidates prizes
were to be awarded. The fathers and mothers, the friends and sisters of
such had come together from far and near. Seated in a chair was a stout,
mild, genial man, with face somewhat pale, and hair scant and inclined to
grey. He rose, and was received with rapturous applause; he spoke in
plain language--with little action, with a voice rather inclined to be
harsh--of the bright future which rises before the rapt eye of youth. He
spoke--and as he did so, as he mounted from one climax to another, every
young heart filled and warmed with the speaker's theme. That was
Macaulay, just come from India, with an honourable competence, to
consummate the fame as a man he had acquired in younger years. Again, we
thought of that last speech in the House of Commons, when, at an early
hour on a beautiful summer evening, the Parks, and Clubs, and Rotten Row
had been deserted, for it had gone forth to the world that Macaulay was
about to speak. Poor Joseph Hume had moved the adjournment of the
debate, and, as a matter of right, was in possession of the House; but
the calls for Macaulay on all sides were so numerous, that even that most
good-natured of men, as Hume was, grew a little angry and remonstrated;
but it was in vain that he sought the attention of the House: all were
anxious for the next speaker, and no sooner had Hume sat down than
Macaulay delivered, in his hurried feverish way, one of those speeches
which not merely delight, but which influence men's votes and opinions,
and may be read with delight when the occasion which gave rise to them
has long since passed away. We have heard much in favour of competition
in the civil service, at home and in India, since then, but never was the
argument more clearly put--more copiously illustrated, more clothed in
grace and beauty; and then came a few short years of infirmity of body,
of labour with the pen, and sudden death, and the burial at Westminster
Abbey. Out of the thousands standing by the grave, few could ever expect
to see the career of such another genius. He is gone, and we may not
hope to see his work finished. In vain we call up him--
"Who left untold,
The story of Cambuscan bold."
Since then another public funeral has taken place in Westminster Abbey;
only the other day we saw deposited there the ashes of Sir Charles Barry,
and here, as year by year passes over our heads, richer, and dearer, and
wider are the associations which cluster around that venerable pile. I
don't envy the man who can point a sneer at Westminster Abbey; how placid
and beautiful is the outside, how eloquently it speaks to the ambitious
lawyer, the busy merchant, the statesman bent on fame, the beauty armed
for conquest; what a testimony it bears to the religious spirit of the
age which witnessed its erection, and of the brain or brains which
conceived its magnificent design.
The Abbey is open to public inspection between the hours of eleven and
three daily, and also in the summer months between four and six in the
afternoon. The public are not admitted to view the monuments on Good
Friday, Christmas Day, or fast days, or during the hours of Divine
Service. The nave, transept, and cloisters are entirely free. The
charge for admission to the rest of the Abbey, through which you are
accompanied by a guide, is sixpence each person. The entrance is at the
south transept, better known as Poet's Corner. It will do you good to
walk in there any Sunday during Divine Service. The appearance of the
place is singularly striking. The white-robed choristers; the benches
filled with well-dressed people the dark religious columns; the lofty and
fretted roof; the marble monuments and busts looking down on you from
every wall and corner; the gleams of mellow sunlight streaming in from
richly painted windows--all tend to produce an effect such as you can
find nowhere else--an effect of which you must be sensible if you care
not for the rich notes of the organ, or sleep while the parson preaches.
The Abbey, originally a Benedictine monastery--the Minster west of St.
Paul's London--was founded originally in what was called Thorney Island,
by Sebert, King of the East Saxons, 616. The patron Saint, Peter
himself, is said to have consecrated it by night, and in a most
miraculous manner. Till the time of Edward the Confessor the Abbey does
not seem to have made much way; but the meek-minded Prince was led to
give the Abbey a patronage which led to the building becoming what it is.
It seems the Prince had been ill, and vowed to take a journey to the Holy
Land if he should recover. But, as often is the case with vows made in
sickness, the Prince, when well, found it exceedingly inconvenient to
fulfil his vow. The only course left for him was to appeal to the Pope.
The Holy Father, of course, was appealed to, and freed the pious king
from his vow on one condition--that he should spend the money that the
journey would have cost him in some religious building. The Prince, too
happy to be freed from the consequences of this foolish vow, gladly
promised to do so; and, whilst he was considering as to what building he
should favour with his royal patronage, one of the monks of
Westminster--rather an artful man, we imagine--was reported to have had a
wonderful dream, in which no less a personage than St. Peter himself
appeared to him, and charged him to take a message to the King, to the
effect that his celestial saintship hoped he would not overlook the
claims of Westminster. Of course, to so pious a prince as Edward, the
saintly wish was law; and on Westminster were lavished the most princely
sums. Succeeding kings followed in the same steps. Henry III. and his
son, Edward I., rebuilt it nearly as we see it now. It is difficult to
say what the building must have cost its royal patrons. In our own time,
its repairs have amounted to an enormous sum.
As the last resting place of the great, Westminster Abbey must always be
dear to Englishmen. It was a peerage or Westminster Abbey that urged
Nelson on. Old Godfrey Kneller did not rate the honour of lying in
Westminster Abbey quite so highly. "By God," exclaimed the old painter,
"I will not be buried in Westminster! They do bury fools there." It is
difficult to say on what principle the burials there take place. Byron's
monument was refused, though Thorwaldsen was the sculptor; and yet Prior
has a staring one to himself--that Prior whose Chloe was an alehouse
drab, and who was as far inferior to Byron in genius as a farthing
rushlight to the morning star.
Another evil, to which public attention should be drawn, is the expense
attending a funeral there. When Tom Campbell (would that he were alive
to write war lyrics now!) was buried, the fees to the Dean and Chapter
amounted to somewhere between five and six hundred pounds. Surely it
ought not to be so. The Dean and Chapter are well paid enough as it is.
If, reader, pausing on the hallowed ground, you feel inclined to think of
the past, remember that beneath you sleep many English
statesmen,--Clarendon, the great Lord Chatham, Pitt, Fox, and Canning;
that there
"The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'Twill trickle to his rival's bier."
Remember that--
"Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham, eloquence to marble life;"
that of poets; Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Congreve, Addison,
Sheridan, and Campbell, and others, there await the sound of the last
trumpet; that old Sam Johnson there finds rest; that there the brain of a
Newton has crumbled into dust; and, as if to shew that all distinctions
are levelled by death, Mrs. Oldfield, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and other
favourites of the stage, are buried there. As a burial place Westminster
Abbey resembles the world. We jostle one another precisely so in real
life. "The age is grown so picked, that the toe of the peasant comes so
near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe."