Abbey, and I would gladly have taken it all in at a glance) my eyes came
back and began to investigate what was immediately about me in the
transept. Close at my elbow was the pedestal of Canning's statue. Next
beyond it was a massive tomb, on the spacious tablet of which reposed
the full-length figures of a marble lord and lady, whom an inscription
announced to be the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle,--the historic Duke of
Charles I.'s time, and the fantastic Duchess, traditionally remembered
by her poems and plays. She was of a family, as the record on her tomb
proudly informed us, of which all the brothers had been valiant and all
the sisters virtuous. A recent statue of Sir John Malcolm, the new
marble as white as snow, held the next place; and near by was a mural
monument and bust of Sir Peter Warren. The round visage of this old
British admiral has a certain interest for a New-Englander, because it
was by no merit of his own (though he took care to assume it as such),
but by the valor and warlike enterprise of our colonial forefathers,
especially the stout men of Massachusetts, that he won rank and renown,
and a tomb in Westminster Abbey. Lord Mansfield, a huge mass of marble
done into the guise of a judicial gown and wig, with a stern face in the
midst of the latter, sat on the other side of the transept; and on the
pedestal beside him was a figure of Justice, holding forth, instead of
the customary grocer's scales, an actual pair of brass steelyards. It is
an ancient and classic instrument, undoubtedly; but I had supposed that
Portia (when Shylock's pound of flesh was to be weighed) was the only
judge that ever really called for it in a court of justice. Pitt and Fox
were in the same distinguished company; and John Kemble, in Roman
costume, stood not far off, but strangely shorn of the dignity that is
said to have enveloped him like a mantle in his lifetime. Perhaps the
evanescent majesty of the stage is incompatible with the long endurance
of marble and the solemn reality of the tomb; though, on the other
hand, almost every illustrious personage here represented has been
invested with more or less of stage-trickery by his sculptor. In truth,
the artist (unless there be a divine efficacy in his touch, making
evident a heretofore hidden dignity in the actual form) feels it an
imperious law to remove his subject as far from the aspect of ordinary
life as may be possible without sacrificing every trace of resemblance.
The absurd effect of the contrary course is very remarkable in the
statue of Mr. Wilberforce, whose actual self, save for the lack of
color, I seemed to behold, seated just across the aisle.
This excellent man appears to have sunk into himself in a sitting
posture, with a thin leg crossed over his knee, a book in one hand, and
a finger of the other under his chin, I believe, or applied to the side
of his nose, or to some equally familiar purpose; while his exceedingly
homely and wrinkled face, held a little on one side, twinkles at you
with the shrewdest complacency, as if he were looking right into your
eyes, and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal
from him. He keeps this look so pertinaciously that you feel it to be
insufferably impertinent, and bethink yourself what common ground there
may be between yourself and a stone image, enabling you to resent it. I
have no doubt that the statue is as like Mr. Wilberforce as one pea to
another, and you might fancy, that, at some ordinary moment, when he
least expected it, and before he had time to smooth away his knowing
complication of wrinkles, he had seen the Gorgon's head, and whitened
into marble,--not only his personal self, but his coat and
small-clothes, down to a button and the minutest crease of the cloth.
The ludicrous result marks the impropriety of bestowing the age-long
duration of marble upon small, characteristic individualities, such as
might come within the province of waxen imagery. The sculptor should
give permanence to the figure of a great man in his mood of broad and
grand composure, which would obliterate all mean peculiarities; for, if
the original were unaccustomed to such a mood, or if his features were
incapable of assuming the guise, it seems questionable whether he could
really have been entitled to a marble immortality. In point of fact,
however, the English face and form are seldom statuesque, however
illustrious the individual.
It ill becomes me, perhaps, to have lapsed into this mood of half-jocose
criticism in describing my first visit to Westminster Abbey, a spot
which I had dreamed about more reverentially, from my childhood upward,
than any other in the world, and which I then beheld, and now look back
upon, with profound gratitude to the men who built it, and a kindly
interest, I may add, in the humblest personage that has contributed his
little all to its impressiveness, by depositing his dust or his memory
there. But it is a characteristic of this grand edifice that it permits
you to smile as freely under the roof of its central nave as if you
stood beneath the yet grander canopy of heaven. Break into laughter, if
you feel inclined, provided the vergers do not hear it echoing among the
arches. In an ordinary church you would keep your countenance for fear
of disturbing the sanctities or proprieties of the place; but you need
leave no honest and decorous portion of your human nature outside of
these benign and truly hospitable walls. Their mild awfulness will take
care of itself. Thus it does no harm to the general impression, when you
come to be sensible that many of the monuments are ridiculous, and
commemorate a mob of people who are mostly forgotten in their graves,
and few of whom ever deserved any better boon from posterity. You
acknowledge the force of Sir Godfrey Kneller's objection to being buried
in Westminster Abbey, because "they do bury fools there!" Nevertheless,
these grotesque carvings of marble, that break out in dingy-white
blotches on the old freestone of the interior walls, have come there by
as natural a process as might cause mosses and ivy to cluster about the
external edifice; for they are the historical and biographical record of
each successive age, written with its own hand, and all the truer for
the inevitable mistakes, and none the less solemn for the occasional
absurdity. Though you entered the Abbey expecting to see the tombs only
of the illustrious, you are content at last to read many names, both in
literature and history, that have now lost the reverence of mankind, if
indeed they ever really possessed it. Let these men rest in peace. Even
if you miss a name or two that you hoped to find there, they may well be
spared. It matters little a few more or less, or whether Westminster
Abbey contains or lacks any one man's grave, so long as the Centuries,
each with the crowd of personages that it deemed memorable, have chosen
it as their place of honored sepulture, and laid themselves down under
its pavement. The inscriptions and devices on the walls are rich with
evidences of the fluctuating tastes, fashions, manners, opinions,
prejudices, follies, wisdoms, of the past, and thus they combine into a
more truthful memorial of their dead times than any individual
epitaph-maker ever meant to write.
When the services were over, many of the audience seemed inclined to
linger in the nave or wander away among the mysterious aisles; for there
is nothing in this world so fascinating as a Gothic minster, which
always invites you deeper and deeper into its heart both by vast
revelations and shadowy concealments. Through the open-work screen that
divides the nave from the chancel and choir, we could discern the gleam
of a marvelous window, but were debarred from entrance into that more
sacred precinct of the Abbey by the vergers. These vigilant officials
(doing their duty all the more strenuously because no fees could be
exacted from Sunday visitors) flourished their staves, and drove us
towards the grand entrance like a flock of sheep. Lingering through one
of the aisles, I happened to look down, and found my foot upon a stone
inscribed with this familiar exclamation, "_O rare Ben Jonson!_" and
remembered the story of stout old Ben's burial in that spot, standing
upright,--not, I presume, on account of any unseemly reluctance on his
part to lie down in the dust, like other men, but because standing-room
was all that could reasonably be demanded for a poet among the
slumberous notabilities of his age. It made me weary to think of
it!--such a prodigious length of time to keep one's feet!--apart from
the honor of the thing, it would certainly have been better for Ben to
stretch himself at ease in some country churchyard. To this day,
however, I fancy that there is a contemptuous alloy mixed up with the
admiration which the higher classes of English society profess for their
literary men.
Another day--in truth, many other days--I sought out Poets' Corner, and
found a sign-board and pointed finger directing the visitor to it, on
the corner house of a little lane leading towards the rear of the Abbey.
The entrance is at the southeastern end of the south transept, and it
is used, on ordinary occasions, as the only free mode of access to the
building. It is no spacious arch, but a small, lowly door, passing
through which, and pushing aside an inner screen that partly keeps out
an exceedingly chill wind, you find yourself in a dim nook of the Abbey,
with the busts of poets gazing at you from the otherwise bare stone-work
of the walls. Great poets, too; for Ben Jonson is right behind the door,
and Spenser's tablet is next, and Butler's on the same side of the
transept, and Milton's (whose bust you know at once by its resemblance
to one of his portraits, though older, more wrinkled, and sadder than
that) is close by, and a profile-medallion of Gray beneath it. A window
high aloft sheds down a dusky daylight on these and many other
sculptured marbles, now as yellow as old parchment, that cover the three
walls of the nook up to an elevation of about twenty feet above the
pavement. It seemed to me that I had always been familiar with the spot.
Enjoying a humble intimacy--and how much of my life had else been a
dreary solitude!--with many of its inhabitants, I could not feel myself
a stranger there. It was delightful to be among them. There was a
genial awe, mingled with a sense of kind and friendly presences about
me; and I was glad, moreover, at finding so many of them there together,
in fit companionship, mutually recognized and duly honored, all
reconciled now, whatever distant generations, whatever personal
hostility or other miserable impediment, had divided them far asunder
while they lived. I have never felt a similar interest in any other
tombstones, nor have I ever been deeply moved by the imaginary presence
of other famous dead people. A poet's ghost is the only one that
survives for his fellow-mortals, after his bones are in the dust,--and
he not ghostly, but cherishing many hearts with his own warmth in the
chillest atmosphere of life. What other fame is worth aspiring for? Or,
let me speak it more boldly, what other long-enduring fame can exist? We
neither remember nor care anything for the past, except as the poet has
made it intelligibly noble and sublime to our comprehension. The shades
of the mighty have no substance; they flit ineffectually about the
darkened stage where they performed their momentary parts, save when the
poet has thrown his own creative soul into them, and imparted a more
vivid life than ever they were able to manifest to mankind while they
dwelt in the body. And therefore--though he cunningly disguises himself
in their armor, their robes of state, or kingly purple--it is not the
statesman, the warrior, or the monarch that survives, but the despised
poet, whom they may have fed with their crumbs, and to whom they owe all
that they now are or have,--a name![12]
[12] _September 30, 1855._ Poets' Corner has never seemed like a strange
place to me; it has been familiar from the very first; at all events, I
cannot now recollect the previous conception, of which the reality has
taken the place. I seem always to have known that somewhat dim corner,
with the bare brown stone-work of the old edifice aloft, and a window
shedding down its light on the marble busts and tablets, yellow with
time, that cover the three walls of the nook up to a height of about
twenty feet. Prior's is the largest and richest monument. It is
observable that the bust and monument of Congreve are in a distant part
of the Abbey. His duchess probably thought it a degradation to bring a
gentleman among the beggarly poets.--II. 153.
_November 12, 1857._ We found our way to Poets' Corner, however, and
entered those holy precincts, which looked very dusky and grim in the
smoky light.... I was strongly impressed with the perception that very
commonplace people compose the great bulk of society in the home of the
illustrious dead. It is wonderful how few names there are that one cares
anything about a hundred years after their departure; but perhaps each
generation acts in good faith in canonizing its own men.... But the
fame of the buried person does not make the marble live,--the marble
keeps merely a cold and sad memory of a man who would else be forgotten.
No man who needs a monument ever ought to have one.--II. 565.
[Illustration: _Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey._]
In the foregoing paragraph I seem to have been betrayed into a flight
above or beyond the customary level that best agrees with me; but it
represents fairly enough the emotions with which I passed from Poets'
Corner into the chapels, which contain the sepulchres of kings and great
people. They are magnificent even now, and must have been inconceivably
so when the marble slabs and pillars wore their new polish, and the
statues retained the brilliant colors with which they were originally
painted, and the shrines their rich gilding, of which the sunlight still
shows a glimmer or a streak, though the sunbeam itself looks tarnished
with antique dust. Yet this recondite portion of the Abbey presents few
memorials of personages whom we care to remember. The shrine of Edward
the Confessor has a certain interest, because it was so long held in
religious reverence, and because the very dust that settled upon it was
formerly worth gold. The helmet and war-saddle of Henry V., worn at
Agincourt, and now suspended above his tomb, are memorable objects, but
more for Shakespeare's sake than the victor's own. Rank has been the
general passport to admission here. Noble and regal dust is as cheap as
dirt under the pavement. I am glad to recollect, indeed (and it is too
characteristic of the right English spirit not to be mentioned), one or
two gigantic statues of great mechanicians, who contributed largely to
the material welfare of England, sitting familiarly in their marble
chairs among forgotten kings and queens. Otherwise, the quaintness of
the earlier monuments, and the antique beauty of some of them, are what
chiefly gives them value. Nevertheless, Addison is buried among the men
of rank; not on the plea of his literary fame, however, but because he
was connected with nobility by marriage, and had been a Secretary of
State. His gravestone is inscribed with a resounding verse from
Tickell's lines to his memory, the only lines by which Tickell himself
is now remembered, and which (as I discovered a little while ago) he
mainly filched from an obscure versifier of somewhat earlier date.
Returning to Poets' Corner, I looked again at the walls, and wondered
how the requisite hospitality can be shown to poets of our own and the
succeeding ages. There is hardly a foot of space left, although room has
lately been found for a bust of Southey and a full-length statue of
Campbell. At best, only a little portion of the Abbey is dedicated to
poets, literary men, musical composers, and others of the gentle artist
breed, and even into that small nook of sanctity men of other pursuits
have thought it decent to intrude themselves. Methinks the tuneful
throng, being at home here, should recollect how they were treated in
their lifetime, and turn the cold shoulder, looking askance at nobles
and official personages, however worthy of honorable interment
elsewhere. Yet it shows aptly and truly enough what portion of the
world's regard and honor has heretofore been awarded to literary
eminence in comparison with other modes of greatness,--this dimly
lighted corner (nor even that quietly to themselves) in the vast minster
the walls of which are sheathed and hidden under marble that has been
wasted upon the illustrious obscure. Nevertheless, it may not be worth
while to quarrel with the world on this account; for, to confess the
very truth, their own little nook contains more than one poet whose
memory is kept alive by his monument, instead of imbuing the senseless
stone with a spiritual immortality,--men of whom you do not ask, "Where
is he?" but, "Why is he here?" I estimate that all the literary people
who really make an essential part of one's inner life, including the
period since English literature first existed, might have ample
elbow-room to sit down and quaff their draughts of Castaly round
Chaucer's broad, horizontal tombstone. These divinest poets consecrate
the spot, and throw a reflected glory over the humblest of their
companions. And as for the latter, it is to be hoped that they may have
long outgrown the characteristic jealousies and morbid sensibilities of
their craft, and have found out the little value (probably not amounting
to sixpence in immortal currency) of the posthumous renown which they
once aspired to win. It would be a poor compliment to a dead poet to
fancy him leaning out of the sky and snuffing up the impure breath of
earthly praise.
Yet we cannot easily rid ourselves of the notion that those who have
bequeathed us the inheritance of an undying song would fain be
conscious of its endless reverberations in the hearts of mankind, and
would delight, among sublimer enjoyments, to see their names emblazoned
in such a treasure-place of great memories as Westminster Abbey. There
are some men, at all events,--true and tender poets, moreover, and fully
deserving of the honor,--whose spirits, I feel certain, would linger a
little while about Poets' Corner, for the sake of witnessing their own
apotheosis among their kindred. They have had a strong natural yearning,
not so much for applause as sympathy, which the cold fortune of their
lifetime did but scantily supply; so that this unsatisfied appetite may
make itself felt upon sensibilities at once so delicate and retentive,
even a step or two beyond the grave. Leigh Hunt, for example, would be
pleased, even now, if he could learn that his bust had been reposited in
the midst of the old poets whom he admired and loved; though there is
hardly a man among the authors of to-day and yesterday whom the judgment
of Englishmen would be less likely to place there. He deserves it,
however, if not for his verse (the value of which I do not estimate,
never having been able to read it), yet for his delightful prose, his
unmeasured poetry, the inscrutable happiness of his touch, working soft
miracles by a life-process like the growth of grass and flowers. As with
all such gentle writers, his page sometimes betrayed a vestige of
affectation, but, the next moment, a rich, natural luxuriance overgrew
and buried it out of sight. I knew him a little, and (since, Heaven be
praised, few English celebrities whom I chanced to meet have
enfranchised my pen by their decease, and as I assume no liberties with
living men) I will conclude this rambling article by sketching my first
interview with Leigh Hunt.
He was then at Hammersmith, occupying a very plain and shabby little
house, in a contiguous range of others like it, with no prospect but
that of an ugly village street, and certainly nothing to gratify his
craving for a tasteful environment, inside or out. A slatternly
maid-servant opened the door for us, and he himself stood in the entry,
a beautiful and venerable old man, buttoned to the chin in a black
dress-coat, tall and slender, with a countenance quietly alive all over,
and the gentlest and most naturally courteous manner. He ushered us into
his little study, or parlor, or both,--a very forlorn room, with poor
paper-hangings and carpet, few books, no pictures that I remember, and
an awful lack of upholstery. I touch distinctly upon these external
blemishes and this nudity of adornment, not that they would be worth
mentioning in a sketch of other remarkable persons, but because Leigh
Hunt was born with such a faculty of enjoying all beautiful things that
it seemed as if Fortune did him as much wrong in not supplying them as
in withholding a sufficiency of vital breath from ordinary men. All
kinds of mild magnificence, tempered by his taste, would have become him
well; but he had not the grim dignity that assumes nakedness as the
better robe.
I have said that he was a beautiful old man. In truth, I never saw a
finer countenance, either as to the mould of features or the expression,
nor any that showed the play of feeling so perfectly without the
slightest theatrical emphasis. It was like a child's face in this
respect. At my first glimpse of him, when he met us in the entry, I
discerned that he was old, his long hair being white and his wrinkles
many; it was an aged visage, in short, such as I had not at all expected
to see, in spite of dates, because his books talk to the reader with
the tender vivacity of youth. But when he began to speak, and as he grew
more earnest in conversation, I ceased to be sensible of his age;
sometimes, indeed, its dusky shadow darkened through the gleam which his
sprightly thoughts diffused about his face, but then another flash of
youth came out of his eyes and made an illumination again. I never
witnessed such a wonderfully illusive transformation, before or since;
and, to this day, trusting only to my recollection, I should find it
difficult to decide which was his genuine and stable predicament,--youth
or age. I have met no Englishman whose manners seemed to me so
agreeable, soft, rather than polished, wholly unconventional, the
natural growth of a kindly and sensitive disposition without any
reference to rule, or else obedient to some rule so subtile that the
nicest observer could not detect the application of it.