The annexed cut represents the mausoleum of the Marquess of Cornwallis,
whose distinguished connexion with the success of British arms in India
will be recollected by the reader. It stands at Ghazepoor, a large town or
city, in the province of Benares, on the river Ganges, about 450 miles
from Calcutta. His lordship died on the river in the year 1805, while
proceeding to make the requisite arrangements for some ceded prisoners. He
was, at the time, governor-general of India, having been appointed to
succeed the Marquess Wellesley, in 1804. The last act of his life accords
with his general activity and vigilance, for he always gave his
instructions in person, and attended to the performance of them. His
personal character was amiable and unassuming, and if his talents were not
brilliant, his sound sense, aided by his laudable ambition and
perseverance, effected much good.
The monument is built of stone, and cost a lac of rupees, or 10,000_l_. It
is surrounded by an iron railing, and its vicinity is the favourite
promenade of the gentry of Ghazepoor, which has been termed the
Montpellier of India.
Bishop Heber, in his interesting Journey through India, objects to the
architectural taste of the monument in these critical observations:
"During our drive this evening I had a nearer view of Lord Cornwallis's
monument, which certainly does not improve on close inspection; it has
been evidently a very costly building; its materials are excellent, being
some of the finest free-stone I ever saw, and it is an imitation of the
celebrated Sibyl's temple, of large proportions, solid masonry, and raised
above the ground on a lofty and striking basement. But its pillars,
instead of beautiful Corinthian well-fluted, are of the meanest Doric.
They are quite too slender for their height, and for the heavy entablature
and cornice which rest on them. The dome instead of springing from nearly
the same level with the roof of the surrounding portico, is raised ten
feet higher on a most ugly and unmeaning attic story, and the windows
(which are quite useless) are the most extraordinary embrasures (for they
resemble nothing else) that I ever saw, out of a fortress. Above all, the
building is utterly unmeaning, it is neither a temple nor a tomb, neither
has altar, statue, nor inscription. It is, in fact, a 'folly' of the same
sort, but far more ambitious and costly, than that which is built at
Barrackpoor, and it is vexatious to think that a very handsome church
might have been built, and a handsome marble monument to Lord Cornwallis
placed in its interior, for little more money than has been employed on a
thing, which, if any foreigner saw it, (an event luckily not very probable)
would afford subject for mockery to all who read his travels, at the
expense of Anglo-Indian ideas of architecture. Ugly as it is, however, by
itself, it may yet be made a good use of, by making it serve the purpose
of a detached 'torre campanile' to the new church which is required for
the station; to this last it would save the necessity of a steeple or
cupola, and would much lessen the expense of the building."
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