time-blackened wall of a place of worship, and found myself among a
congregation assembled in one of the transepts and the immediately
contiguous portion of the nave. It was a vast old edifice, spacious
enough, within the extent covered by its pillared roof and overspread by
its stone pavement, to accommodate the whole of church-going London, and
with a far wider and loftier concave than any human power of lungs could
fill with audible prayer. Oaken benches were arranged in the transept,
on one of which I seated myself, and joined, as well as I knew how, in
the sacred business that was going forward. But when it came to the
sermon, the voice of the preacher was puny, and so were his thoughts,
and both seemed impertinent at such a time and place, where he and all
of us were bodily included within a sublime act of religion, which could
be seen above and around us and felt beneath our feet.
The structure itself was the worship of the devout men of long ago,
miraculously preserved in stone without losing an atom of its fragrance
and fervor; it was a kind of anthem-strain that they had sung and poured
out of the organ in centuries gone by; and being so grand and sweet,
the Divine benevolence had willed it to be prolonged for the behoof
of auditors unborn. I therefore came to the conclusion that, in my
individual case, it would be better and more reverent to let my eyes
wander about the edifice than to fasten them and my thoughts on the
evidently uninspired mortal who was venturing--and felt it no venture
at all--to speak here above his breath.
The interior of Westminster Abbey (for the reader recognized it, no
doubt, the moment we entered) is built of rich brown stone; and the
whole of it--the lofty roof, the tall, clustered pillars, and the
pointed arches--appears to be in consummate repair. At all points
where decay has laid its finger the structure is clamped with iron, or
otherwise carefully protected; and being thus watched over,--whether
as a place of ancient sanctity, a noble specimen of Gothic art, or an
object of national interest and pride,--it may reasonably be expected to
survive for as many ages as have passed over it already. It was sweet to
feel its venerable quietude, its long-enduring peace, and yet to observe
how kindly and even cheerfully it received the sunshine of to-day, which
fell from the great windows into the fretted aisles and arches that laid
aside somewhat of their aged gloom to welcome it. Sunshine always seems
friendly to old abbeys, churches, and castles, kissing them, as it were,
with a more affectionate, though still reverential, familiarity than it
accords to edifices of later date. A square of golden light lay on the
sombre pavement of the nave, afar off, falling through the grand western
entrance, the folding leaves of which were wide open, and afforded
glimpses of people passing to and fro in the outer world, while we sat
dimly enveloped in the solemnity of antique devotion.
In the south transept, separated from us by the full breadth of the
minster, there were painted glass windows, of which the uppermost
appeared to be a great orb of many-colored radiance, being, indeed, a
cluster of saints and angels whose glorified bodies formed the rays
of an aureole emanating from a cross in the midst. These windows are
modern, but combine softness with wonderful brilliancy of effect.
Through the pillars and arches I saw that the walls in that distant
region of the edifice were almost wholly incrusted with marble now grown
yellow with time; no blank, unlettered slabs, but memorials of such men
as these respective generations deemed wisest and bravest. Some of them
were commemorated merely by inscriptions on mural tablets; others by
sculptured bas-reliefs; others (once famous, but now forgotten, generals
or admirals, these) by ponderous tombs that aspired towards the roof of
the aisle, or partly curtained the immense arch of a window.
These mountains of marble were peopled with the sisterhood of Allegory,
winged trumpeters, and classic figures in full-bottomed wigs; but it was
strange to observe how the old Abbey melted all such absurdities into
the breadth of its own grandeur, even magnifying itself by what would
elsewhere have been ridiculous. Methinks it is the test of Gothic
sublimity to overpower the ridiculous without deigning to hide it; and
these grotesque monuments of the last century answer to a similar
purpose with the grinning faces which the old architects scattered among
their most solemn conceptions....
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 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 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
marvellous 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 church-yard. 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!
[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND VICTORIA TOWER]
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.
THE GARDENS AT KEW.
JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
[Kew Gardens stand pre-eminent among conservatories, and a
description of the treasures of botany there gathered cannot
fail to prove of interest to our readers. Julian Hawthorne,
son of the celebrated novelist, and himself a writer of rich
imaginative power, thus describes these famous gardens _con
amore_.]
On the banks of the Thames, about a dozen miles from London in a
southerly direction, lies the ancient town of Twickenham. In the
seventeenth century, Alexander Pope had a villa there; somewhat later,
Horace Walpole built his rococo castle at Strawberry Hill, a mile beyond
the village; and close by, to the north, is Whitton, where Sir John
Suckling lived. Within an easy hour's walk stands Hampton Court, built
by Cardinal Wolsey of haughty and unhappy memory, and approached through
the magnificent avenue of Bushey Park. Nearly as far in the opposite
direction is Richmond, with its venerable bridge and famous hill, the
latter commanding a view of rural English landscape which, as Thackeray
says, looks as if it had its hair curled, like the waiters at the inn on
its summit. A mile down the river from Richmond, and six miles from
London, extend the renowned botanical gardens of Kew.
It will be seen, therefore, that Twickenham was not a bad place
for a suburban residence: the roads were excellent, the scenery and
associations delightful, and, by taking the train, one could be at
Waterloo railway-station, in the heart of London, in half an hour. I
lived there several years, and know something about it.
The most agreeable expedition of all, taking one month with another, was
to Kew Gardens. In winter, it was a luxury to sit in the hot-houses; in
summer it was lovely throughout. You could travel thither by train; but
the best way was to go on foot. Passing through Twickenham town, and
through the church-yard, with its gravestones centuries old, you came
out upon the river banks. Here a broad, well-kept path followed the
enchanting windings of the stream, and skirted the lawns of pretty
villas on the left. On the right, soon appeared the green heights of the
Hill, with clumps of mighty oaks, and the gleaming ramparts and windows
of the hostelry over all. At its foot, on the river, were boat-houses
and "hards," with slender rowing-craft drawn up, or lying afloat, or
pushing off into the current with their freight of white-jerseyed
oarsmen. And now came into view the quaint, hog-backed bridge, with its
high stone parapet, and the eddies swirling against its piers; and
Richmond itself, red with brick, white with stucco, green with trees;
irregular and diversified in outline; resting snug against the base of
the Hill, and clambering some distance up its long slope.
You crossed the bridge, lingering on the way to admire the railroad
bridge a few hundred yards farther down, reflected in the river-mirror.
Between the two bridges are a couple of islets, only a few yards in
diameter, but with trees growing on them; and hereabouts are generally
moored three or four fishing-punts, in which sit patiently, all day
long, stout, middle-aged fishermen, watching their cork floats drift
down the stream, and faithfully hoping that each new cast will bring the
long-expected fish. Often have I watched them, but the fish never came.
Probably, as Hood conjectured, "it was caught yesterday."
The river-side walk now continues along the Richmond side of the river.
For half a mile it has the town on the right. Then the boundaries of Kew
Gardens begin, and here is the most beautiful part of the walk. Immense
trees stretch their ponderous boughs far across the path, and they droop
so low that the pendent foliage almost sweeps the water. Through the
fretted sun and shadow the path winds; every little way there is a
hospitable bench, resting on which you gaze forth upon the quiet-moving
river, with its passing wherries, its reflections of sky and cloud, and
its battlemented residences far withdrawn beyond green meadows on the
opposite side. The path is never overcrowded, even on holidays; but you
may always see lovers wandering arm in arm along it; and occasionally
there is a brisk exchange of "Thames chaff" between the occupants of the
skimming boats and the loiterers on the shore. Meanwhile, the great
domain of Kew keeps pace with you on the other hand. You are divided
from it by a wide water-ditch, backed by a high stone embankment, in
turn surmounted by an iron railing. But your eyes may stray whither feet
cannot follow; and you note the lovely groves, the beautiful green
glades and gracious vistas, the secluded paths weaving in and out, and
now and then you catch the sparkle of lofty domes of glass rising above
the trees, looking for all the world like gigantic soap-bubbles. It is
a sort of fairy-land beyond there; and long before you arrive at the
entrance your appetite for what lies within is sharp-set.
The feast in store for you more than fulfils expectation; but at this
point, since we are journeying in imagination only, and miles count for
nothing, we will turn back, and enter the gardens from the other end. By
this route we approach its beauties gradually and in due order, and our
pleasure has opportunity to grow from promising beginnings to complete
content. The gate is small here, and the uniformed guardian simply gives
us a glance, to assure himself that we are not toughs or pickpockets.
Kew Gardens are free to the public in the afternoons, barring only the
rowdy element. The public would like to have them free in the mornings,
too; and, for aught I know, Sir Joseph Hooker may have yielded his
assent by this time. But in the seventies, when I was there, he
resisted, on the ground that it was necessary to close the gardens for
half the day, in order to allow time for study, and for keeping the
houses and plantations in order. The grounds are constantly visited by
gardeners and botanists from all parts of the country, and from the
world at large; and these persons require some measure of seclusion in
order to prosecute their labors and investigations. Practical botany is
not, as a rule, pursued at night; though, with the aid of electric
lights, no doubt it might be.
However, we have by this time passed through some introductory
shrubbery, and have emerged into a straight, open avenue, a third
of a mile or more in length. Directly before us is an immensely high
tower,--I should think nearly two hundred feet,--painted red, black,
blue, and yellow, and fashioned to resemble a Chinese minaret or pagoda.
The central shaft is circular, and, I believe, of masonry; but it is
surrounded at short intervals by wooden balconies, and the roof is of a
concave conical shape, like a mandarin's hat. I never saw any signs of
life in this tower, and do not know what it is used for; but I have
heard that the son-in-law of Lord Capel (who first laid out Kew Gardens
some two hundred years ago) added to the importance of the place by
making it the head-quarters of English astronomy; and this tower, which
certainly would make an excellent observatory, may have had something to
do with that.
Beyond the tower extends a broad, straight path, between well-kept
lawns, on which are planted trees of both native and foreign growth.
Towards the river, on the left, the grounds are irregular and
diversified with clumps of trees, ponds, and grassy undulations. On the
right, concealed by a hedge of foliage, is the highway between Richmond
and London. Before us, at the end of the walk, is an iron fence,
dividing the inner enclosure--the Botanical Gardens proper--from this
outer region. We reach it in due time, and, having passed the gate, are
in the immediate neighborhood of the palm-house, whose bulbous domes we
saw just now from the river bank. It is as beautiful a piece of glass
building as ever I saw, handsomely proportioned, and of noble outline.
Its great size is somewhat concealed by its charming symmetry; but when
we are within, the vast dimensions are realized. Beneath its central
dome the tallest palms rise unimpeded. You peep through long vistas of
broad green fronds and slender, bending stems: it broadens and reaches
out on every side; the strange, exotic foliage rejoices the eye, and the
warm embracing atmosphere makes you feel that you are in the tropics.