To his God, his Prince, and his Friends.
Formerly an earthly, now an Heavenly Courtier,
It shall be no more said in the Age to come,
Who must be good must leave the Court,
When such shining Piety as his shall appear there."
Some epitaphs are humorous, as when we read of one Francis Newman, a
Fellow of All Souls College in Oxford, who in 1649, "divested of Body
was received among the seats of the Blessed Souls, and became truly a
New-Man;" or of Sir John Fullerton, a courtier, who died "Fuller of
Faith than of Feare, Fuller of Resolution than of Paines, Fuller of
Honour than of Dayes."
Unconsciously humorous are the words on the tombstone of James Fox, who
at the age of twelve fell ill of smallpox and took his flight to heaven.
"He was a man even when a child, and a Hercules from his cradle;
favoured with Beauty, Wisdom, and all Endowments of Mind and Body no
less than were Adonis, Venus, and Apollo; a child of singular
dutifulness and great sincerity."
"Oh parents! pity his parents.
Oh posterity! reflect upon your loss!"
It was smallpox which caused the death both of Richard Boothey--who was
"of manly judgment even in his youth, of so happy a memory as to be
envied, a flower, more beautiful than the rest, cut off in the spring of
life"--and of Mr. Thomas Smith, buried in the little cloisters, "who
through the spotted veil of smallpox rendered a pure unspotted soul to
God, expecting but never fearing death."
More pathetic perhaps than any other is the little tablet in the
cloisters which marks the grave of "Jane Lister, dear child," though
almost as touching is the inscription which tells us of "Mary, daughter
of William Green, more adorned with virtue than with high birth, who
married William Bulmer, Gentleman, to whom she was no occasion of
trouble except by leaving him at her death. She bore him one son,
William, a youth of great genius, who was snatched away by too hasty
death. His most tender mother chose to be buried near him, that she,
though dead, might be united in death with him she so entirely loved
while living." Right at the other end of the Abbey, in the Chapel of
St. Erasmus, is the tomb of Mrs. Mary Kendall, which has these words for
inscription:--
"She had great virtues, and as great a desire of concealing them.
Was of a severe life, but of an easy conversation.
Courteous to all, yet strictly sincere.
Humble without meanness. Beneficent without ostentation.
Devout without superstition.
Those admirable qualities,
In which she was equalled by few of her sex, surpassed by none,
Rendered her in every way worthy of that close union and friendship
In which she lived with the Lady Katherine Jones."
And in the adjoining Chapel of St. Andrew is the heart-broken tribute of
the Earl of Kerry, "to his affectionately beloved wife, Anastatia, the
dearest, most loved, most faithful companion that ever blessed man, who
for thirty-one years rendered him the happiest of mankind."
The last of our epitaphs must be that of Archbishop Boulter, who pulled
a great many political strings in Ireland, and lived a very eventful
life. But his inscription reveals us none of these things, and only
describes a series of promotions, for it relates that "He was born
January the 4th, 1671: he was consecrated Bishop of Bristol 1718: he was
translated to the Archbishoprick of Armagh in 1723, and from thence to
Heaven, on Sep. 27, 1742."
Over Abbot Islip's Chapel is a chantry, now used for keeping the few wax
effigies which remain. For, as you remember, it used to be the custom
at royal funerals, or indeed at any important funerals, to carry the
likeness of the dead man or woman before the coffin; these painted
effigies being made of boiled leather, wood, or wax, dressed up in the
clothes of the person they represented. Only eleven of these remain,
though at one time there must have been quite a collection of royal
figures in the Abbey which were open to the public, gaze, and evidently
left to the mercy of the public. Queen Elizabeth can still be seen,
gorgeously dressed, but weary and sad-looking; Charles II. is there, and
the beautiful Duchess of Richmond of the Stuart race, whose monument,
with that of her husband, is in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Then there is the
Duchess of Buckinghamshire, proud and pomp-loving, who insisted on
seeing the canopy for her funeral hearse, that she might be sure it was
magnificent enough, and who made her attendants promise that even when
she became unconscious they would still stand in her presence. By her
is her little son, and near her, her eldest son, who also died young.
Queen Anne beams on us; William and Mary have the crown set between
them, and he stands on a stool so as not to appear smaller than his
wife. General Monk's armour is there, much the worse for wear; and
Pitt, Earl of Chatham, is splendid in his Parliamentary robes. Nelson
was put here from a very worldly point of view, for when he was buried
in St. Paul's, such crowds went to see his grave, that Westminster Abbey
was neglected, and as the pence of the sightseers were too valuable to
be lost, it was decided that some memorial of the great hero must be
placed in the Abbey to attract people back again. All the clothes
except the coat, and certainly the hat, belonged to Nelson, but a
waxwork effigy hardly seems a worthy monument to him in the place which
he must have loved and honoured, nay, must have dreamt of, when he cried
to his men as he led them to attack, "Westminster Abbey, or glorious
victory."
And now, leaving monuments, sleeping figures, epitaphs, inscriptions,
and effigies, come and stand for a moment on the steps leading up to the
High Altar, that we may take our last look at the Abbey from what is
perhaps the most interesting spot in it. For, as you will remember, it
is in this part of the Church that the coronation service takes place,
it is here that every sovereign of England has been crowned from the
days of Harold onwards.
[Illustration: THE HIGH ALTAR. (SHEWING ABBOT WARE'S PAVEMENT.)]
The pavement inside the rails is made of the mosaics brought back from
Rome by Abbot Ware in 1267, where he went to be duly confirmed in his
office by the Pope; the pillars near the altar are on the very bases
which were put there when Edward the Confessor built his church. Here
are the tombs of Aymer de Valence, of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of
Lancaster, and of Aveline his young wife, who as a bride had stood in
front of the altar but a few months before her death in the year 1269.
Opposite, King Sebert is said to lie; under the pavement rests Abbot
Ware, with other of his successors, and Richard the Second's sad
helpless face looks at us from his portrait with its fine background of
tapestry. The altar and the reredos which we see are both new, and just
as the old frieze through in the Confessor's Chapel depicts scenes in
the life of Edward, so the modern reredos gives us glimpses of Him in
whose honour the Saxon king first raised these walls. From among the
gold, four white figures stand out, "the four living creatures which
have been thought worthy to stand round the central figure of our
departing Master," as Dean Stanley described them when they were
erected. On the right stands St. Peter, patron saint of the Abbey,
holding in one hand the keys, and in the other a book, on which is
written the great truth, "God is no respecter of persons," and next to
him is Moses, the first statesman and lawgiver, looking towards the
buried statesmen in the Abbey.
On the left stands St. Paul, grasping in his hand that Sword of the
Spirit which he had named as the weapon of the Christian warrior, and by
him is David, the sweet singer of Israel, whose face is turned towards
the Poets' Corner as though he would claim those sleeping there for his
brethren.
Through the glass we catch a glimpse of the Chapel of the Kings, and all
around is a network of slender arches fashioned by master-hands into
forms of stately but perfect beauty. High above are the three Eastern
Windows, though in the course of the years these have been so constantly
repaired with any scraps of glass available, that the effect is rather
confusing. But the figure of a thorn-crowned Christ stands out, and
near to Him are Edward the Confessor and St. John the Evangelist.
Now turn to the west, look at the glade of arches stretching down the
nave, at the Statesmen's Corner on the right, where under the Rose
Window Chatham's fine figure stands out almost with an air of proud
satisfaction, and then towards the left to the monument of Oliver
Goldsmith, and the more imposing memorial to the great Duke of Argyll,
"an honest man, a constant friend, a general and an orator." Two
commanding statues of Campbell and Addison loom out in the half light,
Campbell casting a shadow over the graves of Abbot Litlington, Owen
Tudor, and Dean Benson, and hiding from our view the dignified,
thoughtful figure of William Shakespeare, who holds in his hands a
scroll on which are those lines of his from the "Tempest":--
"The cloud-capt towers,
The gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples,
The great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit
Shall dissolve,
And like the baseless fabric of a vision
Leave not a wreck behind."
Burns and Sir Walter Scott greet us from their niches; Grote and
Thirlwall, the truth-loving writers of history; Camden, the Westminster
master and antiquarian; Garrick the actor, Handel the musician, all
cluster around us as we look down the southern aisle; and we can just
see at the end the newest addition to the building, a bronze memorial to
John Ruskin, a great teacher and writer of our own day. Some words of
his come to my mind at this moment, as applying in a very special sense
to the Abbey: "The greatest glory of a building is not in its stones,
nor in its gold. The glory is in its age, and in that deep sense of
voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of
approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been
washed by the passing waves of humanity.... It is in the golden stain of
time that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and
preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed
this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame and hallowed by
the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and
its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more
lasting as it is than the natural objects of the world around it, can be
gifted with even so much as those possess of language and of life.
Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever.... God
has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as
much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already
written in the Book of Creation, as to us."
And surely, too, the Abbey leads our thoughts towards other temples,
which it is ours to guard, to honour, and to make honourable, temples
not fashioned by human hands. Those old builders often worked in the
dark; some corner, some piece was allotted to them, and into this they
put all their skill, all their genius, caring little for fame or reward,
knowing nothing of the whole plan which they would never live to see
accomplished. Only this was their task, to beautify the little part
entrusted to them. And because they were faithful to this ideal, we, who
gaze on their completed work, do grateful homage to those nameless
craftsmen, long since dead and forgotten. Nay more, we will make it our
aim to labour as they laboured; to live not basely and selfishly in the
Present, but nobly and truly, with the Future ever before our eyes; so
that in days to come Englishmen shall still be able to say, "See! This
our fathers did for us!" and generations, yet unborn, will deem that we
were faithful to ourselves and to them.
THE END
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