How reverend is the face of all this pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads To bear aloft its arch'd and ponderous roof; By its own weight made steadfast and immovable, Looking tranquillity. It strikes an awe And terror on my waking sight; the tombs And monumental caves of death look cold.--Wordsworth.

Other cathedrals may surpass the Abbey of , , by the grandeur of their architecture; yet its situation and the varied character of its parts, and its completeness as a whole --combined with its national character as the place where our monarchs have been crowned, and where so many of them are buried, surrounded by the statesmen, courtiers, ecclesiastics, poets, and other illustrious persons of centuries-make it a type of the British Constitution--the union of the Monarchy, the Church, and the State. The subjects of the Crown interred here-except the members of the monastery itself--were the officers of Edward the Confessor,

thus,

reunited with him whom they had served in life.

the

first

-fruits of England's political, naval, and military glory.

Although the charge of the Abbey had been originally committed to a

college of priests,

Victory, or Westminstel Abbey!

As has become the Pantheon for the reception of our naval and military heroes, so the Abbey has gradually become the last resting-place of those who have fought the battle of life in another way--the men who have added renown to their country as statesmen and as men of letters. There are, of course, a few exceptions, for do not Sir Christopher Wren, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Cockerell, and Turner, and Landseer lie in ? whilst the Abbey covers the ashes of Lords Howe and Ligonier, Admiral Sir Peter Warren, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Lieutenant-General Sir Eyre Coote, Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood, General Lawrence, and others in both branches of the service.

The Abbey Church,

formerly arose a magnificent apex to a royal palace, surrounded by its own greater and lesser sanctuaries and almonries; its bell-towers (the principal

one

72

feet

6

inches square, with walls

20

feet thick), chapels, prisons, gatehouses, boundary-walls, and a train of other buildings, of which we can at the present day scarcely form an idea. In addition to all the land around it, extending from the Thames to

Oxford Street

, and from

Vauxhall Bridge Road

to the church of

St. Mary-le-Strand

, the Abbey possessed

97

towns and villages,

17

hamlets, and

216

manors. Its officers fed hundreds of persons daily, and

one

of its priests (not the abbot) entertained at his pavilion in Tothill, the king and queen, with so large a party, that

seven hundred

dishes did not suffice for the

first

table; and even the Abbey butler, in the reign of Edward III., rebuilt at his own expense the stately gatehouse which gave entrance to

Tothill Street

.

With the exception of the Chapter House, the Jerusalem Chamber, the cloisters, and or fragments of buildings on the southern side, the Abbey Church is now all that remains of the ancient monastic edifice. The general aspect of this structure is grand in the extreme-perhaps not to be surpassed by any Gothic edifice in the kingdom; whilst in its details it presents a rich field of beautiful variety, almost every period of Gothic architecture being illustrated in part or other.

is best obtained from a distance, its exquisite proportions being, perhaps, better appreciated when seen from the high ground in the . For a nearer and more minute survey, the west front is seen to great advantage from , the north transept and aisle from the corner of , and the south side from . , standing immediately beside the Abbey, has the effect of causing the proportions of the larger fabric to stand out in a bold and imposing relief.

The church consists of a nave, choir, aisles, transepts, and sacrarium; and at the east end are Edward the Confessor's, Henry VII.'s, and other chapels. Its dimensions are, from east to west, including Henry VII.'s Chapel, feet; across the transepts it measures feet; the height of the nave and choir is ioi feet; height to the roof of the lantern about I feet, and the height of the western towers feet.

[extra_illustrations.3.412.2]  of the Abbey, it must be owned, is poor enough, when compared with that of most English or foreign cathedrals. In fact, as we are told in the for , it was never really finished at all, being

by Providence reserved for the able hand of the judicious Mr. Hawksmore.

judicious

thought to exceed in point of workmanship any part of the ancient building,

It is generally said that the western towers of the Abbey were completed by Sir Christopher Wren; but this is not true, though he commenced them, in apparent disdain of the rules of pointed architecture. Nevertheless, Sir Christopher would seem to have been opposed to any confusion of style

I shall speedily prepare draughts and models, such as I conceive proper to agree with the original scheme of the architect, without any modern mixtures to show my own inventions.

Mr. A. Wood remarks with great justice here:

That many layers of classical cornice should appear on the face of Gothic towers will in time be felt to be a disgrace to our architecture; and we may ourselves, perhaps, see these towers rebuilt, from the roof of the church upwards, with Wren's proportions, but with pure and harmonious detail. Since the time of Sir Christopher the rules of Gothic art have been so deeply and accurately studied and mastered (thanks to the efforts of the Oxford and Cambridge Architectural Societies, and the labours of Pugin and Sir G. Gilbert Scott), that there can be no doubt of the capacity of the present generation to bring to perfection that

one

portion of this noble structure which has come down to our hands, as a legacy from the so-called Dark Ages, in

one

respect, and in

one

only, incomplete.

The principal entrance is at the western end, and, taken as a whole, makes anything but an imposing appearance. The great doorway is of considerable depth, and contracts inwards. The sides are composed of panels, and the roof is intersected with numerous ribs. On each side of the door are pedestals in empty niches, with shields in quatrefoils beneath them. A cornice extends above the doorway, on which are canopied niches, separated by small buttresses; these niches are without statues, and their canopies are cones foliaged and pinnacled. Over these there is a cantaliver cornice, of modem date, and above the cornice is a frieze adorned with armorial bearings. Hence arises the great painted window; it has a border of pointed enriched panels, and over it a large heavy cornice, with a frieze inscribed

A. R. GEORGII II. VIII. MDCCXXXV.

The towers on either side of the west front are strengthened by substantial buttresses, with ranges of canopied niches on their fronts. The lower windows of the towers are pointed; those above them arches only, filled with quatrefoils and circles. It is from this part that the incongruity of the new design begins in a Tuscan cornice; above this is a Grecian pediment and enrichments over the dial of the clock, and in each face of the topmost storeys is a Gothic window of poor design; the whole being crowned with battlements and pinnacles.

The credit of completing the west front, as it anciently appeared, is due to the abbots Estney and Islip; but it was never entirely finished till the reign of George II.

It is evident,

that the

two

towers were left imperfect, the

one

much higher than the other, though still too low for bells, which are stifled by the height of the roof above them; they ought certainly to be carried to an equal height,

one

storey above the ridge of the roof, still continuing the Gothic manner in the stone-work and tracery. Something,

must be done to strengthen the west window, which is crazy; the pediment is only boarded, but ought undoubtedly to be of stone.

The north side of the church is supported by buttresses, each of gradations, with pointed windows between them; the buttresses are connected with the clerestory of the nave by slender arches, and the wall finishes with battlements.

The great door of the [extra_illustrations.3.413.2]  is an arch sprung from large pillars on either side, with foliated capitals. The wall is of considerable thickness, and on each side of the great door it is formed into arches by handsome pillars; the lesser entrances to the aisles are pillars in depth, with ribbed roofs, having figures of angels at the intersections of the ribs. Above the doorways is a colonnade or range of pierced arches. massive buttresses secure the front; those at the angles terminate in octagons, and are connected with the upper part of the walls, over the side-aisles, by strong arches. Between the colonnade and the point of the roof is a beautiful

rose window,

Time was,

when this front had its statues of the

twelve

apostles at full length, and a vast number of other saints and martyrs, intermixed with intaglios, devices, and abundance of fretwork; and when, on account of its extreme beauty, it was called Solomon's Porch; and now, even injured as it is, the whole forms a rich and beautiful facade.

The south transept underwent considerable repairs at the beginning of the present century, and the great rose window on that side was rebuilt in the year .

All the chapels that project on the north-east and south-east are, in their designs, like the body of the church; but the chapel of Henry VII., for its elegant outline and lavish ornamentation, is, perhaps, the chief point of attraction to most visitors on a inspection.

The front of the south transept is far less elegant than that of the north, but this is rendered of little consequence by the confined nature of its situation, the library, chapter-house, and cloisters being so immediately contiguous as to exclude all the lower part from public view. All the exterior walls are embattled, and the roof is covered with lead. The central tower, or rather lantern, has a dwarfish and unfinished aspect; it has narrow,

Entering by the great western door, the mind of the visitor is at once filled with awe and astonishment at the sublimity of the scene presented to the eye. [extra_illustrations.3.414.1]  and choir are separated from the side-aisles by lofty cloistered columns, supporting pointed arches, above which are the triforium and the clerestory windows, some of which are filled with stained glass, and from the piers between them spring the intersecting arches of the vaulted ceiling. The pillars terminate towards the east by a sweep, thereby enclosing the chapel of Edward the Confessor in a kind of semicircle, and excluding all the rest. The [extra_illustrations.3.414.2]  are

In what is called the open part of the Abbey,

Essay on Sepulchres,

are to be found the tombs of many of our great literary characters, mixed with those of others who have a very slight claim to such a distinction. In the enclosed part the spectator is much more struck with the capriciousness of the muse of monumental fame. EXcept the kings down to

Westminster Abbey: Interior Of The Choir.

those of the House of Stuart, he looks in vain for the tombs of almost all the great men that have adorned our annals. Instead of Simon Montfort, Stephen Langton, and Wickliffe, and the Montacutes, and the Nevilles, and Cardinal Wolsey, and Cranmer, and Sir Philip Sidney, and Lord Chancellor Bacon, and multitudes of others that offer themselves to the memory, we find Sir John Pickering, and Sir Bernard Brocas, who lost his head in the cause of Richard II., and Colonel

Popham, and Thomas Thynne, who is immortalised for having been shot in his coach, and Mrs. Nightingale. There is good reason for the absence of most, if not all, of the worthies above mentioned.

We cannot, of course, in these pages give anything like a detailed description of all the monuments that grace-or rather disgrace--the walls of this sacred edifice: suffice it to say that most of them are vile, and tasteless, and barbarous bits of heathen sculpture, utterly out of keeping with the house of God. On some of these memorials there is a grim humour and dry sarcasm which, in spite of the solemn associations around, provokes an irresistible smile; as, for instance, when we read it recorded on the tomb of Samuel Butler, the author of

Hudibras,

that he who was destitute of all things when alive might not want a monument when dead.

Sed quae tarda venit gratia, sera venit.

It was to satirise this heathen and pagan style of monuments in the Abbey that Churchill wrote as follows in the

Foundling Hospital

for Wit

In fam'd cathedral who'd expect Pallas, a heathen goddess, To lift her shield come to protect Lord Stanhope-this most odd is!

Or to see Hercules, a son Of Jupiter (as fabled), There hov'ring o'er an admiral's bust, As if by him enabled.

What could they more in times of yore, Do, heroes to defend? What could the stage exhibit more Than make the gods descend?

Verger or beadle, who thou art That hast the supervising part, Fain would I mace thee lay on; For Dean's Yard boysThe Dean's Yard boys in the above lines are, of course, the Westminster scholars. with much surprise,

Being thus greatly edified, May throw their heathen gods aside, And shortly there, I fear, see rise In stone the whole Pantheon.

Over the west door, and immediately under the great window, has been turned a stone arch, on which has been erected a monument to the Right Hon. William Pitt. The statue, the workmanship of Sir Richard Westmacott, represents the illustrious statesman habited in the robes of Chancellor of the Exchequer; at the base are figures representing History recording his speeches, and Anarchy writhing in chains. The inscription runs thus :

This monument is erected by Parliament to William Pitt, son of William Earl of Chatham, in testimony of gratitude for the eminent public services, and of regret for the irreparable loss of that great and disinterested minister. He died

January 23

, 1806, in the

forty-seventh

year of his age.

[extra_illustrations.3.416.1] , yet only spectators were admitted within the walls of the Abbey on the occasion. Cyrus Redding was of the favoured few: he thus describes the funeral:--

The procession came in at the great west entrance, having crossed the way from the Painted Chamber in the

House of Lords

, where the body had lain in state. It passed between

two

lines of Foot Guards. The spectators were ranged on a scaffolding covered with black. Muffled drums, with fifes, announced the entrance of the procession, in which were a number of distinguished persons-princes of the blood, statesmen, and fellow-ministers of the deceased.

Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, read the service, standing by the side of the vault. The princes were in their royal robes. When the service was over, many advanced to look into the vault. The Dukes of York and Cumberland were among the number, and Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards Liverpool) took a glance, standing on the opposite side to where I and my fair companion were similarly occupied. The procession re-formed and took its leave; we stayed some time longer. The scene was novel. I could not help fixing my eyes, as long as I remained, upon the coffin of Lord Chatham, beneath whose monument we were standing. I thought of the share he had filled in a brilliant part of our history, and the mighty events he had influenced, for he was a great favourite in my youthful reading. The son became lost in the recollection of the father. Lady Chatham and a daughter lay in the same vault, on the verge of which, at the funeral, sat, as the nearest relative to the deceased, Pitt's brother, the

late

Earl of Chatham, as he was called, a nickname acquired from his going into his office when half the business of the day was over, his nights being devoted to play. He now lies in the same vault, memorable alone for his incapacity in the command of the unfortunate Walcheren expedition. Pitt was colonel of the Cinque Ports Volunteers, and hence his military funeral. The crowd outside the Abbey bandied jokes. They said that he was buried in military array lest his remains should be insulted. Lord Chatham's coffin, so it was reported, was found on its side when the vault was opened. This was

attributed by some to the influx of the Thames, which had covered the vault with slime, but could hardly have overturned a heavy leaden coffin.

Not far from the monument of Pitt sleeps his great rival and opponent in the , [extra_illustrations.3.417.1] , a man of whom, with all his personal faults, the nation may well feel proud. Cyrus Redding, in his

Fifty

Years' Reminiscences,

I saw the obsequies of Fox, a walking funeral from the

Stable Yard

, St. James's, by

Pall Mall

and

Charing Cross

, lines of volunteers

en haye

, keeping the ground. I recollect the Whig Club among the followers, and a large body of the electors of

Westminster

, with the cabinet council, but no royalty, for which some kind of excuse was made. Literally the tears of the crowd incensed the bier of Fox. The affection displayed by the people was extraordinary; I saw men crying like children.

It is impossible not to be struck with the proximity of Pitt's monument to that of Fox, and not to call to mind the touching lines of Sir Walter Scott on these eminent statesmen :

The mighty chiefs sleep side by side;

Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,

'Twill trickle to his rival's bier.

of the most curious monuments, perhaps, in the Abbey is that near the cloister door, in the south aisle of the nave. It commemorates Vice- Admiral Richard Tyrrell, commander of the , who died in , whilst on his return to England from the Leeward Islands, after an engagement with the French. His body, the inscription informs us,

according to his own desire, was committed to the sea, with proper honours and ceremonies.

To comprehend this monument,

the spectator must suppose himself in a diving-bell at the bottom of the sea. When he has shaken off the terrors of his situation he will find on his right hand the

Buckinghamr, of

sixty-six

guns, jammed in a bed of coral. Directly before him he will perceive a figure pointing to a spot on a globe, either intending to show where the deceased body was committed to the deep, or the latitude where an action, mentioned in the inscription, was fought.

In the south aisle of the nave is the monument erected to William Congreve, the dramatist, by Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, his relations with whom while alive, coupled with the fact of his leaving her a legacy of , have been made the subject of many scandalous surmises. To this fact Horace Walpole alludes in of his

Letters :

When the younger Duchess (of Marlborough) exposed herself by placing a monument and silly epitaph of her own composing and bad spelling to Congreve in

Westminster Abbey

, her mother, quoting the words, said, I know not what pleasure she might have had in his company, but I am sure it was no honour.

Near the monument of Congreve is buried the celebrated actress, Mrs. Oldfield, if we may believe her maid,

in a very fine Brussells' lace headdress, a Holland shift with a tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, a pair of new kid gloves, and her body wrapped up in a winding-sheet.

Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke!

Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.

No; let a charming chintz and Brussels' lace

Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face:

One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead,

And-Betty, give this cheek a little red!

If penance in the Bishop's Court be feared,

Congreve, and Craggs, and Oldfield will be scared

To find that at the Resurrection Day

They all so near the consistory lay.

The Craggs mentioned in this verse was a man of low extraction, being only a shoemaker's son; but he nevertheless rose to a high and honourable position in the State. He was made Secretary for War in , and soon afterwards a member of the Privy Council. The epitaph on his monument, written by Pope, runs as follows :

Statesman, yet friend to truth, of soul sincere,

In action faithful, and in honour clear ;

Who broke no promise, served no private end,

Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend.

Ennobled by himself, by all approved,

Praised, wept, and honour'd by the muse he loved.

To any who knows anything of the history of the South Sea scheme, and of Mr. Secretary Craggs' connection with it, we are afraid these lines will be considered as over-rating his merits. It will be remembered that Craggs died somewhat suddenly and conveniently, professedly of the small-pox, immediately on the bursting of the South Sea bubble.

Close by the south-west corner of the Abbey is a statue of William Wordsworth, placed here by the friends and admirers of the poet. Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, Westmoreland, in o. The statue, executed byThrupp, represents the poet in a meditative attitude; and the quiet and secluded spot in which it is placed, apart from the crowd, and in a peaceful retirement of its own, harmonise with, and are expressive of, the tranquil tenor of his life, and the thoughtful, sublime, and philosophic character of his works. The place which has been thus happily selected for the statue is the Baptistry, in the centre of which is the font. In allusion to this circumstance the following sonnet from Wordsworth's poems (

Ecclesiastical Sonnets,

Blest be the Church, that watching o'er the needs

Of infancy, provides a timely shower

Whose virtue changes to a Christian flower,

A growth from sinful Nature's bed of weeds!

Fitliest beneath the sacred roof proceeds

The ministration; while parental Love

Looks on, and grace descendeth from above,

As the high service pledges now, now pleads.

There, should vain thoughts outspread their wings and fly

To meet the coming hours of festal mirth,

The tombs--which hear and answer that brief cry,

The infant's notice of his second birth-

Recall the wandering soul to sympathy,

With what man hopes from heaven yet fears from earth.

The gallery high up in the southern wall, near the Baptistry, was erected for the accommodation of the Royal Family to view the procession of the Knights of the Bath, on the occasions when their installation took place here. The procession entered at Poets' Corner, and proceeded round the west end, and up the [extra_illustrations.3.414.3] , into Henry VII.'s Chapel, where the ceremony was performed; as we shall notice more particularly in speaking of that part of the building.

Robert Stephenson, the eminent engineer, who died in 1859, is commemorated by a brass figure of life-size, in the floor of the nave, in addition to which is an elaborate painted window illustrative of his fertile genius. Sir Charles Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament, also lies in the centre of the nave; his grave is covered by a slab of black Irish marble, inlaid with brass, bearing his name and the date of his death, and it is appropriately engraved with a representation of the Victoria Tower and the ground-plan of the Houses of Parliament.

In the early spring of the year the body of Mr. George Peabody, the philanthropist, who bequeathed a large share of his wealth for the purpose of improving the homes of the working classes in this metropolis, was laid in a temporary resting-place in the nave, until arrangements could be made for its transfer to America. A suitable inscription marks the spot where the body rested.

He was a man,

who taught us in this commercial age, which has witnessed the building up of so many colossal fortunes, at once the noblest and most needful of all lessons; he has shown us all how a man can be the master of his wealth instead of being its slave.

In the summer of a grave was opened in the centre of the nave of the venerable Abbey to receive the body of [extra_illustrations.3.418.7] , the African explorer and missionary. He had died in the centre of that continent nearly a year before, but his body had been embalmed by friendly hands, and was brought back to England in order to receive the honour of a public funeral. A slab with a suitable inscription was placed over his remains about months afterwards. In the spring of , Sir Charles Lyell, the most famous of geologists, was buried in the north aisle of the nave, the body being followed to the grave by a large concourse of the most eminent scientific men of the day.

The [extra_illustrations.3.418.8]  is used only for the special [extra_illustrations.3.418.9] . It is composed of variegated marble, interspersed with rich foliage, and some very tasteful mosaic; around it are the figures of St. Paul, St. Peter, and the Evangelists, and in front, in a medallion, is a head of the Saviour crowned with thorns. An inscription sets forth that

this pulpit is presented to the Dean and Chapter of

Westminster

by a few friends in grateful commemoration of the opening of the nave for public worship and preaching, in January, I

858

.

High Days and Holy Days,

We may perhaps be pardoned for ending this chapter by recording here the bitter sarcasm contained in Pope's well-known epitaph headed

One

who would

not

be buried in the Abbey:

Heroes and kings, your distance keep!

In peace let one poor poet sleep,

Who never flattered folks like you!

Let Horace blush, and Virgil too.

[] Plan of Westminster Abbey

[] The exterior view of the Abbey

[extra_illustrations.3.412.2] The west front

[] Interior

[] Islip's Architectural Memorial

[extra_illustrations.3.413.2] northern transept

[extra_illustrations.3.414.1] The nave

[extra_illustrations.3.414.2] long side-aisles

[extra_illustrations.3.416.1] Though a public funeral was voted to Pitt

[extra_illustrations.3.417.1] Charles James Fox

[extra_illustrations.3.417.2] The monument of Fox

[] Stanley, who found Livingstone

[] Ancient Shields in the South and North Aisles

[extra_illustrations.3.414.3] north aisle

[] Funeral of Robert Stephenson

[extra_illustrations.3.418.7] David Livingstone

[extra_illustrations.3.418.8] pulpit in the nave

[extra_illustrations.3.418.9] Sunday evening services