Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault The pealing organ swells the notes of praise.-Gray's Elegy.

We now pass on eastwards, turning our backs on the great western entrance, on our way to that portion of the sacred edifice which forms the cross, and find ourselves confronted by a screen. This screen, separating the nave from the choir, was designed by Mr. Blore, the architect to the Abbey, and erected in . It serves as the organgallery; the organ itself, however, is so placed between the columns at the sides that the view of the interior from end to end is in no way obstructed. pilasters with decorated finials divide the screen into compartments, the centre for the gate of entrance to the choir from the nave, the other contain the monuments of Earl Stanhope and Sir Isaac Newton. On each of the pilasters are projecting pedestals, which support the figures of Henry III. and his queen, Edward the Confessor and his queen, and Edward I. and his queen.

Here the body of the great [extra_illustrations.3.419.1] , having lain in state in the Jerusalem Chamber for days previously, was deposited in .

Every honour,

was paid to his remains; the pall was supported by

six

peers.

Divinity,

Chronology,

Optics,

Phil. Prin. Math.,

How much reason mortals have to pride themselves in the existence of such and so great an ornament to the human race!

In [extra_illustrations.3.419.3] , close by the [extra_illustrations.3.419.4] , is a monument to Thomas Thynne, Esq., of Longleat, in the county of Wilts, who was barbarously murdered while riding in his coach, in , in , by hired assassins, at the instigation of an infamous foreigner, Count Koningsmark, from motives of jealousy. The monument is of a very sensational character, considering the place in which it is erected, displaying a representation of the tragic scene, with its surroundings, in bold relief. The coach, the coachman, servants and their wigs, the horses, and the bystanders are apparently drawn to the very life.

The story of Thynne's assassination runs as follows. The murder was stimulated by a desire on the count's part to obtain in marriage the Lady Elizabeth Percy, the rich heiress of the Earl of Northumberland. The lady in her infancy had been betrothed to the Earl of Ogle, only son of the Duke of Newcastle, but was left a widow before the marriage was consummated. She was soon afterwards married to Mr. Thomas Thynne, who, from his large income, was called

Tom of

Ten Thousand

;

[extra_illustrations.3.420.1] , in the south aisle of the choir, consists of a recumbent figure of the admiral lying under a tent, and beneath it, in bas-relief, is a representation of the wreck of the , in which he lost his life. The inscription tells us that

he was deservedly beloved by his country, and esteemed, though dreaded, by the enemy, who had often experienced

West Front Of Westminster Abbey, From Tothill Street.

his conduct and courage. Being shipwrecked on the rocks of Scilly, in his voyage from Toulon,

October 22, 1707

, at night, in the

fifty-seventh

year of his age, his fate was lamented by all, but especially by the seafaring part of the nation, to whom he was a generous patron and a worthy example. His body was flung on the shore, and buried with others on the sand; but being soon after taken up was placed under this monument, which his royal mistress had caused to be erected, to commemorate his steady loyalty and extraordinary virtues.

A story is told which illustrates the personal bravery of Sir Cloudesley Shovel. When a boy in the navy, under the patronage of Sir John Narborough, hearing that admiral express an earnes

Occasionally epigrams and witticisms relating to current events have been wafered or pasted on to some of the monuments and statues in the Abbey, though the practice has never reached the dignity of a custom here, as in the case of the well-known Pasquin statue at Rome, which gave rise to the Word

pasquinade.

The following lines were written and wafered up against Major Andre's monument, after its having been defaced, &c., by knocking off the nands and heads of some of the figures :

King Henry VII.'s Chapel.

Forbear rash mortals, nor with brutal rage Deface this noble monumental page; Let the just marble future ages tell Britannia mourn'd when her brave hero fell.

[extra_illustrations.3.421.1]  was buried in the south aisle, and the monument referred to in the above lines was erected at the express command of George III. On it is represented a soldier carrying a flag of truce, and presenting to George Washington a letter which Andre had addressed to his Excellency the night previous to his execution. It may be added here, in justification of the lines quoted above, that the present is the head placed on the figure of General Washington, and that several of the others are new, the originals, which are stated to have been exceedingly well executed, having entirely disappeared.

Immediately beneath the organ-loft, in the north aisle, is the tomb of the last representative of the Carteret family-Sir Charles, who died in .

All the above lie buried in the vault of their relative, General George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, K.G.; and this record is inscribed by order of their descendant and inheritor, the subdean of this collegiate church, A.D.

1869

.

In the north aisle of the choir are appropriately deposited the remains of several men, who in their time achieved celebrity as musicians or composers, many of whom were organists of this church; among them are Dr. Samuel Arnold, Dr. Burney, Dr. Blow, Dr. Croft, Henry Purcell, and, lastly, Sir William Sterndale Bennett.

We now pass into [extra_illustrations.3.422.1] , remarking only that the style of architecture adopted for its fittings, though of recent date, is a copy of that which prevailed in the reign of Edward III. It was designed by Mr. Blore, and executed in . The dean's and sub-dean's stalls are on either side of the iron gate, in the centre of the screen, and are alike in general design; that of the dean, however, is more elaborately treated in its ornamental details. The canons' stalls have groined canopies springing from slender moulded shafts with carved capitals, and are separated by buttresses terminating in pinnacles. The fronts of the pews and the ornamental accessories of the stalls are carved to represent the foliage of vine, ivy, oak, willow, &c:

The organ formerly stood in the centre of the screen, and consequently obstructed the view down the whole length of the building, but this very objectionable arrangement was altered in the year . It is now divided into distinct portions, the principal of which are under the arches, at the north and south ends of the screen. Each part of the organ, however, is so connected by a nice mechanical contrivance that they are all brought under the command of the performer.

The marble pavement of the floor, in lozenges of black and white, was given by Dr. Busby, who died in I, and whose tomb is in the south transept. Dr. Busby was the celebrated prebendary of , and master of the school, whose rigid discipline has, to a great extent, caused his name to be handed down to posterity.

But it was not only as a schoolmaster that Dr. Busby's name is celebrated; he has come down to modern times as associated with the wig which bore, and perhaps still bears, his name. But this derivation will hardly stand. A

busby,

buzz

busby

The sacrarium is reached by an ascent of or steps. Here the pavement is an elaborate piece of mosaic. It was the work of Abbot Ware, and was laid in . The lower dais of the altar and sedilia is formed of stones of various colours, and laid in rich and varied patterns; and the steps are of Purbeck marble. On the south side hangs a whole-length portrait of Richard II. This picture hung for many years in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was exhibited at the National Portrait Exhibition at South Kensington. It has been discovered that the original portrait was subsequently covered by successive coatings of paint, so laid on as not only to obscure, but materially to alter the drawing, and to disguise the character of the original picture. This mask of paint was removed in , and the real old picture painted in tempera, and apparently from the life, revealed underneath it in an almost perfect state of preservation. Mr. George Scharf, the Secretary of the National Portrait Gallery, in writing to the respecting this interesting discovery, observes :--

Instead of a large, coarse, heavy-toned figure, with very dark, solid shadows, strongly-marked eyebrows, and a confident expression (almost amounting to a stare) about the darkbrown sparkling eyes, we now have a delicate, pale picture; carefully modelled forms, with a placid and almost sad expression of countenance; grey eyes, partially lost under heavy lids; pale yellow eyebrows, and golden-brown hair. These latter

points fully agree with the king's profile, in the well-known little tempera Diptytch at Wilton, belonging to the Earl of Pembroke. The long thin nose accords with the bronze effigy of the king in

Westminster Abbey

; whilst the mouth, hitherto smiling and ruddy, has become delicate, but weak, and drooping in a curve, as if drawn down by sorrowful anticipations even in the midst of pageantry. Upon the face there is a preponderance of shadow, composed of soft brown tones, such as are observable in early Italian paintings of the Umbrian and Sienese schools executed at a corresponding period. Indeed, the general appearance of the picture now forcibly recalls the productions of Simone Memmi, Taddeo Bartoli, Gritto da Fabriano, and Spinello Aretino; but more especially those of their works which have suffered under a similar infliction of coatings of whitewash or plasterings of modern paint. Many alterations seem to have been made by the restorer in various parts of this figure of King Richard, and well-devised folds of drapery quite destroyed through ignorance. The position of the little finger of his left hand, holding the sceptre, was found to have been materially altered. The letters R, surmounted by a crown, strewn over his blue robe, were changed in shape, and the dark spots on his broad ermine cape were distorted from their primitively simple tapering forms into strange twisted masses of heavy black paint. The globe held in his right hand, and covered with some very inappropriate acanthus leaves, was at once found to be false, and beneath it was laid bare a slightly convex disc of plain gold, very highly burnished. This, however, was not an original part of the picture. A plain flat globe with its delicate gilding was found still lower: and it was then ascertained that the head of the sceptre and the crown on his head had in like manner been loaded with gold and polished. Beneath these masses of solid burnished gilding, bearing false forms and ornaments unknown to the

fourteenth

century, was found the original Gothic work, traced with a free brush in beautiful foliage upon the genuine gold surface lying upon the gesso preparation spread over the panel itself, and constituting a perfectly different: crown as well as heading to the sceptre from those hitherto seen. The singular device of a fir cone on the summit of the sceptre has disappeared entirely. The diaper, composed of a raised pattern, decorating the background, coated over with a coarse bronze powder, and not even gilded, was found to be a false addition. It was moulded in composition or cement, possibly as early as the reign of the Tudors. Not only did it stand condemned in itself by clumsiness of workmanship and a reckless fitting together ol the component parts, but it was found to have extensively overlaid some of the most beautiful foliage and pieces of ornamentation. The picture is painted on oak, composed of

six

planks joined vertically, but so admirably bound together as to appear

one

solid mass. The back is quite plain.

From a MS. note in a copy of the authorised Guide belonging to a former verger, we glean the following particulars with regard to this historical portrait:--

There was formerly placed near the pulpit an ancient portrait of Richard II., sitting in a gilt chair, dressed in a green vest flowered, with gold; with gold shoes ornamented with pearls. This piece, which is

6

feet

11

inches in length, and

3

feet

7

inches in breadth, was removed on the new fittingup of the choir, to the Jerusalem Chamber, where the Dean, &c., meet to transact business. The lower part,

is somewhat defaced.

Of this picture Pennant, writing in , observes that

after the test of near

four hundred

years it is in the highest preservation, and not less remarkable for the elegance of the colouring than for the excellent drawing, considering the early age of the performance. We must allow it has been repainted, but nothing seems altered, if we may collect from the print made by Vertue, excepting a correction of the site of the cross issuing out of the globe. The background is elevated above the figure, of an uneven surface, and gilt. The curious will find in the

first

volume of Mr. Walpole's Anecdotes, an ingenious conjecture as to the method of painting in that early period, which has given such amazing duration to the labours of its artists.

On the sides of the altar are the curious and interesting monuments of King Sebert; Ann of Cleves, wife of Henry VIII.; Aveling, Countess of Lancaster; Aymer de Valence; and Edmund Crouchback.

[extra_illustrations.3.423.1] , which was put up in , was designed and executed under the superintendence of Sir G. Gilbert Scott. It is chiefly composed of white and coloured alabaster, combined with a reddish spar. It consists of a facade occupying the whole space between main pillars, having doors, on each side, giving access to the shrine of Edward the Confessor behind. The doorways are arched and richly moulded. On either side of each door is a large canopied niche with pedestal, and containing statues of Moses, St. Peter, St. Luke, and King David; and on the inner side of each large niche are smaller ones, placed vertically. These niches are all most elaborately enriched with tabernacle work, groined and surrounded with pierced tracery and carved work, and

During the exploration necessitated by laying the new flooring in front of the altar, there were discovered on the north side, about feet below the pavement, the bases of piers which formed part of the old abbey of Edward the Confessor. They are of early Norman character, and, from their position, it is presumed that that early structure was nearly equal in size to the present fabric. Means have been adopted by which these remains have been so covered with the pavement that they can be easily uncovered and exposed to view. Dugdale tells us, on the authority of of the early writers, that the church, as rebuilt by Edward the Confessor, was finished in a few years, and that

it was supported by many pillars and arches.

The principal area or nave of the church stood on lofty arches of hewn stone, jointed together in the nicest manner, and the vault was covered with a strong double arched roof of stone on both sides. The cross which embraced the choir, and by its transept supported a high tower in the middle, rose

first

with a low strong arch, and then swelled out with several winding staircases, to the single wall, up to the wooden roof, which was carefully covered with lead.

The solemn office of crowning and enthroning the sovereigns or England takes place in the centre of the sacrarium; and beneath the lantern or central tower, on a raised dais, is placed the throne at which the peers do homage. The details of these interesting ceremonies we have already given (pages to ).

Passing into the north transept, we are forcibly reminded by many of the monuments we see around us of the truth of the remarks made by a writer in the :

From

St. Stephen's

to

Westminster Abbey

the distance is short, but the road is difficult; and those who have traced it gloriously, led on by genius, and supported by principle, sleep calmly the sleep of death, unmoved by all that could once animate their glowing souls, within a few paces of the scene of their past triumphs. What a contrast between the scene of turmoil and worldly cares before us--the passionstirring harangues and the angry rejoinders-and the awful silence of the house of God, where reposes all that was earthly of those deathless souls!

Here, almost side by side, rest the ashes of George Canning, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Pitt, Fox, and Grattan. Richard Cobden, who was buried in at West Lavington, in Sussex, is here commemorated by a bust; as is also the late Earl of Aberdeen. The latter, which is said to be a faithful representation of the deceased statesman, was executed by Mr. Matthew Noble. The following is the inscription on the bust :--

George Gordon

,

fourth

Earl of Aberdeen, K.T., K.G. Born

January 28, 1784

; died

December 14, 1860

. Ambassador, Secretary of State, Prime Minister.

Near the north doorway is [extra_illustrations.3.424.1]  on the , a few hours after being seized with a fit whilst speaking in his place as a peer in the in reply to the Duke of Richmond on the inexpediency of carrying on the American war.

The statue to the Earl of Chatham was erected by a special vote of the public money, at the cost of . Cowper makes the following allusion to it in

The Task :

Bacon there

Gives more than female beauty to a stone,

And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips.

Erected by the King and Parliament as a testimony to the virtues and abilities of

William Pitt

, Earl of Chatham, during whose administration Divine Providence exalted Great

Britain

to an height of prosperity and glory unknown to any former age.

Close by the statue of Canning are magnificent monuments to the old Dukes of Newcastle. The is that of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and his duchess, Margaret, youngest sister of Lord Lucas. This duchess, as we learn from the inscription,

was a wise, witty, and learned lady, which her many books do well testify; she was a most virtuous, loving, and careful wife, and was with her lord all the time of his banishment and miseries; and when he came home, never parted from him in his solitary retirements.

The lancet windows in the north transept are filled with stained glass to the memory of Major- General Sir H. W. Barnard and others who

died in the service of the Queen and their country in India,

Crossing to the south [extra_illustrations.3.425.4] , or, as it is now popularly and most appropriately called,

Poets' Corner

,

That to the memory of Garrick represents the great actor throwing aside a curtain, which reveals a medallion of Shakespeare, allegorically indicating the power he possessed of unveiling the beauties of the

bard of all time.

Mr. J. T. Smith, in his

Book for a Rainy Day,

For the information of the sons of Phidias, I beg to observe that David Garrick is now on his way to pay his respects to the gentlemen in Poets' Corner; I left him just as he was quitting the boards of the

Adelphi

.

I begged of my father, who then carved for Mr. Nollekens, to allow me to go to

Charing Cross

, to see the funeral of Garrick pass. There was a great crowd. I was there in a few minutes, followed him to the Abbey, heard the service, and saw him buried.

William Camden, the eminent antiquary, who died in , is commemorated by a half-length figure, in the dress of his time, holding in his left hand a book, and in his right his gloves, resting on an altar, on the front of which is an inscription setting forth his

indefatigable industry in illustrating our British antiquities, and his candour, sincerity, and pleasant good. humour in private life.

alluding, perhaps,

to the malice and envy of his contemporaries.

A Choice Collection of Poetry, most carefully collected from Original Manuscripts, by Joseph Yarrow, Comedian, York,

On Ben Jonson's Bust. with the Buttons on the Wrong Side.

O rare Ben Jonson! what a turn-coat grown?

Thou ne'er wore such 'til thou wast clad in stone;

When Time thy coat, thy only coat impairs,

Thou'lt find a patron in an hundred years;

Let not then this mistake disturb thy sprite,

Another age shall set thy buttons right.

This great dramatist and contemporary of Shakespeare was buried in the north aisle, and on a plain stone over his grave are to be seen the words

O! rare Ben Jonson

Jack Young.

Life of Ben Jonson,

The smallness of the surface occupied by the

Handel's Monument.

gravestone is explained by the fact that the coffin was deposited in an upright position, possibly . to diminish the fee by economy of space. The tradition that Jonson had been interred in such a manner was generally discredited until the grave was opened a few years ago, when the remains of the poet were found in an erect posture.

Allen, in his

History of London and

Westminster

,

O! rare Sir William Davenant.

Shakespeare himself does not lie here, as everybody knows; there is, nevertheless, a monument to him in Poets' Corner. Pericles has told us many centuries ago, that

the whole earth is a monument of men of genius;

My Shakespear, rise; I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont hie

A little further off to make thee room:

Thou art a monument without a tomb.

[extra_illustrations.3.428.1]  was erected by Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, who had refused to aid the poet in his lifetime, thereby giving point to the satiric assertion of Pope, that--

He help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve.

Bishop Atterbury thus writes to Pope on this subject :--

What do you think of some such short inscription as this in Latin, which may, in a few words, say all that is to be said of Dryden, and yet nothing more than he deserves?-

Johanni Drydeno, cvi poesis Anglicana vim svam ac veneres debet, et siqva in postervm avgebitvr lavde, est adhvc debitvra, honoris ergo,

&c. To show you that I am as much in earnest in the affair as you yourself, something I will send you too of this kind in English. If your design holds of fixing Dryden's name only below, and his busto above, may not lines like these be grav'd under the name?

This Sheffield rais'd, to Dryden's ashes just; Here fix'd his name, and there his laurel'd bust. What else the Muse in marble might express, Is known already; praise would make him less.

Or thus :--

More needs not; where acknowledg'd merits reign, Praise is impertinent, and censure vain.

[extra_illustrations.3.428.2]  is the last which Roubiliac lived to complete. It is affirmed that the sculptor became conspicuous, and afterwards finished the exercise of his art, through working on the figure of this extraordinary musician. The statue of Handel upon his monument is considered very elegant and life-like. The left arm is resting on a group of musical instruments, and the attitude is expressive of great attention to the harmony of an angel playing on a harp in the clouds overhead.

Milton and Gray, though both are interred elsewhere, have each a monument here erected to their memory. That to the former was executed by Rysbrack, and has under the bust simply the name

Milton.

In the year of our Lord Christ

one thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven

, this bust of the author of Paradise Lost was placed here by William Benson, Esq.,

one

of the

two

auditors of the imprests to his Majesty King George II., formerly Surveyor-General of the Works to his Majesty King George I.

The monument erected to the memory of Gray consists of an alto-relievo of the Lyric Muse holding a medallion bust of the poet, and at the same time pointing a finger to the bust of Milton, which is immediately above it. The memorial, which was the work of John Bacon, the sculptor, bears the following lines :

No more the Grecian Muse unrivall'd reigns To Britain let the nations homage pay; She felt a Homer's fire in Milton's strains, A Pindar's rapture in the lyre of Gray. Died July 30, 1771, aged 54.

The stately monument of Matthew Prior, close by, is a sarcophagus surmounted by a bust and pediment. On side of the pedestal stands the figure of Thalia, with a flute in her hand, and on the other side History, with her book shut. From the Latin inscription we learn that while Prior

was busied in writing the history of his own times, Death interposed and broke the thread of his discourse and of his life,

September 18, 1721

, in the

fifty-seventh

year of his age.

With reference to Prior's funeral Dr. Atterbury thus writes to Pope:--

I had not strength enough to attend Mr. Prior to his grave, else I would have done it, to have showed his friends that I had forgot and forgiven what he wrote on me. He is buried, as he desired, at the feet of Spenser, and I will take care to make good in every respect what I said to him when living, particularly as to the triplet he wrote for his own epitaph, which, while we were in good terms, I promised him should never appear on his tomb while I was Dean of

Westminster

.

It was Matthew Prior by whom the celebrated epigram and epitaph in was written:--

Nobles and heralds, by your leave, Here lies what once was Matthew Prior, The son of Adam and Eve :-- Can Bourbon or Nassau go higher?

Old Parr,

Charles Dickens, born

February 7th, 1812

, died

June 9th, 1870

.

the greatest instructor of the

nineteenth

century,

Not merely thine the tribute praise Which greets an author's progress here; Not merely thine the fabled bays Whose verdure brightens his career; Thine the pure triumph to have taught Thy brother-man a gentle part, In every line of fervent thought Which gushes from thy generous heart: For thine are words which rouse up all The dormant good among us found- Like drops which from a fountain fall To bless and fertilise the ground!

It was at intended that [extra_illustrations.3.429.1]  should have been buried in Rochester Cathedral, in accordance with the instructions contained in his will; but the voice of the nation was allowed to prevail over his own expressed wish, and very early on Tuesday, the , he was laid to his rest in Poets' Corner.

Next to him lies Richard Cumberland; Mrs. Pritchard's monument looks down upon him, and immediately behind is David Garrick's. Nor is the actor's delightful art more worthily represented than the nobler genius of the author. Facing the grave, and on its right and left, are the monuments of Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Dryden, the

three

immortals who did most to create and settle the language to which Charles Dickens has given an undying name.

of this funeral we may add that Mr. B. Jerrold tells us that he met Charles Dickens about a month before his death at , and had a long chat with him about old friends, and Gustave Dore, and London-

a subject which no

one

ever knew half so well as himself, in all its highways and byways

turned wearily towards the Abbey.

I never, however, for

one

moment, dreamed,

that within a month he would be resting there for ever, buried under flowers cast by loving hands, and that the whole civilised world would be lamenting the loss of the great and good Englishman.

Lord Shelburne, afterwards the Marquis of Lansdowne, in a letter on sepulchral monuments in general, addressed to the committee for erecting a memorial to John Howard, the philanthropist, expresses a hope that may be preserved from becoming disfigured after the manner of by absurd and inappropriate sculpture.

It would be not only invidious,

but unfair to criticise the several monuments in

Westminster Abbey

; but let any person of the least feeling, not to mention taste or art, divest his mind of prejudice, and he must find himself more interested in viewing the single statue erected by Mr. Horace Walpole to his mother, Lady Orford, than with any of the piles erected to great men.

The fulsome expressions which are to be read upon most of the monuments here are enough to make wish for a return to the simplicity of the old Roman inscriptions, and to provoke others besides children, as they look around, to ask,

But where are the bad people?

Anecdotes of his Own Times,

The dean and prebendaries of

Westminster

sell the sacred ground to any persons who think proper to purchase it; no objection is made to the quality or character of those to whom a monument is to be erected under this holy roof; the peer and the player, the chaste and the unchaste, are here deposited without distinction. But if you examine their characters here engraven on the monumental marble, you will not find

one

person amongst them all who, when living, had not been endowed with the most eminent qualities both of body and mind. General , who rose to his high post by such arts as are a disgrace to human nature, appears in

Westminster Abbey

to have possessed as great talents and as many virtues as Scipio Africanus.

It is to be hoped that, at all events, in recent times, so severe and caustic a remark has not been deserved by the Chapter of ; indeed, we may safely say that the great and celebrated men who lately have been buried in the Abbey were men of whom England and English society may well be proud.

The monument to Goldsmith (who lies buried elsewhere) is of interest, on account of its connection with the name of Dr. Johnson. It was at intended that this great essayist and master of the English tongue, who wanted but common prudence in order to have made of the finest of

Deserted Village

Vicar of Wakefield,

Spenser lies here, not far from Chaucer. The short but beautiful inscription on his monument runs thus :

Here lies, expecting the

second

coming of our Saviour Jesus Christ, the body of Edmund Spenser, the prince of poets in his time, whose divine spirit needs no other witness than the works which he left behind him.

Gentle Willy (as Spenser himself styles Shakespeare), we may be tolerably sure,

was among those mourners.

As for Chaucer, the same author observes with much justice and beauty,

like the fabled swan, he may be said to have literally died singing, for among his works we find A Ballad made by Geoffrey Chaucer upon his death-bed,

lying in his great anguish.

Chaucer was buried in the cloisters of the Abbey, outside the building itself, put his remains were removed into the south transept in The tomb has been much defaced, but still exhibits traces of its former magnificence. It is an altartomb within a recess, and is surmounted by an elaborate canopy. In a memorial window was set up immediately above the tomb. The design is intended to embody his intellectual labours and his position amongst his contemporaries. At the base are the Canterbury Pil-] grims, showing the setting out from London and the arrival at Canterbury. The medallions above represent Chaucer receiving a commission, with others, in , from King Edward III. to the Doge of Genoa, and his reception by the latter. At the top the subjects are taken from the poem entitled

The Floure and the Leafe.

Geoffrey Chaucer, died A.D.

1400

,

Balade of Gode Counsaile:

Flee fro the prees, and dwell with soth-fastnesse, Suffise unto thy good though it be small ;

That thee is sent receyve in buxomnesse; The wrestling for this world asketh a fall.

Poets' Corner, however, as our readers will already perhaps have noticed, is not confined to poets alone, but includes those who have courted other muses besides the muse of song. Divines, philosophers, actors, musicians, dramatists, architects, and critics, each and all have found a last resting-place in this part of the Abbey. Here, for instance, lies Dr. Isaac Barrow, whose life justifies the inscription which speaks of him as

a man almost divine and truly great, if greatness be comprised in piety, probity, and faith, the deepest learning, equal modesty and morals, in every respect sanctified and sweet.

unfair

Poets' Corner!

We could wish most heartily,

we knew the name of him who

first

gave this appellation to the south transept of the old Abbey, and thus helped, most probably, to make it what it is, the richest little spot the earth possesses in its connection with the princes of song. Such a man ought himself to have a monument among them. Though he may never have written a line, we could almost venture to assert he must have had a kindred spirit to those who lie buried there, so exquisitely applicable is his phrase, so felicitously illustrative of the poet

who, with all his exhaustion of old worlds and creation of new, is generally most deeply attached to some of the smallest corners of that on which he moves. . . . In a word, we might have sought in vain for any other appellation that would have expressed with equal force the

home

feeling with which we desire, however unconsciously, to invest this abode of our dead poets, or that would have harmonised so finely with our mingled sentiments of affection and reverence for their memory.

It may be well here to quote the sober and touching reflections of Addison upon this sacred spot:--

When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow. When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some

six hundred

years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries and make our appearance together.

[extra_illustrations.3.419.1] Sir Isaac Newton

[extra_illustrations.3.419.2] The monument

[extra_illustrations.3.419.3] the south aisle

[extra_illustrations.3.419.4] choir-screen

[extra_illustrations.3.420.1] The monument of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel

[extra_illustrations.3.421.1] Major Andre

[extra_illustrations.3.422.1] the choir

[extra_illustrations.3.423.1] The reredos

[extra_illustrations.3.424.1] the monument to William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, who died

[] Royal Academy clipping, 1784

[] Choir passing into Choir

[] From Poet's Corner across Choir

[] Confirmation of Westminster Boys

[extra_illustrations.3.425.4] transept

[] Interior from Poet's Corner

[extra_illustrations.3.425.7] Dryden

[extra_illustrations.3.428.1] The monument to John Dryden

[extra_illustrations.3.428.2] Handel's monument

[] View of Orchestra, Organ, etc. for Commemoration of Handel

[extra_illustrations.3.429.1] Charles Dickens

[] Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit, nullum quod tetig non ornavit.