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Westminster Abbey
When I behold, with deep astonishment,
To famous Westminster how there resorte,
Living in brasse or stoney monument,
The princes and the worthies of all sorte;
Doe not I see reformde nobilitie,
Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation,
And looke upon offenselesse majesty,
Naked of pomp or earthly domination?
And how a play-game of a painted stone
Contents the quiet now and silent sprites,
Whome all the world which late they stood upon
Could not content nor quench their appetites.
Life is a frost of cold felicitie,
And death the thaw of all our vanitie.
CHRISTOLERO'S EPIGRAMS, BY T. B. 1598.
ON one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter
part of autumn when the shadows of morning and evening almost
mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline of the year,
I passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. There
was something congenial to the season in the mournful
magnificence of the old pile, and as I passed its threshold it
seemed like stepping back into the regions of antiquity and
losing myself among the shades of former ages.
I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, through a
long, low, vaulted passage that had an almost subterranean look,
being dimly lighted in one part by circular perforations in the
massive walls. Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of
the cloisters, with the figure of an old verger in his black gown
moving along their shadowy vaults, and seeming like a spectre
from one of the neighboring tombs. The approach to the abbey
through these gloomy monastic remains prepares the mind for its
solemn contemplation. The cloisters still retain something of the
quiet and seclusion of former days. The gray walls are discolored
by damps and crumbling with age; a coat of hoary moss has
gathered over the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and
obscured the death's heads and other funeral emblems. The sharp
touches of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the
arches; the roses which adorned the keystones have lost their
leafy beauty; everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidations
of time, which yet has something touching and pleasing in its
very decay.
The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of
the cloisters, beaming upon a scanty plot of grass in the centre,
and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of
dusky splendor. From between the arcades the eye glanced up to a
bit of blue sky or a passing cloud, and beheld the sun-gilt
pinnacles of the abbey towering into the azure heaven.
As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating this mingled
picture of glory and decay, and sometimes endeavoring to decipher
the inscriptions on the tombstones which formed the pavement
beneath my feet, my eye was attracted to three figures rudely
carved in relief, but nearly worn away by the footsteps of many
generations. They were the effigies of three of the early abbots;
the epitaphs were entirely effaced; the names alone remained,
having no doubt been renewed in later times (Vitalis. Abbas.
1082, and Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 1114, and Laurentius.
Abbas. 1176). I remained some little while, musing over these
casual relics of antiquity thus left like wrecks upon this
distant shore of time, telling no tale but that such beings had
been and had perished, teaching no moral but the futility of that
pride which hopes still to exact homage in its ashes and to live
in an inscription. A little longer, and even these faint records
will be obliterated and the monument will cease to be a memorial.
Whilst I was yet looking down upon the gravestones I was roused
by the sound of the abbey clock, reverberating from buttress to
buttress and echoing among the cloisters. It is almost startling
to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs
and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has
rolled us onward towards the grave. I pursued my walk to an
arched door opening to the interior of the abbey. On entering
here the magnitude of the building breaks fully upon the mind,
contrasted with the vaults of the cloisters. The eyes gaze with
wonder at clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches
springing from them to such an amazing height, and man wandering
about their bases, shrunk into insignificance in comparison with
his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast
edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously
and softly about, as if fearful of disturbing the hallowed
silence of the tomb, while every footfall whispers along the
walls and chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensible
of the quiet we have interrupted.
It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon
the soul and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence. We
feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of the great
men of past times, who have filled history with their deeds and
the earth with their renown.
And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human
ambition to see how they are crowded together and jostled in the
dust; what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook, a
gloomy corner, a little portion of earth, to those whom, when
alive, kingdoms could not satisfy, and how many shapes and forms
and artifices are devised to catch the casual notice of the
passenger, and save from forgetfulness for a few short years a
name which once aspired to occupy ages of the world's thought and
admiration.
I passed some time in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end of one
of the transepts or cross aisles of the abbey. The monuments are
generally simple, for the lives of literary men afford no
striking themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have
statues erected to their memories, but the greater part have
busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions.
Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always
observed that the visitors to the abbey remained longest about
them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold
curiosity or vague admiration with which they gaze on the
splendid monuments of the great and the heroic. They linger about
these as about the tombs of friends and companions, for indeed
there is something of companionship between the author and the
reader. Other men are known to posterity only through the medium
of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but
the intercourse between the author and his fellowmen is ever new,
active, and immediate. He has lived for them more than for
himself; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoyments, and shut
himself up from the delights of social life, that he might the
more intimately commune with distant minds and distant ages. Well
may the world cherish his renown, for it has been purchased not
by deeds of violence and blood, but by the diligent dispensation
of pleasure. Well may posterity be grateful to his memory, for he
has left it an inheritance not of empty names and sounding
actions, but whole treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought,
and golden veins of language.
From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll towards that part of the
abbey which contains the sepulchres of the kings. I wandered
among what once were chapels, but which are now occupied by the
tombs and monuments of the great. At every turn I met with some
illustrious name or the cognizance of some powerful house
renowned in history. As the eye darts into these dusky chambers
of death it catches glimpses of quaint effigies--some kneeling in
niches, as if in devotion; others stretched upon the tombs, with
hands piously pressed together; warriors in armor, as if reposing
after battle; prelates, with crosiers and mitres; and nobles in
robes and coronets, lying as it were in state. In glancing over
this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so
still and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a
mansion of that fabled city where every being had been suddenly
transmuted into stone.
I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of a
knight in complete armor. A large buckler was on one arm; the
hands were pressed together in supplication upon the breast; the
face was almost covered by the morion; the legs were crossed, in
token of the warrior's having been engaged in the holy war. It
was the tomb of a crusader, of one of those military enthusiasts
who so strangely mingled religion and romance, and whose exploits
form the connecting link between fact and fiction, between the
history and the fairytale. There is something extremely
picturesque in the tombs of these adventurers, decorated as they
are with rude armorial bearings and Gothic sculpture. They
comport with the antiquated chapels in which they are generally
found; and in considering them the imagination is apt to kindle
with the legendary associations, the romantic fiction, the
chivalrous pomp and pageantry which poetry has spread over the
wars for the sepulchre of Christ. They are the relics of times
utterly gone by, of beings passed from recollection, of customs
and manners with which ours have no affinity. They are like
objects from some strange and distant land of which we have no
certain knowledge, and about which all our conceptions are vague
and visionary. There is something extremely solemn and awful in
those effigies on Gothic tombs, extended as if in the sleep of
death or in the supplication of the dying hour. They have an
effect infinitely more impressive on my feelings than the
fanciful attitudes, the over wrought conceits, the allegorical
groups which abound on modern monuments. I have been struck,
also, with the superiority of many of the old sepulchral
inscriptions. There was a noble way in former times of saying
things simply, and yet saying them proudly; and I do not know an
epitaph that breathes a loftier consciousness of family worth and
honorable lineage than one which affirms of a noble house that
"all the brothers were brave and all the sisters virtuous."
In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner stands a monument which
is among the most renowned achievements of modern art, but which
to me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of
Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is
represented as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted
skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling from his
fleshless frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is
sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who strives with vain
and frantic effort to avert the blow. The whole is executed with
terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering
yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the spectre.
But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary
terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love?
The grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire
tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that might win the
living to virtue. It is the place not of disgust and dismay, but
of sorrow and meditation.
While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles,
studying the records of the dead, the sound of busy existence
from without occasionally reaches the ear--the rumbling of the
passing equipage, the murmur of the multitude, or perhaps the
light laugh of pleasure. The contrast is striking with the
deathlike repose around; and it has a strange effect upon the
feelings thus to hear the surges of active life hurrying along
and beating against the very walls of the sepulchre.
I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb and from chapel
to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away; the distant tread
of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent; the
sweet-tongued bell was summoning to evening prayers; and I saw at
a distance the choristers in their white surplices crossing the
aisle and entering the choir. I stood before the entrance to
Henry the Seventh's chapel. A flight of steps leads up to it
through a deep and gloomy but magnificent arch. Great gates of
brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily upon their
hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common
mortals into this most gorgeous of sepulchres.
On entering the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture and
the elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are
wrought into universal ornament encrusted with tracery, and
scooped into niches crowded with the statues of saints and
martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel, to have
been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft as if by
magic, and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful
minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.
Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights
of the Bath, richly carved of oak, though with the grotesque
decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of the
stalls are affixed the helmets and crests of the knights, with
their scarfs and swords, and above them are suspended their
banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the
splendor of gold and purple and crimson with the cold gray
fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum stands
the sepulchre of its founder--his effigy, with that of his queen,
extended on a sumptuous tomb--and the whole surrounded by a
superbly-wrought brazen railing.
There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence, this strange
mixture of tombs and trophies, these emblems of living and
aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust and
oblivion in which all must sooner or later terminate. Nothing
impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness than to
tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant.
On looking round on the vacant stalls of the knights and their
esquires, and on the rows of dusty but gorgeous banners that were
once borne before them, my imagination conjured up the scene when
this hall was bright with the valor and beauty of the land,
glittering with the splendor of jewelled rank and military array,
alive with the tread of many feet and the hum of an admiring
multitude. All had passed away; the silence of death had settled
again upon the place, interrupted only by the casual chirping of
birds, which had found their way into the chapel and built their
nests among its friezes and pendants--sure signs of solitariness
and desertion.
When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were those
of men scattered far and wide about the world--some tossing upon
distant seas: some under arms in distant lands; some mingling in
the busy intrigues of courts and cabinets,--all seeking to
deserve one more distinction in this mansion of shadowy
honors--the melancholy reward of a monument.
Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touching
instance of the equality of the grave, which brings down the
oppressor to a level with the oppressed and mingles the dust of
the bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepulchre of the
haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of her victim, the lovely
and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day but some ejaculation
of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with
indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's sepulchre
continually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave
of her rival.
A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies
buried. The light struggles dimly through windows darkened by
dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the
walls are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure
of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which is an iron
railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem--the thistle.
I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself by the
monument, revolving in my mind the chequered and disastrous story
of poor Mary.
The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I could
only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest
repeating the evening service and the faint responses of the
choir; these paused for a time, and all was hushed. The
stillness, the desertion, and obscurity that were gradally
prevailing around gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the
place;
For in the silent grave no conversation,
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,
No careful father's counsel--nothing's heard,
For nothing is, but all oblivion,
Dust, and an endless darkness.
Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear,
falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it
were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and
grandeur accord with this mighty building! With what pomp do they
swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their awful harmony
through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulchre
vocal! And now they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving
higher and higher their accordant notes and piling sound on
sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break
out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along
the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure
airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling
thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon
the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What solemn sweeping
concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful; it fills the
vast pile and seems to jar the very walls--the ear is
stunned--the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in
full jubilee--it is rising from the earth to heaven; the very
soul seems rapt away and floated upwards on this swelling tide of
harmony!
I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain
of music is apt sometimes to inspire: the shadows of evening were
gradually thickening round me; the monuments began to cast deeper
and deeper gloom; and the distant clock again gave token of the
slowly waning day.
I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight
of steps which lead into the body of the building, my eye was
caught by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the
small staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence a
general survey of this wilderness of tombs. The shrine is
elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are the
sepulchres of various kings and queens. From this eminence the
eye looks down between pillars and funeral trophies to the
chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs, where warriors,
prelates, courtiers, and statesmen lie mouldering in their "beds
of darkness." Close by me stood the great chair of coronation,
rudely carved of oak in the barbarous taste of a remote and
Gothic age. The scene seemed almost as if contrived with
theatrical artifice to produce an effect upon the beholder. Here
was a type of the beginning and the end of human pomp and power;
here it was literally but a step from the throne to the
sepulchre. Would not one think that these incongruous mementos
had been gathered together as a lesson to living greatness?--to
show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the
neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive--how soon that
crown which encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie
down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and be trampled upon
by the feet of the meanest of the multitude. For, strange to
tell, even the grave is here no longer a sanctuary. There is a
shocking levity in some natures which leads them to sport with
awful and hallowed things, and there are base minds which delight
to revenge on the illustrious dead the abject homage and
grovelling servility which they pay to the living. The coffin of
Edward the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains
despoiled of their funereal ornaments; the sceptre has been
stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth; and the effigy
of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument but bears
some proof how false and fugitive is the homage of mankind. Some
are plundered, some mutilated, some covered with ribaldry and
insult,--all more or less outraged and dishonored.
The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the
painted windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of
the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The
chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the
kings faded into shadows; the marble figures of the monuments
assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light; the evening breeze
crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave; and
even the distant footfall of a verger, traversing the Poet's
Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly
retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of
the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me,
filled the whole building with echoes.
I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I
had been contemplating, but found they were already falling into
indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had
all become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely
taken my foot from off the threshold. What, thought I, is this
vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation--a
huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown and
the certainty of oblivion? It is, indeed, the empire of death;
his great shadowy palace where he sits in state mocking at the
relics of human glory and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the
monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the
immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his
pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to
think of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the
past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily
forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of
our recollection, and will in turn be supplanted by his successor
of tomorrow. "Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Browne, "find their
graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be
buried in our survivors." History fades into fable; fact becomes
clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from
the tablet; the statue falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches,
pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but
characters written in the dust? What is the security of a tomb or
the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains of Alexander the
Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty sarcophagus
is now the mere curiosity of a museum. "The Egyptian mummies,
which Cambyses or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth;
Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for balsams."*
What then is to ensure this pile which now towers above me from
sharing the fate of mightier mausoleums? The time must come when
its gilded vaults which now spring so loftily, shall lie in
rubbish beneath the feet; when instead of the sound of melody and
praise the wind shall whistle through the broken arches and the
owl hoot from the shattered tower; when the garish sunbeam shall
break into these gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine
round the fallen column; and the fox-glove hang its blossoms
about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus man
passes away; his name passes from record and recollection; his
history is as a tale that is told, and his very monument becomes
a ruin.
* Sir T. Browne.
Westminster Abbey by Washington Irving [A short story]
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