desired to be thought. The inscription on the tomb records that he lies near the place, and that it was set up by Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough, as "a mark how dearly she remembers the happiness she enjoyed in the sincere friendship of so worthy and honest a man," &c. Congreve may be said to have paid ten thousand pounds for this inscription (for he left the Duchess, who did not want his property, the whole, and his ancient and embarrassed family nothing), and no doubt thought it cheap at the money. Voltaire, forsooth! Who would care for the opinions of him, or fifty such mere literati, when a duchess could be found to write thus on one's tomb? Congreve died in 1728. His body, after lying in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, was removed with great pomp into the Abbey, noblemen bearing the pall. Among the noticeable personages buried in this part of the nave, without any memorials, are Dean Atterbury-the place was his own previous choice, as being "as far from kings and Cæsars as the space will admit of," as he tells Pope, in one of his letters in 1722-and Mrs. Oldfield, the actress, who was buried in a very fine Brussels-lace head, a Holland shift with a tucker and double ruffles of the same lace, a pair of new kid gloves, &c.; circumstances which Pope has made the most of in his lines—

"Odious! in woollen! 't would 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—"

This was, perhaps, a fair mark; but, generally speaking, we could imagine no more startling commentary than might be made on the works of most satirists. by a mere statement of the exact facts they have referred to, whether in praise or condemnation. At the end of the wall of this aisle, for example, is the statue of James Craggs, with an inscription by the author just mentioned, Pope, who speaks of his deceased friend as a statesman

"Who broke no promise, served no private end”—

the said James Craggs being the Secretary of State whose name was down on one of the swindling subscription-lists of the South Sea Scheme for the fictitious sum of 659,000l., as we have already had occasion to observe in a previous number, and who died, it was said, from the small-pox, but really, it was thought, from mental anguish, during the parliamentary examination into the affair. As we now stand by the door of the great western entrance to the Abbey, we perceive that the injury done to the latter by the memorials placed in it has not been confined to the mere incongruities before pointed out. Two beautiful screens stood here, against the base of the west towers; that on the south till 1750, and that on the north down to the present century, when they were pulled down, to make room for the immense military memorials which now occupy their places, recording exploits utterly forgotten, and names that fail to rouse a single interesting association. Half hidden among memorials of this kind that occupy the western end of the northern aisle, to which we now cross, are those to the eminent critical geographer, Major Rennell, who lies buried here; to Tierney, the well-known orator; and to the great painter, greater wit and most sublime coxcomb, Sir Godfrey Kneller, which has an inscription by Pope, showing that

Nature must have been in a very critical position altogether with regard to him, for

"Living, great Nature fear'd he might outvie
Her works; and dying, fears herself to die."

:

One would think the poet had determined to beat the painter even in his own rich vein of extravagance. Kneller lies at Twickenham with Pope, having objected to be buried in the Abbey, because "they do bury fools there." Passing along the wall of the aisle eastwards, which, like the one we have just quitted, is covered from end to end with memorials, we need only pause to notice the monument to Mrs. Jane Hill, the one antique work among a wilderness of modern ones; the monument, nearly above, to Spencer Perceval, with an alto-relievo representing the circumstances of his assassination by Bellingham; and the scroll, held in the outstretched hands of Time, on which is written a very beautiful Latin inscription by Dr. Friend to a youth, Philip Carteret the Doctor, we may observe, has, with each of his friends and rivals, Woodward and Mead, an honorary memorial in the nave. Before entering the north aisle of the choir, we must pause a moment to examine the beautiful screen which has been erected here by Mr. Blore. It is in the same "decorated" style as the architecture immediately around it, which forms the continuation of Henry III.'s building by his son Edward. On each side of the screen are large monuments, of which the principal is that to Sir Isaac Newton. If this were a much greater work than it is, it would suffer from our remembrance of Roubiliac's noble statue of the philosopher at Cambridge, where the loftiest speculations are suggested by the simplest and purest means; but when we add that this, although cut by Rysbrach, is Kent's design, we need hardly say more. Here, too, we may fitly pause an instant to gaze on the stained glass windows of the western front, with its rows of Jewish patriarchs, glorious in their brilliant dyes of amber and purple, the work of comparatively recent times, and the smaller windows in the towers at the sides, which are ancient, and seem to have lost something of their original splendour. We have said little in the present or in the preceding papers in the way of description of the architecture of the Abbey, for we believe such descriptions are very useless in works of a general character; the worst engraving or the briefest visit will give a more accurate idea of a building than many pages of letterpress. We therefore leave the architectural wonders of the nave, as of the other parts of the Abbey, undescribed (seeing, too, that previous engravings will have made our readers tolerably familiar with all), merely remarking that it is the loftiest in England, measuring 102 feet,* and at the same time one of the most graceful. Without entering into the vexed question of the origin of pointed architecture, or overlooking the difficulties that attach to the hypothesis of finding in nature the type of what is but the last of a series of architectural changes and improvements, rather than the first, which no doubt all the chief styles are, it is still, it seems to us, impossible to pace along this centre aisle of the nave,

and look up, without being reminded of the extraordinary similarity of its expression to that of an over-arching avenue of trees. We have an avenue now in our memory formed of very tall and stately, but not aged trees, where the trunks ascend as regularly and gracefully upwards as these pillars, and where, as their tops meet over the middle space, you can detect the branches running across and interweaving, in a thousand capricious, but all beautiful forms, which the groined roof appears but tamely to imitate. All this may be, as architectural writers tell us, accidental; but certainly the accident is harder to believe than the improba bilities of the opposite opinion.

The north aisle of the choir, or the space extending from the north aisle of the nave to the north transept, contains several matters worthy of notice; some for their amusing character,-as Dame Carteret's, where a dancing figure is, we are told, a Resurrection; and some for their deeper interest, as Wilberforce's memorial by Joseph, which is original enough at all events, and Sir Stamford Raffles's by Chantrey; but this part should be sacred to all lovers of music, as a kind of musicians' corner, for here lies Purcell, with one of the most striking epitaphs ever penned, and which is said to have been by Dryden. It runs thus: "Here lies Henry Purcell, Esq., who left this life, and is gone to that blessed place where only his harmony can be exceeded." He was interred in November, 1695, and, according to the picturesque old custom, at night, with a magnificence suitable to the burial of the greatest English musician; and, as was most fitting, in the Abbey where he had been appointed organist at the age of eighteen, and where his sublime anthems had been so often heard. His memorial is against one side of a pillar on the right of the aisle; on the other side of the same pillar is the memorial to Samuel Arnold, another organist of the Abbey in which he is interred, and a worthy successor to Purcell. Opposite to these, on the left wall of the aisle, is the memorial of Blow, who, according to the inscription, was the master of the famous Mr. Henry Purcell," although it is now established that Purcell owed much more to another musician, Captain Cook, than to Blow: the latter, however, had claims of his own to entitle him to respect and commemora tion. Beneath Blow's memorial is his pupil's, Dr. Burney, Hawkins's rival his torian, with an inscription that does little credit to the taste of his daughter, the authoress of 'Evelina;' whilst, lastly, close by their side is the bust, in all the majesty of full-bottomed wiggism, of Dr. Croft, who in ecclesiastical music is said to have had no superior. He also held the situation of organist to the Abbey; and his death was brought on here (during, we presume, the performance of his duties) at the coronation of George II. He now lies near the most illustrious of his predecessors.

the

The north transept is rich in great names of another kind, chiefly of those connected with the business or offices of the state. Occupying the entire space between two of the pillars dividing the western aisle of the transept from the centre, is Flaxman's noble monument of Mansfield; taken altogether perhaps noblest of modern sculpture. The illustrious judge is seen in the judgmentseat elevated to a considerable height, with figures of Wisdom and Justice attending, whilst behind, on the base of the monument, immediately below the circular chair, is the beautifully-sculptured figure of a youth: what he is intended to represent seems to be a matter of some doubt, for Mr. Brayley

says it "is a personification of Death, which is represented, agreeably to the idea of the ancients, by the figure of a youth, partly prostrate, and leaning upon an extinguished torch;" whilst Mr. Peter Cunningham, in his excellent little HandBook,' describes it as a "recumbent youth, a criminal, by Wisdom delivered up to Justice." Lord Mansfield is buried beneath his memorial. In the central portion of the transept repose Chatham, Pitt, Fox, Castlereagh, Canning, Wilberforce, and Grattan-a rich and wonderful neighbourhood, to which Byron's lines may apply with a wider application than to the mere graves of Pitt and Fox:

66 a few feet

Of sullen earth divide each winding-sheet.
How peaceful and how powerful is the grave
That hushes all !"

Of their memorials we need only observe that Chatham's lofty pile, by Bacon, representing the statesman at the top in the act of speaking, is against the end of the left-hand wall; Canning's statue. by Chantrey, nearly opposite; Fox's memorial, by Westmacott, showing the orator dying in the arms of Liberty, attended by Peace and a kneeling negro, against the wall of the choir looking towards the transept; and Pitt's over the great western door of the nave; where a work, costing 6300%. of the public money, is entirely beyond the reach of public appreciation it is by Westmacott. Turning from the military and naval memorials,

which here too, as in the nave, thrust themselves forward on all sides (Roubiliac's to Sir Peter Warren and Banks's to Sir Eyre Coote are, however, deserving of the attention they demand), we are attracted by an exquisite piece of sculpture in the western aisle, near Kemble's statue, dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Warren and child; this is also by Westmacott, and perhaps the artist's most beautiful work. Two monuments, differing much in character, but agreeing in having each a beautiful inscription, are also deserving of notice the one is the sumptuous tomb of the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, on which the Duchess thus beautifully speaks of her family:-"Her name was Margaret Lucas, youngest sister to the Lord Lucas of Colchester: a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous;" and the other a plain tablet, close by, to Grace Scot, who died in 1645, which says—

"He that will give my Grace but what is hers

Must say her death hath not

Made only her dear Scot,

But virtue, worth, and sweetness, widowers.”

Was this "dear Scot" the Colonel Scot who was executed on the Restoration for his share in the king's death, and who died so bravely under the revolting atrocities to which he and his companions were exposed during execution? If it was, Grace Scot died not too soon.

The eastern aisle of the transept is shut out from the principal space by the monuments which have closed up the inter-columniations; it was formerly also subdivided into three chapels by screens of a very rich character. Here we find two of the most remarkable works in the Abbey; the first, on the floor, to the right as we enter, consisting of a low basement on which lies Sir Francis Vere's effigy, with four kneeling knights at the four corners supporting a plain canopy or table over the dead warrior, on which are his helmet, breastplate, and other martial accoutrements. Roubiliac, whilst engaged in the erection of the work of which we are about presently to speak, was seen one day, by Gayfere, the Abbey mason, standing with his arms folded, and gazing intently on one of these knights. "Hush!" said he, pointing to the figure as Gayfere approached, "He will speak soon." This is the true spirit of genius; and that Roubiliac was a man of high genius this famous Nightingale monument before us proves. In one respect it may be said to be unique. Roam through the Abbey often as you will, examine every one of the immense variety of works by distinguished men that line its walls, and still there shall be the same sudden startling, as it were, of the heart, when you reach this; the same equally novel and refreshing emotion experienced. It is not the grim monster starting from the depths below, just about to launch the fatal dart, that affects us, terrible as is the truth of the representation; it is the agonized figure of the husband, clasping his dying wife with the one hand, and endeavouring with the other to ward off the irresisti ble attack, that at once appeals, as sculpture seldom can appeal, to the feelings of the spectator. The wife, too, so touchingly, droopingly beautiful, is an exquisite performance: "Life," as Allan Cunningham observes, "seems slowly receding from her tapering fingers and her quivering wrist." This was Roubiliac's last work. He died the year after its erection, 1762. In the same aisle is Baily's colossal statue of Telford, the famous engineer, who was buried here; and nu

and