where the banners-the last vestiges of a once general custom -hang over their graves.' Their pranks at Seaton Delaval 2 belong to the history of Northumberland, and of the dissolute state of English society at the close of the last century; and in the traditions of the North still survives the memory of the pomp which, at every stage of the long journey from connell, 1800. Northumberland to London, accompanied the remains of the wildest of the race-Lady Tyrconnell.3 Lady Tyr Mary Elea nor Bowes, Countess of Another trace of the strange romances of the North of England is the grave of Mary Eleanor Bowes, Countess of Strathmore, who, a few months before the funeral just described) of her neighbour Lady Tyrconnell, was buried in the South Transept, in the last year of the May 10, 1800, past century, after adventures which ought to belong to the Middle Ages. Strathmore, died April 28, buried OF THE It is touching to observe how many are commemorated from their extreme youth. Not only, as in the case of eminent persons-like Purcell, or Francis Horner, or Charles Buller, MONUMENTS where the Abbey commemorates the promise of glories not yet fully developed--but in the humbler classes of life, the sigh over the premature loss is petrified into stone, and affects the more deeply from the great events amidst which it Jane Lister, is enshrined. Jane Lister, dear child, died October died Oct. 7, 6 7, 1688.' 'Her brother Michael had already died in 1676, and been buried at Helen's Church, York.'5 In that eventful year of the Revolution, when Church and State were reeling to their foundations, this dear child' found her quiet. resting-place in the Eastern Cloister. In that same year too a few months before, another still more inmarch significant life-Nicholas Bagnall, an infant of two months old, by his nurse unfortunately overlaid has his own little urn amongst the Cecils and Percys 1688. Nicholas Bagnall, aged two months, died 7. buried March 9, 1687-8. 6 in St. Nicholas's Chapel.' 'Neale, ii. 181. 2 Howitt's Visits to Remarkable Places (2nd series), pp. 354-374. Register, November 4, 1800. This seems to show that her father must have been Dr. Lister, author of a Journey to Paris,' and other works on Natural History, who came from York to London in 1683. He is buried at Clapham, with his first wife, who is there described as his dear wife.' There is no Register in St. Helen's at York between 1649 and 1690. He was buried with an infant brother (September 5, 1684) in the grave which afterwards received his mother, Lady Anne Charlotte Bagnall, daughter of the second Earl of Elgin (March 13, 1712-13), wife of Nicholas Bagnall, of Plas Newydd, in Wales. It would seem that the unhappy nurse never forgot the misfortune, and in her will begged to be buried near the child. (Chester's Registers, 220.) Close by is the urn of Anna Sophia the infant daughter of Har- Harley, 1695. ley, French Ambassador to James II. 6 In the Little Cloisters is a tablet to Mr. Thomas Smith, of Elmly Lovet. . . who through the spotted veil of the small Thomas Smith, aged 27, March 11. 1663-4. 6 'pox rendered a pure and unspotted soul to God, expecting but not fearing death.' Young Carteret, a Westminster scholar, who died at the age of 19, and is buried in the North Aisle of the Choir, with the chiefs of his house, is touchingly commemorated by the pretty Sapphic verses of Dr. Freind.2 Carteret, aged 19. March 25, 1711. In the Nave several young midshipmen are commemorated. Amongst them is William Dalrymple, who at the age of 18 was killed in a desperate engagement off the coast of Virginia, 'leaving to his once happy parents the endearing remembrance of his virtues.' William Dalrymple, aged 18, 1782. MONUMENTS OF MOURN 1799. Lord Kerry, 1818. 6 Other tombs represent the intensity of the mourners' grief. In St. Andrew's Chapel, Lord Kerry's monument to his wife, who had rendered him for thirty-one years the happiest of mankind,' retained at its north end, till Lady Kerry, a few months before his own interment in the same tomb, the cushion on which, year after year, he came to kneel. Opposite to it is the once admired1 monument raised by her son to commemorate the premature death of Lady Elizabeth Shirley, daughter of Washington, Elizabeth Earl Ferrers, wife of Joseph Gascoigne Nightingale, and sister of Lady Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, foundress of the Calvinistic sect which bears her name. spot (apart from her grave in the area beneath Queen Eleanor's tomb) was doubtless selected as affording better light and Lady Nightingale, 1731. Mrs. Nightingale's monument has 'not been praised beyond its merit. The attitude and expression of the husband in endeavouring to shield his wife from the dart of Death is natural and affecting. But I always thought that the image of Death would be much better represented with an extinguished torch than with a dart.' (Burke on his first visit to the Abbey: Prior's Burke, 32.) I once more took a serious walk through the tombs 6 This of Westminster Abbey. What heaps of unmeaning stone and marble! But there was one tomb which showed common sense that beautiful figure of Mr. Nightingale endeavouring to shield his lovely wife from Death. Here, indeed, the marble seems to 'speak, and the statues appear only not alive.' (Wesley's Journal, Feb. 16, 1764.) 5 It was really a monument to Mr. Nightingale. (See Chapter Book, February 13, 1758.) His wife was aged 27, he 56. For a curious story connected with Lord Brougham's father and the digging of her grave, see Lord Brougham's Memoirs, i. 205. But she died 11 years before his birth. Two of her sons are buried in the North Transept, where a monument was to have been erected to them. (Chapter Book, March 3, 1743-34.) and in order to accommodate the monument, the effigy of Lady Catherine St. John was removed to the Chapel of St. Monument Nicholas. The husband vainly trying to scare the erected 1758, spectre of Death from his wife is probably one of the most often remembered sights of the Abbey. It was when working at this elaborate structure that Roubiliac made the exclamation (already quoted) on the figure in the neighbouring tomb of Sir Francis Vere.' It was also whilst engaged on the figure of Death, that he one day, at dinner, suddenly dropped his knife and fork on his plate, fell back in his chair, and then darted forwards, and threw his features into the strongest possible expression of fear-fixing his eyes so expressively on the country lad who waited, as to fill him with astonishment. A tradition of the Abbey records that a robber, coming into the church by moonlight, was so startled by the same figure as to have fled in dismay, and left his crowbar on the pavement.2 MONUMENTS Mary Other monuments record the undying friendship, or family affection, which congregated round some loved object. Such are Mary Kendall's tomb in St. Paul's Chapel, and the tombs of the Gethin,3 Norton, and Freke families in OF FRIENDS. the South Aisle of the Choir. Such is the monument Kendall, which, in the East Cloister, records Pope's friendship Grace with General Withers and Colonel Disney (commonly called Duke Disney), who resided together at Greenwich. Gay, in his poem on Pope's imaginary return from Greece, thus describes them : Now pass we Gravesend with a friendly wind, And Tilbury's white fort, and long Blackwall; I see his chimney smoke, and hear him say, 1709-10. Gethin, 1697. Duke! that's the room for Pope, and that for Gay. Or at the north-west corner of Lord Norris's monument. (Smith's Life of Nollekens, ii. 86.) See p. 191. 2 The crowbar, which was found under the monument, is still preserved. For Grace Gethin see Ballard's Illustrious Ladies, p. 263; and D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature.-She left a bequest for an anniversary sermon X to be preached for her in the Abbey every Ash-Wednesday. Her celebrity arose, in part, from a book of extracts, which were mistakenly supposed to be original. She is buried at Hollingbourne, near Maidstone, where her epitaph records a vision shortly before her death. Pope's Works, iii. 375. Pope's epitaph carries on the same strain after Withers's death: Withers, died 1729. Disney, died 1731. Here, Withers, rest! thou bravest, gentlest mind, Thy country's friend, but more of human kind. For thee the hardy vet'ran drops a tear, Withers, adieu! yet not with thee remove And Duke Disney' closes the story in the touching record, that Colonel Henry Disney, surviving his friend and 'companion, Lieutenant-General Withers, but two 'years and ten days, is at his desire buried in the same grave ' with him.' Others have gained entrance by their longevity. There are MONUMENTS Anne Birkhead, aged 102, 1568. Thomas Parr, aged 152, 1635. three whose lives embrace three whole epics of English An auncient age of many years Pale death hath fixed his fatal force In the centre of the South Transept, amongst the poets, by a not unnatural affinity, was buried Thomas Parr, the patriarch of the seventeenth century, the old, old, very old man,' on whose gravestone it is recorded that he lived to the age of 152, through the ten reigns from Edward IV. to Charles I. He was brought up to Westminster, two months before his death, by the Earl of Arundel, a great lover of antiquities.' He was found on his death to be 'covered with hair.' Many were present at his burial, doing 'homage to this our aged Thomas de Temporibus.' 1 Pope's Works, iii. 375. In the doubt as to his age, see Mr. Thoms on 2 Fuller's Worthies, p. 68. For the the Longevity of Man, pp. 85-94. |