In frequent visits to Westminster Abbey, I had become familiar with every portion of it, including cloisters, chapter-house, and library. In the library, by the politeness of one of the dignitaries, I was favoured with a minute inspection of some of its most precious historical deposites. Such were the dies from which were struck the coins of Henry Fourth, and many succeeding sovereigns, rude works of art, depending upon blows of the hammer to produce their impression. In the chapter-house is the original Domesday-book, and many other historical documents. I was shown the instrument by which Edward I. was authorized, by twenty-three competitors, to settle the Crown of Scotland upon one of their number. The seal of Bruce’s father is very distinctly visible. Here are Henry VII.’s very minute instructions to his commissioners to examine the personal claims to his choice, of a young princess, whom he proposed to marry, with their not over-gallant reports. A superbly decorated instrument, dated at Amiens, August 18, 1527, and signed by Henry VIII., and Francis, was also a great curiosity. It has a golden seal, with the legend—Plurima servantur fœdere, cuncta fide. Among other parchments, one signed by Mary, as Queen of France, with her husband Francis II., was interesting. I saw also the stamp, used by Henry VIII., to affix his signature to parchments, in his dying days; a prayer-book of Queen Elizabeth’s; and a fine old Missal of 1380, from which some zealous reformer had erased the service for Becket’s-day, and several prayers for the Pope.
But all these were inferior in interest to the tombs and chapels of the Abbey. Many of the monuments are in wretched taste, and a general banishment to the cloisters, of those which are not in keeping with the architecture of the church, would be a great improvement. The residue should then be repaired and decorated. But even as they are, they present a most interesting epitome of history, and a most affecting commentary on the vanity of worldly grandeur and greatness. With Henry VII.’s chapel, and its royal sepulchres, I was greatly impressed, and the near neighbourhood of the tombs of Mary and Elizabeth, struck me as forcibly as if I had never heard of the strange proximity, in which they, who once could scarcely live in the same world, here mingle their dust with the same span of earth, and side by side, await the judgment. Oh, what pomp of sepulture attests the universal reign of death in this ancient temple! Here, in the chapel of Edward the Confessor, stands the throne, which has been the glory and the shame of so many who lie sleeping around it. The rough old stone, inserted in its base, is the Scottish palladium; and the old monkish fable makes it one of the stones of Jacob’s pillow, at Bethel. The monuments of Edward III., and Queen Philippa, and that of Henry V., commanded my especial attention. Above the latter, are preserved the saddle, shield, and helmet, which he used at Agincourt. The body of Edward I. rests beneath a plain altar-tomb. In the centre of the chapel is the shrine of St. Edward: and it is as near as possible to these relics of their predecessors, that English sovereigns are still anointed and crowned in the adjoining choir. At such times, if these silent tombs are startled by the shouts of the multitude that cry—Long live the King, how much more forcibly they must speak to him, in their mute expressiveness, reminding him of his nothingness, and calling him to prepare for a long home in the dust!
To the reflections of Addison and of Irving, in this consecrated pile, I shall not attempt to add my own. The sweet interpreter of the moral of this wonderful place, sleeps appropriately under its tutelage, and few are the graves within it, which more affect a kindred heart. To see the grave of Addison, which was lately marked by a small white stone, in the pavement of one of the chapels, suggests a kind of postscript to his own musings; and, as I stood, thoughtfully, over it, I seemed to hear his voice, out of the sepulchre, confirming his living words. I thought, moreover, how much has been done, since his day, to add to the interest of the holy place—even in addition to his own grave! How many tombs I saw, which he did not—his own among them! Addison knew nothing of Johnson’s sepulchre; stood not by the rival relics of Pitt and Fox; thrilled not as he approached the resting-place of a Wolfe, or a Wilberforce; and little dreamed how much more than the shrine of Kings, his own last bed would impress a stranger from America, in the nineteenth century. How transcendant the enchantment with which genius invests its possessor, where it is paired with virtue! With what refreshment I often turned from the royal tombs to the Poets’ Corner; and there, with what reverence did I turn most frequently to the monuments of those whose high artistic inspiration was characterized by the pure spirit of love to God. It was pleasing to behold the memorials of Chaucer, and of “rare Ben Jonson;” but with a fonder veneration I paused more frequently before that of the stainless Spenser. I thought of his words concerning “the laurel”—and how fittingly they apply to this Abbey, as the—
“——Meed of mighty conquerors
And poets sage.”
With a different sort of pleasure I surveyed the wonders of the British Museum. There, a scholar can find all he needs in the way of literary food, freely bestowed. I do not admire the new buildings; but the Institution is worthy of a great nation, and reflects eternal honour on George the Third. Will the Smithsonian, at Washington, ever rival it? Its newest and its oldest treasures, were the great stones from Nineveh, so cleverly described by the Quarterly. With what emotions I surveyed those illegible hieroglyphics; and scraped acquaintance with those “placid grinning kings, twanging their jolly bows over their rident horses, wounding those good-humoured enemies, who tumble gaily off the towers, or drown, smiling in the dimpling waters, amidst the ἀνήριθμον γέλασμα of fish.”
The English, though a proud people, are really very moderate in their appreciation of the manifold charms of their incomparable isle. When I surveyed the river-view from Richmond-hill, I recalled the glorious waters of my own dear country, and many a darling scene which is imperishably stamped in my mind’s eye, and asked myself whether, indeed, this was more delightful to the sight than those. I was slow to admit anything inferior in the scenery of the Hudson and Susquehanna, when I compared them with so diminutive a stream as the Thames, and I even reproved myself for bringing them into parallel; but over and over again was I forced to allow, that “earth has not anything to show more fair,” than the rich luxuriance of the panorama which I then surveyed. A river whose banks are old historic fields, and whose placid surface reflects, from league to league of its progress, the towers of palaces and of churches which, for centuries, have been hallowed by ennobling and holy associations; which flows by the favourite haunts of genius, or winds among the antique halls of consecrated learning; and which, after sweeping beneath the gigantic arches, domes and temples of a vast metropolis, gives itself to the burthen of fleets and navies, and bears them magnificently forth to the ocean; such an object must necessarily be one of the highest interest to any one capable of appreciating the mentally beautiful and sublime; but when natural glories invest the same objects with a thousand independent attractions, who need be ashamed of owning an overpowering enthusiasm in the actual survey, and something scarcely less thrilling in the recollection! When I afterward looked towards Rome, and descried the dome of St. Peter’s from Tivoli, I felt, as Gray has somewhere observed, that nothing but the intellect is delighted there, while on Richmond-hill, the soul and the sense alike are ravished with the view, and fail to conceive anything more satisfying of its kind. If ever, which God forbid, the barbarian should overrun this scene, and make ruins of its surrounding villas and churches, the contemplative visitor of a future generation will still linger on those heights with far more of complicated and harmonious satisfaction than can possibly refresh the eye that wanders over the dreary Campagna. Yet how few of the great and fashionable in England have ever allowed themselves to appreciate the glories of their own scenery after this sort!
But whether on those lofty banks, or down by the river-side, or wherever I wandered amid their green retreats, I owned to myself one sad disappointment. I repeated over and over again those verses, learned in school-days, in which Collins bewails the poet of the Seasons:—
“Remembrance oft shall haunt the shore,
When Thames in summer wreaths is dressed,