A tablet with a fine medallion,—“Sacred to the memory of Granville Sharp, ninth son of Dr. Thomas Sharp, Prebendary of the Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches of York, Durham, and Southwell, and grandson of Dr. John Sharp, Archbishop of York. Born and educated in the bosom of the Church of England, he ever cherished for her institutions the most unshaken regard, whilst his whole soul was in harmony with the sacred strain—‘Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will towards men;’ on which his life presented one beautiful comment of glowing piety and unwearied beneficence. Freed by competence from the necessity, and by content from the desire, of lucrative occupation, he was incessant in his labours to improve the condition of mankind. Founding public happiness on public virtue, he aimed to rescue his native country from the guilt and inconsistency of employing the arm of Freedom to rivet the fetters of Bondage, and established for the Negro Race, in the person of Somerset (his servant), the long disputed rights of human nature. Having, in this glorious cause, triumphed over the combined resistance of Interest, Prejudice, and Pride, he took his post amongst the foremost of the honourable band associated to deliver Africa from the rapacity of Europe, by the abolition of the Slave Trade; nor was death permitted to interrupt his career of usefulness, till he had witnessed that Act of the British Parliament by which ‘The Abolition’ was decreed. In his private relations he was equally exemplary; and having exhibited through life a model of disinterested virtue, he resigned his pious spirit into the hands of his Creator, in the exercise of Charity, and Faith, and Hope, on the 6th day of July, A.D. 1813, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. Reader, if on perusing this tribute to a private individual, thou shouldest be disposed to suspect it as partial, or censure it as diffuse, know that it is not panegyric, but history.—Erected by the African Institution of London, A.D. 1816.”—Chantrey, sculptor.
Above is a bust of Charles de St. Denis, Lord of St. Evremond.—This gentleman was of a noble family in Normandy, and was employed in the army of France, in which he rose to the rank of Marshal; but retiring to Holland, he was from thence invited by Charles II. into England, where he lived in the greatest intimacy with the King and principal nobility, more particularly with the Duchess of Mazarine. He had a very sprightly turn both in conversation and writing. He lived to the age of ninety, and was carried off at last by a violent fit of the stranguary, September 9, 1703. Though he left France, as it may be imagined, on account of religion, yet in his will he left twenty pounds to poor Roman Catholics, and twenty pounds to poor French refugees; besides other legacies to be disposed of to those in distress, of what religion soever they might be.
Matthew Prior.—The bust was done by order of the King of France. On one side of the pedestal stands the figure of Thalia, one of the nine Muses, with a flute in her hand; and on the other, History, with her book shut; between both is the bust of the deceased, upon a raised altar of fine marble; on the outermost side of which is a Latin inscription, importing that while he was busied in writing the history of his own times, Death interposed, and broke both the thread of his discourse and of his life, Sept. 18, 1721, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. Over the bust is a pediment, on the ascending sides of which are two boys, one with an hour glass in his hand, run out, the other holding a torch reversed; on the apex of the pediment is an urn, and on the base of the monument a long inscription, reciting the principal employments in which he had been engaged; particularly that, by order of King William and Queen Mary; he assisted at the Congress of the Confederate Powers of the Hague, in 1690; in 1697 was one of the Plenipotentiaries of the Peace of Ryswick: and in the following year was of the embassy to France and also Secretary of State in Ireland. In 1700, he was made one of the Board of Trade; in 1711, First Commissioner of the Customs; and lastly, in the same year, was sent by Queen Anne to Louis XIV. of France, with proposals of peace. All these trusts he executed with uncommon address and abilities, and had retired from public business, when a violent cholic, occasioned by a cold, carried him off; by which the world was deprived of an invaluable treasure, which he was preparing to lay before the public.—Rysbrack, sculptor. Bust by Coizevox.
“Sacred to the best of men, William Mason, A.M., a Poet, if any, elegant, correct, and pious. Died 7th of April, 1797, aged seventy-two.”—It is a neat piece of sculpture. A medallion of the deceased is held up by a figure of Poetry, bemoaning the loss.—Bacon, sculptor.
Thomas Shadwell.—This monument was erected by Dr. John Shadwell, to the memory of his deceased father. The inscription sets forth that he was descended from an ancient family in Staffordshire, was Poet Laureate and Historiographer in the reign of William III., and died November 20, 1692, in the fifty-fifth year of his age. He was author of several plays, and was satirized by Dryden, under the character of Ogg, in the second part of Absalom and Architophel. He died at Chelsea, by taking opium, and was there buried.—Bird, sculptor.
John Milton.—He was a great polemical and political writer, and Latin Secretary to Oliver Cromwell; but what has immortalized his name, are those two inimitable pieces, Paradise Lost and Regained. He was born in London in 1604, and died at Bunhill (perhaps the same as Bunhill Fields) in 1674, leaving three daughters behind him unprovided for, and was buried at St. Giles’s, Cripplegate. In 1737, Mr. Auditor Benson erected this monument to his memory.—Rysbrack, sculptor.
Under Milton is an elegant monument erected to the memory of Mr. Gray. This monument seems expressive of the compliment contained in the epitaph, where the Lyric Muse, in alt-relief, is holding a medallion of the Poet, and at the same time pointing the finger up to the bust of Milton, which is directly over it.
“No more the Grecian muse unrival’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 fifty-four, and was buried at Stoke.—John Bacon, sculptor.
Samuel Butler.—This tomb, as by the inscription appears, was erected by John Barber, Esq., Lord Mayor of London, that he who was destitute of all things when alive, might not want a monument when dead. He was author of Hudibras, and was a man of consummate learning, wit, and pleasantry, peculiarly happy in his writings, though he reaped small advantages from them, and suffered great distress by reason of his narrow circumstances. He lived, however, to a good old age, and was buried at the expense of Mr. Longueville, in the churchyard of St. Paul, Covent Garden. He was born at Strencham, in Worcestershire, in 1612, and died in London, 1680.