Amongst the great sculptors, John Gibson is not represented by any work. Amongst the great men, Wren, his epitaph notwithstanding, might well have a monument with a list of his buildings on the pedestal. Marlborough should have one opposite to Wellington; and Colet, surely, might be again remembered, and with him Dean Church.
THE CRYPT.
The entrance to the staircase is in the ambulatory on the north side of the south transept. This basement story, for the whole length and breadth of the building, of which more than one half is taken up by piers and pillars, dimly lighted in aisles and transepts from above, though it strikes the spectator most impressively, has an aspect weird and sombre to a degree. We feel we are in the company of the dead. The pavement of the dome area is supported by eight larger and four smaller piers, forming externally a square and internally an octagon; and within the octagon eight columns describe a circle of sufficient diameter for Nelson's tomb. The central aisles throughout are likewise supported by double rows of square pillars. At the west end of the choir the piers underneath the chancel arch are exceptionally massive, and east of them the introduction of two extra rows of pillars together with an irregularity in the vaulting indicates, not only where choir screen and organ were placed, but also that Wren never wanted them there to isolate the chancel.
NELSON'S TOMB.[ToList]
The parish of St. Faith in 1878 consented to the removal of the high railings which marked off their part, and tiles now record the south and west boundaries. This reminds us that the crypt has been a burial place for ages past. Many completely unknown lie around us, and sleep in the company of more than one great maker of history; but we are concerned only with the few, and with certain monuments of others buried elsewhere. At the west is placed Wellington's funeral car, made of captured guns, and with his chief victories inscribed in gold, and the candelabra used for the lying in state. Near, and further east, are buried Cruikshank, Lord Mayor Nottage (who died during his mayoralty in 1886), Bartle Frere and his wife (Lady Frere died 1899, and is the last interred at the time of writing this), and Lord Napier of Magdala. In the very centre the corpse of Nelson, enclosed in wood from a mast of the Orient, reposes within the circle of columns in a plain tomb, and underneath a magnificent black and white sarcophagus of the sixteenth century. Let us pause to reflect that this fine work of art, on which Benedetto da Rovanza and his masons spent much labour, was intended by Wolsey for his own monument, but was confiscated with the rest of his goods. To this day no one knows the exact spot where the Abbot of Leicester and his monks buried the great Tudor statesman; and nearly three centuries later the marble covered the coffin of the great admiral. On the top a viscount's coronet takes the place of the disgraced and broken-hearted cardinal's hat. Nelson's nephew, Lord Merton of Trafalgar, lies in a vault underneath, and at the sides are Collingwood and the Earl of Northesk, two companions in arms. A grating here, underneath the centre of the dome, allows the light from the lantern to be dimly seen. Further east and near the south side were placed in April, 1883, the remains of the ill-fated Professor Palmer and his two companions, Captain Gill and Lieutenant Charrington, who were killed by Arabs while on a Government mission in the Desert of Sinai. Underneath the chancel arch is the sepulchre of Wellington, of Cornish porphyry, plain and unadorned. As with the monument, so here, no attempt is made to enumerate those titles, commands, orders and posts and offices of honour, proclaimed by Garter King at Arms, after Dean Milman had committed his body to the ground. The simple inscription, "Arthur, Duke of Wellington," upon the severely simple tomb, depicts, not incorrectly, the life and character of the Iron Duke. A neighbouring tomb is that of Picton. Some little distance to the east, and in the end recess of the south choir aisle is the grave of Wren. The plain black marble slab, which tells who lies below, is only raised some sixteen inches; and on the wall of the recess is the original of the famous inscription, "Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice." Other members of the family are close at hand in what we may call Wren's corner. His daughter Jane, his daughter-in-law Maria with her parents Philip and Constantia Masard, and tablets commemorate Dame Jane his wife, a daughter of Sir Thomas Coghill, and her great granddaughter who, living to the age of ninety-three, well-nigh connects his time with ours. One of the deans—Newton, Bishop of Bristol, whose monument was not allowed above, slumbers near the great architect; as in Painters' Corner do Reynolds, West, Lawrence, Leighton (whose fine gravestone contrasts so oddly with Wren's), and Millais, all Presidents of the Royal Academy, with James Barry, Opie, Dance, Fuseli, Turner, Landseer, and Boehm. Near here are Mylne and Cockerell, successors of Wren: Milman lies directly under the altar, and Liddon underneath his monument.
