Over the Ocean; or, Sights and Scenes in Foreign Lands

by Curtis Guild

I stood before this magnificent Gothic pile, which was brown with the breath of a many centuries, with that feeling of quiet satisfaction and enjoyment that one experiences in the fruition of the hopes of years. There were the two great square towers, with the huge Gothic window between, and the Gothic door below. How I was carried back to the picture-books, and the wood-cuts, and youth's histories, that, many a time and oft, I had hung over when a boy, and dreamed and fancied how it really looked; and here it was—a more than realization of the air-castle of boyhood.

The dimensions of the abbey are, length, about four hundred feet, breadth at the transept, two hundred and three feet; the length of the nave, one hundred and sixteen feet, breadth, thirty-eight feet; the choir, one hundred and fifty-six feet by thirty-one. To the dimensions of the abbey should be added that of Henry VII.'s Chapel, which is built on to it, of one hundred and fifteen feet long by eighty wide, its nave being one hundred and four feet long and thirty-six wide.

The form of the abbey is the usual long cross, and it has three entrances. Besides the nave, choir, and transepts, there are nine chapels dedicated to different saints, and an area of cloisters. The best external view of the building is obtained in front of the western entrance, where the visitor has full view of the two great square towers, which rise to the height of two hundred and twenty-five feet.

But let us enter. Out from an unusually bright day for London, we stepped in beneath the lofty arches, lighted by great windows of stained glass, glowing far above in colored sermons and religious stories; and from this point—the western entrance—a superb view may be had of the interior. Stretching far before us is the magnificent colonnade of pillars, a perfect arcade of columns, terminating with the Chapel of Edward the Confessor, at the eastern extremity, and the whole interior so admirably lighted that every object is well brought out, and clearly visible.

In whichever direction the footsteps may incline, one is brought before the last mementos of the choicest dust of England. Here they lie—sovereigns, poets, warriors, divines, authors, heroes, and philosophers; wise and pure-minded men, vulgar and sensual tyrants; those who in the fullness of years have calmly passed away, "rich in that hope that triumphs over pain," and those whom the dagger of the assassin, the axe of the executioner, and the bullet of the battle-field cut down in their prime. Sovereign, priest, soldier, and citizen slumber side by side, laid low by the great leveller, Death.

The oldest of the chapels is that of St. Edward the Confessor. It contains, besides the monument to its founder, those of many other monarchs. Here stands the tomb of Henry III., a great altar-like structure of porphyry, upon which lies the king's effigy in brass. He was buried with great pomp by the Knights Templars, of which order his father was a distinguished member. Next comes the plain marble tomb of that bold crusader, Edward I., with the despoiled one of Henry V. Here also is the tomb of Eleanor, queen to Edward I., who, it will be remembered, sucked the poison from her husband's wound in Palestine; and here the black marble tomb of Queen Philippa, wife to Edward III., who quelled the Scottish insurrection during her husband's absence. This tomb was once ornamented with the brass statues of thirty kings and princes, but is now despoiled. Upon the great gray marble tomb of Edward III., who died in 1377, rests his effigy, with the shield and sword carried before him in France—a big, two-handled affair, seven feet long, and weighing eighteen pounds.

The most elegant and extensive chapel in the abbey is that of Henry VII. Its lofty, arched, Gothic ceiling is most exquisitely carved. There are flowers, bosses, roses, pendants, panels, and armorial bearings without number, a bewildering mass of exquisite tracery and ornamentation in stone, above and on every side. In the nave of this chapel the Knights of the Order of the Bath are installed, and here are their stalls, or seats, elegantly carved and shaded with Gothic canopies, while above are their coats of arms, heraldic devices, and banners. But the great object of interest in this magnificent, brass-gated chapel is the elaborate and elegant tomb of its founder, Henry VII., and his queen, Elizabeth, the last of the House of York who wore the English crown. The tomb is elegantly carved and ornamented, and bears the effigies of the royal pair resting upon a slab of black marble. It is surrounded by a most elaborate screen, or fence, of curiously-wrought brass-work. In another part of this chapel is a beautiful tomb, erected to Mary, Queen of Scots, surmounted by an alabaster effigy of the unfortunate queen; and farther on another, also erected by King James I. to Queen Elizabeth, bearing the recumbent effigy of that sovereign, supported by four lions. Queen Mary ("Bloody Mary"), who burned about seventy persons a year at the stake during four years of her reign, rests here in the same vault. Not far from this monument I found the sarcophagus marking the resting-place of the bones discovered in the Tower, supposed to be those of the little princes murdered by Richard III.

The nine chapels of the abbey are crowded with the tombs and monuments of kings and others of royal birth down to the time of George II., when Windsor Castle was made the repository of the royal remains. Besides monuments to those of noble birth, I noticed those of men who have, by great deeds and gifts of great inventions to mankind, achieved names that will outlive many of royal blood, in some of these chapels. In the Chapel of St. Paul there is a colossal figure of James Watt, who so developed the wonderful power of steam; one of Thomas Telford, in the Chapel of St. John, who died in 1834, who, by his extraordinary talents and self-education, raised himself from the position of orphan son of a shepherd to one of the most eminent engineers of his age; also the tablet to Sir Humphrey Davy. In the same chapel is a full-length statue of Mrs. Siddons, the tragic actress.

Besides these, there were in this chapel two wonderfully executed monumental groups, that attracted my attention. One represented a tomb, from the half-opened marble doors of which a figure of Death has just issued, and is in the very act of casting his dart at a lady who is sinking affrighted into the arms of her husband, who is rising startled from his seat upon the top of the tomb. The life-like attitude and expression of affright of these two figures are wonderful, while the figure of Death, with the shroud half falling off, revealing the fleshless ribs, skull, and bones of the full-length skeleton, is something a little short of terrible in its marvellous execution. The other group was a monument to Sir Francis Vere, who was a great soldier in Elizabeth's time, and died in 1608. It is a tablet supported upon the shoulders of four knights, of life size, kneeling. Upon the tablet lie the different parts of a complete suit of armor, and underneath, upon a sort of alabaster quilt, rests the effigy of Sir Francis. The kneeling figures of the knights are represented as dressed in armor suits, which are faithfully and elaborately carved by the sculptor.

While walking among the numerous and pretentious monuments of kings and princes, we were informed by the guide, who with bunch of keys opened the various chapels to our explorations, that many a royal personage, whose name helped to fill out the pages of England's history, slumbered almost beneath our very feet, without a stone to mark their resting-place. Among these was the grave of the merry monarch, Charles II.; and the fact that not one of the vast swarm of sycophantic friends that lived upon him, and basked in the sunshine of his prodigality, had thought enough of him to rear a tribute to his memory, was something of an illustration of the hollowness and heartlessness of that class of favorites and friends.