Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life

by Daniel Joseph Kirwan

Besides these worthies, the tombs of Collingwood, Nelson's friend, Wren, Rennie, the builder of London Bridge, and Mylne, of Waterloo Bridge, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who expected to be buried in Westminster Abbey, and was disappointed, like many others, Sir William Jones, Sir Astley Cooper, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Turner, the greatest colorist England has ever produced, Fuseli, Barry, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Opie, West and other famous painters, John, of Gaunt, Vandyke, Dr. Donne, Sir C. Hatton, Dean Colet, founder of St. Paul's School, and Sir Nicholas Bacon are buried in the crypt under St. Faith's—the parish church of St. Paul's—which is quite contiguous to the latter.

There are monuments to Bishop Heber, Lord Cornwallis, Nelson, Reynolds, Johnson, Sir John Moore, Elliott, who defended Gibraltar, Lord Howe, Rodney, Ponsonby, Admiral Dundas, and a large number beside of their country's defenders in the Cathedral.

PRICES OF ADMISSION.

To speak plainly the interior does not look like a church of God at all. It is simply a huge Pantheon, with monumental effigies, and slabs indicating the virtues, heroism, gallantry and acts in battle of innumerable soldiers and sailors who have fought for Britain in times gone by. The vast Rotunda and the gigantic Dome do not give the idea of a church, and the pillars and cornices have little in their aspect to make a spectator feel that he stands in the presence of the Almighty.

Yet the monuments and the vastness of the Cathedral are worthy of inspection, though the exterior of the Cathedral is far more imposing than the interior, owing to the fact that the real height of the walls of the body of the edifice is marked by a double row of pillars, which are ranged on top of each other, giving to the spectator an impression that the Cathedral walls to the roof, exclusive of the dome and cupola, are twice as high as they are in reality.

The following are the charges to see the different places in the Cathedral:—to the body of the church, 2d.; to the Whispering Gallery and the outside galleries around the dome, 6d.; to the Library, the Model Room, the Geometrical Staircase in the south turret, and the Great Bell, which weighs 12,000 pounds, 1s.; to the Ball at the top, 1s. 6d.; to the clock, 2d., and to the vaults 1s., in all 4s. 4d. from each visitor; which is nothing less than a downright robbery. This is playing Barnum with a vengeance.

It was the great bell of St. Paul's which a soldier on the ramparts at Windsor, twenty miles away, heard striking thirteen strokes one night, instead of twelve. He was tried for sleeping on his post, found guilty, and sentenced to death, and would have suffered had it not been for his stout heart, and his persistent assertion that he heard the bell strike thirteen instead of twelve strokes. It was proved that the bell did strike thirteen on the night in question, by the mistake of the ringer, and thus the soldier was exonerated.

It was for this same bell that Henry VIII. and a dissolute nobleman named Partridge, rattled the dice one night; and finally Henry lost the stake. Partridge having won, died in the same year in an unfortunate manner, just before he had made up his impious mind to have the bell melted down. This was looked upon as a judgment of God, for in those days judgments of God were of common occurrence.

The grandest sight ever seen under the dome of St. Paul's was the funeral of Nelson, which took place January 9, 1806. The body was brought through the streets from Whitehall Stairs, with the King, Lord Mayor, the Lords of the Admiralty, the Princes of the Blood, the nobles, prelates and civic companies following, through densely packed streets, which were almost impassable, for all England was there in heart, if not in body. The bands played the "Dead March in Saul" during the afternoon, and minute guns were fired from the Tower and along the wharves as the body passed. Hardy, Nelson's post-captain, and forty-eight sailors, who had seen the hero die, surrounded the corpse, and when the body was taken from the hearse into the vast Cathedral, a clear space was formed amid all that great sea of faces by the Highland soldiers of Abercromby, who had been with Nelson in Egypt and at Aboukir. Above was the immense dome, and from its dark and impenetrable depths depended a huge octagonal lantern, encircled by innumerable lamps.