But, although his first attempt at helping Grinling Gibbons had not succeeded very well, kind Mr. Evelyn did not give it up. He happened to know Sir Christopher Wren, and as Sir Christopher was busy at that time over the building of the new Cathedral, he went and saw him, and told him about his protégé, and asked him if he could not give him something to do.
And Sir Christopher, who was looking about for someone to carve the woodwork of the stalls, went down and saw Gibbons’ work, and was so pleased with it that he engaged him at once to come and help him. And of course, when Gibbons did this, he soon became famous, and had no more trouble in obtaining orders.
Now perhaps you may feel inclined to ask if all the monuments in St. Paul’s Cathedral are erected to the memory of men who died far away in other lands. It looks like it, does it not? for we have seen Gordon’s monument, who died at Khartoum; and Moore’s, who died in Spain; and Bishop Heber’s, who died in India; and that of the Colonial soldiers, who died in South Africa; and if we go on looking, we shall find very many more, to the memory of soldiers and sailors who fought our battles, and guarded our shores, but whose bones are resting in foreign lands, or, mayhap, under the rolling waves of the sea.
But if we go down to the crypt, we shall find that there are some graves there. Two of them I am sure that you would like to look at for a moment, because they are the graves of two men whose memory will be kept green as long as the English nation lasts. One of them was her greatest soldier, and the other her greatest sailor. I need not tell you their names, need I?—Arthur, Duke of Wellington—‘The Iron Duke,’ as men called him—and Horatio, Lord Nelson, who died at Trafalgar, on board the Victory.
There are two monuments erected to them, upstairs, in the great church. That to Wellington is enormous, and stands just across the aisle from General Gordon’s. Nelson’s monument is on the other side of the Cathedral, just at the corner of the south transept, and is more interesting to look at than that of Wellington, for it represents the famous Admiral standing with one sleeve empty—for, as you remember, his right arm was shot away at the Battle of Teneriffe—while underneath are carved the names of his greatest sea-fights, Copenhagen, Nile, and Trafalgar. Lower still is the British Lion, emblem of the land he fought for, and the figure of Britannia, pointing out the great sailor to two little middies, and telling them to follow in his steps.
But when, in 1805, Nelson died on board his battleship, the English people felt that it was not enough that a monument should be put up to his memory in the Citizen Church of their Capital. They wanted his body to rest amongst them; so it was brought home, and, amid general lamentation, was buried in this still and silent crypt.
Forty-seven years passed; and once more the whole nation was mourning, for the Duke of Wellington was dead. He had not died in action, as did Nelson, but had fought his fights, and won his victories, and conquered Napoleon, and had lived to come home, and enter Parliament, and serve his country as a politician as well as a soldier.
And when the question arose as to where he should be buried, it was felt to be fitting that he—‘The Greatest Soldier,’ as Tennyson calls him—should be brought and laid beside ‘The Greatest Sailor,’ and that the
‘Sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for,’