"If Westminster Abbey," said C. R. Leslie, "has its Poets' Corner, so has St. Paul's its Painters' Corner. Sir Joshua Reynolds's statue, by Flaxman, is here, and Reynolds himself lies buried here; and Barry, and Opie, and Lawrence are around him; and, above all, the ashes of the great Van Dyck are in the earth under the cathedral."
Turner now lies next to Reynolds. Yet, as a rule, the great commemorated in St. Paul's are of a different type to those of Westminster. Both churches are the mausoleums of heroes; St. Paul's being, however, by common consent the resting-place of the Militant, Westminster of the Pacific. The statue of Dr. Johnson, under the dome, opposes that of Howard. Though his dust rests in Westminster Abbey, the militant spirit of the Sage well deserves commemoration in St. Paul's. His representation, in the curious art of the time, as a half-clothed muscular athlete, is appropriately supplemented by that of Howard, bare-legged, with Roman toga and tunic. The coincidence of Johnson holding a scroll, and Howard a prison key, has caused the two to be sometimes mistaken by visitors for St. Peter and St. Paul! But not all the monumental vagaries are as innocuous as these. Westminster Abbey does not alone suffer from the bad taste of the Renaissance; a few of the monuments of St. Paul's are alike trials to the eyes as to the faith. The naked warriors in sandals, receiving swords from, or falling into the arms of, smart feminine "Victories,"—lusus naturae with wings protruding from their shoulders,—are, indeed, sad instances of the too rampant eighteenth-century exuberance of fancy. Of the monuments, for instance, to Captains Burgess and Westcott, Allan Cunningham remarks:
"The two naval officers (Westcott and Burgess), are naked, which destroys historic probability; it cannot be a representation of what happened, for no British warriors go naked into battle, or wear sandals or Asiatic mantles.... When churchmen declared themselves satisfied, the ladies thought they might venture to draw near, but the flutter of fans and the averting of faces was prodigious. That Victory, a modest and well-draped dame, should approach an undrest dying man, and crown him with laurel, might be endured—but, how a well-dressed young lady could think of presenting a sword to a naked gentleman went far beyond all their notions of propriety."
Neither is the ugly group of the Bishop of Calcutta, ogre-like in size, apparently confirming two Indian dwarfs, at all calculated to excite any feeling but amusement.
The great cathedral has, nevertheless, also its monumental treasures. Under the third arch on the north of the nave, is the noble monument of the Duke of Wellington, by Alfred Stevens; the aged Duke lying, "like a Scaliger of Verona, deeply sleeping upon a lofty bronze sarcophagus." One thinks of Tennyson's lines:
"Here in streaming London's central roar,
Let the sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for,
Echo round his bones for evermore."
And near to him, in the north aisle of the nave, under the tattered banners of those old regiments that fell in the Crimea, lies, on a pedestal of Greek cipollino, the recumbent bronze effigy of that recent recruit to the ranks of dead painters, Lord Leighton of Stretton. The monument, worthy of the best traditions of art, is by Brock. The beautiful features of the dead President are composed in a sublime peace; he "is not dead, but sleepeth"; "yet it is visibly a sleep that shall know no ending, till the last day break, and the last shadow flee away." The long robe droops to the feet, the hands that toiled unweariedly for beauty and for immortal art, now lie motionless on the breast. The tattered flags that hang above, have, here, too, their significance,—hanging over one, who in the many-sidedness of his genius and his interests, was in his time one of the pioneers of the Volunteer movement. The Leonardo of his age has here a fitting memorial.
Near to Lord Leighton's fine tomb is that of General Gordon, a bronze monument and effigy by Boehm. He "who at all times, and everywhere, gave his strength to the weak, his substance to the poor, his sympathy to the suffering, and his heart to God" is fitly remembered in death. When I last saw this monument, on the hero's breast lay a fresh bunch of violets, on his either side were the symbolic palm branches, and at his feet a wreath of white flowers. Near by is the imposing bronze doorway, the "gate of the tomb," erected to Lord Melbourne, Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister. Of the supporting angels on either side of the plinth, that on the left, especially, is very impressive.
But the bell calls to service, and the rolling organ-tones resound in the blue dome, where Richmond's mosaics glitter like diamonds in the stray gleams of sunshine that glance athwart the abyss. The mosaics, like all innovations in this ungrateful city, have, of course, run the gauntlet of abuse, on the ground of smallness and ineffectiveness; yet the Monreale mosaics, so admired at Palermo, are more or less on the same scale, and are, also, at a considerable height. But it is difficult for contemporaries to judge fairly, and Time, no doubt, here as elsewhere, will kindly do the work of discrimination for us.
In the crypt are the half-destroyed remains of monuments from the older church, with Nelson's sarcophagus, Wren's simple tomb, and many others. But, outside St. Paul's, the sunlight still calls us, and, from the depths of the dim recesses and aisles of the great cathedral, we regain now the brilliant summit of Ludgate Hill, brilliant with the noonday spring sun. Now the sounds of many-sided life invade the repose of death; and a noisy street-organ, playing near Queen Anne's statue, mingles its note strangely with the cathedral's still pealing bells. The pigeons, gay in colour, flit down from their homes in among the blackened garlands, Corinthian capitals, and pediments; it is a strange and a motley scene. And, down at the bottom of the great flight of steps that lead from the western portico, the Twentieth-century visitor will now see a new landmark; for here, cut deeply into the pavement, is the record of the latest great ceremonial function of St. Paul's: Queen Victoria's visit here on the sixtieth anniversary of her reign. Here, on this very spot, surrounded by Archbishops, priests, and people, the royal and aged lady sat in her carriage, paying homage to a Heavenly Throne, and receiving, surely, greater homage than was ever before paid to an earthly one:—