The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey

by G. E. Troutbeck

Near Chaucer’s monument is a bust of the American poet, Longfellow, who died in 1882. Some of his poems are familiar to most English children.

Charles Dickens, the great novelist, is buried in Poets’ Corner, just under Handel’s monument and close to Handel’s grave. Dickens will always be remembered as the author of David Copperfield, The Old Curiosity Shop, Christmas Stories, and many other books which are dear to the hearts of all English people.

Against the wall, on either side of Addison’s statue, are the busts of two other great writers of the last century,—Lord Macaulay, the poet and historian, and William Makepeace Thackeray, the famous novelist. Lord Macaulay, who died in 1859, was the son of Zachary Macaulay, of whom we have already heard in connection with the abolition of the slave-trade. Among Lord Macaulay’s best known writings are the Lays of Ancient Rome. His grave is close by Addison’s statue. Thackeray, who wrote Esmond, The Newcomes, Vanity Fair, and many other celebrated books, is not buried in the Abbey, but at Kensal Green. He died in 1863.

Nearer to the Choir aisle are the busts of the two great historians of Greece, Bishop Thirlwall and George Grote, who are buried in the same grave. They both died in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Just above the bust of Sir Walter Scott is a bronze medallion with a portrait head of John Ruskin, author of The Stones of Venice, Modern Painters, Sesame and Lilies, and many other well-known works on art and life.

In St. Edmund’s Chapel is the grave of Edward Bulwer Lytton, Lord Lytton, author of many widely read novels and historical romances. Among his best known books are The Last Days of Pompeii, The Caxtons, Rienzi, and Kenelm Chillingly. He died in 1873.

Several of the great actors of the nineteenth century are commemorated in the Abbey. Such are Mrs. Siddons, and her brother, John Philip Kemble, whose statues are in St. Andrew’s Chapel. Sir Henry Irving, the well-known actor of Shakspeare’s plays, as well as of many others, died in 1905, and is buried at the foot of Shakspeare’s monument, close to the grave of his great brother-actor, David Garrick.

In the Musicians’ Aisle is the grave of Sir William Sterndale Bennett, one of the chief English composers of his time. He died in 1875. In the same aisle is a medallion in memory of Michael Balfe, who composed The Bohemian Girl, and a window to James Turle, who was organist of the Abbey for fifty-six years. In St. Andrew’s Chapel is a window in memory of Vincent Novello, founder of the famous house of music publishers of that name.

[D. Weller.
GRAVES OF NEWTON, HERSCHEL, DARWIN, AND KELVIN.