“They dreamt not of a perishable home
Who thus could build,”
but he has also told us that the Cathedral is—
“Filled with mementoes, satiate with its past
Of grateful England’s overflowing Dead”—
and herein lies its chief interest.
No one has done his duty by St. Paul’s who has not been in the crypt. Dr. Donne’s monument, which dates from before the fire, has been brought up and placed in the south aisle of the choir, amongst those of bishops and deans, but some fragments of other tombs from old St. Paul’s are still in the crypt, besides many tablets and monuments of later date. There was for many years a prejudice against admitting memorial monuments in the Cathedral at all, but one being erected to the memory of John Howard, the reformer, the spell was broken. Several old stones on the floor of the crypt have no graves below them, those they commemorate having been buried outside in the churchyard, but now the few internments that take place are under the floor of the building, Sir Frederic (Lord) Leighton’s being the newest grave. Here also lie Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Christopher Wren, Dean Colet, George Cruikshank, Opie, West, Turner, Lord Napier of Magdala, Lord Mayor Nottage (who died in office in 1885), Bishop Piers Claughton, and many other notable persons. There is one division where there are gravestones in memory of past vergers of the Cathedral. Directly under the dome are the remains of Nelson, in a coffin made from wood of the Victory, enclosed in a sarcophagus originally intended for Cardinal Wolsey, but put aside as he was not considered worthy of it, and subsequently brought out and altered to suit Lord Nelson. Close by is a larger sarcophagus containing the remains of the Duke of Wellington.
ST. MARGARET’S AND THE ABBEY CHURCHYARD ABOUT 1750.
The Churchyard is no longer a fashionable resort, but it has been a very useful one since 1879, and many are the visitors who may always be found sitting there, while the pigeons fly amongst the tall and smoky columns. The Rev. H. R. Haweis says the Cathedral should be washed. He is right, no doubt, but “stately Paule” still remains black.