Humani Generis Decus.
The corresponding monument is in memory of the Earl of Stanhope, as eminent a warrior and statesman as Newton had been a philosopher. He is represented in Roman armour, reposing on a sarcophagus also, and under a tent; on the top of which a figure of Pallas seems at once to protect him, and point him out as worthy of admiration. Both these were designed by an English artist, and executed by Michael Rysbrack.
England has produced few good sculptors; it would not be incorrect if I should say none, with the exception of Mr Banks, a living artist, whose best works are not by any means estimated according to their merit. I saw at his house a female figure of Victory designed for the tomb of a naval officer who fell in battle, as admirably executed as any thing which has been produced since the revival of the art. There were also two busts there, the one of Mr Hastings, late viceroy of India, the other of the celebrated usurper Oliver Cromwell, which would have done honour to the best age of sculpture. Most of the monuments in this church are wholly worthless in design and execution, and the few which have any merit are the work of foreigners.
One of the vergers went round with us; a man whose lank stature and solemn deportment would have suited the church in its best days. When first I saw him in the shadow he looked like one of the Gothic figures affixed to a pillar; and when he began to move, I could have fancied that an embalmed corpse had risen from its cemetery to say mass in one of the chauntries. He led us with much civility and solemnity to Edward the Confessor’s chapel, and showed us there the tomb of that holy king; the chairs in which the king and queen are crowned; the famous coronation stone, brought hither from Scotland, and once regarded as the Palladium of the royal line; and in the same chapel certain waxen figures as large as life, and in full dress. You have heard J— mention the representation of the Nativity at Belem; and exclaim against the degenerate taste of the Portuguese, in erecting a puppet-show among the tombs of their kings. It was not without satisfaction that I reminded him of this on my return from Westminster Abbey, and told him I had seen the wax-work.
The most interesting part of the edifice is the chapel built by Henry VII. and called by his name. At the upper end is the bronze tomb of the founder, surrounded by a Gothic screen, which was once richly ornamented with statues in its various niches and recesses, but most of these have been destroyed. The whole is the work of Torregiano, an Italian artist, who broke Michel Angelo’s nose, and died in Spain under a charge of heresy. Since the reign of Elizabeth, no monument has been erected to any of the English sovereigns: a proof of the coldness which their baneful heresy has produced in the national feeling. A plain marble pavement covers the royal dead in this splendid chapel, erected by one of their ancestors. No one was here to be interred who was not of the royal family: Cromwell, however, the great usurper, whose name is held in higher estimation abroad than it seems to be in his own country, was deposited here with more than royal pomp. It was easier to dispossess him from the grave than from the throne; his bones were dug up by order of Charles II. and gibbeted: poor vengeance for a father dethroned and decapitated, for his own defeat at Worcester, and for twelve years of exile! The body of Blake, which had been laid with merited honours in the same vault, was also removed, and turned into the church-yard: if the removal was thought necessary, English gratitude should at least have raised a monument over the man who had raised the English name higher than ever admiral before him.
One thing struck me, in viewing this church, as very remarkable. The monuments which are within reach of a walking-stick are all more or less injured, by that barbarous habit which Englishmen have of seeing by the sense of touch, if I may so express myself. They can never look at any thing without having it in the hand, nor show it to another person without touching it with a stick, if it is within reach; I have even noticed in several collections of pictures exposed for sale, a large printed inscription requesting the connoisseurs not to touch them. Besides this odd habit, which is universal, there is prevalent among these people a sort of mischievous manual wit, by which mile-stones are commonly defaced, directing-posts broken, and the parapets of bridges thrown into the river. Their dislike to a passage in a book is often shewn by tearing the leaf, or scrawling over the page, which differs from them in political opinion. Here is a monument to a Major André, who was hanged by Washington as a spy: the story was related in relief: it had not been erected a month before some person struck off Washington’s head by way of retaliation; somebody of different sentiments requited this by knocking off the head of the major: so the two principal figures in the composition are both headless! From such depredations you might naturally suppose that no care is taken of the church, that stalls are set up in it, that old women sell gingerbread nuts there, and porters make it a thoroughfare, as is done in Hamburgh. On the contrary, no person is admitted to see the Abbey for less than two shillings; and this money, which is collected by twopences and sixpences, makes part of the revenue of the subordinate priests in this reformed church. There is a strange mixture of greatness and littleness in every thing in this country: for this, however, there is some excuse to be offered; from the mischief which is even now committed, it is evident that, were the public indiscriminately admitted, every thing valuable in the church would soon be destroyed.
LETTER XXIV.
Complexion of the English contradictory to their historical Theories.—Christian Names, and their Diminutives.—System of Surnames.—Names of the Months and Days.—Friday the unlucky Day.—St Valentine.—Relics of Catholicism.
The prevalence of dark hair and dark complexions among the English is a remarkable fact in opposition to all established theories respecting the peoplers of the Island. We know that the Celts were light or red-haired, with blue eyes, by the evidence of history; and their descendants in Wales, and Ireland, and Scotland, still continue so. The Saxons, and Angles, and Danes, were of the same complexion. How is it then that the dark eyes and dark hair of the south should predominate? Could the Roman breed have been so generally extended, or, did the Spanish colony spread further than has been supposed? Climate will not account for the fact; there is not sun enough to ripen a grape; and if the climate could have darkened the Danes and Saxons, it would also have affected the Welsh; but they retain the marked character of their ancestors.