Y. S. M.
Queries.
SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS.
As recumbent effigies are in vogue, there are some points connected herewith worthy of discussion at the present time in your pages. The ultra-admirers of the mediæval monuments will not allow the slightest deviation from what they regard as the prescriptive model—a figure with the head straight, and the hands raised in prayer. One of their arguments is, that the ancient effigy is alive, while the modern modifications are in a state of death, and consequently repulsive to the feelings of the spectator. In my opinion, however, the vitality of the old ones is very questionable. Let us reflect upon their probable origin. In former times the bodies of ecclesiastics and other personages were laid in state, exposed to public view, and even carried into the churches in that condition: a custom still prevalent abroad. It is reasonable to conjecture that the monuments intended to perpetuate this scene in stone, imitating the form of the deceased, with the canopy and bier, and adorned with armorial bearings and other appropriate devices. Images of wax were frequently substituted for the corpse, some of which (among them Queen Elizabeth's) are still preserved in Westminster Abbey; but the practice was kept up even down to the time of the great Duke of Marlborough. It is recorded in history, that during the progress of the body of our Henry V. from France, a figure of the king, composed of boiled leather, was placed upon the coffin. York Cathedral contains a beautiful example of a complete monument of this description in the Early English style, which degenerated by degrees into the four-post bed, with its affectionate couple, of the Elizabethan period. It is obviously a fair deduction, from these circumstances, that the sepulchral effigies are "hearsed in death."
From Mr. Ruskin's Stones of Venice, it appears that the figures on the Venetian tombs of the Middle Ages are manifestly dead; and such, it may be inferred, is the impression conveyed to his highly cultivated mind by the contemplation of those in our own country.
"In the most elaborate examples," says this observant writer, "the canopy is surmounted by a statue, generally small, representing the dead person in the full strength and pride of life, while the recumbent figure shows him as he lay in death. And at this point the perfect type of the Gothic tomb is reached."
Describing one at Verona, of the fourteenth century, he observes:
"The principal aim of the monument is to direct the thoughts to his image as he lies in death, and to the expression of his hope of resurrection."
And towards the conclusion of his review of their development he writes: