OUR INTEREST IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Among the Impressive Memorials in the Ancient Edifice in Which England Lays the
Bodies of Her Honored Dead Are Many That Possess
Peculiar Interest for Americans.
To be buried in Westminster Abbey, or to be honored there by a memorial bust or tablet, is one of the highest posthumous honors that can be accorded an Englishman. The noble old structure enshrines many of the good and the great; and it is gratifying to Americans that a number of their fellow countrymen are there remembered. In the Poets' Corner is a beautiful bust of Longfellow, set up in 1884 by English admirers of the poet.
Before the tomb of Major André the American visitor pauses, and doubtless he agrees with the inscription, which says that the ill-fated André was "lamented even by his foes." André's remains were taken to England in 1821 from Tappan, New York, where he was originally buried.
Another memorial of the Revolutionary War is a monument to the memory of William Wragg, of South Carolina. Wragg stuck to the fortunes of England when the colonies revolted. On his way to England he was drowned. The monument was erected by his sister in 1779. A very beautiful urn surmounts it, on which is pictured the incident of the shipwreck in which Mr. Wragg was drowned.
The visitor who does not penetrate to the remotest corner of the Abbey will look in vain for the James Russell Lowell memorial. It has been erected in the vaulted vestibule of the old chapter-house. This chapter-house is the most interesting feature of the entire Abbey. It is the oldest part of the building.
Originally the assembly-hall of the members of the convent and the scene of the floggings of the older monks, it became the meeting-place of the Commons soon after the separation of the two houses of Parliament, in the reign of Edward I, and it remained their meeting-place until they removed to the Chapel of St. Stephen, in the old Westminster Palace, in 1547.
The chapter-house itself is dark and gloomy. Far more so is the passageway which leads to it, and in the dimness of its obscurity one who looks closely will find a small tablet bearing the bust of James Russell Lowell in bas-relief. Above this tablet is a beautiful triple stained-glass window to the memory of Mr. Lowell, erected by his friends in England.
The tributes to Americans which appear in the Abbey are the tributes of their English friends and admirers. Colonel Joseph Lemuel Chester, an American little known to his countrymen, who edited the Westminster Abbey Register, figures among the distinguished dead. He was a native of Norwich, Connecticut, but lived for many years in London, and died there in 1882. The dean and chapter of Westminster erected the memorial to his memory.