Pitt was still a young man, only forty-seven, yet into those years he had crowded a glorious life, and it was with truth that the herald proclaimed over his grave, "He lived not for himself, but for his country."
Eight months later, Fox, who did not live to enjoy the power his rival's death had placed within his reach, was buried close to him in the Abbey. During his short spell of office, he had carried Wilberforce's Slave Bill, and had frequently said he could retire happily when once that bill was made safe. He disdainfully refused a Peerage. "I will not close my politics in that foolish way," was his remark. Near together too, though not in the Statesmen's Corner, are the monuments of these two whose lives were throughout so interwoven. Pitt towers in lonely state over the west door, standing there as if he were about to pour forth his magnificent eloquence on the statues below and charm them back into life for one brief moment. Fox lies surrounded by weeping figures, one of whom represents the negro whose cause he had so powerfully championed. And so the great Mother Church gathers them both to herself, claiming each as a noble son of England.
Henry Grattan, the Irishman, is buried close to Fox, his friend and hero. He had often told his followers that he wished to lie in a quiet churchyard of his loved Ireland, but they had other ideas. "Well then," he said resignedly, "Westminster Abbey!" His funeral had a very distinctive touch, for it was attended by hundreds of Irish children from various charitable institutions, all of whom wore dresses of bright green.
Next to the imposing monument of Chatham is a statue to Lord Palmerston, that most English of statesmen. He went into political life more from a sense of duty than from any particular liking for it, or from any feelings of ambition. But into every office that he held he carried with him a sturdy independence, a dogged tenacity of purpose, a fund of common sense, and a very clear idea of what he meant to attain. Add to this that he was the essence of good-nature, the most genial of friends, simple and straight, manly and cheery, and we have some idea of the man whom the nation insisted on having for Prime Minister, when he was over seventy years of age, at a critical moment when it was felt that only a strong, fearless, popular statesman could guide the ship out of the storm.
And then, in contrast to the kindly, contented Palmerston, comes the tomb of Lord Castlereagh, a statesman as much out of touch with the people as "Pam" was their hero. He was Secretary of State for War in those days when the struggle with France was beginning, and because at first things went badly he was made the scapegoat. It was he who planned that combination of forces which at last broke down the French resistance, but that was not realised till long afterwards; in those early days his policy was not successful, so it was unpopular. He stood aloof from all men; he was cold, indifferent, wanting in tact, with no gifts as a speaker, and yet, looking back now on his work, it is easy to see how well he faced a period of unexampled difficulty. Nevertheless, he was invariably misunderstood, and therefore unjustly disliked, so that at last his mind gave way under the storm of hatred and abuse levelled against him, and, in a dark moment, he put an end to his life. Even at his funeral in the Abbey, the crowds could not forget their dislike of him, and shouted exultantly as the coffin was carried inside the doors. But the Abbey gave him a welcome and a resting-place.
On the opposite side stand the statues of the three Cannings: George Canning, the statesman; his youngest son, Lord Canning, first Viceroy of India; and their cousin, Lord Stratford de Radcliffe, "the wise old man of the East," who was our ambassador at Constantinople during those years which led up to the Crimean War, and whose influence, supported by the Government at home and France, made it possible for Turkey to hold Russia at bay. The verse on the statue:
"Thou third great Canning, stand among our best
And noblest, now thy long day's work hath ceased;
Here silent, in our Minster of the West,
Who wert the voice of England in the East,"
is the work of Tennyson, who has only written one other epitaph in the Abbey. Close together are the monuments of Sir Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Peel was the Minister who, in the face of violent opposition, caused the tax on imported corn to be repealed, thereby making bread cheaper; and Disraeli, who first won his reputation by the persistent manner in which he fought this policy of Peel's, doggedly forged his way to the front against much prejudice, until he, though not an Englishman by race, held the proud position of being the loved and trusted Prime Minister of Queen Victoria. The statue of Beaconsfield—for by his own desire he was buried next to his wife in the country churchyard at Hughenden—casts its shadow over the grave of William Ewart Gladstone, whose family only consented to his being laid there on the condition that Mrs. Gladstone should eventually rest beside him, even as Lady Palmerston lay by her husband's side. The coffin which contained this old statesman, who was better loved and better hated perhaps than any public man of our generation, was placed for some time in Westminster Hall, and nearly a quarter of a million people passed through to pay their last token of respect. The time has not yet come when his place in English history as a statesman can be fairly judged, but friend and foe alike can bear tribute to his brilliant intellect; his talents as a financier; his excellent learning; his wonderful personality; his rich eloquence; his generous sympathies; his stainless private life; and to those other qualities which his political opponent Lord Salisbury so finely described as making him "a great Christian." "God bless you, and this place, and the land you love," had been his last public utterance, and in the spirit of that message we leave him, who in life stirred up such sharp dissensions, sleeping peacefully in the Abbey.
CHAPTER XX
INDIAN STATESMEN AND SOLDIERS: LAWRENCE
AND THE HEROES OF THE MUTINY