The south transept has only been called Poets' Corner since the burial of Spenser, who was the darling of his generation. But the grave of Chaucer, "the father of English poetry," had consecrated the aisle to poetry long before. Chaucer was not given honourable sepulture here because he was a poet, but only from the accidental fact that he happened to be Clerk of the Works at Westminster Palace, and lived near the old Lady Chapel. For 250 years the great poet's only memorial was a leaden plate hanging on a column close by, but in 1551 a devoted admirer, himself a versifier, Nicholas Brigham, placed an ancient tomb here in memory of the master, with a fancy painting of Chaucer at the back. Before this monument are the graves of the two most famous poets of our generation, the Laureate Tennyson and Robert Browning, side by side. Above them is the beautiful bust of another Poet Laureate, Dryden, and the less artistic portrait bust of the American poet Longfellow.
The walls of the Poets' Corner are literally covered with memorials of men of letters. Many of these are but names to us at the present day, but some are familiar; others, such as "Rare Ben Jonson," Butler, the author of "Hudibras," Thomas Gray, Spenser, and Goldsmith, are household words throughout the Empire. Beneath our feet lie Sheridan and old Dr. Johnson.
The tardy memorials to Milton and Shakespeare eclipse the fame of all the rest. Quite recently busts of the Scotch bard Robert Burns, the poet-novelist Walter Scott, and a medallion head of the artistic prose writer and critic John Ruskin, have been placed here. Music is not unrepresented, for above us is the unwieldy figure of Handel, and beneath his feet a memorial to the Swedish nightingale, Jenny Lind Goldschmidt, whose perfect rendering of the master's airs will ever remain in the memory of those who were privileged to hear her. Further on is the historical side, where the chief prose writers are to be found; the venerable Camden is close to Grote and Bishop Thirlwall, historians whose bodies rest in one grave. The busts of Lord Macaulay and of Thackeray are on each side of Addison's statue, and beneath the pavement in front of them is the tombstone of the ever-popular Charles Dickens. David Garrick stands in close proximity to the grave of the dramatist Davenant, while scattered in various parts of the Abbey and cloisters will be found the names of other actors and actresses, notably Mrs. Siddons and her brother, John Kemble.
It is impossible in a few paragraphs to do more than allude to the history of the Abbey, and of the dead whose names are commemorated, or whose bodies rest within this great "Temple of Silence and Reconciliation." Let us conclude this brief sketch with the pregnant and pathetic words of the young playwriter John Beaumont, whose bones are mouldering beside those of Chaucer:
"Mortality, behold and fear!
What a change of flesh is here!
Think how many royal bones
Sleep within these heaps of stones.
Here they lie had realms and lands
Who now want strength to stir their hands.
... Here are sands, ignoble things
Dropt from the ruined sides of kings;
Here's a world of pomp and state,
Buried in dust once dead by fate."
ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH.
St. Margaret's Church is traditionally said to have been founded by Edward the Confessor, and that there was certainly a church here before 1140 is proved by its being mentioned in a grant of Abbot Herebert, who died in that year. It was originally a chapel in the south aisle of the church of the Benedictine monks, and was rebuilt to a great extent in Edward I.'s reign. Further alterations were made in the time of Edward IV. In 1735 the tower was raised and faced with stone, and in 1758 the east end was rebuilt and the present stained glass inserted. A famous case between Sir Thomas Grosvenor and the family of Scrope concerning the rights of a heraldic device which either claimed was heard in St. Margaret's, and Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet, gave evidence. In 1549 Latimer preached in the church. The Protector Somerset, at the time he was building his great mansion in the Strand, had used a good deal of the ruins of religious houses, and still wanted more material. He therefore cast his unholy eyes upon St. Margaret's in order that he might use its time-worn stones for his own purposes, but he was resisted by the people of Westminster, who arose in their wrath and smote his workmen hip and thigh.
On Palm Sunday in 1713 the great Dr. Sacheverell preached in the church after the term of his suspension, and no less than 40,000 copies of his sermon were sold. The church was for long peculiarly associated with the House of Commons, as when the members began to sit in St. Stephen's Chapel they attended Divine service in St. Margaret's, while the Lords went to the Abbey. Edmund Waller, the poet, was married in St. Margaret's to Anne Banks on July 5, 1631, and John Milton to Katherine Woodcock in November, 1656. A son of Sir Walter Raleigh's is buried in the church, and also Colonel Blood. Children of Judge Jeffreys: Bishop Burnet, Titus Oates and Jeremy Bentham were christened here. Besides Latimer and Sacheverell the list of great preachers in St. Margaret's is long, including many Archbishops and Bishops, and the roll of Rectors contains many distinguished names. A man who occupies the pulpit must feel he has high tradition to uphold.
The interior of St. Margaret's is far superior to the exterior, a reversal of what is usual in church architecture. The splendid arcades of aisle arches, early Perpendicular, or transition from Decorated to the Perpendicular style, are uninterrupted by any chancel arch, and with the clerestory windows sweep from end to end of the building. The east window is filled with stained glass of the richest tints, the blues and greens being particularly striking. This glass has a history. It was made at Gouda in Holland, and was a present from the magistrates of Dort to Henry VIII. for the chapel of Whitehall Palace. The King, however, gave it to Waltham Abbey (doubtless in exchange for something else). The glass suffered many removals and vicissitudes, being at one time buried to escape Puritan zeal, but it was eventually bought by the churchwardens of St. Margaret's for 400 guineas. The aisle windows, with one exception, to be noted presently, are the work of Sir Gilbert Scott at the last restoration, just before 1882. He designed the tracery in accordance with what he conceived to have been the date of the church; but when his work was finished a single window, that furthest east in the south aisle, was discovered walled up, and the style of this showed that his surmise had not been far wrong, though the period he had chosen was a little later. The glass in several of the windows is of interest. That at the east end of the south aisle is the Caxton window, put up 1820 by the Roxburghe Club, as was also the tablet below. That in the window in the centre, west end, is in memory of Sir Walter Raleigh, who was beheaded in Old Palace Yard, near at hand. It was put in by Americans about twenty years ago. Raleigh's tablet, with an inscription copied from the old wooden one which dated from the time of his death, is near the east entrance. The Milton window, also due to the generosity of an American, is on the north side of the Raleigh one. One of especial interest to Americans is that to Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts, near the vestry door. There are many others deserving of notice.
The general tint of all the glass is rich and subdued, with a predominance of yellow and sepia strangely effective. Of monuments there are many—they may be examined in detail on the spot; the oldest is that to Cornelius Van Dun, a dark stone medallion with a man's head in bas-relief on the north wall. Van Dun was Yeoman of the Guard and Usher to Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary and Elizabeth. A quaint one near it is to "Egioke," died 1622. The most elaborate monument in the church is that to Mary, Lady Dudley, sister to the famous Lord Howard of Effingham. This is the life-sized figure of a woman in alabaster, highly coloured; it stands near the vestry door. Above it is a relic that many might pass unnoticed; it is the figure of a woman about two-thirds life-size standing in an ancient rood door. The statue was found built up in the wall by a workman who struck his pick into the coloured stuff, and called attention to the fact. The figure is either that of the Virgin or St. Margaret. It has been carefully put together, but the head is lacking. Puritan zeal had evidently to do with its concealment. Puritan zeal, too, was answerable for the destruction of a magnificent tomb to Dame Billing, a benefactress who rebuilt the south aisle of the church about 1499.