bent, rest on cushions, single or double-called, in the "Lincolnshire Church Notes of 1629," in the British Museum, a pillow and a bolster' (and the increasing luxury may be traced even in these). On each side of these is usually placed an angel, emblematic perhaps of the ministering angels, who are ever about the path and bed of the faithful, smooth the pillow of the dying, and carry the disembodied soul to receive the blessing of its Maker. This last part of their office is shown on the Elsing brass, where, as from the head of the knight, two angels are carrying to heaven in a sheet his glorified spirit. On the Lynn brasses the soul is traced to its utmost stage, and is seated in the bosom of the Father; to whom the angels are offering incense, and in whose praise they are striking their celestial harps. The most beautiful example of this is given by Gough, vol. ii. p. 311, from the monument of Lady Percy, at Beverley Minster.'-Introduct., p. xiii. It seems also that, as greater prominence was given to the pomp of life, in exhibiting the figure in its most gorgeous form, and with the strictest accuracy, and in covering the tomb with highlywrought canopies, it was held necessary to convey the contrast of death with life more strikingly by the introduction of the skeleton,* or representation of the body in its state of corruption, in the same tomb. This is not uncommon in the fifteenth century, and becomes more frequent afterwards. It seems as if, with the increasing decay of sound religion, death became more and more an object of fear; and the world more likely to absorb the thought. And it may be that some such transition may be traced in the animals which are represented at the feet of the various effigies, and of which a satisfactory account has scarcely yet been given. The first idea suggested by them appears to have been that of the powers of evil trampled on or destroyed by good and No other interpretation can be put on their earliest occurrence in the form of serpents or dragons' heads pierced by the end of the bishop's crozier. This device is often found, especially on early French monuments; and generally in cases where no figure is represented on the tomb; and only the crozier itself, grasped occasionally by a hand sculptured in high relief. From this it is easy to pass to the idea of the lion and the dragon, as emblematic of the same evil powers, and placed under the feet of the recumbent figure. A transition appears to have taken place from this idea to an emblematic representation of the virtues of the deceased-the lion representing courage, the dog fidelity. We must not be drawn aside here into heraldry-it is undoubted that by and bye the animals represented on the tombs were often connected with the family arms, or some rebus of the family name. The last stage appears to have been where the dog es *For instance, see Gough, vol. ii. pp. 111, 118. VOL. LXX. NO. CXL. pecially pecially is really the representative of the living favourite, taking its station, not under, but on, the feet of its mistress, or couched under its master, with its name written on a label, or engraved on a collar round the neck; as Sir Bryan Stapleton's dog' Jakke' at Ingham, and Dame Cassy's Terri' at Deerhurst. These are trifles to dwell upon, but they indicate a remarkable change of feeling. It is unnecessary to say that the origin of the recumbent figure is to be found probably in the practice of carrying the dead body uncoffined to the grave, and dressed in its most gorgeous apparel, as is the practice now in many parts of the continent. Thus the marble tomb was only the perpetuation of the spectacle exhibited at the funeral. The canopy may be traced from the recesses in the side walls within which the coffin-tombs were early lodged, and surmounted by a richly-wrought Gothic arch, to the perfect chantries. From some of the royal tombs in Westminster Abbey, it might be supposed that it was thought a proper appendage, upon the same principle as the canopy was carried over the living person. With the chapels and chantries, such as those of Bishop West and Bishop Alcock, at Ely, we reach perhaps the acmé of corruption under the influence of popery. They involve many of the most objectionable features of that melancholy system; the sale of masses, the doctrine of indulgences and purgatory, the growth of a mischievous secular power in the Church, and the withdrawal of attention from the one Supreme Being to whom the sacred building is dedicated, to inferior and human creatures. But in the mean time another very interesting form of monument had been introduced in brasses, a form indicating a more general demand for sepulchral memorials, a more lax admission of bodies to be buried within the church, and a greater disposition to overlook strict Christian discipline in the circumstances of death. The earliest English brass (says Cotman) upon record is that of Simon de Beauchamp, who completed the foundation of Ravenham Abbey, and died before 1208, and was buried in front of the high altar in St. Paul's Church, at Bedford. On the Continent their date is as early; and in the church of St. Julien, at Mons, is one of Geoffroi le Bel, who died in 1150.* The honour of the invention is attributed by some to France. Those mentioned by Cotman, in France, accord with those of Lynn, in Norfolk, in being not mere effigies let into the stone, but large sheets of metal covering the whole slab; and, where not occupied by the figure, filled with tabernacle work, or representing an embroidered carpet. They have also cushions under the head, which * Cotman's Brasses, p. 5. are are not to be found in any other of that epoch in Norfolk. Others have derived them from Flanders, and especially from Ghent; and traced them to those countries chiefly which supplied the Flemings with wool. They were composed of various squares, for the convenience of importation; are often enamelled, and in the canopy and tabernacle work exhibit some of the most exquisite combinations which we possess of Gothic architecture. Whatever might be thought of restoring them, it is lamentable to think how many have been destroyed, some to make tablets for inscriptions upon later tombs, but far more for the sake of the metal in times of war and pillage. We come now to the period in which the revival (we will not call it of art, for art in great perfection existed already, but) of Grecian art, began to corrupt and break down the system of Gothic architecture; and with it to introduce entirely new principles into our sepulchral monuments-principles very closely connected with the general movement of mind which displayed itself in the sixteenth century. And it is worthy of remark that this change is not confined to England. There is in the Bodleian Library a very large and curious collection of drawings illustrating the sepulchral monuments of France. They were purchased, we believe, by Gough himself, and fill upwards of a dozen folio volumes. This collection is the more interesting and valuable, as in the tumults of the Revolution the monuments themselves must have for the most part perished. They are executed with great care; and an examination of them will show a singular coincidence with the history of the sepulchral monuments of England. The altar tomb was soon affected. It became gradually charged with mere ornaments, and those of a classical character, until it sunk into the heathen sarcophagus; bulging out under James into a variety of heavy, cumbrous forms; and retaining no trace whatever of its original coffin-shape. The figure on it, by slow and almost imperceptible advances, begins to stir, and pass from death into life. The feet feel the new idea first they fall apart, as is natural in a sleeping posture, instead of being rigidly fastened together, as in the ancient mode of laying out the corpse, and particularly as specified in many of the monastic rules. It is no longer the dead, whether occupied in the last moments with prayer, or reminding the bystander of the pains of purgatory, but the living, which fixes the attention. And yet it is the living asleep, and asleep in the greatest number of early instances in most painful postures; as if the process of turning in their beds and raising themselves on their arm to look round, they could only perform painfully and by stealth, 2 F 2 and and in a considerable number of years; and from this they rise to kneel together, with their wives and children, until they finally attain an erect posture, as in most of our modern statues. Perhaps the most remarkable instance of this transition is to be found in the Fetiplace monuments in Swinford church, which have been noticed and slightly etched in Mr. Markland's little volume, but are engraved with great beauty in Shelton's Oxfordshire.' Among these are two of precisely the same general form, exhibiting each three figures, lying on shelves, as in the berths of a ship, and under one canopy or cornice. But they are of different dates; and, except in the details of ornament, there is scarcely any difference but in the attitude of the figures; those of the later century being advanced another stage in liveliness by drawing up one of the legs, as well as resting on the right arm. Those who wish to trace this change may observe it in Westminster Abbey in the monuments of John Lord Russell (1584), Thomas Owen, Esq. (1598), Sir Thomas Hesketh (1605), Sir Dudley Carleton (1631), Lord Cottington (1652), the Duke of Newcastle (1676) -without mentioning others where the process of resuscitation, or, as it really seems, of waking out of sleep, is farther advanced.* For a long time, however, a devotional feeling still prevailed; and the attitude of prayer is preserved. Generally the husband and wife are kneeling face to face; and a book lies open before them on a prie-Dieu. But instead of asking the prayers of the bystanders, they pray for themselves, as Sir John Spelman and his wife, (1545,) at Narburgh: the prayer issuing from their lips. Nor must we forget another feature which begins to appear about the end of the fifteenth century, and rises into great importance in the two next. This is the introduction of children into the tombs of their parents. As the Romish superstitions were discarded, the merits of celibacy fell with them; the character and duties of the citizen became prominent; and to have raised up defenders for his country was one of the chief virtues to be recorded on his tomb. The sons are thus brought in kneeling behind their father, or standing at his feet; and daughters by their mother. Where there are two wives, or sometimes three (and this alone is a feature indicating strongly a revolution of sentiment), each family is attached to its own mother. On the tomb of William Yelverton, at Rougham, (1586) there are sixteen; Richard Althorp's (1554) has effigies of nineteen; and William Bardewell's, at West Sterling, (1460,) commemorates no less than thirty sons and daughters. Even the dead children are represented in their *An useful Handbook to Westminster Abbey has just been published by Mr Peter Cunningham, son of the Poet. The index to this little volume is carefully done,-a rare case now-a-days,—and thus the date of any monument may be easily ascertained. See Cotman, p. 13. winding-sheets, winding-sheets, or, at a later period, lying on their beds. It is unnecessary to point out here the architectural solecisms committed in the attempt to preserve the original Gothic features of the altar-tomb, with the recumbent figure and canopy, in the altered elements of Grecian or Italian art. All that was beautiful and appropriate in the Gothic design becomes full of solecisms in the new style. The broken outline, the picturesque grouping, the pendent masses, the niches and pillars, the florid foliage running over the surface, all of them points in perfect keeping with the primary principle of elevation which is the germ of the Gothic, are wholly incompatible with the simplicity and symmetry of the Grecian. And the artists vainly endeavoured to preserve them by means of vases, pyramids, busts, scrolls, coats-of-arms, projecting cornices, broken pediments, and by what has not inappropriately been called the crinkum-crankum' style of Elizabeth and James; in which angles and curves are, as before, studiously intermixed, but intermixed without due proportion; and entangle the eye in a labyrinth of fractured lines, without unity, or harmony, or grace. As the figure on the tomb gradually rises into life, the artists appear to have laboured under increasing difficulties in impressing on the spectator, through some other means, the fact that the person represented had really paid the debt of mortality. To accomplish this purpose, the first symbol which they recurred to, as the nearest approach to the Gothic pinnacle, was the pyramid or obelisk-no unfitting emblem of eternity. At the same time, as if to give this eternity a due degree of instability, they contrived to rest the pyramid upon four round balls. Instead of the whole skeleton exposed under the same tomb with the gorgeously-attired effigies, they were content with scattering about a few death's-heads, cross-bones, and hour-glasses. And, as if to exhaust every possible contingency, while the sarcophagus, on which the figure lies, implies that the body is contained within it, the spectator is informed, by means of a number of urns, that the remains have been burned, in defiance of the practice of Christians; while the inscription takes care to inform us that it was neither burned nor entombed, but buried in a vault underneath. About the same period comes in one of the most monstrous innovations upon the pure principles of Christian art—we mean the studied and elaborate representation of the naked figure. 'Græca res est,' says Pliny,* nihil velare.' And with the introduction of Grecian art the nihil velare' principle penetrated even into our Churches. With this came also the entire loss of 6 Lib. xxxiv. c. 8. reality. |