of all around. 'Hush! he vill speak presently,' said the sculptor, deprecating the interruption. This tomb is one of the last works executed in the spirit of our Gothic monuments, and the best.'1 Henry, Lord Norris (1601), and his wife Margaret, the heiress of Rycote in Oxfordshire. He was the son of Sir Henry Norris, the gallant friend of Anne Boleyn, who maintained her innocence to the scaffold. Hence Elizabeth, daughter of the murdered queen, regarded him with peculiar favour, and, in her eighth year, knighted him in his own house at Rycote, where she was placed under his guardianship. She nicknamed Lady Norris, from her swarthy complexion, my own crow,' and wrote to condole with her by this designation on the death of one of her sons. The tomb is Corinthian, with eight columns supporting a canopy, beneath which lie the figures of Lord Norris (created a baron for his services as ambassador in France) and his wife. Around the base kneel their eight sons, 'a brood of martial-spirited men, as the Netherlands, Portugal, Little Bretagne, and Ireland can testify.'2 William, the eldest, was Marshal of Berwick. Sir John had three horses shot under him while fighting against the Spaniards in the Netherlands. Sir Thomas, Lord Justice of Ireland, died of a slight wound 'not well looked after.' Sir Henry died of a wound about the same time. Maximilian was killed in the wars in Brittany, and Edward, Governor of Ostend, was the only survivor of his parents.3 Thus, while the others are represented as engaged in prayer, he is cheerfully looking upwards. All the brothers are in plate-armour, but unhelmeted, and with trunk-breeches. They were men of a haughty courage, and of great experience in the conduct of military affairs; and, to speak in the character of their merit, they were persons of such renown and worth, as future times must, out of duty, owe them the debt of honourable memory.' "The Norrises were all Martis pulli, men of the sword, and never out of military employment. Queen Elizabeth loved the Norrises for themselves and herself, being sensible that she needed such martial men for her service.'Fuller's Worthies.' Making the round of the walls from the right, we see the monu ments of Captain Edward Cooke (1799), who captured the French frigate La Forte in the Bay of Bengal, and died of his wounds--with a relief by Bacon, jun. General Sir George Holles (1626), a figure in Roman armour, executed for £100 by Nicholas Stone, for the General's brother, John, Earl of Clare. On the base is represented in relief the battle of Nieuport, in which Sir George distinguished himself. The advent of classical art may be recognised in this statue, as the tomb of Sir F. Vere was the expiring effort of gothic. Sir George Pocock (1793), the hero of Chandernagore. The tomb, by John Bacon, supports an awkward figure of Britannia defiant. (Above Pollock, moved from a pillar in the north transept and placed too high up), Grace Scot, 1645, wife of the regicide colonel cruelly executed at the Restoration. It bears the lines 'He that will give my Grace but what is hers, May say her death has not, Made only her dear Scot, But Virtue, Worth, and Sweetness, Widowers.' Catherine Dormer, Lady St. John, Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth (1614), an effigy, restored to the vicinity of its original position in 1879 from the tomb of Bishop Dudley, to which it was removed to make way for the Nightingale monument. *Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, daughter of the second Earl Ferrers, sister of Selina, the famous Countess of Huntingdon, and wife of Joseph Gascoigne 1 Allan Cunningham's Life of Roubilac. 2 Camden's Britannia. 3 See Fuller's Worthies. Nightingale of Mamhead in Devonshire. She died in 1731, and the monument, erected 1758, is really to her husband, who died in 1752. This tomb, 'more theatrical than sepulchral,' is the last and greatest work of Roubiliac. The skeleton figure of Death has burst open the iron doors of the grave, and is aiming his dart at the lady, who shrinks back into the arms of her horror-stricken husband, who is eagerly but vainly trying to defend her. In his fury, Death has grasped the dart at the end by the feathers. Wesley said Mrs. Nightingale's was the finest tomb in the Abbey, as showing 'common sense among heaps of unmeaning stone and marble.' 'The dying woman would do honour to any artist. Her right arm and hand are considered by sculptors as the perfection of fine workmanship. Life seems slowly receding from her tapering fingers and her quivering wrist. Even Death himself-dry and sapless though he be-the very fleshless cheeks and eyeless sockets seem flashing with malignant joy.'-Allan Cunningham. 'It was whilst engaged on the figure of Death, that Roubiliac one day, at dinner, suddenly dropped his knife and fork on his plate, fell back in his chair, and then darted forwards, and threw his features into the strongest possible expression of fear--fixing his eye so expressively on the country lad who waited, as to fill him with astonishment. A tradition of the Abbey records that a robber, coming into the Abbey by moonlight, was so startled by the same figure as to have fled in dismay, and left his crowbar on the pavement.'-Dean Stanley. Sarah, Duchess of Somerset (1692), daughter of Sir Edward Alston, afterwards married to Henry Hare, second Lord Coleraine. Her figure half reclines upon a sarcophagus. The two weeping charity boys at the sides typify her beneficence in founding the Froxfield Almshouses in Wiltshire. Behind this tomb are the remains of three out of the seven arches which formed the ancient reredos of St. Michael's altar. The ancient altar-stone was discovered in 1872 and placed here. At the entrance of St. Andrew's Chapel, one of the pillars (left) retains the original polish of the thirteenth century (having been long enclosed in a screen), and may be taken as an example of what all the Purbeck marble pillars were originally. Theodore Phaliologus (1644), descended from the last Christian Emperors of Greece, who bore the name of Palaeologus. Mrs. Anne Kirton, 1603. A tomb inscribed Lacrimis struxit amor, spotted all over with tear-drops falling from an eye above it. John Philip Kemble (1823), represented as 'Cato' in a statue designed by Flaxman. Dr. Thomas Young (1829), learned in Egyptian hieroglyphics-a tablet by Chantrey. Sir James Young Simpson (1870), who introduced the use of chloroform, buried at Edinburgh-a bust by Brodie. Sarah Siddons (1831), the great tragedian-a poor statue by Chantrey, erected chiefly at the expense of Macready, which rises like a white discordant ghost behind the Norris tomb. Sir Humphry Davy (1829), celebrated for his discoveries in physical science, buried at Geneva-a tablet. Matthew Baillie (1823), physician to George III., brother of the poetess Joanna -a bust by Chantrey. Thomas Telford (1834), who, the son of a shepherd, rose to eminence as an engineer, and constructed the Menai Bridge and the Bridgwater Canal, but is scarcely entitled to the space so unsuitably occupied by his huge ugly monument by Baily. Rear-Admiral Thomas Totty (1702)—a relief by the younger Bacon. Anastasia, Countess of Kerry (1799). The monument bears an affecting inscription by her husband, whom she rendered during thirty-one years the happiest of inankind.' He was laid by her side in 1818. By Buckham. 1 Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting. Abbot Kyrton (1466), a slab in the pavement, which formerly bore a brass from his tomb, which was destroyed under Anne. Kyrton erected the screen of St. Andrew's Chapel. Admiral Richard Kempenfelt (1782), who perished in the Royal George at Spithead 'When Kempenfelt went down His body was washed ashore and buried at Alverstoke, near Gosport. The sinking ship and the apotheosis of its admiral are represented on a column, by the younger Bacon. Algernon, Earl of Mountrath, and his Countess Diana. The monument is by Joseph Wilton, the sculptor of Wolfe's memorial; but few will understand now the tumult of applause with which it was received-'the grandeur and originality of the design' being equally praised by contemporary critics, with the feathering of the angels' wings, which had a lightness nature only can surpass.' Sir John Franklin (1847), the Arctic explorer-a bust by Noble, with an epitaph by Tennyson. WE II. ABBEY (continued) now enter the North Transept of the Abbey, of which the great feature is the beautiful rose-window (restored 1722), thirty-two feet in diameter. This transept was utterly uninvaded by monuments till the Duke of Newcastle was buried here in 1676. Since then it has become the favourite burial-place of admirals; and since Pitt, Earl of Chatham, was laid here in 1778, the central aisle has been appropriated to statesmen, as the other transept by poets.' The whole character of the Abbey monuments is now changed; while the earlier tombs are intended to recall Death to the mind, the memorials of the last two centuries are entirely devoted to the exaltation of the Life of the person commemorated. In this transept, especially, the entire space between the grey arches is filled by huge monuments groaning under pagan sculpture of offensive enormity, emulating the tombs of the Popes in St. Peter's in their size, and curious as proving how taste is changed by showing the popularity which such sculptors as Nollekens, Scheemakers, and Bacon long enjoyed in England. Through the remainder of the Abbey the monuments, often interesting from their associations, are in themselves chiefly remarkable for their utter want of originality and variety. Justice and Temperance. Prudence and Mercy, are for ever busy propping up the tremendous masses of masonry upon which Britannia, Fame, and Victory are perpetually seen crowning a bust, an urn, or a rostral column with their wreaths; while beneath these piles sit figures indicative of the military or naval professions of the deceased, plunged in idiotic despair. As we continue our walk through the church, we descend gradually but surely, after we leave the fine conceptions and graphic portraiture of Roubiliac and Rysbrach. Even Bacon and Flaxman are weighed down by the pagan mania for Neptunes, Britannias, and Victorys, and only rise to anything like nobility in the single figures of Chatham and Mansfield. The abundant works of Chantrey and Westmacott in the Abbey are, with one or two exceptions, monotonous and commonplace. But it is only when utterly wearied by the platitudes of Nollekens or Cheere, that we appreciate what lower depths of degradation 1 It would scarcely be believed from his works that Cheere was the master of Roubiliac. 64 sculpture has reached in the once admired works of Taylor and Nathaniel Read and in most of the works of Bird. When he came back from Rome and saw his works in Westminster Abbey, Roubiliac exclaimed, 'By God! my own work looks to me as meagre and starved as if made of nothing but tobaccopipes.' We may notice among the monuments Sir Robert Peel, (1850) represented as an orator, in a Roman toga, by Gibson. Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Warren (1752). The monument by Roubiliac is especially ridiculed in the 'Foundling Hospital for Wit.' It portrays a figure of Hercules placing the bust of the deceased upon a pedestal. Navigation sits by disconsolate, with a withered olive branch. Behind the tomb is seen the beautiful screen of Abbot Kyrton. Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1881), twice Prime Minister—a statue by Boehm. Sir John Malcolm (1833)-statue by Chantrey. He who was always so kind, always so generous, always so indulgent to the weaknesses of others, while he was always endeavouring to make them better than they were, he who was unwearied in acts of benevolence, ever aiming at the greatest, but never thinking the least beneath his notice,-who could descend, without feeling that he sank, from the command of armies and the government of an empire, to become a peacemaker in village quarrels, -he in whom dignity was so gentle and wisdom so playful, and whose laurelled head was girt with a chaplet of all the domestic affections, the soldier, statesman, patriot, Sir John Malcolm.'-J. C. Hare. William Cavendish, the 'Loyall Duke of Newcastle' (1676), who lost £941,308 by his devotion to the cause of Charles I., and his Duchess, Margaret Lucas (1674), who, as her epitaph tells, came of 'a noble family, for all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous.' This Duchess, commemorated in 'Peveril of the Peak,' was a most voluminous writer, calling up her attendants at all hours of the night, 'to take down her Grace's conceptions, much to the disgust of her husband, who, when complimented on her learning, said, "Sir, a very wise woman is a very foolish thing." Walpole calls her 'a fertile pedant, with an unbounded passion for scribbling.' She is, however, commemorated here as a very wise, wittie, and learned lady, which her many bookes do well testifie. She was a most virtuous, and loving, and carefull wife, and was with her lord all the time of his banishment and miseries, and when he came home never parted from him in his solitary retirement.' 'The whole story of this lady,' wrote Pepys, 'is a romance, and all she does is romantic.' Conceit about her own works was certainly not her fault, for she said, in writing to a friend-'You will find my works like infinite nature, that hath neither beginning nor end; and as confused as the chaos, wherein is neither method nor order, but all mixed together, without separation, like light and darkness.' The Duke was also an author, and wrote several volumes on horsemanship. He is extolled by Shadwell as the 'greatest master of wit, the most exact observer of mankind, and the most accurate judge of humour' he ever knew. Cibber speaks of him as 'one of the most finished gentlemen, as well as the most distinguished patriot, general, and statesman of his age.' His liberality to literary men caused him to be regarded as 'the English Maecenas.'1 'Nothing,' says Clarendon, 'could have tempted him out of those paths of pleasure which he enjoyed in a full and ample fortune (which he sacrificed by his loyalty, and lived for a time in extreme poverty), but honour and ambition to serve the king when he saw him in distress, and abandoned by most of those who were in the highest degree obliged to him.' The Duke is represented in a coroneted periwig. The dress of the Duchess recalls the description of Pepys, who met her (April 26, 1667) 'with her black cap, her hair about her ears, many black patches, because of pimples about her mouth, naked necked, without anything about it, and a black just au corps.' 1 Longbaine's Dramatick Poets. E |