their banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand mausoleum* stands the sepulchre of its founder-his effigy, with that 219 of his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb, and the whole surrounded by a superbly wrought brazen railing. 15. There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence; this strange mixture of tombs and trophies; these emblems of living and aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust and 215 oblivion in which all must, sooner or later, terminate. Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant. On looking round on the vacant stalls of the knights and their esquires,* and on the rows of dusty but gorgeous banners that 220 were once borne before them, my imagination conjured up the scene when this hall was bright with the valor and beauty of the land, glittering with the splendor of jewelled rank and military array, alive with the tread of many feet and the hum of an admiring multitude. All had passed away; the silence of death 225 had settled again upon the place, interrupted only by the casual chirping of birds which had found their way into the chapel, and built their nests among its friezes and pendants *—sure signs of solitariness and desertion. 16. When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they 230 were those of men scattered far and wide about the world; some tossing upon distant seas, some under arms in distant lands, some mingling in the busy intrigues of courts and cabinets; all seeking to deserve one more distinction in this mansion of shadowy honors-the melancholy reward of a monument. 17. Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a 207. emblazoned, adorned with figures of heraldry. stateliest and daintiest tombs of Europe." 209, 210. mausoleum, splendid tomb. 228. friezes. sepulchre of its founder: that is, The "frieze," in architecture, is "that part of the entablature [i. e., the part over the columns, and including the architrave, frieze, and cornice] of a column which is between the architrave and cornice." 235 touching instance of the equality of the grave, which brings down the oppressor to a level with the oppressed, and mingles the dust of the bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of her victim, the lovely 240 and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's sepulchre continually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave of her rival. 245 18. A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly through windows darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which is an 250 iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem-the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the checkered and disastrous story of poor Mary. 19. The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. 255 I could only hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest repeating the evening service, and the faint responses of the choir; these paused for a time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion and obscurity, that were gradually prevailing around gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the place: 260 "For in the silent grave no conversation, No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers, Dust, and an endless darkness." Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord with this mighty building! With what pomp do 240. Elizabeth reigned from 1558 (eight years before the birth of Shakespeare) till 1603. 241. unfortunate Mary: that is, Mary Queen of Scots (born 1542; be headed 1587). Her body was buried here by her son, James I. (James VI. of Scotland), after he became king of England, on the death of Queen Elizabeth. 265 they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe their awful har-270 mony through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulchre vocal! And now they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody. They soar aloft, and war- 275 ble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What solemn, sweeping concords! It grows more and more dense and power- 280 ful; it fills the vast pile, and seems to jar the very walls. The ear is stunned, the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up in full jubilee; it is rising from the earth to heaven. The very soul seems rapt away and floated upwards on this swelling tide of harmony! 20. I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie* which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire. The shadows of evening were gradually thickening round me; the monuments began to cast deeper and deeper gloom; and the distant clock again gave token of the slowly waning day. 285 290 21. I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight of steps which leads into the body of the building, my eye was caught by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the small staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence a general survey of this wilderness of tombs. The shrine 295 is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are the sepulchres of various kings and queens. From this eminence the eye looks down between pillars and funereal trophies to the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs, where warriors, prelates, courtiers, and statesmen lie mouldering in their 300 "beds of darkness." Close by me stood the great chair of coronation, rudely carved of oak, in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene seemed almost as if contrived with 293. the shrine of Edward the Confessor. | 301, 302. chair of coronation. (See AdEdward the Confessor (reigned dison's paper, page 138, note theatrical artifice to produce an effect upon the beholder. Here was a type of the beginning and the end of human pomp and 305 power; here it was literally but a step from the throne to the sepulchre. Would not one think that these incongruous* mementos had been gathered together as a lesson to living greatness-to show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive; how soon 310 that crown which encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of the multitude? For, strange to tell, even the grave is here no longer a sanctuary.* a shocking levity* in some natures, which leads them to sport 315 with awful and hallowed things; and there are base minds which delight to revenge on the illustrious dead the abject homage and grovelling servility which they pay to the living. The coffin of Edward the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their funereal ornaments; the sceptre has been 320 stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth, and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument but bears some proof how false and fugitive is the homage of mankind. Some are plundered, some mutilated; some covered with ribaldry and insult-all more or less outraged and dis- 325 honored! * 22. The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The chapel and aisles grew darker and darker. The 330 effigies of the kings faded into shadows; the marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of a verger, traversing the Poets' Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. 335 I slowly retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes. 23. I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the 321, 322. effigy... headless. See Addison's paper, page 142, line 95. and note. objects I had been contemplating, but found they were already 340 fallen into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation, a huge pile of reiterated homilies* on the empti- 345 ness of renown and the certainty of oblivion! It is, indeed, the empire of Death-his great shadowy palace, where he sits in state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever si- 350 lently turning over his pages; we are too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection; and will, in turn, be 355 supplanted by his successor of to-morrow. "Our fathers," says Sir Thomas Browne, “find their graves in our short memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors." History fades into fable; fact becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue 360 falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids—what are they but heaps of sand, and their epitaphs but characters written in the dust? What is the security of a tomb, or the perpetuity of an embalmment? The remains of Alexander the Great have been scattered to the winds, and his empty sarcophagus is now 365 the mere curiosity of a museum. "The Egyptian mummies, 357. Sir Thomas Browne (born 1605; | 366, 367. Egyptian... consumeth. Mum knighted by Charles II. 1672; died 1682), a physician and eminent writer (principal works 364. Alexander the Great. See Dryden's note. mies (dead bodies embalmed) were, during the Middle Ages, much used in medicine, on account of the aromatic substances they contained. "The virtues of mummy seem to have been chiefly imaginary, and even the traffic fraudulent.” - NARES: Glossary. - |