LUXURIOUS DINNER—LADIES EXCLUDED.
All the refreshment which a member has, whether breakfast, dinner, supper, or wine, are furnished to him at themarket costprice, all other expenses being defrayed from the annual subscriptions. For a few pounds a year, advantages are to be had, which no incomes but the most ample could procure. The Athenæum, which consists of twelve hundred members, can be taken as a good example of the rest. Among themembers can be reckoned a large proportion of the most eminent persons in England—civil, military, and ecclesiastical, peers, spiritual and temporal, commoners, men of the learned professions, those connected with the sciences and arts, and commerce, as well as the distinguished who do not belong to any particular class, and who have nothing to do but live on their means, bore their tailors, and admire their family genealogy, and their own figures. These men are to be met with day after day at the clubs, living with more freedom and nonchalance than they could at their own houses. For six or eight guineas a year every member has the command of an excellent library, with maps, the daily London papers, English and foreign periodicals, and every material for writing, with a flock of gorgeous flunkies, in powder and epaulettes, to attend at the nod of a member, and a host of youthful pages in buttons and broadcloths. The club is a sort of a palace with the comfort of a private dwelling, and every member is a master without having the trouble of a master. He can have whatever meat or refreshment he desires served up at all hours, with luxury and dispatch. There is a fixed place for everything, and it is not customary to remain long at table. You can dine alone, or you can invite a dozen persons to dine with you, females being excluded. From an account kept at the Athenæum for one year, it appears that 17,323 dinners cost on an average 2s. 9¾d.each, and the average quantity of wine drank by each person at these dinners was a small fraction more than a pint for each. The bath accommodations are the finest that can be imagined.
The kitchen of the London clubs cannot be equaled in the world, and the chief cooks who have charge of the kitchens, have each an European fame. Alexis Soyer, the greatest cook since Ude or Vatel, had, for a long time, the charge of the kitchen of the Reform Club, and the kitchen of this club, of which John Bright, and all the leaders of the English liberals are members, is the finest in London.
A description of this kitchen will in a measure answer forthat of any other London club, and I will give it here for the information of those who are curious in such matters.
The kitchen, properly so called, is an apartment of moderate size, surrounded on all four sides by smaller rooms, which form the pastry, the poultry, the butchery, the scullery, and other subordinate offices. There are doorways but no doors, between the different rooms, all of which are formed in such a manner that the chief cook, from one particular spot, can command a view of the whole. In the centre of the kitchen is a table and a hot closet, where various knicknacks are prepared and kept to a desired heat, the closet being brought to any required temperature by admitting steam beneath it. Around the hot closet is a bench or table, fitted with drawers and other conveniences for culinary operations. A passage going around the four sides of this table separates it from the various cooking apparatus, which involve all that modern ingenuity has brought to bear on the cuisine.
In the first place there are two enormous fireplaces for roasting, each of which would, in sober truth, roast a whole sheep. The screens placed before these fires are so arranged as to reflect back almost the entire heat which falls upon them, and effectually shields the kitchen from the intense heat which would be otherwise thrown out. Then again, these screens are so provided with shelves and recesses as to bring into profitable use the radiant heat which would be otherwise wasted.
MODEL KITCHEN.
Along two sides of the room are ranges of charcoal fires for broiling and stewing, and other apparatus for other varieties of cooking. These are at a height of about three feet from the ground. The broiling fires are a kind of open pot or pan, throwing upward a fierce but blazeless heat; behind them is a framework by which gridirons may be fixed at any height above the fire, according to the intensity of the heat. Other fires open only at the top, are adapted for various kinds of pans and vessels; and in some cases a polished tin-reflector is so placed as to reflect back to the viands the heat. Under and behind and over and around, are pipes, tanks, and cisterns, inabundance, containing water to be heated, or to be used more directly in the processes of cooking.
A boiler adjacent to the kitchen is expressly appropriated to the supply of steam for "steaming," for heating the hot closets, the hot iron plates and other apparatus. In another small room the meat is kept, chopped, cut, and otherwise prepared for the kitchen. There are also in the pastry room all the necessary appliances for preparing the lightest and most luscious triumphs of the art. In another room there are drawers in the bottoms of which blocks of ice are laid, and above these are placed articles of undressed food, which must necessarily be kept cool.
There is a cheerful air, an air of magnificence about these superb kitchens, which would charm a good housewife. Here all the genius that can be brought to bear upon cookery is concentrated, and the head cook would not deign to notice any person of less rank than a baronet, while in superintendence. Although there are twelve hundred members or over, yet he is not responsible to any individual one, and the only authority in the club to which he has to bow is the eight or ten members of the House Committee, whose decrees even to this great being are arbitrary.
The pots and pans are of an exceeding brightness, and the entire system is perfect. In one corner of the kitchen is a little stall or counting-house, at a desk in which sits the "Clerk of the Kitchen." Every day the chief cook provides, besides ordinary provisions which are certain to be required, a selected list which he inserts in his bill of fare—a list which is left to his judgment and skill.
Say three or four gentlemen, members of the club, determine to dine there at a given hour, they select from the bill of fare, or make a separate "order" if preferred, or leave the dinner altogether to the intellect of thechef, who is sure to be flattered by this dependence on his judgment. A little slip of paper on which is written the names of the dishes and the hour of dining, is hung on a hook in the kitchen on a black board, where there are a number of hooks devoted to different hours of the day or evening. The cooks proceed with theiravocations, and by the time the dinner is ready the clerk of the kitchen has calculated and entered the exact value of every article composing it, which entry is made out in the form of a bill—the cost price being that by which the charge is regulated—nothing is ever charged for the cooking. Immediately at the elbow of the clerk are bells and speaking tubes, by which he can communicate with the servants in the other parts of the building.
Meanwhile a steam engine is "serving up" the dinner. In one corner of the kitchen is a recess, on opening a door in which we see a small platform, square-shaped, calculated to hold an ordinary sized tray. This platform is connected with the shaft of a steam engine by bands and wheels, so as to be elevated through a kind of vertical trunk leading to the upper part of the building; and here are the white-aproned servants or waiters ready to take out the hot and luscious smelling viands from the platform, to the member or members of the club who are anxiously awaiting dinner.
Architecturally speaking the club houses are the finest buildings in London, and in the west end of the town, and in the vicinity of the parks they do much to beautify the city; these massive, richly decorated, and pillared palaces of exclusiveness.
The "Heavy Swell" Club of all London is the "Guards" in Pall Mall. There are three or four regiments of the Queen's Household Brigade stationed always in London to guard the sacred person of the Queen, and it is from the officers of these crack regiments that the members of the club are balloted for. These fellows are supposed to bathe in champagne, and dine off rose water; they are afraid to carry an umbrella thicker than a walking stick, they hate "low people," and devote their existence to killing time, yet are withal sensitive, honorable in many things, (except paying their grocers, wine and haberdashing bills,) and will fight as becomes the descendants of the men who dyed the sands at Hastings with their blood, to bequeath a rich and fruitful kingdom to those who now inherit it.
THE CONSERVATIVE AND GARRICK CLUBS.
The Conservative Club is frequented by those athletic andslow going squires and gentlemen who are always ready to applaud Mr. Disraeli in the House of Commons, and are willing to serve as special constables on days when the English democracy become restive and open their eyes to the fact of their being plundered and robbed every day of their lives. It was from the Conservative Club that Mr. Granville Murray was expelled by the secret influence of the moral Prince of Wales, simply because following his duty as a journalist he had told the hereditary regulators of England that they were out of place in the nineteenth century.
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CONSERVATIVE CLUB HOUSE.
The Garrick Club is, as its name indicates, made up of artists, dramatists, actors, newspaper writers, and authors. It numbers among its members Charles Reade, Tom Taylor, Charles Dickens, Bulwer, Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope, Andrew Halliday, George Augustus Sala, Mr. Delane of the Times, H. Sutherland Edwards, William Howard Russell, Edward Dicey, Thornton Hunt, Editor of theTelegraph, John Ruskin, and I believe Thomas Carlyle's name was proposed as an honorary member; Charles Kean, Thackeray, Charles Matthews, Sr., who founded the club, W.H. Ainsworth, the novelist, the Blanchards, the Mayhews, Samuel Lover, Charles Lever, John Oxenford, Louis Blanc, Walter Thornbury, Lascelles Wraxall, Edmund Yates, John Hollingshead, formerly critic of theDaily News, James Greenwood, Frederick Greenwood, Brough, Dudley Costello, Lord William Lennox, Thomas Miller, Cyrus Redding, and other well known literary men belong to or have at some period or another been members of this club. American authors, artists, and actors, are always welcomed here, and among the habitues of the Garrick may be found Lester Wallack, H.E. Bateman, and others. TheGarrick is noted for its famous gin punch which is a specialty here, and for which the following ingredients are necessary to composition; pour half a pint of gin on the outer peel of a lemon, then a little lemon juice, a glass of maraschino, a pint and a quarter of water, and two bottles of iced soda water. This is a most fragrant punch and not very intoxicating. The collection of pictures at the Garrick is very fine, and embraces nearly all the people, both male and female, who have made themselves famous in English histrionic art, among whom may be noticed Elliston, Macklin, Peg Woffington, Nell Gwynne, Colley Cibber, Mrs. Bracegirdle, Garrick as Richard III, John Phillip and Charles Kemble, Charles Mathews, Mrs. Siddons, Macready, Miss Inchbald, Edmund Kean, Kitty Clive, Mrs. Billington, and various others. Some of these portraits have been painted by the first of English artists. This gallery is only rivalled by that in Evan's Supper House in Convent Garden, where there is a fine and similar collection.
The Reform Club has among its members John Bright, W. E. Gladstone, Lord Hatherley, the present Lord Chancellor of England, the Duke of Argyll, W.E. Forster, Lord Dufferin, and other well known liberal nobles. About a year ago John Bright and W.E. Forster, his able aide-camp, resigned from the membership of the Reform Club, owing to the fact that a correspondent of an American journal, proposed by them, had had been black-balled in the Reform Club. This correspondent was Geo. W. Smalley of theNew York Tribune. I believe that the club reconsidered their decision and admitted Mr. Smalley, and Mr. Bright and Mr. Forster are now members of the club. Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, editor of theAthenæum, is a member of the Reform Club.
CARLTON CLUB.
The Carlton Club ranks high among the Tory or anti-liberal clubs of London, has a very rich proprietary and a magnificent edifice in Pall Mall. The Right Hon. Spencer Horatio Walpole, one of the members for Cambridge University, and Alexander Beresford Hope, one of the proprietors of theSaturday Review, who was a member of Parliament during the American Civil War, and a bitter foe of the North, are both members of the Carlton Club, as is also Lord John Manners, a prominent Conservative noble, and fifth son of the Duke of Rutland. John Laird, M.P. for Liverpool, the builder of theAlabama, is also a member of the Carlton Club.
Lord Cole, a son of the Earl of Enskillen, and a chief accomplice with the Prince of Wales in the Lady Mordaunt scandal, is a member of the Carlton.
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CARLTON CLUB HOUSE.
Gregory, the member for Galway, also a sympathizer with the Slaveholder's Rebellion, belongs to the Carlton. To be brief, this Carlton Club, essentially aristocratic and inimical to democracy all over the world, contributed more individual moneyed and social influence and support to Jeff. Davis than all the London Clubs put together.
I might state here that Bass, the great East India Pale Ale man, is a member of the Reform Club, while Sir Arthur Guiness, the Dublin Brown Stout man, Bass's great rival, is a member of the National Club, which is pseudo liberal. Jonathan Pim, the rich Irish Quaker, a member for Dublin City like Guiness, does not belong to any London club and keeps away from the flesh pots of Egypt. John Francis Maguire, M.P. for Cork, is a member of the Stafford Club, which numbers some of the Catholic families in its roll of membership. Sir Patrick O'Brien, an amusing Irishman who frequents the Cremorne a good deal, belongs to the Reform Club. The present Earl of Derby, late Lord Stanley, who was expected to lead the liberals in the House of Lords, but does not give much promise of doing so while he is an active member of the Carlton Club.
The Right Hon. George Goschen, a Jewish merchant, who is President of the Poor Law Board, yet quite a young man and promising, has his name inscribed on the lists of the Reformand Athenæum Clubs, and Robert Lowe, the witty, sarcastic, and clear-headed Chancellor of Exchequer, are lights in the Reform Club. Edward Sullivan, the Irish Attorney General, may be seen at the Reform, and George Henry Moore, a countryman of his, and an apologist for the Fenians, is a habitue of Brook's Club in St. James street. Sir John Evelyn Dennison, the Speaker of the House of Commons, while in town during the session, when dinner time comes, always doffs his gown and wig and toddles around to the Reform Club for a chop or steak, and a glass of wine. Vernon Harcourt, who signs himself in theTimes"Historicus," represents Oxford Borough in the House of Commons, and is a member of the Oxford and Cambridge University Club. A good story is told of "Historicus." Three heavy swells of the Guards were dining at the Star and Garter at Richmond, and all three made a wager that they each could boast of the biggest bore in London as an acquaintance. The discussion wore high, and they agreed to test it by bringing each his bore to dine on a set day, and at a set hour, at the "Star and Garter." When the day came two close carriages were drawn up to the "Star and Garter," and out of each leaped one of the gentlemen who had made the wager. They were both disappointed in their bores, and came without them as they had previous engagements. A third carriage drove up, and out of it leaped the third Swell who had made the wager, with a tall gentleman in a cloak. As soon as the stranger uncovered and presented the smiling countenance of "Historicus," the two swells cried out in astonishment,
"By J-a-a-v ye knaw, that's not f-eh-ah—he's got our bo-a-h!"
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OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE CLUB HOUSE.
Whalley, the religious madman, belongs to the Reform Club, and so does the Right Hon. Hugh Childers, First Lord of the Admiralty.
Kinglake, the historian, who bribed his way into the House of Commons, and afterwards testified to it without shame, is a member of Brooks, the Travelers, the Athenæum, and the Oxford and Cambridge Clubs.
Sir Robert Peel, the member for Farnsworth, is to be found at Brook's and Boodle's. Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer, formerly ambassador at Washington, at the Reform Club. Layard, the Nineveh discoverer and now English ambassador at Madrid, belongs to the Athenæum Club. The O'Donoughue at the Stafford and Reform Clubs, while young Mr. Gladstone, son to the Premier, modestly drinks his wine at the New University Club. Lord Carrington, a boon companion of the Prince of Wales, is a member of the Guards Club, and Sir Francis Crossley, the great Yorkshire manufacturer, may be seen nightly during the session passing his hours in the Reform and Brook's Clubs.
Queer and strange reminiscences cling to the London Clubs like barnacles to a packet ship. At the Alfred Club, George Canning, one of the greatest men ever known in England, used to take a steak and onions alongside of Lord Byron, who was always partial to Madeira negus.
Louis Napoleon, in his cheerless and hard up days, ate his eighteenpenny dinner at the Army and Navy Club in silence, while aristocratic Englishmen sat around chaffing and joking and taking no part in the sorrows of the exiled nephew of his Uncle. Since then dynasties have changed, and now a magnificent piece of Gobelin tapestry work, the "Sacrifice of Diana," worthy to be the gift of a sovereign, hangs in the club house of which he was once a member. The Emperor presented it to the Club.
The stock of wine in the cellars of the Athenæum is worth about $30,000, and is never allowed to run down or deteriorate, and its yearly revenue amounts to about $50,000.
BEEFSTEAK CLUB.
The Beefsteak Club is a coterie of choice spirits who meet over the Lyceum Theatre to eat beefsteaks and drink tobysof ale, each member bringing his own beefsteak and furnishing his own jokes. Several noblemen belong to it, and the President wears as his emblem of office, a golden gridiron. Peg Woffington was at one time a member of this club.
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UNITED SERVICE CLUB.
The Duke of Wellington was in the habit of dining at the United Service Club, in Pall Mall, off the roast joint of beef or mutton, and one day he was charged 1s.3d.for his plate of meat instead of 1s., the proper charge. He declared he would not pay the extra three-pence, and denounced the swindle until the three-pence was deducted, when the old soldier became satisfied and said that he would have paid the extra charge, but that he did not wish to establish an unjust precedent whereby others might suffer.
Just one hundred years ago a man dropped down at the door of White's Club, which is still flourishing in St. James' St., and the crowd of loungers in the bow windows immediately began to lay wagers whether the man was dead or not. A charitable person suggested that he be bled, but those who had wagered refused to allow it, saying that it would affect the fairness of the bet. In 1814, a banquet was given to the allied sovereigns at White's, which cost over $50,000 of American money, and the next year after a banquet was given to the Duke of Wellington which cost £2,480 10s.9d.George IV, and Chesterfield, the master of politeness, were members of White's Club.
During the hard winter of 1844, the aristocratic clubs of London contributed to the starving poor of the metropolis, 3,104 pounds of broken bread, 4,556 pounds of broken meat, 1,147 pints of tea-leaves, and 1,158 pints of coffee-grounds. Otherwise these leavings might have been given to swine to fatten them.
DEMOCRATIC CLUB.—LADIES ADMITTED.
Gambling was carried on to a very high pitch at one time in the London clubs, but many have mended within twenty years. Crockford's Club House, No. 50 St. James' street, was known all over the world, and kings, princes, ambassadors, and statesmen, were inscribed upon its rolls as members. It no longer exists, however.
Crockford started in life as a fishmonger, in the old bulk-shop next door to Temple Bar Without, which he quitted for "play" in St. James'. He began by taking Watier's old club-house, where he set up a hazard-bank, and won a great deal of money; he then separated from his partner, who had a bad year, and failed. Crockford now removed to St. James' street, had a good year, and built the magnificent club house which bore his name; the decorations alone are said to have cost him £94,000. The election of the club members was vested in a committee; the house appointments were superb, and Ude was engaged asmaître d'hôtel. "Crockford's" now became the high fashion. Card-tables were regularly placed, and whist was played occasionally; but the aim, end, and final cause of the whole was the hazard-bank, at which the proprietor took his nightly stand, prepared for all comers. His speculation was eminently successful. During several years, everything that anybody had to lose and cared to risk was swallowed up; and Crockford became amillionaire. He retired in 1840, "much as an Indian chief retires from a hunting-country when there is not game enough left for his tribe;" and the Club then tottered to its fall. After Crockford's death, the lease of the club-house (thirty-two years, rent £1,400) was sold for £2,900.
The Whittington Club is the only democratic club in London. It was started twenty-four years ago by Douglas Jerrold, who became its first president. It combines a literary society, with a club house, upon an economical scale, and contains dining and coffee rooms, library and reading rooms, smoking and chess rooms, and a large hall for balls, concerts, and soirees. Lectures are given here, and classes are held for the higher branches of education, fencing, dancing, etc. Ladies have allthe privileges of gentlemen or members in the restaurant, and in balloting, while their dues and subscriptions is half that of the male members. This is the largest club in London, and combines all classes, having a roll of 1,700 members, all of whom are to be considered active. The Whittington Club is the only one in London where a person may be proposed without having a crest, or without belonging to a "good family," which means to loaf or idle a life away, and live upon the bread which is furnished by the blood and sweat of what these dandy Club men call the "lowah closses."
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CHAPTER VIII.
THE ABBEY-CHURCH OF WESTMINSTER.
THIS is the Pantheon of England's Greatest Dead. As I stand here under the groined roof of this vast and glorious Nave, with the sunbeams streaming in through rose windows, and falling softly on sculptured figures and tombs of Kings and Queens long mouldering in the dust, their bodies recumbent in monumental brass, their hands clasped as in prayer, with heroes, and poets, and statesmen, law-givers, and royal murderers, lying silently around me on either hand, and under my feet beneath the worn and antique stones which form the pavement, I realize that I am in the Valhalla of the Anglo-Norman Race, a race that has been prolific of strong wills, great minds, and heroic deeds.
This is the most sacred spot in all Great Britain, this spot enclosed by the four walls of Westminster Abbey. It does not seem an edifice raised by human hands, rather would it appear, as I look to the roof, supported by most marvelous pillars, resembling an interlaced avenue of royal forest trees, that it had been constructed by beings of another world.
It was a grand faith that inspired Westminster Abbey, a faith that believed in sacrificing all earthly aspirations for the honor and glory of God.
Thus musing I am interrupted by a tap on the shoulder, as I stand leaning against a pillar in the gloom of the vast pile.
"Would you like to see the Habbey, sir?—its sixpence to see the Chapels—there's nine on 'em: the Hambulatory, theNave, Transept, Choir, Chapels, and Cloisters, are free—beautiful sights—only sixpence, sir."
I turned, and saw a man in a black fustian gown, bareheaded, with a tall thin stick in his right hand; he was old, and seemed to need its frail support. This was a prebendary's "Verger," a sort of a porter or Abbey guide, whose main object was to collect as many sixpences as possible, but ostensibly he was a cicerone of the monuments and architectural beauties of the Cathedral Church of St. Peter's, Westminster.
Numbers of visitors were straying in and out of the Abbey, looking at the monuments, criticising the works of art, the mural tablets, or gossiping over the ashes of dead Kings, as if they were in a concert room, while here and there might be seen some scholar or learned man delving for facts, and poring over the musty Latin of the crumbling tombs.
In Westminster Abbey rival statesmen rest in peace, the tongue of the orator is mute, side by side rest the Crowned head and the Chancellor with his great seal, the Archbishop and the Play-actor, the philanthropist and the seaman, who died by his guns on the deck of the vessel of war, the divine and the physician, the Princess and the Soubrette, all mingle common dust together.
In Westminster Abbey, the powerful, spiritual, Roman Catholic prelate has celebrated High Mass with more than Eastern magnificence, the Introit has issued forth from his lips, and the acolytes have answered his "Dominus Vobiscum" with their "Amen;" and here the stern Puritan has knelt in his less formal prayer.
Here the dread sentence of excommunication has been launched forth in all its terrors from the lips of Papal legates, enthroned, and in Abbot John Estney's room Caxton printed the first English Bible.
Here the magnificence and pomps of the coronation of a King have been followed by the solemn and beautiful burial service for the dead, and the pealing organ, and the swelling choir, reverberating through the lofty grey-grown aisles, have chained men's minds to the power of Almighty God.
DIMENSIONS OF THE ABBEY.
Westminster Abbey is the finest and noblest specimen of Gothic architecture in all England.
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WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Its dimensions are:
In a fine vault, under Henry VII's Chapel, is the burying-place of the Royal family, erected by George II, but not now used.
The cost of Henry VII's Chapel was originally about £200,000 of the present money, but since then £50,000 in addition have been expended in repairs. The roof is the most beautiful piece of work of its kind in the world, and is not excelled by any Saracenic or Moorish ornamentation known.
No living being has ever computed the cost of the Abbey itself, but the sum, altogether, since the foundations were built, must be very great.
The "Lord Abbot of Westminster" was one of the most powerful barons in England, and sat in Parliament as a great spiritual peer.
The Abbey Church, formerly arose a magnificent apex to a Royal palace, surrounded on all sides by its greater and lesser sanctuaries, (where no criminal could be arrested,) and its almonries, where a profusion of food was daily delivered to the poor, and raiment to the naked. It had its bell-towers, the principal one being 72 feet 6 inches square, with walls 20 feet thick; chapel, gate towers, boundary walls, and a train of other buildings, of which we can at the present day scarcely form an idea.
A WEALTHY SOCIETY.
In addition to all the land around it, extending from the Thames to Oxford Street, and from Vauxhall bridge to the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand, in a demesne of three square miles, on what is now the most valuable part of London, theAbbey of St. Peter's, Westminster, possessed besides,ninety-seven towns and villages, seventeen hamlets, and two hundred and sixteen manors. Its officers fed hundreds of persons daily, and one of its priests, who was not an Abbot, entertained at his Pavillion at Tothill, a King and Queen of England, with so large a retinue that seven hundred dishes did not suffice for the first table, and the Abbey butler, in the reign of Edward III, rebuilt, at his own expense, the stately gate-house which gave entrance to Tothill Street, and a portion of the wall remains to this day.
During the long ages, while men of noble Norman birth monopolized nearly every office of emolument and trust in the kingdom, nearly all the Lord Abbots of Westminster were of Norman birth or extraction. To be chosen Lord Abbot of Westminster, it was necessary for the Monks, headed by the prior, to select the Abbot "per Viam Compromissi," that is, the Monks met in a body and selected a chosen few, who, in their turn, selected the Lord Abbot. Then there was the method "per Viam Spiritus Sancti," which means by the special influence of the Holy Ghost, or all the Monks of the Abbey concurring unanimously in the election. After that the assent of the King had to be got, and the assent of the Lord Bishop of the Diocese, and even then all was not secure, for the newly elected Abbot was often forced to make the long and tedious journey to Rome and get the investiture of the Abbey from the Pontiff, in person, and sometimes this cost money, and trouble, that a person would hardly credit in these days. Abbot Richard de Kedyington, who had been prior of Sudbury, a cell subject to Westminster Abbey, on his election made the journey to Avignon, where the Pope was, for confirmation, and was three years there before he obtained investiture, and then it cost him eight thousand florins,—a large sum of money in those days—to obtain it. In 1321, when 5,500 florins had been paid, Pope John XXII remitted the remaining 2,500 florins of the debt.
Abbot Richard de Crokesley, together with a number of other nobles, and Poitevins, who had incurred the enmity of a powerful party who were opposed to court favoritism, were poisonedby the steward of William, Earl of Clare, and Crokesley died July 1258, of the effects of the poison.
Phillip de Lewisham, who was elected to succeed Crokesley, was so gross and fat that he procured a dispensation, so that he would not have to go to Rome to be confirmed. An able deputation of monks went in his place, and when they returned with the Pope's confirmation, after having to pay 800 marks to certain Cardinals, who opposed it, they found that Abbot de Lewisham had died during their absence.
Gislebertus Crispinus, a monk, of the abbey of Bec, in Normandy, and belonging to one of the noblest families in that duchy, was chosen abbot in 1082. He was a very learned man, and held a great disputation at Mentz, in Germany, with a deeply versed Jew, on the "Faith of the Church against the Jews."
Gervase de Blois, an illegitimate son of King Stephen, was made abbot in 1141. This man was not fit to be a priest, being insolent, arbitrary, and unjust, and, instead of attending to his duties as head of the abbey, he was often in armor, depredating, or hunting, or hawking. He dissipated the manors, livings, tithes, vestments, and ornaments of the abbey, and was finally admonished to behave himself by Pope Innocent, but the abbot disregarded the admonition of the Pope and was then deposed by King Henry II, in 1159. He died in a year after.
The Lord Abbot Laurentius, his successor, was a wise, just, and prudent man, much trusted by King Henry II, and the Empress Maud. It was Abbot Laurentius who first obtained for himself and successors the privilege of wearing the mitre, ring, and gloves, until then the symbols of Episcopacy, and only allowed to the Bishops by the Pope. The wearing of these symbols gave the mitred abbots of Westminster, and other abbeys, the right to sit as peers in parliament, the same as bishops to whom the right belonged exclusively, before Abbot Laurentius obtained the grant.
REVENUES OF ABBEY IN 1540.
Simon Langham was one of the greatest abbots that ever wore the mitre in the abbey. He was made Lord Chancellor of England, and Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of Ely, andLord Treasurer of the Kingdom by Edward III. It was this prelate who deprived John Wickliffe of the mastership of Canterbury Hall, Oxford, which was the first cause of Wickliffe's investigating the scriptures.
On the 16th of January, 1540, the Abbey of Westminster, which had been established for more than nine hundred years, having been founded by King Sebert, a Saxon monarch, and his wife Ethelgoda, in honor of St. Peter who was said to have appeared to the King in a dream, was dissolved by order of Henry VIII, and the abbey was surrendered to the King by Abbot Benson and twenty-four monks. The annual revenue, which included the gross receipts, amounted to £3,977, equal to twenty times the same amount of English money of to-day.
Westminster was made a bishopric, the abbey was advanced to the dignity of a Cathedral, with an establishment of a bishop, (Thomas Thirleby, dean of the King's Chapel,) a dean, twelve prebendaries, and inferior officers. Abbot Benson, who was always on the winning side, was made dean of the Abbey, five of the monks were chosen prebendaries, four other monks were made minor canons, and four more were elected to be King's students in the University. The other twelve monks who did not approve of the change were dismissed, with pensions of from ten pounds a year to five marks. A revenue of £586 a year, and the Abbot's house was allotted to the Bishop. Dean Benson died in an unhappy state from the repeated attempts made by the rapacious nobles and courtiers to deprive him of the lands of his deanery. He was buried in the abbey, but the inscription on his tomb was obliterated. The bishopric of Westminster lasted only ten years, and was then suppressed and reunited to that of London, to which it has since belonged. Numerous attempts were made by the partisans of the See of London to rob and deprive the abbey of its lands and revenues, and hence arose the saying of "robbing Peter to pay Paul," which is explained by the fact that the patron saint of the See of London was St. Paul, while St. Peter was the guardian of the Abbey of Westminster.
In 1556, Queen Mary being on the throne, the Church of Westminster again became an abbey by order of the Queen, and John Feckenham was made abbot of Westminster. He was held in general esteem for his learning, charity, and piety, and he was continually engaged in doing good offices for the Protestants who suffered by the laws of the realm for their faith. Three years after, Mary having died, the monastery was again suppressed by order of Queen Elizabeth, and the abbot and monks were again turned out of the abbey. In 1560 the abbey, by enactment, was made a collegiate church, which it remains to this day, and was endowed with the lands which had belonged to the abbot and monastery. Since that time Westminster Abbey has been governed by a dean and chapter, and has had thirty-three deans in regular succession of the Protestant faith.
The Abbey has the following large clerical staff for its government:
One Dean, eight Prebendaries, one of whom is a Lord, and another a Bishop; a sub-Dean, an Archdeacon, a Precentor, five minor Canons, eleven Lay Clerks, two Sacrists, a Dean's Verger, a Prebendary's Verger, a High Steward, who is a Duke, a Deputy High Steward, a Coroner, a High Bailiff, Searcher and Bailiff of the Sanctuary, a High Constable, a Head Master of Westminster School, Second Master, forty Queen's Scholars on the Foundation, a Steward of the Manorial Court, two Joint Receiver's General, a Chapter Clerk and Registrar, an Auditor, a Commissory and Official Principal, a Registrar of the Consistory Court, and a Deputy Registrar, an Organist and Master of the Choristers, twelve Almsmen, four Bell-ringers, two Organ-blowers, an Abbey Surveyor, a Clerk of the Works, a Beadle of the Sanctuary, and last of all a College Porter and four Probationary Choristers, in all a staff of eighty persons, a very slight reduction upon the old administration of the Abbots of Westminster. These different office holders, in all, receive salaries of about one hundred thousand pounds a year, and the cost of the school, and the repairs of the abbey, make the sundries amount to about twenty thousand pounds a year additional.
TOMB OF SHAKESPEARE.
In the general plunder of monasteries and church property, which distinguished the reign of Henry VIII, Westminster Abbey suffered severely, but it was still worse treated by the Puritans in the great civil war, the abbey being used as a barrack for the soldiers, by the Parliament, who wantonly destroyed many of the tombs and monuments that adorned the various chapels, the altars in the chapels dedicated to the different saints being thrown down, the images broken, and the richly stained windows shattered into fragments. The restoration of the edifice was intrusted to Sir Christopher Wren, who built St. Paul's, but he made a very botching piece of work in the additions which he gave to the towers at the west end.
The imitation of the Gothic style in Wren's additions are wretched and out of place in such an edifice as the Abbey. The front of the Abbey has no columns or pierced works of carving, to which the Gothic style owes so much of its lightness and elegance, and there is a mixture of ornamentation such as the broken scrolls, masques, and festoons over the grand entrance, which gives it a very heavy, flat appearance.
tomb
SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB.
The Abbey is very rich in monuments of all kinds, some of which are very fine works of art. All along the walls, in the transepts and aisles, in the Nave, in the chapels, in the flooring of the Abbey, and everywhere around me I saw tablets, tombs, inscriptions, and medallions.
Among the most noticeable are those of Ben Johnson, JohnMilton, Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry and first poet buried in the Abbey, A.D. 1400, Dryden, Thomas Campbell, William Shakespeare, Oliver Goldsmith, Joseph Addison, Handel the musician, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Sir William Davenant, and Robert Southey, in the "Poet's Corner," which is situated in the south transept. They are all richly ornamented with busts, effigies of the deceased, or allegorical designs in marble, or brass, or bronze.
The tomb of Shakespeare is of marble, with a full length figure of the great poet leaning on his left elbow, and has the following epitaph written by John Milton, who was best fitted to write it:
What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones,The labor of an age in piled stones,Or that his hallow'd relics should be hidUnder a star-y pointing pyramid!Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name,Thou in our wonder and astonishmentHast built thyself a live-long monument,For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring artThy easy numbers flow, and that each heartHath from the leaves of thy unvalued bookThose Delphic lines with deep impression took;Then thou our fancy of itself bereavingDost make us marble with too much conceiving;And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
Milton's epitaph is as follows:
"Three great poets, in three distant ages born,Greece, Italy and England did adorn;The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd.The next in majesty—in both the last.The force of Nature could no farther go,To make the third, she joined the former two."—
John Gay, the author of the "Beggar's Opera," wrote his own epitaph, which is on his tomb;
"Life is a jest, and all things show it;I thought so once; but now I know it."
There is a sarcophagus to Major John Andre who was executed as a spy by order of George Washington. It has a representation of a flag of truce, and Britannia in tears.
tomb
TOMB OF MILTON.
Mrs. Oldfield, the actress who coquetishly ordered that she should be buried in a fine Holland chemise, with a tucker, and a double ruffle of lace, and a pair of white kid gloves, has a monument with an inscription by Pope. Isaac Newton has also a very fine monument, and William Pitt's monument cost £6,000. Henry Grattan, Robert Peel, Charles James Fox, William Wilberforce, George Canning, and Lord Palmerston also have monuments.