[image]LORD TENNYSON.Alfred Tennyson had been born at a country vicarage in Lincolnshire in the year 1809, and had begun to scribble verse almost as soon as he could write. When he was eight he produced such lines as—"With slaughterous sons of thunder rolled the flood,"which he thought "very grand" at the time; at twelve he wrote a poem of six thousand lines, and at fourteen a drama. He was not the sort of boy likely to be very happy at school, and he had, as he described it, "to shout his verses to the skies." But to his brother he was wont to say many a time, "Well, Arthur, I mean to be famous." He went to Cambridge, and when Thompson, that shrewd observer, afterwards Master of Trinity, saw him walk into the hall, "six feet high, broad-chested, strong-limbed, his face Shakespearean and with deep eyelids, his forehead ample, crowned with dark wavy hair, his head firmly poised," he remarked, "That man must be a poet!"In 1829 he won the University Prize Poem on the not very inspiring subject of Timbuctoo, and soon afterwards published a volume of short poems, which was warmly welcomed and admired by his friends, one of whom, Arthur Hallam, remarked, "Tennyson will be the greatest poet of our generation." But the general public cared little for poetry, and preferred novels, so that Tennyson was thought to have scored quite a success when three hundred copies of his book had been sold.In 1833 there fell on him a stunning blow. Arthur Hallam, the friend whom he had loved with an intense love, who was so full of exceptional promise that every one with whom he came in contact believed the greatest future was in store for him, died quite suddenly, and to Tennyson it seemed as if from henceforth the very light of his life had been snatched from him. Dark were the years that followed, rendered more so by the fact that the young poet was very poor and saw no chance of being able to marry the woman he loved. But gradually, as he "faced the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life" (to use his own words), a fuller understanding and a wider view opened out before him. Sorrow and work together led him out of the valley. He produced several volumes of short poems, each one showing more certainly his great poetic sense, his gift of using musical and beautiful language, and each one, too, making it clear from the subjects he chose, and his way of dealing with them, that he himself, like the poet of whom he wrote—"Saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,... Thro' his own soul,The marvel of the Everlasting WillAn open scroll,Before him lay."Then came "The Princess," a longer work and a most delightful one, in which Tennyson, many years in advance of public opinion, pleaded the cause of women's education, and showed that "Woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink together;" and though "distinct in individualities," they must be "self-reverent each, and reverencing each," if they would in all their powers dispense the harvest, "sowing the To-be."In 1850 he published his greatest work, "In Memoriam," the poem which came straight from his own heart, and went as straight to the hearts of all who ached under some crushing, desolating blow. It told of his love for his dead friend, and how this very love led him onwards and upwards, away from his own selfish sorrow, away from despair and darkness, till with this larger hope there came faith in God and faith in man; the certainty that good must be the final goal of ill; the conviction that Love was the great power working in all and through all, destined in the end to conquer all. "In Memoriam" has been rightly called "the triumph of a great love." The work brought him fame if not fortune, and at last he was able to marry her "who brought into his life," he said, "the peace of God." A year later he was made Poet Laureate, and settled down to a quiet country life at Farringford. "Maud," and some of his war poems, "The Ode to the Duke of Wellington," and "The Charge of the Light Brigade," were included in his work of the next few years, and then came what he considered the most ambitious thing he had attempted, "The Idylls of the King." The old mysterious story of King Arthur and his knights had fascinated many a poet before him, and the romance of it all laid full hold on his imagination. Nay, more than this, for he saw beyond the fragmentary story, and each one of the characters, under his hand, stands out in a new light. Arthur, Galahad, Percival, Bedivere, Lancelot, Guinevere, Enid, and Elaine—how real they all become to us! How intensely vivid are the scenes unfolded before our eyes, how great and noble are the ideals of the true chivalry as distinguished from the false, towards which Tennyson leads us, reverence for conscience, faithfulness to duty, pure-heartedness, love of truth, fear of sin, courtesy, gentleness, courage, pity, and forgiveness."A poet must teach, but not preach," Tennyson once said, and I think it is in these legendary stories of "The Idylls," told in the beautiful language of which he was master, that the poet has given some of his greatest lessons, and has held up his loftiest ideals to the age in which he lived. After "The Idylls" came some dramas, and many short poems, "Enoch Arden," perhaps, being the one best liked by the large public Tennyson could now command. But even to touch on the short poems is impossible here, so many and so varied are they; some, soul-stirring and patriotic, as "The Defence of Lucknow" or "The Revenge;" some, poems of nature; some, coloured with the quaint, north-country humour he knew so well; some, exquisite little word-pictures. His last volume of all was published in 1889, and it included "Merlin and the Gleam," an allegory of the ideals he had set before himself as a poet. He, as the old man, talks to the young mariners just about to set out. He tells of the Gleam which shines for every one who will see it; which calls, which beckons on through wilderness, desolate hollows, and wraiths of the mountain; past warbles of water and cataract music of falling torrents; by rolling of dragons and over the level of pasture and ploughland. Onwards, ever onwards, it leads. To follow it is to live, to die in the search for it is happiness, for the Gleam can never fail."Through the magicOf Him that is mighty,Who taught me in childhood,There on the borderOf boundless OceanAnd all but in HeavenHovers the Gleam."So to the young mariners, he, the old magician, gives his parting word of counsel—"Down to the haven,Launch your vesselAnd crowd your canvas,And, ere it vanishesOver the margin,After it, follow it,Follow the Gleam.""I want to go down to posterity," Tennyson once said, "as a poet who uttered nothing base." And the criticism which he declared was "the best and tenderest praise that came to cheer his old age," was the remark of a girl who said, "When I read his poems, I always rise determined to be better."Much might be said about the perfect music of his poetry; the richness of his imagination; the faultless ear he had for words; the crystal clearness of his style; his power to see beauty and, having seen it, to shape it; his sympathy, his sensitive understanding, and his lofty ideals. His claim to greatness is based on all that and still more. Out of the depths of his pure soul he gazed on all things lovely, just, true, pure, and of good report; and translating these into language easy to be understood, he led those who listened to him along the Road Beautiful, till they too stood with him on"The heights of life, with a glimpse of a height that is higher."CHAPTER XXIIA LAST WANDER AROUNDThere are still many monuments and memorials in the Abbey which do not come in under the broad headings we have made, and to some few of these I must take you in this our last wander round the aisles and chapels.As we come in by the great north entrance and pass between the row of statesmen, we must stop for a moment by the Canning group and notice the monument to the "loyall Duke of Newcastle," who lost a large fortune and became an exile from England on account of his devoted faithfulness to Charles I. The Duchess, who came of a family in which "all the brothers were valiant and all the sisters virtuous," was, in the Duke's eyes at least, a very "wise, witty, and learned lady," though every one did not deem her so. Pepys, when he made her acquaintance, wrote: "She is a good, comely woman, but her dress is so antick, and her deportment so ordinary, that I did not like her at all. Nor did I hear her say anything that was worth hearing." It was curiosity, I suppose, that caused Pepys to stay at home one day "to read the history of my Lord of Newcastle, written by his wife." Certainly his criticisms were not favourable. "It shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman," he said. "And he is an ass to suffer her to write what she writes to him and of him."Perhaps the "loyall Duke" found his learned lady not always quite easy to restrain, for he is reported once to have declared to a friend, "Sir, a very wise woman may be a very foolish thing."But she had better claims than her wit or wisdom to his love, as the inscription on her monument tells, for she proved herself to be "a louvinge carefull wife, who was with her lord all the time of his banishment and miseries, and when he came home, never parted from him in all his solitary retirements."Round the west door, and underneath the statue of the younger Pitt, are a number of memorial monuments to men, many of whom lived and laboured in our own times. There is Lord John Russell, the great statesman, who throughout his life was true to the emblem and the motto of his house, which you will see on the pedestal—a mountain goat wending its way through dangerous precipices, but never losing its footing. And there is General Gordon, true type of the happy warrior, who lived for the poor, the needy, and the oppressed, and who fell at his post in far Khartoum, faithful unto death. On the one side is a spot sometimes called the Little Poets' Corner, and here, under a window given by an American to the memory of George Herbert and Cowper, "both Westminster scholars, and both religious poets," we find statues or busts of Wordsworth; of the two Arnolds, Dr. Arnold, the schoolmaster, and his son Matthew Arnold, the poet, whose beautiful verses about his father, telling of his radiant vigour, his buoyant cheerfulness, his strong soul, have inspired many a one struggling to be a leader, not a laggard, in the march of life. Here also is Keble, another religious poet, some of whose hymns, "Sun of my Soul" and "New every morning is the Love," are as well known to all of us as any poems in our language; and close by we find Maurice, the teacher and preacher who influenced so many young men to become knights of their own day; to war against all that was mean, or base, or false; to fight in the foremost rank for the wronged or the oppressed; to champion the unpopular cause, and defend the truth well-nigh forgotten. By those who loved him he was called the Prophet, because he stood, as it were, between God and man, because he looked beyond the present and the things that are seen, right into the hidden glories of the things eternal. Kingsley, too, lies here, the most famous of Maurice's disciples—the man who was scholar, poet, novelist, thinker, teacher, enthusiast, and leader all in one; who roused his listeners to a sense of the duty that lay at their door; who taught them to love the beautiful things in nature even as they loved nature's God; who made them enthusiastic for all that was chivalrous and soul-stirring; who himself so loved all humanity that round his grave the highest in the land, gipsies from the country lanes, and white-faced, sweated toilers from the great cities, mourned side by side, this their great-hearted friend.Fittingly in this group comes Henry Fawcett, the most knightly figure in modern politics. For though he became blind through an accident when he was twenty-five, he refused to let that turn him aside from his purpose, and threw himself all the more earnestly into public life. At first when he tried to go into Parliament he was beaten, the electors actually being afraid of a blind candidate, but gradually his speeches, which showed how much he thought and cared, and how intensely alive he was to the needs of the working classes, broke down this foolish prejudice, and once in the House he was loved as he was trusted by men of both parties. His monument is quite one of the most beautiful among the modern monuments, and one great authority has declared that "the exquisite little figures which adorn it are the best of their kind since the little angels were placed on the tomb of Queen Philippa."In the south aisle of the choir is the monument of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, which so annoyed Addison. And indeed it is rather hard on this British sailor, who worked his way up from the lowest rank till he became Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, and was drowned in a shipwreck off the Isle of Stilly, to be handed down to posterity, dressed, not in the uniform he loved and wore so honourably, but in the armour of a Roman general!Monuments to Doctor Isaac Watts the hymn writer and to John and Charles Wesley are here, and very appropriate is the Wesley inscription, "The whole world is my Parish," breathing as it does the great-hearted spirit of the Abbey.Sir Godfrey Kneller, the only painter who has a monument in the Abbey, refused to be buried here, declaring he would not lie among fools, and he left money for a memorial to himself which was to be put up in Twickenham Church. But the place he had chosen had already been appropriated by Pope, who refused to give way, so that after all the monument had to be put up in Westminster, and Pope, by way of compensation, undertook to write the inscription, in which he declared that "Kneller was by Heaven, not by master taught."Gilbert Thornburgh, a courtier, has a delightful Latin epitaph which states that"He was always faithfulTo his God, his Prince, and his Friends.Formerly an earthly, now an Heavenly Courtier,It shall be no more said in the Age to come,Who must be good must leave the Court,When such shining Piety as his shall appear there."Some epitaphs are humorous, as when we read of one Francis Newman, a Fellow of All Souls College in Oxford, who in 1649, "divested of Body was received among the seats of the Blessed Souls, and became truly a New-Man;" or of Sir John Fullerton, a courtier, who died "Fuller of Faith than of Feare, Fuller of Resolution than of Paines, Fuller of Honour than of Dayes."Unconsciously humorous are the words on the tombstone of James Fox, who at the age of twelve fell ill of smallpox and took his flight to heaven. "He was a man even when a child, and a Hercules from his cradle; favoured with Beauty, Wisdom, and all Endowments of Mind and Body no less than were Adonis, Venus, and Apollo; a child of singular dutifulness and great sincerity.""Oh parents! pity his parents.Oh posterity! reflect upon your loss!"It was smallpox which caused the death both of Richard Boothey—who was "of manly judgment even in his youth, of so happy a memory as to be envied, a flower, more beautiful than the rest, cut off in the spring of life"—and of Mr. Thomas Smith, buried in the little cloisters, "who through the spotted veil of smallpox rendered a pure unspotted soul to God, expecting but never fearing death."More pathetic perhaps than any other is the little tablet in the cloisters which marks the grave of "Jane Lister, dear child," though almost as touching is the inscription which tells us of "Mary, daughter of William Green, more adorned with virtue than with high birth, who married William Bulmer, Gentleman, to whom she was no occasion of trouble except by leaving him at her death. She bore him one son, William, a youth of great genius, who was snatched away by too hasty death. His most tender mother chose to be buried near him, that she, though dead, might be united in death with him she so entirely loved while living." Right at the other end of the Abbey, in the Chapel of St. Erasmus, is the tomb of Mrs. Mary Kendall, which has these words for inscription:—"She had great virtues, and as great a desire of concealing them.Was of a severe life, but of an easy conversation.Courteous to all, yet strictly sincere.Humble without meanness. Beneficent without ostentation.Devout without superstition.Those admirable qualities,In which she was equalled by few of her sex, surpassed by none,Rendered her in every way worthy of that close union and friendshipIn which she lived with the Lady Katherine Jones."And in the adjoining Chapel of St. Andrew is the heart-broken tribute of the Earl of Kerry, "to his affectionately beloved wife, Anastatia, the dearest, most loved, most faithful companion that ever blessed man, who for thirty-one years rendered him the happiest of mankind."The last of our epitaphs must be that of Archbishop Boulter, who pulled a great many political strings in Ireland, and lived a very eventful life. But his inscription reveals us none of these things, and only describes a series of promotions, for it relates that "He was born January the 4th, 1671: he was consecrated Bishop of Bristol 1718: he was translated to the Archbishoprick of Armagh in 1723, and from thence to Heaven, on Sep. 27, 1742."Over Abbot Islip's Chapel is a chantry, now used for keeping the few wax effigies which remain. For, as you remember, it used to be the custom at royal funerals, or indeed at any important funerals, to carry the likeness of the dead man or woman before the coffin; these painted effigies being made of boiled leather, wood, or wax, dressed up in the clothes of the person they represented. Only eleven of these remain, though at one time there must have been quite a collection of royal figures in the Abbey which were open to the public, gaze, and evidently left to the mercy of the public. Queen Elizabeth can still be seen, gorgeously dressed, but weary and sad-looking; Charles II. is there, and the beautiful Duchess of Richmond of the Stuart race, whose monument, with that of her husband, is in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Then there is the Duchess of Buckinghamshire, proud and pomp-loving, who insisted on seeing the canopy for her funeral hearse, that she might be sure it was magnificent enough, and who made her attendants promise that even when she became unconscious they would still stand in her presence. By her is her little son, and near her, her eldest son, who also died young. Queen Anne beams on us; William and Mary have the crown set between them, and he stands on a stool so as not to appear smaller than his wife. General Monk's armour is there, much the worse for wear; and Pitt, Earl of Chatham, is splendid in his Parliamentary robes. Nelson was put here from a very worldly point of view, for when he was buried in St. Paul's, such crowds went to see his grave, that Westminster Abbey was neglected, and as the pence of the sightseers were too valuable to be lost, it was decided that some memorial of the great hero must be placed in the Abbey to attract people back again. All the clothes except the coat, and certainly the hat, belonged to Nelson, but a waxwork effigy hardly seems a worthy monument to him in the place which he must have loved and honoured, nay, must have dreamt of, when he cried to his men as he led them to attack, "Westminster Abbey, or glorious victory."And now, leaving monuments, sleeping figures, epitaphs, inscriptions, and effigies, come and stand for a moment on the steps leading up to the High Altar, that we may take our last look at the Abbey from what is perhaps the most interesting spot in it. For, as you will remember, it is in this part of the Church that the coronation service takes place, it is here that every sovereign of England has been crowned from the days of Harold onwards.[image]THE HIGH ALTAR. (SHEWING ABBOT WARE'S PAVEMENT.)The pavement inside the rails is made of the mosaics brought back from Rome by Abbot Ware in 1267, where he went to be duly confirmed in his office by the Pope; the pillars near the altar are on the very bases which were put there when Edward the Confessor built his church. Here are the tombs of Aymer de Valence, of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, and of Aveline his young wife, who as a bride had stood in front of the altar but a few months before her death in the year 1269. Opposite, King Sebert is said to lie; under the pavement rests Abbot Ware, with other of his successors, and Richard the Second's sad helpless face looks at us from his portrait with its fine background of tapestry. The altar and the reredos which we see are both new, and just as the old frieze through in the Confessor's Chapel depicts scenes in the life of Edward, so the modern reredos gives us glimpses of Him in whose honour the Saxon king first raised these walls. From among the gold, four white figures stand out, "the four living creatures which have been thought worthy to stand round the central figure of our departing Master," as Dean Stanley described them when they were erected. On the right stands St. Peter, patron saint of the Abbey, holding in one hand the keys, and in the other a book, on which is written the great truth, "God is no respecter of persons," and next to him is Moses, the first statesman and lawgiver, looking towards the buried statesmen in the Abbey.On the left stands St. Paul, grasping in his hand that Sword of the Spirit which he had named as the weapon of the Christian warrior, and by him is David, the sweet singer of Israel, whose face is turned towards the Poets' Corner as though he would claim those sleeping there for his brethren.Through the glass we catch a glimpse of the Chapel of the Kings, and all around is a network of slender arches fashioned by master-hands into forms of stately but perfect beauty. High above are the three Eastern Windows, though in the course of the years these have been so constantly repaired with any scraps of glass available, that the effect is rather confusing. But the figure of a thorn-crowned Christ stands out, and near to Him are Edward the Confessor and St. John the Evangelist.Now turn to the west, look at the glade of arches stretching down the nave, at the Statesmen's Corner on the right, where under the Rose Window Chatham's fine figure stands out almost with an air of proud satisfaction, and then towards the left to the monument of Oliver Goldsmith, and the more imposing memorial to the great Duke of Argyll, "an honest man, a constant friend, a general and an orator." Two commanding statues of Campbell and Addison loom out in the half light, Campbell casting a shadow over the graves of Abbot Litlington, Owen Tudor, and Dean Benson, and hiding from our view the dignified, thoughtful figure of William Shakespeare, who holds in his hands a scroll on which are those lines of his from the "Tempest":—"The cloud-capt towers,The gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples,The great globe itself,Yea, all which it inheritShall dissolve,And like the baseless fabric of a visionLeave not a wreck behind."Burns and Sir Walter Scott greet us from their niches; Grote and Thirlwall, the truth-loving writers of history; Camden, the Westminster master and antiquarian; Garrick the actor, Handel the musician, all cluster around us as we look down the southern aisle; and we can just see at the end the newest addition to the building, a bronze memorial to John Ruskin, a great teacher and writer of our own day. Some words of his come to my mind at this moment, as applying in a very special sense to the Abbey: "The greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. The glory is in its age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity.... It is in the golden stain of time that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as those possess of language and of life. Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever.... God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the Book of Creation, as to us."And surely, too, the Abbey leads our thoughts towards other temples, which it is ours to guard, to honour, and to make honourable, temples not fashioned by human hands. Those old builders often worked in the dark; some corner, some piece was allotted to them, and into this they put all their skill, all their genius, caring little for fame or reward, knowing nothing of the whole plan which they would never live to see accomplished. Only this was their task, to beautify the little part entrusted to them. And because they were faithful to this ideal, we, who gaze on their completed work, do grateful homage to those nameless craftsmen, long since dead and forgotten. Nay more, we will make it our aim to labour as they laboured; to live not basely and selfishly in the Present, but nobly and truly, with the Future ever before our eyes; so that in days to come Englishmen shall still be able to say, "See! This our fathers did for us!" and generations, yet unborn, will deem that we were faithful to ourselves and to them.THE ENDPrinted by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.Edinburgh & London*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKTHE STORY OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY***
[image]LORD TENNYSON.
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[image]
LORD TENNYSON.
Alfred Tennyson had been born at a country vicarage in Lincolnshire in the year 1809, and had begun to scribble verse almost as soon as he could write. When he was eight he produced such lines as—
"With slaughterous sons of thunder rolled the flood,"
"With slaughterous sons of thunder rolled the flood,"
"With slaughterous sons of thunder rolled the flood,"
which he thought "very grand" at the time; at twelve he wrote a poem of six thousand lines, and at fourteen a drama. He was not the sort of boy likely to be very happy at school, and he had, as he described it, "to shout his verses to the skies." But to his brother he was wont to say many a time, "Well, Arthur, I mean to be famous." He went to Cambridge, and when Thompson, that shrewd observer, afterwards Master of Trinity, saw him walk into the hall, "six feet high, broad-chested, strong-limbed, his face Shakespearean and with deep eyelids, his forehead ample, crowned with dark wavy hair, his head firmly poised," he remarked, "That man must be a poet!"
In 1829 he won the University Prize Poem on the not very inspiring subject of Timbuctoo, and soon afterwards published a volume of short poems, which was warmly welcomed and admired by his friends, one of whom, Arthur Hallam, remarked, "Tennyson will be the greatest poet of our generation." But the general public cared little for poetry, and preferred novels, so that Tennyson was thought to have scored quite a success when three hundred copies of his book had been sold.
In 1833 there fell on him a stunning blow. Arthur Hallam, the friend whom he had loved with an intense love, who was so full of exceptional promise that every one with whom he came in contact believed the greatest future was in store for him, died quite suddenly, and to Tennyson it seemed as if from henceforth the very light of his life had been snatched from him. Dark were the years that followed, rendered more so by the fact that the young poet was very poor and saw no chance of being able to marry the woman he loved. But gradually, as he "faced the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life" (to use his own words), a fuller understanding and a wider view opened out before him. Sorrow and work together led him out of the valley. He produced several volumes of short poems, each one showing more certainly his great poetic sense, his gift of using musical and beautiful language, and each one, too, making it clear from the subjects he chose, and his way of dealing with them, that he himself, like the poet of whom he wrote—
"Saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,... Thro' his own soul,The marvel of the Everlasting WillAn open scroll,Before him lay."
"Saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,... Thro' his own soul,The marvel of the Everlasting WillAn open scroll,Before him lay."
"Saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,
... Thro' his own soul,
... Thro' his own soul,
The marvel of the Everlasting Will
An open scroll,
An open scroll,
Before him lay."
Then came "The Princess," a longer work and a most delightful one, in which Tennyson, many years in advance of public opinion, pleaded the cause of women's education, and showed that "Woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink together;" and though "distinct in individualities," they must be "self-reverent each, and reverencing each," if they would in all their powers dispense the harvest, "sowing the To-be."
In 1850 he published his greatest work, "In Memoriam," the poem which came straight from his own heart, and went as straight to the hearts of all who ached under some crushing, desolating blow. It told of his love for his dead friend, and how this very love led him onwards and upwards, away from his own selfish sorrow, away from despair and darkness, till with this larger hope there came faith in God and faith in man; the certainty that good must be the final goal of ill; the conviction that Love was the great power working in all and through all, destined in the end to conquer all. "In Memoriam" has been rightly called "the triumph of a great love." The work brought him fame if not fortune, and at last he was able to marry her "who brought into his life," he said, "the peace of God." A year later he was made Poet Laureate, and settled down to a quiet country life at Farringford. "Maud," and some of his war poems, "The Ode to the Duke of Wellington," and "The Charge of the Light Brigade," were included in his work of the next few years, and then came what he considered the most ambitious thing he had attempted, "The Idylls of the King." The old mysterious story of King Arthur and his knights had fascinated many a poet before him, and the romance of it all laid full hold on his imagination. Nay, more than this, for he saw beyond the fragmentary story, and each one of the characters, under his hand, stands out in a new light. Arthur, Galahad, Percival, Bedivere, Lancelot, Guinevere, Enid, and Elaine—how real they all become to us! How intensely vivid are the scenes unfolded before our eyes, how great and noble are the ideals of the true chivalry as distinguished from the false, towards which Tennyson leads us, reverence for conscience, faithfulness to duty, pure-heartedness, love of truth, fear of sin, courtesy, gentleness, courage, pity, and forgiveness.
"A poet must teach, but not preach," Tennyson once said, and I think it is in these legendary stories of "The Idylls," told in the beautiful language of which he was master, that the poet has given some of his greatest lessons, and has held up his loftiest ideals to the age in which he lived. After "The Idylls" came some dramas, and many short poems, "Enoch Arden," perhaps, being the one best liked by the large public Tennyson could now command. But even to touch on the short poems is impossible here, so many and so varied are they; some, soul-stirring and patriotic, as "The Defence of Lucknow" or "The Revenge;" some, poems of nature; some, coloured with the quaint, north-country humour he knew so well; some, exquisite little word-pictures. His last volume of all was published in 1889, and it included "Merlin and the Gleam," an allegory of the ideals he had set before himself as a poet. He, as the old man, talks to the young mariners just about to set out. He tells of the Gleam which shines for every one who will see it; which calls, which beckons on through wilderness, desolate hollows, and wraiths of the mountain; past warbles of water and cataract music of falling torrents; by rolling of dragons and over the level of pasture and ploughland. Onwards, ever onwards, it leads. To follow it is to live, to die in the search for it is happiness, for the Gleam can never fail.
"Through the magicOf Him that is mighty,Who taught me in childhood,There on the borderOf boundless OceanAnd all but in HeavenHovers the Gleam."
"Through the magicOf Him that is mighty,Who taught me in childhood,There on the borderOf boundless OceanAnd all but in HeavenHovers the Gleam."
"Through the magic
Of Him that is mighty,
Who taught me in childhood,
There on the border
Of boundless Ocean
And all but in Heaven
Hovers the Gleam."
So to the young mariners, he, the old magician, gives his parting word of counsel—
"Down to the haven,Launch your vesselAnd crowd your canvas,And, ere it vanishesOver the margin,After it, follow it,Follow the Gleam."
"Down to the haven,Launch your vesselAnd crowd your canvas,And, ere it vanishesOver the margin,After it, follow it,Follow the Gleam."
"Down to the haven,
Launch your vessel
And crowd your canvas,
And, ere it vanishes
Over the margin,
After it, follow it,
Follow the Gleam."
"I want to go down to posterity," Tennyson once said, "as a poet who uttered nothing base." And the criticism which he declared was "the best and tenderest praise that came to cheer his old age," was the remark of a girl who said, "When I read his poems, I always rise determined to be better."
Much might be said about the perfect music of his poetry; the richness of his imagination; the faultless ear he had for words; the crystal clearness of his style; his power to see beauty and, having seen it, to shape it; his sympathy, his sensitive understanding, and his lofty ideals. His claim to greatness is based on all that and still more. Out of the depths of his pure soul he gazed on all things lovely, just, true, pure, and of good report; and translating these into language easy to be understood, he led those who listened to him along the Road Beautiful, till they too stood with him on
"The heights of life, with a glimpse of a height that is higher."
"The heights of life, with a glimpse of a height that is higher."
"The heights of life, with a glimpse of a height that is higher."
CHAPTER XXII
A LAST WANDER AROUND
There are still many monuments and memorials in the Abbey which do not come in under the broad headings we have made, and to some few of these I must take you in this our last wander round the aisles and chapels.
As we come in by the great north entrance and pass between the row of statesmen, we must stop for a moment by the Canning group and notice the monument to the "loyall Duke of Newcastle," who lost a large fortune and became an exile from England on account of his devoted faithfulness to Charles I. The Duchess, who came of a family in which "all the brothers were valiant and all the sisters virtuous," was, in the Duke's eyes at least, a very "wise, witty, and learned lady," though every one did not deem her so. Pepys, when he made her acquaintance, wrote: "She is a good, comely woman, but her dress is so antick, and her deportment so ordinary, that I did not like her at all. Nor did I hear her say anything that was worth hearing." It was curiosity, I suppose, that caused Pepys to stay at home one day "to read the history of my Lord of Newcastle, written by his wife." Certainly his criticisms were not favourable. "It shows her to be a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman," he said. "And he is an ass to suffer her to write what she writes to him and of him."
Perhaps the "loyall Duke" found his learned lady not always quite easy to restrain, for he is reported once to have declared to a friend, "Sir, a very wise woman may be a very foolish thing."
But she had better claims than her wit or wisdom to his love, as the inscription on her monument tells, for she proved herself to be "a louvinge carefull wife, who was with her lord all the time of his banishment and miseries, and when he came home, never parted from him in all his solitary retirements."
Round the west door, and underneath the statue of the younger Pitt, are a number of memorial monuments to men, many of whom lived and laboured in our own times. There is Lord John Russell, the great statesman, who throughout his life was true to the emblem and the motto of his house, which you will see on the pedestal—a mountain goat wending its way through dangerous precipices, but never losing its footing. And there is General Gordon, true type of the happy warrior, who lived for the poor, the needy, and the oppressed, and who fell at his post in far Khartoum, faithful unto death. On the one side is a spot sometimes called the Little Poets' Corner, and here, under a window given by an American to the memory of George Herbert and Cowper, "both Westminster scholars, and both religious poets," we find statues or busts of Wordsworth; of the two Arnolds, Dr. Arnold, the schoolmaster, and his son Matthew Arnold, the poet, whose beautiful verses about his father, telling of his radiant vigour, his buoyant cheerfulness, his strong soul, have inspired many a one struggling to be a leader, not a laggard, in the march of life. Here also is Keble, another religious poet, some of whose hymns, "Sun of my Soul" and "New every morning is the Love," are as well known to all of us as any poems in our language; and close by we find Maurice, the teacher and preacher who influenced so many young men to become knights of their own day; to war against all that was mean, or base, or false; to fight in the foremost rank for the wronged or the oppressed; to champion the unpopular cause, and defend the truth well-nigh forgotten. By those who loved him he was called the Prophet, because he stood, as it were, between God and man, because he looked beyond the present and the things that are seen, right into the hidden glories of the things eternal. Kingsley, too, lies here, the most famous of Maurice's disciples—the man who was scholar, poet, novelist, thinker, teacher, enthusiast, and leader all in one; who roused his listeners to a sense of the duty that lay at their door; who taught them to love the beautiful things in nature even as they loved nature's God; who made them enthusiastic for all that was chivalrous and soul-stirring; who himself so loved all humanity that round his grave the highest in the land, gipsies from the country lanes, and white-faced, sweated toilers from the great cities, mourned side by side, this their great-hearted friend.
Fittingly in this group comes Henry Fawcett, the most knightly figure in modern politics. For though he became blind through an accident when he was twenty-five, he refused to let that turn him aside from his purpose, and threw himself all the more earnestly into public life. At first when he tried to go into Parliament he was beaten, the electors actually being afraid of a blind candidate, but gradually his speeches, which showed how much he thought and cared, and how intensely alive he was to the needs of the working classes, broke down this foolish prejudice, and once in the House he was loved as he was trusted by men of both parties. His monument is quite one of the most beautiful among the modern monuments, and one great authority has declared that "the exquisite little figures which adorn it are the best of their kind since the little angels were placed on the tomb of Queen Philippa."
In the south aisle of the choir is the monument of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, which so annoyed Addison. And indeed it is rather hard on this British sailor, who worked his way up from the lowest rank till he became Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, and was drowned in a shipwreck off the Isle of Stilly, to be handed down to posterity, dressed, not in the uniform he loved and wore so honourably, but in the armour of a Roman general!
Monuments to Doctor Isaac Watts the hymn writer and to John and Charles Wesley are here, and very appropriate is the Wesley inscription, "The whole world is my Parish," breathing as it does the great-hearted spirit of the Abbey.
Sir Godfrey Kneller, the only painter who has a monument in the Abbey, refused to be buried here, declaring he would not lie among fools, and he left money for a memorial to himself which was to be put up in Twickenham Church. But the place he had chosen had already been appropriated by Pope, who refused to give way, so that after all the monument had to be put up in Westminster, and Pope, by way of compensation, undertook to write the inscription, in which he declared that "Kneller was by Heaven, not by master taught."
Gilbert Thornburgh, a courtier, has a delightful Latin epitaph which states that
"He was always faithfulTo his God, his Prince, and his Friends.Formerly an earthly, now an Heavenly Courtier,It shall be no more said in the Age to come,Who must be good must leave the Court,When such shining Piety as his shall appear there."
Some epitaphs are humorous, as when we read of one Francis Newman, a Fellow of All Souls College in Oxford, who in 1649, "divested of Body was received among the seats of the Blessed Souls, and became truly a New-Man;" or of Sir John Fullerton, a courtier, who died "Fuller of Faith than of Feare, Fuller of Resolution than of Paines, Fuller of Honour than of Dayes."
Unconsciously humorous are the words on the tombstone of James Fox, who at the age of twelve fell ill of smallpox and took his flight to heaven. "He was a man even when a child, and a Hercules from his cradle; favoured with Beauty, Wisdom, and all Endowments of Mind and Body no less than were Adonis, Venus, and Apollo; a child of singular dutifulness and great sincerity."
"Oh parents! pity his parents.Oh posterity! reflect upon your loss!"
"Oh parents! pity his parents.Oh posterity! reflect upon your loss!"
"Oh parents! pity his parents.
Oh posterity! reflect upon your loss!"
It was smallpox which caused the death both of Richard Boothey—who was "of manly judgment even in his youth, of so happy a memory as to be envied, a flower, more beautiful than the rest, cut off in the spring of life"—and of Mr. Thomas Smith, buried in the little cloisters, "who through the spotted veil of smallpox rendered a pure unspotted soul to God, expecting but never fearing death."
More pathetic perhaps than any other is the little tablet in the cloisters which marks the grave of "Jane Lister, dear child," though almost as touching is the inscription which tells us of "Mary, daughter of William Green, more adorned with virtue than with high birth, who married William Bulmer, Gentleman, to whom she was no occasion of trouble except by leaving him at her death. She bore him one son, William, a youth of great genius, who was snatched away by too hasty death. His most tender mother chose to be buried near him, that she, though dead, might be united in death with him she so entirely loved while living." Right at the other end of the Abbey, in the Chapel of St. Erasmus, is the tomb of Mrs. Mary Kendall, which has these words for inscription:—
"She had great virtues, and as great a desire of concealing them.Was of a severe life, but of an easy conversation.Courteous to all, yet strictly sincere.Humble without meanness. Beneficent without ostentation.Devout without superstition.Those admirable qualities,In which she was equalled by few of her sex, surpassed by none,Rendered her in every way worthy of that close union and friendshipIn which she lived with the Lady Katherine Jones."
And in the adjoining Chapel of St. Andrew is the heart-broken tribute of the Earl of Kerry, "to his affectionately beloved wife, Anastatia, the dearest, most loved, most faithful companion that ever blessed man, who for thirty-one years rendered him the happiest of mankind."
The last of our epitaphs must be that of Archbishop Boulter, who pulled a great many political strings in Ireland, and lived a very eventful life. But his inscription reveals us none of these things, and only describes a series of promotions, for it relates that "He was born January the 4th, 1671: he was consecrated Bishop of Bristol 1718: he was translated to the Archbishoprick of Armagh in 1723, and from thence to Heaven, on Sep. 27, 1742."
Over Abbot Islip's Chapel is a chantry, now used for keeping the few wax effigies which remain. For, as you remember, it used to be the custom at royal funerals, or indeed at any important funerals, to carry the likeness of the dead man or woman before the coffin; these painted effigies being made of boiled leather, wood, or wax, dressed up in the clothes of the person they represented. Only eleven of these remain, though at one time there must have been quite a collection of royal figures in the Abbey which were open to the public, gaze, and evidently left to the mercy of the public. Queen Elizabeth can still be seen, gorgeously dressed, but weary and sad-looking; Charles II. is there, and the beautiful Duchess of Richmond of the Stuart race, whose monument, with that of her husband, is in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Then there is the Duchess of Buckinghamshire, proud and pomp-loving, who insisted on seeing the canopy for her funeral hearse, that she might be sure it was magnificent enough, and who made her attendants promise that even when she became unconscious they would still stand in her presence. By her is her little son, and near her, her eldest son, who also died young. Queen Anne beams on us; William and Mary have the crown set between them, and he stands on a stool so as not to appear smaller than his wife. General Monk's armour is there, much the worse for wear; and Pitt, Earl of Chatham, is splendid in his Parliamentary robes. Nelson was put here from a very worldly point of view, for when he was buried in St. Paul's, such crowds went to see his grave, that Westminster Abbey was neglected, and as the pence of the sightseers were too valuable to be lost, it was decided that some memorial of the great hero must be placed in the Abbey to attract people back again. All the clothes except the coat, and certainly the hat, belonged to Nelson, but a waxwork effigy hardly seems a worthy monument to him in the place which he must have loved and honoured, nay, must have dreamt of, when he cried to his men as he led them to attack, "Westminster Abbey, or glorious victory."
And now, leaving monuments, sleeping figures, epitaphs, inscriptions, and effigies, come and stand for a moment on the steps leading up to the High Altar, that we may take our last look at the Abbey from what is perhaps the most interesting spot in it. For, as you will remember, it is in this part of the Church that the coronation service takes place, it is here that every sovereign of England has been crowned from the days of Harold onwards.
[image]THE HIGH ALTAR. (SHEWING ABBOT WARE'S PAVEMENT.)
[image]
[image]
THE HIGH ALTAR. (SHEWING ABBOT WARE'S PAVEMENT.)
The pavement inside the rails is made of the mosaics brought back from Rome by Abbot Ware in 1267, where he went to be duly confirmed in his office by the Pope; the pillars near the altar are on the very bases which were put there when Edward the Confessor built his church. Here are the tombs of Aymer de Valence, of Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, and of Aveline his young wife, who as a bride had stood in front of the altar but a few months before her death in the year 1269. Opposite, King Sebert is said to lie; under the pavement rests Abbot Ware, with other of his successors, and Richard the Second's sad helpless face looks at us from his portrait with its fine background of tapestry. The altar and the reredos which we see are both new, and just as the old frieze through in the Confessor's Chapel depicts scenes in the life of Edward, so the modern reredos gives us glimpses of Him in whose honour the Saxon king first raised these walls. From among the gold, four white figures stand out, "the four living creatures which have been thought worthy to stand round the central figure of our departing Master," as Dean Stanley described them when they were erected. On the right stands St. Peter, patron saint of the Abbey, holding in one hand the keys, and in the other a book, on which is written the great truth, "God is no respecter of persons," and next to him is Moses, the first statesman and lawgiver, looking towards the buried statesmen in the Abbey.
On the left stands St. Paul, grasping in his hand that Sword of the Spirit which he had named as the weapon of the Christian warrior, and by him is David, the sweet singer of Israel, whose face is turned towards the Poets' Corner as though he would claim those sleeping there for his brethren.
Through the glass we catch a glimpse of the Chapel of the Kings, and all around is a network of slender arches fashioned by master-hands into forms of stately but perfect beauty. High above are the three Eastern Windows, though in the course of the years these have been so constantly repaired with any scraps of glass available, that the effect is rather confusing. But the figure of a thorn-crowned Christ stands out, and near to Him are Edward the Confessor and St. John the Evangelist.
Now turn to the west, look at the glade of arches stretching down the nave, at the Statesmen's Corner on the right, where under the Rose Window Chatham's fine figure stands out almost with an air of proud satisfaction, and then towards the left to the monument of Oliver Goldsmith, and the more imposing memorial to the great Duke of Argyll, "an honest man, a constant friend, a general and an orator." Two commanding statues of Campbell and Addison loom out in the half light, Campbell casting a shadow over the graves of Abbot Litlington, Owen Tudor, and Dean Benson, and hiding from our view the dignified, thoughtful figure of William Shakespeare, who holds in his hands a scroll on which are those lines of his from the "Tempest":—
"The cloud-capt towers,The gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples,The great globe itself,Yea, all which it inheritShall dissolve,And like the baseless fabric of a visionLeave not a wreck behind."
"The cloud-capt towers,The gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples,The great globe itself,Yea, all which it inheritShall dissolve,And like the baseless fabric of a visionLeave not a wreck behind."
"The cloud-capt towers,
The gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples,
The great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit
Shall dissolve,
And like the baseless fabric of a vision
Leave not a wreck behind."
Burns and Sir Walter Scott greet us from their niches; Grote and Thirlwall, the truth-loving writers of history; Camden, the Westminster master and antiquarian; Garrick the actor, Handel the musician, all cluster around us as we look down the southern aisle; and we can just see at the end the newest addition to the building, a bronze memorial to John Ruskin, a great teacher and writer of our own day. Some words of his come to my mind at this moment, as applying in a very special sense to the Abbey: "The greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold. The glory is in its age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity.... It is in the golden stain of time that we are to look for the real light, and colour, and preciousness of architecture; and it is not until a building has assumed this character, till it has been entrusted with the fame and hallowed by the deeds of men, till its walls have been witnesses of suffering, and its pillars rise out of the shadows of death, that its existence, more lasting as it is than the natural objects of the world around it, can be gifted with even so much as those possess of language and of life. Therefore, when we build, let us think that we build for ever.... God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail. It belongs as much to those who are to come after us, and whose names are already written in the Book of Creation, as to us."
And surely, too, the Abbey leads our thoughts towards other temples, which it is ours to guard, to honour, and to make honourable, temples not fashioned by human hands. Those old builders often worked in the dark; some corner, some piece was allotted to them, and into this they put all their skill, all their genius, caring little for fame or reward, knowing nothing of the whole plan which they would never live to see accomplished. Only this was their task, to beautify the little part entrusted to them. And because they were faithful to this ideal, we, who gaze on their completed work, do grateful homage to those nameless craftsmen, long since dead and forgotten. Nay more, we will make it our aim to labour as they laboured; to live not basely and selfishly in the Present, but nobly and truly, with the Future ever before our eyes; so that in days to come Englishmen shall still be able to say, "See! This our fathers did for us!" and generations, yet unborn, will deem that we were faithful to ourselves and to them.
THE END
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