The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
some strange and distant land of which we have no certain knowledge,
and about which all our conceptions are vague and visionary. There is
something extremely solemn and awful in those effigies on Gothic tombs,
extended as if in the sleep of death or in the supplication of the dying
hour. They have an effect infinitely more impressive on my feelings
than the fanciful attitudes, the over wrought conceits, the allegorical
groups which abound on modern monuments. I have been struck, also, with
the superiority of many of the old sepulchral inscriptions. There was a
noble way in former times of saying things simply, and yet saying
them proudly; and I do not know an epitaph that breathes a loftier
consciousness of family worth and honorable lineage than one which
affirms of a noble house that “all the brothers were brave and all the
sisters virtuous.”
In the opposite transept to Poet’s Corner stands a monument which is
among the most renowned achievements of modern art, but which to
me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs.
Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is represented
as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting
forth. The shroud is falling from his fleshless frame as he launches his
dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband’s arms,
who strives with vain and frantic effort to avert the blow. The whole
is executed with terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear
the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the
spectre. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary
terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of those we love? The
grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness
and veneration for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It
is the place not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation.
While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles, studying
the records of the dead, the sound of busy existence from without
occasionally reaches the ear--the rumbling of the passing equipage, the
murmur of the multitude, or perhaps the light laugh of pleasure. The
contrast is striking with the deathlike repose around; and it has a
strange effect upon the feelings thus to hear the surges of active life
hurrying along and beating against the very walls of the sepulchre.
I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb and from chapel
to chapel. The day was gradually wearing away; the distant tread of
loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent; the sweet-tongued
bell was summoning to evening prayers; and I saw at a distance the
choristers in their white surplices crossing the aisle and entering
the choir. I stood before the entrance to Henry the Seventh’s chapel. A
flight of steps leads up to it through a deep and gloomy but magnificent
arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily
upon their hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common
mortals into this most gorgeous of sepulchres.
On entering the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture and the
elaborate beauty of sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into
universal ornament encrusted with tracery, and scooped into niches
crowded with the statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the
cunning labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and
density, suspended aloft as if by magic, and the fretted roof achieved
with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.
Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights of
the Bath, richly carved of oak, though with the grotesque decorations
of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of the stalls are affixed the
helmets and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords,
and above them are suspended their banners, emblazoned with armorial
bearings, and contrasting the splendor of gold and purple and crimson
with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand
mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder--his effigy, with that of
his queen, extended on a sumptuous tomb--and the whole surrounded by a
superbly-wrought brazen railing.
There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence, this strange mixture of
tombs and trophies, these emblems of living and aspiring ambition,
close beside mementos which show the dust and oblivion in which all
must sooner or later terminate. Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper
feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of
former throng and pageant. On looking round on the vacant stalls of
the knights and their esquires, and on the rows of dusty but gorgeous
banners that were once borne before them, my imagination conjured up the
scene when this hall was bright with the valor and beauty of the land,
glittering with the splendor of jewelled rank and military array, alive
with the tread of many feet and the hum of an admiring multitude. All
had passed away; the silence of death had settled again upon the place,
interrupted only by the casual chirping of birds, which had found
their way into the chapel and built their nests among its friezes and
pendants--sure signs of solitariness and desertion.
When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were those of men
scattered far and wide about the world--some tossing upon distant seas:
some under arms in distant lands; some mingling in the busy intrigues
of courts and cabinets,--all seeking to deserve one more distinction in
this mansion of shadowy honors--the melancholy reward of a monument.
Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touching instance
of the equality of the grave, which brings down the oppressor to a
level with the oppressed and mingles the dust of the bitterest enemies
together. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other
is that of her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in
the day but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the fate of
the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of
Elizabeth’s sepulchre continually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved
at the grave of her rival.
A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The
light struggles dimly through windows darkened by dust. The greater part
of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and tinted by
time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb,
round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national
emblem--the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and sat down to
rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the chequered and
disastrous story of poor Mary.
The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I could only
hear, now and then, the distant voice of the priest repeating the
evening service and the faint responses of the choir; these paused for
a time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion, and obscurity
that were gradually prevailing around gave a deeper and more solemn
interest to the place;
For in the silent grave no conversation,
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,
No careful father’s counsel--nothing’s heard,
For nothing is, but all oblivion,
Dust, and an endless darkness.
Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear,
falling with doubled and redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were,
huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur accord
with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast
vaults, and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death,
and make the silent sepulchre vocal! And now they rise in triumphant
acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes and piling
sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir
break out into sweet gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along
the roof, and seem to play about these lofty vaults like the pure
airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders,
compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What
long-drawn cadences! What solemn sweeping concords! It grows more and
more dense and powerful; it fills the vast pile and seems to jar the
very walls--the ear is stunned--the senses are overwhelmed. And now it
is winding up in full jubilee--it is rising from the earth to heaven;
the very soul seems rapt away and floated upwards on this swelling tide
of harmony!
I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of
music is apt sometimes to inspire: the shadows of evening were gradually
thickening round me; the monuments began to cast deeper and deeper
gloom; and the distant clock again gave token of the slowly waning day.
I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight of
steps which lead into the body of the building, my eye was caught by the
shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the small staircase that
conducts to it, to take from thence a general survey of this wilderness
of tombs. The shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close
around it are the sepulchres of various kings and queens. From this
eminence the eye looks down between pillars and funeral trophies to
the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs, where warriors,
prelates, courtiers, and statesmen lie mouldering in their “beds of
darkness.” Close by me stood the great chair of coronation, rudely
carved of oak in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The
scene seemed almost as if contrived with theatrical artifice to produce
an effect upon the beholder. Here was a type of the beginning and the
end of human pomp and power; here it was literally but a step from the
throne to the sepulchre. Would not one think that these incongruous
mementos had been gathered together as a lesson to living greatness?--to
show it, even in the moment of its proudest exaltation, the neglect
and dishonor to which it must soon arrive--how soon that crown which
encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and
disgraces of the tomb, and be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest
of the multitude. For, strange to tell, even the grave is here no longer
a sanctuary. There is a shocking levity in some natures which leads them
to sport with awful and hallowed things, and there are base minds
which delight to revenge on the illustrious dead the abject homage and
grovelling servility which they pay to the living. The coffin of Edward
the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their
funereal ornaments; the sceptre has been stolen from the hand of the
imperious Elizabeth; and the effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless.
Not a royal monument but bears some proof how false and fugitive is the
homage of mankind. Some are plundered, some mutilated, some covered with
ribaldry and insult,--all more or less outraged and dishonored.
The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted
windows in the high vaults above me; the lower parts of the abbey were
already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and aisles
grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows;
the marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the
uncertain light; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like the
cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of a verger,
traversing the Poet’s Corner, had something strange and dreary in its
sound. I slowly retraced my morning’s walk, and as I passed out at the
portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jarring noise behind
me, filled the whole building with echoes.
I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I