WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Hokitika Guardian, 30 August 1929, Page 2

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

THE NATION’S SACRED DEAD. “We step cautiously and softly about, as it fearful of disturbing the hallowed silence of the tomb. . . It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul, and hushes the beholder into noiseless reverence; We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated hones of the , great men of past times,' who have filled history with their deeds,' and the earth”witlr their renown.” So wrote Washington Irving, and that is undoubtedly the right spirit in which to go and see Westminster Abbey, the national"-; Valhalla, but truth compels one to say that there are moments when one feels less impressed. Burial within the sacred walls is considered as the last and greatest honour which the nation can bestow on- the most deserving of her offspring. But it. has been greatly abused in the past, and to-day the interior of this grand old fane is in places a huddle of monuments and busts, reminding one painfully of a stone-mason’s yard. That is the simple truth, and the sooner wo do something towards a clearing out the better. ;, . ; . ,- ••• Some of the monuments are in egregioiisly bad taste, and many of them are of such huge size. that they quite disfigure the architectural effect. There, is, for instance, the first On the . left after one enters by the door of the north transept—the one usually qsed joy, the public. This is a huge affair in q debased style erected to the memory of a Duke of Newcastle who died in 1711. It entirely fills the space between two pillars, and reaches right up to the capitals; quite dwarfing everything for .yards round. Poets’ Corner is so crowded that it resembles a cabinet of aurios rather than a corner of a place of worship. The glory of 'Westminster is the Chapel of Henry VII, at the east end. and the glory of that Chapel is the • fan-tracery coiling with its faritdstic'.pendentiyes, each surface bbing. covered'with rich f ref work, exhibiting the florid, perpendicular style in . its greatest . luxuriance.

”The* rest of the Abbey, with the exception, of the' incongruous towers by . Wren and .som© remains said to be Norman, is Early English. There is said to have been a church on the site’'from 'about'6l6, but the regular establishment of the 'Abbey may be cfqdited t 6 Edward the Confessor. His chqrch was .entirely, rebuilt in the lniter half, of the 13th century by Hbnry 111., a,nd his son, yEdward I. '' There are so many famous men buried in the Abbey and so many commemorated there* that a mere list would bs’ formidable. .* Oddly enough

there 1 are- also soiue l ‘v&ry obscure men buried there, too—and even children. Kings, nobles, warriors, sailors, authors, poets—their tombs lie all around, and some of their monuments are beautiful, while some are the reverse. Some occupy many fathoms of ground, while others are content with much less than the “six feet of earth” which most men inherit when they die. Ben Jonson, for instance, was buried upright—space was so circumscribed—and he has but 18 square inches, while his epitaph, “0, Rare Ben Jonson!” only cost 18 pence. Some of the ambitious, flamboyant ones must have cost as many hundreds. ' To only one painter is there a memorial —you must go to St. Paul’s to find them—and lie is Kneller, who refused to be interred in the Abbey, saying, “They do bury such fools there.”

■lt is not the grandiloquent epitaphs, however, that stick in the memory; it is rather those like that of Rare Ben and another which reads simply, “Jane Lister, dear cjiilde, 1688.”