IN THE CRYPT OF ST. PAUL'S

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2954, 3 August 1878, Page 4

IN THE CRYPT OF ST. PAUL'S

The most interesting portion of the Church' is the. Crypt, where, at the eastern extremity, are gathered nearly all the remains of tombs which were saved from the old St. Paul's. Here, amid various other fragments, on different raised altertombs, repose the head and half the body ol Sir Nicholas, Lord Keeper of the Great yeal in the reign of Elizabeth, and father

of Francis Lord Bacon, 1579. In the Crypt.not far from the old S. Paul's tombs, the revered .Dean Milman, the great historian of the church, is buried, under a simple tomb, ornamented with a raised cross. In a recess on the south is the slab tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, and near him, in other chapels, .Robert MylnV, the architect of old Black friars, and Eennie, the architect of Waterloo Bridge. Beneath the pavement lies Sir Joshua Reynolds (1742), who had an almost royal funeral in St. Paul's, dukes and marquesses contending for the honour of being bis pall-bearers. Around him are bui'ied his disciples and followers —Lawrence (1830), Barry (1846), Opie (1807), West (1820), Fuseli (1825); but the most interesting grave is that of William Mailory Turner, whose dying request was that he might be burried as near as possible to Sir Joshua. Where the heavy pillars and arches gather thick beneath the dome, in spite of his memorable words at the battle of the Nile—" Victory or Westminster Abbey"—is the grave of Lord Nelson. Followed to the grave by the seven sons of his sovereign, he was buried here in 1806, when Dean Milman, was present, "heard, or seemed to hear the low wail of the sailors who encircled the remains of their admiral." They tore to pieces the largest of the flags of the Victory, which waved above his grave; the rest were buried with his coffin. The sarcophagus of Nelson was designed and executed for Cardinal Wolsey. by the famous Torregiano, and was intended to contain the body of Henry VIII. in the tomb • house at Windsor. It encloses the coffin made ' from the mast of the ship L'Orient, which was presented to Nelson, after the battle of the Nile, by Ben Hallowell, captain of the Svriftsure, that, when.he was tired of life, he might " be buried in one of his own trophiefs." On either side of Nelson repose the minor heroes of Trafalgar, Collingwood (1810) and Lord Northesk ; Picton also lies near him, but outside, the surrounding arches. A second huge sarcophagus of porphyry resting on lions in the tomb where Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, waa laid in 1832, in the presence of 15,000 spectatore, Dean Milman, wbo had been present at Nelson's funeral then reading the service. Beyond, in a ghastly ghoulbefitting chamber, hung with the velvet which surrounded his lying-in-state at Chelsea, and-on which, by the flickering torch-light, we see emblazoned the many Orders presented to him by foreign sovereigns, is the funeral car of Wellington, modelled and constructed in six week, at an expense of £13,000. from the guns taken in bis different campaigns .-—Good Words.