Part 4

The common entrance is by a small door, at the Poet’s Corner; and it was a strange sensation to find one’s self in the midst of tablets bearing the epitaphs of most of those whose names are hallowed in English literature, and English art. I can only liken it to the emotion one might feel in unexpectedly finding himself in a room with most of his distinguished contemporaries. It was startling to see such names as Shakspeare, and Milton, and Ben Jonson, even on a tomb-stone; and, albeit little given to ultra romanticism, I felt a thrilling of the nerves as I read them. The abbey is well filled with gorgeous monuments of the noble and politically great, but they are collected in different chapels, on the opposite side of the church, or beneath its nave, while the intellectual spirits are crowded together, in a sort of vestibule; as if entering, one by one, and finding good companions already assembled, they had stopped in succession to enjoy each other’s society. Notwithstanding the gorgeous pomp of the monuments of the noble, one feels that this homely corner contains the best company. Westminster Abbey, in my judgment, is a finer church internally than on its exterior. Still it has great faults, wanting unity, and an unobstructed view. It has a very neat and convenient choir, in which the regular service is performed, and which bears some such proportion to the whole interior, as the chancel of an ordinary American church bears to its whole inside. It stands, as usual, in a range with the transept. This choir, however, breaks the line of sight, and impairs the grandeur of the aisles.

The celebrated chapel of Henry VIIth, like the body of the church itself, is finer even internally than externally, although its exterior is truly a rare specimen of the gothic. The stalls of the Knights of the Bath are in this chapel, and its beautiful vaulted roof is darkened by a cloud of banners, time worn and dingy. This is a noble order of chivalry, for its rolls contain but few names that are not known to history. Unlike the Legion of Honour, which is now bestowed on all who want it, and the Garter, an institution that owes all its distinction to the convention of hereditary rank, the Knights of the Bath commonly earn their spurs by fair and honourable service, in prominent and responsible stations, before they are permitted to wear them. There always will be some favouritism in the use of political patronage, but, I am inclined to think there never was an order of chivalry instituted, or indeed any other mode of distinction devised, in which merit and not favour has more uniformly controlled the selections, than in bestowing the red ribbands. The greatest evil of such rewards arises from the fact that men will not be satisfied with simply making a distinction of merit, but they invariably rear on a foundation so plausible, other and more mystified systems, in which there is an attempt to make a merit of distinctions.

Among the laboured monuments of the Abbey is one in honour of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who died Rear Admiral of England, some seventy years ago, erected by his wife. Lady Warren was a native of New York, and a member of your own family; having been the sister of your father’s grand-father. Her husband was a long time commander in chief on our coast, and was known in our history as one of the conquerors of Louisbourg. He was a good officer, and is said to have done most of the fighting on the occasion of Anson’s victory, commanding the van-squadron. On his return, the worthy citizens of London were so much captivated with his bravery, that they offered to make him an alderman! Sir Peter Warren was also the uncle of Sir William Johnson, and this celebrated person first appeared in the interior of our country, as the agent of his relative, who then owned an estate on the Mohawk, at a place that is still called Warrensbush.

As a whole, there is little to be said in favour of the much-talked-of monuments of Westminster Abbey. Most of them want simplicity and distinctness, telling their stories badly, and some of the most pretending among them are vile conceits. There are some good details, however, and a few of the statues of more recent erection, are works of merit. A statue of Mr. Horner by Chantry is singularly noble, although in the modern attire. The works of this artist strike me as having all the merit that can exist independently of the ideal. The monuments are very numerous; for any person, of reasonable pretensions, who chooses to pay for the privilege, can have one erected for a friend, though I fancy, the poet’s corner is held to be a little more sacred. It is much the fashion of late, to place the monuments of distinguished men in St. Pauls.

You have heard that the heads of Washington and the other American officers, which are on a _bas rélief_ of André’s monument, have been knocked off. This fact of itself furnishes proof of the state of feeling here, as respects us, but an answer of our cicerone, when showing us the church, gives still stronger evidence of it. “Why have they done this?” I demanded, curious to hear the history of the injury. “Oh! sir, there are plenty of evil-disposed people get in here. _Some American_ has done it, no doubt.” So you perceive we are not only accused of hanging our enemies, but of beheading our friends!

In a room, up a flight of steps, is a small collection of figures in wax, bedizened with tinsel, and every way worthy of occupying a booth at Bartholemew’s fair. It is impossible for me to tell you what has induced the dean and chapter, to permit this prostitution of their venerable edifice, but it is reasonable to suppose that it is the very motive which induced Ananias to lie, and Sapphira to swear to it. These crude and coarse tastes are constantly encountering one in England, and, at first, I felt disposed to attribute it to the circumstance of a low national standard, but, perhaps it were truer to say that the lower orders of this country, by being more at their ease, and by _paying_ for their gratifications of this nature, produce an influence on all public exhibitions that is unfelt on the Continent, where the spectacle being intended solely for the intellectual is better adapted to their habits. As connected with religious superstition, moreover, the finest cathedrals of all Catholic countries enjoy monstrosities almost as bad as these of the Abbey.

There are many old monuments in Westminster, which, without possessing a particle of merit in the way of the arts, are very curious by their conceits, and as proofs of the tastes of our forefathers. Truly, there is little to be said in favour of the latter, it being quite evident that, as a nation, England was never so near the golden age, in every thing connected with intellect, as at this moment Hitherto, nearly all her artists of note, have been foreigners, but now she is getting a school of her own, and one that, sustained by her wealth and improved by travelling, bids fair shortly to stand at the head of them all.

Westminster Abbey, exclusively of Henry VIIth’s Chapel, which scarcely appears to belong to the edifice, although attached to it, is by no means either a very rich, or a very large, edifice of its kind. Still it is a noble structure, and its principal fault, to my eye, is that pinched and mean appearance of its towers, to which I have elsewhere alluded, externally; and internally the manner in which it is broken into parts. The chapels have a cupboard character, that well befits English snugness. The greatest charms of the Abbey are its recollections and its precious memorials of the mighty dead. As respects the latter, I should think it quite without a rival, but you must look elsewhere for descriptions of them. In travelling through Europe, one is occasionally startled by meeting the name of Erasmus, or Galileo, or Dante, or of some other immortalised by his genius; but these monuments are scattered not only in different countries and cities, but often in the different churches of the same place. There is moreover a homely air and a rustic simplicity, here, in the quiet, unpretending stones, that line the walls and flagging of the Poet’s Corner, and which almost induce one to believe that he is actually treading the familiar haunts of the illustrious dead. The name of Shakspeare struck me as familiarly as if I had met it beneath a yew, in a country churchyard.

On leaving the Abbey we went to look at the Parliament-Houses, and Westminster Hall. These buildings are grouped together, on the other side of the street, lying on the banks of the river. They form a quaint and confused pile, though, coupled with their eventful history, their present uses, and some portions of architectural beauty and singularity, one of great interest. Now, that my eye has become accustomed to Gothic cathedrals, I find myself looking at the Hall, with more feeling, than even at the old church.

Westminster Hall is the oldest and finest part of the pile. It dates from the time of William II., though it has been much improved and altered since, especially about the year 1400. Its style may be properly referred to the latter period, though, the rude magnificence of the thought, perhaps, better comports with the former. You know it was intended as the banqueting hall of a palace. When we remember that this room is two hundred and seventy feet long, ninety high, and seventy-four wide, we are apt to conceive sublime things of the state of an ancient monarch. But, it is all explained by the usages of the times. The hall, or knight’s hall, in the smaller baronial residences, was more than half the dwelling. In some instances, it was literally the whole of one floor of the tower, the recesses of the windows being used as bed chambers at night. Although we have no records of the time when the English nobles lived in this primitive manner, it is reasonable to suppose that they did no better, for that civilization which is now so perfect, is far from being the oldest of Europe.

These halls were formerly appropriated to the purposes of the whole establishment, the noble and his dependents using the same room and the same table, making the distinction of “the salt.” Then a court, at which the courtier invariably appeared with a train of armed followers, had need of space, not only to entertain those who came to protect their lords, but those who were present to see they did no violence.

If one gets a magnificent idea of the appliances of royalty from this hall, he gets no very exalted one of the comforts of the period. The side walls are of naked stone, there is no floor, or pavement, and bating its quaint gothic wildness, the roof has a strong affinity to that of a barn. On great occasions it requires a good deal of dressing, to make the place, in the least, like a room. A part of it, just then, was filled with common board _shantys_, which, we were told, were full of records, and a line of doors on one side, communicates with the courts of law.

It is said that Westminster Hall is the largest room in Europe, that is unsupported by pillars, the roof being upheld by the ordinary gothic knees, or brackets. This may be true, though the great hall of the Stadt House, at Amsterdam, and that of the Palazzo Gran Duca at Florence, both struck me as finer rooms. There is also a hall at Padua which I prefer, and which I think is larger, and there are many in the Low Countries, that, on the whole, would well compare with this. The great gallery of Versailles, the hall of Louis XIV., is certainly not near as large, but in regal splendour and cost, this will no more compare with that, than a cottage will compare with a hotel. The uses, however, were very different.

I shall not attempt to give you any accurate notion of the arrangement of the rest of this pile. There is a garden on the river, and a house which is occupied by the speaker. We went into St. Stephen’s chapel, the House of Lords, the painted chamber, robing room, star chamber, &c., &c., but, after all, I brought away with me but a very confused idea of their relative positions.

St. Stephen’s is literally a small chapel, or church, having been constructed solely for religious purposes. The commons have assembled in it, originally, exactly as our associations occasionally use the churches. It has the regular old-fashioned side and end galleries, the speaker’s chair occupying the usual situation of the pulpit. The end gallery is given up to the public, but the side galleries, though not often used, are reserved for the members. The _bar_ is in a line with the front of the end gallery, and of course immediately beneath, while the _floor_ of the house occupies the rest of the lower part of the building. I should think the whole chapel internally might be about fifty-five feet long, by about forty-one or two wide. The floor I paced, and made it nearly forty feet square. It is not precisely of these dimensions, but more like thirty-nine feet by forty-one or two. A good deal of even these straitened limits is lost, by a bad arrangement of seats behind the speaker’s chair, which is about a fourth of the way down the chapel; these seats rising above each other, like the transoms of a ship. The clerks are seated at one end of a long table in the centre of the room, and the benches run longitudinally, being separated into four _blocks_. They have backs, but nothing to write on. The distance between the table and the seats next it, may be three feet. It is sufficiently near to allow members on the first bench to put their feet against it, or on it, an attitude, that is often assumed. The treasury bench is the one nearest the table, on the left, looking from the gallery, and the leaders of opposition sit on the right. The chair of the speaker has a canopy, and is a sort of throne. The wood is all of oak, unpainted; the place is lighted by candles, in very common brass chandeliers, and the whole has a gloomy and inconvenient air. Still it is not possible to view St. Stephen’s with any other feelings than those of profound respect, its councils having influenced the civilized world, now for more than a century. I name this period, as that is about the date of the real supremacy of the parliament in this government. The chapel, however, has been used as its place of meeting, since the reign of Edward VI., or near three centuries. It is said that one hundred and thirty strangers can be seated in the end gallery. Small iron columns, with gilded Corinthian capitals, support the galleries.

The House of Lords is a very different place. The room may be about the size of St. Stephen’s, though I think it a little smaller, and there is no gallery.[1] The throne, by no means a handsome one, is a little on one side, and the peers sit on benches covered with red cloth, in the centre, and within a railing. These benches occupy three sides of an area in the centre, while the throne stands on the fourth. In front of the latter are the wool sacks, which are a species of divan that do not touch a wall. Every thing is red, or rather crimson, from throne down. There is a table, and places for the clerks, in the area. The chancellor is by no means as much cared for as the speaker. The seat of the latter is quite luxurious, but the former would have rather a hard time of it, were it not for a sort of false back that has been contrived for him, and against which he may lean at need. It resembles a fire-skreen, but answers its purpose.

The celebrated tapestry is a rude fabric. It must have been woven when the art was in its infancy, and it is no wonder that such ships met with no success. It is much faded, which, quite likely, is an advantage rather than otherwise. “The tapestry which _adorns_ these walls” was a flight of eloquence that must have required all the moral courage of Chatham to get along with. Like so much of all around it, however, one looks at it with interest, and not the less for its very faults.

I can tell you little of the adjuncts of the two houses of parliament. The rooms were all sufficiently common, and are chiefly curious on account of their uses, and their several histories. The eating and drinking part of the establishment struck me as being altogether the most commodious, for there is a regular coffee-house, or rather tavern, connected with them, where one can, at a moment’s notice, get a cup of tea, a chop or a steak, or even something better still. In this particular, parliament quite throws congress and the _chambers_ into the back ground. A dinner is too serious a thing with a Frenchman to be taken so informally, and then both he and the American are content with legislating in the day time. The late hours frequently drive the members of parliament to snatch a meal where they can. Tea is a blessed invention for such people, and Bellamy’s is a blessed invention for tea.

After visiting Westminster, we gave part of a day to St. Paul’s. This is truly a noble edifice. Well do I remember the impression it made on me, when, an uninstructed boy, fresh from America, I first stood beneath its arching dome. I actually experienced a sensation of dizziness, like that one feels in looking over a precipice. When I returned home, and told my friends, among other traveller’s marvels, that the steeple of Trinity could stand beneath this dome, and that its vane should not nearly reach its top, I was set down as one already spoilt by having seen more than my neighbours! It is surprisingly easy to get that character in America, especially if one does not scruple to tell the truth. I was much within the mark as to feet and inches, but I erred in the mode of illustrating. Had I said that the dome of St. Paul’s was a thousand feet high, I should have found a plenty of believers, but the moment I attempted to put one of our martin’s boxes into it, self-love took the alarm, and I was laughed at for my pains. This was two-and-twenty years ago: have we improved much since that time?

Although I no longer looked on St. Paul’s with the fresh and unpractised eyes of 1806, it appeared to me now, what in truth it is, a grand and imposing edifice. In many respects it is better than St. Peter’s, though, taken as a whole, it falls far short of it. When the richness of the materials, the respective dimensions, the details, and the colonnade of St. Peter’s are considered, it must be admitted that St. Paul’s is not even a first class church, St. Peter’s standing alone; but I am not sure that the cathedral of London is not also entitled to form a class by itself, although one that is inferior.

The architecture of St. Paul’s is severe and noble. There is very little of the meretricious in it, the ornaments, in general, partaking of this character, both in their nature and distribution. A pitiful statue of Queen Anne, in front of the building, is the most worthless thing about it, being sadly out of place, without mentioning the monstrosity of the statue of a woman in a regular set of petticoats, holding a globe in her hand, and having a crown on her head. I am not quite sure she is not in a hoop. Had she been surrounded by a party of “the nobility and gentry,” dressed for Almacks, the idea would have been properly carried out. Ladies who are not disposed to go all lengths, had better not be ambitious of figuring in marble.

The interior of St. Paul’s was too naked, perhaps, until they began to ornament it with monuments. I remember it nearly in that state, not more than half a dozen statues having been placed, at my first visit to London. There are now many, and as they are all quite of the new school, they are chaste and simple. This church promises to throw Westminster Abbey, eventually, in the shade.

Of course we ascended to the whispering gallery. The effect is much the same as it is in all these places. I do not think Sir James Thornhill, who painted the dome, with passages from the life of St. Paul, a Michael Angelo, or even a Baron Gros, though, like the latter, he painted in oil. The colours are already much gone, which, perhaps, is no great loss.

I ought to have said that we came up, what our cicerone called a “geometry stair-case,” of which the whole secret appeared to be, that the steps are made of stones of which one end are built into a circular wall. This “geometry stair-case” greatly puzzled my friend, the traveller, Mr. Carter, who agreed with the cicerone that it was altogether inexplicable. It is a wonder to be classed with that of the automaton chess-player. The effect, however, is pleasing.

Not satisfied with the whispering gallery, we ascended to another on the exterior of the dome, where we found one of the most extraordinary bird’s eye views of a town, I remember ever to have seen. The day was clear, cool, and calm, and, of course, the vapour of the atmosphere floated at some distance above the houses. The whole panorama presented a field of dingy bricks, out of which were issuing thousands of streams of smoke, ascending in right lines to the canopy of murky vapour above. The effect was to give this vast dusty-looking cloud, the appearance of standing on an infinity of slender vapoury columns, which had London itself for their bases. In a small district around the cathedral, there also arose a perfect _chevaux de frise_ of spires and towers, the appendages of the ordinary parish churches, of which London proper contains an incredible number. Some one said that three hundred might be counted from the gallery, and really it did not strike me that there could be many less.

Seen in this manner, London offers little to be mentioned in comparison with Paris. It has no back ground, wants the grey angular walls, the transparent atmosphere, the domes and monuments, for we were on the only one of the former, and the general distinctness, necessary to satisfy the eye. It was not always easy to see at all, in the distance, and the objects were principally tame and confused. I like mists, feathery, floating, shadowy mists, but have no taste for coal-smoke.