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WE shall commence our pilgrimage at that striking and imposing scene, the old “Broad Sanctuary,” Westminster. Few may have noted the quaint obelisks which at intervals help to form the inclosure! Lately the churchyard was laid down in grass, and the flagging removed; but it may be doubted if this be a real improvement. The air of space seems diminished. A sward of this kind is becoming in a genuine close, as at Salisbury, where the cathedral is in the country; but here the minster is in the heart of the town—in the streets—and the grass seems to have an artificial air. Sixty years ago this inclosure displayed a number of fine old trees, which would have been in admirable keeping, and a picturesque adornment. But when the coronation of George IV. was at hand, the obsequious Dean and Chapter determined to erect scaffolding and ample theatres to view the procession; and the trees were cut down. As Mr. Croker said, they had been so ill-advised or so greedy as to take this step, and the “loss of this ornament to the public was great, while the profit to the Chapter did not perhaps amount to £10.”

One solitary altar-tomb, carefully railed round, will be noted in this large inclosure, and we may speculate as to the reasons for this toleration, where all the rest have been swept away. The inscription is almost illegible; but it is the memorial of a certain wealthy Mr. Davies. He was the owner of all the estate where are now Grosvenor Square and the adjoining streets; from him this enormous property passed to the Grosvenor family, and Davies Street was so named in his honour. No doubt it was owing to this august connection that his tomb was allowed to remain. But his heritors might have the inscription re-cut.

From a Drawing by Herbert Railton.

The group of buildings—the Abbey, Westminster Hall, the Houses of Parliament, the bridge beyond, the Westminster School—might be set off with prodigious effect were there one of real artistic instincts to undertake the task. Nothing, for instance, can be meaner or more ineffective than Palace Square with its statues. It is obvious that this should be treated as a place, with an imposing and attractive object as its centre; instead of which we find it divided in two by a broad walk, and the whole effect is frittered away. There is something grotesque in the statues ranged round dos à dos, huddled together with a commercial view to convenience. A single statue, it may be said, needs an area to itself to have proper effect; as we may see in the Place Verte at Antwerp, where that of Rubens is sufficient to give point to the whole area.

In the shadow of Westminster Abbey stands a homely-looking edifice of Churchwarden’s Gothic. Uninviting as is the exterior of St. Margaret’s, its interior is most interesting and suggestive. Restored not many years ago with excellent taste and reserve, it has been gradually beautified under the direction and encouragement of the rector, Archdeacon Farrar; so that, small and unpretending as it seems, a couple of hours may be profitably spent in viewing it. The interior is of the collegiate pattern, with a flat panelled roof supported by airy and elegant columns with delicate mouldings. The walls have been judiciously allowed to display the outlines of their stones, which furnish good detail and background. No church of its size, perhaps, is so rich in tombs and tablets, all of which are more or less interesting; and they are disposed so as to heighten the general effect. Some are fitted on to the light columns, shield-like, and bent to the mouldings. Most of the memorials are of one formal kind; a bust or medallion in the middle, a pediment above, and below a black marble slab or tablet with the inscription. The marbles are mostly of rich russet tones, or of a plum tint.

The idea of making the painted windows illustrate the story of eminent persons connected with the place or parish is a happy one; for it enriches as well as beautifies the church. The legends, moreover, have been supplied by distinguished poets. One great window, which displays its brown and amber glories in honour of Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh, is a present from the Americans; and Mr. Lowell has written these lines for it:—

The New World’s sons, from England’s breast we drew

Such milk as bids remember whence we came;

Proud of the Past from which our Present grew,

This window we erect to Raleigh’s name.

The window is a handsome one, and is richer and deeper in its tones than its fellows. Long ago a meagre white tablet with a bold inscription was placed here by “The Roxburghe Club,” to commemorate Caxton. Over the tablet a painted window has recently been fitted, the gift of the printers of London—a happy and becoming tribute; while the Laureate, who has given abundant work to printers all over the globe, has supplied these lines:—

Thy prayer was “light, more light while time shall last;”

Thou sawest a glory growing on the night,

But not the shadows which that light will cast

Till shadows vanish in the light of light.

Some of the side windows are poor and thin in tone, as if done in water-colour; but the rich depth and gorgeousness of the great window—as of old wine seen deep down in the glass—eclipses the rest. There is also a window to the memory of the ill-fated Lord Frederick Cavendish. The inscription is not particularly happy, and his fellow-victim is described as “Mr. T. N. Burke.” Another commemorative window which seems prosaic is that of the Jubilee, the Queen in the centre, in full view of her great ancestor Elizabeth. Here Mr. Browning furnished the verse:—

Fifty years’ flight! Where should he rejoice

Who hailed their birth, who as they die decays?

This—England echoes his attesting voice,

Wondrous and well, thanks, Ancient Thou of days!

A regular riddle or crux, which strains the wit, as we ponder over the meaning. Merriment and wonder were alike excited by the last line, with its odd punctuation:—

“Wondrous and well, thanks, Ancient Thou of days!”

There is also the Milton window—the Poet’s wife and daughter are buried here—given by another amiable American, Mr. Childs, with an inscription by Whittier:—

The New World honours him whose lofty plea,

For England’s freedom, made her own more sure;

Whose song, immortal as its theme, shall be

Their common freehold while both worlds endure.

The last line seeming rather prosaic, the author good-naturedly offered to substitute “heirloom” for “freehold.” But “freehold” stands. Another window celebrates Sir Erskine May, whose severe, thoughtful face is portrayed in various Scriptural attitudes—e.g., as the Faithful Steward, with the legend “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

Another interesting memorial was set up on December 18th, 1888, thus further enriching the associations of the church. This was in honour of the gallant Admiral Blake, and takes the shape of a three-light window in the north aisle. The upper portions are of an allegorical kind; the lower depicts incidents from Blake’s life, such as the indignity of the ejection of his body from the Abbey in 1661, after the Restoration. Mr. Lewis Morris, another of the poets of our time, has furnished spirited verses, and sings:—

Strong sailor, sleeping sound as sleep the just,

Rest here: our Abbey keeps no worthier dust.

This fashion is interesting, and original too. For, as we pass from window to window, we can review our history, and the striking lines attached to each will linger in the memory. Thus we have five poets contributing to the glories of these windows.

The old tablets with which the walls are incrusted have an interest from the originality of the style and the richness of material. Here we find the rather grim likeness of the worthy Palmer, and of Emery Hill, whose almshouses and schools are still to be seen in Westminster. Many Court ladies find rest in the church: such as Lady Dorothy Stafford, “who served Queen Elizabeth forty years, lying in the bed-chamber;” or Lady Blanche Parry, “chief gentlewoman of Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Chamber, and keeper of her Majesty’s jewels, whom she faithfully served from her Highness’s birth;” or Anne Ellis, “who was born in Denmark, and was Bedchamber Woman to Queen Anne.” We come on a record “To the memory of the right virtuous and beautiful gentlewoman, Mistress Margaret Ratcliffe, one of the maids of honour to Queen Elizabeth, and who died at Richmond.” Many of the men, too, have served their King, like Cornelius Vandam, “souldier with King Henry at Turney, Yeoman of the Guard, and Usher to Prince Henry, King Edward, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth;” or Peter Newton, “who served King James and King Charles, and was Usher of the Black Rod.”

Some of the inscriptions are quaint and touching, like that which celebrates “the late deceased Virgin Mistress Elizabeth Hereicke”:—

Sweet Virgin, that I do not set

Thy grave verse up in mournful jet

Or dappled marble, let thy shade

Not wrathful seeme, or fright the Maid

Who hither, at the weeping Howres,

Shall come to strew thy Earth with Flowres.

No: know, blest Soule, when there’s not one

Reminder left of Brasse or Stone

Thy living Epitaph shall be,

Though lost in them, yet found in me.

Deare, in thy bed of Roses then,

Till this world shall dissolve, as Men

Sleepe, while we hide thee from the light,

Drawing thy curtains round—Good night.

With much simplicity another lady, Dame Billing, frankly tells us of the happiness she enjoyed with her three husbands, whom she sets down in their order, “garnishing the tablet with their armes.” Another widow records on an old battered “brass” the merits of one Cole, her latest partner, at great length; whereof an extract:—

In Parliament, a Burgesse Cole was placed

In Westminster the like, for many years;

But now, with Saints above, his soul is graced,

And lives a Burgess with Heaven’s Royal Peers.

There is also seen here Pope’s well-known epitaph on Mrs. Corbett, which won Dr. Johnson’s highest praise, though he takes the objection that her name is not mentioned in the lines themselves. It is well worth quoting:—

Here rests a woman, good without pretence,

Blest with plain reason, and with sober sense;

No conquest she but her own sense desired,

No arts essayed, but not to be admired.

Of this line the Doctor says with grim humour: “I once heard a lady of great beauty and excellence object that it contained an unnatural and incredible panegyric—of this let the ladies judge.”

Passion and pride were to her soul unknown,

Convinced that virtue only is our own:

So unaffected and so composed a mind,

So firm, yet soft, so strong, yet so refin’d;

Heaven as its purest gold, by tortures tried,

The saint sustained it, but the woman died.

Of a quaint sort is the following to a Westminster boy:—

Richard Nott, aged 11 years. His Schoolfellow Walter Thomas made his Epitaph.

Dear to his parents here doth lye,

A youth admired for Piety,

His years eleven, yet knew more

Of God than many of threescore.

Another monument is that of Mrs. Barnett, who died in 1674, leaving £40 yearly for poor widows. A large oatmeal pudding is, or used to be, given at the “Feast,” to commemorate that this “worthy lady” sold oatmeal cakes at the church doors. Skelton, the poet, is interred here: also Thomas Churchyard, Hollar, the famous engraver, and Colonel Blood of regalia memory. There can be read here the entry of Milton’s marriage with Mrs. Catherine Woodcocke, and of Edmund Waller to Ann Bankes. There is also recorded the baptism of Thomas Betterton, the actor, in 1635. Titus Oates, Jeffreys, and Bishop Burnet’s children were baptized here. These are interesting associations.

But the glory of the whole is the wonderful window over the Communion-table, with its fine depth of blue, a treat for the eye, and satiating it with colour. This impoverishes, as it were, all the modern performances near it. A great authority on painted glass, Mr. Winston, declares it to be “the most beautiful work in this respect, of harmonious colouring,” he was acquainted with. The subject is the Crucifixion. It is divided into five compartments, three of which are filled by pictures of our Saviour and the two thieves. Below them are the holy women, a crowd of Roman soldiers, etc.; over the good thief a tiny angel is seen, bearing off his soul to Paradise, while a little demon has the impenitent one on his back. On one side is the portrait of a young king at his prayers, arrayed in crown and mantle, with the armed St. George overhead; on the other side a lady, also kneeling, over whom watches St. Catherine. This window had quite a strange course of adventures. According to one account, it was a present to King Henry VII. from the Dutch States-General, and was intended for his beautiful chapel. Another version runs that it was a present from the King and Queen of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella. It took five years to make, and by that time King Henry VIII. had succeeded. Whether his religious views had altogether changed, or he had other reasons, the window was not set up, and he made it a present to the abbey at Waltham. On the Dissolution it was bought by General Monk, who brought it down to New Hall, where it was well protected during the Civil War. From New Hall it passed to a Mr. John Olmius, who sold the window to Mr. Conyers, of Copt Hall, where it was set up; and there it seemed likely to remain. Unluckily it entered into the minds of the Churchwardens’ Committee of St. Margaret’s, in 1758, to have a thorough restoration of their old church. Dreadful windows, the same that were to be seen about twenty years ago, were put in: a common “household parapet,” as it was called, was added, with the homely porch. But now they bethought themselves of Mr. Conyers’s beautiful window, and bought it for 400 guineas. Thereupon the Chapter, offended by its “Popish” character, commenced a lawsuit to have the window removed; but the action was decided against them. There is a loving cup which celebrates this victory. Thus this rich and glowing feast of colour was retained. Below it there is a curious oaken reredos, elaborately carved into the shape of a large picture—the Supper at Emmaus—the work of a Soho artist some 120 years ago. The pulpit is a rather fantastic thing, coloured like a sugar-plum. There is an antique bench in the porch, used at the distribution of the weekly dole of sixpences and bread to a number of poor widows.

Archdeacon Farrar, the Rector, takes jealous care of St. Margaret’s, and has excited public interest in the church by his improvements and reforms. He has opened it regularly for some hours in the day; numbers are seen gazing in astonishment at the unexpected monuments and curios.

The churchyard that encompasses it is, however, associated with a degrading history. There is somewhere in the inclosure “a nameless and promiscuous pit,” as Archdeacon Farrar calls it, into which were flung, shortly after the Restoration, the remains of some twenty Republicans who had been interred in the Abbey. The bodies of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw were hung up at Tyburn, and their heads fixed on pikes on the top of Westminster Hall. But into the pit was cast the body of the Protector’s mother, who was ninety years old at her death, the great Admiral Blake, Dr. Twiss, and others of less note. It is fair, however, to say that the Royal warrant did not order this outrage, and has a specious reasonable air. It ran:—

It is his Majestie’s express pleasure and command that you cause the bodies of the severall persons undernamed wᶜʰ have been unwarrantably interred in Henry the 7th and other Chappels and places wᵗʰ in the collegiate Church of Westminster since the year 1641 to be forthwith taken up and buried in some place of the Churchyard adjoining to yᵉ said Church, whereof you may not faile, and for so doing this shall be yʳ warrant. Dated at yᵉ Court of Whitehall, Sept. 9, 1661.

LAMBETH PALACE.