Chapter 10 WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND THE PARKS.

HAT a crowd of solemn associations gather around the mind of the intellectual visitor on first entering these ancient walls! the very silence which reigns around the vast edifice is startling, and the sound of a falling footstep seems to awaken a thousand sleeping echoes that were mute and voiceless as the surrounding tombs. We feel that we are in the presence of the mighty dead; and, as we gaze around, the deeds which throw a grandeur and a gloom over the pages of English history pass in vivid succession before the eye of the mind.

The very pavement seems strewn with the ruins of crowns, sceptres, helmets, and swords, mitres and croziers, bent, crushed, dented, and broken; while, amid the dim gold and the rusted steel, the green laurels of the poet alone remain unchanged. What moving scenes have broken the lengthened shadows which those high-piled pillars throw over aisle and choir! the christenings, coronations, marriages, and funerals of departed monarchs, who have returned to the dust from whence they came. Light and darkness, summer and winter, have brightened and deepened thousands of times over the shadowy crypts in which their ashes repose-every thing grand and imposing is swept away excepting the mighty monuments, which scarcely seem the work of human hands; they rise like images of eternity, ever bending and keeping watch above their silent graves.

Here, in the Pix-office, we are surrounded by Saxon architecture. How massive, plain, solid, and majestic, is this portion of the venerable pile! As it stands now, so it stood before the shores of England were startled by the sound of Norman trumpets-a monument worthy of the descendant of Alfred the Great! The beautiful Mosaic pavement that lies before the altar in the choir, was brought from Rome by the good old Abbot Ware, about the close of the reign of the third Henry-a king to whose liberality we are indebted for a great portion of the erection of the Abbey: for the completion of the whole was the work of many eventful years; and before its towers rose, as they do now, pointing to the sky, many a crowned head sunk in succession into the dark quietude of the tomb. Suns rose and set, and the mighty work grew up; and amid the trump and thunder of a thousand battles, it has stood unshaken: it is too strong for the destroying hand of man; and Time, as if in reverence, has trod lightly as he stepped over it.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Amid such an assemblage of architectural grandeur as the Abbey presents, the mind is filled with a rich confusion of imagery, as if incapable of grappling with the whole. It seems like the sunlight that flames in through the deep-dyed windows; we stand amid a dazzle of blaze and brightness that appears to have neither beginning nor end; here flashing like gold, there stealing into the dim purple twilight, and gilding as it passes a shrine or a stony shroud; then settling down amid the vaulted shadows of the tombs, or just lighting faintly in its passage the uplifted hands of the recumbent image, that have been clasped for centuries in the attitude of silent prayer. We know not whether to start from the shrine of Edward the Confessor, or the coronation-chair, to count our footsteps through the long chapters of history; for the forms of the actors themselves come crowding around us; gazing upon the one, then seating themselves in the other-a rapid succession of phantoms, each dazzling the eye for a moment by its splendour, then sinking down again into the cold stony image that is doomed to hold its hands in the mute, meek penance of unceasing prayer, as it has done through the grey old years of departed centuries. How beautiful is the figure which graces the tomb of Queen Eleanor! Gaze on the calm loveliness of that matchless countenance, and you will fancy that a sweet sleep has stolen over it-that it has but laid down to rest awhile, and while dreaming, its beauty burst forth and dispelled every shade of sorrow, as if Time himself had kept watch over it, and sheltered it from dust and ruin with his wings, and guarded it with his scythe, allowing no mortal finger to touch the hallowed shrine over which he has long kept jealous watch. Death seems never to have entered that cold grey marble palace of beauty. Here lie the remains of Richard II. and his Queen; and while we gaze upon his monument, and recal his "sad, eventful history," we think of the undying poetry in which Shakspeare has enshrined him, and feel as if we could sit for hours upon the pavement and tell "sad stories about the death of kings." Bolingbroke ought to have been buried by his side; and for the sake of Shakspeare there would be no feeling outraged, nor no disrespect shewn to the dead, if his remains were exhumed and placed side by side of the monarch he dethroned. How rich and magnificent is Henry the Fifth's monument, every way worthy of the hero of Agincourt! Strange that even amid the solemnity of death, the eye of an Englishman kindles while he recals the splendid achievements of this brave king, that neither the horrors of war, nor the blood shed at that victorious banquet, throw a sickening sensation over the heart while we gaze upon the tomb of the conqueror. The far past seems to deaden these sympathies; and we look upon the actors as we do upon the words on a time-worn monument, which tell how those who sleep below once lived and were famous in their day, that they died, and were buried: and we read and pass on with a feeling of pride, respect, or sorrow; and the next moment finds us gazing with similar thoughts and sympathies upon the grave of another. Above hangs the helmet which the warrior king wore in battle, shewing by the deep dents which are imprinted upon it, that it was borne into the very thickest of the strife, and had its share of blows dealt heavily, when men lived but to "conquer or to die."

There is a strange want of harmony between the ancient and modern monuments. Our ancestors understood the "keeping" of their subjects within the pale of style, beauty, and order better than we do or have done. They made their ornaments and furniture to correspond with the venerable and costly edifice which their taste and piety had reared; and in the fulfilment of their solemn ceremonies, allowed no meddling undertaker to disfigure the hallowed mansion with his grave mockery. A glance at the tombs of our old kings is the proof-they have become a portion of Westminster Abbey, while the additions made during the last two centuries are, with a few exceptions, sadly misplaced. We look around, and feel as if, while in the midst of some impressive ceremony, a group of strange maskers had suddenly broken in, snapped the train of our thoughts, and by their antics diverted both mind and eye from the imposing subjects with which they were before so earnestly engrossed. Statues or monuments, that would look well in open squares or spacious halls, startle us by their very nakedness, when they step out between the shadowy and solemn crypts, where death itself is roofed over and vaulted in at the foot of the mighty mound whose very majesty is overwhelming. It is as if the eye, while contemplating the grandeur of Parnassus, was disturbed by the white butterflies that are ever crossing each other at its base. Mere inscriptions on some Gothic tablet would be better than these abortions: a list of names would not offend, like many of these pale, inexpressive countenances, that "fright" the aisle "from its propriety" in marble. The name alone in such a place would strike the right chord, while the ... but we are standing amongst the mighty dead.

The beautiful screen erected by Blore is a splendid exception to the mass of modern innovations. Turn to the monument of Sir Francis Vere, in the eastern aisle of the transept, and there you see what true genius can produce.

We will now glance at the Poets' Corner, a spot haunted by sad and sweet associations. Here stands the massy and solemn-looking tomb of Chaucer, that "morning star" of poetry which first dawned through the long night of Egyptian darkness. He, the earliest child of English song, was the first bard interred within this great national mausoleum; and it now appears that the monument was erected soon after his death: there is an antique look about it which would leave a stranger to conclude that the tomb was almost as old as the Abbey itself. Gentle Spenser, author of the immortal "Fa?ry Queen," was the next heir to undying fame interred in this beautiful sanctuary; and Shakspeare and Jonson were no doubt mourners at that great funeral. Beaumont and Drayton were the next successors who sank into this silent city of the dead. "Rare Ben Jonson" soon followed; but he was buried in the northern aisle of the nave-it is supposed, very near to Killigrew's monument. Cowley, Dryden, Gay, Prior, and Addison, although the latter was buried in another part of the Abbey, may be numbered among the illustrious dead who sleep their long sleep within those ancient walls. Many other monuments stand here erected to the memory of our celebrated poets, whose remains lie far and wide apart-some in the beautiful churches of London, others in the quiet seclusion of the country. The author of the "Pleasures of Hope," whose mortal part we followed to the shallow grave which was opened near the front of Chaucer's tomb, was the last true poet consigned to his "narrow cell" in this great graveyard of genius. Grand and solemn were the tones which the mighty organ poured out amid that listening silence-sounds which seemed more allied to heaven than earth; echoes that rolled on, then died away amid the shadowy crypts and pillared recesses, sounding as if the voices of the shrouded dead had found utterance, and were welcoming home another immortal spirit. Never was the funeral service more beautifully or feelingly read than on that occasion, by a brother poet. And that old Jerusalem Chamber in which we assembled, with its ancient tapestry, is itself a history. Here the great have, after death, lain in state; and the "props and pillars" of the nation have here assembled to make war or peace; and here also, stretched upon a pallet before the fire, Henry IV. died: the portrait of the ill-starred Richard II. hangs in this very chamber where Bolingbroke expired.

If one portion of the splendid Abbey more than another calls up the scriptural image of "a temple not made with hands," it is Henry the Seventh's Chapel. The opening of those beautiful gates which lead therein seems to reveal such a glimpse of heaven as we sometimes see in our sweetest dreams. The very roof appears buoyed up by the air, as if a thing so light and beautiful needed no more support than its own graceful interlacings, censers held up by invisible hands; a fretwork of innumerable wings, netted and open like those which the gaudy dragon-fly displays, seem as if they were frozen while fluttering over an endless succession of flowers. On each side hang the banners of the Knights of the Bath, drooping without motion over the monuments of the dead, above the head of the once haughty Queen Elizabeth, who sleeps beside her sister Mary in the northern aisle. The brass screen which encloses the tomb of Henry VII. is of exquisite workmanship, and speaks much for the advance of art in this department. In this chapel, the stern Protector, Cromwell, was interred; but his body was afterwards dragged out of its grave by the consent of Charles II., drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn, hanged upon the gallows until sunset, then taken down and beheaded, and afterwards thrown into a pit at the foot of Tyburn-tree, where, "after life's fitful fever, he sleeps well," awaiting the same blast of the last trumpet that will arouse his headless victim and heartless persecutor.

HORSE-GUARDS.

Those who wish to witness the out-of-door pomp and pride of mighty London must enter by the Horse-Guards and visit the parks; for there all the array of rank and fashion and aristocratic beauty congregate, under the open eye of heaven: mounted on splendid horses, or seated in richly ornamented chariots, and arrayed in the most approved costumes, they confer a mutual pleasure upon all, by issuing forth to see and to be seen. Here, from the humble pedestrian-the nursery-maid, with her children, walking within the Enclosure-the man-about-town, fashionably dressed, and who may either be taken for a member of the swell mob or a marquis,-the ranks ascend to celebrated statesmen, soldiers of renown, and lords and ladies, whose titles have figured for centuries in the pages of history, and who all appear to have no other object than that of inhaling the fresh air, and enjoying the beauty of the scenery. For in these places the leaves wave, and the flowers blow, and the waters run, as green, and sweetly, and freshly, as if the huge city, with its millions of murmuring voices, had been removed miles away. Yet, all is London; only a wider space in that great unbroken chain of streets and houses, whose squares are but the openings in the links that are locked together, in and out, and under and over, to the very ending.

St. James's Park, in the reign of Henry VIII., appears to have been nothing more than a wide space of open fields, formerly occupied by an hospital; on the site of which bluff Hal erected a palace, and formed a park, which he enclosed with brick walls. To this park he added a chase, which he threw out like a wide open noose, from his palace at Westminster, and where the line fell it formed the circle which ran from St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, up by Islington, round Highgate and Hornsey, Hampstead Heath, and back again to St. Giles and Westminster; and all subjects of every degree were forbidden either to hawk or hunt within these boundaries. Only three centuries have passed away since this proclamation was issued. Old Death himself, with dart in hand, hunted down Henry soon after he had taken possession of his new chase; and, after the leading hart of the herd had fallen, the whole chase was soon disafforested. Edward VI. possessed not his father's organs of destructiveness; but, instead of forming parks, founded hospitals; one of which will cause the name of the Boy-King to be reverenced throughout all time. But few features of that old park now remain, although there are spots about it in which the spectator may stand in such a situation as to shut out every other object, excepting the grey old Abbey of Westminster, against which the trees seem to rest, half burying it, as they no doubt did three hundred years ago.

There are many "pretty bits" about St. James's Park, as you look up towards where the pale marble arch formerly stood, on which the royal banner of England, that threw out its golden lions upon the breeze, used to float; when, seen through the opening green of the foliage, it seemed to carry back the imagination into the land of old romance and chivalry. Nor is the Palace itself less pleasing; for although in many points deficient of architectural beauty, it throws the old black-bricked, gloomy pile of St. James's altogether into the shade. But the most beautiful walks lie beside the canal, or sheet of ornamental water, which is fairly alive with water-fowl, brought from almost every corner of the globe. Around this part there are many fine trees, which throw their green shadows into the water, broken at times by a hundred tiny ripples, which have been raised by the paddles of some strange-looking duck, or thrown up by the silver-breasted swans. We have seen little morsels mirrored in these "cool translucent waves" of the richest colour and beauty-the drooping gold of the laburnum, and the pearly white of the hawthorn, dangled amid moving shadows of green; while deep down, the blue sky lay sleeping, like another heaven, motionless, and without a cloud. This is the favourite haunt of children and nursery-maids; and few fowls are better fed in summer-time than those which skim about the water in the Park, for the handfuls of bread and biscuit which are thrown in by the "little dears" for the little ducks, and often gobbled up by the larger ones, would almost feed a workhouse. It has been a celebrated spot for love-making ever since the days of Charles II., and is frequently mentioned in the works of the dramatists who wrote at that period. In this it has not degenerated up to the present day, for many a "Corydon and Phillis" may yet be seen breathing out gentle vows in the most secluded retreats, some of the maidens with countenances as beautiful as ever figured in that gallery of graceless Graces which formed the seraglio of the Merry Monarch. In this park King Charles often amused himself by playing with his dogs, or feeding the ducks; or sometimes he stole away to have a gossip with Nell Gwynn, the Duchess of Cleveland, or Lady Castlemain, all of whom resided in the neighbourhood. Here he also played at "pall-mall," for so is that game called by garrulous old Pepys. Horace Walpole makes mention of the Mall, and also tells us that pretty ladies were sometimes mobbed in the Park.

The Green Park possesses but little to interest us, beyond a walk beside the gardens which run up in a line with James-street, although far behind it. But those who know the locality will not pass without pausing to gaze at one house, conspicuous by its large bow-windows, the upper one of which is encircled by a gilt palisade. This is the residence of Samuel Rogers the poet. Within that house every distinguished literary man of the last half-century has been a guest. Here Scott, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, and Campbell have many a time discoursed with the venerable poet. What a rich volume would that be, were it possible to write it, that contained all the good sayings which have been uttered beneath that roof! Here we first sat a guest, roaring with laughter at the wit of the late Sydney Smith; and here also we have listened with "bated breath" to the music murmured by the lips of Moore. Within those walls we first saw that true poetess and injured lady, Mrs. Norton; and from the host himself, in our early career as an author, received that encouragement and kindness, without which we might have "fallen on the way." A description of this celebrated house, all it contains, and the guests it has received, would require the hand of another Walpole to illustrate. The name of Samuel Rogers would alone save the Green Park from oblivion, and give it a popularity which it would never, but for him, have possessed.

No stranger would ever think of entering Hyde Park without first casting a look at Apsley House, the abode of "the" Duke; if he did, the statue of Achilles, which seems stationed as if to point it out, would remind him where he was. This is the very maze and centre of fashion; here the pride and beauty of England may be seen upon their own stage; and on a fine day, in what is called the "season" in town, no other spot in the world can out-rival in rich display and chaste grandeur that which is here presented. It far excels St. James's in pure rural scenery-there is less of art and more of nature in its appearance, and this is increased by the beauty of the Serpentine river. Then, be it remembered, we are in the vicinity of "Tyburn Tree," the history of which has yet to be written. We have often pictured, while wandering here in the deepening twilight, the mouldering bodies of the stern Protector, Ireton, and Bradshaw, dangling upon that "triple-tree" in the sunset of a winter's evening, after they had been dragged out of their graves in Westminster Abbey. This was indeed carrying revenge beyond the grave, and is one of the blackest blots that stain the memory of the Merry Monarch. Evelyn has a savage and unfeeling note in his "Diary" on the revolting exhibition. "On the 30th of January," he says, "the carcases of those rebels-Cromwell, Bradshaw, the judge who condemned his Majesty, and Ireton (son-in-law to the Usurper)-were dragged out of their superb tombs in Westminster, among the kings, to Tyburn, and hanged on the gallows there from nine in the morning till six at night, and then buried under that fatal and ignominious monument in a deep pit, thousands who had seen them in all their pride being spectators."

Cromwell had a narrow escape in Hyde Park while driving his own coach; the horses ran away, and the stern Protector was thrown off the box, and falling on the pole, while his feet were entangled in the harness, he was carried some distance. On this accident the old rhyming cavalier Cleveland wrote the following lines:

"The whip again! away! 'tis too absurd

That thou should'st lash with whip-cord now, but sword.

I'm pleased to fancy how the glad compact

Of hackney-coachmen sneer at the last act.

Hark how the scoffing concourse hence derives

The proverb, 'needs must go when the devil drives.'

Yonder a whipster cries, ''Tis a plain case,

He turn'd us out to put himself i' the place;

But, God-a-mercy, horses once, for ye

Stood to 't, and turn'd him out as well as we.'

Another, not behind him with his mocks,

Cries out, 'Sir, faith you were in the wrong box;

He did presume to rule, because, forsooth,

He's been a horse-commander from his youth;

But he must know there's difference in the reins

Of horses fed with oats and fed with grains.

I wonder at his frolic, for be sure

Four hamper'd coach-horses can fling a Brewer:

But 'Pride will have a fall,' such the world's course is,

He who can rule three realms can't guide four horses;

See him that trampled thousands in their gore,

Dismounted by a party but of four.

But we have done with 't, and we may call

This driving Jehu, Phaeton in his fall:

I would to God for these three kingdoms' sake,

His neck, and not the whip, had given the crack."

We wonder whether Cromwell remembered the wish conveyed in the last line when the old royalist colonel had to petition the Protector for his deliverance from Yarmouth gaol. The letter he sent (now before us) is headed, "To the Protector, after long and vile durance in prison. May it please your Highness," &c.

Hyde Park is mentioned as early as the reign of Edward VI, and was no doubt enclosed long before that period. During the time of the Commonwealth it was put up to auction and sold in lots, the deer alone being valued at near upon a thousand pounds. At that period it extended to the Acton-road one way, and to Knightsbridge the other; the boundary citywards being, as now, near Park-lane, while the distance it extended westward is at this day unknown. The consort of George II. was allowed to possess three hundred acres of this Park in her day, and early writers state that Queen Anne had enclosed thirty acres within Kensington Gardens.

Hyde Park was the great mustering-ground for the May-day holidays in the olden time. Cleveland, who wrote and fought in the time of the first Charles, makes mention of it in a poem entitled "May-day," which contains many beautiful lines. He speaks of "Delight beating her silvery wings," warbling over the "dappled lawns;" of "snow-white milk-maids crowned with garlands;" of the youths and maidens tumbling and rolling upon the grass, and of revelling in the luxuries of "curds and cream." Even Cromwell, with all his gloomy Puritanism, went to witness the wrestling in Hyde Park, little dreaming that after he had been long dead and buried, his body would be hanged on the neighbouring gallows, which must have loomed ominously above those merry-makings. Gossiping good-natured old Pepys regrets, in his "Diary," that he could not be in Hyde Park one May-day among the great gallants and fine ladies.

Regent's Park has greater attractions than its scenery, although many portions of it are very beautiful. Here we find the Zoological Gardens and Colosseum, both important enough to deserve a separate notice in our Sketches of London, had we the space. On entering the Gardens you see a beautiful terrace, which reaches from the rural lodges to some distance, while below are placed the cages which contain the noble animals; and these are very commodious and airy. Beyond this terrace there is a pleasant rustic walk, hemmed in by luxuriant foliage, at the end of which there is an opening commanding an extensive view of the Park. To the right you have the domestic aviaries, well worth visiting, as they contain some fine specimens of the fowls of Peru and Mexico. To the left of the terrace there is a little morsel of real Watteau-like scenery, with its smooth lawn and clear pond, near to which are placed the gorgeous macaws, whose hues out-rival the colours of the rainbow. Further on there is another "green nestling spot," adjoining a sheet of water, which, with its fountain and variety of aquatic fowls and beautiful beech-trees, tempted us to linger longer. Then there is the mossy rock, where the otter is located, with its silent water, into which live fish are thrown, when the long-bodied inhabitant plunges in after them, compelled to wet his jacket before he can enjoy his dinner. But were we to describe the monkeys and parrots, and every variety of bird and beast which are here assembled, we should require the whole space of our volume. The catalogue sold at the Gardens consists of nearly thirty pages, and to this we refer our readers when they visit Regent's Park.

The ground occupied by Regent's Park is not without its interest. The old monastic house of Marylebone stood within its boundaries in former days, and had in the time of Elizabeth its park and deer. Here also was a famous bowling-green, which the Duke of Buckingham in his day visited.

The new Parks which are now forming around the metropolis do great credit to Government, and will, like charity, cover a multitude of minor transgressions; for those who legislate for the benefit of posterity must be influenced by something more noble than narrow and selfish views. Breathing-room has been sadly neglected of late around the metropolis. Let any one cross over London Bridge, and turn up by St. George's Church in the Borough, along the Old Kent Road, and as far as New Cross, he will find it one continuous and unbroken chain of buildings. Yet here is space ample enough, and grounds of but little value, that might be formed into a spacious park. If this is not done, those who twenty years hence live in this neighbourhood of railways will be compelled to wander as far as Blackheath or Greenwich Park, to obtain a mouthful of pure air. Kennington Common is but a name for a small grassless square, surrounded with houses, and poisoned by the stench of vitriol-works, and black, open, sluggish ditches; what it will be when the promised alterations are completed we have yet to see.

Walworth Common has vanished; and the little fairy Green before the Swan at Stockwell is now no more; while even Clapham Common seems in our eyes to lessen every year. Wandsworth had set out in good earnest to reach Lambeth, and would soon have been near the Nine Elms station, had not Government stopped its career, by stepping in between at Battersea Fields. Cross the water, and some of the miscalled Parks are like the one named Whetstone-thrust into the corner of a square. Barnsbury Park is in any street which the conductor of the Islington omnibus may please to set you down at; while Islington, Highbury, Pentonville, and King's Cross are all so jostled together, that you cannot tell which is the beginning or the end of either the one or the other. We have heard of a neighbourhood that stretches somewhere behind Houndsditch and Bishopsgate, and seen something of it while gazing from the dome of St. Paul's; but from the view thus obtained of it, we should as soon hope to find our way out of the Cretan labyrinth, if once in it, as to extricate ourselves from this maze of streets and alleys. We can imagine some stranger losing his way in this perplexing maze, and ever moving on until he grew grey, without a hope of finding his way out again. The new Park in progress near this neighbourhood may, at last, be something like a landmark by which we can see through such an unknown wilderness. How the inhabitants of such localities as these must pine for

"The populous solitude of bees and birds,

And fairy-form'd and many-colour'd things,

Who worship Him with notes more sweet than words,

And innocently open their glad wings,

Fearless and full of life; the gush of springs,

And fall of lofty fountains; and the bend

Of stirring branches, and the bud that brings

The swiftest thought of beauty."-Byron.