Poets' Corner has never seemed like a strange place to me; it has been
familiar from the very first; at all events, I cannot now recollect the
previous conception, of which the reality has taken the place. I seem
always to have known that somewhat dim corner, with the bare brown
stone-work of the old edifice aloft, and a window shedding down its light
on the marble busts and tablets, yellow with time, that cover the three
walls of the nook up to a height of about twenty feet. Prior's is the
largest and richest monument. It is observable that the bust and
monument of Congreve are in a distant part of the Abbey. His duchess
probably thought it a degradation to bring a gentleman among the beggarly
poets.
I walked round the aisles, and paced the nave, and came to the conclusion
that Westminster Abbey, both in itself and for the variety and interest
of its monuments, is a thousand times preferable to St. Paul's. There is
as much difference as between a snow-bank and a chimney-corner in their
relation to the human heart. By the by, the monuments and statues in the
Abbey seem all to be carefully dusted.
The shower being over, I walked down into the city, where I called on Mr.
B------ and left S-----'s watch to be examined and put in order. He told
me that he and his brother had lately been laying out and letting a piece
of land at Blackheath, that had been left them by their father, and that
the ground-rent would bring them in two thousand pounds per annum.
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