I found a party going through the seven
chapels (or whatever their number may be), and again saw those stately
and quaint old tombs,--ladies and knights stretched out on marble slabs,
or beneath arches and canopies of stone, let into the walls of the Abbey,
reclining on their elbows, in ruff and farthingale or riveted armor, or
in robes of state, once painted in rich colors, of which only a few
patches of scarlet now remain; bearded faces of noble knights, whose
noses, in many cases, had been smitten off; and Mary, Queen of Scots, had
lost two fingers of her beautiful hands, which she is clasping in prayer.
There must formerly have been very free access to these tombs; for I
observed that all the statues (so far as I examined them) were scratched
with the initials of visitors, some of the names being dated above a
century ago. The old coronation-chair, too, is quite covered, over the
back and seat, with initials cut into it with pocket-knives, just as
Yankees would do it; only it is not whittled away, as would have been its
fate in our hands. Edward the Confessor's shrine, which is chiefly of
wood, likewise abounds in these inscriptions, although this was esteemed
the holiest shrine in England, so that pilgrims still come to kneel and
kiss it. Our guide, a rubicund verger of cheerful demeanor, said that
this was true in a few instances.
There is a beautiful statue in memory of Horace Walpole's mother; and I
took it to be really a likeness, till the verger said that it was a copy
of a statue which her son had admired in Italy, and so had transferred it
to his mother's grave.
Pages:
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391