Part 15 (1/2)
Sir ROBERT TAYLOR, Knight, who was a famous architect. He died on the 26th of September, 1788, aged seventy years.
WILLIAM CAMDEN, the great recorder of our antiquities, who is represented in a half length, in the dress of his time, with his left hand holding a book, and in his right his gloves, resting on an altar, on the body of which is a Latin inscription, setting forth his ”indefatigable industry in ill.u.s.trating the British Antiquities, and his candour, sincerity, and pleasant good-humour in private life.” He was son to Samson Camden, citizen of London, and paper-stainer; was born in the Old Bailey, May 2, 1551, and received the first rudiments of his education at Christ Church Hospital. In 1566, he entered himself of Magdalen College, Oxford, but afterwards removed to Pembroke, where he became acquainted with Dr.
Goodman, Dean of Westminster, by whose recommendation, in 1575, he was made second master of Westminster School, and began the glorious work of his Antiquities, encouraged thereto and a.s.sisted by his patron, Dr.
Goodman. In August, 1622, he fell from his chair, at his house, in Chiselhurst, in Kent, and never recovered, but lingered till Nov. 9, 1623, and then died, aged seventy-four. _This monument was repaired and beautified at the charge and expense of the University of Oxford._
In front of Camden's monument lie the remains of JOHN IRELAND, Dean of Westminster, and in the same grave those of his friend, WILLIAM GIFFORD, a distinguished critic, satirist, and dramatic annotator. In private life Mr. Gifford was modest and una.s.suming, and amongst the numerous parties, poetical, political, or religious, none of them ever ventured to recriminate by attacking the moral character of the Editor of the Quarterly Review. He was born at Ashburton, in 1757, and died 1826.
ISAAC CASAUBON.--This monument was erected by the learned Dr. Moreton, Bishop of Durham, to the memory of that profound scholar and critic, whose name is inscribed upon it, and who, though a native of France, and in his younger years Royal Library Keeper of Paris, yet was so dissatisfied with the ceremonial part of the Romish wors.h.i.+p, that upon the murder of his great patron, Henry IV., he willingly quitted his native country, and at the earnest entreaty of James I., settled in England, where, for uncommon knowledge, he became the admiration of all men of learning. He died, 1614, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.
The monument to Casaubon is not without interest to the mind of the curious, as upon close inspection may be seen the initials and date of ”good old Izaak Walton” (I. W., 1658), Author of ”The Complete Angler.”
This renowed piscator has somewhere said that he went into Westminster Abbey to visit the tomb of his departed friend, Casaubon, and while there, in contemplation before his monument, he ventured to scratch his own initials and date upon it.
Sir RICHARD c.o.xE, who was taster to Queen Elizabeth and James I., and to the latter, Steward of the Household; a man commended in his epitaph for his religion, humanity, chast.i.ty, temperance, friends.h.i.+p, beneficence, charity, vigilance, and self-denial. He was third son of Thomas c.o.xe, of Beymonds, in Hertfords.h.i.+re, and died a bachelor, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, December 13, 1623.
A small tablet to the memory of JAMES WYAT, Esq., who was architect of this church, and Surveyor-General of His Majesty's Board of Works.
Departed this life on the 4th day of Sept., 1813.
Above is a monument to Sir JOHN PRINGLE, Bart. The inscription sets forth that he was Physician to the Army, the Princess of Wales, and their Majesties; President of the Royal Society. He was born in Scotland, in April, 1707; and died in London, in January, 1782.
EDWARD WETENHALL, M.D., an eminent Physician, who died August 29, 1733.
His father was Dr. Edward Wetenhall, who was first advanced to the See of Cork, in Ireland, but was afterwards translated from thence to Kilmore and Ross. He died November 12, 1713, aged seventy-eight.
Dr. STEPHEN HALES.--Here are two beautiful figures in relief, Religion and Botany; the latter holds a medallion of this great explorer of nature to public view; Religion is deploring the loss of the divine; and at the feet of Botany, the winds are displayed on a globe, which allude to his invention of the ventilator. The Latin inscription is to the following effect:--”To the memory of Stephen Hales, Doctor of Divinity, Augusta, the mother of that best of Kings, George the Third, has placed this monument, who chose him, when living, to officiate as her chaplain; and after he died, which was on the 4th of January, 1761, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, honoured him with this marble.
”About the tomb of Hales, whose fair design And polish great Augusta caus'd to s.h.i.+ne, Religion, h.o.a.ry Faith, and Virtue wait, And shed perpetual tears in mournful state.
But of the preacher, render'd to his clay, The voice of Wisdom still hath this to say-- He was a man to hear affliction's cry, And trace his Maker's works with curious eye.
O Hales! thy praises not the latest age Shall e'er diminish, or shall blot thy page; England, so proud of Newton, shall agree She had a son of equal rank in thee.”--_Wilton, sculptor._
THOMAS TRIPLETT, D.D., who was born near Oxford, and educated at Christ Church, where he was esteemed a wit, a good Grecian, and a poet. In 1645, he was made Prebendary of Preston, in the Church of Sarum, and had also a living, which being sequestered in the Rebellion, he fled to Ireland, and taught school in Dublin, where he was when Charles I. was beheaded. Not liking Ireland, he returned to England, and taught school at Hayes, in Middles.e.x, till the Restoration, when he was made Prebendary of Westminster, and of Fenton in the Church of York. He died at a good old age, July 18, 1670, much beloved and lamented.
A bust of Dr. ISAAC BARROW, representing this truly great man, who, as the inscription shows, was Chaplain to Charles II., Head of Trinity College, Cambridge; Geometrical Professor of Gresham College, in London, and of Greek and Mathematics at Cambridge. His works have been said to be the foundation of all the divinity that has been written since his time. He died May 4, 1677, aged 47.
Above this monument the arch is plastered and painted with the figure of a stag, which was done by order of Richard II.; the following motto was on the collar:--
”When Julius Caesar first came in, About my neck he put this ring; Whosoever doth me take, Use me well for Caesar's sake.”
It is said he lived three or four hundred years.
WILLIAM OUTRAM, D.D.--The Latin inscription sets forth that he was born in Derbys.h.i.+re, fellow of Trinity and Christ Church Colleges in Cambridge, Canon of this Abbey, and Archdeacon of Leicester; an accomplished divine, a nervous and accurate writer, an excellent and diligent preacher, first in Lincolns.h.i.+re, afterwards in London, and lastly at St. Margaret's, Westminster, where he finished his life with great applause, August 23, 1679, aged fifty-four. The inscription on the pedestal shows farther, that after a long and religious life, and forty-two years of widowhood, Jane, his wife, died Oct. 4, 1721.
A fine figure of JOSEPH ADDISON, Esq., on a circular bas.e.m.e.nt, about which are small figures of the nine muses. The Latin inscription is to the following purport:--”Whoever thou art, venerate the memory of Joseph Addison, in whom Christian faith, virtue, and good morals, found a continual patron; whose genius was shown in verse, and every exquisite kind of writing; who gave to posterity the best examples of pure language, and the best rules for living well, which remain, and ever will remain sacred; whose weight of argument was tempered with wit, and accurate judgment with politeness, so that he encouraged the good, and reformed the improvident, tamed the wicked, and in some degree made them in love with virtue. He was born in the year 1672, and his fortune being increased gradually, arrived at length to public honours. Died in the forty-eighth year of his age, the honour and delight of the British nation.”--He was buried in front of Lord Halifax's monument, north aisle of Henry the Seventh's Chapel.--_Sir Richard Westmacott, sculptor._
LORD MACAULAY.--The body of this eminent historian is deposited close to the statue of Addison. Born October 25th, 1800; died December 28th, 1859.
Near the statute of Addison are two fine busts, one on each side, of LORD MACAULAY, by Burnard; and THACKERAY, by Marrochetti.
GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL.--This is the last monument which that eminent statuary, Roubiliac, lived to finish. It is affirmed that he first became conspicious, and afterwards finished the exercise of his art, with a figure of this extraordinary man. The first was erected in the gardens at Vauxhall, therefore well known to the public. The last figure is very elegant, and the face is a strong likeness of its original. The left arm is resting on a group of musical instruments, and the att.i.tude is very expressive of great attention to the harmony of an angel playing on a harp in the clouds, over his head. Before it lies the celebrated Messiah, with that part open, where is the much-admired air,--”_I know that my Redeemer liveth_.” Beneath, only this inscription:--”George Frederick Handel, Esq., born Feb. 23, 1684. Died April 14, 1759.”
Sacred to the memory of Major-General Sir ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, Knight of the Bath, M.P., Colonel of the seventy-fourth Regiment of Foot, Hereditary Usher of the White Rod for Scotland, late Governor of Jamaica, Governor of Fort St. George, and Commander-in-Chief of the Forces on the coast of Coromandel, in the East Indies. He died equally regretted and admired for his eminent civil and military services to his country; possessed of distinguished endowments of mind, dignified manners, inflexible integrity, unfeigned benevolence, with every social and amiable virtue. He departed this life March 31, A.D. 1791, aged fifty-two. ”Alas, piety! alas, fidelity! like that of old, and warlike courage! when shall you have his equal?”--_Wilton, sculptor._
Here also lies the body of his nephew, Lieutenant-General Sir JAMES CAMPBELL, Bart., G.C.H., and C.SS., F.M., who served during the whole of the last war in many distinguished situations; was Commander of the Forces in the Ionian Islands at the general peace of 1814, and died at London upon the 6th of June, 1819, aged fifty-four.