Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 1 | Page 6

city London can not be called. In beauty it is no match for
Paris. The smoke, which not only blackens but corrodes, is fatal to the
architecture as well as to the atmosphere. Moreover, the fine buildings,
which if brought together would form a magnificent assemblage, are
scattered over the immense city, and some of them are ruined by their
surroundings. There is a fine group at Westminster, and the view from
the steps under the Duke of York's column across St. James's Park is
beautiful. But even at Westminster meanness jostles splendor, and the
picture is marred by Mr. Hankey's huge tower of Babel rising near.
London has had no edile like Haussmann.
The Embankment on the one side of the Thames is noble in itself, but
you look across from it at the hideous and dirty wharves of Southwark.
Nothing is more charming than a fine water street; and this water street
might be very fine were it not marred by the projection of a huge
railway shed. The new Courts of Law, a magnificent, tho it is said
inconvenient, pile, instead of being placed on the Embankment or in
some large open space, are choked up and lost in rookeries. London, we
must repeat, has had no edile. Perhaps the finest view is that from a
steamboat on the river, embracing the Houses of Parliament, Somerset
House, and the Temple, with St. Paul's rising above the whole.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY [Footnote: From "The Sketch Book."
Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.]
BY WASHINGTON IRVING
On one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter part of
Autumn, when the shadows of morning and evening almost mingle
together and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed
several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. I spent some time
in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end of one of the transepts or cross
aisles of the abbey. The monuments are generally simple; for the lives
of literary men afford no striking themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare

and Addison have statues erected to their memories; but the greater part
have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions.
Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, I have always
observed that the visitors to the abbey remained longest about them. A
kinder and fonder feeling takes the place of that cold curiosity or vague
admiration with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the
great and heroic. They linger about these as about the tombs of friends
and companions; for indeed there is something of companionship
between the author and the reader. Other men are known to posterity
only through the medium of history, which is continually growing faint
and obscure; but the intercourse between the author and his fellow men
is ever new, active and immediate.
From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll toward that part of the abbey
which contains the sepulchers of the kings. I wandered among what
once were chapels, but which are now occupied by the tombs and
monuments of the great. At every turn I met with some illustrious name;
or the cognizance of some powerful house renowned in history. As the
eye darts into these dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of
quaint effigies; some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion; others
stretched upon the tombs, with hands piously prest together; warriors in
armor, as if reposing after battle; prelates with croziers and miters; and
nobles in robes and coronets, lying, as it were, in state. In glancing over
this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still and
silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled
city where everything had been suddenly transmuted into stone.
In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner stands a monument which is
among the most renowned achievements of modern art, but which to
me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs.
Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is represented
as throwing open its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting
forth. The shroud is falling from its fleshless frame as he launches his
dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms,
who strives, with vain and frantic effort, to avert the blow. The whole is
executed with terrible truth and spirit; we almost fancy we hear the
gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of the
specter. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary
terrors, and to spread horrors round the tombs of those we love? The

grave should be surrounded by everything that might inspire tenderness
and veneration for the dead; or that might win the living to virtue. It is
the place, not of disgust and dismay, but