Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, Its Monuments and CuriositiesAnonymous
History
Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, Its Monuments and Curiosities
Anonymous
Westminster Abbey
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 shine,
Religion, hoary 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
Middlesex, 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 Cæsar first came in,
About my neck he put this ring;
Whosoever doth me take,
Use me well for Cæsar's sake."
It is said he lived three or four hundred years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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