Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, Its Monuments and CuriositiesAnonymous
History
Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, Its Monuments and Curiosities
Anonymous
Westminster Abbey
"To the memory of WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, born in Hull, August 24, 1759, died
in London, July 29, 1833. For nearly half a century a member of the House
of Commons, and for six parliaments during that period one of the two
representatives for Yorkshire. In an age and country fertile in great and
good men, he was among the foremost of those who fixed the character of
their time; because to high and various talents, to warm benevolence, and
to universal candour, he added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life.
Eminent as he was in every department of public labour, and a leader in
every work of charity, whether to relieve the temporal or the spiritual
wants of his fellow men, his name will ever be specially identified with
those exertions which, by the blessing of God, removed from England the
guilt of the African Slave Trade, and prepared the way for the abolition
of slavery in every colony in the empire. In the prosecution of these
objects, he relied not in vain on God: but in the progress, he was called
to endure great obloquy and great opposition. He outlived, however, all
enmity, and in the evening of his days withdrew from public life and
public observation to the bosom of his family. Yet he died not unnoticed
or forgotten by his country: the Peers and Commons of England, with the
Lord Chancellor and the Speaker at their head, in solemn procession from
their respective houses, carried him to his fitting place among the mighty
dead around, here to repose, till, through the merits of Jesus Christ his
only Redeemer and Saviour, whom in his life and in his writings he had
desired to glorify, he shall rise in the resurrection of the just." His
figure is seated on a pedestal, very ingeniously done, and truly
expressive of his age, and of the pleasure he seemed to derive from his
own thoughts.--_Joseph, sculptor._
Above is Dr. PLENDERLEATH.--A medallion of the deceased is fixed up with
ribbon, under which is Hygeia, the cup of health, a serpent twining round,
and a bough of cypress lying on it. Below is written in a book--"He
healed--'many that were sick of divers diseases.'" (St. Mark, i. 34.)
Under the book is an Æsculapius as an emblem of physic. "In memory of Dr.
John Plenderleath, third son of John Plenderleath, Esq., of Glen, in
Tweedale, Scotland, Physician to the forces serving under the Marquis of
Wellington in Portugal, who died at Coimbra, of a typhus fever, on the
18th of June, 1811, aged twenty-eight years. He was eminently
distinguished by the strength of his mental faculties, his great classical
and professional knowledge; and no less by the humanity of his heart,
which manifested itself on all occasions, and especially towards the
numerous sick and wounded, both of his countrymen and of the enemy, which
were committed to his care. In commemoration of his public virtues, and of
his many amiable qualities in private life, this monument is erected as a
small tribute of parental affection."--_Bacon, jun., sculptor._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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