Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 — John Shaqi
Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
The pavement of a part of this thoroughfare is unique. It consists of old
tombstones. In 1842, the entire available space in the churchyard being
covered with graves, the benchers decided to permit no more interments
there, and ordered it to be paved over. A path now runs directly across
the old cemetery, where rest the bones of the Knights Templar and their
dependants, and many of the sculptured stones have become paving-flags.
Worn and polished by the passage of many feet, the epitaphs are entirely
defaced. Here and there a few letters of antique cut may with difficulty
be deciphered; but soon no sign will survive to tell of this painful
desecration.
A little outside the roadway the ground is slightly elevated, and near to,
but outside of, the gilt-tipped railings which enclose the Temple Church
lies a very unpretending slab of marble. Rising but a few inches above the
level, one corner sunken and green with earth-mould, it is but a single
remove from the general decay around it. No fence protects it, children
play and fight their mimic battles thereon, and when last we saw it a
group of workmen employed near by were discussing their noontide bread and
cheese and beer in various lounging attitudes upon it. The slab is sadly
chipped, yet it is not nearly so old as the years of the century. Surely
the man whose death it commemorates departed this life
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
Not so. Let us scrape aside the accumulated dirt, and trace with
finger-tip the fast-vanishing inscription. It says, "Here lies Oliver
Goldsmith." This, then, is the way the world reveres its great ones. Of
what avail a monument to the poet in Westminster Abbey, dignified by the
celebrated epitaph of Dr. Johnson, when his tomb is thus relegated to the
domain of neglect and oblivion? Even the site at present indicated is
"entirely conjectural:" the precise position of the poet's grave has been
long forgotten.
Goldsmith Buildings, of course, take their name from the erratic poet and
playwright. In one of them he lived and died, just above the rooms
tenanted by the learned Blackstone, who, at that time engaged in penning
the fourth volume of his "Commentaries," was often grievously annoyed by
the dancing- and drinking-parties, the games of blind-man's-buff, and the
noisy singing of "poor Noll" and his boon companions. Goldsmith took up
residence in the Temple in the spring of the year 1764, in a very shabby
set of rooms, which he shared with Jeffs, the butler of the society. Here
Dr. Johnson visited him, says Mr. Forster, "and on prying and peering
about in them after his short-sighted fashion, flattening his face against
every object be looked at, Goldsmith's uneasy sense of their deficiencies
broke out. 'I shall soon be in better chambers, sir, than these,' he said.
'Nay, sir,' answered Johnson, 'never mind that: _nil te quaesiveris
extra_.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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