The imitation of the Gothic style in Wren's additions are wretched and out of place in such an edifice as the Abbey. The front of the Abbey has no columns or pierced works of carving, to which the Gothic style owes so much of its lightness and elegance, and there is a mixture of ornamentation such as the broken scrolls, masques, and festoons over the grand entrance, which gives it a very heavy, flat appearance. [Illustration: SHAKESPEARE'S TOMB.] The Abbey is very rich in monuments of all kinds, some of which are very fine works of art. All along the walls, in the transepts and aisles, in the Nave, in the chapels, in the flooring of the Abbey, and everywhere around me I saw tablets, tombs, inscriptions, and medallions. Among the most noticeable are those of Ben Johnson, John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry and first poet buried in the Abbey, A.D. 1400, Dryden, Thomas Campbell, William Shakespeare, Oliver Goldsmith, Joseph Addison, Handel the musician, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Sir William Davenant, and Robert Southey, in the "Poet's Corner," which is situated in the south transept. They are all richly ornamented with busts, effigies of the deceased, or allegorical designs in marble, or brass, or bronze. The tomb of Shakespeare is of marble, with a full length figure of the great poet leaning on his left elbow, and has the following epitaph written by John Milton, who was best fitted to write it: What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones, The labor of an age in piled stones, Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid Under a star-y pointing pyramid! Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name, Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hast built thyself a live-long monument, For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavoring art Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book Those Delphic lines with deep impression took; Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving Dost make us marble with too much conceiving; And so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie, That kings for such a tomb would wish to die. Milton's epitaph is as follows: "Three great poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy and England did adorn; The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd. The next in majesty--in both the last. The force of Nature could no farther go, To make the third, she joined the former two."-- John Gay, the author of the "Beggar's Opera," wrote his own epitaph, which is on his tomb; "Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once; but now I know it." [Sidenote: THE LAST CATHOLIC FUNERAL.] There is a sarcophagus to Major John Andre who was executed as a spy by order of George Washington. It has a representation of a flag of truce, and Britannia in tears. [Illustration: TOMB OF MILTON.]