Roubiliac “cut,” as the vergers would call it, seven or eight monuments in the Abbey: Lady Nightingale’s, the Duke of Argyll’s, Sir Peter Warren’s, Hargrave’s, Fleming’s, Admiral Wade’s, and Handel’s. Some of these are inferior works, or are perched so high as to be beyond our appreciation. The sculptor was dreadfully put out at being thus “skied,” but he could not always look for so fine a position “on the line” as he had for his Duke of Argyll. Not long before his death the Abbey had become somewhat crowded, and the practice of building up monuments against the windows had set in, with shocking results. Nearly all the nave windows have been thus encroached upon, built up with supporting screens. After a careful examination I find that these amount to about a dozen, which could readily be cleared away, to the enormous advantage and beauty of the fane. No more important improvement than this could be conceived, or more popular if effected, for here the barbarous ignorance of our forefathers is displayed to the coarsest extent. The best of the monuments would gain by being brought low down: they might be set up in the cloisters, for instance, or made a present to St. Paul’s. Roubiliac had a pupil, one Read, who on his death “carried on the business;” concluding that by occupying his studio, it would be assumed he could supply the same article to the public. Strange to say, this theory was accepted, and he was employed for large and important works. Many have seen or heard of the famous “Pancake” monument, put up to celebrate a now forgotten Admiral Tyrrel, who in some engagement abroad, aboard his good ship the “Buckingham,” met his death. He died on shore, but was consigned to the deep. Furnished with these heroic materials, Mr. Read set to work. Room being scarce he was given half of a deeply embayed window, and determined to excel all other efforts. His master himself had made a strange prophecy which seemed to point to this very monstrosity, for on the pupil boasting that when he was out of his time he would show the world what a monument ought to be, “the other looked at him scornfully and said: ‘Ven you do de monument, den de vorld vill see _vot d--d ting you vill make_.’” And so it proved. There is to be seen on the left an enormous “practicable” flag of white marble, with all the folds, etc., balanced on the right by the ship “Buckingham,” about the size of the flag. All the intervals are filled in with what seem to be corals, waves, etc., an extraordinary jumble, whilst in the centre was seen ascending from the sea the figure of the deceased admiral going up to heaven--which Nollekens always declared was like a man swinging from a gallows with a rope round his neck. Unluckily the reforming Dean Stanley deprived us of this entertainment, and strangely cut away the admiral altogether, yet leaving the other monstrosities. As the Dean said, humorously, the artist’s object seemed to be “to present the Resurrection under difficulties.”