As we are now coming quite close to the end of the eighteenth century it will be best to turn back and think of some of the great writers, men of science, musicians and others, who belonged to that time and are either buried or commemorated in the Abbey. We will begin with Joseph Addison, the author of many beautiful essays in the _Spectator_ and the _Tatler_. He died in 1719, and was buried in Henry VII’s Chapel, in the same aisle as the Tudor Queens. His statue is in Poets’ Corner. Addison’s beautiful hymn, “The spacious firmament on high,” is sometimes sung in the Abbey, and ought to be well known to all English children. Now we come to the great Sir Isaac Newton, the famous mathematician and philosopher, who discovered the law of gravitation. He died in 1727, and was buried in the Nave, close to the Screen. He had a very stately funeral, at which a great number of distinguished men were present. The famous French writer, Voltaire, was there as a spectator. The monument is quite near the grave, and is meant to represent Newton’s discoveries. It is not the sort of monument we care about now, and the inscription on the gravestone below is much better: “Here lies all that was mortal of Isaac Newton.” James Thomson, who wrote a poem called _The Seasons_, has a monument in Poets’ Corner. He died in George II’s reign, and is buried in Richmond Parish Church. Sir Richard Steele, a famous essay writer of the time, is brought to our memory by the grave of his second wife in Poets’ Corner. John Gay, author of the _Fables_, which were written for the education of the Duke of Cumberland, was buried in Poets’ Corner in 1732. His monument is over the door into St. Faith’s Chapel, and on it are carved these curious lines— “Life is a jest, and all things show it; I thought so once, and now I know it.” Thomas Gray, who wrote the famous _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_, has a monument in Poets’ Corner, but he is buried in the beautiful churchyard at Stoke Pogis, which he loved so well. Gray’s poem is so celebrated that a learned Italian has lately made a very beautiful translation of it into his lovely native tongue. Gray died in 1771. Oliver Goldsmith, author of the _Vicar of Wakefield_, the _Deserted Village_, and _She Stoops to Conquer_, died in 1774, and was buried in the Temple Churchyard. He has a monument in Poets’ Corner, and the Latin epitaph on it was written by the great Dr. Johnson. Dr. Samuel Johnson, author of the _Lives of the Poets_, _Rasselas_, and the famous English Dictionary, died in 1784, and is buried in the Abbey at the foot of Shakspeare’s monument, close to David Garrick, the great actor, who had died four years before. Dr. Johnson’s only monument is his gravestone. Garrick has a rather foolish looking monument on the western wall of the South Transept. Near Shakspeare’s monument is the bust of Robert Burns, the Scottish poet, who died in 1796.