The Children's Story of Westminster AbbeyTroutbeck, G. E. (Georgina E.)
History
The Children's Story of Westminster Abbey
Troutbeck, G. E. (Georgina E.)
Westminster Abbey
Against the wall, close to the door of St. Faith’s Chapel, is the bust
of the great novelist, Sir Walter Scott, who died in 1832. His _Waverley
Novels_ are too famous to need any description. We need only speak of
_Ivanhoe_, _Quentin Durward_, _The Antiquary_, and _Kenilworth_, in
order to remind English people of all ages of many hours of interest and
delight. The particular position was expressly chosen for the bust of
Sir Walter Scott, because it is close to the monument of the Duke of
Argyll and Greenwich, the same Duke of Argyll who appears in Scott’s
famous story, _The Heart of Midlothian_. The bust was placed in the
Abbey only a few years ago; it is a copy of the bust by Chantrey at
Abbotsford.
Above Shakspeare’s monument are busts of two celebrated poets of the
early part of the nineteenth century—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of
“The Ancient Mariner,” “Christabel,” and other well-known poems, and
Robert Southey, Poet-Laureate, author of “Thalaba,” “The Curse of
Kehama,” and the poem on the Waterfall at Lodore. Coleridge died in
1834, and Southey in 1843, in the reign of Queen Victoria. Neither
Coleridge nor Southey is buried in the Abbey. Southey was one of the
famous group of “Lake poets,” and is buried in the lake country, at
Crosthwaite, near Keswick.
Close by Shakspeare’s monument is the statue of Thomas Campbell, who
wrote “The Pleasures of Hope,” “The Battle of the Baltic,” “Ye Mariners
of England,” and other poems.
Under the South-West Tower, in the former Baptistery, is the monument of
the great poet, William Wordsworth, who lived through the time of the
French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and died in 1850. He was the
chief of the “Lake poets.” Wordsworth is not buried in the Abbey, but in
Grasmere churchyard, in that English lake-country where he was born and
which he loved so dearly. Wordsworth’s chief poems are “The Excursion,”
“The White Doe of Rylstone,” “Tintern Abbey,” the “Ode on Immortality,”
and the “Ode to Duty.” But there are many others, great and small, which
are part of the heritage he has left to his fellow-countrymen.
In the Baptistery, just opposite Wordsworth’s monument, is a memorial
portrait bust of Charles Kingsley, the great preacher and writer, author
of _Alton Locke_, _Westward Ho!_, _Hypatia_, and of many well-known
poems. Charles Kingsley is remembered with especial interest and
affection at the Abbey, as he was Canon of Westminster for two years. He
died in 1875, and is buried at Eversley, in Hampshire, where he was
rector for so long.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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