The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862: Devoted To Literature And National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
to the American, if they were not markets of gain and greed to their
clerical proprietors! The poets whose tombs are the chief attraction in
Westminster Abbey are not foreigners to the Anglo-Saxon race of the New
World. We, too, claim a property in their works. Our forefathers were
cotemporaries with Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, inhabited the same
land, breathed the same air, were subject to the same laws; and we speak
to-day the language of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Tennyson. We have, I
insist, a claim on the glorious memories that give renown to England;
and the avarice that bars the gates of her abbeys and cathedrals against
the poor, is a disgrace to a great nation.
There has been lately a report that St. Paul's had grown ashamed of its
greediness, and Westminster Abbey has at length really admitted the
public without demanding its sixpences--admitted, that is, to a large
portion of the building, but not to the whole. The mausoleums of the
kings are still worthy, in the opinion of the Dean and Chapter, of some
silver coins sterling. Let them remain so. We are not especially anxious
to do homage to _them_. The intellectually great of England are worthy
of much--sometimes of all reverence; her kings of very little, or of
none. But St. Paul's is closed still, notwithstanding the report of free
admission which recently agitated the public of London. Nelson's
sepulchre is worth some score of pounds sterling per annum. Dr.
Johnson's statue can be seen any day for twopence, which is tenpence
less than Madame Tassaud charges for admission to her wax effigies, and
must therefore be considered cheap.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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