Fittingly in this group comes Henry Fawcett, the most knightly figure in
modern politics. For though he became blind through an accident when he
was twenty-five, he refused to let that turn him aside from his purpose,
and threw himself all the more earnestly into public life. At first
when he tried to go into Parliament he was beaten, the electors actually
being afraid of a blind candidate, but gradually his speeches, which
showed how much he thought and cared, and how intensely alive he was to
the needs of the working classes, broke down this foolish prejudice, and
once in the House he was loved as he was trusted by men of both parties.
His monument is quite one of the most beautiful among the modern
monuments, and one great authority has declared that "the exquisite
little figures which adorn it are the best of their kind since the
little angels were placed on the tomb of Queen Philippa."
In the south aisle of the choir is the monument of Sir Cloudesley
Shovel, which so annoyed Addison. And indeed it is rather hard on this
British sailor, who worked his way up from the lowest rank till he
became Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, and was drowned in a shipwreck
off the Isle of Stilly, to be handed down to posterity, dressed, not in
the uniform he loved and wore so honourably, but in the armour of a
Roman general!
Monuments to Doctor Isaac Watts the hymn writer and to John and Charles
Wesley are here, and very appropriate is the Wesley inscription, "The
whole world is my Parish," breathing as it does the great-hearted spirit
of the Abbey.
Sir Godfrey Kneller, the only painter who has a monument in the Abbey,
refused to be buried here, declaring he would not lie among fools, and
he left money for a memorial to himself which was to be put up in
Twickenham Church. But the place he had chosen had already been
appropriated by Pope, who refused to give way, so that after all the
monument had to be put up in Westminster, and Pope, by way of
compensation, undertook to write the inscription, in which he declared
that "Kneller was by Heaven, not by master taught."
Gilbert Thornburgh, a courtier, has a delightful Latin epitaph which
states that
"He was always faithful
To his God, his Prince, and his Friends.
Formerly an earthly, now an Heavenly Courtier,
It shall be no more said in the Age to come,
Who must be good must leave the Court,
When such shining Piety as his shall appear there."
Some epitaphs are humorous, as when we read of one Francis Newman, a
Fellow of All Souls College in Oxford, who in 1649, "divested of Body
was received among the seats of the Blessed Souls, and became truly a
New-Man;" or of Sir John Fullerton, a courtier, who died "Fuller of
Faith than of Feare, Fuller of Resolution than of Paines, Fuller of
Honour than of Dayes."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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