The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 24, 1904, Page 17

| Pages 17t020 | - EXPLORER STANLEY'S BODY DENIED PLACE IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY BECAUSE WA Movement Now on Foot to Clear | Temple of 1 ts Unworthy and Unknown Dead. LONDON, July 23—“I will not be buried in Westminster,” said Sir God- frey Kneller, as he lay dying, to his triend Pope, “they do bury fools there.” It was in 1723 that Sir Godfrey deliver- ed himself of this contemptuous opin- jon of those interred in England’s fa- mous Walhalla, but it is worth recall- ing now for the reason it is largely be- cause the abbey many bodies and ynuments of those whose only to distinction is the fact that dust lies there—a goodly aber of them buried since Sir God- entombment de be nt and heroic Not but whom rested 1 have made lorer had he contains claim their ~that everybody to fe and the feels— trans- utes his ones, mon- s own ignor- to know in as a matter of gated bones” great men e far outnumber- relics of those who temporary fame, nobodies. “The ab- William J. Loftie, historians of it who h ht dare the truth about it, “is b4 orials of second and third OPEN TO ALL SORTS. rt chambers of the abbey, rded that even burial were g open wide to all ge and dubious folk. In sed shrine of the immortals nd the bad, the great & the noble and the ig- noble the Infamo mu nary grave- yard hering it would f those commemo- 8 d assemble tock of one an- n the other er charity than there would be ting of dis- joses and dis- f “How the came you here?” Wilberforce ght find himself hustled aside by a pugilist; Pitt might moved to de- of 2 swindling might be confronted by a on might find him in Secretary he pany of a writer of scurrilous ses, and on the outskirts of the owd there might be found hovering vines, minor poets, pages of the ackstairs, a plumber, a butler, a 1 sorts of long forgotten AMONG THE IMMORTALS. Thata p hter is buried in West- widely known, be- to be mentioned in guide, which every 1 many are the ejacu- ous horror that have been «d over such scandalous desecra- f this most famous of all sanc- s of the dead. But John Brough- n is really much more worthy of such than many who afre interred He was a notable man in his He fought his way to the top of s profession and by pluck and hard hitting maintained himself there for several years. He lived to a green old age and was long emplofed as a verger in the abbey before he died in 1788, He wished to have the words “‘Champion Prizefighter of England,” which con- stituted his claim to fame, inscribed on his tombstone. But the dean of the abbey would not permit it, and on the tablet to his memory in the West Cloister Broughton is commended to the remembrance of posterity merely es a “Yeoman of the Guard.” When honor wAY. the time comes, as it must, when they will have to begin removing bones from the abbey to make room for those who are really deserving of interment there, honest John Broughton's should not be the first to be disturbed Prizefighters are often popular idols, but it would be difficult to conceive of any occupation more remote from the paths'that lead to glory than that of a plumber. Yet in the holy quiet of one of the cloisters of this temple of fame a plumber »uried—one Philip Clarke —for no other reason than that he fixed the pipes and soldered up leaks for Westminster S an appendage of the abbey. But no memorial will be found in the abbey of that solder arti- i the 1d can never forget al tinker, John Bunyan. MINGLE WITH THE GREAT. Because he chanced to be employed as a butler in Westminster School nas Warren was interred one of cloisters in 16%9. By marrying a airs,” and as “‘Mis- Starcher,” superintending Queen s washing, lizabeth Abrahal gained a similar posthumous honor. For looking after Queen Anne's hens and chickens David Davis, “First Groom of Her Majesty Poultry Office,” was buried, in this ground consecrated to the great, with several s of his family, including a six- son. Nor did the little fellow mpany there. , Many children are buried in the abbey and none of them was a prodigy. hool th Page of the Back S tress LHALLA IS CROWDED WITH BONES O — WESTMINSTER JTHE FTAVIOUS * Wil S ABBEY WALHATLA Y ENCLAND ] five-year-old daughter of Henry III, was dumb, but being the daughter of a King, and a great King, as things were looked at in those days, no exception could be taken to her interment there with her ancestors. The me heredity claim may be held to j the burial in the abbey of the little son of Hen- rietta Maria, the exiled Queen of Charles I, although the infant did nothing more extraordin than make a hasty exit from this troubled world on the same day that he entered it, tarrying just long enough to get chris- tened. But of most of the abbey chil- dren it may be said that no man knows why they should have been buried there. That Jittle Nicholas Bagenall, for instance, was “'by hys nyrs unfor- tunately overlay’'d” when only two months old, was doubtless a source of sore grief to his parents something more than 300 years ago, but there is no reason why the child’s deplorable fate should continue to be commemo- rated by an ungainly black pyramid and urn when space is needed to make room for those who have done noble work for gland. SMITH FAMILY REPRESENTED. The Smith family is the most numer- ous in the country, but if merit were to determine who among them is most worthy of burial in the abbey the choice would certainly not fall on one Thomas Smith of whom nothing is known save the inscription on his tab- let that “through the spotted veil of the smallpox he rendered a pure and unspotted soul to God.” In the south aisle of the great nave is a monument to another Smith—John Smith—who died in 1718. He may have been a very worthy man—nobody knows—but if his family had not some pull with the dean he never would have been thus reached from oblivion. It would seem .as though in those good old days influence could get almost anybody buried in the abbey. The Duke of Buckingham had a Scotchman buried there for no other reason than that he was his friend. On the same day a lot of people got to- gether and buried a dog in Tothill Fields as a protest against the abbey funeral. But the Duke's friend still re- tains his six feet of ground there. It is the “Poets’ Corner” that visit- ors, and especially Ainerlcnn visitors, approach with the gteatest reverence and there they linger longest. But no other part of the abbey affords a more striking illustration of its incongru- ities—of the lack’of any principle of se- lection by which the most deserving of remembrance were admitted and those who had no claim to enduring fame were kent out. ADDISO? Addison here were ments and poets.” COMPLAINT. ago complained that who had no monu- monuments which had no Those whose works are gener- ally forgotten are better represented in the “Poets’ Corner” than those whose writings are still cherished. No me- morials exist there of Byron, Keats, Shelley, Moore, Walter Savage Landor, Sir Philip Sidney, Marlowe, Lovelace, Herrick, Allan Ramsay, Chatterton, Massinger and several others deserv- edly far better known than many of those on whom monuments and fulsome epitaphs have been bestowed. Although Thomas Shadwell, poet laureate in the reign of William III, according to Hallam “endeavored to maxe the stage as grossly immoral as his talents admitted,” he has a monu- ment in this hallowed shrine of the muses. A student might pass a pretty stiff examination in English literature and yet have read nothing written by Nicholas Rowe, the poet laureate of seorge I, and, according to his epitaph composed by Pope, next to Shakespeare skilled to draw the tender tear.” On his monument in the *“Poets’ Corner” his widow is depicted as wiping the “tender tear” from one eye and gazing at his bust out of the other. For all that she married again soon after he was buried. Michael Drayton, whose bust occupies a niche in this sacred spot, is now numbered among the for- gotten poets, despite the prediction long “poets gs ¥ | | e * | 1 JIONUMENT 10 THE INFAMOUS THOMA® THINN. BURIAL PLACE OF ENGLAND’S FAMOUS DEAD. | f57ms e made in his epitaph ‘hat “his name that cannot fade shall be an everlast- ing monument.” OTHER TENANTS OF CORNER. Under the medallion of John Gay, who has long faded from remembrance, appear his own cynical lines— “Life is a jest and all things show it; I thought so unce and now I know it.” And they seem not altogether inap- propriate in vieW of his own presence in such a place and the strangely mixed company gathered about him as fitting representatives of England's greatness. Among other tenants of the poets’ corner who have shared oblivion with nmm may be mentioned John Phillips, Abraham Cowley, William Mason, Matthew Prior, Christopher Anstey and Sir William Davenant, despite his plagiarized epitaph, “O rare Sir Wil- liam Davenant.” It is a strange as- semblage of the dead that mingles in this part of the abbey. In it are found divines, philosophers, essayists, drama- tists, = actors, antiquarians, ecritics, architects, philanthropists, etc., most of them long forgotten. And among those who have left an enduring mark on English literature incongruity still characterizes their commemoration. Thackeray, who was buried at Kensal Green, has a bust here, while his great rival, Dickens, is buried close by with no monument save his gravestone. Samuel Johnson is buried here, but his monument is in St. Paul's Cathedral Others occupy conspicuous places who have no earthly claim to them. What, for instance, could be more inapprg. T 3 R RETS CORNER., L) F NOBODIES Tombs of Ancient Edifice Hold Dust of Swindlers, Spies and a Plumber. o+ priate than a tablet, above Chaucer’s tomb, to John Roberts, “the very faith- ful secretary of the Honorable William Pelham,” a Minister who held office under George 11?7 And when such men as Byron, Keats and Shelley still re- main unrecognized in the abbey why should room any longer be given to Thomas Chaffinch and John Osbaldis- ton, “Pages | of the Bedchamber” to Charles 117 SOME ROGUES REST THERE. If only the great and herolc were commemorated in this place that with more of poetry than truth has been called “the silent meeting place of the great dead of eight centurles,” there would be room for the memorials of all whose names are inscribed high on the rolls of England’s fame. In the bap- tistry is a monament to James Craggs, who was Secretary of State when he died in 1720, only years old. Pope composed the epitaph which commem- orates his virtues. Statesman d to truth! of soul sincere. In action faithful, and in honor clear! Who broke no promise, d no private end, Who gained n obled by Praised, wept and e loved Yet when the South Sea bubble burst and its books were overhauled this same Craggs “in honor clear” was dis- covered to be an arrant rogue, his name appearing in the subscription lists for the fictitious sum of $1,650,000, “influence.” Pope had the price of his no desire to be buried in the abbey — -a himself. He knew very well the char- acter of many of ‘%e company there, and what epitaphs were worth. AN IMMORTAL BLACKGUARD. So far worsc than Craggs was Thomas 7 nn, a blackguard whose memorial stands near ‘hat of the saint- ly Wesleys, the founders of Methodism, that a dean refuscd to be responsible for the striking discrepancy between historic fact and joetic fiction dis- Nayed in his evitanh and ordered it erased, while allowing his monument to remain. Thynn was a favorite of Charles II. He was a rich man. but to add to L's wealth compelled the child widow of Lord Ogle, heiress to the vast Northumberland estates of the Percies, to ‘marry him. She was only 15, and fled to Holland to escape him, whereupon he instituted law pro- ceedings to get possession of her prop- erty. One of her suitors, Count John Konigsmark, a Swedish nobleman, sent him a challenge by Captain Vratz, one of his followers. Thynn responded by dispatching six men to France to murder the pair of them. Their mis- sion failed. Then the Count tried the game of murder with more success. As Thynn was riding down Pall Mall one Sunday evening his coach was stopped by Captain Vratz and two hired vil- lians and Thynn's career was ter- minated by a blunderbuss. . A bas relief on the monument depicts the murder, and incidentally justifies the boast subsequently made by Thynn's coachman that he, too, had his effigy in the abbey. NO PAINTER IN THE ABBEY. It is a singular fact that no painter is interred in the abbey, for no other reason apparently than that successive deans had no appreciation of that form of art. And it is one of the many strange illustrations of the irony of fate found in the abbey that the only painter who has a monumer there is the same Sir Godfrey Kneller who so emphatically expressed his aversion to being entombed within its walls be- cause “they do bury fools there.” Sir Godfrey himself designed the monu- ment, for which he left $1500, and chose a place for it in Twickenham Church, but the spot selected was already occu- pied by Pope’s tablet to his father, and as the poet refused to give way to the painter, the painter's monument was got rid of by placing it in the abbey with an epitaph which Pope acknowl- edged to be the worst he had ever written. Of ecclesiastical dignitaries and di- vines there are gbout four dozen com- memorated in the abbey and no par- ticular standard of greatness seems to have been applied in determining their fitness for such an exalted honor. The great majority of them have been com- nected with the abbey. Among them is Dean Sprat, now chiefly remembered because he refused to allow Milton's name to appear in an epitaph to some- body else in the abbey. But Deans of Westminster, whether great or little. are buried in the abbey as a matter of course. Dean Stanley and his wife are burled in Henry VII's Chapel, where the Dean has an imposing monument and his wife a memorial window. Dean Stanley was a saintly and lovable man, a great man, too, many might consider him, but yet he did no such work to win lasting remembrance as that other rejected Stanley, without whose name the history of Africa,can never be written GREAT WOMEN NEGLECTED. Apart from actresses, great women have received the most scant recogni- tion in the abbey, though memorials have been bestowed on many of the sex there. Aphra Beh e barber's daughter, perhaps has some claim to fame as the first woman to earn a liv- ing by her pen in England, though her licentiousness was notorious, and Charles II made use of her as a spy during the Dutch war. By —ay of con- trast it is note that ac- cording to t n on Mrs. Mar- ting t cripti tha Birc monument she was and prudent,” though it > owes her place among second husband was a prebendary the abbey. On the tablet to Mrs. Katherine Bovey, on the south £ the great nave, it is recorded her “person and understanding would havc becoma the highest rank in life, and T vivac- ity would have recommended her in th best conversatign, but by judgment, as well as by incfination, she chose such retirement as gave her great oppor- tunity for reading and reflection.” Apparent! fore, she is commem- orated in tkis temple of fame because of what she might have been had she nc* chosen to be something else. But the incongr es of the abbey are end- less. ‘“When a great man dies,” wrote Sir ‘Walter Besant, “the Dean should re- move the monument of one of the un- known to make room fér the newcom- er; in that way the abbey would be- come more and more the holy field of the British empire.” This policy will have to be adopted soon. The Abbey bhas witnessed the exhumation of the bodies of great men. After the Restora- tion the corpses of Cromwell, Ireton and other notable leaders of the com- monwealth were taken from their graves and subjected to many Indigni. ties. Illegitimate descendants of Charles II fill some of the places thus made vacant. Some day perhaps these latter may in turn be disinterred to make room for men of unsullied fame. e KING WILL READ A PAPER AT AMERICANIST CONGRESS Gathering to Be Held Next Angust a4 Stuttgart Will Be Attended by Scholars From Many Lands. BERLIN, July 23.—The International Americanist Congress will be held in Stuttgart from August 18 to August 23. King William of Wurttemberg, who has consented to be a patron, is taking the greatest interest in the coming proceed- ings. American, German, English, French, Italian and Spanish scholars who are experts on the subjects to be discussed have promised to take part. The subjects will be: “The Native Tribes of America, Their History, Geographical Distribution, Language, Physical Characteristics, Culture, Mythology and Religious Cus- toms.” “The Ancient Monuments and An- tiquities of America.” “The History of the Discovery and the Colonization of the Continent.” The King will read a paper on sev- eral interesting but unpublished docu- ments bearing on American early his- tory recently discovered among the royal archives at Stuttgart. The Spanish Government will lay be- fore the congress numerous highly im- portant state documents throwing light on Columbus and the History of his contemporary adventurers in the American hemisphere. - Royal Women Playwrights. BERLIN, July 23.—Royal Princesses have been distinguishing themselves recently as dramatic authors and ac- tresses. Princess /Arnulf of Bavaria wrote a play entitled “Funny Men,” which has been acted before the Bavarian court with great success, the Princess taking one of the leading parts. The Crown Princess of Roumania is the auther of a play called “The Vis- jon of a Princess,” a fantastic sketch founded on a Roumanian folk tale and the chief part was played by Princess Marie herself at a grand entertaiament given at her castle, ps