[No. 329. Tuesday, March 18, 1712. Addison.] Ire tamen restat Numa quo devenit et Ancus. Hor. My friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other night, that he had been reading my paper upon Westminster Abbey, "in which," says he, "there are a great many ingenious fancies." He told me, at the same time, that he observed I had promised another paper upon the {5} tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see them with me, not having visited them since he had read history. I could not at first imagine how this came into the knight's head, till I recollected that he had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's Chronicle which he {10} has quoted several times in his disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport since his last coming to town. Accordingly, I promised to call upon him the next morning, that we might go together to the Abbey. I found the knight under his butler's hands, who {15} always shaves him. He was no sooner dressed than he called for a glass of the Widow Trueby's water, which he told me he always drank before he went abroad. He recommended me to a dram of it at the same time with so much heartiness that I could not forbear drinking it. He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's water, telling me that the Widow Trueby was one who did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries in the county; that she distilled every poppy that grew within five miles of her; that she distributed her water {20} gratis among all sorts of people: to which the knight added that she had a very great jointure, and that the whole country would fain have it a match between him and her; "And truly," said Sir Roger, "if I had not been engaged, His discourse was broken off by his man's telling him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked the coachman We had not gone far, when Sir Roger, popping out his {5} head, called the coachman down from his box, and upon his presenting himself at the window, asked him if he smoked; as I was considering what this would end in, he bid him stop by the way at any good tobacconist's, and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Nothing material {10} happened in the remaining part of our journey till we were set down at the west end of the Abbey. As we went up the body of the church, the knight pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monuments, and cried out, "A brave man, I warrant him!" Passing {15} afterwards by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, he flung his hand that way, and cried, "Sir Cloudesley Shovel! a very gallant man!" As we stood before Busby's tomb, the knight uttered himself again after the same manner: "Dr. Busby—a great man! he whipped my grandfather—a very {20} great man! I should have gone to him myself if I had not been a blockhead;—a very great man!" We were immediately conducted into the little chapel on the right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself at our historian's We were then conveyed to the two coronation chairs, {10} where my old friend, after having heard that the stone underneath the most ancient of them, which was brought from Scotland, was called Jacob's Pillar, sat himself down in the chair, and looking like the figure of an old Gothic king, asked our interpreter what authority they had to say {15} that Jacob had ever been in Scotland. The fellow, instead of returning him an answer, told him that he hoped his honour would pay his forfeit. Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his hand upon Edward We were then shown Edward the Confessor's tomb, upon which Sir Roger acquainted us that he was the first who touched for the evil; and afterwards Henry the Fourth's, upon which he shook his head and told us there was fine reading in the casualties of that reign. {10} Our conductor then pointed to that monument where there is the figure of one of our English kings without an head; and upon giving us to know that the head, which was of beaten silver, had been stolen away several years since,—"Some Whig, I'll warrant you," says Sir Roger; {15} "you ought to lock up your kings better; they will carry off the body too, if you don't take care." The glorious names of Henry the Fifth and Queen Elizabeth gave the knight great opportunities of shining and of doing justice to Sir Richard Baker, who, as our {20} knight observed with some surprise, had a great many kings in him whose monuments he had not seen in the Abbey. For my own part, I could not but be pleased to see the knight show such an honest passion for the glory of his {25} country, and such a respectful gratitude to the memory of its princes. I must not omit that the benevolence of my good old friend, which flows out towards every one he converses L. |