There are many persons of distinction buried in the Cloisters, as will appear from the number of inscriptions, many of which are almost obliterated from wear or time; we shall therefore only notice a few of the most particular. The most ancient are in the South Walk of the Cloisters, towards the east end, where you will see the remains of four Abbots, marked in the pavement by four stones. The first is inscribed to the Abbot Vitalis, who died in 1082; and was formerly covered with plates of brass. The second is a stone of grey marble, to the memory of Geslebertus Crispinus, who died in 1114. The third is a raised stone, of Sussex marble, under which lies interred the Abbot Laurentius, who died in 1176, and is said to have been the first who obtained from Pope Alexander III. the privilege of using the Mitre, Ring, and Glove. The fourth is of black marble, called Long Meg, from its extraordinary length of eleven feet ten inches, by five feet ten inches, and covers the ashes of Gervasius de Blois, natural son of King Stephen, who died 1106. All these seem to have had their names and dates cut afresh, and are indeed fragments worthy to be preserved.

In 1349 twenty-six of the monks of this Abbey fell victims to a dreadful plague which at that period had extended its ravages over great part of the globe, and are reported by Fuller to have been buried all in one grave in the South Cloisters, under the remarkable large stone called Long Meg.

Against the wall is a monument to Peter Francis Courayer, a Roman Catholic clergyman, born at Vernon, in Normandy, 1681. He was Canon and Librarian of the Abbey of GeneviÈve, at Paris. He translated and published several valuable works. In 1727 he took refuge in England, and was well received, and presented by the University of Oxford with the degree of D.D. On his dedicating a book to Queen Caroline, his pension was augmented to £200 per annum from £100 which he had obtained before from the court. He died, in 1776, after two days’ illness, at the age of ninety-five.

At the end of this walk is the monument of Daniel Pulteney, who served the court several years; abroad in the reign of Queen Anne, and at home in the reign of George I. The following is the inscription:—“Reader, if thou art a Briton, behold this tomb with reverence and regret! Here lie the remains of Daniel Pulteney, the kindest relation, the truest friend, the warmest patriot, the worthiest man! He exercised virtues in his age, sufficient to have distinguished him even in the best. Sagacious by nature, industrious by habit, inquisitive with art, he gained a complete knowledge of the state of Britain, foreign and domestic; in most, the backward fruit of tedious experience; in him, the early acquisition of undissipated youth. He served the court several years; abroad, in the auspicious reign of Queen Anne; at home, in the reign of that excellent Prince, George I. He served his country always; at court independent, in the senate unbiassed. At every age, and at every station, this was the bent of his generous soul, this the business of his laborious life; public men and public things he judged by one common standard—the true interest of Britain; he made no other distinction of party; he abhorred all other. Gentle, humane, disinterested, benevolent, he created no enemies on his own account; firm, determined, inflexible, he feared none he could create in the cause of Britain. Reader, in this misfortune of thy country, lament thy own; for know, the loss of so much private virtue is a public calamity.”

EAST WALK.

Near the iron gate is a tablet sacred to the memory of the Rev. Thomas Vialls, of Twickenham, Middlesex, A.M., many years vicar of Boldre, in the New Forest, who departed this life May 7, 1831, aged sixty-two.

To the left is a very beautiful arch, beneath which is a doorway leading to the Chapter House and Library; in front of which was buried Abbot Byrcheston, who died of the plague, May 15, 1349; but no stone left to mark the place of his interment.

Against the wall, in the centre of the East Walk, is a monument to the memory of George Walsh, Esq., with the following inscription:—“Near this place are deposited the remains of George Walsh, Esq., late Lieutenant-General of his Majesty’s Forces, and Colonel of the forty-ninth Regiment of Foot, who died October 23, 1761, aged seventy-three.

“The toils of life and pangs of death are o’er,
And care, and pain, and sickness, are no more.”

To the memory of James William Dodd, who for thirty-four years was one of the Ushers of Westminster School, the duties of which he discharged with consummate ability. The Westminsters, his pupils, resident at the boarding-house under his immediate care, have, bewailing his loss, caused this tablet to be erected. He died on the 29th day of August, 1818, in the fifty-seventh year of his age.

Beneath is a monument to preserve and unite the memory of two affectionate brothers, valiant soldiers and sincere Christians: Scipio Duroure, Esq., Adjutant-General of the British Forces, Colonel of the twelfth Regiment of Foot, and Captain or Keeper of his Majesty’s Castle of St. Mawes, in Cornwall, who, after forty-one years’ faithful services, was mortally wounded at the battle of Fontenoy, and died May 10, 1745, aged fifty-six years, and lies interred on the ramparts of Aeth, in the low Countries; and Alexander Duroure, Esq., Lieutenant-General of the British Forces, Colonel of the Fourth, or King’s own Regiment of Foot, and Captain or Keeper of his Majesty’s Castle of St. Mawes, in Cornwall, who, after fifty-seven years of faithful services, died at Toulouse, in France, on the 2nd January, 1795, aged seventy-four years, and lies interred in this Cloister.

In the next arch has been lately erected a tablet, sacred to the memory of Walter Hawkes, who, serving in the East Indies, and having deserved well during the space of more than twenty-seven years, almost worn out with sickness and wounds, as he was now returning to his native country, being overtaken by a storm in the Indian Ocean, was, together with his dearest wife, the partner of his life and danger, alas! swallowed up, and perished by shipwreck, never to be too much lamented, the year of our Lord 1808. Struck with so sad a fate of his companion, William Franklin put up this stone; for both were King’s scholars in this school, brought up in the same studies, together endured arduous warfare.

NORTH WALK.

On the left, near the door, is a marble slab to the memory of John Catling, who died March 3, 1826, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He was Verger and Sacrist, successively, of this Collegiate Church under five Deans, the duties of which he performed with the most zealous and undivided attention, for the long period of fifty-two years, respected by his superiors for the fidelity, respectability, and humility, with which he filled the offices, and beloved by all who knew him in private life, for the many virtues which adorn the man. Lady Londonderry was buried underneath it.

A tablet to the memory of Harriet, wife of the Rev. John Bentall, one of the Ushers of Westminster School. She died August 7, 1838.

The next is an epitaph remarkable for its quaintness, and inscribed to the memory of William Laurence, in these lines:—

“With diligence and truth most exemplary,
Did William Laurence serve a Prebendary;
And for his pains, now past, before not lost,
Gain’d this remembrance at his master’s cost.
Oh! read these lines again!—you seldom find
A servant faithful, and a master kind.
Short-hand he wrote; his flower in prime did fade,
And hasty death short-hand of him hath made.
Well couth he numbers, and well-measured land;
Thus doth he now that ground whereon you stand,
Wherein he lies so geometrical:
Art maketh some, but thus doth nature all.”
Ob. Dec. 28, 1628, Ætat. 29.A tablet to the Rev. George Preston, A.M., who was several years Under-Master of Westminster School. He died September 8, 1841, aged fifty-two.

Near to this is a tablet lately erected to the memory of William Markham, D.D., Archbishop of York, who died November, 1807, aged eighty-eight, and was buried near this spot.

On your left is a tablet to the memory of Edward Augustus Webber, a King’s scholar, son of James Webber, D.D., Dean of Ripon, and Canon of this Church; who was drowned in the River Thames, June 11, 1833, aged seventeen, and buried near this spot. The inscription is as follows:—“H.S.M. Edoardus Augustus Webber, Jacobi Webber, S.T.P., ecclesÆ Riponensis Decani, et hujusce PrÆbendarii filius natu secundus in amne Thamesi, eversa turbine navicula e quatuor mersis adolicentibus unus periit die 11 Junii, 1833, anum agent 17mo. Alumno suavissimo desideratissimo, id quod parentes miseri perferre nequibant, prÆceptores condiscipulique tranquam fratrem lugertes ademptum pro more ac pietate Westmonasteriensi exequias reddiderunt.”

The last worthy of note in this Walk is that to the memory of William Egerton Gell, Esq., who, after a long and severe affliction, departed this life on the 17th of May, 1838, aged fifty-six years; in him many will have to deplore the loss of a generous and kind-hearted friend. “Comfort the soul of thy servant, for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.”—Cundy, sculptor.

WEST WALK.

On the left door of the Abbey is a monument, erected by John English Dolben, Esq., “To the memory of Edward Wortley Montague, who was cast away, on his return to England, in 1777, from the East Indies, in the twenty-seventh year of his age. In memory of their friendship, which commenced at Westminster School, continued for some time at Oxford, not diminished by the greatest distance, scarcely dissolved by death, and if it please God, to be renewed in heaven.—J. E. D., to whom the deceased bequeathed his books (and appointed joint residuary legatee), erected this monument.”

Francis Smedley.—Adjoining the Godolphin monument is a neat tablet to the memory of the above, who was High Bailiff of Westminster for twenty-two years. Born September 15, 1791; died February 25, 1859.

The next is a monument that deserves particular attention, as it commemorates a charity, which otherwise might, in time, like many others, be perverted or forgotten. The inscription is as follows:—“Here rest, in hope of a blessed resurrection, Charles Godolphin, Esq., brother of the Right Honourable Sydney, Earl of Godolphin, Lord High Treasurer of Great Britain, who died July 16, 1720, aged sixty-nine; and Mrs. Godolphin, his wife, who died July 29, 1726, aged sixty-three; whose excellent qualities and endowments can never be forgotten, particularly the public-spirited zeal with which he served his country in Parliament, and the indefatigable application, great skill, and nice integrity, with which he discharged the trust of a Commissioner of Customs for many years. Nor was she less eminent for her ingenuity, with sincere love of her friends, and constancy in religious worship. But as charity and benevolence were the distinguishing parts of their characters, so were they most conspicuously displayed by the last act of their lives: a pious and charitable institution, by him designed and ordered, and by her completed to the glory of God, and for a bright example to mankind; the endowment whereof is a rent-charge of one hundred and eighty pounds a-year, issuing out of lands in Somersetshire, and of which, one hundred and sixty pounds a year are to be ever applied, from 24th June, 1726, to the educating eight young gentlewomen, who are so born, and whose parents are of the Church of England, whose parents or friends will undertake to provide them with decent apparel; and after the death of the said Mrs. Godolphin, and William Godolphin, Esq., her nephew, such as have neither father or mother; which said young gentlewomen are not to be admitted before they are eight years old, nor to be continued after the age of nineteen, and are to be brought up in the city of New Sarum, or some other town in the county of Wilts, under the care of some prudent governess or schoolmistress, a communicant of the Church of England; and the overplus, after an allowance of £5. a-year for collecting the said rent-charge, is to be applied to binding out one or more poor children apprentices, whose parents are of the Church of England. In perpetual memory whereof Mrs. Frances Hall, executrix to her aunt, Mrs. Godolphin, has, according to her will, and by her order, caused this inscription to be engraven on their monument, 1772.”

The next is a neat tablet, in memory of the Rev. Edward Smedley, A.M., Rector of Powderham, and of North Bovey, in the county of Devon, and from 1774 to 1820, one of the Ushers of Westminster School; born Nov. 5, 1750, died August 6, 1825. Also of Hannah, his wife, daughter of George Bellas, Esq.; born August 21, 1754, died October 17, 1824. This tablet is erected by their surviving children.

“To you, dear names, these filial thanks we give,
For more than life, for knowledge how to live—
For many a rule with holy wisdom fraught,
And works embodying the creed you taught;
For faith triumphant, tho’ the lips which told
Its glowing lessons, now, alas! are cold;
Faith, which proclaiming that the dead but sleep,
Invites us home to those whom here we weep.”

—Westmacott, jun., sculptor.

On the left is a tablet with a coat of arms over, and a music-book under it:—“Near this place are deposited the remains of Benjamin Cooke, Doctor in Music of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and Organist and Master of the Choristers of this Collegiate Church for above thirty years. He departed this life on the 14th of September, 1793, and in the fifty-ninth year of his age.”Enoch Hawkins, Esq., Gentleman of her Majesty’s Chapel Royal, and Vicar Choral of this Collegiate Church, who died on the 9th January, 1847, aged fifty.

Upon a tablet that has emblems of music,—“To the memory of James Bartleman, formerly a Chorister and Lay-Clerk of Westminster Abbey, and Gentleman of his Majesty’s Royal Chapel. He was born the 19th of September, 1769, died the 15th of April, 1821, and was buried in this Cloister, near his beloved master, Dr. Cooke.”

In this walk is erected a monument to W. Buchan, M.D., author of the Domestic Medicine, who died in 1805.

A tablet with inscriptions, to Mr. John Broughton, and his wife Elizabeth; she died in 1714, and himself in 1789. Also R. Monk, Esq., died in 1831; his wife Catherine, 1832.

“William Woollett, born August 22, 1735, died May 22, 1785.” The genius of engraving is represented handing down to posterity the works of painting, sculpture, and architecture. A monument with his bust on the top.

Near to this will be seen a tablet in memory of Elizabeth Woodfall, younger daughter of the late Henry Sampson Woodfall, having lived many years in Dean’s Yard, contiguous to the Abbey, and died 12th February, 1862, at the age of ninety-three.

Having exceeded the bounds at first intended, we shall conclude in the words of an ingenious writer on the subject of this Abbey:—“I have wandered,” says he, “with pleasure into the most gloomy recesses of this last resort of grandeur, to contemplate human life, and trace mankind through all the wilderness of their frailties and misfortunes, from their cradles to their graves. I have reflected on the shortness of our duration here, and that I was but one of the millions who had been employed in the same manner, in ruminating on the trophies of mortality before me; that I must moulder to dust in the same manner, and quit the scene to a new generation, without leaving the shadow of my existence behind me; that this huge fabric, the sacred depository of fame and grandeur, would only be the stage for the same performances; would receive new accessions of noble dust; would be adorned with other sepulchres of cost and magnificence; would be crowded with successive admirers; and, at last, by the unavoidable decays of time, bury the whole collection of antiquities in general obscurity, and be the monument of its own ruin.”