GLIMPSES OF LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 192, 15 August 1925, Page 21

GLIMPSES OF LONDON.

IN THE CRYPT OF ST. PAUL'S.

(By ISABEL MAUD PEACOCKE.) PART IH. Where the river of traffic, diverted by the majestic bulk of St. Paul's, foams on from Ludgate Hill, by Cheapside, Cannon Street, Watling Street and many a tributary channel, may be found one of those peaceful, silent, solemn sanctuaries wherein London offers a retreat from her thronged streets, her confusion and turmoil and babble of tongues. It is the Crypt of St. Paul's, beneath whose marble flags are • sepultured so many of the great of the land. Cool, hushed and still, the only sound an occasional footstep on the echoing floors, the muffled, musical roll of the great organ in the church above or the distant voices of the choir —as vague and sweet and remote as angel voices— one feels the peace, the solemnity of this hallowed hall of the dead.

The mighty dead —beneath . the feet their bones, their dust lie crumbling through the centuries; they lie so thick that the feet of the living fain to avoid trampling the tablets that seal their graves may not do so, for every stone is inscribed with the name and virtues of some beloved dead.

All are not the .great ones of the earth, for at one time in the history of St. Paul's any person connected with tho Cathedral was permitted burial here, and thus the dust of many a worthy but obscure churchman or his wife mingles with the dust of the mighty ones. But there. are mighty anes a-many. Above in the great Cathedral the walls are lined with massive monuments to famous sailors, soldiers, statesmen, who sleep below in their sealed vaults, their voyaging, their fighting, their statesmanship all done forever.

Beneath the choir is Painter's Corner, where lie Reynolds, Turner, Millais Holman Hunt and many another of the artistic brotherhood who at long last has laid down his palette and his brush and forgot his cunning.

A black marble slab marks the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, with the familiar inscription, "si monumentum requiris circumspice," which most truly indicates his actual and enduring monument, in soaring tower and dome, in pillared aisle and gallery and shadowy architraves.

Beneath the great Dome itself rests Nelson in his magnificent Italian sarcophagus designed by Cardinal AVolsey in the zenith of his glory for his own interment, and which now enshrines the bones of the simple 6ailor.

His neighbour Is the great soldier, Wellington, whose tomb of porphyry rests on a massive granite slab, and the flags of many nations which commemorate his many victories are hung about it. Stained and worn, their dusty folds droop motionless over the motionless form of whose earthly triumphs they are the symbols, enduring longer than he, and to endure yet a little while ere they, too, shall fall to dust. But more enduring than they stands the gloomily-magnificent funeral car cast from his captured cannon, on which the great Duke's body was drawn to its last resting-place. An here, in Field Marshals' corner, lie three gallant soldiers, Wolseley, Sir Henry Wilson, and —a familiar loved name, simply inscribed upon a plain black cross upon the wall—"Roberts" — that is all, and beneath it two crossed flags, the only touch of colour, a monument as simple, as unpretending, as dignified as the great little gallant soldier himself. It all seems fitting somehow. And among the soldiers' memorials is a tablet to one who has earned her place among the finest soldiers of the land —Florence Nightingale, the Lady with tho Lamp. The Temple. One of the never-failing charms of London is its delightful unexpectedness, its quick changes from the roaring life of the city streets to the sylvan quiet of the country-side, in calm tree-shaded squares, and tiny old-world gardens, with mossy fountains and grassy plots and beds of flowers, where the voice of London is heard only as a faint, soothing murmur emphasising the peace and silence of this green retreat. One such peaceful sanctuary is the Temple Gardens, lying between the feverish life and activity of Fleet Street and the bustling traffic of the Embankment. One moment one is in the heart of the turmoil, whirr of wheels, clang of hoofs, throb of motors, snarl and shriek and hoot of horns, and then, where Temple Bar, that famous gateway to the city once stood, too often adorned with hiynan heads, and where now the great bronze Griffin, up-reared, « va * h f I the portals, onco espies a dark •WPj-g-jft / way, and over it a tiny •»">*>';~-. * j in etono. x 1

The archway is gloomy, the lane i upon which it opens ia dingy, but in a moment, aa one turns under the arch, one has left behind the crowded city; its clang and clamour grow fainter — fainter— away. One is in the country, one is walking on green turf, sun-and-leaf dappled, beneath shady trees, beside a tinkling fountain. One is in the shawod of venerable walls with a leafy curtain of living greenery' draping the mellow old atone, and thero • is no sound here save the twitter of birds and tho croon and flutter of pigeons, and beyond thero is a glimpse of the silver Thames. A place of silent charm, of beauty and repose, mellowed by the centuries. Towards the end of the twelfth century those religious stalwarts, those fighting monks, the Knights Templars, raised their beautiful Round Church on the river banks, and there it stands today, only separated A'om the flowing water by a stream of traffic which flows almost as continuously, and within, upon the marble floor lie the effigie3 of those gallant Ciusaders who fought and prayed and fought again in a good cause—some lie with crossed knees, denoting that they have made the pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Many a famous name lias been registered in this old temple since the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, coming into possession of the property i" the fourteenth century, leased it to "the doctors and students of the law." A romantic setting for the law, these stately old buildings with their ancient traditions and academic atmosphere, their gardens, courts and quadrangles like the venerable colleges of some university town. The fascination of the temple is endless, its associations full of human interest. In Middle Temple Hall, under the rich earvI ing of its ancient oak roof, the great table, made from an oak from Windsor Park, was presented by Queen Elizabeth to the Benchers. On it she is said to have signed the death warrant of tlie young ill-fated Queen of Scots. On the raised dais in this hall Shakespeare is believed to have produced one of his own plays. Dr. Johnson had rooms in Inner Temple Lane; Charles Lamb was born in Crown Office Row, and Oliver Goldsmith,' who died in Brick Court, is buried in the shadow of the Crusaders' Church. And many another name of dead-and-gone great men is woven into the fabric of Temple traditions, its great men who have passed away into the silence, but the Temple still stands throughout the ages, enshrined in the heart of London, "full of years and honour," a monument of learning, a sanctuary from the fever and fret of life, "a hint of ancient peace." London's Cenotaph. All good Englishmen remember—the men who gave their lives for the "freedom of the world" still live. By every wayside memorial in England we know it, for there are many of these in quiet country places, humble, pathetic, a little inscribed tablet, or a cross upon a church wall with a ledge beneath on which vases of flowers are set every day and on special anniversaries fresh wreaths are laid there for memory's safe, and men bare their heads in passing. In the crowded, cheerless barn-like railway stations, with their bustle and noise and utilitarian ugliness, there is always a little sacred reserve railed off in which is hung a roll of honour, and beneath it are to be found fresh flowers, giving a touch of sweetness and light to a most dreary environment. The liurrying crowds go back and forth, trains arrive and depart, there are noiso md grime and restless movement forever, but whatever the season, whatever the preoccupation of the crowd, tho flowers are there always, renewed as they fade away, always fresh and sweet md lovely as the loving Ternembrance they typify. And always the tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster is sweet with blossoms, the loving offerings of those who, had they all the ivorkl to give, could give no more-than those flowery gifts which speak their gratitude and their unforgetfulness. Tn Whitehall the cenotaph lifts its tvhite column between those bright significant banners, whose folds droop over the heads of mourners, men, women and children who come to lay their tokens of grief and remembrance at its base. Tlie rain may fall, the snowwinds blow, the dark fogs close down in clammy folds upon the choked city, but it is always summer at the cenotaph, expressed in. colour and perfume and exotic masses t»f bloom heaped prodigally in a divine wastefulness of unforgetting love. Through the murk of the gloomiest day those flowers shine bright and serene, a vivid patch of colour in the grey London street, and thejr fragrance floats divinely across the acrid reek of smoke and "soot and petrol fumes which foul the air of the great city, just as the thought of sacrifice of these dead men must soaiet a moment conquer the cold mt h of the world with a wave °f omefLin ,, and sweetness. Ana n » , g sained, if only for **«»££„ cares minds should tuni*_» <° to _ ore and worldlr passes that spiritual th.nffs, ana flowerg and itg white column, " thou „ lltg involuntarily lflaff ' iveVntial and his head i, bared. BTOVr Jion"h lie be riding m bus (even *i^ a^d e very day still groupa of oT Vners utand about the cenotaph, for, 1 ? our " very d_y is tne anniversary of omeone's loss, and in rain and wind many * little memorial service is held >here, and passing by the step grows wfter, the head i» bowed— ''Tread ightj 'tis hallowed ground.*?