AMERICA AND WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 385, 28 June 1879, Page 24

AMERICA AND WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Dean Stauley recently delivered an interesting address in the Theatre of the Society <>f Arts on “The Reminiscences of America iu Westminster Abbey.’ Of the beginners of that system of small commonwealths which ultimately grew into the United States of America, the Abbey, be said, had no memorials to boast uf. But if they might include St. Mai-garet’s

Church within its precincts, there, beneath its chancel, the body of Sir Walter R tleigh was laid after his execution, though with no stone to mark his grave. He might fairly be called the father and founder of tlxe United States, inasmuch as he first contemplated in thought the rise of such a new nation in the future. In compliment to Elizabeth, he named the whole of the northern continent from the St. Lawrence, Virginia. A great soldier, statesman, poet, historian, and philosopher, his death was mainly due to the jealousy of James 1,, of whom, as they bad been reminded that day, Prince Henry had asked, “ What king in Christendom but rnv father would have mewed up such a bird in a cage ?” Of the three great monuments relating to the struggle between French and English for the possession of the American continent, the first to be noticed was that of Lord Howe, which was to he seexx on the south wall of the nave of the Abbey. He fell near the spot marked by a local tablet to his memory on the isthmus of Ticonderoga. The tomb in Westminster Abbey was erected by the colony of Massachusetts. Tn the same conflict was killed General Towsend, of whom also there is a monument iti the Abbey. When the Dean was in America he was presented with a rusty bayonet, which had been dug xip on the battle-field. But the most interesting of the three monuments in the Abbey, belonging to this period was that of General Wolfe, who was sent out by the great Lord Chatham at the head of an army raised to end the war. Wolfe’s spirit rose triumphant above a weak and sickly frame, and so little did he hide his delight when told by Chatham that he was to command, that the Minister exclaimed on Wolfe’s leaving his cabinet, “ Good Heavens ! what have I done ? I have appointed a madman.” But it was the madness of genius. Without again telling the audience the story of the storming of Quebec, they might be reminded that, while crossing the St. Lawrence on his way to that final triumph, he asked if anyone could recite Gray’s “ Elegy,” and a young soldier having done so, Wolfe said, with deep emotion, “ I would rather have wiitten that poem than taken yonder fortress.” His scaling the Heights of Abraham and turning out the French in twenty minutes was doubtless against all rule. He died in the arms of victory in the same hour as the French Governor Montcalm, but not until he had named his successor in command. Following on bad news from the seat of war, the tidings of the decisive triumph set the church bells ringing throughout England, save in Wolfe’s native village, out of respect to his mother, who, besides losing her son, had lately become a widow. To make room for the victor’s monument in the Abbey it was at first intended to displace one of the most beautiful tombs in the building, that erected in memory of a nephew of Henry 111. Happily, Horace Walpole’s remonstrance with the Dean of that day was effectual, and Wolfe’s monument was erected behind the other. It perpetuates on a bronze bas-relief the history of the siege of Quebec. Dean Stanley remarked on the striking likeness, especially as to the nostrils and that region of the face, between Wolfe’s physiognomy and that of William Pitt, whose monument is close at hand. Coming down to the war of separation between England and her American colonies, they were reminded of Boston harbor and Bunker’s Hill, where independence won its first victory, by a stained glass window at the extreme eastern end of the chapel. It commemorates an English Minister who, haring died at Boston, was brought to his native land ten years ago to be buried among his ancestors in Scotland, but whose American friends expressed their kindly feeliug3 towax-ds himself and his country by this memorial window in the Abbey. In the north cloister, bxxt undistinguished by any monumental pomp, is the grave of General Burgoyne, whose surrender of the English army at Saratoga was one of the heaviest and most decisive blows inflicted on the English throughout the war. But the most interesting monument associated with that war to be seen in the Abbey was that of Major Andre, who was employed to negotiate with a brilliant and dashing, but unscrupixlous, Ameiican commander for the betx-ayal of the great fortress of West Point, on the Hudson, to the English commander, Major Andre, on his way back, was caught by three American peasants, and the treasonable despatches having been found hidden between his boots and his stockings, he was taken into the American camp. There all were struck with his noble bearing ; but Washington, seeing the gx-avity of the crisis, insisted upon liis being hanged as a spy instead of being shot as a soldier. Many years afterwards, with the permission of the American Government, Andie’s bones were brought to his counti-y and buried in Westminster Abbey, the sceue of his execution being represented on the monument, including an authentic portrait of Washington. To this day Andre’s memory was cherished in America, and his history was reflected iu Fenimore Coopex-’s novel of “ The Spy.” Dean Stanley brought sprigs of maple, oak, and shumack from the banks of the Hudson to place on the tomb of one who, though technically executed as a spy, we must ever regard as having died a patriot’s death. Coming down to times much nearer our own, the Buxton monument in St. Margaret’s Church might remind us of the final catastrophe of American slavery in the greatest civil war ever fought in the history of the world. Within the Abbey itself, near the entx-ance of the nave, there was the grave in which the body of George Peabody rested previous to its removal to America. Deau Stanley, on his return from his Transatlantic visit, had inscribed the cenotaph with Peabody’s own words —“ I prayed my Heavenly Father day by day that I might be enabled before I die to show my gratitude for the blessing which He has bestowed upon me bv doing some great good to my fellowmen.”" Another American monument in We-tminster Abbey was the painted window by George Childs, to commemorate, as suggested by the Dean, George Herbert and William Cowper.