A Grave in the Abbey

New Zealand Tablet, 15 July 1909, Page 1089

A Grave in the Abbey

Westminster Abbey, that great old Catholic fane, has long been the Pantheon or Valhalla of England's great ones, and of many others whose title to greatness has failed to pass the experimentum crucis —the crucial test A time. An influential effort (we are told) was made to obtain the distinction of burial in Westminster Abbey for another of those passing notabilities whose fame is as the snowflake on the river —to wit, George Meredith. But the Dean refused the application on the ground that Victorian literature was already sufficiently represented in the Abbey. Meredith's religious belief s—or, more correctly, his bountiful lack of them —may, possibly, have had something to do with the decision of the Dean of Westminster. Be that as it may, the poet-novelist's shell was burned \>o ashes and returned to mother-earth at Dorking. ' Rare Ben Jonson' will not thus be crowded in his narrow corner with the ashes of a passing rushlight of a later day. And, incidentally, Meredith's heirs will l)e spared the heavy fees that offset a grave in the Abbey. Aisle and chapel of the grand old monastic fane are crowded by the effigies of sages, poets, warriors, politicians, kings, queens —a motley gathering of monuments that seem to jostle each other and strain in a stony way to attract • the eye of the visitor. Built long ago on grandiose lines as a house of prayer, Westminster Abbey has long been an unhappy combination of mediaeval museum and modern Valhalla. Its olden associations bring Catholics there at times for prayer in odd sacred nooks. 'Do people sometimes come here to pray ?' said a Catholic priest to the verger. ' I sometimes ketches 'em at itV quoth the verger in reply. The story recalls the other Westminster verger who rudely interrupted a devout Catholic as the latter knelt to pray. ' Hif this sort of thing goes hon,' the verger declared, ' we shall soon 'aye people praying lall hover the Habbey!'