Well may posterity be grateful to his memory, for he
has left it an inheritance not of empty names and sounding
actions, but whole treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought,
and golden veins of language.
From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll towards that part of the
abbey which contains the sepulchres of the kings. I wandered
among what once were chapels, but which are now occupied by the
tombs and monuments of the great. At every turn I met with some
illustrious name or the cognizance of some powerful house
renowned in history. As the eye darts into these dusky chambers
of death it catches glimpses of quaint effigies--some kneeling in
niches, as if in devotion; others stretched upon the tombs, with
hands piously pressed together; warriors in armor, as if reposing
after battle; prelates, with crosiers and mitres; and nobles in
robes and coronets, lying as it were in state. In glancing over
this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so
still and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a
mansion of that fabled city where every being had been suddenly
transmuted into stone.
I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of a
knight in complete armor. A large buckler was on one arm; the
hands were pressed together in supplication upon the breast; the
face was almost covered by the morion; the legs were crossed, in
token of the warrior's having been engaged in the holy war.
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