The shades of night were falling; the assembly had broken up, and here and there were solitary visitors, moving about weird-like in the dim light as if loth to leave. We at length passed out, and returned to our lodgings at West End.
What ground has been gone over between the hours of 4 and 8 P. M. Hyde Park, Westminster Abbey and Bridge, Parliament Houses, the almost classic river, a look at St. Paul's,--and we are at home and resting.
The comparatively recent construction of St. Paul's deprives it of such ancient monuments as may be found at the Abbey, and in other English cathedrals. Those here are of white marble; and, although some of them are nearly a century old, they yet have a newness of design akin to statuary. One to the memory of Lord Nelson is the most costly and attractive. It is in one of the alcoves, or small chapels, at the west end, and the entire room, some twenty feet square, is devoted to it. It is elaborate and highly decorated. There is another of some eminence at the left side of the choir. It is a life-size statue of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great lexicographer. He is buried at the Abbey; but one so poor as to live in the obscurity of a garret, at length became so great as to win the second monument in this important church.
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."
The monuments of this church are of consequence as regards their elegance of design. In no other English cathedral is there so large a percentage of works of this kind. Impediments to the introduction of monuments were offered; and it was not till 1791 that the opposition was overcome, when application was made to erect a stone to the memory of John Howard, the philanthropist, who died at Kherson, Russia, Jan. 26, 1790. The door thus being opened, under the supervision of the Royal Academy many others have been erected, among which those of men of military fame prevail. The first monument was set up in 1795. In the south aisle, against the wall, is a full-size statue of Bishop Reginald Heber. He is dressed in canonical robes, his right hand on his breast, his left resting on a Bible standing endwise. He died at Trichinopoly, India, April 3, 1826, at the age of 42, and is celebrated as being the author of the well-known hymn beginning, "From Greenland's icy mountains." The cathedral has a fine basement, hardly inferior in interest to the great room of the cathedral above it, and always visited by the tourist. Here, as at the Whispering Gallery, the fee of a shilling is charged. The room is fifteen feet high, and is clean and airy. The floor is paved with stone slabs, and a large number of windows thoroughly light it. Innumerable columns of stone, for the support of the arching overhead, and floor resting upon it, give the room a forest-like appearance; though by no means depriving it also of the look of a vast chapel, for at the proper place there is an altar and its appurtenances. In this vicinity are a few effigies and tablets from the first cathedral. Forming an architectural museum, are a lot of relics that were found in the ground at the building of this cathedral, and so are of Roman origin, or were used as parts of the old cathedral.