The walls were white, the
pavement constructed of squares of gray and white marble. It is a most
grand and stately edifice, and its characteristic stems to be to continue
forever fresh and new; whereas such a church as Westminster Abbey must
have been as venerable as it is now from the first day when it grew to be
an edifice at all. How wonderful man is in his works! How glad I am
that there can be two such admirable churches, in their opposite styles,
as St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey!
The organ was played while I was there, and there was an anthem
beautifully chanted by voices that came from afar off and remotely above,
as if out of a sunny sky. Meanwhile I looked at such monuments as were
near; chiefly those erected to military or naval men,--Picton, General
Ponsonby, Lord St. Vincent, and others; but against one of the pillars
stands a statue of Dr. Johnson,--a noble and thoughtful figure, with a
development of muscle befitting an athlete. I doubt whether sculptors do
not err in point of taste, by making all their statues models of physical
perfection, instead of expressing by them the individual character and
habits of the man. The statue in the market-place at Lichfield has more
of the homely truth of Johnson's actual personality than this.
St. Paul's, as yet, is by no means crowded with monuments; there is,
indeed, plenty of room for a mob of the illustrious, yet to come. But it
seems to me that the character of the edifice would be injured by
allowing the monuments to be clustered together so closely as at
Westminster, by incrusting the walls with them, or letting the statues
throng about the pedestals of columns.
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