One piece of sculpture I remember,--a carving of a cow, a
milk-maid, and a monk, in reference to the legend that the site of the
cathedral was, in some way, determined by a woman bidding her cow go home
to Dunholme. Cadmus was guided to the site of his destined city in some
such way as this.
It was a very beautiful day, and though the shadow of the cathedral fell
on this side, yet, it being about noontide, it did not cover the
churchyard entirely, but left many of the graves in sunshine. There were
not a great many monuments, and these were chiefly horizontal slabs, some
of which looked aged, but on closer inspection proved to be mostly of the
present century. I observed an old stone figure, however, half worn
away, which seemed to have something like a bishop's mitre on its head,
and may perhaps have lain in the proudest chapel of the cathedral before
occupying its present bed among the grass. About fifteen paces from the
central tower, and within its shadow, I found a weather-worn slab of
marble, seven or eight feet long, the inscription on which interested me
somewhat. It was to the memory of Robert Dodsley, the bookseller,
Johnson's acquaintance, who, as his tombstone rather superciliously
avers, had made a much better figure as an author than "could have been
expected in his rank of life." But, after all, it is inevitable that a
man's tombstone should look down on him, or, at all events, comport
itself towards him "de haut en bas.
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