y before us now, on either side of the choir screen, two
eighteenth-century monuments attract attention. The one to the right
commemorates several of the Earls Stanhope, notably the first Earl, whose
dashing valour might well be compared with Dundonald's, but whose
military career ended in disaster and imprisonment. The feat usually
connected with his name is a brilliant charge of cavalry at Almenara, one
of the battles in the Peninsular War, when he killed a Spanish general
{35} in single combat. On the left is a man of peace, Sir Isaac Newton,
whose discovery of the law of gravitation brought him world-wide fame,
and whose reputation as a natural philosopher and mathematician was
unrivalled in his generation. His funeral was attended by "the chief men
of the nation," and many distinguished foreigners; amongst them was the
French philosopher, Voltaire, who carried his enthusiasm for Newton to
such a height that he placed the English scientist at the head of all the
geniuses in the universe. Those who are familiar with Roubiliac's
portrait-statue at Trinity College, Cambridge, will note the extreme
inferiority of this one (Rysbrack's), which represents the great Newton
reclining on a couch, wrapped in a dressing-gown, and surrounded by the
allegorical figures and emblems so dear to eighteenth-century artists.

It is well now to shape our course towards the east, turning to the right
aisle, but ere we reach the iron gate, one or two memorials call for some
remark. Thus our long wars with the Moors are brought to mind by Sir
Palmes Fairborne's tablet, upon which is inscribed a bombastic epitaph
usually attributed to Dryden. Fairborne, as Governor of Tangier, fought
valiantly for a losing cause, and {36} three years after his death, the
place, which had passed into the possession of the English Crown as part
of the dowry of Charles the Second's queen, Catherine of Braganza, was
finally abandoned to the Moors. Fairborne is not the only Englishman in
the Abbey whose prowess against these black races is worthy of
remembrance, but while he bore a _Turk's_ head for his crest as a proof
of his early valour in Candia, the other knight, Sir Bernard Brocas,
rests his head upon that of a crowned _Moor_. No record remains of the
doughty deed which caused Edward III. to grant Brocas this special crest,
but the vergers in Addison's time used to point out his tomb, which we
shall see presently in St. Edmund's Chapel, as that of "