that their ancestor was to be seen in the Abbey, on the box of Squire
Thynne's carriage. A little further is the recumbent tomb of one {38} of
the same family, William Thynne, who was Receiver of the Marches for many
years under the Tudor sovereigns. As yet we have been unable to single
out one of the many sailors whose memorials surround us in the nave, but
now we are brought up short, so to speak, by a monstrous figure with a
huge periwig and lolling on cushions, which, we are almost ashamed to
explain, is meant for one of our most noted eighteenth-century admirals,
Sir Cloudesley Shovel to wit.

It is better to distract attention to the bas-relief of the wreck below,
and relate the story of Shovel's youthful valour, when he swam from ship
to ship under fire carrying despatches in his mouth, for all the world
like a Newfoundland dog. The strange and tragic history of his end must
also be retold, when the flagship was wrecked on the treacherous Scilly
rocks, and the Admiral's unconscious body received the _coup de grace_
from a callous fishwife, who stole his signet ring, and after concealing
it for thirty years, confessed her crime and returned the ring to
Shovel's representatives on her deathbed. No less wanting in taste is
the monument above to Sir Godfrey Kneller, the painter of simpering
beauties at the Courts of five sovereigns, from Charles II. to George I.,
and the only memorial to {39} an artist, with the exception of Ruskin, in
the whole Abbey. Kneller swore a mighty oath that he would not be buried
at Westminster, "They do bury fools there," he grumbled, but he himself
designed his most inartistic cenotaph, while his friend Pope wrote the
epitaph, which begins with the extravagant line: "Kneller by Heaven and
not a master taught."

While most of our party are attracted towards the last two conspicuous
monuments, the Non-conformists, should any be amongst us, are sure to
linger by the mural tablet, with medallion portrait heads, which Dean
Stanley allowed the Wesleyans to put here in memory of the brothers John
and Charles Wesley. Upon it are the appropriate words: "I look upon all
the world as my parish," which John Wesley literally interpreted. Near
by was already the memorial to Dr. Isaac Watts, the great dissenting
minister of an earlier generation, whose hymns are still popular in
church and chapel alike, as are to a greater degree those of Charles
Wesley.

To a Frenchman or Italian a humbler t