ablet on the opposite side with a
long inscription is of more interest, for it commemorates Pasquale de
Paoli, the champion of Corsican independence, {40} who took refuge in
England, the home of liberty, and died here in 1807. The ladies, leaving
the men to their study of the seamen and soldiers, with whose names the
walls are covered, ask for information about the bust of a young woman,
just beyond Paoli. Grace Gethin, although the only authoress in the
Abbey who has a monument to herself,--for the learned Margaret, Duchess
of Newcastle, shares her husband's tomb in the north transept,--has no
real claim to this distinction. Her immortal work, which she bequeathed
to an admiring circle of blue-stockings, proved to be a mere book of
extracts culled from popular writers. The playwright, Congreve, whose
own medallion is below the Abbot's Pew in the nave, showed his want of
literary cultivation by not only composing a poem in praise of the young
writer, but allowing it to be published as a preface to the book, which
went through several editions before the fraud was discovered. The
annual sermon, which was long preached in the Abbey in memory of the
youthful heiress (she was only twenty-one) who left a bequest for the
purpose in her will, has become a thing of the past.

While the artistic persons with us have been bewailing the ruthless
destruction of the wall {41} arcading and will have cause to lament still
louder in the transepts, the student of heraldry is attracted to some
defaced shields which repay a closer attention, and have helped
antiquaries to fix the dates of the choir and nave. The Confessor's,
with the familiar five birds, and Henry the Third's arms with three lions
are easily identified in this aisle, and the learned in such matters
point out many others, chiefly the coats of Henry's relations, such as
his father-in-law, Raymond de Beranger, Count of Provence, and his
brother Richard, King of the Romans, one of the royal princes selected to
carry St. Edward's coffin from the palace to the new shrine.

We have now reached the crossing, and should all our party desire to make
an exhaustive circuit of the church to-day, the south transept is our
next goal. When time presses it is wisest for the guide to pause here,
merely point out the Statesmen's Aisle and the Poets' Corner, and then
pass on at once through the iron gates to the royal chapels.

* * * * * *

[Illustr