that the
journey would have cost him in some religious building. The Prince, too
happy to be freed from the consequences of this foolish vow, gladly
promised to do so; and, whilst he was considering as to what building he
should favour with his royal patronage, one of the monks of
Westminster--rather an artful man, we imagine--was reported to have had a
wonderful dream, in which no less a personage than St. Peter himself
appeared to him, and charged him to take a message to the King, to the
effect that his celestial saintship hoped he would not overlook the
claims of Westminster. Of course, to so pious a prince as Edward, the
saintly wish was law; and on Westminster were lavished the most princely
sums. Succeeding kings followed in the same steps. Henry III. and his
son, Edward I., rebuilt it nearly as we see it now. It is difficult to
say what the building must have cost its royal patrons. In our own time,
its repairs have amounted to an enormous sum.

As the last resting place of the great, Westminster Abbey must always be
dear to Englishmen. It was a peerage or Westminster Abbey that urged
Nelson on. Old Godfrey Kneller did not rate the honour of lying in
Westminster Abbey quite so highly. "By God," exclaimed the old painter,
"I will not be buried in Westminster! They do bury fools there." It is
difficult to say on what principle the burials there take place. Byron's
monument was refused, though Thorwaldsen was the sculptor; and yet Prior
has a staring one to himself--that Prior whose Chloe was an alehouse
drab, and who was as far inferior to Byron in genius as a farthing
rushlight to the morning star.

Another evil, to which public attention should be drawn, is the expense
attending a funeral there. When Tom Campbell (would that he were alive
to write war lyrics now!) was buried, the fees to the Dean and Chapter
amounted to somewhere between five and six hundred pounds. Surely it
ought not to be so. The Dean and Chapter are well paid enough as it is.

If, reader, pausing on the hallowed ground, you feel inclined to think of
the past, remember that beneath you sleep many English
statesmen,--Clarendon, the great Lord Chatham, Pitt, Fox, and Canning;
that there

"The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox's grave the tear,
'Twill trickle to his rival's bier."

Remember that--

"Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham, eloquence