, marking
the grave of Long Meg of Westminster, a noted virago of the
reign of Henry VIII."

This amazon is often alluded to by our old writers. Her life was printed
in 1582; and she was the heroine of a play noticed in Henslowe's
_Diary_, under the date February 14, 1594. She also figured in a ballad
entered on the Stationers' books in that year. In _Holland's Leaguer_,
1632, mention is made of a house kept by Long Meg in Southwark:--

"It was out of the citie, yet in the view of the citie, only
divided by a delicate river: there was many handsome buildings,
and many hearty neighbours, yet at the first foundation it was
renowned for nothing so much as for the memory of that famous
amazon _Longa Margarita_, who had there for many yeeres kept a
famous _infamous_ house of open hospitality."

According to Vaughan's _Golden Grove_, 1608,--

"Long Meg of Westminster kept alwaies twenty courtizans in her
house, whom, by their pictures, she sold to all commers."

From these extracts the occupation of Long Meg may be readily guessed
at. Is it then likely that such a detestable character would have been
buried amongst "goodly friars" and "holy abbots" in the cloisters of our
venerable abbey? I think not: but I leave considerable doubts as to
whether Meg was a real personage.--Query. Is she not akin to Tom Thumb,
Jack the Giant-killer, Doctor Rat, and a host of others of the same
type?

The stone in question is, I know, on account of its great size, jokingly
called "Long Meg, of Westminster" by the vulgar; but no one, surely,
before Mr. Cunningham, ever _seriously_ supposed it to be her
burying-place. Henry Keefe, in his _Monumenta Westmonasteriensa_, 1682,
gives the following account of this monument:--

"That large and stately plain black marble stone (which is
vulgarly known by the name of _Long Meg of Westminster_) on the
north side of _Laurentius_ the abbot, was placed there for
_Gervasius de Blois_, another abbot of this monastery, who was
base son to King Stephen, and by him placed as a monk here, and
afterwards made abbot, who died _anno_ 1160, and was buried
under this stone, having this distich formerly thereon:

"_De regnum genere pater hic Gervasius ecce
Monstrat defunctus, mors rapit omne genus_."

Felix Summerly, in his _Handbook for Westminster Abbey_, p. 29.,
noticing the cloisters and the effigies of the abbots, says,--