To whom, as well as to Butler, whose monument is in a
distant part of the abbey, though they had scarcely necessary bread
to eat during their life time, handsome monuments are now raised.
Here, too you see, almost in a row, the monuments of Milton, Dryden,
Gay, and Thomson. The inscription on Gay's tombstone is, if not
actually immoral, yet futile and weak; though he is said to have
written it himself:
"Life is a jest, and all things shew it,
'I thought so once but now I know it."
Our Handel has also a monument here, where he is represented as
large as life.
An actress, Pritchard, and Booth, an actor, have also very
distinguished monuments erected here to their memories.
For Newton, as was proper, there is a very costly one. It is above,
at the entrance of the choir, and exactly opposite to this, at the
end of the church, another is erected, which refers you to the
former.
As I passed along the side walls of Westminster Abbey, I hardly saw
any thing but marble monuments of great admirals, but which were all
too much loaded with finery and ornaments, to make on me at least,
the intended impression.
I always returned with most pleasure to the poets' corner, where the
most sensible, most able, and most learned men, of the different
ages, were re-assembled; and particularly where the elegant
simplicity of the monuments made an elevated and affecting
impression on the mind, while a perfect recollection of some
favourite passage, of a Shakespeare, or Milton, recurred to my idea,
and seemed for a moment to re-animate and bring back the spirits of
those truly great men.
